Chapter Text
Anne’s heavy eyes closed despite her desperate attempts to keep them open long enough to see this through. It didn’t help that the only light was the smog filtered daylight that spilled through the single curved window into the small circular room, putting the gray concrete architecture of the city-covered planet Coruscant on full display. Like everywhere else in the temple they were high above the city, especially being in one of the four spires which rose from the temple base. Anne Boonchuy and her master Shaak Ti sat face to face, both in Jedi robes.
“Did you get enough sleep last night, Anne?” the Jedi master asked her apprentice.
Anne blinked her eyes open trying to wade off her terminal exhaustion like she did in each of their weekly meetings. Usually it was easier than this, but being around her master always seemed to sap what little energy she had.
“Yep. Welllll, I do lie in bed thinking about what happened that day but, other than that, I get enough sleep,” Anne said, attempting her signature ‘natural’ smile.
Lies were becoming increasingly more difficult over the years while Anne continued to deteriorate. Learning how to lie with her mouth was easy enough but the rest of her body betrayed her. She couldn’t stop the sunken weight she felt with each step or the way her eyes never seemed to adjust to being open.
Shaak Ti frowned. She was an orange Togruta with white and blue striped head tails, a master Jedi in the Jedi council. She was so high in the order that Anne wished she could ask for another master, one that Anne was more deserving of, not that Anne deserved any master. Shaak Ti clearly was not convinced by Anne’s lie, even less so than last week's visit.
“Anne, it’s okay. You don’t have to lie to me. Keeping feelings inside is dangerous and harmful. Please do not be afraid to speak your mind.”
‘Dangerous and harmful’, that summed up Anne’s mind pretty well. But no matter how many times a Jedi told her that ‘truth is the Jedi way’, Anne wasn’t taking the bait. Once upon a time she’d believed it; that Jedi’s value of honesty was for a noble cause. But now that she had sunken into the depths below, a place where the Jedi should never go, she was sure that if she spoke the truth of who she is, she would be removed from this prestigious life in an instant. Anne knew what she was: a useless, unnecessary burden on the Jedi’s shoulders, especially now that they were at war. She didn’t want to be forced to leave the order. They were all she had.
“No really, I’m good.” Her smile felt like a tightrope walk, except her balancing pole’s weight was precariously uneven.
Her master’s lips pursed, and her eyes glimmered with sadness.
Anne held her breath waiting for the inevitable topic that she would always find a way to skirt around, the thing she hated thinking about the most. The reason why the days lasted too long and why they all blurred together. The reason why Anne was a terrible Jedi. Anne stared into those knowing black eyes. Maybe instead her master would be done with Anne right there and then. It’s not like they needed a reason to see that Anne was not who she was meant to be.
“I’m sorry Anne. I wish you would let us help you.”
Of course the Jedi knew she was struggling. She wasn't that good of an actor.
Jedi weren’t damaged, they were amazing in every way, as pristine as the day they were born. Why couldn’t she be like them? Why couldn’t she just be normal? The other apprentices and padawans made it look so easy.
“If you ever feel yourself slipping toward the dark side, remember that it will not help you. The dark side of the Force only increases suffering.”
Anne didn’t need to be reminded. Being warned about the dangers of the dark side of the Force was nearly half their lessons. “I know.”
Shaak Ti nodded. “It can be easy to forget. It preys on weakness, tricks you into believing it is a way out when, in reality, it only drags you deeper. I’ve lost too many Jedi to it, I don’t want to lose you as well.”
“You won’t.” Anne tried to reassure her as well as herself.
Her master’s eyes did not look convinced.
Anne hurriedly walked through the beautiful large halls of the Jedi temple. The windows were nearly black as dusk drew to a close. She’d done this so many times that she knew how not to get caught. She’d been taught a long time ago that the temple guards didn’t care about what the Jedi did inside the walls. They only prevented outsiders from getting in. What she had to watch for were other Jedi, including her snitching peers, who always had it out for her. Thankfully, this evening she peaked around each corner seeing no one but guards.
Waiting for the elevator, her chest tight and knee anxiously bounced up and down. Finally, it dinged open and Anne pressed the button for the bottommost floor. It didn’t go down as far as she needed to go. The Jedi were too dignified for that. Not her though, nope. She needed to go to the rest of the bottom feeders, the only place where she truly fit in.
The fast elevator never ceased to amaze her just how high up the Jedi temple was. In her mind, it made sense since the angelic Jedi were the closest beings to the Force, a semi-tangible entity which flowed through the Galaxy making up everything. The Sith were close to the Force too, unfortunately. Those ingrates deserved their uncomfortably hot Sith volcano planet of Mustafar. Not that she’d ever been there. In her 20 years, she had never experienced anything but the concrete jungle of Coruscant. She was supposed to find her very own kyber crystal from the frozen planet of Ilum, so to craft her lightsaber, but that had never happened. Her first master had left her at the young age of seven and he’d left behind his lightsaber as well. Lightsabers were precious, this was something the young Anne had known well. When it was offered to be passed down to one of his students, she jumped at the opportunity and took it. She felt pure bliss having a lightsaber three years earlier than she was supposed to. She felt truly special, cherishing her legendary weapon. Then, the years passed, and Anne came to regret her decision. Her new master, Shaak Ti, offered to let her accompany them to Ilum just for the experience. Suddenly, feeling embarrassed by the idea of being there just for the sake of it, she turned the offer down.
As the years went by, she learned to regret her decision more and more. She never admitted her disdain to almost anybody. How could she? She’d made a mistake which was not a thing the Jedi did. No, instead she stayed on Coruscant, away from the wider galaxy and away from the Clone Wars. The Jedi said they were ‘worried’ about her. They claimed it was for her mental health but Anne knew better. Anne knew they were worried she wasn’t fit to be a Jedi.
The elevator stopped and dinged open. Anne stepped out onto the maintenance floor of the temple, not that it was much of a temple on this level. The lighting was dim, the ceiling covered in pipes, and the air smelled of oil and dust. Anne traveled through the dust filled, fluorescent lit halls, making her way expertly to the staircase that descended even further. The industrial backrooms of Coruscant were a sight that not many got to see. Anne passed workers who respectively nodded in her direction. They already knew her well and let her pass thanks to her status as a Jedi. During her earlier forays alone, at the age of sixteen, they did question her when she was first caught, but thanks to a half-baked excuse, they let her pass through. She was much younger when someone else showed her the way and taught her how to not get caught.
The fleeting thought quivered through her bones. She ignored it as always.
Hollow metal reverberated beneath her as she descended down long stairs. Eventually the staircase would end and she would travel through endless halls to find another. The further she went, the fewer people she’d pass. This process repeated several times.
Eventually she came to a simple flat gray door at the end of a set of stairs. In the corner of the concrete covered room were her cloak and boots; she had left there knowing hardly anyone else used this exit. They were the same umber brown colour as her Jedi robes except significantly cheaper. The cloak covered her entire body including her head which it concealed with a hood. It was loose enough not to make her lightsaber stick out from under it. Changing into the clothes, she left her Jedi boots inside and made her way out onto the cold streets of the darkest depths of Coruscant.
Smog blasted her face. The distinctly Coruscant smell was as putrid as ever. The buildings around her reached up so high that the concepts of day and night became obsolete. The dark ground was broken and worn down from the millions of feet that trampled it. She doubted it had been fixed up in over a thousand years. Hundreds of people milled about in her vicinity. Beggars lined the sides of the road each hoping that by being close to the Jedi temple, the people around here would have money to spare. This hope was false. The Jedi didn’t come down here. The Jedi didn’t belong down here. Anne was the exception.
She began making her long trek to her destination. The walk made up most of her time. She enjoyed it, milling about with the people down here, looking at every colourful neon sign she passed by. One special thing about Coruscant was that it never denied foreigners from moving here. The races were so diverse that Anne found a new race of people every time she came down. She would have looked suspicious anywhere else with her disguise. Down here, if you weren’t the slightest bit shady, you were an outsider.
The herd of people began to thin the further Anne got away from what was known as the ‘downtown’ of her part of the underground. The people around here were even shiftier. No one made eye contact and everyone carried blasters. Murders were common around these parts, not that the CSF, aka the cops, cared. The Security Force avoided this area as if they would contract a disease just from being here. Physically, there wasn’t much difference to this district besides the lights being slightly dimmer, the smells being smellier, the shops being more sparse, and the living quarters being smaller, cheaper.
Finally, after hiking for several hours, she arrived at her destination: the only place she could call home without shame. The streetside bar had only four metal stools without a cushion. A lone green Theelin sat on the far right one. Anne had seen him plenty of times before but they’d never spoken, not even in small talk. Keeping to yourself was an unspoken rule around here designed for self preservation. That suited Anne just fine. Conversations nowadays were more tiring than they were fun. The once glowing sign above the bar was completely totaled after a runaway speeder had crashed into it. It flickered dimly on occasionally before sparking and going dark again. At least there was a single yellow fluorescent tube behind the counter in order to see.
She sat on the second stool to the left so that there would be at least a one seat gap between her and the Theelin.
“I’ll start with the usual,” she said to the thin, yellow Felucian whose name she’d never asked.
He turned around in his tight kitchen where he grabbed a cup and poured the cheapest alcohol in all of Coruscant out of a rusty tap that definitely didn’t meet health code safety laws.
She gave him two bronze credit chips when he put the brown fizzling liquid in front of her. It tasted just as horrid as the last time she’d had it. It was exactly what she needed right now: a good distraction from her head being cruel to her. She didn’t come here every night. Some days she would be too tired to make the distance, others she would make the mistake of lying down on her bed and her limbs would refuse to get up. Luckily, she had an allowance. This confused her because she was sure that she wasn’t allowed outside the temple without a good reason. Maybe the saved credits were for when they would inevitably remove her from the order.
An hour passed and she’d already had five cups of booze. Her head ached from the unusual strain put on it. She tried to limit herself to three drinks a night in order to make her way back to the temple safely and not wake up with a hangover.
If the Jedi knew what she was doing, she was certain she’d be thrown to the curb in an instant.
She could feel bile forming in her throat as her stomach began to reject the vile substance put into it.
“Do it over there,” the bartender pointed away from the bar.
Anne felt ashamed. She hadn’t thrown up from drinking in years. Following his finger, Anne stumbled down the street as far away as she could before she couldn’t keep it down any longer. At least it was too dark to see the liquid regurgitated from her gut. But the quiet air only amplified the horrible splashing sound. After being sure it was over, she breathed heavily, her eyes unfocused. She tried not to pay attention to the putrid smell.
She attempted to stand up straight, but stumbled. Her equilibrium was shot. She groaned, feeling the uncomfortable weight of the fact that it was unlikely she’d make it back to temple without passing out or worse. If only she was here. Why wasn’t she nearby? She’d always helped Anne in the past…
The name lodged itself in her throat, threatening to choke her. She’d gotten so good at not thinking of the girl: the one who’d left and made her feel so, so alone. She just wanted her best friend again. Why wouldn’t she come back?! Tears began forming and then pouring from her eyes, joining the pool of vomit on the ground.
Suddenly, a feeling cut through her gripping misery. A feeling of being watched.
She tried focusing her eyes to observe her surroundings. Finally, after gazing around, she saw it: a shadow person with two glowing, green eyes. Anne couldn’t tell if it was real or not. It wouldn’t have been the first time that she’d had visual hallucinations before. The eyes turned away from her, the figure becoming entirely encased in darkness. It began walking away from her at a brisk pace.
She knew she had to follow it, real or not. Maybe it meant something, maybe it was her demons finally catching up with her, or maybe it was her coming back to haunt her. Whatever it was, she had to know.
Anne walked as fast as she could in her state, trying to keep up. Every time it began to round a corner it would stop, and look back at Anne long enough for her to catch up close enough, before it rounded the corner. The area began to warp into something completely unfamiliar. The already dim light began fading into a dark so powerful, she realized she was basically in the void. Looking over her shoulder, she shuddered seeing no light. She had thought that the dark empty streets were her friend. But this, this was too much. She wanted to go back to the temple. She wanted to go home . Then it occurred to her that the shadow she followed had disappeared. Not even those ethereal green eyes could be seen. She didn’t know the way back, she’d strayed too far from the temple. Anne regretted many things in her life. This was now in the top three.
A firm gloved hand grabbed her wrist, causing her to jump. She tried desperately to get away, shaking violently. Then she saw them, the green, emerald eyes, only a few centimeters away from her face. Her hallucinations had never touched her before. The feeling made her feel like throwing up again. It had been so long since she’d been touched firmly by anyone. The nostalgia was palpable.
The invisible hand tugged on her, implying that it wanted to lead her somewhere. She followed without question. Tripping over her own feet, she stumbled, feeling her body tumbling over. The thing grabbed her, stabilizing her. Her head felt like mush and her body felt like gelatin. This must have been the afterlife. The ghost of her friend was leading her to hell.
The hand on her wrist stopped and so did she. A door in front of them slid open revealing a blinding light which cut through the darkness like butter. The figure let go of her wrist and stepped inside. Anne stood there stunned, she’d expected something somehow even darker. A black hand reached towards Anne and pulled her inside.
The sharp contrast between the black and now white void split her head further open. She clutched her head in agony, more tears running down her cheeks. She stayed like that for an unknowable amount of time. She hardly registered that she’d moved without being on her two feet. Light slowly faded into black…
…
Her eyes fluttered open. The pain bouncing around in her head had subsided slightly and her eyes had adjusted to the light. She was lying face down on a cold metal table, sitting on a cushion of some kind. As her senses woke up, she saw she was sitting at a rounded booth table, in a standard pub of some kind, with a bar wrapped around the far side of the room. She blinked a few times trying to remember how she got here, but her mind was blank. Had she been drinking? She’d never been to this pub before. She gripped her head trying to remember. Everything felt so fuzzy. She noticed that the pub was totally empty, not even a bartender, despite it being a relatively large interior. Then she heard something quiet coming from right beside her. It sounded like electronic music with the occasional beeping sound effect.
A familiar black shadow with glowing green eyes played on some sort of handheld flat screen game device next to her in the same booth, their hands expertly vibrating across the controls. The events that led her to this place came back clear as day. The usual bar, drinking too much, throwing up, thinking about her , and then following the person who now sat next her playing games.
“You’re awake,” the shadow said with a robotic, genderless voice.
Actually, now that she could get a better look at it in decent light, it wasn’t a shadow at all. It was a person decked in clean, black armour.
“Ughh,” she responded, her mouth feeling like sandpaper.
The black armored person stared, “You’ve had too much too much to drink.”
Anne’s mouth held open, trying to formulate coherent words. “Wh-who are you?”
“You don’t know me?” They said, tilting their head.
Anne shook her head in denial as gently as she could, trying not to worsen her headache.
“I thought the Jedi cared more about bounty hunters.”
Anne’s heart stopped. This person knew who she was, and they were a bounty hunter. She’d been taught before that bounty hunters were ruthless, lawless beings. A name began snaking its way through her brain. A bounty hunter who fit the description of the person before her. Someone who was wanted by the Republic for assassinations, thefts and more.
“You- you’re Black Kyber.”
“I’ve never seen a Jedi around here before. I’ve also never seen one get black-out drunk.”
“Get-get away from me!” She screamed at the hunter. Standing up, she fumbled for her ex-master’s lightsaber concealed beneath her cloak.
They didn't even flinch when Anne ignited the lightsaber with shaky hands, causing both of them to be cast in a light blue light. The hum of the lightsaber hung in the air. Black Kyber only continued to stare with their expressionless eyes, not moving from where they sat.
“I didn’t bring you here to fight,” they said, simply.
“I-I don’t care,” Anne said through chattering, gritted teeth. “You- You’re wanted by the Republic!”
Black Kyber didn’t respond. They remained staring.
Anne didn’t want to point her lightsaber at them. It wasn’t something she’d ever done. She’d only learned how to use a lightsaber defensively, having assumed that all targets would attack first. Her arms shaking increasingly violently, she pointed the lightsaber towards Black Kyber. Sweat secreted off her palms onto the lightsaber, making it slippery to hold. A single bead of sweat rolled down from her cheek onto the floor, as she waited for the bounty hunter to respond.
In an instant before she could even react, Black Kyber brought out their own green lightsaber and hit Anne’s blade so hard it flew out of her grasp. Stunned, Anne’s legs refused to move. She’d never felt this terrified before. She didn’t want to die, at least not like this!
The bounty hunter stood up slowly, making their way towards her. She clumsily swung her fist at the still armed Black Kyber. Her fist met air.
Black Kyber swung their blade, hitting Anne’s chest and she fell backwards…
She clutched her eyes closed, not daring to look at the wound which was undoubtedly causing her to die a slow death as her body shut down from its sliced organs…
The pain never came. Instead, she felt … numb? She couldn’t feel anything, not the wound on her chest, not even the floor. She slowly opened her eyes to look, craning her sight downwards to look at her chest. There was no slash wound and she wasn’t dying. Whatever that blade was, it wasn’t a lightsaber! Her first instinct was to jump up but her muscles wouldn’t respond. In fact, she realized she couldn’t move a muscle.
Great.
Black Kyber wanted her alive. Maybe they wanted to ransom her off. The thought made her sick, being given back to the Jedi for money. She was already useless enough as it was. Hopefully they’d refuse to pay, knowing that she was more trouble than she was worth.
Black Kyber raised a gun and then fired. For the second time tonight, everything went black.