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Chapter Text

Sabine expected to feel more of a pounding in her head when she woke up. After all, someone had snuck up behind her and knocked her out. Maybe she’d grown used to being hit in the head. Huyang certainly seemed to take pleasure in doing so during her training sessions. Perhaps she ought to thank him for it now that she woke up with barely a dull pulse at the back of her head. She quickly assessed her surroundings.

Daylight passed through the walls of the tent; the leather too thin to block it out. She was tied to the central pole of the tent, so that if she pulled too hard on the bindings, she might collapse the whole structure. She was unarmed. Her lightsaber and blasters had been taken. However, she remained in armor, which was always an advantage. No one had been stationed in the tent to keep an eye on her. She might as well make the most of it, she thought as she pulled on her bindings. The wooden poll tremble with every harsh tug.

The Ravagers had rushed the Noti camp on the back of their howlers. In the middle of the night, Sabine had only had a moment to understand what was happening. She’d jumped out of the T-6 and rushed after her master. All the campfires had been extinguished, either by time or by their attackers. She spotted Ahsoka’s white light on the right side and figured she would cover their left flank. Somehow in the chaos of metal blades glimmering in the night and blaster shots, she had been knocked out and captured.

She doubted Ahsoka had also suffered the same fate. Hopefully her master would track her down. She wasn’t confident in her ability to navigate the wilderness yet. She tugged on the leather straps and the whole tent rattled. A few more hard pulls and she would be free, she figured.

The flap of the tent was thrown open, allowing harsh midday light within and blinding Sabine for a second. Someone entered and she stilled her tugging. The footsteps were angry. They crushed the earth as if trying to show just how superior to it they were. When Sabine had blinked the light out of her eyes, she looked up only to find herself confronted by a familiar wrathful face.

Shin’s platinum blond hair had grown an inch since they’d been stranded on the planet, revealing more of those dark roots at the top of her head. Sabine almost offered her pair of scissors but thought better of the jab when she saw her eyes. They were full of fury and sorrow in equal part, darkness and misery and tiredness and agony. Sabine was stricken by such grief when she saw her that she couldn’t speak.

“You failed,” Shin said. “Thrawn escaped.”

The accusation was just what Sabine needed to get her thoughts back in order.

“I also sent Ezra home. I accomplished what I set out to do. What did you accomplish?”

Shin glared at her. It was intense, but Sabine could take it.

“Why are you still here?”

Sabine frowned.

“I don’t know. Maybe because we’re just as stuck as you are?”

Shin shook her head.

“I don’t believe that. You must be here for another reason.”

“And the reason is that we are stuck.”

Shin punched the poll, making the tent shake like a leaf. Sabine thought for sure it would crumple. It held firm, somehow.

“I can force you to tell me the truth.”

“Fine. Go ahead. But the truth is that we have no way back. We are stuck here and so are you.”

For a second, she thought Shin was going to punch the pole again. Instead, she contained a roar and stormed out of the tent, throwing the flap shut again. Two thoughts ran through Sabine’s head at once: ‘What is wrong with her?’ and ‘She looks like she needs a hug.’

Sabine waited until the light outside of the tent had died down, until the last rays of the sun had escaped the tent, to tug on the pole again. Within a few tugs, it fell off and brought the whole structure with it. Sabine curled into a ball as the dusty-smelling leather cloth fell on her. As soon as the ruckus of the pole crashing into the earth stopped, she freed her arms and crawled out.

Already three bandits had ran to her tent, weapons at the ready. When the first one rushed at her with a spear, she used the blade to cut the binds. As soon as her arms were free, she knocked her vambrace against the bandit’s helmet, rattling his head within like a belt. She pulled the spear out of his hands and turned to face the other bandits. More were arriving out of the dark camp. Sabine knew a losing fight when she saw one. They kept their howlers to the right. She gave one great swing of the spear, prompting the bandits to step away, and rushed to the howlers.

She jumped over a rock and rushed between the tents toward the howlers all attached to a wooden post. Some still slept but others had been woken up by the commotion. She could take one of these. A bandit jumped in her path. She rolled under their strike and stabbed the spear in their back. She abandoned her weapon there.

She felt it a second ahead. She had spent long hours becoming more attuned with the Force in these past few weeks. She recognized it as it enveloped her and, under the will of someone else, trapped her in place. She was released and she fell to her knees, her momentum cut short. She jumped back to her feet and found Shin standing a few feet from her. Rage burned in her eyes.

“You’re nothing but trouble,” Shin said. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“Right back at you.”

Shin walked forward, ready to apprehend her. Sabine noticed the two lightsabers at her hilt. She only had to reach for hers. Before she could, she felt the Force wrapping around her again. She was faster this time and bent it right back. Suddenly they were caught in a dual of the Force, each one trying to stop the other from moving. Sabine felt a single bead of sweat run down her temple. She breathed deeply, her mind entirely focused on keeping Shin away from her.

All at once they broke. Together they tumbled to the floor, thrown forward by their combined powers. They landed in the grass hard. Sabine sputtered as she felt her lungs knock against her ribs. She pushed herself up as quickly as she could. It wasn’t quick enough. She found herself encircled by a dozen bandits. Shin took a second longer to get up. When she did, she shook the dizziness out of her head and brushed the dirt off her gray outfit.

“Find stronger binds. And keep an eye on her.”

Sabine didn’t spend a good night after that, but who could really blame her? Her arms had been bound even tighter around the pole, with even more leather straps than before. One of the bandits sat right across from her the whole night. She kept as close an eye on the masked jailor as they did her. Every time they seem to be falling asleep, she tried to shake herself free. Inevitably, however, the quaking of the tent would wake the bandit up and she had to stop.

It was the early hours of the morning when she could almost guess the red sky through the walls of the tent. Sabine had grown thoroughly bored and taken the opportunity to meditate and try to connect with her master. A feeling of warmth seemed to tell her all she needed to know. Ahsoka was on her way. As she opened her eyes, she knew it would take a bit longer for her to find the camp still. Sabine ought to be ready when she did.

The bandit slept across from her, leaned just far off their seat not to tumble. If anyone blew on them, however, they were sure to fall off. They had a blade tugged in their boots, some short piece of sharp metal that would be just what Sabine needed to cut her bindings. She took a deep breath and focused. So far, Ahsoka had only taught her to use her hands to direct the Force because the results were better, more powerful. But this was a life and death situation.

Sabine stared hard at the blade, willing the Force to lift it. Inch by inch, it began to rise out of the bandit’s boot. She wanted to smirk but had to remain focus and her face crunched up in an expression of prideful concentration. The blade left the bandit’s boot entirely and Sabine pulled it toward her. The bandit mumbled and shifted in their sleep. They felt themselves falling and jumped awake. Sabine lost focus. The blade flew to the other side of the tent and bounced off the cloth, sliding in the dirt behind her out of sight. She held her breath, certain that the bandit had seen it. But they didn’t, probably because their helmet didn’t give them a great peripheral vision – a problem she understood completely.

She didn’t try anything again until she could feel in her core that Ahsoka was nearby. She was about to summon the blade to her hand when the flap of the tent was pulled open once more. Shin stepped inside, looking even more tired than she had the day before. She signaled to the bandit with a jerk of her head, and they hurried out, all too happy to be relieved from this work. Shin paced in front of the prisoner, a wolf in a cage.

“Have you had time to think?” she asked.

“About what?”

As Sabine replied, she directed the blade to her. The small knife flew to her hand without a sound. Sabine looked up at the pacing Shin. She stopped to glare down at her but didn’t seem to have felt the Force shift around the tent. Satisfied, Sabine placed the irregular edge of the blade against her binds and started cutting.

“I know you’re lying to me. You’re here for a reason.”

“What reason could I possibly have to stay here?”

“I don’t know, but Baylan, he…”

She stopped herself and her glare intensified even more, her eyes bubbling with ire. Sabine could see too clearly that it was a cover for something sadder. She was very close to freeing herself. Better to keep her talking.

“Yeah, where is your master anyway? Last I heard he got outsmarted by Ahsoka.”

Shin leaned over the pole, looming like a dark shadow onto the apprentice. Sabine looked up at her defiantly. They were so close their foreheads almost touched. Shin’s padawan braid fell off her shoulder and hung between them. From so close, Sabine could see the tiny pieces of green crystals braided in it.

“If your master killed him…” Shin growled.

“Oh no, he was very much alive. He didn’t even try to pursue her. I guess he didn’t think you’d be in trouble. He overestimated you.”

Shin reeled back as if she had been punched. She prepared a blow of her own. Sabine could see her fist clenching and pulling back coming from a mile away. Just as her hands were finally untied. When the punch came, she avoided the blow, rolling out of the way, so that Shin punched the pole, making the entire tent shake. She groaned and stumbled back, shaking her hand. Sabine took that second of pain to slither out of the tent.

She ran through the camp toward the sun, avoiding firepits and zigzagging between tents. It was early enough that most of the bandits were still asleep, and she managed to avoid the few that patrolled the camp. It wasn’t long before Shin was running after her. Sabine picked up the pace, climbing up the ridge toward a field of boulders. She neared a spring when she felt a shadow jumping past her, forcing her to stop. Shin had used the boulders around them to throw herself in her path. She stood, teeth clenched and eyes red, ready for another fight.

Sabine spotted the lightsabers at her waist and reached out for them. The closest one to her flew off Shin’s belt and landed right into her hand. It was only then that she realized it wasn’t hers, but Shin’s. She didn’t care much at this point; a lightsaber was a lightsaber. She activated it. Orange light glowed around her like a waking sun. Shin froze. Fury filled her frame. She picked up Sabine’s lightsaber and rushed her. Sabine had never felt such energy coming from Shin. It was almost dizzying in its feverish intensity. She blocked the blow, but Shin put all her strength into it, forcing her to place a knee down.

“Give it back,” she hissed between her teeth.

“When you calm down I will.”

Shin didn’t seem to like the answer. She brought her saber down for another blow. Sabine parried it away. Sparks flew as the green blade struck the ground. Shin stumbled back then rushed her for another attack. This was sloppy, especially coming from the dark jedi. Sabine had no trouble avoiding her blows and retaliating, which seemed to surprise the blonde. She redirected the orange blade into a boulder, burning cracks through the stone. The heavy piece of stone on top broke apart and rolled down toward them. Sabine noticed them when Shin, blinded by her rage, ran right under them.

“Watch out!”

Before any stone could touch Shin, Sabine Force-pushed her away. The stones fell between them in a cloud of dust. Sabine coughed and waved the dust out of her face. For a second, she was trapped in the cloud, colored orange by the lightsaber in her hand. Then, a shadow jumped through and tackled her to the ground. Her head hit the grass and she looked up to find Shin perched on her chest, glaring down at her.

“I’m done with you,” Shin said.

The green lightsaber came down toward Sabine’s head. Her arms were pinned to the side by Shin’s legs. She couldn’t move to deflect the blow. She closed her eyes, bracing for the pain. While there was pain, it was nothing more than a slight burn, searing against her cheek then gone. She opened her eyes only to find Shin fighting to keep control of the saber she was holding. It stabbed the ground near Sabine’s head and seemed to refuse to move.

Shin dropped it and jumped off Sabine’s chest. The lightsaber flew away from them both. It landed in Ahsoka hand, and she activated it and her white blade. Sabine stood up, activating the orange saber once more.

“Right on time as usual,” Sabine told her master.

Shin looked between them, rage replaced by panic. Sabine had seen that look before. She knew she was going to run.

“Oh no, you don’t,” she said, and she punched her in the temple.

The dark jedi crumpled to the ground. Ahsoka relaxed and turned off the lightsabers. She approached the unconscious woman. Beside her, Sabine shook the pain out of her fist.

“Let’s leave before she wakes up,” she said.

Ahsoka shook her head.

“We’re taking her back with us.”

Sabine looked at her master with wide eyes.

“Are you serious? Oh, you are serious. She can take your room then. I don’t want her anywhere near my stuff.”

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and handed her lightsaber back to her padawan, before picking up Shin under her arms to drag her to her howler.

Chapter Text

Shin woke up to the sound of arguing. A sign of disorganization and failure, Baylan used to tell her. There should never be place for arguments in an effective chain of command. If she’d come to learn anything about Sabine and her people, they were as far from an effective chain of command as could be.

“I must once again express my concern,” the voice of a droid said. “This ship was not built to contain prisoners for long periods of time.”

“Why? Did the jedi not take prisoners?” Sabine replied.

“That is not what I said.”

“What was I supposed to do then? Let her go so she can come after us with her bandits again?”

“A preferable alternative, perhaps, to keeping her locked in here.”

“I really don’t see how it’s a preferred alternative.”

Ahsoka cut through their argument with three decisive words:

“She’s awake.”

Shin gritted her teeth. There was no point pretending to be asleep anymore. She opened her eyes and was blinded by the lights of the ship. She was seated in one wing of the T-6, the door shut between her and the rest of the ship. Two empty bunks occupied most of the cramped room. She stood up. She could see Ahsoka, Sabine, and their droid standing on the other side, watching her.

“Oh, how the tables have turned,” Sabine commented with a smirk.

Shin reached out, willing the Force to open the door. Though she felt it bend to her will, the door remained shut. The door seemed impossibly heavy. She stopped with a growl.

“Sabine, perhaps you should get some air,” Ahsoka suggested.

Sabine seemed about to complain, but when she understood her master’s meaning, she only shrugged and walked away. Huyang walked back to the cockpit without prompting, leaving Ahsoka and Shin alone. Ahsoka stepped closer to the window, arms crossed.

“Sabine said you were looking for your master.”

“I never said I was,” Shin snapped back.

Ahsoka only smirked. She leaned against the door.

“We can help you find him. This planet is vast. He could be anywhere by now.”

Shin refused to answer.

“Think about it.”

She turned around, intent on leaving the dark jedi alone. Shin knocked against the metal door, prompting Ahsoka to turn around.

“You can’t keep me locked in here forever.”

“That may be, but I’m hoping you’ll come around and let us help you.”

She walked away, leaving Shin pacing in her small cell like a wild animal. She walked up the ladder to the wing of the ship, where Sabine was standing and watching over the mountains around them. Below them, the Noti homes purred over the grass.

“Do you think I should have let her escape again?” Sabine asked.

“It is too late to think of that now. You did what you thought was right and we will deal with the consequences.”

They contemplated the dark hills and distant harsh tips of the mountains. The sky was turning pale with night. They would have to stop soon.

“Why would her master leave her behind?” Sabine wondered out loud. “I thought masters and padawans were supposed to stick together.”

“That is a question only Baylan Skoll can answer.”

Shin paced until pain flared up in her limbs, at which point she lay down in the lower bunk and waited. She’d tried opening the door with the Force again, but it wasn’t working. Whatever they had done to the door to keep it shut, it was jedi proof. None of the buttons worked either. She would bide her time, she told herself. At the first chance, she would pounce and escape. She didn’t know where her lightsaber was, but she would find it and she would kill them all once and for all.

Someone had defaced the wall of the bunk. Little colorful doodles like a child’s drawing, but much better. She spotted loth-cats and wolves, stars and lightsabers and blasters. Had a young padawan drawn these, she wondered as she passed her fingers over the drawings.

The door to her cell opened with a sudden whoosh of air. Shin jumped out of the bunk, but it was too late. The door had shut once more. Sabine stood in front of her with a bowl in her hand.

“I have better manners than your bandits. Here.”

She handed her the bowl. Shin looked at it for some time. It contained some root-based soup which smelled like fish. When she made no move to pick it up, Sabine sighed and set it on the ground.

“Fine, suit yourself. But it’s really bad when it gets cold.”

She turned around, ready to leave. Shin spoke, finally:

“Don’t bother playing nice. My master taught me well. I’m not easy to break.”

Sabine turned around with a frown.

“We’re just trying to help.”

“That’s what they all say, until they betray you. I’m not blind. I know you’re looking for the same thing Baylan is looking for.”

Sabine crossed her arms.

“What is he looking for then?”

“I told you already,” Shin hissed between her teeth. “I won’t betray my master.”

Sabine looked her up and down. Shin almost took a step back against her intense dark gaze, looking for the darkness to hide, but she forced herself to stand her ground.

“I think you don’t know what he was looking for. I think you don’t know why he abandoned you either.”

“He hasn’t abandoned me. My training was done…”

“You’re still wearing your braid,” Sabine pointed out.

Shin reached for it nervously. Then, feeling herself cornered, she did what feral animals do best. She lashed out.

“How long have you been an apprentice anyway? Half a year? You can’t understand the connection between a padawan and master.”

Sabine took a step closer. Shin held her ground, staring her down.

“I understand enough. I understand a master isn’t supposed to abandon their apprentice…”

“He hasn’t abandoned me,” Shin roared, her teeth bared.

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“You’re too stupid to understand…”

“And you’re a stubborn ass!”

Shin jumped her, tackling Sabine to the ground. Sabine had barely hit the ground that she reached for the Force to push the dark jedi off her. Sensing the shift of the Force around her, Shin did the same thing, pushing as hard as she could against Sabine. Anger and sorrow tainted her like ink in water, sipping into the very air.

Sabine had never felt anything like it. Instead of pushing away or against her, the Force seemed to wrap around her like a blanket, only for its warmth to penetrate her every cell. Shin felt it too. It scared her so much, she wanted to leap off the Mandalorian and shrink against the corner of her cage. It was too late, however, and they both knew it. Whatever they had created through the Force in that moment, there was no breaking it.

Sabine felt a surge of anger in herself that she recognized it wasn’t hers. It was only an explosion, quick and intense. The next moment it was replaced by deep, empty sadness. It consumed all of her, starting in her chest and leaving her drained, with a gash of sorrow she would never heal from. She looked into Shin’s greenish eyes and saw panic, raw and heart shattering. Shin had felt that spark of anger, much weaker than hers. It had been replaced by guilt, grief, and fear.

The Force seemed to vibrate around them. Then, nothing. They were only laying on the ground, Sabine’s hand halfway up as if she was going to reach for the prisoner. Shin was awkwardly splayed on top of her, no longer looking to immobilize her, but frozen in place herself. She saw emotions swirling in Sabine’s eyes, but she didn’t know her enough to decipher them. Still, something deep within herself told her it was anxiety. It scared her into moving again. She crawled off Sabine and kept crawling until she was in the blessedly shadowed corner.

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice trembling despite her desire to keep it steady.

Sabine stood up, confused. She didn’t know what she’d done, only she was certain she would come to regret it. Without another word, she left the improvised cell, locking it behind her, and ran out of the ship for some fresh air.

Shin stayed into her corner until she was sure Sabine was gone. Then, she stood up. There was something in her chest, warm and uncomfortable. She hated it. Hated that she’d been too weak to fight her off, too weak not to escape when she’d had the chance. What would Baylan think of her now? She saw her bowl of soup on the ground. She kicked it, her blow enhanced by the darkness of her thoughts. Soup splattered on the door and over the floor. Shin began to pace again.

With Shin taking over their bunks, Ahsoka and Sabine had to take turns sleeping on the couch. While Sabine slept, Ahsoka watched over Shin. She tried to convince her again, tried to offer some help, any help, but Shin remained a wall, quiet and sturdy in her resolve. She laid on the lower bunk and let sleep take her away from hunger.

Shin was still asleep when Ahsoka woke up her apprentice to watch over their prisoner. Sabine rubbed her eyes, stretched and yawn, then came to sit against the door. She didn’t bother taunting the dark jedi. She waited for the time to pass. The light of the T-6 had been kept to a minimum, the weak white light still burning into her eyes. She felt herself dozing off again, her head lolling one side then the other, the sharp jerk snapping her awake. She rubbed her eyes again, hoping it would be enough to keep her awake.

She slumped over, eyelids heavy. The sound of a blaster awoke her. She jumped to her feet, certain that they were under attack. The ship was as quiet as night. No sound came from outside. One sound came from inside, disturbing the silence. It was a distressed whine. Sabine turned around. Through the weak light and stained window, she saw Shin curled up in her bunk. Her back was to Sabine, and all she could see was her hair, bright like snow in the artificial light.

“Hey,” she tried calling, not too loud so as not to wake her master. “Hey, are you okay?”

Another blaster sound made Sabine jump around. She wasn’t in the ship anymore. She was in a house. It looked like one of those farmhouses outside of the Lothal, but the planet outside was dustier, the ground barren. The house had been turned upside-down. The table had been flipped around, all the plates of food on it spilled to the ground. Two people hid against the windows, peaking over to shoot their blasters then ducking back down. They looked far more like farmers than fighters. A couple, Sabine assumed. The man shot twice but didn’t duck back fast enough. He was hit in her shoulder. He fell back against the wall with a scream. At the other window, the woman was stopped firing and tried to reach for her husband.

“Sunna!”

“I’m alright, Mani,” the man replied between his greeted teeth.

He willed himself to move so he could shoot again, but the pain locked him to the ground.

“Daddy!”

A tiny barefooted child ran across the room to her father, keeping low. Despite her long dark hair, Sabine recognized Shin with ease. She rushed to her father’s aid, and he tugged her close, keeping her out of the fire blasts.

“I told you to stay hidden.”

“You’re hurt.”

“Shin, look at me.”

He cradled her cheek with his good hand.

“I’ll be fine. You need to stay hidden until we tell you to, remember?”

“But I want to help.”

“Go, now.”

Reluctantly, the child ran across the room. Her father found his strength again, and he pushed himself to the window and fired. Shin crawled into a hole in the wall and poorly pulled the shelf in front of her hiding hole.

The fight didn’t go on for much longer. The father’s strength dwindled, overtaken by the burning pain in his shoulder. The mother’s aim was too poor to be effective. The door was busted open by the bandits. They rushed into the home. Half a dozen blasters aimed at the couple, and they had to disarm themselves.

Shin watched from her little corner as the chief of the bandits grabbed her father by the collar of his shirt, making him wince.

“Where is our money?”

“The Stormtroopers are on their way,” the father replied. “They will stop you.”

The chief laughed a deep belly laugh.

“You think the Stormtroopers are gonna save you? The Empire is in our pocket. Now, the money. We’re done waiting.”

“There is no money.”

“Then you must be a piss-poor farmer. Maybe we should find someone else to take care of this farm, someone who will actually make the most of it.”

The bandits laughed as if their boss had told a joke. They stopped laughing when Shin’s mother picked up her blaster and held it to the chief’s head.

“Let him go, now.”

The bandit smiled a greasy, contemptuous smile.

“Sure thing.”

He threw her husband across the room, against the shelf hiding Shin. Shin whimpered as the shelf shook and its content crashed onto her father. Before anyone could react one of the bandits turned and shot her father.

“No!” her mother screamed.

She tried shooting at the bandits, but they were too many and they were all faster. She was shot twice in the stomach and stumbled into the kitchen. When the silence returned, all the bandits could hear was whimpering. A hand reached into Shin’s hiding place. She screamed and struggled. When it grabbed her arm, compressing her little bones, she bit the man as hard as she could.

The shelf was pushed aside, giving her nowhere to hide. Before she could run away, one of the bandits grabbed her and dragged her out. Her eyes were burning with tears. Tears of grief. Tears of pain. Tears of fury.

“Boss, I think we can make some money after all,” the bandit holding onto her said.

The chief looked her over. She thought she was glaring at him, but she could have been whimpering too hard for the glare to have any effect.

“She’ll do. Come on, there’s nothing to search in here.”

They tried dragging her out of the house. When she fought back, one of the bandits threw her over his shoulder. She punched and kicked him, to no avail. The bandits stepped outside, only to stop. Shin couldn’t see, but Sabine, who had watched the whole scene with horror, saw Baylan Skoll standing in front of the bandits. He was a few years longer, his hair not yet gray, but he still had the same intensity.

“Who are you supposed to be?” the chief of the bandits asked.

“Just a concerned passerby. I’ll let you go, but you have to put the girl down.”

The chief chuckled. He drew his blaster and fired at Baylan. With the swiftness of youth, Baylan drew his lightsaber. The bright green blade deflected the shot back to its sender, hitting the chief right between the eyes. The bandits ran for cover. Shin was thrown to the ground in their hurry to escape the saber. Shin scrambled to sit. She turned around and saw Baylan making quick work of the bandits. He deflected their shots, used the Force to knock them into each other, slashed through them with his lightsaber.

One of the bandits on the ground recovered from having his arm severed. With his only hand, he picked up his blaster and aimed at Baylan.

“No!” Shin shouted, arm outstretched.

The blaster flew out of his hand, just in time for Baylan to turn around and behead him. Once the fight was over, Baylan turned off his blade and clipped it at his belt again. Cautiously, he approached Shin.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I mean you no harm. I’ve been wondering this valley looking for something special.”

He glanced into the house through the broken windows.

“Perhaps it’s a good thing I came when I did.”

He kneeled in front of Shin.

“Have you ever done that before? Push the blaster out of someone’s hand?”

She could only shrug. Now that the fight was over, her small body was exhausted. Terror turned to grief, and she began to cry in earnest.

“You can’t stay here,” he told her. “Come with me. We can talk more about how special you are later. Right now, you need to rest.”

Shin glanced back at the door of her home. She wanted her parents to stand up and come to the door, harder than she’d ever wanted anything in her short life. But she knew enough to know it wouldn’t happen. She turned back to Baylan. She nodded. He picked her up. She leaned against his shoulder and cried herself to sleep as he carried her away.

Sabine blinked. She was back at the ship. Shin was awake. She sat on the edge of the bunk, head low. Her hair hid her eyes, but she kept rubbing at them furiously, and Sabine knew she was crying.

“Why would you show this to me?” Shin asked, her voice full of venom.

“You think I showed you that?” Sabine replied.

“You think I wanted to see that again?”

Sabine remained silent, feeling her eyes burn with unshed tears. She took a step away, then murmured:

“I’m sorry about your parents.”

Shin had no answer to that. She lay back down on the bunk. Sabine sighed and walked away to sit at the edge of the couch, where she could only see the door and not the person inside.

Chapter Text

Sabine was woken up by a metal arm clanging against her pauldron. Though it didn’t hurt, the beskar rang in her ear like an alarm. She forced her eyes open and winced when her neck cracked. The ship’s lights were at their strongest, burning her tired eyes. When she finally managed to stand from the couch, she found Huyang near the door’s panel, fixing the manual operating system.

“Congratulations,” he told her with no hint of satisfaction in his voice. “You managed to let your prisoner escape on you watch.”

“What?”

Sabine rushed to the door. Huyang opened it. The bunks were empty, the sleeping quarters dark and quiet. The only sign that Shin had ever been there was the spilled, crusted soup on the floor.

“Where did she do?” she shouted, turning to the droid.

“I don’t know. You tell me. She snuck out through the air duck and escaped not an hour ago.”

Sabine rubbed the last bit of sleep out of her eyes with a groan. She couldn’t believe she had fallen asleep during her watch. She turned around, intent on running to catch the prisoner, only for the ramp to open. Ahsoka stepped inside. She didn’t seem disappointed in Sabine when she saw her.

“She took one of the howlers,” she explained.

“At least she didn’t leave with her lightsaber,” Huyang replied. “I was studying it all night. It is quite intricately made, which doesn’t surprise me coming from Baylan Skoll’s padawan.”

“We’ll take it with us. Sabine, we’re going after her.”

“Where? She could be anywhere by now.”

Ahsoka looked at her with a strange, almost expectant expression.

“I think you know where she is.”

“How would I know?”

“Concentrate.”

Sabine sighed. She closed her eyes and focused on the Force around her. For the first time since she’d unlocked her connection to it, she felt something new. It was like a gentle tug at the back of her mind, begging to be followed. With the eagerness of a child entering a cockpit for the first time, Sabine pressed that new shiny button. She followed the tug.

When she opened her eyes, she was standing on a rocky protrusion near the road. A howler was approaching. It might have passed her by entirely if she hadn’t spoken:

“So should we keep your lightsaber, or do you want it back?”

Shin pulled on the reins hard, making the howler growl. She glared at Sabine.

“Why can’t you leave me alone? I don’t want your help.”

“You’re not going back to your clan of bandits, are you?”

Shin looked away from her, searching for something in the distance. When she didn’t find it, she turned her attention back to Sabine.

“What does it matter to you anyway?”

The same instinct which had told Sabine where to find Shin told her her true intentions.

“How do you even think you can find your master now? You don’t know where he went, you have no supplies…”

“I said leave me alone!”

Shin brandished both hands against her to Force push her. Sabine was thrown back into her body violently. She gasped and almost fell. Ahsoka helped steady her. A satisfied smile spread on her Master’s lips.

“Do you know where she is?”

Sabine nodded.

“The sun was rising to her right. She’s going north.”

Ahsoka let go of her shoulder and turned to Huyang.

“You stay here. We’ll call you to our position if we need help.”

Then, she turned to Sabine who was still somewhat stunned by what she had managed to accomplish.

“Sabine? Let’s go.”

With only one howler remaining, Sabine rode behind her master. That tug was a pull now, like a string attached to Shin and guiding them to her. Ahsoka made not comment about it. She only led the howler in a different direction every time Sabine told her to do so.

They stopped for the night, mostly to let their howler rest. Sabine reclined against an ancient, toppled obelisk while Ahsoka tended to the fire and their heating soup. Huyang had packed as many supplies for them as he could scourge up. She knew Shin didn’t have that chance. She would have to stop and scavenge or hunt for food. That was why Ahsoka was certain they would catch up to her and could afford the rest. Sabine stared into the flames. They danced over the dried wood, almost hovering a hair away from the logs, yet darkening them, turning them to ash.

“I told you to leave me alone.”

She looked up suddenly at the sound of Shin’s voice. She sat, hunched near the fire. She had caught some sort of fish and was roasting it over the open flames. For once, she looked more tired than angry. Sabine wasn’t reclined against a piece of carved stone anymore, but a fallen trunk.

“I didn’t mean to… this time anyway.”

She sat up a bit straighter.

“Maybe you called me this time.”

“Why would I call you?” Shin sneered.

Sabine shrugged.

“Don’t know. Maybe you missed me.”

Shin looked away into the fire. At first, she preoccupied herself with her fish. Then, she closed her eyes. The nearby fire turned her hair a violent shade, as bright as her lightsaber. When Shin reopened her eyes, they were both at Sabine and Ahsoka’s camp.

“It’s a two-way street, then,” Shin said to herself.

Ahsoka seemed to still near the fire. She turned around with a smirk and looked directly at Shin.

“I’m glad you decided to join us.”

Shin was gone in the blink of an eye. Sabine felt her disappearance keenly, felt the surge of fear and the tether between them reducing to that familiar tug.

Ahsoka turned to her student then and Sabine wondered whether she was going to reprimand her. Instead, she turned back to their food.

“A connection through the Force is a powerful thing. And yours is the most powerful I’ve ever felt.”

“Should I be worried that I have a strong Force connection with a dark jedi?” Sabine asked casually.

Ahsoka was quiet for some time, in that meditative, wise, yet already knowing way of hers. Sabine suspected she did it on purpose to annoy her. Her master picked up two bowls and answered her padawan’s question:

“Don’t fear it. It might prove useful or better yet, important.”

For days, they rode through the wilderness of Peridea. When their howler had picked up the scent of Shin and her howler, Ahsoka didn’t have to rely on Sabine’s intuition anymore. Still, Sabine kept the line connecting her to Shin in a corner of her brain where she could access it with ease. Sometimes, when the ride became too monotonous, she would let her mind wonder, only to find Shin on the other side. It became such a regular occurrence that the blonde didn’t even stop to acknowledge her. As if to spite her, Sabine began to appear on her howler, riding behind her, arms wrapped around her midsection. Shin said nothing and so Sabine assumed that she didn’t mind.

The soft plains and valleys of Peridea seemed to spread on forever. Dark green grass moved in waves under the gentle wind, the luscious ocean only interrupted by the protrusions of black rocks. Every so often, they came across a stream rolling down a path of pebbles. Forests were sparse. The trees gathered in between mountains as if they weren’t courageous enough to climb those volcanic mounds. Once, they came across a lake of light blue water, its shore white as sand but muddy. When the howler didn’t want to drink from it, they knew to stay away.

They stopped for the night in a ruin. The roof of this temple had half-collapsed under the weight of time. Moss had eaten away most of the mural, but Sabine recognized enough to know it was Dathomiri in nature. The Nightsisters had used that temple for something and looking at the singed marks on the ground, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what.

“Aren’t you afraid of their magik?”

She turned her head. She was out of the temple and onto an outcropping of stones. On the other side was a thin waterfall, like a lace veil, floating from the rocks. The moon shone high above, making the water shine like diamonds. Shin was standing near the edge, overlooking the valley below.

“Ahsoka said this temple hasn’t been used in millennia. It’ll be fine.”

Shin didn’t reply at first, her eyes lost to the beauty of the valley. When she finally did look at Sabine, her hair was silver from the moonlight and her eyes bright with a dozen stars. A stray ray of light hit one of the crystals in her braid just right, projecting green on her otherwise gray clothes.

“Dead doesn’t mean gone.”

Sabine was lost in the sight of her for a moment. When she turned away, her chest sparked with deception. The waterfall wasn’t so exceptional anymore.

“What? Are you scared I’ll get possessed by a ghost while I sleep?” she asked, her tone casual and joking.

“I don’t care either way,” Shin replied and somehow, they both knew it was a lie.

It had been a long time since Sabine had been on Home One. It had been even longer since she had visited it in her dreams. For what else could this be but a nightmare? Her worst nightmare made real. Hera had sent them an urgent message, asking them to join them on Home One. Sabine had arrived only to see the ship orbiting over Mandalore. It didn’t look like Mandalore. From the T-6’s cockpit, she could see a heavy gray cloud wrapped around the planet like smoke. Beside her, Ahsoka winced with a powerful headache.

“What is it? What’s going on?”

Her voice was already strangled with fear.

“It feels like…” Ahsoka began but couldn’t find the words to continue.

Without wasting a moment, Sabine stirred the ship to Home One. She parked the ship in the hangar and rushed out, past confused New Republic officers. She was almost at the door, having left her master behind, when it opened, and Hera stepped through, her pace hurried.

“Hera, what is going on?”

“Sabine…I think you should come with me. We should have that conversation in private.”

Hera tried to grab her shoulder. Sabine shook her off.

“What conversation? Hera, is something wrong with Mandalore? I’ve never seen that cloud before.”

Ahsoka had caught up with them. Hera tried to grad her again.

“I’ll explain everything. This way.”

“Listen to her, Sabine,” Ahsoka added.

Sabine felt terror, cold and hard like she had rarely felt before. She fought off Hera again.

“Tell me now. What is going on?”

Hera looked over her shoulder at Ahsoka. Whatever question she had, she found the answer in Ahsoka’s expression. She nodded and sighed.

“The Empire got to Mandalore before we could. We don’t know much yet but… They bombed the surface of the whole planet… I’m sorry.”

Sabine shook her head. Something was caught in her throat, and it wasn’t air or words or tears. All those things found their way out of her. Whatever it was, it would remain stuck there for a very long time.

“No… No, you’re wrong.”

“We’ve been scanning the surface for survivors but it’s hard… Sabine, they broke open the domes….”

“What about… What about my family? They must have been on Krowsnest, right? Tell me they were on Krowsnest.”

Hera was too quiet for too long. It broke Sabine’s chest apart.

“We’ve contacted Krowsnest and other Mandalorian strongholds. We’re trying to see who survived. But last I heard, they were on…”

Hera never managed to finish her sentence. Sabine fell into her arms with a scream of anguish, her face hot with tears.

Sabine woke up with a start. Air gasped out of her lungs. Shin was crouched beside her. She looked like she was about to touch her, perhaps to wake her out of her nightmare. Her hand hovered near Sabine, not close enough to touch her. It lingered there, hesitantly. Shin looked at her with surprise. Sabine brushed the tears out of her eyes and sniffed. It snapped Shin out of her thoughts. She stood up and stepped away, her hand falling limply against her side.

“I’m sorry about your parents.”

Like a ghost, Shin disappeared, leaving Sabine alone in the old, haunted temple.

When they finally caught up with Shin, she was standing on the edge of a rocky protrusion near a waterfall. The sky was filled with dark clouds, a thick blanket that wouldn’t allow the sunlight through. Their howler rushed across the river. The water reflected the angry sky, which made it look like melted tar, dark gray and bubbling. On the other side, they found their missing howler. As they climbed off their mount, Sabine was quick to spot Shin standing over a strange stone cliff, like an arm outstretched away from the mountain. She glanced at Ahsoka who nodded back. Carefully, they approached the dark jedi.

There was no sneaking up on her. They were still ten feet from her when Shin spoke:

“I made it this far. I don’t need your help.”

She kept her back to them, watching over the mountains in the distance, their snowy peaks hidden beneath the clouds. Before Ahsoka could speak, Sabine took a step forward.

“How farther can you really make it alone? You’re starving, you’re tired. You’ve barely slept in days. You really think your master would want you to die searching for him?”

Shin turned around. Her eyes told Sabine she had a rebuke on her tongue, but for some reason she let it die.

“We want no part in what Baylan was after,” Ahsoka replied. “But I know all too well the pain of losing your master. If he is out there, we will find him.”

Shin pursed her lips with hesitation. Sabine took another step forward.

“Please, Shin. Let me help.”

Shin clenched her fists. She seemed to mull her choices over, half of her torn by the thoughts of the other half. Her gaze was lost to the ground.

“Will you give me my lightsaber back?” she asked.

Sabine glanced at Ahsoka. Her master took the white-hilted saber from her belt and passed it over to Sabine. Sabine held out the weapon. Shin approached like a fearful animal, one step at a time, fearing a trap. She snatched it out of Sabine’s hand and brought it to her chest, letting a sigh of relief.

“If I so much as suspect that this is a trap and you want to harm my master, I will kill you both.”

The threat only made Sabine smirk as she wouldn’t expect any less from the blonde. Ahsoka stepped past Shin. The dark jedi tensed then relaxed when she understood what Ahsoka was looking at.

“This light isn’t natural,” she said, pointing to the star-like beacon in the distance.

Shin agreed.

“I feel as if it has been calling me.”

“I feel it too,” the jedi replied.

Sabine approached, wondering whether she would feel the call as well. She took cautious steps as the stone was old and it seemed full of strange marks. She looked behind her and let out a gasp, prompting both Ahsoka and Shin to turn around. They were standing on the arm of a statue which both Ahsoka and Sabine recognized. Looking right then left, Sabine spotted two more statues, one in a much better condition than the other.

“The gods of Mortis,” Sabine said. “What are they doing here?”

“Only one way to find out,” Ahsoka replied. “Come on.”

Shin followed the master and apprentice off the statue begrudgingly. Hesitation still lingered in her mind. This wasn’t what Baylan would have wanted, she thought.

“Come on,” Sabine shouted in turn as she climbed onto the howler Shin had stolen. “You can ride with me.”

Sabine expected some sort of rebuttal, some biting comment coming from the blonde. Instead, she climbed behind Sabine without a word, trying to keep as much distance between them as possible. As soon as Sabine sent her howler forward, Shin was thrown against her back and had no other choice but to hold onto her waist so she wouldn’t fall. Sabine didn’t need a Force bond to know that Shin was feeling embarrassed. She smirked at the thought.

Chapter Text

It took quite some time for Shin to relax against Sabine. They rode hard down the mountain, keeping the beacon of light in sight until it disappeared behind the chain. Because of the steep incline and the speed, Shin had no choice but to sit with her front flushed to Sabine’s back. The beskar armor was hard and cold. Sometimes if Shin tried to shift, her pauldron would hit Sabine’s and they would ring out with the high-pitched clarity of a bell.

They followed the path nestled between the mountains until the sky turned so dark rain was inevitable. The air turned humid and electric. Thunder rumbled far from them, but its echo ricocheted on the hard mountains till it resembled a mumbled, chewed up drum beat. As they spotted an opening in the rocks, Ahsoka decided to stop.

Shin didn’t complain until she was off the howler and had put some distance between Sabine and her.

“Are you afraid of some rain?”

“I’m afraid of losing visibility,” Ahsoka replied. “We do not know these mountains. They might prove traitorous yet.”

Shin grumbled but didn’t argue back. She walked as deep into the cave as she could. It wasn’t very far, not even twenty feet deep. Soon, she had no choice but to walk back to Ahsoka and Sabine. They gathered around a bundle of sticks, starting a fire. Not long after, a curtain of heavy rain fell over the entrance of the cave. It was so thick that they couldn’t see the outside beyond it. Thunder rolled in closer with each strike. The howlers cowered away from the booming sound and disappeared to the end of the cave. As the night rolled in, the rain disappeared. They could still hear its ruckus as it echoed into the cave, but the gentle flames of their campfire were too far to shine back on the big drops of water.

After sharing the food they had left – after so many days in the wilderness, neither Shin nor Ahsoka and Sabine had much of anything remaining – Ahsoka sat back on her heels and said:

“You two rest for the night, you’ll need it. I’ll keep watch.”

She closed her eyes, entering a meditative state. Sabine was quite used to it by now. She found a comfortable enough position against the uneven floor of the cave and laid down. Beside her, Shin looked back at Ahsoka with caution.

“If you think I will let my guard down so easily.”

Sabine shrugged.

“Suit yourself. But you’re too tired to stay awake.”

“I’m not.”

Defiantly, Shin crossed her arms and legs, eyes wide open. Sabine let out an amused breath then rolled away, her back to the dark jedi, and promptly fell asleep. Shin stared at her back for what she thought was a long time. The back of her purple hair curled up like little horns. Shin wondered briefly, eyes burning with exhaustion, if they could be smoothed over at all. Then, she lost her fight and was overwhelmed by sleep.

Ahsoka watched over the apprentices all night, pandering their strange and unique bond. Through the Force, she could almost see it, feel it as one could feel a metal chain. It was strong and warm, red and forever pulling them closer and closer. It controlled their bodies even as they slept, made Sabine roll toward Shin and Shin nestle into Sabine’s arms. Ahsoka knew she could study it all night, study its depth and never find how deep it went. She thought it would be interesting to see how it evolved, though she remained wary of its mere existence.

Sabine woke up wrapped around a warm body. It didn’t worry her for a few minutes, not until she figured out what that scent of pine and metal belonged to. She jumped awake and Shin jerked away as if Sabine had burned her. She turned to Sabine, her usually pale face pink as the morning sky. Sabine stared back, her dark eyes wide with mortification.

“You two had a pleasant night’s sleep, I take it?”

They both turned to Ahsoka at the same time, mouths wide open like fishes. Shin jumped to her feet, brushing her unruly hair with both hands. She was looking at anywhere but Sabine and her master. In the pale morning light, she saw their mounts were missing.

“The howlers?” was all she could ask.

“I let them out to hunt when the storm had passed.”

“I’ll go get them,” she said.

She couldn’t be out of the cave any faster on her wobbling legs. She stepped out into the cold morning air, rubbed her hair again, filled her lungs with dew and walked away.

Inside, Sabine didn’t move until she had lost sight of the blonde. She sighed and sat up. She turned to her master. Ahsoka looked amused by her predicament.

“Can you spare me the speech about how attachment is bad for a Jedi?”

“I have had time to think about what I would tell you this morning.”

“I bet you did,” Sabine replied as she stood up and picked up her helmet.

“Attachment is much like everything,” Ahsoka explained. “Some of it is good. Too much of it… Attachment requires balance.”

“Everything requires balance.”

“See, you’re learning.”

Sabine rolled her eyes. She was about to walk outside when Ahsoka grabbed her arm.

“Be careful, Sabine. Attachment becomes dangerous when it becomes obsession. And Shin… she’s nothing if not obsessed.”

The mountains were sometimes too steep for their howlers to climb, forcing them to navigate the valleys in between. The sky remained somewhat clear for the following few days. Shin remained as far from Sabine as she could. They rode in silence and the blonde stepped off the howler every chance she got, moving away and only climbing back on at the last second. When she slept, it was on the other side of the campfire from Sabine, keeping the open flames between them. Not that Sabine minded. The farther she was from Shin, the better she felt. She absolutely never woke up thinking for a second that the blonde had shifted into her arms again, only to realize that it couldn’t be possible.

They followed the path of the river when they could, as Ahsoka had an intuition which might lead them to the beacon. It carved a path for itself through the mountains, often disappearing underground only to spring out further down in the valley. They entered a foggy swamp where the river forked and spread into dozens of smaller streams. Tall grass and crooked trees encircled the water. All the vegetation was marred by a thin layer of white, as if dirtied. Sabine tentatively touched a leaf and particles of dirt clung to her fingers.

“A flood must have swept through here not long ago,” Ahsoka explained.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Shin asked, her tone as biting as usual.

Ahsoka dismounted. Her hand aimed at the ground, she tried to feel through the Force for Baylan’s presence. Sabine and Shin watched silently from their howlers. Ahsoka looked up. A metal spear flew out of a tree. She turned on her lightsaber and sliced the weapon in half, both pieces falling in the mud. Their howlers bucked nervously as a horde of bandits emerged from the trees. Their armors and weapons looked rusted from mud, caked with a thick layer of it used as camouflage. They encircled them, jumping out of trees and standing from bushes. Shin jumped and somersaulted from the howler, unsheathing her lightsaber and landing in the center beside Ahsoka.

“Showoff,” Sabine muttered to herself as she dismounted.

A first attacker rushed her with a long spear. Sabine deflected the blow with her vambrace then unsheathed her own lightsaber. She cut down her attacker and picked up their weapon. She threw it across the lose circle to a bandit about to rush Shin. It impaled right through him, and he skidded in the mud. Shin slashed at the bandit in front of her then glared at Sabine.

“I had him.”

“You’re welcome.”

Shin caught a bandit with the Force before he could strike Sabine from behind. Sabine felt it and turned around, cutting down the bandit.

“You’re welcome,” Shin shouted.

Sabine rolled her eyes, glad her helmet could also hide her smile.

The three of them made quick work of the ambush. Once the final bandit had been cut down, Sabine turned off her lightsaber. Shin still brandished hers, eyes flitting from tree to tree, looking for more enemies. Even as Ahsoka relaxed, she remained on high alert.

“We should keep moving,” Ahsoka declared as she approached her howler.

“There are more bandits out there,” Shin said.

“Do you want to fight the entire forest, or do you want to find your master?” Sabine reminded her.

Against her better judgement, Shin sheathed her lightsaber and climbed behind Sabine once more.

“This way,” Ahsoka decided. “We can’t be too far out now.”

The beacon of light sat at the top of a tower in the middle of an ancient stone ruin. From the side of the mountain, they surveyed its powerful glow. Only this thin, mossy tower had survived the passage of time, and an oblong ring of stone carved with symbols too rain-eaten to make out. There had been a city here once. The ruins gave the map and not much more. The buildings seemed to have been quite small, or else the collapsed ruins gave an impression of smallness. When, after much examination, they finally entered the ruined city, not a single wall reached up to their shoulders.

The cracked cobblestone path harbored shallow puddles and green lichen. The central road led to the remains of some bigger building. Faceless statues protected the entrance. The floor had a spiraling pattern of stones and mushrooms. The debris which had fallen onto a downward staircase had been moved recently, most likely with the Force, Ahsoka could feel. Shin could feel it too.

“He’s down there,” she said as she rushed below. “Master!”

“Shin, wait,” Ahsoka shouted after her, to no avail.

Sabine exchanged a worried look with her master, then rushed after Shin.

Below, the room was strangely preserved from the planet’s humidity. A central brazier lit the paintings on the wall. The Father, the Son and the Daughter looked over the dark room with empty eyes. A door was sealed on the other side of the room. Empty supply bags had been left near the fire. Shin picked one up and recognized it with ease.

“He was here. Master!”

Her voice echoed without answer in the empty room. She turned to the door. Gears kept it shut, dark and heavy.

“Wait,” Ahsoka said, but Shin wasn’t listening anymore.

She raised her hand and commanded the Force to unlock the door. The gears ground against each other. Dust splashed out of the engine. With the grating sound of stone on stone, the door opened. Shin rushed inside.

The room was empty. There was no door, no gears, no brazier. Light seemed to come through tiny holes in the ceiling and directed by mirrors to a central pedestal in the middle of the room. A lightsaber sat on the pedestal. Shin recognized it immediately. She grabbed it off the pedestal.

“Master!” she called again, but there was no sign of Baylan anywhere.

As Ahsoka and Sabine entered the room, she set his lightsaber back onto the pedestal, expecting something to open. Silence reigned over the room.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Ahsoka frowned and focused.

“He was there. It is as if he never left, but I can’t sense him anywhere anymore.”

“Where did he go?” Shin asked, her voice choked.

“I don’t know,” Ahsoka could only reply. “He just disappeared.”

Shin shook her head.

“He couldn’t have just disappeared. He would never have left his lightsaber behind.”

She pulled her own lightsaber from her belt. Her hands were shaking. Her entire body was shaking.

“Always take care of your lightsaber. That’s… That’s the first lesson he taught me. So, he wouldn’t have left it behind…”

“Shin…” Ahsoka began, but the blonde was deaf to her call.

“I should have been here with him. I should have gone with him. I should have…”

She threw her lightsaber to the ground. It rolled until it hit the wall.

“He has to be nearby. He might be hurt, he needs help.”

The Force surged from her with such strength it unsettled Sabine’s balance. The whole room shook. The stone cracked under the weight of her despair.

“She’s going to bring the whole temple down,” Ahsoka said as she took a step back to avoid debris falling from the ceiling.

Without hesitation, Sabine ran forward. Shin’s cheeks were bright with tears, her face contorted in anguish.

“I can’t feel him anymore…”

Another wave of Force made one of the walls buckle and shoved Sabine back. Sabine gritted her teeth and pushed against the Force. She ran until, to her surprise, she reached Shin. She wrapped her in a hug, her arms as tight as she could around the blonde’s frame. She wrapped herself around her back, keeping her arms pinned against her sides. She couldn’t see her face, but she could feel each sob breaking out of her chest.

“He’s gone, Shin,” she told her, hoping her voice might break through the fog of her mind.

It seemed to work. The walls stopped shaking. The ceiling settled precariously. Shin’s knees gave away. Sabine helped her to the ground. Shin clung to her like to an anchor as she let her sorrow drown her. She cried out. She sobbed on the dusty floor. And throughout it all, Sabine held her.

Ahsoka called Huyang and asked him to bring the ship to them while Sabine guided Shin out of the basement. The air was colder than Shin remembered, the sky darker, the ruins quieter. She clung to Baylan’s lightsaber with both hands. Hers remained in the ruins still, abandoned against the wall. Above, the sun blinked out as the T-6 flew ahead. It landed near the ring on a flat stone court. Sabine tried to lead Shin toward the ship. Shin shook her off, finally.

“No, I need to…”

For a moment, she wasn’t sure what she needed. Then, she looked down at the lightsaber in her hand.

“I want to bury it.”

Sabine nodded. Together, they walked away from the ruins to the grass and the dirt, to the trees and the stones. When Ahsoka spotted them, she followed. They walked until Shin found a spot she liked; a spot Baylan would have liked near a hard obelisk still standing after all those years. Using the Force, she shifted the earth beneath the obelisk. She fell to her knees in front of the small hole. Her master’s lightsaber was pressed to her chest. She felt tears prickle her eyes, but she refused to cry again. She had cried enough already, she told herself. Still, her muscles trembled as she placed the lightsaber into the hole. She stared at it quietly for some time. Her padawan braid was so heavy against her shoulder she grabbed it with both hands and rubbed it between her fingers, again and again and again, as if she wanted to tear it out.

“Here.”

She turned around, surprised. She had forgotten that Sabine and Ashoka were standing behind her. Sabine was holding out a small blade, probably one she usually kept hidden. Shin took it. For a second, she wondered why Sabine had given her a blade. Then, she felt the braid against her fingers. She brought the blade as high as she dared, hands shaking. She thought she wouldn’t have the strength to cut it off. Somehow, she did. She stared at the long blond braid in her hand, wondering what it was and what she was supposed to do with it. Then, she placed it in the hole with the lightsaber. She used both hands and pushed the earth into the hole.

The lightsaber and the braid disappeared beneath the dark earth, until only a small mound remained to signal their presence. Shin sat back on her heels.

“I don’t know how Jedi funerals are supposed to go,” she explained.

Ahsoka placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“They were somewhat like this,” she explained. “You can say a few words it you’d like.”

Shin contemplated the mound of dirt. Her emotions had always been clear in her master’s presence. Ever since he had gone his way, nothing seemed to make sense, least of all here and now. She wasn’t sure a few words would ever be enough. She shook her head and stood up. After one last glance at the dirt, she walked away.

Chapter Text

Ahsoka decided to spend the night at the ruins, as she hoped to investigate what had happened to Baylan. Sabine left Shin in her bunk so she could rest and went hunting for dinner. She came back with wild beats and a rodent big enough to add some meat to the stew. She left them in the kitchen and decided to check on Shin before she started cooking.

Sabine walked past the bathroom, only to hear a frustrated groan coming from the other side of the door. The sound was too familiar not to be Shin’s. Sabine stopped dead in her tracks and walked back to the door.

“Shin? Are you in there?”

When no answer came, Sabine opened the door. Shin stood in front of the mirror, her eyes still puffy from crying. She was holding the blade Sabine had handed her earlier. If the clumps of blond hair were anything to go by, Shin had been using it to hack at her hair. Sabine gave her a questioning look.

“I’m fine,” Shin hissed.

The bite in her tone was back. The walls had gone back up. Sabine couldn’t blame her for it.

“Let me do it, at least,” she told the blonde. “That way you won’t cut yourself again.”

Sabine’s eyes fell on the shallow trickle of blood running down Shin’s neck, then back at her greenish eyes. Shin’s hand flew to the cut with surprise, as if she hadn’t realized she had cut herself. Sabine held out her hand. After a second of hesitation and a sigh, Shin gave her the blade back.

“Don’t move,” Sabine ordered.

Shin watched her leave the small bathroom, confused. When the Mandalorian returned, she had discarded her armor and carried a folding stool. Shin stared at her, at her naked arms and long neck as Sabine set up the stool.

“Sit.”

Shin obeyed without protest. She sat with her back to Sabine and waited in anticipation. Sabine looked at her hair, at the damage already done and the bleached length of her hair remaining.

“How short do you want it?” she asked.

“Just cut it all off,” Shin replied immediately.

“Are you sure?”

“I can just do it myself if you won’t.”

Sabine rolled her eyes.

“There won’t be much blonde left when I’m done.”

“It’s for the better, probably.”

Sabine brought the blade against a lock of Shin’s hair, as close to the scalp as she dared. Just as she was about to cut it off, Shin added:

“It’s not of the best, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. Just cut it off.”

Sabine nodded. She brought the blade an inch down then cut, saving a bit of blond.

“I’ll do my best. I get it. It took me a while to get that gradient of color I had when we first met.”

“I remember,” Shin cut her off.

Her gaze fell to her naked hands. She had taken off her gloves and bracers to cut her hair. She hoped Sabine couldn’t see her face in the mirror, because Shin knew it wasn’t pale anymore. Sabine cut without pausing, a small relief to Shin.

“Why did you cut it off?” she asked, her voice smaller than she wished.

“It doesn’t fit well under the helmet. Most Mandalorian women with long hair pin them up when they wear their helmets, but I don’t like the way it feels. Short is better.”

Shin felt her hair falling down her back. She swallowed thickly.

“I hope you’re right,” she said.

This gave Sabine pause. It was the closest to humor Shin had ever expressed. Not ironic, not biting, but a weak shield against her vulnerability. Sabine smiled.

“You’ll see. I mean, thankfully I came along when I did.”

After a second of silence, Shin admitted:

“I could still feel the end of my braid. I didn’t cut it high enough. I just wanted to be rid of it… But then all I could feel was its absence. I thought if I…”

It was so hard to put into words.

“I understand,” Sabine said, and nothing else needed to be said.

Sabine cut with a steady hand, behind then the sides then above. Shin only flinched when the hair from her fringe fell in front of her eyes and landed in her lap. Though she couldn’t see what Sabine was doing, she never felt like pulling away. Rather, she entered a strange meditative state, falling deeper and deeper into it the more hair fell around her.

This had been the hardest step for her, always. Using the Force was easy and thrilling. Connecting to it, contemplating the way it interacted with the world around her, this had always been difficult for Shin. It required patience and calm, neither of which had ever been her qualities. Once, her master had had to tie her to a tree to force her to focus. But here, in the tiny bathroom of the T-6 with a blade combing through her hair, connecting had never been easier.

At first, she thought the Force was sorrowful. Then, she realized it was her, projecting her emotions onto it. The Force was just as it had always been and would always be. She was sorrowful. She was grieving, and remorseful, and drained. But, to her surprise, she wasn’t lonely. Sabine was behind her, focused entirely on something so insignificant as her haircut. Sabine was warm and compassionate. She found an inch of her pain in Sabine, and she wondered how it had ever arrived there. Then, she understood that it was Sabine’s doing, shouldering a bit of her pain because she knew, if Shin took it all in, it would tear her apart.

“All done.”

Sabine’s voice snapped her back to reality. She stood up and found a stranger looking at her in the mirror. Her hair was very short on the sides and back, even shorter than Sabine’s, and back to its original dark color. Above she had just enough length for the tips of be platinum still, and this was relief enough to make her sigh. It was still her, somehow. She hadn’t completely lost herself in her grief.

“I can make it shorter if you’d like.”

“No! No… this is good.”

She looked at Sabine in the mirror. The Mandalorian smiled at her with satisfaction.

“Thank you,” Shin said.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had said it.

“You’re welcome,” Sabine replied with sincerity.

They cleaned the bathroom swiftly. Shin felt no satisfaction throwing her hair away, but she felt no sorrow from it either, which was enough for her. Once all the hair had been discarded, Sabine escorted her back to her bunk.

“You can take whichever one you prefer.”

Shin sat on the lower bunk, lips pursed. Sabine looked at her and felt her uncertainty, her fragile peace, like a dam about to break against the assault of her loneliness.

“Do you want me to stay for a little bit?” she asked.

Shin seemed surprised by the proposition. For a second, she thought about rejecting the offer. She couldn’t bring herself to. Instead, she nodded. Sabine sat beside her on the bunk then told her:

“Scoot over there.”

Shin was confused. Then, she was wrapped into a steadying hug. They laid side by side – almost on top of each other because the bunk wasn’t wide enough for two. Sabine wrapped her arms around Shin with all the comfort she possessed. Shin had not expected as much, but she was glad for it. After a few minutes of uncertainty, she shifted to a more comfortable position, her head against Sabine’s shoulder and her arms snaking around her. It took another minute or so for Shin to put any pressure into the hug and return as much warmth as she was given.

Shin woke up alone, cold and worried. It could have been all been a dream, she thought. All of it. Peridea, Thrawn, Elsbeth, Ahsoka. Baylan. Sabine. Then, she spotted the lothcats on the wall and she knew she was awake. She felt as if she had been crying all night, yet she hadn’t shed a tear. She sat at the edge of bunk. Sabine’s beskar armor was still in the corner. She couldn’t have gone far, she thought. She stepped into the living room. A droid emerged from one of the side rooms.

“Ah, Lady Hati. Lady Wren asked me to let you know that she is outside.”

“What is she doing?”

“She might explain it better than I can. Lady Tano asked for her help fixing some ancient engine.”

Shin stood awkwardly, unsure whether she should join Sabine outside.

“Before you go,” the droid said. “Lady Tano brought this back for you.”

From within the workshop, Huyang picked up a lightsaber. Her lightsaber. Shin stared at it hesitantly. When she made no move to take it back, the droid said:

“A very interesting design. Did you make it yourself?”

“I did.”

The droid stared at her as if he expected further explanation. Somehow, Shin managed to articulate her memory into words.

“We were on Corellia. A heap of junk, Baylan called it, but he had an underground contact, someone he needed to meet there. He decided then that I was old enough and experienced enough to get my own lightsaber. I had to make do with what I could find.”

“Despite this limitation, it is very well built. Quite interesting. The orange kyber crystal, where did you find it?”

“My homeworld. That was why Baylan was there in the first place. How he found me.”

“I should like to study its properties more thoroughly. Back in my time, Baylan Skoll connected with a green crystal, the sign of a strong Force user. Same as Lady Tano.”

Shin frowned despite herself.

“But Sabine has a green lightsaber.”

“Yes, well, the Jedi order is truly dead.”

“Huyang, are you badmouthing me behind my back?”

The droid and Shin turned at the same time to see Sabine climbing aboard the T-6. Her hair was covered by a thin layer of dust and a black stain marred her chin. Shin hated that she had to so quickly avert her gaze.

“Behind your back? I would never.”

But Sabine wasn’t looking at Huyang anymore. Her entire focus was on Shin. She smiled.

“Your hair looks even better than I realized.”

When she found she had stared for too long, she cleared her throat.

“Anyway, I need more tools.”

“What are you doing?” Shin asked.

“Do you want to see?”

Shin looked at the confident smirk on Sabine’s lips. She almost smiled back when she nodded.

Sabine led Shin outside into the gray morning. The evening clouds had yet to fully dissipate, leaving the air cold and the ruins feeling even more desolate than before. While Ahsoka had gone back to explore the temple, Sabine walked to a hole in the ground at the edge of the courtyard. Behind her, Shin fidgeted with the hook at her belt, as if she struggled to attach her lightsaber. Sabine sent her a curious glance but said nothing.

The hole may have once been the exit to a staircase. Now the staircase had crumpled onto itself amidst broken pieces of metal pipes.

“Watch your steps,” Sabine warned.

She placed all the tools in one hand then lowered herself into the hole. Shin followed. They slid from one unsteady piece of stone to another. The weak light above was soon replaced by darkness, then fire. Sabine had lit torches at the bottom of the shaft, flickering lighthouses in the obscurity. When Sabine’s feet hit the bottom, she brushed her hand on her tank top and stepped away to allow Shin in.

The room at the bottom was bigger than the T-6. Stone worktables had been arranged around a series of metal concentric circles in the middle of the floor. Pipes ran from the circles to gears and strange, engine-like machines in the walls. Shin picked up a torch from one of the holders on the wall and took a turn of the room, looking at the unknown machines with a frown.

“What is this place?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Sabine replied.

She walked without stopping to the far wall, where tools had been left scattered on the floor near gears.

“Ahsoka asked me to fix it if I could. She said it had something to do with ships.”

“A way home,” Shin guessed.

“That’s the idea,” Sabine said as she kneeled beside the machine and set her new tools beside the old ones.

Shin felt her throat grow dry at the thought.

“It might not work anymore. It could be a long shot.”

Sabine reached into the gear for whatever was blocking the mechanism. Her voice was strained as she pulled as hard as she could, slowly dislodging the piece of metal.

“It’s the best chance we’ve had so far…”

The blockage resisted. It became lodge in another piece of gear. Sabine lost her grip on it and stumbled back with a curse. Shin turned around just in time to see Sabine brush herself up. She approached her.

“You could use the Force, you know.”

Sabine rolled her eyes.

“I like using my hands. Sue me.”

Shin set the torch down in a bucket with Sabine’s torch. She reached out her hand, and the piece of metal unstuck itself with ease, as if it had never been stuck at all. The gears gave a groan and half a turn, then stilled.

“And you probably could have lost your hand,” Shin added.

She looked at the piece of metal in her hand. It looked as if it had been torn off a pipe by the strength of the gnawing gears. She threw it aside. Sabine rolled her eyes.

“If you want to make yourself useful, you can just fix the other side.”

“What makes you think I know how to fix engines?”

She dared a look at Sabine and regretted it immediately. Sabine was looking at her with soft annoyance, nothing close to frustration but rather something gentler that made her dark eyes bright and her lips upturn with barely the hint of a smile.

“I don’t know, I just assumed you were perfect at everything you did.”

Shin looked away. She picked up a handful of tools on the ground without looking which one she took and stepped away to the other set of gears, some sixty feet to the left. She let the tools drop with a bang and kneeled to get to work. Sabine watched her go then she got back to work. She picked up the torch and approached it to the gears so she could look inside the engine. She would have loved to have a flashlight but the battery in her armor was depleted and Huyang refused to lend her one of his high-precision lamps. Looking down, she saw that one of the gears was misaligned. She would have to unscrew the nearby gears then realigned this one if there was any chance that this machine would ever come back to life. She picked up the larger wench and set out to work.

On the other side, Shin stood up and brushed the dust off her hands.

“Everything is in order here,” she announced.

Sabine only hummed as answer.

“I’ll look at the other machines.”

Sabine, focused on the gears, barely gave her an acknowledgement. Shin picked up the tools and moved to the other wall, where she took the panel of a machine off its hinges. Sabine took out one of the gears. It was heavier than it looked, made of dark dense metal with symbols carved on the teeth. She set it to the floor with a huff.

“I’m not perfect in everything I do.”

Shin’s voice echoed in the room, punctuated by the sound of Sabine’s wrench and her own screwdriver.

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” Sabine replied. “I was just joking.”

“I know. I just… I’m not perfect.”

Sabine set down another gear then looked back at Shin. She was kneeling by the machine. The nearby flames of a torch reflected on the metal of her pauldron.

“What are you bad at?” Sabine asked.

The question surprised Shin so much she stopped working and turned around to look back at Sabine. Their eyes met across the room. Sabine was the first to break and return to work, thinking she had offended the blonde. To her surprise, Shin answered:

“Cooking. Don’t take me wrong, Baylan wasn’t that great at it either, but I’m worst.”

Sabine let out a chuckle. Once she had extracted another gear with a huff, she said:

“I’m pretty bad at being a Jedi.”

Shin let out a laugh and, so surprised that she had laughed, she bit her lower lip to stop herself from laughing more. Sabine grinned even as she carried another heavy gear to the floor.

“You’ve improved,” Shin finally admitted.

“Shin Hati, was that a compliment?”

“Would you rather I insult you again?”

“Maybe. Maybe I miss it.”

Shin didn’t know what to answer to that, her eyes glaring into the machine even as she didn’t understand what she was looking at.

“You’re weird.”

Sabine was arm’s deep into the machine, pushing the gear back on its axis when she answered:

“See. Another compliment.”

She placed the gears back in their place, one at a time, letting out a few huffs of exertion. Shin stood up only to spy a glance at Sabine’s arms, sweaty and flexing under the strain. She quickly picked up a torch off the wall and turned away.

“Some of the cables have been disconnected,” she said.

She couldn’t quite reach for them in the heart of the machine. Using the Force, she brought the cables back to their sockets. Sparks flew, making Shin jumped back. Sabine, who had just placed the last of the gears into place, also stumbled back. The gears clacked against each other. The room trembled. All the torches were extinguished at once by a gust of air. Sabine stood with the wench in her hand. Through the darkness, she could feel Shin, feel her immobility and anxiety. Before she could call out to her, the circles came to life in the middle of the room.

They blinked with blue light, the air crackling. As the image steadied, quiet returned to the room. It was the only light in the room now and both Sabine and Shin walked to it. Two galaxies floated in the darkness, stars and planets and paths. Shin watched the universe dance on Sabine’s skin as she stepped through the hologram. It looked almost liquid as it glided against her cheek, reminding her of the technology aboard the eye of Sion.

“This is home,” Sabine said as her hand came to wrap around a planet, only for it to slip between her fingers.

Again, Shin’s chest tightened at the thought. But Sabine smiled at her, and her gloom couldn’t fight against that brightness.

“We’re going home. We did it!”

Chapter Text

Sabine proudly showed their work to Ahsoka and Huyang. Above ground, the beacon had stopped glowing. The ring of stone was now a portal, open on some hyperspace tunnel. As Huyang looked over the workstation and the galaxies floating in the center of the room, he determined:

“The path is connected to our galaxy, although it seemed to be leading directly to Dathomir. I do not know how to change it. We might be arriving in the jaws of the enemy.”

“Better that than staying stuck here,” Sabine said.

They both looked at Ahsoka who was contemplating their choice.

“Sabine is right. We can’t squander this opportunity.”

“To Dathomir it is, then.”

The droid walked out of the room, Ahsoka close behind. Sabine was about to follow when she noticed that Shin hadn’t moved.

“You’re hesitant,” she said, because she could feel the nervousness vibrate in every cell of Shin’s body.

“I’m not sure there’s anything left for me there.”

“As opposed to here?”

Shin crossed her arms.

“Baylan could come back and if I’m not there…”

Sabine shook her head.

“Fuck that. He made his choice. Now make yours. Do you want to stay here, or do you want to come back with us?”

Shin looked at Sabine, searching in her determined eyes for an answer. Everything in Sabine was screaming at her to come with them. Shin could hear it. She found she was scared either way, but for different reasons. Fear would always be her enemy, Baylan had told her. Facing it, crushing it, was the greatest victory of will a jedi could ever demonstrate.

“Alright. Let’s go home.”

Sabine sat in the co-pilot seat of the T-6 as in front of her, Ahsoka guided them into position. The portal was big enough for the ship. Huyang sat in the chair behind her, leaving the final seat in a diagonal for Shin. She had been quiet since they had left the basement. She sat with her arms crossed, knee bouncing, gaze on the portal ahead. Sabine brought the ship as far back as she dared in the courtyard. Then, she let Ahsoka back inside.

“They must have had some way to slingshot their ship across galaxies,” her master said as she took her seat.

“As it stands, we need to enter hyperspace at precisely the right moment, or we will not have enough speed to complete our route,” Huyang explained. “And here I thought trusting the Purrgils was a bad idea.”

“Have faith, old friend,” Ahsoka told the droid.

“I have faith, but I also know the odds.”

Sabine looked back at Shin, as if trying to check that she hadn’t changed her mind. Shin wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“Everyone ready?” she asked.

Again, Shin remained silent. Sabine sighed and turned back to the control panel. Ahsoka was revving up the engines of the T-6.

“Sabine, on my signal.”

Sabine nodded. The ship jumped forward, going as fast as the aging engines could take it. The portal came at them like a wall, its bright light burning Sabine’s eyes.

“Now!”

She engaged the hyperdrive a second before the nose of the ship touched the portal. They were thrown inside. The T-6 justled as if threatening to come apart. They were all thrown back into their seats. The lights flickered. Space bent around them. When the ship entered a smooth cruising speed, Sabine let out a sigh.

“Good work,” her master told her.

Sabine smiled. When she turned back to look at Shin, the dark jedi had already left her seat and stepped out of the cockpit.

Shin remained locked in Sabine’s bedroom for a few hours. Sabine figured she ought to leave her alone. If she had learned anything about the blonde, it was that she needed her space. When Ahsoka suggested some training to pass the time, Sabine took her up on the opportunity.

Shin was drawn out of the bedroom by the sound of wood on wood and Sabine groaning. She frowned and opened the door. Sabine and Ahsoka were fighting with training swords. While Ahsoka was as cool and precise as usual, Sabine had begun sweating. As much as she tried not to pant, her breathing was becoming hard. She charged her master. Ahsoka deflected the blow and swiped at Sabine’s legs. She was quick enough to jump above the sword, but it left her unbalanced. She had to swing around hard to compensate, which Ahsoka exploited against her.

Shin watched from the edge of the room, arms crossed. Both fighters had noticed her from the corner of their eyes. Ahsoka paid her no mind. Sabine glanced at her for too long and was hit in her shoulder by the wooden sword. She winced and stepped back.

“You’re too open, still,” her master told her.

Sabine rolled her shoulder and gave a grunt for only response. She took a fighting stance once more. She rushed at Ahsoka again. Ahsoka sidestepped the blow and stabbed her sword toward Sabine, who had to redirect her sword mid-swing, barely protecting herself.

“Your back leg is too far.”

They both stopped fighting to look at Shin. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but when she had noticed that Ahsoka was going to use Sabine’s unbalance against her, she’d wanted to warn her. The words had come out of her mouth before she even realized she had spoken. Ahsoka didn’t seem offended by her intervention. Sabine rolled her eyes.

“You think you could do better?” she asked her.

Ahsoka crossed her arms.

“Actually, that’s a great idea.”

She offered the training sword to Shin.

“Why don’t you show Sabine how it’s done?”

Shin stared at the offered weapon for a second. She and Sabine hadn’t fought since she’d taken her prisoner. In truth, she was itching for a fight, even if it was only with wooden swords. She took the sword. It was heavier than her lightsaber, for which she knew she would have to compensate.

“Alright,” Sabine said. “I accept the challenge. But let’s make it a bit fairer. Take off your armor.”

She motioned with her head toward Shin. Although she hadn’t put her gloves and vambraces back on, she was still wearing the rest of her armor. Sabine was in her tank top and lose training pants. She would be much lighter than her and perhaps, faster. It wasn’t about fairness, Shin figured, but about getting as big an advantage against her opponent as she could.

“Alright.”

She unhooked her pauldrons, kneepads and took off her belt, then she unclipped her leg bracers. She set them all aside in a corner of the room. Left in her gray tunic and dark pants, Shin felt too light. She took a stance and waited for Sabine to assume her own. Sabine rubbed her shoulder once last time, then readied herself for a fight. Ahsoka stood in the sideline, arms crossed. Sabine’s eyes met Shin. She tried to feel whether the blonde would attack her first, or whether she was waiting for her to open.

Shin’s energy shifted the moment she struck forward. Sabine felt it just in time. She deflected the blow and retaliated with a strike of her own. Shin parried and returned the assault. Sabine smirked as she stepped away. It felt as if they’d fallen back into their routine. Shin struck, Sabine parried and struck back, Shin replied with a strike of her own. This was familiar and comforting.

Shin crossed blades and pushed. Sabine felt her back knee buckle as she fought back. Shin looked deep in concentration, eyes glazed over into that far off look. Then, her gaze snapped to Sabine’s face. She was opposing more resistance than she’d expected. Sabine gave her a half-smile and a wink. Shin pushed away so fast she almost tripped in her hurry to get away.

Sabine chuckled. Shin looked at the ground as she circled her, refusing to look back at her.

“I can’t tell if you’ve improved or you’re still as weak as that first time we fought,” the blonde said.

“There she is,” Sabine replied. “Come on. Show me what you can actually do.”

When Shin thought she had recovered from the sudden rush of blood to her brain, she charged Sabine once more. Sabine deviated the blade and sidestepped. Shin turned and struck at her arm. Sabine had to use the Force to send the blade flying out of her hand. It clattered against the wall then fell to the ground.

“Sabine,” Ahsoka warned her, because they both knew this was cheating.

Sabine shrugged. Shin called the wooden blade back to her then charged Sabine again. Her strikes became more violent, more erratic, and as much as Sabine struggled to parry them, it also gave her more opportunities to fight back. The air around them seemed to become warmer, as if heated by their fight.

“Shin, that goes for you too,” Ahsoka warned as she felt the dark side of the Force wrapping around the blonde like a cloak, thicker with every strike.

“You’re one to talk when you sent me flying into that rock,” Shin reminded her, teeth clenched.

It made the back of her head tingle, a reminded of the bruise she’d had to nurse. It only made more anger spew out of her like out of a fountain. She let out a groan of frustration as she charged Sabine again. Sabine parried the blow. The wooden sword flew out of Shin’s hand again. With blinding swiftness, Shin swiped her legs from under her and crouched above her. She called the wooden sword back to her. In the tumble, Sabine’s shirt had ridden up, revealing the pale circle left by Shin all these months ago. Shin pressed the blunt tip of her sword to it. Just then, Sabine’s sword came to rest against her throat.

They stayed on the ground, breathing heavily, each one waiting for the other to do something. Shin kept blinking, as if it would make all the frustration and desire fall out of her. Sabine’s breathing was heavy, her lips turned into the barest hint of a smile, as if she didn’t dare show any more, lest it scared the blonde away. Neither wanted to admit defeat.

“Should I give you two some time alone?” Ahsoka asked.

This snapped Shin out of whatever altered state she’d found herself in. She stood up and threw the wooden sword away. She hurried back into the bedroom, leaving her armor behind. Sabine sat up. She brushed the scar on her stomach then lowered her tank top over it again.

“Let’s call it a day,” her master decided.

Sabine couldn’t agree more. She left her sword on the ground and followed Shin into the bedroom.

Shin was pacing between the bunks when Sabine shut the door behind her. The blonde stopped dead in her tracks. The air seemed to vibrate around her with confusion and fear and yearning. Sabine felt it too, answered to it. She crossed the room in three grand strides, so fast it made Shin shrink back against the wall. Sabine stopped a breath away from her, one hand on the wall beside her head. She looked deep into her eyes, asking. Shin answered. She grabbed the back of her throat and pulled her into a hard kiss.

Sabine threaded her fingers through Shin’s short hair, her nails scratching against her scalp, sending sparks all over her body. Every jolt of her nerves made Shin feel broken. Sabine had broken her already, with a single kiss. The least she could do was built her back up now. While one hand kept a tight grip on the back of her neck, the other grabbed at her side, hiking up her tank top. Her thumb rubbed against the circular scar. Sabine logically knew that scared skin couldn’t feel anything, yet every stroke of Shin’s thumb sent a warm shiver to her ribs.

Sabine broke away to kiss Shin’s jaw, then down her neck. All too soon, she encountered the collar of her undershirt. This wouldn’t do, she thought. Her hands shifted from her hair to the back of her tunic where she knew the buttons to be. She had undone a few buttons when Shin pushed her away. She took off the tunic and threw it to the ground. Sabine latched onto her lips again. When her hands slipped under her black undershirt, it wasn’t to feel for scars – although she felt them, every nip and bump of the skin, and she wanted to see them all – but to rid the blonde of it.

The offending piece of clothing was discarded, leaving Shin at a shivering disadvantage. Still, she didn’t seem in a hurry to remove Sabine’s tank top, and neither was Sabine, hungrily preoccupied by Shin’s semi-nakedness. She kissed her again, then moved lower and lower, down her neck, over her pulsing jugular, over her collarbone like she was mapping a mountain path. She kissed the swell of her chest and Shin lost all sense of reality. It came back to her hard, burning and violent, when Sabine wrapped her lips around her nipple.

The fire in between her legs was too intense, Shin thought. She sought release and continuance in equal measure. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she pushed Sabine away, making her stumble to the middle of the room. Before Sabine could recover, could wonder if she’d done anything wrong, Shin kissed her again. She wrapped her hands around the hem of her tank top, finally intended to remove it. Sabine let her, expecting another kiss once the top hit the ground. Instead, Shin fell to her knees. She kissed the scar she had left on her, that pale circle of flesh, the first time she had burned Sabine. Sabine’s fingers caressed through her short hair, sending electricity down her spine.

She continued to kiss her belly, moving lower, brushing her pants aside. She untied the knot keeping them around Sabine’s hips with one hand, the other stroking the small of her back. She began to push the pants down when Sabine stopped her. She took her chin in her hand, forcing Shin’s gaze up. Her eyes had nothing green left in them, nothing gray either. They were black as ink. Her gaze marked every aspect of Sabine’s skin, every divot and bump of muscles, every scar, every mole and every freckle. Her lips were parted as she struggled for breath.

“Sit.”

Like the most obedient dog, Shin shifted on the floor until she could sit on the edge of the bunk. Sabine knelt between her legs. Shin was braced back on her hands, chest heaving, mind racing, waiting to see what delicious torture Sabine would inflict on her. Sabine leaned in for another kiss, slower, all-consuming. One hand braced her weight on the mattress beside Shin’s waist. The other untied her shoe. Shin’s entire body shivered against her lips. She smirked and stepped away to remove her shoe.

“I’ll make you regret not killing me,” Sabine promised as she took off her other shoe.

Shin leaned against her, kissing so hard she bit her lower lip. Sabine only moaned and led Shin back onto the mattress. She untied Shin’s pants. A second before she took them off, her eyes met Shin’s again and she knew, whatever she did to the blonde, she would return the torture tenfold. Pleasure burned deep in her core at the thought, and she took off Shin’s pants.

Shin woke up to a light and a feeling. She was lying in bed, Sabine in her arms. She was wearing her tank top and underwear, the rest of their clothes scattered around the room. After Sabine had forced her out of her clothes, she’d forced her into wearing some to sleep. Sabine herself had pulled a fresh tank top from her wardrobe.

Looking down at the other woman, Sabine hadn’t stirred at all. Her face was smudged against their shared pillow, purple hair the mess Shin had left it before they’d fallen asleep. She looked peaceful. She was peaceful.

The light came again. The feeling of familiarity returned. A whisper she knew all too well called her name.

“Shin…”

She slithered out of bed without disturbing Sabine. The voice was coming from the far wall. She placed her hand on it in the darkness. Behind the sheet of metal, galaxies flew by at a speed incomprehensible to the human mind. It seemed too thin for the job, suddenly. She expected it to fly away under her hand, shattered by the lights of millions of stars passing them so quickly they looked like blurs.

She stepped through the wall. She found herself floating in a bright void, lines of starlight so hard she could walk on them like steppingstones across a river. She did so without hesitation, jumping higher and higher, until she was face to face with her old master.

Baylan Skoll looked unchanged since the last time she’d seen him. His belt was bare of his lightsaber, that was the only change she could denote. He looked at her with an indescribable complexity of feelings. Shin felt so many of them in quick suggestion it threatened to scatter her across the galaxy.

“You found a way off Peridea,” he said, and his voice had the echo of dark magick and holy bells.

“I failed you, master,” she said. “I couldn’t kill Sabine or Ezra, and I couldn’t make it back to Thrawn.”

Baylan shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter now. You’ve made your choice, just as I have made mine.”

“Have I?”

Shin’s chest felt made of glass, and every sound was hissing through the cracks, and the harder she tried to keep herself in one piece, the faster she shattered.

“I had to go back to our galaxy. There was nothing for me on Peridea, not after you… But what am I going to do now? What can I do? You’ve left me no choice but to go back, but I don’t even know what I’m going back to.”

She looked back at her master with more rage than she’d ever felt toward the old man. Baylan looked his serious self, undisturbed by her accusations.

“I had to leave you. The power I sought was conditional. I left behind all that mattered most to me. You above all. That was the price to pay. I made that choice. Now you must make yours.”

“Chose what? I am lost without you!”

“Are you? I trained you to be better than them all, Shin. You can accomplish anything you set out to do, because that is what I prepared you for. What do you want?”

A single, unspeakable idea blinked into Shin’s mind. She banished it and, finding nothing else to say, opened and closed her mouth silently.

“Remember your training,” Baylan insisted. “Indecision, inaction, that is what caused the fall of the jedi. You are better than them. What do you want?”

“I want Sabine Wren,” Shin admitted, finally. “I want to be by her side. I want to fight with her, for her.”

“Is that the choice you make for yourself, then?”

“It is. I’m sorry, master, but it is.”

Baylan nodded.

“I see your mind is made up. I can leave you now, knowing you’ve made your choice.”

Shin frowned.

“Aren’t you mad at me?”

“I chased my sun. Catching it cost me everything. What right do I have to stop you for chasing your moon?”

Shin’s throat tightened. This was farewell then.

“I’ve only ever wanted to make you proud.”

Baylan chuckled.

“I’ve only ever been proud of you.”

Shin startled awake with a gasp. She was back in bed, Sabine wrapped in her arms. She couldn’t tell whether a second or an hour had passed. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She slid out of bed once more and walked out of the bedroom.

Sabine woke up when her back grew cold from the absence of Shin. She grumbled and turned in her bunk. She cracked one eye open, and she couldn’t feel Shin anywhere. She was alone in the bed. She stretched and sat at the edge of the bunk. Their clothes still carpeted the floor. Sabine sighed through her nose and picked up her pants. She slipped them on swiftly and stepped out of the room.

She didn’t have to search the whole ship for Shin, only follow the tug into the cockpit. Shin sat in the co-pilot’s seat, eyes lost to the bright lights of hyperspace. The blueish light danced over her face, turning her skin to silver. Sabine approached silently, though she knew when she placed a hand on her shoulder that Shin wasn’t startled by her presence. She, too, had felt the tug drawing them closer.

“Are you okay?”

Shin nodded. She took Sabine’s hand in hers. Sabine let herself fall into the seat, legs resting across Shin’s lap.

“I’m scared,” Shin admitted.

It had taken everything in her to admit it, every broken piece of her painstakingly glued back together and secured to make sure they wouldn’t break up again when she spoke. Sabine placed a hand on the nape of her neck, rubbing the short hair at the back of her head.

“What are you scared of?”

“Everything. What is going to happen when we leave hyperspace. What is going to happen to me. What is going to happen to you and me.”

“I can’t answer for what the galaxy holds. We’ll have to fight, that’s a given. I can’t answer for you either. I’d like to answer for us, if you’ll let me.”

Shin turned her head to finally look into Sabine’s eyes. She found comfort there, and it passed between them and wrapped them into a blanket of Sabine’s own making. Shin let herself sink into it. She nodded.

“I don’t know how you feel about the new Republic, or Thrawn. I know on which side I’ll be. I hope, if you’ll stick with me, that we can fight on the same side for once.”

Shin’s head sank against Sabine’s shoulder. She placed a feather-light kiss there.

“Won’t you miss our sparing?” Shin replied, the tiniest of smiles on her lips.

Sabine smirked.

“Training might not be as exciting, it’s true, but I’m sure we can find something else to compensate.”

Shin hummed against her skin.

“I feel I have no choice. And anyway, someone should stick with you, make sure you don’t get recklessly killed.”

Sabine kissed her forehead then sank deeper into the embrace. They remained on the seat overlooking the billions of stars racking by the ship. Eventually, they fell asleep, the lights of the universe nothing compared to each other.