Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Dust dissolves into my sweat, dripping down like oozing blood. Red. Everything is red. The dry dirt kicked up beneath my feet, red. Screaming behind my eyes, flashes of Geonosis. All of those dreams I’ve had the last 20 years have led me here. I have been led here to dig.

My strength is waning as I drag another limp body from the rubble. I’d learned my lesson with the first few and now I peel off as much of the once white shiny armor as I could. The red and bloody plates I leave behind made them barely any lighter. I am not a small person: I can carry a lot, but now before me lay 104 identical men, alive, albeit barely. A few were conscious. More hands are on their way. My own fingers bled and dripped, mingling with the red of the earth under my feet.

“Please.”

 I turn quickly at the sound. The outstretched hand of a man I had dragged above ground just minutes ago holds his gloves out to me. 

“I… I can’t help you pull my brothers out, but please, at least wear these.” 

The eyes of a dead man stare up imploringly. He is one of the few conscious, though unable to walk, he already began caring for the injured men around him that he could reach. I knew these men. Not their faces or souls, but I knew their suffering, I had seen it all my life. The dreams of cries for help and the pain, oh I had felt their pain. Bile rose in my throat as the screams in my head subsided. They were dying under the clay. I was failing.

The gloves are too big and my hands feel clumsy as I pull at stones. Bug-like eyes glare at me in the dark, the Geonosians as displeased by my presence as I am by theirs. Something in the Force tells me they will leave me be, for a time at least, they had their own wounds to lick. Down I go, pulled by the tides of the Force towards the cries that had haunted me all my life.

“Hold onto me.” My strength has long since abandoned me, the limp nearly dead bodies never ending. I have counted 572 of them. My people responded to my call, and my brothers and sisters are here to aid. For 3 days we have pulled men from the red earth, but the cries are dying out. As quickly as we save one I feel another slip away to the tides. 

“Come on we’ve got this.” I pull the barely conscious man closer to my chest, I will not let his life slip away before it has started. I won’t let go.

Blood sweat and tears coat my body under a thick layer of red dust. Just over a thousand  men. The screams here have stopped. What’s done is done. The cries in my head carry on. Many of the same voices screaming in harmony, but as the cries of Geonosis quiet, other voices rise to the surface. 

“Stell Vau.” I hold my dirty and grimy hand to the man I was kneeling beside, and offer him back his gloves.

“Taler.” He shakes my hand firmly. His leg is busted but otherwise he seemed to be in decent shape. He had been moving about our temporary camp helping to aid his injured brothers in arms. “My brother Jay is…” he looks to the next camp over. The bodies, the men we had pulled out alive but did not have the strength to make it the rest of the way, the tides have them now.

“May the waters of death treat him gently,” I say quietly but filled with conviction.

“Yeah, that.” Hollow eyes follow the movements of my brothers and sisters as they build a pyre.

“Is it offensive to you? We will not put him on the pyre if that isn’t the desire of his family.” Concern laces my voice. “I… we… they deserve better than to be left, but we cannot transport them all. The living take precedence.”

“No, no that isn’t… I saw you asked around before deciding to burn the dead. I’m not offended, I’m just…” his eyes cloud over once more.

“Sad?”

“We were confident, a squad of four. Strong. My two other brothers are likely still down there. I’m… I’m alone, I’ve never been alone before.”

“My friend Oda died when I was young. We used to go swimming together in the ocean. I remember burying him. I felt so empty and small.” I rise from the ground beside him. “I no longer feel empty and small, but it took time. You will have it. All the time you need. You all will. I’m sorry.” I bow to the sitting man and then turn and leave. He is mourning those he should have had a chance to love all his life.

But now he will love them alone.

The pyre burns red as my family sings for the lost boys to guide them down the river of death. Those who are loved are never lost.

“Their souls can rest; the flames will guide them as we honor their memory. They fought well and didn’t deserve to die.”

Taler watches the black smoke mix with the red sky of a setting sun. “The dead have no use for honor.”

The Geonosians had had enough of us. We would leave when the fire waned. We had overstayed our welcome. 

Chapter Text

Cool and wet, the mud between my fingers grounded me as I waited. The clearing before me stretched out over rolling hills splattered with the occasional bundle of trees. The calls were coming from here. I did not know the next time he would be here, but I could be patient. 

“I await your commands, Master.” A gray-haired man knelt in the clearing before me. 

A blurry hooded shadow spoke back. “I will tell you what must be done when it is time. Until then, continue.”

My visions had not failed me. They never truly did; the trail they led me to only reassured me in my path. That hooded figure. I needed to find him next. The money paid to Kamino came from somewhere all possible links were dead and gone except him, Tyranus. The Force swirled around him, dark, precise, and relentless.

“What are you doing here?” 

I felt the rumble and the heat of a lightsaber just about to brush my cheek.

“I am sitting.” My words oozed confidence I didn’t feel. My own green saber was in the grass before me. I did not intend to use it; it was a meditation tool, nothing else. 

A snarl escaped the man’s mouth as I opened my eyes to look up at him, still in a relaxed position on the ground.

“No one comes to this place except me. How dare you follow me here!”

“I’m here quite often at the same time as you, actually. My planet is mostly ocean. We don’t have great spans of trees such as this. It is beautiful here.” I looked wistfully at the expanse of vibrant green trees before me. “I arrived before you, and I will happily leave before if that would comfort you?”

“This is the first time I have felt you in the Force.” Confusion etched itself into a proud wrinkled brow.

“I did not want to be seen at those times. I need to ask you a question…” 

His saber hissed sharply as he extinguished the beautiful blue, and he stood over me on the ground. I often found myself on the ground. 

“My teacher told me that in order to build something strong you must build a foundation in the earth. You must be able to trust it will not fail you. You must be firm, resolute, grounded.” An almost laugh slipped past my lips as I held a handful of dirt up to the regal man before me. He stood as if he was owed the universe.

“You fear failure. To be seen as not enough.”

“Do you enjoy pointing out my flaws?”

“Your flaws are mine as well, that's why I can see them so clearly. The only difference is I have grown into mine.”

“You're prideful. Pride makes one fall all the faster. I will hold onto my insecurities. They remind me when I have flown too close to the sun.”

“I’m curious to know more of your upbringing but you are quite loath to tell me.” Something I did not recognize hid itself behind his eyes. I had never seen a look such as that before. Or maybe I had?

The world around me faded to the shards of ripped grass balled in my hand. The tides washed over me and tugged me into the waters.

“It is almost dusk, you’re later than usual, Blue.” 

Names had never been exchanged. In truth, names mattered little. As usual, I was on the ground, drinking in the warmth of the sun as it poured down from the sky.

“One day the ground is going to swallow you up, little Green. You spend so much time on it that it cannot tell where it ends and you start.”

“A lovely end that would be, would it not?” The earth was safe, comforting. “I feel no visions when I touch the earth. As a child, my family and I would camp outside. My dreams would leave me on those nights. The tides struggle to reach me when I am on solid ground, the only times I have felt truly at peace.”

“Your visions are a gift, they are power. You need to listen to them, and seek them out.”

“They frighten me.” My mind drifted to all the souls I’d felt and seen being snuffed out. The closest to a body I had ever truly been was at my mother’s and Oda’s funerals, but I had felt such death in the tides and it haunted me.

“You must master them. Control them, child.”

“The ocean cannot be tamed, Blue. You must know this? The more you try and bend it to your will, the quicker it drags you to the bottom.”

“Learn to swim.”

“I have been treading water all my life.” I had sat up now, blades of grass tangled in my hair. I picked at smaller pieces that had fallen into my line of sight.

“I’ve said what I’ve said, tell me what you have seen.”

Warning bells exploded in my head. I had seen him and the pain he would cause, but he would be deceived just as the rest. Is he evil if he has done nothing evil yet? Given the chance he would, and he will. None of that has come to pass quite yet.

“Do you know The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?” The alarm that surged through Blue at my words rattled me to my core. His harsh gaze pierced my skin.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Had a dream,” my nonchalant response angered him. Blue would often get caught within the realm of respect and formality. Something I was unfamiliar with. I respected my teachers, but we always spoke as if we were beings on equal levels. I was just as much a fully formed being as Desali, capable of coming to my own conclusions. She demanded more from me because of it. Never had she expected I would treat her with reverence.

Blue was a noble and wished to be a god. I believed in no gods, not anymore.

“But you know? You know who it is?” I needed to know.

“What have you seen?” Blue would give only when he had received. There was an ebb and flow to him. A certainty similar to that of a wildfire.

I had a choice to make. Lies or honesty. Which would get me what I needed?

“Death.”

Blue hummed to himself at my response. 

“Death is not the end.” He stated as if lost in thought.

“It is the end of life, it severs connections in the force. We are a root system,” I dragged my fingers through the dirt beneath me. “A severed connection affects all future growth.”

“For there to be new life we must also have death child. Forest fires promote new growth, and the forest comes back greener.” His outwardly relaxed demeanor was deceitful. He found me entertaining and cute. In the same way, a cruel child views an ant as a magnifying glass clutched in their hand at the ready. He intended to burn me. My death would fertilize his growing power.

“Plagueis was a Sith Lord, and he chased life. He planned to capture it to save someone he loved. It didn't work. Death cannot be stopped; it is inevitable.” Behind Blue's eyes, I saw white ash of burned forests and destroyed futures. How many lives would he guide into the next with an angry fist?

“Focus, child.” Blue knelt before me, proud features relaxed. “Your eyes are not closed.”

“Closing my eyes doesn’t help me focus. In the dark, all I can see is them.”

“Them?” Blue’s voice laced with curiosity, he fought his mind as it told him to demand answers. It told him to take.

“Everyone who could have been.”

“You have the power to create life; it is a gift. Fall into it.”

“I have the power to see possibilities, what I do with that information is my responsibility. I create nothing.”

“You know what will happen before it does.”

“I know only what could be. My visions are not written in stone.” Stell looked at Blue's far more regal face, cut with lines and wrinkles built by years of anger and rage.

“That is strength!” He had grown tired of my dismissal. Accustomed more so to immediate obedience, my lack of action troubled him and made him simmer with anger.

He wore just as much of a mask as I. Both of us wanted something from the other. I wanted his words, and he wished to own me. I was little more than a baby deer he wished to lure in. He could not react too harshly, lest I frighten and run. The game would be over.

“Grasp not with desperation or need. Command it. Clench the will of the Force in your fist.”

“I don’t crave power like you, Blue.”  My fingers dug paths through the soil beneath me. The dirt darkened the tips of my nails.

“There is no need to crave what is yours already. Bend it to your will.”

“Honestly, there is nothing I truly crave.” A pattern formed in my ceaseless digging and the waves of Ild appeared before me drawn in the dirt.

“That’s a lie.”

My hands froze at his words. I looked at Blue across from me. My eyes focused; there was demand behind them, begging him to speak the words I could not bring myself to.

“You crave things you believe there is no chance of. So instead of being disappointed you gave up. Giving up does not negate disappointment. Don’t be a fool.”

“You sound like Desali.”

“Desali… a name? After all this time you finally tell me details of your home?”

“She doesn’t go out much, you’ll never find her anyway.”

Chapter Text

“I keep having dreams of red dust, and screams, so many screams I don’t know what to do anymore, and I can’t think or breathe.” I knelt on the floor before my teacher and friend Desali.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to help. I want to stop it.”

“Okay then, do that,” Desali turned from the window towards me, sunlight hitting half of her gentle, aged face. “Find what is causing these dreams, this pain. Put an end to it.”

“I’m not a fighter, I’d make a terrible Jedi, I can't win wars. The events in my dream are a war, a terrible one. I know nothing about that.” 

“You aren’t a Jedi? Why do you hold their ideals and abilities so highly?”

“They act! They go out and do things! Because of their rules against attachment, they are able to freely defend the universe, which is what we should be doing.”

“They act, yes, but who tells them to?”

“The Force.”

“No, they hear the Force most definitely, but they don’t always listen. The Jedi are the Republic, and they always have been. They were based in the Force, but now they are extensions of an established government.” 

“They do listen!”

“And how do you know that, girl?”

“I…”

“The Jedi forbid attachment, but it does not make them better. It doesn’t make them worse either. They simply are. The thing we force users must fear is an unwillingness to let go. If we cannot let go and move on, we will find ourselves trapped in quicksand as it pulls us towards the dark side and out into the tides with no anchor.” Desali had moved closer to me now, and she held my chin between her thumb and index finger. “If the solution to the dreams is unattainable, if you fail or cannot do it, will you be able to walk away? Accept defeat? Will you let go, Stell? Or will it swallow you whole?”

“I’ll let go if I must, but not until I’ve searched the universe for answers.”

Desali’s wrinkled face warped into a smile. “Your attachment and love make you shine all the brighter, Stell. Don’t try to be something you are not, let go of this pedestal you’ve put the Jedi on and move forward, they’re beings just as you and I are.” Desali sat across from me, her elbow rested on her knee. “Now back to your dreams my love. What else is in them?”

“I often see a planet of rain and thunder.”

Rolling thunder tore across the sky, and I found myself soaked to the bone as I attempted to pry open the blast door before me.

“For kriffs sake, I swear to the maker if you do not open right now, I’LL-” and suddenly I heard something crack in the door. “Another yank and it’ll…” 

The door opened to sterile white walls and the smell of antiseptic. I went to close the door behind me, and I shook off what water I could. No one knew I was there, and a puddle trail behind me would surely let them know. After a moment of deliberation, I threw my cloak out the door and into that never-ending ocean. 

“I’ll get another once I’m home. Desali is going to give me a scolding, though.” And off I crept down the blinding white hall before me.

Tubes full of boys, identical children, all in various stages of growth. 

I dropped from the vent I had been crawling through and into an office. It seemed important. I had been hiding in those walls nearly four full days, trying to connect the dots and gather my thoughts. That place frightened me. It was not a place of comfort or safety. It reminded me of when my friend Oda died years ago. The mothers and fathers prepared the funeral with such a rigid and formal approach. Sterile and long past the state of mourning, as if those walls were already preparing bodies for their funerals. I pulled the data stick from the terminal as I felt one of those beings--Kaminoans as I’d learned in my three-day stay--began swaying and gliding towards the office. I had already paid a visit to the offices of Ko Sai and Lama Su. This would be my final day.

These were the soldiers, and the war in my mind was theirs; it was theirs only because it would be forced on them.

“This war is going to happen. I know who is fighting it now, but I don’t know why.” Defeated once again, I was on my knees before my teacher Desali.

“What else?”

“What else? What do you mean, what else? I have no other clues!”

“What else, child?” 

Angry and frustrated tears streamed down my face.

“I saw them all, they’re doomed to fight a war with no purpose. Honorable men forced to fight and die in a sham war.”

“No one is doomed, my love.”

“What is your duty?” That question is not truly a question, and I know I cannot answer incorrectly.

“To stop this war. To save them.” My words are not what my teacher wanted to hear, I can tell from her exhale of disbelief.

“You are a child. The weight of the universe is not on your shoulders alone. Your duty is to respect the dignity of others, and to do no harm.”

“But… you demand answers from me, you always insist I must decide what to do, and yet you say it isn't my duty?”

“Why do you never ask for help?” Sadness leaks its way into Desalis' voice as it takes root it turns into resignation.

“Get up, girl.”

The only response to Desali’s words I could manage was a groan from the ground. I stared up at the lovely blue sky and decided the ground was where I belonged. “I’ll stay down here, thanks, you’ll just knock me over again if I get up.” 

A swift thwack on soft, tender skin launched me to my feet.“OW.”

“I said get up, and pick up that stupid sword you’re always carrying.”

“It’s part of my heritage.”

“It’s a blade and it’s meant for killing, which you are incapable of doing.”

“I wanted to be a Jedi once, but I don’t think I would have been able to do it.” I simply slumped backward onto the ground once again and accepted my fate.

“Lose the sword, then. Follow a different path.” Desali plopped herself down right beside me like she was comforting a forlorn child. 

“I can’t, I won’t. It was in my dream. I held it aloft, and the screams stopped. I need it, and I need to know how to use it.”

“Held it aloft? You aren’t a hero in a fantasy, there is no chosen on,e and if there is, it isn’t you.” Desali tutted, displeased by my poor choice of words. “Was it you who held the sword in your dream? Or was it another?”

“Do you know the tragedy of Darth Plagueis?”

“Who?” Desali stared at me, perplexed. We sat together by a window that faced the Ildamir Ocean. The glass was thick, and the room temperature was controlled in an attempt at keeping the salt water air at bay. Many treasures were kept within these walls. The culture of my people was safely kept in this library.

“The story keeps being mentioned in my dreams. It’s important, but I don’t know who he is.”

“Darth is a Sith term; they rename themselves when they're reborn as Sith Lords. The Force consumes the,m and their titles reflect that.  Jedi archives on Coruscant could have more information. They don’t usually keep things like that out for everyone to see. You may have to get creative to access it.”

“Are you suggesting I steal from a library?” Shock filled my voice as I glanced around at the library we were currently sitting in. “Surely that isn’t what you're saying.”

“Absolutely not, I’m suggesting you break into a library.”

"Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it."

"The weak will always be victims. That is the way of the universe. The strong take what they want, and the weak suffer at their hands. That is their fate; it is inevitable. Only the strong survive because only the strong deserve to."

"As long as the dark side flows through the cracks of my flesh, I cannot be killed."

"Still . . . still spouting the wisdom of the Jedi, I see. Maybe there is more truth in their code than I ever believed. I . . . I cannot help but wonder, Revan. What would have happened had our positions been reversed? What if fate had decreed I would be captured by the Jedi? Could I have returned to the light, as you did? If you had not led me down the dark path in the first place, what destiny would I have found?"

“Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is of no use to the dead.” 

“When you finally betray me, I hope you care enough to try to kill me yourself.” 

Sith Holocron after Sith Holocron. The weak deserved to die, and only the strong would live. I now understood why these were kept hidden away and locked inside the Jedi archives.

I had learned of the rule of two. One master, one apprentice. In order to gain the title of master, you must kill your own and take their place.

Malak, Sion, Bane, all Sith Lords, but not the one I was searching for. Darth Plagueis the Wise eluded me at every turn. There was no record of such a being existing. Not here, anyway.

Chapter Text

Present

“Your name is Cheeks?” Desali’s small frame is dwarfed by the muscular man in front of her.

“Yup, don’t wear it out sweetheart. Let me take that.” As quickly as he materializes, he’s gone, crate of medical supplies in hand. He had plucked it from her like it was nothing.

“Stell, child, next time you intend to bring a thousand handsome and charming young men into my home, you could at least warn me first.”

I look at Desali fondly, knowing the older woman would never turn a soul away that needed help. “Stop ogling them Auntie!” 

“W..well, I…” flabbergasted by the accusation, she quickly flees from the camp of medical tents. Set up in a clearing near the oceanside town. 

“Your hands look better.” Taler examines my scarred palms. 

“Almost three weeks of regularly applied bacta works wonders.” I nudge him with my elbow, pulling my fingers from his hands. “Your leg doesn’t look half bad.”

“I heard you’re going out again, another vision? I’m coming too.”

“You must heal first.” A soldier and then a dead man, now a man with all the options in the universe before him. “We do not expect you to fight. I will do my duty because I chose to. You owe us nothing.”

“I’ve never slept this much before, you know? Feels strange, I need something to do. A few weeks ago, I had purpose flowing through my veins.” He had something to say, and I was going to listen. “We lost brothers in training; other squads did at least. They had to just move on and get over it, or they would die next. There was no waiting.” There he is, the dead man came to the forefront in his eyes once again. “You, your brothers and sisters, all of you, you are giving us time and choices we’ve never had before. I have chosen what I want. I want to free more of my brothers. You have given me everything, and I owe it to the rest to try and extend a hand to them.”

“It’s been three weeks, that isn’t enough time to mourn, let alone heal your body from what you've endured. On Coruscant, if a company only gave four weeks of bereavement leave, there would be protests and probably legal action. We have offered you less than the bare minimum.”

“Vin and Darman weren’t in that hole in the ground with me. They could still be alive, and I need to find them.” His eyes now shone with hope, purpose.

“What changed? You were devastated and resigned not long ago.”

“Did that sitting thing you’re always doing.” His gruff response and fidgeting hands reveal his unsure feelings and maybe embarrassment?

“You meditated?”

“Yeah, it was awful, didn’t mean to, was stuck sitting in that bed for so long.”

“Meditation is intentional. I think you’re describing being alone with your thoughts.” 

A displeased grunt is the only response I receive from the man as a hint of a smile creeps up my face.

“So, where to?” Four pairs of matching big brown eyes poke around the cockpit doorway.

“You need to heal. I said no.” I will not budge an inch on this. They only just escaped death, and I am not going to force them to follow the whims of my visions so shortly after.

“Doctor's note!” DD grins quite proudly at that, waving a piece of flimsi around. 

“You keep talking about how you won’t force us into this fight and how we deserve choices and blah blah blah. Making us stay here is taking away our choices. Now which one of us gets the copilot seat? It’s your ship, so you get to make that call. If not, we can just arm wrestle for it.” 

A frown forms on DD’s face at Taler's suggestion. His own arm only recently healed.

A sigh passes my lips as I swallow a smile, “C’mon, Leftie, the seat’s yours.” 

A triumphant grin stretches over his face as he shoves a shocked Taler and Cheeks aside to plop himself down on the green copilot's seat.

“Seriously though, where to?”

“You’ve gotta remember your opponent is just a man, he's gonna bleed like everyone else. Come at me.” Cheeks widens his stance in the cargo hold and beckons me forward.

“I think in order to teach me hand-to-hand combat, you have to teach me something before we just go at it.” Looking around, there are supplies and crates scattered around the room. All I can see are tripping hazards.

“Nothing teaches you better than getting knocked on your ass, come on.”

And just like that, I find myself on the floor again, but there is no blue sky to greet me this time, instead rusty dented durasteel ceiling panels. 

“Huh hey, Cheeks, you could have at least given them some pointers. Man, that was cold.” Leftie scratches the back of his head, wincing at the sight he just witnessed.

A sheepish smile passes over the man’s face. Maybe he did overestimate his own strength. 

I can feel the bruise forming on my tailbone; he just launched me halfway across the hold. Somewhere in his sweet smiles and charming jokes, I have underestimated my opponent.

“Come on, Force freak, let's go again. I’ll show you what to do when someone comes straight at you.”

“Force freak?”

“You get huffy if I call you a Jedi.” Cheeks shrugs good-naturedly and hauls me up from the floor. It will not be the last time I’ll need his help getting up. I am going to be sore in the morning.

Chapter Text

“Estell! Get back here Estell Vau or so help me!!!” A mother chased her young daughter as she ran towards the ship dock.

“He’s coming to visit soon right mommy you said he would! A ship just landed, it could be him!”

“He… he’s fighting my darling, he’s quite busy.”

“He’s fighting a war to help people right?” A small voice exclaimed, entranced by the idea of heroism and fighting to save others. Childlike gentle ideals, ideals her father did not share. 

“He is fighting, whether it’s to help people or not I do not know.” The mother sank to the earth. Her daughter was both satiated and more curious than ever as she approached her hunched figure.

“Whose war is it?”

“I don’t know.” A sigh breezed past her lips as realization sank in. 

“Why is he fighting if not to help people?” she asked with innocent, hopeful eyes. 

It took all of her strength to not tell her baby the truth. He fought for money, not honor.

“Stay out of the mud Estell, you’ll track it all through the house!” The stern warning was met with insatiable giggles.

“Let her get dirty, it will harm nothing.”

“Walon you say that as if you’re the one that’ll have to clean the floors this evening after you leave.” An uncharacteristic frown passed over the her face. “How long this time? Two years? Six?”

“I made it clear when we found out you were pregnant. I was not built to be a father. I’ll support you financially, an offer you refused. I send money anyway, but I am no father, I am no husband.” He stood quite promptly and went out the door to wrangle the small child or at the very least make sure they didn’t slip on anything. 

The rain from the night before made the green of the pine trees sparkle. Estell had found a muddy patch of earth in the shade of a large one, and was determined to build a mud castle. A bundle of fresh green pine quills would make a lovely flagpole.

“A beskad?” Tiny fingers gripped the handle of a blade that had most definitely killed hundreds if not thousands. 

“It’s a Mandalorian sword, it isn’t yours until you can fully extend it level with your shoulders.”

“Not mine.” Baby fat still rounded the edges of Estell’s face now pinched into a serious expression trying to focus on what was being said. “Not mine yet, but I’ll get strong!”

“Oh I know you will, you’re just as much Mando as you are Dari.”

“You’re a Mando? Mom says you fight other people’s wars for money, is that what Mandos do? Is that what I’ll do?” little Estell inquired as they traced a blue engraving on the handle.

“That’s just what wars are kid, it's a money grab most of the time. Or it’s people fighting back against a money grab, either way it’s caused by the same thing.” 

The wide puzzled eyes of an eight year old that comprehended not a single word he just said stared up at him. 

“I’m going to give this to Desali to keep until you are strong enough, but I’ll check in when I come back, got it?”

“Got it!”

Stell's mother shot awake at the sound of screams. Her baby's screams. Blood thudded in her head, ears rang as she ripped at tangled sheets and stumbled to the floor. The noise grew, a blood curdling screech of pain and terror. She threw the door open unsure what she would find.

A tiny bed littered with hand painted flowers on the banisters and headboard. A pink crochet blanket balled up and squished between the edge and wall so no stuffies would fall into the cracks. Little Estell sat in the middle of all of this tenderness clutching her head and screaming. Tears and snot dribbled from her face onto embroidered birds and turtles on a quilt that had been the mothers when she was a child.

“Blood mama it, it's dripping from the stars;  stars are crying. Hurts. Please mama it hurts.”

She gathered her baby up in her arms. Nightmares again. They come for us all but something was different about these. Something was wrong.

“She keeps waking up screaming.” Estell was asleep held in the arms of their distressed and exhausted mother.

She stood across from Desali in the Ilde library. Jedi did not gather Force sensitive children this far out from the core planets. The people of Darya had to make do. 

Desali was a teacher with few students. The last Force sensitive child she had taught now had children of their own. The hermit of the system Desali kept to herself in the library and was only approached with serious problems. This was one of them.

“She screams of death and dying in the night, she speaks of little else. Please, she’s four years old. This is too much pain for her to have to bear alone, please tell me how to help her.”

“The tides are relentless. You must either follow where they lead or find the strength to fight them.” Desali motioned for the woman to follow with her child in hand. 

“Often beings scream louder and louder in order to be heard.” The three of them walked along the sandy beach Estell held closely by their mother as they drifted off to sleep unaware of the conversation about them being had. “The tides believe none are listening. Write down what the child says. Record it all every detail. Estell is being told something vital, and we must decipher it.”

“Making her relive the nightmares by speaking them aloud will solve nothing!” 

“You’d be surprised at what you can learn from simply speaking.”

“No one is evil, child, and no one is perfectly good either.” Waves crashed against the sand that was before me. Fingers dug into the coarse grains to ground myself as I digested Desalis' words.

“I am not bad.” Childlike indignation oozed from my voice. The sand slipped through my fingers as I stood angry at the accusation I felt was directed at me.

“Did I say you were? There isn’t a being in the universe that is perfect. I myself slip and say things I do not mean. Do you never hurt others intentionally or otherwise? We are all just people, my dear.” Desali patted my hip from her seat on the beach. “We can only control so much. Look at your hands. You stood and the sand slipped away from you in a moment. You are nothing more than your hands, child. If you choose to be good then you must hold that goodness in your hands gently, carefully and never look away. We are our actions. We are not heroes, because in an instant our actions can change.”

“There are heroes! Like Ishtar, my namesake.” The last grains had long since fallen from my hands as I waved them in frustration.

“Ishtar was no hero, don’t go about thinking you are either. Your hand is not that of Justice. No cosmic good flows in your veins just because you can use the Force. Your actions can be good. They can help others, become someone those you love can count on, because that is as close to a hero as a person can be.”