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When Jezza Kelvarr first met the boy with sunshine hair and eyes like a cloudless sky, she had to admit she was skeptical.
He wasn’t a complete newbie, even then. Daireen Azure had scouted him a handful of weeks prior. Jez trusted Dai’s instinct for people with her life at this point—she had to, it was what kept them alive—and everyone who worked with the kid had nothing but good things to say about him. But still, he sat in the corner of the hanger as they went through their resource checks, leg bouncing up and down, looking for all the world like he had come straight off the farm of some backwater Outer Rim world.
It was the sort of raw vulnerability that always put Jezza on edge to see in the baby recruits. Worst case scenario, it meant they’d collapse at the first big challenge, and probably take someone down with them. Best case, she’d have to sit and watch that softness get worn down into something sharper over time. It was inevitable, necessary even. But that never made it any easier to watch.
Still, there was nothing for it. The kid, it seemed, was here to stay. And as long as he was a member of Jezza’s squad, it was her duty to get to know him. To size up which case he would be, and prepare for the inevitable fall out as best she could.
“Pre-mission jitters?” she asked, bracing herself on the wall beside him and gesturing at his still bouncing leg.
The boy stopped abruptly, a self conscious blush creeping with alarming speed up his neck.
“Uh, yeah, I guess. Sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it. We all get them. You just learn less obvious ways of letting them out over time.”
“I’m being the most noticeable one here, though. I sort of worry I’ll infect everyone else.”
“Nah. Anyway, you at least had the good sense to tuck yourself away from everyone. That speaks well of you. More self-awareness than most shinies.”
“I’m not a shiny,” the kid protested. Like a shiny.
“Sure you aren’t kid,” Jez said lightly, and saw by the kid’s smile that he’d taken it in the spirit it was meant. She pushed off from the wall and held out her hand to shake.
“Jezza Kelvarr.”
“Owen,” said the boy. She knew that, of course. It was her business to know everyone under her command. But she’d found it was good practice to let the newbies introduce themselves.
“No last name?” She prodded.
“Darklighter,” said the boy, Owen, just a bit too quickly.
“Well,” she said, trying to keep her voice breezy, “That’s an Outer Rim name if I’ve ever heard one.”
He shrugged, cutting her a look under his bangs that was sheepish and just slightly defensive. Likely, he expected her to pry about where, exactly, his homeworld was. Jezza knew better than that. She’d learn that, or wouldn’t, in time. But pushing at the start would do nothing but put the kid—Owen—on the defensive. The last thing they needed now.
“You met Daireen on Corellia, though, right? Quite a long way from home.”
“Well yeah, wanted to get as far away from the dark-pit-at-the-end-of-nowhere I came from as possible, and…..well. They say all lanes lead to Corellia.”
Jezza chuckled. “It’s true. One of the better things about the place. Hate to think of where you crawled out of if Corellia’s a step in the right direction, though.”
Owen stiffened, and she cursed herself internally.
“Oh, dank ferrik. Sorry,” she said, “I normally have more tact than that.”
“It’s fine,” said Owen, and she watched him purposefully put himself at ease. Something to note for later.
“Look, I’m not one to pry into people’s pasts. That’s not why I’m here. But you’re part of my team. So I do need something from you.”
“Like?”
“Like, let’s start with what you can do? Daireen’s filled me in some. But I’d like any details you can give.
Owen shrugged. “I do a little of everything really. Mostly piloting. I can fly anything.”
“They all say that.”
“Yeah but I really can. And I’m good at it.”
“Ok, sure. What else?”
“I can shoot pretty well. Flight systems artillery and personal firearms, but I’m better at the former. And better long range. Hand-to-hand isn’t my strong suit, but I fight dirty and I know a lot of tricks. I’m no slicer, but I’m a solid mechanic and I’m good with droids, so I can usually make something work in a pinch.”
“That everything?”
“Well and—I helped out a little with a local smuggling ring at home. So I’m pretty ok with long-term planning and people managing.”
The “smuggling ring” could be plain old cargo or freedom trail stuff, if she read him right. Either way, the result was the same. Maybe not too shiny, after all.
She whistled.
“You really do do a bit of everything.”
He shrugged, “I’m only passable at most of it.”
“Still, I can see why Dai sent you our way. She likes ‘em versatile.”
“So she has good taste?”
Oh. She liked him.
“Mm. You’re in good company and a good Company.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Awful joke”.
“Suit yourself,” she laughed, but she sobered quick.
She turned to size him up. Hand on hip.
“Look kid, you sure you’re good for this? Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
“Trust me, Commander. I’m good for it.”
And she believed him.
“Off mission you can call me Jezza or Jez. Any questions, comments, concerns? Bring ‘em to me privately and directly, got that? I want clear lines of communication and everyone on the same page. Don’t hesitate.”
“Sir yes sir, Jez,” he said, giving a little two-finger salute just the right side of snarky.
Oh, she was really gonna like him. She could already tell.
——————————
She had very quickly pegged him as someone with potential after that first conversation, but he continued, mission after mission, at every turn, to prove her right.
When their information on troop rotation proved flawed, he could talk his way past a guard with quick thinking and a tongue smooth as blue milk butter.
He hit his targets more often than not, had a ridiculous pain tolerance, and never complained or froze when a plan changed, as it always did, at a moment’s notice.
He memorized the names and ranks of new teammates almost instantaneously, and never left a comrade behind unless ordered.
He was always ready to step in at a moment’s notice when a space needed filling. Eager to learn. She never heard him say he couldn’t do a task once assigned it.
Within two months, he rapidly became one of her favorite people to have directly under her command, if only because he was so good at being whoever she needed him to be in a moment.
And yes, he was a kriffing fantastic pilot.
——————————
When they were stuck behind a locked-down blast door, separated from their slicer and their mech droid, he hacked his way into the system by rolling up his sleeve and hooking his own hand—apparently mechanical—directly into the interface.
“Slicing’s easier when you’re part droid,” he quipped when he caught her staring.
“You never mentioned that!”
“It wasn’t relevant until now. And you never asked!”
——————————
There was a new shiny on-side. Owen didn’t approve, and he sidled up to her during the pre-op check-over to make sure she knew it.
“Jez, what in the hells is a kid doing here?”
“Hello Darklighter. Good to have you on board.”
“Hey, Commander. Pleasure to work with you as always. Are we recruiting child soldiers now?”
“She’s not a child, Owen.”
“Bantha shavit!”
Jezza gave him a flat look. He held her gaze.
“She’s what? Fifteen?”
“Sixteen.”
“So she says.”
“So she says,” Jezza sighed, “she’s Nabooian. Age of emancipation is fourteen for them. By the standards of her people, she’s well beyond childhood. By the standards of the galaxy, she’s on the cusp of adulthood. She isn’t a child. And I have no right to deny her entry to a fight she entered willingly.”
Owen had gone very still. His eyes skipped over her shoulder. Scrutinizing the girl.
“She’s from Naboo?”
There was weight there. They both knew what that meant.
“Yes.”
“There aren’t many rebels from Naboo these days.”
No. Not since the Amidalan faction was turned.
“No. She’s very brave.”
Owen nodded. Looked back to her.
“I still don’t like it,” he said.
“That makes two of us. Let’s try and keep her alive, yeah?”
“Right,” Owen gritted out, stalking past her.
She caught the look in his eyes, and goosebumps rose on her flesh.
——————————
“Hey, kid,” called Owen, “what’s your name?”
The girl spun on her heel. She looked Owen up and down, defensive.
“Errey,” she said, “Cobelle.”
“Errey. The Naboo polestar?”
The girl nodded.
“It’s a good name.”
“Thanks. Yours?”
“Owen Darklighter.”
“Outer Rim, right? Not Nabooian?”
“No.”
“But you know about our stars?” she tilted her head at him in question.
“I have family from Naboo. Distant, but they took me in after I left home for a bit.”
That clinched it. The kid was from the Sunclaimed lands. Had to be. Maybe even Tatooine itself. There was too much traffic between the former Emperor’s home world and Lord Kest’s favorite playground, too many Celestial pets flowing from one place to the other.
Errey nodded, the tension in her shoulders easing. Jezza imagined she had reached the same conclusions.
“Guess I know who I can trust to watch my back in a pinch, then.”
“You got it.”
Well, she thought. It looked like Darklighter had a new protege.
—————————
He wasn’t perfect, was the thing. He had a short fuse; though it fizzled out just as quickly. He sometimes rushed to take initiative without stopping to check in with the rest of the team. He was always late for meetings. He got defensive when he thought he was being talked down to.
He took defeat hard. And took loss of life harder. Got quiet and moody after in a way that made Jezza miss his shiny skittishness.
——————————
The first loss they took after Errey joined, he took her aside and sat with her, hands on shoulders. She had expected him to be soothing, coddling. To let the girl cry on his shoulder.
Instead, he stared her down. Breathed with her. Said, in a firmer voice than Jezza had ever heard from him: “you’re ok. It’s gonna be ok. You’re alright now.”
It wasn’t what she would have done, but it seemed to work for Errey. She wrestled her breathing under control as if on command, and seemed to slip into an easy silence beside Owen.
She knew the Sunclaimed tended to be stoic. She supposed it made sense that some of that had rubbed off on the Naboo.
——————————
The mission was big. A high-ranking Celestial official visiting one of the planets in their turf. They were to seize the opportunity; capture and interrogate them.
Dai and Jez ran the numbers over and over. Checked and rechecked everything. Arranged and rearranged the teams. Dai was going to be outside, running backup, lookout and pickup security teams. Jezza would run the capture team.
Owen was with her. So was Errey. He wasn’t happy with that one, but he didn’t question her.
—————————
The hall where the officer should be was empty. A room of black marble with nothing but an unoccupied throne inside.
The huge durasteel doors locked behind them.
The windows were sealed and blast-proof.
Shavit
Jezza reached for her comm.
“Dai, we have a problem.”
Screeching static filled the air.
Ice raced down her spine and borrowed a home in her stomach.
——————————
They waited for the trap to spring. It never did.
They looked the room up and down. No weapons. No trapdoors. No way out.
Frustrated, Errey gestured at the throne.
“What about that thing?” she asked, moving toward it.
“Don’t,” snapped a voice.
Jezza turned to look. It was Owen.
“Why?” asked Errey, confusion all over her face.
“It’s the trap,” Owen answered, voice clipped. Almost hollow. “It’s keyed to a specific person’s bio-metrics. If anyone else sits there, they’ll be shocked.”
“How do you know?”
He brushed Errey off, his expression empty.
Unlike him, sure, but Jezza probably still wouldn’t have pushed. Owen had proved to have good hunches several times over. And if her hunches were correct, he knew more about the Empire’s workings than she wanted to know.
But then, something shuttered behind his eyes.
Before she could react, almost as soon as he’d finished speaking, it seemed, he'd walked to the throne and placed his hand upon it, full-palm downward.
“Are you crazy!?” Jez hissed. She grabbed Owen’s elbow and yanked, pulling him back.
Owen blinked at her, nonplussed, but she ignored him and rushed to look him over. She heard the kid let out a small chuckle as she scrutinized him, and it spiked her anxiety with an extra shot of hysterical frustration. Reckless, shiny idiot! He could have been killed! He probably was hurt, and now they had an injured man and they were stuck in this room set with Force knew what kind of traps and—
But no. Owen was fine. Absolutely, perfectly fine. Not a hint of even the smallest burn. And no flicker of sparks from the chair.
Her brain went blank.
“You were wrong. About the chair. It wasn’t trapped after all.”
“No,” said Owen, pulling away gently, “I was right. The trap works exactly as I said.”
“Then….why aren’t you hurt?”
Owen put a hand to his hip, “why do you think?”
She didn’t know what to think. It didn’t make sense. She opened her mouth to say so, but then she heard Errey gasp. And several other members of the team as well. Jez turned to Errey to ask what was wrong, and saw her standing with her hands clasped to her mouth, staring daggers at Owen. Her other men were reacting similarly, eyes locked on the kid and hands on their weapons. Confused, and starting to feel prickles of unease, she turned toward Owen, her fingers just grazing her blaster.
“Explain, Owen. Now. What’s going on?”
“Oh come on, Jez. You’re smarter than this. Don’t make me spell it out for you.”
What?
“What?”
He moved to the throne again. No one stopped him. He touched the arm, up and down the length. Confident. At ease.
And then it clicked. Like a film ripped from her eyes, she suddenly saw the kid—the monster—in front of her clearly.
The scary thing was that he wasn’t a monster. No, he was still Owen. soft and bright. Hair like sunshine. Eyes a little colder, a little sharper, but still blue as a cloudless sky. The biggest difference, the biggest giveaway, was that the splotches of scarring on his neck and lower face—that had always been there, why hadn’t she noticed them before? Thought about them before?—now seemed to form the recognizably jagged paths of lightning scars.
Lightning scars. Lightning scars….just like—
“Lord Kest,” she hissed, jumping back.
The hand that had touched Owen—Kest—brushed over her pants. Jezza felt dirty. Filthy. As though she had touched something toxic. Maybe she had. She shivered, and the shiver caught on with the rest of the team. Their breaths misted in the air as they gasped.
Lord Kest, the Sun King, Emperor of the Celestial Emperium, smiled with Owen Darklighter’s smile. Luke Skywalker’s smile, she realized, belatedly. Pride radiated off him, yes. But no more than it might have done after a particularly good turn in the flight sim, or after catching Errey off guard with a bad joke. Self-satisfied.
He twirled on his foot and gave an elaborate bow.
“In the flesh,” he said, and then gave a playful little flicker of one hand,“Well. Mostly.”
He fell onto the throne built and keyed to him. Splayed out like a spoiled cat.
“Now,” he said lazily, “drop your weapons and surrender.”
——————————
Jezza’s finger twitched toward her blaster, fury and hurt and embarrassment surging through her. But she didn’t pull it from her holster. Didn’t shoot. She heard, saw in her peripheral vision, a few of her men obeying the command. She felt small and slow and helpless.
And then a small, green blaster bolt cracked through the air.
And stopped inches from Kest’s face.
The boy’s—the Lord’s—Kest Kest Kest—his eyes moved behind Jezza. She became conscious, in that moment, that she had been pinned through the instinctive sense of a prey animal cornered by its natural predator. And now that Kest had moved his attention elsewhere, it had eased up just slightly. Just enough that she could run. If she wanted.
She didn’t run. She took her blaster firmly in hard. And she made her attention follow in the path of the predator.
Errey was waiting at the other end. Blaster up. Grip shaking just barely perceptibly.
Jezza told herself she’d be ready to shoot if Kest made a move on her subordinate. She hoped it was true.
She didn’t have to find out. Kest looked at Errey, then back at the bolt which had been meant for him.
“Nice shot,” he chirped. Then, as though offering constructive criticism on the practice range, “You’re lucky I like you. And very lucky my sister isn’t here.”
He waved his hand vaguely. The blaster bolt reversed in the air and moved outward at an unnatural angle. It burned through the leg of Verim Bett, their combat medic. He dropped the blaster he was still holding and crumpled to the ground with a cry that made Jezza and Errey both flinch.
“I wouldn’t do that again, if I were you,” said Kest.
Jezza noticed a few more blasters lowering.
Errey gulped, but she kept her grip on her weapon. So did Jezza. She trained her aim on Kest.
“What do you want?”
“I’ve told you. Your surrender.”
“Not gonna happen.”
Kest snorted. “You don’t exactly have a good alternative. You’re locked in, no means of escape. No backup. No getaway ship.”
No backup
“Where’s Dai?”
“Dead,” said Kest, “Or captured. But that’s as good as dead to you people, isn’t it? I don’t blame you for thinking that. To you, it must seem true. But no, knowing Daireen, I think she’s probably dead. Those are the options, Jez. You can’t keep operating as you are. So surrender, or die.”
I’d rather die, Jezza thought. But then, like a spike of memory through her brain, came the images of her people. Of Errey.
“You all die,” said Kest.
Did he read her thoughts, or manipulate them? It didn’t matter. It couldn’t.
Errey was at her side, solid and sure. She had to honor that.
She kept her grip steady. Ready to pull the trigger.
Kest stiffened. The temperature dropped further still. And Jezza felt, in a way she couldn’t quite place, a little more of Owen Darklighter melt away in her mind.
“Stand down, Commander. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You seriously expect me to believe that?”
The Emperor’s face was stone. His voice flat.
“If I wanted you dead, you would be.”
“And I’m meant to consider you oh so merciful for that? I know your reputation, your highness. You play with your food.”
“I do. I don’t deny that. And yes, I have toyed with you—all of you—for my own amusement. It doesn’t change anything; only proves my point. There’s more than one way to play, after all. Jezza, if I hated you, if I truly considered you an enemy? I would break you beyond repair, and you would beg for death. This is mercy. I suggest you and your men take it.”
He said it all so plainly, as though laying out the odds of a pod race. And she knew, somehow, that he meant it. It made her skin crawl, how simple he made it sound. How obvious. It borrowed under her skin.
Her blaster had slid downward without her noticing, just a few inches. She lifted it back up.
“Come on, Jez,” he rolled his eyes, “Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’m not. You think you can wash your hands of all the blood you’ve spilled when it’s convenient and sell it as mercy? You’ve caused too much suffering for that!”
Kest looked at her as though she were a particularly foolish child.
“‘Caused’? I’ve caused suffering??”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her body felt stiff, frozen, with Kest’s eyes on her. She made herself tighten her grip on the blaster.
Kest gave a rueful laugh. Dry and harsh as desert wind through dehydrated branches. There was none of Owen’s life in it.
“Of course you don’t get it. None of you ever get it. This isn’t about causes. It never was. It’s about results.”
“What do you mean?” said Errey’s small voice at Jezza’s shoulder. Jez wanted to snap at her to keep quiet, keep her head down. But she didn’t dare form the words, and it was too late anyway.
Kest tilted his head at the girl, focus intense.
“Do you know what my sister’s first memory is?” he asked, voice just above a whisper.
Jezza shot a quick, furtive look at Errey. Don’t answer, she thought, don’t say a thing.
Errey shook her head, whip-quick.
Kest took that as a cue to continue, voice a lilting, even rhythm. As certain as the Naboo tides.
“It’s my mother dying. My mother screaming as she named her. I woke up terrified as a child from visions of fire and pain. I learned later that they were of my father, being torn apart on a death planet. Left for dead by his brother. That’s the world we were born into. That’s a fraction of the suffering that formed us.”
He broke his gaze with Errey, blinking up at the ceiling for a moment and huffing out a strong breath. When he looked back in Jezza’s direction, he was, startlingly, that earnest farmboy again. Her stomach twisted, torn being disgust and indignation and a bizarre, reflexive desire to protect.
“Suffering is, yes. But Jaina and I aren’t the cause. We’re the inevitable result. Not the stone thrown in the river, but the first of the ripples spreading out from the impact. Other ripples sometimes follow, sure.
That’s natural, after all. We try to limit that, when we can. But….well,” he shrugged, “I’ve never picked up the knack of healing—bodies are far more stubborn than minds—but when you set a bone, or place one back into a socket, that hurts too, doesn’t it? And yet it’s necessary.”
“That’s….that’s different,” she said.
“Is it?” Kest asked, seeming genuinely curious, “how so?”
Jezza floundered, feeling petulant. It was different. She knew it was different, but she couldn’t put into words why. The sudden cold was in her bones and in her head. Pressure pulsed behind her eyes and her thoughts escaped her as soon as she looked at them too hard.
“No answer?”
She said nothing.
“I told you, you never understand. That’s ok. I can show you.”
Jezza started to ask what he meant, and then—
And then the world exploded into pain.
——————————
A thousand shards, a thousand tiny particles, each one a fresh world of torment ripping at her brain.
She was on fire, she was burning burning burning like a star about to go super nova and she knew, with a knowing deeper than she had ever felt, that she would burn out entirely soon. And the thing left behind in her wake would suffer even more, would beg for this warmth soon.
Her limbs exploded into pain, one by one, a searing edge of it that left behind only sudden, vast emptiness and the bitter tang of betrayal
She was the betrayer. And she felt her victim’s pain as though it was her own. Over and over and over. A mobius strip of never ending suffering and guilt with no escape. The memory of another’s phantom limbs wriggling under her skin. Until she couldn’t remember what it felt like to carry only a single lifetime’s worth of pain. And she didn’t want to, because the emptiness, the loneliness, was worse. She remembered that much.
A hundred hundred thousand voices crying out to her, a hundred hundred thousand grasping, desperate hands at her throat. She let them choke her, drown her, because it was as close as she could get to comforting them. Because when she reached out, they disappeared. And she woke up and the waking world was worse than a nightmare.
Children. Screaming. So many screaming children. And she was the children and the monster that chased them and the small, weak, helpless thing hiding in the bushes. Unable to help. Unable to do anything.
Skeletons in the sand. Red and burned under the sun. No warmth for all the heat. No life for all the light. And their life was gone and so was yours. So was everything. And you scrambled for purpose and it danced away like sand under your feet.
Cold fire, electric roots digging into your bones, again again again. Hollowing you out. And leaving nothing. But there was power in the silence. You held onto that, the quiet place at the center of the storm, and let it calcify into certainty.
A woman screaming.
Your mother screaming.
Your sister screaming.
Your brother screaming
Your father. Your uncles. Your aunt, and the aunt you never got to know. Screaming
Children
Children
Children
So many children.
Screaming.
Stop stop make it stop! Please—
It didn’t stop not then. Not yet. Not until You stopped asking. Stopped thinking. And then—
Blissful silence. She’d never noticed how sweet it could be.
Like light breaking through the clouds after a storm.
See? said a soft, bright wind in her mind, this is better isn’t it? You can’t fight the storm, Jezza. Only endure it. Surrender to it. And if you survive, you’ll come out stronger.
That’s not…..
That wasn’t….
Jezza!
That was a new voice.
Errey.
Oh. Right.
—————————
She came back to herself. In the hall. She blinked. Looked around. Her people were dropping to their knees. Some were holding their heads in pain. Others were staring blankly at a wall, blissful smiles just beginning to bud on their faces.
Kest.
Kest was standing. Blinking. A little stunned, she thought. But not enough. Still in control. Starring at Errey.
Errey, who was on one knee. Face pale. Sweating. Still clutching her blaster.
“Please, Jez! Someone, please wake up.”
Her body felt numb. Like it was asleep. Her mind wanted to follow.
Errey needed her.
She fired the blaster.
Kest’s head snapped to her in an instant. The bolt swung wide. The sound cracked through the room. Some of her people stirred.
Kest’s face wore Owen’s confusion for a moment. Owen’s hurt.
And then he smiled, and there were razor blades in it. Jezza had seen Nexu look less dangerous.
“Impressive,” said the Emperor, “But I did warn you.”
“You also said you didn't want to hurt us.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t.”
He took a silver cylinder from one of his pockets. She’d seen it before, she remembered now. And now she recognized it. A lightsaber.
It shrieked to life, a molten gold that faded subtly into blood orange. The color seemed to bleed into his eyes.
He flicked his wrist twice. Swung the saber so it scorched the ground.
Jezza sent a bolt at the ceiling. A rallying cry for anyone still awake enough to hear. And prepared for her last fight.
———————————
She knew she would die here. Kest had been truthful about that. Surrender or die, and she had burned the bridge on surrender. She was buying time, and she wasn’t even sure for what. For Errey to escape, maybe.
Kest liked to play with his food. If she could keep him focused on her long enough—
Her stomach dropped into her throat when Errey charged into the frey after her. But Kest had warned her of this too, hadn’t he?
He held Errey in the air. He cut her legs off, and he threw her to the ground. It wasn’t playing. It was pure efficiency.
“Stay down,” he said, at Errey’s struggling form. The sentence turned into a growl at the end that rang with power.
Errey’s arms gave out immediately. She went limp, and didn’t try to get back up.
Kest stared at her until he was sure she would obey. He ran his hand through his hair.
They stared at each other, Errey between them. Kest stepped around her.
“Don’t look so surprised. I don’t like to kill kids if I can help it.”
“How considerate of you.”
“You clearly never met my father.”
The fight continued.
———————————
It wasn’t the saber that got her in the end, but a vibroblade that Kest, the sleemo, had literally hidden up his sleeve. Rebellion standard issue.
Triumph shown in his eyes as he slipped it between her ribs and twisted. She grunted, stumbling back. He rocked back, purposefully, on his heels. Looking for all the world like he’d won a Dejarik championship. She would almost be flattered, if she wasn’t busy dying.
When she started struggling to breathe, he stared at her. Solemn again.
“Glory or Mercy?” he asked. He sounded dead.
She couldn’t answer. He didn’t need her to. He could pluck it out of her kriffing head, and he did. She spit blood at him in response.
He plunged the saber through her chest.
———————————
Errey didn’t see Jezza die. She couldn’t. She was face down on the ground, obeying the Emperor of the Celestial Emperium.
But she knew when it happened; she heard Jezza’s death rasps. The silence after. Felt the slick oil of the Emperor’s victory permeating the air. She sobbed. He let her for a while. Generous of him.
Then he stopped right at her fingertips.
“Get up,” he commanded.
She did. By her will or his, she didn’t know or care anymore.
She was a blubbering mess of snot and tears as she glared at him, and she knew it. She couldn’t pinpoint all the emotions that crossed his face at the sight of her. Contempt was one. But he smoothed them away, whatever they were. He had Owen’s gentleness again as he kneeled in front of her. He wiped her tears away. She didn’t jerk back. She was too tired.
“Shush, Errey, it’s okay. It’ll be okay now. No more tears. It wastes water. Never waste water.”
——————————
He felt the moment the girl’s mind latched on to his suggestion and made it her own. An anchor and a wall between her and the pain. Of course she took it. It was a sensible suggestion, and she was a sensible girl.
Her crying ended quickly, for a Naboo child. That also spoke well of her. And with that spark of Force awareness he’d sensed in her….well, he was glad he’d been able to save her, at least.
He wondered who, between himself and Jaina, would claim her. Not that it mattered really. They were only names, Kest and Jaina. Meaningless categories. What was his was hers; what was hers was his. But the civilians seemed to care.
They’d find a good place for Errey, regardless.
He told her to sleep, and she did. Exhaustion finally catching up to her. He’d make sure her rest was untroubled by nightmares; or at least, that she wouldn’t remember the ones that came.
He picked her up and carried her out, already reaching for his sister and already putting the day’s violence behind him.