Chapter Text
It had been a horribly long, tiring rotation in a tortuous chain of horribly long, tiring rotations. Té desperately looked forward to slumping sprawled on an at least half-horizontal, comfortable enough, private enough, well-defended surface. They did not even plan to divest themself of anything currently attached to their person, not even their boots and helmet, as it would take too much time and energy from their long-dried-up stores of those.
They achieved this at some point, at least for a little while in their own admittedly skewed reckoning. But then Tre made themself jarringly known by suddenly feeling so intensely satisfied-vindictive-gleeful-eager, wreathed in the Dark. It jerked Té into wakefulness and straight into defence, as it would not have otherwise, given the fact that Tre and the other’s late elder siblings had loved to prank them whenever they had visited home during the children’s childhoods.
Nothing they did managed to free them from the secure and thorough restraints that Tree had somehow put them in, however.
And Tre was not alone. A few of their other cousins were there, all radiating various iterations of the same feelings with various degrees of intensity.
All kin to them, descendents of their late elder sibling Bé.
And, it turned out, this lot were transporting them to a planet soaked in the Dark, tangible as something akin to an oily, corosive ball of sticky goop to their senses even long before the ship that bore their packaged self touched down on the surface.
Their own family were giving them – one of the individuals most wanted by any remnants of the Sith – to their greatest enemy.
This realisation saw Té lying stunned for a long, long while on the deck of the little ship, practically deaf to the jeers and taunts and excited murmurs of their family.
Betrayal is expected, when one is the leader of a yet-fractious community of warriors spread all over the galaxy with a fraught history in a still-fraught situation and condition. Especially when the said leader persistently displays themself not strictly in the traditional style of the said community. Not to mention the fact that, until not long ago, this leader had to go against nearly a quarter of the population as part of an opposing army in a war.
But to be betrayed from inside, especially by kin….
All that they could think of, right then, was, `Oh Ka’ra, oh Ýmir, thank you, Yod’ika is not here,` and the fervent sentiment repeats now in their moment of recollection.
Their mind skitters away from the frantic struggle that happened afterwards. It also refuses to compute the sick-inducing pieces of plot they found, geared towards the future of both Mando’ad’e and Jedi, that would use their absence, the misinformation about them that those sick individuals were about to spread among the rest of their family via these traitors, and the lightsabre those things had managed to wrest from their hand as well as a chunk of their very escence. And the least thought about the worse-than-death fate the Sith so nearly dealt on them with that literally soul-deep wounding, the better.
In any case, their struggle had brought them in reach of a Sith artefact that seemed to indicate some kind of transportation-of-matter function in its vile presence within the fabric of the universe. And, before the Sith acolytes could secure them again, they took a gamble and touched it, suffusing it with their whole being – all that is left after such a wound.
And here they are, lying prone on sodden duracrete, being pelted by endless, icy downpour, with children’s collective misery and fear practically soaking the fabric of the universe all round them. But, outside of this patch, the universe feels clean, or at least cleaner than before, and calm, if flatter, emptier.
`Safe enough,` they read in its currents and eddies. `No actively watchful presence.`
`Rest,` their body urges, then. `You need it, severely.`
But, `Save the children first,` their duty reminds. `They feel like kin – like Ýto Ál, like Alyé, like San’I, like Sen’i.`
And, `Scout and surveil, then save the children,` their mind – shaped and forged and hardened by the endless battles against the Sith lately – corrects, bargains, points out, agrees.
`Check on Yod’ika,` their desire screams in response. `Yod’ika is a child, too.`
And, `Find familiar people,` their battered soul, newly wounded, keens in tandem. `Amma! Where is Amma? Ré? Ra?`
And that last input is the one that snags their attention, in the end.
Partly because their instinct and habbit always direct them to find souls with any degree of familiarity first anywhere they go. Partly because their soul is so recently wounded and automatically reaches out for other souls to fill in the empty part and patch up the damage, especially the ones belonging to their own soul’s originator and their triad siblings. Partly because there are so many souls here that resonate with theirs as distantly belonging to a shared species and they wish to know why. And partly because their very recent experience has shown them that kin really does not mean safe, and they need to guard against such betrayal preemptively.
So, curled up under the downpour on the floor of what appears to be a deserted open hangar and tucking one folded arm under the side of their helmet, they cautiously – very, very cautiously – stretch out their elða and osla and maé, exploring the multitude of souls nearby and the patch of universe they are inhabiting, sifting for threats and possible threats first and foremost.
None who radiate such threat nearby are of any relation to them, thankfully, nor are those truly near, nor is their attention currently directed to where Té is.
One of the many, many, many kin-like presences, soul matured before its time and aged likewise, feels alarmingly broken-bitter-hateful-angry, but Té can look into it later. Now they need to – `There!`
The tendrils of their being have just been met half-way by familiar-safe-home presences.
Not all are present, however.
`Where is Amma?` Their mind panics. But their soul and mind are too busy rejoicing in the people that are still there at present, which soothes a little of the wound so freshly incurred. `Yod’ika is still here. And Ra, and Ré, and Alyé, Ýto Fé, Ýto Al….`
The knowledge that most are still alive, as well as the impetus to find Amma, is what at last pushes them to haul themself onto their knees then their feet.
Now, there is a whole city of miserable children still to rescue.