Archive of Our Own ^beta

Between the blaring alarm and blinding flash of light from the center of the hyperdrive ring, Jacen barely had time to register what was happening, let alone brace himself against the impact. Shockwaves that seemed to tear through the fabric of space itself threw the Ghost violently away from the blast’s epicenter. His head slammed against the console of the co-pilot’s chair, and everything went black.

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He awoke on his back, slowly opening his eyes to a velvety darkness. Everything hurt. He gingerly brought his hand to his forehead, and his fingers came back sticky with blood, a wound beginning to scab where he hit his head. Above him, ghostly threads crisscrossed endlessly, looping over one another, intersecting and diverging, extending in every direction as far as he could see. Small circles of white light appeared occasionally along the threads. The air was cool, and the only sound was a faint whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

“Mom?” he called, sitting up and looking around. “Mom, where are you? Chopper?”

His voice did not echo, and the darkness did not answer. There seemed to be no end in any direction, no sense of up or down, forward or backward. Jacen stood and realized the threads around him were paths—impossibly steep and narrow paths that traversed the emptiness, punctuated by what looked like doors. Looking down towards his own feet, he realized he stood dangerously close to the edge of his own pathway. On either edge, the path abruptly gave way to a limitless, dizzying drop, and there was no sign of the Ghost or his mother or Chopper. Wherever he was, he was there alone, and fear gripped him like a cold vice. He was lost, suspended in nothing at all, only a suffocating darkness punctuated by distant points of light and a maze of paths.

No. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to push every fearful worry and panicked thought out of his mind, just like his mom had taught him.

Find your center, she’d say. That’s what your dad always did.

And that’s what a Jedi would do, Jacen thought. Find my center.

He opened his eyes and caught a flicker of movement in the darkness. On a distant thread, too far away to identify, a figure appeared out of the black, loping low and steady, moving towards him. Curious and too startled to move, Jacen stood still and squinted until the figure came into focus: impossibly but unmistakably a loth-wolf, eyes glowing bright in the dark.

His curiosity disappeared immediately and was replaced with fear, and he turned and ran, his footfalls rippling soundlessly along the pathway like stones dropped into water. He knew it was stupid to run; there was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. The loth-wolf would catch him before he could reach any of the doors, and besides, there was no guarantee they actually led anywhere.

Terrified, he shot a glance over his shoulder. The loth-wolf had not matched his run but was closer now; Jacen knew his short legs were no match for the stride of a creature many heads taller than him. He stumbled and fell, sprawling onto his stomach as he tried to catch himself, his legs shaking so hard they felt like jelly. There was no point in trying to run any further. He covered his head with his arms as he felt the loth-wolf approach behind him.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he begged, his breathing ragged. “Please, I’m so lost. I don’t know where I am or how I got here. I’m not supposed to be here.”

The loth-wolf stood over him now. He could feel its hot breath on his neck; any second now, those razor-sharp teeth would sink into him, and that would be his unceremonious end.

But the bite never came. Instead of fang and claw, Jacen felt a wet nose push against the back of his neck, nudging him to roll over. He turned slowly until he was flat on his back again, his chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath. The creature towered over him, a magnificent beast with a thick coat of white-grey fur and a mouth lined with teeth. Dagger-like claws extended from each toe, and yellow eyes watched him intently. Jacen flinched as the loth-wolf moved toward him again, but this time only to give the pauldron on his shoulder a gentle nudge with its snout.

Jacen’s eyes drifted to his shoulder.

“Yeah, I like it, too,” he said, his voice shaking. With his fingertips, he traced Sabine’s artwork; when she presented the pauldron to him, she had told him all about how (and why) his father created the symbol, honoring both the ancient Jedi Order and the future hope of the still-fledgling Rebellion. “Someone really special made it for me. And it reminds me of someone really special, too.”

The loth-wolf bowed its head until it was nearly level with the path, its yellow eyes now looking up at Jacen. His gaze wandered from the pauldron to the markings on the loth-wolf’s face, just above the eyes but below the ears, where, unmistakably spread across a broad forehead, was a symbol with three prongs, chalky white against darker fur, almost as if they had been painted on. Identical.

His insides turned hot and cold all at once; he sat frozen in wide-eyed disbelief, only his eyes traveling back and forth, shoulder to forehead, forehead to shoulder. He’d dreamed of this moment his entire life—years and years of words spoken only to the moons of Lothal, words that always fell short of what he wanted to express. And now, here, in the presence of the loth-wolf Dume, all he could manage was to open his mouth wordlessly. He reached out and pressed his palm against the mark, its fur soft against the fiery blaze of his own skin.

Tears began to stream down his face, and with child-like candor, he threw his arms around the loth-wolf and held on as tightly as he could, burying his face in the creature’s fur. A warmth like none Jacen had ever felt radiated from the loth-wolf, protecting him against the damp chill of the darkness. The loth-wolf’s heartbeat thrummed in his ear, harmonizing with his own until they were one sound, gently lulling him to sleep and echoing through his dreams, dreams of endless golden prairie and sunlight and home.

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Jacen awoke to the warm weight of the loth-wolf’s paw across his chest, and with a yawn, he stretched. The loth-wolf began to stir, gently pushing Jacen to his feet, and looked towards one of the milky-white doorways high above them. They began to walk side by side in silence through the darkness, walking as swiftly as Jacen’s short legs allowed. The loth-wolf never hesitated when they came to a divergence in the path, and Jacen followed obediently. At long last, they stopped in front of their destination. It was impossible to measure how far they’d come; it felt like hours, and Jacen’s legs ached. The loth-wolf sat beside the portal and looked at him.

“Come with me,” Jacen pleaded, already knowing the impossibility of his ask. “Please.”

The loth-wolf simply gazed back at him, the corners of its mouth turned upward into the faintest smile, and gently nudged him forward towards the portal. Jacen understood; he knew his mom and Chopper and Sabine and everyone else needed him back where he belonged, that the future of the galaxy was at stake, and he had a role to play in saving it. He stood in the portal and looked one last time towards the loth-wolf.

I love you, he whispered as he stepped, one foot and then the other, through the gate, back to his own world, where, for now, he belonged. Their eyes locked, and for an instant, as they were unbound from space and time and life and death, the loth-wolf threw back its head and howled.

I love you, too.