Chapter Text
Korkie forged ahead of Satine in the crowded museum, darting between their fellow patrons at a pace she could barely keep up with, his lanky teenage frame allowing him to fit into spaces that would have been highly uncomfortable for her, at best.
He wouldn’t be smaller than her for much longer— which was a strange thought indeed. It didn’t seem like so long ago that he was a toddler, squeezing between hedges in the garden and trying to hide in cupboards. The days had dragged their feet while the years had flown. It was unfair, really, that Satine couldn’t drag them back and make them slow down this time.
She finally caught up with him in front of a large glass case, containing the largest gem she had ever seen, refracting rainbows from the golden spotlight beams that focused on it. Korkie was absorbed in the brochure that he’d picked up at the front desk. Satine found it difficult to draw her eyes away from it. It felt… familiar, somehow. There was a pulsing in her chest, a second heartbeat thrumming in time with her own. She’d felt it before.
The memory rushed to mind before the name: herself, standing in a clearing on Draboon. The hands over her own were warm and more calloused than she’d expected. He showed her how to ignite the lightsaber and urged her to replicate the defense forms he’d just demonstrated.
Kyber.
Korkie confirmed her recollection, leaning forward to read the plaque affixed to the display. “It’s called the Vuren Crystal,” he informed her, “The largest kyber crystal ever found outside of the Jedi sources on Jedha or Ilum.”
Satine hummed a quiet acknowledgement. From the angle they were standing at, the light refracted by the crystal covered her nephew in shifting shadows and highlights, making it look like he had just stepped out of a painting. It cast a faint rainbow across his face.
“These are the crystals inside lightsabers,” Korkie continued. “They’re mostly sourced from Ilum, and they’re all clear like this one until they’re chosen by a Jedi; then they can turn all sorts of colors— except red, that’s a Sith color, and can only be achieved by bleeding the crystal. If it gets purified after that, it turns clear again. They can also adjust the frequency of the emitter matrix or the angle of the crystal to produce different color blades. Some say that they’re semi-sentient, and recognize the warrior that they’ve bonded with.”
“Interesting,” Satine replied, smiling fondly. He’d had a tendency to gush about his interests from a young age, and she’d done her best not to discourage it. She found it endearing. It had tapered a bit as he’d gotten older, but it was more focused now, and less often left him gasping for breath every thirty seconds.
She wished she could better support this particular interest, but her people had few reliable, detailed texts on the Jedi weapons. They were usually more concerned with what part of it to shoot to get it to stop working than the complexities of its inner workings. She supposed there was someone who she— no. They hadn’t spoken in nearly a decade, and he was focused on bigger things, she was sure.
“I wonder if this one was ever bonded to someone,” he said quietly, tilting his head. “I think that would be a terrible thing. To want to be connected to someone and never staying in one place long enough for it to happen.” He frowned. “Or to be bonded and then lose them, and have to be in a glass display case forever after.”
Satine blinked in surprise. She tried to stutter out some response to that, but he’d already drifted over to the next display. Sometimes she thought she had some idea of what was going on in that boy’s head, and he invariably proved her wrong, time and time again.
The whole exhibit covered minerals and gemstones from across the galaxy. Some, like the Draboon lapis or Kalevalan quartzes, she was quite familiar with, and others, like the Lothal fire rubies, she had never heard of in her life. There was a stunning variety, though, and Satine was sure Korkie could spend the next week or so in here, soaking up information like a human sponge. If only he got this excited about his homework.
They were listening to a docent explain the chemical processes that lead to the formation of opals when a quiet beeping emanated from Satine’s pocket, and she bit back a curse. She touched Korkie’s shoulder to let him know that she’d be back, and then slipped away, into the deserted museum lobby.
It wasn’t a call, which was a good thing. Satine blocked these afternoons out very carefully. Her assistant had strict instructions to put through only the most urgent of calls. Unfortunately, the Republic declaring war on the Confederacy of Independent Systems had been that urgent, so she’d had to cut the last one short to deal with it. Anything less than that, though…
This was just a written message from Almec, marked high-priority, which was why her comm had gone off. She skimmed the subject line and contents, cursing internally. The Senate was sending an agent to investigate allegations that she was supporting Death Watch. Of all the—
She sighed sharply, shutting off the device and rubbing her temples. She could feel a headache coming on already. With all the corruption running rampant in the Senate of late, she’d just have to hope that whoever was sent was unbribed and impartial.
She looked up to find a small cluster of newly-arrived patrons shooting glances in her direction, murmuring worriedly.
Ah, yes. The public.
Satine plastered on what she hoped looked like a genuine smile, and returned to the mineralogy exhibit.
They’d circled back to the kyber, and Korkie seemed to sense her agitation the moment she reached his side. “I don’t mind going home, if you need to.”
Satine shook her head. “No, I just received some news. We can stay as long as you like.”
“About what?” He looked up at her with mutedly curious eyes. It was similar to one his mother had used, when she was alive. He’d had it his whole life. The pain of it was smaller, now, and duller. But not gone.
“Nothing for you to worry about, ad’ika. Just boring work things.”
He rolled his eyes, disbelieving, but didn’t push it any further. As she watched, his face fell solemnly. “Why do we do this?” he asked, quietly, avoiding her eyes. “These outings, I mean. You must always have more important things to be doing.”
Satine started a little. She was often stunned by how self-degrading he could be, when the mood struck him and the circumstances were right. It took her a moment to collect herself and muster up an answer.
“When your life is on display, you cherish the things that are yours alone,” she replied in the same hushed tone. “And there is nothing more important to me out of those things than time with you.”
Korkie nodded, but made no other response, staring steadily at the display in front of them. Satine took a deep breath, focusing again on her heartbeat, trying to identify the crystal’s rhythm. She reached up to rest her hand on the crown of Korkie’s head, gently massaging it with her thumb. Hollowly, she realized his hair was getting long again, and someone should get him an appointment for a trim.
Sighing, she looked back over at him. Already, the top of his head was above her shoulder. He’d be catching up in no time, and most likely surpassing her after that. She could still remember the first time she’d held him as a baby. Six months old, with big blue eyes, his mother proudly pointing out how thick his hair was getting already.
He was born in the final year of the Great Clan Wars, the conflicts that had claimed most of Satine’s early life— and most of Clan Kryze, including both her and Korkie’s parents. She had hoped he would never know anything like it, but here he was, not yet sixteen and facing a galaxy-wide conflict just beyond the boundaries of their own system. They had already determined that the war would never reach Mandalore, if it could be helped. But here and now, standing next to her nephew, Satine knew she would not hesitate to die for that conviction.
For their future.