In a tapestry of childish recollection, with colors too vibrant and sounds too boisterous to be anything but selective memory, Kowani saw her mother lying under the dust ridden thin blanket that featured far too many holes and worn pockets of use to be anything but a shield from her young eye. “Koko, why do look at me like that?”
The child only fumbled through her limited vocabulary to find the words for the ‘good lie’ she would tell her mother.
“I think you are looking better today, Ner’ha” the young Mirialan lied to her mother, her eyes speaking the only truth as they filled with tears that her hands quickly wiped away.
“Oh, Koko, there is no reason to lie to Ner’ha. I am dying young one and nothing can stop that. It is part of our cycle to return after living the good life.” Kowani could only look around their dwelling as she noted, even at her age, the lack of anything that could convey a ‘good life.’
Kowani’s young eyes focused intently on the small fire in the corner of the domed structure, fighting with intense fury to beat the harsh Mirialan cold into submission. The heavier blanket they had in their possession, bulging inward through the doorway as it yielded slightly to the coarse winds that drifted piles of snow around the structure. The few crude tools they maintained for light excursions into the wilds pinning one side of the divide resolutely against the door frame. Her gaze swept quickly to a small heap of worn clothing and the two makeshift pallets she, and her sister, slept upon. “Ner’ha, this is not the good life.” She said, returning to look upon her mother’s face, the woman’s eyes shuttered from the dense smoke circling above their heads, her breathing slowing, even to Kowani’s young gaze.
“Koko, take my hand.” The woman said to her, her lips parting only slightly to form the words as they left her cracked lips. The deep olive pigmentation of her skin flushing to a muted dull shade Kowani couldn’t explain, the cheekbones protruding even more than they had only minutes earlier.
Kowani finished fidgeting with her finger tips and raised her hand delicately to remove a corner of the tattered blanket, finding her mother’s hand beneath, the digits trembling as she made contact. Her mother’s fingers wrapped around her own, Kowani letting her own warmth penetrate her mother’s chilled hand as she felt a calming rush between the two. With effort, her mother pinched her forefinger and thumb together and pressed the invisible string she held into Kowani’s palm. “I can see the pain within Koko, take this. Hold it close to your heart. Give the other end to your sister…” The words faded into a coarse whisper as the woman labored her head gently back into a sack stuffed with dried leaves and clothing too worn to wear.
“Ner’ha? Ner’ha!?” Kowani said, letting the tears blur her vision this time as she held the invisible string with a ferocity that made her hand quiver, “stay with me Nerha...I need you to stay with me!”
“You need... only what you... already possess, Koko.” The woman said slowly, with short gasps of warm air leaving her mouth in a diminishing rush of steam. Kowani felt the grip about her hand beneath the worn blanket slacken slightly but with even pressure as her mother’s fingers loosened their hold, becoming nothing more than a light weight upon her own palm. Instinctively, Kowani turned her head fully to her mother’s face as the rise and fall of the woman’s chest slowed to a crawl, then with finality, ceased altogether.
Kowani could feel her insides bursting in all directions, searching in vain for the appropriate emotional response. The child felt a burning rush, hot flames of anger and fury one moment then an instantaneous wave of peace negate the anger entirely, forcing into nonexistence. She found a sadness within that she couldn’t resolve through tears or weeping. Until her sister returned with more wood for the fire, the emotion would only be wasted because she already knew she was sad. Until then she would be sad, and alone. She couldn’t remove her gaze from her mother’s face as she watched the final breath expel with a labored gasp of cooling steam that mingled quickly with the thick swirling smoke above her.
The seconds passed meticulously, each one fighting the next as Kowani watched on, waiting for another breath, waiting for Nerha to turn her head and smile upon her once more. She waited through those laborious seconds, accompanied only by the cracking dying embers in the small fire that was quickly consuming the remainder of its own fuels. She saw what she didn’t expect as tiny ribbons of a gold and yellow sparkling light weaved throughout her Ner’ha’s motionless form. The light penetrating the thin blanket as it grew in intensity, wrapping its warm tendrils about the legs and waist, moving upward through and over her mother’s body. Kowani narrowed her eyes as the light flared, threatening to blind them through the pool of tears, squeezing them enough to send them snaking down her tiny cheeks. She fought against closing them completely for fear of missing whatever it was they were offering her. As the ribbons closed around the crown of her Nerha’s head, she couldn’t keep her eyes open through the blinding light and only clutched the woman’s hand within her own with a furious grasp, the flesh warming to her touch.
Another sharp snap from the fire’s embers and Kowani slowly chanced a view from an eye turned away from her mother’s body, finding the blinding radiance subdued. She quickly opened her other eye and felt her jaw drop as a form, wrapped entirely within a cocoon of swirling ribbons of light, raised itself from the dilapidated bed, spun its legs off the opposing side, stood and began walking off in the opposite direction. “Nerha?” Kowani uttered without thought, the internal emotional war declaring an instantaneous ceasefire as curiosity reached its peak. The figure proceeded without looking back, Kowani’s eyes adjusting to the peculiarity of the image before her with a subtle nod toward the impossibility of what she was truly witnessing, even through her child’s perspective. The figure disappeared through the wall of the tiny structure, leaving Kowani alone in the fires dying light. She burst from her position and darted through the doorway, slipping around the thick blanket, and displacing the hunting tools in the process.
“What are you doing Koko? Where’s your coat?” Luna scolded as Kowani burst through the opening, dropping the wood she had been carrying.
“Nerha is gone with the golden light Lulu...I am following.” Kowani replied as she stumbled past her sister a few steps. Remembering her mother’s command, she turned abruptly and fell into Luna’s chest, her fingers closed tightly about an invisible string as she pressed it into her sister’s ribs. “She told me to give you this.”
Luna could only stare at the tiny fingers pressed hard against her own heart before she lifted her gaze to look deeply into her little sisters’ frantic eyes, “what has happened Koko, is Nerha ok?”
Kowani smiled slightly as a tear froze in place on its trek down her cheek, her eyes expressing the wonder and fascination that coursed through her without knowing how to answer the question directly. “She is with the lights Lulu, and I am following her.”
The message seemed clear enough to her, but she couldn’t understand the look on Luna’s face. Dread? Fear? Terror even….Lulu looked afraid, but nothing was changed only the lights, and Nerha was walking with them. “I have to go Lulu, or I will lose her.”
“You’re not going anywhere, the storm is pressing harder, and the drifts are too deep.” Luna responded as she turned her gaze to the heavy blanket flapping carelessly with the constant winds, trails of snow disappearing within the confines of darkness beyond. She grabbed Kowani’s hand and jerked the younger girl to reverse her course, pulling her along as she strode for the doorway. Luna pushed Kowani through the opening amidst strong protest, batting away flailing limbs that fought their impediment to return outside.
“What are you doing Lulu? Nerha is not here!” Kowani argued as she gave up the physical altercation in deference to her bigger sister. Despite the strength within her that defied her size, she could not push past, but more importantly didn’t understand why Lulu wasn’t excited about the lights. Derha would have listened to her….
Luna waited a few seconds as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and smokey interior of the domed hovel the three of them had called home for several months, not the least bit excited about what she knew she would find. With a tenuous grasp of her sister’s wrist, she walked toward the still form of her mother lying motionless upon the makeshift bed she had built, head lolled to the side gently and eyes closed with finality. Luna had nothing left within with which to express the internal grief that slammed her conscious thoughts. The weight of her fears suddenly exposed through the death lying before her, with it, all the aspirations that had come crashing down around her over the last two years. She blew out her breath with a sharp exhale as she looked from her mother’s dead body to the frantic little girl that continued battling the grasp she held upon her wrist, closed her eyes to the futility and let her sister free.
Kowani burst back through the doorway, intent on finding the path her mother had tread, shielding her eyes from the icy winds that pelted her skin with a raised arm. She turned herself in every direction trying to locate the lights again but could only see white wherever she looked. The lights were gone. Her mother was gone. She was alone out in the storm, the winds shredding her hearing with the furious howl of extreme determination. She realized her eyes were useless and shut them from further exposure, instantly plunging herself into a frenzied darkness that began to horrify her. A new sound making itself known with each passing second as it drove itself for supremacy over the deafening winds, a rumble from something nature did not make, a screeching that nature did not intend. “Don’t move!” A voice shouted over the wind, Kowani cracking her eyes open just enough the see the trooper clad in white call out to her with his weapon raised. Kowani froze in place, not because she was commanded to, but because she couldn’t do anything else.
✦
“Kowani Y’mmat, it is highly recommended to allow the after effects of sedation to work in a more natural timeframe. You have...fought...against this process with more vehemence as of late.” CZ-3 articulated through its vocater.
Kowani groaned softly as the grogginess the process continually impressed upon her took its time clearing her mind, the voice, a constant reminder of a new reality was something she could do without, “because I am remembering more CZ….and I can see when I dream.” She uttered opening her eyes to the damnable darkness.
“On that topic, specifically, I do not have good news. The retinal graft was unsuccessful. I am afraid that we would need to resort to the ‘nope, not going to happen,’ as you put it, alternative.
“CZ...it’s not going to happen. I can see well enough.” Kowani said with a whispered curse, wanting nothing more in the moment than to return to her dreams, despite what her memory was deciding to dredge up.
“With your helmet on? Armed with your blaster rifle and lightsaber?” CZ continued, unwilling to concede the point. “You will be reminded by others on those very points Miss Y’mmat, I am sure.”
“Yes...I am sure I will….” Kowani said under her breath as she rose from the hard table under her, her own voice sounding too much like the medical droids for her liking.
“Take some time to consider at leas……” CZ began as Kowani rose to her feet and silently left the room. “...least.” He finished his sentence with a melancholic resonation before turning himself from the table and returning to his duties.
Kowani stormed down the long hall toward the med center’s rotunda, following the golden tendrils of Force energy as they wound around obstacles, walls, opening doors and passersby. She could feel a ravaging anger welling within, an inexplicable response, she knew, that she couldn’t even source, rumbling through her chest with growing intensity. She needed to get outside. She needed to feel the cool seaside air on her skin. She needed to get out of the city, understanding the draw Sabine felt to the old comms tower kilometers distant. That still wouldn’t be enough. Kowani needed to experience the freedom of being on her own again, in her own ship, far removed from everyone else. Just her and her ship.
Kowani exited the building with a deep exhale as she bent over at the waist, reaching out with instinct to keep herself from falling over. She felt the raging anger begin to settle itself with a renewing exchange of inhales and exhales, despite the mutterings of those that had stopped to either help or simply to murmur their opinions. She felt pathetic to those gawking eyes as the murmuring continued, the voices beginning to overlap into incoherent garble as they blended into the shouting vendors blocks distant and the sounds of busy traffic both grounded and airborne. She lifted her hands to her knees after swatting proffered hands from her golden view, those offerings of assistance she didn’t need. “Just leave me be…” Kowani said as she lifted her vacant eyes to the sky above and began her trek to Capital City’s distant reclaim yards.
“I can see well enough.” Kowani mumbled to herself as the anger began to subside significantly, her jaws aching from gritting her teeth in a nonsensical act that shamed her. She continued following the flowing ribbons of streaming gold and yellow as they converged upon one another, split around manufactured corners of buildings, and into and out of the city’s residents. It was sight only because she had experienced a lifetime of viewing it, adapting to it, and trusting it. ‘They don’t understand,’ she thought to herself, knowing how hard it was to even explain ‘how’ she was able to view the world around her. ‘But CZ does have a point,’ she continued, knowing the helmet did hinder the ability, but it didn’t eliminate it. The weapons were a different story altogether, Sabine had been integral to the point of her own self proficiency and adaptation, ‘but only Sabine knows.’ Kowani told herself as she pressed her left hand against soft layers of stucco adorning the corner of the building. She turned her body to press her back into the walls surface as she turned her head to the sky once again, feeling the irrational tears streaking down her cheeks. She could see, but those ribbons of calm flowing Force energies, that had always been with her, would forever remind her of her mother.
“Lulu…..” Kowani told the clouds she knew where passing overhead, the exhaustive dream had revealed something else she hadn’t known. “Luna….Lunara?” She continued with her twanging electronic voice as she pushed herself from the wall and took a left at the corner, heading down the last leg of the remaining journey. ‘It is Lunara...she’s remembering too…’ Kowani continued with an inner dialogue, cursing the small box attached to her throat, her voice reminding her of CZ’s constant diatribes. She had thought about reaching out to her biological sister many times over but didn’t know how or had doubted her ability. ‘Dammit Ahsoka.’ She thought, reminding herself that she already had the tools, the Togruta had seen to that before all else.
“It’s usually impossible to sneak up on you.” Sabine said over Kowani’s shoulder, “who’s Lulu?”
“Ahhhh!” Kowani shouted, whirling around on the sister she had chosen, ‘or maybe Sabine had chosen her…’ her mind flexed briefly as her heart raced unimpeded, thumping wildly against her chest. The sight within her view stole the fright from her completely. The same ribbons of Force energies with which provided her the limited sight she did possess, wrapped themselves around the woman without pause or gap. From head to toe, Sabine presented as a shimmering beacon through the dark haze her mind was struggling to rectify. “Sabine?” She questioned, a meek twiddle reverberating through the vocater with a squelched warble.
“Uh, yeah. Nice to see you too.”
Kowani continued staring at the Mandalorian long through what should have been comfortable but loath to remove herself from the wonder that spoke in such stark contrast the image of her mother in her dream state not long before. She understood, now, the reason her mother had presented as such after she had drawn her final breath. The Force had taken her, wholly, unto its embrace, and cradled her spirit as it guided her through its own tides. Sabine on the other hand was drawing those same flows into her, magnified exponentially, without any perceived effort whatsoever. “How are you doing that?” Kowani asked as un-obtusely as she could manage.
“Doing what Ani?” Sabine responded quickly, Kowani sensing an uncustomary level of apprehension within the response, and she knew she needed to tread lightly through any forthcoming revelations.
“Drawing upon the Force Sabine...how are you doing that?” Kowani blurted through the vocater, ‘so much for subtlety,’ she thought immediately, doing her best to tune out the revving repulsors of several hover trucks moving various equipment toward the ship yards of Capital City.
“….Uh...I’m not…” The reply came after Sabine blinked through the question several times followed by an awkward silence.
Kowani canted her head slightly as the flows glimmered through a cascading serenity, partially lost to a natural hypnosis that she was growing increasingly comfortable with, yet the questions remained. “Ahsoka has always said that the Force presents itself to everyone, and that anyone with the focus and patience to do so can hear its call.” Kowani said, feeling thousands of kilometers away from the conversation as her mind consumed the image before her. Although turning from Sabine was the last thing she wanted to do, Kowani slowly turned toward the ship yards once again as the droning murmur of the city’s denizens began to congeal into a chaotic frenzy. “Walk with me?”
Sabine raised a hand to Kowani’s shoulder as she fell in step at her side, “you know, Kanan used to talk like that.” She said to Kowani but addressed the comment inwardly with more conviction, something within the admission finding a mark she hadn’t been previously aware. “It drove Ezra crazy really.” Sabine added, ‘it drove us all crazy.’ She thought to herself.
Kowani was silent a moment as she considered what the man must have been like, another hover truck chugged by, displacing dust in the wake of its massive repulsor banks. The serenity it brought with it as it drowned out the constant chatter and murmurs felt refreshing. “The two must have spent a considerable amount of time together, Kanan and Ahsoka I mean.”
Sabine dropped her hand from Kowani’s shoulder as she rustled her shoulder length hair from the collar of the jacket she wore against the midafternoon chill off the ocean’s waves. “They did, but they were rarely alone….I mean, there is always a connection. A transparent connection between every one of us.”
Kowani absorbed the statement, wondering what that kind of life would have been like through the countless years of being alone. She understood what it meant for her in the present of course, but she knew the perspective had shifted dramatically since Malachor which seemed so extraordinarily long ago. “I didn’t mean to assume that they would keep anything from anyone, just to observe the similarities between them. But I guess that would make sense as they were both formally trained in similar practices.” It felt good, being honest with herself, that she could both think and speak subjectively about the Jedi without feeling cast in the darkness or shadows, something that had been nagging in the recesses of her mind since Conum Arnia.
“Ani, why didn’t you wait for me with CZ?” Sabine asked the question Kowani was hoping she wouldn’t.
Kowani knew they were drawing near her destination as the smells of hot metals, the clanging of hammers and sputtering sparked discharge from hand held welding devices assailed her acute hearing. “Because I refuse the implants Sabine.” She answered with exasperation dripping defiantly through the statement. “I can learn to live without.” Her mind actively searching for some distant memory of the Tuskens of Tatooine she had heard so much about.
It was Sabines turn to enact a certain silence that was anything but the closer they came to the clamor of the ship yards, but she was already prepared for the comment just the same. “Understandable Ani.” Was all she could muster as she turned her gaze from Kowani’s stoic expression, purple tendrils of chest length hair dangling before the increasingly hazy eyes, and the looming presence of multiple star ships that required actual sight to pilot. “Then you’re going to have to at least consider a new droid.”
Kowani plodded on, Sabines natural footfalls in sync with her own, as the inner anger began to simmer anew above the forging heat of her memory. She could feel the hand about her shoulder again, the calm, patience, and peace it projected speaking volumes of the hand’s owner, one whom had also lost so much, yet confided in her own ability to press on through the pain through a lens vastly different from that of her upbringing. A Mandalorian that could inherently project peace and calm through a simple touch. Kowani slowed her pace as the smells of heated metal began to overtake all else, then stopped altogether to turn toward Sabine and place her own hand atop the Mandalorians. Again, Sabine presented as she had before, the Force complete in its embrace through the shimmering gold and yellow ribbons. “I strive to embrace what you are saying sister, there is just an anger that refuses to subdue. One of vengeance that I know is wrong to feel. One of hatred based only upon what I’ve lost. I know it is selfish, nor is it the way of the Force, and I am working to move beyond its grasp.” The words sounded foreign as the vocater annunciated them, striving to express the chaotic emotions within. She couldn’t explain the fear that continued to blanket her consciousness like the Force wrapped tightly about the woman before her, the emblazoned image of the sickly-looking face from the stone and the sneer that worked its manipulations long after the incident itself. The crimson orbs that faced her in the polished stones surface stared back at her through her own mind, confounding her attempts to calm the surging aggression her continual anger was erecting. The face that had not wavered aside from the greedy sneer that spread thinly over his lips began to shift through her recollection into a face that was similar in appearance. The crimson eyes, beads of roiling anger, began to shift through her memory into vacant swirling white. The images she had been certain of supporting her claims of red facial tattoos, shifted meticulously into long black spikes that featured those white eyes at their center. What was pasty flesh that would not decide on a particular shade of gray presented as a rich olive through the same memory.
“Ani, what is it?” Sabine said, offering a hand in support as she noted the wavering stance of the Mirialan, “what happened?”
Kowani’s mind danced through a discombobulating shift as the memory seemed to reform itself in stark contrast to the last thing her eyes had seen before sight was taken from her fully. “I don’t know that I can explain it Sabine.” She struggled with the statement, the truth sounding much crazier as she withheld it entirely.
“I take it that’s going to be a no as well then.” Sabine offered, working to return the conversation toward its intended trajectory while noting to herself the erratic shifts within her sister over the course of the last few minutes.
“No to what?” Kowani asked, oblivious to what had been asked.
Sabine hid the exasperation she very much wanted to express, “to the droid Ani.” The words sang with enthusiasm despite their deadpan approach.
Kowani shook her head to shake the image loose, an attempt to retake control of her own senses enough to finalize this conversation to some satisfaction. “I’ll consider it I suppose, but absolutely not AP.” She responded with some semblance of her usual personality in tow, although quite lacking in her normal delivery.
“That is probably best for all parties concerned, he’d return as scrap, and you’d have explaining to do.” Sabine offered levity as she slapped Kowani’s shoulder again. “You good?” She asked quickly.
“I am Sabine...and thank you.” Kowani stated, turning back toward the looming hangar bay before them both.
“I love the smell of slagging metal….” Sabine said, offering her parting comment, “Zeb is presenting our plan for the refinery strikes to Hera and the militia, I’ll be back soon ok?” Sabine finished lowering her hand to Kowani’s as she gave it a squeeze.
‘I love it too….’ Kowani thought as she heard Sabine’s footsteps fade, her mind instantly focusing on the first iteration of the ship she had come to love and its heartbreaking demise in the rivers of Mustafar.
Left to her own thoughts as they were, Kowani revisited the shifting memory, the olive-skinned newcomer specifically as she studied the image. The face resembled nothing she had ever seen yet spoke to her of something only forgotten, despite her efforts to drive the form back into the sickly man with crimson eyes. She focused with intense effort right there before the enormous hangar bay, sparks firing wildly from the fusion of renewed hull plating to the ship’s framework and bulkheads, driving the olive complexion back into the pale gray without success. This man seemed determined beyond her efforts to remain the focus of her memory.
Kowani felt like an internal battlefield, a war waging within that she had no control of. Images from memory that she knew to be true mingling with others that were forcing themselves into her consciousness despite efforts to the contrary. She felt her inner emotions changing to either mimic or compensate, rationalizing doubt and fear, anger and repression while offering nothing but a cover of complacency and control mechanisms outwardly. She felt the war rage through her physical self as she flexed fingers she couldn’t naturally see through efforts to divert the irrational anger that stirred just below her surface. She knew she was in conflict with something that she willingly and obligingly welcomed and something she was compelled to distance herself from, as far as she could get. Kowani sensed the war within that she had no mentor for, only the lost images burned into her psyche that found a will of their own and a penchant, now, to turn themselves into something else entirely.
Kowani looked toward the ship under reconstruction, willing the view into focus despite the shadowy constant darkness that slipped within the folds of the Force energies around her, ribbons of which swaddled and bound themselves to Sabine. Those same ribbons, those flows of natural Force, bathed the Mandalorian while they rescinded through a natural recession from her own core, leaving her feeling so very alone. Kowani knew the dangers of self-pity, self-loathing, but found nothing else in the absolution of her darkened world.