notallofus | Post-Rise of the Old Masters

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Post-Rise of the Old Masters

It's the unexpected resurgence of old loss that stings, and he can't seem to shake it. Even knowing about the existence of the Inquisitor, and that he's not going to stop coming for them -- for Ezra -- lacks some immediacy in the upwelling of a fresh feeling of being alone in the galaxy.

He'd thought for a minute that someone else was out there, someone experienced, a leader who could --

Admit it, Jarrus. You wanted someone who could take over for you, so you could go back to being a padawan, or maybe not even that.

It's going to stick with him, that frustration with both the situation and himself, and in order to try to do something productive with it, he goes to find Hera.

(He always goes to find Hera.)

"Did we get a signal out yet?"

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"Fulcrum's good," Kanan says, dropping into a seat a little too heavily, and exhaling hard.

"The rest, too, but Fulcrum especially. They'll get the information into at least a few good hands. And the Senator's got to have eyes and ears . . . in a couple places, right? It'll just take time."

Maybe too long a time, but -- he can't think like that. Not just now.

"Given what he can do in exile."

She has to think he has ears well to the ground.

Hera looks back to him, this time drawing back from the console. She waits for a moment and then asks, "How's Ezra?"

"Maybe it's better that we can't blast it to every corner of the galaxy."

He's not sure he agrees with his own sentiment on that, but it's nice to think, if even for a moment.

"Uh."

Kanan takes this time to scrub his hand through his hair, forcing out a sheepish chuckle.

"Shaken. I think we both are. But he's -- I think I've convinced him that it wasn't that I wanted to throw him away, and that I'm not going to. I just -- there were so many better teachers than me, once. I had one. I wanted that for him, too."

Hera nods, turning her head down again.

She knows it's all true. As much as she'd worked to convince Kanan that he could be a teacher for Ezra, she can't help but feel that both Ezra and Sabine deserved better than either of them. Better teachers, better guides - a better galaxy in general. And a surviving Jedi Master had felt like a link to that.

Yet it wasn't just about that. She's not sure this is something she can ask Kanan, as she knows she can't really know it, what he must be feeling. What that loss and grief that's welled up inside her must be to him.

Softly, "I'm sorry she's gone, Kanan."

"She's been gone a long time, Hera."

If he says it now, if he keeps saying it, he'll be able to believe it eventually, right? Believe it, and let it go.

"They all have. All the Jedi, anyway. And what we're left with is -- "

Kanan looks up at that, tight lines of tension around his mouth.

" -- me, and Ezra, and that Inquisitor. Plus whoever else the Empire has in the wings."

She nods again, her head still down.

Maybe they should be allowed more space to mourn, but right now, Hera doesn't feel that it's her place to ask for it. So she gets to her feet, stepping away from the transmitter. "All right."

She keeps moving, backing up against the wall, folding her arms. "So what the krolp is an Inquisitor?"

Kanan wouldn't know how to ask for space even if he wanted it, and he most definitely doesn't. More time to think is the least welcome thing for him in the immediate aftermath of terrible things.

(He learned it young.)

"A Dark Side Force user, that much I'm sure of. The rest -- he certainly seemed to know a lot about the Jedi, up to and including how certain Masters fought."

"Someone trained to hunt down the Jedi?"

Something like that makes sense, she can imagine. If they'd set up a trap like this, they must have suspected other survivors. But a Force user...

"I've only heard of something like that once."

Kanan almost pulls a muscle in his neck, his head snaps up so fast.

"You have? What -- "

Hera meets his eyes, just for a moment.

"It was, um -"

She breaks off, her gaze lifting to the ceiling, and then dropping again. "It was when my father tried to kill the Emperor."

"Then?"

Kanan's jaw doesn't drop, but only because today has already been full of horror and exhaustion.

"But how -- what -- did he get close enough to hear the Emperor and his guards talking? Or was there -- "

How would a Dark Force user have come up then? Why would they have come up?

"He told me -"

It's not often that Hera goes quiet like this, has trouble finding the words to speak. Her eyes fix on the metal floor, her arms still folded tight into her chest, and her voice grows softer as she goes on.

"- there was someone with Emperor. That it was - that it was like having the Jedi back. Like the Clone Wars. But that it was all wrong. He could move so fast, kill so many of them -"

She shakes her head, lowering it again. "After the Perilous crashed, the Emperor and - they found a village. My father's forces attacked it, and the villagers fled to a nearby mine. Their attack fell apart, and my father only barely made it out alive. But they went back, after the Empire left."

Hera closes her eyes. "They'd killed all of them, every villager. They were cut apart but none of them bled."

"Cauterized?"

Kanan's throat is a little dry.

"Did your father see who did it? Was it -- "

Was it the white-faced man with red markings that he and Ezra saw? Only Kanan can't quite muster up the words for it just yet.

Soon. He hopes.

"He was all in black. Even a mask. I've heard rumors since then, but -"

Her eyes blink open again, though she still keeps them down. "He - his lightsaber was red."

Kanan closes his eyes for a second, hearing again the screaming of the kyber, feeling it deep in his bones.

"So was the Inquisitor's. But he didn't have a mask."

"I didn't think -"

She lets out a breath, and closes her eyes again, unfolding her arms and pressing one hand to her face. "I should've told you this before -"

"Maybe," he admits, after a moment, fighting back the reflexive denial to give her a more genuine answer.

"But even I didn't think they would set a trap for Jedi specifically. I didn't really think they believed any of us were left. Not enough to put resources on it, anyway."

Kanan exhales.

"So there are more of them out there, and I don't have the faintest idea how to be sure how many, or where they are."

"And now they know about you."

Against her forehead, her hand curls into a fist. "And Ezra."

"They do."

Kanan rubs at his face with one hand.

"I know we talked about this, I know -- it makes all the rest of you even less safe, Hera, you know that."

"I know."

And she also remembers how much of this was her idea. Hera lowers her hand, pressing it briefly to her lips, and then under her chin.

"And maybe for that reason, it was only a matter of time."

"If I hadn't been so -- "

Frightened, lost, hopeful . . .

" -- I should have known they wouldn't leave a Jedi alive. I should have known it was too good to be true. Then they'd still be wondering, and we'd have at least a little more time."

Hera waits a moment, and then like him, resists a reflexive denial. "Maybe.

"But it's done now."

She turns, leaning her shoulder into the wall.

"And we wanted to help," she says, looking up to him now. "I don't want to lose that impulse too quickly."

Even if they also have to be smart about it.

"No," he says, after another moment of silent (and obvious) self-castigation.

"No, I definitely don't want to lose that. Especially with Ezra. He's going to need more of that outward focus."

The struggle with the Dark Side is coming. It always does.

She nods, glancing to the floor again.

"Kanan -"

Hera really has... no idea how to ask this question. Before her father's stories, she didn't really understand that such a thing existed.

"What... is a Dark Force user?"

Kanan opens his mouth to answer, stops, and closes it again.

How do you explain the difference to someone that doesn't feel it? How was it explained to Caleb that first time, and maybe several times thereafter?

Accessing those memories is going to hurt, it always does, but maybe it will be helpful here.

And after a moment --

"They're someone that can use the Force, obviously. Like Jedi. But -- the Force has two sides. The Light and the Dark. The emotions you use to draw on them are . . . different. You touch the Light through serenity, peace, harmony, feeling at one with the galaxy, with yourself and with your neighbor. You touch the Dark through hatred, and fear, and anger. It . . . corrupts."

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