PURPOSE | The Mandalorian

XVII

"Jeyna, you have to!" He snapped angrily, "Otherwise you don't get your crystal."

"I don't fucking care about the goddamn crystal!" I shrieked as tears began to leak down my cheeks. I hastily wiped them away as I stated, "I won't kill you. I won't."

"Then you are just as weak as you were before," My mother's voice hissed from behind me. I whipped my head around to stare up at her. She still clutched her torso, black veins snaking up her throat from where I punched her chest.

All of a sudden, my hand tightly gripped a cool metal cylinder. I staggered to my feet when it began to hum and buzz, pointing it away from Din just before the long yellow saber shot out of it.

"What..." I mumbled in awe of the weapon in my hand as I brandished it back and forth.

"How fitting," My mother purred, "That by your own sacred weapon is how your friend dies."

But... It's not my weapon. At least, not yet.

"This isn't real," I whispered to myself.

Din snapped his head up to look at me, his armor reflecting the bright yellow light emitted by my saber where it wasn't covered in blood.

My mother laughed again, wiping blood off her chin. "You really have lost it, haven't you?" She taunted.

"No, Mom," I started, pointing the tip of my saber at her throat, "I think you have lost."

Her small Adam's apple bobbed up and down as she swallowed nervously. She slowly began to back away from me, but I pressed forward, keeping my saber to her throat. "Do you know why you have lost?" I asked. When she didn't speak, I answered for her, "Because I am not afraid of you anymore."

"It was never me that you were afraid of," She countered with a sly smile.

I cocked my head slightly to the side. "You know, you're right. I was just always afraid of disappointing you. Of being a failure."

Her smile turned feral. "That's more like it."

I scoffed when her back his the wall of the cave. I took one step closer, the edge of my saber mere inches from her delicate throat.

"You don't sound afraid of me, though," I pointed out.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Why should I be?"

"Because my fear of you was the only thing keeping you alive," I snarled. "You are lucky this is only a hallucination." I stabbed her throat with my saber for emphasis. It passed right through her, like she was a ghost. "Otherwise, you would be dead."

I smirked with satisfaction. "One more thing," I said before I turned off my saber, "If my real mother can hear me, tell her to stay the hell away from me, Din, and the child. And if I ever see her, even for just a second, I will tear her apart with my bare hands. Do you understand?"

My mother nodded, not in understanding, but in sorrow. "Your real mother is dead."

I knew I should have felt something when I heard my mother was dead. Whether it was sadness, anger, or even joy, I should have felt something. But I didn't. I felt utterly normal, like whoever this was beside me had made a comment on the weather.

She stood straight up, walking toward the center of the cave. Din was gone, like a puff of smoke in the wind, and for that I was glad. Even though it wasn't the real him, the image of him bound and bleeding would be imprinted in my brain forever.

Without looking back at her, I said softly, "Everyone is dead, aren't they?"

Silence pressed down heavily on my chest. But then my mother said, "Yes. They died honorably, defending Mandalore from the Empire during the Purge."