Broken Soul | Din Djarin

chapter twenty-four: the mercenaries

"Kya was incredible. She was wise and focused, but she could be carefree. The amount of times that we should have been training with our sabers or going over battle tactics and she had decided to take a trip to some random jungle planet for a hike," you giggle. "She was like my sister and mother rolled into one. Master Thorn raised me... trained me, and yet treated me as her equal. We spent most of our time together. Sometimes, when we were bored, we would swap pieces of our armor to paint on them." A small smile graces your lips as you doze off in the memory. "The symbols and colors on her armor were drawn by me... and I had worn the ones she had made for me. Like siblings coloring to pass the time."

The nights, however, were the opposite of the days. Not all of your stories were joyous as the fond ones of your old master. You were still often overwhelmed by ones filled with pain and sorrow. They were overflowing with the recollection of past pain and heartbreak. An entire lifetime of it. Every night, you would meditate to balance and sort through the emotions and memories that constantly flow through you. And every night, Din joins you in your meditation, sitting and watching you quietly.

When he sees a bad memory overwhelm your facial expression, he simply holds out his hand for you to hold until it passes.

Din asks you about the memories when you've broken out of your meditation. He's sort of becoming your therapist, soothing you when you're in distress and helping you to work through the horrors of the past. As time passed, your fear of those horrors has calmed as well.

The bond that you share with Din through the Force allows him to see flickers of the memories as they pass. Din winces at the memories of your anguish, but he stays by your side. You can feel his grip on your hand tighten whenever he sees the images of your pain and torment.

However, allowing the memories to break through the barrier you had created has also allowed them to leak into your dreams. It's become more frequent. Nearly every night you wake up screaming or crying or both. Ari's dying body in your arms, the smell of the blood that coated the Temple floors, and the sounds of broken screams swarm you as you bolt up from your cot in sweat and tears.

Din is always there, sitting at your bedside and ready to provide you comfort from the terrors of your nightmares. After the dreams started making regular appearances, he formed a bed of blankets on the floor of your compartment next to you.

Sometimes your wake is violent, lashing out to fight off the Empire's torture in your dreams or to strike down Vader as he storms towards you. You saw the troops of clones who once were your friends, and watched them die and kill and betray. Those dreams were reminders that your life used to be filled of friends and loved ones. The clones Waxer and Boil throwing banter at you through the loud noise of battle. Anakin smiling and giving Ahsoka a playful shove. Obi-Wan coaching you through lightsaber forms. Master Thorn pulling you into a warm embrace.

These dreams were the worst, as they remind you of what you've lost.

Every night, apologies spew from your lips to Din. Apologies for your fits of violence as you wake and for the physical and emotional pain that you may have caused him. There are scratches and bruises scattered over Din's hands and arms from your assaults on nothing more than a memory... a conjuring of the dread and pain that fills your mind as you sleep.

You had dreamt of Darth Vader's torturous interrogations just the other night and had woken up in screams, lashing out in the dark in fear of the dark figure looming in the shadows. Din was there, dodging your arms as he sprang from his own sleep to calm you in your fit of terror and rage.

"Shh, shh, it's okay. You're okay, Alora, you're safe. It's not real."

But it was real. It had happened. It had stripped away a piece of your soul and left your heart shredded from the pain. But once the realization hit that it was simply a nightmare, and not current reality, the apologies rambled out of your lips.