The Kenobi Saga Book Two: The Dark Times

Chapter 1

Part One: Mandalore

The smell of ozone permeated the air. The sights and sounds of blaster fire surrounded her. Lore-Val adjusted her grip on the DL-18 in her hand. She slid along the wall, stopping at the corner. She took a deep breath and slowly peaked around the wall.

"There she is!" someone shouted. "It's Kryze!"

She was exposed. She stepped back and felt the muzzle of a blaster pressing into her back. She felt the heat of a bolt-

Lore-Val woke with a gasp. Her skin was sticky with sweat, her hair stuck to her neck. She looked around the dark room. This had been her mother's room. This was the bed she would come to to get away from nightmares and monsters as a child. Now it seemed every corner had an enemy hiding in the shadows.

She reached up, fingers tangling in her short hair. The cut had been an impulse decision, an attempt to integrate with the people she'd been hidden from for so long. She tugged on the shoulder length strands, the pull reassuring her that she was truly awake.

She looked across the room to where Solitaire slept on a plush couch. She could see the shadow of his blaster under the couch where he could easily reach it.

She wasn't alone. She was home.

She climbed out of the bed, and tiptoed across the room. Solitaire knew her footsteps well and didn't even shuffle at her approach until she knelt down beside the sofa.

"What's wrong kid?" he asked, not opening his eyes.

"Take a guess."

Solitaire sighed, sitting up and rubbing his palms into his eyes, "Go get dressed."

"Thanks," Lore-Val answered with a tight smile, before ducking into the refresher.

. . .

Solitaire paused in his running when his comm pinged. Bo-Katan's hologram appeared in his hand.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"The community center," he looked across the running track at Lore-Val. She was sprinting her way down the opposite straightaway. "The kid had a rough night, wanted to work off the energy."

"She didn't answer her comm."

"She must have left it in her backpack. Can I pass on a message?"

Bo-Katan crossed her arms over her chest, "I don't have time to take on her training today. You can take her to the beginners training class since you're already at the center."

"Oh she'll be thrilled," Solitaire said, voice dripping with sarcasm. His own muscles hurt at the idea of another day of nothing but basic and repetitive training. It sounded too much like his childhood on Kamino.

"Sounds like your problem clone," Bo-Katan told him, hanging up.

Solitaire watched Lore-Val as she jogged up towards him. She slowed as she reached him, regulating her breathing. "What's wrong?"

"Bo-Katan says you're training here today."

Lore-Val let out a frustrated sigh, sitting down on the track and stretching. "If I have to spar with another eight year old I'm just going to walk off a landing platform."

Solitaire chuckled, "We don't have to train with the class. If you don't mind sparring with a twelve year old, you and I can work on close combat ourselves."

Lore-Val sat back upright, "That sounds much less tedious. Did Bo-Katan say anything about weapons and armor training?"

"Just that she wouldn't be doing it today."

"Fantastic." She scratched at the rough padding of the track, "Do you think we could maybe go on a bit of a field trip this afternoon?"

He looked down at her, slightly amused by the question, "And where will we be going?"

"There's a memorial out by the academy. I get it if you don't want to go-"

"Hey. Just tell me when."

. . .

Solitaire watched as Lore-Val sank to her knees before the memorial. She whispered something before turning to him and motioning for him to join her on the ground.

Lore-Val was looking at a painting of a blonde woman with angled features. The painting had her dressed in blue, surrounded by white lilies. The whole painting seemed to have a gray tinge to it, he wondered if that was an effect of being placed on the street or an artistic choice.

"The Duchess?"

"Yes, and this is Korkie," she pointed to another picture, this one looked like a school portrait. He was young, only a little older than Lore-Val. Pale with strawberry blonde hair, "he was my cousin, but he acted more like a brother."

"Is his mom the one Bo-Katan told us about? The one who..."

"Yeah. He was all she had, so when he didn't come home she couldn't handle it."

"I'm sorry."

She didn't say anything, but pulled a small piece of flimsy from her pocket. She looked at the photo before passing it to Solitaire.

He frowned, he didn't recognize the blonde man in the picture. He was wearing the armor of a Mandalorian Palace Guard, his helmet held at his side for the photo. The man looked older than General Kenobi, but not by much.

"That's Ettan. I couldn't get a picture of him on Coruscant to show you, but I got on the records here and found one."

"Is there a memorial for him?" Solitaire asked, handing her back the picture.

"No he died while Maul was still in power. Anything like that would've been pulled down," she slipped the photo in with the gifts people had left and arranged some flowers around it, "He would've liked you, but he would've said you let me get away with too much."

"What have I ever 'let you get away with'?"

"Well he wouldn't go back and forth with me like you do," she smiled, and blinked back tears, "He was always trying to help my mother make me a polite member of society."

Solitaire snorted a laugh, "What about your cousin? Were they afraid to release him into society?"

"He was about as bad as me. One time we played Jedi- well I was playing Jedi, he never liked playing Jedi so he was probably playing something else- and I broke Korkie's thumb with a stick, so he pushed me down some stairs."

"How old were you?"

She shrugged, "Probably five."

"Lore-Val, the more I learn about you, the more I worry about you."

"It was four steps, I was fine."

Solitaire shook his head, that wasn't what he'd meant.

Lore-Val smiled at the memory, "I think he cried more about hurting me than he did over his thumb."

They sat in silence for a little bit. Lore-Val took a flower from a pile and ran a petal between her fingers. Solitaire looked over the different messages left around the memorial, there were a fair amount of notes written in Basic, all of them missing the deceased.

Eventually Solitaire placed a hand on Lore-Val's shoulder, "It's getting late."

She nodded, "I'm going to do a remembrance, then we can go."

"I'll give you some space," he said, starting to move to his feet.

"Ver'gebuir (bodyguard/almost father)," she reached up to him, grabbing his wrist, "Stay with me?"

He nodded, and knelt back down beside her, "Of course."

AN: I'm still not 100% sure how I want to label these. I know the first 12ish chapters are under Part One but I hate the idea of calling them 1.1. it looks like a text book lol

Comments are more than welcome! (Please, I'm begging)