╔════ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐗𝐓𝐘 𝐓𝐖𝐎
'𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫' ═══════╝
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
. . . HYPERSPACE
AKIVA WAS A NEAR DISASTER.
In the end, Norra and Wedge had been driven out of their home. First Order insurgents had come looking for the owners of the four Resistance ships parked in their front yard. They got them out before any damage was done, but Norra was bitter about not being able to return to her home. Wedge was ecstatic to be in Resistance company again, but none of his attitude had worn off on his wife.
As soon as Poe's canopy opened on Yavin IV, he was able to breathe a sigh of relief. His boots hit the muddy ground, and he was home. It must have rained earlier because he could still smell the wet leaves.
A hard elbow knocked into his arm. "Move, flyboy," Jess said as she pushed past.
He tracked her line of sight until it landed on Reeve. The mechanic stood in front of them with a tool belt clipped to her waist and grease stains streaked on her pant legs. In an instant Jess launched herself onto her. Reeve's face split with a grin so wide with relief, she looked like she might cry.
"Poe!"
He whipped around at his sister's voice. Her expression didn't match any of the enthusiasm that he felt in his chest. There was something about seeing Eleni that made him feel ten years old again. He was so glad to be back he could kiss the ground. Almost. He hadn't quite reached that level of desperation.
"Norra? Wedge?" she asked immediately.
"Both here, one more willing than the other." Nearby, other reunions were taking place. Leia had Norra's hands clasped in hers, clearly trying to reassure the woman that they had made the right choice in abandoning Akiva. The frown that was permanently etched onto Norra's face wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.
He was still scanning the small crowd for Lyra when Eleni spoke again.
"Poe, there's no easy way to tell you this."
He put a hand on her shoulder. "If you've got bad news, can you save it for later? I've had enough of it for the day."
She screwed up her face like she had just eaten a lemon. "Lyra's gone," she blurted.
He laughed, only because he didn't know what else to do. "What do you mean gone?"
People nearby had turned to listen. Eleni lowered her voice. "She deserted, Poe. We think she went to Ahch-to, but no one knows for certain."
His ears rang. He had dropped his helmet at his feet and moved towards the house, barely registering his own footsteps. Everything blurred. Gone.
And that was only the beginning.
In the dead of night, Leia received a transmission from the ever-elusive Inferno Squadron. Yavin IV was no longer safe for a temporary Resistance base. Leia had been ready for it, Kes had not; he had stayed behind on Yavin. Poe felt guilty for his relief, but if his dad could lay low, he wanted him to. They might be in desperate need of soldiers, but the selfish part of him wanted his dad to remain away from the war.
With their small fleet of ships and the Falcon, they departed for quite possibly the only place in the galaxy that was still willing to help them: Ryloth.
With the Green Squadron and part of the Black Squadron back, Poe could afford to ride inside the Falcon with the rest of their ground troops. For their small numbers, it was still cramped. The lounge with the Dejarik table had been filled with bed rolls and pillows as their makeshift quarters for the duration of the ride.
During the day, everyone was playing one big happy game of who could piss everyone off the most. Tempers were high and nerves were frayed. Poe suspected that Leia sat in the cockpit for more than just strategic reasons. She was avoiding the mass chaos of the rest of the ship, finding solace with Chewie.
He heard Reeve's shouts reverberate off the wall. "I told you, we don't have enough supplies to fix this. You snip that wire and the whole ship is going to explode!"
"Why would I even want that to happen?" Rey shouted back.
Reeve and Rey were always at odds with each other when they worked on repairs. It was the strangest thing. The minute they got done working, they were back to being friends. Jess played mediator and Poe stayed as far away from them as he possibly could. For the most part, he stayed away from everyone. Finn had walked past an hour ago, on his way to the Dejarik board to play another game with Lando. Lando Calrissian, gambler extraordinaire, had managed to clean Finn out of the few credits he had and was now playing (cheating) in exchange for war stories.
Poe–following Leia's lead and also hiding–was sitting on one of the crates that Phoenix Squadron had brought back just before he had left Yavin 4. BeeBee was rolling in circles in front of him, bored out of his robotic mind.
"Let's see if we can make contact with Eden," Poe sighed, running a tired hand through his hair. He was bleary-eyed and sleepless. Normally, he loved flying, but this was different.
Since Jess had been adamant that she stay with the Falcon (the real reason, he knew, was Reeve), Poe had been forced to further break apart the Phoenix Squadron for another Black Squadron mission to find allies. His pick had been Eden, and only because she was the first volunteer. Without Lyra, she had been despondent. With a mission, she had a worthy distraction again.
BeeBee rolled up closer to him, chirping as he switched the communication system embedded in his head to active. It took a moment, but then the static cut through.
It was Suralinda's breathless voice instead of Eden that answered. "Poe! Good to hear from you, actually. I can only talk for a sec though, kinda busy!"
"Where's Eden? Are you guys under fire?" He leaned forward, panic rising in his chest. They were on Rattatak to search for allies. It was a gladiatorial society with a penchant for dueling. He had a sneaking suspicion that Eden and Suralinda were fitting right in.
"Yeah, you could say that!" she screamed. The line cut out, and not even an echo of her voice remained.
BeeBee let out a distressed string of binary, worried.
"No, we don't need to bother the General." Poe bit the inside of his cheek. This was still his squadron, still his problem to sort out. "Try to reconnect. Or try for Eden."
"Poe?" Eden's voice said. It was loud, voices shouting and chanting in the background. "Is that you? I can't really hear!"
"It's me!" He said, kneeling closer to his droid. "What's going on with you two, is everything okay? I just lost contact with Suralinda."
"Oh yeah, everything's amazing! This place is so cool. I just tagged Suralinda into the ring, so she had to go."
"Ring?" Poe echoed, not liking the sound of it. "What the hell, where are you?"
"Baterus, Gladiatorial Ring. The ex-Imperial Suralinda was looking for, Teza Nasz or whatever? She wouldn't see us unless we bested her greatest warriors in hand-to-hand combat, so Suralinda thought–"
"Suralinda thought she'd throw two very much needed Resistance pilots into the death pits of Rattatak for the sake of simply talking to an ex-Imperial who may or may not be of help to us?"
There was a guttural roar from the crowd, and it almost drowned out the sound of her voice. "Well, you make it sound like a bad thing–"
"Get out of there, Eden," he told her definitively. "I don't know what your orders were from Leia, but I'm overriding them. I'm sure she'll agree that we need you guys back in one piece more than we need Teza Nasz."
"Yeah, I'm afraid it's a little too late for that, Poe. The Rattataki don't take kindly to quitters. It's sort of a win-or-die situation. But don't worry. We got this in hand. Oh! It's my turn to tag in!" Eden exclaimed, sounding a little too excited for his liking.
"Eden–" he began sharply.
"Don't worry, Dameron! We've got it handled!"
He sucked in a sharp breath. "Fine, fine. I'll send the rendezvous coordinates to your ship, get back to us as soon as you can. And don't die, that's an order," he added quickly.
"Got it!" Then with one last roar from the crowd, the transmission cut out.
BeeBee rolled a little, canting his head to the side in expectation.
"No, pal," Poe said. He didn't have the heart for that right now, and he could only hide out with their stock of supplies for so long before someone came looking for him.
The droid gave an accusatory chirp at his demeanor.
"Yeah, I get it. I wanna see Lyra too," he said quietly.
The holoprojector embedded in the astromech's head whirred to life. A choppy projection of blue light filled the air above him, the flickering ghost of a human form.
"No, buddy, not like that," Poe gave a halting laugh, but he stopped when he saw her.
It was an old recording. Lyra was wearing paint-stained coveralls and her hair was much shorter, but he didn't recognize where it was from until the holo jumped into motion.
"Oh no, you have paint on you, here–" Lyra moved out of frame and grabbed a rag "--let me get that off."
Lyra brushed her shoulder-length hair back and out of her face as she knelt in front of the droid. She lifted the cloth up and the video cut out for a half second as she wiped away at the paint.
"Ah, Commander Endellion!" someone called out from behind her. The noise echoed like it was underwater.
Lyra winced in the projection, immediately recognizing the voice. Poe did too; it was Major Finis.
"Any way you can get rid of him for me?" Lyra said quietly to the droid. Her lips quirked up into a half smile and Poe's stomach flipped over itself.
Not understanding the joke, BeeBee immediately extended its welding arm and lit the flame on the end of it with an excited chirp. A string of binary flew from his processor: Will this help?
Her eyes flew wide open and she stumbled back. "Not like that!"
She stood and whipped around to face Major Finis, and in a flourish the holo video disappeared.
He didn't need to watch the rest, he knew how that story ended. Right after she talked to Finis, Poe had walked inside and been accosted by the Major for improper flight protocol. Lyra had helped distract Finis, but the whole time Poe had been distracted by her, this beautiful girl he had never seen before.
The video was almost seven years old now. Seven years since he had met Lyra without even knowing it was the second time.
"Thanks for that, BeeBee." Poe sighed, running a rough hand through his hair.
BeeBee chirped. Do you want to listen to the new one?
Poe frowned. "The new one? What are you talking about—"
The projection sprang to life. It was a much better quality of image than the first. This blue-washed image was crisp and clean. He could see the lines of her face so clearly. His Lyra, sitting in front of him like a vision.
"Lyra," Poe breathed. This recording was very recent. Gray streaked hair, scarred arm, and the shirt she had been wearing the last time he had seen her on Yavin.
She took a deep breath, biting at her lip. "This was a stupid idea," she said, mostly to herself. She leaned forward as if to turn off the projector, but the video remained on. Instead, she seemed to change her mind.
Lyra leaned back and began to speak.
"I wanted to explain things to you. I left to find my dad, but I also went to get answers. There's so much I still don't know about my family. I'll never be paid the reparations for what was stolen from me, I can understand that now. But this is something I can control. I need to learn about the things my mom would have told me if she was still here. I know you saw my notes on the Echani text, I need to find the Jedi who wrote them."
She paused for a brief moment, trying to compose herself. When she spoke again, her voice broke with the beginning of tears.
"None of that is important. What I really wanted to tell you is that I'm so sorry. I want you to know that you're the reason I stayed. I never told you exactly why I didn't go with Rey. I didn't want you to think it was because of you. It wasn't completely, but you make it so hard to leave," her voice broke again, and he wanted so badly to touch her, to hold her. "Right now, you're inside the house and I can barely even get these words out but I know if I don't say them now, I won't ever be able to. I don't know how long I'll be gone, I don't know when I'll come back. You're the only thing that's ever remained constant. I waited my whole life to find you again. I'll come back to you."
She leaned forward and the transmission flickered off. The room felt colder, more hollow, now that the sound of her talking was gone again.
It was like all the air had been sucked from his lungs. He almost stumbled back into the crate, bracing himself with a strong arm. How was it possible to miss a person this much?
"Alright, buddy," Poe said to his droid, voice hoarse. "That's enough."
No one had been in contact with her. No landing confirmation, no status update, not even the quickest string of binary. The absolute definition of radio silence. Lyra Skywalker had finally run away from it all. Her life as a Resistance commander was in the past. No one quite understood why she had done it.
Poe understood now. The pressure, the fear, the strange dreams she continued to tell him about. It hit him suddenly that he was such an idiot thinking that she was only worried about him before he left. She had been trying to tell him she was leaving. She had been trying to say her last goodbye.
"Hey, there you are," Rey said, poking her head through the doorway. There was a smear of grease on her cheek, and she looked frazzled. "We're about to drop out of lightspeed. General Organa needs you in command of the ships, and then we have to discuss our plan," she paused. "Are you alright?"
Rey was an enigma to him. Lyra knew and understood Rey better than Poe could, and the scavenger was still distant around him. Especially now that Lyra was gone, Rey had divided most of her time between Leia and Finn. But nevertheless, she had the uncanny Jedi ability to get an instant read on everyone, including him.
"Yeah, I'm alright," he said easily, taking a step out of the room and leading the way back down the hallway.
BeeBee chirped to Rey, earning a small smile from the younger girl. Sometimes, he forgot that she was younger than most of them.
"I've never been to Ryloth, either. Although I'm finding that's true for most places," Rey said to the droid.
"We'll change that for you," Poe nodded to her. "And you can check Ryloth off your list as soon as we land. I'm sure they'll kick us out soon enough, then we'll go someplace new. Think of it as a galaxy-wide road trip."
Her expression softened at this. She was beginning to find her place with them, reluctant as she might be.
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
. . . AHCH-TO, UNKNOWN REGIONS
"𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍."
The lightsaber cut through the sea-whipped air. It hummed with the electricity of the Force, blocking another shot from the training droid.
Sweat dripped down her back from the heat of the sun, but a pleasant kind of hard-working exhaustion weighing on her. It had been at least fifteen minutes since the droid had got her. There was a ringing in her ears, and from within the darkness of her helmet, her breathing pattern echoed. Deep inhale, sharp exhale. It was almost the only thing she could hear.
"Again."
Lightsaber combat was similar to the batons she had used for years. She had an advantage there, used to the cool feeling of a hilt between her fingers. Still, it wasn't even close to the same. The blue saber was somehow more balanced in her hand. It cut through the air like it wanted to be swung again and again, and when she turned and pivoted it moved right along with her body. She planted her feet more firmly on the ground. Sensing the ball droid's movement, she leaned left.
It shot her right in the arm.
She drew in a shocked breath but kept her words at bay. The frustration was brewing just beneath the surface of her mind, and a hot flash of impatience flooded through her. With her flight helmet on and visor down, sight through the Force was all she had to use. All she could hear was the mechanical tisk noise of the droid as it moved.
"Try it again," Luke said. The same thing he just kept repeating over and over again. Somehow, his patience hadn't run out.
Agitated, she finally lashed out and let the saber cut straight through the little droid. She peeled her flight helmet off her head. She squinted against the sun as her eyes adjusted.
"Well, you're improving," her dad told her blithely. Luke picked up half of the droid and examined it in his hand, fiddling with the small antenna that had been bent.
"But it still isn't good enough," Lyra muttered, looking at the welt on her arm. Kylo Ren would take one look at her and laugh his ass off.
She brushed the sweat of her palm off on the loose cotton of her pants. The island's Caretakers were ever the mystery, but Lyra had woken up one morning to a new set of clothes sitting outside her door. They had, apparently, disapproved of her Resistance clothing. They didn't take well to any kind of disruption to the sanctity of their isle, and apparently, Lyra's clothes had been the last straw. The message was clear--adapt to their way of life or start swimming.
It had been two weeks since Lyra had landed on Ahch-to, but to her, it felt like it had only been a day. There was so much to learn, and by sunrise each morning she was up and running around the rocks of the island. There was not much rest, and she was better for it.
The mother-of-pearl inlays of the saber were smooth in her palm. It was Leia's through and through, never quite obedient to her will. Lyra felt the same thing she had when she had first picked up her father's saber in Maz's castle: untamed possibility, and a weapon that did not belong to her. She was just borrowing it, like everything else.
Below her was a steep cliff that dropped into the surf. Porgs swooped low, chasing each other in the breeze. The grass was an electric green after the previous night's storm, and the branches of the hulking Uneti tree were a water-logged shade of deep brown.
"Did you let Rey take all of those texts out of the tree?" Lyra asked as they passed.
"Yes and no." He walked along ahead of her, careful of the slick rocks. "Rey's a scavenger at heart. I knew she wouldn't leave without taking some relic with her, and she's in desperate need of guidance I couldn't yet give her. Maybe those texts will help and besides, they aren't meant to sit on a shelf in a musty old tree. They're meant to be read."
They walked on in silence.
Lyra had learned quickly which questions he would answer and which ones he wouldn't. Any time she started to pry into the history of the Kro Var, he would shut the conversation down. It was unnerving and bothersome.
Also bothersome was meditating. She could study the texts all she wanted, but she quickly realized that decoding her dreams was another beast to conquer.
Reaching out into the Force was difficult. The training with the saber, the daily runs up and down the stairs, all of that made sense to her body. It craved that adrenaline, just as it had for years. She was becoming more physically in tune with the Force, but the spiritual aspect left her at a loss.
She began to hear the voices that she had heard in the back of her mind since she was young. What once were whispers were voices strong and heavy with the weight of the Force. Words of wisdom, calls to peace, but they were all still just that; voices.
Her dad explained the concept of a Force ghost and life after death. The things she heard were all remnants of lives long gone. One of them was stronger than the others.
She knew for certain now that the memories ringing in her mind were not her own. As the days wore on, Wynnetka Adairi was grappling for purchase in Lyra's mind, trying to show her connections that she couldn't quite see. Places she couldn't quite reach. She could see through the window, but Lyra still didn't have a key to the door.
As they crossed the rocks back up to the huts, she felt a chilling sensation rush through her body. No flame could warm it away as she stared down towards the waters edge. Even for all the times they had walked past here, she had never really paid it any mind. Now, she stared downwards over the cliffside. It was dangerous, darkness, and power. And for some reason, it felt right.
"What's down there?" she called ahead of her.
He looked over his shoulder. "The lower chamber of the temple. I wouldn't recommend going down there."
She huffed. "Let me guess. Another thing that can't be explained?"
He stopped walking and let her catch up to him. "There are some questions just better left unanswered, LJ."
The galaxy moved slower on this planet removed from all society, but there was something more to it. Luke Skywalker was hiding something. He trained her, yes, but she could tell there was a reason they were still on this island, two weeks later. She could see it in his eyes that he was delaying the inevitable.
An unfamiliar chilling voice whispered in the wind. You are not so powerless as you believe.
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
a/n everyone say hey to the new mysterious voice that has taken up residence in Lyra's head!
this section of the fourth act is a little tricky to balance because I'm starting to get into the Rebels/Clone Wars content (Ryloth, world between worlds, the voice that may or may not be my version of The Brother 👀). I'd love any and all feedback as to how confusing things are! I know not everyone has read Green Light so I hope Wynn's currently ambiguous prescence isn't too misleading! She'll be fully introduced soon enough 🙃
I think a double update this weekend is in order :)
--nat <3