Azulia's P.O.V
Getting up soundlessly, I grabbed my staff and attached it to my belt. Glancing to make sure the crew was asleep, I crept out of the tent.
Was I being irresponsible?
Yes.
Would I regret this?
Probably.
The waves of darkness came stronger as I walked south from the tent and I had to find out what it was coming from. It wasn't just something that you could ignore. I figured that if anyone threatened the crew whilst I was gone, then the Force would wake either Kanan or Ezra. Hopefully.
I found myself being drawn to the edge of town, a quiet corner where only a few citizens shuffled by.
"So you aren't completely incompetent." A female voice materialised from behind me. I whipped around, staff in hand faster than the Mirilian in front of me could blink. She didn't flinch though. In fact, her black armour didn't so much as twitch as she addressed me calmly. "I'd thought you'd forgotten how to use the Force altogether."
"Believe me, I tried sleemo." I shot back and she picked her lithe figure up from the crate that she was sat on. "Like I'd ever want to feel your Force signature ever again."
Her face contorted into an expression of mock shock, "I'm hurt! Unfortunately, it won't stop me from finishing my mission." Her red blade flashed to life in her hand. Narrowing my eyes, I brought my staff in front of me and took up my fighting stance. She too readied her blade.
"Where are the rebels child?"
"I think you already know what I'm going to say." I hiss.
"Very well." And she charged.
We performed a deadly dance, me dodging her blade and striking at her where I could. My staff may have been able to block a blaster shot, but not much could stop a lightsaber. When I'd begun to train, I'd chosen Niman because of it's balance between fast strikes and needing a calm mindset. It stopped me from getting sloppy and carried away with my moves, unlike when Eala had shown me Ataru. Although, I did include some elements of Ataru in my fighting style.
As she struck again and again, I was being pushed back and my skill had dropped significantly. My moves were sloppy and boy did I know it. I envisioned Eala probably yelling at me for being so clumsy, but my mind was descending into chaos as she pushed me more and more.
Keep your eyes on the blade!
Spread your feet!
Use your surroundings!
Her voice started echoing in my head. I noticed it had been doing that a lot recently.
"You're sloppy padawan." My adversary seethed as I just ducked away from a swipe. Of course, she had the advantage of height and it was starting to show.
"I am no Padawan anymore, or a Jedi! There's a reason that they're all dead."
Well, not all of them. My lungs were starting to heave from the constant back and forth of the fight.
"Don't play coy with me youngling. I know of the Jedi and his Padawan that you are currently taking refuge with. I wonder what they would think of you if they knew the truth about you?" She brought her blade away and struck again. "How you fled when your master needed you most!?" Snarling, I leaped away. The Inquisitor advanced. "How you slumbered in the dark side unknowingly and then you abandoned your powers. How you abandoned Eala's legacy!?" I stumbled.
She'd hit a nerve. Ever since Eala had died, I'd done my best to keep as much of me a secret as possible. I'd never confided my thoughts with anyone and yet, this Inquisitor knew exactly what I was feeling. How?
I backed up. Coming here had been a mistake. Facing her, had been a mistake. And if I didn't get out of here, then the price may be my head. Pulling my staff back, it retracted to a baton and I clipped it back under my cloak. The Inquisitor's laugh echoed behind me, taunting me, causing freezing fear to seep into my bones.
"Yes! Run! Give me a hunt Padawan!"
And the most shameful thing? I ran. I sprinted, leaped and hurtled back through the town, back to the members of the Ghost, shamelessly running from a fight that never should have started. I reached the tent which the crew had crashed in and burst through the entrance.
They were gone.
"No, no, no, no!" I muttered. I could feel the dark side, whispering in my ear, hissing at me to relent, to give in. Looking around, I tried to see anything that could offer a clue as to where they'd disappeared to, but they'd simply vanished. Heart pounding, I tried to relax. Breathing deeply, I slowed my erratic pulse until I was calm. Quietening my mind, I powered through the darkness clouding my mind until I found two beacons of light.
Leaping up, I sprinted out the tent just as a red blade shredded the left wall of it. People yelped and cursed me as I charged past, but they weren't much of a concern at the moment.
"Why are you hiding, my child?" Her voice sent chills down my spine, and not the good kinds.
Muttering some less than divine words under my breath, I ran faster. My throat was screaming and my legs felt like they were about to give from underneath me, but I knew that if I stopped, I would die.
Suddenly, my heart soared as I caught a flash of Zeb's purple fur, and I barrelled towards them. Sabine spotted me, and pointed to me. I skidded to a stop, panting and bracing myself on my knees before I collapsed.
"Where did you go!?" Ezra exclaimed and I struggled to get my words past my lips.
"No... time! Sev... seventh sister... right... behind me..." I gasped before her presence filled my senses again. Kanan and Ezra also looked up.
"There!" Kanan yelled, pointing somewhere behind me.
I turned and looked to see her strolling casually through the streets, in no apparent hurry. Her lightsaber trailed along the ground, leaving a scorch trail of destruction behind her.
"Run." My first word came out meek and small before I tried again. "Run!"
I took off again, not really checking to see if they were following, which admittedly, was something that I should have really done. I spotted a small cargo ship up ahead being loaded and my thief instincts kicked in. The Trandoshan loading it obviously spotted me coming and dropped his crate before lifting his blaster, but I was closing the distance between us faster than he realised. Leaping off the ground, I soared through the air for meters before crashing down on top of him. As he stumbled to his feet, I grabbed his shoulders and used my momentum to swing my lower body around, taking both of us down before bringing my fists against either temple, knocking him unconscious.
Jumping into the ship, I looked behind me to see the rest of the Ghost crew in pursuit as I jumped into the cockpit and went about disabling the landing gear and opening the power lifters. I was no Hera, but I could fly basically. Checking through the door behind me. I watched Ezra jump in last before I hit the throttle and we shot away.
As we breached atmosphere, I set the ship to auto-pilot and walked into the back. Everyone stared at me as I walked in.
"What. Was. That?" Zeb growled.
I didn't answer. I'd overstepped the mark by leaving my post. It was my job to watch over them and I'd failed.
"Anyone could have come and hurt us! Stolen from us!" Sabine added.
"I didn't thi-" I tried.
Hera scowled. "You didn't think? You endangered everyone's lives! We stole someone's ship."
"And worst of all, you lied. Again." Kanan said.
I snapped. "Yes, because none of you have ever lied, have you! Please, I may not know you all that well, but I know a liar when I see one! You all have lied! I see it in your faces when certain topics come up! You all get so busy of accusing me of lying, you never ask why. Has it even crossed you minds, that I might have a reason?" I finished, my face flushed with my outburst. They all looked a little gobsmacked. "You're all so busy trying to judge me, and you don't why I do what I do. Do you really think that I would live the life that I do, if I had a choice?" I said quieter. Shaking my head, I walked back out and into the cockpit, angry and upset.
It seemed like that was what made up a lot of my life recently.
Falling back into the pilot seat, I ran a hand down my face and sighed. Life had been so much simpler when I hadn't had to deal with this; emotions. I used to live a life with no strings attached. I worked, paid my dues and got on with life. I never had been good at relationships, no matter how much I tried. Machines, I knew how they worked, what made them tick. People? Not so much.
I heard the door open and close again behind me.
"Ezra, I'm really not in the mood for one of you pep talks-"
Kanan sat in the co-pilot seat. "Guess again."
I swallowed. Great. "What do you want." I said defensively, closing my emotions off and keeping my eyes on the control panel.
"Why didn't you tell Ezra that you were Force-sensitive?" He said simply.
Karrabast.
I glanced over at him, and once look at him told me that he knew. There was no doubt and nothing that I said could change what he thought. "How long have you known?" I asked.
"I had my suspicions. But it was today that made me sure. The Seventh Sister - you knew who she was. The way you took out that Trandoshian, with the leap? Only Force-augmentation could do that. You were trained once, but you've become rusty, so I can only assume that it happened some time ago. But you still haven't answered my question."
"I don't know. I'm not exactly one for spilling out my feelings, in case you hadn't noticed. How do you tell a friend, "Oh hey, just a side note, I've been lying to you! I'm actually a padawan that has a dead master, and am Force-sensitive, but hey, let's just get on with our day!" I huffed and ran a hand down my face. "My master was my touchstone. If she was seeing and thinking the same things as me, then I knew I wasn't going crazy. But now that she's gone, I don't know what's right and what's not now. My skill in fighting style has plummeted faster than a stone, more so than I realised. I was completely defenceless against the Inquisitor. I was useless."
Kanan paused for a moment. "About your master... I understand. My master gave her life for me to be here today. Sometimes, I feel that I'm unable to teach Ezra correctly, because I never finished my training, but in the end, we all have to trust in the Force."
That only worsened my mood. "Well, the Force, has been of no use to me. It's just made everything ten times worse." I hesitated before continuing. "I used to surge a lot... my master, she tried to help, but they never seemed to go away. They just got worse. It didn't make any sense, but it was just happening. The simplest tricks in the Force were becoming difficult. One day... it got out of hand. People got hurt. This was after my master's death, and I had nobody, so I swore to never use it again. To never hurt someone in the way I did again." I confessed, but kept my eyes fixed out the window in front of me. I didn't trust that I looked stable. And I didn't want Kanan of all people thinking that I was fragile.
"Mistakes happen. But it's how we overcome those mistakes, that helps us learn. I know that you've had it rough from everyone, me included. And I'm not making excuses for how both the crew and the Rebellion has been treating you, but things have been tough recently. The Santarine run was the last straw. The Empire grows in power every day, and the rebels are not growing as much as we'd like. After the Clone Wars, people became too scared to fight. They didn't want to lose their homes. What they didn't realise is that they lost it to the Empire anyway."
"Some of us just have to get by though. We just need to make a living to survive. Don't get me wrong, I have no love for the Empire, but the way that you rebels will move forwards is by understanding other people's perspective. At the moment, you just scare them. They see you as terrorists. By the sounds of it, Lothal knows that you're fighting for the people. But what about the other planets?" I asked.
Kanan's brow furrowed. Then he chuckled. "You're certainly full of surprises, aren't you?"
"That's one way to put it, I suppose." I said.
Kanan stood up. "Look, I know that you don't trust the Force, but one day, you'll have to depend on it. If you just let it in, things will become much clearer." He said, before walking into the back.
I sighed and set course for the Rebellion.
----Author's Note----
Yes, yes, I know, shoddy excuse for an ending, but after not updating for six months plus, I thought you guys would appreciate it. And yes, updates will still be slow, because I've hit a bit of a pothole, in where the actual storyline is going, so until I have that sorted, it will be a little hit and miss with updates.
I really hope you guys like this.
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