╔══════════ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄
'𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫' ════════════╝
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
...NABOO, CHOMMELL SECTOR
𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐒 of the Phoenix Squadron was unlike anything Poe had ever experienced.
He and Jess kept sharing quick glances with each other, trying their hardest not to be surprised. It continued to be increasingly difficult after the stormtrooper incident, because then they had immediately started running along the rocky shores of the beach towards nothing.
"What the hell are we doing?" Poe had the nerve to ask.
Eden, who was just up ahead of him, glanced over her shoulder. "We're looking for the boat, what else would we be doing?"
Poe blinked. "Right."
"Yeah, dumbass," Jess said, jostling him on the arm. "Stop asking stupid questions."
Georgie did indeed manage to get them spots on a fishing vessel that was headed out towards the scattered islands in the distance. Lyra did the talking, and suddenly the sailor was more than happy to obliged. Poe had spent a considerable amount of time pouring over the maps with Lyra and staking out where they were going to go.
He just hadn't really realized it would involve a boat.
"What did you say to that guy?" Poe said, glancing at the captain of the vessel. "He didn't even ask any questions."
"Potesne nos adiuvare?" she said.
He tilted his head. "Potatoes?"
She shook her head, trying not to laugh. "It means, can you help us, in Old Naboo. Hardly anyone speaks it any more, but there are traditionalists who treat it like a dying piece of the culture's fabric," Lyra explained.
"How do you know he's a traditionalist?" Poe asked, fascinated. "He looks like a fisherman. Smells like one, too."
She pointed at him. "Look at his jacket compared to his crew. They're all wearing the same thing, and the only distinction between them is the way he carries himself. A man of character and empathy with a soft spot for the finer things. It's subtle, but you can tell," she glanced at him. "Or, at least, I can tell."
The man walked past them again. He glanced between them and narrowed his eyes. Under his breath, he said what sounded like, "Infelicis."
"What did he just say?" Poe asked.
Unbothered, Lyra brushed a piece of gray hair back into her ponytail. In the sunlight, the strands alternated between gold and silver-white. "Unlucky. He thinks we're bad luck."
And this was nothing out of the ordinary for her squadron. Jess had made herself comfortable talking to Eden and Georgie, and Bee was rolling around in Ellis's wake. The only thing that was troubling was that Lyra was so on edge. The boat rocked with the waves, but she herself wouldn't stop pacing back and forth on the deck. Restless and unable to stay still.
She was trying hard to keep it together for the sake of the mission, but he knew she was close to falling off the edge of what she could handle. He never should have said anything about the Senator's villa; it only seemed to make her more uneasy.
Especially now that they were headed out towards the Islands. To the east of Theed, where the clouds were gray and heavy with rain.
Straight to Kaadara, an island that was once Lyra's home.
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐃 𝐏𝐑𝐎 𝐐𝐔𝐎.
Nothing without something in return.
Three Old Naboo words emblazoned on the keystone of the main gateway's arch. It had been reduced to rubble and ruin. Lyra ran her hand along the dusty stones and breathed deeply. Let it return to the terra, let the roots reclaim and purify this place. She thought the words like a prayer to the Force, still very aware that nothing could hear her disconnected self.
Wind was brushing softly across the landscape and Lyra didn't know what to do. She wanted to kneel and stay on the ground, but there was a job to be done, and this was their only chance. It was time to get to the heart of this damn mission and face what she had long been afraid of.
But for a moment, she just stood there, staring.
To her right, there should have been a towering shadow of the dormitory building. Then the open-air training grounds where she had learned to defend herself, the same place she had learned the most efficient way to kill. Nothing was left. It had fallen into disrepair, and suddenly the vacant hole in their data reports made sense; it wasn't that the First Order was hiding something, it was just that there was nothing left to hide. Now, it was a fishing village with a singular port.
"It's good that it's gone," Eden said from beside her. "Right?"
Lyra gave a swift nod. "Yes, it is."
No it's not. What happened to the kids? Where did they go when the First Order decided to level and raze this place? Where are the fruit vendors? The people who used to live on this island and turn a blind eye? Where are my answers? My reparations?
My vengeance.
Jess looked up from the holo on her wrist that was displaying the map. "The temple ruins are somewhere here, any idea which way we go?"
"I know how to get there," Lyra said.
No one questioned her.
She knew where the ruins were. It was like a sick joke that the First Order had risen an academy just kilometers from a temple that used to belong to the Jedi. If Tekka wasn't here, he certainly had been once. High on a cliff above the shore.
Her heart was racing by the time they climbed all the stairs. It had been reduced to crumbling stone like the Senator's villa, like the Imperial Academy. The steps that might have been magnificent were cracked right down the middle from ages of bearing the weight of footsteps. It stood elevated on the small cliffside, an old stone railing the only thing separating it from the churning gray waters below. Unlike Theed, there was no clarity to these waves.
"Is this it?" Jess asked breathlessly, looking to Lyra for confirmation.
"This is it," Lyra said, stupidly continuing to stare forward, motionless. When she didn't say anything else, Eden elbowed her in the ribs to get her going again. "Right, okay. Eden and Ellis, help Bee prep the transceiver to get a signal back to base. The rest of us will take the temple," she delegated.
"Are you suggesting we split up?" Poe asked, appalled yet again.
She shook her head. "It's not a suggestion, it's an order. Our window of time is closing, and we need to search the entire area."
"Question," Georgie raised his hand and glanced over the edge of the balcony. "What if I fall off the cliff? I feel like this is a valid concern."
Lyra activated her wrist com, barely paying attention to his dumbass antics. "Learn how to swim and do it fast. Any other questions?"
"I think we're good," Eden said before Ellis could make another comment.
As Lyra stepped through the threshold, the air became noticeably cooler. Down a short hallway and to her left, the room spilled into an altar-like dome. Water was pooling in the center of the room, flowing from an invisible source. The light reflected off of it, throwing distorted, vibrant color around the room.
Something wasn't sitting right. She kept one hand safely on her baton. Still, some part of her knew the things she would find in this place wouldn't be taken down by any weapon.
On one wall, a face was carved into the rock, like a giant mural. She recognized the harsh patterns of lines in the stone. Carved by the very people who had first settled on Naboo, a Force-sensitive group called the Elders. It was no wonder Tekka had come here. It was living history.
Lyra turned the corner and came face to face with someone else. Shocked, she lifted an arm and prepared to swing.
"Woah, woah, woah!" Poe said, holding up his hands.
She lowered her arms. Something murderous flashed in her mind; he was bound and determined to ruin this mission. "Are you following me?"
"This isn't a very big temple," Poe said stubbornly. After one more second of her harsh glare, he caved. "Okay, I might have accidentally gone in the same direction that you did. Happy?"
"Not really," Lyra said, pressing forward.
"There is nothing wrong with doing this together," he told her. "You just have an obsession with splitting people up."
"It's more efficient," Lyra said tersely. "If you're going to question my authority, you should–"
She trailed off as they stepped into the next room. This one was far better preserved, with tall stone columns stretching up to the ceiling. Leaves of ivy twisted up to the mosaics on the ceiling. Along the wall, there were stone forms that looked like tables. All of them were empty.
"I should what?" he asked, not noticing what she was looking at. "Lyra?"
"Do you feel that?" Lyra said, lifting up her hand. "There's a draft."
He blinked. "And that tells us, what?"
She rolled her eyes. "This room is only the front of something. The walls are a door, all we have to do is find where it opens. Jedi temples are notorious for having secondary chambers."
Poe pressed his hand to the wall, right next to the curved gemstone of the mosaic. "Secret rooms, huh? Sounds a little hokey, even for Tekka."
Lyra ran her baton along the wall. She had done this so many times on metal walls and air vents, searching for the unseen. "True. Sometimes, I feel like he's messing with us."
Poe laughed, and the sound echoed off the walls. "Maybe he has cameras everywhere we've been, and the whole point of the map to Skywalker is just to watch us struggle."
"Could be," Lyra hummed. She tapped one more stone, and the wall moved. It groaned with the weight of centuries bearing down.
They both froze and stared at it.
"Now what?" Poe said quietly, as if the door suddenly had some sanctity.
"We find out what's on the other side," she said. Lyra pushed on one side and fell forward as the stone gave way and darkness pressed in. When she turned around, there was no Poe. Just more darkness and a stone wall.
Her heart hammered in her chest. "Poe?" she called, keeping her voice even. She smacked her fist on the stone for good measure, and nothing moved. "Can you hear me?"
Muffled, she heard him say, "Lyra? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she said, looking up and around. "Can you get it to open again?"
She heard a loud impact on the other side of the wall, but the only thing that happened was a dusting of dirt fell on her head. "I can't get it, Lyra."
"It's okay," she reassured him. From her belt, she withdrew a torch and switched it on. There was a slim tunnel of dirt leading deeper into the cavernous structures of the temple. "I'm going to keep going deeper, see if I can find a way out."
"Are you insane?" she heard him say.
"It's going to be fine, Poe," Lyra said, but she could hear the worry in her own voice. "Go find the others, keep looking. I'll see you on the other side."
Her skin crawled as she moved forward. The passageway was barely wide enough for her shoulders to fit through, and she had the distinct feeling that this is what it was like to be buried alive. Eventually, though, the tunnel widened and forked in two different directions. Her gut was already too uneasy to be of much use in deciding a direction.
...the next steps stand the same. You have to let it in. You have to believe it's there.
"Leia Organa," Lyra muttered, looking up into the gloom. "How do you predict these things so perfectly?"
She ran her hand along the wall and breathed deep, but all that was there was the smell of fresh-tilled dirt. The decay of plants long dead. Stones, precious metals hidden for miles below the crust of the planet. And finally, the waves. It was there, she was at the cusp of the Force, she could feel the tug–
Gone. It was gone. It faded and Lyra was left standing in the dark with nothing but her own frustration and defeat.
"Are you afraid of what you will find?"
Lyra swung around, but there was no one there to take ownership of the voice. Just a disembodied echo.
"You are trying to run from who you are, even now when there is a chance to find answers. Why do you run?" The voice asked. It was like it came from the temple itself, soothing and laced with a thick, unfamiliar accent.
Daring to open her mouth, Lyra said, "Because I'm afraid there will be nothing there. All these years, the unanswered questions at least allowed me to hope. I can't let go of that."
"You will never move forward from this place if you cannot learn to trust," the voice said, a dire warning. "Trust in the Force, Lyra, let go of what you think is yours to control. It will not lead you astray."
Lyra switched off the torch and stared into the darkness.
She used to believe that she had spent her entire life searching, but that was a lie. She liked the life she had found in the Resistance, the true purpose, the calling. Why risk all of that for the potential of something that might not even exist?
It was time to let that go.
With a deep breath, she let her shoulders relax. Everything fell away, leaving her face to face with the Force. Not for the first time, she was amazed at how it's threads laced through everything. The waves crashing on the cliffside, the cold northern winds that wound through the clean air, the sound of footsteps as her squadron walked through the temple, the flash of glittering sunlight on the horizon.
And finally, the path she was meant to take.
Lyra walked faster now, desperate to reach what she now knew was there. A hidden room, a secret kept hidden from both sides, a study, a meeting place where Tekka had worked not so long ago. It was taking shape in her mind and then the tunnel got brighter and emptied out into a circular room.
Cut off from the rest of the temple, it looked similar to the room she and Poe had found. Stone tables and alcoves with a hole-punctured ceiling that allowed the gray light of day to dot the floor. No mosaic patterns ringed this room, however. The thing that caught her eye in here was the maps. The charts. She got closer and saw that none of them were written in Basic.
Her head lifted and she felt something she hadn't felt in weeks. Poe's presence in the Force, just outside the walls of this room.
With guidance, Lyra found the latch to the inner door on the first try. As soon as she pulled on the stone and the door opened. Lyra had about half a second of preparation before Poe fell forward on top of her and knocked both of them to the ground.
"Sorry," he laughed, face inches away from hers. "I wasn't expecting that to open."
"It's okay," Lyra said in return, but she was really just distracted by how close he was and the way he wasn't making any motions to move. And then the way he was grinning like he wasn't exactly disappointed this had happened.
Between her elation and his proximity there was barely anything stopping her from closing the distance between them. It hit her like a punch to the throat; she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to drag him down all the way and kiss him.
As she finally cleared her throat and stood up, she thought about the other night when something similar had happened. That time had been in the command room when they both ended up reaching for the same storage shelf at the same time. Lyra had lost her footing, he had caught her by the arm, and then the same story of neither of them moving and both of them looking at each other and waiting for the other person to do something about it.
Poe was walking around the room observing, not nearly as thrown by what had just happened as she was. "How is this place so well preserved? Jess found a bunch of First Order demolition equipment in one of the hallways; they wanted to see this place destroyed."
"I think it's because this room could only be accessed by someone who knew the place by heart." Lyra paused, running a finger along one of the charts. "Or by someone sensitive to the Force."
He set down the book he had been thumbing through to fully look at her. "You can sense it again?"
She nodded. "Yeah. If I told you how I did, you'd think I was crazy."
The space between his eyebrows creased with a knowing look. "I already think you're crazy, Ly."
"Funny," she dead panned. She walked to the wall where a map of the galaxy had been meticulously drawn out by hand. Beautiful curves and steady lines for each orbit, the mark of an artist.
"This isn't even Naboo," Poe pointed at a map. "I can't read this language, but this planet is Lothal. And then there's Yavin IV, Ashas Ree," he picked it up to hold it in the light. "Yeah, none of these have anything to do with Naboo. Or Tekka."
"This wasn't Tekka's," Lyra realized and her throat ran dry. "This was Luke's."
"How can you tell?" Poe asked.
"I don't know," Lyra shook her head. "But it makes sense. Tekka wasn't Force sensitive, which is why some people called him a crazed fanatic for chasing after Jedi myth and helping Skywalker bring back what the Empire tried to erase. Turns out," Lyra read, from one of the pages in front of her. "He just had the rare gift of believing in something he himself couldn't even feel."
"That's great, really," Poe said, leaning on the stone table. "But where the hell did Tekka go? Even if he did come here in the process of looking for the map, Luke's old shit doesn't tell us where he is now."
Lyra wracked her brain from anything she had gleaned. She snapped her fingers together. "That map in front of you. Lothal had a Jedi Temple, doesn't Yavin Four?"
"Yeah, it does," Poe said, a little more enthusiastic now. "That's part of the reason the Rebellion set up a base there, to preserve the history before the Empire could get to it."
"Okay, so they have something in common. And that still has nothing to do with Tekka," Lyra gave a small, frustrated huff. "Damn it."
"It's a good start," Poe told her. "Hey, how many languages can you read? Maybe you can translate this," he put the bound journal in her hands.
She frowned. "This is Echani."
"Can you read it?"
"No," Lyra told him flatly. "No one speaks Echani unless you're from Eshan."
"Obviously, didn't mean to offend," he jeered, rolling his eyes. "So what do we do?"
She tucked the slim book into the pocket of her flight suit. "I really wish you would stop asking me that." Lyra's wrist com started to flash red. She pressed the button, letting the transmission through.
"Lyra? Lyra! Can you hear me?" Eden's panicked voice said.
"Copy," Lyra said quickly. Poe moved to stand next to her and leaned with his hand on her shoulder. "What's going on?"
"Well, we have some friends who have decided to join us. Georgie clocked them at about two miles out. Troopers, fifteen of 'em. It looks like a routine check of the fishing village, but it's about to get really suspicious if they find us up here."
"I'll be out, get the gear ready to go," Lyra told her.
"Copy, Commander." The transmission clicked off.
"We're out of time," Lyra lamented. "We have no leads, nothing to show for this mission."
"We have this map," Poe said. "It's full of coordinates, that's the best we're gonna do."
Best isn't good enough, she thought.
Poe scooped up the papers near the one with the coordinates, looking for anything that might be useful. With the Force, Lyra raised the doorway high enough that they could get back out and into the main body of the temple.
"Have I told you how cool it is when you do that?" Poe said from next to her.
She grinned. "I don't think you have."
As soon as they got outside, Lyra could tell something was wrong. Georgie was standing with his hands up, back to back with Ellis. Eden was slowly doing the same thing, equipment all packed up and ready to go. Lyra heard the clank of footsteps, unmistakably belonging to stormtroopers. And, as Poe and Lyra stepped out into the open, she could see that Jess's hands were already cuffed and held behind her back. Bee was rolling in a small, panicked circle while a trooper attempted to chase him.
"Put your hands up!" One trooper said. Lazily, he pointed a blaster at where Lyra and Poe stood on the cracked steps. "We don't tolerate looters," the stormtrooper said, taking a step forward. "It's a punishable offense in Theed court."
Lyra had to stop her smile. They thought that they were rogues, not Resistance. If the stormtroopers didn't look too close, they could keep up the charade long enough to get out. Lyra took in the landscape, clocking how long it would take them to attack the troopers. The only way out was being blocked by the rest of the troop, who had fanned out in a standard attack formation.
This was why her squadron had been sent on the mission. It was nothing they couldn't handle.
Lyra locked eyes with Eden, and then she nodded once. Georgie and Ellis recognized the signal well. Hands still above her head, she held up her index finger and then clenched her hand into a fist.
"Now, you're going to do as we tell you." the trooper captain said, but he didn't get to finish his statement.
Georgie kicked out, sending the trooper landing flat on his back. Ellis grabbed another by the arm and sent him flying into the one behind him, and they toppled like a stack of poorly-balanced dominoes. Jess scrambled out of the way now that the attention was no longer on her. Eden was already moving through the crowd, taking out the bucket heads one at a time with an electrically-charged stunner. Lyra jumped the stormtrooper nearest to her and took him out with one crack of her baton.
All of this happened before the squad of troopers even had the chance to fire their blasters.
They had trained for this. Operations without weapons, combat that needed to be done without error.
Eden doubled back and scooped up her bag from the ground, and Lyra saw the scene happen in slow motion. The kinetic energy of a grounded trooper standing up and reaching for his fallen blaster. He got on one pained knee and took aim directly at Eden's chest. Distracted, Eden wouldn't see it in time until she felt the burning pain of an ion bullet.
But Lyra stopped the events from unfolding in front of her like a piece of paper in a breeze.
Leaning to the side, Lyra swept low and kicked out into his leg, sending him back to his knees. Eden yelped as the blaster skittered across the ground. But there was a cost for moving so sporadically on the edge of a balcony.
Lyra backed up out of the way of his next swing, barely avoiding his armored hand. She felt the whoosh of air as it passed centimeters away from her. Her boot heel caught on the lip of the stone balcony, and she put one hand out to brace herself. Reaching for her baton, she took the risk of looking away for a split second.
"Lyra!" Eden shouted, eyes wide with concern.
Her voice was all it took. For a fraction of a second, Lyra lost her train of calculated thought. The trooper, fed up, sent his boot straight into her chest. Lyra grabbed at the air in her panic, but there was nothing to stop her from falling backward.
Legs straight, a voice of reason whispered. But it did no good. Everything was a blur of color and noise as the sky flipped to sit at her feet. From a fall so high into the crystal waters, as soon as she hit the blue expanse, the world turned black.
-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-
𝐅𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐘.
Muddled thoughts.
Voices yelling and calling out for someone. Who, it was hard to say.
"Are you afraid of what you will find?"
There was no clarity, only memories.
On the rocky beach, sweetgrass had grown knee high. The waters were the same color as a crystalline jewel, and the whitecaps had reflected a glittering sky. A young boy with brown curls stood in the surf. He was grinning wildly, tanned face dotted with faint freckles from time in the sun.
She moved forward hesitantly. Less sure of herself than the boy who held confidence on a tight leash, each movement of the waves made her uneasy on her small feet. The hem of her pants was getting soaked as the water lapped at her ankles. The sun burned at her neck and cheeks, and the cold water was a sweet reprieve.
"See," the boy had said, wadding towards her. His brown eyes caught in the sunlight and he had brushed his hair out of his face. "Not so bad, right?"
Lyra shook her head, trying to blink away the memory. She felt the water pressing around her, stronger than before. There was no beach, no boy and no young girl. There was just Lyra Endellion grasping at the thin oxygen in her lungs while she struggled against the depths.
Her head pounded, and it was impossible to tell which way was up. It hurt her whole body and the pressure pressed in on her head. The light was growing dimmer above her like she was sinking back down into a well. The green around her faded away, changing and morphing. There was no peace in drowning.
The Force. Trust it, believe it's there.
Let go of your fear.
It was an easier task when it was the only option left. Lyra knew she could not do this on her own, and so she extended her hand to the Force and held tight. It was as strong as it always was, almost like it was just waiting for her to come back.
Trust.
Lyra broke through the surface, gasping. All remnants of the memory faded away, the only thing left was the water of present-day Kaadara around her. She gulped in the sweet taste of fresh air, shivering even though the water was warm.
She coughed and sputtered and trod water, trying to get her bearings. From this far below, she couldn't even see where she had fallen from. She had no idea where anyone was or what had happened.
The steep cliffside was impossible to reach through the water, so slowly but surely, Lyra swam towards the jagged shoreline. Her breathing steadied, and she was able to push herself up and out of the water just enough to grab onto one of the rocks. She turned over to lay on the small stones, staring up at the sky and catching her breath.
The same voice nagged at her mind. Are you scared of what you will find?
Her uniform was soaked, and her eyes stung from the salt water. Her necklace felt cold on her chest. She wrung the water out of her hair though it wasn't going to be dry for a long time. Footsteps thudded behind her as the rest of them finally made it down the side of the cliff.
"That's a new one," Ellis remarked, looking at the now-soaked Lyra with a hint of grin.
"Yeah, considering you can barely swim, I'd say it was a risky move," Georgie laughed.
"You're just lucky you didn't have to run all the way down those stairs," Jess said, putting her hand on her ribs. "I need to stop skipping combat training."
Poe turned to look at her. "You were skipping training, Pava?"
Jess blanched. "Did I say that? I don't think I said that."
Eden, the last one down, rushed over and wrapped her arms around Lyra's chest. "You're soaked, you idiot!"
"I know," Lyra laughed, wiping the remnants of water off her face.
Jess just stared at her. "You have some strange fascination with almost dying. Now I understand why Reeve calls you a disaster magnet."
Poe was looking between all of them with disbelief. Bee, too, shared his look of concern. "Does this kinda stuff happen often with you guys?"
"Yes," All four of them said at the same time. "Aliyah's our impulse control," Georgie said.
Her limbs still ached from the impact and her mind was reeling, but they needed to keep moving. "We need to head back to the village before they send another squad out to investigate."
Georgie and Ellis led them, with Eden taking up the middle as they made their way back down the trail. Poe stuck close to Lyra, carrying the bag with the maps on his shoulder. Every few seconds he would steal a glance back at her, and every time she saw him do it.
Finally, she said, "What?"
He considered the question. "You can't swim?"
She narrowed her eyes, cursing Georgie for his poor choice of words. "I can swim, just not very well. D'Qar doesn't have many lakes. It's an old joke, Georgie still thinks it's funny."
He just smiled at her, the corner of his brown eyes crinkling with a smile. He was perfectly at ease. The light breeze that kicked up off the water ruffled through his soft, curly hair and he was looking at Lyra like she was the most amazing thing he had ever seen, even if she was currently soaked to the bone with lake water.
"What?" Lyra asked again, fighting to extinguish the giddy little giggle that wanted to escape her throat.
"Bet you're glad you asked me to come along," Poe said smugly, offering no further explanation.
This made Lyra laugh. "You weren't much help. You disobeyed all the orders I gave you."
He squinted one eye. "Did I?"
Lyra shook her head, trying to be serious. There were too many things she needed to thank him for, and he needed to know that she cared. Lyra cared more than he could ever know that he hadn't hesitated to help her. "But really, I am glad."
"Not so bad, right?" he said.
It all fell into place.
Poe looked at her for a second, and in the light of the afternoon, his brown eyes shown gold. Lyra's heart stopped for a second, and as he smiled again it was unmistakable. Suddenly, she was six years old again, staring into the face of the boy from her memory. A memory she didn't know she still had, had smiled at her exactly like he was doing right now. The boy was Poe. Nothing was lining up with who she thought she was, and it was a horrible time for revelations.
Are you afraid of what you will find?
━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━
a/n this chapter is long as HELL but I wanted to keep it so that there's only two more chapters after this one before we launch into The Force Awakens. yes, you read that right 🥳
Y'all it is SO crazy to me that I was writing the first draft this time last year and I honestly cannot explain how much the plot has improved. Honestly, biggest improvement is more pyra tension I think.
p.s. if you're following my obsession with chapter titles that are also songs that have the same vibe, this one is 'eternal summer' by The Strokes :)
--Nat <3