Chapter Text
The pyre was Rex’s suggestion, an ancient Jedi tradition. They’d collected the wood as soon as the sun set, stacked the pieces into two large mounds and bound them together with fuel-soaked rope. Wedge had given them two wooden mats from the storage room, Sabine drenched them in fuel, they’d probably regret that later when the supply started running low again, but they plopped the pyres on them anyway.
When the bloodsucking Bay flies buzzed above the shallow river that sat forty kilometers away from the base, a small crowd of rebels lined the shore, somberly staring at the two pyres floating gently on water’s surface. The Ghost crew stood on the other side, separated from the crowd, Kallus stood between Rex and Zeb, his stomach turning over every other minute, the torches in the ground caused the light to flicker oddly on the water, the shadows spun like spirals, curled like wicked fingernails. The tears shed made him want to cower, not too long ago Kallus could have very well caused those tears, he wouldn’t have batted an eye back then.
Instead of cowering, he took in a shaky breath and drew himself to his full height. Not the time for regrets. There was a moment of silence that Kallus couldn’t appreciate thanks to his heart pounding in his ears. The moment ended when the Bay flies formed a thick cloud over the pyres and obscured the other side of the river, Rex and Zeb pulled two of the lit torches from the mud and Sabine hesitantly followed. Hera stood off to the side wiping her eyes, Kallus quickly joined her, he would much rather be on the other side of the river with the rest of the crowd, the “strangers” not with the “family”, he didn’t know why they’d invited him but he felt like a fish out of water.
Rex and Zeb gently lowered their torches on the pyres, the wooden bundles instantly erupted in a cloud of flames, they rolled the torches into the water quickly putting them out before the flames could eat up the length of the torches. Out of the corner of his eye Kallus noticed Sabine put on her helmet and slam her lit torch back into the mud she took a step back from the bank, then she was running, crashing through the bushes and crunching through twigs, Kallus glanced towards Hera, she hadn’t noticed her eyes were trained on the pyres, neither had Zeb or Rex. Kallus folded his arms behind his back and shifted his gaze back to the pyres, it wasn’t his business how Sabine dealt with her grief and wasn’t his job to chase her, someone else would have to.
The pyres burned for an hour, the moon was high and flies had fled, sniffles still served as a background noise and the air smelled like burnt tar, Kallus glanced towards the remainder of the pyres and figured that was a lot better than the smell of burnt flesh, though the Ghost crew no doubt would have preferred to bury Ezra and Kanan’s bodies.
“Where’s Sabine?” Hera asked looking up from the pyres, her voice was thick and her eyes were puffy. Zeb turned around frowning in confusion, then he noticed the spot beside him, the one once occupied by Sabine was empty and his eyes went wide.
“Sabine!”
That shook the crowd out of their grief filled stupor, they began to frantically search around themselves each of them calling out the girl’s name. Surely Kallus wasn’t the only one who noticed her leave… Kallus contemplated saying something, telling them which direction she ran, but he realized he didn’t even know that peripheral vision wasn’t reliable she could have zigzagged left or right, circled around the river and ran back to the temple or somewhere else entirely so Kallus held his tongue and followed the crew around the bank searching for Sabine.
The rebellion’s Jedi were dead and everything was coming loose because of it.