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The captain wonders not for the first time if this confrontation will hold any mirth. The moment the idea had crossed her mind, it burrowed deep into her synapses and took up the cognitive function that’d been effectively sullied since the death of the man she loved most ardently.
She’d fought so hard for so long to keep her composure, had told herself from the beginning not to fall in love with a man in the same boat as her. Not a day promised and a future that remained forever in outlandish theory.
When the Grand Inquisitor had taken him so long ago she’d made the executive decision to leave him behind even though it'd broken her heart to do so, Ezra’s as well it seemed because he’d fought her on that decision hard when truthfully it hadn’t been an argument she wanted to win, but there'd been no other choice.
This time is different, the expected composure she’d fallen into step with for almost a decade now lost. He is gone and she wishes she’d been selfless. It was her decisions that’d led them here, led him to give his life all in the pursuit of her; and she wonders briefly with how readily he’d been prepared to do so; had he been prepared for this end since the second he’d heard her voice?
He’d always been selfless, excruciatingly so, to the point now she must question if his little talks about their shared future were concocted for her-she’s almost certain he’d known this was his end. As if it was an inevitability written in the stars that he’d known by heart long before it was even the two of them.
Every damn interaction they’d ever had plays in her minds eye, his mannerisms and quirks, the way only the corner of his lips tipped up into a smile. It’s haunting how in some way whether it be because she has context now or if she was stretching, but Kanan Jarrus had always carried himself like a man who knew he’d perish long before he’d ever see the end result of what he’d been fighting for.
It’s a trait her mind can easily, or more accurately desperately and possibly ignorantly insist was a result of the way he’d been raised. An esteemed Jedi from a long forgotten order, but what good was there altruism now when there were none left?
And she means none because of course even after she’d begged and screamed, her world already having fallen apart and only getting smaller, Ezra had followed in the father of their crews footsteps and given himself away too.
Maybe if she’d just listened to him they’d still be here, maybe then she wouldn’t be so frightened and clueless about what to do with the being growing in her womb. Kanan had always been there to tackle every challenge, whether it be filled with loss or depravity, or was more lighthearted like a good workout. He’d been there.
She’s heard time and time again, although not by her own peers unless spiritual in nature. No one was ever truly gone, but it was the Jedi’s saying that death wasn’t the end, and they were the only ones with proof of it.
There’s been a brief moment she’d felt his comforting hand on his shoulder and she’d fallen into the assurance, wondering if that had been what they meant. If that had been him and not her harried mind imagining things as it was said some widows did.
Hera Syndulla was a commander in this rebellion, falling to these whims seemed almost unbecoming, she wants not to care but there is still work to be done so she must hold on to at least some sanity even if this trip was on the whole a complete and utter contradiction to that statement.
But dank farrik she deserves just this once to be selfish, to drown in tears and demand answers from this galaxy's gods because the man she loved was gone, her child gone, and a future for the galaxy in the horizon that was finally coming into view, but her eyes were sightless. She couldn’t see it without him being her co-pilot while the family they’d made argued in the seats behind them.
Chopper is smart enough to stay in the ship as she holsters her blaster and picks up a beacon to ward off the spiders, boots crunching beneath her as she steps into the rich sand covering Atollon. Peridot eyes finding the largest cluster of coral struts and immediately heading in that direction, knowing the deity would be there amongst those peaks.
Exactly she didn’t know, not even how she’d wake him up. Kanan had said his imbalance had actually woken the entity and she hopes he can hear hers now. Demands he feel the amalgamation of emotions she’d held for so long just brimming beneath the surface, ready to come out and tear her skin off with it.
Both Kanan and Ezra had referred to the being as nearly omnipotent, did he know Kanan who he’d done so much for was dead? Had he felt it as much as she did? Had it been as heartbreaking in the force as it had been for her to watch with her own two eyes? As he looked upon her with eyes he had kriffing promised would see her again although with his complaints he never knew exactly when that'd come to be.
The Jedi had certainly known then, likely when he’d made the damn plan to rescue her as well. She’d always hated when people broke their promises, didn’t come through, she wouldn’t have hated him if he broke his. In fact she thinks now she’d love him more because he’d be here living, able to tell her-if he was ready-that he loved her back because even if his lips had been silent she was no fool; he loved her and proved it as much as he could; whenever he could!
It’d been her who’d been cold, cold enough that her declaration had immediately been brushed off in disbelief due to the damn drugs they’d had her on-surprise written on his beautiful open features and his karking ugly hair that she only hated because she could not longer properfully run her hands through it to remind herself everything was okay.
Why hadn’t she told him sooner?
Maybe because he was fearless where she was not, maybe because she’d actually believed that future he’d been building for her. Whatever it was, she was still at fault because she hadn’t told him.
“It wasn’t too late,” A booming accented voice groans as if waking from a long nap, the ground under her feet shifting as the coral in front of her rose like rockets into the sky. Two large white eyes that are to grimm of a reminder of everything she’d lost staring down at her.
Those grey beams explain a lot, how this creature had been able to guide Kanan to see the world differently because both her and her former lover couldn’t see physically at all.
“What?” Hera returns a little dumbly, taken aback at his sudden appearance and not quite understanding what he was referring to.
“It is fortunate for one to hear such a declaration at all,”
The twi'lek shoulders drop when she realizes what the deity was referring to, ultimately unsurprised he’d heard her thoughts-it’d been what she wanted him to do anyway.
“Did he know?” She shouts, and the being lifts a brow waiting for her to continue: making her clarify exactly what she wanted him to answer, “Did he know he was going to die saving me?”
“Possibly,” it’d always been a possibility, one the Jedi had been prepared for. No visions were ever certain, the padawan could have pulled his master through the World Between Worlds and killed them all instead.
The captain snarls, understanding why Kanan has sometimes returned from these talks with the god infuriated on the times he didn’t come back to their home seemingly invigorated or calm with the uppermost feeling of peace.
“Could it have been prevented?” She reiterated, figuring she’d have to choose her words carefully, and be even more critical of what the Bendu said in turn.
The gods words are never simple, so he responds with a question of his own, “Would it make any difference-”
“It would to me! To the family he left behind. To Ezra who followed in his bloody karking footsteps and shot himself out into space. It would make a difference to his...to our child,” the rage simmers, forcibly pushed down by the pit in her stomach as she thinks about that shared piece of them that she’d be looking after on her own.
What if they had his eyes? Or his unique brows? Hera doesn’t think she’ll survive if their son or daughter's lip turn up in the same way his once did.
Bendu seemingly ponders her words, fist touching down to the ground to lean over her. The viridescent twi’leks neck craning up to look at him, her sudden tears no longer falling down her cheeks but rather down the edges of her face and onto her lekku which had been caught in front of her shoulders from her outburst.
He supposes it would make a difference, that didn’t particularly mean it’d be for the better and the deed had already been done. There wouldn’t be any reason in the coming times for anyone to change it either if they were in that unique and ethereal place, it’d truly have to be a random act.
Although a very unlikely possibility, it much like some force sensitives most wild premonitions. Only there to show the force’s will remained unpredictable and questionable. Fluid and rapid like any stream with rocks and life swimming in-between.
“To save him would be to kill them all,” he offers, knowing love was the only thing more powerful and influential than the force. Enough that he’s almost intrigued if the woman before him will lean into the slim possibility of considering sacrificing her, her coming child, and her other two wards all to save him.
He’s correct in assuming she wouldn’t, her head shaking vigorously enough her lekku carry in the wind. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a painful truth to face, that there was no way she could save him, even when she wanted too. She could not have everything she wanted, and the force god in an apparently rare twinge of sympathy wishes idly she could.
Kanan Jarrus had meant something to him, the first being to speak with him in a very long time, and although stubborn the man had found balance and died with a gift. One he’s sure the Jedi appreciated if the monumental wave of light that shot out of the force in combatance to the dark meant anything.
In fact, Lothal was lighter because of it. Another step forward in restoring the tranquility the oppressive dark had disrupted.
The captain curls in on herself then, head in her hands as she sobs, the sand beneath her sputtering as she crashes to her knees. Bendu wonders if she can feel the presence of her lover surrounding her like a blanket, it’d been there since she got here although she’d been too distraught to feel it.
He cannot blame the non-force sensitive, not as she grieves and for one not attuned in the way a force sensitive was it was harder for them to understand that with the force no one was ever truly gone in the same way Kanan had had trouble at first realizing he'd never truly be blind.
A hard lesson to learn no doubt, but Bendu is confident his student’s partner would come around soon enough-their stubbornness mirrors of one another to the point he almost can’t tell them apart.
But the blue ghost of the Jedi Bendu can see with his grey eyes, standing supportively behind the woman with a pinched look of concern on his face and an unparalleled sense of yearning that the deity knows will go away once the woman realizes he hadn’t truly left her, that he loves her all the same.
And since he can at the moment, Kanan tells her as such.
The twi’lek hears him louder than a requiem bell and looks up, displacing the sand around her as she turns towards the love that had been lost, finally understanding as his teal blue eyes met hers once again he hadn’t left her at all.