Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As any Star Wars fan could tell you: this fandom is neurotic. 

People find their niches in Star Wars and they stick to it. They also fight you worse than a rabid dog if they think you’ve infringed on their territory; like saying something completely innocent like ‘Death Watch is a terrorist group’ or ‘the Empire was bad ; ’ because someone, somewhere in this fandom can and will take offense to your personal opinion (not that either of those are opinions, those are canonical facts , please stop yelling at me -). Fans, in their niches, go overboard and obsess over every single detail, which guarantees that unless you’ve asked what their niches are, you can’t expect to shove two Star Wars fans in the same room and expect them to carry a conversation about it, because one will probably love the Old Republic Sith and the other is fluent in Mando’a. At least, with every Star Wars fan that is anything more than slightly casual, they can probably tell you what happens in the canon movies and tell you what they would do if they had to write a ‘fix-it’ fanfic.

This is what keeps poor Maria from just giving up the second she wakes up in Star Wars. 

That, and the fact that Jedi are in the ‘let them run wild and learn from their own mistakes’ parenting camp. She would have gone insane if she had to deal with helicopter or strict Creche Masters.

She was a bit everywhere with her niches so they weren’t as in-depth as most other fans’ obsessions, swinging wildly between the Mandalorians with the Haat Mando’ade and Din Djarin, and the concept of Tatooine Slave Culture with Luke Skywalker and Anakin’s… Anakiness. She was well-aware that that man was just a psychotic break and a shit-ton of trauma walking around, and she liked to poke at him through fanfiction only, thank you very much. At least this did have a bit of overlap where she knew a lot about the Clone Wars, but nowhere near enough for her current position.

Reborn too late to save Jaster Mereel and stop Galidraan, reborn too early to join the Rebel Alliance, but reborn just in time to join the rest of the younglings in asking Master Skywalker what they were going to do because there were too many of them.

Oh well, she had future knowledge, a tendency to be overlooked and forgotten about by the Creche Master, and the reckless abandonment of someone who knows when they die.

She wakes up in the Coruscant underbelly, looking like a half-starved toddler, and decides that her best chance for not getting shanked in a dark alley is to walk right up to the Jedi Temple and hope that they will give her a good meal and find her a nice social worker. She did not factor in the possibility that she, in fact, did not speak Basic or that she could be force-sensitive.

After a very long time of them trying to communicate with her in every language that the Healing Halls’ protocol droid had, and her responding in every language she vaguely knows ‘hello’ in, they give up trying to ask her anything other than “What’s your name?” “This owie?” “Hungry?”

Maria Rosa-Cortez, who was very stubborn about them spelling her name correctly on her paperwork (Thank the force she bothered to learn Aurebesh), got released to the Creche the very next day.

She was four years old, tiny, quiet, and couldn't speak any known galactic language. The Creche Masters, beyond encouraging her to learn Basic and nudging her toward the other Younglings, let her to her own devices.

So she plotted.

She had access to voice modulators, comm terminals, and a good amount of future knowledge. Sidious had nothing on a Maria determined to have fun.

She had ghost bank accounts and the force helped her choose the gambling numbers. She regularly ran wild on Coruscant, having the street kids tell her chatter and lurking in Little Keldabe for the good mando gossip. She alerted the Council about Master Kenobi’s Kaminoan discovery before the man had even gotten captured through some clever slicing. She had hacked the Senate’s big screen to display a ‘LYING LIARS WHO LIE’ text with Palpatine’s pic. She-

“MARIA!”

She wasn’t paying attention to her crechemates again.

“Yes?” She said innocently, as if Cal Kestis and Caleb Dume weren’t staring at her disapprovingly while she had one leg out the window.

The Clone War had started a little under a year ago, and while Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee are both already on the front lines, Cal, Caleb and Maria are all 10 and 11, so we weren’t going anywhere for another few months. She thinks Caleb will be a padawan within the next six months, and Cal within the next year and a half, but she isn’t sure.

“Where are you sneaking off to now?” Cal asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Planting a bug in a senator’s office?” She answered truthfully. 

She had found out that the ‘limits’ and ‘rules’ the Jedi put on force use complete bullshit. Luke was right when he learned about the force through ‘Do or Do Not’ and decided to do things most Jedi think are impossible. She had figured out how to shield herself to the point of invisibility to any force-sensitive a few years ago and liked to utilize this skill to wander into Palpatine’s office through the vents and just watch him be cartoonishly evil from her hidden spot. That man loved to cackle evilly. 

“That’s illegal.” Caleb hissed.

“Actually, since we’re in wartime, it’s treason!” She cheerfully corrected him.

“You’re going to miss Introductory Theoretical Living Force,” Cal, the absolute nerd , pointed out.

“Master Nuru has marked me present several times when I wasn’t. I’m fine as long as I hand in the homework.” She waved him off and started working her other leg out the window.

“I’ll tell Master Gigom that you snuck out,” Caleb threatened. As if their Creche Master would do anything more than assigning her extra meditation: the Tholian really didn’t know how to reign in children and should feel lucky her Creche Clan was all goody-two-shoes except for her.

“No, you won’t!”

“No, I won’t.” Caleb sighed.

“Can you bring me something back?” Cal asked, poking his head out the window to ask her as she made her way down the temple walls.

“Like a cookie or a blaster? Be more specific.”

“Would you bring me a blaster if I asked?” He squinted at her.

Caleb face-palmed, “It’s Maria. She’d bring back a bomb if you asked.”

“Right,” Cal nodded. “Can you bring me a smoothie?”

“Sure!” She had to shout to respond, already far down enough that the wind was threatening to kill her through a long fall.

Cal disappeared back inside, probably to go to class, and she took that as the conversation being over. 

She took a few steadying breaths, and then reached out to the force with a friendly ‘What’s up my dude?’

The force seemed to laugh at her casual form of address, already used to her antics. The Jedi, as a cult, address the force way too formally whenever they do so, and she bet that the Sith, as a cult, were either far worse or downright rude, so she thinks she’s doing way better by just vibing alongside it.

‘I want to mess with the senator of Ryloth again, leak some of his conversations to the press, make it a bit harder to be corrupt. Y’know, just ruin his week a bit. You cool with helping me?’

The force just hummed along, and when she reached out to wrap her shields tighter around her, they strengthened easily.

‘Thanks, bestie!’ She cheered before jumping off the wall and landing neatly onto the closest landing pad.

The Council would totally have an aneurysm if they ever found out how she talked to the force.

Oh well. Time to hotwire a speeder and buy Cal his smoothie.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing that Maria loved, it was running wild.

Master Gigom had realized that as soon as she attempted her first jailbreak at 4 years old, trying to stow away on Kenobi and Skywalker’s transport. Xe had carried her back to the creche like she was a feral tooka, and told her that she was free to run wild in the temple as long as she didn’t break any rules or bones. She didn’t understand much else of xir speech, her Basic was only conversational at that point, but she did learn that she would be left to her own devices as long as she didn’t put herself or others in danger.

So, now that she knew how to hide herself from force-users, she could disregard those instructions and put herself in as much danger as she pleased.

She’s not going to live another 2 years, she’s not arrogant enough to believe she can escape Darth Vader, so she doesn’t particularly care if she died earlier than that. 

Shimming through the Senate Rotunda vents, humming the mission impossible theme, she made her way to the office of Senator Orn Free Taa, the slaver senator. 

The fucker had been selling his own people into slavery for a good while now, and even would appear publicly with several ‘paid escorts’ (slaves, those women were slaves ) on his arms. Unfortunately, galactic politics didn’t give two shits about slavery. Tax fraud, however? He’s dead. Force forbid someone messes with the taxes.

Maria dropped in through the vents, stuck a datachip in the data terminal, left a bug in his sitting room, and stole what looked like an expensive artifact.

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!

Of course, that meant that someone did, in fact, notice her making her escape.

The force was laughing in her ear, the bitch.

“Hey, kid, where are you going?” One of the Coruscant Guard asked, kneeling to question the child wandering the senate hallways.

Quick, play dumb!

“Yo no hablo Basico.” 

Not that dumb!

“Uhh,” The guard looked at his vod, probably wondering what senator lost their kid.

“Hablas Espanol?” She continued to babble. “Queiro mi papi. Pueso ir?”

“Mix, just leave her, she doesn’t look lost, and I’m not risking getting accused of kidnapping a politician’s kid because we stepped in.” The other guard hissed at his brother.

Mix, realizing that it was better to leave her alone, quickly scrambled back upright. “Right. Uh, go ahead, kid.” He awkwardly shooed her away.

She gave him a grin and waved, “Gracias, adios!”

Huh. That worked. Thank the force for mean senators and nervous troopers. 

She skittered out of the senate building, and immediately headed for one of the elevators that would take her to the lower levels.

The lower levels are way safer than the upper levels for a kid like her. Of course, she is totally at risk of getting stabbed in a dark alley, but she wouldn’t get arrested for treason or stealing when she pawned her new prizes.

“Psst! Cassandra!” Someone hissed and she followed.

To the underworld, she was Cassandra, cat-burglar extraordinaire and the little brat who bites anyone who thinks they can shake her down. She leaks Jedi, Senate, and Republic secrets like prophecies, and she makes them listen to her.

“What’s the haul, princess?” The Zabraki teen in front of her asked, playing with his knife.

“I’ll give you the artifact if you get the datachip to a reporter, Howl.” She said immediately, “This is a good pawn too, so I better be hearing a scandal by tomorrow night.”

“And if you don’t?”

She gave him a look, “Then I take my business to your rivals, duh.”

“No need to get prissy, princess.” He mocked, before relaxing. “Diggs can pass it to his reporter cousin, their family needs it.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” She tosses him a commlink. “Tell Diggs that that connects to the bug in Senator Orn Free Taa’s private sitting room. It’s bouncing off an untraceable signal, but have him burn it after a ten-day just in case.”

He nods, “You’re too good to us, Cassandra.”

“This is treason. I’m in the middle of my villain arc, I just haven’t compromised my morals yet.” She snarked, handing him the artifact and datachip. “Now, is Jixy still doing that special on smoothies? I promised my bro I’ll get him one.”

Howl snorted, “Yeah, they are. Have fun, princess.”

“Ciao!” She yelled back, making her way to Jixy’s diner.

Jixy made the best smoothies, even if their diner was technically a front. Maria quickly greeted the Twi’lek, before ordering two smoothies, one for her and one for Cal.

Humming the Little Einsteins theme, she made her way back to the temple, a smoothie in each hand.

Until she was stopped, again. By a clone trooper, again .

What’s with the vode today? Can’t an unaccompanied minor do treason without getting asked where her parents are? And why is the force not warning her about them?

“Ad’ika, what are you doing?” A trooper in red stood in front of her, looking faintly familiar.

She looked at him like he was being stupid. “Smoothie.” She held up her drink.

“Without your Jedi Master?” He asked, and she froze.

“Why do you think I’m a Jedi?” 

He nodded towards her boot, “You have a lightsaber hidden in there, I can see the outline of the hilt.”

“Aw kark,” She pouted. “Any way I can convince you not to snitch on me?”

“No.” He said bluntly, taking his helmet off, revealing dark auburn hair with silver on his temples and a great jawline. “I’m Commander Fox. What’s your name, ad’ika?”

“Initiate Cortez, She/Her, call me Maria please.” She was polite, despite her shock. Oh my god, Fox is a silver fox ! Damn, no wonder TCW never animated his face, they could never do the supermodel justice. “Am I getting escorted to the temple or detained at the Guard headquarters?”

“I’ll be escorting you back,” Fox said, steering her towards a speeder. “Initiate? You’re just a cadet, what are you doing running around Coruscant by yourself?”

“Like I said. Smoothie.” She shrugged, neglecting the treason bit. “Want a sip?”

“I’m on duty,” He turned it down. “You get into trouble often?”

“I’ve been reliably informed that I’m worse than General Vos, but much better at not getting caught.”

Fox looked like he just received the worst news of his life. “Is that so?” He said, a bit strangled.

“Don’t worry, I prefer to explore rather than start bar fights. I got all the way to Coco town before I had to go back last week.” She patted his arm as they neared the temple.

Hopping off the speeder, she threw her empty cup away and grabbed Fox’s hand, the other still holding Cal’s drink. Technically, anyone can walk into the temple, but obviously, this is a cult, so nobody does.

“You have to tell Master Gigom where you found me, right? Come on then.” She dragged him inside the temple, despite his hesitance. 

“Usually, if I ever get caught, it’s a temple guard, so they carry me back to the creche. One time, I got caught by Vos, which sucked cause he gave me a lecture on how to properly sneak out and judging when I'm in over my head. Like, sure, he found me sneaking into a spice factory, but what was he doing in the spice factory, huh? I was just getting pictures to send to a local reporter. He looked like he was just going to jump right in and kark osik up. Hypocrite.” 

“Are you always this honest?” Fox stared at her incredulously as she pressed the button to bring her to the creche.

“Adults never believe me. One time I told Master Yoda that the chancellor is an evil sith lord manipulating the war for his own gains and he told me that it’s natural to not like politicians, but making stories up about them is rude.”

Fox froze, tension running through every part of his body. Maria, stopped as well, looking up at him in realization. 

“Oh,” She said softly. “You know too, don’t you?”

He swallowed thickly, putting his helmet back on his head. “Good soldiers follow orders.”

“Of course they do,” She said sadly. “Good soldiers also question orders, but you can’t do that either, can you?”

“The chancellor is a good man and I am proud to serve him. Good soldiers follow orders.” His hands curled into fists by his side, and she felt her hand being squeezed.

“Sorry!” She realized that her comments were hurting him, that the pain in the force was coming from his head. The force psychically poked her, reprimanding her and urging her to fix it.

“I won’t mention it again. I- Uh- The creche! I snuck out to steal Cal a smoothie, cause he asked me to, and he’s my favorite crechemate, don’t tell anyone that. Cal’s eight months older than me, but he has total baby energy, so usually me and Caleb do whatever he wants when asks for it. Would jump in front of a saber for him. Caleb’s the oldest, he’s 11 and I think Master Billaba is going to take him as her padawan. He’s always telling me off for breaking the law and sneaking out, the stiff, but I know that he’s the one who stole Master Koon’s pink cookies from his rooms, so he won’t snitch on me while I can snitch back. He’s got major ori’vod energy, one time I told him he would make a good dad and he got really touched for a few seconds. Secret softie. Uh, you better now?”

“I’m fine ad’ika.” He was giving her a curious look from beneath his helmet, she knew it. 

They arrived at the creche, and Master Gigom zeroed in on her, already tired. “What now, Maria?”

Caleb, however, looked between her and Commander Fox like he couldn’t believe what he’s seeing. “Uh, what you got there, Maria?”

“A smoothie!” She beamed and handed Cal his smoothie with a head ruffle. “Here you go, sweetie.”

Cal batted her hand away and stuck his tongue out at her.

“I meant the clone trooper.” Caleb glared at her.

“Commander Fox found me in the mid-levels and escorted me back,” She shrugged.

Master Gigom immediately started thanking the commander, who tried to brush off xir off to no avail.

“I thought clones aren’t meant to be in the temple?” Cal asked.

“Just because we’re a cult doesn’t mean it’s against the rules to have visitors. Honestly, Cal, don’t be rude.”

“The Jedi are not a cult! ” Caleb hissed.

“We are a bit of a cult,” Cal said, slurping their smoothie.

“We’re totally a cult,” Maria said.

Caleb threw his hands up, “I’m not helping you with your homework.”

“Wait no-” Maria panicked, knowing damn well she can’t do half her STEM classes without Caleb and Cal helping her.

“Initiate Cortez, you have two hours extra meditation every day this week,” Master Gigom added as xe passed by them to show Fox the way out.

“Fuck!”

Chapter Text

“Poo-tah. Puta.” Cal diligently repeated.

“Yeah, good job! Now, that means ‘whore,’ but it’s totally a gender-neutral whore.” She gestured wildly with one hand while she checked the news about how the Ryloth senator has been using tax credits to fund his brothel. Scandalous.

“Are you teaching him how to swear?” Caleb asked incredulously, and they both jumped, not realizing that he had snuck upon them.

“Uhh…”

“Maria!”

“Everyone needs to know how to secretly swear someone out, really, it’s just good life skills!” She defended herself, putting her hands up in surrender.

“He’s like, a baby! You don’t teach babies how to swear!” Caleb was not impressed at all.

“Hey, I’m just two months younger than you!” Cal protested, “I beat you in a spar on Taungsday!”

“You can’t even smell caff without making a face,” The eldest boy crossed his arms.

Cal wrinkled his nose, “It’s so bad, how can you drink that stuff?”

“Yo, boys!” Maria cut them off, waving her datapad in their faces, looking delighted. “I think I got Senator Free Taa arrested!”

They both whipped back around to her, crowding around to see the news on the screen.

‘ SENATOR OF RYLOTH: TAX FRAUD, PROSTITUTION, AND SLAVERY. 

Senator Orn Free Taa’s corruption was exposed by young investigative journalist, Fio Diggs, this morning. As allegations continue to pile up, one wonders as to how deep this disgusting darkness goes. The senator did not want the public to wonder, however, and attempted to flee Coruscant as of 1450 hours. This attempt was foiled by the Coruscant Guard, with several troopers arresting the corrupt senator after a thrilling speeder chase .’

“Maria, and I cannot believe I’m saying this, but good job,” Caleb muttered, eyes flicking across the article. 

“Woah, he tried to shoot the troopers who arrested him!” Cal said from where he was half draped across her to see the pad that Caleb snatched out of her hands.

“The bastard,” She sniffed, proud at her successful expose.

Caleb looked between the pad and her. “Free Taa was considered by many impossible to remove from the senate simply because he’s that corrupt, you realize that?”

“Uh-huh. I’m thinking about exposing Mas Amedda next. He totally commits high treason.”

“This is the fifth senator you’ve exposed in the past year. Someone is going to get suspicious.” Caleb warned.

“Yeah, and who’s going to admit they got exposed by a little girl who’s barely 10?” She shot back, “I’m going to have the senate live feed sliced tonight. Should it read ‘Terror on the battlefield to hide the terror in our Republic’ or ‘When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who bleed’?”

“The first is better, the second focuses on the war too much,” Cal said.

“We’re going to get arrested for aiding treason one of these days,” Caleb sighed before adding his two cents. “I agree with Cal though, the latter can mean the Jedi are warmongers.”

“Thanks.” She fiddled with the pad before sending an encrypted message to the slice-worm she downloaded into the senate mainframe a few months ago that nobody has found yet. “Done!”

“Are you going to do your homework now? Please?” Caleb asked, sitting down properly across from her.

“Ugh, fine. Only because I love you.”

“That’s attachment.”

“I’m not living to be a teenager, fuck attachment.”

“Don’t swear in front of the baby.”

“HEY!”

--

Master Gigom, as expected, forgot about Maria’s grounding after 48 hours. Bless the poor master, xe really shouldn’t have been a Creche Master, but the Creche was really short-handed and xe used to be a Searcher before xir retirement.

She pulled on her more casual robes, the set she wore whenever she wasn’t attending a festival or formal event. The fit made her feel like an early 2000s kid being dressed by their mom, or maybe more like a Disney channel original-movie star. Grey leggings, bright blue long-sleeved shirt, a white sleeveless top over her shirt, and a dark blue circle skirt over everything. Yikes. At least her hair was just a simple braid with a blue headband and her shoes were a set of sturdy boots.

“Where you going this time?” Cal asked, not looking up from his engineering book as she got ready.

“Probably to commit arson,” Caleb snarked as he stressed over the mouse droid that Cal was instructing him how to fix.

“I wish. Nah, I’m going to bring the Corrie Guard some cookies, they look like they need some food other than rations.” She said as she double-checked the straps of her backpack.

Caleb gave her a weird look, “Meeting their commander has changed your opinion about the troopers or something? I swear you said several times that the clones will be the death of you.”

“They will be. I can sympathize with them while also being fully aware that they are going to murder me. And they chased Senator Dumb-Fuck across Coruscant. They deserve cookies.”

“The clones are soldiers for the Republic. They’re not going to murder the Jedi.”

“They have mind-control chips in their brains !”

“You sound like a conspiracy theorist.”

“It’s literally a sith conspiracy.”

“The chancellor is NOT a sith lord.”

“You are so going to be eating your words in a few years’ time.”

“You need help.”

“I’m aware, but my psychological issues have no bearing on my belief of the sith messing with the clones’ heads.”

Caleb groaned, smacking his forehead onto the mouse droid as Cal snorted.

“Tell the troopers I said ‘good job.’” Cal instructed.

“Will do, little red. Anything from you, CD?” She turned to her other friend.

“Don’t get arrested. And pass me that spanner before you go.”

She passed him the tool, rolling her eyes as she did. “Bye C-squared.”

“Bye,” Cal said, before returning to helping Caleb.

--

Deciding that doors are for noobs, Maria was currently unscrewing the vent in the Corrie Guard Station.

She had Jedi powers, fuck if she wouldn’t use them for every little thing. There’s no such thing as ‘frivolous use of The Force’ Yoda , just power and those too stupid to utilize it to the best of their abilities.

She silently pulled back the vent grate and stuck her head through the gap, watching as the troopers did their jobs.

Two men, shinies from the look of their impersonal armor, were processing a rowdy rodian into a cell. A commander was instructing several men as to their posts, barely looking up from his datapad. Another trooper had an Aak dog on a leash, and was heading out. Three men had stacked datapads up to their chin, datapads that looked suspiciously like some of the paperwork she knows that the senator-aides should be dealing with.

Finally, she spotted Fox, with his pretty red armor and a cup of caf in his hand, sending waves of stress-frustration-grief into the force as he looked down at a pad.

Huh. Something bad must have happened for him to be feeling like that in The Force.

Flipping down from her vantage point, she landed in a perfect superhero pose.

Several men yelled, one shrieked worse than a spider-monkey on spice, and at least a dozen blaster shots were sent her way, which she quickly blocked with her saber.

“What the-?!” Fox cursed, nearly spilling his caf everywhere.

“Hi!” Maria grinned, “You guys are really unused to Jedi dropping in, huh?”

Everyone was staring at her, looking at her like she was insane (or so she assumed, they had their helmets on), and then looking at Fox as if waiting for instructions or explanation.

“Initiate Cortez, you are not supposed to leave your temple. I am having one of the men escort you back.” He said, tired and apparently with no time for her.

“No need! I’ll go straight back after,” She ducked his hand reaching for her shoulder. “I just wanted to pop in and say thank you for arresting that Senator earlier this week. Brought cookies as a gift.”

“You- what?” That stopped him, and she could feel the gentle wave of confusion. Force, he must be exhausted if his shielding is this bad.

“Brought cookies. Oh! And a message from Cal, he said ‘good job,’ and he also thinks the speeder case was cool.”

“Commander?” One of the men receiving orders before she dropped in spoke up, and Fox straightened, shaking off his confusion.

“Back to work, men! Hound, Thorn, finish what you’re doing and report to me.” He turned to her, “My office, ad’ika.”

“Okie-Dokie!” She followed him like a duckling, watching as the others turned back to their tasks.

The second that the door was closed and the helmet was off, Fox turned on her. “Okay ad’ika, what are you really doing here?”

“ Cookies ,” She stressed the word and opened her bag to show the container of them. “I just thought that you guys could use a thank-you-gift, honest.”

“Right. Not to give any of my men a headache ?” He asked, voice thick with implication.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t think you’d know or listen to me!” She quickly defended herself, “Do you know how many times I tell Masters the truth and they don’t listen? I’ve known this war was coming since I first arrived at the temple, but no. Nobody listens to the child telling everyone of their doom. Not that I blame them.”

“How do you even know?” Fox questioned, frowning.

“A good mix of dreams, the force, my curiosity, and stuff I vowed not to tell anyone about.”

“Humph,” Fox sat down and crossed his arms. “As long as you're not going to be causing trouble for my men, then I won’t stop you.”

She smiled, “Thanks! Do you want a cookie? I brought caf-flavoured ones cause you look like you’d like them. They’re homemade, I have caf, nut-butter, choccy-chip, banilla, and shrewsberry.”

He took a caf cookie and bit into it, humming appreciatively. “How did you even get so far away from your temple?”

“Jumped out a window and hitched a ride with the troopers finishing their temple patrol shift,” She shrugged and grabbed a banilla cookie. “I used the force to make them not check the back seat, so don’t yell at them.”

Fox sighed, tiredly. “How about calling a taxi after walking out the front door next time?”

She gave him an affronted look, “That’s boring. I have The Force, I’m going to use it.”

“Right. Look kid, thank you for the cookies, but the station isn’t the place for a cadet to be running around underfoot.” Fox began, obviously about to kick her out.

Commander Thorn and Sergeant Hound entered at that point, and she gave them a bright smile, the innocent one that makes older Masters pinch her cheeks, and waved. “Hi!”

She could feel them melting in the force, even as they gave a simple “Hello” back.

“Thorn, Hound, this is the runaway Jetii cadet I escorted back to the temple I told you about. The one who knows.” He introduced them.

They went from passive to alert in The Force and she wrinkled her nose. “My name is Maria , not kid or cadet.” She corrected.

“You know about…” Thorn trailed off, unable to say more.

“Yeah. Force stuff. Didn’t expect anyone else to know. Want a cookie?” She waved her banilla one as she talked.

“Sure, ad’ika,” Thorn took a shrewsberry one.

Hound was a bit more skeptical, but he grabbed a cookie seeing that his two commanders were eating them too.

Removing their helmets, she was once again surprised at their faces. Thorn had long hair, messily tied back in a curly bun, and a rose tattoo curling up behind his ear and blooming on his temple. Hound had the sides of his head shaved, and the top of his head dyed grey, with several eyebrow, ear, and nose piercings, and oh my force is that a forked tongue?!

He noticed her staring, “What?”

“You’re so cool! I love your piercings!” 

He was obviously startled, “Uh, thanks. I did them myself.”

“Awesome!”

Thorn snorted, “Congrats Hound, a baby Jetii thinks you’re cool.”

He growled at his brother’s teasing. “You’re just jealous.”

Thorn responded by stealing his cookie, and Fox sighed as the two began play-wrestling.

She giggled madly at the classic sibling display. 

“Oi!” Fox barked out as Hound nearly stumbled into him, and they both immediately let go and stood at attention.

“Don’t worry Thorn, I think your tattoo is cool too.” She said as Fox glared at them.

“Initiate Cortez, I ask you not to encourage them.” 

She waved him off, “ANYWAY! Did you know your Force Presence is, like, super loud right now?”

Fox startled, glancing at his brothers in confusion before returning to look at her. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re projecting loudly. That’s how I found you through the vents, by the way. The force is telling you that you need to rest, and you’re pumping out stress and grief like a steady motor.”

Fox froze, the feelings rising in a crescendo before they seemed to disappear in a shield.

“Even the Jetii agrees you need sleep, Fox’ika. I’m telling the medics to cut you off from the caf.” Thorn said, worried.

Fox sighed, putting his head in his hands, his fingers threading through his hair. “I have to sign off on a decommissioning on a pair of shinies.”

“What?” She blurted, head whipping up to stare at him. “That’s murder! I thought that the decommissioning was shut down by Master Ti.”

Hound scoffed, “This is the Senate, Jetii. We’re flesh-droids to them. Nobody cares, Kamino is still culling our vode.”

Horror filled her senses, disgust, and anger. This isn’t supposed to be happening. The Coruscant Guard was supposed to be the safest position in the GAR. Those stupid fucking politicians-

“If the person who sent in the request is arrested, then nobody needs to be decommissioned, right?” She asked, a plan forming in her mind, one hand digging into her bag for her datapad.

“Yes, but we can’t just arrest a senator-” Fox tried to shut her down.

“What senator?”

“Senator Agg Utio of Kuat.”

Her head whipped up, pure delight washing over her features. “Perfect! I have so much shit on zem! I was planning on waiting another few months, until Palpa-dick” Hound choked at her nickname for the Chancellor “started lining zir pockets with the mass of the Imperial infrastructure commissions, but if I interrupt him now, that’s good too. Hmm, Money laundering, tax evasion, tax fraud, G-OSHA violations in his shipyards, and accepting bribes.”

Fox was staring at her, slack-jawed. “Where in stars’ name did you get all this?”

“I broke into his holoterminal and sliced into his personal accounts,” She shrugged. “Who do you think leaked Free Taa’s private messages? I told you I’m curious.”

“That’s illegal.” Thorn pointed out.

“Technically, it’s treason, but since they did it first, I get a freebie. Do you want me to leak this to the press first or do you want all this information to have been sent to you anonymously? Wait, actually, I can do both at the same time. Sent!”

Hound was grinning like a mad-man. “Fox, can we keep her?”

Fox made a strangled sound from the back of his throat. “I- Sure. Ad’ika, you help us arrest those shabuir senators and we’ll ignore the treason.”

“Yes!” She pumped a fist into the air, “Awesome, you’re never getting rid of me now.”

Thorn still seemed to be stuck on the part where she leaked multiple senators’ dirty laundry. “Do all Jetii do this? Between General Vos and you-”

“Oh no, we’re considered insane heretics. I just like chaos.” She hopped off her chair, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a class in two hours, and you have a senator to arrest.”

“I’m having one of the men escort you back,” Fox reached for a comm, but she was quicker.

“Nope! Then you have to report that I was here, and then I get in trouble again. I’ll walk.”

“It’s a two-hour walk.” Fox pointed out.

“I’m a Jedi, I’ll be fine. I have my lightsaber.”

--

She was, in fact, not fine. 

She almost got kidnapped and was saved by a trooper that Fox had apparently assigned to make sure she got back to the temple safely.

She would have escaped said kidnapper just fine, worst-case scenario would have been her being late for class, but nooo~ Fox thinks she’s a little kid and needs an escort everywhere.

Bastard. How dare he be vaguely correct!

Chapter Text

Escaping the Jedi Temple is, as always, ridiculously simple. 

One jump out a window here, one secret passage there, a quick trip through the vents, a perilous journey through the maze of corridors below the temple that reek of darkness and threaten to drag her down into the Sith Temple the Jedi Temple is built on top of, a climb down the temple walls, straight out the front door…

So many easy escapes and harder break-ins. Honestly, the security should be ashamed of themselves.

She crawled out of a tunnel that probably used to be a droid maintenance tunnel eons ago when the lower floors were the upper floors of Coruscant and not so low down that natural light is considered a luxury. Honestly, talk about buildup growths, Coruscant is like a mold. Or a fungus.

She bee-lined to the nearest elevator. She wasn’t all that fond of the dark, as all humans tended to be, much less unnatural darkness that she knew held dangers.

The lift creaked and groaned as it went up several levels, to the point that she had to ask the force for a steadying hand, and the second that the doors opened onto the midlevel street, she took off, ducking several passersby until she nearly ran face-first into the nearest elevator that went up to the upperlevels.

Her heart was still pounding in anxiety, despite the adrenaline having appeared for a completely ridiculous reason. Honestly, she commits treason and sneaks through a sith’s ventilation system on the regular, but walking through dark streets and using a broken elevator had her panicking worse than a buck seeing a hunting rifle.

She hesitantly steps out of the elevator, scanning the busy upperlevel street (it could be barely called upperlevel, really, in another century this will be considered proper midlevel), and started layering the force around her as she walked down the sidewalk.

‘Force, darling of mine, how do you feel about causing a bit of chaos?’ She reached out as she brought the first layer towards her.

The force buzzed in excitement as it draped itself lazily across her shoulders.

‘ Yes, I agree, breaking and entering sounds so fun.’

The force hummed in consideration and then pushed a vague thought at her as it wrapped around her waist like a belt.

‘ The Guard Station? What about th-eem!’ Her question was cut off with a verbal squawk.

Picked up from under her arms like a humanoid Simba, a Hamlet so to say, she was hauled up off the ground by a trooper who held her up to eye level of his vod. “Hey, isn’t this the Jetii’ika that Fox told us to keep an eye on?”

“I think so,” The other trooper said, tilting his head to the side like a confused pigeon.

“I will break your kneecaps if you don’t put me down right now!” She yelped, squirming.

“Aww, copikla! The Jetii train them young to be deadly,” They cooed at her. Curse her baby fat!

“Put me down!” She yelled, twisting madly and forcing the trooper to have to sling her over his shoulder if he doesn’t want to drop her. “Help! HELP! STRANGER DANGER! I’M BEING KIDNAPPED!”

Unfortunately, even upperlevel Coruscant doesn’t give two shits about child safety, and other than a few curious looks at her thumping the trooper’s armor with her fists, nobody cares.

“She’s a fighter,” The one carrying her declares.

“Duh, she’s a Jetii. Should we take her back to her temple or...?”

“Well, Fox was the one that said to be on lookout for her, I suppose we take her back to him?”

“Sure.”

“WILL YOU TWO MORONS PUT ME DOWN?!” She screeched at the top of her lungs.

“No can do, kiddo.” The one who wasn’t holding her said, “We have our orders.”

“Well, your orders are dumb,” She snarled back. “And don’t call me kid! My name is Maria!”

“Su’cuy gar Maria, I’m Chip and the di’kut carrying you is Ankle.”

She gave another hard thump to Ankle’s armor before going limp, annoyed. “How in force’s name did you manage to get stuck with the name ‘Ankle’?” She asked, slightly curious and wanting to distract the men so she could try and bolt.

“I accidentally grabbed one of the long neck’s ankles and pulled during my wrestling training. If the trainer hadn’t been so amused at my face when I realized that I yanked one of them to the floor by the ankle, I think I would’ve been decommissioned. Instead, I’m assigned to the Guard.” Ankle said this cheerfully, like he didn’t just say he almost got murdered for embarrassing a Kaminoan.

“I may not like you for kidnapping me, but I respect you for your name,” She told him.

Chip snorted, “You say that now. He’s still an idiot.”

“Hey!” Ankle cried out, “Don’t listen to them, Mar’ika, they got their name because they chipped their tooth biting a rock.”

“Why did you bite a rock?”

“Treat told me it was a piece of pantoran candy,” Grumbled Chip.

“Oh my force,” She whispered. “You’re both himbos.”

“What?” Ankle asked.

“Nothing!” She chirped. “How long until we-”

She was cut off by the men’s comms buzzing: ‘ All available troopers to Level 4341, riot in progress. I repeat, all available troopers to Level 4341, riot in progress.’

They froze, and she could feel their mounting dread and horror in the force. 

“Chip, isn’t that where the shinies are patrolling today?” Ankle said, horrified.

“Yes.” Chip hauled her off Ankle suddenly, putting her on the ground. “Your lucky day, Jetii’ika, we’re needed elsewhere. Stay safe and go back to your temple.”

They took off running, leaving her on the sidewalk, stunned at the sudden change.

Then, the force seemed to poke at her, and her brain caught up at what exactly was happening. She started running after them, pulling her lightsaber from her boot and bee-lining for an elevator.

Coruscant had 5,127 levels built up from its core. Levels 4,900 to 5,127 are considered upperlevel, where only the richest live; for politicians, CEOs, and the Jedi; and she was currently standing on level 4907. The midlevels, Levels 4,200 to 4,900, where it’s harder to have any natural light, are mostly for the poor and undesirable characters as Coruscant doesn’t exactly have what is considered a middle-class. The lowest inhabitable levels, Levels 4,000 to 4,200, don’t have any light and were inhabited by the lowest of the low; the slaves, droids, and homeless; unable to even breathe properly in its extremely polluted air. All levels below 4,000 were abandoned, the air so toxic that all life is snuffed out in moments. 

Maria was probably one of the few living people who have ever traveled down to Level 3,999, having gone exploring the deep bowels of the Jedi Temple and accidentally having found what had once been the Temple’s front doors, thousands of years ago, and had an asthma attack just from sticking her head out the door. The Jedi Temple was built over a Sith Temple, not that she had ever taken the passageway that links the two, and the Sith Temple likely goes down another two thousand levels. Considering the Sith Temple was supposedly built on top of a mountain, if she truly wished to, she could head to the true ground level of Coruscant. Not that she ever would, just leaving the temple from Level 4,187 gave her the creeps and a headache, going down any further would probably end in a trip to the healing halls.

Still, she would gladly go down to the midlevels to help the Coruscant Guard stop a riot. Especially considering that she knows the midlevels well, and they would not be hesitating to lethally fire at anyone standing in their way.

She exited the elevator two levels above, the lifts had already been disabled on the level to stop anyone from running away or adding to the mess. She can barely see below from the thick smoke coming from a flaming store, but the stunning bolts the troopers were throwing flashed light onto the silhouettes of the rioters. It looked like a gang war gone horribly wrong, innocents gotten mixed up and frenzied into a mob mentality.

The force began to shout, and she leaped off her level to land in the middle of the riot, lightsaber ignited and rebounded a blaster bolt about to off one of the troopers.

‘ Force, I’m trusting you to take over! We need to help the Vode!’ She shouted mentally and the force gladly answered, wrapping itself around her limbs and snarling in determination.

“I’m covering you, move!” She shouted, body moving to the tune of the force, trusting it to guide her completely. She wasn’t the best duelist, but she could deflect blaster bolts and help the men.

She slowly backed up as more bolts flew in her direction, catching as many as she could while the troopers laid cover fire, until there was nobody behind her and she could duck around a wall.

“Sitrep?” She immediately asked, scanning the men. There were armored bodies laying on the main street, but she had to ignore them, even as her stomach turned.

“Initiate Cortez?” Commander Thorn said, shocked at her presence for a second, before his eyes narrowed. “The riot started twenty standard clicks ago, a gang encouraged drunk civvies to raid the burning store, the mob happened two clicks later. Six men down, four injured, we have forty troopers left.”

She nodded tightly. “I’m going to force push the mob down about seven to ten feet away from us, I want you to throw your tear gas canisters at the same time and lay fire on stun. We can back them up several feet before they reorient themselves and take shelter around the next alley. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am, the comms caught everything.”

“Good,” She inched to the very edge of the wall, feeling the men copy her. “Three, two, one, NOW!”

She jumped out, thrusting both hands out in front of her and pushing the mob of oddly fifty people away from her, the force snarling alongside her shout. Tear canisters landed at the feet of the rioters at the same time as they all fell onto the ground, and the whine of blasters firing filled the air. 

Marching forward with her lightsaber extended, they managed to move forward a whole block before the return fire began. She blocked the first few bolts and yelled, “Behind shelter, move, now!”

The men all ducked behind whatever shelter they could find, and she took a deep breath before turning to Thorn. “Same attack plan: force push, tear gas, stun bolts.”

“Yes ma’am,” He readied his blaster.

“NOW!” She jumped back out.

This process was repeated twice more before Guard reinforcements appeared and the rioters were all abruptly stopped and arrested.

“Thorn!” Fox appeared from the other side of the downed mob, striding through the stunned bodies towards where they were both standing, organizing the men.

“Fox,” Thorn sighed with relief. “It’s okay. Low casualties, and only before the Jetii’ika got to the scene.”

Another trooper in paint a shade darker than the normal Corrie color was on Fox’s heels, and they visibly relaxed at hearing Thorn’s words.

“Thank the force,” Fox growled. “Why is Initiate Maria here?”

“She organized the attack strategy against the rioters. We would have lost a lot more men if she hadn’t appeared.” Thorn defended her.

“Yes, but she’s also a child who shouldn’t be jumping into the middle of a riot,” Fox said, and she could feel his gratefulness-frustration-protectiveness-annoyance in the force.

“Two of your men were escorting me to the station when they got the alert. I have the force and my lightsaber, so I decided to follow them and help out,” She explained. “I judged the risk and decided to help anyway.”

Ankle, who she could see from the corner of her eye being helped by a medic for his dislocated shoulder, winced at her mention of him.

Fox sighed, “While I am grateful for your help, ad’ika, don’t do that again.”

“No promises.”

“Is anyone going to tell me how you two know a Jetii’ikaad?” The third-wheeling trooper spoke, staring at her.

“Hello, Initiate Maria Rosa-Cortez, She/Her.” She greeted, “I like running away from the temple and Commander Fox doesn’t.”

“If Didi hadn’t been following you on my orders, you would have been kidnapped.”

“I was fine, I had my lightsaber. You worry too much.”

“I do not and you weren’t. You’re coming back with us to the station and I’m escorting you to the temple later.”

“Ugh, fine.”

The poor extra trooper looked between them like a particularly interesting ping pong game. “So, Fox decided to adopt a Jetii while I had a mission off-world?”

Thorn’s shoulders shake with withheld laughter, “You’ve got it, Stone.”

“She’s not my ad,” Fox growled.

Smirking, Maria decided to be a little shit. “I dunno, you’ve got troopers on lookout for me and you worry. Sounds like a buir to me.”

Fox, apparently, was capable of being just as sarcastic back. “Is that so? Then you’re grounded. No running away for a week.”

“Fox’buir!” She gasped dramatically, “How could you?”

Fox snorted and turned back to the mess of the riot. “Yeah, yeah, ad’ika. If you’re here, then help us with the clean-up.”

“Elek, buir,” She cheekily saluted and went to work.

“She knows Mando’a?” She heard Commander Stone ask Thorn.

Chapter Text

Cal was curled up on Caleb’s chest, his legs tangled in Maria’s who was trapped under Caleb, left arm and shoulder serving as a pillow to the eldest boy.

“They’re so cool because of it too! With a new slice arm and a processing speed of- '' They were all content to listen to the young stewjoni ramble on about the new astromech droid on the market, lazing away their day off from schoolwork.

Katooni and Gungi had wandered in a while ago, before realising that we were the ones occupying the soft room, and turning on their heels to walk straight back out again.

Their little group was considered a bit strange by the other younglings. Between Maria’s Maria-ness, Cal’s psychometry, and Caleb’s tendency to hover over them both like the galaxy’s most protective brother; some believed that all three of them were too attached and were never going to be picked as padawan. Ha! Maria has it on good authority that both her boys were going to be the only two junior padawans to survive Order 66 and become massive pains in the ass of the Empire.

She is nearly dozing off, curled around her boys and warm, when they’re interrupted by Master Windu and Depa Billaba.

She jerks up suddenly, only to falter partway because she’s still trapped under Caleb. Caleb tries to get up and free her, but Cal is on top of both of them and squawking at the sudden movements.

Needless to say, all three of them end up on the floor in front of the two Masters.

“Ow.”

They both look amused, Master Billaba’s hand delicately hiding her laughter.

“Masters!” Caleb squeaks, finally taking note of the reason she had tried to get up. He ushers them up and bows, blushing wildly.

“Initiate Dume,” Master Billaba greets. “Who are your friends?”

He grasped that distraction with both hands, “These are my best friends, Cal Kestis and Maria Cortez.”

“Rosa-Cortez! But just Initiate Cortez, if you must call me by that dumb title.” She wrinkled her nose.

Caleb elbowed her in the ribs. “Manners Maria.”

“Right. Initiate Cortez if you want to call me by the dumb title, Masters .”

Windu raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment.

“Nice to meet you, Initiate Kestis, Initiate Cortez.” Billaba said, the slightest hint of amusement that told her that she was doing it on purpose. That troll.

“You too, Master,” Cal bowed politely.

“Ditto,” She grinned.

Caleb looked like he wanted to strangle her, but settled for glaring at her and sending the psychic version of an arm slap. 

“If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to talk to you alone, Caleb,” Depa turned to him, and Caleb was so quick to agree and leave with her that his new name should be Blue-ray CD… or The Flash, but that’s not as funny.

After a beat, they realized that the new Master-Padawan pair had left Master Windu behind, and from Windu’s face, he looked a bit panicked.

“So, ah, what do you two like to do?” He asked, awkward. And wasn’t that a sight! Mace Windu is awkward with children! Ha! 

“I like droids,” Cal offered.

“I like running away from the Temple and figuring out how long it takes for a guard to find me.” She offered.

“She wants to be a Shadow,” Cal added when he saw Master Windu’s face at her answer.

“Actually, I want to be the Galaxy’s best spy, but Shadow works too.” 

“I want to be a knight,” Cal tried to get the conversation back to normal parameters. 

“He’s going to be a very good knight.” She insisted, “A thorn in the sith’s side, for sure.”

Master Windu looked like he regretted ever meeting her. “You’re very certain of that.”

“Visions,” She shrugged. “By the way, Boba Fett wants to kill you and he’s not against blowing up your entire ship to do it.”

“Pardon?”

“Watch out for the feral baby clone.”

“I left you for five minutes,” Caleb stressed, apparently having walked in on them. “Maria, stop confusing people. I’m sorry Master Windu, her visions are 50/50 completely true or completely off course. You’re probably fine.”

“When have you ever heard me say something that hasn’t happened?”

“The chancellor is NOT a sith lord.”

“You can’t prove that. It just hasn’t happened yet.”

“The ‘evil’ you’re feeling in the force is just him being a politician.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then shut it. “Get out of here with your ‘facts’.”

The Masters and Cal watched them go back and forth in confusion and amusement.

“Does this happen often?” Master Billaba asked.

“Yes.” 

“Reminds me of Kenobi and Vos when they were padawans,” Windu noted.

“Really?” Cal asked, eyes widening at his friends being compared to two legendary Jedi.

“Oh yes. But then they became twelve times worse when Obi-Wan stopped pretending to be responsible and threw himself into the middle of the chaos.” Billaba nodded.

“He’s in our lineage now,” Windu said, fake regret in his tone.

“Oh! Congratulations Master! Don’t worry, Caleb is just protective of us. You won’t regret picking him.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” She smiled.

They were interrupted by Maria squealing loudly and tackling Caleb in a hug.

“You’re a padawan, CD!”

“Yes, yes, get off!”

“I’m so proud! You’re all grown up!”

“I’m a year older than you!”

“Oooh, we need to celebrate!”

“Maria no.”

“Maria yes!” She let go of him to turn to Master Billaba, “Master! Did you know Caleb loves honey cake and chocolate milkshakes? I have the recipes but unfortunately, I am banned from the kitchens after attempting to do some science experiments there.”

“I’d be happy to help plan this celebration,” She agreed. “Perhaps dinner together tonight? You and Initiate Kestis are invited too, of course.”

Caleb looked horrified, and Master Windu was hiding his wince.

Cal, the only one with manners in their group, gave her a toothy grin and said “Thank you Master Billaba!”

Master Billaba was officially Maria’s favorite Jedi Master. She was so cool for a brainwashed cult member.

Chapter Text

The Jedi Temple’s main doors opened to Level 5,065. 

When it was rebuilt the last time, Level 5,065 was 30 levels above the rest of Coruscant, and level to the Senate main doors. That was during the Ruusan Reformation. 900 years later, it was 62 levels below the highest level of Coruscant.

The Jedi Temple on Coruscant was built over 4 thousand years ago, on top of the original Jedi Temple, with its doors to Level 4,185. The Old Temple was built before the Old Sith Wars, roughly 6 thousand years ago, as a monument to Jedi might and as a war base, a symbol of power over the sith that once lived in the Sith Temple under it, and the beginning of the end of the Jedi. The Old Temple’s doors lead out to Level 3,800, and their basement, roughly at Level 3,780, has a passage that links to the Sith Temple.

The Sith Temple wasn’t always a sith temple. In fact, it was originally a force user temple, built over 30 thousand years ago, merely 2 thousand years after Coruscant first documented force users. It stood for ten thousand years before the Jedi came to be, discovering the use of kyber and figuring out how to wield the force. Ten thousand years after that, the first Dark Jedi appeared, a small faction within the Jedi that believed that only using the darker side of the force with their wildest of emotions was better, producing more powerful force users, instead of the equal balance of light and dark the Jedi used. 

They were exiled after a schism that ended with a dead Jedi, and they decided to conquer and enslave the Sith species, teaching them how to be Dark Jedi like them. The Dark Jedi returned to the place that once shunned them, with their army of Sith, and established the first Sith Temple. The ancient temple, originally a place of happiness and love, transformed into a place of bitter spite and betrayal. The Sith Temple, though at first establishment was not a place of hate nor atrocity, slowly became darker in the next five thousand years, its members dwelling on the betrayal of the Jedi and Dark Jedi for generations, culminating in pure hatred.

When the Old Sith Wars between the Jedi and the Sith began, it was with a decisive strike by the Jedi at the heart of the Sith Order, the Jedi Lords of War taking the Sith Temple of Coruscant with a slaughter of all within. The Jedi Lords decided to make their new command base a temple above the Sith Temple, a shrine to their glory, a sign of the carnage still to come. 

However, the darkness in the temple below seeped into the Old Temple, and the Jedi Lords that lived above came to a safety measure to stop any of their members from taking the same path of the Dark Jedi before them: only seasoned Jedi Lords who can manage to use only the light side within its walls were allowed inside. It was only a base, not meant to be lived in, but as the years passed it was treated more and more like a proper temple. 

By the time the Old Temple was rebuilt upon again, due to the darkness permeating it from the war and the Sith Temple, the Jedi Temple of Coruscant was lived in and used solely by the warrior and knight sects of the Jedi Lords, used as a base to train their padawans. They still used only the light side of the force, and began teaching their padawans to control their emotions so as to not be too tempted to use the dark. 

Eventually, the Jedi Temple of Coruscant merely became the main temple of the Jedi Lords, no longer only for their fighter corps. With the Ruusan Reformation, most of the other Jedi temples across the galaxy were destroyed, so the Jedi flocked to the Coruscant temple, where they fully adopted the New Jedi Code vowing against emotions and using the dark side of the force. 

Now, the modern Jedi Order had forgotten all their history before the Jedi Temple was constructed.

How did Maria know this? She went down far enough that she found the Old Temple and its archives. How did she know about the original force user temple? Well…

“This is so fucking creepy,” She muttered as she approached the lowest floor of the Old Temple, where it connected with the Sith Temple.

The force, greyer than she had ever felt it, hummed in agreement from where it was draped across her shoulders. 

She had decided to finally go down beyond the main building of the Old Temple, hoping to explore the Sith Temple below, and was armed with a flashlight, a survival-camping bag she stole from storage, and her lightsaber.

The walls are not overly decorated in the Old Temple, not with how it was originally a military base, but there were just enough moth-eaten tapestries and weird statues that every once in a while, she rounded a corner and had a heart attack.

Humming ‘In The Hall Of The Mountain King’ off-key, she inches toward the final level and opens the door.

And promptly screams, unsheathing her lightsaber. 

The room, empty but for the two doors linking the two temples, was guarded by ten Jedi Sentinel Guards. Ten decayed skeleton bodies still standing vigil, lightsabers in their hands, at parade rest. The echoes of the room still held their last days in the force: hunger and thirst, locked in to guard the passage forever in the force, duty and steady devotion.

The force snickered in her ear, laughing at her jump-scare-in-a-horror-house-esqe reaction.

“Oh shush,” She grumbled, before peering closer at the mummified remains of the Jedi. “Hey Greg, does guarding this passage for eons give you a crick in the neck?”

The guard’s head swiveled to look directly at her.

“AAAAH!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, backpedaling so hard that she fell on her ass and crawled away from the zombie.

“Who are you?” A voice booms.

She just sat there, trembling. The force had to poke her to make her remember how to speak.

“M-Maria. Initiate of the Jedi Order.”

“You should not be here, child. Return to your Master.” The voice responded.

Before she could squash her anger, she snapped back a retort. “I said I’m an Initiate, not a padawan, I don’t have a Master. Adult .”

The voice laughed, coming from every Sentinel’s mouth at once in a disturbing echo. “You are a bold one, Initiate Maria. Why are you here?”

Relaxing slightly at the knowledge that they won’t just cut her down randomly, she shrugged. “I was curious and the force was egging me on. I read in your archives that there’s a Sith Temple on the other side of that door, and I wanted to see if I could explore their archives. I want to know exactly how old these passages are and why the temple is constantly being built overtop this one spot.”

“You do not seek the darkness? The power?”

“No, never,” She denied. “I seek knowledge. There is no Ignorance, there is Knowledge.” She quoted the New Jedi Code.

“Through Knowledge, I gain Strength.” The voice quoted back, “I see the code has changed in your time, little archivist.”

“It’s been six thousand years,” She confirmed. “The galaxy is a very different place… though not that much, considering that we’re fighting yet another civil war against the Sith.”

The Sentinel Guards nodded in unison. “You may pass, young one, but be wary. Shall you be tempted by the power of the dark, you will never leave the temple. The Ancient Archives are on the 213 floor of the west wing, the elevator will take you there directly.”

“Thank you,” She said, bowing respectfully.

The Guards returned to their perfect eternal vigil, the heavy weight of the force that they had given themselves over to, dissipating.

She took a deep breath and reached towards the hinged door separating the Jedi and the Sith. 

“Let’s hope I don’t girlboss a bit too close to the sun, huh bestie?” She muttered at the force before taking the plunge.

--

Despite the twenty-minute journey to the Sith Archives, there were no traps or anything actually nefarious.

In fact, other than the oppressing blanket of anger-regret-bitterness of the dark, the Sith Temple was just like the Jedi Temple and the Old Temple. Including the terrible interior design that gives her heart palpitations with their ugly looming.

She came to a stop outside massive double doors.

“Are you the archives?” She asks thin air. The force gives the psychic equivalent of sighing at her antics.

She takes that as a confirmation and walks right in.

Oh. Oh damn.

There are so many books . Like, actual physical books. PAPER . Maria has never been so hyped about paper before. She’s like Belle in the Beast’s library. She’s in love.

She bee-lined toward the nearest shelf, reaching out and taking a physical copy of ‘Che Luzsabre Phorms Ov Che Phuturr.’

Wait a second. She squints at the slightly evolved latin alphabet staring back at her. That’s English. It’s a terribly bastardized version of English, but it most certainly is English. 

“The Lightsaber forms of the future,” She sounded out loud, nonplussed. “What the fuck?”

“You speak Proto Basic?” A voice asks from behind her, and she shrieks.

What is it with jumpscares and voices today?

A tall human was staring down at her, in dark maroon robes and threaded gold in their kinky brown hair. The woman peered down at her through her glasses. Glasses! Actual glasses! 

“You are not one of this temple’s apprentices,” She frowned. Her Basic was terribly accented and overly formal, like a holocron that nobody has used in a few thousand… oh.

“No ma’am,” She said politely. “I’m researching the history of this temple, are you the Holocron archivist?”

“Yes. I am Madame Debois. Who are you and how do you know Proto Basic?” She said, looking at her critically.

“I am Jedi Initiate Maria Rosa-Cortez. Proto Basic is my first language, my parents taught me it, I call it English.” She explained truthfully, but with her hand on her lightsaber.

“I know it is called English,” Madame Debois said sharply. “I want to know how a child speaks English when it has been thousands of years since I have last heard anyone speak it.”

Maria frowned, then realized. “Madame Debois, what was the name of this planet originally?”

“It has gone through many name changes while I have been an archivist. Coruscant was its name during the last time I was awake. Notron, was what the Jedi called it. I was born, however, back when it was first called Earth. Terra.” She answered primly.

Oh fuck . She wasn’t in a Galaxy Far Far Away, nor A Long Time Ago. She was in the fucking future. George Lucas is a fucking prophet. Oh no.

“Would you mind telling me when you were born? The year, please.” Her voice was strangled.

“3073 AD. 1008 TYA if we’re using the dating system of the Jedi and Dark Jedi. Why?”

“I was born in 2002 AD,” She replied, shaken. “I lived my life and then got transported to Coruscant in roughly 36,000 TYA. I must have stumbled across a force nexus or something, time got warped and I got spat out on the New Jedi Order’s doorstep.”

The force sang mournfully in her ear, hugging her.

“Oh dear,” Madame Debois said. “Now that is a problem. I’m sorry, young one, but time moves only forward, never backward. I have been an archivist for force users for over 30 thousand years, one of the first force users to figure out how to seal their souls in the force echos of a Holocron,  and I have never heard of someone returning to what they once lost.”

Her heart ached for just a second before she gathered it all up and handed it over to the force. “Good thing I don’t want to try and go back. I want to move forward and enjoy what I have left of my life.”

Madame Debois arched a brow, “Such wisdom from one so young.”

She snorted, “Adults don’t do shit. I’m doing everything myself. So, where are all the books on the creation of this temple and its history?”

Madame Debois smiled, “Follow me, wise one.”

Chapter Text

After a few months of Maria dropping in whenever she pleased, the Coruscant Guard was very familiar with her.

Fox, the absolute mother hen, has standing orders that if any trooper found her wandering Coruscant by herself, they were to either escort her back to the temple or to the station. They were far better at finding, following, and catching her than the Temple Guards, and after the fifth time, Master Gigom threw up xir hands and told the Guard that xe gave up on stopping her, they can just drop her off in the creche, no need to tell xem what she did.

Maria would have more sympathy for them if she wasn’t a bit grumpy at the fact that she hasn’t been able to go further down Coruscant’s levels than a few stops at Jixy’s and a handful of meetings with Howl in the midlevels. She’d tried to sneak onto one of the decrepit elevators that go down to where the light doesn’t reach, hoping to find some vampires or the outer entrance of the Sith Temple that the Jedi Temple is built on, but a trooper always finds her before she can get too far.

Like today, where CT-23-6327, a new shiny straight off Kamino, had her thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and was casually making his way to the station with her while talking

“-and Kamino never trained me for the appropriate response to a civilian wanting to talk to my ‘manager’ because I couldn’t change the price of a parking ticket! Honestly, I’ve only been here for two weeks and I would prefer to be on the frontlines.”

Maria hummed thoughtfully from where she swayed limply. “Ah yes, nobody ever warns you about the Karens.”

“Care-ins?”

“Karens. They’re what my culture calls obnoxious people who mistreat workers. Unlucky to meet one in your first week.”

“Oh,” ‘27 said. “Any tips on dealing with them?”

“Smile politely, placate, lie and say someone is definitely going to be in trouble for whatever it is, and if they don’t start calming down, run and make it someone else's problem. Your armor is still unpainted and you don’t have a name, most people can’t remember number strings for the life of them, they won’t know who you are.” She offered, remembering all those hours of working retail in a past life.

“Thanks,” He patted her leg awkwardly. “You know, I’ve been trying to find a name, but I can’t find something meaningful enough. Some of my brothers are happy to take whatever other vode call them, or go searching in a baby name list for something, but I want something a bit more special than that. You know?”

“Yeah…” She was using the force to stop all the blood flowing to her head, something she had learned after Yoda made the entire creche practice meditating on their heads. “I… I know a few special names, if you’d like to hear them?”

The shiny nearly tripped, “Really ma’am?! I would be honored to have a Jedi name me!”

She was not blushing. “Oh, ah, it’s no problem. Do you want something more meaningful or religious? I only really know names from my culture, so-”

“That’s fine, ma’am. I’m sure you’ll find me something unique, after all, I’ve never heard the name ‘Maria’ before, and neither have any of my Guard vode.”

“Maria is from a religious myth, it’s one of the most common names on my planet. Mother Mary gave birth to Jesus, the son of God, who then sacrificed his life to save everyone else from damnation. Or so I got taught, I was always a bit more interested in the other stories of the other religions.”

“Is it sacred to be named that? I think I would like a name from your story.”

“Not at all! Now, let me list a few and you can tell me if you like any of them.”

That’s how Maria and the newly christened Isaac walked into the Guard station.

“Thire! A shiny grabbed Maria off the streets again!” Docu, one of the Guard’s ‘receptionists’ hollered as soon as they were spotted.

“Hey Tio Thire,” Maria called out when she sensed the commander near them, still slung over Isaac’s shoulder. “Isaac’s really good, he managed to catch me in the midlevels!”

“Isaac?” Thire echoed, confused.

“Me, sir. She named me a few minutes ago.”

“Ah, it’s a good name. Pass her over here, shiny, Commander Fox is doing his rounds in the senate, I’ll look after her.”

She was unceremoniously picked up and passed over, like some overgrown doll, and placed on the commander’s hip. She blinked away the black spots that the sudden change in blood flow created. Hmm, maybe she should get her iron levels checked.

“What were you doing in the midlevels, Aran’ika?” He asked, walking away with her.

She smiled at the nickname, little guard . “I wanted to see if I could find any vampires in the lowerlevels.”

“The bloodsucking monsters that turn to dust in sunlight?”

“Yep!”

“Why?”

“I’m curious.”

Thire snorted, “Those two words are the cause of half of Fox’s silver hairs.”

“Is Fox’buir dealing with the Chancellor again?” She asked, as he set her down in his office and passed her a datapad, filled with paperwork that she would help the Guard commanders with.

“Fox’buir?” Someone choked behind them, and she turned to see a trooper she hadn't met before but definitely recognised. “Fox has been busy.”

Thire laughed, “More like Fox has been busy running after her. Maria, meet Commander Cody of the 212th. Commander, meet Maria, the Guard’s baby Jetii and Fox’s favourite headache.”

“I didn’t know the Guard got assigned any Jetii, much less a padawan. Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Ma’am,” She corrected. “But only the shinies call me that. And I’m not assigned or a padawan, I’m just an escaped initiate that likes to visit the station.”

“An escaped initiate that Fox is on the verge of saying the Gai Bal Manda to, and whose creche master has given up on containing and asks us to babysit whenever we catch her.”

Poor Cody didn’t know how to respond to that. “Right. Is Fox with the chancellor? The 212th is on shore leave for the next five-day, I wanted to catch up with him.”

“He had a meeting with the chancellor this morning, but he already commed to tell me that’s over and he’s just doing his regular senate patrol. His shift ends in ten minutes, if you could go fetch him, make sure he doesn’t overwork himself, that would be great.” Thire said.

“Oh! Can I escort him? Please Tio! Pretty please!” Maria begged, turning pouty eyes onto Thire, who, while more resistant to her endearing bullshit, still couldn’t say no to a tooka-eyed child.

“Fine, but don’t insult any senators.” He turned and pointed a finger at Cody, “Don’t let her convince you to take any shortcuts. Hold her hand at all times. She’ll run headfirst into oncoming traffic if she thinks the force wants her to.”

“I deal with Generals Kenobi and Skywalker on the regular, I can handle an adiik.” Cody crossed his arms.

--

Commander Cody could not handle an adiik.

“Kid, what is that?”

“A bug. I think Senator Yxir’s aides are going to try and assassinate her, Guard can’t do arrest anyone without proof, so…”

“So you’re bugging their office?”

“If they commit treason first then my treason cancels out.”

“That’s not how it works,” Cody sounded stressed. “Get out of their office now.”

“One sec… Done!” She hurried out of the room and joined the commander back out into the hallway.

He looked down at her, “Do you do this often? What about the cameras?”

“Corrupted!” She waved a small disrupter in her bracelet at him, “It’s wired for the senate cams, as soon as we stepped into the senate building they stopped recording. Honestly, I’m not an amateur, it took a year for Fox to even know I was doing this, and I had to tell him.”

“Oh force,” Cody groaned. “No wonder Fox is stressed. You’re worse than Kenobi.”

She glared at him, “I’m worse than Vos , thank you very much. Did you know I got Master Windu to run away last week when he walked into a room I was in? Even Vos can’t do that.”

“That isn’t a good thing.”

“I doubt I’m going to live to thirteen. Until then, I’m still breathing and I’ve decided to make that everyone else's problem.”

“Thirteen? Why thirteen?” Cody frowned, “You’re not one of the vode, kid, you’re not even on the front.”

A sadness appeared on her face. Joking about her inevitable death was always responded with eye-rolls or questions about her mental stability, it was much rarer for someone to think she was being serious. The Guard’s commanders all knew that she was being truthful, and they all didn’t talk about how it would most likely be them who would end her life. They just accepted it with a sad hug.

“Visions. I’m strong with them.” She lied, shrugging off his concern. “Come on, Fox should be down the next hallway.”

She grabbed his hand and dragged him the rest of the way, ignoring his uncomfortable silence.

“Fox’buir!” She shouted and let go the second she spotted the older man, taking a running leap and wrapping her arms around his neck. He barely faltered, one arm wrapping around her thighs to support her and the other stabilizing himself against the wall.

“Ad’ika, how many times have I told you not to run in the Senate hallways?” He chastised gently, his grumpy visage softened for a second.

“Sorry buir,” She wrapped her legs around his waist and got comfortable. 

“Hello Miss Maria,” A different voice greeted, and she smiled.

“Hello, Senator Organa! How are you?”

Bail Organa had been talking to Fox before she interrupted but wasn’t annoyed at her presence at all. He had a soft spot for children and would give her candies if he spotted her wandering the Senate halls.

“I am well, thank you. You look excited, did something happen?”

“One of the shinies let me choose their name! His name is Isaac and he found me wandering the streets. Also, I got to escort Commander Cody here.”

“Wha- Cody?” Fox spluttered, finally realizing that his batchmate was there.

“Hello, Fox. Your ad is very hyperactive.”

“Don’t I know it,” Fox muttered. “What are you doing here, Kote?”

Cody let out a slight wave of affection at the Mando’a name into the force. “In the Senate? Telling you that your shift is over. On Coruscant? I’m on shore leave and I want to spend it with my vod’ika.”

Fox needed a few seconds to register exactly what Cody was saying, a sure sign that he’s running only on caf and stress, so she took over.

“Come on, buir, end of shift means back to the station. Bye Senator Organa, have a nice day!” She wriggled out of Fox’s grip and hopped to the ground, taking both commanders’ hands and leading them back out.

“Goodbye Miss Maria, Commanders.” The senator replied, looking amused.

“Maria, I can’t just leave-” Fox protested once they got halfway down the hall.

“Yes you can, you just did.” She said cheerfully, “Can I do your datawork today?”

“Will it get you to sit still and not cause trouble while I’m with Kote?”

“Yep! I won’t run away or make problems, I promise!”

Cody looked perplexed. A ten-year-old wanting to do datawork? 

Maria enjoyed doing the paperwork, but not for any normal reasons. By checking over Fox’s paperwork, she got access to usually confidential files, especially considering that Palpatine had the habit of pushing his work onto Fox and having him forge his signatures on things such as bill proposals and financial statements. Maria was probably the most politically aware Jedi under 25, and she was slowly building a file called ‘Fuck Palpatine, Here You Go Rebels, Use This For Propaganda.’

Fox knew about the file, but not the specifics. She couldn’t have him meddling or telling Palpatine about it when his chip is online. It was pre-set to distribute to every major news publication and republican, neutral world, and separatist senator in the galaxy the second she pressed the button.

“Okay then.” Fox ruffled her brown hair, ignoring her indignant cry. “So, Kote, how have you been?”

“Good. My general is driving me spare, he lost his lightsaber in the last battle and decided to go at Grievous with a vibroblade he had been stabbed with. Di’kutla Jetii. You?”

“If I have to attend one more senate gala I am going to eat my own blaster.”

“So the usual?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Text

“Draw four,” Isaac said as he put down his card. “Switch to blue.”

“I’m going to boil your teeth and drink it as my tea,” Maria threatened as she picked up four cards from the stack.

“Uno reverse!” Cal put down his card, and she looked at him with abject betrayal.

“You who I call brother! How could you have come to hate me so?” She cried, dramatically throwing her hand against her forehead and fake swooning. She picked up another card, having no blue in her hand.

“Skip!” Isaac said cheerfully, putting down the card.

Cal looked on smugly as she was forced to pick up yet another card.

“The both of you can go kriff yourselves,” She hissed angrily. Her hand contained eighteen cards, no power-ups other than a green +2 she was saving, and she was tempted to put it down and start throwing hands.

“What is going on here?” Fox demanded as he walked into the station to find twice the usual amount of Jedi initiates and a trooper playing babysitter.

“We’re playing Uno, and I’m on the verge of ending a years-long friendship with my little brother.” She grumbled.

“Why is there another Jetii cadet in my station?” Fox was trying to massage his temples through his helmet.

“Oh! I was talking with the force when it told me that the 212th and 501st were on Umbara and that Master Krell was heading there, and I couldn’t have that. So I headed here to intercept him with a message alerting him he’s being court-martialed for treason and another message to the council saying that an internal senate investigation came up with him being suspect for seppie sympathy since he has the highest casualty count in the entire GAR. Cal came with me because he overheard a bit of the force’s conversation using his psychometry- OH MOTHERFUCKER! CAL, YOU LITTLE CHEAT!” She cut herself off with a shout, realizing that Cal was playing cards without his gloves and was seeing all her moves through the force.

Cal was sniggering and hid behind Isaac, forcing him to be his human shield as she dove at him, resorting to fists.

Fox caught her mid-air. “Maria. Focus. Who is Master Krell and why was it so important that you had to impersonate the senate?”

“Master Krell is a traitor, he was planning on decimating the 501st and 212th as a gift for Count Dooku because he wants to be a sith. He thinks the vode are all flesh-droids and he’s a monster! Sure, it’s a bit messy and if they look at from where the messages came from for too long they’ll realize that it was a third-party and not actually from the senate, but I’m banking on the fact that Krell will panic and reveal his hand when he gets the message. He might go on a murderous rampage, but in the end, this will save hundreds of lives.”

Fox sighed. “Okay then, ad’ika. Initiate Kestis, please don’t cheat when playing cards. Isaac, are you babysitting or playing with them?”

“Uh, both, sir?”

“Very well, carry on.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

“He looks stressed,” Cal said, a bit worried. “Like Caleb.”

Caleb was terribly stressed whenever they managed to get into contact with him. Two years into the war, and Caleb has been a padawan for six of those months meant that he was tired, grieving, and angry. It can’t be easy being on the battlefield, especially for a young force-sensitive who can’t still shield out death completely. Still, Caleb answered all their comms with an aching fondness and a wish to return home.

“Yeah,” She agreed softly. “That’s why we have to cheer them up whenever possible, got it? It’s a very important job, getting them to smile.”

“Yes ma’am!” Both Cal and Isaac nodded.

“Which is why I need your help getting my hands on a bucket of glitter.”

“Ma’am?” Isaac asked, baffled.

“The chancellor is the reason he’s so stressed, so I’m going to sneak into his office and throw glitter everywhere. He’ll never know where it came from or why.”

“Maybe instead of his office, you could break into his apartment and throw glitter on all his clothes and into his shampoo,” Cal suggested, looking delighted at the thought of breaking and entering.

“Cal, this is why you’re my favorite.” She grinned madly.

--

“Maria, do you, by any chance, know why the chancellor showed up at the Senate meeting today to give his speech covered in glitter?”

“Maybe he’s secretly a vampire,” She managed to say with a straight face.

Fox was trying to keep from smiling but was obviously failing. “A vampire that sparkles?”

“Uh-huh, they’re called Twilight Vampires, they sparkle in the sunlight instead of burning.”

“Of course. Silly me.”

They both lasted another beat of silence until they made eye contact and started laughing near hysterically. Whenever they managed to stop and take a breath, just a glance made them fall apart all over again. They sat there for what felt like hours, just giggling over the ridiculous mental image of the chancellor being forced to attend the senate covered in glitter because she got it on all his things.

“Come here ad’ika,” Fox spread his arms so she could crawl into them. “Ner aran’ika. Thank you.”

She hugged him as tightly as her small 11 year old body could. “Just want to make you smile, buir.”

He smoothed her hair away from her face, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You always make me smile. Exposing all those politicians just because you don’t like how they treat us, annoying Palpatine, even your little runaway attempts that I know aren’t true attempts anymore.”

“You know?” She blurted out, then flushed.

“Of course I know. You stopped looking annoyed when you get carried back ever since you met Isaac, I know you only go down to the midlevels to tease us now.”

“Sorry,” She ducked her head. “I know it stresses you to have me wandering around, but-”

“But you want to test your boundaries,” He finished. At her questioning look, he elaborated. “Thorn and Stone sent me a parenting book after your third visit to the station. Jokes on them, I think it’s a useful gift.”

She snorted, “Want me to prank my tios’ next?”

“Go for it, ad’ika,” He ruffled her hair. “Just don’t-”

“Get arrested! I know, I know!” She rolled her eyes, then shrieked at the fingers digging into her ribs.

“Brat,” Fox said, tickling her.

“Buir! Buir please! Stop!” She gasped, giggling madly as she weakly batted at his hands.

When he finally relented, he had the biggest grin on his face. “Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad Maria Rosa-Cortez.”

She froze, stunned. Everyone had teased and joked and insinuated, but for some reason, she never really thought that he would do the Gai Bal Manda with her. “Fox’Buir… Are you- Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t,” He told her, pulling her into a kedalbe kiss. “Ner adiik.”

“Buir!” She tucked her head into his neck, clinging as tight as she could.

“I’ve got you, ad’ika,” He soothed. “Ni ceta. I’m sorry I can’t do anything more than love you.”

‘I’m sorry that I can’t protect you from Sidious ’ hangs unspoken between them.

“That’s all I need from you,” She replied.

Chapter Text

“Why did you warn me so late?!” She hissed at the force that warbled apologetically back at her.

She was attempting to stop the Temple Hangar Bombing, but the force only told her that it was time when she woke up that morning, so she was currently trying to cut several wires with only five minutes left.

Well, not actual wires. She could admit that she remembered absolutely nothing as to how the bombing was carried out, only that it killed several people and Barriss Offee was the one behind it all. The force was just nudging her to grab and place several disruptors around the hangar, as well as a strong EMP she had stuck under a ceiling tile. All this while wrapping the force around her so strongly to not be noticed by anyone inside the busy hangar.

A sudden shout of alarm wafted through the force, it practically screaming in her ear, and she threw herself into the nearest vent, pulling the grate closed with the force in one hand and slamming the ‘ON’ button for the disrupters. 

A large buzz of all the datapad signals shorting at once and comms fuzzing and spitting. She can hear several people cry out and go on alert.

The EMP went off.

The hangar went dark, before a small blue explosion went off, washing the darkness in an eerie glow of malice. 

One of the fighter jets caught fire, but nothing else. Troopers were shouting orders and the Jedi had their lightsabers ignited, all non-emergency personnel quickly evacuated. The bombing failed.

Yet Maria stared out through her safe spot inside the vent, horrified. 

She felt it, the way the light had blinked out and the life disappeared into an empty spot in the force. The bomb had been a person. The EMP had caused the bombs to short out violently and catch fire. It was a suicide bombing. She just killed someone. She hadn’t meant to, it wasn’t supposed to go off at all.

‘ It was always going to happen,’ The force crooned sadly in her ear. ‘He was dead the second his wife fed him those nano-bombs. He would have never survived the surgery to remove them.’

“Fuck.” She said, gripping her hair and resting her forehead against the cool metal floor of the vent. “Fuck! Why didn’t you warn me earlier?”

‘ It was not certain until his wife made the choice. I warned you the second she did. There is no life, little one, without death.’

That was the Old Code, and while she objectively understood it, she also hated that she had to accept it.

“This is Offee’s fault.” She growled, pushing herself back through the vents so she could drop down into the hollow wall and exit into a nearby corridor. “She will be punished.”

The force hummed in agreement. ‘ Ahsoka Tano will grow from this. This is her journey now.’

Maria pursed her lips, but nodded. “I support from the shadows, as I always do.”

The force wrapped and settled around her shoulders, silently approving of her decision.

--

She watched as Ahsoka Tano walked away from the temple from her vantage point.

She hadn’t wanted this to happen, but it was what was for the best. Ahsoka will be safe away from the temple, able to outlive the Empire and the other Jedi.

The Council was still trying to figure out who had planted the EMP and disrupters, wondering why they hadn’t come out and revealed their involvement and knowledge, but Maria had no interest in glory. She’s just here to help as many as she could and annoy Palpatine. Just that. 

Just… trying to help.

She turned away from where Anakin Skywalker was left standing with the Silka Beads of what once was a padawan braid.

She moved silently away from the temple, following Ahsoka as she made her way through the city. 

Ahsoka needs help. She had been a Jedi her entire life, and suddenly leaving a cult means no funds, no transport, and no future. If Maria timed it just right, she could reverse pickpocket the togruta and leave a few credit chips and a note of several safe abandoned homes in the midlevels.

She jumped down in an alleyway, before dragging her force presence down as much as possible. Twisting it so she seemed barely force-sensitive, just another street kid with their loud thoughts and flimsy shielding.

Maria ran out of her alley, giggling like a kid who was playing a game, she passed and knocked into Ahsoka, using the force to drop her gifts into her pocket, before disappearing out of sight before she could do anything more than complain.

She jumped down another level, landing gently with the force, she switched to her normal force-presence.

“Now to go find buir…” She muttered to herself.

Fox was probably still at the Station at this time of day, finishing the reports, and this went doubly so with the recent commotion of putting Jedi on trial.

She was halfway to the Station before she realised that the force had gone silent.

‘ Uh, force? Buddy? Bestie? Where’d you go?’ She questioned, looking around the completely normal street.

The force didn’t respond. 

That’s… unnerving. The force always responds. Even when she’s reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth while lounging upside down in one of the Sith Temple’s Council Room thrones, the force is there to help her dramatize Lady Macbeth’s monologue. Where did it go?

The midlevel street was mostly empty, only two scantily clad twi’lek women standing at the corner and one very drunk kiffar stumbling his way down the street. Nothing out of place.

She tentatively took another step and reached out in the force…

...And blinked up at the sudden shift.

She had fallen onto the floor, and the artificial sky was pitch black, as if it was the middle of the night cycle and not just the evening. The two women weren’t there anymore, neither was the kiffar, but instead, there was a group of rowdy teens. In a millisecond, time had passed far quicker than it should have.

“No.” The word was torn out of her mouth before she even registered it. 

Time had moved forward, just like last time. She had accidentally walked through another Force Nexus. She has no idea how long she’d been gone. Is this even Coruscant or is it the Imperial Centre?

Her breathing began to speed up, panic overwhelming her. Is her family even alive?

The force, barely there and half muted from her own anxiety, tried to embrace her and calm her down. 

‘ Alive. Sorry. Safe. ’

She was trembling, eyes tracking every little detail on the street in a desperate attempt to spot any little indication of what day it was. What year it was.

Nothing. She didn’t- She couldn’t-

She had to find her family. She had to go find her buir.

Maria took off running in the direction she knew that the Trooper Barracks were. She had never entered them before, but she knew that’s where the Vode spent their nights on Coruscant.

She didn’t even care that she was crying and bringing attention to herself, she just wanted her buir.

The Trooper Barracks were filled and busy, with men guarding the outside. It was a massive warehouse structure, not much space for personalization and basically filled with just rows upon rows of bunks. But the sight of it filled Maria with such relief.

She ran straight at the front doors, not slowing down for a second, the instinct to just find her buir overwhelming.

Before she could get further than a few steps inside, with the outside guards yelping at her sprinting right past them, she got scooped up and stopped.

She screamed, wriggling madly and clawing angrily at them, sobbing like a baby. “No no no no no!”

“Woah! Ad’ika, Maria, calm down!” The trooper who grabbed her said. It was Lieutenant Dan, one of the Corrie Guard troopers she had named herself. 

“No no no! Please!” She screamed, raggedly. “Let go! Please!”

The men inside were all waking up with some grumbling, and a few were startled enough that they grabbed their blasters.

She started panicking harder, the thought of blank faces and puppet strings filling her mind. The toneless way her buir says the words ‘good soldiers follow orders.’

“Buir! Buir!” She sobbed, kicking out.

“Kriff! Fox!” Lieutenant Dan hollered, grappling with her so she didn’t go tumbling to the floor.

“Maria! Let her go!” Fox appeared, worried and in his pyjamas. 

The second that the arms holding her back were gone, she threw herself at him, tucking her face into the side of his neck and crying loudly.

“Shh, it’s okay ad’ika. I’m here.” He rubbed her back soothingly, “I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe.”

“I thought you were gone,” She whimpered into his hug. “The force went quiet and I lost time.”

“I’m right here,” He repeated firmly. “It’s Centaxday, 21st of Yelona 980. I saw you a five-day ago. I’m here. The force didn’t take you.”

She shuddered. She lost a day.

“Come on, you can sleep with me tonight,” He said, picking her up and carrying her back to his bunk. “Everything will be better by morning.”

---

“Wait, Fox actually adopted a baby Jedi? That wasn’t a joke?” Wolffe asked, confused.

“That was so cute,” Ponds whispered from behind his hand that was covering his mouth. “Worrying, but adorable. Our Fox’ika is a buir!”

Cody was equal parts concerned and tired. “Yes, Wolffe, that’s his daughter, Initiate Maria. I’m more focused on her screaming the damn barracks down to get to him, even Jetii cadets know better than to do that.”

“Oh, Maria is a heretic,” Thorn said, appearing from behind them and making a tired Wolffe swear. “She thinks that ‘no emotions’ is stupid and psychologically damaging. She’s still way more emotionally mature than a kid her age should be, but nowhere near what a Jedi should be.”

“Do you know what happened to her to get her to throw a tantrum like that?” Rex spoke up, exhausted from the past week. 

“A vision, probably.” Thorn said grimly, “She’s pretty strong with that kind of force-osik. And we’re in a war and the force doesn’t mince its words. From the way she wanted Fox, I’m guessing she saw him die and it scared her enough to send her running to find him.”

“She knows when he’s going to die? Jedi can do that?” Wolffe looked worriedly at the direction the father-daughter pair had gone. Fox was the youngest of their batch, the last decanted, and the smallest, having always been skinnier than his brothers.

“Some Jedi can, and it’s really vague and terrifying.” Rex answered, “Apparently my General saw his mother die through visions for a month before she actually died. And my commander… my old commander… she saw a handful of assassination attempts that she was able to stop.”

They all took a moment to let that thought sink in.

Cody spoke first, “Thorn-”

“Don’t Cody. Her visions are almost always certainties. I know she’ll try her best to protect him, the little aran’ika, but she’s still an ad.” Thorn sighed tiredly, “And she’s certain that she’ll die before him.”

“How old is she?” Wolffe said roughly, the stark reality of helplessness dawning on them all. 

“She turns twelve by the end of the month.”

“Force save us all,” Rex said solemnly.

Chapter Text

“Miss Maria, perhaps you have forgotten, but this is still a Sith Temple and you are a child.” Madame Debois stated.

“And?” Maria asked as she flipped through a copy of The Lord Of The Rings in the terrible Proto-Basic that forced her to read everything aloud to understand.

“The darkness corrupts, even passively. You cannot keep coming down here to hide. From what I can estimate, you spend the majority of your time either in my archives or with your father, and rarely any time properly in your Jedi Temple. Have you even been attending your classes?”

She shrugged, “Cal and Caleb are padawans now, none of the other initiates my age talk to me, and I’m the only one left in my creche clan. I was the youngest, and now I’m 12 without any masters expressing any interest in me. What’s the point in continuing lessons? I’ll be dead soon anyway, there’s six months left of the war.”

“So you resign yourself to death.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” She replied, eyes stubbornly fixed on the page in front of her. “I’m twelve. You want me to kill a sith lord?”

“Do not go gentle into that good night. I’ve helped and taught you how to expose several corruptions, how to save oppressed lives, but to save your own life, you refuse. To save others’ lives, you refuse. Why?” She pressed.

“It will usher in a new age of Jedi. The corruption of the Republic will be burnt down and rebuilt. I die so others may live.”

“You die and you condemn your father to die. All of those you claim to be family will die. They are out there, suffering, and you have the chance to stop it.”

“And then what? So I kill the chancellor, then what? The senate will still be corrupted. The Vode will still be chipped slaves. The Jedi will still be brainwashed drones puppeted by the senate. I kill one man, who benefits? Who will be the next corrupt man to take his place? A throne is always sat on.”

Madame Debois glared down at her, “A throne can be melted and destroyed. Kill him, expose the truth about all those things, live to love your family.”

“You’re an archivist! A holocron! Why do you even care?” Maria snapped, thumping the book down on the table and rising to her feet.

“Exactly child, I am an archivist holocron. Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it, and my job is to educate the next generation. Earth was ruined by those who were complacent in the face of evil. I do not want this to happen again.” Madame Debois said firmly yet kindly.

Maria deflated, flopping down to sit on the chair again. “I don't want to be a Jedi. I like creating chaos, not order.”

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

She looked up, incredulous, “Did you just quote fucking Spider-Man at me?”

Madame Debois smirked, “It’s a classic.”

“My life is a goddamn spice dream,” She muttered as she dropped her head into her hands. “Fine! I’m leaving! I’m gonna go visit my buir and tios. I’ll even try to interact with a Master if I pass one. Happy?”

“Very. Shoo now,” She waved her hands to usher her out. “I want to explore the Jedi Archives more tonight, and I can’t do that with you in here.”

Madame Debois liked it when Maria left her Holocron hooked up to the main Jedi Archives overnight, and since Maria has yet to get caught doing so by Madame Nu, she didn’t mind the action. It made the old archivist happy, so who was she to complain?

Maria swung her legs up and stood, grabbing the Holocron grumpily as she left the room. With every level she climbed, she busied herself with shaking off the oily heaviness that was the dark. 

Madame Debois wasn’t wrong in the way that she had described the darkness corrupting. The first time Maria had come down here, shaking it off was as easy as shedding a jacket. Then, it was like a heavy blanket. Now, after hiding in the dark for over a year, it was like there were spiderwebs everywhere, they were in her hair and in the laces of her boots, far too difficult to get out with a simple sweep of the hand.

Some of it was still clinging to her in small threads when she broke the surface level and into the sunlight where the rest of the Jedi lived. She stopped trying to pull at those threads as she exited the elevator; it wasn’t like anyone would notice them. Her best friends were in space, her creche master has all but been reassigned a new clan of babies, she hadn’t signed up for any new classes for this year, and any passing master were likely fresh from the front or the senate– both locations which tended to be soaked in darkness.

She ducked into the archives quickly and left just as swiftly, not even drawing a single eye as she passed, leaving the Holocron in an out-of-the-way shelf.

It was only when she reached the landing platforms that was she actually looked at by someone. 

And by that, she means that she got scruffed like a tooka while about to steal a hoverbike with a strict bark of “Initiate Cortez!”

Blinking lazily up at the angry Korun master holding her, she replied with a bland, “Master Windu.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” The man was rather unimpressed, wearing an expression that most would assume would only be reserved for Knight Vos or Knight Skywalker when either of the two was up to something particularly foolish.

That exact expression might be why Skywalker and Kenobi, who he had been in the middle of a conversation with, were looking at them with such startled faces.

“Stealing a bike,” She replied, swinging her feet in the empty air. “Going to visit my dad.”

That threw him off a bit, “Your what ?”

“My dad. Father. Parent. Papa. Buir.”

Windu seemed to be doing the math in his head, “You don’t have a father, Initiate. What are you talking about?”

“No, that’s Knight Skywalker,” She pointed at the Jedi behind them. “I got adopted. Caleb made a whole drama about me breaking the Jedi code. I told him to get stuffed.”

“Who adopted–? When–? What ?!” 

Wow. It’s a true Force-given miracle. She made Mace Windu, Master of the Jedi Order, lose his cool. She’s going down in the history books.

“Youngling, who is supposed to be looking after you?” Master Kenobi interrupted, looking concerned. “Did you meet your adopted father outside of the temple? Did you have a master with you then?”

“No one, yes, no.” She listed in order. “Can I please go? Knight Skywalker feels like he just had a therapy session with a sith lord and it’s icky.”

She wasn’t lying, he really did. Worse than the stale darkness below the temple, Skywalker had active– living – webs of darkness wrapped around his massive bright force presence and it made Maria shrink into her own signature in the force, pulling her light around her like a fur mink coat around her shoulders. 

Skywalker made a sound of offended protest, “Says the kid who just admitted to breaking the Jedi code.”

“Not like I want to be a Jedi,” She shot back, sticking her tongue out at him.

“Sorry, go back, what do you mean there’s no one looking after you?” Master Kenobi looked really worried, which she does suppose is fair when a kid admits to child neglect to you with a blase attitude.

“Isn’t Master Gigom your creche master?” Windu demanded.

“Xe got reassigned to a new clan. Xe checks on me every once in a while to see if I’ve moved out of my rooms and got picked as a padawan, but I’m not really xer responsibility anymore,” She shrugged. “The guard looks after me if I’m out of the temple. I’m fine.”

“That is not fine,” Windu looked horrified. She understands why, but considering she watched an initiate younger than her get picked as a padawan and get taken to the front lines, she thinks it’s a bit out of place.

“The guard? Like the vode?” Skywalker asks. 

“Yes, Fox’buir says that I’m to be watched so I don’t get kidnapped again.” She kicked her feet idly again. “Can you put me down? I’m going to start biting if you don’t.”

Master Windu, aware enough that her threats are never empty, dropped her. Skywalker, who has no survival instincts, pinned her with his mech hand on her shoulder.

“Commander Fox adopted you?” Kenobi asked, curious.

“How have you fallen so far through the cracks?” Windu said, horrified.

“Do you get kidnapped often?” Skywalker wondered, amused.

Maria replied by clamping her teeth around his fake-ass leather glove, which tasted awful and didn’t even twitch at the pressure. 

“I’m comming the Council of Reassignment,” Windu declared, pulling out his comm. “We need to assign you to a master and figure this out. Skywalker, don’t lose her.”

Skywalker looked at where she was attempting to gnaw through his metal arm and raised an eyebrow, “I think we’ll be fine.”

She aimed a kick at his shin, but he dodged it easily.

“Your other arm is going to be cut off,” She informed him, grumpily. “I hope you enjoy having prosthetics.”

Windu’s eyes snapped back onto her, “Is that a vision?”

“No,” She said sarcastically. “It’s a dismemberment.”

“Are you prone to visions?” Master Kenobi asked sympathetically.

“Are you prone to–” She began to snipe back with something rude enough to probably get him to censor her. Luckily (or unluckily if you were Anakin Skywalker hoping to see your master get insulted by a youngling), Master Windu interrupted her with a very sharp: “ Initiate! ”

She huffed and crossed her arms. 

If she was being honest, it was kind of refreshing to get yelled at and punished for something she’d done. Fox tries, but she’d be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the power imbalance in their father-daughter relationship, especially since Fox was hesitant to ever truly punish her for acting out and becoming like those that punish him for any minor infraction. Madame Debois could, at most, snap at her; this led to small snark battles between the two temporally-displaced nerds which meant that any actual censure was waylaid. Creche Master Gigom had never actually even attempted to follow through on any of the punishments xey’d assigned her. Maria had, in her time living on Coruscant, never really encountered the meaning of the word ‘no’.

Reasonably, she had become a bit of a brat for it. Even if she was valid for her moodiness and moments of acting out, she had managed to actually encounter a master’s limit for tolerating her bitchiness.

“You will not disrespect a master in such a way!” Windu struck down on her, making her bluster and pout as she undertook an unexpected scolding. “You are a Jedi Initiate and you will act like it!”

She resisted rolling her eyes as she mumbled a vague apology.

“Now, you will answer our questions respectfully and fully, do you understand me?”

“Yes, Master Windu,” She averted her eyes from the displeased Korun. 

“Now, did you have a vision about Knight Skywalker losing another limb?”

“Yes,” She answered plainly. She looked up at the knight, craning her neck to try and look him in the eyes. “You should avoid the Sith Master. It’s bad for your health.”

“You’re taking her vision seriously?” Skywalker asked the older master. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on telling her to stay in ‘the here and now’ and that the future is ‘always in motion’?”

“I would,” Windu acknowledged. “If her visions haven’t warned me about Boba Fett and a crew of bounty hunters attempting to kill me. Several lives had been saved because of her warning. She also saved my Depa and her Caleb by warning them of Separatist activity that intelligence had no idea about; they would have been ambushed.”

“Truly?” Kenobi looked at her curiously, stroking his beard.

“You listened ?” Maria couldn’t help but gape. Then, another thought hit her. “Wait, you don’t think I’m crazy?”

Windu frowned, “Who told you that?”

“Several masters, Master Gigom, Master Yoda, Masters Tiplee and Tiplar, Master Che, most initiates, a few padawans, Knight Ignos, Barriss Offee, Master Yaddle, Knight–”

“ Excuse me ?”

She gave him a very deadpan, tired look. “I’ve been trying to warn anyone who sat still long enough for me to approach them. Nobody has ever listened to me when I tell them what is going to happen.”

“You’re having visions that often?” Kenobi shared a look with Windu, concern radiating in the force.

Skywalker was on a different thought path, “Why has nobody ever listened to you?”

Feeling petty and a tad exhausted, she asked him the exact same thing back: “Why has nobody ever listened to you when you were dreaming of your mother being killed by Tuskens?”

His mech hand spasmed around her shoulder, his shock and horror of her knowledge read plainly in his face and force signature.

“Because nobody wants to acknowledge that the galaxy is a terrible place and that bad things can happen to everyone, even if the force is speaking directly to them. It’s easier to blame it on anxiety and emotions.”

Windu stepped forward, “I think we should take this to the High Council.”

“They won’t listen,” She was resigned to that fact.

“We’ll see,” Windu replied.

Chapter Text

Maria was duly unimpressed by the High Council.

It’s not her fault! She has explored the Senate, the Old Temple, and calls a Sith Temple her second home. She has seen the Clone Barracks filled with row after row of a million identical men all giving a paradoxical danger - safety in the force. There, the force sings. And sure, it wasn’t always a nice song, but it was a song all the same.

The Sith Temple felt like someone was playing ‘In the Halls of the Mountain King’ on loop, and the Senate felt like you were a retail worker listening to ‘All I want for Christmas’ on loop while occasionally someone threw in either ‘Megalovania’ or ‘Pumped up kicks’ to inform you that some shithead did something particularly evil without any sense of finesse or order to their chaos. The Clone Barracks felt like a sad yet determined song which she would tentatively label ‘Zombie’ by the Cranberries. The Old Temple had a finesse of ancient nobility, abandoned and left to crumble, like walking through the Pyramids, the Roman Baths, the Greek Acropolis, the Palace of Versailles. It sang ‘Once Upon a December’ mournfully yet dignified.

The modern Jedi Temple, at its happiest, felt like you were walking the snowy streets on Christmas eve, overhearing church bells ring and someone singing Hallalujah, and while you may have been an atheist yourself, you can’t deny that other’s happiness made you feel content. Now, during wartime, it felt sadder yet empathic, sounding like overhearing your best friend listen to Mitski on loop and you want to beg for them to throw in some Hozier. The council, though they tried to express something close to ‘Ode to Joy’, their Mozart was flat and needed tuning, falling closer to the main Star Wars theme: beautiful and serious and coherent, but promising a pain and sorrow in the galaxy, with an inevitable sound of the Imperial March.

Maria probably listens to too much music, but it was the only way she could describe what these places felt like in the force to a non-force sensitive.

Some days, she wishes for a simple ‘Binary Suns’or ‘New Hope’ tune.

She can tell she’s not getting that here today.

“Master Windu,” Master Yoda greets. “Called a meeting, you have.”

“Yes,” Windu puts his hands on her shoulders, moving her from out from under Skywalker’s hold and into the limelight. “I have several points to bring up with the council concerning Initiate Rosa-Cortez.”

Maria opened her mouth to correct him on her name and– Wait. Did he get her name right? 

She didn’t know that Jedi knew how to do that. Huh.

She could see Master Koon cock his head to the side and give the softest little wave of comfort towards her through the force, something that she appreciated greatly. She’s never really interacted with the Kel Dor before, other than a quick greeting or two when he dropped off new younglings he’d find on a Search, that and the time she distracted him while Caleb raided his room for the pink cookies he gives to the really little younglings. She was only 8 back then, and she had ambushed him to ask questions on why he wears his mask and other details of Kel Dor physiology. Master Koon was so nice and patient, she feels like she should have tried warning him, but, genuinely, she forgets to attempt it with every adult she passes by.

“Familiar, I am, with Initiate Cortez, yes,” Yoda replied in that really irritating way of his. Honestly, it was only cool to hear for the first few times she had heard it, then it just slowly evolved into her wishing to hit the annoying green frog over the head with a grammar textbook and stick his face into the chapter about syntax. “Many fears, she has.”

Excuse me?

“Do I look afraid to you?” She blurted before Master WIndu could try and shut her up.

“Great fear, I sense in you. Hide it, you do not.”

“I’m not afraid, you senile frog! I’m tired!”

“Initiate!” Master Rancis scolded from his holo-form. “Apologise to the grandmaster!”

Maria rolled her eyes, “Why should I do that?”

“Initiate,” Kenobi said with the clear patience of someone who raised Skywalker. “Last time I checked, calling someone a ‘senile frog’ is an insult.”

“And last time I checked, refusing to call someone by their name and dismissing them is an insult and a clear gross display of the lack of impartiality of this council! Or did nobody else notice that Master Windu came to raise several points about my well-being and the grandmaster of this Order immediately turned it around to victim-blame me for being afraid? Are you kidding me?”

She couldn’t lie, she was furious at being treated like this.

She couldn’t tell what was worse, that she could see that some masters had noticed immediately what Yoda had done, the ones who had noticed it but stayed silent, or the ones who straight up didn’t see it at all. Masters Koon, Allie, and Skywalker tended to be leaning more to the former camp, while Kenobi and Mundi were in the middle, and Tiin and Kolar were obviously being led around by the nose by Yoda. It was infuriating.

But Master Windu was ignoring all of that to kneel down in front of her and try to get her to breathe.

A ridiculous thing, honestly, she’s being doing it her whole life, why wouldn’t she be breathing?

Oh.

She wasn’t breathing. She was hyperventilating.

“Initiate, you have to breathe. Maria, release it into the force.”

Release it into the force? No, no she can’t, these are her emotions, her feelings, her thoughts, her soul . She can’t let them go.

In a panic, she grabbed her emotions and pulled them even closer to herself, at first like one would wrap a coat, then tighter and tighter like she was trying to make a straightjacket turn into a second skin to turn into something beneath her skin. Her emotions were her own and they will live with her, lurking beneath her outer shell, like she has always done. But her emotions didn’t seem to want to fit, not like they usually did, and roiled in discontent.

“Hey, kid,” Skywalker was suddenly at her side, hands hovering, not quite touching but not quite to himself. “Those are an awful lot of emotions you have there.”

What? No shit, Sherlock. Besides, you should be careful about throwing bricks in glasshouses, Señor-Slaughter-Skywalker.

“Do you think you could share some of that with me?”

Huh?

“I bet it’s hard to keep your shields over your emotions when you’re having so many, huh? I know I struggle with it, especially when the force is so loud here in Coruscant. The war and all your stress isn’t helping, is it? It’s harder when you don’t have any force-sensitive around to share a bit with.”

But they’re her emotions. They– the council– have already told her that they don’t care about her emotions, they don’t care about all the hard work she’s put in to try to warn them and help them. Her problems and her feelings are supposed to be hers , hers to hide away in her, and any leaking and sharing is frowned and ignored and told off on. 

Cal and Caleb would help sometimes, but they dismissed her too. Fox would try his best, but he could never be there for her all the time like she needed because of his job and his lack of ability to lead her in the force. Her temple masters were always so busy and harried and just told her to meditate and release her emotions into the force but she didn’t want to lose her emotions because that’s all she has. All she has are her emotions, and without them, who is she? A sacrifice? A footnote in a story already written? A prophet and priestess cursed to never be listened to?

Cassandra knowing she will be slaughtered at the end of the story, yet watching the beginning unfold, seeing Paris come home with Helen and hoping that this time they’ll listen but knowing they won’t. Cassandra, hoping her brothers, Hector and Helenus– the compassionate warrior and the kind seer– will actually listen to her and not just indulge her. Cassandra, whose father loved her so, that in the end his devoted guarding of her, telling her to enter the temple of Athena and pray while he met the Greeks in his ill-fitting armour and her mother went to pray to Hera, died with his sword in hand. Cassandra, who was attacked in her temple, clinging and praying to the statue of her goddess, who could only avenge her years down the line with the revenge of a son.

Cassandra.

Across a hundred thousand years of history, Maria felt connected to a girl who shared her story. She wondered if Cassandra also brushed her hair knowing the futility of doing so when her head would not be connected to her body for long. She wondered if Cassandra also sang and danced by herself to smile in the only way she knew was truly fleeting and eternal. She wondered if Cassandra also asked herself about the use of the tears she cried and if they ever mattered. She wondered if Cassandra liked reading, liked playing cards, got fruit juice all over her fingers when she ate, took her father’s blanket and pretended it was a cape, laughed and cried and was as human as her.

“Maria, please, trust me, trust the force, and share your emotions.”

She wasn’t Cassandra, she was Maria.

A sob hitched in her throat, and then she let go.

Anakin Skywalker might be the one who offered to share her emotions and lowered his shields so to receive them, but the entire council where there, were open to hear, and she would make them listen.

It was a rush to share every emotion, every memory, every thought and pain, all at once, making them listen to her grievances in a way they can’t deny and then return to her, lighter at the burden shared.

She was four years old, scared and alone in a world that was alien to her, with not a single soul capable of communicating with, or understanding, her. She was four and she was accepted into a group that could not give her the extra attention she needed because of the overwhelmed master who did not know how to handle so many children with so many needs. 

She was six, barely fully capable of Basic, and she learnt how to sneak away from her creche master to meditate in the Room of a Thousand Fountains by herself, but she was too scared to trust the force with her emotions and be calm like the masters– not when she felt her situation was not one to be calm towards– and instead promising to trust the force in everything else.

She was seven, a spark of silent rebellion every time she flashed her teeth, and Master Gigom stopped punishing her for skipping lessons because all xir attempts were futile, she was stubborn because she refused to give in. 

She was seven, and she snuck out of the Temple to test her skills on corrupt politicians, trying to help the galaxy in the only way she knew would work, because she has been dismissed by every other adult in her life, adults who tell her to meditate on her anxieties but she refused to let go of her knowledge of genocide that brings anxiety.

She was nine and war began, and on the morning of Geonosis, before any knight, master, or padawan died, Maria had started screaming her lungs out. She went to every person that she could and tried to warn them that they were going to die, but they told her to calm down and trust the force, but couldn’t they understand that she was trusting the force by trusting her knowledge?

She was ten, jaded and tired and rebellious, and found a kindred spirit, a fellow doomed soul, knowing of the darkness that awaited them all and equally unable to share their knowledge. She called that man father and she only asked that he closed his eyes when he killed her so he didn’t have to see her corpse.

She was eleven, and she has realised that she can truly fade into the shadows and nobody will ever notice. She begins to drop her classes and wallow in her emotions more and more, scared that if she doesn’t revisit every fact then she will forget.

She is twelve, and a ghost in the system. Once the order comes, they will only know to kill her because they know her, not because anyone else will know to look for her.

Every room she enters, she can feel the echoes of a Jedi’s death. The council chamber cry tears that have not yet been shed. The creche is agony. The deeper into the temple, the harder it is to detect an undug grave, and so she chooses darkness over light. 

Self-destruction as an act of desperation and self-preservation. 

It is a cycle, a circle that nobody can see, not even she can fully comprehend that.

“Oh my.”

Kenobi’s words break her out of her uncontrolled meditation with the force.

“Failed you, this order has,” Yoda said.

It was something incomprehensible.

“I understand,” Skywalker said, slightly wrong-footed. “I don’t want to forget my emotions either. But that hurts you… and I suppose it hurts me too.”

He seemed to be blinking away more layers of the force than any other being in the room was doing so, dazed.

“Forget your emotions?” Kenobi echoed in confusion. “No. No, we’d never ask that of you, of either of you. What–?”

“I think,” Master Windu said, voice strained as his eyes visibly reflected the millions of cracking spider-webs he saw burn like supernova. “That there have been some miscommunication and mishandling of incoming initiates.”

“Forgetting and letting go is not what we preach,” Mundi said. “Sharing the burden with the force, trusting it to take what you cannot carry at the moment, and returning to it later to meditate and feel, is what we preach.”

“And I do believe that something is truly wrong in the creche if we are not capable of caring for every initiate as they need to be due to lack of resources.” Koon spoke.

Are… are they apologising? To Maria ?

“But…” Her voice was small and her face was wet. “You didn’t listen before. Nobody listens to me. Nobody cares.”

Master Windu got his feet back under him from where he had fallen on his ass by her (vision? meditation? scream?) sharing. “We weren’t able to listen before. Two different language were being spoken; we couldn’t see what the force was trying to say because we were expecting it to speak the same language it always has. But we’re listening now, and we care, we want to hear you translate it for us.”

They… care?

“Tell us, Initiate Maria. The Sith, who are they?”

They’re listening.

A new hope swelled in the force.

Chapter Text

Maria was not a logical being.

She wouldn’t deny that.

She wasn’t logical. She was emotional. Reactive rather than proactive, even in the circumstances she now lived in. She liked books and dramas and baking, she liked glitter and pink and thinks that rhinos are unicorns. She got into slap-fights with her crechemates and imprinted on people like a baby duck. She liked seeing emotions flash on other people’s faces when she said something reasonably unhinged and hearing her brothers giggle. She played with the Corries to make the shinies smile and see her buir relax, not because she wanted to play.

This action wasn’t logical at all, but it also was purely logic.

“I’ve already told you that,” She said. “If you haven’t heard me the first hundred times, then it’s too late now.”

Master Windu’s face made a weird spasm. He knew exactly who she said the sith is, so does Yoda and Depa, but she doubts the rest of the council does. “Too late now?”

“If I tell you, you will immediately go try and arrest him and die trying, at least one person in this room will have a mental breakdown, and his contingency plan will go into action killing us all.”

Kit Fisto had a disturbed look on his face, “Which one of us did you see have that mental breakdown?”

Depa shot him a look through her holo form, “Kit, priorities.”

“Oh, Skywalker cries,” Maria said blithely. “But what else is new.”

“Hey!”

“Initiate, you’re deflecting,” Kenobi stepped in before Skywalker dragged him into it.

How the hell did Skywalker get away with half the shit he did if Kenobi is like this?

Well, she gets away with a lot, so maybe the same way she does: bulldozing forward using the force as a blunt force object.

She crossed her arms, “Well, either way, you have more important things to focus on.”

“The sith lord, not important, you believe?”

“I can probably kill him with hot cheeto dust,” She said with way too much confidence. “However, we need to undo his web first.”

“Right,” Obi-Wan stroked his beard and did that one pose that was memed to hell and back. “How will we do that?”

“Well, first, we need to take the slave chips out of the clones,” Maria said, then frowned. “Wait, Skywalker do you have yours out yet? I can’t keep anything in order in my head.”

That was true. She had a heart attack with the Zillo Beast because she thought it would happen near the end of the war, not the start, and had ended up stuck in a milkshake bar with two shinies in the mid-levels when the debris had trapped them in.

“Yes,” Skywalker looked at her warily. “How did you know I had that? Why would you see that?”

She ignored him the second he confirmed he wasn’t in active danger.

“The clones have slave chips ?!” Plo Koon immediately spoke over him, famous serenity defenestrated.

“Of course they do,” Maria said. “Wait, have you guys investigated Darth Tyrannus making the order for the clones yet? Is that now or next month?”

“Last month,” Master Ti said. “And I was informed that the inhibitor chips are to curb aggression.”

“By Nala Se?” Maria rolled her eyes. “You know she’s hiding a female clone from you? And murders several squadrons a month? I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.”

Master Ti closes her eyes and breathes deeply. “Thank you for this information.”

She does not sound a bit happy to receive that information, but it’s not in Maria’s hands anymore.

“We need to confirm this with our healers,” Master Tiin said. “Master Che should be able to find it if it is like you say.”

Maria raised an eyebrow, “It’s an invasive procedure. Master Che needs to do a Level 5 scan. The Kaminoans aren’t playing at hiding this, or were you thinking that it’s going to be easy to find like a Wookie in a cantina?”

“ Rosa-Cortez ,” Master Windu said with a warning voice. “Do not disrespect this council, or any Jedi Master, like you are doing. Just because you have more knowledge on this topic compared to us does not mean that you can act like this.”

She shrank back immediately. Ouch . Sometimes she forgets that people hear her words, and when she gets stressed or frustrated, she does tend to lash out by being snarky. Caleb tells her it's a problem, and Cal tells her she can be mean sometimes, but she’s used to most people brushing it off or ignoring her, so she doesn’t tend to censor herself.

Or maybe she’s just an asshole who's being rude to people who are processing something that she’s had years to process, yet still gives her mental breakdowns over it.

She shuffled her feet, “Sorry Masters.”

Master Tiin did not further chide her, instead giving her an empathetic smile. “We can understand why you are stressed, young one, just mind your words, yes? We can help you meditate on this once we have more answers on the more urgent information.”

Oh. That’s… nice of him. It didn’t feel as condescending as when others offer to meditate with her when she was trying to warn them.

“Thanks,” She mumbled.

“Are you certain you cannot share the sith lord’s identity?” Master Kenobi tried. “It could greatly impact the end of the war.”

“If you don’t help the vode first, that identity could greatly impact all of our life spans,” Maria snapped, then immediately winced. “Sorry. I– Sorry.”

Windu gave her a stern look before sighing, “I agree with you, however. I remember who you said it was when you warned me about Boba Fett, and if it truly is them, then I fear simply arresting them could prove disastrous.”

He immediately winced with his words, his fingers flying up to his temple.

“Master?” Depa looked at her master.

He waved her off, “I do believe the Force is agreeing with my statement.”

“Agree, the Force does not. Be, the Force is.”

Maria couldn’t help but make a face at that, “Aren’t you always saying that the Force guides? How can it guide but not agree?”

“Off topic,” Kolar interrupted. “And that is covered in your lessons, initiate.”

“I don’t go to lessons,” Maria shrugged. “But that is true, we are getting off topic.”

Master Koon looked like he wanted to interrupt and ask more about her skipping lessons, but she kept talking.

“The Vode are your priority. Also maybe recalling Knight Vos from the field, infiltrating the Seppies with psychometry is a terrible idea, I hesitate to let Cal hold my lightsaber because of my visions and you sent him in there to feel horrible sith-y emotions. Also, Kuat is being allocated funds to build a giant planet-killer weapon. And Tarkin is executing prisoners of war and vode slated for decommissioning by torturing them to death. Also, I think that the Sith are maybe influencing some politicians, should we get Madame Che to check them over?”

And, the most important thing for her: “Can you stop my buir from getting possessed by the Sith?”

Several masters shared startled glances, looking more alarmed with every word that left her mouth.

Master Windu folded his fingers in front of his face, “Tell us everything, Initiate Maria, and I promise to do everything in my power to take care of it. This is not your battle anymore.”

Chapter Text

The Masters would take care of it.

That kept looping in her head as she got gently shuffled out of the room so that the Council could discuss classified information that would be impacted by what she told them.

Except… they took it out of her hands. The thing that she always had control over, is out of her control.

What is she supposed to do now?

“Well,” Skywalker rocked on his heels as he looked at the council doors. “We should probably go to the Healing Halls.”

Maria blinked, “What?”

“C’mon, you said that nobody has been taking care of you for the past… too many years, you’re probably missing check ups and vaccinations,” He said with a fake-ass smile. “I think it’s best for you go to the healers before you get Corellian Flu.”

She gave him a look, “You think? Don’t you avoid the healers?”

His smile was less fake and more real, sharper, “Actually, that’s my Master. I like the healers, it’s amazing to have access to healthcare anytime. They can help treat my headaches and bruises, I don’t have to pay, and then they thank me for coming.”

Her nose twitched, “But I’ve had worse.”

“So have I,” He wriggled his prosthetic hand at her. “My mom told me if I have access to something, and there is no price, then I have to take full advantage of it. Treating a sprained ankle now means no aching feet for several years to come. It’s important to catch something as soon as possible.”

She eyed him, “What Master told you that you had to take me there?”

“None of them,” He said. “Though all of them approved when I said I was going to watch you until they finish up, and if I’m not wrong, Healing Halls is the first place we take a youngling we find.”

“I know. I’ve gone. They couldn’t understand what language I was speaking or what planet I’m from. I hated it.”

“Well maybe because your Searcher wasn’t as cool as I am,” He shrugged. “How about you take all your inoculations and I show you how I modded my droid? R2 has a new electric prod.”

A good bribe if she was Cal, or even Caleb, but she wasn’t.

“Can I meet Senator Amidala instead?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

“First of all, I’m trying to work with you here, kid, that means being polite,” He gave her a look that she’d seen Caleb give her several times when she was being difficult. “Just because I like banter doesn’t mean I like being made fun of. Secondly, what makes you think–” He cut off at her deadpan look.

He winced, “Seriously?”

“I don’t know why someone so cool would marry you.”

“I don’t know either, she’s way out of my league.”

Maria couldn’t help her grin, “Buir says that senators marry people that are pretty to show off.”

“Oh is that all I have going for me?”

Maria pretended to think, “I suppose you’re an okay pilot too.”

“Ah, high praise from Intiate Maria who thinks the Council are bumbling idiots,” He teased.

“Well if they listened before –”

“Then we wouldn’t be in such deep poodoo,” He sighed. “I know, I want them to listen to me too.”

There was anger in his words. Grief. 

She wonders if she sounds like that too.

“They’re listening now,” She said. “I think they’ll listen to you now too.”

His chuckle was bitter, “Thanks, kid.”

He reached out to pat her head but she snapped her teeth at him, so he pulled away.

“Okay, okay!” He held his hands up in surrender. “No pats then, snappy snarker.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, “I want a joyride too in exchange of tolerating that terrible title.”

“You were already getting one to meet Padme, but okay.” 

She stopped to gape at him, before having to jog to keep up with his freakishly long legs. “You’re more annoying than my visions told me you were.”

“I’ve been told.”

“You also pretend to be dumber than you are.”

His lips twitched like he wanted to smirk, “No idea what you mean.”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

He ignored her in favor of immediately flagging down the senior padawan doing the intake forms at the Halls, “Padawan Cisci, Initiate Maria here needs a checkup and over a year of missed inoculations.”

Padawan Cisci, a tall Pantorian girl, looked wary, “How did you miss a year of inoculations as an initiate?”

“You forget to cherish me,” She joked. At their confused looks, she elaborated. “I ran away and nobody reported it.”

Cisci turned a pale lilac color, her yellow markings standing out starkly. “There’s neglect in the creche?”

“It’s okay, Cisci,” Anakin stepped in. “It’s been reported and is currently being investigated, we just need her checked out and a report about it on file, alright?”

Cisci nodded quickly, “Should I get Master Che? She just finished a surgery, this needs to be written up by her, right?”

Anakin smiled that fake smile that is reassuring in a strange cocky way, “Yes, thank you padawan.”

Cisci scampered to go find the head healer after pushing Maria to sit on an empty bed.

Maria swung her legs from where they dangled off the bed. “I don’t like it here, a lot of people are in pain.”

Anakin hummed, cocking his head, “On the front is worse, constantly. Here it feels like healing, trust, and relief.”

That… was one way of looking at it.

“The war is why everything feels so dark,” She said. “The sith makes it all worse.”

His face darkened, “Yes. Not to worry, the Council will soon send my Master and I to go hunt down the Sith and the war will be over, you’ll see.”

“You trust yourself to do it?” Maria asked, fingers absentmindedly tracing her lightsaber on her hip. 

Anakin looked at her, “Didn’t you trust yourself?”

She shrugged and looked at her lap, “I thought I was going to die.”

“Maybe I will,” Anakin said, eyes sparkling with the sound of a secret being spoken. “But I trust that I’ll die protecting the Jedi, and the Republic.”

Maria opened her mouth, speechless. How can she say that he will, just not in the way he expects to? How can she break that trust in himself? Is… is this what he was thinking when he fell to the darkside?

“I–”

Master Che interrupted whatever she could’ve said, marching right on over.

“Initiate Cortez! You have been marked as missing 19 months of medical visits!” The fierce Twi’lek barked, “Where in the Force’s name have you been hiding from all the junior padawans sent to fetch you?”

Oops.

“Under the temple,” She replied, grabbing the subject change with both hands. “Near the Force Nexus.”

That stopped her in her tracks, “ what .”

“It’s a bit icky down there but it’s better than seeing… everything everywhere on the surface.”

It was extremely difficult sometimes to just walk around the temple when she knew the days were counting down to it becoming a tomb.

“Icky?” Che echoed. “Are you describing the dark tainted nexus as icky?”

“ Dark? ” Anakin yelped.

“Yes?”

Che grabbed her comm, “Empty Hall Room 1977, prep for a Dark Cleansing.”

Huh?

Che tucked her comm away and turned onto Maria. “Initiate, I need your permission to do a dark detecting ritual on you. If you’ve been affected by the darkside, as I suspect you are, we need to cleanse it from you as soon as possible.”

Maria shrank back, “What? No! I’m fine!”

“I understand that you may feel like nothing is wrong, but I promise you there is.” Master Che stressed, “It is very important that I check you over, but I cannot go past your shields without your permission.”

“I don’t want you past my shields!” Maria felt like hyperventilating. Master Che can’t look into her head. She can’t see what Maria has seen. What she has done.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Anakin stepped closer to her and immediately had to dodge her kick. “Calm down Maria, it’s not so bad. Could barely be considered invasive. I had to do it once, when I first joined the Jedi, it was fine.”

Master Che looked between them, “How about I demonstrate the ritual on Knight Skywalker for you? Would you allow me to do it on you then?”

Maria looked at Anakin in fear, but he didn’t even look a little panicked. He didn’t have any fear of Che seeing his secrets.

“Fine,” She finally said. “But I want to watch the entire time.”

“That’s quite alright,” Che quickly agreed. “Skywalker, you remember what we did last time, yes? Start your meditation please.”

Anakin gave Maria a quick grin before closing his eyes and sinking into the Force.

Master Che joined him a second later.

Scrutinising them through the force, using gentle tendrils with strong shielding, she felt no distress coming from either of them.

That is, until she felt Master Che suddenly recoil, pulling swiftly away from Anakin in horror.

Anakin’s eyes fluttered open, “Master Che?”

The Master slowly, warily, didn’t take her eyes off him as she brought her comm up to her mouth. “I need you prep Hall Room 1980 for a cleansing too.”

Oh. She forgot that he was in the same boat as her.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Anakin seemed to be oscillating between “Master Che, please explain to me why you seem to think I have a Dark Drain and bond? I am not dark !” and “It’s completely fine, Maria, now we both get to do the procedure.”

While she did feel slightly touched that he was still trying to calm her down, she was now freaking out on a whole other topic.

“I want my dad!” She burst out with, stomping her feet. She is a child , fucking damn it , let her be one and ask for her dad.

Both subtly (or so they thought)  freaking-out adults and several healers who had rushed to join at the call, froze.

“Initiate–” Master Che began, her voice dropping down to a far softer and kinder tone than Maria had ever heard.

“No! I want my dad! Buir !” She put her whole lungs into it. She wants Fox, she hasn’t seen him in too long and its too close to the end and she wants her dad .

Anakin stares at her for a long minute, before he turns back to look at Master Che and says, rather softly, “I think I would like my Master here too.”

Then he turns on his heel, marches over to Maria, and pulls her over to sit down on the medical bed. Silently, he crosses his arms and turns to look at Che expectantly.

Che sighs, lekku twitching in annoyance. “Fine! Yes, yes, we’ll get your guardians in here. Padawan Nibb, Padawan Yiiyu,” Both senior padawans startle as she addresses them. “One of you go grab Kenobi, the other goes to grab…” She turned to Maria, waiting. 

“Commander Fox,” Skywalker answers for her. “From the Guard Station.”

Che’s face twitches, probably wondering when Maria even met Fox. “Yes. And whoever goes to fetch the commander, bring someone with you. I don’t want any incidents that might need healing.”

She means that she doesn’t want them ambushed by any of the growing anti-jedi groups, but none of them said that. It was politely ignored by all in what seemed to be anxious denial. Maria looked at it as rising sith propaganda to lay down the rising Empire.

Both padawans shuffled away, intent with their tasks like all padawans tended to be.

Maria gave anyone who tried to approach a glare and a jutted lower lip, like she might start wailing again at any second. They kept their distance.

“You good, kid?” Anakin said.

“Are you?” She replied.

“I asked first.”

She swung her dangling legs. “Not really.”

“Big day?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want a hug?”

“Only from buir.”

“Okay.”

She crossed her arms, “Do you need a hug?”

“Yes,” He answered bluntly. “Only from Obi-Wan. Also from– uh, you know.”

“Okay.”

She swung her legs a bit more. “You can’t feel the dark side on you?”

Master Che’s eyes sharpened, but she didn’t move to intervene.

“No. Can you?”

“Yeah. It’s icky. Mine is bad but yours is worse.”

“Oh yeah?” He challenged.

“Yeah,” Maria had to think about it for a second, squinting her eyes and wrinkling her nose. “I’m more like I ran through a really dusty archive. There’s cobwebs stuck to my clothes and dust in my hair, but I can try to brush off the worst of it. Yours is like having a therapy session with a Sith.”

He cocked his head, intense blue eyes on her. “You’ve said that before.”

There was something unnerving about having Anakin Skywalker’s full attention on you. His force presence already tended to dwarf anyone around, and since the war began, the entire temple could feel when he was in the same damn sector as them, but it felt far too physical now.

So, she poked at it in a very clear ‘back off’ gesture with her own force presence. He felt a bit confused at the poke, much like a german shepard would when a kitten bats it with its paw, but when she did it again with a bit more force, he blinked and the air stopped feeling like static.

“I have, because it’s true,” She said as if that didn’t just happen. “Mines a coat, yours is inside. Like you left your emotions on a plate and they’re feasting on it, and its making you tired because its eating you but its also rotting and gross .”

He took a long time registering that.

“It’s festering,” He finally said. “My emotions touched the Dark, I never took care of it, and its festering.”

Master Che, slowly, hesitantly, nodded.

“Kriff.” He said.

Immediately, five adults chimed in to tell her “don’t repeat that.”

She rolled her eyes, “Yes and no. Someone is feasting on your emotions, not just the Dark. Its a Dark Bond .”

“How can you tell?” He pressed, “Nobody could, not until I let them through my shields. You shouldn’t be able to–”

“I’m good at visualising,” She cut him off. “Philosophy of the force and theoretical concepts? Not at all. But the Force? It feels like I can reach out and pick it up and pop it on my shoulder like I could a tooka. Shielding and presences and even push-pull are so easy to see in my mind. You’re a lot, so its brighter, but if I just, like, uh, imagine putting on sunglasses? I can see a bit more. It’s hard to explain. Sometimes its like blankets and knitting, other times its like stars and suns and moons. I can see it, though. It’s hard for most people to hide from me. Can’t read minds, though. Wish I could. Would make it easier to understand what everyone wants. I just want my dad and my friends, y’know?”

She started out strong, confident, but by the end she was mumbling it, unsure.

She was unsure now. She has always been unsure, but at least she was confident in that. Now she wasn’t confident in anything that she couldn’t explicitly see.

“I know.” Anakin didn’t sound very confident, but his words were. He was a walking contradiction like that.

She wondered if living like that didn’t confuse him too. She thinks she is confused.

“I can feel everything, everywhere, and you can visualise anything, always,” His tone turned sardonic. “I really hope Yoda doesn’t get the bright idea to make you my padawan to teach a lesson. He’s done that already, wanted to make me learn about dealing with stubbornness but I think it just made me worse.”

She snorted, “Oh I can definitely make you worse.”

“You think I can’t make you worse first?” He challenged with a smirk. 

“Visualise everything , I can totally get you spiraling in five minutes.”

“You’re already spiraling.”

“ Anakin Skywalker! ” Kenobi said, scandalised as he opened the door to the room, making them jump. “That is not being delicate!”

“She bit me it’s not like she’s your fancy Alderaani Vase that can break ,” Anakin immediately whined like a teenager caught being too rough with their friends.

“Mar’ika!” Fox nearly bowled over the frazzled Padawan Nibb that seemed to have been forced into speeding him here. “Are you okay? Are you sick? Did you have an episode?”

“ Episode? ” Che echoed, concerned.

“Dad!” She cried and threw herself in his arms. “You’re here!”

Fox stuttered a bit as he rocked back from her jump, his arms coming up to cradle her as reliably as always. “Of course. You called.”

She wished she could burrow herself in his arms and never let go.

“A-hem!” Che cleared her throat obnoxiously in a way she must have learned from humans because Twi’lek don’t do that. “Can we get on with the procedure now?”

Maria felt her dad cling back, anxiety spiking, and in a paradoxical way, she felt safer.

Chapter Text

One good thing about Fox’buir is that while he let Maria do whatever she wanted, he put his foot down when she was injured and being irrational.

Or, at least, that is what Maria discovered.

Fox had her sit on his lap, where he could make sure she wouldn’t bolt or try to climb into the ceiling to hide, and watched as Maria got all her inoculations updated, a general check-up given due to her habit of going places people haven’t inhabited in literal millennia, and the dark ritual bullshit.

The last one she hated, mostly because she felt like a toddler having a bath. Don’t want to do it beforehand, realise it’s not so bad, don’t want it to stop.

It felt nice , in a weird Force way that she hasn’t felt in a year, back when her brothers were here to group meditate with her. She was coated in light, deep in the force where the outside currents of darkness and war couldn’t reach her, and she felt so safe.

When she comes out of meditation, she was swaddled in a blanket and a senior padawan had some tea and biscuits for her, checking her vitals like a nurse while Che talks with Fox. 

The twi’leki healer had a cup of caff in hand, splotchy dark green discoloration under her eyes and on her cheekbones– the twi’lek version of dark shadows under their eyes– with the air of general exhaustion. Fox, miraculously, had his helmet off. He doesn’t like having it off anymore, not since the first time he lost time from the chip, he only takes it off when he’s in the barracks or in his office, where the only people around are vode or Maria.

Strangely, it was the Kenobi and Windu sitting in the corner of her room that threw her off the most.

Kenobi felt like pure light, as always (that man truly was impossible to corrupt, Maul is so delusional). Windu felt like he was regretting mixing tequila and absinthe, which was a feeling that Maria has absolutely never felt before, no way. Their force signatures, where they met, felt so discordant, it was like that old meme with wolf called Moon Moon. 

“Ew, tea.” Maria blurted when the padawan, seeing she was awake, decided that the first thing she needed was a cuppa. Gross, she’s not British.

“Initiate,” Windu said in an exasperated sigh. He sounded like he wanted to give her a whole lecture but he had a lecture so this was her one and only warning to be quiet. Fair…

…and she had no major urge to be contrary just because, so she will allow it.

“Why are we having a party in my room?” Maria asked, waving off the padawan who tried once again to push the tea into her hands.

Che took the cup from the padawan’s hands and firmly put it into Maria’s. “Drink. It has electrolytes and you are dehydrated from crying.”

She knelt down to shove a scanner into her face, “I cleared out all the Dark webs over your force presence, they were layered but not deep. Do you feel anything different?”

“The song is different.”

“Song?” Master Che’s lekku twitched in confusion, “What song?”

“The song the force sings,” Maria clarified. “Y’know, like how it goes dun-dun-dun-dundun-dundun when something bad is going to happen? Or how it goes soft and quiet like a cat purring in the archives?” She hummed the Imperial March for good measure. “It’s much less harried. Less like drums and more like… well I don’t know many instruments, maybe a flute?”

“Ah,” Understanding dawned. “You visualise the Force far more than the average Jedi. Music is how you see the cosmic force, isn’t it?”

Maria shrugged, “Living, cosmic, it all is the same. Some is closer and warmer, like a hand on your shoulder or a coat, some is more distant and imprinted, like a song, and some is far and behind shields, like a painting across the Art Museum behind glass. It’s all the Force, in the end.”

“Fascinating,” Kenobi muttered. “Almost like shatterpoints.”

Kenobi shot Windu a significant look. Windu looked like he wanted more tequila.

“Wait, so her way at looking at Force osik is different from yours?” Buir asked before frowning, “Mar’ika, for the sake of my heart, can you not stand out for five minutes?”

Maria rolled her eyes, “It’s not like I can control how I see the force! It just is , buir.”

“Initiate Rosa-Cortez is correct,” Master Windu pointed out. “The Force is, it can be interpreted, yes, but it is.”

Fox was far too well disciplined to show exactly how much he understood that on his face, but Maria could fell it clearly through the force.

The weirdly louder, lighter force. 

It wasn’t her filter of the force that would make it so much lighter.

“Where’s Anakin?" she asked.

Windu raised an eyebrow, “ Knight Skywalker is recovering in his own room.”

“And Master Kenobi is here, why ?” She pointed out, taking a sip out of her tea to be dramatic but immediately spitting it out. “Hot and gross.”

Fox immediately surged forward with a napkin to wipe the tea she spit up, “Because everyone doubled over roughly an hour ago when they did the ritual on him and they get a headache when they’re in the same room.”

“There was… a lot of darkness released,” Master Kenobi sounded tired, it was a mix of his fondness-exhasperation- An akin voice and his I’m-a-council-member-during-a-war voice. “He is much lighter now, but he needs to leave the meditation on his own, and his shields are partially down.”

“You have a migraine and you don’t want to show it,” She translated what he did not say. “Want some tea for that?”

Master Che looked at her, unimpressed, when she offered the master her cup. “No, he does not. Drink, and do not spit it up. It’s this or an IV.”

She perked up and stuck her arm out, “Then stick me, buck-o!”

Fox sighed, long-sufferingly. “I’m sorry about her.”

“Will she actually accept the IV?”

“Yes.”

Master Che picked up her caff cup, “Then please insert the IV, Padawan Jedyt.”

“Worse than Skywalker and Vos,” Windu muttered.

Kenobi grinned, full of teeth and vindication, “Good luck.”

“Huh?” Maria asked around a biscuit that Fox had managed to put in her mouth.

Windu grimaced, “This may not be the best time to discuss this, Initiate. You have had a trying day and–”

“And I don’t like being left out of things,” Maria finished. Her eyes narrowed, “I may like making jokes and I’m overemotional, but I’m not stupid.”

“You are nearly thirteen, the traditional age for near-human species to graduate from initiate to padawan,” Windu approached her, kneeling down to be level with her. “But you need a master to guide you. Initiate Rosa-Cortez, will you accept me as your Jedi Master?”

Chapter Text

Maria couldn’t believe her ears.

“...But I don’t need a Master,” She said dumbly.

Windu raised an eyebrow, “No?”

“I’m not going to be a Jedi,” She said. “I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

“What do you want to be instead?” He asked.

She… doesn’t know. She didn’t think she’ll get this far.

“A spy?” She said. She felt as confident with her answer as C3PO would be wandering the desert by himself. “Or a historian?”

“Both of which the Order would support you in being,” He pointed out. “The Shadows and the EduCorps are funded by the Order.”

“But I can’t stay with the Order.”

“Why?”

She looked at her buir, lost. “I have attachments? I misbehave all the time? I get called a heretic? I haven’t attended lessons in a year?”

“Have you placed your father’s life above everyone elses?”

“No, but–”

“But you were afraid?” Windu patiently took her argument apart. “I know. With a Master, you can work through that fear, have someone you can trust be able to support you, have the power to support you. The rest is not a problem, that is the point of having a Master: to have someone to support you as you learn and grow.”

Maria felt cornered, “I don’t want to leave buir behind.”

“Mar’ika–” Fox tried to speak up, probably to push her towards becoming a padawan and abandoning him, but Windu looked at him and he faltered.

“You won’t have to,” Windu promised. “I highly doubt that any of the vode will wish to leave us Jedi once this war ends, and I know Depa has made space in her quarters for Grey to stay. You will grow like any child and leave home eventually, but it doesn’t have to be today.”

“But I don’t want to die! ” She burst out. “Jedi die ! That’s what I’ve seen, over and over and over! The sith hunt every Jedi down and they die ! I’m supposed to die .”

At that, Fox does stand up and shush her, pulling her into a hug. “It’s alright ad’ika. It’ll be quick. Enjoy what you can.”

Everyone’s head whips to look at Fox in horror.

“You agree with her?” Kenobi asked, finally speaking up. “Her visions aren’t set in stone, we are going to change it.”

Fox couldn’t look at him, but Maria could feel the slight stiffening of his muscles. “You can’t. He has too much power.”

The temperature of the room dropped.

“You know who the Sith lord is.” Windu spoke. It wasn’t a question.

For a moment, her buir flickers to that awful blankness in the Force. “Good soldiers follow orders.”

Maria hates it, but she panicked, throwing herself away from him and smoothly sliding behind Windu, lightsaber out and lit. She wouldn’t use it against her papa, would she? She’s not sure.

Then Fox returns, and that self-loathing look was back on his face when he realised that the chip took over, but Maria doesn’t go back to her bed.

It’s too close to the end for her to trust anyone.

Yet she is here still.

“Papa?” Her voice is small.

Fox looked ashamed, “Sorry Mar’ika, I can’t resist it.”

Master Che, who had pushed her senior padawan nurse behind her in that terrible moment, cursed: “What the kriff was that?”

“Proof that Initiate Rosa-Cortez’s visions are accurate,” Windu told her. “All the vode have mind-control chips inserted in their brain, awaiting orders from the Sith to execute us all.”

Master Che spewed several more swears, enough that Master Windu’s hands twitched to cover Maria’s ears.

“Call Healer Eerin,” She told the padawan. “I’m too tired to safely do another surgery today, and this trooper is not leaving my infirmary until that chip is out. Go.”

The padawan scampered off, looking scared.

Fox looked at Che helplessly. 

“Decommissioning today?” He croaked.

“If by that you mean decommissioning that chip, yes.” She sniffed. “Why wasn’t I told of this the second you stepped into my Halls?”

“You were doing an extremely difficult ritual on the two other major problems?” Kenobi offered wryly, clearly using sarcasm to deal with his emotions.

She gave him a glare, “If I haven’t dealt with enough Darkness that my hands are numb from the cold, I would be forcing you to take several shots right now. Don’t we have to run a blood panel on you?”

Kenobi paled, and he started speedwalking to the door, “I should go check on Anakin! He should be getting well enough that I can meditate outside his door!”

Che watched him go, a slight aura of victory about her. 

She turned back to Maria, “If you turn Master Windu down, and you wish to take the Healer track, come to me. Making Masters cower is half the job. A quarter is empathy, but that can be set aside if they’re especially dumb.”

Maria scowled at the reminder that she had masters asking about her becoming a padawan. “Why can’t I not have a Master?”

Windu answered her, “Unfortunately, the vode do not have citizen status and as such Commander Fox cannot be your legal guardian. As an abandoned youngling, you have no family to take you, and you would be at the mercy of the Coruscanti Foster System. With your abilities, Initiate, many Seers have gone mad in the past because they cannot master their power. It is best that you have a Master.”

Seeing the reluctance still on her face, he continued: “How about a deal? Once you have honed your abilities so they aren’t harming you anymore, you can leave the Order. By 15, you can apply for emancipation and the Order would support you. If you don’t want to be a Jedi, you can just leave. All I’ll ask is that you call us for help if you need it.”

Damn it all.

“If you ever call me insane and dismiss my visions, I’ll leave,” She promised. “I want the Sith gone.”

“I swear not to betray your trust like that,” Windu swore.

Maria looked at Fox, and, at his nod, she turned back to Windu. “I accept you, Master Windu, as my Jedi Master.”

Chapter Text

There are many things to do when a Master takes a Padawan. There are also many things to do when you discover that a sith has been mind-controlling a commander, and your new padawan has been neglected for few years, and when said padawan is recovering from a dark cleansing sing and… well, there was a lot to be done.

And Maria was tired . 

For the first time since the war began, she could relax, and it was exhausting. Relaxing is so very tiring, and she didn’t know if she liked it.

Master Windu was constantly checking his comm, but he also didn’t leave her side as they waited for Fox to get out of surgery.

He glanced at her once more as she turned over in the infirmary bed, kicking the blankets as she tried to occupy herself in getting comfortable without jostling her IV arm. She’d heard the Corries’ medic once yell at a shiny that if he kept wriggling about like a di’kut then his IV would snap inside his arm. Now, she wasn’t sure if that was just some lie to keep his vod’ika from running away, but it was a terrifying thought and she really doesn’t want it to happen.

“You can go to sleep, Padawan, the commander will be under for another few hours still.” He told her, ready for her to give in.

“Can’t,” She whined. “The room’s too big and too busy. I always sleep in the lower floors, they have some really comfy reading nooks, sometimes I’m in the creche room that my clan had. Nobody ever sticks their head in to check my blood pressure in there.”

Master Windu seemed to consider that silently, “Well, I have the quartermaster and the cleaning droids emptying out my padawan rooms, so you will have a smaller room soon. Most of your fellow padawans tend to complain that they are too small, in fact.”

“I’ve slept in a Corrie supply closet before, if anything, most things can’t be small enough for me,” The Temple was huge and empty, and the force sang the prettiest in the smallest corners. There’s little reading nooks where the echo of a padawan’s humming as they studied lingered for centuries, and those were the safest and nicest place to sleep. 

He squinted at that, tapped something into his comm, looked like he was confirming something, then nodded. “I requested that the closet in your room have a lock added to it.”

“Wait,” Her eyes gleamed in delight and disbelief, “I can sleep in the closet?”

“If that makes you more comfortable,” He settled further into his seat. “Depa had the tendency to sleep in the bathtub in her later padawan years. If there’s no harm to it, I don’t see why not.”

Okay, so, maybe Windu wasn’t the worst choice for a master. But still…

“And this will be my room?” She had to double-check. “I don’t have to give it up?”

There was a frown on his face, but the force around him was light and comforting, like spicy soup. Delicious and warm and bites back. “Not until you wish to, I have no intentions of taking any more padawans after you, and force knows Depa stayed in that room until she decided to take her own padawan. If you only stay until your fifteen, or you stay for fifteen years after you’re knighted, it’s up to you.”

“Oh,” That does sound nice. She shuffled down under her blankets, until only her IV arm is out, and her nose, burrowing into a comfier position. “I need to grab my things then.”

“Do you want to do that yourself or would you like me to grab a bored padawan to do it?”

“I don’t think you’d want to send a padawan down into the Sith Temple below.”

Windu’s eye twitched, but his force presence stayed like soup. “I don’t think I would like anyone but seasoned council members there.”

“I can lead the way!” She protested, picking up his implication that she was staying up here. “It’s not like Madam Debois or the undead guard will let you in without me!”

Master Che frowned at the door, coming in at the absolutely worst time. “The undead?”

Does she care enough to give context? Maybe. “The undead guard who only allows you to enter the Sith Temple under our temple by answering his riddle, and if you fail, he cuts your head off.”

Both adults stared at her for a good long moment. 

“Should I–?” Master Che began.

“Call Nu.” Master Windu confirmed. “And a mindhealer.”

Wow, they’re calling the archivist and a therapist… that’s probably not a good thing.

“I’m not crazy,” She’s never sat up so quickly in her life, even with one immobile arm. “The undead guard exists!”

“We know that,” Her master was quick to reassure her, the waves of soupy-force lapping softly at her, like a hot cocoa on a winter’s day. “However, there is other concerns about you seeing such a force apparition.”

She scowled, “Like what?”

Her tone was absolutely not polite.

“Padawan,” Master Che was using her gentle healer voice, and her force presence dimmed as if she was calling all her emotions except her calm back into her body. “Do you understand what trauma is?”

“I’m twelve, not two.”

“ Padawan! ” There was a sting to Master Windu’s voice, cold hard steel that rings high like a triangle in a symphony.

She refused to hunch over, “I’m not going to be treated like a stupid baby. Just because I’m not on the frontlines doesn’t mean that I haven’t fought my own battles.”

“We can understand that, but only if you talk to us,” Windu was stern. “Talking to us means respect.”

“Padawan, as I am not your master, I do not know the gaps in your knowledge, and I am sure you know you have some. I do need to ask these questions,” Che pointed out, lekku as serene as her face. “So, do you know what trauma is?”

Mulishly, she muttered a “Yes.”

“Do you understand the living in a constant expectation that you are in danger and may die with any wrong move is traumatic?”

She shuffled, “If I know it’s traumatic and I don’t care if I die, then it’s not traumatic, right?”

Che’s lekku twitched, “Unfortunately, Padawan, that’s not how trauma works.”

“Are you sure?”

Master Windu’s force presence warmed back up, like soup in a microwave.

Maria might be a bit hungry.

“We’re quite sure. The mindhealer we’ve summoned will agree,” Windu seemed amused by her immediate pout.

“Do I have to see them alone, though?” She had to double check. She doesn’t like new people, and Fox doesn’t like her being alone with aruetii , and does bite when told to talk about her feelings. Caleb can confirm this. “Can Fox’buir come too?”

“Anyone you want,” Windu promised. “As long as you understand that others have their own traumas to talk about and can’t go to all your sessions. You have to work on talking to the healer yourself.”

“Fine,” She sighed. “Can I go down to the Sith Temple again though? I need to say goodbye to Madam DeBois.”

“Who is Madam DeBois?” Master Che frowned, “Do I have to perform another dark cleansing?”

“No, she’s a holocron that only speaks Proto-Basic,” Maria answered, which she felt like was a very helpful response.

“Do you speak Proto-Basic?”

“It’s my mother tongue.”

Windu sighed and pulled out his comm again, “Jocasta is either going to love you or hate you.”

“I suspect the same,” Maria nodded seriously.

Che shook her head, “Congrats on your padawanship, Padawan Rosa-Cortez, but I would like to warn you that Mace is already bald and thus you cannot turn him grey with stress, so please do not attempt it.”

She burst into giggles at her master’s embarrassed bark of “ Vokara !” 

There is a lot to be done, but she guesses that she’s okay with that.

Chapter Text

“I don’t like this,” Master Fisto announced to the group.

Master Nu raised an eyebrow at him, “I would be greatly suprised if you did like it, considering it is a Sith temple.”

Should Maria be going down into the old temple again? Probably not. Was she anyways? Yes, after several hours of arguing round in circles with her Master. Fox, once he had woken up and realised he can now talk about the force without getting a migraine, played the permissive parent immediately and said Maria could go as long as he was with her. That brought Master Windu into a stalemate, which turned into him being overruled when Master Nu found out that Maria had allowed a part Madam DeBois to be in her archives and demanded that she show her where the original holocron was.

“It’s not that bad,” Maria spoke up from where she was sandwhiched between her Master and Buir. Windu walked in front of her with one hand holding hers and one hand on his saber, and Fox walked one step behind her with one hand on her shoulder and one hand on his blaster. Master Che had given them both very strict instructions on keeping her from running off and touching anything dark. “Isn’t it quiet down here? The force doesn’t echo with pain and life like upstairs.”

More than one look of concern was sent her way, but none of them could deny that.

“The last time the Old Temple was entered was at least 300 years ago,” Master Kenobi agreed with her. “The dakness here has gone cold.”

“Isn’t the dark usually cold?” Fox asked. He didn’t have much practise with the differences and philosophies of the force, but, then again, neither did Maria. She just described what she physically felt.

Master Nu shook her head, “The dark side of the force can be many sensations, as long as those are uncomfortable. The dark does not want peace, it wants anger and fear and pain. Some darksiders feel like ice and some like boiling steam, and their imprints get left behind, like footsteps in the sand. The cold here is more… neutral. Like half-melted ice in a cup of water rather than a blizzard.”

“Like an empty bed in winter,” Maria agreed. “And you have to warm it up.”

“Except we are not ‘warming up’ the temple,” Master Windu said wryly. “We are examining the threat level of an unchecked Sith temple sitting underneath our Jedi temple has on our Order, and removing my Padawan’s belongings from here.”

“And hopefully avoiding all the zombies down here,” Master Fisto added.

Their group was eclectic, but efficient. Master Fisto had volunteered to join them in learning about the temple because, and Maria is quoting here, it ‘sounds like an adventure from the holos’. She would like to have it noted on record that multiple masters had rolled their eyes at him, but considering that he was a brilliant duelist and blindingly Light in a way that was only beaten by Kenobi, Koon, and Yoda, he was approved to go down. Kenobi was just here because Skywalker had turned to him and said that if he was missing out on seeing a real zombie, then Kenobi had to go in his place, and ‘Sith Lords are our specialty, Master!’ and it turns out that Kenobi was a pushover when it comes to Skywalker.

“The zombies are unavoidable,” Maria reminded him. “They guard the entrance.”

“Yes, but they won’t move, right?” Fisto checked. For a guy who volunteered to be here, he was awfully jumpy about the zombies.

“Sure,” Maria lied. 

Fox’buir’s thumb twitched on her shoulder, well aware of her tells. He didn’t tell her off though, so she should be fine to continue to lull Master Fisto into a false sense of security before totally and utterly freaking him out.

With lightsabers out and on, then proceeded forward. Every once in a while, they rounded a corner and the collection of sabers twitched upwards at the encounter with a new weird statue, but they quickly lowered.

Master Windu’s saber flew up in a protective vapaad stance before lowering once they nearly walked into the statue of Darth Brosis torturing Master Sikhil. Master Kenobi pulled a face, “They had terrible taste in interior design.”

Master Nu responded by peering closer at the inscription at the bottom of the statue, cam recorder out to preserve the plaque for later translation. “Fascinating.”

“That’s Darth Brosis,” Maria piped up. “He’s known as the Padawan-Hunter. His belt was made out of padawan braids, over a hundred of them, he prided himself on making younglings feel pain and hopelessness by killing their masters in front of them. His master was Darth Jenisis and his apprentices were Darth Skelosi the Armoured and Darth Tala the Red-Skinned. His apprentices hunted with him, Skelosi took the padawan's bones to make into their armor, and Tala bathed in their blood. When they went after Master Sikhil and her Padawan, she killed his two apprentices and then helped her Padawan escape. Her padawan didn’t know what happened after that, but he heard his master be tortured for hours through the force. By the time other knights came to save her, Master Sikhil was dead, but so was the Sith, every injury she had, so did he. They never figured out what happened, but Master Sikhil became a martyr.”

The masters all looked disturbed at her impromptu lecture. Except Master Nu.

“What year was this?” She asked, curiosity dancing in her eyes.

“Some six thousand years ago?” Maria wasn’t sure, “The calender keeps changing and the languages too, but it was at the start of the Third Sith War.”

“Third?” Master Windu echoed, looking down at her. “We have records of the first war being five thousand years ago.”

“The Great Hyperspace War? Nah, it was, like, the first war fought on an intergalactic stage, but not the first Jedi vs Sith conflict. The First Sith War was when the Dark Jedi returned to Coruscant with the Sith Army some eight thousand years ago and conquered the original Temple to the Force, aka the one we’re standing on top of, and the Jedi were driven out. The Second Sith War was 500 years after that, when the Taung and the Zhell waged war for the main inheritance of Coruscant, and the Sith and Jedi took sides, and then eventually, the Jedi and Taung failed and left the planet entirely. The Third Sith War is when the Jedi led a charge to retake the Temple of the Force, won by killing everyone inside, but then got hunted by the Sith every time they left their temples because now that the Sith were decentralized, they were harder to fight. The Fourth Sith War is the Great Hyperspace War.”

Master Nu looked absolutely delighted to be informed that her entire understanding of the Sith Wars were wrong. “And this is all in their archives? Padawan Rosa-Cortez, have you ever thought about becoming an archivist?”

She shrugged, “Maybe? The war needs to end first before I think of the future.”

That’s a lie, she’s always thinking of the future, but she also tries very hard to ignore her own.

“Anyway,” She sing-songed, “The entrance is behind Creepy Darth Broski.”

“Brosis or Broski?” Fisto frowned, tentacles twitching in confusion.

“Brosis, but Bro-ski if I’m feeling petty,” She’s not explaining the venn diagram that is surfer, frat, and stoner slang and how ‘broski’ sat weirdly in the intersection. “I have nicknames for many Sith lords… which I realize now that I say that aloud is not a normal thing to say.”

Fisto smiled at her, “Well, as long as you’re aware!”

She smiled back at him. He was nice, she liked him. Which was awfully simplistic and childish of her, but she did suppose that she was a child who liked simple things.

“This door?” Her Master checked as they stood before the great doors.

“Yep!”

And they swept open at her word, the stench of decay and suffering of a long, slow death making several of them cough. Fox couldn’t sense the sickly way the force felt, but even he was tense as he saw the mummified bodies.

Maria grinned, “Morning Greg!” 

The undead guard’s head moved to stare at her, “ Maria. You return once more. ”

Master Fisto jumped a foot into the air and started swearing violently.

“You said they didn’t move!” Kenobi had backed up several steps, standing in a classic Soresu opening. 

“I lied,” She answered cheerfully, wishing she had recorded this. “Unfortunately, Greg, this is the last time. My Master says exploring Sith Temples is bad for my health.”

“ The darkness impairs and harms all, young Padawan. It is made to rot you from the inside out,” Greg replied. “ This is a temple to our greatest shame. ”

“I’m stronger than rot,” Maria doesn’t give a shit. “One time I ate mold and only got a little bit sick. Caleb and Cal owed me five credits each .”

“We,” Master Windu spoke up. “Will address that later , Padawan. For now, we would just like to pass.”

Oops. She feels like the eating mold thing might not be funny to the adults, and, in fact, highly concerning. She was nine though, so she thinks she should get a pass.

“ Do you seek the power of darkness?” Greg demanded from Windu.

“No,” Windu wasn’t into that bullshit. “We seek to learn from the past to guide our future.”

“ And if the past holds only darkness? ”

“Then we will learn from our mistakes.”

Greg inclines his head as the door behind him swishes open, “ Then, you may pass, but beware! Should you give into temptation– ”

“–Then we will never leave, we know, we know . You don’t have to repeat that every time someone passes through, Greg, it’s implied.” Maria rolled her eyes. “Now to the archives! We’ll take the elevator because going down to level 213 is going to be killer on your calves, trust me I–”

Master Windu stopped her with a hand on her chest, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the Sith Archives? Is that a trick question?” She looked at him quizzedly and tried to push past.

“No, you don’t.” He stopped her once again, “You are returning to the Jedi Temple. We agreed that you would show us the way to the Sith Temple, I never agreed to you going into it. It’s too dangerous and you are still recovering.”

That’s not fair! She barely shivers anymore at the bone-deep chill of the dark. She’s only wearing two layers today!

She tells them as much, but absolutely none of them are sympathetic to her plight.

“We can find our way down to the archives ourselves,” Master Nu said kindly. “And I will bring you plenty of work to assist me in translating. But I do need you alive and untainted by the dark to do so.”

Maria looked up at Fox’buir to see if she could get a little bit of backup here, but promptly pouted when she saw the tilt of his visor. Stupid clone training to always obey the jedi commands. He’s her dad! …And Master Windu is her master, which means he gives her rules and other stupid stuff.

“Fine,” She crossed her arms. “But can you bring up a copy of Seis ov Krowz and Che Lurde ov Che Rengz? I was in the middle of reading them, they should be on the blue table.”

“That is acceptable,” Master Windu agreed. “As long as Master Nu checks them first.”

“Okay,” She dropped her arms, ready to totally meander her way back up and take as many side streets as possible. “Lemme just hug Greg goodbye first and I–”

Several people yell at her to not hug the corpse, and Fox’buir is quicker than all of them at just picking her up to stop her from doing it.

“I’ll take her back, General,” He said, hefting her up and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes as she squawked about ‘the indignity’ and how she ‘wasn’t some stray sheep’ that he was completely ignoring. “I heard Master Che’s say she needed to be checked out straight afterwards.”

Maria slumped, giving up. “Can I hang out with Anakin afterward? He’s cool.”

Obi-Wan was clearly trying and failing to hide his smile behind his hand, “I’m sure my padawan would enjoy your company.”

Which he did, by the way. Anakin and her were having a great time hanging out as she quizzed him about all the cool and wonderfulness that is Padme Amidala; he was very happy to gush about his wife to her.

That is, until Master Nu came with a manic gleam in her eye as she pulled out a thick paper book written in Middle Basic and started asking Anakin several strange questions while Masters Kenobi, Yoda, and Windu tried to calm her down and make her share some context.

“I’m sorry,” Anakin finally demanded as he lifted up his mech hand for silence, which Master Che looked thankful for. Nobody wanted a manic archivist set loose in the medical wing. “But why are you asking about my mother?”

“I think I found the original writings of the prophecy of the Chosen One!” Master Nu gushed.

Maria gave her a befuddled look as she stared at the book that was pushed in their faces, “Master, that’s a copy of the Bible.”

Chapter Text

After a good hour of convincing Master Nu that, no, the Bible is not the original prophecy, it’s just a collection of stories by a bunch of prophets, Maria was allowed to leave the halls that stank permanently of illness and cleaning materials.

Master Windu even gave her the code to their rooms, allowing her to set things up. Maria was given her retrieved things from the Sith Temple, with only a small handful of them being quarantined. Sure, she had lost her weird metal sith sphere with what looked like Gallifreyan circles etched onto it, and she had lost what she was pretty sure had been some dead sith acolyte’s krayt hide jacket which may or may not have had some spice dust on it from a failed Cassandra adventure a few months ago, but her more normal items had been saved.

Fox’buir had also been told that he had a spare room in their living space, but the clone commander had firmly but anxiously said that he would like to return to the Corrie barracks to start sending his men to the medics and healers and that he would think about it afterward, and Maria had to let him go. She didn’t like it; she hated being away from him, even if sometimes being around him was even scarier.

Frustrated, she put her books away on her shelf.

Three days ago, the galaxy was on a completely different path, but now there’s light and hope and good stuff. They still haven’t defeated Palpatine, but she’s not telling them shit until her clones are free. She’ll keep the Sith identity hostage forever if she needs to; Anakin was free from his creepy grooming hands, it’s not like they have to fear him anymore. She could probably kill Palpatine herself now, grab a slugthrower and crawl through the Senate Rotunda’s vents, but there’s still the chance that he’ll trigger Order 66 or 69 or whatever other numbers exist.

Her copy of Che Hobbit was pushed to the back of her shelf with probably a bit too much force. 

Her Master knocked on her door, his voice drifting through the wall through the mini-speaker system she’s pretty sure is a new addition. “Padawan, may I enter?”

With a bit of frivolous use of the force (AKA, sending a stray thought of an open door towards the force with the question of ‘ bestie can you please? ’), the door wooshed open behind her as she continued to push her books into the shelf. 

She heard Master Windu take one step into the room, and then immediately step back and away with a muffled curse.

Huh?

She picked up her head just in time to see her Master nearly bump into the doorframe as he quickly backed away from her with his eyes closed.

“Master?” She asked, “Are you okay?”

“Padawan,” His voice was tight. “You have a very big shatterpoint on you right now, and I’m going to have to ask you to stay on the other side of the room. It’s giving me a migraine to look at you.”

“Oh,” She deflated. Of course he couldn’t look at her. Nobody likes her when she’s spouting off visions, of course he doesn’t want to be near her either. “I know I’m not the prettiest princess, but ouch , Master!” She joked.

Master Windu lowered himself down onto the couch, facing away from her. “It’s merely temporary, Padawan, just until your shatterpoint breaks. You always have too many on you.”

“Is this why you always avoid me?” She has had a long history of having Master Windu immediately walk out of any room she walked into, with a rare few exceptions.

“You’re always caught up in a thousand important decisions,” He rubbed at his temples. “Knight Vos says that touching you is like touching a bomb trigger.”

“Well,” That does make sense now that she thought about it. “I do get a lot of senators arrested, and there is the treason. I guess those have ripples.”

Master Windu froze, “You do what?”

She was immediately on the defensive, “If the force gives me the tools to protect innocents, then I have to. I know that they do bad things, so I bug them and steal their info and then give it to journalists and the guards and they get arrested. It’s a good thing.”

Master Windu sighed very deeply. “We thought we had a Seppie Spy.”

“Oops.”

The Korun Jedi buried his face in his hands, “Is the reason that you have a shatterpoint on you because you are thinking about arresting another senator?”

“Sorta,” She shrugged, sitting down on the floor. “It’s treason.”

“Of what kind? Perhaps we can work through this shatterpoint together?”

She dragged her finger through the carpet on the floor, “I don’t know if I should tell you who the Sith is.”

“What?” The alarm in his voice was pretty clear, same with the way that his eyes flew open and searching her only to just slam shut. He laid back down with a groan. 

She shrugged, watching his reaction with wide eyes. “A lot of Masters die fighting him.”

“Skywalker lost a limb,” Windu recalled. 

“More like three limbs. The Sith wants him as his apprentice, and the pain and suffering made him more, I dunno, easy for the dark to grab onto him?” Maria returned to drawing figures on the carpet. The rebel alliance symbol was easy enough to copy, over and over and over. “You died too.”

There was a soft sigh, “The future is always in motion, Maria.”

“But a lot of things are fixed too,” She scowled at the floor. “Only the force knows what will happen.”

“And have you thought about asking the force what you should do?”

“Yes,” She lied. She doesn’t know if she wants to know what the future will be. She’s been very prepared to die for a very long time. 

“And you haven’t meditated in it. Why?”

“Isn’t it my choice?” She was getting irritated by all the questions, “The force can’t tell me what to do.”

The force seemed to almost curl away from her like a cat dejected when you refused to pet it after it tried to sit on your face and suffocate you in your sleep. 

“So the force can’t tell you what to do, but it can dictate our future?” She could almost hear the raised eyebrow in his voice.

“I don’t know!” She slammed her palms onto the carpet, and, when it refused to give her a decent enough sound, she slammed her whole body down. “Why are you asking stupid questions and not getting mad at me? You’re supposed to be angry that I don’t want to tell you who the Sith is!”

“Am I?” He remained completely calm. “Why?”

“Because I’m supposed to be helping the Jedi!”

“And who are you helping if you don’t tell us?”

“The Vode !” She throws it into his face, her features screwed up in frustration at the way that he was ignoring the whole situation of the vode. She has to protect the clones because then she protects the Jedi. She has to.

“And how are you protecting the vode?” He keeps talking calmly.

“Because the Sith will activate their chips!” She spat out, “And then they’ll be forced to kill all the jedi! It won’t happen if nobody goes after the sith master and the war just keeps going.”

And that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? She knows about the Clone Wars and the Revenge of the Sith, but she doesn’t know what happens next. It was fine when they didn’t listen to her, speaking the truth had no consequences, but now it does.

“That is quite the choice,” Master Windu agrees with her. “You don’t know what the best way is to protect everyone. It is the type of decision even us council members have trouble with.”

Maria stared at the ceiling of their rooms, a few short feet away from her Master, who was sitting in the same position. “So what do I do?”

He’s the Master. He’s supposed to have the answer.

“What does the force tell you to do?”

The force seems to paw at her face like a puppy wanting attention.

“It wants me to tell you.”

“Will you?”

She hugged herself, “Do you promise to wait until all the clones are dechipped?”

“I do,” Master Windu spoke with the weight of the force. His voice wasn’t tainted with pain anymore, and she’s pretty sure that he’s looking at her now. “I promise that the council won’t act until the clones and jedi are safe.”

Maria heard the tinkling of glass. 

“The Sith Lord is Chancellor Sheev Palpatine.”

When she looked over, Master Windu had his eyes closed. “I see.”

She slowly stood up, “I can also tell you that it’s a bad idea to attack him or arrest him in private, but also you should have Senator Amidala within the guardianship of the jedi while you do so.”

A wry smile twitched in his lips as he opened his eyes, “Perhaps with Skywalker in the medical halls?”

She couldn’t help her snort, “Those two are so not subtle.”

But her words came out muffled, as if from underwater. When she looked at her Master, he was frowning at her, mouth moving soundlessly.

The force was silent.

No. No, no, nononono–

In pure fear and panic, she lunged for her Master, desperate to grab something to anchor her to this time and moment in space.

Her hands reached out for his…

…and she fell forward into empty space.

The room was dark and empty, and she was alone once more.

Chapter Text

Is there something so disconcerting as when you come home after a long trip and your room is dark and dusty like the echo of the dead? Imagine if it happened in the blink of an eye.

Maria laid on her stomach on the floor, frozen with the realisation that she'd been stolen once again.

And then she screamed. 

Maria screamed and cried and slammed her body on the ground as she realised that she had been taken away from where she had felt safe. She was supposed to be safe now.

But the room was empty.

What had happened in the time since she’d been gone? It’s clearly been at least days, but how many? A week? A month? A year? Decades?

“I hate you!” She yelled at the force, “I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!”

The force growled and grumbled at her, standing judgmentally out of reach.

What was this? Trick her into telling the Masters into how to fight Sidious, and then take her away so she couldn’t help them? What if Master Windu didn’t listen to her? What if they didn’t help the vode first? What if they’re all dead?

The room is so empty.

Maria hated the force. She hated being a Jedi and she hated living in GFFA and she hated everything.

Was it even the force who had encouraged her to talk to Master Windu or was that the Dark? Was it the Dark the entire time, encouraging her to make friends who will die and kill and hurt? Could she even trust the force at all or was it a trick?

What if she can’t trust herself either to– ow!

Maria yelped out loud at the datapad that smacked her on the back of her head. 

What the actual fuck force?

And the datapad was going off like Grindr notifications at a renaissance faire, silently staying lit from the constantly influx of messages. This was Maria’s own personal pad, the one she used for Cassandra and her shadow-activism work. News sites were tripping over themselves to be the one with the latest update on the breaking news of…

Maria dropped her pad.

Reaching out into the force in a reckless move of shoving her shields down and throwing herself into it’s endless waves, she skimmed her presence in the intangible breeze that flowed across the stars. Like a branch reaching its roots and its branches and its leaves up to the sky above, tangling with mangled ancient constellations, so too does Maria reach for all the bonds she has made over her lifetime. To guards and vode, to Cal and Caleb, to Masters Windu and the Council, to Knight Skywalker and the many others she has met, she tugs on the tiny clinging webs of bonds that she had a terrible habit of connecting onto anyone her lonely self has met.

And they tug back, consciously and unconsciously, varying emotions at her un-Jedi-like display of a child demanding attention and comfort.

Or very Jedi-like, she thinks as her Master wraps his presence back around her like a hug, confusion and concern and worry for her echoing across the bond.

And, oh, how the force sang with hope. A melody of Twin Suns was plucked across her bonds like they were guitar strings, comfort and hope surging back at her.

And her bonds were closer than she thought.

Maria dropped the pinging pad declaring the death of Dark Lord Palpatine and ran out of her room.

Boosting herself with the force, allowing herself to trust the intangible power in a way she doesn’t think she’s ever done before, her boots barely appear to be hitting the floor before her body is sent back up into the air. She sprints through corridors, spinning around corners with simultaneously little and too-much control, and springs over the long stairwells with the grace of a drunk ballerina. 

Multiple masters shout at her commands to slow down or stop, twitchy knights flinch away at her careening, and padawans go scattering at her purposeful strides.

She had a goal in mind, and nobody had ever been able to stop the unstoppable force that was Maria Rosa-Cortez.

Except, perhaps, the unmovable object that was Mace Windu.

“Master!” Maria cried out as she slammed the doors of the medical wing open.

Master Che, helping Buir help her clearly injured Master be lowered down into a cot, spun around with the clear look of a displeased adult about to snap at a youngling to calm down and walk before her face morphed into one of disbelief. “Padawan Maria?!”

She wasn’t the only one, and with Buir’s head snapping up in shock, poor Windu had nobody to help him and he fell back onto the cot. A good thing too, because Maria was soon tackling him, shaking.

“Padawan,” Master Windu said warmly, slowly, with the cadence of an injured man. “You’re back.”

“Where did you go?” Demanded Master Fisto, multiple tentacles shorter and looking at her like she might be another force zombie. “You’ve been missing for two months!”

At that, Maria burst into tears.

“Shh, ad’ika,” Fox’buir was immediately there to pry her off her Master and hug her. She was far too big now to be carried by him like a little girl, she’s nearly a teenager now, but she doesn’t fight him. “Was it the force again?”

“I didn’t wanna go!” She rubs at her eyes, “You’re hurt and I was gone!”

Master Windu looked particularly unconcerned for a man that was missing half an arm, a cauterised wound of missing space from his forearm down. “I’m fine, padawan, see? The Force just wanted to keep you safe.”

The force rings with truth, a purr of pleased power, happy that the Master agreed with it. 

“It flung me through time again!” She sniffled, “I could’ve lost millennia again!”

“Again?” Master Che muttered. 

“Millennia?” Master Fisto scooted away from her.

“Through time?” Master Kenobi leaned forward, hand going up to stroke at his half-burnt off beard. “Padawan Rosa-Cortez, have you encountered Force Nexuses?”

“Yes!” She was shaking again, tears welling up further. “It keeps flinging me around every time I try to help with something important! It doesn’t want me to help!”

“Or it doesn’t want you to do it yourself,” Fox’buir tentatively pointed out. “Maria…when we didn’t know where you went, we mobilised and looked for you, and then we worked on taking the Sith down ourselves. We’re trained for this, and you’re an adiik. It’s not your job to deal with everything, it’s ours. You’re only job is to be an ad, to have fun, and tell us if we’re being di’kut’s by not listening to you.”

“That’s far more anthromorphised than any way we understand the Force,” Master Windu said, slightly pale but very determined to not look like he’s in pain. “But your buir is right. It was time we did our part.”

Maria’s sniffles died down, “But what’s my part now?”

Master Mace’s lips twitched upwards ever so slightly, “How about you come sit with me while Vokara looks at my arm and we can work that out together?”

Maria winced as she looked at his stump again. It looked pretty ugly. “Will you tell me how you killed Palpatine?”

“That was your buir, actually,” Master Mace replied. “I just placed him under arrest. Come on, I know you want to read the official report, you can help me draft it.”

And she did.

She sat with him as he was prepped for a bacta dip, and wrote down all the notes for a proper report for later, and heard how they stopped the Sith and how Palpatine was well and truly dead.

And then the next day, she got to hear how the Republic is calling for a ceasefire, and how Senator Organa is now Chancellor, and how Master Kenobi had to make a speech in the senate.

Later, she watched the war be declared over. She saw her friends come home in giant war ships, tired and older and so very happy to see her again. She saw her buir and her million uncles be declared citizens.

She got to help her Master fit a new prosthetic, and meet Senator Amidala’s babies, and get her first bead on her padawan braid.

Maria Rosa-Cortez helped save the galaxy, but she didn’t do it herself, she trusted the force and loved it, and she got to enjoy the rest of her life with her friends and family, because she was never alone again.

Chapter Text

“I do believe that is another trip to Illum,” Cal said wryly as Maria’s saber fell down the giant gaping blackness.

“Shut,” Maria scowled at her best friend, “the fuck up.”

Trips to Illum had become very regular as a padawan, with Master Mace complaining at length that he’d never seen someone lose so many lightsabers in his life. Maria would’ve been proud at beating Anakin’s record of 26 trips, if she didn’t have a habit of nearly drowning in the icy lakes. Her last crystal had been found at the bottom of one of the rushing rivers, and Buir had not been happy at her hypothermia. She’d always been shit at using the force to care for her own body, much better at sensing the world around her.

Except for the times that she almost walks off a cliff.

“I thought Jedi were supposed to be graceful?” Hera asked, looking at Maria in bafflement. She had been dragged into their adventure some five days ago with an incident involving a drunk Caleb, Cal stealing a BD droid, and Maria having a map.

Maria is terrible at reading maps, so they do tend to get her in plenty of trouble.

“She’s an outlier,” Caleb hauled her back by her collar, trying to act all smooth and strong in front of the green twi’lek. It was mostly working, only because Maria was a far bigger disaster than him and Cal was a little shit, and they made him look like the perfect suave Jedi in comparison.

“It’s a Sith Temple!” She swatted his hand until he let her go. “It’s always dark and gloomy and full of traps!”

“You are literally the leading archeologist on Sith Temples,” Cal pointed out. “You lived in one for a year.”

“It’s not hard being the leading archeologist in a field of not even a hundred,” Maria pointed out. “It’s a restricted field of practical learning. My fellow researchers are mostly old archivists or even older republic academics. Jokes on them, though; I’m older than them all and passed the minimum age requirement easily.”

“Because you were born at the dawn of the force,” Cal replied.

“What?” Hera demanded.

“Shut up Maria– I promise we’re normal jedi knights in our twenties, Hera, they’re just– Cal I can see you signing ‘grandma’ at her!” Caleb was trying desperately to stay cool and not-weird in front of his crush, but unfortunately for him, his little siblings were often described as gremlins.

“I’m, like, 30 thousand years old,” Maria cheekily smiled at Hera.

Hera went blank. “Is this normal for Jedi?”

“No,” Cal answered.

“Oh… You look really young for age?”

“Don’t encourage them!” Caleb whined. “Do you know how many legal loopholes she’s jumped through with that? I do! I was helping with the paperwork! I got an honorary certification in Galactic Core Law because of it!”

“Oh look!” Maria pointed at the very tiny little inscription up at least 3 wookies tall up on the very cursed wall. “There it is!”

“How are we going to reach that?” Cal squinted up at it. Maria thinks that he might need glasses but he denies it, even if he can’t see individual leaves on trees further than forty feet away ever since he got that concussion while brawling with Boba Fett over… something she doesn’t even want to know about.

“Do you think you’re little droid friend can climb that high?” She asked him.

“BD is a droid, not a spider.” He gave her an incredulous look, clutching his little droid to his chest. 

“Fine,” She sighed and looked over to Caleb. “Think you can toss me that high?”

“Through the force all things are possible,” He answered primly as he took a knee, ready to yeet her through the air. “But if you accidentally get cursed 'cause you touched the wall, I’m not the one explaining this kark up to Master Mace.”

“That’s fine, Cal can explain to Mace–” “Hey!” “–And you can have Fox’buir and Master Nu.”

“On second thought,” Caleb grunted out as he used the force to push her up into the air, “Dibs Master Mace.”

“Ughhh,” Cal groaned. “I’m too old to use the tooka eyes, it doesn’t work anymore.”

Hera tilted her head, her lekku twitching, “You got us out of getting arrested four hours ago by telling the officers that we’re lost and not trespassing on purpose.”

“Yeah but officers are dumb,” Cal scrunched up his nose. “Uncle Fox is sharper than a vibroknife and Master Nu Supervised Maria joining the Archivists and her dissertation. I’ll have more luck sticking my tongue down Boba’s throat than keeping it unraveled in front of them. I stuttered the last time they cornered me to find out what prank we were planning. I never stutter.”

Maria landed back on the ground, immediately squinting down at the picture she had taken of the etching. “Wait, no, I fucked that up it’s super blurry. Throw me again.”

“I’ll throw you off a cliff,” Caleb muttered.

“God, I wish you would,” Maria snorted. “Unfortunately, we have a research paper on Sith Language and its Evolution alongside Holocrons due, and I have better grammar than both of you.”

“Can I get thrown?” Cal asked.

Caleb and Maria looked at each other before shrugging. What’s the worst that could happen?

Apparently, they could accidentally throw Cal’s little BD alongside him and spend a good three hours trying to coax the droid to jump into their arms when they jumped up to try and rescue him from the little nook on the wall he got stuck on. Hera caught the entire thing on camera and despite their best bargaining (and blackmail) efforts, Master Nu was there to greet all four of them on the improper way of reaching archeological evidence. Fox’buir simply sent the viral holonet video to Mace so the other man could save it to the family album.

Maria would still like to point out that despite everything, she’s still less of a disaster than Anakin Skywalker.