Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Void War Leaves
When one falls asleep, one essentially dies until they choose to return to life. In sleep, they explore the dreams their minds fabricate; exploring the stars, helping people, being a hero. The list can go for a long time. But sometimes, we do not enter dreams, we enter nightmares. Sometimes, we end up in the void; an endless black abyss we wander until either dreams or nightmares find us, or we return to reality.
This seemed to be the case for this young woman as she found herself dreamless after falling asleep in anticipation for her first job with the crew of the ship that took her in after her friend left her for dead. She thought it was strange that she had no dreams, seeing as she finally seemed to be getting a better life after life (and the empire) decided to ruin hers.
“Guess it’s just one of those nights huh?” She thought to herself as she walked around hoping to stumble into a dream. She eventually stopped as a tiny bright light shines upon her face, revealing her amber eyes and strands of orange and blue dyed hair. She smiles to herself as she begins to walk towards the light, “Looks like I got lucky tonight.” she thinks to herself as the light surrounds her.
She hears it before she sees it. But instead of a peaceful dream, she finds herself on a battlefield. “What the fuck?!” She screeches to herself, realizing she couldn’t speak. She looks around to see soldiers, clone troopers, dug in a valley on some planet she can’t recognize as battle droids begin to swarm in around them. Charging headfirst into the droids was a woman wearing the robes of a Jedi with armor that seemed to be Manalorian, but she couldn’t tell due to the amount of punishment it seems to have taken, underneath it. All while swinging a beautiful pink-ish violet lightsaber with a blade much thinner than others and had a curve at the tip, immediately reminded her of those ancient beskar swords used by her people. The woman also had a blaster pistol in her hand, shooting at droids out of her reach. The most noticeable detail, however, was the long hair that reached down her back that was painted in an assortment of blues and reds with spots near the top being a chocolate brown, similar to hers, when it wasn’t dyed. After destroying the last of the droids, the Jedi looked towards her clone trooper comrades saying, “ You boys need a hand ?”
One of the clones responded to the woman saying, “ Commander Dawn! It’s good to see you back on the front lines!”
“Give me a rundown. What are we dealing with?” Commander Dawn ordered
“We’re low on supplies and we’re getting hit hard. Damn clankers sent out multiple battalions to kill us. Not to mention we don’t even know where the general is!” The clone shouted in complaint
“No need to worry Raptor, I’m right here.” A man said behind the clone
A man with calm dirty blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and a scar on his right eye appeared behind the clone, Raptor apparently, and Commander Dawn. The man was wearing a navy blue robe over tannish brown armor with lightsabers on both of his hips.
“Good to see you master.” Commander Dawn said with a small smile
“Sorry! I didn’t see you there General Morgan.” Raptor said with slight panic
General Morgan let out a small laugh before saying, “No need to panic Corporal, I’m not offended. And it’s good to see you too, my creatively destructive padawan.”
“HAH! You know me! Can’t keep Athena Dawn out of the fight for long!” Athena shouted.
While she seemed in high spirits, Athena instantly started aggressively coughing, with some blood coming out.
“Are you ok?” General Morgan asked
“I’ll *COUGH* be fine. Just hurts a lot.” Athena said with one eye closed
Even if she didn’t know her personally, she knew that this Athena was in a lot of pain and was still trying to keep herself steady so she could keep fighting.
Everything went white then and when she could see again, she saw Athena, bleeding profusely, whilst coughing out her lungs, lying face up against a rock, with unarmed explosives revealed on her chestplate.
“ATHENA! You alright?!” General Morgan shouted
“Sorry Jackson. I pushed it too hard. I should’ve rested after the birth of my daughter.” Athena said weakly
“So that’s where you were for 9 months, you were pregnant.” Jackson said with shock
“B-but where is she?” Jackson asked
“She’s with my younger sister. My daughter will grow up with them. Completely oblivious to her connection to the force.” Athena explained
“But why would you hide it?” Jackson asked
“Haven’t pieced it together huh? I’m Mandalorian, she’d be disgraced and isolated for her entire life. This will be my final act in this war.” Athena said while coughing
“Athena. What are you going to do?” Jackson asked
Athena then pulled out a detonator of some kind. “This.” was all she said before the explosives on her armor began to light up, signifying that they were armed.
Athena then lifted her other hand and gave Jackson her lightsaber, a black hilt with gold accents. “Hang onto this, until the day it’s new master comes to claim it.”
“What are you crazy?! I’m getting you out of here!” Jackson shouted
“Master, please. Let me do this. I have to. The force has been guiding me to this. ” Athena said
“ *sigh*. If that’s what you want, I won’t stop you.” Jackson said quietly
“Th-thank you Jackson. Goodbye.” Athena said before standing up
As Athena began to run off, Jackson called out to her one last time.
“The force will be with you.”
“Always.” Athena finished as she began running towards the battle droids, twin blasters in hand. Tearing through each one, she didn’t stop until she could reach the spot where the explosion would cause the entire valley to be destroyed. Athena was shot numerous times, but kept going. She finally collapsed right in front of her destination, struggling to hold onto life long enough to see the mission through. The droids surrounded her, ready to open fire and extinguish her already frail lifeforce.
“So. Do we take prisoners?” One droid
“<I sure as shit won’t take any of you rust buckets prisoner.>” Athena said in Mandalorian before using the force to crush one of her explosives, causing a chain reaction that would destroy the valley. The fireball then surrounded everything as the explosion went off, destroying droids whilst Athena burnt in her armor at the center.
“My beautiful daughter. I’m sorry I won’t ever get the chance to see you grow up. But I know that someday, you’ll bring the change our people need to rise above our constant infighting and finally open their eyes to change in the galaxy. Live your life free, my little sunflower.” Athena thought in her last moments before she closed her eyes, accepting death as the flames consumed her.
The young woman was blasted out of the battle, back into the void, where she began to panic and hyperventilate as she tried to process what she saw.
“Stay calm Sabine. Stay Calm Sabine.” She told herself over and over again until she finally calmed down. When Sabine stood up, she sat there, trying to process what just happened.
“What in the ever living fuck did I just witness?!”
It didn’t feel like a dream OR a nightmare. It seemed like it was something else, like she was viewing some event that she couldn’t explain. She didn’t know how long she sat there, all she knew was that she snapped out of her trance as she turned to see a distant white light. The only noise heard, was the laughter of a boy…