Chapter Text
The Ronin and his boy walked through a grassy field, long stems waving gentle in the wind and blowing pollen into the air. The planet was covered in fields like these, where flat expanses were long and trees were rare. This far out, the stars glittering above them failed to be recognizable at all, for they’d left familiar parsecs behind long ago. They carried with them all that they possessed, which was hardly much at all, only their food and their emergency kit and a single pot to cook with, shared between them. They had only the clothes on their backs. The boy carried a small toolbox for the upkeep of his mechanical arm, knowing full well that if it broke, they would not have the money to replace it. The Ronin carried a tiny communicator, keyed only to his bio-signature and voice, the only piece of tech they had apart from the swords and the arm. This far out, it certainly did not work well enough for holos. It could only send and receive very small, very short, worded messages.
The Ronin carried the swords, two hilts in two sheaths affixed to his belt, one beneath the other. The lower sword was clearly damaged, with the hilt sparking every now and then, long cracks appearing in the silver casing.
“We need to find work,” he said, as they walked side by side. “Perhaps in the next town over.”
“I don’t see why we should,” said the boy, squinting yellow eyes in the low light, trying to see if he could make out the town in the distance. “I don’t see why you’re bothering with any of this. You’re a fool. You could take my head off right now and go home to your family.” That last word was said mockingly, sing-song.
“You are my family,” said the Ronin, sounding tired, as if this had been a long, old argument. “As much as I wish that were not the case. You are my responsibility.”
“I hate you,” said the boy, casual. “I’ll hate you till the day I die.”
“I know,” said the Ronin, without changing expression. They might as well have been talking about the various flavors of tea.
*
The town had once been a well-off town, by the looks of it, although now it was badly damaged. Hastily patched-up holes in the windows, doors broken off their hinges. It was on the bigger end of the villages they’d seen so far, with fifteen buildings on the main street and several side streets, and even some gravel roads leading off into the endless fields. The Ronin and the boy had walked through villages that consisted of only two buildings and a muddy road, worn through with deep grooves from the ox-carts that lumbered through on their way to better places- places like this. This was certainly a better place to be.
But it seemed that something had happened, judging by the scorch marks and the broken homes and the haunted look in the people’s eyes.
“Lord Ronin,” said the old blacksmith, after he had taken them into his home, broken bread, and had offered his hospitality for the night. This culture respected travelers, had deep-seated rules about fae folk and those who wandered in the dark, and rules about never turning someone away for fear they might bring ruin down upon the village. The younger people of this generation might occasionally disregard these laws, but never the elders. They knew better. Though it was clear the old blacksmith had hardly any food himself, he made sure his guests ate, with bread and a thick stew, while he himself had nothing but a cup of strong tea.
The Ronin ate. To refuse food due to the man’s clear lack would be a grievous insult. The boy, on the other hand, did not care for such things and ate whatever was put in front of him- he would have eaten it regardless of culture, even if to do so would take bread out of the mouths of babes.
“It’s my daughter,” the old man said, after he cleaned up their meal and offered the two travelers some tea. Only after they’d eaten and drunk their fill did he make his request, touching his forehead to the floor. “She’s been taken by the red soldiers. They came through three days ago, stealing our rice, our bread, our animals…our daughters. She is young, and beautiful, and they took her.”
The boy rolled his eyes and sipped his tea. The Ronin ignored him, bringing up a hand to stroke at his beard. He pondered the old man’s question, unhurried, looking up and around the room, at the ceiling, at the walls. Yes- he could feel it. It was a quiet home…too quiet. It rang with the ghostly footsteps of one who had recently lived here. A young woman, thought the Ronin, as he closed his eyes. He could picture her easily, like a fresh memory. Nineteen years old. Red hair.
“I can make you no promises,” he said, finally. “But I will do what I can.”
There was something fae, something other, about the Ronin. It lived in his eyes and his clothes and on the edges of his beard. His movements were too quick, too graceful, eyes too sharp. It was a wildness, a feral quality, like a river or an ocean or a storm. As if he held enormous power contained within himself, tucked away but ready to be summoned if needed. It drew people to him or caused them to recoil in equal measure.
The boy, by contrast, was perfectly ordinary apart from the yellow eyes. He was a boy in maybe his early twenties, give or take, with dirt on his face and blond hair that was clearly growing out of an uneven shave, spiky in some parts, wavy in others. A scar curled its way around his temple, visible, deep, and indented enough that the hair would never grow there again.
“Anything that is within my power to give, I will give,” said the old man, “for her safe return.”
“We need money,” said the boy in an unimpressed tone.
“The red soldiers took everything I had, sir.”
“How convenient for you.”
“Please,” said the old man again. “I would not be so presumptuous if I was not desperate.” To the Ronin, he said, “I have heard, in my time- whispers of these things. Of…deals, and the old gods, and the faeries. I offer my life, or…or my heart. The heart of an old man, grown bitter with age- I imagine it will not taste very good at all. But it is all I have.”
The boy laughed, startled by the assumption, unkindly amused at the old man’s expense. The Ronin looked at the ceiling, reminded himself that Coruscant was very far away, and counted backwards from ten.
“I will not eat your heart,” he said, dealing the boy a half-hearted glare. “Nor do I want something so drastic as your life. In the morning, we shall set out in search of your daughter. We will attempt to find her, or to find out what happened to her. I can promise no more than that.”
The Ronin studied the old man’s face for a moment, as if deciding whether to divulge a secret. Decision made, he reached to his belt, grasping the second of his two swords- the one with the damaged hilt, and made as if to draw the blade from the sheath.
But nothing emerged except air. The blacksmith at first assumed this must be a broken blade or a simple hilt with no blade. Was the Ronin going to ask him to forge a sword?
But the Ronin only held the empty hilt out to him with no explanation. When the old man’s hands had closed around it, he asked, “do you know what this is?”
“I…”
The old man thought he did. But now he lifted it to his eyes, seeing a light there, in the cracks…something that shouldn’t be there…
Inside the casing of the hilt, he caught glimpses of a shining crystal, burning with the trapped light of a star. The light pulsed blue, changed over to red, and then went back to blue again, dimming and brightening in random turns. He could see wiring, elegant, and something molten, like plasma-
Clarity came suddenly, and with it, awe.
“A dae-kan.” The old blacksmith held it reverently, suddenly aware of the dirt under his fingernails, the smudges he was no doubt leaving on the casing.
“In return,” said the Ronin, “I would like you to take a look at this and fix what you can. Have you ever worked with a plasma blade before?”
“Yes, my lord,” said the old man, voice hushed. “Just once. I served in the army under Lord Laiama, and I repaired his dae-kan when it was broken. But…his sword had a cord and could be operated only with a large generator or a portable backpack.”
The old man tilted it ever so gently, to see what he could beneath the cracks of the casing. “I have never seen…” he continued, uncertainly. He felt very small. “I have never seen a star-seed such as this used in a sword before, my lord.”
The boy’s lips repeated the words star seed.
“In my language, we call them kyber,” said the Ronin. “The sword is too damaged to use; anything you can do will be a help to us. However, take care not to damage the crystal itself. Also,” here his eyes lowered, and he murmured- “if you should sell it, while we are gone, I will know.”
The old man shuddered to think of what the Ronin might do to him if he did that. “Of course I will not, my lord.” He had so many questions. Where had this come from? Why did the Ronin have it? Had he stolen it? Was it an inheritance?
Was it a gift from the faeries, others of the Ronin’s kind- the velia?
An old man should not stick his nose into business far too dangerous for him, he said to himself sternly, and resolved not to ask. Then he got to his feet, moving to place the sword in an honored place atop the hearth.
“Keep it with you,” said the Ronin, watching him, and the boy whose eyes tracked the sword’s every movement.
So the old man took it back in his hand, holding it at his side as he gestured to the two doors at the end of the main room. “If it pleases you, I have two rooms available. My bed is the largest, lord Ronin, if you would like to have it. Your son can have my daughter’s room-”
“I’m not his son,” snapped the boy. His face wore an ugly expression, words dripping with agonized bitterness, with sour resentment, with pain, so pure and intense it was bleeding through his soul. He looked the Ronin in the eyes. “I’m his slave.”
The words were meant to slap, to hurt. But the Ronin merely blinked, unfazed. “If that is how you must rationalize it,” he said. And then, to the old man- “keep your bed. Anakin and I can share a room.”
The boy made a wounded noise, as though the idea of sharing a bed with his master was the worst thing he could think of. To the Ronin, he sounded like a petulant child.
“A-alright, my lord,” said the old man. “I apologize for the assumption.”
*
That night, the old man slept in his bed, and the Ronin in his daughter’s bed, but Anakin-
Anakin slept in the main room, curled up on the floor by the hearth, and there, in the safety of his solitude, he wept into his hands.