Chapter Text
19BBY
Satine was beyond tired. She did not know if a word existed in any language for just how battered and spent she felt after the last week. Her body ached and burned, her scars singing sharply across her back and chest. Her mind was fatigued from hours upon hours of strategizing and crisis management. And her soul was broken for her home and her people.
But Mandalore still stood.
And the beast, the beast who had used her as bait only months before, who had attempted to burn her people and her home in retaliation for his failure, that beast was gone, thanks to her sister, a young woman who had once been a Jedi, and a few clone troopers from the Republic.
Still, the fact that it had come to her long lost sister fighting to regain the peace- if the destruction and fires in Sundari could be called "peace"- tore at Satine's soul and mind like nothing else. Everything she had witnessed. Everything she had fought for. Everyone she had lost or given up...all of it felt as if it had gone up in flames. In many ways, quite literally.
She sat in her private sitting room, back to the expansive windows, shorn up by the Protectors with energy shields. She could not bear to look out at Sundari. Her tea had grown cold, but she nursed a crystal tumbler of tihaar, rolling the potent liquor slowly around the glass. Her body was still, but her mind raced, and she stared sightlessly at her personal comlink, wondering if she should reach out to him. Wondering if he would ever check in with her.
Bo-Katan had been furious with Obi-Wan after she'd gone to plead their case to him and Master Skywalker. Bo had even sheepishly admitted, when she had realized calling upon Mandalore's need for support was not getting them the help they desperately needed, that she had played dirty with Obi-Wan's feelings for Satine.
It had ultimately been Master Skywalker, Ahsoka, and the kind and steadfast Commander Rex that had ultimately come up with a solution that had brought them the limited troops they had gotten. Bo was furious with Obi-Wan. Satine had long since come to terms that duty would always, always come before her. She held no grudge. Her home was safe and that was all that mattered to her.
Lost in her thoughts and pondering her desire to hear his voice, she only heard her door chime on the third time, followed by her sister's voice calling to her.
Satine shook herself from her aimless thoughts and punched her code to unlock and open her door. Bo rushed in, Korkie hot on her heels. Bo was still clad in armor, smelling of smoke and blood. Korkie, who had been spending days and nights on end, helping in aid tents and triage wards, looked harried and exhausted. He and Bo had grown surprisingly close since they had together pulled her from her prison cell, months earlier.
Bo gave no preamble, just made her way to Satine's holoscreen. "You need to see this."
She flicked the screen on and it instantly filled with the image of the Jedi Temple, on fire. On the bottom of the screen, a ticker ran- "Jedi betrayal. Jedi assassins attempt to take Chancellor Palpatine's life. The Order has fallen."
The image shifted, and now Chancellor Palpatine spoke in the Senate chamber, telling of the attempt on his life. Speaking of the Jedi's surprising betrayal and attack.
It was wrong.
It all felt horrifically wrong.
The image shifted again, back to the burning temple, and Satine vaguely realized anchors were speaking over the image. She did not hear them. Her ears rang and her gut twisted. Her glass fell from her hands as she choked on a gasping sob.
Korkie sat beside her, running a hand up and down her back in some attempt at comfort. "What does it mean?" he asked.
Bo picked up the bottle of tihaar and drank straight from it before handing it to Satine. "It means bad news, kid. Very bad news."
Satine hated how right she knew Bo-Katan was.