Chapter Text
“Hush, little one, be strong and fierce. Hush, little one, be wild and free. Hush, little one, you’re not alone. Hush, little one, you’re here with me.” Father’s voice, a memory in her ear, echoes easy confidence. Because she was, she had been, strong and wild, back then. At least he’d spun that story since her babyhood, to train her into fearlessness in the face of a sharp, hot horizon line where everything has fangs.
She can’t think of the song anymore without segueing into that other memory. Much older. Nine? Ten? Learning to swim in the natural pools of the caverns, so warm with the soft white light from the crystals, the steady drip of water, the echoes of their laughter. The real pools, the natural wonders, glow clear all the way to the bottom. This is an offshoot, the water murky with moss and slimy between their toes, but still clean enough to swim in.
Being bad—she remembers that. It’s supposed to be some big community-building trip, a vacation with the vaguest tinge of purpose, and even their parents have found time to come along. They’re being bad, they’re laughing at someone, they’ve been horsing around because everything is fine. Hera doesn’t even see it first—she spots the sinuous black shape moving fast just as Shani screams, and that scream clicks into place in her head—savak. It’s a savak.
The kids scramble for land. Shani and Hera, waist deep in the middle, don’t stand a chance. The thing is swimming with a purpose, aggressive and at home in the water, hunting. They can’t make it to the rock three meters away, either—both of them know it in that deep down place that catches sight of movement and instantly tells you the odds.
But they do make it, floundering the last step to the boulder. It’s slick with moss, and Hera breaks the nail off her forefinger scrambling for a hold. Reaches back and pulls up the much bigger Shani. The rock won’t really hold both of them—they won’t fall as long as they’re careful, but they’ve only cleared the water by a few inches.
And then that creature jumps.
Hands empty, Hera screams, and it must not be used to loud prey under the water because that throws it off. It twists to a graceful landing and swims off downstream.
The water would have carried it. It doesn’t have to work so hard at swimming. It didn’t have to jump. The savak is…it is…it must be a meter long and deadly poisonous. It could just stretch up onto the rock and get her foot. She can feel every nerve in her clenched toes right now. It doesn’t have to work so hard for its food.
Then it doubles back for them. Shani’s foot is barely six inches out of the water. Hera can’t pull her up any higher, and in all honesty, she’s not willing to give up her perch and slip down into the water for Shani’s safety. She’s body-scared, self-preservation pushing out thought.
“HERA!” Her father’s voice, loud, echoing, from the shore. “Don’t. Move.”
He doesn’t sound afraid. He’s got a plan, then. Father’s never frightened as long as he has a plan. Okay. Her part in the plan is not to move.
The savak swims up beside them. No time. There’s no time for a plan. It’s here NOW and she’s going to die and the best course of action she can take is not to move. Her eyes open so wide she sees white on the edges, so wide she can see it without turning her head. Don’t slip. Hold steady. At her back, Shani is also a rock.
It continues upstream. This is a creature of deadly grace and it has no need to jump sideways against a current.
The body twists and coils. There, the savak seems to tell itself. This is far enough. It straightens and powers back towards them.
“Hera.” Her father, certain and reassuring. “Tae’s here. You’re my big girl. Don’t move.”
She doesn’t understand, but the two of them can take out whole droid armies. Okay. She can follow instructions. Sillier children might panic and die. She stands still as a statue.
It jumps, beautiful and terrible, right at her face. She catches a quick glimpse of unhinged jaws and fangs. Then its head disappears and something wet hits her cheek and lips and the body jerks up in an awkward, abrupt death throe.
The snap-bang comes immediately, the sound crackling off the cavern walls for some time afterwards.
What remains of the savak’s limp body floats away downstream. Now she can turn her head.
She sees Tae on shore, a sniper rifle to his shoulder, his eye obscured by its scope. Her father next to his friend, tense but observing the entire scene as if he controls what happens with the force of his will.
Tae is the better shot.
“You’re all right.” That’s her father’s voice again, in her left ear, steady. “You’re all right, girls. Climb down now.”
Hera doesn’t move. She needs to assess the situation. When Tae blew that thing’s head off, where did the poison go? Is it in the water? Is it splattered on her face and body? What if a fang is floating around? She doesn’t have on shoes.
Shani stays stiff behind her, arm clenched rigid around her own.
“Girls.” Everybody else watches them. Father’s voice stays even and patient. “It’s gone. You’re safe, now.”
Tae wades in, and Hera feels like she’s sagging in relief—Tae, who always looks out for her—but her weakness must be just a feeling, because she doesn’t slip from the rock. He’s here. He’s in front of them. “Come on, girls. You’re safe now.” He lifts Shani, then turns his back to Hera. “Hop on.”
“I’m NEVER going back in the water,” Shani vows.
“Hera.” Her father, still on land. The pit of dread opens again, small, but there. “You’re not hurt. Get back in and wade to shore.” The pit wells into her throat, a tangy taste of bile.
She doesn’t move.
Tae half-turns towards her father, though. Admonishing, or entreating. “Cham.”
“The kids felt perfectly safe before. There’s no more chance of savaks now than there was then. I won’t have her afraid of the water. You’ve been in that stream all day, Hera. Get back in, and you can get yourself to shore.”
Tae frowns, but knows better than to turn a protest into an argument.
All right. She can’t stay here forever. What she wants is to be out of the water. All right. She can make that happen. Hera swallows that pit down hard—one two three go I said GO!—and jumps off the rock.
She doesn’t die.
After this she’s inoculated against the ways that a pounding heart can make you silly. When a TIE misses the cockpit by four meters, she shrugs it off so she can keep flying and shooting. With fast movement, you’re either predator or prey. Keep your eyes front. Tell yourself you’re the predator.
And when Kanan tells her to jump—even in those early years—even standing over a pit—she jumps. “Jump!” he yells over the wind. “Just jump! I’ll catch you!” But she doesn’t hear his reassurances, because she’s already flung herself far out from the ledge, into the open air. Reassurances are nice, but they won’t save people—only action will. And she has to be ready, she has to be brave. Somewhere some creature is always circling back around.