Chapter Text
The war has gone on for seven standard months when it happens.
Caerune was never one for politicking–though many have begged to differ. She just says what she thinks in her heart and that seems to appease some, if not most, of the pointed questions and digs at the order and her position as a general. Master Anderson, on the other hand, is even far less suited.
It would be remiss to think that Caerune's lack in political manoeuvring only came from her boredom and measly amounts of practice (if you could call watching senate debates with Ashley and Kaiden to just throw nuts at the holos in indignity practice). Indifference had to be nurtured from somewhere. Which meant whenever her little trio of friends were busy jeering at another idiotic statement made by a senator, the joining of her master to their overfilled sofa was not a reprimand, but rather an encouragement; his steady presence seated with them as natural as their complaints and banter concerning the state of the Republic's politics, and the overly flowery prose that spilled like tar from speech chapped lips.
He sighed at politicians. Snorted whenever something truly dumb was said. Waved statements off and discarded what was meant to be a heartfelt moment between a governing body and the people as nothing but flimsy promises. He would never quite put his own inputs in-as-much just openly show his displeasure. Maybe because he thought he had nothing to say. Maybe because he was lazy. Or had stage fright because of her friends.
Because the only times he ever did speak up was when Ashley and Kaiden were whisked away due to curfew, and master and padawan were left alone, still watching the tiring proceedings that dipped deep into the evening.
“It's all just words–not actions,” he had mumbled during one such evening. The others had left and Caerune had lifted her head from picking up a seed from the group's shared bowl to stare quizzically at him. At the sight, her master's tense eyebrows smoothed, instead of keeping his lips pursed into a line of discontent, they quirked up into fond amusement.
“What do you mean?” was her flat reply.
“If a difference was genuinely sought-after, they would spend more time going out of their stuffy bureaus, and getting their hands dirty.”
Caerune had thought about it for a moment. Let the picture bloom into her mind. And then gave an answer back even though no question was delivered.
“I do not think it is wise for politicians to dirty their palms… shaking their hands would be unpleasant.”
She had taken it too literally as always. Though all Master Anderson did was let out one of his snorts and shook his head. Eyes staring out far beyond where Caerune could see.
“Many in that Senate would agree with your sentiments, padawan.”
Immediately no. She felt her nose scrunch up in disgust. Master Anderson had attended many of their group's 'senate sessions'. He must have known that Caerune felt no fondness for the place where her, and her friends, got their nighttime entertainments from. She didn't want to be compared to any of those people on the screen. She was herself, not a smarmy person covered head to toe in heavy, rich robes. It was very good to be herself.
She understood what he had meant long after the senate proceedings let the Chancellor issue emergency powers, long after the dozens of debates she had watched in the interim were treated by bullets of seeds and nuts from her friends–sighs and tilts of his head by her master–and broadcast upon thousands of different channels; that politics itself sneered at dirt underneath fingernails, favouring delicate skins and moisturised faces.
Though Caerune learned a little later that it took immense pleasure in heaping muck upon marred palms that weren't its own.
Which is where it brings her back to the now. Her knees are sodden with browns and reds of the muddy, clay-like, terrain, dragging her already dense robes down even further, the earth trying to grasp upon her shins and ankles and calves to pull her into the molten core within, let her burn from the outside and melt the fat strung to her muscles. Heat of her wound squirms from the diagonal cut on her face and she does everything she can to not let the red of her life drip and douse the slowly decaying fire of her master's.
It was an ambush. A milk run mission made into an ambush. The last words of the bounty hunters melded with shots of plasma after plasma. Soft skin of her's and her master's were torn by vibroblades: echoes of government discontent. A message sent out signed in red. Master Anderson talked too much and put his fingers into pies that he did not have the rights to cut a slice of.
As if life and living, the cries of displaced families, the scent of the burning bodies of clones were not his business. Like he wasn't the one who had to look people–a battalion–in the eyes and see the grief of loves lost. Master Anderson did everything he could. Yelled at policies that were wretched. Fought front lines of a war in both occupied planets and council chambers and private rooms. Not for validation. Nor power. Not even recognition (‘the opportunity for that had died a long time ago’ he had whispered once). He did it because he cared.
He had cared.
Caerune clutches upon his body. Mind disregarding the deceased around her, too focused on holding onto him as their bond unravels within the cavern of her skull. Her slightly singed padawan braid lays centimetres beside her and her dying master.
For her first act as a Knight of the Jedi Order Caerune hugs her once-master and cries.