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Her hands are shaking.
Her hands cannot afford to shake. She… needs to work on that. Somehow. Before the wrong person notices.
It has been weeks– or perhaps longer– since she gave in. She does not know, because she might have some freedom now but she has only the vaguest memories of how it began.
(“I’ll lead them away.”)
(Why, then, were they found in one of their own hidden sanctuaries, found within the week?)
She clenches her fists at her side. Perhaps anyone who notices the trembles will think it to be fury.
It has been weeks at minimum, she muses, since her Master abandoned her like a coward.
(Please, her eyes had begged before she took the helmet. I’m scared, help me, tell me it isn’t true–)
The base is comprehensive. Terrifyingly so. She does not want to think of how many years went into preparing this place, this deep-sea prison and training facility, before the Empire ever came into power.
She breathes, and the sound is just loud enough that it crackles through the vocoder of her helmet. It sounds more frightening than terrified like this. More like a hiss than a waver.
Reluctantly, she moves, because publically is no place to have a breakdown of any sort if she doesn’t want to be punished, even if her personal rooms are far more closely observed in the grand scheme of things. She pivots a corner, the movement tighter and perhaps harsher than she typically would, and–
There are troopers there, in the hallway. She knows they are, she can recognize the feel of them in the Force, the blank-notblank-twisted sense they give nowadays, and there is still something uncanny to see their colors based in black rather than white.
It isn’t new armor. Not yet– they don’t have the thin strip of red visor that her own helmet shares just yet, not these troopers. These ones still echo the war more than something new.
Her skin crawls.
She breathes raggedly, and again the vocoder twists the shudder into something a little more angry.
The longer she wears it, the more fond of it she is. The training will be easier if they think her more resentful of the Order than anything else. The torment will never cease if they realize just how terrified she is. Their fear is supposed to show only in their obedience, and never be exposed otherwise.
If she is to be a hunter, then troopers should not terrify her as they do.
They have heard her, though, and turned to look at her. Something in her coils, tense, yet–
One of them perks up. One of them, by all means, appears delighted to see her.
“Second Sister!” the trooper acknowledges-greets, straightening and thumping a fisted hand against his chestplate, and she cannot help but reach out, to graze against that mind in curiosity–
One of hers. One of Cere’s.
Gynn, she thinks, and– he is one she never really interacted with often Before. There had been a certain sweetness to him for the way he would pull new rookies aside to make sure they knew everything they needed and the way he volunteered for the jobs few wanted.
One of the very same men that hunted her for sport.
One of the very same troopers that dragged her here in the first place.
(Force, what happened to her charges when they were separated? Where are they?)
“Sergeant,” she responds, and her voice is distastefully weak. Barely more than a whisper. Yet another thing that must change, especially if she does not want to break the illusion.
The other troopers scatter like they expect to be sacrificed if they stay. Like they expect him to be sacrificed if they don’t.
They gave him a hammer, she muses, and it makes no sense. Why would they give an artillerist a melee weapon, let alone such a slow and heavy one? But… she supposes he must be used to handling heavy equipment, more so than the average trooper, even if he didn’t exactly carry artillery around.
And if they are to hunt Jedi here, she supposes they are all well aware that blasters aren’t exactly efficient unless caught unaware.
“Gynn–”
The trooper is radiating pride, she realizes, and her breath catches.
He is… proud of her. For being here, in this place. For becoming what she is.
(He would have hated it, a few months ago. Or maybe it was a facade all along.)
She snaps the tendril of energy back to herself and shuts that feeling out of her shielding as best she can when her shields are still ragged and recovering from the time before her title.
“What is your placement?” she manages to grit out.
“Should I pass the final examinations, I have been flagged for your personal squad, Commander… ah, Sister.” He sounds even prouder about that, somehow, and… of course he is.
Why would they not place one of her worst memories at her side? It simply screams intentional. A reminder of what was so effortlessly done to her, without even the threat of Lord Vader necessary.
They slaughtered us, she muses, yet somehow they still don’t abandon me as easily as you did, Master.
What does that make them? What does that make her?
She wonders if she is Trilla Suduri or if she is the Second Sister.
She wonders if she is the terrified padawan or the furious hunter.
In the end, she is one, but she will have to wear the mask of the other until she no longer remembers how to take it off.
The remnants of their battalion are glad she chose the Empire over her ideals, see it as a matter of pride that she saw the light, and she loathes Cere just a little bit more for it.
The troopers see nothing wrong with what happened, and she still does not know what was truly done to them but she knows that if she steps out of line they will not hesitate a second time.
(What a coward Cere is, what a hypocrite, to Fall as she did and still abandon her for it, to choose herself above all else.)