Family by Heart - REWRITE(a Star Wars Rebels story)

Playing with Fire

Laughter filled the air as the group made it back to the Ghost and their camp. It was dark by the time they arrived back at their little home base. Stars began to glow above their heads as the clouds continued to disperse for the night.

The group sat around the campfire as they joked and told stories.

They would have to scold Athena the next day for such a dangerous act. Tonight was just for some joy. Some life.

Athena's hair glowed in the darkness as she sat there and laughed at one of Rex's jokes. Her hair floated in a fiery joy.

The coughing that came after the laugh was worth it.

All the aches and pains in her body were worth it.

She saved thousands of lives that day, including her own and quite possibly the crews'. Those 200 meters of lava was barely an inkling of all that was stored in Hellvius Inferno and Bakunyuu Imperials were smart and knew what they were doing when they evacuated the planet.

The planet had rivers upon rivers of magma under its surface.

The magma wasn't the dangerous part, per se. But rather the volatile gasses that built up in the mountain and all the rivers.

If Athena hadn't let out all those gases and droves of smoke and ash first, there would've been no stopping the lava. The volcano had rivers of magma run under a large portion of land like roots to a tree. If those roots of magma continued to hold all the pressure inside, they would've blown massive amounts of the planet up.

Son taught her how to let those things go. Let it all out and free.

The girl never would've guessed that the embodiment of the Dark side would have helped save a planet full of so much life.

She didn't even see any of the darkness behind all that. She didn't even realize how close she came to falling when those flames of rage engulfed her at the peak of the volcano. She didn't realize her eyes were trying so hard to glow a blood red.

The other Jedi knew, however. They could feel the darkness behind the flames. It didn't feel like the cold kind of darkness the Empire often emitted. It was a different kind of darkness.

She used the darkness right along with the light. She saw no real difference. Both sides could hurt or heal in her eyes.

Rae had been in the midst of the Imperials and the Inquisitors for a long, long time, and never had she felt the kind of darkness that this girl oozed. Yes, she had plenty of light, but oh how much she shivered at the brush of darkness she got every time she saw Athena. She was so powerful. So exuberant. So willful. So...angry. What in the galaxy could they do to make sure she stayed on their side? Even as she sat on the girl's left and shared a laugh with her, Rae couldn't help but wonder how screwed they'd be if this girl decided the darkness in her was better than the light.

Ezra sat on the right side of Athena but laughed a little harder than Rae. He didn't fear the darkness as much. He didn't see what was soooo wrong with it. Why was this darkness so much more appealing when Athena wielded it? Why did Athena's darkness allure him rather than appall him like the Inquisitors' darkness? Were they just using it wrong? In his eyes, Athena was obviously using this darkness correctly. It made her strong enough to protect those around her. No way was she too weak to let those around her to get hurt, Ezra figured.

Kanan couldn't help but to uneasily stare for a moment as he watched Athena and Ezra lean against each other as they shared a laugh. Ezra didn't really grasp the dangers of Athena's dark side. He didn't see that she was being trained to destroy a creature that had the capabilities of killing them all - and how do you kill a monster without becoming some form of a monster yourself? His Padawan frightened him sometimes. He was too impulsive. He was too emotional. He was too quick to assume. Ezra saw a beautiful flame that warmed him instead of a fire that could kill him. Ezra always saw things a little differently. Sometimes that was good, other times it was bad. When he should've seen darkness, he saw alluring smoke.