Mandalorian Lost

Chapter 7

Flashes of images dance across the back of my eyelids and I feel my head loll to the side. I'm powerless to stop them. It's like my whole life is flooding into my mind and flashing across my eyelids like a holoscreen. I see Darth Vader, shrouded in darkness as his breaths fill my ears. I suck in a shaky gasp as the red blade of his lightsaber ignites, cutting through the darkness and bathing everything in its crimson glow. He lunges forward, and my own red blade raises to meet his.

"Impressive," Vader says, swinging his saber around in another high arc. I barely deflect it this time. My heart pounds in my throat as he bombards me with a series of rapid movements that I barely keep up with. "You will make an efficient Inquisitor." It was the closest he ever came to compliments.

Just as he swings his saber at me again, the vision changes. Suddenly I'm much smaller, my tiny hands gripping a short metal stick. Pre Vizsla stands above me, coming at me with a significantly slower pace than Vader as he uses his own metal stick. The movements come naturally to me as I deflect his every move. It's like I don't have to think.

"Very good, Tara," he praises, a smile on his face and sweat beads pooling on his brow. "You'll make a fine warrior."

I suck in a breath, suddenly aware of pressure on my torso and something soft around my head. My eyes stay closed, but I can feel my surroundings. I'm not training with anyone anymore. I'm not a child anymore. A lumpy pillow is shoved beneath me and I try to turn my head. It ends up lolling from side to side restlessly as I try to figure out a way to relieve the pressure on my middle. My hands slide across my stomach and attempt to push it away, but a voice cuts through my confusion that makes me hesitate.

"Try to sleep, Tara," a female voice whispers through the darkness to me. She sounds motherly, kind. I can probably take her. I shove at the pressure on my stomach again, and this time a gruffer, deeper voice takes the place of the female one.

"She can't hear you," he—it's definitely a man—grunts in a modulated voice. I feel around desperately now as the pressure becomes painful. I collide with soft, small hands and start smacking them away.

The female sighs. "I can't wrap it when she's like this." The hands leave me alone and I let my body relax, sinking into the lumpy fabric below me. The pressure is gone. I almost slip back into my dreamlike state, when rougher, gloved hands grab my wrists.

I let out a whimper as they pin my arms to my sides. I squirm in their grasp, and the movement sends a sharp pain into my stomach. I whine quietly and the hands tighten on my wrists. "Stop that," the gruff voice orders from just above my face. "Wrap her up."

Pain blooms in my stomach all over again as the small hands return to it. The pressure comes back, this time gradually getting tighter and tighter. I whimper again, shaking my head. I can feel my strength fading. I try to focus on opening my eyes, but that becomes too hard.

"Easy," the man's voice returns, a fraction softer this time. He repeats his command a few times before the rhythm of it lulls me back to sleep.

I slip back into my memories.

Warmth.

The first thing I feel when I regain consciousness is warmth. Not the warmth of a crackling fire by the bedside, or the thrum of a ship's internal heaters turning on. This is a warmth that swallows you whole until you feel nothing but absolute safety. Nothing but peace and light. It's a warmth I haven't experienced in well over twenty years. And at the heart of it, one thought keeps echoing through my head. It's not my thought, I realize, but someone else's. Someone projecting this warmth through the force and keeping the thought pulsing through me until I feel compelled to listen.