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Chapter One. Old Friends Not Forgotten
14 BBY, Dawn Treader Mid Rim
Del's master once told them of a phenomenon that she liked to call the call of the void. She'd explained it as that inexplicable instinct to surrender oneself to the crushing vacuum of empty space. When Del has spent too much time staring out into the everlasting expanse, they start to wonder what would happen to them if they were to shatter the Dawn Treader's window and allow themselves to be sucked into the ever-expansive vacuum of space. Would anybody hear their screams, or would their tiny voice just be swallowed whole by the ever-expansive vacuum of space? Would a layer of frost cover them immediately, or would they be allowed a few minutes to gaze at the cosmos around them and listen to the songs of the black holes? They are but a single cloud in an endless sky; so small that if the pressure is just right, they will be crushed.
On some level, Del had always understood that they were all so small and insignificant that although it felt to them as though they were creating tidal waves; toppling entire civilizations and bringing down destruction, to the vast expanse of the galaxy, they are nothing but tiny ripples; small disturbances on the surface of water. When they were young and fighting in a war it felt as though they were moving mountains with every battle that they won, but now that five years have passed and they've only grown older, they understand now that they had only ever been trying to shift a stone that wouldn't budge because when the war was over, they had lost. The Jedi Order had fallen and the Galactic Empire rose from its ashes, wrapping its fist around the throats of so many worlds. And all those lives lost—the Clones, their mother, the innocents, the Jedi—they had all been for nothing. Del gave their blood, sweat, and tears for this and all they came out with was bloody knuckles and a pair of cracked lips, forced to bury who they are deep down inside of them and never to return to either of their homes. The Empire is everything that the Empire is everywhere. How can they dismantle something that holds the entire galaxy in the palm of its hand?
Back when the wounds were still fresh and they were still young, revenge was the only thing on their mind. It was a clean-cut sort of feeling in the pit of their stomach and it was something they had been feeling since their mother had died. It had been small at first, something that they could easily shove away, but as the years passed and the Empire grew, that feeling grew along with it. It was sharp and angry and felt as though it had become their stomach. And suddenly their stomach was trying to consume them, consume the Empire, consume the galaxy. But they were just one tiny creature swallowed whole by a monster and the monster could feel their tiny movements inside of them and remained unbothered.
The Empire is not something that is easily swayed by a gust of wind.
Del understands this now. They understand a lot more now, they think.
