Afterglow | The Clone Wars

Good Soldiers

Mandalore had always been this way, glass walls and polished, cold floors, but the silence was heavier now that the hour was late. It's emptiness wrapped around Dakota like a cloak she couldn't shrug off. Not that she wanted to. The stillness of Sundari whispered past the window, and the pale light reflected off glassy city buildings cast an array of various blue tints across the room.

Satine lay asleep beside her, her breath soft and rhythmic. Peacefully somewhere in a dream. Her hair spilled across the pillow like a stream of gold thread, her features relaxed in sleep. Unbothered and untouched by the war. Or rather, untouched by the wars that came before and by the ones that will come after. Neutrality had suited her well, despite it all.

Dakota lay on her back, one arm tucked under her head, the other resting across her abdomen. Her eyes were fixed on the dark ceiling overhead with a hanging, crystal chandelier, though she wasn't really seeing it. Her mind was elsewhere, desperate for sleep but, as always, it evaded her.

Their mother had died in this very house. She remembered the illness and how it came for her, like a thief in the night. The woman who once sang them lullabies and combed their hair had wasted away in a matter of months. She had been gentle and full of light. And gone far too soon. Reduced to a tomb stone.

After over twenty years later, Dakota struggled to even picture what she looked like. Satine's hands threading through her hair earlier gave her a sense of deja vu, but that faded in time. Along with an old, gentle tune from some far off voice. A voice that used to sing them to sleep.

After her mother's death, her father had filled the void like a bloody blade shoved into untouched, soft earth. Death Watch loyalist. Harsh and cold. He trained Dakota not with patience, but with strict expectation. There were no lullabies in his house. No affection. Only discipline.

Strike harder.

Feel nothing.

The lessons etched themselves into her bones. By the time she was nine, she could disarm a grown man. By eleven, she could kill one.

That was before the war. Before the Order. Before everything.

She turned her head slightly to look at Satine. Still untouched by that life. Still soft, still warm in the ways Dakota hadn't been in years— if she had ever been. She admired the way Satine still managed to believe in peace, despite everything. Despite their shared father.

She wished she could believe like that. She wished she could sleep like that.

Her gaze softened. The curve of Satine's pale cheek, the way her lashes cast faint shadows under her eyes. The quiet way her fingers clutched the edge of the blanket, like she always had as a child.