Will of the Many~ Poe Dameron

So the stories are true...

I don't chase. I conquer. You will crumble like Rome for me...

-Erin Van Vuren

Serena packed the very same bag she had used to travel the previous weekend with Poe. She switched out her winter clothes for something a bit more accommodating: flexible jeans, training wraps, and her gloves. The very same gloves she had locked away in a drawer never to be seen again. They laid on top of her folded clothes, mockingly, as they waited to sit flush against her hands and steal all sensations from her. 

"Are you ready?" Kaydel's soft voice pulled her from her daydream. 

She hummed as she zipped her bag to rip her attention from the gloves. 

"Um, yeah," she muttered as she grabbed the strap of her bag and fitted it over her shoulder. She turned towards Kaydel as she licked her chapped lips. "Are you sure this is the right mission for you?" She asked as she looked between Kaydel's gentle eyes. "I would love to have you with me, but what we're doing is very dangerous, Kaydel. I keep thinking up scenarios where we don't have to fight and I..." She shrugged and shook her head simultaneously. "I don't see a way where you'd come away clean."

Kaydel gave her a tight lipped smile. "You heard the General... we have to carry the burden of war so that the rest of the galaxy doesn't have to."

"But why you?" Serena's words held a desperation that startled her. "Why..." her heart hammered in her chest as she felt the weight of their mission lingering behind her. "Why does war have to burden you?" She lifted a hand towards Kaydel's form. She wore her comfortable clothes and her hair fell loosely around her face, filling her more with a child's innocence. "You are- are so good, Kaydel, and I don't want to ruin that." Her hand dropped back by her side. "You were the single person who reminded me that there was still good people in this galaxy, and if you go out there and-" Her eyes slipped over to the door as the words stuck in her throat. "I don't want you to change."

Kaydel walked up to her and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. It wasn't gentle. Serena felt its weight in all of its entirety, and it helped reassure her of Kaydel's presence. "I'm not going to change-"

"How do you know?" Serena urged. "How do you know that what you see and what you're forced to do won't change who you are? Because-" she licked her lips as her words became jumbled in her head. "Because I have seen what these missions can do to people. I watched Storm Troopers who were conditioned for violence crack after taking a life. If they broke... then..." her eyes searched Kaydel's for some sort of answer to her unasked question. 

"We have to go," Kaydel told her. "This is what we have to do, Serena. You have to be okay with this."

"No." She shook her head defiantly. "But there are thousands of things that I've done unhappily." Her mind filled with the screams of the innocent people she slaughtered. "Let's go." She nodded at Kaydel. 

They left the sanctity of their new room and ventured out towards the hangar. There was a shift in the air, a new understanding of what was to come. News had spread of their mission, and each passing officer looked at them like they were on their way to dig their own graves. 

Serena avoided the glances as she focused all of her attention ahead of them. She navigated the halls, then breathed slightly better as they broke out of the base and walked into the open, humid air. 

They passed through the shipyard as they headed towards the mass of bodies along the edge of the base. They surrounded the Millennium Falcon and another vessel that was a similiar size but much newer model. 

As they grew closer, Serena noticed the startling youth that graced each of the cadets in their teams. 

She and Kaydel stopped next to Leia, Chewie, Finn, Poe and Rey as they looked over their teams.