Embers ◂ Poe Dameron

00. 𝐀s destiny wills it

𝐙𝐄𝐑𝐎

And so the adventure begins, beneath a rusted sky of sins. 

❖

ARKANIS, 23 ABY

❖━━━━━━⋇ during the siege, part one

❖━━━━━━⋇⋆❖⋆⋇━━━━━━❖

𝐀MELIA HUX HAD ALWAYS KNOWN that the universe was burning, but she'd never realized how far the blaze had spread until now. It was searing in her chest as she ran, feet hitting the ground one after the other like drumbeats on the surface of time. It coursed as ichor in her trembling veins, just beneath the thinning sheet of her almost-petrified skin. The inferno had been in her father's eyes, as he stared at her with devastating anger, shock, and even worse, fear. His blue-green irises were mirrors of Amelia's own, a chillingly familiar glare glazed with an ice she hoped would never freeze over her features.

Explosions broke apart the galaxy above the flame-haired girl's head, the sky erupting in flashes of fuchsia and green like a firework display rejoicing in the celebration of carnage. The shrouded abyss above made it impossible to see who was winning this battle, the long-fading remnants of the empire or the freshly empowered republic. One would only be able to tell a few days from now when the bones of pilots and starfighter parts littered the ground, leaving the living as witness to a graveyard of man and machine, though she would be long gone from this treacherous planet that was once her home by then.

Despite the fighting, anyone with anything knew that this wasn't for solely the purpose of conflict but a siege to end imperial activity on one of the last empire-controlled masses in the galaxy, a place where change was finally catching up. The remote destination was no exception from the consequences of this age-old battle, which seemed ingrained within every creature's heart and soul: there would be death even in a circumstance where the New Republic was guaranteed to win, because if the empire was falling, it was bringing as many as possible down with it. And there is no way to escape from the crosshairs, especially when your own family is tipping the balance.

Amelia's attuned sense of smell picked up the earthy, mist-like aroma of petrichor rising straight from nature's core, a sure sign to anyone growing up on Arkanis that rain was coming. As was another usual occurrence, the air was so thick that water particles clung to her dewy eyelashes, clustering in her throat as if they could find refuge in her coarse, strained vocal chords. Yet it couldn't have been anything but torture as each gasping inhalation she stole was heavy with the weight of humidity and funerals for empty caskets.

She stopped running, trying to revitalize her lungs and clear her head with the musky fragrance while pushing back the memories it threatened to recall. Perhaps if she had grown up in another home under a less significant name she would have learned to slow down, to relax and count her shuddering breaths instead of trying to take it all in at once, but no such advice had ever reached the girl's ears.