Embers: Sequel to Crash and Burn

Jacen could feel the dark power coming from the fortress of the Nightsisters even before he could see it. He steadied himself, even though Augwynne’s rancor leapt over the ground at a fast pace with uneven steps, and picked up subtle signs of agitation from some of the witches. There were a few other men traveling with them, mostly with their owners, who were worried enough about the growing threat of their Nightsisters to give their slaves a chance at freedom if they wanted it. Many had opted not to travel, though, and Jacen couldn’t imagine why anybody would choose to be a slave, although he accepted that it was a choice they made. He’d already made his own that many others might not comprehend.

There was a small speck up ahead, something that reflected a little bit of light from the run and scattered it over the sands. That was the exact place that he thought the dark force was coming from, and the closer they got to it, the more sure he became. He couldn’t tell how many Nightsisters there were, but guessed that their number was in the hundreds; only slightly outnumbered by the witches and their traveling companions.

The speck grew and showed itself as a downed corvette, guarded by little dark dots that ran back and forth in front of it. The dots then grew, into robed figures, and a large white net of pure light suddenly exploded out from them. A couple of the riders at the front ran into the net and fell through it, their bodies and the bodies of their rancors being cut to pieces as they went through. A chant rose up, then, and the net evaporated into wisps of fading smoke.

Go, Augwynne said, and at her word Jacen jumped of the back of the rancor. He activated his lightsaber before he hit the ground.

Anakin is in there, he thought, and looked briefly up at the crashed ship. Don’t worry, Anakin. I’m coming to get you.

A Nightsister swung at Jacen with a pike, shouting something in Dathomiri that he dimly understood to be an obscene reference to his mother. Jacen jumped out of the way just in time, and the pike whistled past his ear. He dove for the ground in a false fall, catching himself on his knee, and he lifted his lightsaber behind him in the place where he thought she would be on the follow-through from her swing.

The fighter was better than that, and his jab also missed, but in spinning out of the way, she left herself open on the left side, and he made short work of cutting her in half and running on toward the corvette.

Jacen was able to tune out most of the sounds of battle, letting only the ones through that he needed to hear. He heard footsteps, lightly, barely audible above everything else, alerting him to the fact that there were more people coming into the large room that the boarding ramp opened up to. He jumped onto the middle of the ramp and charged forward, and saw the two Nightsisters appear in the circular room.

As soon as he saw one of them raise her hand, and her sleeve ruffled, he stretched out on the floor. A firm gust of wind, strong enough to knock him back towards the boarding ramp if he was standing up, blew over him, and he created a Force shield in front of him as he stood back up. It deflected the stream of fast-moving air particles into two streams around him, and he was able to advance to them.

Jacen did what he needed to do and he did it as quickly as he could. He always felt vaguely ill every time he had to kill someone – unsettled. It was never a comfortable feeling and he was glad of that. The fact that he had the power to bring them down didn’t give him any pleasure and he never wanted it to; the only feeling that was anything remotely good was that he knew he could protect himself if he needed to, and protect others, and that was exactly what he was doing. It helped him to be unafraid, and he knew that fear was just one of many paths into darkness.

There were only a few guards stationed inside the complex; most of them had gone outside to deal with the witches who had gathered against them. He ran through the corridors, senses on full alert, looking for the slaves.

He thought he sensed Anakin not far ahead, but when he got to the place where he thought Anakin was, the room was empty. Jacen took off running again.

“They’re on the fourth level up,” a voice said.

Jacen turned around. Anakin stood about ten meters away, dressed in a short brown robe and holding a staff. He looked drawn and a little bit underfed, and had a few bruises on his arms that had faded from black-and-blue to mostly yellow and gray, but didn’t seem to be badly hurt.

Jacen ran up to him and threw his arms around his brother. “There you are! I was looking all over for you – how did you get out?”

“No Nightsisters standing watch over me and keeping me Force-bound,” he said. “Getting out of hide ropes was nothing.”

Jacen kissed Anakin hard, and then pulled away. “There’s a declaration that anyone who kills two Nightsisters wins his freedom,” Jacen said. “That’s not a reason to go killing, but...”

“It’s something we have to do anyway,” Anakin finished. “Let’s go.”

“Wait… you don’t even have a lightsaber.”

“Neither do they. We’ll make do. Come on!”

Jacen led Anakin back out towards the ramp that he’d entered by. The battle was still going strong, although a few hundred had already fallen. They opened their minds to each other and stood back to back, whirling their weapons and dropping any Nightsister who came up to them.

It was over in about an hour, and the few remaining Nightsisters were stripped of weapons and lined up in front of the clan leaders. “We’ll execute them,” one said.

“I don’t think we need to go that far,” Jacen said.

Hush, boy!

Jacen bit his tongue. They wouldn’t listen to him, and when the prisoners wouldn’t agree to turn over and do penance on solitary journeys, they were killed. A few of them did accept the terms, and were sent in various directions, apart from each other, with warnings that they would be watched and should they attempt to regroup and start again, they would lose their lives.

Welk leaned on his staff and looked over at Jacen. “You’ve gotten stronger, even, since… since last time,” he said.

“I’ve been practicing,” Jacen said. “I’m almost a Jedi Master. My uncle has mentioned promoting me, but didn’t think it was quite time yet.”

“Maybe you could teach me,” said Welk.

“I don’t know about that. Maybe, but I won't make promises if I don't know I can keep them. I have a lot of other things to sort through first. I have to get my family back home.”

Desa said something angrily to her father, and he looked helplessly at Jacen. “She said that she never gave Anakin permission to fight against the Nightsisters,” he said. “Desa wants to take him back with her.”

“I’m not going,” said Anakin. "I got out and won my freedom fairly. She couldn't even keep me when the Nightsisters attacked."

“It’s not a matter of choice,” said Welk. He turned to Desa and said, in Dathomiri, “Desa, Anakin fought hard. He killed more Nightsisters than either you or I did – even put together – and he will never love you. Let him go, and you can have your choice of any of the other slaves that the Nightsisters kept.”

“He will love me, in time,” Desa insisted. “Many foreign men have taken a long time to come to their senses and learn who they are. There is nothing wrong with me that would repulse him.”

“Anakin loves Jacen,” Welk explained. “You’re right; there is nothing wrong with you – but Anakin would not care. He has no eyes for women. He has eyes for only one man.”

Desa blinked twice at Welk, and then she spun around to face Jacen. She growled at him, and in a moment she was up next to him, swinging her spiked staff. Jacen caught the weapon, barely, and held it where it was; the spikes were only centimeters from his face, and he pushed up on it to move it while Desa pushed down. She was as strong as he was, from ten years of life on Dathomir, but when he put the Force behind him, he was slowly able to set the staff upright.

“Hold still,” he commanded. “I am not going to hurt you.”

She did stand still, except for shaking with barely-contained rage, and he had no doubt that she would attack again as soon as she was certain that he wasn't pulling out a trick. Jacen reached into his pocket and pulled out a cut red gemstone. “I’m going to give you this,” he said. “It’s a crystal from Korriban, the planet of the Sith tombs, but it has no power anymore but the power given to it by the one who holds it. And I haven’t given any to it.”

“What is this?” she asked. “Why for me?”

“Because it was the focusing crystal of your mother’s weapon,” he said. “I thought you might want to have it.”

Desa snatched the stone from him. “You buy my slave, then?”

“If that’s the cost, then yes.”

She looked uncertainly at Welk, who nodded. “That was her crystal,” he said. "Jacen tells you the truth. And that is all that is left of her."

“Then, you have him,” said Desa. “From Nightsisters, I take one, and Anakin, yours.”

Jacen grabbed Anakin’s waist and pulled him close. “You heard her, right? She said she’s giving you to me.”

“Uh, yes, I heard her,” Anakin said. His brow was creased, and he looked confused.

“That means I own you. And I can do whatever I want.” Jacen leered at Anakin, and then let his face fall back into a pleasant smile. “And I am giving you your freedom.”

Jacen took a deep breath. He knew that his only real ally, if he could think of him as an ally, was Welk. Augwynne wouldn’t help him and it was even less likely that Saria would. He had to get Welk fully on his side, or his one chance would be lost. “Welk... I do have one favor to ask you. I helped free your clan and others from the Nightsisters, and I was the one who freed you from the Sith.”

Welk raised his chin. He had not lost all of his pride. “I don’t know, but I will hear you.”

“Anakin and I... well, we have been living together for six years. If he were a woman, I would have married him long ago, but we can’t do that. The New Republic laws won’t allow it.”

“I have no standing in the New Republic,” said Welk. “Dathomir is a part of it on official flimsi only, and on Dathomir my freedom is suffered only because of my mother and grandmother.”

“You have some control over Desa.”

“Very little,” Welk sighed.

“But it is enough. You are her father, and you can remind her of what she owes us. What the Sith wanted to do to her, and did do to her. She is a full citizen of Dathomir, and as such, she is a member of the New Republic. But for many years the Republic has allowed Dathomir to run by its own rules, and recognizes Dathomiri rites even on other planets.” Jacen squeezed Anakin’s hand and then stepped over to Welk and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Tell her to marry Anakin and me.”

“I don’t understand,” said Welk. “You want her to marry both of you? She would rule over you.”

“We don’t want to marry her, Welk! We want to marry each other.”

“What?” Welk squinted at them, and then he shook his head and started to laugh. “I understand what your words mean, although I can’t quite imagine why you’d want to do this.”

“Please, Welk, just talk to her.”

Welk and Desa stepped away. “She will never agree to it, Jacen,” Anakin protested.

“I had to try,” said Jacen. “Unless... unless you don’t want her to.”

Anakin wrapped both of his arms around Jacen. “I do want it. More than anything, except maybe to know Allana is all right.”

“She’s fine. Augwynne made sure she was safe with the clan members who stayed behind.”

“Then there’s nothing I’d rather have than you, Jasa.”

“Are you going to take my last name, or would you rather I take yours?”

Anakin punched Jacen lightly in the arm. “I'll let you decide.”

After a few minutes, Desa returned to them. “Father say that you want be Jacen’s... man. And me, say it. You leave, yes, then?”

“I promise I’ll leave Dathomir,” said Jacen. “In a few days, if not sooner.”

“Then I do it.”

“Wait,” Anakin said. Jacen looked over to him, feeling his heart leap up - don’t get cold feet now, Ani, he thought. But Anakin only said, “This only comes once in a lifetime, Jacen. And this-” he waved his hand at the littered battleground – “is not really a chapel.”

“It’s all we get, Anakin,” said Jacen. He bristled a little at once in a lifetime – maybe for Anakin, but he’d had the white gown affair once before, and that didn’t end well. “It doesn’t matter. I have you.”

Anakin straightened up then, and nodded to Desa. He took Jacen’s hand.

“You, I give Jacen,” said Desa. “And he has you. You have him. To have the other.”

“Aren’t you going to ask us if we take each other?”

“Already do that,” Desa said, but she went ahead with the formality after Welk prompted her. “Jacen, you take Anakin?”

“I do,” said Jacen.

“And Anakin, you take Jacen?”

“I do,” Anakin said.

Desa nodded and started to turn away. “Desa, you’re supposed to tell the groom to kiss the bride,” Jacen explained.

“How to know which is bride?” she asked.

She had a point. Jacen reached out and grabbed Anakin, and pulled him close, so that they were pressed together, chest to chest. He tilted his head and touched Anakin’s lips with his own, and they stood in their silent embrace just long enough to forget about the rest of the world for a moment.

Jacen pulled back and smiled, and he pushed Anakin’s hair out of his eyes. “We’ll do this properly once we get back to Coruscant,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be official. This one is. Saria will give us the papers we need.”

They returned to the home of the Singing Mountain clan late in the afternoon, in the back of the victory party, and Allana pushed through the small crowd over to them as soon as she saw them. “Uncle Anakin, there you are,” she said, and she hugged him. “I’m sorry I ran away, and made you get caught. I didn’t mean for anything to happen.”

“I’m free now,” said Anakin. “And they didn’t hurt me – not much. The witch who caught me first gave me a few bumps and bruises, and the Nightsisters had me tied up, but once they were distracted it was easy to get away. And, Allana, I’m your stepfather now.”

“I know you are,” she said, but when she noticed that both Anakin and Jacen were smiling brightly, her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open. “You got married? How did you do that?”

“Welk’s daughter let us,” said Jacen. “We had to put a little bit of pressure on her and Welk, but only a little bit.”

“I can’t believe you actually did it,” Allana said. “It’s... kind of weird.”

“Don’t you start with that, too. I’ve heard it enough from enough people and you’ve never had a problem with me and Anakin before.”

“I don’t have a problem with it. I’m happy for you. I just never thought you would actually be my stepfather, Uncle Anakin.” She twisted her mouth. “What am I supposed to call you, now?”

“Nothing changes, Allana,” explained Anakin. “We’ve just made formal what we’ve always had. And tomorrow we’re heading home to Coruscant.”

“I told you already, I’m not going. I want to stay here.”

Jacen cleared his throat. “I won’t make you go back to Hapes. You’ve made it clear that you don’t want to go and take the crown, and you shouldn’t have to. The Consortium has gone on for thousands of years without you and it won’t fall apart now. The other part is this: I’m not going to force you to come back with us, either. I’ve already spent what little influence I might have had, and if you’re not going to be happy, then I’m not going to make you live that life. But you think about it very carefully, because the decision you make is the final one.”

Allana nodded, and she looked from Jacen to Augwynne, who was silent, and back to Jacen. “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said. “Right now… right now I don’t know.”

“All right. I’ll be back in the morning and if you’re coming with us, then we’ll take you back home.”

“Where are you going?”

Anakin looked away and Jacen smiled. “Your uncle and I are going camping.”

“Camping? On Dathomir? You’re crazy! Someone could catch you again!”

“Nobody will be doing any raiding tonight,” said Jacen, “and if they do, then they’re fools. Anakin and I are Jedi Knights, remember?”

“And I’m not afraid of Desa,” said Anakin. “Even if I was, she has a new slave now.”

Allana nodded. “Can’t you just stay here?”

“I’m afraid not, Allana,” said Jacen. “We’d rather be alone.”

“Oh…. OH.” Allana made a face as though she bit into a rotten redfruit. “Well, I’m going to the clan hall, then. I’ll see you tomorrow, and, um, we can talk more then.”

Allana trotted away and joined a circle with her distant cousins around a small bonfire, and Jacen and Anakin departed to head for the river.