Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate . . . .

Howl's Moving Castle dir. Hayao Miyazaki / The Good Place dir. Michael Schur / 1x03 by @haleyincarnate / The Good Place dir. Michael Schur

Lyra Sloan knows people who love you always leave.

Her mother's life taught her this. Her mother's shattered life. Her mother's life that was stained with the blood and tears of everyone she had lost. She used to tell Lyra stories about love. In those stories, love always seemed bigger than life itself. It was a guiding force. It was light caught in a child's fist. It was transcendental. Then why are you crying, mom? And Dea Sloan would say:

Because someone always leaves first, Lyra. That's just the way things go.

To Dea Sloan, love always meant sadness. Infinite sadness. Lyra could never figure out what it was that made her mother so miserable. She didn't understand then, what it meant. But she would. She soon would. Instead, she looks out the window at the stars and says, I'm gonna travel the galaxy. Dea Sloan looks at the five-year-old girl in her arms. Every galaxy.

There's a fire in her that burns from somewhere deep within. An ancient furnace. Lyra Sloan doesn't know who she is. She has no clue. When her mother refuses to let her fly starships, it's not because she doesn't care about what Lyra wants, it's because there are dark things out there in the galaxy. Things filled with so much hate and grief that they fail to separate their own kin from their enemy. But that's just the way how things go. The way the world works. Dea Sloan has sworn she will protect Lyra, at any cost. But Lyra Sloan has too much of her parents in her. Only the will of the stars can stop her.

Neither of them had any idea what the stars had conspired for Lyra. The call to action when she heard that boy's voice on the radio channel. We're rebels. We're fighting for the people. We're fighting for you. Lyra felt it in her bones, this was what she was supposed to do. We should help them, Lyra had told her mother. But Dea Sloan had refused. I need to keep you safe, Lyra. I can't let you go. So Lyra ran. Fourteen years old and she left her home behind in the middle of the night, a letter on her pillow apologizing. This was something she had to do.

Because, and she knows this sounds ridiculous, she feels as if she recognizes the voice. As if she has heard it somewhere before. An echo from a memory she can't quite recall. When she sees him, Ezra Bridger, she knows. It's him. The boy from her dreams. The one with the sapphire blue eyes. When Lyra had met him for the first time he had been older. Lyra doesn't understand. But she remembers what the boy had told her. Find me.

And she finds him. Lyra will always find him.

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

Song Of Achilles, Madeline Miller

Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

War Of The Foxes, Richard Siken

LYRA SLOAN / STARGIRL
Time.

I'll find you. I promise.

EZRA BRIDGER / JEDI
Fate.

I'm sorry. I thought we'd have more time.

It's hard being left behind . . . It's hard to be the one who stays . . . Why is love intensified by absence?

The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

dedications

CXPTAINSYNDULLA KESTlS cleovatras artcinemas

Void_Harvelle winchesterspark

author's note after finishing all of rebels inside the month, i now have an unhealthy obsession with kanan and ezra. i love the jedi lore developed in the series and am perpetually fascinated by ezra's connection with the force.

i ADORE ezra. this fic takes place during the course of the series STAR WARS REBELS. since both ezra and lyra are 14 in the first season, they won't start falling in love or being in love till s3 because i don't feel comfortable writing a romance for 14-year-olds. i will be adding a lot of my own stuff in between the arcs.

WITH the exception of lyra and her characterization and all the original characters that i created and their characterization, everything else belongs to dave fiolni and the creators of star wars rebels.