━━┛ 𝐎𝐍𝐄 ┗━━

━┓ '𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧' ┏━

━━ ★ ━━

...OUTSKIRTS OF THEED, NABOO

𝐅𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐅𝐅, 𝐀 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 flew through the blue sky.

It floated down like a piece of paper skipping on the breeze, delicate from afar even though the engines would roar up close. This distance was nice; far better for admiring.  It was easier to come up with stories of merchants or dignitaries when the hard lines weren't visible.

Cora watched through the window until it was out of sight and then her attention shifted back inside. The air hung with the scent of fresh-cut wood, floorboards creaking against the soles of her worn muck boots.

"See? Is it not amazing how smooth the wood grain becomes?" Sabina Tseng ran her hand along the slab of perlite wood. "This was something that might not have been given a second glance, destined for a burn pile. Now, it can be used for a greater purpose. A lot of this has been lost over the years, metal and durasteel replaced so much of the love and care that came from growing and harvesting. And, not everyone has this luxury to digest the world slowly. It's a careful art."

A way to mend and not break or burn.

For all of Cora's life, Sabina had been the soft line. The place she escaped to, the long afternoons spent out in the barn where Sabina worked with wood as if she too were made from it. The dust would dance in the air, coating it with the scent of a fresh cut and lemon-scented oil.

Better than the afternoon Cora could have spent with her own mother in Theed, wasting away the hours in the stiff-backed chair of a law firm office.

"It's beautiful," Cora agreed, running a hand over the piece she had helped sand down earlier. Now with a sheen of oil, it glistened like it was made for the hands of a monarch.

Sabina hefted the slab off the table and leaned it on its side. "Yes, and with any luck, it'll make a beautiful new dining table after my previous one was ruined."

Cora cringed. "Have I mentioned I'm sorry about that?"

Sabina chuckled, retying her dark hair in its low bun. "It was a group effort."

They both glanced at the table in question, which was now being used as a workbench. There was a good amount of blue ink splashed over the center, and on one end was a scorch mark shaped suspiciously like Cora's hand.

"Your father is due back tonight, yes?" Sabina asked, wiping her palms on her coveralls.

"Supposed to be," Cora said. "Last time he was away on business he ended up staying an extra night."

Unspoken went the grating thoughts: His business trips were more frequent and more often, work that never ceased. Her feet stayed rooted outside of Theed, her father sailed through silver stars to new places. All she wanted, just once, was to be asked if she'd like to go with him.

"He'd better be back, I've been planning dinner for the last week! I'm not rushing this table along just to have no one enjoy it."

Cora smiled. "He'll be back by then, just maybe not tonight."

The door creaked open and Sammy stepped in. Boots covered in mud up to his ankles and a piece of straw stuck in his dark unruly hair, he looked like he had just lost a fight with a hay bale.

"That little worm of a shaak keeps escaping into the Grené's yard!" he exclaimed, completely out of breath. He turned to face Cora, huffing. "It was eating your aunt's garden, I thought she was gonna hex me!"

"She won't hex you, and besides she'll just make the plants grow again."

He shuddered. "You try telling her that while a shaak is setting up camp in her garden."

"I told you," Sabina shook her head. "You need to get that fence fixed, otherwise they'll just keep escaping out of the paddock."

"Baba and I just fixed it! I'm telling you, they're conspiring against us!"

"You're telling me you think a bunch of animals with brains the size of figs are conspiring against you?" Cora said.

"They're jumping the fence, it's all a plot," Sammy continued, folding his hands.  His brown eyes narrowed.  "They're smarter than you would think."

"It doesn't take a lot to outsmart you, Sammy. Don't give them so much credit."

"Now you're both interrupting my peace," Sabina said, already exasperated by the two of them. She gestured for the door. "Take it outside."

"But I was just out there–" Sammy began.

"–and it's a lovely day, continue to enjoy it."  

Out of the woodshop, sun baked on the grass and dirt. Flowers in full bloom coated the bushes that dotted the Tseng's yard, and the sprouts of new seeds were beginning to rise up from the rich brown terra of the wide fields. Inside the paddocks, the shaak moved back and forth, grazing intermittently. A songbird dropped and swooped low before darting into the open door of the barn.

"You spend more time with my mum than I do," Sammy remarked.

"Only lately," Cora hummed. She pulled a leaf off a bush as they passed, letting a flame rise on her palm and turn it to white ash. "I'm looking for reasons to stay out of my own house."

He snorted. "You act like it's a death sentence to spend time with your mum."

"I do not," Cora argued, sticking up her chin. "I just don't want to get shoved in an office. Whenever I'm not at school, she's trying to get me to broaden my horizons. Figure out what I want to do in the future, all of that."

"Evil, really," Sammy deadpanned.

"Oh shut it," Cora groused. "If I had it my way, I'd just stay here with Phoebe."

"We both know that's a lie," Sammy reminded. "You'd get tired of being here day in, day out. You already do."

"I know, but the other options don't seem to be much better. Office jobs, political careers," she listed. "I'd be following right in the footsteps of those before me. If I had to choose one person to become, I'd pick Phoebe every time."

Aunt Phoebe's garden sat like a mirage at the edge of the fields. The pond, a glistening mirror for the sky, was dotted with lilies. Phoebe wore a light blue dress, pale as the sky and a contrast to the long dark braid that drew a line down her back. Even from where they walked next to the fence row, she was clearly visible amid her paradise. Sammy made a point to keep his eyes trained on the ground.

Not a day rolled over in the spring that Cora didn't wish fate had dealt her a different hand. She spent her days outside under citrus trees, staring at the sky and praying to the old gods all the way through her childhood. Always wishing for Phoebe's gift instead of her own.

It went like this without fail: Cora's hand would graze over the shriveled brown leaves of a dying sprout. Energy flowed, restlessness found ease, and with some strain, the plant regained the rich green hue of chlorophyll. Phoebe would have been able to revive a tree at the snap of a hand, but it was far more difficult for Cora, who's innate gift was to destroy instead of mend.

Studying the science of plants in school had allowed her a better understanding of what gave them life and how to give it to them. Their life cycles became charts in her head, elemental compounds that she could move through the air and Shape. She listened to Aunt Phoebe as she trailed through the garden, speaking the names of plant classifications as if the names of friends. She helped Felix Tseng out in the fields in the planting season, the growing seasons, the harvests. She developed an ear for rain, an innate sense of drought, the way to tell what a plant needed and when through normal, non-supernatural means.

And in the end, it never worked. The burn in her chest never settled, never turned into something else. A sun that was never eclipsed.

The two of them stopped in front of the far fence where the gualaars stood in the shade of twisting, leafy branches. The one closest to them, Scipio, turned his great head in expectation.

"Let's go take them out for a ride," Sammy decided. "If I have to see another shaak today I might lose my mind."

★

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 four-legged beasts thundered through the fields and out to the edge of the Tseng farm. Grass rippled in the wind, and for miles it was only open sky and the landscape that rolled out in a great green carpet. A view that made cities look obsolete and insignificant.

Her heart caught in her throat, lungs burning with the copper taste of wind. Her older brother Tamis always said that the terra was no place for his feet, and Cora had never understood how the inside of a ship could compare to this. Moving fast across a landscape, it was impossible not to feel part of something larger than herself.

At the bottom of the hill, a ship was slowly and steadily loading its cargo. The same one Cora had watched from the window earlier, now sitting on the ground. From here, it was no bigger than a fist.

Normally, ships on Naboo were sleek with a chrome finish, something aerodynamic like the fighter craft Tamis coveted. Instead, this vessel was big, bulky, and an ugly blight on the landscape.

"What do you reckon?" Sammy asked, yanking on the reins and moving his gualaar, Scipio, closer to hers.

"Trade?"

"No, those markings aren't trade."

"Then it's got to be Imperial," Cora said. She pulled the dusty old quadnocs she had taken from her dad's things out of her pocket.

"It could be just a regular cargo ship," Sammy resoned. "Small load, maybe."

Cora dismounted and slid off her saddle, giving the white fur of the animal a swift pat. "Let's go find out."

Sammy face went slack. "No, on second thought I believe you. Definitely Imperial."

"Too late!" Cora sang, already picking her way down the hillside.

As expected, Sammy ran up behind her a few seconds later. "This time, we are not going inside the ship."

"I told you I wouldn't do that again."

"And I'm just reminding you," he muttered.

They staked out a spot a healthy distance away that they could remain in the brush undetected but still hear the voices of the people roaming outside the ship. One gray-outfited officer, six stormtroopers, and a few burly men that were pushing crates on repulsor lifts into the body of the shuttle.

"How do they keep getting away with this?" Sammy thought aloud.

Rhetorical, because the answer was all around them. No one wanted to rock the boat, not with Palpatine's greedy eyes transfixed on his home planet. Their queen was nothing more than a puppet ruler sitting on a throne; her voice was merely ceremonial now. Gone were the days when Naboo was a lush paradise at the root. Now, the tranquility hovered only at the surface.

The gray suited man wiped at his forehead with a gloved hand. Under the midday sun, he was beginning to become stifled within his uniform. He removed his hat, setting it atop one of the crates and looking at the scene with boredom.

Cora's fingers twitched, heart beginning to race with an impending adrenaline rush.

"No," Sammy hissed. He gripped her wrist, dragging her back down. "Can't you just leave it be this one time?"

She glanced behind them. The gualaars were hidden over the crest of the hill, no one had seen them ride over. The perfect opportunity for a seamless escape.

She handed him the quadnocs. "Take these, I promise I'll be quick."

"You'd better."

She kept her footfalls soft as she ran across the grass, moving at an angle blocked by the overhanging door of the cargo transport. She pressed herself to the side of the ship, waiting and listening.

It is not a party trick. Aunt Phoebe's lament played in her mind, but did nothing to stop her. Lifting a hand, Cora focused on a patch of grass nearest to one of the workmen's feet. Out of practice, her mind ached at the strain, but eventually the fist-sized area caught fire right next to his boot.

The man yelped and jumped backwards, burly body flailing too far and knocking into the crate. It slid off the repulsor lift and onto the ground. Upon impact with the duracrete, the contents inside sounded like shattering glass. Bottles of blossom wine if she had to guess. Some rich Imperial was about to receive a very disappointing shipment.

"You oaf!" The officer said, voice a pitch higher than Cora had imagined it to be. "You've just cost us valuable credits!"

Dumbfounded, the man pointed at the scorch mark on the ground. There was no flame left, only the remnants of scorched grass. "There was a fire–!"

"You dolt, there was nothing," he seethed, grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt. "Need I remind you the consequences of rash actions?"

Now that he was fully distracted and the operation was effectively held up, Cora ducked and clambored into the mouth of the cargo bay. His gray hat still sat unassumingly on a crate. She snatched it off and broke into a run back the way she had come.

Sammy was up at the top of the hill again, standing next to Scipio with a sour look on his face.

"I got it!" Cora said, holding up the hat.

"Unless you're considering becoming a milliner, I don't understand why you need to keep taking their hats," Sammy remarked, but the corner of his lips still curled up in a grin.

"This is only the third," Cora reminded him, putting her foot in the stirrup and swinging back up onto Clover.

It was a game now. The first one was a near accident, the second time she was almost caught. There was not much a sixteen year old could do against an Empire, but there were small ways. Moments would add up.

As soon as her house came back into view, she took one look at the smooth dirt outside the front porch and groaned. A speeder sat idle, tell-tale strip of chrome glittering in the sunshine.

"Look who's home," Sammy sang, glancing over at her. "I thought he wasn't coming back for another week."

"I thought so too," Cora said, yanking sharply to guide Clover away from the house.

Sure enough, Tamis walked out the front door, close cropped blonde hair reflecting the sunlight. He still had his new Royal Security Force uniform on as if they might call him back to base so suddenly. Eighteen years old, just old enough to enlist, and already it had gone straight to his head.

But then another figure stepped out behind him. Graying dark hair, a pressed shirt and clean linen pants. Dad.

She clicked her tongue, urging Clover forward and up to the house. Once they were at the porch she swung off, boots landing lightly on the ground.

"I hope you aren't planning on bringing that thing into the house," Tamis said, already crossing his arms over his chest.  

She plastered on a fake smile. "Hi Tamis. Get kicked out of the RSF already?"

"You would like that," he said, miffed.  "I'm just on a short leave."

Orpheus chuckled, stepping forward and revealing the shuura fruit in his hand. Clover immediately leaned her horned head down and ate it in one bite. "How's my Flora?" he asked her.

"Good, I spent the afternoon with Mrs. Tseng."

"I thought you were supposed to be downtown at the law firm?"

Cora froze. "Well–"

"She was, but my mum needed her help with the table she's making," Sammy said, saving her from what was sure to be a riveting lecture.

Orpheus looked unconvinced, but he let it go. "And how are you, Sammy? Still having problems with the shaaks?"

Still astride Scipio, Sammy held up a hand to block the sunlight. "Unfortunately."

He chuckled. "Phoebe was already telling me about a rogue that got into her garden."

Sammy's expression faltered. "She wasn't mad about that, was she? I promise it wasn't on purpose–"

"No, she thought it was quite funny."

"Good, good, that's good," Sammy breathed.

"He thinks she's going to hex him," Cora said.

Sammy glared at her. "I did not say anything like that."

Deciding to rejoin the conversation, Tamis said, "I'd be more worried about Cora than Phoebe, Sammy. She already burnt a hole through your mum's table."

Orpheus's brow furrowed. "Is that why you're helping Sabina build a new one?"

If looks could kill, Tamis would have a hole burned through his head. Sammy and his younger brother had agreed not to tell anyone the story, but as soon as Tamis found out she knew he would eventually use it against her.

"It was an accident," Cora said smoothly. "Although if we want to start telling stories, maybe Tamis would like to start with the speeder-sized dent he left on the back porch last month."

Orpheus heaved a great sigh. "Let's just leave everything be, shall we?"

Clover nickered, as if she too were laughing.

★

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒 at the Tseng's were something of a tradition. They alternated houses, sometimes eating at the Grené's, but Cora couldn't remember a time when they didn't all gather for these huge dinners. Lately, they were few and far between. Maybe it was a part of getting older, but there was never enough time as there was when she was little.

Tonight's fare was sitting across the newly-finished table, rich dishes that smelled of pepper spice. While everyone was helping themselves to food, Cora was focused on her dad. He still looked exhausted even after his return three days ago, tired to the bone. He masked it well, but Cora still noticed.

"Hello, is anyone there?" Castor, Sammy's younger brother, waved a hand in front of her face. "Can you please pass the noodles?"

She lifted the bowl and set it in front of him.

"Distracted, Cora?" Tamis said from across the table.  He cocked his blonde head to the side, giving her a shit-eating grin.

Discreetly, she flicked a pea at him. "Mind your own business."

"What are you, five?" He rolled his eyes.

"Nah, she's gotta be at least six," Castor said, swiveling his head to face her.  Sitting down, he was dwarfed by the height of the table.  He had his chair shooted so far forward, the edge pressed into his collar bone and made it look like only a head and two skinny arms were at the table. 

She pressed her mouth in a thin line.  "I thought we were a team, Cas."

Through a mouthful of noodle, he said, "Only sometimes."

"Cora," Sammy's father, Felix, said. "How's your biology class going?"

"Really well," she said, putting her chopsticks back down. "We're doing a lot of qualitative research now, especially since the plants have started blooming. I keep finding new subspecies that I haven't seen before on the trips we've been taking to Kaadara."

"Your catalog of plants is becoming more like a museum." Felix chuckled. "More biodiversity than all of our farmland combined."

"And that might be including the garden," Phoebe added.

Although her aunt always reminded her of the dangers of neglecting her innate gifts, she never once discouraged Cora's fascination with growth. What Phoebe would have thought of using said gifts to mess with Imperial cargo shuttles, Cora didn't want to know.

Taking advantage of a lull in the conversation, Melia sat up straighter and said, "I still haven't told you about what I learned in school today."

"And what would that be?" their dad asked.

Taking a dainty bite of her noodles, she said, "Today in history we were talking about the Jedi. They said it's an old religion that corrupted entire star systems."

Their mother swallowed hard, almost spitting out the sip of wine she had just taken. "They said what?"

Felix muttered something under his breath that sounded like, gods forsaken Imperials.

Cora shared a look with Tamis, but Melia was oblivious as she chattered on. Castor too looked on at rapt attention, hanging on to her every word. "Yeah, they were eradicated a long time ago. Something about them staging an attack on the Empire to overthrow democracy? I don't know, I wasn't really listening. It's a good thing the Jedi are gone, I guess."

Abruptly, Lyranna scooted backwards and stood up from her chair. "If you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go outside."

"Lyranna–?" Orpheus began to stand too.

"No, no, I just need a second," she insisted.

The table fell silent, eyes darting back and forth as the door to the porch slammed shut. Talk of the Jedi was always hushed, even out at the fringes of Theed. Nowhere was safe from the Empire, and Cora had heard the over-embellished stories told by older kids all the way through school. Anyone who spoke against Imperial law could consider their already-limited freedom gone.

Sammy leaned over. "Is your mum okay?"

Cora's stomach twisted. "She'll be fine."

These were the things Lyranna Grené was fighting against. She had always said she went into law because she believed in what the Jedi did, fighting for something bigger than herself. She had seen it with her own eyes when she was young; to her, the Jedi were still saviors.

Eventually, Sabina picked up her head. "I'll go check on her," On the way out, she gently hit Castor on the back of the head. "Eat your food before it gets cold, shagua."

Orpheus turned to his youngest daughter. "Melia, the Jedi were not bad people. They saved the galaxy, and without them the Empire's rule would be even more formidable. They bought us peace in a time of war at the cost of their lives."

"Blasphemy," Phoebe shook her head gently. "That Order was doomed from the start. They never learned that there was a way to live that didn't involve cutting the mind and body off from the things it craves. We all exist in a delicate balance, and the Jedi were just as far to one extreme as the Sith were."

"So the Jedi were bad?" Melia asked, her twelve year old mind thoroughly confused.

"Bad is a relative term," Phoebe mused, leaning closer to the young girl as if conspiring. "Good people do bad things, the problem is when a group of good people decide on precisely what is bad and what is not. It's bound to create a flawed system."

Orpheus glanced at the open window and gritted his teeth. "Careful what you say, Phoebe."

Aunt Phoebe gave a nonchalant shrug. "Lyranna knows the truth, she's too wise to believe otherwise."

"Yes, but there were Jedi who were her friends," Orpheus said. "This isn't all about sides or the order of the strange universe you live in."

Phoebe let out a high-pitched laugh. "Isn't everything?"

Melia ducked out of the conversation and went back to her noodles.

"Don't you ever wonder if those Jedi that mum knew are really gone?" Cora wondered aloud. "There were so many, isn't there a chance that some survived?"

"There were survivors," Felix agreed. He placed his napkin on the table, finished with his food. "But those that hunted the Jedi survived, too. If there are any left, it's better that we don't know about them. They remain safe only in the shadows."

The words jumped at her tongue, but she knew better than to say them. What good is anything if left in darkness?

Later, when everyone was outside on the back porch enjoying the night air, Cora watched the sky. Ships came and went, glowing with the light of their engines as they streaked away from Theed. This was not the center of the galaxy, but it was the center of hers.

Phoebe said that Shaping was purified, that it ran deeper than anything the Jedi ever believed in. But Cora saw her hands and she saw destruction, the side of the Jedi's Force that would be considered darkness.

She allowed a small flame to glow at the center of her palm. Nothing more than an ember, and still it was lethal. If there were Jedi left, and if she were to meet them, would they consider her one of their kind?

No. The answer that never changed, no matter how many plants she could name. I am something else.

━━ ★ ━━

a/n  sooo the moral of this chapter is that Cora is the star wars equivalent of a horse girl 💃

First chapter! First chapter!  This first act is going to be what leads into A New Hope, and it'll be  short compared to the other acts of this story.  Since there's a pretty substantial cast of original characters in this story (many of whom you haven't even met yet!  so exciting!) I wanted to be intentional about introducing them before switching to more canon material.  LOTS of interactions going on here, so I hope it didn't get too confusing!!

I'm not exactly sure what an update schedule is going to look like. This is kinda meta but I'm waiting for all the episodes of kenobi to come out before I solidify some of the ending plot lines to green light (which aren't published yet, bear with me) which will then influence obi-wan's interactions/introduction in ANH.  As such, the second act material for this book is a little up in the air.  All that to say, updates soon but not regularly just yet!! 🙃

let me know ur thoughts & opinons :)) I'm so excited to finally introduce Cora's story!!!
--nat