Chapter Text
Anna always loved fireflies. The miracle of nature; all light and carapace drifting around in mystical patterns. “There’s so much to know about them,” Elsa explained to her wide-eyed sister about bioluminescence and luciferin enzymes and the way they danced for mating. And yet, to Anna, there was nothing to know as well. Watching them flutter randomly in the night sky with her feet swishing in the lake. Listening to her sister’s laugh. All those sights and sounds and the gentle touch of her hands lost to time. A mirror full of memories broken into shards, then crystals - and finally ground into powdery sand. Now, the only drifting lights she sees are the ones falling through the rainclouds over Mandalore. Not fireflies but downed Trade Federation Dreadnoughts by the dozens. Fire and smoke and a million droids fighting to stay functional for just another minute.
Rain patters on Anna’s head and soaks her robes as she climbs through the gaping Venator wreckage. Bantha-sized holes punched into the hull by Ion cannons. A thousand contorted Clone bodies litter the insides. She doesn’t care about the bloodied footprints she leaves anymore. Only the darkness. Drawing nearer with each step she takes towards the stricken body slumped over the console. Her heart rends when he grimaces.
“Master-” her voice is a shaking whisper beneath the din of rain on Durasteel.
The dull-red gash tears across his abdomen. Lightsaber wound. He wouldn’t make it back to Coruscant in time. The Medcenter probably couldn’t put him back either. Years of training and storming droid embattlements and trying not to crash her Starfighter have finally ended with a near-corpse in a smouldering wreck of a Venator Cruiser. She’d always imagined it’d be herself lying dead in his arms. Always clumsy and slow. Prone to exposing herself to blaster fire needlessly. All excitement and none of the restraint - you have much to learn.
One last thing for her to learn.
His lightsaber ignites. She flinches at the jarring sound, directly into the path of searing blue light and heat. It burns off a lock of braided red hair dangling beside her ear. The realisation hits her faster than the scent of burnt ribbons. Faster than she can scream at his last words when his body goes still.
You’re a Jedi Knight now.
The Mandalore orbital tracking system consists of a sophisticated array of radars scattered all over the planet. Capable of logging every ship in its orbit. Warp approaches and egress vectors. Nothing escapes its watchful eye. Not a freighter or a Dreadnought or a single-seat Starfighter. And yet, when Anna processes the tracking data into the Jedi Archives, the output raises more questions than answers.
She nearly misses him. But flinches from Yoda’s presence when he appears outside the archival door. How could she not have felt him? Her eyes avert to the carpet, before she realises he’s right there. Staring at her like she’s been caught stealing sweetbreads from the temple kitchen. Oh, to be nine again and void of memories and responsibility.
“Searching, you are.”
“Yes, master,” Anna sighs, holding the datapad behind her back, “I was searching for Master Kymerin’s killer. A Sith he was. I’ve vectored his escape path from Mandalore to the outer rim and…and…”
“Mmhmm,” Yoda mumbles. His eyes fall shut, and she feels that familiar Force fluttering through her mind.
“...And I wish to kill him.”
“No vengeance, no anger, no hatred, I sense in you,” Yoda’s gentle gaze falls on her, “Go, you must. Dispatch this Sith.”
Her muscles tense when Yoda shuts his eyes again. Chin resting on the knot of his Gimer stick. A breeze flutters. An impossibility for the confines of the Jedi Archives. Slowly, a thousand ranks of knowledge close in on her head. Its flapping noise akin to the dance of-
“Um, Master Yoda, should I take a company of Clones to Sullust?”
“Searching for something else, you are,” he points at her.
The words sink into the pit of her chest and she feels her memories rising. Lost, powdery memories from an empty, hollow shell drawn from her insides like poison from a wound. She staggers back.
“What do I seek?” her voice drops to a whisper.
Yoda’s eyes return, before turning away with a croaky mutter, “I know not. The fireflies, perhaps.”
INCOMING TRANSMISSION: JEDI MASTER OBI-WAN KENOBI
TJ-912 PLANNING TO ATTACK RESOLUTE 0600HRS
SOURCES INDICATE ATTEMPT ON GOVERNOR TARSI RESIDENCE
SITH PRESENCE LIKELY. ASAJJ VENTRESS W CONFEDERATE NAVY.
MTFBWY
The fireflies glimmer in Anna’s eyes. Red and blue laser cannon fire illuminates her Starfighter’s co*ckpit. A burning ache to join in the space battle tugs at her insides, but she reels it in with that meditative voice of her master. All the eagerness and none of the restraint. Trust in the Force . Anna shuts her eyes, and sees laser cannons light the insides of her eyelids.
A chime beeps. The trap has been sprung.
“That’s us, boys!” Anna hollers into the radio. Going full tilt on the throttle as she re-enters the Sullust atmosphere with a complement of ARC fighters lining up behind her. LAAT gunships emerge from the grey cityscape. The sheer speed of their descent puts swirls in the thick smog, and every pulsing second that passes draws her nearer to the darkness she senses in the valley.
The sudden burst of laser fire from the Governor’s house sends her yanking on the stick. “ The escort!” Anna yells, “They know we’re coming!”
Droid starfighters swoop in on them from behind, luring her escorts into a mad melee. The LAATs plummet towards the two storey mansion, blasting every droid and vehicle wielding a cannon. Anna lands her ship hard, kicking up mud and grass and bits of concrete when she tears up the driveway. Her lightsaber hisses as she ejects herself right before the door. Force-pushing it off its hinges. Eyes wide open at the massacred staff inside. The blue glow of her lightsaber casts ghastly shadows all around their bloodied and rent bodies. Worse still, the governor’s missing. And she senses his heartbeat upstairs.
None of the restraint.
She barely waits for her escorting Clones to catch up before leaping up the grand staircase. A humming red glow greets her eyes. Lightsaber poised right over Governor Tarsi’s head. It comes down fast. A gasp. The Force flows through her like a rushing wind and knocks its wielder off balance. She registers the cloaked figure with a blue forceshield mask a second before the ceiling collapses.
He’s gone. By the time Anna makes it to the gaping hole - his speeder’s already a speck in the distance, winding through the dark cityscape streets. Her troops report more droids closing in, outnumbering them ten-to-one. And all at once she feels a link severing itself to her past.
“Ma’am, we need to leave, now !”
She hauls Tarsi’s shaking, un-decapitated body onto the LAAT, and sends them off amidst blaster fire criss-crossing the night sky. The first thing she does upon re-entering orbit is plot the trajectory of that speeder from his residence. A sudden transmission interrupts her efforts; right into her Starfighter’s frequency. Unencoded message. No headers. Scrambled source. The words send her heart into a freefall, as if she’s plummeting back into the atmosphere.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION: ???
STOP FOLLOWING.
The pattern repeats itself. Like chasing a ghost forever destined to elude her. Umbara. Agomar. Felucia. Hunting down breadcrumbs left behind the Sith’s trail. Tearing her way through swathes of droids only to see a burnt-out husk of a Ship. An empty hut. A forest set ablaze and no Sith in sight. Anoth and Genosis and Hypori. Always the same failed objectives. Destroyed communications towers. Dead and disembowelled Senators. Damaged weapons factories. And Anna’s constantly left behind in a cloud of speeder dust each time. Fists shaking as she wills away the rage bubbling between pores of her skin. Blue glow streaking away from her like she carried the Shadow Virus.
And those messages. All visceral fear turning into outright taunts.
FOR THE LAST TIME - STOP PURSUING
YOU WILL SUFFER IF WE MEET
YOUR PAIN WILL BE MY GLORY
Yet, if the Sith was so adamant about not being followed. Why was there always a clue to his next destination? Why did it appear a little too easy to pick up his trail? Warp egress vectors clumsily left unjunctioned. A fragment of a courier ship with its serial numbers visible. Battle droids left unincinerated at crime scenes; memory banks and all intact. All the meditation Anna does on each one of her mistakes only leads to sharpening visions of fireflies. Interspersed with lighting storms. Burning swamps doused in Paralene. AT-TEs exploding in flames. Showering trillions of embers floating endlessly through the night sky.
Teeth gritted in the pouring Kashyyyk rain, Anna’s lightsaber lends a blurry blue glow on her grimacing face. She watches the speeder disappear into the clouds one more time, and a dozen dead Wookies lying in the dirt behind her. Lightsaber wounds and lifeless eyes betraying their last moments of terror. This time - she’s prepared. Holo-transmitter flicks to her hand. Eyes narrowed on that speck. Before she beams off a scripted message towards its shadowy engine’s glow behind the rumbling thunder.
I WILL KILL YOU IF IT’S THE LAST THING I EVER DO
Perhaps the message rattled him. Or she just got lucky. Or the Clone pilots flew well today or she’s just gotten more Force-sensitive to his presence. But Anna finally manages to corner him over Ryloth onboard a Providence dreadnought. An out-of-control Tri Fighter crashes into the ceiling. Showering sparks all over the burning hangar. Littered with droid fighter wrecks and glowing shadows illuminating two robed figures facing off amidst the flames.
Both Jedi and Sith look up at the floating sparks. A momentary distraction from the Force pulling them together. The Sith’s back is trapped against the Hangar deflector shields. Anna inches closer, lightsaber humming beneath the blaring ship alarms and energy cell explosions all around them.
His face shows no expression. Hidden behind the veil of a blue forceshield - but Anna sees through the mask. Her eyes flit to the red lightsaber. Her mind reads fear. Complete and utter terror scrawled into the Force that binds them as one. And she snickers.
He’s afraid of me, she thinks.
“You have to let me leave,” the voice comes, low and ominous. Obviously electronically distorted like the cowards Sith are. Fearful of everything, least of all something as trivial as revealing one’s identity.
“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere,” Anna seethes back, “not after all this while. You know there’s no escape this time-”
She senses that fear again. The slight rise and fall of his chest. Restraint. Restraint. Yet the burning urge to strike at his fear leads Anna to charge at him. Lightsaber glimmering overhead. The Force-grip squeezes every atom of air out of her lungs and she’s hurled head-first into a Hangar crate. Her clattering lightsaber flies straight back into her hands and ignites the instant he lands on top of her. Beams clashing in a hiss of colliding plasma. Red and Blue. Dark and Light. The plain forcefield mask bears down an inch from her face and it is only then that Anna realises what horrifying fear lurks within this faceless Sith.
He’s afraid of hurting her.
“You don’t stop, do you?” his voice burns in her head.
Anna grits her teeth against the immeasurable weight squishing her into the deck like how a Reek tramples its prey.
“Not until you’re dead. ”
A Force-push. She bolts upright. A parry. A flash. She looks down at that burning gash across her thigh before her leg gives out. And every failure she’s ever experienced manifests into a blistering agony above her right knee. That fear she senses multiplies like the countless embers floating above. The same pain buries itself deep within her enemy’s soul.
“I don’t want to hurt you again,” the voice comes. This time, she detects a tremble behind the voice modulator. An overheated energy cell detonates. The Hangar’s force shield flickers off and a vacuum wind stronger than the most violent blizzard sucks them across the hangar floor. Anna’s dangling arm catches a fighter chassis, and her eyes shoot wide open when the Sith allows himself get hurled out the Hangar into the thin silence of outer space. A split second before the blast doors slam shut.
She plummets to the steel deck like a stack of bricks. Hands shaking and that still-glowing wound burning in her leg. A violent, throbbing fear manifests in her head once more, and her eyes water at the sensation that it’s coming straight out of the pit of her soul. Her own soul. She shakes off that sudden terror. Clinging onto that faint hope that the Sith’s forceshield mask came with a breathing device.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION: ???
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. Perhaps my messages were overtly aggressive and the Jedi in you saw no fear and viewed it as a challenge.
No, I do not want you to follow me. No, it’s not because I’m afraid of you thwarting my Master’s plans. You’ll never.
I don’t want to hurt you. Not now, not ever. My reasons are my own. What happened today was a mistake I allowed to happen.
So let me to say this one last time. Stop following me.
If you ever see beyond the words of this message or the strands of my voice - know this.
That I’m sorry.
<<You have to let me leave.
You don’t stop, do you? >>
The words burn in Anna’s dreams by night. And loop in her ears by day, sitting in front of the Jedi Archive console. Playing repeatedly from the voice recorder she’d pinned beneath her robes. That searing pain in her leg had faded into a lingering numbness before she’d even reached the Medcenter. And the scans showed his lightsaber had missed her femur by millimetres. Like he intended to.
She searches through voice modulators of varying makes and models all throughout the galaxy. Furrowing her brows as she passes the recordings through each simulation. Hearing those eleven words play out in every possible frequency. Every tone of voice and every language the archives can conjure. Her breath catches when NEXUS 32F throws back a female voice. Almost like her own.
<<You have to let me leave.
You don’t stop, do you? >>
Her eyes widen. She plays it again and again. The malice in his (her?) voice now appears different. Soft like butter and emanating an emotion she’s forgot existed. Concern? She struggles to piece together fragments of her lost memories. Trying to remember the last time someone ever showed her concern since she arrived at the Temple years ago. Anna kicks her feet up as she plugs the voice samples through the Coruscant database. It’s a dud. Nothing from Naboo either. And no one from the billions of people on Metellos or Utrost have a voice like his either.
Anna sighs. Sleep weighs on her eyelids. She starts keying in random planets. Tatooine. Hoth. Fondor. Kuat. Her eyeslids flutter shut and fireflies fill in the dark space behind them. The slightest fragment of her lost childhood reminiscence sends her fingers clattering A-L-D-E-R-A-A-N into the keyboard before she even realises she’s keyed in her home planet.
1 Match Found: Elsa Corren
It’s like she’s been slashed all over again. But the white heat burns in her gut this time. She jerks upright and pulls out everything. Family trees. Identity papers. Planetary histories and newsreels and archive footages doing nothing to paint a picture in that hollow, vacant canvas of her memories.
Coruscant’s blue-white sunrise drapes Anna’s sleeping body still slumped on the console in a dishevelled heap. There’s nothing on the screen which clears her confusion, and the last planetary coordinates it spits out only deepens that pulsing longing within her spirit.
INCOMING ENCODED MESSAGE: CORUSCANT TRANSMISSION TOWER XF-8B
Dear Elsa Corren
Yes. I’m assuming that’s your name. The name I found when I dug beyond the strands of your voice as you so suggested. I wonder what you’re apologising for. Perhaps you’re the one who shattered that fragile pane of glass that is my memory. Or did you apologise for that wound you’ve inflicted on me? So light it was that it obviously had to come from a hand as skilled as yours. I don’t know if I should thank you. I don’t know if I should curse your name. And if I’m to be terribly honest, it drives me mad that I don’t know all these things. I wonder if the Council would have some words to say about these things I feel.
But the truth is - I won’t stop searching for you. Not only because I’d really like to kill you. Not because of my duty as a Jedi. Or that I owe the Order one more trophy in this godforsaken war, for everything it’s done for me. But I truly believe you have answers about my past. And I’d like to get them out of your mouth.
Right before I cut your f*cking head off.
P.S.: I’m not afraid of you hurting me. What pain you inflict, I can endure. Perhaps it’ll push me to the dark side where I can finally see you face to face.
Irony. That’s what Hoth represented to her. A gigantic ice planet devoid of all features besides a barren, blank wasteland. The same desolation Anna sees when she meditates on the vast emptiness of her past memories. Instead of a swarm of fireflies - she sees just one. An orange blip on the thermal scan she sweeps the icy planet with. It’s almost too easy allowing herself to be found like this. And despite all the precautions Anna takes. All the traps she’s set. The bulky, cold-weather armor. Anna can’t help but feel hopelessly outmatched by the Sith.
But this time, she brings one more weapon with her. The Sith’s name.
Elsa Corren.
She screams it into the frigid wind after landing near the gaping chasm. Thermal sensors chime in her ear. Of course the Sith chose a geothermal deposit to build her base. Of course Elsa’s already waiting for her, lightsaber glowing bright red in the snowstorm. Of course nothing she yells can faze her.
Who are you?
How do you know me?
What were you doing on Alderaan?
How are you planning to get out of this alive?
Show me your face, you coward!
The Sith’s forcefield mask flickers off. Anna peers through the snowstorm and her Force-tuned sight narrows on that blonde crop of hair. Braided and flopping in the blizzard. And when her senses focus on the Sith’s glimmering, crystal blue eyes. A shard of her memory connects to another. Like she’s seen them before. That unfamiliar, pale face with soft, delicate features drags her forward through the pouring sleet. Lightsaber in tow. Drawn to the Sith like she’s meant to be next with her. To…to…What was she meant to do again?
To kill her! Right, yes! To kill her!
She ignites her lightsaber and charges forward. Right before the Sith steals the grace from her footsteps by switching off her lightsaber. The wind falls silent. Elsa smiles. And the Jedi imagines seeing those lips move silently. That beautiful, natural feminine voice she might have heard somewhere between sleeping and waking.
“It’s nice seeing you again, Anna-”
Perhaps she underestimated a Sith’s appetite for hatred. For destruction. For malice and anger and all the violent tendencies Jedi keep light years away from themselves. Years of warfare have not prepared Anna for the rippling explosion that tears through the chasm. And the brutality of the firestorm that engulfs them both. A tornado of fire and ice brews. Her watery eyes open to see entire open bays of Sith speeders and droids going up in flames. Weapons and armor and dark records accumulated over Millenia erupt in a purple and orange conflagaration. She bolts upright in time to see an escape pod blasting itself into the atmosphere. And Anna feels a piece of her past slipping away yet again.
A single, perfect snowflake drifts from the sky. Its shimmery, artificial surface refracting the Hoth-star’s dazzling mid-day glow. Delirious from smoke inhalation, Anna extends a gloved hand and Force-pulls it within her grasp. Allowing yet another fragment of a distant past to piece itself back into her consciousness.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION: ???
You don’t give up, do you? Perhaps it was foolish of me to hope that you would. And if it is, give me one last hope that you’ll cease your pursuits in exchange for answers to your questions.
Yes. I am Elsa Corren.
I knew you from Alderaan. You were dear to me once. The kind of dear that commits the curve of your smile and the sound of your laughter to my memory. I can’t say the same for you. Because the same memories we shared that I hold so closely to my heart appear to have been scattered into the wind. And after we got separated, the sheer force of desire to find you again drove me to the unnatural ways of the Force.
I should’ve given up a long time ago. I should’ve given up before I saw you dedicate yourself to the Order. I should’ve given up when they pegged me to kill Master Kymerin, because it’d inevitably lead to you searching for his assassin. And yet I didn’t. I’m a fool. And now I’m paying the price for it.
This burden weighs on me heavier than any conflict. And I’ve truly given up now. Given the fool I am, would it matter if I asked to see you again? I’d like to hear your voice one last time before you end my wretched life.
-Elsa
P.S.: I saw you lay the network of fighter droids in orbit. As numerous as fireflies over that lake where we spent our summer nights. I pre-plotted my escape pod’s path through the lattice. My ship lay cloaked just over the horizon. That’s how I was planning to escape.
P.P.S.: Do you remember the fireflies? I thought them one way. You thought them another. Perhaps this should’ve been a sign that we’d forever be apart.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION: AETHERSPRITE INTERCEPTOR BY-42, HIGH BANDWIDTH TRANSMITTER
You lie.
You lie, you lie, you lie.
That’s all your kind is ever good for. All rage-soaked deceit and betrayal in pursuit of hatred and all the dark tidings of the Galaxies. And for what?
Whatever thread of kinship you imagine binds us is a lie. And even if it wasn’t, could never hold a candle to the only family I know. The Order that took me from the pit of my miserable existence and gave me a purpose. What have you done for me? Except burn me. Hurt me. Lead me on this wild goose-chase across the galaxy and feed me lies that make me hope.
I want to stop hunting you. The hot, heavy tears that roll off my cheeks tell me I should. But I won’t. Not until I have your head on a stick.
-Anna
P.S.: The only fireflies I know are the ones that’ll one day swarm your grave.
She’s seen lush rainforests with birds of every colour known to every race in the galaxy. Constellations of stars circling supernovae in iridescent kaleidoscopic shades. Rainbows hung over a three-starred dawn upon an ocean planet. Yet her breath’s still stolen when she exits hyperspace into Lola Sayu’s orbit. Glittering hues of purple and yellow exposing the deathly molten core that awaits her. A volcano world. A Confederate world. Formally fit only for prisons and the unwanted. Now containing the remnants of a long-fought conflict, littered by millions of lifeless droids left to decay over millenia into its sulphury volcanic chasms. Effectively, a lie of a planet. Beautiful on the outside with nothing but darkness and destruction within.
The burning heat that greets her when she lands her Starfighter feels like it’s burning off layers of her skin. A ferocious volcanic roar threatens to destroy her hearing. Plumes of lava erupt. Tall as Krayt dragons and showering her with glittering embers. But this time, Anna doesn’t stop to gawk. Gritting her teeth and marching down a bridge of crystallised Sulphur towards that solitary figure perched on the edge of a vast cauldron of lava. The ground quakes. Anna grips her lightsaber with whitened knuckles. Its glow blurred by the heat that singes every thread on her robes. And yet - across the chasm, Elsa remains still. Lightsaber tucked behind her belt. Forceshield mask unactivated, allowing her blonde braid to flutter in the searing winds. For the first time in forever, the Sith speaks first.
“I won’t fight you any longer,” Elsa yells over the din of roaring noise, “I never once did. Never once wanted to.”
“You lie!” Anna’s voice drips with the same rage she swore an oath to abandon, “Tell it to my face, will you? That everything you said was a lie!”
“I’m serious, Anna,” Elsa unbuckles her lightsaber. Her eyes drift to the weapon, before settling upon that redheaded figure stomping towards her. Her mouth straightens, “this is how serious I am.”
She co*cks back an arm and hurls her lightsaber into the volcano. Anna’s eyes widen as it twirls and twirls, landing into the lava with an audible pop.
“What!” Anna screams, so loud and hard that she cringes from the ash and sulphur drifting upon her tongue, “How dare you-”
“Do it! Finish me off!” Elsa yells back across the chasm, “I’m done, I’m just so over this cat-and-mouse game, just do it and get it over with!”
Anna scrunches her face up, before switching off her lightsaber, “I refuse to fight an unarmed-”
A gasp escapes her throat. All the air in her lungs vacates and she’s flying. Dragged across the bridge like a rag doll. Her lightsaber ignites of its own will and she jerks to a halt. Barely an inch from Elsa’s eyes. Two jewelled points gimmering beneath her beam’s flickering blue glow.
“Do it,” Elsa seethes, gloved hand extended in a claw, “if you don’t believe a word of mine, just kill me.”
Anna winces under her grasp. Beneath the squirming and the smog wheezing out her squished-in lungs, she sees a glistening trail of tears down her cheek. It takes every ounce of strength in her bones to switch off her lightsaber.
“I won’t,” Anna refuses, kicking her legs about, “ f*ck, let me go.”
Air rushes into her lungs. She collapses to the scorching ground and bolts upright. The Sith already has her back turned. Arms held outright. Despite the tears, Anna looks within Elsa’s spirit and finds only peace - as if she’s meditated on this moment for a long time coming. Between the gusts of scorching, sulphur-laced wind, Anna forces herself to consider the depths of hatred and anger Elsa must've endured to find peace on a planet like this.
The raging silence between them stretches itself thin. Wound tight like a coil of wire. Anna snaps first, voice in a trembling whisper.
“Who am I, exactly? To you? What are we meant to be?”
Elsa remains turned. But she hears the voice in her head this time.
Search your feelings. It's the only path to the truth. One I've always known would never be lost on you. No matter how far apart we are. No matter what you've forgotten.
Without another word, Anna kneels and shuts her eyes. Ignoring the scorching heat surging through her knees. Her fists close in agony. Before they relax in meditation. And the crests of pain simmering in her legs helps her focus.
Once again, all she sees are fireflies. By the dozens. And the deeper she falls into a stillness. The tighter that wire winds itself around her. Dragging her spirit ever so closer to Elsa’s. Until an image forms in her mind, clear as the millions of stars she gazes upon in the night sky. Another girl’s hand in hers. And a gentle voice trying to coax away her tears.
“If you think about the infinite number of stars, the night sky should be a brilliant wash of blinding light. But yet it isn't. Because of how quickly Alderaan spins on its axis, how much the universe changes around us. But know this, Anna - no matter where either of us end up in the galaxy. I can simply lift my finger towards any point in the darkness, and I know I'll always be able to find you again.”
Anna's eyes fly open. Her chest heaves, sulphuric gas sears her lungs. But the truth burns her beyond each acrid breath she takes.
“We’re sisters.”
Years of empty memories come together in bits and pieces. She sees each individual shard unassembled in the empty canvas of her mind. Still jagged and mismatched, but for the first time - she sees her own reflection in each one. And not an empty shell.
“You believe me then,” Elsa speaks into the heated air.
“It’s impossible,” Anna purses her lips, shaking off the thought, “you and me. On opposite sides of the Force. Light and dark. How?”
“I’d tell you, but you wouldn't believe me,” Elsa answers, before she finally turns around, “Would you let me show you instead?”
Anna’s lost. Somewhere between the glimmering blues that cross hers, and the million shards of broken memories still waiting to be fitted back together. Instead, she allows Elsa to help her to her feet. The blistering pain in her knees give way with a gentle tug on her shoulders. All the way into a cave carved into the craggy black volcanic rock. The glowing light and heat from outside fades into darkness and mild stillness. Anna reaches beyond each footstep she takes, seeking a foreboding sense of danger in the Force. And yet finds only emptiness.
Eventually, she reaches a void of complete darkness. Guided only by the brush of Elsa’s arm. Her fingertips graze a solid door before her, and a hollow space in the Force touches her back.
“Go in.”
All her breath vents in a gasp at the interiors. Two beds in lilac sheets. A map of the stars. Vases of dried flowers. Holo-models of Alderaan ships and a painting of two unfamiliar faces. Anna’s lips part at the painstaking detail wrought into each piece of furniture, each artifact and each memory tied to it. She reaches into the Force and finds a numb emptiness flowing back.
“I've constructed this room with Yuuzhan Vong warrior carapace. A void completely outside the Force.”
Each shard joins another. By the time Anna walks around the small space and rests her gaze upon a dressing table mirror, the truth is as plain as those eyes looking back at her.
“This was our room,” she whispers, “back home.”
Elsa clasps her hands together, “For a long time, I envisioned a place outside of politics, of Dogma and ill-fated traditions. Where there was no Jedi or Sith. No light or dark. No Force. Where there was only-”
“-Us.”
She sees Elsa’s reflection approach behind her.
“I spent too long filled with rage at having lost you. Hating each moment we spent apart,” Elsa whispers, each word drawing her closer, “Eventually I hated the person I've become. Instead of dwelling on it any longer-”
“Oh, god - Elsa-”
“I thought that making this place would help me forget. I wished it’d help me forget. But all it has made me do is remember. You .”
She doesn’t need the Force to discern the look on Elsa’s face. That same fear she sensed the first time they fought now scrawled on her furrowed brows like she’s holding back her next words. That same fear which beamed her first message begging not to be followed. With each beat of her heart, Anna reaches deep inside her memories and seeks an answer. It eludes her. The realisation hits her like a blaster bolt - she doesn’t need to put back the shattered remnants of her memories either. She could always forge new ones with the person in front of her right now. Whoever that may be.
It is only after this realisation that she makes out a glimmer of hope forming beneath the simmering fear in Elsa’s eyes.
“Come back to me,” Elsa pleads, eyes full and heavy, “let us be sisters once more.”
Anna’s voice shakes , “We could look at the fireflies again.”
“And count the stars-”
“With your hand in mine.”
“And my lips on yours.”
A startled gasp when Elsa steps right before her. Hips flushed. The heat spreads between them and she knows it's not the planet’s atmosphere.
“Would you say yes to that?” Elsa asks. A gloved hand brushes the matted fringe from her forehead.
Anna’s eyes flutter shut. A smile spreads across her lips.
“I could tell you,” she smirks, as her hands fall upon the curve of Elsa's hips, “or I could show you.”
“Show-”
Anna doesn’t hear the rest of her sister’s sentence. The words lost to the soft touch of her lips. Tasting like the raw hunger fuelled by years of estrangement. The Jedi code taught her that the heated emotions of Love and Passion were lesser instincts meant to weaken one’s connection with the Force. And yet right now, as Elsa shoves her onto that soft bed. As their kisses devolve into an urgent clash of lips and teeth and tongues - Anna feels that ebbing strength in her soul return with each burning touch Elsa scalds her with.
She hears the thud, thud of gloves hurled across the room. Feels the harsh chafe of clothes torn from her shoulders and an unfamiliar warm touch trailing up her ribs. Gasps as she’s flung over the bed. Her eyes squeeze shut when Elsa takes her from behind. There’s a hoarse groan somewhere in the mess of heavy breathing so close to her ears. She jams her face into the pillow. Sucking in a deep breath and expecting to smell poison and rage - but finding only sweetness. That same name she yelled in the snowstorm on Hoth; Anna now whimpers in a fervent plea to be gentle with her. And not to stop, whatever she does.
Her lightsaber rolls off the pile of discarded clothes. She doesn’t hear its clatter.
“Closer-” Anna’s on the verge of begging .
Elsa buries herself into the nape of her sister’s neck. Pushing herself deeper into the girl. Their bodies fit together like pieces of that puzzle lost in Anna’s mind. So close neither can tell where one sister begins and the other ends. And yet with all the years of separation and loss - it's just not enough. Anna snakes a hand behind and drags her even closer . Amidst the writhing tangle of limbs and gaspy moans, she vaguely makes out Elsa grinding herself out on her thigh. Be one with the Force. Her master used to tell her. In Anna’s last moments, right as Elsa brings her to the edge of that precipice. She finally feels what it’s like to be one with another person.
Fists bunch up the soft cotton blanket. Her eyes screw shut.
All she sees are fireflies.
