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literally 4k words abt kirnet’s hair

The first thing Halrebe noticed about Kirnet was her hair.

Honestly, it wasn’t possible to notice anything else. The Jedi stood a head shorter than everyone else in the crowd, and Halrebe could only see her scalp from where she was perched on the side of the planter bed. She absentmindedly registered the glittering clips adorning ebony hair, focusing instead on the people located directly on either side of the short Jedi.

“The tauntaun is here,” Alek whispered in Halrebe’s ear. He rolled his shoulders, but any other bouts of nervous energy were masterfully quelled.

Halrebe had clocked Atris the second she had entered the temple’s atrium. Her entirely white outfit, no doubt meant to signify her purity in this debate, certainly attracted attention in the sea of beige and brown leathers and roughspun robes. Yes, Halrebe was keeping an eye on her, but she was more focused on the man to the Jedi’s right.

“And so is Master Kavar.” The expected Jedi commander of a future Republic fleet and the leader of the conservative Jedi faction had chosen to grace Halrebe with their presence, separated only by an owl-eyed Jedi who was teetering on the tips of her toes as she tried to get a better look at the impromptu stage.

Only then did Halrebe start to count the small braids that wrapped around the Jedi’s head. Alek nudged her side before she could wonder how long it took her to do her hair in the morning. “If we hold off any longer, they’ll join Atris out of boredom.”

“Then let’s give them something to talk about.” Everyone who had gathered had known what the topic of the speech was going to be before they arrived. Halrebe and Alek were powerful Jedi for their young age, but their true contribution of note was their dedication to bringing the Jedi into the Mandalorian conflict. Atris’s mind may be made up, but plenty of other Jedi were still debating the true meaning of their code. Hopefully, Kavar was in the latter group.

So Halrebe talked, bringing up every fact, every statistic, every appeal to emotion and Jedi sensibilities that she could possibly think of, Alek interjecting a few times to back her up. Many Jedi left as she spoke, but many stayed, and that was enough.

“We are defenders. Peacekeepers!” Halrebe cried. “And yet we watch in silence as the Outer Rim is slaughtered.”

“Peacekeepers do not call for war,” Atris spat. She had been surprisingly silent thus far, the dark-haired Jedi next to her frequently tugging her sleeve every time she flashed her pearl teeth.

“Then what is the point of a peacekeeper if they refuse to keep the peace?” Halrebe cocked her head to the side as the dark-haired Jedi spoke up, her squared shoulders making her seem taller than she actually was. Alek shuffled beside her, but Halrebe shot him a look. He stilled, and the Jedi continued. “Why do we build and carry lightsabers if not to make use of them?”

The crowd had reacted to Halrebe’s speech, but not to an extent like this. Half of the crowd started nodding, seemingly touched by the mere two sentences the Jedi had uttered, while the other half sneered with vitriol. Atris had the latter reaction, her blue eyes disappearing under her brows as she stormed off.

Alek swooped in to calm the crowd, running a hand through his cropped hair as he tried to raise his voice above the cacophony. But Halrebe stayed silent, watching as Kavar shook his head and slipped away. The dark-haired Jedi frowned, then shrugged, seemingly used to the violent reaction.

The crowd eventually died down, though it was notably smaller than before. Halrebe wrapped up quickly, giving the remainder a final rallying cry before dismissing them. But the dark-haired Jedi stayed, patiently milling about as the rest of the Jedi dispersed. “Blast. We’ll have to try to corner Kavar later,” Alek grumbled.

“No need.” Halrebe hooked her arm around Alek’s and tugged him forward. “Do people react that way every time you open your mouth?” she said as she approached the lone Jedi.

“Mostly.” The Jedi spun on her heel to face the pair, her long braid catching the sunlight as it swung around. “Sorry if I ruined your speech. Kavar says I need to think more before I speak.”

Halrebe could feel Alek’s gaze burning into the side of her head. “You’re Kavar’s padawan?” he asked.

The Jedi shrugged. “Mostly. But I’m a knight now.” She extended a small hand. “Kirnet Cavira.”

Halrebe took it. “Halrebe, and this is Alek.” Her friend offered a polite nod. Cavira. Halrebe had heard that name before intermittently, usually in the form of a curse from Master Vrook.

“Oh, I’m well aware of who you are,” Kirnet laughed as she fiddled with a loose strand of shining hair. “It’s impossible to avoid talk of the Revanchists here. And, you know, I thought I should offer my help in making sure no one turns up to your speech. Save your throat the trouble.” She winced. “Again, sorry about that. It just slipped out.”

“Can’t say I disagree with your statement. But maybe you can make it up to us.” Kirnet blinked as Halrebe stepped forward. “You came here with Atris, and yet you believe in the cause?”

Just as expected, Kirnet answered without a second thought. “Of course. Atris is trying to be a good Jedi, and I understand the Council’s hesitance, but I can’t just sit by and watch the Mandalorians burn all of those people to the ground. It’s just not right.”

“A valid criticism.” Alek swooped in, thankfully on the same wavelength as Halrebe. “And what does Master Kavar think about all of this?”

Kirnet sniffed. “It’s a sore subject, apparently. He doesn’t like to talk about it much.”

Halrebe pushed forward. “But he came here with you, didn’t he? Maybe he’s closer to being convinced than you think.” Kavar was the Jedi Guardian, the one who had faced and bested Mandalorians before. If Halrebe was going to convince the Council, she needed a Council member, and Kavar was the easiest option. Atris certainly wasn’t a candidate.

“I…” Kirnet paused, her lips twisting to the side as she thought. “Excuse me, Master Jedi, but I am needed elsewhere. I hope we can speak again soon.” She bowed and gracefully walked out the atrium. Hurried footsteps receded the second after she rounded the corner.

Alek crossed his arms, his eyes fixed at the spot where her braid had disappeared from view. “Hal, do you really think that she can convince him?”

“When she speaks, they listen.” A smile was struggling to break free from Halrebe’s lips. “Half of them may hate her, but they listen.”

-

“If you spent as much time fighting as you do preening, we’d have won the war by now.”

“Shut up, Malak.” Kirnet rolled her eyes, her fingers never stopping their furious movement as she braided a small section of her hair. It was parted in two places, held in place by ornate golden clips, while the rest tumbled down her back. “You’re just jealous that I even have hair.”

Revan snorted from her place by the holotable as Malak threw himself back down on the bed. “Like you’re jealous that I can reach the top shelf?” Malak didn’t speak often about the events that led to his premature baldness, but he had made it clear to Revan’s inner circle that he would tolerate a level of friendly mockery. They were generals now, the leaders of a bitter war. It hadn’t taken them long to learn that humor would be the only thing to keep them sane.

So Alek had become Malak, and Halrebe had become Revan. Yet Kirnet remained Kirnet, still clumsy and charismatic even with the handfuls of battles she had faced. Though she was no longer a friend of the Council. Kavar, as it turned out, was unneeded to make their cause a reality.

“I have the Force, shutta.” Kirnet punctuated her argument by ripping the pillow out from under Malak’s head as he tried to get comfortable. It shot across Revan’s quarters, narrowly hitting the commander in the head as it came to a stop on top of the holotable. The image of the Republic fleet flickered, but it returned to it’s normal blue form after Revan batted it to the floor. “I don’t need height.”

Yes, Kirnet had the Force, and yet she insisted on braiding all of her individual plaits by hand. A form of meditation, Revan had long since realized, that better fit her disposition than the stillness taught in the Jedi temple. Even as they joked, and even as Revan sheared her hair so it wouldn’t get caught in her mask, no one truly pushed when it came to the length of Kirnet’s hair. She was a soldier now, and the myriad of risks in battle was outweighed by the reassurance it gave her.

“So, how goes the battle plans?” Kirnet had finished with the small braids and was starting on the largest section.

“You won’t like the answer.” Revan’s eyes burned as she blinked. She zoomed out of the hologram, replacing it with a replica of the Outer Rim. “Kirnet, I’m sending you to Vanquo. Malak will head to Duro, and I will head towards Serroco and try to intercept some of the main fleet.”

Kirnet’s hands stilled. “Vanquo? I’ll need more people if we’re going to break the Mandalorian line.”

“Not break through. You’re going to show face.” Revan grabbed her mask from beside the holotable and tucked it into her robes. “Morale is awful, and I need that line to hold. Convince the troops to stay there at all costs.”

“You think the Mandalorians are going to push towards Taris again?” Malak sat up, and the pillow drifted from the floor to his lap.

Revan leaned forward, the red blinking dot that represented Mandalorian territory level with her eye. “They’re amassing at two different points. If I was their leader, I would take the opportunity to slip through while the Republic’s distracted. The soldiers at the Jebble-Vanquo-Tarnith line have grown complacent.”

With a sigh, Kirnet finished the braid, quickly tying it off before throwing the heavy mass over her shoulder. “Then it will be done.”

-

A Republic soldier leapt out of the way as Revan stomped forward, pressing himself flat against the ship’s hallway to avoid her billowing cloak. An explosion rocked the ship, sending the soldier to the ground, but Revan remained steady, the rhythm of her stride never breaking.

The blast doors slammed shut behind her as Revan entered the command room. She could see the battle through the surrounding windows. Streams of blaster bolts rained forth from both sides, though, Revan noted with contempt, the Mandalorians seemed to be in the slight majority. A gunner ship banked to the right of a Mandalorian warship, landing a well-placed shot to the panel underneath its wing. All was silent for a few moments, and Revan imagined the crew heaving a relieved sigh before the warship exploded in a shower of light, silently breaking apart and drifting into the void.

The comm on her wrist beeped. “I saw it, Malak,” Halrebe mumbled, the words trapped behind her mask. One of the bridge crew saluted her as she approached the holotable, briskly walking back to his station when she gave him a dismissive nod. She flicked the table on. “You have five minutes,” she said to the new hologram. Truly, she had two before she needed to throw herself back into the battle, but she could make extra time for good news.

“Revan,” the flickering image of Kirnet greeted. Hologram communication was never flattering: it always washed out your color with cycling blues and reduced your dimensions in ways that were never truly accurate. But the look in Kirnet’s eye had nothing to do with an inaccurate hologram translation. Her clips, lovingly protected throughout the years of war, were gouged and wounded in the same manner that Revan had seen in heavy Republic armor that returned from battle. Dirt and a sticky substance were smeared across her darkened face, down the tears in her robes and over the canyoned planes of her armband. But what stood out to Revan most was the state of Kirnet’s hair. It was wet, heavy, a solid mass that pulled down the back of her head. Sticks and leaves poked out at various points, and Revan thought that she noticed a distinctive blaster singe through the main plait, almost cutting the lower section completely off.

In the beginning, she might have asked if her friend was harmed. She didn’t waste the time, the answer was obvious. “Kirnet. Your status?”

“Revan,” Kirnet sighed, “we’ve taken Dxun.”

A few cheers rippled through the bridge crew, but they silenced as the fluorescent lights caught Revan’s mask. “Good,” she answered, allowing herself one deep breath before turning her attention to the battle raging a few inches outside. “Now prepare the troops to take Onderon.”

Kirnet was silent for a few moments, her eyes fixed on something just off-screen. “Yes, sir.” She flicked off the communication before Revan could respond.

The call lasted three minutes, according to the clock on the side of the table. Revan rolled her shoulders. “You heard the General,” she called, her voice distorted through the mask. “We head to the Onderon system after our victory here.”

Excited whispers echoed through the bridge, just loud enough to cover the cries as the neighboring Republic ship was cracked in half.

-

Kirnet couldn’t stop opening and closing her hands.

It was missing from her hip, missing from her life, lost in the center of the Council chambers. No, not lost, taken. Abandoned. Her lightsaber, her life, was stripped from her, just like all of her titles.

But those were just words. Sounds. The lightsaber was real, her beacon of hope throughout the bloody war. She kept reaching for it, desperate to feel any heft or warmth from its marbled surface.

But it was gone, just like everyone and everything else.

So Kirnet clawed at nothing. Her hands closed around stale air, they tore at her shirt, at the walls, desperate for any kind of connection. She could feel them, distant pressures on her fingertips, but it was so faint. Missing. Lost.

Kirnet could not feel anything fully. The Force had abandoned her, and it took all of her senses with her.

She wanted to cry, to scream until her honeyed throat bled. But she couldn’t. She could only claw pathetically at the walls of her room on the Republic ship that was taking her to her death.

How did those without the Force live like this? Were they aware of their pained blindness, or were they just acclimated to it? The weight of its absence almost pushed Kirnet to the floor, turning her muscles to the consistency of kolto as she struggled to keep them aloft.

Revan and Malak had left her to die. Atris and Kavar had tossed her aside. Were they thinking of her now? She had given everything to them, everyone to them, every Jedi and soldier under her command for the sake of the Republic. Yet she was the abandoned one.

Kirnet stopped her frantic pacing as her hand brushed against her tangle of hair. It was too little feeling, yet too much. She couldn't feel the cool tiles under her feet or the hum of the ship's lights, but she could feel the collar of her shirt and the heft of her braid. They were choking her. Every individual strand of hair sent shocks of stabbing pain through her skin as she moved her head.

A flash of green. An explosion of pain.

Kirnet fell forward, landing heavily on the tiny dresser that was provided in the room. She blindly fumbled with the mess of objects on top, numb fingers directionless as they slid over them. Too much. All of it was too much.

Her hand closed around something smooth, and Kirnet barely registered a dull prick as she brought it up to her face. A small blade, a gift of pity given to her by a former Jedi associate as she left the temple. Not that she could use it to defend herself anymore, even with her lifetime training. Still, she had managed to slice open a finger in her daze, and blood slowly started to drip from the blade to the tiled floor.

Kirnet watched the drip. Two. Three. It didn’t sting, not like the back of her neck did.

That settled it. Kirnet grabbed a fistful of the braid, yanking it taut as she started to saw through. The hairs burned her hand, but she gritted her teeth and continued. The soldiers on Dxun had lost more to the minefields. She could handle a small bout of pain.

It took a long time for her clumsy hands to make a dent in the thick mass, so long that bile started to rise in her throat. But she persisted, sawing and eventually tearing the braid away. It tore free, sailing across the room as it slipped from her hand.

Kirnet laughed as it landed amongst her knapsack of belongings. The stinging was gone, and she felt light, so light. Her friends were gone, her lightsaber and her calling, too. It was only right that her hair would follow.

A glint out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned, catching her own eye in the mirror. Her collar was crumbled and the seam had started to split, but Kirnet couldn’t stop looking at her hair. It was greasy, unwashed from days spent in the medbay after Malachor. And it was patchy, split into distinctive chunks of varying lengths that poked out under her ears. Kirnet shook her head in an attempt to even it out, but she only managed to knock one of her clips loose. The small braid shook free, its tip falling down the back of her neck and landing on her shoulder.

She blinked at herself as the braid started to catch fire, setting her skin ablaze with agony. The bile neared her mouth as her reflection squinted, small tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

-

“Welcome to Kessel,” the blue twi’lek yawned. “Good luck, and all that.”

Betl nodded, her bangs tickling her forehead as she leaned forward to grab her papers. “Thank you.” She paused before she exited the line, unsure of where to go. There were grunts of exertion all around the mines, and Betl could see a few different buildings, but the overseer had made no indication where her quarters were. The man behind her groaned as she bent back down to talk through the gap in the glass. “Sorry, but where did you say I should go?”

The twi’lek rolled his eyes but snapped his fingers. “Cav!” he called vaguely over his shoulder. “Fresh meat!”

Betl almost jumped into orbit at the woman who appeared silently next to her. She was short and tanned, with thick scars that were blanketed in the planet’s dust and dull hair that ended just below her ears. She spared Betl a glance before pointing with her chin and storming off. After a moment, Betl scrambled after her.

“Cav, you said it was? I’m Betl.” She skidded to a halt as a woman in the mining line a few feet from her collapsed, but her guide didn’t stop walking. “I heard that spice mining was hard work, but I didn’t expect this. Are you indentured, too?”

The back of Cav’s head was not terribly conversational, apparently, though Betl decided it would be a better thing to look at than what surrounded her. Cav had these pretty little clips in her hair, scratched and dull from all of the dirt. All it would take was a little spit and a shirt, and they could be as shiny as the day they were cast.

“Slophouse.” Cav’s voice was like the gravel under their feet as she pointed to a building to the right. “Overseers. Guard tower. Barracks.” Betl followed her up a small hill to a rickety building at the top, the one that had been named as the barracks. Cav opened the door, surprisingly holding it as Betl brought her bag through the small opening.

The barracks were packed with rows and rows of bunks, with only a breadth of space in between them. It reminded Betl of the claustrophobic ships that she had squeezed into on her journey to the Outer Rim, with every refugee and servant sharing the same recycled air. Cav nodded to a bed with no sheets. Betl dropped her bag and flopped onto the flat mattress. Something sharp was poking into her shoulder, but it was no worse than the other places she had slept.

“Shifts start at 0500. Don’t be late.” Cav turned on her heel, her two small braids swinging behind her.

“Thank you, Cav.” Even if her guide wasn’t the nicest, it never hurt to be friendly to those that you would be living with. Betl undid the clip at the base of her skull, freeing her waves of red hair that fanned out on the mattress.

Cav paused a few steps away, eyeing the locks with what Betl could only describe as distrust. “You’ll want to cut that off,” she rasped.

Betl sat up. “But it’s the only nice thing I have.” It was her mother’s hair, her sister’s hair, the only remnant that she had left of them. The ladies that she used to work as a maid for always adored her hair, even when she wore her tattered dresses to work. No, cutting it off wouldn’t do at all.

“If it gets caught in the machines, you won’t be able to appreciate ‘nice’ ever again.” Cav shrugged. “Kestle is about survival, not pride. But your survival is your choice.” She shook her head, the braids bouncing slightly as she stomped out the door.

The unspoken meaning was clear: If you die here, no one will mourn you. Betl blinked, absentmindedly twirling a strand of red around her finger.

She would need to ask the overseer if she could borrow some scissors.

#halrebe mothma

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