Just a cute little painting for wolfwren week :) based on the meme ‘would you still love me if I was a worm?’ @wolfwrenweek
Shin does not make a happy little worm 🪱
Sidenote: procreate changed the colors when I was copy all/pasting the layers making them a bit more saturated/pinker, including the skin tone. I can barely use my hands at the moment so I can’t repaint it but yeah originally her skin was a bit more olive sorry 🤦♀️
🗡️ What Is WolfWren Week? 🗡️
Five days (Nov 11-15) dedicated to Sabine Wren and Shin Hati from the Ahsoka series! Check out our full About & Rules for more!
🗡️ How do I Submit Prompts? 🗡️
Let us know what prompts you'd like to see using Forms; guidelines are listed at the top of the submission page. Submit your prompts HERE!
🗡️Timeline 🗡️
✰ Submit Prompts: August 1-8 [NOW OPEN]
✰ Prompt Voting: August 10-17
✰ Finalized Prompts Shared: September 16
✰ Creation Phase: September 17-November 10
✰ Event Week: November 11-15
You can follow along with us on Twitter/X and Instagram as well 💚🧡 If you have any questions or concerns, our ask box is open!
Wolfwren24 day 2! I'm not late, it's the 12th somewhere in the world!
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, INVERTED - read it on A03 HERE!
Shin woke slowly, and then all at once. A deep breath surged into her lungs and she scrabbled to get up, gloves and boots squeaking on the polished stone floor. Her lightsaber was in her hand and ignited before her feet were properly under her, and the weight of the blade pulled her a little off-balance.
The temple had changed. The shapes were the same - the sharp-featured Nightsister statues, the domed ceiling, the enormous sealed door - but it was no longer a ruin. The stone underfoot was unbroken and neatly swept, and the statues glared down with unmarred expressions of distaste. The silence was so total it was almost physical, and the rattling hum of her blade was deafening in the dark. There were no stars in the sky above her.
It started at the far end of the room. To the right of the door, opposite the entrance, a flicker of light spilled from a corridor Shin hadn't seen before - if it had even been there in the first place. The light grew stronger, and her ears pricked at the sound of footsteps on stone.
Her left foot slid back slowly as her arms raised, and her body coiled into a ready stance. She could cover the distance to the passageway in one leaping slash, if she needed to. Shin hoped it was Baylan. She hoped it was Sabine. She had last seen both of them sprawled on the ground, wounded or dying.
"You can lower your weapon," came a voice in the dark. "I mean you no harm."
"Show yourself!" Shin demanded. The voice was unfamiliar, but didn't sound like a bandit. Peridea didn't have any other people. This was new.
The light edged forwards into the temple itself, and a man followed it across the threshold. He was old, stooped, and frail, but his voice was clear and strong. The light seemed to reach out from around him, igniting lamps tucked into sconces along the walls with a gentle, steady light. There was no fire or heat, just a warm glow suffusing the room as he came closer.
Shin did not relax her stance.
"You're the one who opened the door," the old man observed.
"Let me back out."
He smiled sadly at that, and stopped just inside the range of a wide swing of Shin's blade. "I can't, I'm afraid. For while we live we cannot leave, and while we remain we cannot truly die."
"I'm not interested in riddles," Shin said. "Where is… where are the others?" She couldn't bring herself to ask after her Master directly. She had a memory of drawing life back into his body, but the events of the last few hours were hazy and there was no telling what was real and what she just wanted to be real.
"When you breached the seal," he said, "your companions were scattered. My daughter included."
Shin's brow wrinkled in confusion. The man looked human - though, she realised with a pang of an emotion she couldn't name, that so did she - and she knew that Sabine was an orphan. It was why her armour meant so much to her.
"My son's influence here is great," the old man continued, still completely unphased by how easy it would be for her to simply cut him down, "and mine weakens by the day."
Shin adjusted her grip on the hilt. Her gloves creaked as she tensed her fist. "Tell me how to find them."
"Please lower your weapon," he said.
Shin had been trying, since she joined Sabine and Ahsoka, to keep her emotions under control. Baylan had taught her Jedi discipline, but it was Ahsoka's example that had given her the drive to perfect it. Frustration was one she still struggled with, and it overwhelmed her now. With a snarl, her lightsaber flashed forwards into a reverse grip, and she brought the point up under the old man's chin.
"Tell me, now!" she hissed.
The old man sighed, and her lightsaber winked out. Shin took a quick step back, tried to ignite it again, and found she couldn't. For a moment, she forgot her situation, and panic set in that she would never see the burst of flame orange split the air again.
"Please, do not worry, my child," the old man said. "It's not permanent. Just until you master yourself."
Shin's hand snapped out and she reached for his throat with the Force. It was like he wasn't there. There was a presence in the Force, a blinding presence, but nothing she could manipulate. Her fingers tightened on nothing. The frustration and the panic and the fear crystalised and hardened into a fine, sharp point of anger, and she threw herself at him like a dart. He stepped back neatly, far faster than a man of his obvious age could, and Shin put her weight behind a kick to his abdomen that didn't connect either. She howled and struck out, hands and feet blurring as she tried to land a single strike. His face stayed impassive as he moved faster than anyone could, until Shin had exhausted herself and stumbled away. He wasn't even breathing particularly hard.
Shin put her hand out and leaned her weight against the wall. "Please," she heaved through huffs of air. "I need to find her."
"There is a way."
The old man crossed his arms and tucked his arms into the opposite sleeve, and came a little closer. This time, he stopped just outside of striking range, which Shin was distantly pleased to see.
"I'll do it," Shin said.
His face softened a little, and Shin was uncomfortably reminded of Baylan in the quiet moments of their life. He said, "it is not a simple thing."
She said, "I don't care."
"Your destiny is not yet written, child of Dathomir." Shin fought hard to suppress the urge not to attack him again. Why had Baylan never told her where she came from? Why had he let her believe a lie? But the old man was still talking, and she forced her mind back to the present. "This bond will seal your fate to hers. What happens to one will affect the other, you must understand this."
Shin straightened up. In truth, she hadn't known Sabine long. The Mandalorian didn't know it, but Shin had been keeping track, and the counter in her head of 'days spent as friends' had ticked over to total more than 'days spent as enemies' only very recently. And in a secret part of her, Shin was also counting the number of days looking at her made her stomach clench and heat flash in her cheeks, when hearing her speak brought a stupid smile to her face for no reason other than the sound of words in her mouth, and when the touch of their hands was the only sensation she cared to feel. Shin had been fascinated at first, and then that feeling had deepened, and twisted, and wrapped around her until she was fully ensnared.
"I'm already hers," Shin announced.
"A bond in the Force cannot be undone," he warned.
Shin allowed herself a small smile, because neither could whatever bond it was that joined them now. "I don't care," she said again.
The old man sighed sadly, and took a step towards her. Shin involuntarily stepped away. "Forgive me, child," he said, "but this is how it must be done."
Shin swallowed, and nodded, and let him lay a clammy hand against her shoulder.
Sabine couldn't move her arms. The creature had pinned them to her sides, squeezed hard enough to crush the breath out of her lungs, with claws as thick as the tree branches that whipped past her. She kicked her feet to struggle, but it only tightened its grip. She still couldn't see it, not properly, only nightmarish flashes of a monstrous, bat-like shape. In the back of her mind it reminded her of a creature she had seen circling in the distance on Dathomir. Below her the ground and the tops of the trees slashed past. A few of them clipped her face or tore at her flightsuit where it was unprotected by beskar, and she felt a hundred narrow cuts tear open her skin. If she could just get her fingers to a blaster, she could try and free herself.
Above her, the creature that had been impersonating Shin screeched in clear, sharp fury.
And then Sabine felt a familiar presence. Shin's hand in her own. She couldn't believe she had ever taken the imposter as the real deal for even a second: Shin's presence in the Force was unmistakable. The thing threatening to crush her or drop her to her death had none of her warmth, none of her care. They were night and day. Shin, somehow there, guided her hand away from scratching against her holster harness and gently turned her wrist so her palm faced the claw. Sabine marvelled at the contact, but dared not question how it was happening. Wordlessly, Shin's fingers closed Sabine's into a fist.
"You have to trust me," Shin coaxed. Her voice was soft, and close, but inside her head. Sabine almost felt she could feel the tickle of a stray strand of hair on her cheek, the whisper of Shin's short breaths as she concentrated, and the smell of her clothes and skin. Her hand was still but insistent on Sabine's own.
"I do," Sabine gasped out.
"Let go."
Together, they opened their hands. Sabine reached out with the Force, and Shin reached through her, and the beast's grip snapped open. There was a half-second of total weightlessness before Sabine started to fall, and in that half-second Shin let go of her hand.
She screamed with all the air she had in her lungs as she plummetted towards the ground, pushing desperately into the Force to slow her fall the way she had seen Kanan do all those years ago. Nothing happened. She felt the thrill of connection run down her arms, but it wasn't enough. It was over.
Just before Sabine decided to close her eyes for her last moment, she was there. Shin stepped out of the air where Sabine was going to land, reached up with both hands, and grabbed her. It wasn't the gentle catch and lift that Ezra and Kanan had perfected, and it reminded her a lot more of when Shin had tried to crush her throat on Seatos. Shin snatched her up like she was jealous of the hold gravity had on her, and wrapped her in a grip almost as viciously tight as the creature's had been. She brought her down to the ground like she was reluctant to let go, but as soon as Sabine's feet touched the dirt she lunged forwards and threw her arms around her.
"I'm sorry," Shin blurted. "I lost touch, I didn't mean to - "
"You saved my life," Sabine interrupted her.
Long before Sabine was ready, Shin stepped backwards out of her arms, turned her head as if she heard something, and then nodded stiffly. "You have to go now," she said. "Your Master - "
"She's in danger, I know," Sabine nodded. "How did you - ?"
Shin stepped forwards again, the way she stalked towards her in a duel, and grabbed Sabine with both hands on the side of her head. She pulled her into a kiss, and their teeth clashed off each other in their desperate rush. Too soon again, Shin pulled away.
"I just will. Now go."
Sabine lingered for a moment, wanting more than anything to feel Shin's hands on her again, to feel her lips and her teeth and her tongue, but Shin's expression brooked no argument, so she turned and set off. When she looked back, Shin had vanished in the trees.
Miles away, over the top of the trees, dawn came to Mortis again.
Title: Fighting As Flirting (Flirting As Fighting), Words: 628, Chapters: 1/1
Rated: Teen (shocking for me I know)
Relationship: Shin Hati/Sabine Wren
Tags: Sparring, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Trans Shin Hati, She/Her and They/Them Pronouns for Shin Hati, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Read It On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60499564
For WolfWren Week Day One: Lothal, I've written a little ficlet about what I think happened on The Eye of Sion on the way to Peridea 💚🧡
