CHAPTER ONE.
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Go, my child.
Your place is with the living.
I will stay here with the dead.

AGATHA CHRISTIE,
THE HOLLOW
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               THEALA SEES THE TRAP the moment before it springs and thinks no. In an instant she is dashing across the field, light trailing behind her, a solid ribbon in the air. She blazes through the emerging turrets aiming at her squad, cutting them apart, overshoots, and then launches herself back to cover them from a second barrage. At the end of it she escapes with eight troopers, their commander, and a singe across her forehead, but no losses. Theala is annoyed at having only one and a half eyebrow left, but she'll survive.

      Her squad is so grateful to her that she wants to cringe. They should expect someone will come to their aid; that they are so surprised to be alive offends Theala's sense of decency. She accepts their thanks quietly and bows out, retreating to the medical bay before Obi-Wan can scold her for her recklessness. It isn't him that corners her in the hallway after getting some bacta for her forehead, though.

Her commander looks pissed and Theala scowls. She is too tired for this. "Leave me alone, Kit."

Not surprisingly, that makes him even angrier. "You could've gotten yourself killed."

"They are your brothers," says Theala. "Your brothers, and mine. How could I leave them? Frankly, I find your lack of trust in my abilities —"

"You could have died," Kit cuts in. Before she can protest, he continues. "That shot was so close to burning a hole through your brain."

He breathes heavily, all semblance of calm gone. He clenches his fist. "You know what I used to think when they gave you to us? Thank the Force that my Jedi isn't General Skywalker or General Kenobi. Everyone knows what they're like. One of them is certifiable and the other just pretends to be sane. I dodged a blaster there. No, I get a nice, sensible one as my General. And then it turns out those two aren't the weird ones. Your entire fucking Order can't get itself shot fast enough. Every time I turn around I have to worry about you landing yourself in Medical again pulling some stupid stunt saving brothers or civvies or goddamn beasts! I am a soldier, not a babysitter, and yet here we are having this conversation again because you won't accept you're the only person on this ship who isn't expendable!"

"When they gave me to you," Theala says, scowling, "I swore an oath. Whatever the Republic did to you, I would suffer. Your fate would be mine as well. If you were to march to your ends, you would not march alone. It has not been so long that I have forgotten those promises."

"You and me are not the same," Kit hisses, looming over her, lips pulled back in a snarl, tense like a live wire. "I exist to die so you don't have to, and every time you pull shit like this, you're telling me that I have no purpose. You're telling me that everyone I've lost is lost for no reason, if we're the same thing. And there isn't a damn person in the galaxy who wouldn't trade a battalion of clones for a Jedi. So fuck you, Theala Visz, and fuck your oath. Shut up and do as you're told."

"Nothing has ever lived that will not die, Kit," she replies at last. The endless lists of the dead scroll through her mind's eye, thousands of faces and hundreds of thousands of names haunting her.

BORN A FORCE-SENSITIVE and raised a Jedi, Theala holds the weight of the world in her hands. There are only a few hundred Jedi and a galaxy full of species worth saving from the violent war shredding the planets.

     The war began when she was still a youngling, barely old enough to construct her own lightsaber. Still, Theala likes thinking about her youth. For many reasons. The presence of her former master is at the forefront of it all, though it plagues even her fondest memories with the pain of his loss. But every so often, Theala is able to remember in peace. It brings a smile to her lips, knowing there was a time in her life when she had been truly and utterly happy. As much as it hurts in the eye of the present, it gives her strength.

Master Dooku had been the most accomplished Jedi of his generation. As the padawan of Grand Master Yoda, he was destined for greatness. When he chose her as his third and final padawan, it was the greatest honour of her life.

     Her master doesn't tell her that Jedi are soldiers bred for war. She doesn't learn that until much, much later.

     Still, though it shames her to admit it, Theala belongs to the section of Jedi that occasionally thrive on the battlefield. Much like Anakin, there is a part of her not purely peaceful. Obi-Wan on the other hand, as well as Plo Koon and most of the other Jedi, suffer through each and every day that takes them away from the Temple and onto their starcruisers.

They are all tired. Force, they are tired and exhausted and spent. Every single one of them wants to be somewhere else. Namely asleep.

Consequently, it does not surprise Theala that there is little comfort to be found in the Force; but it is still reflexive to reach for it, hoping that this time it would be different. Sometimes she reaches into the Force for strength. Sometimes it is for guidance. But now, Theala just wants to feel the warm serenity that she misses so dearly.

If there is no comfort to be found within the Force itself, she is at the very least surrounded by some of the beings she loves most in the galaxy. Theala can find solace in that. Obi-Wan is a quiet but steadfast presence. His nurturing and compassionate spirit manifests as a soft warm glow, even as exhausted as she knows that he is. If Obi-Wan is the quiet flame of a hearth, then Anakin is a firecracker. He would appreciate the comparison, she muses. From the beginning, they had gotten along well, better than most, and their companionship had never faltered. Still, for the same reason that he is Theala's favourite sparring partner, his presence within the Force is a tad too boisterous to focus on for her meditation.

The brightness of the clone troopers around her gives her meditation the right amount of strenght. Kit is still angry but Theala knows him well enough to not worry about it. He adores her. His grudge won't last another hour. Their light and warmth is a comforting wall between her and the war as she focuses her attention on Obi-Wan, reaching for him.

     Theala closes her eyes and begins to breathe. The expansion and contraction of her lungs creates a steady ocean-movement in her chest. Her mind sinks into the shared space of the Force. It is like falling into a song that exists beyond sound. The melody is bone-deep, a chorus that is inside and outside of her all at once. From this place of connection, Theala begins to let go, allowing herself to unfurl into the bright living power surrounding her. She drifts in sensation, feeling her body gently swaying, anchored to the planet beneath her. Her thoughts slip past her: I am worried, I am hungry, I need sleep, my heart aches. She gives them no importance, no meaning. That is just the surface layer. There is more beneath.

She can sense Obi-Wan's steady presence and concentrates on him. Time passes. Theala can no longer tell how much. It is Obi-Wan who slowly untangles himself and makes them both fall out of their meditation.

When Theala opens her eyes once more, she looks around at the clones moving about, preparing for whatever it is they need to do. They all have respective colours; yellow, grey, some blue, each with their own individual designs and paintings. It is a small sign of individuality, even if it is just a small stroke or a line or even a dot of paint. It means everything to the clones to have their own signature. The first time on a starcruiser, she had felt out of place — like she didn't belong. A Jedi amongst soldiers, a pacifist amongst an army. For a long time, it wasn't that she was uncomfortable around them, she just didn't belong. And she thought that she would never belong.

Now, she is a part of them just as they are a part of her. They are her brothers and sometimes, she feels more herself with her troopers than with the Jedi.

The Clones will play a big role is this story because The Clone Wars starts and ends with them, and the tragedy is as much theirs as anyones.