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When Isamar next awoke, they were no longer sheltered by mounds of concrete rubble, and instead she was staring up at a tiled ceiling, surrounded by soldiers. By the way they were running around, carrying out orders, it was easy to assume that they had just set down. It was a likely reason for her waking, at the very least.

She felt more clear headed than she did previously, and while her heart still echoed with an empty song, the shards of her hurt did not stab her quite as sharply. A relief, it was, to find that the wound had begun to heal, even after such little time. But that corner of her mind that always held her brothers' presence was too silent, too dark without their constant jabbing and teasing, and it still hurt to pay attention to it.

However, when Isamar blinked, she startled to find the brown haired man standing at the end of her stretcher with his arms folded across his chest. Only her eyes showed how uncomfortable she was with him standing there while her expression remained an impassive mask. The warmth bloomed in her chest in response to her silent distress, and while she brushed it away, she did not entirely ignore it.

Silently, she watched as he regarded her, waiting for him to make the first move. He seemed just as confused as she was, troubled too, but by what she could not decipher. The aura around him churned with conflict, and Isamar wondered if only she could hear it arguing.

"Anakin." He pointed to himself — Isamar had half expected him to never be introduced — with a false smile, as though he was hiding something.

Isamar said nothing — she had nothing to say, and if she did he wouldn't understand anyway — and only continued to stare at him.

"Are you a Jedi?"

For a brief moment, Isamar thought he was speaking in her native tongue, and she blinked. She didn't understand what he said, but that one word was familiar to her. It brought memories of her mother's stories, the ones that had been passed down through the family for generations.

Choking back the sob that threatened to escape her, Isamar glanced away, wanting to avoid interacting with Anakin if he only worsened the healing wounds of her heart. But the man didn't seem to be willing to let it slide, and crouched down next to her.

He reached out a hand, and Isamar flinched away, making him pause before he retracted it again. His expression was apologetic, as though he realised that what he was doing was foreign and intrusive to the girl, and moved slower when he went to do it again. Instead of reaching toward her face, he placed his hand over top of hers, being careful not to unintentionally hurt her.

Anakin's touch made her feel fuzzy, as though static had filled her head and tuned out the rest of the world. It was a strange experience but not uncomfortable, so Isamar only squirmed as she grew used to the sensation. Warmth spread up her arm from her fingertips, melting the frozen grief as it grew, the grief becoming small puddles of confusion and softly throbbing pain.

'̵H̶e̶l̴l̶o̴,̸ ̸I̴s̵a̸m̴a̸r̵.̸'̸

Isamar snapped her eyes shut the second the voice spoke, slamming down her mental shields with enough force to send the invader through their own shields. She felt their presence vanish almost immediately from her mind, and whatever bond they were using severed under the enormous strain she placed it under.

"Well, kriff."

Cautiously, Isamar opened her eyes, only to find herself face-to-face with an absolutely shell-shocked Anakin. His eyes were wide with disbelief, mouth agape with the same expression of shock.

Confused, she glanced around, trying to spot the cause of his bewilderment, baffled to find nothing else besides settling soldiers. His continued staring made her uncomfortable, and so she hesitantly patted his face to see if he had somehow died without moving.

Anakin blinked rapidly before shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. He massaged that spot for several long moments, breathing deeply as Isamar tried not to panic over the detail of her invaded mind. Just when she was about to start hyperventilating, he looked up at her with a smile and placed his hand back on hers.

"What do you want?" Isamar asked with a shaking voice. "Do you want something from me?"

"I'm sorry," he told her sincerely, and she got the feeling that he was being apologetic. "That probably startled you, huh?"

She frowned at him, twisting her hand out of his gentle grip. The voice in her head sounded familiar and she was beginning to understand why. It annoyed her more than it probably should have, to know that there were other people in the galaxy who could wield the dinui — as her people called it — just the same as her, who had the same weapon.

"Obi-wan doesn't want you to tag along with us, you see, and I disagree. Just, I think you're strong with the Force, and that you'd be safer with us, rather than vulnerable on this planet."

Isamar blinked with confusion. As a result, Anakin sighed, shaking his head.

"And you have no idea what I'm saying. Great. How do I even do this?" he muttered to himself and Isamar's frown deepened.

With slow movements, Isamar gestured to him, urging him to do something with a casual circular motion. She opened her mouth as she brought a hand to it and flourished her fingers outward to explain that he needed to say something, either with words she understood or vague hand gestures. It pleased her to see the recognition in his eyes.

Anakin tried again, clumsily working through sentences to express himself. Certainly, it was harder to understand his jagged words than Obi-wan's smooth movements, but Isamar was working it out. And with each attempt, his movements grew more confident, and smoothed out significantly.

'You strong with force, come with us, I think. Obi-wan doesn't agree.'

The gesture Anakin made for 'force' confused Isamar, as she found it a strange thing. She was not strong, not like Anakin was — and that was just her basing his strength from their brief duel. It didn't take much thought to recognise that she was significantly weaker than him, so she didn't understand.

As though sensing her confusion, Anakin held out a hand. When Isamar felt his aura tighten like a coil around her sabre, her eyes widened, otherwise forcing herself from snatching the sabre away; lest she damage it. While she watched him, Anakin made the same gestures again, along with the one for 'force' while he held the sabre suspended in the air.

So he called the ability 'force' instead of dinui, Isamar determined, though she knew it not to be an ability but rather a harnessing of otherworldly strength. It made sense now, but she still wrinkled her nose at the almost childish term.

From this, she figured that Anakin wanted her to join them either during their campaign or when they left the planet, due to her strong connections with the 'Force', as he called it. Obi-wan, as stated, didn't share the same sympathies. Not that Isamar blamed him, really. Clearly they were at war, and Sraval was ground zero for one of their battles — adding another person, someone who had no prior knowledge of war and was quite heavily injured, was bound to be a grave mistake — so Obi-wan probably had his hands full already.

What Anakin really meant, she surmised, was that he wanted to help her stay with them. It was all too tempting an offer for the girl who lost everything, and the promise of escape from the planet was singing to her. Isamar was deep in the midst of contemplating his words when someone let out a bellowing warning and one of the walls exploded into dust.

The first thing that Isamar registered, was that Anakin had thrown himself over her to keep her from further injury. Next, it was Obi-wan shouting out orders as he came running in with his own sabre ignited in his hand. After that, though, everything became a blur.

Somehow, within all but a few seconds, Anakin was on his feet with his sabre igniting in hand, rushing towards the blasted wall. Any of the blaster fire that came near him was smoothly deflected, ricocheting off the blade back to the offenders.

Isamar knew droids. She knew them like the back of her hands. Sraval was the central manufacturer of droids on the planet, and Isamar had made many droids during her years of education. But she had never seen droids like these.

They were ruthless, with guns in servos and their frames built for combat. The ones behind the frontline troops were even worse, designed for heavy fire and brute force. Every shot that any of them fired made the building and its foundations shake, and suddenly Isamar was too terrified to move.

Just like before, she could feel the floor crumbling beneath her, cracks spreading around her feet. Glass from the windows shattered, flying free as the foundation collapsed in on itself. Blood splattered across her face as she once again watched her mother get impaled. She couldn't breathe. The column nearest to her fell heavy, hundreds of tons of concrete and steel falling over her head. Strong hands grasped her jacket and tossed her back, a flashing glimpse of a young man's face telling her all she needed to know before her brother was crushed in her place. Isamar couldn't move.

Her head swam with the memories, pounding and screaming as a battle was waged around her. Bile rose in her throat, bitter and sharp with acid. Along with it grew warmth, beginning in her heart and spreading throughout her body until her fingers tingle with it. Yet still, Isamar could not breathe.

When gloved hands touched her shoulders, Isamar's vision began to warp, fading from the distinct memory in her mind but placing soldiers in white armour where her family had fallen. Instead of her mother, she saw a yellow branded soldier, and in place of her brother's sacrifice, she watched as Rex threw her from the worst of the destruction and vanished beneath a mountain of rubble.

"Come on, kid. Don't make this harder than it should be!"

But Rex was speaking to her. He wasn't beneath that rubble, he was alive. What she was seeing wasn't — couldn't be — real. Very briefly, with a hungry gasp, Isamar breathed.

Once she did breathe, the next breath came easier to her, as did the next and the next after that. The vision faded away to the corners of her mind, taking with it the blood splatters and unbandaged wounds. Blaster fire returned to her ears, echoing alongside shouted commands and the hum of sabres.

"Kid, come on!"

At those words, Isamar instantly withdrew the warmth back to her hands, feeling a cold snap as the dinui curled back to her mental reins. She was lifted with ease after that, held firmly to someone's chest, and carried away with haste. Isamar's mind was spinning as it failed to comprehend the situation, turning over and over while the soldier carrying her found somewhere more secure.

There were several other injured people being moved in the same manner but none of it made sense — why she was seeing the same face in every person — and it only confused her further. With a quiet whimper, Isamar hid her face in the armour of the soldier, clinging to his neck with aching hands. The only reply she received was a gentle squeeze of reassurance, and suddenly she felt like a little girl again, climbing into Davaid's arms for comfort during a thunderstorm. Only this wasn't a thunderstorm, this was a battle, and lives were at risk.

Isamar suddenly found herself knocked from the man's arms, tumbling to the ground with a cry of pain. As she lifted her head, she saw the soldier face-down on the ground, smoke rising from a charred patch on his armour. She didn't need to check his pulse to know that he was dead.

A sight like something from a nightmare stood behind him, rows and rows of battle droids, all armed with blasters. They filled the hallway, looming and ominous as they marched forward, shooting at anything that moved. It was only by chance that they hadn't noticed Isamar on the floor, and even that was likely due to the assumption that she was dead.

More soldiers streamed out from the corridor Isamar had been carried through, only to stumble backwards, out of the line of fire. From the corner, they shot at the droids, slowly lessening their numbers. But too many dead were piling up, soldiers falling beside their comrades.

That warmth flowed back through her fingertips again, and this time, Isamar did nothing to quell the dinui. She let it flow from her hands, trusting in it to guide her through this fight and to survival as she agonisingly pulled herself to her feet. As she stood, she repeated an old mantra, letting it roll on her tongue until she believed it.

Isamar turned, and with the combined strength of her pain, grief, and courage, she limped forward.

The droids did not notice her. Their sole focus was on the soldiers around the corner, so they did not glance her way. And so they turned toward the corridor, and left themselves vulnerable from the side.

That was their mistake.

Isamar's mistake was to assume that she had the strength to wield her sabre. And forget that Anakin still held said sabre.

Her hand returned empty and she nearly swore, her belief in the mantra wavering. The lack of faith lost her precious time and nearly cost her life when a stray shot ricocheted off a droid's chest piece and flew past her head — close enough to singe her red curls of hair.

Courage nearly failed her then, but Isamar refused to be a coward. So she did something incredibly stupid that would go down in stories told by those watching. Isamar ran up to the squad and jumped on the back of the biggest droid she could see.

In hindsight, it was incredibly dangerous to do, given there there were two lines of fire she could get hit from, and that she was quite literally hanging on to that droid for her life. When the droid stopped in its tracks to throw her off, every other droid turned to see the problem, and all raised their blasters at her.

Dinui flourished in her palms, and she stretched it to wrap around the droid's helm — where the processing circuits were located — only to grit her teeth and curl her fingers. The droid started screaming in its monotone voice, calling its comrades for help as the metal of its helm began to fold in on itself. It was still screaming when its optics shattered and sparks flew from its internal wiring, and it fell to the ground with Isamar still on top of it.

The girl grinned in victory, pride and glee swirling in with the mess of emotions in her chest, further fuelling her desire to crush them all beneath her boot. Her world deserved peace, and she would help give it to them. If they shot at her, she would return the favour.

With that wild, yet desperate grin, Isamar stood once more, throwing out the reach of dinui toward the mass of battle droids. Like a lasso, it wrapped around their helms upon her command, tightening as she curled her fingers. In unison, they screamed, and together, they fell.

Crushed helms hit the floor and rolled away, echoing throughout the hallway with an unnerving sound like nails on steel.

Breathing heavily, Isamar looked around at the carnage. There weren't anywhere near as many droids as she had first thought, only about twenty or so. Either way, it was more targets than she had even remotely practiced with, and she could only take pride in her success.

"Isamar?"

With spots beginning to form in her vision, Isamar turned to the voice she recognised as Anakin, baring a great big smile. He looked shocked, startled, and alarmed all at once, though she could not place why. Vision blurring, Isamar waved at him as a figure resembling Obi-wan came up beside him. While she couldn't make out his expression, she decided that he was proud, and gave him a thumbs up.

The universe must have really hated her that day, because all she managed after that was a confused hum before collapsing to the ground unconscious.

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