Lorn lay sprawled across the bed, the coarse sheets clinging to his sweat-drenched skin. The room at Shiraya's Rest was modest, sparsely furnished, stone walls and a single window through which the faint light of day pressed in. That light felt foreign and unwelcome just now, like the sun was intruding on his misery. Every whisper of his body screamed beneath the weight of injuries: bruises like dark galaxies blooming across his skin, raw cuts that hadn't been seen to properly, a sharp ache deep in his ribs that spoke of something fractured. Pain had become his unwelcome companion these days, a steady hum in the music of his existence.
The sounds of his Vanguard filtered through the thin walls, faint voices rising and falling, footsteps scuffing against dirt as they worked to repair what had been broken, physically, emotionally, maybe even spiritually. Lorn shut his eyes against the noise, against the world outside. He didn't deserve the comfort of camaraderie, of their resilience. He had failed them. Again.
The Mandalorian attack on Theed… it had taken so much. Too much. The people they had sworn to protect, the soldiers who had followed his lead, they lay buried beneath the dirt of Naboo now. Their screams, their desperate cries, still haunted the edges of his mind, a chorus of ghosts that never ceased their song. Lorn's chest ached, but it wasn't just the ribs. It was that familiar hollowness, the one he had come to recognize as grief. A grief so vast he thought it might one day swallow him entirely.
He clenched his jaw, gripping fistfuls of the rough sheets to ground himself. What was he even trying to recover for? What was left of him to give? No matter where he walked in this galaxy, death and loss followed like shadows at his heels. He was cursed, that much he was certain of now. Cursed to ruin everything and everyone he touched. How could he shoulder the burden of guiding others, at Shiraya's Order, at the side of students and soldiers, when his path only led to destruction? To ashes? Lorn had no answers. He doubted there were any.
Sitting hadn't lasted long. It never did. Rest never felt like rest to him, only postponement. He swung his legs off the bed and forced himself upwards, every joint and muscle protesting. He staggered after barely a step, his knees giving way, his balance betrayed by the battering he'd endured. The cold stone floor greeted him unkindly, and with his face pressed to it, Lorn's darker thoughts unfurled like coiled smoke in his brain. Before unconsciousness mercifully claimed him, memories crept in - fragments of a time he tried so hard to forget.
---
The days blurred into one another within the dungeon he had been dragged back to. He'd lost count long ago. His hair had grown long past his shoulders, tangled and unkempt, his beard like that of a vagabond. He could feel walls closing in even when they stayed perfectly still, they smelled of dirt, damp, and despair. Every crack, every sharp edge in the walls, mocked him with his failure. He had executed his own Master. His Master whom he had loved, who had believed in him until the end. He had raised his saber against the hand that taught him how to wield it. His voice no longer echoed when he spoke aloud, even the cell was tired of him now.
At his worst moments, he played judge and jury in his mind. He had accepted his sentence: he deserved to rot here. Lorn the Failure Lorn the Death-Touched. Lorn who let everyone down.
Then, on a night when he thought the darkness might consume him entirely, the cell door creaked open. For a moment, he thought it was a dream, a cruel trick of his mind to offer hope where there was none. But the pale moonlight bled into the stone room, framing her figure. The girl. Isla. Her small teenage presence steeped in something older, something infinite. That night, she stepped into the cold reality of his darkness.
She approached him slowly. Her large eyes seemed impossibly solemn for her age, painfully familiar, twin mirrors of those that haunted Lorn in his sleep. She reached out with small hands dusted in dirt and purpose, and in a few deft movements, she undid his bindings. They clattered to the floor, their sound stark against the deadened air.
"You must escape," she whispered urgently, her voice sharp as the edge of a vibroblade. "They will execute you soon."
Lorn pushed her away with what little strength he had left. The words fell like stones from his mouth, each one a fresh cut. "Leave me. Let them do it. I don't wish to live."
For a moment she was still, sadness flickering across the young girl's face. Then, swift as a predator, she lifted a hand and struck his cheek. The sound of the slap echoed in the cavernous room, louder than his bindings. It snapped his head sideways and forced his gaze upward. Her eyes caught his - those terrible, familiar eyes - and though anger brimmed behind the slap, her expression was something else entirely.
"No," she said firmly, her small frame suddenly towering in the room. "Your story is not over. There are those who still need you. I still need you."
Her words bit deeper than any blade ever had. Lorn opened his mouth to refute her, but no sound came. He was too tired, too defeated. And yet, something in her presence, a tug, faint but undeniable, ignited a flicker of hope somewhere deep inside his chest. He didn't understand it. He didn't know Isla or why she had been plaguing his dreams. But there, in the shadowed ruin of himself, her words planted a seed.
He forced himself to stand, not for her, not for anyone else. For the faint, almost forgotten notion that destiny might still have plans for him. By the time he reached the door, he was moving, running, escaping, but his mind churned, plagued by her words.
The wilderness was unrelenting. The months stretched as Lorn traversed familiar lands. He relied on instincts honed through countless battles, his will tempered on the whetstone of desperation. He fished in rivers with calloused hands and scaled jagged cliffs in search of shelter. Each trial seemed like penance, carving pieces of his broken soul, reshaping it into something raw and unfamiliar. Survival demanded his submission, but it also planted seeds of something far more vital: strength.
When he finally found the transport ship on the outskirts of some forgotten port, it felt too orchestrated, too coincidental. Where it was headed, the green horizon of Naboo, seemed almost poetic. He took it without question. As the verdant expanse of his homeworld stretched before him upon arrival, the sigh that escaped his lips carried years of torment and heartache. It grounded him. The soil, the air, the distant silhouettes of the Gallo Mountains, it all felt alive and forgiving in ways he had forgotten.
The talk of a hidden Jedi Order nestled in the mountains reached him in fragmented whispers, hushed rumors among the locals. He wasn't sure why his legs took him in that direction. The Jedi… he'd never considered himself one. Not truly. But what else was left for him?
---
When Lorn awoke finally, the haze over his memory began to lift. The faces of his Vanguard greeted him: worried, hopeful, loyal despite all that had been taken. And he remembered Isla's words, her slap, her plea, her eyes. Perhaps every word she'd spoken was a lie, but if they weren't… If there was even a shred of truth…
He owed them everything, his Vanguard, the students, the Council of Light, even Aiden. He owed them the man that was formed by his Master, the man he was before all of the loss. Not for glory. Not for redemption. But because they had given him something he thought long lost: a second chance.
Even now, as pain wracked his body, the weight of his losses still clinging to him, Lorn forced himself to stand. Straight. Unyielding. He wouldn't fail them. Not this time. Not ever again.
