Midnight Moon ☽ Sabine Wren [Star Wars Rebels]

iii.

She was so undeserving of any thanks.

As she gave a ration to one man, his eyes narrowed. "Impossible – Reina Foxe."

Soleil froze.

My mother.

The man wasn't the only person looking at her. The Ghost crew, the other refugees nearby. She felt exposed, like she'd been stripped of her body and left for everyone to see who she really was.

"I'm afraid you must be mistaken," she stammered. Her heart was in her throat – she felt almost faint, like she was about to blackout. She would so much rather she blacked out now. Because then the accusatory stares would disappear, and she wouldn't feel like a criminal on trial – please, ground, open up and swallow me up now like those sinking holes I read about on Jakku –

The man's eyes narrowed. He looked close to her mother's age, if Soleil thought about it. It wasn't implausible they had encountered each other at some point.

"You're not Reina," he hissed, between shaking words. "No, no – but you are her daughter, are you not? Imperial scum!"

Just let me die now.

Soleil's entire body was shaking. Even her little pinky finger was trembling with the force of her shock, her emptiness, at the way everyone was down looking at her like she was the devil incarnate. 

I haven't done anything! She wanted to protest, but was aware how defensive it sounded even to her own ears.

Her eyes filled with tears as the people screamed at her, insults in various languages that Soleil didn't understand but the venom dripping from the words making their intent all too obvious. She wrenched her hair free of its braid and tried to hide her face from view as she backed away, turning and fleeing from crowd, suddenly wishing she was back home in Garel in the safety of her walls.

At least there, the hatred of the world was locked away, hidden behind thick walls she couldn't leave.

At least then, she still felt human, and not filthy like the dirtiest pest.

She was an Imperial after all, wasn't she?

+++

"I can't believe we let an Imperial aboard our ship," Zeb growled, as the group returned. They'd been at the camp for a time far longer than they had expected, calming down the agitated crowd. They had been like ravenous animals, thirsting after their prey, foaming at their mouths. Only Hera's gentle words had been able to calm them down.

You couldn't blame them. The Empire had destroyed their lives. Soleil was a representation of the thing that had broken them.

Kanan sighed. "You can't blame the kid, Zeb. She looked terrified."

Sabine pursed her lips. Her helmet was resting on her hip, kept in place by the crook of her elbow.

Soleil had looked terrified, like someone looking directly into their doom. She'd trembled like an abandoned puppy, a leaf in a hurricane. Sabine had not failed to see the tears that sprouted into Soleil's eyes at the accusations, at the blood that drained from her face, how sick she looked.

Not at them, though. But at herself. As though she wished she could throw up and rid herself of the person she had been when she stepped on board the Ghost, the person she had been only minutes ago.

Something told Sabine that Soleil was like her: a girl, naïve, who had once blindly trusted the Empire... Only to have that trust broken later, in the worst way possible. In a way that left your soul shattered and your heart numb.