Clan Laerrin

A sudden jolt woke Phoebe from her slumber... The emergency lighting was flashing, turning the whole room red. No, there was more red. All the other beds. Blood was flowing from them, their source, her comrades.

But they had won, had they not?

Instinctively, she tried to reach for her weapons, and ended up flinching in pain from the sudden movement.

What the hell?

"Help! We need help in the medbay!" she cried out in panic at the sight of all the blood.

Orella woke up from her nap by Kairi's bedside and blinked at Phoebe. An explosion threw the door to the medbay inside, crushing both sisters underneath it.

Outside, though. That wasn't the Aurora. It was Concordia.

She yelped in surprise as the two sisters were crushed by the exploding door. And then the... scenery.

It stunned her.

"How... no, we're in space. We're not on Concordia." Very carefully, she slipped out of the bed, trying to walk closer to the open door.

Wasn't Axel magnificent out there? Wait, since when did he have beskar'gam? Shouldn't he wear his helmet with the T-visor? Blood was getting all over his face and in his eyes because of it.

So many dead thugs. That was his purpose. And now Phoebe's too. They had wronged her. They deserved only one fate.

Death.

That's what her family's beskad, now in her hand, demanded.

The Resol'nare demanded that she defend herself and her family. To contribute to your clan's welfare.

She had no family. No. The Laerrins were her family now? They were at least her clan, hopefully. If she wasn't a failure in their eyes.

Phoebe wanted nothing more than to be a real Mandalorian. A true Mandalorian. One who had the honor her parents had not had.

She clutched the beskad in her hands. Was she really worthy yet? And why was Axel there in beskar'gam? Why was he more worthy than her, if she didn't have hers?

"What's the meaning of this?" she muttered, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. The fighting was over, wasn't it?

The thugs suddenly transformed into... Her old family. The Wrens that had stayed loyal to Saxon. Axel remained the same though, slaughtering those distant cousins.

Her father was there too. That wasn't sensible; he looked just like the day she had left him. He was killing Mandalorians wearing Laerrin markings, Vizsla markings, rebel Wren colors.

Treya, in her normal age, walked up to her father and put a blaster up to his head.

It stunned her at first.

Then she stunned herself again in that she was angry. At Treya. Because she had been telling herself all these years that she hated her parents, but seeing her father like this, she instantly knew she had been lying to herself as well.

"No!" she covered her mouth, as the shock compelled her to sob, but Phoebe refused to cry. There were tears, but she did not cry.

"... No... why did you have to do this..." Fuck. Why had her parets chosen to do this? They must've known they wouldn't survive it too, for why else had they made sure that she got away?

"I don't want to carry that burden anymore... I don't want that hanging over me anymore." How much more did she have to do to get herself out of the shadow of what happened? Was it as simple as just choosing something else?

Treya pulled the trigger and Phoebe's father collapsed into the pile. Now he was nothing more than a corpse, like so many other Mandalorians.

The Laerrin Matriarch raised her pistol at Phoebe and approached, face completely neutral. No, condemning her.

She didn't stood still to wait for fate, or Treya in this case, to come to her, and Phoebe was walking somewhat unsteadily towards the Mandalorian Matriarch.

"... I was born a Wren," Phoebe swallowed the dry feeling in her throat, "But I don't wanna be that anymore."

"I want to start anew. If you think I'm worthy of your family, I want to be Laerrin."

The vision? The vision of Treya lowered its weapon. She smiled and opened her mouth, about to speak.

A sword was driven through her chest. She was twisted around, headbutted by her assailant, and finished off by a hook to the face, knocking out some of the matriarch's teeth. Standing above Treya's body was another woman, one that Phoebe had never met. The only recognizable thing about her was the beskar'gam. Clan... Varad?

There were cords of teeth dangling off her armor.

"What are you doing?" the stranger demanded. She picked up some of the teeth and held them out to Phoebe. "Take these, remember your devotion to the Resol'nare. It demands that you claim vengeance for your family!"

"No!" Phoebe pushed the gory trinkets away. "I won't follow them into their dishonor. They betrayed me; their family!" she said angrily.

"There's no honor in vengeance for those who went against the clan."

The woman in front of Phoebe twisted, contorted. Her face suddenly turned to horror. She dropped the teeth and began tearing her "trophies" off of her armor.

"This isn't me," the woman muttered, "This isn't me." She looked at her hands, shaking, and looked up to Phoebe. "Who are you?"

Before Phoebe could answer, the stranger disintegrated into dust, scattering into the wind. So too did the rest of the Mandalorians fighting, even the scenery itself.

In this new void, Phoebe was almost alone. Not quite. One other was there, someone vaguely familiar despite the fact she had never met him. He was a Nikto dressed in rags, curled up on the ground, sobbing.

"No, no, no," he repeated, over and over and over.

She blinked as the woman faded to dust, and looked around with confusion as the scattering wind swirled around her, and saw everything else fading away.

The Nikto... why did he seem familiar? Phoebe had read about Nikto, and Noghri, and the other branches of the species, but this was her first time seeing one.

"... Who are you?" she asked, approaching carefully to get a better look.

As soon as Phoebe touched the Nikto, she was shunted into another, new world. There was so much smog. Hutt mercenaries were everywhere, pollution rampant, swamps everywhere. Palaces, factories.

Nal Hutta. She was in the swamps, the mud, the grit.

Lying next to the Nikto Phoebe had touched was another one, dead eyes staring back at him.

"I'm nobody," the live one answered, "He was right."

"I... don't understand." Had the two fought, and the surviving one killed the other? "No one is nobody. Everyone is somebody; a name, an identity. Something."

The nikto thrashed and then seized her by the arms. "The Hutts never gave me a name and neither did he!" he lamented. He closed his eyes and slumped back to the ground.

"Should I call him 'father?'" he asked. He then looked up to her and his eyes widened. "You know him. The Gand."

"T...Tyvesh?" Her eyes widened. "Why..."

"He did this?" she glanced once more over to the dead one, before looking back to the still living one. "No... no, you don't have to listen to his rules. You don't need him to give you a name, or permission to have a name, you hear me? You are your own person, and you decide who you are!"

And I decide who I am!

"He didn't," the Nikto corrected. He took a breath and rolled onto his back, blank stare now at an uncaring sky. "The Hutts took the only soul in the whole galaxy that every loved me."

The Nikto then got to his feet, a rykk blade now in his hand. "You. I know you. Why are you doing this to me?! "

"What?" Phoebe instinctively took a step back, away from the Nikto. "I don't know you. I haven't done anything to you!"