Ahsoka was gone. The warrior sister, smelling of ozone and anxiety, had vanished into the horizon like a dream you forget the moment you wake up.

“Traitor,” Zilla whispered to a passing ladybug. She considered crushing it, then decided it was the only friend she had left. “She left me for the King. Or from the King. Or maybe she just didn’t like my hair today.”

Zilla’s laughter was a jagged thing, a sound like glass breaking in a velvet bag. She was half-mad, her thoughts swirling in a soup of abandonment and strange, rhythmic voices that only she could hear.

“Anakin is good now,” she muttered, digging her nails into the dirt. “A good king. A holy king. A king who could peel the skin off your shadow just by looking at you.”

The memory of the King was a cold weight in her chest. Anakin didn’t just walk; he haunted the very air. He was elevated, magnificent, and possessed a gaze that felt like a slow-motion car crash—beautiful, but you knew you were dying.

“We are not going through the dark forest. It’s too dangerous. I’ve seen things in there that make my skin want to crawl off and hide in a hole.”

The voice belonged to Hagar. Zilla looked up. Hagar, a former slave with the scars to prove it and a sense of humor as dry as a desert bone, stood there looking like a pirate who had lost his ship and settled for a very grim walking tour. Beside her was Isha, her sister, whom Hagar guarded with the ferocity of a starving wolf.

“But how else are we to find Amanda?” Isha asked. Amanda, the girl who carried a greataxe like a security blanket and had a penchant for unintentional decapitations.

The pair stopped in front of Zilla. Hagar looked down, her eyes weary. “Where you been, dearie? You look like you’ve been licking gravity.”

Zilla didn’t blink. “I’ve been with the King… and then I ran away. Or he let me go. Or I’m still there and this is a very elaborate hallucination. Hard to tell these days.”

“Maybe you shall go back to him then?” Isha suggested, though she shuddered at the mention of the King. Everyone did. It was the local exercise: Mention Anakin, then tremble.

“My sister betrayed and left me,” Zilla said, her voice dropping into a hollow, frightening monotone. “I’m not going anywhere until she comes back. I’ll turn into a statue. I’ll be a very decorative landmark for the birds to defecate on.”

“Stubbornness,” Isha pointed out, crossing her arms. “You are stubborn to just sit there. Like waiting for a miracle in a graveyard. Spoilers: the miracles usually have teeth.”

“But she is coming back. Isn’t she?” Zilla’s eyes widened, a flash of her fractured sanity surfacing.

Isha slowly shook her head, a grim smile touching her lips. “Honey, in this world, people don’t come back. They just become ghosts that forget to stop screaming. You have your friends right in front of ye. We’re all that you need. We’re a mess, but we’re a visible mess.”

Hagar reached down, her grip like iron as she hauled Zilla to her feet. The sudden movement made Zilla’s head spin with kaleidoscopic colors.

“Come and be a pirate together with us!” Hagar grinned, a flash of gallows humor lighting up her scarred face. “We’ve also lost someone, u’know. Misery loves company, and we’re bringing snacks. Mostly hardtack and regret, but still—snacks.”

Zilla looked toward the dark forest, then back at the empty spot where Ahsoka had stood. The King was hunting for treasure, Ahsoka was hunting for a soul she’d lost, and Amanda was out there probably turning a tree into kindling with her axe.

“Pirates?” Zilla giggled, a high, unstable sound. “Do I get a hat? I feel like a hat would really pull my nervous breakdown together.”

“We’ll find you a hat,” Hagar promised, pulling her along. “Even if we have to take it off a corpse. They don’t mind; they’re very generous like that.”

As they walked toward the treeline, the sun stayed bright, but the shadows behind them grew long and jagged, shaped suspiciously like a King’s reaching hands.