The training room was quiet at this hour. Long shadows cast by the tall windows stretched across the floor, soft golden light diffusing through high glass. The air was still, the space echoing only with the soft shift of fabric as Eve moved in silence across the padded floor.
She stood at the centre of the room, shoulders squared, arms at her sides. Her robes were plain. Her silver hair tied back neatly, save for the few strands that refused to stay. Her eyepatch sat clean and firm against her face, the dark fabric an ever-present weight.
She took a deep breath, let it fill her lungs, and raised her hands. The kata started slow. Measured. Movements that had once come to her like breath now felt uncertain — not in her limbs, but in her sight. She pivoted into a high strike, turned her body... and clipped the corner of a low training post with her elbow. She exhaled forcefully.
"Again," she whispered, jaw tightening.
She reset, breathing more forcefully this time. Her muscles remembered every motion. Her instincts were sharp. But without full depth, without full vision — even with the Force — everything was... just a little off. A misjudged angle. A misread distance.
She spun. The world tilted slightly, nauseating. Her feet adjusted too late. The next strike missed its mark completely.
She stopped.
For a moment, Eve just stood there, trembling slightly, chest rising and falling with effort. Her shoulders slumped. Her hand slowly lifted, fingers brushing the edge of the eyepatch. The sensation of it always felt a little foreign, a little too real. She could still remember — with terrifying clarity — what it had felt like in the moment of its loss. The shock. The blinding pain. The sound of her scream and the unbearable smell of blood and smoke. Her fingers trembled and fell away.
Maybe I should get a replacement.
The thought struck harder than it should have. It wasn’t new. She’d pushed it away before. A cloned eye. A cybernetic. She could see again, completely, fully.
But then… would she still be her? Or was she just being stubborn?
She sank slowly to the floor, legs folding beneath her, and stared at her hands. They were scraped from training, knuckles red. The Force moved quietly around her, like a river beneath stone. It hadn’t left her. She wasn’t broken.
Just... changed.
Tears pricked at the corners of her remaining eye, but she didn’t let them fall. She didn’t cry. Not this time. Instead, she closed her eye, inhaled, and whispered into the stillness.
"Just one more time..."
She rose, set her stance, and darted forward. Not perfectly. Not fast. But with determination. With quiet fire.
The world was different now. But she was still here.
And she wasn’t done yet.
