D E S T I N E D
Bastila didn’t get far.
A narrow path had opened between the feast tables and the jousting rail, and she walked it with all the solemnity of someone heading for her own public execution. If that person was also muttering under her breath as she went. The torches along the lane guttered in the mountain wind; their gold light flickered across faces craning to watch the Jedi handmaiden make her walk.
Her steps were taken with her chin held high and her expression perfectly neutral. Only the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed the thought running through her mind: You’ve truly outdone yourself this time, Bastila.
The attendants waiting near the stables looked as though they’d been told to expect her; which meant Sibylla had almost certainly had something to do with this, or Aurelian. Most definitely Aurelian. A Mandalorian quartermaster approached, helm tucked beneath one arm and a half-smirk on his face.
“We found some of the foundling practice plates for you, Handmaiden,” he said, offering a bundle of segmented armour plates. “It’s light, fits under the jousting rig. Don’t worry, it's mostly to stop you dying.”
Bastila took the armour without a word, glancing at the dull silver and black plates marked by fine engravings of some extinct beast. Not the elegant ceremonial weight of a Jedi cuirass; but this was built for impact and a cause.
She exhaled slowly and began to unfasten her outer layers without much virtue; the deep red Republic vestments, the embossed tabard, the belt that bore the Sal-Soren crest. Piece by piece, she folded them with mechanical precision and handed them off to the waiting attendant. Beneath, the plain undershirt and trousers of a training uniform made her seem suddenly younger, less the poised envoy and more the Padawan who’d never quite stopped being one.
When she donned the armour, it was heavier than expected. The plates settled into place with a magnetic click, the pauldrons broadening her stance. She rolled one shoulder, testing the fit.
“It’s…you lot live in this stuff?” she murmured.
The quartermaster’s smirk deepened. “You look the part. Try not to die, maybe we will make you a foundling afterwards Handmaiden.”
“Excellent advice,” she replied dryly, fastening the last clasp at her wrist.
The Basilisk was waiting; it was a massive, hunched silhouette framed by the firelight of the torches. Steam hissed from its vents, wings folded close like a great metallic beast at rest. Its eyes burned faintly amber, following her approach with unnerving intelligence.
She hesitated, just long enough to let her senses brush against it through the Force. There was something there; not alive, not truly, but remembering life. A residue of all the warriors it had carried, the battles it had survived. Pride. Loyalty. Rage. Beneath it all, a quiet challenge: prove yourself.
Bastila stepped closer. Her gloved hand rose to rest against the creature’s broad neck plating. It was warm, warmer than she expected, thrumming faintly beneath her palm.
“Easy,” she murmured. “I don’t suppose you’re fond of new riders.”
The Basilisk’s head tilted slightly. A pulse of blue light rippled through its core, brief but deliberate; a greeting, or perhaps it was acceptance. The connection in the Force deepened, not a bond of affection but of recognition. Two beings who understood duty, each in their own way. Bastila found herself curious at this creature, this thing that the history books told her was more droid then vehicle. Yet here it was, attuned to her as if some wild beast.
“Alright then,” she whispered, allowing herself the faintest smile. “Let’s not embarrass one another. Excuse me,” She turned to the quartermaster who had been watching her with interest. “In your tongue, how do you say it’s name?”
“Name? It has no name, you would call it Basilisk. We call it bes'uliik.”
“Bes'uliik.” She tried the word and it came out more awkwardly then the Quartermaster’s word had sounded. Still she liked the sound of it.
With a slow, deliberate movement, she stepped onto the side plating, one boot finding purchase on the stirrup brace, and swung herself into the saddle. The armour groaned beneath her weight as the Basilisk stirred with a deep mechanical rumble that made the ground tremble.
For a moment, she sat perfectly still, adjusting the reins, the harness, the balance. Then the droid lifted its head fully, wings unfolding in a sudden blaze of reflected firelight that drew a collective gasp from the watching crowd.
Bastila’s heart hammered once, sharp and steady. The creature’s focus met hers again through the visor sensors, an unspoken understanding sealed in silence.
“Just like a Fathier yeah?” she breathed. “Then let’s show them.”
The quartermaster stepped back with a low whistle. “You’re mad, Handmaiden. But being mad means you will be a strong bes'uliik rider.”
The Basilisk’s engines hummed, wings flexing. The crowd roared approval. From the dais, Bastila could feel Sibylla’s eyes and her voice rang out, delighted, exasperated, proud all at once.
Bastila allowed herself a single smirk, eyes narrowing on the jousting rail ahead.
“Not for long,” she murmured — and with a hiss of repulsors, the Basilisk strode toward the arena gates.
Each heavy step sent ripples through the ground, the tremor rolling up through Bastila’s legs and chest as she adjusted her balance in the saddle. Her hands were steady, but her pulse was not. The roar of the crowd surged around her, Mandalorians cheering, senators gasping, a wild chorus of disbelief and delight that she tried, unsuccessfully, to tune out.
The visor display flickered to life across her vision, a line of telemetry and altitude data scrolling past. She ignored it. Her connection to the droid through the Force was clearer, it was faint, but present, like the ghost of a heartbeat. It wasn’t obedience she felt from the creature, but curiosity. It was waiting to see what kind of rider she’d be.
She leaned forward slightly, one gloved hand resting against the machine’s warm plating.
“Let’s not die, shall we?”
The Basilisk gave a low, mechanical growl that could only be described as amused.
From across the lane, a second Basilisk shifted into view, it was sleeker, cobalt-plated, its wings etched with a crest of a Naboo family. Its rider was already mounted, the sun flashing off the crest of his helm. She didn’t need the announcer’s voice to know who it was.
Abrantes. Of course.
The flare of recognition struck hot and it was followed swiftly by exasperation.
“Of all the people,” she muttered, half under her breath. “Why does it always have to be an Abrantes?”
The announcer’s voice thundered through the courtyard:
“Raise your hands for Bastila Sal-Soren and Elian Abrantes, who have just entered the jousts!”
A cheer erupted. Bastila’s grip on the reins tightened. Her Basilisk’s wings flexed in anticipation, the plates humming as the engines built to a low, rolling purr.
Elian’s voice crackled through the comms his tone was playful, fully intent on teasing with charm, “Alright, Sal-Soren. Let’s see what you got.”
She rolled her eyes, though the corner of her mouth betrayed a faint, unwilling smile. “Try to keep your mount in one piece, Abrantes. I’d hate to explain to the Queen why I accidently trampled one of her kin by a machine older than the Republic.”
The signal flare went up and the world exploded into motion.
Her Basilisk surged forward with a roar like thunder, repulsors igniting in a streak of blue-white light. The first few seconds were chaos, the wind, the light, the roar of the crowd and the pulse of the machine beneath her responding to every shift of her weight and every pulse of her thought. It wasn’t so much riding as syncing, she had to surrender to momentum, to instinct.
The other Basilisk, Elian on board met her charge head-on, the two war-beasts tearing down the lanes in mirrored arcs of fury and grace. Lances lowered, armour gleamed, and the space between them narrowed with every heartbeat.
Bastila’s focus locked. The Force sharpened everything from the hum of repulsors, the scent of ozone, even the breath before impact.
She didn’t flinch.
At the last instant, she leaned with the motion, angling her lance perfectly as the Basilisks crossed in a streak of dust and sound splitting open in the collision’s echo.
Whether she hit or missed, she wasn’t sure. She only knew that she laughed, not loud, but quiet and sharp, carried away by the raw pulse of the moment.
For the first time that night, Bastila Sal-Soren wasn’t the handmaiden, or the envoy, or the watchful hawk at the dais.
She was alive in that motion, a warrior again, riding the line between control and chaos.
