“NO!”
The droid general could only watch as a lithe bronze form leapt from the shadows, intercepting the blaster’s shot aimed for his damaged chest plating. In mess of limbs and cloth, the Draconian girl tumbled across the dais, crashing into the support struts of the damaged interceptor with a bone-shattering crunch. Before the Jedi even had a chance to react, Grievous had bolted, forgetting all about the battle as he raced to her side. He froze for a moment barely a hand’s breadth away, gazing down upon the strange girl that had come to mean so much to him. What if the shot had killed her? The mere thought made his heart twist painfully in his chest, and he collapsed on his knees beside her, a three-fingered hand reaching out to rest on the Draconian’s shoulder.
“Subira?”
A second of tense silence, then a soft moan slipped away from her, and the cyborg felt his heart leap for joy at the sound. Golden slit-pupiled eyes eased open, blinking before turning to focus on him. Thin scaled lips turned up in a weak grin.
“Hey, G-man. How’s it goin’?”
He almost laughed at the absurd nickname, the general’s feral eyes tilting in a return smile.
“I should be asking you that question.”She snickered, then winced, her grin twisting into a grimace of pain as she began to breathe in harsh gasps, clamping one arm close to her side.
“I-I’ve been better.”
The cyborg felt a seed of dread settle in what little remained of his stomach. Carefully, he helped the reptilian girl turn over onto her back, resting her head on his narrow lap as he eased her arm away. It was an awful wound, stretching down her ribcage in one long gash surrounded by blackened flesh, shallower on one end than the other from the angle of the shot that had punched through her side. Blood seeped from the gash where crispified skin had cracked open, seeping into the thin fabric of her gray-brown robes. She would likely die without prompt treatment.
“How bad is it?”The droid general stiffened, and spun his head around to meet the gaze of the Jedi he had been dueling mere moments before. For a split-second, he found himself glaring death at the blue-eyed human, then felt a clawed hand clasp his own. She needed medical care…
“Very.”
Kenobi stepped around the cyborg, kneeling down at the girl’s free side to get a better look at the injury. Two pairs of golden eyes watched, one wary, the other glazed with pain, as he lay his hands on either side of the wound. His grasp of the Force was tenuous, as the battle with Grievous had been intense beyond belief, but he called on it anyway, knowing it was up to him to help the innocent who had taken the hit for the general now seated across from him. Several moments passed with no change whatsoever. Then, as if by magic, the burned and bleeding flesh began to regenerate, blood retreated into its proper vessels, the injury slowly knitting back together. It took longer than he would have liked, his fatigue wearing on him, but the girl’s wound was healed.
“It’ll be sore and tender for a while, but you should be alright as long as you take it easy.”
She smiled, easing up into a sitting position with the droid general’s help.
“No more playing tag with bullets. Will do, Doc.”
The curious trio rose to their collective feet, the girl leaning heavily on her cyborg companion as the two generals made eye contact. Grievous spoke first, his synthesized voice steeped with loathing.
“This changes nothing, Jedi. I will have your saber join my collection, sooner or later.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
With that, they went their separate ways, Draconian and droid striding back towards the cyborg’s curious vehicle while the Jedi whistled for his scaly steed.
Notes-
OC's Full Name: Subira (means patience in Swahili) Royce (Germanic for kind)
Draconian: Basically a human-sized winged dragon able to walk on both two and four legs.
