The figure that emerged from the ship's ramp moved like someone fighting gravity itself. Each step forward threatened to be her last. Pale skin, chalk-white against Dathomir's crimson landscape. A smooth, hairless head. Facial tattoos that cut sharp lines across her features—traditional Dathomirian markings, but faded, as though time and distance had tried to erase them.
Wanda's hands moved before conscious thought caught up. Scarlet energy lanced out, wrapping gently around the woman's torso as her knees buckled. The magic held her upright, suspended her mid-collapse.
"Stay here," Wanda murmured to the girls, already moving forward.
Through the twisted trees, other Nightsisters emerged. Wanda felt them before she saw them—presences in the Force, moving through the canopy with predatory grace. Shadows detached from shadows. Figures materialized from behind gnarled trunks and moss-covered stones. The clan was watching, assessing this unexpected arrival.
Wanda stepped closer to the swaying stranger, guiding her with gentle pulses of magic. The woman's eyes were unfocused, glazed with exhaustion or injury or both. But as the crimson light caught her face at a different angle, recognition sparked in Wanda's chest.
"Ilsigi?" The name slipped out, barely a whisper.
The woman didn't respond. Couldn't respond, perhaps.
Behind Wanda, small footsteps approached despite her instruction. Illyana appeared at her elbow, staring at the newcomer. The girl's face went sheet-white.
"Auntie?" Illyana breathed the word like a prayer.
And yes—there it was. The resemblance was uncanny. Take away the tattoos, add hair to that bare scalp, soften the hard lines that violence and betrayal had carved into the features, and this woman could be Ilsigi's twin.
"Wanda." Mother Talzin's voice drifted through the clearing like smoke. The Nightsister matriarch emerged from behind a twisted tree, her presence warping the air around her. Green energy—not scarlet, but that sickly luminescent green that marked Dathomirian magick—flickered at her fingertips. "Step back, child. Let me see her."
Wanda obeyed, though she kept her magic steady, supporting the stranger's weight.
Mother Talzin circled the woman slowly, eyes narrowing. Those eyes—ancient, knowing, touched by powers that predated the Jedi and Sith both—traced the newcomer's features with something that might have been recognition. Might have been grief.
"Your instincts serve you well, Maximoff." Talzin's gnarled fingers reached out, touched the woman's face. "Someone has indeed returned home."
More Nightsisters gathered now, dropping from the canopy or stepping from the forest's depths. Wanda spotted June among them—her friend, her teacher in the ways of Dathomirian combat. June's yellow eyes widened, confusion and curiosity warring in her expression.
Whispers rippled through the assembled sisters. Outsiders were never allowed on Dathomir. Never welcomed. The fact that Talzin permitted this intrusion at all—
"She was one of ours," Talzin announced, her voice cutting through the murmurs like a blade. "Long ago. One we protected. One who protected us in return." The matriarch's gaze swept across the gathered clan. "And now she has need of our aid."
"But Mother—" one sister began.
"She is Asajj." Talzin's proclamation silenced all dissent. "Daughter of Ilsigi. Blood of our blood. She has come home."
The gasps that followed were audible even over the wind through twisted branches. Merlin's eyes went huge, round as moons. Illyana's hand found Wanda's, gripped it tight.
"Bring her," Talzin commanded, already striding toward the village center.
Wanda's magic lifted Asajj fully now, cradling her unconscious form as gently as she'd cradled the girls earlier. The woman weighed almost nothing—too thin, too worn, too much damage written in the lines of her body. Wanda followed Talzin, the other Nightsisters falling into step behind them in a solemn procession.
The village center was a circular clearing ringed by stone structures and living trees that had been shaped through magick into dwellings. At its heart, Mother Talzin raised both hands. Green energy poured from her palms into the earth. The ground rumbled, shifted, and a flat stone table rose from the dirt like a breaching whale. Smooth. Perfect. Ancient.
"Place her here," Talzin instructed.
Wanda lowered Asajj onto the stone with care that bordered on reverent. Up close, she could see the extent of the damage. Bruises mottled pale skin. Cuts, half-healed and infected, traced patterns along her arms. But worse than the physical injuries was something deeper—a wrongness in the Force around this woman, a wound that went soul-deep.
"Bring the Waters of Life," Talzin commanded.
Several Nightsisters darted into the village's largest structure. Wanda remained by the stone table, one hand hovering near Asajj's shoulder. The girls pressed close to her legs, unusually quiet.
The sisters returned bearing clay vessels, heavy with liquid that sloshed with each step. Others brought bowls—carved from bone, from wood, from stone—and arranged them in a perfect circle around the table. They moved with ritual precision, each placement deliberate, each gesture laden with meaning.
Green liquid poured from the vessels into the bowls. It caught the light, seemed to glow from within. The Waters of Life—Wanda had seen them used before, for healing grievous injuries, for communing with the dead, for rituals that touched the boundary between life and death.
Mother Talzin positioned herself at Asajj's head. Her hands moved through the air, tracing patterns that left trails of green luminescence. She began to chant—low, rhythmic, in the old tongue of Dathomir that Wanda had only partially learned.
Green mist rose from the bowls, curling upward like serpents. It filled the air, thickened until Wanda could taste it—bitter herbs, ancient earth, something that made her magic respond with an almost jealous crackle.
"You have returned, Asajj," Talzin murmured, her voice carrying through the mist. "You are safe now. You are home."
The mist descended onto Asajj's prone form, seeping through her skin, through the pores, through wounds visible and invisible. Her body spasmed once, back arching off the stone, then went still.
And behind her closed eyelids, her eyes began to move rapidly.
"The healing requires truth," Talzin said softly. "It demands memory. The Waters will find what is broken and knit it whole again—but she must relive what brought her to this moment." The matriarch's gaze found Wanda's. "Do not interfere. This is the way."
Wanda nodded, though dread settled heavy in her stomach. She knew something about reliving trauma. She knew about memories that cut deeper than any blade.
The mist filled Asajj's consciousness like water filling a sinking ship.
Voices, distant at first, growing clearer.
"We have to let her go. It's the only way she'll be safe."
"This is my daughter! I will never—"
"This is not only for us, but for her. If he comes—"
"He will not have her. I cannot let him take my daughter."
Images coalesced from the fog. A younger Ilsigi—beautiful, fierce, holding an infant wrapped in red cloth. Tears streamed down her face, catching the light of Dathomir's suns. Around her, other Nightsisters argued, pleaded, insisted.
A ship. Old. Battered. A pilot named Halstead, a smuggler who owed the clan a debt.
Ilsigi clutched the infant tighter. The baby—Asajj, so small, so helpless—reached up with tiny fingers, grasping at her mother's face.
"I'm sorry," Ilsigi whispered, voice breaking. "I'm so sorry, my little one. This is to save you. Remember that. Remember us. Remember you are Dathomirian."
Other hands—gentle but firm—pried the infant away. Ilsigi cried out, lunged forward. The sisters held her back. Halstead took the baby, wrapped her more securely, turned toward his ship.
The last thing infant Asajj saw, looking back over the smuggler's shoulder, was her mother's face—twisted with grief, painted with tears—reaching out with one hand as though she could pull her daughter back through sheer force of will.
Then the ship's ramp closed, and Dathomir disappeared into the stars.
Time fractured. Reformed.
Rattatak. A world of ash and blood, where warlords ruled through brutality and the strong devoured the weak.
A child, no longer an infant but not yet grown, scrubbed floors in a warlord's compound. Her hands were raw, blistered. She wore rags. Around her neck—a chain. Not metaphorical. Actual iron links that marked her as property.
She'd taken the name Ventress. The name of the warlord family that owned her. The only name she knew.
Days blurred into months, months into years. Beatings for slight infractions. Scraps of food. Cold nights huddled in a cellar with other slaves. She learned to make herself small, invisible, unremarkable.
Until the day she returned from hauling water to find chaos.
The compound burned. Bodies littered the courtyard. And there—on the steps of the main hall—her master lay dying. A Weequay blade jutted from his chest. His eyes, already glazing, found her.
"Run," he rasped. Then gone.
Weequay raiders poured through the compound, killing everyone, taking everything. Asajj ran. Hid behind a water barrel, hands over her mouth to muffle her breathing.
A lightsaber's snap-hiss cut through the screams.
Blue-green light, radiant and pure. A man—robed, bearded, moving with impossible grace—carved through the Weequay like they were smoke. His blade sang. Raiders fell.
When the silence came, he turned. Found her hiding place with a gentle probe of the Force.
"You're safe now, little one." He extended his hand. "What is your name?"
"Asajj." Her voice cracked, unused. "Ventress."
"I am Ky Narec. Jedi Knight." His smile was warm, fatherly. "You are strong in the Force, Asajj Ventress. I can feel it. Would you like to learn to protect yourself? To protect others?"
Her hand, small and scarred, slipped into his large, calloused one.
Warmth. Safety. For the first time in memory, hope.
Years passed in rapid flashes.
Training. Ky Narec teaching her to meditate, to center herself, to reach out with the Force. His ship had crashed on Rattatak during the chaos of a pirate raid. He was stranded. But he made the best of it, using his skills to free the oppressed, to bring justice to a lawless world.
And Asajj—his unofficial Padawan, never sanctioned by the Jedi Council, never recognized by the Order—trained beside him.
She learned lightsaber forms. Learned to read the Force's currents. Learned what it meant to be Jedi, even if she'd never wear the title.
"You are like a daughter to me," Ky Narec told her one evening, watching Rattatak's bloodred sunset. "I am proud of who you're becoming."
"And you are the father I never had, Master."
They were heroes to the lower classes. Saviors to the enslaved. For years, they fought together, brought light to a dark world.
Until the warlords grew tired of losing.
The attack came at dawn.
Hundreds of them—mercenaries, assassins, every thug and killer the warlords could hire. They came with blasters, with blades, with numbers that should have been overwhelming.
Ky Narec fought like a legend. His lightsaber was everywhere at once, deflecting bolts, cutting down attackers. But there were too many. Always too many.
A Weequay assassin—big, brutal, faster than he looked—got through. His vibroblade caught Ky Narec in the side, punched through robes and flesh.
Asajj screamed.
She was at his side in an instant, her own training blade forgotten. "Master! No, no, no—"
Ky Narec's hands—trembling, slick with blood—reached for her face. Cupped her cheek. "Asajj... I'm sorry... don't—"
The light left his eyes. His hand fell.
His presence in the Force—steady, warm, the bedrock of her entire world—flickered out like a candle in the wind.
"MASTER!" The word tore from her throat, raw and broken.
Something inside her shattered. Grief became rage. Rage became power.
She grabbed Ky Narec's lightsaber. Ignited it. Blue-green light bathed her tear-streaked face.
The warlords, the assassins, the mercenaries—they all died screaming.
The dark side welcomed her with open arms.
More memories, faster now.
Rattatak, liberated at last. The mission Ky Narec had started, she finished. But the victory tasted like ashes.
She left. Became a bounty hunter. Fought for credits, for survival, for the hollow satisfaction of being the most dangerous thing in any room.
She went to Coruscant. Sought the Jedi Temple, thinking perhaps they would accept her, give her purpose again.
They arrested her instead. For the killings on Rattatak. For what she'd done after Ky Narec fell.
Prison. Then release, conditional, temporary.
The Clone Wars began. And with it, opportunity.
Count Dooku sought warriors. Dark side users. People with nothing left to lose.
Asajj fought her way through gladiatorial combat on Rattatak, crushing opponent after opponent, until Dooku noticed.
"I can sense the darkness within you," the Count said, his presence in the Force like oil on water—slick, deep, cold. "I will teach you to wield the dark side properly. But first, you must prove your worth."
She proved it. Again and again. Missions for the Separatists. Assassinations. Sabotage.
Dooku trained her. Not as a Padawan—the Sith Rule of Two forbade true apprentices. But as an acolyte. An assassin. A dark side adept who could do the work too dirty even for a Sith Lord.
She served him faithfully. Hunted Jedi. Killed Republic soldiers. Embraced the darkness that Ky Narec's death had born in her.
Until recently—
Asajj's body spasmed on the stone table. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. The green mist swirled faster, more urgently, knitting together wounds both physical and spiritual.
Mother Talzin's chanting grew louder, more insistent. "Come back, daughter of Dathomir. You have remembered. Now heal."
Wanda tightened her grip on the girls' shoulders, her own magic crackling in sympathetic response to the raw pain radiating from Asajj's unconscious form.
Whatever had happened "recently" to bring Asajj Ventress back to Dathomir—broken, alone, stripped of everything—remained locked behind the veil of the healing ritual.
But Wanda could guess. Betrayal. Loss. The dark side taking everything it had promised to give.
The same story, always. Just different names.
The mist began to dissipate. Asajj's breathing evened out. Color—pale as it was—returned to her cheeks.
And on the stone table, Dathomir's lost daughter finally came home.