A Covenless Witch (from the stars)

They returned to the spaceship in the comfortable silence, something they’d perfected over the years they’d travelled together, until it was time to take off: which he generally left her to do alone. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, and didn’t on many a hurried occasion, take off with him standing there: she’d even taught him to co-pilot with her, in case of emergencies, but he tended to avoid the sanctity of her routine, constructed long before he arrived on her ship. While she had no doubt she could fly a spaceship backwards, blindfolded, with her hands tied (something she would rather not experience again), she liked to focus, clearing her head and relaxing into the motions: something she struggled to do with another present, no matter how much she wanted to trust him. The whole thing was possibly a bad habit of her Jedi days, but not one she resented enough to let go. It was still a part of who she was, and she prided herself on the ability to take those parts of the order and use them, while disregarding the anachronistic rules of the order: her own kind of power, which was what made her so dangerous: unpredictable, limitless, and uncontrollable.
After they left orbit, she felt Teen enter, placing a hand on her shoulder, and looking out of the front window at the stars ahead.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you that life,” she said, softly, breaking the silence in an unusual moment of sincerity.
“What do you mean?” he asked, confused.
“The stability, a home, friendships, relationships- you deserve all of those things, Billy”, she repeated, looking away from him and out of the window. He did a double take at her use of his given name.
“Stop being weird Agatha,” he replied with a small grin, pushing her shoulder playfully.
“Sorry?” she said, confused, asking for clarity. That was not the reaction she’d expected.
“I love being with Teddy, but I'd be bored in a minute with a life like that Agatha: you know how bored you’d be…” he pointed out. Fair point, he had her there, she acknowledged.
“I wouldn’t have my life any other way- just us and the ship travelling the galaxy together,” he added. That teenager was not about to make her cry, she scolded herself, taking a minute to collect her feelings and shove them away somewhere. Sometimes she forgot how young and hopeful he was: she had been so lost and hopeless at sixteen.
“I’ll remind you of that when you hit your twenties and can’t wait to be out of my sight,” she joked, although the statement still struck a nerve within her. She could never prepare herself for that day.
“Are we stopping by the usual place or travelling overnight?” Teen asked, having been absent for the acquisition of the cargo.
“Stopping over I think,” she replied, “We don’t have anything particularly urgent this run, just the usual. She liked this run for that reason: less urgency, and a plentiful number of largely uninhabited moons to stop over at. She loved her ship, but she also had a connection to nature which struggled on long distance space travel without pause. Of course, she did it anyway, but enjoyed it when she didn’t have to.
“Can we go to the one with the lake,” Billy asked eagerly.
“Sure,” she replied. The moon was nice, and the decision was not worth the internal struggle of trying to say no to Teen. Noone would ever believe it: Agatha Harkness, told what to do by a teenager, but it was true. It was also something about her that Teen would never find out.

——————————————————————————————————————————
When she stepped off the ship, she could see Teen sitting on the edge of the small rocky cliff, looking out over the dark lake. Unaware of her presence, he was picking up small rocks with the Force, hovering them in the air for a moment, then dropping them into the water. He was talented, given what little she’d shown him, and she knew she would teach him more. She planned on it, she just didn’t think it would be this soon. Carefully, she lifted the small rock away from him, lifting it up into the air a little, before crumbling it apart, letting the pieces tumble into the expanse of water. She usually avoided using the Force, or any Jedi skills in front of him, where she could, but she knew the time of that philosophy was coming to an end.
“I’m sorry, I know you said not to use it without you there I-”
“It’s okay, Teen,” she cut off, reassuringly, taking a deep breath to organise her thoughts. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something about that for a while, If that's okay,” she continued, pausing, and sitting down next to him on the edge.
He nodded in response, looking curious, but a little nervous.
“I’m no real Jedi,” she began slowly, “but if you wanted me to teach you, I'd be willing,” she eventually said, releasing an offer that had been jailed in her head for months. He looked at her, eyes widening slightly, clearly unable to believe what she’d just said.
“I won’t take you near the order, and there are some things I refuse to pass on, but if you want to learn- just think about it Teen,” she added quietly, making to get up and leave him to his thoughts.
“Wait,” he said, quickly. “I don’t need time to think. I want to do it, I just. I’ve been wanting to do this since you first picked me up, six years ago. What made you change your mind?”
“I think it’s been a long time coming,” she answered, slowly. He broke out into a grin, as if finally realising what was happening, before disappearing back into his thoughts.
“Okay, one last question?” he asked.
“Go ahead,” she encouraged, slightly curious about what he wanted to know.
“Why do you hate the order so much?” he blurted out, looking nervous. Of course that's what he wanted to know, she thought, her body tensing up and hand immediately falling to the weapon at her belt. No, she schooled her emotions. This is Teen, she corrected her automatic response, a range of emotions likely flashing across her face, trying to figure out what to tell him.
“That’s a loaded question, Teenager,” she eventually replied, letting out a sigh and looking over at him, where he waited patiently for her response. “And I’m not sure I’m ready to tell you- or anyone the answer to it. I always try to be honest with you, so I’m just going to say that one day I will tell you, and until then you’re just going to have to trust that I have a very good reason.”
“Okay, I do,” he replied, surprisingly of her extremely vague, and very unhelpful answer.
“Do what?” she asked, confused by his wording.
“Trust you, Agatha,” he said quietly.
“You sure that’s wise, kid,” she replied, cracking a joke to lighten the mood.
“Certain,” he said in response. “-and I do want you to teach me- even if you can’t tell me everything,” Teen continued, confidently.
“Okay,” she acknowledged, thinking carefully about her next actions before removing a weapon from her belt, and holding it out in front of her. She had put it there a few weeks ago, sensing this was going to happen sooner or later and now looked at it for a moment. “Then I want you to have this,” she said, carefully handing it to Teen.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked, in awe.
“The weapon of a Jedi,” she confirmed, standing up from the cliff edge and taking a step back. Teen followed, scrambling up decidedly less gracefully, almost making her laugh. “This one used to be mine,” she added.
“I can’t accept this,” he finally said, wide-eyed, looking between the weapon and Agatha.
“I don’t use it anymore,” she pointed out with a small smile, carefully taking the weapon off him and drawing the blade, unable to resist swinging the blue saber around a few times, before handing it over. “And I can’t train you if you don’t have one, it would be a little difficult,” she joked.
“But what are you going to use?” he asked, surprised.
“I haven’t used that one in years, I never said I haven’t used a lightsaber in that long,” she pointed out, with a light laugh, pulling her own weapon from her belt. “I built this one as soon as I had the resources, once I left the temple,” she explained, drawing the purple blade in front of her. “I haven’t really used that one since I was fourteen.” He looked over at her, at that, realising the weight of what she had given him- a piece of her hidden past, and she acknowledged him with a silent nod.
“So you’ve had that this whole time and I’ve just never noticed?” he asked in confusion.
“Well I never took you anywhere dangerous enough to need it for the first five years, and even recently I’ve been careful to avoid it when you were around,” she pointed out.
“Why?”
“I didn’t want this whole thing to be a part of your life until you were old enough to choose it,” she replied. “I would have if I’d really needed to, but there's little that can’t be done with some training and a blaster- save other Jedi- and I make a point to avoid them.”
“What about Sith?” he asked curiously.
“Just as bad as the order, honestly: they tried to recruit me after I left the Jedi. I spent a while trying to fend them off, but eventually they left me alone,” she explained, leaving out some significant details- that they only stopped following her after she killed one.
“So what are you exactly?” he pushed further, curiosity getting the better of him. Hell if she knew.
“I think the people of Coruscant have it right,” she mused, flipping the lightsaber in her hand. “I’m a covenless witch,” she joked, although with a note of sincerity, letting their conversation fade out as the sky gradually darkened into night.