Star Wars - Kenobi

the gaderffii—and then did something that astonished Annileen and the Tuskens both.
    He placed it on the ground.
    Slowly, so the Tuskens could clearly see what he was doing.
    Plug-eye, who had closed half the distance to them in the previous moments, stopped.
    Ben kept his eyes on the Tuskens as he released the weapon and backed up. “I’m showing,” he said, just above a murmur, “that I haven’t taken a trophy.”
    He took another step back and gave the hoverbike a gentle shove with his hand. Annileen, startled, clutched in vain at the seat as it passed.
    The vehicle floated gingerly across the distance to the lead Tusken, who grabbed at it. In a hurried move, Plug-eye yanked the body from the speeder bike and knelt over it, while the other warriors stood behind.
    Annileen watched as the hated marauder examined the body. Something was off. The crease of the cloth, the shape of the kneeling figure. But mostly, the way Plug-eye touched the face of the dead youth—
    “She’s a female,” Annileen whispered to Ben. “She’s his mother.”
    A’Yark looked up at the sound of the Airshaper’s voice and howled.
    Who cares if the settlers hear? Fury charged through A’Yark’s tired limbs. Many foolish warriors had died this day. But A’Deen had acted as a Tusken!
    A’Yark bellowed and lifted her son’s gaderffii. Behind her, the others raised their rifles. The Airshaper had caused this. Her existence had compelled A’Yark to lead her people into this great massacre. Who cares if the Airshaper has a blaster, or great powers? She will pay!
    Before A’Yark could take another step, Hairy Face darted in front of the Airshaper, his brown robe parting as he moved. Metal flashed at the human’s waist, catching the afternoon suns.
    A weapon? No matter! A’Yark charged—
    —and stopped, looking again at the short metal rod hanging from a clip in the folds of the man’s cloak. The Airshaper could not see it, but A’Yark could. And A’Yark remembered seeing such a thing before, years earlier.
    “Sharad,” A’Yark said, pointing at the man’s half-hidden weapon. “Sharad Hett.”
    Now it was Ben’s turn to look stupefied. Annileen couldn’t see what had made the Tusken woman stop her advance. But whatever she had just said had apparently mystified Ben.
    “Sharad?” Ben gently closed the folds of his cloak, suddenly seeming to understand. “You knew Sharad Hett.”
    Behind, a couple of the warriors started to move again. The war leader snarled at them. An argument ensued. Ben listened, keenly interested.
    “A’Yark,” Ben finally said, daring to interrupt. “That is your name? A’Yark!”
    Hearing her name in a settler’s mouth made A’Yark flinch. Names were precious things to Tuskens. The humans gave names to animals, so they would come when called. No settler had the right to call a Tusken anywhere. Not if he wanted to live.
    And yet, Hairy Face was something else. He carried the blade of light, just like Sharad Hett. The wizardly warrior who had come to live with their people, so many years before—a being wielding the same magic powers A’Yark had ascribed to the Airshaper.
    One of A’Yark’s younger companions started forward again. He had not known Sharad, not understood the human’s power. Before A’Yark could say anything, Hairy Face raised his hand.
    “You don’t want to hurt us,” he said, using the strange settler words. A’Yark understood them, barely. She had learned the talk from her adopted sister, K’Sheek—and Hett, whom her sister had married.
    The young warrior did not know the human words. And yet, he said them now, in the Tusken tongue. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
    “There has been enough killing,” Hairy Face said.
    “There has been enough killing,” the warrior repeated.
    A’Yark gawked. Those were words no Tusken had ever said in any language. There was no doubt. A’Yark realized her mistake. The Airshaper hadn’t saved herself from being crushed out in the desert that day. It had been Hairy Face with the power, all along.
    A’Yark recalled the settler building from earlier, and the bodies on the floor. The blows dealt her kin had not resembled blaster marks—and Sand People surely knew those. A’Yark hadn’t thought anything of it then. But now?
    “Stay back,” A’Yark told her companions. “I will explain later. Stay back—and beware.”
    The Tuskens shifted anxiously but complied, moving back toward the depression.
    “Ben?” the