A girl and her little sister try to survive the Empire's approach on them as the last of their people, but for the elder sister, trying to protect her little sister and hide from the Imperial forces may be too much for her.
Tropes:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Koten’s repressed Force abilities surface just in time to catch her sister from falling to her death.
- Ambiguous Ending: On its surface, the short seemingly ends on a hopeful note, with the sisters defeating the Empire and living to see the stars again. However, the last shot shows two new stars appearing alongside their mother’s star. It’s left unclear if these are the sisters's souls joining their people in the heavens years down their lives, or if they drowned in the facility's collapse and the last few minutes have been a Dying Dream.
- Art Shift: The present day story is told with stop-motion armatures, but the backstory of Tichina and Koten’s mother is told in 2D animation resembling cave paintings.
- Big Sister Instinct: Koten is motivated mainly by the desire to keep Tichina safe, and refuses to take any risks other than those absolutely necessary to keep the two of them alive. However, Tichina believes Living Is More than Surviving, and often acts out, to Koten's exasperation.
- Decoy Protagonist: Between the two sisters, Tichina is initially presented as the central focus. Then Koten sets out to steal water from the Empire's plant, at which point the story shifts to her efforts to protect her sister while also reconciling with her nature as a force user.
- Destination Defenestration: At the climax, Tichina is captured and a stormtrooper throws her off a balcony. Koten leaps to grab and fails to catch her with her hands, but not with the Force.
- Earthy Barefoot Character: Neither of the natives wear shoes, though Tichina starts out the more connected to the earth and Koten takes a while to get there.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Confronted by the AT-ST that killed their mother, Koten and Tichina reach out as if to crush it with the Force, but nothing happens. Then it's shown that they weren't aiming at the AT-ST, but the industrial water pipes behind it, which burst and wash everything away: the AT-ST, the Imperials, the factory, and the sisters themselves.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The art of Koten and Tichina's people is modeled after Selk'nam art, and like the Selk'nam, they were hunted and nearly exterminated for access to their land's natural resources.
- Heroic Lineage: Koten and Tichina's mother was strong in the Force, and led an attack to destroy the Imperial factory, easily sweeping aside stormtroopers with her powers. However, as she tried to sabotage the factory's water supply, an AT-ST emerged and killed her, and the Imperials subsequently razed her village, leaving Koten and Tichina the only survivors.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: An Imperial officer serves as the Big Bad, but the primary physical threat is an AT-ST who flashbacks reveal was the one who murdered Tichina’s and Koten’s mother.
- Last of Their Kind: No other people of Tichina and Koten’s species are seen, and the Imperials state they thought they killed them all in the natives’ failed uprising.
- Living Is More than Surviving: It's never outright stated, but this is the crux of the conflict between Tichina and Koten. The latter wishes only to survive in their new existence, but Tichina has a fighter's spirit, and wants to rise against the Imperial occupiers; eventually, Tichina's resolve bleeds into Koten, allowing them to destroy the facility.
- Karmic Death: At the end Tichina and Koten collapse the reservoir facility, and the Imperials are drowned in the very water they had been stealing from the natives.
- Shout-Out: The bisected mountain peak and style of the 2D exposition art evokes Journey (2012).
- Stars Are Souls: The souls of the sisters' people are said to be the stars in the sky, and the most prominent star being the soul of their mother.
- Willfully Weak: At first it seems Koten doesn't have any force abilities, even in the flashback animation, her mother and sister are shown using the force while Koten does things the mundane way. It's not until the climax that we see that not only can she use the Force, but she's extremely powerful to boot.
