By Candlelight
Suggested Theme:
Main Theme- "Lonely" Song by Brad Sucks
"Where was I?"
"Um, you didn't even start. You went straight for a clipped version of the ending and then stormed out."
"Ah, that's right."
Desolous looks down into the sunset-colored water of his tea cup. It's half empty, while Anakin's is completely full because he never liked the taste of Kopi tea.
Tastes too much like blood with a citrus aftertaste. Whenever he got cooped up at the Inquisitorius headquarters for too long, he would drink this tea to contain his bloodlust. I guess that hasn't changed. Anakin also notes that this room is as a spacious as the training salles for the Temple Guards, but it's far more Inquisitor in design.
Black is the dominating color of the room; black walls, black floorboards, black table, black chairs, and even the tea set is black.
The only color in this room besides him and me are the candles and tea; red as blood. Is this really how he pictured his perfect room in the Afterlife? Or did he just imagined this for me since we only got to know each other when we were Dark Siders?
"Do you recognize the candles, Knight Skywalker?"
"Kind of. I was only in your room that one time."
"The candles you saw then were a gift from Brendol; the only token of our relationship I could display without fear."
"Oh, so was he like a candlestick maker before the war and you fell for him!" Desolous sneers at him like he said a xenophobic slur.
"He was a child mercenary from the pfassking Unknown Regions!" Desolous snarls and then pinches the bridge of his nose to calm himself down. "And besides, he would never settle for being a candlestick maker."
"He was a child mercenary? I'm pretty certain that not even the Outer Rim draft boards were desperate enough to enlist a fourteen-year-old."
"Knight Skywalker, if you keep on commenting, then I'll be unable to finish the story."
"Oh, right, sorry!"
"By child mercenary, I mean his mother sold him when he was six-years-old to a mercenary who then trained him to be one." Desolous pause, waiting to see if Anakin would interrupt. But the former Chosen One manages to keep his mouth shut.
"He was barely seventeen when the Clone Wars started; he happened to hear about it from an ex-Jedi Jawa and decided to enlist through the Myomar Academy." There was a Jawa in the Jedi Order!? I didn't know they could be Force-sensitive. And he was an ex-Jedi before the war, so what made him quit the Order? And why haven't I heard of him? Anakin bites down on his lips to keep from sidetracking Desolous.
"After graduation, he eventually made his way to Coruscant and had trouble finding his way around the city-planet…"
"...I swear, Senator, I'm telling the truth!"
"I believe you, Armitage, but he's a ghost of a Sith Lord; telling lies comes far too naturally for them."
"He was a Sith Spirit." Armitage sends a glare at Luke for the third time since they began walking back to the Great Temple.
The Sith Spirit clearly took advantage of his trusting nature and desperate need for paternal affection, but I doubt he would believe any word that comes from my "hateful" mouth. Luke knows that if he was younger or maybe wizened like Yoda he would've stuck his tongue out at the ginger child.
"The kid's just as annoying as his old man." Han mutters, and Luke sees Han watching the way Armitage has his family completely captivated.
Armitage is right in the middle of Leia and Ben, holding their hands and acting as a bridge for them. Ben refused to have it any other way; he's gotten far more possessive thanks to the damn Sith Lord! Luke sighs inwardly and wonders if he'll be able to curtail the darker inclinations of his nephew.
"I think he's just misguided; the Sith Lord probably brainwashed him against Jedi." Luke mutters back.
"Ashla's Advocate, if you're going to talk shit about me, then do it to my face!" The child declares with a flash of his slightly crooked teeth.
"Armitage!"
"Sorry, Senator!" The child's bravado deflates like a balloon, while Ben is trying to smother back a snort with his other free hand.
Oh Force, I'm going to have to deal with that for the next several weeks!
Brendol is relieved when the initiate finally leaves him be. However, he's left with a nigh impossible task: going back to sleep.
Too many thoughts jangling around my head for sleep. But I need to sleep like the medic told me to. There's really nothing in there that can put me to sleep. Even watching Dark Crystal won't work because the dragonling isn't here to watch–
"Commandant!" Armitage screeches to a halt before the archway and stands at parade rest.
He looks like a patchwork of superheroes. He has Raven's cowl, Brainiac 5.1's outfit, and Phantom Girl's color scheme. So the Sith Lord was a DC fanboy? The theory makes Brendol's lips twitch with delight.
"At ease, cadet." The tension leaves Armitage's shoulders, but his back remains straight as a lightning rod. He nods at him to come to his side like they were touring First Order ships together again.
"Commandant…how badly did you get hurt?" He had the same guilty expression when we survived the Lesser Dragon; all wide eyes and twisting the bottom of his shirt like me. But green eyes like Rama. So he lets out a low chuckle that stops Armitage's fidgeting.
"I took a Wookie arrow to the hip, but I should be right as rain by the end of next month." Armitage wrinkles his nose in disgust at the Arkanian expression. Like with any reminder of the rain-soaked planet.
"Does the Grand Admiral know you're here?"
"Not here exactly. Like before, she gave me all the time in the universe to find you and bring you back by any means necessary." Armitage looks down at his boots like he knows that he'll become a problem, and Brendol knows that the Grand Admiral will be very cross with him.
"About that…I think it would be best if I stay with the Prince; he needs support and I doubt Skywalker can do that!" He's not even trying to hide his anger; Luke must've really pissed him off. Boy, how did he accomplish that feat? He and Den trained Armitage to save his anger for battle.
"How long are you planning on staying beside him?" Armitage looks up at the ceiling with a sheepish expression.
"As long as he needs me?"
Brendol bursts out laughing.
"….Why are you laughing?"
"B-Because," Brendol has to wipe a tear away. "That's exactly what I said to Desolous when we got together."
"Desolous?"
"The Grand Inquisitor. Have I never talked about him to you?" Armitage hums and scavenges through his memories.
"Sort of. I mean I think the only things I know about him was that he was your first love and you learned Pau'an because of him."
"Both of which are true. I thought I told you more about him than that….."
"Well, you preferred to talk about father." Armitage looks at him, searching for something akin to rejection.
"Yes, well…..I think it's about time I tell you how I met Desolous." Armitage perks up at that and hops onto the bed's end and crosses his legs.
"Den and I were celebrating our seventeenth birthday at Chu'la's Den; we were both knocking back rice wine when Akial suddenly cursed like a smuggler."
"What kind of cursing are we talking? Poodoo? Pfassk? Kark?"
"Worse, far worse, at least to him; his kind of cursing would've made him an outcast amongst the Jawas if any respectable Jawa heard him. It sounded more like he was hocking a loogie while reciting Huttese backwards."
"I am so going to tease him about this!" He's as delighted as when he found that cat. Brendol wisely holds his tongue from bringing up that cat.
"Save it for after your fourteenth birthday party. We asked him what's wrong, and he told us in a very pissed-off tone that the Jedi have gone to war. I presume the Force told him." He shrugs his shoulders, while Armitage nods.
"Anyways, I figured that this would be my only chance to see Jedi in action and decided to enlist at the closest Republic academy: Myomar."
"The same academy that Eli Vanto would attend!"
"Yes, but it was a mostly forgotten mess in the twilight years of the Old Republic and staffed by people who knew that. Which is why I graduated at the top of my class in about six months. I then had to fly myself to Coruscant because the academy was too cash-strapped to send one cadet off; they didn't even give me a holo-map of the planet."
"Probably because none of the staff have ever been there."
"And most still won't. After a few dull days in hyperspace, I finally made it to Coruscant and had no pfassking idea where I was supposed to go. I wandered for almost half a day before stumbling upon the Jedi Temple."
"Did you not ask for directions?"
"If I was in uniform, I probably would've gotten the directions I sought immediately, but the way I dressed had people thinking I was soliciting for death sticks."
"So Brendol came up to the steps just before the changing of the guards; he was dressed like a rent boy."
"Wait, so he was wearing a gimp suit in broad daylight?"
"He never was a BDSM enthusiast, at least not with me." Desolous scowls for a moment before resuming. "He was wearing pants, the kind of pants a stripper would tear at the slightest Force tug, and a midriff."
"…A midriff?"
"A midriff. My fellow guardsman joked over the Force that this is the first time he's ever seen a hooker in broad daylight." Anakin grins from perfect ear to perfect ear. "What is it?"
"I know the next part. You stiffly walked up to him like you were going to detain him; he turned around like he was going to run, giving you a view of his sweet ass. And then you asked how you could help him!"
"…..You are so kriffing wrong."
"Was he going to detain you for soliciting until you told him the truth?"
"It was certainly an option to him, but he chose not to. He actually turned around and was about to go inside, so I blurted out something….embarrassing in retrospect." Armitage furrows his brows like he's searching for the answer, and when he's got one, he blushes with embarrassment.
"…..Please, tell me you didn't go with, 'What is thy bidding, Tall One!'" Brendol scratches the back of his head.
"That would've made more sense."
"I was going to leave, but he suddenly shouted out: 'Um, Elric, can I be your Moonglum?'"
"…What?" Anakin's entire face warps into befuddlement.
"That was exactly how I replied."
"What the Hells kind of name is Elric!?"
"It's from one of his comic books that he's oh-so fond of. He was quite disappointed that I didn't look like him when I finally showed him my face…" Desolous grumbles. Anakin makes a mental note to use that later if Desolous ever gets on his nerves.
"So what happened next?"
"He realized that he was being a weirdo and backtracked on his weirdness like he does whenever he's out of the Unknown Regions." Anakin raises his eyebrows. "He asked for directions to where the Republic Center of Military Operations was; I gave him the directions, and he left."
"…..That's it?"
"That's it."
"Poodoo! When did you meet up again? When did you become lovers? What is up with the candles?"
"Those are stories for another time." Anakin's face turns a furious red.
"Oh, that's karking–"
And Bruck Chun rushes inside.
"Anakin, you're grandson and the ginger he's stalking were found!"
"That's wonderful!"
"And they were held captive by a Sith Spirit in his Dark Temple!"
"WHAT!?"
Anakin knocks Bruck out of the way to presumably return to his room, while Bruck curses and follows after him. Desolous finishes his tea and then foes to his closet; he brings out the holoprojector and switches it on.
He sees two gingers, a father and a son, on a bed. The older ginger is slouching his shoulders and smiling as he chats away to the younger ginger. The younger ginger is sitting with his back perfectly straight like a proper soldier boy, or a son who isn't quite used to being in his father's company for long periods of time.
"I wasn't actually assigned to anyone for a good couple of months; they thought because I came from such a backwater school that I couldn't even file away flimsi properly. So I didn't get to see a Jedi in action until Tarkin suddenly decided he needed another junior officer, even though he had a stable of them…"
"I bet he chose you because he wanted one junior officer that wasn't a plotting sycophant and for your battle prowess!"
"Nailed it right on the head. Plus, I had the neatest handwriting out of his staff. Apparently, they don't teach calligraphy in the Inner Rim…"
Both of the gingers laugh, while Desolous smiles on and thinks this is how it ought to be.
Even if they don't believe it, they're perfectly fine without Triclops. And, Force, let Brendol realize that before it's too late…
Author's Comments- Here are the links:
Here is the link to the song mentioned in the "Main Theme" section because I have a feeling most of you probably haven't heard this song. Also, the animation for the song sequence is beautiful: a href=" /exX4XhxJGy4?t=79"Link/a
Here is an image of the room that inspired part of Desolous's room in the Jedi Afterlife; the rest of the room came from Kannan's vision about Desolous being a Temple Guard. It's from The Masque of the Red Death which starred Vincent Price and was adapted from the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name with a subplot coming from "Hop-Frog." I fell in love with the film, its set, and writing. And the Red Death character's design reminded me of Palpatine's Royal Guards, so maybe the Originals costume designer was a fan of that film: a href=" . /-5I87WJuLpZE/T_BhqlKRy8I/AAAAAAAALWI/fdcYIIrXVi0/s1600/masque+ "Link/a
For those of you wondering what the Seven Sith Hells is Elric, about a few months ago, I got myself the first issue of "The Vanishing Tower" arc of the Elric comic series by First Comics; it was chronologically part four of a six part series. From what I gathered from the summary, Elric is an albino descended from a long line of sorcerer-warrior-kings, was born weak and influenced by the Chaos God to get this god-level sword and proceeds to accidently destroy his kingdom and the love of his life in the process of destroying his treacherous brother. And Moonglum is like his human best friend who happens to have red hair in the comic issue I have.
Anyways, I decided to leave the chunk of the Skywalker-Organa-Solo family drama for the next part of the series in favor of focusing on Desolous and Brendol. It's almost a side story that won't really come into effect until much later in the series. I really should one day fully write out a series revolving on Brendol/Grand Inquisitor at some point…..