What Came Before – Sar'ika

Smoke.

Sometimes, it still fills my dreams. Nothing but smoke, blinding black, searing my lungs and filling my nose. Other things begin to fill the smoke, other senses trying to make up for the lack of sight or smell. Blood, tangy and metallic, heavy on my tongue, though I'm not sure if it's mine, or belongs to someone else. Hot, sharp pain runs up my leg and spine, but I can't remember if I fell, or if the smoke I smell if from my own flesh as it burns. Sounds are what finally center me, bring me back to the present: explosions, some distant, some not so distant – and the soft, panicked whimper of the small children pressed against me in the dark. We'd been told to run, to hide, but no one had said where to go, where to hide, and the littlest ones had frozen in fear. Others had run off in any direction, not watching for what lay ahead, or who fell behind. I've always had a weakness for the little ones, staying with them when they cried, helping them when the failed at their tasks, watching out for the bullies that stalked even our small family. So when others ran, so did I, but in a different direction, back into the flames to find my littles, to bring them out of the darkness. But this darkness has no end, each turn and twist bringing with it another horror. My feet are dragging, palms scraped and cut from a dozen falls over dead bodies and onto shattered stone, but I pull my littles along. Another meter, or two, or ten, we will find safety, we will survive, but we

just…

have…

to keep…

going.

Figures loom up from the smoke, twice, three times as big as me, their faces metal skulls lit blood red by the flames. Terrified, I push the littles against the wall behind me, arms spread to try and protect them.

"Adike." One monster turns to the other, empty-eyed skull without mercy. "Kih adike."

"Kih kyr'ade," the other monster snarls back, taking a step towards us, something sharp and shiny ejecting from its hand with a wet thick. He's going to hurt the littles, I can read it in his movements; they're nothing to him, and will be even less dead. Everything goes black, blacker even than the smoke, black as the empty void between stars, with only one thing to fill it: no monster can have my littles. Everything I've been taught to avoid, to not feel, is there, all the hate, all the fear; it floods my mouth, overwhelming the taste of blood, and I hunger to taste it again. Somewhere, there's a scream, never ending, of pain and rage and all the dark, unspeakable things pushed far, far down so they can't be felt ever again. Maybe I'm screaming, maybe the whole universe is.

Or maybe it's just the monster, calling out to its companion as I draw my blade and slice off its head.

With a ringing sound like heavy bells from an ancient monastery I just can remember, the metal skull bounces once, twice, then lands at my feet, dumping something from its depths. And there, in the smoke, and fire, with the screams of the littles still ringing in my ears as flames claim them, I stare down at the face of my first kill.

My nightmare always ends there, disembodied head laying in a pile of sewage, the only light torches created by four burning toddlers. Buir used to wake me then, just before my screams would get lout enough to rouse the camp, holding me tight against his chest just the same as he had the night he carried me from the fire. "Udesii, ad'ika, udesii. It's all in the past, give it time, you'll forget." Soft words, meaningless at first, to lull me back asleep, strong arms still holding me safe from the darkness. Eventually, I learned to end the dreams myself, to force myself awake before the first scream passed my lips. But my first lesson in death became a lesson of another sort – sometimes, parents are wrong. I've never forgotten, and I will never forget.

Mando'ad draar digu – a Mandalorian never forgets.

Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum… Gislie, Troe, Birshan, Eadrin, Kaysh…

Vaelann.

A/N: Standard "I own nothing" disclaimer. I absolutely loved the BH storyline in TOR, but I've had a few bugs where Sar'ika has been getting referred to as a Sith apprentice, and she's got some Force power legacy perks, so my head-cannon is that she has the same background as my old rp character Vaelann, namely she was a Jedi who survived the Temple's destruction during the war and was adopted by the Mandos after she defended herself. For the most part Sar'ika's forgotten her past as Vaelann, but it still comes back to haunt her once in a while. So the first part is her having a nightmare, and then I think the rest of it is going to go back and forth switching POVs between her and Torian.