The Sanctuary of Regret
Chapter Two
"Papa…don't go."
"I must." Scourge rolled his cloak over his shoulders and slung an empty leatheris pack over his shoulder.
"Nooo," she mewled.
"You sound like an irritated Nekarr cat." The edge of his lip curled up, but he kept his back to her so she wouldn't see. He clipped his lightsaber to his belt and drew his cloak over it.
"Papa, stay," she pouted. "Please?"
He returned to her bedside and she looked up at him with eyes as blue as those in his memories.
"There is no more to be said—I've told you every story I know."
"Tell me about Mama."
"Toska, you need rest." He sighed and fastened the Tuk'ata fang toggle at his throat.
"Please, Papa? I can't remember her. I try and try, but I can't," she insisted, tears threatening to spill.
A pang of guilt stabbed him in the gut as surely as a blade and he sat on the edge of the child's bed. He couldn't deny her any more than he could deny Liatrix when she was alive. "Your mother was brave—fierce, beautiful and devoted to her father," he whispered.
The little girl's brows puckered thoughtfully and she smiled. "Like me."
He chuckled. "Yes, like you."
She coughed, the sound echoing deep like thunder trapped in her chest. Scourge eased a cup of water to her lips and frowned at the lack of colour in them and the dark circles under her eyes.
She pushed the cup away. "What happened to her? How did she die?"
Scourge drew a deep breath, deep enough to fill his lungs so that it felt like they would burst if he didn't blow it out. "She died—in battle, fighting alongside your grandfather. I was unable to save them. The enemy—there were too many of them and of our fighters, only I survived. My ship was damaged and I was injured—I don't remember much else. I woke much later to learn they'd lost the battle. I should never have left them."
"But then you'd be dead too."
"Indeed."
"And I'd be all alone."
Scourge shifted his weight and stared at the plank floor between his boots.
"Do I look like her?"
"Yes." Scourge stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Her face was hot, hotter than it should've been and every breath rattled. "You look like her—exactly like her. Perhaps you're old enough now, I can show you." He left the room and returned with a palm-sized holo projector. He tapped the switch at the side and watched the image rise from the center of the unit, casting a pale blue light between them.
The little girl drew herself higher onto her pillows and reached for the image. Her eyes grew wide and Scourge set the projector into her pudgy hands. He pushed the damp hair on her forehead to one side.
She stared at the tiny figure, examining it from all angles and when she tried to touch it the image glitched. "Mama was pretty. I want to be like her when I'm big."
"You will," he said wistfully. "You'll be exactly like her, I promise you."
"If she had lived would I have had brothers or sisters?"
"Without a doubt," he murmured.
Another rumbling cough escaped her and she dropped the holo to clamp her hands over her mouth to stifle it. Her shoulders and body shook. The cough was relentless.
"When you are strong enough to travel, we're leaving."
"Where are we going?" She sputtered between coughs.
"Perhaps Alderaan—perhaps elsewhere—but away from this dust."
"What's it like there?"
"There are mountains, covered with snow and trees, the air is clean…it was the birthplace of your grandmother."
"What's snow?"
"It's cold and beautiful and something you need to see for yourself. When you've recovered, you can play in it."
Toska beamed. "Will Shyn and Werd come?"
"They've served our family for many years. I've no doubt they'll wish to remain close to you. They love you as their own."
"And Kalil and Morlus, too?"
"Perhaps—but do not fault them if they choose to remain. They've made a life here—they have families to consider and a factory to run."
"But Papa, won't you miss it here?"
"A home isn't defined by stone or timber—home is defined by family. So long as we are together, we are home."
"When are we going?"
"When you're well enough to travel but for that to happen, I must leave. Ingredients are needed for your medicine and I've tarried long enough."
"When are you coming back?"
"I should be back in time for supper."
Toska coughed and wretched until she filled a kerchief with scads of rusty mucous.
Scourge dabbed the spittle from her lips and chin and took away the sullied cloth. He pressed the cup into her hands and she drank.
"I'm c-cold, Papa," she managed through chattering teeth.
Scourge frowned and pressed his hand to her forehead. "Sleep now, I'll stoke the fire."
She nodded obediently and settled into her pillows and cuddled her toy nerf.
He knelt to feed the fire and the light played over his hand to highlight his burn scar. It was barely noticeable anymore, save for the branch of thickened flesh dividing his hand. Many years had passed since he'd last meditated before the flames and the goddess within them—an oversight he promised to correct upon his return, for Toska, if no one else.
He returned to her side and drew the coverlet up to her chin but as he turned away he felt a tug on his cloak.
"Papa?"
Scourge froze in his tracks. "Mmm?"
"I love you," she looked up at him with heavy watery eyes. Sweat pilled along her hairline and he feared the fever had worsened.
"And I you." He pressed a kiss to her forehead and left, just as the elderly turnip faced maids returned with fresh supplies. After a brief exchange, he ventured out into the dusty heat that defined Dromund Fels. The wind and sand whipped through the settlement he had built with the slaves he'd liberated from Kaas City.
He cinched his hood more snugly and began the treacherous hike into the Red Bluffs. He paused from time to time to harvest the gangly tufts of golden chaparral and to dig for osha roots. He licked his lips, tasting the salt of Toska's fever on them.
Her questions haunted him and he dreaded the day he'd have to tell her the truth. One day she would be old enough to suspect the lie he'd told and worse still she'd begin to question it. She had never been shy about asking questions. There were days she did nothing but question, nearly driving him mad. Why this, why that, why, why, why.
This wasn't the first time she'd asked about her mother, but somehow he'd managed to deflect her questions or distract her with some bobble. Until today.
Of course, she couldn't remember her mother—she had never met her, let alone grown in her womb. Liatrix wasn't her mother, but her progenitor—her mother, perhaps, from a certain point of view.
He hadn't intended to claim Darth Creant's personal clone. He had done all he could to put its existence from his mind and while Liatrix and his children lived, it was easy to forget.
After their loss, the temptation to search for the clone bloomed and niggled at him day and night. He had resisted. The day he'd caught himself believing he'd finally conquered his grief was the same day a messenger arrived with coordinates to a genetic cache hidden on Dromund Tyne—a barren, rocky world too near to resist.
The message was several years old—issued by one of Creant's droid servants—surely the sample wouldn't be viable, but the possibility that it might be tormented him.
He thought on the clone Balkar had stolen for himself—the one he'd murdered because of a vision and the one that earned him life time enemies in Balkar, Theron Shan, and Kimble.
The memory haunted him—but perhaps this was meant to be his redemption. Perhaps the Force had deemed his loss punishment enough and this was meant to balance it. The Emperor's cache of clones on Kamino had been destroyed by Marr years ago and if this one was viable, it was the last in the galaxy.
Two days after receiving the communique, he donned extreme climate gear and took a shuttle to Dromund Tyne.
A week later, he learned the sample was viable and with the help of a retired cloner, he began the process. Seven months later, he held his new daughter in his arms and though he needed no justification for his actions, he asserted that in this way—the Marr line would live on.
He stuffed a large clump of osha roots into the satchel and squinted at the horizon and then the thriving settlement below. The home he'd grown up in was the largest of the buildings and the heart of the village. A few kilometers away stood the factory they'd built to collect and refine the sandy dust into a durable glass suitable for space faring vessels. The treaty with Zakuul strictly prohibited the Empire from manufacturing any material that could be used against them. Their former suppliers had either been destroyed or relocated to Zakuul and carefully monitored. The demand for space grade glass grew and profit came from that which could be kept secret from their Zakuulan oppressors.
Scourge tipped his canteen to his lips and guzzled the tepid water. He capped the container and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. The layers of dust accumulated on his face cracked like parched soil.
He climbed higher and higher until he'd scaled the bluffs. Two hours later, he'd tracked and killed a mature cliff manka for its teeth—the final ingredient needed for Toska's medicine.
The sun began to sink as he harvested the other useful parts of the dead animal—including the claws and whiskers. He packed each part into his pack and began the long climb down.
A third of the way, a feeling of foreboding seized him and took root deeply enough that his facial tendrils tingled.
His jaw tightened along with his body and his reaction was followed by the swooshing zoom of a fleet, at least a dozen ships large, all of them appearing from nowhere at once with geometric precision.
They formed a barbed wall over the settlement and the factory and hung with a menacing silence as though they were waiting for something.
Scourge quickened his descent. The ledges crumbled and gave way under his weight and the speed of his effort. He looked down, searching for a ledge he could land on. The stone he clung to broke and he tumbled and bounced against the face of the cliff. He caught a sharp outcropping below and dangled from it. He extended his legs toward the rock face, hoping to still his body and recover from the dizzying spill. He panted and shut his eyes, waiting for the motion in his brain to stop.
He released the crag and eased himself to the next ledge. The whirr of guns powering up buzzed over him and a rain of silver-blue plasma bolts pummeled the settlement.
"No!" He bellowed.
Even at his current elevation, the screams of the terrified villagers rose up with the smoke. They scurried out of their homes in a frenzy like so many confused ants. They ran half-crouched and shielding their heads against the onslaught.
The barrage continued, the blasts shaking the surface as well as the bluffs. The smoke mingled with the dust to form a thick dark brume over the settlement. Rocks tumbled and skipped down the cliff face. Scourge clung to the wall and pressed his body against it to avoid most of the avalanche's deadly crush. He coughed and his eyes stung.
Waiting for it to stop felt like years. The world shook and he lost his footing. No ledge was safe. He tumbled alongside the boulders and when he landed the blasts stopped. The screams stopped. His hands vibrated down to the small bones buried under his flesh. The dust wafted around him making his eyes dry and itchy. He pawed at them to clear his vision and stood. Miraculously, nothing was broken, only bruised.
He looked up and was able to make out the barest silhouettes of the fleet over the clouds and then in unison they darted away, leaving as they'd arrived. In their absence, a deathly silence took over the settlement.
His legs throbbed and he forced himself to take a step forward, followed by another and then another, until he broke into a stiff legged sprint toward the village. Plumes of fire and smoke choked him as surely as the dust.
The ground beneath him suddenly dropped and he flung out his arms, swinging them to keep his balance. At his feet, was the start of a crater perhaps fifty meters deep. He backed away slowly and followed the edge of the maw—the new perimeter of a dead village.
Hours passed. The flames burned down and the wind thinned the smoke. Scourge stared out as far as he could see. The abyss yawned before him, vast and terrible enough to swallow the horizon.
A vision of the clone he'd murdered wormed its way back into his mind—like Toska, she was nothing more than an innocent struggling to survive. He had taken her life and foolishly believed the Force had meted out his punishment and that all he'd lost had paid for that crime.
It hadn't.
He shuffled aimlessly, trying to decide where it was exactly that his home had been and he was certain of two things; the first, that he shouldn't have left her, and the second, that he wouldn't rest until he'd razed the Eternal Empire.
((to be continued…))
A/N: Just a tidbit I found interesting and wanted to share. The quote below was what led me to the name Toska. I couldn't find a name that had the depth of feeling within the English language that related all I wanted and then I read this:
"Toska - noun /ˈtō-skə/ - Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness.
"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases, it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level, it grades into ennui, boredom."
― Vladimir Nabokov