The long walk home was relaxing. The most easy Mykle's felt in years, fresh off his heart pounding harder than its has in years. What he missed the most wasn't the pulsating action, but the cool down after. It didn't last long as checkpoints sprung up overnight demanding identification.
"Halt!" A trooper at the gate pushed Mykle in the chest. "Let me see some identification." Mykle feigned ignorance and a basic understanding of his language.
"Sir.. I...I do not... I do not know what you are speaking of." He mock pleads, clasping his hands together in a begging gesture. "I am late for my job. I cannot be late." His tongue movements got more wildly with each word said. "I cannot be late." He kept talking and talking until the trooper gave up and let him pass.
"Just bring your information next time." His gruff tone lacking the proper pronunciation of the letter 'R'.
Like the last town he visited the people, when they weren't held up at gunpoint, ran seemingly without any sense of direction. Hastily packing their belongings in their vehicles and speeding off. Massive pile ups followed, people climbing on top of one another. Whatever what was going on, the imperials didn't have a hold on the situation either.
Walking to the nearest convenient store to buy a pack of deathsticks, Mykle asked the cashier what's with all the commotion.
"The empire's acquired this land, as it did many others. People have the choice to take whatever they're willing to pay and accept relocation." He told him. Mykle wondered how this effects him, he didn't mind moving but at the same time his hobble was owned by a private corporation. So did the empire have the ability to kick him out? His train of thought was derailed when his concerns turned to his other home and the well-being of his family.
"Are they doing this to every town?" The cashier nods, Mykle instantly begins to panic and hastily leaves the premises to make a mad dash to his old neighborhood. What he found when he got there confirmed his fears. His home, long burned down and reduced to warm ash, there was no traces of anyone living here. All of Mykle's belongings vanished, never to be seen again. And what of his father and baby sister? The mere thought of their untimely end brought great stress to his heart he feared it was in the beginning stages of failing him. For all he knew, they were gone. His home wasn't the only one incinerated. The entire neighborhood was burned to a crisp, the population must've mounted a brilliant show of bravery and fought back, only to pay the hefty price.
Truth be told Mykle was not as strong as he'd like those around him to believe. Quick to emotion, his eyes watered up like the child he once was. No longer able to conceal himself, he choked on his sorrows, his feet moving as if they possessed a mind of their own, having no idea where to go. The last piece of relevance in his life was gone. Those charred skeleton laying across one another was all the evidence he needed. No stranger to war, the sight of causalities never settled with him.
Luckily the saloon still stood. The bartender who kicked Mykle out days ago saw the wry look on his face begging for an alcoholic beverage. His heart softened, he too suffered at the hands of the empire in the recent massacre. Something about horrors of loss made even the roughest men warm. Without saying a word the barkeep slide a tall, cold drink Mykle's way. He was very grateful. He went to his pocket to pay, but was informed that all first drinks were on the house tonight. Mykle wasn't the only one who needed to kill a couple brain cells.
But Mykle didn't stop at one cup. Nor did he stop at two. The voices in his head drowned in the more liquor he consumed. The more he drank the more talkative he'd become, telling his life story despite the fact no one asked.
"You seem to know a lot about the empire." One patron finally spoke up to halt Mykle's incessant rambling.
"Settle a bet between me and my friend, is there a such a person named 'Vader'?" The question made Mykle scoff uncontrollably, as if he were a snooty aristocratic at a wine tasting.
"I'll do you one better!" He bellowed, followed by a loud burp. "I knew him before he was confined to that coffin of a hazmat suit." His eyes lost focus, they stared at nothing. "He was Anakin Skywalker." The whole bar erupted, not out of shock at the revaluation but because they doubted its validity, some expression the hardiest of laughter.
"Skywalker died on Mustafar trying to apprehend the Separatist leaders." One person said, Mykle couldn't see. He hopped up out of his barstool and address whomever spoke wobbling around the room, it spun around him like a carousel.
"Oh, Anakin surely did 'die' on Mustafar." He conceded. "His body was slice into pieces and shoved in the black suit you see now." Maybe it was the drinks talking that inspired the patrons to roar in various opinions. Why would his body be cut up? One asked, "He was near death, the emperor found him and 'saved' him." Mykle would answer. What about the rumors of his marriage to Senator Amidala, former queen of the Naboo? "All true. Would have dominated the headlines if I had a looser lip." Mykle assures. The more he talked the faster the room spun, his stomach felt unhooked from his body.
A hand came out of nowhere to grab his shoulder, bringing him to a room where the bartender kept his extra liquor. It was dark, all Mykle had to go on was the sound of a feminine, but monotone voice.
"You need to stay quiet, you're attracting attention." She chastised. It was all too familiar to Mykle, even in his euphoric state.
"Ahso..." Her cowl was pushed down, revealing blue and white montrals that reached two centimeters above him, reached down to her chest, but all in all, she looked exactly as he remembered her. His expression turned from sweet to sour, scowling. "What the fuck you want?!" All the commotion was too much for his brain to comprehend, succumbing to all that was around him he blacked out, falling face first at her feet.