Slowly, everything crept into the normal once more. It was like before, when
Jal was still a distant memory against the star-blurred night. It was lifeless.
It was trivial. It was lonely.
Word spreads fast in small places, especially when no one is supposed to
know. At first, well wishers wandered onto the farm with small parcels, trying
to console my grieving parents. I suppose it gave my mother something to do as
she hurried around, making small talk with the neighbor women, readying pots of
tea and warming sweet muffins. She continued to speak of Jal as if he were just
outside, cutting wood or tending the crops. The women exchanged worried glances
but smiled encouragingly once Mother caught their eyes, their faces empty with
sentiment.
Father never did speak of it. He was more silent now that he had ever been,
withdrawn mentally and physically as he threw himself back into his studies,
emerging for meal times. During the harvest seasons, he immersed himself in the
farm. We no longer lingered after work was finished, talking and exchanging
stories. My brother was always best at that, anyways, teasing Father with his
political rhetoric or whispering stories of his adventures on the far-away world
of Coruscant.
I spent my time deep in training, disappearing as soon as I was no longer
needed, eventually not even coming home for dinners. Many nights, I wouldn't
even enter through the house, choosing instead to crawl into the loft room from
the courtyard side. It seemed appropriate enough. I was grown-up, I reminded
myself over and over, ignoring the twinge of pain that stabbed through my heart
every time I passed his empty room, void of even his essence. I tried hard to
forget the fairytales of what it was to be a Jedi.
And then one day, the people stopped coming. Perhaps they were tired of
Father's silence. Of my cold refusal when the greeted me in town and offered
sympathy. Of Mother's forced naiveté. It became nothing more than another
fairytale that happened in some other place, far away on some distant planet.
Father began to talk again, although he avoided politics, and never laughed.
Mother stopped talking of Jal in the present tense. But I never forgot. I
fostered my notions in my heart, far from Father's knowing look, and from
Mother's well-meaning touch. I waited for the day I knew would come, but
secretly hoped never would.
It was the last day of harvest. The air was thick and warm like right before
a rainstorm. We were all silent as we struggled to pull in the last of the crops
before the first sunset, our backs bent from stooping with ancient hand tools.
We never had upgraded to agro-droids. Jal enjoyed the physical labor too much. I
had been set the task of securing the bundles for processing the next day. When
I emerged from the storage house, I saw that Mother had won a small battle of
words, rewarded by Father's slight grin beneath the grime of the day. I smiled
too despite myself and joined my parents, staring out over the cleared fields.
Father laid a hand on my shoulder after a comfortable pause, giving it a
reassuring squeeze. Confidence rose in me and I managed another smile for his
sake. "Go on and help your Mother start the meal, Ashton. I'll gather the rest
of the tools." With another squeeze, he sent me back to the house.
My head was full of questions as I trudged around to the back of the kitchen,
wiping my hands on my pants before I gathered a bucket of vegetables Mother had
picked just minutes before. Usually, I was permitted to go on my way after the
chores were done. But this…it was almost normal, like a real family would
operate. Since…since then, we had been set apart from normalcy, stinted by our
tragic Jedi heritage. Did this mean that Father was moving on? Could I do the
same?
It was with a much lighter mood that I helped Mother around the kitchen. She
too seemed to feel the change and was much livelier, shooing me out after I had
made a mess of the juice so as to collect my father for dinner.
What I saw couldn't have been more different than the calm man I had left but minutes earlier. He was staring intently at the end of the field in the paling sunlight, the dusky grey obscuring the figure there. Even if it my breath hadn't caught in my throat and my legs trembled as they fought against my better judgment to run, even if it hadn't been so painfully similar to the last time, I still would have recognized Rune as she strode towards the house, framed in the setting sun.
When I say I wanted to leave my life behind, I meant it in whatever form I could
manage. It is a very different thing to go from living as if one could die that
day, on any day, in any battle, to living as if one were already dead.
I cut myself off from anything that could sustain me. I refused to contribute
to that part of me that longed to return in to the embrace of the Darkness. In
denying that which created me, I suppressed that which was myself. I no longer
understood my mind's ambitions. I let it lead me where it would, controlling
only those urges that were most basic in need. If Fate required something else
of me, it would do so without food to restore my body, sleep to restore my mind.
I would force Its hand and make it choose.
There was no surprise when I found myself on Rytiine once more, my body going
through the motions as I trudged through briar-thickened forests, emerged to
simple, bucolic pastures that quickly gave way to the wilds again. Who was I to
guide Fate when It brought be to the edges of cliffs and tumbled my body to the
ground below? I would awaken and continue my path, even with my shoulder twisted
and swollen, legs badly scraped and bruised, and cuts that would bleed, then
heal, then tear open again as the pain teased my sense of division, promising
the warmth I was not ready to face. It resolved that I continue.
Quite suddenly, my journey was complete. Fate no longer pressed me forwards,
leaving me instead to bridge the distance over a field of my memories, towards
two figures I did not wholly recognize. One, bathed in calm and knowing, as if
he had stood in that exact spot for an eternity, waiting for me. The other was
no longer the child of my dreams, but a man bristling with a dark desire I had
stirred in him, wishing for the sweetness of revenge that I could not give him.
It was bitter that Fate had decided this for me, although I welcomed what it
promised.
Without second thought, I accepted.
It could have merely been a play of the dusky light, creating shadows that were
not truly there, but she seemed so much older than those three years could have
afforded. Of course, I had no idea of their life spans, although I had read once
that the dark side often fed on the life of its practitioners. For all my lack
of experience, I could have accepted that her limping stride was a natural
progression from her previous feline grace, the gaunt grey of her flesh easily
transgressing from her once ethereal glow. A steady trickle of dark fluid
dripped from her loosely balled fist, the source a spreading stain on her
shoulder, which was rotated forwards at a disgusting angle in her sleeve. My
senses rebelled against my passions and any thoughts I had secretly harbored for
revenge at this sad sight, even as she strode towards Father and I as tall as
she could manage, her head held high, her eyes determined.
I spared a glance in my father's direction. He was pointedly watching the
other's advance, his expression unreadable, although I could tell he was
steeling himself for whatever was to come. Neither of us was armed with much
more than archaic farm implements. At best, those were a hundred feet in the
opposite direction.
I was still calculating the time it would take to acquire a weapon when she
stopped in front of Father, her hands still hanging by her side. For a moment,
their eyes met. It was a horrible silence, punctuated by quick, wheezing breaths
that struggled through her mouth, her lips twisted in the palest grimace of
pain. She looked like she was smiling. It could have been the way her head was
tilted, the dying sun just catching the curve of her cheek and glinting from
wayward strands of hair that had escaped the tie at her the base of her neck.
Her hair appeared much shorter when it was down, the loose, white locks curling
just slightly at her jaw line from where they fell in front of her eyes. Yet her
eyes were not those of one appearing so close to death, flashing brilliant green
from the hollows of her face. In that moment, I wished that she would turn her
impassioned eyes on me, to regard me with the same proud acknowledgement she
gave my father. I was close enough to reach out and brush the hair from her
face, if it would have warranted the attentions I desired. It was as if I was of
no consequence. I was not respected. This was an action between two warriors.
Anger was not a familiar notion to me. I had long harbored my notions for
revenge, but at least that had a direction. It had a promise for an end. But
anger is a much broader emotion, and it requires nothing in return. I wanted my
anger to be like my revenge, so I gave it a target. Before I realized what I was
doing, I had stepped up and backhanded the woman with such force that she was
thrown to the ground, shattering her delicate balance of pain and
self-awareness. I think I expected her to get up and give me a reason to fight
and rid myself of the guilt that had clenched my stomach. Instead, she crawled
to her knees with an agonizing slowness, cradling her useless arm against her
chest as she bowed her head, revealing the milky skin of her neck. My arm was
raised over my head, ready to strike again when I felt it restrained. Father had
grabbed my wrist.
"Ashton! No!" he admonished, edging his body between us after he had dropped my
hand. He knelt beside the woman, whispering into her ear. After a pause, she
stirred again, tilting her head just enough to the side that I could see her
face, her cheek now puffy and becoming swollen. This time, she looked at me and
nodded. Then, exhaling sharply, she collapsed to the ground.
I greeted the elder openly, perhaps a little glad that he did not request any
exchange, mental or otherwise. Physically, I was in no shape to speak. Blinded
as I was, I knew the viscous rattle that clogged my lungs was a sign of
punctured tissue. I could barely take breath enough to remain conscious, much
less to sustain conversation. Yet this man was no fool, green with inexperience
as his dead son was, despite the strong resemblance.
We laid ourselves open upon meeting, making it plain that neither of us was
armed. In his eyes I saw that great Jedi tenant of compassion embodied. 'My
sadness is only for my youngest son's pain,' his eyes said. 'As for revenge—have
we not had enough death?'
I never understood Jedi. Their teachings went against every sentient impulse
that creates life. I still do not understand them. However, I respect their
sense of honor. The elder man would have never attacked an unarmed foe, injured
or not.
But I also respect the purity of anger. It was this respect that brought me to
my knees at the hand of the child. If this was what Fate had decided for me,
then I was going to die at the hands of a boy with the utmost humility. I bowed
my head, waiting for his final strike. It never came.
I said I never understood Jedi. When the elder knelt so gently at my side,
however briefly, a shimmering truth was laid bare. "And now my son has given you
a second chance, as well," he whispered. For that moment, I knew compassion. I
had never imagined I could die with such a sentiment ringing in my ears.
Glancing at the younger man, at the shame that spread over his features with a
hot blush as he watched me, gave me the confirmation I needed. Compassion
quieted my tumultuous mind, and I released my hold on this world as Fate
allowed.
Much later, I remembered it as a curious dream in which I had not really died.
An older woman came from the house, wiping her hands on a small towel in such a
casual way that I was sure she, too, had been waiting for a particular instant.
She stooped over my body, taking her mate's place. Her warm fingers expertly
searched my form, although through the dream I could only feel the warmth from
her, the gentle insistence of her prodding lost. With the same casual air, she
motioned for the two men.
The younger man called her mother, and asked her if she knew who I was.
She did. She knew. But she never said as much. She said it was their duty to
help visitors.
Visitor. As if I was natural and this were a regular occurrence that I should be
laid in a bed in their house, my dressings removed, my wounds tended. As if I
was alive, and I was any other person.
Compassion is a strange thing. Fate is even stranger.
