Chapter Title: Graveyard
Series Title: Unlikely Brothers
Ages in this chapter: Tanner (14) Dashen (20)
POV: Tanner
Chapter Summary: Dashen tries to break a dream curse by visiting an old cemetery.
So, we were in a graveyard. Non existent on most planets, but there were few species and peoples that held to an old tradition of burying their dead and marking those final resting spots with stone tablets.
Jedi didn't hold to such traditions. Before the Jedi Purge, we'd burned our dead. A pyre of flames to say a solemn farewell. Memories were kept in our minds and hearts rather than marked on solid ground. But that wasn't all that important to all of this.
We - well, Dashen dragged me along - were in a legitimate graveyard in the middle of the night. Twin orange moons lit our path to... somewhere. I really had no idea why we were here. Something about tattoos and dreams and curses. I'd tried to explain to my brother that curses were a farce, but his mind worked in ways different from mine most of the time.
"Dash, what exactly are we looking for?" I asked, in the dark, jogging to keep up with his long strides.
"Something to break this damned curse."
"Curses are..."
"Are not real, I know, you've said it forty-seven times."
"Three time."
"Forty-Seven. Three. What's the difference?"
"Forty-four."
"Smart ass, Jedi."
I grinned as I finally caught up the exact second he stopped in his tracks. I face planted into his back. He peeled me off.
"Dash, seriously. You're not here for a job. And this place is creepy."
"I didn't mark Kossi's grave with stone, you know."
All right. So, there came that sentence. We just took an unexpected detour into tender memories. Not all that unusual for my brother, but in this particular situation, running around a gloomy graveyard on an unfamiliar planet... it was peculiar.
"But I marked it so I'd not forget it." He went on. "Tradition on Terra is mostly to burn, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. I couldn't watch my baby brother burn. Weird, I know, but it's how it was."
I tried to reassure. "It's not weird, Dash."
"It is creepy here, yeah, but you're a Jedi. You don't get freaked out around creepy things."
"Um, yes, we do. Or, I do. Here," I took his hand and set it on my chest. "Feel that thumping? Heart rate, way up. Creep factor, way up. Let's just do whatever you need to do and get back to Terra."
Moving his hand, he scanned the double-moonlit cemetery with his eyes until he found the direction he wanted. Not sure what led him that way, but I followed.
"Dash, can you at least..."
"Shhh." He shushed me with a hand slapped over my mouth. "Don't talk. Do you hear that? Huh? Tanner?"
"You told me not to talk, then you ask me questions. You can't have it both ways."
"You're right. Just talk quietly. I think that noise is why I'm here."
I sighed heavy. Frustrated before pushing some of it into the Force. "You don't know why you're here?"
Without answering my question, he took off at a jog toward the far left where a massive iron gate marked the entrance to a partially hidden section of the graveyard. His jog became a run became a full fledged haul-tail towards whatever. I couldn't keep up with his long legs galloping fast away from me so I just kept him in eyesight.
When I finally caught him, he was kneeling next to one of the many large stone markers. This one was cracked in several places and the top right corner was chipped off leaving the last two letters of the deceased's last name missing.
"Dash." I said, now standing next to him.
"It's okay, little brother. This is it. We'll go home soon."
It was? We would? I had a feeling I was not getting a full explanation out of this one. But I tried.
"Okay, but what is happening and who is buried here and why do you need to be here? Please explain this to me, Dash, come on."
He shook his head. "Can't really explain it, Mouse. But look."
Dashen reached into his shoulder bag to retrieve a piece of gray stone with black lettering. It appeared to be the exact size and shape to fit on the gravestone at his fingertips. What the...
"You really want to know? I suppose you do," He asked me. "I found this broken piece of stone on my last run. It was here on this planet, you remember. Took it home. Weird dreams started. I didn't think much of it at the time - that they were related - but eventually I put it together. The dream had me covered in tattoos. They spread each time I dreamed until they covered my entire body from forehead to toes. In the last dream, the tattoos began growing inside my throat and I'd wake up coughing and hacking, feeling like I was suffocating. You remember that too, you would come to my room concerned about me."
I had. I remembered. He'd said he was fine, though he hadn't looked that way at the time. But I'd let it go.
"Part of that dream - this curse - contained visions of this graveyard. I think when I picked up this broken bit of stone it transferred whatever onto me. Memories of something. There were clues mixed in. It wanted - needed - to return to it's grave marker to become whole again. Then the weirdo dreams would stop. And here we are. I put this back," he palmed the broken stone in his hand - "And whoever this is, they'll be at peace. I'll be at peace - well, I'll be back to my regular version of peace. No more curse. Makes sense, right?"
Not really. "Sure, if you say so. Okay, put it back on the headstone and lets go home before we rouse up the spirits around here."
Dashen stopped and looked up at me. "You don't believe in curses but you believe in spirits?"
I shrugged. "Ben's dead master is a spirit. I think."
His bobbed his head in a quick back-forth motion thinking it over. "Eh, okay. I'll give you that one, little brother. But I'm pretty sure spirits don't just crawl out of the ground and purposely hunt for people to haunt."
"Says the man with the crazy tattoo dream curse." I dead-stared him, he shut up. "Just get this over with, Dash. Hurry up."
With careful hands, he took the broken piece and gently placed it onto the marker. There was some strange silver light which was quickly followed by a sharp snapping sound, then nothing. Just quiet. Dashen fell backwards onto his butt, maybe in relief?
"So, it's done?" I asked him.
"Feels like it."
"Can we go home now?"
"I think so."
"And you'll sleep?"
"Only one way to find out."
I reached a hand down to help him stand. He didn't need it but it was a small measure of comfort.
We strode for town and the outlying spaceport to hitch a ride home on public transport.
Dashen slept sound that night. He even made me breakfast in the morning, it's how rested it was. The food was horrible, but I ate it anyway and didn't complain.
Because he was my brother.
No matter the strange dreams or creepy graveyard or terrible home-cooked breakfast.
He was my brother.
END
