Humiliation.
He felt it, being caried in a makeshift sling on the back of the giant King. How pathetic was he that he had to be carried in such a manner while the others were able to continue to fight on? He didn't want to be seen by anyone else. He didn't want people to know how he'd been carried to aid. Wouldn't they just see him as a weak, pathetic child who had no right to even be there? Wouldn't they judge him? Why wouldn't they? He deserved it. He shouldn't have been there. He was a fool to have gone. He deserved nothing but contempt from those who were injured and should have been there.
But he didn't receive it. All he received was help. They took him, performed surgery on his arm several times. The nerve cluster had to be completely reconstructed, the ends of the severed arteries reconnected, bones remade. Metal was used to recreate his shoulder joint, which strengthened it, but also made him less of who he was. He was slightly less human.
Each time he woke from one of the surgeries he was in a bacta tank, fully submersed. His wounds were healing, but only the physical one. His arm was reconstructed. The burn marks, cuts, scrapes and bruises disappeared. He almost looked on the outside as if he had never been in battle at all. The only exception was that when he was out of the tank, he had to wear his arm in a sling. They told him it would be a while, that he would need to rest it until it regained its strength, until his muscles fully healed. And he would need therapy to make that happen.
Then they'd put him in a room on the medical ship. A room alone, with not but an artificial viewport that was set on the stars outside. He stared at it for a while, sitting on the cot in the room, wondering why he even deserved to be alive. Why did they put so much effort into someone who had done nothing but get in the way? Why so much effort into someone who had failed constantly?
He would sleep and wake up screaming, visions of it all running through his head. The Sith springing up seemingly from nowhere, its red blade cutting through the stomach of the Knight that had been with them, Knight Laerna Trask as he had learned, spilling her innards onto the ground as swiftly as the blade had moved. The blood that had sprayed forth. The sound of her inside squishing upon impact. The way the Jedi had cried out before going silent, before Caelan had felt the Force drain from him, his life gone. Then the way Iston had fallen, his dying words. It was too much. Without the battle to focus on he couldn't take it.
Someone came to the door to check on him, but he didn't reply to them. In fact, he completely ignored them until they left, just breathing heavy and staring at the fake view of the stars outside. Nobody that visited him within that room on the hospital ship as they traversed hyperspace, regardless of who they were, received any response or attention from him. Being strong had its limits, and he had exceeded his.
Eventually, no matter what he did, even through all the pain he felt, his mind would return to Arhiaa. He still held the saber that belonged to her father. The only time he'd let go of it was when he'd been taken for surgery. No matter how much he'd protested, they would not allow him to carry a lightsaber. But as he sat on the cot, staring at the weapon, visions of her continued to populate in his mind, cutting through the horrors of what he'd seen. And somewhere in all of that, his mother appeared again.
"Caelan."
His eyes opened wide, and he looked around until he saw her. She was standing in the room, beside his bed, though she didn't appear right. It was obvious that she wasn't really there, but she still felt to him as though she was.
"Mother... How?"
"You and I will always have a connection across the Force so long as you carry my crystal, but how doesn't matter. What matters is you."
He lifted his good arm and rubbed it across his face, trying to wipe away the tears that were forming there. It hurt to see her again now. It hurt to remember that she was gone, and that all he had left, as far as he knew, was an adoptive older sister and a girl he loved.
"You need to get through this, love. I know it hurts. I know you're scared and that you can't unsee what you've seen. I was there once, when I was a Jedi. It is not an easy life. It's dangerous, full of horrible things you will see, but there's also good in it. You've already found some of that in the friends you've made. You'll help people, too. I know you will. If anyone can, you can."
"But I feel so weak. I did nothing but get in the way. I should be dead!"
"If that was the will of the Force you would be. You know that."
"I know it, but... I just feel... " He sighed. "I feel pathetic. I don't feel like the King our people need. I don't know if I can be that person."
"You can and you will. You'll see how wrong you are soon enough, when you visit with the daughter of Iston Voronwe."
He stared at the saber again, and then looked back up, only to find that his mother was gone. Head turning about, he looked across the whole room, trying to find her again, but she was gone, and he was once more alone.
Arhiaa. What his mother's words meant hung over his head like a cloud and he stared back at the saber in his hand, thinking about the young woman it belonged to now. She was going to be devastated by the news of her father's death. Likely she would be mad at him for telling her, mad at him for having gone, made at him for not saving her father. He deserved it. He deserved to be hated by her. He didn't deserve to feel her embrace, to be comforted by her. He definitely didn't deserve to have her return his feelings for her. So how could he learn something from it?
Could he be strong for her?
His hands shook and he dropped the saber onto the bed before standing and moving to the nearest wall, slamming his fist into it with enough ferocity that he lightly dented the metal, though he didn't notice he'd done so. He did it again, and again, until his hand started to hurt, and he kept going until his hand left a smear of blood on the wall before he fell to his knees and slumped forward, facing the cool, gray surface in front of him. The wall was pockmarked with fist marks that shouldn't have been there. Fist marks of frustration mixed with anger and guilt.
Anger and guilt that gave way slowly to determination. Frustration that became encouragement. The inability he'd shown to be able to handle himself, to protect others, encouraged him to change himself. Knowing that he shouldn't feel the way he did filled him with determination to fix what was wrong with him, to become someone capable of not only surviving events like Tython, but being able to make a difference in those events. He would be strong because no one else could be strong for him. He could not rely on others for his strength, only himself, and if he wasn't strong, then Arhiaa could falter and it would be his fault that she did, not hers and not her fathers. His.
He had to be strong. He had to be. He couldn't afford to be the weak, naive boy who'd thought it was a good idea to travel to Tython. No. He had to be the smart young man who should have known his limits and stayed away. He had to find ways to make himself stronger. He WOULD find ways to make himself stronger.
Looking at his bloody hand, he wiped it off on his tunic and shunted the Force to it to stem the blood flow and begin the healing process. It was a minor wound. He could deal with that on his own. He did know at least that much. Then he stood, walked to the cot, grabbed Iston's lightsaber, and clipped it to his belt. It wasn't his, but he wasn't going to let it be anywhere he couldn't keep an eye on it. That done, he walked to the door an opened it. The hall outside was full of people and he stepped out into it, ignoring the flow of traffic before setting out to find somewhere large enough he could run. If he couldn't train other ways at the moment, he could work on his physical fitness and endurance.
No more sitting around. He was going to fix himself and be stronger so that he could take care of Arhiaa and others. The child that Caelan had been officially gone.
