For the Greater Good.

[Mia Monroe]

The once green island had become black. Molten rock had rolled forth, stretching out beyond the islands edge, cooling as it hit the water and expanding it. Its once jungle peak had a great chasm blown out of its side where the eruption had exploded from within, blasting the volcano's side outwards and over the life beneath it. For the first time, since it had all begun, Mia felt something.

Not regret, no, even now with Velok out of her mind, she did not regret her choice. Now more than ever, she believed it had been the right choice, to burn away the weakness. The immediate results were not pleasing, but Mia had never expected this to be an instant fix. It would take time for the mandalorians to recover, to rebuild and to find their strength again. What she felt, was sadness. Despair that so many people had to die to cut out the rot, that they, she and Ijaat, had brought such decimation to a world they had both been raised upon.

She brought the Veil lower over the island, seeking the most even point she could to set the bird down. She needed to walk to the volcano's peak, to remind herself of what had been done, of what she would achieve. She took no weapons with her as she descended the landing ramp, her pregnancy beginning to show beneath her tunic. she didn't expect to find anyone here.

Except for ghosts.

[member="Ijaat Mereel"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Music

The wind would whip her hair, the desolate island feeling bleak, dreary, utterly without life. The Force itself had almost rent the fabric of reality here. Senses of one like Mia would feel painfully raw & open. As if suddenly plunged into silence after a great cacophony. Some echo of the final actions of Ijaat and some specter of his death lingered over his former home. But the moment her foot would actually touch the soil, all would seem to still and calm. The clouds would remain dark and brooding, dangerous in their looming wait. But no forked bolts came forth, no deluges of acidic rain or freezing sleet. Peace lingered in the air for a moment.

Further on to the island, lava flow from the cataclysm had met an influx of water from some sort of titanic wave, freezing the flowing magma in form of a giant basalt arch. Studs of obsidian decorated, the spirals meeting in the center. For dozens of yards, there was nothing else around but that one feature, and the eye was irresistibly drawn to it. Some might say it was merely the uniqueness of it. But others would say that it would call to the conspirator out of guilt, and potential. A monument to necessity, filled with echoes of questioning pride. But even as thin and delicate as it appeared, there was a stupendous solidity and strength radiating from it.

And, unless her eyes deceived her, something or someone appeared to be perched atop it, covered in robes that made it appear as if one with the rock...

[member="Mia Monroe"]

 

[Mia Monroe]

Silence pressed on her from all sides, punishing and judgemental, her breath was the only noise. an unease settled over her that Mia that made her want to turn back and retrieve her weapons, but she pushed forward moving up the slope towards the glittering obsidian arch and the figure silhouetted within it. She didn't need to ponder who, she knew before she'd reached him.

Ghost couldn't touch her.

Yet, as she drew nearer she felt the pain wash over her, spilling from her in silent tears that carved pale tracks down her cheeks. She did not try to shun it, nor try to hide it. Pain, brought only strength.

"I have no regrets." her words were soft, but the carried across to him nonetheless as she paused feet from the arch.

[member="Ijaat Mereel"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

For a long moment, there was a drawn out and pregnant pause. The air faintly hummed with a sort of unnatural tension. What was immediately clear was something that was not earlier. The man, vision or apparition or some psychic imprint left only to be triggered by someone like herself... Whatever he was, it still wasn't in tune with the natural world. Borders of the robe seemed fuzzed and soft, like a worn out holofilm, Colors were deastuarated and washed out, lines across his face and on his hands that odd blue-white a worn out pict might get. However, one thing above all else remained exactly as anyone who knew him, no matter what incarnation, would have. The eyes.

Piercing amber, hawk-like, glowing with passion and a fierce intellect that he kept buried under humor and drink. A thick, unruly eyebrow arched as he scratched lazily at the scruffy beard he had taken to wearing before the end. But he cocked his head to the side to show he recognized her, and her speech. A flicker, a sort of fuzz and snap back to focus, of his whole image, before he spoke. The gravel and grit was still there in every syllable and word he spoke. But the speech was faint, echoey, almost airy. As if coming from far off and bouncing and twisting through corridors unknown to reach her. But strength flowed in every word and conviction.

"I have them. But not for what we did. Only that it became needed, and that the price was so high in the end."

[member="Mia Monroe"]

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia ascended further, closer to the shadow of the man that was, the man that could have been so much more. Wind sighed across them, flickering his image, she bowed her head, wiping her cheeks and eyes dry. It would not last. She took a breath and looked up. The price had been high, even now she'd no idea what the death toll had been, nor did she wish to.

Manda'yaim was price enough.

She cast here eyes beyond his ghostly image and at the barren island, ice blue sea lapping at blackened shores. It was necessary.

"Is that why you went to them?" Anger rose in her throat and she let her gaze slide back to him. "Did you think that it would make it better, giving your life for something that was not yet complete?"

[member="Ijaat Mereel"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Pain flinched in his eyes then. Pain at a folly he knew was a fool's errand even as he committed it. Hope had often been his betrayal as much as any foe or weakness had. And time and again it had been oft centered in one person. This was no different. A brief flicker of pain though was all the reaction that came before his face hardened into a simple disappointment.

"I believed in him. For a second, I saw what he could be. I saw him being what I should have been. Wearing the mantle that I should have never shirked. That he always hungered for. But it was all just lies wrapped around a hunger for power and fame. As it always has been. But I never had my sons, and in him I saw a chance to fix that. But he never wanted it. Regardless, I deserved this death. One of us had to pay. The other would need to stay, to see it through. There must be a balance in all things. You've learned that by now."

[member="Mia Monroe"]

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia closed her eyes, fresh tears leaked from behind dark lashes. "You fool." she whispered. "You should have waited for me."

She ran her fingers over a smooth boulder before settling herself to sit upon it, a hand running through her hair as she did, the weight of the world settling upon her shoulders. "This was never about balance Ijaat, this was about what was needed. This," she waved a hand at the landscape around them "was never going to be a quick fix, it was to be a long and arduous journey. You forsook your faith in me for faith in a pretender and you wasted your life because of it."

For a long moment Mia said nothing, watching the ebb and flow of the waves far below them. "They still bay for blood. For my blood. It will not matter that I'm with child when they come, they will come nonetheless. I can come back, but the child can't. That," she swing her eyes round to look at him again. "Is on you."

[member="Ijaat Mereel"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

"You abandoned me to chase a lover, or so it seems. I did as best as I could on my own. My mind has not been whole in decades. Everyone knew this. Only death, true death, saw that wound healed. I see the missteps in my judgment now. But there is little to nothing to do. I will rest soon, bearing the weight good and bad, of my actions. This place carries only but an echo of me, and each time weakens it. I am not sure why he chose here to end me. Maybe he knew I would be bound in some fashion, and it pleased him. But regardless... I have failed you. And I am sorry for that. I can not shield you as we planned... Not in any meaningful way... But there is some of my blood yet left. And perhaps my name can be redeemed by that..."

A heavy sigh, and a shaking of his head as he gestured to her.

"I fail, Mia. That is my legacy to our people. That the best of us can also be the worst. And that hope can beget the fall as easily as pride. You surely must realize that we fell into partnership because of that. You represent the fire. The passion. The fury of our people as they have come to be now. I have come to embody the cold, calculating reason and wisdom of our Elders. We learned of each other, in our brief journey. But it is not to either of us to unite the pieces of our people. They must do that. I only ask you pass on the lessons we have learned to my son... Isley betrayed me, and convinced me to submit to his idea of justice for the promise he would find and safeguard my son. I fear that was falsehood now..."

[member="Mia Monroe"]

 

[Mia Monroe]

"He is a sith, now. But he will come back, on bloody knees if I have my way, which I usually do."

She fell silent, chewing over his words consuming them slowly and carefully before responding. "You legacy is not that you fail, Ijaat Mereel. Your legacy is that you pulled the trigger when a thousand others would have turned it upon me. You were loyal, to a woman you barely spoke to. You are, and forever will be a mandalorian to be remembered. I promise you that you will be that. For what little it's worth, I am sorry that I abandoned you, that was never my intention."

She rose to her feet with great effort, turning to face him fully now. "I will find your son, and bring him home."

[member="Ijaat Mereel"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

"Intents are easily warped and lost, Mia. Quintus is smart. He makes me look like a dullard, and I'm far from even average intellect. I've been keeping tabs on him, since just before the cataclysm. I doubted my worth as a father to reach into his life. Now that I can't... Let him learn of his family. Let him know his heritage, and make the choice. But at the least, let him know he was missed, and that his father razed whole cities to find him..."

The image wavered and flickered, but held for the moment, if more transparent and less solid feeling. It must have been wtaxing, to come forth into the materium as he was. His brow furrowed for a moment, and he sighed, looking out across the waves wistfully, his hand stretching to the failing light, which passed through him without casting so much as a single shadow, or wavering of light. Wind carried the scent of ash and salt, but also the serenity of the sea on it's waftings. A promise of absolution, Ijaat's father had called it once.

"Teach him of what we truly are. Not the mockey these children are struggling to unbecome. Maybe he can reach them and bridge the gap from the ashes..."

[member="Mia Monroe"]

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia felt a pang of pity for Ijaat. To havbe no robbed himself of the opportunity to reach out to his own son must be soul consuming. An unconscious hand went to her swelling stomach and she made a silent promise then, to herself and her child, that she would never let such a distance grow between her and her own child, though there was a quiet voice that whispered in the back of her mind. With all you've done, what if the child chooses to abandon you?

Now, perhaps more than ever, she realised the need for her to find Rel, to at least give him the chance to make the choice to be near or far sooner, rather than later. She swallowed against the growing lump in her throat, inhaled and let out a slow and shaky breath. She was afraid. Not for herself, never for herself, but for her child, for its future and for the future of her people.

"I give you my word," she said softly, "I will not abandon him as I did you. He will know his heritage, and his father," Her voice shook slightly. "He will know of your love, and your sacrifice. Where can I find him?"

[member="Ijaat Mereel"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The response was unerring, and for the moment cut over her question. It was not a harsh tone. In fact, it was soft, kindly, and almost loving. A voice long used to pain, and doubt.

"The child will understand, and love you still, as any child loves their mother. You did your duty, and any good mando'ade will understand that. You will do wonderfully. I cannot say for the father, but the chance is owed him. Every man should have that. Mine was taken from me, Quintus, his brother Darius, and Aerin - my wife. The Sith took them from me.. The Wrath of the Dark Lord himself. My own, as I came to find, Uncle did this to me. It broke my mind. Now I seek to right decades of madness through you. My son was on Denon the last I knew. On leave from a medical group. He's a geneticist and surgeon for a war-neutral organization. Some kind of charity, is my understanding... A good man. Poor sod even looks like me, but a ginger. Bring him here, if you can... And I will speak to him, with the last of what remains of me..."

[member="Mia Monroe"]

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia staggered at his response to her unspoken fears, ankles hitting the blackened boulder she had been sitting on previously and forcing her back down to it as the weigh of all the worlds came to sink upon her shoulders. Eyes blurred, tears spilling unbidden once more and her strength wavered. She sucked in gulps of air, exhaling slowly trying desperately to push her fears away.

I am Mia Monroe. Mand'alor the Liberator. I have conquered pain, I have conquered death. I will conquer fear. I will bring our people back to strength.

The mantra repeated, over and over, till her breathing steadied, till the tears stopped flowing. She looked up slowly, meeting Ijaat's flickering gaze
pleading silently with him to hold his tongue. "Denon." she said after a beat, climbing slowly to her feet, unsure for a moment if her legs would hold her.

"I will find him. Ke'pare, ori'vod. I will not fail you."

[member="Ijaat Mereel"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

"I know you will... It's why I spent so much of myself to pull you here... Quintus will need you, as I did. As our people do. As your child will. You will have to be whole, strong, and unrelenting. But you will see it through. I have every faith. Our people will stand again, and regain their honor and purpose."

Here, he smiled, looking to the horizon, a wistful expression on his face as he sighed deeply.

"I will miss you, even though our time was brief. You were a boon companion. Had I not been so broken, who knows what fire you would have woken from the ashes within me... A man is blessed to have such friends as I did in you."

As he spoke, the form began to leech and fade away, slowly, eyes turning to hers. Saying nothing, but merely gazing at her in thanks, and faith.

[member="Mia Monroe"]