Heaven is a Frame of Mind: Reunion of Preliat, Aditya & Yasha

[Yasha Cadera]

In Hell...

"Yasha, run!" [member="Aditya Mantis"]' voice curdled across the girl-child between her and the monster. What kind of monster? Yasha couldn't tell. It was feathers and spikes and nightmares. It hit her Mama hard. It came from above and smacked both of them to the ground.

Yasha rolled as she fell, falling into a crevasse and clinging to the side with gloved fingers. The little girl knew better than to grunt and cry. She knew better than to make noise of any kind. Yasha pulled herself up, crawled behind the decomposing body of a pig-monster and watched.

Aditya pulled a knife from her thigh and stabbed. "You!" Stab.

"Can't!" Stab.

"Have!" Slash, push. The monster screeched. Its' voice blew Aditya back. She rolled to her feet and rushed the snuffling monster and her daughter's hiding spot.

"Our!" Aditya kicked at the bird-like beast. It twisted and caught her boot in its' talons. The bird yanked.

"Yasha!" Aditya gurgled, hitting the mucky ground and kicking out with her other foot. She kicked and kicked. The creature began to feed her foot into its' beaked mouth. Yasha bolted from her hiding spot and careened up the back of the creature. Pulling out a broken spearhead strapped with leather, the girl stuck it into the beast's neck. Falling off the bucking creature, she thrust as she slid off of it onto her mother's torso. The beast gurgled, neck swelling. It fell twitching to the ground, its' last garbled squawks vanishing in the hellish muck.

"Mama!" Yasha rolled off her mother and looked her over. Aditya grunted. She held her hand on her side.

"Yasha? Sunspot, Mama's okay.. Mama's... not..." Aditya panted. She pulled her hand away from her side. Yasha watched through gaping brown eyes as crimson stained her mother's hand.

"Aw feth and vinegar..." Aditya's head lolled to the side. She stumbled away with her daughter in her arms.

The next few days, Yasha tried to keep her mother comfortable in a hidey-hole no bigger than a cockpit. She went out for water, strafing the sides of cliff faces and old familiar routes. Mama wasn't talking no more. Mama's face was wet. She stunk funny... if only they had Mando'ade in Hell.

Two Days Later...

[member="Isley Verd"] had delivered Yasha and [member="Aditya Mantis"] from hell. Rushing from her brother's base, [member="Ginnie Ordo"] had called all her contacts and all possible places to find [member="Preliat Mantis"]. His wife. His daughter.

They were alive.

Aditya hung suspended in a Bacta tank, minutes from an unkind death via sepsis. Yasha refused to leave her mother's side. Not for candy, food, water or toys would the child leave her mother. She held onto her cobbled spear-knife, kept her fists up in self-defence.

Yasha said one thing, and one thing only.

"Field Marshal [member="Preliat Mantis"]. Field Marshal [member="Preliat Mantis"]!" The child was shaking, pale and squinting at the lights. She shielded her eyes and kept up her defence. She slept in fits, wrapped in no blanket but the hum of the Bacta tank.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

It came with a man carrying a bag. It was hand-delivered to him to ensure delivery. Something of this magnitude was not worthy of an electronic delivery. Preliat snatched it from the messanger, staring at the young Twi'lek with a hateful stare. He did not hate him personally, but he was being bothered made the young man receive his ire. His eyes scanned the datapad intently, hoping to find 'just kidding' or some cruel joke from @Darth Orcus hidden somewhere.

Needless to say, the Wolf moved rather quickly to find his wife and child.

And he arrived with little fanfare, shoving past security checkpoints. The security teams knew better than to fight him, the only thing they would accomplish, even if they did take him down, was the wrath of a lot of people and the untimely deaths of many of their compatriots, even if they managed to take him down. Preliat came to, and stood in the doorway. He reached up to his face, removing his helmet. He stared at the Bacta tank, his facial expression stoic as per usual.

There she was. There she was, finally. Strung upon death's silky strand, clinging to life like a disease.

And her. The little girl. He vaguely held memories of something familiar about her, but could not place where he knew the little girl.

He pointed a finger at her, speaking in the low, gravelly tone that he had become known for.

"Who are you to send for me? How is this woman alive? How do you know who I am?"

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

[member="Preliat Mantis"] walked into a room connected to a vague nightmare. The girl pushed and shoved everything into a circle around her position, creating natural barricades. She held her tiny fists up, clenched in front of her stern face. The broken spearhead wobbled in her front hand, blade facing to the ground. As he entered she gasped, stepped back toward the Bacta tank and relative safety of her mother. She strafed to the side one step, squinting upward. Yasha grunted at the light behind Preliat. She rubbed her upper face with the back of a stained and filthy arm. Small cuts, bruises and a swollen lower lip bathed the girl's body, or what parts of it he could see.

"Buir". Upon her body cinched with thin leather cord, the child wore the remains of Aditya's armour weave. The Clan Mantis symbol emblazoned across her chest and arm shone dim in the uncanny bright light. She rubbed her eyes again, strafing forward one more step.

"You're the man from the motel. You're Preliat Mantis. Mama says only she can call you Eli. Mama tried to get you to see me. I broke the rules. I shouldn't have tried to take your hand. I left my post. The terror birds hunted us for days." She grinned, a row of yellow-white teeth spreading from thin, thirsty lips. "I killed them. Mama and I killed them. They tasted yummy. See? I kept some feathers! She told me you'd be proud."

The man before her was a vicious warrior who bent worlds under his boot. Yasha looked from his beskar leg to his stern and violent face. The rugged low voice washed over her. Yes... Yes, her father would have that voice. He would be a hard man, a survivor. He would be a man who could fight demons and scare them off.

Aching young arms reached upward, fists unfurling. Her impromptu knife clattered to the ground. "I'm not a ha-hallu... I'm alive, Buir. Mama and I made it back. We kept trying to make it home. It took birthdays. That Mando'ad helped us come home, but they won't let me talk to Mama! You gotta let me talk to Mama, Mama knows what to do! Mama knows how to survive! Why isn't Mama talking? Why is Mama in that goo? Why are the lights so bright? We were going on a supply run and a terror bird tried to eat me, so Mama stabbed it and I slit its' throat and I fell on Mama... Her tummy was bleeding. Mama stopped talking. Her arms got cold and her face was wet all the time."

The girl blinked and rubbed at her eyes; Preliat's eyes in a smaller being. She continued reaching up to him, Mama told her to. Mama told her he was even better at protecting them than she was. Yasha didn't believe her. yet. Pulling a thin chain from around her neck, Yasha produced the one thing which had the power to prove who she was.

Aditya's wedding ring rested on the chain around her daughter's neck. Behind the ring, the printed out picture of Preliat, Aditya and the infant Yasha in an easier time. "I'm Yasha, Buir. I'm Yasha and I'm here to stop the bad thoughts from making your forehead all... squidgy. Mama said you like hugs. Can I have a hug? I can have a Buir hug, she told me! Mama told me there's only two people in the universe I can trust; Mama and you."

A little girl reached up at her father, the timid hope of a reunion as best there was on her face. [member="Aditya Mantis"] rested in the Bacta tank, eyes closed. Yasha rubbed her eyes, reached upward. Her lip bobbed up and down. She reached.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

He just stared. He stared for a long while, before his hand fell back to his side. He blinked a few times, before speaking and embracing his daughter. She was smaller than he thought she would be. Then again, the diet in hell most likely wasn't one to encourage growth."Yes, yes you can have a hug."His lip trembled and his body shook. He took his little girl into his arms, something he had been denied for such a long time. Then, he looked up at his wife. By all accounts of what he was told, she was going to be fine. She would just need time to recover.

"You can trust me. You can always trust me."

He held her close, close to him, double checking that this wasn't some dream he was to awake from. But it never came. They were both here. And for the first time since Elrood, Preliat cried. He cried for the loss, he cried for the longing. But after a while, he was crying for the happiness. The joy that he had been denied for so long, the sweet rush of elated joy, came back to him. It came to him in a flood, all at once.

He leaned his head into her small shoulders, drying his eyes.

"Daddy loves you both very much."

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

A child who had been shown little of grace held her arms above her head. Mama had told her stories of [member="Preliat Mantis"], her Eli, and in all of them he was a brave, valiant and vicious warrior, who despite his nightmares, was a good man. When their tummies rumbled or they'd run out of clean water, [member="Aditya Mantis"] would bundle her girl up in her arms and tell her of all the things wrong with Hell, of all the things which were right on Mandalore. The best thing, the most right thing was being with her Daddy, her Buir.

Yasha had always known their life in Hell was wrong. She knew, even as a small child, that none of it was right: the killing, the fear, the quick naps which left her tired, the empty bellies. Fear itself kept them sharp, alive, but fear was never supposed to be the natural state of the universe. They were insurgents in a bad place, and one day Mama would bring Yasha home.

"Mama said she'd bring us home, Daddy... but I did it. Me. Your Yasha." Yasha's chin wobbled. For the first time in her memory, Yasha Mantis was safe in her father's loving arms. Preliat was warm, his armour felt hard and powerful against Yasha's shivering, tired skin. "It was scary!" Yasha snuggled into her father, spindly arms clinging around his neck. Those arms shook, she wouldn't let go.

"Noffing can huwt us now." Yasha sobbed.

Her father's tears had begun a torrent in the child, finally able to undo the bundle of raw nerves and fears she'd been living with for what seemed to be her entire life. She pushed her head against her father's cheek, body wracked with her childish sobs. Her Daddy would always protect her. In her eyes, he was ten feet tall.

"Mama missed you, Daddy. She missed you evewyday. We never celebrated my birfdays cause Mama said we were gonna celebrate them wif you. I wuv you too, Daddy." Yasha sniffled and leaned up in her father's arms, placing tiny kisses on his tearstained cheek. "Now you don't have to be afwaid anymore. That's how Mama dries my tears. Why isn't Mama awake yet?"