Seven Years in the Manda (Yasha Mantis)

[Ember Rekali]

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

"Understand something, Yasha," said Ember, kindly for once. He sat down on the black chair and took a long drink from a bottle that glowed green. "I am your enemy. That has nothing to do with personal feeling, and everything to do with vested interests that just do not align. My entire clan has huddled up in their secret strongholds for years, and anyone who didn't get to those refuges is dead or in prison. Your Empire did that; your father did that. I'm teaching you because you remind me a little of my daughters, but mostly because that was our bargain. I teach you, I don't join forces with Ijaat Mereel, and in return you stopped imprisoning, infecting, and killing the witch clans. You made the explicit threat that, if the witches or I had any contact with Mereel, if he came within a parsec of Dathomir or Mandalore, you would let the vode loose and drown Dathomir in a bloodbath. You said that to my face."

He drained the bottle and set it down beside the black chair. Absent the green liquid, the bottle blended into the gloom.

"Maybe drama got the better of you, but I believe what you said was an accurate reflection of the situation. I can see the past and the future, I can see things happening far away, and I can talk with the dead. I know what your Empire is, and there's no way I could support it. What I can do is teach you, on the slim hope that you'll turn into someone sensible enough to...well, not fix the big problems, but at least refrain from causing more.

"It's time for a test. I had a drink and a hand of sabacc with Ijaat Mereel on Canto Bight. There's a gate to realspace less than a kilometre away. Are you going to walk through, emerging not long after you left, and take Vilaz Munin off his leash? Are you ready to murder a planet over a drink?"

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The kind way in which [member="Ember Rekali"] explained his position tempered the shrill of self-protection flooding up and down Yasha’s spine. She continued eating until she’d finished, taking in what he said and setting down her empty paper plate. “How can I cure the Witches, when they’re not sick? How can I follow through with the idea that Force Users are diseased, when you just taught me that the Force and the Manda are the same thing? Yes, as a child, and in my anger I threatened to glass Dathomir to ash… To let Vivi go rancor on everything… but my conscience isn’t clear now. Thank you for teaching me, Ember… as long as I live, the Witches of Dathomir will have no more to fear from Mandalore. There’s no apology I can give for what we’ve done, except to… to ask for a safe haven on Dathomir, some bit of land with nothing on it, where I can send the Mandalorians who won’t be cured… A place where the Resol’nare can be upheld, and yet where those of us who hate the Force won’t bother them. I can’t change Mandalore. I’m not their leader, not yet. But Mama used to say if the galaxy’s going to hell in a handbasket, turn it around. Mereel killed so many of us there was barely anything left. I cannot afford to allow him in our borders… but I also cannot afford to let the Witches feel threatened by people who used to be their siblings.”

The bottle faded and Yasha ran her hand along her hairline. “What is my Empire? Isn’t it what I make of it? What you’re teaching me, Alor Rekali, it’s getting through…. Over a drink? Ember, I meant if Mereel tries to commit another genocide, or attacked us. I need him to leave us alone… I can’t go through Sinner’s Rue again, not if I’ve done something unforgivable like that… All I wanted was for Mereel to leave us alone. I need him to leave us alone… so no. Vivi will stay on his leash.”

 

[Ember Rekali]

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

"Good. That's exactly what I wanted to hear, and I believe you mean it. Congratulations, Yasha: you've grown a sense of proportion. I wouldn't recommend showing it off in public on Manda'yaim. People don't like what they don't understand."

He slapped his knees and stood. The door creaked open at the end of the hall, and light and heat flooded the gallery.

"I could show you a few other ways to beat death, but they're all variations on the themes we've discussed. You know what you came here to know. It's time for you to start your return to the land of the living. Quick and easy path through the Great Rift on Corellia, or a long walk back down the road to your friends and Dathomir. The choice is yours. While you think on it, though, let me leave you with one piece of advice. Take it more seriously than anything else I've said.

"The sins that the Mandalorian Empire is committing against people like me? Those sins can be ended. They can't be erased. You said an empire is what its leader makes of it, but you were wrong. It's what its people make of it. Ra just let them off the leash, stoked things they already felt. That won't vanish. You'll try, of course, but your preferences don't determine the national character, or wipe away the past. There's something in you that wants to befriend - compulsively. You may be a murderer but you're also a peacemaker. Just understand that the universe doesn't revolve around your dreams and you'll be fine."

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Somehow, Ember’s words felt like praise. The girl soaked it in, taking any positive moment and holding it tight in her heart as if those seconds alone would salvage the hell her life was pitched into. The Little Mand’alor was so starved for pleasant days and moments in time, where she had more to look to than survival. She smiled and chuckled, like a girl who solved a problem at school.

“I’m good at going ‘grrr. Raaagghh.’ I can hide it.” A single moment for things to turn out differently. For the pain of Mandalore to cease and the people turn back to a brighter way. Pushing to her feet, she held her buy‘ce in her crushgaunt and pulled her other gauntlet on her bare hand. “I know what happened. I can confront Darth Carnifex, his days of controlling Mand’alor are over. Kaine Zambrano doesn't scare me.”

Sliding her helmet over her braided hair, the girl’s face disappeared behind human-less transparisteel and beskar. “As much as I’d love a short walk to Corellia, my friends followed me through the Netherworld... and I’m not leaving on an easy road when theirs is hard. If we have to travel across the Galaxy to get to Dathomir, Vivi and Daddy’ll go rabid Nexu and by the time I get there, your rivers will be blood... Ember? Did you sense anything... crazy coming off my Daddy? I mean more than PTSD and a stim addiction crazy. It’s just... his eyes keep changing colour and Uncle Silas was muttering about alcamemy and Ginnie Ordo... I need my Daddy. Not the shell that’s left.”

Committing [member="Ember Rekali"]’s words to memory, Yasha turned to him one last time. She hugged his waist, a child in faith. “I’m sorry, Ember. I’m sorry for Dathomir.”

Yasha meant it. Not that it would repair the damage already done. The future Mand’alor ran to the doorway, to the heat of the Field, squared her shoulders, and inhaled. Her boots clanged in her ears. Kaden and Shia were waiting. Mama’s ghost was with them.

“Alor Rekali? My Mama, Sir... She’s in the Netherworld and... she’s... she died on Mandalore, Sir.” Yasha’s throat wobbled, “She’s alone. Can’t or... won’t move on without my Daddy. Won’t mean anything to you, but she’s... she was an engineer. [member="Aditya Mantis"]... If she came to the Field of.... sorry. Thank you, Alor Rekali. Best sandwich and sleep I ever had.”

A moment of simplicity in the terror of a young life. The truth of it was as terrible as it sounded: this had been one of the most pleasant experiences in the young woman's life. She'd had so few. With a full stomach and the first full sleep in years, Yasha Mantis struck out to [member="Kaden Mantis"] and [member="Shia Kryze"]. It was time to go home.

 

[Ember Rekali]

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

"Sorry is a start. It means nothing without action. Fix your mistakes in good faith, live with the consequences, and then you'll be more than you were. It's the only way to grow up."

He smiled without humor, and just for a moment, his hand settled on her head as she hugged him.

"Your father never learned that lesson. That's all that's wrong with him."

The black chair enfolded him again.

"If your mother makes her way here, there's room for her in my home until she fades. It's not much of a life, but it's better than the Field or the Rue. Goodbye, Yasha Mantis."

The door closed behind her of its own accord.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Some Time Later…

“Yeah, eff you too Master-Lord-Super-Destroyer-Jedi-Sith-I’m-the-greatest! Up yours!!” A series of crashes and grunts passed in front of the black castle of [member="Ember Rekali"]. An Epicanthix woman slunk toward the doors, waving her fist at the supposed warrior who accosted her on the road. Dang ingrates… teach them a lesson, what do they do?

“Ember Rekali, as I don’t live and breathe… you…” Aditya raised her index finger and waved it as a smirk began to grow on her tired, worn face. “… you did a number and a half, you know that? Someone had to, Yash needed to hear it. By the gods, goddesses and twats who think they’re bigger than all of them… Yash said you’d be willing to let me stay here. Hope you don't mind I brought an extra... couldn't leave him, you know?”

Dusting off her hands, Aditya offered the cleaner of the two to the Nightfather. Her worn face was a dead ringer for her daughter, yet Aditya’s eyes were black and red. Genetic abnormality… not that it mattered now.

“Now what in the holy hogarth of heavenly mess-ups did my gorram husband do to Jasper?! Good lawrd in the between places, you die twice and the galaxy goes to rubbish faster than you can say ‘clean up after yourselves’…” Sighing heavily, or approximately doing so, being dead, Aditya shook her head. “Sweetie cakes, c’mon now. C’mon no dawdlin’.”

A little boy with Aditya’s eyes sidled up and clung to Aditya’s leg. He sniffled and hid his face, lip wobbling as he reached for her. Pulling him up to sit on her hip, Aditya rocked him, kissed his raven hair.

“Mommy…” the boy whispered, hiding his head in Aditya’s shoulder. “I want Mommy…”

“Shush now, Eli. Shush… thanks for the help Ember. Appreciate it. Hearts and soul. We'll be quiet. Find a place out of the way to bug you as little as we can... Oh Eli, hush child.” So it was that Aditya and Eli Mantis came to be at the Rekali Castle. Finally, a place in Hell for Aditya to fade gracefully.

OOC: Couldn't resist an Aditya fin... >_>