You think you know pain. You think you know what it means to suffer.
You don't.
I was born before the events that shook Corellia to its core and destroyed half of the world that I knew and loved. My life wasn't terrible at that time. I had a home where my mother and father took care of my sister and I. He was a farmer, and we relished the time we spent together tending the fields even as young children. It was a joy that was infectious to have that time together. There wasn't much better. My sister was a bit older so she went off to school while I stayed home with my parents, running around the fields and playing with tiny insects. Even the animals that called our world home seemed to like me. Danger was a foreign concept as everywhere I went I found friends and around every turn was another new adventure with little peril to worry over as my friends would take care of me.
One day my sister, Annika, went off to school early in the morning. She was going to talk to one of her teachers about an assignment she was having a bit of trouble with. I didn't understand at the time, but as I waved good-bye to her, and she waved back, it would be the last time that I ever saw my sister.
That day was the day Corellia ended. The events of the Netherworld took many lives and left my world in ruins. My parents and I fled on a large starliner that would end up becoming our home, along with numerous others. I asked about Annika. I remember the looks on my parent's faces of grief and sadness when I mentioned her name. To this day those looks haunt me as much, if not more, than the faces of the others. It took a long time for me to stop crying. I have loved my sister more than anything. Of all my friends she had always been the most protective, the one making sure I was never in danger even if I was doing something dangerous. Without her I didn't know how to go on, but I did.
On the ship there was an old man. To this day I don't know his name. He asked us to refer to him as Grandpa, so we did. We being the few of us that somehow felt ourselves drawn to him. He told us that what we felt was the pull of the Force, and that we were gifted in it. The we was a group of people who would become my new friends: Rena and Roe were twins, then there was Zeph, Malaki, and Leyla. Zeph was the oldest, but he was only a year older than me. Rena and Roe were the same age as I was and the others were all a year or two younger than me when we lost our home. We'd all lost people, and that grief had somehow woken up our connection to the Force and pulled us towards the only person on the ship who had knowledge enough to teach us anything about it.
For years that ship was our home. Sure we would dock at various different worlds, but we never found anywhere to stay permanently except for the ship. The owners of the ship had been perfectly fine with us living on it as long as we pulled our weight and contributed. It was a cargo-hauler primarily, so we helped out with moving goods in and out of the ships or repairing droids or fixing the ship. Anything that could keep us busy. It was hard work and most of us became quite strong as we grew up. Some more than others, especially when it came to the Force. We all had different talents and mine was as an empath. Still, I knew that the others counted on me so I worked extra hard to get big and strong as I wanted to be able to protect everyone since we often had to deal with people who were unsavory.
This was especially true whenever made deliveries to Hutt space. I can't remember how many times the people there tried to make off with Rena, Roe, or Leyla. They were all beautiful young women, and could mostly handle themselves, but Rena had always been smaller than the rest and her skills were mostly in working with technology. Roe and Leyla would always look after her, but there was one time we stopped at Nal Hutta to unload some freight and she got separated from the rest. A couple of guys cornered her with bad intentions. Roe and Leyla came back from their deliveries at the same time I did, and I asked them about Rena, but they said they hadn't seen her since we parted, so I went to look for her myself.
I found her just as one of the men was finishing with her and the other was getting ready. It was the first time I spilled blood intentionally. My fists were soaked in it, as were my clothes. Both of the attackers were dead, their faces beaten so badly that they would never be recognized, even from dental records. I seethed over their bodies, wishing I could have done more, but Rena's cries brought me back to reality and I scooped her up and took her back to the ship. We were only eighteen at the time. This sort of thing wasn't what we were used to, and the twins didn't have their parents anymore. Grandpa had died two years prior, so we took her to my parents, and they helped her while Roe and I waited. The others waited in the hall outside. The news was good, she wouldn't die from what they'd done, but she needed some time alone. Roe wanted to stay with her, but my parents wouldn't let her enter the room and she eventually stormed off, angry more at what happened than at anyone in particular.
The door to Rena's room became my friend after a time. I swore I'd never leave her completely alone at that point. I may not be welcome in the room, but I could make sure no one went in that shouldn't. It was more than a month, with numerous stops and me not pulling my weight, before the door opened from the inside. Rena stepped out and found me asleep against the wall. I remember feeling her hand touch mine, the tender softness of her chocolatey smooth skin. I woke up after only a moment and when she saw that I'd seen her, she put her arms around my neck and hugged me. I was bewildered, but I hugged her back, and whispered in her ear that I'd never let anything happen to her again.
I was unable to keep my promise.
Three years later I learned that our ship had been sold. It wasn't a big issue, as the people that bought it assured us we could stay. I was picked to head up the ships security detail and given all kinds of random assignments, especially when we made port. I don't remember how long after this transition it was, but on one of those excursions Malaki went missing. Two months later Leyla disappeared. Then my parents went missing. Then Zeph and Roe. Soon enough it was just Rena and I wandering the ship trying to figure out what was going on. We found there was a second level to the cargo hold that we hadn't ever known about. When we went inside, we found out what was going on.
The bodies were strewn everywhere, discarded like trash. All of them naked and all of them cut open, their organs ripped out. Rena started screaming when she saw Roe's body and I had to hold her as she collapsed to the blood strewn floor. I was barely aware of what was going on, my mind reeling at having seen my own parents bodies in similar straits. I didn't hear them come up behind us, I just felt something heavy hit the back of my head and then I collapsed.
When I woke up I was tied, rather simply, to a chair. Rena was tied to the chair opposite me, and the ships new captain was standing next to her with a vibro-sword in his hand. He told me we had two options: join them and become part of their organ harvesting operation where we would make lots of money and be rich, or die like the others had. I looked at Rena and she was gone. The girl I loved wasn't there anymore. She'd died when her twin sister had died. So she told them no, that she wouldn't join them and that they'd just have to kill her. I was already working one of my hands free at this point. I knew what was going to happen, and even as the captain swung his sword, I lunged free of the chair and tackled him.
But I was too slow. I felt her sorrow and pain seep away as her head rolled past where the Captain and I had gone down to the floor. She was free, but I'd lost her, and I'd failed to keep my promise.
I was distracted as tears rolled down my cheeks and the Captain kicked me away. We both climbed back to our feet, but I was a little slow and his blade came down and sliced my left arm off just above the elbow. I staggered back, shocked at the lack of pain I felt more than the incident itself. The strike woke something in me, though, and I unleashed it through the Force, sending the Captain and everything near me flying away as I screamed both in rage and pain. Even though I'd lost my arm, nothing hurt worse than losing Rena. I killed the captain by sticking my hand in his mouth and ripping his jaw off before beating him with it. The savagery of it appealed to me then. I took his sword, and with my arm still bleeding, cut my way through the ship, leaving no member of the crew alive save for the droids. Fortunately we had a good medical droid and he took care of me after that.
Everyone received a proper burial except for the crew, who I threw in the trash compactor. Rena was the last. I tried my best to make her look presentable as I put her inside of a long metal case that I had one of the droids put together. She still looked wrong, and I cried over her for hours before I ejected her from the airlock on a trajectory into the nearest star. All of my friends and family were gone. My world was gone. I had nothing. I was nothing. Nothing but a failure.
The ship crashed onto a world I didn't know. I couldn't fly it and neither could the droids so it was inevitable. Somehow I survived, though I wish I hadn't. The people of the world were Yuuzhan Vong of a sect that was more peaceful than the rest. They took me in and aided me while teaching me things I never asked to know. It was through this that I learned of shaping, their ability to manipulate living tissue and make it something more. They offered to give me a new arm, but I declined. I needed that physical reminder of my weakness, of my failure. It should have been me who died, not Rena or the others. I had failed them and I had to live with that shame for the rest of my life. They understood, but I asked to learn more about their shaping anyway because it intrigued me. The ability to manipulate living matter to ones own ends.
I figured I could do something similar with the Force.
When I was younger, my mother used to tell Annika and I stories about creatures called Ice Dragons. She'd told us where they were from and that they were majestic, beautiful creatures. I decided to go and see for myself, and discovered that she was wrong. As with all stories told to children, everything is coated in a layer of sugar to make it sweeter. But I found something there, and unborn Ice Dragon, and manipulated it to my own ends with the Force. I called her Raeloc. She has been with me ever since then, and I knew that with her I could help others by punishing those that deserved it. No remorse. No doubt. Just assassination of the evil in the galaxy. Raeloc's unique abilities would aid me, as would the Force.
Everyday I wake up from the same dream, seeing all the faces of those I lost. I cry for a short time. Raeloc comforts me. Then we go about our business. This will be my life from now until I die or am killed. I swear on the names of those I lost that I will destroy every ounce of evil I come across, no matter how big or small.
You don't.
I was born before the events that shook Corellia to its core and destroyed half of the world that I knew and loved. My life wasn't terrible at that time. I had a home where my mother and father took care of my sister and I. He was a farmer, and we relished the time we spent together tending the fields even as young children. It was a joy that was infectious to have that time together. There wasn't much better. My sister was a bit older so she went off to school while I stayed home with my parents, running around the fields and playing with tiny insects. Even the animals that called our world home seemed to like me. Danger was a foreign concept as everywhere I went I found friends and around every turn was another new adventure with little peril to worry over as my friends would take care of me.
One day my sister, Annika, went off to school early in the morning. She was going to talk to one of her teachers about an assignment she was having a bit of trouble with. I didn't understand at the time, but as I waved good-bye to her, and she waved back, it would be the last time that I ever saw my sister.
That day was the day Corellia ended. The events of the Netherworld took many lives and left my world in ruins. My parents and I fled on a large starliner that would end up becoming our home, along with numerous others. I asked about Annika. I remember the looks on my parent's faces of grief and sadness when I mentioned her name. To this day those looks haunt me as much, if not more, than the faces of the others. It took a long time for me to stop crying. I have loved my sister more than anything. Of all my friends she had always been the most protective, the one making sure I was never in danger even if I was doing something dangerous. Without her I didn't know how to go on, but I did.
On the ship there was an old man. To this day I don't know his name. He asked us to refer to him as Grandpa, so we did. We being the few of us that somehow felt ourselves drawn to him. He told us that what we felt was the pull of the Force, and that we were gifted in it. The we was a group of people who would become my new friends: Rena and Roe were twins, then there was Zeph, Malaki, and Leyla. Zeph was the oldest, but he was only a year older than me. Rena and Roe were the same age as I was and the others were all a year or two younger than me when we lost our home. We'd all lost people, and that grief had somehow woken up our connection to the Force and pulled us towards the only person on the ship who had knowledge enough to teach us anything about it.
For years that ship was our home. Sure we would dock at various different worlds, but we never found anywhere to stay permanently except for the ship. The owners of the ship had been perfectly fine with us living on it as long as we pulled our weight and contributed. It was a cargo-hauler primarily, so we helped out with moving goods in and out of the ships or repairing droids or fixing the ship. Anything that could keep us busy. It was hard work and most of us became quite strong as we grew up. Some more than others, especially when it came to the Force. We all had different talents and mine was as an empath. Still, I knew that the others counted on me so I worked extra hard to get big and strong as I wanted to be able to protect everyone since we often had to deal with people who were unsavory.
This was especially true whenever made deliveries to Hutt space. I can't remember how many times the people there tried to make off with Rena, Roe, or Leyla. They were all beautiful young women, and could mostly handle themselves, but Rena had always been smaller than the rest and her skills were mostly in working with technology. Roe and Leyla would always look after her, but there was one time we stopped at Nal Hutta to unload some freight and she got separated from the rest. A couple of guys cornered her with bad intentions. Roe and Leyla came back from their deliveries at the same time I did, and I asked them about Rena, but they said they hadn't seen her since we parted, so I went to look for her myself.
I found her just as one of the men was finishing with her and the other was getting ready. It was the first time I spilled blood intentionally. My fists were soaked in it, as were my clothes. Both of the attackers were dead, their faces beaten so badly that they would never be recognized, even from dental records. I seethed over their bodies, wishing I could have done more, but Rena's cries brought me back to reality and I scooped her up and took her back to the ship. We were only eighteen at the time. This sort of thing wasn't what we were used to, and the twins didn't have their parents anymore. Grandpa had died two years prior, so we took her to my parents, and they helped her while Roe and I waited. The others waited in the hall outside. The news was good, she wouldn't die from what they'd done, but she needed some time alone. Roe wanted to stay with her, but my parents wouldn't let her enter the room and she eventually stormed off, angry more at what happened than at anyone in particular.
The door to Rena's room became my friend after a time. I swore I'd never leave her completely alone at that point. I may not be welcome in the room, but I could make sure no one went in that shouldn't. It was more than a month, with numerous stops and me not pulling my weight, before the door opened from the inside. Rena stepped out and found me asleep against the wall. I remember feeling her hand touch mine, the tender softness of her chocolatey smooth skin. I woke up after only a moment and when she saw that I'd seen her, she put her arms around my neck and hugged me. I was bewildered, but I hugged her back, and whispered in her ear that I'd never let anything happen to her again.
I was unable to keep my promise.
Three years later I learned that our ship had been sold. It wasn't a big issue, as the people that bought it assured us we could stay. I was picked to head up the ships security detail and given all kinds of random assignments, especially when we made port. I don't remember how long after this transition it was, but on one of those excursions Malaki went missing. Two months later Leyla disappeared. Then my parents went missing. Then Zeph and Roe. Soon enough it was just Rena and I wandering the ship trying to figure out what was going on. We found there was a second level to the cargo hold that we hadn't ever known about. When we went inside, we found out what was going on.
The bodies were strewn everywhere, discarded like trash. All of them naked and all of them cut open, their organs ripped out. Rena started screaming when she saw Roe's body and I had to hold her as she collapsed to the blood strewn floor. I was barely aware of what was going on, my mind reeling at having seen my own parents bodies in similar straits. I didn't hear them come up behind us, I just felt something heavy hit the back of my head and then I collapsed.
When I woke up I was tied, rather simply, to a chair. Rena was tied to the chair opposite me, and the ships new captain was standing next to her with a vibro-sword in his hand. He told me we had two options: join them and become part of their organ harvesting operation where we would make lots of money and be rich, or die like the others had. I looked at Rena and she was gone. The girl I loved wasn't there anymore. She'd died when her twin sister had died. So she told them no, that she wouldn't join them and that they'd just have to kill her. I was already working one of my hands free at this point. I knew what was going to happen, and even as the captain swung his sword, I lunged free of the chair and tackled him.
But I was too slow. I felt her sorrow and pain seep away as her head rolled past where the Captain and I had gone down to the floor. She was free, but I'd lost her, and I'd failed to keep my promise.
I was distracted as tears rolled down my cheeks and the Captain kicked me away. We both climbed back to our feet, but I was a little slow and his blade came down and sliced my left arm off just above the elbow. I staggered back, shocked at the lack of pain I felt more than the incident itself. The strike woke something in me, though, and I unleashed it through the Force, sending the Captain and everything near me flying away as I screamed both in rage and pain. Even though I'd lost my arm, nothing hurt worse than losing Rena. I killed the captain by sticking my hand in his mouth and ripping his jaw off before beating him with it. The savagery of it appealed to me then. I took his sword, and with my arm still bleeding, cut my way through the ship, leaving no member of the crew alive save for the droids. Fortunately we had a good medical droid and he took care of me after that.
Everyone received a proper burial except for the crew, who I threw in the trash compactor. Rena was the last. I tried my best to make her look presentable as I put her inside of a long metal case that I had one of the droids put together. She still looked wrong, and I cried over her for hours before I ejected her from the airlock on a trajectory into the nearest star. All of my friends and family were gone. My world was gone. I had nothing. I was nothing. Nothing but a failure.
The ship crashed onto a world I didn't know. I couldn't fly it and neither could the droids so it was inevitable. Somehow I survived, though I wish I hadn't. The people of the world were Yuuzhan Vong of a sect that was more peaceful than the rest. They took me in and aided me while teaching me things I never asked to know. It was through this that I learned of shaping, their ability to manipulate living tissue and make it something more. They offered to give me a new arm, but I declined. I needed that physical reminder of my weakness, of my failure. It should have been me who died, not Rena or the others. I had failed them and I had to live with that shame for the rest of my life. They understood, but I asked to learn more about their shaping anyway because it intrigued me. The ability to manipulate living matter to ones own ends.
I figured I could do something similar with the Force.
When I was younger, my mother used to tell Annika and I stories about creatures called Ice Dragons. She'd told us where they were from and that they were majestic, beautiful creatures. I decided to go and see for myself, and discovered that she was wrong. As with all stories told to children, everything is coated in a layer of sugar to make it sweeter. But I found something there, and unborn Ice Dragon, and manipulated it to my own ends with the Force. I called her Raeloc. She has been with me ever since then, and I knew that with her I could help others by punishing those that deserved it. No remorse. No doubt. Just assassination of the evil in the galaxy. Raeloc's unique abilities would aid me, as would the Force.
Everyday I wake up from the same dream, seeing all the faces of those I lost. I cry for a short time. Raeloc comforts me. Then we go about our business. This will be my life from now until I die or am killed. I swear on the names of those I lost that I will destroy every ounce of evil I come across, no matter how big or small.
