Chapter 5: Put it On

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You can't hold back the tears that leak out of your eyes

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You can't hold back the tears that leak out of your eyes. Your only possession, the only thing you ever really cared about...ruined. Your boot. The chains. It's ruined. You tried walking with it, but it kept sliding off, most of the laced part is melted and broken apart. You sit down at the top of the steps of the narrow staircase in this broken down Jedi school, pulling your boot off and examining it.

"Let me wrap your leg, it must hurt." Ap'lek's smooth voice breaks through your turmoil, and his gloved hands start to touch your foot and leg.

You yank away from his grasp, scrambling up to your feet. "Don't touch me. I don't give a fuck about my leg." Your voice breaks. "My boot..."

You hear him sigh, annoyed, under his mask. "Let me wrap your leg up so it doesn't get dirty in the grass. Or do it yourself."

You take a shuttering breath, then sit back down. Letting him wrap a scrap of fabric around your shin. Trudgen comes up the stairs with the rest of them, and he stands over you.

"You should be happy. You got away with barely a scratch. You took my advice."

You wipe your cheeks, a little embarrassed. But it feels like you're grieving a lost loved one. Your heart twists painfully and no matter how hard you try, you can't stop the tears.

"I'm nothing without my boots." You whisper as you cradle the broken shoe in your arms.

Ushar's fucking club nudges you in the back again. You ignore it, but your seething anger sits just under the surface. Of course, the relief that you won, that you earned yourself a home, a place in this group, is there in your mind. And the hope of a future burns bright. But it's shadowed by the pain. The loss.

You feel a gloved hand on your head. You shake it off. Why are they trying to comfort me?! What do they care that the only possession I have is broken? You start to doubt whether it was worth it...

"You aren't the jingler anymore. You're a Knight of Ren." Ap'lek slaps your wound angrily as he speaks, standing up and holding out a hand for you to take. 

You wince at his slap but take his hand reluctantly, standing with one bare foot on the cold floor. Ushar claps you hard on the back.

"Come on. A new helmet will cheer you up. And then Cardo will help you put together some badass armor. Master won't be able to resist."

You hear something strange in his voice at the last comment. But their words cheer you up just enough to stop the tears, though your heart still twists and aches.

You make your way back through the vast plane of grass, smelling the fresh, fragrant air with new life in your heart. It reminds you what you came here for, and what you've since gained. You stumble a few times, your shin starting to throb with pain now that you aren't so focused on other things. The knights still place you in the center of the group. You wonder why. Shouldn't rookies be in the back?

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