The Rebel Queen - Poe Dameron

Chapter III: Deliverance

Mokk-Toh

His ankles burned beneath the bandages, the salve was doing its work. But just because his body was healing, didn't mean his mind was. Unconscious and broken, that had been his state when the band of smugglers had found him with water in his lungs. He would have died too if one of their crew hadn't been drawn to the flames that ruptured out of a storm drain. In a way, Versengen was to blame for his survival. The universe did have a cruel sense of irony.

The smugglers had tried to set the broken bones in splinters and relocate his shoulder as best they could, but they weren't medics and Mokk-Toh's wounds were severe. From the height he jumped, the shallow water might as well have been solid ground. Now one of his ankles would never heal right, the bone permanently fixed at a crooked angle, robbing him of the balance he once had. But that wasn't the only part of him to suffer from disruption. His soul ached.

His injuries had left him with a fever, and when they brought him to Takodana, they were certain he wouldn't make it. They were right, he wouldn't have, if not for Maz. That ancient being knew quite the many odd trick or two when it came to healing, Mokk-Toh gathered it was because her Ko was more attuned to the Ko-Katrah than most.

Even though Maz's actions had been a mercy, they felt like a curse. Because now he was awake, faced with the harsh reality that not only had he narrowly failed at his mission, he had definitively failed his queen. Worse yet, he had no one to answer to. He had no queen. Not anymore.

When he had found out about her demise, he had felt the life-force drain from his veins. His heart grew too heavy to carry and his crooked legs couldn't hold him upright. Defeated, he had resigned himself to die of shame. To die in the silence of a hidden cave.

Mokk-Toh rarely dreamed, and if he did he would always forget. But now? Now his dreams had manifested as nightmares. In the dream state, those phantoms were tangible. In them he'd see Lenora, her face shifting with the years from young to old to dead. Sometimes he'd see Calista, the young princess he had watched over since birth. She too would shift from wide-eyed adventurous girl, to rebellious teen and then into a lifeless corpse.

The disturbance from his nightmares bled into his wakeful state, he was plagued by their pained whisperings. They'd taunt him as they came to life beyond the confines of his mind. And yet, every time he reached out to touch them, they would disappear and he'd be struck by the stark realisation that they were never there to begin with. Guilt goaded him for surviving those flames, it felt wrong to be present when she wasn't. A visage deformed his reflection every time he bent over his washbasin. Half his face would be mangled and scarred by fire.

He had become his own torturer, and Mokk-Toh had lost the will to try and survive these emotional beatings.

There was no point.

His homeworld was in chaos. A tyrant sat on the throne. And the family he swore to protect with his last dying breath, had taken theirs. And where was he? Halfway across the galaxy, on a mission that mattered not anymore.

He stared into the metal surface of his admiral's badge, pressure increasing around his fingers so the spikey edges would cut into skin. A stream of blood flowed down to his elbow, dropping onto the floor like a leaky faucet. Maz had come to check on him again. She was disheartened to know he had receded further into himself –further into his despair.

When things got bad, Lenora's ghost would project herself beside him, like some sick joke. She would sound real and look real and every time she would talk him off the ledge. It was a nauseating dance. One he wished would come to an end soon.

The days and nights blended together, he couldn't tell if he'd been in that cave for weeks or barely longer than two days. He had detached himself from the world, leaving only his husk behind to walk and eat and rest like some undead abomination.

As darkness descended upon his space, so did his phantoms -as was the new ritual of his life now. They felt so real that day that he could've sworn he felt their presence shift the air around him, turning it alive and electric. This time, it was Calista's face he saw. The same age she had been when he last saw her, but she looked different. There was a deep sadness in her eyes despite the relieved smile that tried to uplift her aura. She looked like she hadn't slept in days. She looked haunted. Just like him.

As she got closer, her steps slow and almost freighted, the air grew thinner as if she was stealing his oxygen. And then she crouched down, her eyes looking up at him while he sat in a meditative pose, the badge still stuck inside his blood crusted grip like a rusty bolt. She placed her hand over his and he could feel it.

He could feel her.

"Mokk-Toh?" she asked, voice quavering and soft.

And then he took a breath. His first real breath since he was rescued. His Ko had been revived, shocked to life by a simple, feather-light touch. Unintentionally, she had illuminated his dark cave with something he didn't think he had anymore.

Hope.