As The World Caves In: An Avengers / Star Wars Story

grief of the past

**Don't skip ahead to read translations or risk spoilers**

I was back by the veshok* tree where my parents where buried, where my brother should have been, on Concordia. The one place I believed I had left after losing my true home. After losing who I believed to be my family. The sky was dark, explosions sounded soft in the distance of my war torn home. The evergreen tree that I staggered up to having lost more than just my arm. My masters sabre dangled on my belt as I clutched her Holocron in my only hand. I pulled my cloak tighter around me as I looked up at the bark. The markings showing the great history of my people dancing, shimmering as warriors fought against one another. Of course... meaning death.

I pulled myself up to the furthest trunk part of the tree. The closest to the setting sun, until I fell, scrapping my knees on the jagged roots. My balance was off. I was unused to this weightlessness on my right side. Tears blinding my vision as I struggled to collect my belongings. As I pulled my things together, I grabbed for a stone, a small rock, and placed it before me.

I reached my hand into the earth and began to dig, my fingernails scrapping up the cool mud as I did so. I wiped my face, trying to keep my tears from falling, smearing mud across my features. My sobs keeping me from getting a good enough breath. When the hole was just barely big enough I placed my master's holocron into the ground, unable to read what it had said. I could not bring myself to hear her words, not when I had failed her. My sobs came out shaky as I tried to take a breath.

I looked upon her lightsabre as I unclipped it from my belt. It was beautiful. Far more beautiful that something I could ever possess. I held the sabre to my chest as my shoulders shook with each sob. I ignited the blue light, the color reflecting in my eyes. The color of crystal that matched Anakin's. The color blue made me sick.

     Oh Anakin, what have you done...

I reached for my braid, but stopped. Only padawans becoming Knights could get their braids cut. I was no Knight. I wasn't even worthy of being a padawan. I was unable to protect them, I failed them. I dropped Master Shaak Ti's lightsabre. And grasped my hand around my braid.

I was no Jedi. I was no one. My people have a word for a child that is no one. No longer a part of their heritage. Anakin loved to call me so, dar'manda*. No mando. Now... now I am dar'jetii. No Jedi.

Pulling with all my might, I yanked the braid from my head. I grunted as I did so, the white and yellow beads exploding.

I took the braid and wrapped it around my master's lightsabre, placing them both into the ditch of the ground. Next to the just as crude headstones of my parents. However, before I did so, I took her kyber crystal from the sabre. I placed it into my pocket gently. Hands shaking, I picked up a single white bead. I was no medic, no healer. I was nothing but a killer just as I was born to be. I dropped the bead and stuck my left hand to the severed shoulder, screaming as I dug my hand in, blood oozing from the injury. Panting heavily, I placed my hand print on the stone for Shaak Ti's grave.

      "Ni su'cuyi... gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, g...gar darasuum," I whispered softly the prayer of my people. The prayer I had prayed over the graves of my parents, but then, I had Nex next to me. The prayer I whispered as I watched my home planet get further and further from me. Even then, I had Master Qui Gon holding my shoulder as I was taken to the temple. The temple that I met Anakin only a few years later. 

      I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.

I held my hand to my chest, hugging myself the way no one ever did. It wasn't right to be hugged as a Jedi, that was a form of physical attachments. Even so, the feeling of his hand on my waist never left me. The tears came fast and heavy as I curled into myself, falling to my side. The sky of my home was black except for the irregular bursts of orange light.