And There Was Another✔️

Chapter 25: Leaving Dantooine

Seth took a long, slow walk around the colony.

It had been two days since they'd finished off the Mandalorians and saved the graul. Most of those two days had been spent getting everything in order. Since he wasn't particularly technical-minded and he had a big frame and worked out a lot, mostly he just moved heavy stuff. Which he was fine with. It was sufficiently mindless work, it was easy work, and it gave him time to think. And right now, Seth really needed to think. If anything, he was slowly beginning to realize that he'd actually been going through life specifically not thinking.

And he was examining that now.

The reason was obvious, at least: thinking hurt. Not in the way that smart people asked dumb people if thinking hurt their poor brains. No, thinking hurt emotionally, because when you grow up in a miserable environment where abuse in its many forms is common, thinking was really just a path to pain. You get to thinking about something and all too quickly your brain starts asking questions. Why did I have to grow up so damned poor? Why did so many people hate me in school? Why do my friends keep dying?

Questions like that had no good answer.

If anything, he knew the answers, and it didn't help at all. The answer was: because that's the way the cards fell. That was the luck of the draw. That was the throw of the dice. He'd been born into a poor family on a poor colony. He was kind of funny looking and children are very cruel, and when you start out feeling worthless, it's a very easy transition to thinking you deserve this. You deserve the bad things that happen to you.

And he was a soldier in a bad war.

People died in war.

But knowing that didn't make it any easier, really. And so, consequently, he'd taught himself to stop thinking. He'd done everything he could to avoid thinking about things. It was why he drank as often as he did, or used to, anyway. Hard to get wasted when you were on duty so often and actually felt a deep sense of responsibility to those around you. And so it had just become second nature. For awhile, he liked it, but now he was beginning to see that it was probably detrimental to his health. Physical, emotional, and mental.

He needed to think about his life, about his purpose, about why he did what he did.

He'd been thinking about that specifically a lot over the past two days.

Seth came to a halt as he saw the lights of the clinic spilling out onto the colony's only road. He was almost positive Seri was still in there. He wanted to ask her a question. Her and Yex and Nova. They were all so...independent and responsible and adult. He was certainly independent enough, but in a way Seth still felt kind of like a teenager. As he resumed his journey, approaching the clinic, the front doors opened up and Seri stepped out. She looked around and when her eyes fell on him, she smiled and walked over.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked with a smile.

"Just taking a walk. Thinking about things," he replied.

"What kind of things?" she asked, and she took his hand and led him over to a bench where they sat down together.

"My life, I guess. What we're doing...I had a question."

"What's your question?"

"Why...do you do the things you do? In life, I mean. What motivates you?"

Seri lost her smile. "That's a big question. Hmm...I suppose what motivates me is getting meaning out of my life. And I've come to the conclusion that the only way I can really do that is to help people with my medicinal skills. I have a mind uniquely gifted in that respect. I just get medicine. I can help people in ways that most of the population simply can't."