Star Wars Republic Commando: Knight of Honor ✓

Chapter 29

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

As always, I continue to hope that I am doing justice to the spirit of Star Wars as well the respective authors and characters from which I borrow. Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

Mandalorian (Mando'a) words

Ner vod (nair-vohd): "my brother/sister"; colloquially also "my friend"

Ika (EE-kah): diminutive suffix written as 'ika - also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form, e.g, Ord'ika - Little Ordo

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Chapter 29

As a child, Arlesse used to carry around a heavy-bound flimsi novel that contained a collection of fantasy legends. She read that novel faithfully, even though the flimsi pages were falling out of the bindings and the pictures had faded. I got her a new novel to replace the one in disrepair, but she told me that the new flimsi didn't read the same. At first, I thought she meant that the printers had reworded the stories and changed some of the text, but when I compared the flimsies, they were exactly the same. I was baffled by what she said, and I didn't understand it then, but at some point, I finally figured it out. Arlesse had so much of her childhood embedded in that old novel that to remove it from her collection would erase the comfort those stories initially gave her. The new flimsi remained unread on the shelf in her room, but the old one was devotedly left in plain sight. As she grew older, I would occasionally see her run her fingers through the pages, and memories of her younger days would pass through her eyes.

King Vollan Psach, recalling a memory of his daughter while preparing the speeches for her memorial service

Tochin Moon III, 786 Days ABG

Mouse couldn't help glancing over to his left side, his eyes repeatedly falling onto the way Jas' hand kept a consistent grasp on Les'ika's, while his other one maintained a comfortable hold around the Deece. His brother made no attempt to hide now the attraction that he had developed for her, and every motion of his body indicated that Jas had taken his duty to protect the princess far beyond a simple order. Jas was attached, and Mouse wasn't entirely comfortable with the new predicament, but he wasn't certain he even understood why he felt such discomfort. 

He just knew now that Dusty and Jas had been more talkative than they had in the past. Their conversations were barely audible, and most of the time they held them privately. At first, Mouse didn't think anything about their seclusion and the seemingly newfound bond, but the more he thought about it, the more he came to realize that there was something definitely brewing between his brothers.

Mouse never denied that he was a secluded man by nature, and he always preferred his isolation rather than mingling with others. Dusty often made him the target of his verbal attacks because of it, but Mouse was also very proficient at putting Dusty back in his place whenever he got too aggressive in his teasing.

However, in the last couple days, Mouse had grown certain that somehow Les'ika had something to do with Jas and Dusty's closeness, but his gut told him that she was not their enemy. Mouse could find nothing in Les'ika's actions or conversations that would lead him to think she was a danger to Crimson. Instead of feeling guarded around Les'ika, Mouse found himself more social. 

Unlike how he felt about most civilians, he didn't mind her company or her conversations, and Mouse had come to the conclusion that it was probably because she carried herself humbly. He had been exposed to far too many arrogant and overly educated persons in his short life, and the princess was refreshing...modest.