The Little Revolutionary | #JustWriteBits June 2019 ✔

The Little Revolutionary

Entered into #JustWriteBits - June 2019

*Also available on my collection "The Maws - One-Shots From Star Wars*

Prompt: Warriors are not always the fastest or the strongest men. Sometimes they are someone just like you.

Kordáuba jai Chadal-whose name had meant the noble one-had never flinched. He was a stocky man with dark scales and a thick jawline who ran three kilometers every morning. Three kilometers. To his son, Sheelal, Appa was the strongest person in the world. He was strong enough that he never wept.

The night that it had happened, Sheelal had tried to enter his father's bedroom, even though it was forbidden in the Amidral religion for children to enter their parents' rooms after dark. When he didn't find his father there, he had bolted to his third-mother's room, but Shurga had been fast asleep.

When he had failed to find either of his parents, he had gone outside to find Appa sobbing bitterly at the side of his house, maskless and alone. Sheelal hadn't been sure what to do except to ask, "Where's Ama?"

Appa had only proceeded to weep more thoroughly. A jolt of terror had rocketed through Sheelal. "Is she gone?"

It had been six months since Ama had been torn away from her family, and Sheelal was still not over it. The Yam'rii had taken her from him. They were bad creatures who caused blood to wash the streets of Advar.

One night, Appa swooped Sheelal onto his shoulders, and they went up to the rock where they used to stargaze. The older Kaleesh touched his son's chin, which sported two tiny humps-the beginnings of tusks. "We need to talk."

To Sheelal, that sentence meant he had to bury all his emotions-all the immense love he had for his father; all the grief from Ama's death; all the hatred he had for the Yam'rii-and be a man. It meant he needed to live up to the honorable calling as a future tribal leader. As a khan.

"Do you remember when we got the report that the Qymaili had been massacred?" his father asked.

"The pretty people in the south? On Grendaju?"

"Exactly. The Yam'rii came in and killed all of them."

"Except one."

"Those are just rumors," Appa chuckled. "That was the first you heard of the Yam'rii, wasn't it?"

"They're bad bugs."

Appa nodded sadly, bringing his son in close. "The Yam'rii have been around since the time of your birth, son. Perhaps a few months before." A sigh. "They started on the south pole with the holiest tribe on Kalee-the Abesmites, ted khundetge. There are no more Abesmites left on Kalee. They are an extinct race."

"And they just killed the Qymaili?"

"When you were about to turn eight, we got the report. Someone thought they saw a girl your age evade the wreckage, but it's impossible, unless she's gifted like you are."

"Are we going to find her someday?"

"No. I don't believe the rumors, and you shouldn't either. Instead," Appa said, a gentle smile returning from beneath his mask, "I'm offering you the chance of your lifetime. Not many children your age get to do this, son, but I am inviting you to be my page."

At this Sheelal's face lit up. He was happiest when pleasing Appa. And pages got to go on all sorts of adventures-from retrieving slugthrower ammunition in the heat of a battle to protecting the khans from harm. He could travel to the farthest reaches of Kalee and see more of the world than ever before.