Hurt Vector - 06 . Little Monsters
Title: 06part . LittleMonsters
Series: Hurt Vector
Character(s): OC - Yain S. Juuri (Mandalorian)
Rating: PG+
Words: 5060~
Fandom: Star Wars
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, or anything in that universe. I'm not making money.
Summary: A muscle spasm runs through my shoulder, down my arm, to my fingertips. The pills don’t go flying like they should. My throat clenches, dry swallowing, and my stomach rumbles. I’m kind of tired, kind of hungry.
I put the pills away.
K’atini. It’s only pain.
Author's Notes: Everyone hurts, apparently. I won't have time to triple check for grammatical errors/spelling/everything else so... watch your stepeyes. I had a hard time writing this chapter but I think... I think I'm happy with how it ended up. Also, I may or may not add to it. I haven't decided if it's good as-is, or needs more touch-up. Edited. This is the most dialogue I have ever written for one installment. Holy crap.
EDITED: 14.07.09
(Fan Fiction List)
06part.LittleMonsters
[16:10:11]
121 Days Post Order 66
I feel weightless. Tired. A little hungry.
Outside, the howling winds of an angry storm batter the landing platform. The blast shields are up, so there's no coming or going from this location, not even to retreat inside the mining facility.
But that's okay. Right here, inside my ship, on the floor of the cargo hold, I can touch my bare palms to the metal plating and feel Jate'kara all around me. I hear the groans of the liquid coolant systems, and can almost feel the currents of electricity humming in between thick plated walls. She'd never let anyone, or anything, touch me. Not as long as I take care of her. And I do my best. I try to do my best.
Jate'kara. It's mando'a, meaning luck, destiny. Literally, it translates to good star, a course to steer by. At the time, I thought it was fitting. And right now, I still do. That wasn't her name when I … liberated her, of course, but I think she was just as eager for the name change as I was for my own at the time. Not to mention that I never got a chance to ask the original pilot what the ship's name was.
It seems like a moot point now, though, considering how the pilot was dead when I found him.
Blackened to a crisp. A little smoky. Still warm. Smelling like Gamorrean all-you-can-eat barbecue. Flakes of skin peeling off and sticking to the tips of my fingers, falling off like so much over-cooked bantha meat melting off the bone.
Happy thoughts, Yain. Think happy thoughts.
Yain. One letter away from yaim. Home. I don’t have one, aside from this ship. And even the ship seems kind of fleeting. I can’t escape it, but inside Jate’kara, I feel like I can escape everything else. The irony is not lost on me.
Well. The fact that a person named Home has none, that is. Not the fleeting space travel escape thing.
I glance down into my open palm and stare at the two pale green unmarked pills resting right at the center. The skin of the inside of my hands are soft and smooth, as if I never worked a day of my life. It's the blessing of expensive gloves and homemade lotion, I guess.
If I turned them over, my hands would still look smooth, except for the occasional blister and the still-healing bruises. It occurs to me that the bruises really shouldn’t be taking this long to heal, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say the knuckle pushups I do every morning aren’t exactly helping things. I could speed up the healing process via unconventional methods, but… I really don’t want to.
I refocus on the two pills. Painkillers. I could take them. I could stay here in a pain-free stupor until the storm passes. Maybe get some sleep, because at this point in my life I’ve missed enough shut-eye to take off ten years of my life. Not that it matters. My chosen lifestyle isn’t exactly the long-lived kind.
Then again, I didn’t get into the business banking on it being the long-lived kind.
A beat passes. I lick my lips, thinking about it.
Still thinking about it.
A muscle spasm runs through my shoulder, down my arm, to my fingertips. The pills don’t go flying like they should. My throat clenches, dry swallowing, and my stomach rumbles. I’m kind of tired, kind of hungry.
I put the pills away.
K’atini. It’s only pain.
I shift to the side, lean my head against the crook of an arched wall, and close my eyes. Relax. Focus on my breathing, slowing down my inhales and exhales to match the dull thrum of the ship. Time passes, and I'm not sure how long it takes, but I slowly start to drift in and out of sleep. A blur of old memories dance behind my eyes. My mind can't rest, can't slow down, but at least I can sit here and let my body relax.
Faces drift around me. Faces with names I can’t remember. Faces with names that aren’t theirs, aren’t real, but are the ones they gave me before their demise.
I see a blur of all the places I've been, and some that I haven’t. Rolling fields buried under ice and snow. Towering buildings of durasteel, duracrete and plast. Massive spaceships docked in old trash yards, chunks of their hull crumbling to dust under the blazing white twin suns. Lines and lines of droids shifting off for the big melt. A small cabin with a dock balancing right on the edge of an open lake, its surface broken by the winds of a coming storm.
Homes constructed of giant cargo containers. Racing lanes crisscrossing over broken, barren, frozen tundra, melting into magma drenched cragged landscape. The underpaid, over-budgeted, medical ward of on acid soaked mining colony.
Piles upon piles of bodies tossed haphazardly together for the fire to say goodbye.
The hydraulics in the wall directly behind me hiccups.
“Are you sleeping?”
I pop one eye open. There's a little Chagrian hovering over me, violet eyes wide and devoid of tears like I last saw them. I turn my face further into the crook of the wall and close my eye.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
The youngling makes cute little grunts as she climbs up onto one of the plastisteel containers to my right. I'm currently sitting on the floor between two large containers-and by large I mean that beside them, I may as well be a youngling again.
I thought I was hidden. Seems I thought wrong.
It takes a second for my groggy mind to catch up, but once it does I realize I'm not going to get any more rest today. Not with this little one around.
A jaw cracking yawn brings tears to my eyes. I blink them away and stare up at the girl through blurry vision. Her little boots hang off the edge of the box and her heels bump against the container's side in an uneven rhythm. She's hunched over with her elbows on her knees, her head propped up in her hands and her lethorns hanging limply to either side.
“How...” I pause to curl my head towards either shoulder and crack my neck, the sound loud in the silence of the cargo hold. “How did you get in here?”
She cocks her head to her right. “I was playing with the Ugnaughts, and they said it's too dangerous to stay outside. Go back in, they said, or go in the ship until the storm is gone. I said I wanted to see inside, and they said I had to ask nicely.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding. “You must have asked nicely then.”
“I did...” She gnaws on her lower lip. “But when I asked nicely, someone else answered and not you.”
Someone else? I arch a brow. “That must have been Nate. My droid. What'd he say?”
“He asked, 'What does little blue skin want?'” she imitates his monotone voice. “And I said I wanted to see inside. And then he asked, 'Are you a little monster?'”
I blanch. Yeah, that definitely sounds like Nate. Before I can apologize for him, the little Chagrian continues.
“Sometimes. Sometimes the miners call me a little monster. So I said yes, I am a little monster. And then he. Uh. Nate said. Said...” She trails off, brows scrunching over her eyes as she tries to remember.
The ship's comm system crackles to life. “Master Yonjori loves little monsters.”
“Yeah!” she claps her hands. “That's what he said.”
I smother a sigh. “Thank you, Nate.”
“You're welcome, master.”
Another tear-wracking yawn rattles my brain in its skull. I grind my knuckles into my eye sockets, but it doesn't seem to help the dry, grainy feeling behind my eyelids.
“Where's your armor?”
“I'm not wearing it.” I pull out a reusable water packet from my supply belt. It squishes between my bare fingers. Not gonna lie-the cold, slimy, plastic texture feels fantastic against the skin of my hands.
“Why aren't you wearing it?”
I pop the top corner of the packet and suck on the end. Water just slightly cooler than room-temperature fills my mouth and trickles down my throat. I know that, technically, water has no taste to it. Right now though, I could swear it tastes like… like an expensive, frozen, clear diamond in liquidized form perfected for drinking.
Needless to say, it hit the spot.
“Because...” I squeeze shut the hole in the packet. “I'm tired. It's heavy. And I'm tired.”
“You don't have a bed?”
“I do.”
“So why are you sleeping on the floor?”
Because it’s not too soft. Because I’m tucked behind a number of over-sized crates. Because it feels safer than my personal quarters. “Well, ad'ika…”
“Demala.” She pouts. “My name is Demala.”
“I'm sorry, Demala.” I scratch my chin. Huh.
“Why do you keep calling me ad-eeka?”
“I call you ad'ika because… Uh. ‘Cause-”
She interrupts me with an emphatic wave of her hands. “What does it mean?”
I can't help but smile. “It means little one. Kid. It's a term of endearment for younglings, like you, from old people, like me.”
“Term of en. Ender. Endmen. What?”
“Endearment.” I grin and reach up to pat the side of her boot. It's the only part of her I can reach, since the cargo container she's sitting on is so tall. Maybe I should tell her to get down. It’s not exactly safe for her up there, Force Sensitive or not. “It means I like you.”
“Oh!” A wide smile dimples her round cheeks. “But what does. Uh.” She tugs at one of her lethorns.
I wait patiently, slurping up more water as I do. Force, it's good.
“Master Ibana said you called her a bad thing.”
As I roll the water around my tongue, I think about it. Did I curse in front of the girl? I don’t think I did. I usually try not to exercise my extended vocabulary around minors. But I don’t…
“Did I?” I ask. “I don’t remember.”
Demala’s nose wrinkles in an intense frown as she states matter-of-factly: “A bee.”
Um. What?
“A what?” I ask, and shut the packet. Bee? Bee… Oh. “A ba'vodu?”
She gasps and clamps her hands over her mouth. “Don't say bad things! It's mean!”
“A ba'vodu isn't mean.”
Mean would've been to call her what she really is-a di’kut. A schutta. A shag. A chakaar. A blinking pustina. Those are pretty bad, pretty mean. Then again, I don’t want to be teaching a little girl dirty, dirty words either.
Her eyes narrow suspiciously as she stares at the space just above my head. “It isn't?”
“Nope.” I shrug. “It means aunt.”
“Aunt?” Her violet eyes blink rapidly. The thin, clear membrane beneath her eyelids catches the light and obscures her pupils. It’s a trait of her amphibian nature-the extra membrane acts as a seal to allow her to see under water-but knowing that fact doesn’t make it any less eerie to see with my own two eyes.
“…Right.”
Demala swings her legs and loudly knock her heels against the container's side. Her lips purse in a tight frown as her stare focuses on the space just above my head. I can tell she's concentrating hard.
“Ad'ika,” she says. “Ba'vodu.”
I drain the rest of the water packet as she works on memorizing those words. I flip the packet upside-down and hang it over my mouth, making sure I get every last drop before I put it away. Wasting water is a bad habit, especially considering that the resource is a commodity in the Outer Rim. I don't have enough currency to drop on wastefulness.
I think about Master Ibana. I have a name to a face, but something tells me that's not her real name. Something else tells me I don't really want to look too closely, lest she take a closer look at me. And wouldn't that be a fun experience.
“Demala,” I ask. “Didn't Master Ibana tell you to stay away from me?”
“Yes,” she says, “…but you feel safe.”
“I see.” I nod, and then slowly ease myself onto my feet. Standing up, she's about eye level with me while still on the container. “Demala, can you do something for me?”
She stares at me, and then nods enthusiastically. “Sure!”
“Do you remember my other face? The helmet?”
“Yes?”
I hold my hands out to her. She looks at my hands, and then reaches out to let me help her down, off the container.
“Don't go near anyone else who has the T-face helmet. Okay? This is very important.”
She stares up at me, one of her hands still in mine. “Why?”
“They're not like me, ad'ika. They're-”
Bad. Ruthless. Cold. Unforgiving. Insular. Dangerous. Motivated. Warriors.
“-not here to be your friends, if they ever do land here.”
She frowns, gently tugging her hand out of my grip. I let go. “Okay,” she says after a moment. “Master Ibana said the same thing. But the Ugnaughts said you were okay. Master Kersh likes you.”
Do I tell her I bribed them with spice? No, that's probably a bad idea. I doubt she even knows what spice is.
“The Ugnaughts can be wrong sometimes, Demala.”
She sighs. “I know. I'm not stupid.”
“I didn't say you were, ad'ika.” I pat her head gently. She doesn't look at me, but I can tell she's put off by the conversation. I think about apologizing, but that'd probably give off mixed signals.
What's a good way to appease unhappy younglings? Bribe her with food? No, that wouldn’t work… Chagrians don’t have any taste-buds.
I step around and kneel in front of her. “Anyway. Do you want to see the rest of the ship, or did you already explore while I was in here?”
The pout on her face disappears as she smiles bashfully, a small blush tinting her cheeks, and then nods somewhat less energetically as before.
“I only looked around in here,” she professes, “I didn’t go past the engine room.”
My mouth twitches in a half smile. My knees crunch as I stand up.
“Ori'jate.” I say as I lead her out of the cargo hold. “But after I show you around, you have to promise not to tell Master Ibana. She doesn’t like me very much, and I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Not that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, but I don’t want to cause problems between the little one and her guardian.
“Okay,” Demala says as she takes my hand again. “But if I tell her, I’d get in trouble too.”
“That’s true,” I laugh. “That’s very true. But first, let’s get my armor back on.”
I palm the cartridge in my hand before tucking it into the pouch at my hip, and then kneel down beside her, covering her hands with my own. I adjust her grip on the flechette launcher, the weapon seeming to be wearing her as the accessory, as opposed to the other way around.
“Look down the sight here,” I gently point to the scope, “and brace yourself, because this thing kicks like a bantha.”
“But it doesn’t have any legs!” she gasps.
“That’s just an expre-”
The weapon jumps hard under her hands, kicking against her shoulder as it fires a scatter round into the cargo hold. Blotches of blue paint dot the wall as the little girl falls past me, and the gun flies from her grip. I lean over her, pressing one palm to the floor next to her shoulder.
“Wayii… I didn’t say to pull the trigger.” I arch a brow. “Are you all right?”
Her mouth hangs open as she blinks in surprise towards the ceiling. And then she starts to giggle, gasping between breaths: “I… dropped it.”
I grin. “Yeah, yeah you did, ad’ika. Maybe you’d be better off with the smaller blaster?”
“I like the big one.”
“Mmmm…” I hum as I stand up. “I know you do. I like it too, but we can’t have you falling down everywhere.”
I try not to think about why I’m teaching her how to hold a weapon, or the knot in my gut when I first found out she couldn’t even line up a blaster with a target two meters in front of her. But I find myself rolling those thoughts in my head, and it leads to the inevitable realization of the distance I came, and the horror my… teachers would have had, had they seen me as I am now.
That’s a moot point though, since they’re all dead.
“Look, ad’ika,” I tell her as I pluck a spare BlasTech blaster off a cargo container, out of the line-up of weapons from most to least damaging. “I know your aunt probably won’t appreciate all of these lessons, but believe me when I say, you need to know some of this for the future.”
“Why?”
I look away from the blaster and see a youngling. A four years old girl staring at me with an enormous weapon in her hands, eyes wide and innocent, her lips curved up in a smile despite the confusion she wears in her expression. Suddenly, suddenly I force myself to stop, to really stop, and ask myself the one question I should’ve asked an hour ago.
What the shab am I doing?
But I already know, don’t I? I already know. I’m leaving this planet in a few days’ time, if not sooner. And when I’m gone, I’m gone. A part of me can’t leave without teaching this girl something to protect herself with. I can’t just leave her here.
But I can’t take her with me.
I kneel down and wave my hands, motioning for her to come over to me. She does, dutifully holding onto the FC-1. I reach out and gently take the flechette launcher from her, flick on the safety despite it being loaded only with paint pellets, and set it down behind me.
I look at her.
Why? Because, little one, the galaxy is an ugly place, and the ones who suffer the most are the younglings that can’t protect themselves. Because, ad’ika, I’ve seen too many body bags, the kinds that fit your size and smaller. Enough to last me several life times.
Because, Demala, who else will show you? You don’t want to be stuck in a corner, surrounded, trapped, and have to learn then how to line up your blaster, how to fire a straight shot, and hope you get it right before they do. Whoever they are.
Am I just paranoid?
My eyes hurt. My face is dry, but the stabs of pain behind my pupils are enough to snap me back to the present time. I pat her awkwardly on the head and then stand up.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” I tell her. “Right now though, I want you to understand that my guns have paint in them, and you shot paint on the wall there.”
I point to the splatter of reds, blues, and greens on the cargo hold wall.
“But,” I tell her, kneeling down and patting her shoulder so she knows I’m serious. “If you ever find a blaster, it will hurt someone if you shoot them. Very, very badly. Okay?”
She nods. “Very badly?”
“Yes,” I tell her, nodding slowly. “So two rules, okay? Remember them, because this is very important.”
“Okay.”
“One,” I hold up a finger. “Never point it at yourself. Never. Never ever.”
The youngling holds up one finger, imitating me. “Never,” she echoes, eyes wide.
“Two,” I hold up a second finger. “Never point it at someone you don’t want to hurt. Not even as a joke.”
She holds up two fingers, and then stares at her hands.
The silence drags on, buzzing in my ears. I can hear the workings of the ship again, and the agitated beeps from Nate echoing in the hall outside the open cargo hold door. I do, and yet I don’t, really want to know what he’s doing.
“I know,” Demala says, finally, as her stare slides off to the side and focuses on the floor to my right. I look down and see nothing, just grated metal paneling, but I feel… I can feel the sadness radiating off her in waves. It hurts. She hurts.
I want to ask. Something stops me. It takes a moment to identify the feeling, but once I do I find that I’m completely unsurprised.
I’m afraid of the answer she might give. Afraid, and I’m not sure why.
“Udesii, Mal’ika.” I kneel down, reach out, and gently pull her in for an awkward hug, paying exceptional care to the action as I’m back to wearing most of my armor again. But she doesn’t seem to mind the beskar plates, as I can feel her tiny hands awkwardly pat my shoulders.
“Jahaala,” I say. “Gar jahaala.”
“I know.” She presses her forehead into my shoulder. “I know.”
The air feels damp, and hot, and charged with electricity. I'm sitting towards the bottom of the loading ramp of my ship, knees bent with my boots flat on the landing platform and my helmet beside me. A L-23 BlasTech blaster pistol sits comfortably in my hands, cradled in my lap. The storm's cleared. The kid's gone. I'm sitting under my ship and staring out past the edge of the landing platform, watching the swirling clouds of gases in the distance. For something so supposedly dangerous, it looks pretty kriffing beautiful from far away. Kind of like some people I know. Knew.
I rub my face with a hand, and then run my fingers through my hair. My head feels a little lighter. Probably because after the girl left, I went into my private 'fresher, took a blade, and chopped off six inches worth of my lovely black locks. A spur of the moment thing, I guess. It's a little uneven, but it's short and out of the way. I had let it grow for so long... it's about time for a change.
That and it's cut my time in the 'fresher by half. Long hair is a pain to take care of.
I turn the weapon over in my hands, tracing the handle of the weapon with my eyes. There's a small symbol etched in the grooves, similar to the shape of an exotic insect with large, round, colorful wings. The etching isn't colored, but it's still masterfully done.
The funny thing is, Nate's the one who did it.
“Mandalorian.”
I drag my eyes away from the view and focus on the auburn headed woman standing a few meters away. She looks tired. I'm sure I don't look much different.
“Cabu'kara.” I set the blaster gently down on the ramp beside my helmet. “If you're looking for a fight, I'm not interested.”
Master Ibana frowns. “Neither am I.”
“Is that so,” I deadpan.
“Yes.”
I watch her for a moment, and then shake my head. I pick up the L-23 and focus my attention on the weapon. I've had it for a while. It fits perfectly in my hand, it fires fine and hits just hard enough to make a point. The mods don't give it a monstrous appearance, like some of the blasters I've seen.
“Do you intend to shoot me with that?” she asks.
“I haven't decided.” I arch a brow as I slowly rise to my feet, and then clip my helmet to my belt. It's a slight weight against my hip, almost a comfort. “So. What do you want?”
“I wanted to...” she trails off uncertainly, her hands fisting at her sides. “To talk.”
My boots make solid thumps as I step off my ramp and onto the landing platform. I keep walking till I'm shoulder to shoulder with the woman. She turns rigidly at the hips, not quite allowing me out of her sight.
“We are talking,” I inform her, and then step out from under the belly of my ship.
Behind me, she lets out a frustrated grunt. Her footfalls echo loudly from the platform as she follows, stopping slightly off to the left and somewhat behind.
“Why?” she asks through gritted teeth. “Why are you making this difficult?”
That's a good question. I don't have a good answer. Well. No. That's not true. I do have a good answer. It's just a really long one.
“Is there a point to this?” I ask instead.
Through my peripheral vision, I can see her mouth open to say something. But she stops herself, her frustration falling from her face. She sighs.
“She likes you, you know,” Ibana says. Two guesses as to who she's talking about.
“Yeah.”
“She doesn't want you to leave.”
“But you do.” I glance over my shoulder. “I have work to do. I've dawdled on this planet long enough.”
She looks away. “Why did you come here?”
“Wasn't my choice,” I tell her truthfully. “Ran into a Rodian who took a disliking to my love of Mon Calamari naval design. He won't be complaining to anyone anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
I look back to the scenery comprised of open air and multicolored gas clouds, and rest my hands on my hips. “You called me a murderer when I first landed here. That's not untrue.”
“...I'm sorry.”
“Wer'cuy. Forget it.” I shrug. “Besides, I'm not. Not for what I said to you.”
I expect a response. Surprisingly enough, I don't receive one. So, I turn the L-23 in my hands again, and then face the woman to my left. I hold the handle out to her, motioning for her to take it.
“This,” I tell her. She stares at it. “It's not for you. I know you and your kind prefer not to use these crude weapons, and most of you can't even hold one straight, anyway. But this? This is for the girl.”
She frowns. “So why are you giving it to me?”
“Because you're the one watching over her. You're the one taking care of her. You need to know about the weapon, but I'd prefer if you're the one who deemed her mature enough to at least be in possession of it.” I hold the L-23 out towards her, staring, trying to express my sincerity without hitting her over the head with the butt of the weapon.
For a second there, I can sense her reluctance. She wants to say no, and I understand that, but I'm sure she knows I'll just gift it to Demala with or without her blessings.
Her hand rises, and her fingers curl around the handle. I let go, and turn back to the horizon.
“If you're going to shoot me,” I tell her, “Do it now. Otherwise put it away and ask what you wanted to ask.”
The shuffling of fabric rings in my ears. Then she takes a step forward so we're shoulder to shoulder. She doesn't look at me. I don't look at her.
“Why did you choose this?” She pauses to wave her hand towards the open air. “This life.”
That's not quite what I expected. It's not a question I would have chosen to ask someone like me. And how do I answer something like that, anyway?
I could lie. I could.
“I didn't,” I say. It's almost the truth. Almost.
“But-”
“I taught the girl how to point, aim, and shoot a blaster,” I interrupt. “Just. So you know.”
A harsh exhale hisses through her nose. “I assumed so, considering you just handed me a gift that just so happened to be a lethal weapon.”
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “It's quite persuasive.”
“Persuasive? Persuasive?”
I don't laugh, but I sure as hell want to. “I believe that's what I just said, yes.”
“You're antagonizing me.”
“Sure.”
She takes in a harsh breath, and then lets it out slow through her mouth. “You weren't the only one who was affected by what happened on Sibara IV. How do you think I feel? After... after all these years.”
I expect my anger to flare up. Instead, I feel a dull sort of pain blossom out from the center of my chest. There are things I want to say, things like you weren't there or you don't have to live with it.
“I wouldn't know,” I say instead.
I pat down my pockets, looking through my pouches. My hands come up empty. I'm out of stims. Frack.
“That's what I'm trying. Trying to.”
I hold up a hand. “Let it go.”
She snorts. “That's rich, coming from you. I could sense the weight hanging over your shoulders from the other side of the damn facility. A kriffing walking cloud of misery, there's barely any of you in there.”
“Thanks for the psychoanalysis, I'll keep it in mind.”
There's a tap on my shoulder. I glance over.
A fist collides with my face, cracks against my cheekbone. My head whips to the right.
“Un,” I grunt, and gently touch my jaw. “Ow.”
“Go crink yourself.” She spits on the ground at my feet and storms off. I press two fingers against my jaw as I watch her go.
“Anger is the path to the dark side,” I yell at her retreating back. A curling sensation squeezes around my abdomen, crawling slowly up my throat. I rear my head back, face the orange lavender sky, and laugh.
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Possible Points of Interest
Force Sensitive - A Force-sensitive was a being who was highly attuned to the flow of the Force. Force-sensitives could, with training, learn to sense and manipulate the Force. There are some reported instances of untrained sensitives still capable of manipulating the Force.
Ugnaught - vaguely porcine humanoids with slightly upturned noses from the planet Gentes. Compared to baseline humans, their height would be considered short or dwarfed. Ugnaughts were industrious and loyal workers and also had a rich oral tradition. They were quite hardy, able to withstand long periods of discomfort, and lived to around two hundred years of age.
Glossary
MANDO'A
ad'ika - term of endearment for a child, can mean boy / girl / son / daughter / kid depending on context
ba'vodu - aunt / uncle
cabu'kara - holy warrior
jahaala, gar jahaala. - (it's) okay, you're okay.
k'atini - It's only pain.
ori'jate - Excellent
udesii - Easy. Calm down. Relax.
wayii - Surprised exclamation
wer'cuy - Forget it. Whatever.
Expletives
binking - Expletive modifier
crink - Curse
chakaar - Mando'a for corpse robber, thief, petty criminal
di'kut - Mando'a insult
kriffing - Expletive, derogatory modifier
pustina - A Drach'nam expletive
schutta - A Twi'lek insult, generally reserved for females of poor repute
shab - Mando'a expletive
shag - Huttese insult, translating as "slave"
Series: Hurt Vector
Character(s): OC - Yain S. Juuri (Mandalorian)
Rating: PG+
Words: 5060~
Fandom: Star Wars
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, or anything in that universe. I'm not making money.
Summary: A muscle spasm runs through my shoulder, down my arm, to my fingertips. The pills don’t go flying like they should. My throat clenches, dry swallowing, and my stomach rumbles. I’m kind of tired, kind of hungry.
I put the pills away.
K’atini. It’s only pain.
Author's Notes: Everyone hurts, apparently. I won't have time to triple check for grammatical errors/spelling/everything else so... watch your stepeyes. I had a hard time writing this chapter but I think... I think I'm happy with how it ended up. Also, I may or may not add to it. I haven't decided if it's good as-is, or needs more touch-up. Edited. This is the most dialogue I have ever written for one installment. Holy crap.
EDITED: 14.07.09
(Fan Fiction List)
06part.LittleMonsters
[16:10:11]
121 Days Post Order 66
I feel weightless. Tired. A little hungry.
Outside, the howling winds of an angry storm batter the landing platform. The blast shields are up, so there's no coming or going from this location, not even to retreat inside the mining facility.
But that's okay. Right here, inside my ship, on the floor of the cargo hold, I can touch my bare palms to the metal plating and feel Jate'kara all around me. I hear the groans of the liquid coolant systems, and can almost feel the currents of electricity humming in between thick plated walls. She'd never let anyone, or anything, touch me. Not as long as I take care of her. And I do my best. I try to do my best.
Jate'kara. It's mando'a, meaning luck, destiny. Literally, it translates to good star, a course to steer by. At the time, I thought it was fitting. And right now, I still do. That wasn't her name when I … liberated her, of course, but I think she was just as eager for the name change as I was for my own at the time. Not to mention that I never got a chance to ask the original pilot what the ship's name was.
It seems like a moot point now, though, considering how the pilot was dead when I found him.
Blackened to a crisp. A little smoky. Still warm. Smelling like Gamorrean all-you-can-eat barbecue. Flakes of skin peeling off and sticking to the tips of my fingers, falling off like so much over-cooked bantha meat melting off the bone.
Happy thoughts, Yain. Think happy thoughts.
Yain. One letter away from yaim. Home. I don’t have one, aside from this ship. And even the ship seems kind of fleeting. I can’t escape it, but inside Jate’kara, I feel like I can escape everything else. The irony is not lost on me.
Well. The fact that a person named Home has none, that is. Not the fleeting space travel escape thing.
I glance down into my open palm and stare at the two pale green unmarked pills resting right at the center. The skin of the inside of my hands are soft and smooth, as if I never worked a day of my life. It's the blessing of expensive gloves and homemade lotion, I guess.
If I turned them over, my hands would still look smooth, except for the occasional blister and the still-healing bruises. It occurs to me that the bruises really shouldn’t be taking this long to heal, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say the knuckle pushups I do every morning aren’t exactly helping things. I could speed up the healing process via unconventional methods, but… I really don’t want to.
I refocus on the two pills. Painkillers. I could take them. I could stay here in a pain-free stupor until the storm passes. Maybe get some sleep, because at this point in my life I’ve missed enough shut-eye to take off ten years of my life. Not that it matters. My chosen lifestyle isn’t exactly the long-lived kind.
Then again, I didn’t get into the business banking on it being the long-lived kind.
A beat passes. I lick my lips, thinking about it.
Still thinking about it.
A muscle spasm runs through my shoulder, down my arm, to my fingertips. The pills don’t go flying like they should. My throat clenches, dry swallowing, and my stomach rumbles. I’m kind of tired, kind of hungry.
I put the pills away.
K’atini. It’s only pain.
I shift to the side, lean my head against the crook of an arched wall, and close my eyes. Relax. Focus on my breathing, slowing down my inhales and exhales to match the dull thrum of the ship. Time passes, and I'm not sure how long it takes, but I slowly start to drift in and out of sleep. A blur of old memories dance behind my eyes. My mind can't rest, can't slow down, but at least I can sit here and let my body relax.
Faces drift around me. Faces with names I can’t remember. Faces with names that aren’t theirs, aren’t real, but are the ones they gave me before their demise.
I see a blur of all the places I've been, and some that I haven’t. Rolling fields buried under ice and snow. Towering buildings of durasteel, duracrete and plast. Massive spaceships docked in old trash yards, chunks of their hull crumbling to dust under the blazing white twin suns. Lines and lines of droids shifting off for the big melt. A small cabin with a dock balancing right on the edge of an open lake, its surface broken by the winds of a coming storm.
Homes constructed of giant cargo containers. Racing lanes crisscrossing over broken, barren, frozen tundra, melting into magma drenched cragged landscape. The underpaid, over-budgeted, medical ward of on acid soaked mining colony.
Piles upon piles of bodies tossed haphazardly together for the fire to say goodbye.
The hydraulics in the wall directly behind me hiccups.
“Are you sleeping?”
I pop one eye open. There's a little Chagrian hovering over me, violet eyes wide and devoid of tears like I last saw them. I turn my face further into the crook of the wall and close my eye.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
The youngling makes cute little grunts as she climbs up onto one of the plastisteel containers to my right. I'm currently sitting on the floor between two large containers-and by large I mean that beside them, I may as well be a youngling again.
I thought I was hidden. Seems I thought wrong.
It takes a second for my groggy mind to catch up, but once it does I realize I'm not going to get any more rest today. Not with this little one around.
A jaw cracking yawn brings tears to my eyes. I blink them away and stare up at the girl through blurry vision. Her little boots hang off the edge of the box and her heels bump against the container's side in an uneven rhythm. She's hunched over with her elbows on her knees, her head propped up in her hands and her lethorns hanging limply to either side.
“How...” I pause to curl my head towards either shoulder and crack my neck, the sound loud in the silence of the cargo hold. “How did you get in here?”
She cocks her head to her right. “I was playing with the Ugnaughts, and they said it's too dangerous to stay outside. Go back in, they said, or go in the ship until the storm is gone. I said I wanted to see inside, and they said I had to ask nicely.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding. “You must have asked nicely then.”
“I did...” She gnaws on her lower lip. “But when I asked nicely, someone else answered and not you.”
Someone else? I arch a brow. “That must have been Nate. My droid. What'd he say?”
“He asked, 'What does little blue skin want?'” she imitates his monotone voice. “And I said I wanted to see inside. And then he asked, 'Are you a little monster?'”
I blanch. Yeah, that definitely sounds like Nate. Before I can apologize for him, the little Chagrian continues.
“Sometimes. Sometimes the miners call me a little monster. So I said yes, I am a little monster. And then he. Uh. Nate said. Said...” She trails off, brows scrunching over her eyes as she tries to remember.
The ship's comm system crackles to life. “Master Yonjori loves little monsters.”
“Yeah!” she claps her hands. “That's what he said.”
I smother a sigh. “Thank you, Nate.”
“You're welcome, master.”
Another tear-wracking yawn rattles my brain in its skull. I grind my knuckles into my eye sockets, but it doesn't seem to help the dry, grainy feeling behind my eyelids.
“Where's your armor?”
“I'm not wearing it.” I pull out a reusable water packet from my supply belt. It squishes between my bare fingers. Not gonna lie-the cold, slimy, plastic texture feels fantastic against the skin of my hands.
“Why aren't you wearing it?”
I pop the top corner of the packet and suck on the end. Water just slightly cooler than room-temperature fills my mouth and trickles down my throat. I know that, technically, water has no taste to it. Right now though, I could swear it tastes like… like an expensive, frozen, clear diamond in liquidized form perfected for drinking.
Needless to say, it hit the spot.
“Because...” I squeeze shut the hole in the packet. “I'm tired. It's heavy. And I'm tired.”
“You don't have a bed?”
“I do.”
“So why are you sleeping on the floor?”
Because it’s not too soft. Because I’m tucked behind a number of over-sized crates. Because it feels safer than my personal quarters. “Well, ad'ika…”
“Demala.” She pouts. “My name is Demala.”
“I'm sorry, Demala.” I scratch my chin. Huh.
“Why do you keep calling me ad-eeka?”
“I call you ad'ika because… Uh. ‘Cause-”
She interrupts me with an emphatic wave of her hands. “What does it mean?”
I can't help but smile. “It means little one. Kid. It's a term of endearment for younglings, like you, from old people, like me.”
“Term of en. Ender. Endmen. What?”
“Endearment.” I grin and reach up to pat the side of her boot. It's the only part of her I can reach, since the cargo container she's sitting on is so tall. Maybe I should tell her to get down. It’s not exactly safe for her up there, Force Sensitive or not. “It means I like you.”
“Oh!” A wide smile dimples her round cheeks. “But what does. Uh.” She tugs at one of her lethorns.
I wait patiently, slurping up more water as I do. Force, it's good.
“Master Ibana said you called her a bad thing.”
As I roll the water around my tongue, I think about it. Did I curse in front of the girl? I don’t think I did. I usually try not to exercise my extended vocabulary around minors. But I don’t…
“Did I?” I ask. “I don’t remember.”
Demala’s nose wrinkles in an intense frown as she states matter-of-factly: “A bee.”
Um. What?
“A what?” I ask, and shut the packet. Bee? Bee… Oh. “A ba'vodu?”
She gasps and clamps her hands over her mouth. “Don't say bad things! It's mean!”
“A ba'vodu isn't mean.”
Mean would've been to call her what she really is-a di’kut. A schutta. A shag. A chakaar. A blinking pustina. Those are pretty bad, pretty mean. Then again, I don’t want to be teaching a little girl dirty, dirty words either.
Her eyes narrow suspiciously as she stares at the space just above my head. “It isn't?”
“Nope.” I shrug. “It means aunt.”
“Aunt?” Her violet eyes blink rapidly. The thin, clear membrane beneath her eyelids catches the light and obscures her pupils. It’s a trait of her amphibian nature-the extra membrane acts as a seal to allow her to see under water-but knowing that fact doesn’t make it any less eerie to see with my own two eyes.
“…Right.”
Demala swings her legs and loudly knock her heels against the container's side. Her lips purse in a tight frown as her stare focuses on the space just above my head. I can tell she's concentrating hard.
“Ad'ika,” she says. “Ba'vodu.”
I drain the rest of the water packet as she works on memorizing those words. I flip the packet upside-down and hang it over my mouth, making sure I get every last drop before I put it away. Wasting water is a bad habit, especially considering that the resource is a commodity in the Outer Rim. I don't have enough currency to drop on wastefulness.
I think about Master Ibana. I have a name to a face, but something tells me that's not her real name. Something else tells me I don't really want to look too closely, lest she take a closer look at me. And wouldn't that be a fun experience.
“Demala,” I ask. “Didn't Master Ibana tell you to stay away from me?”
“Yes,” she says, “…but you feel safe.”
“I see.” I nod, and then slowly ease myself onto my feet. Standing up, she's about eye level with me while still on the container. “Demala, can you do something for me?”
She stares at me, and then nods enthusiastically. “Sure!”
“Do you remember my other face? The helmet?”
“Yes?”
I hold my hands out to her. She looks at my hands, and then reaches out to let me help her down, off the container.
“Don't go near anyone else who has the T-face helmet. Okay? This is very important.”
She stares up at me, one of her hands still in mine. “Why?”
“They're not like me, ad'ika. They're-”
Bad. Ruthless. Cold. Unforgiving. Insular. Dangerous. Motivated. Warriors.
“-not here to be your friends, if they ever do land here.”
She frowns, gently tugging her hand out of my grip. I let go. “Okay,” she says after a moment. “Master Ibana said the same thing. But the Ugnaughts said you were okay. Master Kersh likes you.”
Do I tell her I bribed them with spice? No, that's probably a bad idea. I doubt she even knows what spice is.
“The Ugnaughts can be wrong sometimes, Demala.”
She sighs. “I know. I'm not stupid.”
“I didn't say you were, ad'ika.” I pat her head gently. She doesn't look at me, but I can tell she's put off by the conversation. I think about apologizing, but that'd probably give off mixed signals.
What's a good way to appease unhappy younglings? Bribe her with food? No, that wouldn’t work… Chagrians don’t have any taste-buds.
I step around and kneel in front of her. “Anyway. Do you want to see the rest of the ship, or did you already explore while I was in here?”
The pout on her face disappears as she smiles bashfully, a small blush tinting her cheeks, and then nods somewhat less energetically as before.
“I only looked around in here,” she professes, “I didn’t go past the engine room.”
My mouth twitches in a half smile. My knees crunch as I stand up.
“Ori'jate.” I say as I lead her out of the cargo hold. “But after I show you around, you have to promise not to tell Master Ibana. She doesn’t like me very much, and I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Not that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, but I don’t want to cause problems between the little one and her guardian.
“Okay,” Demala says as she takes my hand again. “But if I tell her, I’d get in trouble too.”
“That’s true,” I laugh. “That’s very true. But first, let’s get my armor back on.”
I palm the cartridge in my hand before tucking it into the pouch at my hip, and then kneel down beside her, covering her hands with my own. I adjust her grip on the flechette launcher, the weapon seeming to be wearing her as the accessory, as opposed to the other way around.
“Look down the sight here,” I gently point to the scope, “and brace yourself, because this thing kicks like a bantha.”
“But it doesn’t have any legs!” she gasps.
“That’s just an expre-”
The weapon jumps hard under her hands, kicking against her shoulder as it fires a scatter round into the cargo hold. Blotches of blue paint dot the wall as the little girl falls past me, and the gun flies from her grip. I lean over her, pressing one palm to the floor next to her shoulder.
“Wayii… I didn’t say to pull the trigger.” I arch a brow. “Are you all right?”
Her mouth hangs open as she blinks in surprise towards the ceiling. And then she starts to giggle, gasping between breaths: “I… dropped it.”
I grin. “Yeah, yeah you did, ad’ika. Maybe you’d be better off with the smaller blaster?”
“I like the big one.”
“Mmmm…” I hum as I stand up. “I know you do. I like it too, but we can’t have you falling down everywhere.”
I try not to think about why I’m teaching her how to hold a weapon, or the knot in my gut when I first found out she couldn’t even line up a blaster with a target two meters in front of her. But I find myself rolling those thoughts in my head, and it leads to the inevitable realization of the distance I came, and the horror my… teachers would have had, had they seen me as I am now.
That’s a moot point though, since they’re all dead.
“Look, ad’ika,” I tell her as I pluck a spare BlasTech blaster off a cargo container, out of the line-up of weapons from most to least damaging. “I know your aunt probably won’t appreciate all of these lessons, but believe me when I say, you need to know some of this for the future.”
“Why?”
I look away from the blaster and see a youngling. A four years old girl staring at me with an enormous weapon in her hands, eyes wide and innocent, her lips curved up in a smile despite the confusion she wears in her expression. Suddenly, suddenly I force myself to stop, to really stop, and ask myself the one question I should’ve asked an hour ago.
What the shab am I doing?
But I already know, don’t I? I already know. I’m leaving this planet in a few days’ time, if not sooner. And when I’m gone, I’m gone. A part of me can’t leave without teaching this girl something to protect herself with. I can’t just leave her here.
But I can’t take her with me.
I kneel down and wave my hands, motioning for her to come over to me. She does, dutifully holding onto the FC-1. I reach out and gently take the flechette launcher from her, flick on the safety despite it being loaded only with paint pellets, and set it down behind me.
I look at her.
Why? Because, little one, the galaxy is an ugly place, and the ones who suffer the most are the younglings that can’t protect themselves. Because, ad’ika, I’ve seen too many body bags, the kinds that fit your size and smaller. Enough to last me several life times.
Because, Demala, who else will show you? You don’t want to be stuck in a corner, surrounded, trapped, and have to learn then how to line up your blaster, how to fire a straight shot, and hope you get it right before they do. Whoever they are.
Am I just paranoid?
My eyes hurt. My face is dry, but the stabs of pain behind my pupils are enough to snap me back to the present time. I pat her awkwardly on the head and then stand up.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” I tell her. “Right now though, I want you to understand that my guns have paint in them, and you shot paint on the wall there.”
I point to the splatter of reds, blues, and greens on the cargo hold wall.
“But,” I tell her, kneeling down and patting her shoulder so she knows I’m serious. “If you ever find a blaster, it will hurt someone if you shoot them. Very, very badly. Okay?”
She nods. “Very badly?”
“Yes,” I tell her, nodding slowly. “So two rules, okay? Remember them, because this is very important.”
“Okay.”
“One,” I hold up a finger. “Never point it at yourself. Never. Never ever.”
The youngling holds up one finger, imitating me. “Never,” she echoes, eyes wide.
“Two,” I hold up a second finger. “Never point it at someone you don’t want to hurt. Not even as a joke.”
She holds up two fingers, and then stares at her hands.
The silence drags on, buzzing in my ears. I can hear the workings of the ship again, and the agitated beeps from Nate echoing in the hall outside the open cargo hold door. I do, and yet I don’t, really want to know what he’s doing.
“I know,” Demala says, finally, as her stare slides off to the side and focuses on the floor to my right. I look down and see nothing, just grated metal paneling, but I feel… I can feel the sadness radiating off her in waves. It hurts. She hurts.
I want to ask. Something stops me. It takes a moment to identify the feeling, but once I do I find that I’m completely unsurprised.
I’m afraid of the answer she might give. Afraid, and I’m not sure why.
“Udesii, Mal’ika.” I kneel down, reach out, and gently pull her in for an awkward hug, paying exceptional care to the action as I’m back to wearing most of my armor again. But she doesn’t seem to mind the beskar plates, as I can feel her tiny hands awkwardly pat my shoulders.
“Jahaala,” I say. “Gar jahaala.”
“I know.” She presses her forehead into my shoulder. “I know.”
The air feels damp, and hot, and charged with electricity. I'm sitting towards the bottom of the loading ramp of my ship, knees bent with my boots flat on the landing platform and my helmet beside me. A L-23 BlasTech blaster pistol sits comfortably in my hands, cradled in my lap. The storm's cleared. The kid's gone. I'm sitting under my ship and staring out past the edge of the landing platform, watching the swirling clouds of gases in the distance. For something so supposedly dangerous, it looks pretty kriffing beautiful from far away. Kind of like some people I know. Knew.
I rub my face with a hand, and then run my fingers through my hair. My head feels a little lighter. Probably because after the girl left, I went into my private 'fresher, took a blade, and chopped off six inches worth of my lovely black locks. A spur of the moment thing, I guess. It's a little uneven, but it's short and out of the way. I had let it grow for so long... it's about time for a change.
That and it's cut my time in the 'fresher by half. Long hair is a pain to take care of.
I turn the weapon over in my hands, tracing the handle of the weapon with my eyes. There's a small symbol etched in the grooves, similar to the shape of an exotic insect with large, round, colorful wings. The etching isn't colored, but it's still masterfully done.
The funny thing is, Nate's the one who did it.
“Mandalorian.”
I drag my eyes away from the view and focus on the auburn headed woman standing a few meters away. She looks tired. I'm sure I don't look much different.
“Cabu'kara.” I set the blaster gently down on the ramp beside my helmet. “If you're looking for a fight, I'm not interested.”
Master Ibana frowns. “Neither am I.”
“Is that so,” I deadpan.
“Yes.”
I watch her for a moment, and then shake my head. I pick up the L-23 and focus my attention on the weapon. I've had it for a while. It fits perfectly in my hand, it fires fine and hits just hard enough to make a point. The mods don't give it a monstrous appearance, like some of the blasters I've seen.
“Do you intend to shoot me with that?” she asks.
“I haven't decided.” I arch a brow as I slowly rise to my feet, and then clip my helmet to my belt. It's a slight weight against my hip, almost a comfort. “So. What do you want?”
“I wanted to...” she trails off uncertainly, her hands fisting at her sides. “To talk.”
My boots make solid thumps as I step off my ramp and onto the landing platform. I keep walking till I'm shoulder to shoulder with the woman. She turns rigidly at the hips, not quite allowing me out of her sight.
“We are talking,” I inform her, and then step out from under the belly of my ship.
Behind me, she lets out a frustrated grunt. Her footfalls echo loudly from the platform as she follows, stopping slightly off to the left and somewhat behind.
“Why?” she asks through gritted teeth. “Why are you making this difficult?”
That's a good question. I don't have a good answer. Well. No. That's not true. I do have a good answer. It's just a really long one.
“Is there a point to this?” I ask instead.
Through my peripheral vision, I can see her mouth open to say something. But she stops herself, her frustration falling from her face. She sighs.
“She likes you, you know,” Ibana says. Two guesses as to who she's talking about.
“Yeah.”
“She doesn't want you to leave.”
“But you do.” I glance over my shoulder. “I have work to do. I've dawdled on this planet long enough.”
She looks away. “Why did you come here?”
“Wasn't my choice,” I tell her truthfully. “Ran into a Rodian who took a disliking to my love of Mon Calamari naval design. He won't be complaining to anyone anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
I look back to the scenery comprised of open air and multicolored gas clouds, and rest my hands on my hips. “You called me a murderer when I first landed here. That's not untrue.”
“...I'm sorry.”
“Wer'cuy. Forget it.” I shrug. “Besides, I'm not. Not for what I said to you.”
I expect a response. Surprisingly enough, I don't receive one. So, I turn the L-23 in my hands again, and then face the woman to my left. I hold the handle out to her, motioning for her to take it.
“This,” I tell her. She stares at it. “It's not for you. I know you and your kind prefer not to use these crude weapons, and most of you can't even hold one straight, anyway. But this? This is for the girl.”
She frowns. “So why are you giving it to me?”
“Because you're the one watching over her. You're the one taking care of her. You need to know about the weapon, but I'd prefer if you're the one who deemed her mature enough to at least be in possession of it.” I hold the L-23 out towards her, staring, trying to express my sincerity without hitting her over the head with the butt of the weapon.
For a second there, I can sense her reluctance. She wants to say no, and I understand that, but I'm sure she knows I'll just gift it to Demala with or without her blessings.
Her hand rises, and her fingers curl around the handle. I let go, and turn back to the horizon.
“If you're going to shoot me,” I tell her, “Do it now. Otherwise put it away and ask what you wanted to ask.”
The shuffling of fabric rings in my ears. Then she takes a step forward so we're shoulder to shoulder. She doesn't look at me. I don't look at her.
“Why did you choose this?” She pauses to wave her hand towards the open air. “This life.”
That's not quite what I expected. It's not a question I would have chosen to ask someone like me. And how do I answer something like that, anyway?
I could lie. I could.
“I didn't,” I say. It's almost the truth. Almost.
“But-”
“I taught the girl how to point, aim, and shoot a blaster,” I interrupt. “Just. So you know.”
A harsh exhale hisses through her nose. “I assumed so, considering you just handed me a gift that just so happened to be a lethal weapon.”
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “It's quite persuasive.”
“Persuasive? Persuasive?”
I don't laugh, but I sure as hell want to. “I believe that's what I just said, yes.”
“You're antagonizing me.”
“Sure.”
She takes in a harsh breath, and then lets it out slow through her mouth. “You weren't the only one who was affected by what happened on Sibara IV. How do you think I feel? After... after all these years.”
I expect my anger to flare up. Instead, I feel a dull sort of pain blossom out from the center of my chest. There are things I want to say, things like you weren't there or you don't have to live with it.
“I wouldn't know,” I say instead.
I pat down my pockets, looking through my pouches. My hands come up empty. I'm out of stims. Frack.
“That's what I'm trying. Trying to.”
I hold up a hand. “Let it go.”
She snorts. “That's rich, coming from you. I could sense the weight hanging over your shoulders from the other side of the damn facility. A kriffing walking cloud of misery, there's barely any of you in there.”
“Thanks for the psychoanalysis, I'll keep it in mind.”
There's a tap on my shoulder. I glance over.
A fist collides with my face, cracks against my cheekbone. My head whips to the right.
“Un,” I grunt, and gently touch my jaw. “Ow.”
“Go crink yourself.” She spits on the ground at my feet and storms off. I press two fingers against my jaw as I watch her go.
“Anger is the path to the dark side,” I yell at her retreating back. A curling sensation squeezes around my abdomen, crawling slowly up my throat. I rear my head back, face the orange lavender sky, and laugh.
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Possible Points of Interest
Force Sensitive - A Force-sensitive was a being who was highly attuned to the flow of the Force. Force-sensitives could, with training, learn to sense and manipulate the Force. There are some reported instances of untrained sensitives still capable of manipulating the Force.
Ugnaught - vaguely porcine humanoids with slightly upturned noses from the planet Gentes. Compared to baseline humans, their height would be considered short or dwarfed. Ugnaughts were industrious and loyal workers and also had a rich oral tradition. They were quite hardy, able to withstand long periods of discomfort, and lived to around two hundred years of age.
Glossary
MANDO'A
ad'ika - term of endearment for a child, can mean boy / girl / son / daughter / kid depending on context
ba'vodu - aunt / uncle
cabu'kara - holy warrior
jahaala, gar jahaala. - (it's) okay, you're okay.
k'atini - It's only pain.
ori'jate - Excellent
udesii - Easy. Calm down. Relax.
wayii - Surprised exclamation
wer'cuy - Forget it. Whatever.
Expletives
binking - Expletive modifier
crink - Curse
chakaar - Mando'a for corpse robber, thief, petty criminal
di'kut - Mando'a insult
kriffing - Expletive, derogatory modifier
pustina - A Drach'nam expletive
schutta - A Twi'lek insult, generally reserved for females of poor repute
shab - Mando'a expletive
shag - Huttese insult, translating as "slave"