046: Star
Title: Guardian Star
author: helgaleena
Fandom: Star Wars: Quinlan Vos
Characters: Quinlan Vos
Prompt: 046: Star
Word Count: 602
Rating: G
Author's Notes: soliloquy, set any time after Star Wars: Darkness, by Ostrander and Duursema.
alphabetasoup: B for bric-a-brac
I just don't touch it. Then I'm all right with it.
It's only a cheap hunk of bronzium that happens to have been on my father's clothing when the essence was drunk out of him and my mother, ending their lives. Shaped like a star, the symbol of the Guardians of Kiffex.
It only just about drove me totally mad when I was a youngling. I was in a coma, I think. When I woke up, I was with Tholme, and he taught me how to do all those humanoid things again, you know, like feeding myself, and using the fresher, and shielding--
and that was all right, for the longest time. Most Jedi don't remember their parents, anyway.
It was there in our quarters all the time. Tholme had it on the wall, until I asked about it. Then he told me exactly what the blasted thing was. He also advised me strongly not to touch it, and put it away. It had shown me the Anzati, murdering my parents. Touching it had driven me mad. But it was mine, my inheritance. It belonged to me, and because he was my shield, my master, he kept it for me. Like he kept a full set of interrogator's torture tools, in a velvet-lined box. And a medicine chest in the bathing room. Lots of things a being has, and doesn't intend to use.
He didn't give it back to me until we were on Kiffex together. He and Tra'a Saa disagreed with the Council's decision to send me there, looking for whatever monsters were killing Guardians. First of all, I was newly recovering from a total mind-wipe, and my dear padawan, Aayla, was even worse off, and missing. Second of all, they must have known that she was here, trailing around after that soup-sucking fallen Jedi, Volfe Karkko. It was vitally important that I remember my past history with the Anzati, so that it would not become a weakness in any confrontation with them. So he gave it to me. A palm-sized, five-pointed polygon set in a ring. Thank the Force I was old enough, sane enough, to handle what it had to tell me.
That which does not kill you makes you stronger. The small dose of poison confers immunity against the large dose. This time I lost my mum and da to the soup-suckers yet again, and I also beheld tiny Quinlan and what it did to him, holding this cursed star. I could cradle that young Vos child, assure him that he would live, would become a Jedi Knight. That he would love and be loved, for a length of time his infant mind could not yet contain. Tholme was right. I had important information now, about how the Anzati operated. And they could not attack me through my past; my past was now my ally.
When I got Aayla back from the Darkness, when I forced back my own darkness with the help of fellow masters, it was with that star upon my shoulder. I still wear it, sometimes. It looks good there, on my half-armor. When I play the disaffected scoundrel Guardian, having just one star on me confers a touch of authenticity. But I'm careful. I keep it away from my bare skin-- one touch and I'll get the horrors, be rendered useless for a few hours if I can't get centered. Still, each time, it affects me less.
It's wearable history, and makes me stronger. And I do think of myself as a guardian, just not of Kiffex alone. I answer to the galaxy.
end
author: helgaleena
Fandom: Star Wars: Quinlan Vos
Characters: Quinlan Vos
Prompt: 046: Star
Word Count: 602
Rating: G
Author's Notes: soliloquy, set any time after Star Wars: Darkness, by Ostrander and Duursema.
alphabetasoup: B for bric-a-brac
I just don't touch it. Then I'm all right with it.
It's only a cheap hunk of bronzium that happens to have been on my father's clothing when the essence was drunk out of him and my mother, ending their lives. Shaped like a star, the symbol of the Guardians of Kiffex.
It only just about drove me totally mad when I was a youngling. I was in a coma, I think. When I woke up, I was with Tholme, and he taught me how to do all those humanoid things again, you know, like feeding myself, and using the fresher, and shielding--
and that was all right, for the longest time. Most Jedi don't remember their parents, anyway.
It was there in our quarters all the time. Tholme had it on the wall, until I asked about it. Then he told me exactly what the blasted thing was. He also advised me strongly not to touch it, and put it away. It had shown me the Anzati, murdering my parents. Touching it had driven me mad. But it was mine, my inheritance. It belonged to me, and because he was my shield, my master, he kept it for me. Like he kept a full set of interrogator's torture tools, in a velvet-lined box. And a medicine chest in the bathing room. Lots of things a being has, and doesn't intend to use.
He didn't give it back to me until we were on Kiffex together. He and Tra'a Saa disagreed with the Council's decision to send me there, looking for whatever monsters were killing Guardians. First of all, I was newly recovering from a total mind-wipe, and my dear padawan, Aayla, was even worse off, and missing. Second of all, they must have known that she was here, trailing around after that soup-sucking fallen Jedi, Volfe Karkko. It was vitally important that I remember my past history with the Anzati, so that it would not become a weakness in any confrontation with them. So he gave it to me. A palm-sized, five-pointed polygon set in a ring. Thank the Force I was old enough, sane enough, to handle what it had to tell me.
That which does not kill you makes you stronger. The small dose of poison confers immunity against the large dose. This time I lost my mum and da to the soup-suckers yet again, and I also beheld tiny Quinlan and what it did to him, holding this cursed star. I could cradle that young Vos child, assure him that he would live, would become a Jedi Knight. That he would love and be loved, for a length of time his infant mind could not yet contain. Tholme was right. I had important information now, about how the Anzati operated. And they could not attack me through my past; my past was now my ally.
When I got Aayla back from the Darkness, when I forced back my own darkness with the help of fellow masters, it was with that star upon my shoulder. I still wear it, sometimes. It looks good there, on my half-armor. When I play the disaffected scoundrel Guardian, having just one star on me confers a touch of authenticity. But I'm careful. I keep it away from my bare skin-- one touch and I'll get the horrors, be rendered useless for a few hours if I can't get centered. Still, each time, it affects me less.
It's wearable history, and makes me stronger. And I do think of myself as a guardian, just not of Kiffex alone. I answer to the galaxy.
end