Post by Bobbi on Aug 18, 2022 5:58:53 GMT -5
Minutes were hours, and hours seemed to stretch on into infinity with the girl laying there like that. Her little body, for as big as it had seemed whenever Solomon had hugged her or hefted her up into his arms, now seemed so fragile.
He had stayed with her there, in the embrace of The Force, for as long as his body would allow but it was all too soon that he grew tired from the effort of reaching out to her after having spent hours doing much the same from the distance of the waiting room. It was all too soon for him that he had to withdraw from that close embrace of Life’s Energy.
He wasn’t gone completely, though. He never would be too far away from her, or from Zachory, or Trinity. The words rang through his head as he slumped back against a chair he had pulled to the bedside of Ureala Myn Tekal: As long as The Force is with you, I am too.
Those words had been spoken proudly to him, boldly stated in a moment of doubt and concern from her children. They took his mind back to Bastion, back to a time when war was just beginning.
His shoulders shifted with a small little huff of a ghostly chuckle. He could still see her standing there as if it were yesterday.
The mighty Murra Tekal, her red and black Jedi robes wrapping a form that had been pocked and marked with scars and hints from her own battles with Darkness.
“You will hear,” Her voice was soft when she spoke. It was a rare thing that she ever showed them any sign of anger or hostility in any form. She knew how to be stern, and could be very firm if the situation called for it but here with the words she was speaking there was nothing but the love of a mother and the hidden worry that none of them had seen at that time. He could see it just then, though, he could hear it in a way that he hadn't before. She had known something was going to happen. “a lot of things about me. Some of it may be good, but a lot of it will be bad. What you must remember, what needs to stay with you, is that I love you. Remember that, as long as you have hope anything is possible. You are never alone. You have The Force, and so you will always have me.”
Leaning against the armrest of the chair he was sitting in, Solomon braced with his left elbow and covered his eyes with his hand, blocking out the dim light of the med-center room while the machines keeping an eye on Ureala hummed softly within that silent space.
He had breathed those very words to his daughter while on Telos, when he feared that he would be ripped from her life never to see her again, when he feared that she would be forever enslaved to the whims of a dead Sith Lord due to his own foolish mistakes.
It had been so hard to let her go, to hand her over to the NavSec agents that had been put on his trail. That had been the worst part of that long and difficult night. He had to willingly let them take her to keep her safe, and it was done on the promise that she would find her way to the Jedi Order where she might have held a chance, just the possibility, of being cleansed of her father’s mistakes.
He had lost her that night, having been separated from the babe. She was kept on Telos for treatment and he was whisked away, headed back to Hapes as a recovered fugitive.
She had been the only good to come from that situation.
The days that had come before were something he didn’t like to think about. Korriban was a planet that if he ever saw it again in his life it would be too soon. What he had done just to survive -- he hadn’t even gotten close enough for a failed attempt at reaching Mother. She hadn’t really been there at all.
His mind brushed against that memory, the feeling of death at his hands. It wasn’t the first time he had killed. The deaths of those Acolytes hadn’t been his first kills. No, the award for that went to the one-thousand one hundred and thirty-four souls that he had snuffed from existence when he had been on the other side of the Rifts, captured by The Empire and was at the hands of Inquisitorious.
But those lives still mattered. They all still mattered. All of them, every last one. Solomon remembered them all.
He had feared then, and still did, that Ureala and Zachory would be claimed among them: a death, a soul sent back to The Force for the failings of their father.
He felt just as helpless, now, in his ability to keep her safe as he had then on Telos when she was just a wee thing squirming in his arms and no longer than the length of his elbow to his wrist. They weren’t going to lose her, though. Here she was steady, here she was still full of vital life. Her body was just ailing.
Against the back of the chair Solomon’s shoulders shook. He shut his eyes tighter and pulled his jaw tight against the swell of what he was feeling. Tears would come anyway. His girl. His beautiful, precious girl. This little body, a gift from The Force living within it, was so much a mix of her mother and father both.
It was no matter that the girl’s father hadn’t felt anything but contempt for her mother, or that the child had come about through grotesque and horrible means. That was no fault of the child’s, and he had stopped holding that against her some time ago in favor of cherishing what was laying on that med-center bed just beside him.
He had never thought, not in all of his years of struggling through life, that he would find himself the steward of not just one little life but two. Nor could he have ever imagined how fully having those two little beings in his life could have made him felt so complete in many ways. And here one of them lay, suffering.
His hand lowered from his eyes, wiping away the moisture that clung to them as he shifted his weight and leaned forward to reach for the little girl’s hand.
She would be alright, and she would wake soon.
He could feel it.
He had stayed with her there, in the embrace of The Force, for as long as his body would allow but it was all too soon that he grew tired from the effort of reaching out to her after having spent hours doing much the same from the distance of the waiting room. It was all too soon for him that he had to withdraw from that close embrace of Life’s Energy.
He wasn’t gone completely, though. He never would be too far away from her, or from Zachory, or Trinity. The words rang through his head as he slumped back against a chair he had pulled to the bedside of Ureala Myn Tekal: As long as The Force is with you, I am too.
Those words had been spoken proudly to him, boldly stated in a moment of doubt and concern from her children. They took his mind back to Bastion, back to a time when war was just beginning.
His shoulders shifted with a small little huff of a ghostly chuckle. He could still see her standing there as if it were yesterday.
The mighty Murra Tekal, her red and black Jedi robes wrapping a form that had been pocked and marked with scars and hints from her own battles with Darkness.
“You will hear,” Her voice was soft when she spoke. It was a rare thing that she ever showed them any sign of anger or hostility in any form. She knew how to be stern, and could be very firm if the situation called for it but here with the words she was speaking there was nothing but the love of a mother and the hidden worry that none of them had seen at that time. He could see it just then, though, he could hear it in a way that he hadn't before. She had known something was going to happen. “a lot of things about me. Some of it may be good, but a lot of it will be bad. What you must remember, what needs to stay with you, is that I love you. Remember that, as long as you have hope anything is possible. You are never alone. You have The Force, and so you will always have me.”
Leaning against the armrest of the chair he was sitting in, Solomon braced with his left elbow and covered his eyes with his hand, blocking out the dim light of the med-center room while the machines keeping an eye on Ureala hummed softly within that silent space.
He had breathed those very words to his daughter while on Telos, when he feared that he would be ripped from her life never to see her again, when he feared that she would be forever enslaved to the whims of a dead Sith Lord due to his own foolish mistakes.
It had been so hard to let her go, to hand her over to the NavSec agents that had been put on his trail. That had been the worst part of that long and difficult night. He had to willingly let them take her to keep her safe, and it was done on the promise that she would find her way to the Jedi Order where she might have held a chance, just the possibility, of being cleansed of her father’s mistakes.
He had lost her that night, having been separated from the babe. She was kept on Telos for treatment and he was whisked away, headed back to Hapes as a recovered fugitive.
She had been the only good to come from that situation.
The days that had come before were something he didn’t like to think about. Korriban was a planet that if he ever saw it again in his life it would be too soon. What he had done just to survive -- he hadn’t even gotten close enough for a failed attempt at reaching Mother. She hadn’t really been there at all.
His mind brushed against that memory, the feeling of death at his hands. It wasn’t the first time he had killed. The deaths of those Acolytes hadn’t been his first kills. No, the award for that went to the one-thousand one hundred and thirty-four souls that he had snuffed from existence when he had been on the other side of the Rifts, captured by The Empire and was at the hands of Inquisitorious.
But those lives still mattered. They all still mattered. All of them, every last one. Solomon remembered them all.
He had feared then, and still did, that Ureala and Zachory would be claimed among them: a death, a soul sent back to The Force for the failings of their father.
He felt just as helpless, now, in his ability to keep her safe as he had then on Telos when she was just a wee thing squirming in his arms and no longer than the length of his elbow to his wrist. They weren’t going to lose her, though. Here she was steady, here she was still full of vital life. Her body was just ailing.
Against the back of the chair Solomon’s shoulders shook. He shut his eyes tighter and pulled his jaw tight against the swell of what he was feeling. Tears would come anyway. His girl. His beautiful, precious girl. This little body, a gift from The Force living within it, was so much a mix of her mother and father both.
It was no matter that the girl’s father hadn’t felt anything but contempt for her mother, or that the child had come about through grotesque and horrible means. That was no fault of the child’s, and he had stopped holding that against her some time ago in favor of cherishing what was laying on that med-center bed just beside him.
He had never thought, not in all of his years of struggling through life, that he would find himself the steward of not just one little life but two. Nor could he have ever imagined how fully having those two little beings in his life could have made him felt so complete in many ways. And here one of them lay, suffering.
His hand lowered from his eyes, wiping away the moisture that clung to them as he shifted his weight and leaned forward to reach for the little girl’s hand.
She would be alright, and she would wake soon.
He could feel it.
