Equipment: Outfit | Lightsaber
The grassy knoll his parents took their final rest under hadn't changed in the last six months.
Well, maybe it was a little greener. But it was as bleak a spot as ever, mostly dying grass dotted with just two simple headstones. Even Naboo wasn't lush everywhere, he supposed. And, naturally, the poor were the ones afforded grave plots on the less fertile land. Naboo custom typically dictated that the dead be cremated, their ashes returned to Naboo itself, so that new life might be birthed from death.
But customs were for the affluent who created and propagated them—not for the common rabble just trying to get by. No, his parents were laying just under his boots, together for eternity.
And he was alone. Like he always was.
With a quiet sniffle, Gatz blinked the tears out of his eyes. He set the handful of flowers he had down on his mother's grave. Chrysanthemums, poetically enough, but not for the reason one might think. He remembered Dad always buying them for Mom, but not before complaining about how they symbolized death. And she had always rolled her eyes, insisting that flowers were simply flowers, and didn't need to symbolize death.
They were simply her favorite. Always had been. But these ones were old, the petals browning—but dying flowers were all he could afford.
"I know it's been awhile. I'm sorry." This part always felt awkward, trying to talk to two people long gone, "I've just been busy. There's a lot that I want to tell you... but standing here, now, it all feels moot. I want to tell you that I'm somebody you can finally be proud of, that I'm doing just fine, and that I'm happy and making the most of my life..."
Gatz paused, and blew out a sigh.
"But I'd be lying."
He heard a crackle above him, the telltale sign of a storm approaching, as if the dark grey clouds hadn't been warning enough. That, much like the flowers, also felt poetic. Today didn't feel like a day where the sun ought to be shining anyways.
"I want to move on, but I can't until I mourn you. And I can't mourn you, because I need to talk about you." Gatz hissed out bitterly, "and I can't talk about you, because every time I try I get shut down and lectured for daring to miss you."
Gatz blinked away another round of tears, breathing out a frustrated breath.
"I just want to be able to talk to someone. I want to be able to tell stories about the two of you, and I want to be able to vent about how much it hurts that you're gone and I'm alone. And I can't. It feels like no one will let me, and no one will listen, and so I'm stuck talking to your headstones instead!"
By the time he finished he was shouting, chest heaving with... rage, or irritation? Gatz didn't know, really, what he felt. Only that he was confused that he was even feeling it. And then there was the shame—because a Jedi was to be denied things like anger, and yet here he was embracing it anyways.
"I'm sorry," Gatz sighed after a long pause, voice now quiet, "a dutiful son probably doesn't yell at his parents' graves. Good thing I was never dutiful then, huh?"
He snorted at his own expense, the only amount of mirth he'd allowed himself all day. Gatz wanted to think that, if nothing else, Dad would have appreciated that joke. And that Mom would have shut down his self-deprecation. But most importantly, he wanted to think that they would have cared about how he felt, and how he missed them. He wanted to think that they would have listened to him, even if only for a few moments.
"I wish I could stay longer, but I can't. Things to do, people to help, you know?" And then he added, "but I'll come back soon, I promise."
Gatz took one last look at the stone remembrances of his parents. Then he pulled his hood back over his head, and walked away.
