Keldabe's Horizon Sure is Pretty (Preliat)

[Ginnie Dib]

Keldabe, Mandalore
The Mantis Estate

Yasha had taken to the Mantis estate like Mon Calamari took to a crisp blue ocean. She played endlessly with the family Chrysalid Vornskyr (who much to Aditya's surprise was still alive after five years of hunting outside), leapt from bush to bush for 'cover' and one time got the shock of her life when she'd picked up one of her father's pistols by mistake.

Yasha also got grounded. Mega grounded. Compound-only grounded.

No child of Aditya & [member="Preliat Mantis"] sneaks off to a war zone to kill a Wookie/Ewok and got back without a major grounding. If Aditya hadn't been grinning from ear to ear, Yasha may not have survived.

Took down soldiers! Her Yasha! Cool as a cucumber. She was gonna be locked in the Estate until she was twelve. Aditya threw the dishes in the washer, pulled the mug of hot tea to her lips and fondled her new haircut. She couldn't tell yet whether to be proud or scared for Yasha. Hadn't figured that part out.

If she'd been on Atrisia, Yasha'd be in therapy and learn how to shuffle in a kimono for the Emperor. Alas, Mandalore was simpler and more forgiving.

"I still feel like I'm in the middle of waking up." Aditya said to the great room where her riduur sat. "Any second I'll shut my eyes, blink by mistake and end up... then I look around and see everything I've got to do and..." Aditya shrugged and slapped her hand gently against her thigh.

"We all made it home." The wife and mother padded over to her husband, and sat down on the arm of his chair.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

"We all made it home."


His first question was- did they? He had to double-check. He had to make sure that it wasn't some cruel trick. Every so often he had a nightmare that he was still at the Dark Harvest, and this was just another twisted evil. A false life, that the Dark Harvest invented to keep him trapped in it's dark tendrils for eternity. He still remember that city consumed, the men he lost, the innocence he shattered. And it haunted him every day. He was just a boy then, just a boy thrust to face the unholy evils.

And yet, he survived.

And yet, he pushed on.

And yet, here he was.

The stoic man leaned back in the chair, and ran his hand up his wife's back, taking in the depth of her beauty and what she meant to him. A smile crept across his lips. He loved this woman. He loved his daughter, despite her recent outing to a warzone. Not that he could be particularly upset, after all, isn't that what she wanted to do? After all, that was what he wanted, wasn't it? Somewhere in Preliat, however, a voice cried is it, but he suppressed it to enjoy the moment he had.

"If I am to be dreaming, do not wake me. I would prefer to sleep forever if only it meant that I were to remain here, with you."

He spoke softly, betraying his violent nature.

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Part of Aditya refused to understand [member="Preliat Mantis"]' darker moments. She buried her own previous inkling for the ability to smile, to keep up appearances and help Preliat through his many demons. Time in Hell had deepened her understanding of Preliat's suffering. Hell had opened and Aditya opened with it, not the tender battle-scared engineer, but the Wolf's Mate. He'd given his wife the precious gift of his viciousness, when she curled their baby to her chest and bit back, and back, and back at the eternal, cruel dark. Would she tell him what she'd been through? Would she open her heart and let her husband see the pit of fear which kept her muscles twitching and her teeth clenched in the night?

Preliat had never left the Dark Harvest, nor would he. Aditya would never leave Hell. Yasha... had Yasha left it? She was young enough to remember so little... Aditya hid the lump in her throat by swallowing more tea and leaned in to her husband's palm on her still nubile spine. Aditya set her tea down on a side table (couldn't believe it survived either... come to think the house looked barely touched in places...) and leaned over to touch her lips to Preliat's smiling face.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Aditya cooed. "Could use a lifetime of good dreams myself. Let's make it a deal. Two lifetimes of good dreams. Deal? Might be able to double up and get Yasha some good dreams, to boot." She held out her hand, which had been laid upon by far more scars trailing up her arms.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

As much as he wanted to, he wasn't sure how to go about talking to Aditya about hell. Of all the wars and battles that Preliat had been in, it was hard to imagine what literal hell was like. What was awaiting him at the end of his life. He froze for a moment. He had never considered it. He was going there, to where the evil men lied. Because as much as the family man wanted to be good, he wasn't. He was a bad man, a bad man who did bad things.

Two lifetimes of good dreams.

Dreams. He remembered when they weren't a burden. He remembered when he looked forward to sleep. Now, he just hoped he got enough not to be exhausted the next day. Not that it ever happened. His eyes told the entire story, especially to his wife. Heavy bags lie under them, from years of inadequate sleep. His worn hand reached out and grasped hers, curling his digits around her softer hands. Not that they were as soft as they once were- hell took a toll on his wife's body, and he noticed. Not that it deterred him from loving her. Her hands were rougher now, survivor's hands. His daughters were similar.

"I'd give her anything, you know that."He'd give her anything but his own happiness. He couldn't give something that he didn't have- but the rest of the galaxy was on the table. He'd give that to his daughter in a heartbeat.

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

[member="Preliat Mantis"] froze and his wife draped her fingers across his cheek. Gone were the frivolous days where she bandied off with a Mandalorians warrior to see the planet's of the armoured culture. Their love had depend from a spontaneous meeting, a couple of dates to the wildfire which kept raging every season across the lands. She kissed his forehead and eased herself on his lap.

"I know that and you know that, let's not tell Yasha until she learns a sense of scale. Right now she's at Wookie scale." Aditya pushed her lips together. She quivered. The woman broke down laughing on her husband's lap.

"Who mistakes Wookies for Ewoks!? Bless us and keep us, with nothing but a pistol! I taught her better than a pistol. Gear up, when you think you've got enough, add ammo. Gawsh. She is worth the universe itself, that jewel of ours. She looks up to you, hon. Wants to impress you with everything from how she ties her boots to how she skins a wookie. Ewok. No wookie!" Aditya started laughing.

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

"Funny thing is, I rather like wookies and ewoks. Call me old-fashioned, but a sentient being's skin lying in our living room doesn't sit with me rather well."He chuckled. His wife's touch, as soft as it was- did little to soothe the demons. As much as he would like to, it was far beyond the point of even her saving him. He was doomed to carry the demons in his soul for the rest of his life. Like his wife yearned for the days of their kindling love, he yearned for the days where he did not have monsters in his mind.

He bit his lip in thought, before looking back up to his wife.

"Do we really want her, where we are? Do you want a life like we've lived for our daughter? Do you think she'll end up like me?"

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Knowing Yasha, she'd probably meet an Ewok, try and battle it, then make friends. She'd have the entire population mobilized against the boogly-mooglies within the week. I wouldn't be able to stand having a sentient being's skin on my floor. Not now. Gee... We've gotta teach that girl how to make friends."

Nestled in Preliat's arms, Aditya unravelled the strands of Hell's events which bound her there. Would she skin a sentient to save their daughter from the cold? The question wasn't academic when the bitter wind blew and their lips were turning blue. She played with a hand on his chest, counting scars like stars through the linen of his clothing. "I won't lie to you, Eli..."

She nuzzled her head under his chin and held on to his shoulder. This vicious wolf was her husband, the ferocious victor who fought demons and won. Aditya had built up stories of Preliat to remind herself of what it took to survive one's demons, to teach Yasha and encourage her that someone even bigger was going to save them. Aditya had survived through hope and fear. She wasn't vicious like Preliat, or young and unladen like Yasha. Cautious, quiet and scared, she fought back by making her and Yasha smaller targets... But the killing was always easy on their little girl.

"Yasha took to battle. Her way of connecting to you, I guess. She's got all the hallmarks of a battle savant and it's scaring me a little. It helped when we were... There... But now? We're her parents, Honey. She's young enough that we get to choose how to raise her. Do we want her on Mandalore? Do we want her in a warrior's life for the rest of it? Do we want her on Atrisia, where she can learn engineering, or art or heaven knows what? We get to choose. She watched the horrors and the dead walking and the demonic and ... All of that. She got mad at it. Mad! I was freaking out of my gourd. There's Yasha, telling the necromantic bast*rds off! Kept saying 'that's not how you be nice!' I don't know what she'll turn into, but I don't think she'll turn into you or me. Won't let her turn into me, gosh, we're loving parents and I certainly won't make my Mother's mistakes. What do you want for her? What do you want her to learn?" [member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

He thought of all the things he wanted for his daughter, but none of them were the life that they lived. Maybe Aditya's earlier life, but for now, he wasn't sure what he wanted truthfully. So he thought, taking his wife's embrace for what it was- an embrace of his two lovers.

She took to the realm of combat, true. She wanted to impress him. But how to tell a child that he was impressed with every thing she did? She wasn't understanding of parenthood, it was beyond a child to explain. One had to simply be a father, or a mother to understand the unconditional love for a child. But Preliat was different- he had lost them both, and they both had come back to him. He still felt like they were dead and gone, graves exhumed and all- but he still felt like they were dead, still. But then he got to look upon his wife, look upon his daughter- and was reminded that they were still there. And that they were staying.

But the idea of losing Yasha or Aditya in combat was heart-breaking. And even the pressing thought of his own mortality weighed on him.

"I don't want her to lead a warrior's life. But who am I to stop her? Would she even stop if prompted?"

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

The Keldabe sun had set in drifting bands of embers and smoke across the cloudy sky. She watched the tapestry of their borrowed homeland play on, and found her peace in the harshness of the terrain, which grew hardy folk with exoskeletal skins of black iron. Cuddled into [member="Preliat Mantis"]'s body, she let go of the self-imposed exhaustion which had nearly brought her to her end in Hell. She pulled her hand to the once infected gut wound which nearly ended her - closer than any! Too close. Too terrible. In those days of shivering subconscious dying, Aditya decided that Yasha would survive her... Yasha would live, but without her, she wouldn't be alive.

"I've grown tired of war. Can we be done with it?" Aditya-that-was would never have questioned the necessity for a Mando'ad to do battle. Aditya-that-is thought only of her family and the second chance they had been given. She felt her riduur's fatigue, his growing disquiet and weary nature. [member="Yasha Mantis"] had taken her by the hand days after the Kashyyk Invasion.

"Mama. Daddy gave up, sat down, put down his gun. I had to protect Daddy. He needed me, Mama. Can you buy me a bigger gun?" Aditya gripped the words tight in her chest, she let them strain and curl between her ribs and nestle into her sternum. Her Wolf. Her Eli. Tired of fighting...

"She's a five year old girl. Barely an ad'ika. We can hire a tutor to give her a refined education, or we can find a good Academy that gives teaching in broad arts and sciences. She'll find something else she's good at. Who knows, with her instincts, she'd make a fantastic Null Hockey player, or ballerina, or anything. We can funnel her instincts into other activities. She's young enough. We can do it... but I don't know if we can do it here without help. You're her father, Preliat. She worships you. Every little girl loves her Daddy the most. By the time she's a teenager, she'll barely remember being in Hell. They'll be the hazy memories of a toddler, she'll outgrow what happened. I know she will. We can win this one, c'yare."

 

[Preliat Mantis]

"Something other than what I've become is a far great use of that girl's time and life."She talked of winning. He smiled again, his hand reaching up to her shoulder, grasping her hand. He pulled her in for a kiss, to remind her that she meant more than all the stars in the galaxy and the accolades he'd earned."We should, however, find a tutor for her....She is rather lacking in the education department. Not that you're not a good teacher, I would however, rather not have my child be behind in the scholarly manner. Especially with these damn Sith children who have access to millennium old libraries that their parents somehow erected."Disdain for the Sith ran high in the family. A trait from the patriarch.


"She'd be fantastic at whatever she did. She just needs to...do it."He waved his hand to visually improve his point."The days are gone where I am an absentee husband and father. The galaxy can wage war without me."
Maybe he was lying. Maybe he was telling the truth. Only time would tell.

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"I love you, Eli. Thick and thin. You've done what you had to. Now we're safe, finally safe." Preliat was a master at putting himself down, for enough reasons known and unknown to his wife. Aditya curled into the kiss. Her belly flipped and her spine swelled with the tingles of a newlywed still learning the excitement of her spouse's touch. He still elicited the same response on her skin.

"It's okay c'yare. I didn't have time to teach Yasha her letters. Learned how to count targets, that was about it for her cerebral education. I'd like to find an Atrisian tutor. They know how to temper aggressiveness with their martial arts, and they hate forcies as much as we do. Atrisians understand when violence is necessary, and we can find one that isn't a repressed little terd. She'd have access to libraries that would blow a planet's worth of gold-spoon sucking Sithling crudites. Kahoshi had copies of the entire library of the Fringe, Atrisia, the Echani of Sabarene, heck he spent millions of credits on anything remotely useful. Besides, most of my company's research and development is in there, too."

Aditya pretended to spit behind her. "Sith. Cowards hiding behind their space magic and their uncommonly common wealth of goods and know-how. Throw them all in Hell and they'd piss themselves." [member="Preliat Mantis"]' hatred of the Sith, and force users in general, was well founded and well accepted in Clan Mantis. As the matriarch, Aditya had more of her fair share of horror stories she sealed away to keep that hatred vibrant.

"Course Yasha'd do great! She's our daughter."

Whether Preliat was lying to her or to himself, Aditya didn't dare question. She clung to the hope that he meant it, that for their daughter's sake he'd give up the accolades of glory-hungry Mando'ade and their desires to die in one battle or the next. For Yasha, would he be nothing but a husband and father? "Please let those days be done. Be with us. We've done our share twice, heck, five times over." She placed her forehead on his chin, hoping as she always did that he'd do just that and hang up his armour.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

While Aditya clung to hopes and dreams, Preliat was weighed down by the reality of the situation. The reality was that the galaxy- his people, the Mandalorians, would need him again. But he would try- oh god, how he would try. Preliat leaned forward, rising to a stand, reaching up to his neck. With a hiss and a click, and several maglocks breaking, his armor began to fall to the floor, piece by piece. He breathed freely, free from the confines of his armor. He stood bare-chested in nothing but utility pants, and took in a deep breath. The toll that the galaxy had taken on his body was visible beyond his eyes. His body was worn and scarred, deep pockets of cuts and scrapes adorned his arms, a large swath from a slash of a lightsaber's deadly kiss lay on his back. His tattoos were broken and cut apart, faded from the years that he got them. He rolled his neck, running a hand through his hair. It was combed back neatly and graying, a testament to his longevity, despite all he had been through. Normal men would have died years ago- but life clung to Preliat like a disease.

He walked over to the sink, running a handful of water over his face. He felt so...free without the armor, and yet, so naked.

"Days gone by. What I would not give for just a simple yesterday, what I would do for a better tomorrow. If you want the truth, love..."He said, eyeing himself in a droplet of water that formed on the sink."Our future- is dark. Our future will always be full of strife and of hardship. We will not stop suffering. Our demons, yours, mine- will follow us until the day we die."He walked along the kitchen, before he came to a picture of a small baby. He wrapped his hands around the frame, lifting the photo from it's resting place.

"But I believe in a future for her. I believe in a bright, better tomorrow for her. But as for you and I..."He set the frame down."From now on, our days will be better, but the reality is that we will never be...."He paused for a long time, thinking carefully on his next words."We will never be truly happy. You and I have had too much happen to us to think of happiness as attainable."

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Sliding off Preliat's lap, Aditya watched the armour slough off. The Shriek-Hawk tattoo she discovered on their first night together had been marred by his warrior's conscience. He was as battered and scarred as she became. There was no small shame in Aditya's eyes when she thought of her husband seeing what she'd become. As silly as it sounded, the thought made Aditya nervous.

"Well that's awfully glum." Aditya sat on the kitchen counter and watched her husband stare at the frame. When Yasha was tiny, life in Hell was easier. Heft her on her back, slung in a carrier made of her armourweave cape, and Aditya could make ground. Course, back then there were others from this side of the veil... others who banded together in packs against the fervent, horrific conditions. Bantha, too. She'd survived in her armour for two years before the packs thinned, or drifted too far away from each other that they couldn't find themselves again.

"Hell's being separated, Eli. It's knowing that if you scream loud enough someone'll scream back and you can search until you're exhausted, until the grey dark is bending around your lungs, but no matter how close the screams sound, you cross that ridge, you slide down the valley... it was an echo. Or worse, it was the echo of someone as desperate to find you as you were them." Her svelte eyes glazed, fingers tapping on her thighs.

"Life's dark. I know it. Still glad I'm here, though." She smirked, reaching her arms out for her riduur and his bare chest. "My only goals were to keep Yasha from evil and get back to you. I did both. Yasha's gonna be okay. We gotta prepare ourselves for it, she's gonna be fine. Better than us. It's worth a little happiness, whatever we have to cling to. I know where my happiness stems."

Arms out, Aditya didn't feel as young or as perky as she had before the crucible. She'd grown out of such things. What Aditya did feel was a serene and hearty affection which had settled in her chest and warmed each cell within her. The demons could shush their mouths tonight. Yasha was asleep and Preliat had promised to put his armour behind him. . . until the call of Mand'alor blustered in too loudly and with too much hot air. "Come."

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

They embraced.



He found himself laying there, just- lying there. She lay there next to him, breathing as softly as he was. The nightmares were stayed for the night, pushed away for the time being. He felt the same wife as his wife did, the youthful vigor that he had was gone. He was a middle-aged man now. Truth be told, he never thought he'd be here- age wise, at least. It was a pipe dream that he should live as long as he had, but now as reality set in, it slightly terrified him. He was an old man, practically. Mandalorians who lived past 50 were the exception, and he wasn't too many years off of that, just a decade or so. He rolled over on the bed, facing the wall for a moment. He spoke softly to her, inquiring things in passing as he usually did, open-ended questions that garnered a glimpse into his state of mind.

"Am I a good man?"

Innocent enough question, he supposed. But then again, who was he to question himself? He couldn't measure himself accurately, he needed someone else to affirm his beliefs. But his beliefs were the opposite- he did not consider himself a good man. He was just hoping that his wife would somehow provide some solidarity, some form of comfort that he was a good man. But part of him knew that no matter what she was going to say, it wasn't going to change how he saw himself. He just hoped for a second, that it would.

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Spring had passed for a deep and glorious summer, a season Aditya prayed would take longer than the ten years expected of a warrior race with legions of attrition to fight toward. Her and Yasha's imprisonment in Hell had been nearly as hard on [member="Preliat Mantis"]. The hurt burned into his greying hair, creased the corners and lines on his face. He slept heavy, when he slept and he lived within a perpetual sigh. Aditya curled into her pillows, satisfied and lingering in the lull of their quiet passion and intimate understanding.

When he spoke, Aditya lifted groggy, lidded eyes and peered over at his back. Her fingers traced the lightsaber burn he'd survived. One of many encounters which had left their mark since the Dark Harvest, that Primordial Moment when dead walked and the youth was blasted permanently from his spirit. She shimmied into his back, wrapped her arm around his waist and kissed his scar.

Did justice exist in war? When one's survival was at stake, when one's family or fellows were a blaster bolt from the cold hell of silent death, did Preliat get an exclusion from his vicious temper and animal rage? Did Preliat's sometimes chilling ways get a pass, because it was in battle and that battle was deemed just by the Mand'alor or the rule of survival?

Aditya pulled herself up in bed, tugging the sheets up to her shoulder against the draft. Her mind went backward, as was oft the case, to the time before she and their firstborn were pitched into Hell. Pregnant on Vorzyd, she'd promised to be careful. Just check the factories, see what was left. Take stock. The enemy took stock of her far faster than she'd have liked. Maybe that's where Yasha got it from, Aditya mused. The 'it', the taste and ability toward ending threats hadn't come from her frightened and vomiting mother.

"You're the most loyal man I've ever met. The best man I could think of knowing. Not for lack of population, either. I know how evil feels, and it doesn't feel like you." Aditya smiled.

Preliat's buyce bashed the man's head in. A casual swipe of his crushgaunt the only acknowledgement of what he'd done to save his wife and daughter. From that second, Aditya realized she was the safest woman in the universe. The feeling hadn't lasted long after Yasha was born. The mantle went to their daughter, and as Preliat's question mulled in Aditya's mind, she pulled her arms inside the covers.

"You're good to us. You're good to your people and the Mand'alor. Too good to them. At the drop of a mission profile, you put your beskar'gam on and unleash... they don't deserve you, because they don't love you. Not like we love you." Stay with me, she seemed to say.

Hang up your armour. Rest.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

To most, she would seem right. To most, she would have whispered words that would have soothed the most troubled of minds. But to Preliat, the man who's mere physical presence was marked with the status quo of a damaged man- they rang hollow and did little to help him. So he lied there, staring at the ceiling, unable to truly come to terms with himself. On one hand, he wanted to be a family man. Wanted to be with his daughter and the love of his life, wanted to place his mark on history by ending his life as a family man. But there was a terrible thing about Preliat, something that he had come to terms with- or at least, was coming to. Preliat wasn't damaged on Elrood- it began long ago. It was always there, always wanting bloodshed. Always wanting a greater fight. Always fighting, always waging war. It wasn't who he became, it's who he was. But Preliat wanted to believe otherwise. As much as he wanted to hang up his armor and live with his wife and child-


there was no way he could.


There was no way that he, the Wolf himself, would just stop fighting. Give it all up. He could pretend that he didn't want to and was tired of it, but truthfully, he couldn't stop. The armor was going to be hung up until he was called, but he would always answer the call. There would never be a time that he wouldn't. And he hated himself for it, but the reality was that his people needed him. He was a fearsome presence and a terrifying combatant, and one of the finest to come out of the Mandalorians. But the thing he wasn't, was able to stop. He just couldn't stop. Call it pride, call it loyalty, call it tenacity- something inside Preliat would never let him stop.

And he was torn up inside about it.

"They don't love me, you're right. Not like my family does. But they love what I can do."

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Of course they love what you do, few Mando'ade are Ori'ramikad! You're one of the best of them, but they aren't using your talents for anything other than grunt work, Eli, please!" Aditya winced and turned her face away from her husband's body. All he'd had in the intervening years were the Mando'ade and their penchant for war. In the half decade she'd been gone, [member="Preliat Mantis"] had reverted to his default and she knew it would be a harsh mistress. Aditya put her fingers on her forehead and evened out the frown lines growing upon it.

The corner of Aditya's eyelids began to burn. He would never let go.

"I spent the last five years killing demons with my teeth. Yasha was too little for hers to break skin, even when she tried. And she did. Whatever supplies we got, whatever weapons, I scavenged off the dead, the demonic, or the wreckage from others who had ended up like us. All I could think about was the sound of the Vong making atmosphere, their incendiary devices, Mando'ade screaming. When Yasha slept, I'd stay awake waiting for the inevitable threat which would wake her, keep us running... more than anything I thought 'If Preliat were here, we'd be fine. We'd survive. Could make a home out of bones and clay. Make it comfortable.'... If you'd been with us Hell would have been as easy as Vorzyd.

Hell is war, Preliat. That's all it is. The Mandalorians aren't living for glory, they're preparing for the afterlife. If you can survive war, you're set. The Mand'alor is seeking retribution for sins done against us and I understand, but I know where that life leads and I know you're in it, but Preliat, the more time we spend on this planet the more we lose our daughter to it. Please. Come to Atrisia with me. We'll get the call, take my ship and you can be in the battles within hours. You can lead the life you want to lead, but you'll give our daughter the chance to grow without breaking her teeth, or growing fond of pulling the trigger. At least if all I get of you is half measures, let the best measures be mine."

Aditya's feet touched the ground. She wrapped a robe around her and tied the silk cord. Sheets, which had been warm with her husband's body were tussled around his waist and back. Aditya rubbed her cheeks with her hand to hide a few draining, embarrassing tears.

"I can taste them. I keep brushing my teeth, but I can't get the taste out." She walked from their bed to the window, wrapping her arms around her chest. "Please..." Her chin wobbled. "I need you with us."

 

[Preliat Mantis]

He sat there in silence, sitting up on the bed. He thought on her words, not only the desperation behind them, but the reality and the weight."I'll never know what you and Yasha went through. I will never know what it's like to suffer in the way that you did."He looked down at his hands, rubbing them together."But I will never know what it's like to be at peace. I will never know peace, and I don't think you or Yasha will."It was a cruel reality."Such is the burden of a Mantis. We are not a peaceful people, you and I have never been peaceful or restful. We could both retreat to Atrisia, and pretend that it's what we're meant to do."He reached over, opening up the drawer by their bed. Therein lay a knife, a simple Beskar knife that he'd used long ago to horrify his wife. He held it by the tip of the blade towards her."You were meant to build and create, using that beautiful mind of yours to engineer great things, solve problems and be infinitely more helpful than me."He mused, before his eyes looked down at the knife."This is my paintbrush. My enemies are the canvas in which I paint on. I am not a good man. Yasha has made her choice. She revels in combat. She will never not want to be like me, Aditya."He said, begrudgingly."But she will never be me. Even you don't know what I've done. As melodramatic and cheesy and cliche as it is, you don't know me."His eyes hardened.

"And you don't know the half of what I am capable of."

He put the knife on top of the drawer, having made his point with it."And I never will want you to. I will never want Yasha to hear the stories about me long after I am gone."He sighed, in a defeated manner."But she will. The secrets that I tried to bury, will surface eventually. The things that I carried, will fall on her. And there is nothing that you and I can do to stop it. She is going to harden, turn into something that we both don't want- even if I ran to Atrisia. It's not that I want to be here anymore, Aditya. It's just that no matter how many times I run, I always will end up here. Because this is where I belong. And now, this is where she belongs."He said it matter-of-factly, and it sounded like he had given up.

"The question remains, however, where will you go?"

[member="Aditya Mantis"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

“No! She won’t always want violence! She is a five year old girl! Preliat, Yasha won’t even remember three quarters of what we went through! Ten years from now she’ll probably believe most of it was a series of nightmares! We have time! We can fix this! We can create a better life for our daughter! I can’t believe we’re doomed, cause I feel how much we love each other every day, and that proves we’re not total monsters.”

The more she yelled, the more Aditya realized that [member="Preliat Mantis"] made his stand and nothing Aditya said would shake him.

“I want to go home, Eli.” Aditya sighed. She crashed against the window, her gentle hip resting on the cold glass as she looked out on the Keldabe night. While Preliat’s place had always been the warring Mando’ade, Aditya’s soul never seemed to fit. She feared falling into the Mandalorian culture to the point of losing her own creative voice. Wasn’t that what all women feared in marriage? Losing more than their names, but their own voice? Preliat wasn’t listening, and now their daughter was caught in the brink. Aditya put both hands over her face.

“We are home, Mama.” Little [member="Yasha Mantis"] padded into her parent’s bedroom rubbing her eyes and sniffling into a tissue. Their Chrysalid Vornskyr paced in after the girl, sniffing the air and nudging Aditya with its massive snout. Aditya put her hand on its’ head, bending down to hug her force-user fighting pet.


“I can’t sleep, Daddy.” Yasha climbed up on Preliat & Aditya’s bed and wove her arms around Preliat’s bicep. “Do you and Mama need me to make it better?”