Remember Everything

[Keira Priest]

Music

Somewhere in Coronet City​

She had stood in front of the paved over lot where her childhood home had once stood, staring into empty space as if lost in her own daydream, which wasn't entirely a lie. Despite having burned down the manor herself a part of her still missed it, but all the same she was grateful it was gone. That meant the memories sleeping there couldn't hurt her anymore, or at least, not cut quite as deep. Or so she liked to think. The truth was something like that would never truly leave her, and closure was a fickle, fleeting thing. No matter how long it had been, she was never to forget. That would have been too easy. But she hadn't come here to visit her handiwork and reminisce about the Ticon manor. No, her being here had another purpose, and so she left to her next destination.

Slow, careful steps carried her through the graveyard, the path taken on its way to being reclaimed by nature. It was one easily remembered no matter how overgrown, as it was one she had walked before, first as a child and the next handful of times as a much younger woman. This was the first time in over a decade she had returned, and still she wasn't certain exactly why. But she needed a place to think and someone to talk to, two things that were becoming increasingly rare in recent times. And so she had returned to Corellia for the first time in over a year, this homecoming just as bittersweet as all the others.

This time Keira hadn't come to catch up with an old friend or visit her childhood home. The former hadn't been in contact for quite some time, and the latter...well, gasoline and flames had been some final attempt at seeking closure. But it seemed even destroying the source of her trauma hadn't ended anything, because she was back for what she knew wouldn't be the last time. No, this world and its memories would always haunt her, and she was well aware she would always remember everything, no matter how much she liked to think she'd moved on.

Booted feet came to a stop before a pair of graves, the engravings on the stones faded with age but still legible, parts of it obscured by weeds and grass long in need of maintenance. Even with the wear and tear long years of neglect had inflicted, the names were still decipherable. Though even if they hadn't been she still would have known, because these were the newest graves in the family plot. Before her were the markers for Jaymes and Evelyn Ticon, the headstones designating final resting place of her parents.

Slowly she lowered herself to sit cross-legged between the gravesites, and for a moment all she did was study the inscriptions on each stone, all of it written in Old Corellian. Taking in a breath she released it gradually, air stuttering to escape her lungs as a swell of emotion rose in her throat. Forcibly she swallowed it back down, nearly reaching inside her leather jacket for her flask but thinking better of it, for once forcing herself to feel everything with a purity that was rare with all the substances at her fingertips.

"Hey Mom, hey Dad." Her voice was quiet, thick with unrepressed emotion residing just beneath the surface. "I know it's been awhile since I last stopped by. Sorry for keeping you waiting. I guess the time got away from me." It almost felt natural, had she been speaking to them and not sitting in a cemetery before graves that shouldn't have been there. As a child she had always found solace in her father's office or at her mother's side when she needed a shoulder to lean on, but that support system had been ripped from beneath her at too young an age, the only comfort being that she had found and killed the man responsible years later.

 

[Keira Priest]

"A lot has happened since we last talked. I'm not with the Republic anymore. I know you never liked them much anyway, but they're gone now, so nobody has to worry about them." Absently she reached up with her right hand, tracing her thumb over the dogtags that hung about her neck, the metal rough where she had scratched out the symbol of the Galactic Republic. Keira didn't really know if her parents would have been proud of her military service or not, but she liked to think they would have at the very least been supportive of the family she'd made among the men and women she commanded. They may not have agreed with the politics, but she hoped they would have appreciated the discipline and drive she gained from her service.

"I joined the Mandalorians. I have a family there now too, but I haven't forgotten you or the rest of the Ticons. I've just learned that family can be more than blood." And what a family it was. "I'm part of House Verd, and I've got more nieces and nephews than I know what to do with. I've also got an older and younger brother. They can be a pain in the ass, but I love them anyway. I wish you could meet them." Her family had had brief connections with the vode when she was young, having hired them on as mercenaries. Ironic, then, that they had been killed by a man who had once laid claim to the same culture.

Her next breath was even more shaky than the last, but she managed to maintain her composure for a little while longer. With the sleeve of her leather jacket she wiped away the tears that were threatening to spill, "You have a grandson and a granddaughter. Reid and Kaya Zambrano-Ticon. I'm not happy with the family I married into either, but they're not too bad." Not once she had figured out it was socially acceptable to do her best to kill her in-laws. She was well aware her parents wouldn't have approved of her choice in marriage, but she loved her children, and a lot of times they were the only true sanity in a galaxy that seemed to be growing more unbalanced by the day.

"You know, I joined the Jedi after you died. It's okay, I don't know what I was thinking either." At this point she was talking just to fill the silence, but she wasn't really sure what she was running from this time. Her past had already more than caught up with her, but even now she wasn't willing to wholly recognize the entire truth of what had happened, even if that was what she had come here to do. Of all the traumas she had endured in her life, the very first and seemingly least complex of them all was the most difficult to deal with. She had always felt directly responsible even if that wasn't the case, as if she was capable of doing anything to stop it at twelve years old. Two decades later and she felt just as helpless as she had back then.

The saying went that time healed all wounds, but it had seemed to do the opposite in her case. If anything time had only torn a bigger rift in her sense of self, causing her to wonder where her true self ended and the facets of her personality that were products of all she had suffered began. The line was blurred on the best of days, and most times she didn't even bother to question, not wanting to know the answer. She simply lived with it as she had learned to, carefully nursing the still open wounds in her psyche, unable or perhaps just unwilling to allow them to close so that she might finally live a life that belonged entirely to her as opposed to being governed by her psychological and emotional scars.

But maybe she was simply born broken as she had once been told, and so was only becoming more her true self with each passing day.