The Dread of Salvaging Something Real

[Yasha Cadera]

The Dread of Salvaging Something Real
Sundari Palace, Mandalore, Midnight

Post When Falsehood Looks Like Truth​

The light stung her eyes, and she shut them. ​

The round table built of the Cataclysm’s slagged wreckage laid in haggard bits, metal legs warped by lightning and brute Epicant strength. Pale diffused moonlight passed through the biodome containing Sundari, the Mand’alor’s City, the desert upon which aliit was formed.

Her aliit. ​

[member="Preliat Mantis"] came from the deserts of Ordo, he walked upon the sands as one who was formed in its’ wafts, the texture of rough particles coating clothing, skin, the inside of a throat. He taught his daughter how to walk on sand. How to cover her eyes from the burn of the sun reflecting off its’ surface. Preliat Mantis taught his daughter many things…

​

… how to roar…​

​

… how to fight…​

​

… how to grieve. ​

The Wolf’s Daughter sagged in armour forged from the hallowed dead. Pieces of Mand’alors past, of the Yalilyr and other Mando’ade who died rescuing Yasha, [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"] and Kaden from the Baratarian plot melted into the ingots the goran used in its’ construction. That [member="Kaine Australis"] used in its’ construction.

A gift for Mand’alor the Infernal. Imposing and perilous as the lack of light swathing the throne room in its silence. The armour held aloft by the convictions and faith of hundreds who now had no respite but Manda.

No salvation but the death of one who followed the Resol'nare.

Mando'ade. ​

​

Children of Manda.​

​

Mand'alor the Infernal was their keeper, yet she could not keep herself. ​

The dais upon which Ra’s throne once stood was empty. Not a micron remained of the impervious seat as if stricken from a grand history none would be fluent enough to read or remember. She sat on the step, shoulders heaving in the weight of the beskar’kandar, Rekr Karyatesa firm in her gauntlet-clad hand. Hunger clawed at her stomach, body as empty as the cavernous room.

No fire burned in the braziers to fill the room with heat. No Yalilyr or Guards watched over the Infernal. She had, in essence, returned to Hell. Moonlight despised the shadows growing upon every surface around her, but the steps. It spat at them, searing caustic edges upon her pauldrons, the spikes across her forearms and up her knees. Amber eyes shrouded by the wolf-helm upon her head focussed dully on the floor, HUD readouts of infrared levels, heat distribution and threat pings dimmed to a single pulsing red light at the bottom left of her vision.

A transmission ignored. ​

​

Another. ​

​

Another. ​

​

The Infernal was deaf to all but her own lungs, which seared her ribcage in the very act of breathing.​

Yasha’s grip tightened on the Rekr Karyatesa, head of the hammer twitching and raising up, before descending fruitless across Mand’alor the Infernal’s thighs.

[member="Gray Raxis"]

 

[Gray Raxis]

To say a father would do anything for their daughter seems like such an obvious statement to make. It seems obvious because it always involves them doing something nice or a hardship undertaken. That was what always popped up into people's minds, but it was not what was about to happen soon. Gray had heard disturbing news about his daughter [member="Yasha Mantis"] following the traumatic birth of his granddaughter. The newborn was in critical conditions despite his best efforts at the time and his daughter seemed to have lost it. Concordia was close to Mandalore, but it was not close enough for him right now. So he had a ship take him down to the palace and down to his daughter.

What Gray had heard was that she had torn up the throneroom. Seemed that she had destroyed the council table as well, but he wouldn't know if that was true or not even after he got there. He was going to see his daughter blind. The law of no force use would be respected even if no one would object to him using it to simply find his way around easier. He arrived quickly and stepped down the ramp. Last time he had done this he was wearing armor and ash was everywhere. This time he wearing simple, comfortable clothing with his gray scarf covering his eyes. He was greeted and led to his daughter by some servant that he didn't know. Baiko was the one who knew the staff here though not him. The mood was strained and tense. He didn't even need to be a force user to tell that as thick in the air as it was. It felt like hours in the awkward silence till he finally made it to the throneroom and allowed inside.

Beeping. That was the first sensation to greet Gray as he slide inside the near empty echo. Someone was not answering a com that was clearly coming from a helmet. He had heard the sound too often to not know the difference. Static. Electricity had a smell to it after large amounts of it were discharged. It was like a slight mixture of rain and heat and metal. Cold. It was that kind of coolness that greeted your skin when you entered a cave or a building that had not seen people in some time. Combined with the echoing of his steps, Gray might have thought he was actually in one if not for his earlier experience.

All of this was what Gray could sense coming in. He didn't need his eyes here to see that what he heard was true. His daughter needed him. A picture of what was going on was clear in his mind as well. She was resting in her armor after using that hammer of her's to wreck everything she could. She had thrown a tantrum because of how overwhelming her emotions were right now. Their people were trying to contact her as well but she was ignoring it. Her helmet was on her head. He didn't need his eyes to see the scene to know it was playing out before him.

Gray knew what he had to do. He said as he moved forward, " Do you see this?" Faith was all he had to guide him right now as he approached. Any debris could be in his way. He could be moving towards nothing. He continued forward. " Do you see me Yasha? I see you. I see my girl in trouble and lashing out at the world." Something told him to stop so he did. He was as far from her again as he was last time he was here. " I see my little girl hiding behind armor and weapons and pity. I see a young woman who is better than this acting like a spoiled brat long over do for a spanking. Do you see this?"

 

[Gaia Sunaris Cadera]

Sundari Palace. There was so much history in this magnificent place. Centuries ago, years ago, even just months ago. Someone could almost feel the history of the place. From the happiness that it sometimes brought, to the grief it also brought. Of the war, of the countless lives lost. The civil war, the cataclysm - it nearly wrecked this planet. But they brought it back from the brinks of destruction. Now, they had to bring their own souls out of the cataclysm of their emotions.

Cassiopeia let her fingers softly glide on the stone as the moonlight fluttered through the many windows of the Sundari palace. She wore a simple dark gray dress, her hair down. She was making her way to the throne room. She could sense Yasha was there.

Was this what it meant to live? The death, the despair, the agony, the loss. It never ended. It was just a repeated memory with a new face.

She let one hand rest on her slightly extended stomach as she thought about the two children growing inside her. She would bring into this world beautiful life. But would they make it? So many others perished, their souls being forced out of their bodies for whatever reason. Her own biological family was slaughtered - her younger brother, still missing but presumed dead. It wasn't even really that long ago. She had no family besides [member="Kaine Australis"], Yasha, [member="Raiz Australis"] and their families. She loved each and every one of them with every fiber of her being, a love that was indescribable.

But was it worth it? To bring kids into a world where children die? Where innocents are murdered? Where people just don't care?

How could she stand in front of Yasha and try to comfort her when her child, just a baby, might not make it while she herself had a bump growing? What words could she provide to a mother who might lose her child? Maybe it just self-pity and guilt Cassiopeia felt. She couldn't deliver a baby. She couldn't stop the pirates from kidnapping them. She was useless to stop it. To protect her Mand'alor and her child. And worst yet, she was still useless. The pity made Cassiopeia feel even sicker than she already was. The twins were wrecking her body - from pain to nausea.

And now, she couldn't sleep. Her eyes were red, bloodshot with deep bags. The explosions, the blaster shots as they fired towards Yasha, her screams in pain of labor, the pain that radiated from her head wound. It flashed through her mind everytime she closed her eyes.

She had no idea. But, she knew she needed to be there for her. She was her best friend. [member="Yasha Mantis"] was a light in a dark galaxy. She saw her as she stepped into the wrecked throne room. Her heart sunk even more. She could feel the pain, the emptiness that was radiating from Yasha.

[Member="Gray Raxis"] was here, too. She heard him speaking to her, trying to connect with her. She wasn't sure how long he had been here. She listened carefully as he spoke to her. Her eyes began to stinge as already drained tear ducts began to fill up. She stayed to the side but moved closer to both of them. She couldn't interfere with them. She couldn't handle to interrupt it, even if they did sense or knew of her presence in the room. She leaned against a nearby column, sliding down the column until she was sitting on the ground.

Her eyes lingered on Gray and Yasha.

Was this really the life they were cursed with?

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“Do you?” Yasha’s alto pinged out of her buy’ce’s audio augmentations in a hoarse reverberation. The Rekr Karyatesa ground against the duracrete floor, sparks spitting from it as Yasha Mantis’ boots clanged step for step off the dais.

“Go home, Gray. Go bed my nanny.”

The truth was far from the eyes of [member="Gray Raxis"]. Yasha Mantis had not destroyed the entire Throne Room in her fury. The Hell Wolf was too calculated, to focussed. She took her agony out on nothing but the table, that hideous reminder of her Mantle’s beginnings. Hammer screeching on the ground, Yasha walked by Gray without a pause, raised her hammer and brought it down with a bellow on the wreckage. The thunder crack broke across the vaulted room, replicating into echoes that clanged back into Yasha’s audio receptors, and through her clenched teeth. [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"]’s infrared signature pinged on Yasha’s HUD, indicating her friend had come, belly rounding, to comfort her.

​

“I gave everything to the Mando’ade, Dad. I kept nothing for myself.” ​

Clang! The hammer clashed to the ground, its’ solid atomic structure leaving it down without a bounce, nothing but the sound of reverberating clangs in the empty cavern. Stepping to the wrecked table, Yasha scattered the broken wood and with a groan, pulled a metal leg apart with her gauntlet-clad hands. Her millstone. A simple leather-stranded necklace laid in a secret compartment, wrapped in a fragment of red cloak, sealed in the metal leg. The cloak-piece bore the pattern of Vizsla upon it, enough to be identified as it was: Yasha’s childhood cloak. Back, ever back when she was nothing but Ra’s Ward and the Wolf’s Daughter.

“Before my own mother passed, she gave me this. It reminds me of where I come from, of who I am. How I came to be.

There were those who tried to protect me, who tried to pretend that I was never in danger, but I was tough. Like you. I would always fight back.

But tough people can feel fear, too.

This medallion, this remnant of my mother took away my fear. I would squeeze it so tight, like this," Ra placed Yasha's hand around it and squeezed the medallion gently. "And I would think of her. And everything would go away. And I would no longer feel scared. She wasn't ever really there. But I could feel it.

Next time you feel that fear, and you know you have to fight back - squeeze it and think of your Mand'alor, and I will answer.”

Yasha squeezed the wolf medallion. It struck her palm with a lost, but familiar weight. Her millstone. Her promise to the Undying. Her buy’ce and its’ wolf-standard angled to Cassiopeia and Gray, the wolf animating with a pale blue light in both eyes.

“On the night the Civil War was over, Ra stood me by the fire. He knelt down, taking my shoulders in his mammoth hands, and spoke to me of the war. Manda’yaim was sick. The Great Mother needed medicine, and Death Watch was that cure. The Mando’ade were that cure. He taught me many things that night, before handing me back to my father and remaining by the fire. It was the only time he allowed me to hug him, and I did… oh, I did.” Yasha’s voice broke, dispersed as static by the helm.

“I presented him my trophies… pieces of the dead he asked me to claim… to prove my worth by killing… to this day I see the flicker of wonder in his eyes, the moment when an aged gurlanin looked down at the blood-stained bag of a twelve year old girl and saw four dozen beskads, medipacs and blasters taken… from my kills. I apologized… after I got shot, I stopped collecting, even when… Ra used to have our meetings around a round table. He… wanted to be nothing but our equal. I had his mother’s necklace inlaid in this table… So his memory would never die. So when the Mando’ade needed the most… that promise he made me was there.” Stutters and sniffs filtered out of the helm, augmented and smoothed out by the audio processors.

“I needed it back. I needed to make the fear go away.” A whisper carried on an artificial wind reached Gray Raxis and Cassiopeia Australis. Her gloved hand brushed against a simple metal chair, one of many strewn about in various stages of ruin. Yasha Mantis righted it, and let its’ legs scrape along the floor.

 

[Gray Raxis]

And so it began. Gray just stood there and listened as [member="Yasha Mantis"] first started off by calling him by his name and insulting both him and Baiko. She moved from there to bringing her hammer down on something. He did not flinch nor move. She spoke again and this time called him dad. "I gave everything." Those words were not as untrue as he wished they were. She had given so much for her people already, but so had he. She brought her hammer down yet again. Was she trying to scare him with it or was she trying to distract herself?

While all of this happened, Gray noticed the force signature of [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"] enter the room. She was keeping quiet. That was fine. He needed to focus on his daughter right now so he was just going to ignore her. The only other thing was that he felt something stir. It was a whisper to his ear and a gentle touch on his arm. Something wanted him to listen. Something had a story to tell. So he did. He let it tell him what it was he needed to know. He let it tell him of what Yasha sought and why she sought it. It told him of a little girl seeking comfort from her mother even after she was gone. It told him of fear and the instinctive desire to make it go away. It told him all of this. He might not be using the force right now, but the Manda certainly had plans on it using him.

Yasha began to speak again as soon as the whispers echoed away. She spoke of her childhood and the things she did because of Ra. For her they were cherished memories but for him they were knives in his heart. He should have come to her sooner. If he had then he could have spared her from so much of this misery.... But that wasn't what happened. He failed her by not coming to her sooner so he was going to have to make it up to her now. She was feeling scared and wanted nothing more than to feeling nothing again. He couldn't let her have that wish. It was not the Mandalorian way and it was not how he would let her be. She wanted to break everything about herself down to the core as she had the table. Gray couldn't stop her from breaking as she was already there, but he was never going to allow her to be built back up by her memories of Ra and Preliat again.

Once she finished speaking, Gray turned in the direction her voice came from. " So is that all you think you are worth? Is all the value you put in yourself is the armor you wear and the hammer in your hand? Is your value so small that a trinket is the only thing keeping you from breaking? A trinket that doesn't even belong to you." It was like this last time as well. He was going to have to be tougher this time around. He was going to have to make her hate him. " If that is all the value you see in yourself as Mand'alor, how much less do you have in everyone else?" He struck his chest over his heart with his false fist. " If that is all you are worth then I must be worthless. A blind man who isn't even in armor or carrying a weapon. I took no trophies during the civil war or even killed anyone. I never sat at that table or in front of the fire. I never made a child kill to prove she has value. If those things are what give you value then I'm not even worthless because that implies I still have no substance. No, from the way you are talking I must be nothing." He stopped off there. It was time for her to speak again. It was his time to be a father and let his daughter flounder around seeking her own words. Trying to protect her was not going to help her right now no matter how much better it might make her feel.

 

[Gaia Sunaris Cadera]

Cassiopeia stared at the scene unfolding between her. It was true, what she said. She gave her all. [member="Yasha Mantis"] gave it again and again even when no one asked. But so did [member="Gray Raxis"]. It was clear what was happening - Gray was trying to find her, reach her. Pull her out of the darkness that was enclosing upon her. Could he catch her before the darkness inside her won? Cassiopeia wasn't sure - could she help? Useless. The word never stopped running through Cassiopeia's mind. Mere months ago she was helping rebuild Mandalore, getting married, providing counsel. Would this be her life? Would this be their lives?

She had failed. Her Mand'alor, Adara, Kaine, Gray, Raiz, the two small ones growing inside her. She was useless to stop the horrible things that happened during the Barataria incident. If she was useless then, how could she help going forward? How could she protect them, including her soon to be children?

Cassiopeia had felt a similar darkness, in her own way, after she lost her family. She had come home to a town slaughtered in blood - her parents, who were trying to keep their door shut but failed. Their throats were slashed. They were stabbed repeatedly. All for a little credit, a little thing to sell. She remembered every puncture on their bodies. The long line of cut flesh on their necks, the stain of blood on their skin and ground. Cassiopeia had dug up the dirt to laid their bodies to rest. Then, she left. Manda knows where their souls had gone. Would she ever see them again?

Would she ever know what happened to her brother? His body was never found. A slave for some sick Hutt? Dead in the woods, decomposed to only bones by now? She may never know.

Her thoughts brought her to something her father always told her. "Never forget how wonderful the light could be."

Where was the light now? Where was it helping a baby, fighting to stay alive? Where was it when pirates killed Ambrose's 'Little Wife'? What of all the other countless souls who were lost, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, siblings, killed? Repeated memory with a new face. She never thought she'd feel such pain again - but here she was, on the floor of a throne room.

Those were questions Cassiopeia couldn't answer. Her mind tried to rationalize the emotional trauma that she felt - the trauma that she could feel coming from the others in the room. Never-ending nausea made her hold her stomach closer. She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the column. "Breath, Yasha, breath." The words kept ringing in her mind as Yasha had screamed in agony as they were hostages on Barataria. Cassiopeia had tried to keep her alive, using the rags from a shirt to keep the sweat off of Yasha's face. The excruciating yells of pain from broken ribs and giving birth radiated inside her mind.

Her eyes caught the medallion that Yasha was holding. It meant something to her. She had destroyed the table to get it out, to have it in her hand again. To forget. To make her pain go away. She reminisced about a time familiar to her - before Gray, before Adara, before Cassiopeia. She had taken the medallion out of the table to try to shake off dark feelings that were encasing her. Cassiopeia wished she had something to dull her pain but had no such thing.

She could only wince as she heard Gray respond. Her own interpretation of his words cutting through her soul like a blade.

Worthless.

That is what she was. It should truly be her saying that. Gray had protected his daughter - helped get them out of Barataria. He saved Yasha from the beginning, adopting her, becoming her father. He helped save Yasha, her, and Kaden. Cassiopeia did no such thing.

Useless.

She found her eyes unable to hold back the tears as several long drops began to run down her cheek, slowly dripping onto the floor of the throne room. Another depressing memory added to the history of the Sundari Palace. She leaned her head against the column, trying to keep her choked tears as quiet as possible.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“It belongs to me now!” Yasha bellowed, once more her voice amplified by the audio systems of her buy’ce and rocketing from one side of the chasm-like throne room to the other. The words rang out, strained by the vocal chords of their bearer.

The soul which bore. ​

​

A mother’s soul… a mother without a child. Was Adara’s heart still beating? Yasha’s ad’ika she dreaded growing in her belly, and trembled bringing to life?​

“I killed because my life was worth more than theirs.” Yasha’s voice broke above the scraping of the chair across the floor. Not bothering to pick it up, Yasha let it scrape, let the sound bathe this cathedral to her pains and unbecoming moments of time.

​

Adara was choking for life in an incubator. ​

The chair screeched across the floor, a flatline of sound wobbling in her HUD’s audio input.

​

Thud thud. ​

​

Thud thud. ​

​

Thud thud. ​

Chair legs came to a halt on the dais, where Ra Vizsla once sat. Where Preliat sat, beside his daughter. The espers of the Sundari throne room filtered across the walls and pillars, tangling with the wreckage of oligarchy’s table until stilling as the creeping ache of a woman in beskar’kandar beskar’gam sat upon her makeshift throne.

“I survived the Netherworld for a purpose. Twice, it threw every iota it had at me, and twice I spat back at Chaos to return to Manda’yaim for the sole purpose of bringing my Mando’ade back to life. I, one but not supreme. Talented, but not infinite. Who better to guide our people to a utopia than one without fear? One who knows the true cost of Manda is bathed in the stubborn cries of dying infants and the blood of those who suffered the loss of it in rescue of three lost creatures, clinging to life? I was…”

The infrared reading caught a change in temperature on [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"]’s face. Streaks of blue in yellow.

Cassiopeia was crying. ​

​

Would Yasha ever see Adara cry?​

Gasps punctuated out of Mand’alor the Infernal’s audio protocols, fragmented and clinging to static in their interpretation. The audio protocols had no exception for tears. No guide to quantify the gasps and stutters hidden inside the inhuman entombment of Yasha Mantis in beskar’gam made by a man above all, of war.

“I was too weak to save you.” Yasha’s whisper carried beyond [member="Gray Raxis"] to the pregnant girl crying on the floor. “I will never allow myself the luxury of weakness, again.

​

I gave everything to my Mando’ade… ​

… do not make me give you, too, Buir… do not make me lose you both, too.” Fog struck the interior of her buy’ce, a child’s plea that her father be sustained in his age. That he find substance and love in more than one failed attempt at a daughter.

Were Gray and Cassiopeia worthless?

Were any of the Mando’ade worth less than nothing? Less than her? If she believed [member="Darth Carnifex"], the strata of society only functioned when the lesser bent their spines for their betters. Yasha was, after all, Panathan Citizenry… a noble twice over. It was given to the strong to rule, to add conflict to the universe…

​

… and thus the universe would spin its’ arthritic hand one more time… ​

​

… another revolution for Chaos’ serendipity. ​

Another life played in pace with the Manda’s fancy, the stroke of the Force’s incorporeal hand. If she was little more than armour and hammer, in the Dark Lord’s eyes Gray and Cassiopeia and Ambrose’s Ka’lo were nothing. They were flashes in the night. Mere slivers, which would eventually dull around the edges and be pushed out through tougher skin.

A woman sunk low on her borrowed throne, peering through automata to decipher a world she adored. A world she was fated to rule.

“I refuse to allow even one of my Mando’ade to be nothing, Gray Raxis, Alor and Buir. Every Mando'ad from farmer to teacher to Alor is more worthy of life than the entire sum of the remaining Galaxy. I still have a body to give, do I not? I still have a mind and a hammer’s might to wield. The truth is simple, Buir, although I find no joy in it.

​

Give me a target.​

​

That I might vanquish and blot out these sins.”​

 

[Gray Raxis]

All Yasha and Cassi could see from Gray was a neutral state. It was as if he heard and felt nothing as [member="Yasha Mantis"] went on. That is the reaction they would get from him on the outside, but inside was different. He couldn't feel Yasha through the force but he could feel [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"] as she cried. It seemed she was listening to him as well. Both of these young women were going through some intense emotions with no idea of how to handle it. Everyone thought Mandalorians were an apathetic people, but the truth was that they valued emotions above all else. Positive. Negative. It didn't matter which so long as it was never empty. The two wanted empty. It was his duty as their elder to see to it that they learned how to handle these emotions in a healthy way.

As soon as Yasha finished speaking, Gray approached where her voice last was. He remained silent as he did. Yet again something told him to stop. He did. He said in the kind of commanding voice that only a father could have with their children, " Lose. Sacrifice. Fear. If that is all you know of the Manda then I haven't done my job. You say you have given everything. You haven't. Where is your right hand? Where are your eyes? Still a part of you. You still have your name and your identity. The Manda is everything. The good. The bad. Every joyful moment is a blessing that should be praised. Every lose, every sacrifice, is nothing more than something returning to the Manda. We will be reunited in the end so it is only for a very short time. What the Manda wants is not a Mand'alor that doesn't know fear. We do not need a leader who can't empathize with their people. The Mand'alor should be an example to show that fear can be overcome."

Gray had to pause. It felt like he had a lifetime of knowledge to pass down but only moments to do it. It was time her got to the meat of the lesson here. He said yet again in the same voice as before, " Drop that hammer and remove your armor." It was clear he was serious. To make that point even more obvious, he just stood there with his sightless gaze facing what he hoped was her direction. He wasn't going to move or say another thing until he heard metal pinging on the floor. She was going to resist it. He was asking her to remove her only shield right now from her own emotions. He was asking her to remove her only sense of security. He knew it and yet he still expected her to do it.

 

[Gaia Sunaris Cadera]

She winced. The echoes of Yasha's yell bounced off the throne room, echoing across the large mostly desolate chamber. It was only after her voice that it came to her attention how empty the room sounded. For a moment, it was silent. Then, she heard Yasha speak again. Yasha's words weren't wrong - her life was more valuable than many of them that she had to strike down. Self-preservation was a strong instinct in most people and, if she didn't make it, she wouldn't be here today. With [member="Gray Raxis"], or Cassiopeia, or Adara, or Baiko. Yasha's life brought joy, happiness, and good things to many.

But, history is written by the winners.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] words stabbed like needles to her heart. Even in despair, the Mand'alor had a way with words. Is being fearless a good trait, though? Some courage is good. Some fearless is reckless, dangerous. Yasha wasn't a reckless individual. She was tactical, smart, prepared.

Cassiopeia couldn't wallow in her own pity when her friend was hurting so much. She had to suck up the constant sickness, the constant nagging in her mind of her failures. She used the column to steady herself as she rose, fighting off the flood of nausea that hit her. Her tears wouldn't stop, but she could at least be better than this. Her pregnancy, the lack of sleep, the trauma that her body took was taking its toll physically on her. Maybe she could at least get it together for just a little bit, just long enough to help her friend. She failed her once - she didn't want to fail her again.

She gave a weak, concerned smile towards Yasha. She moved closer towards the young woman and Gray, but stayed far enough away that she would not fully interrupt the conversation between Gray and her. This wasn't a time for Cassiopeia to interrupt. Despite her relatively unstable mind, she knew Gray had a plan. A lesson of sorts. Whether it worked for either Yasha or if Cassiopeia could take some indirect education from it was unclear at the moment.

What more could she do, though? She stood there, carefully watching the scene unfold before her as her eyes continued small streams of tears. She had to fight back her thoughts - she didn't want to be useless, worthless. Her mind immediately put doubts. She was all of those things she didn't want to be. It had been proven on Barataria. But still, she wanted to make a difference, she wanted to help her friend and her Nation.

She stared at Gray's request. Would Yasha do it? Would she fight it? He was asking Yasha to expose herself, entirely by taking her armor off. There would be no hiding her face. No hiding her fear, pain, and despair. It would be shown for both Gray and Cassiopeia to bear. There was no denying that this would be the safest place to drop Yasha's guard, to remove the armor that served as the barrier between her emotions and to Gray, to Cassiopeia. Maybe it would a way to help start healing the Mand'alors pain.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

[member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"] rose, her body heat searing brighter as she moved closer. Hemming her in. Cassie wouldn’t dare… she wouldn’t encroach too close to the Mand’alor.

Not on her throne.

“Give me a target!” Yasha wailed, her fist colliding with the arm of the chair, bending metal and cursing her conscious state. There he stood, [member="Gray Raxis"], the man Ra hated, the force user who refused to pick a side. Gray Raxis was poisoned by a power Yasha had no understanding of.

Blind as her father.

The wolf helm swerved its’ automated head at Gray, encased and alien. Gray spoke of being remiss in his job as father, of his own losses. She had eyes, all her limbs. Yasha flexed her right hand, the crush gaunt creaking and flashing refracted light into the shadows.

“No. You have yet to lose a daughter.”

 

[Gray Raxis]

Yasha demanded a target yet again. It was all she seemed to know how to do right now. It was all she could do with that armor weighing her down and that hammer as an anchor. She couldn't see past her fear so it was making her angry. It was good to grieve and to feel. She was allowed to be afraid and angry. But she needed to see that there was more for her than both of those in the worst of times. She had refused to take her armor off and even threatened to stop being his daughter. That was a knife in his heart to hear her suggest that.

Gray stood before his daughter unflinching. " You will never stop being my daughter. Never."

Gray had to pause after that. His voice had been filled with too much pain at the thought of losing her. He had to regain his composure. It was took him a moment or two but he got it himself righted. Again he took on that fatherly command as he went on. " Take off you armor and drop your weapon. I won't ask again. Next time I'm just taking it off myself." Left it sit there. What look could be made of his face with his scarf over his eyes was stern and serious.

[member="Kaine Australis"] [member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"]

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

Every single doctor worked tirelessly.

They were too focused to stop. The child that lay in front of them, born too soon and too underdeveloped needed them and they had sworn an oath to help anyone who required it. This child was but one of many patients that would visit throughout the day and they treated the child like any other. with respect and focus until they could fix her and make it all better, remove all the pain and the hurt and the suffering.

Heal her.

They had worked tirelessly, the child attached to machines and wires. She was hardly breathing, the machine was doing most of the work. The child was suffering, it couldn't function. This child wouldn't last much longer without the machines. Yet, they would try. Everything that they could do, they would do. They would cut the child open if they needed to, replace her insides to keep this child alive because the child deserved it.

The beeping started. Three employees dropped everything, beginning to quickly start compressing the chest of the child. Everyone expected the child to die but they all refused to accept it. They would fight so hard to keep the child breathing, functioning and alive. They had two minutes before brain death and then general death and they knew they would fight so hard to keep the child breathing.

And the baby coughed, lightly.

Hope? Who knew.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“I need a target!!”​

Yasha’s scorching bellow attacked the walls, pinging off them and the ceiling like scattershot in a small room. Her lungs panted, breastplate shifting in the expansion and retraction of her chest. The act of breathing shuddered down Yasha Mantis’ spine.

Her daughter was struggling to breathe. Adara was fighting her first and most important battle to do the very thing Yasha panted out, uncomplicated and steady. Mand’alor the Infernal focused on the face of [member="Gray Raxis"] as it crumbled.

The man was unflinching, a paragon of Mandalorian virtues and the warrior’s way. A man was mightiest of all, when his voice cracked and the pains of emotion’s toil struck deepest across his bow. Standing before the howling Mand’alor, a blind man built for the next in a series of conflicts cracked under the stab wound of his daughter’s inflicted pain. Yasha stuttered a gasp.

She looked to [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"], her loyal friend who soothed Yasha’s violent soul. Despite her own illness and troubling times, Cassi appeared, calm water upon Yasha’s hurricane. She judged little and loved much. How much more did Gray love his daughter, the girl he threatened Manda to save? Gray passed through corporeal and incorporeal dangers to love Yasha, his Yash’ika. To take on the child who lost more than most could bear. Under her helm, Yasha’s face grew hot.

“I didn’t mean losing me, c’yare buir…” Yasha’s chest plate continued to reverberate with her shaking ribcage, an untimely sea in this caustic time. Her gauntlets clanged to the ground, one and the other.

The bell-tolls for Ra’s little rekr. “I am always your Yash’ika.”

The audio processors of Yasha’s new buy’ve disconnected for the acoustic shiver of a grieving mother. Metal removed from her face, she let the helmet drop to the steps as she stumbled forward, armour-lock clicked and beskar plate sloughing from her body to the ground.

“I don’t want to lose Adara.” Yasha’s heart twisted and squeezed. “I didn’t want her hard enough, Dad. I didn’t want her at all… not then. Kaden’s the one who wanted kids! It was too soon, I was too young, I had so much to do… and now she’s dying. It must be my fault. She knows I didn’t want her hard enough. It’s my fault… Dad, how can I love her more? Even if I do, she can’t feel it, I’m as blank as the spot upon the dais the throne once sat. Please don’t make me do this. Don’t make me bury my child. Not without my armour. Not without my strength…

… I want my baby.”

In the moment when Gray became vulnerable, his daughter realized that vulnerability and might were more than mutually inclusive. A Mandalorian wore their armour because they felt so deeply, it was a conduit of their faith and adoration of kin… yet the Hell Wolf wasn’t needed now.

Mand’alor the Infernal wasn’t the Hell Wolf in her lonely repose.

“Dad, I… Daddy…” She was Gray’s daughter, voice cutting short in a stumble of agony. She was a member of the Pack. Before reaching Gray, Yasha’s knees cut out. She slid to sit on the last step, held her arms around her chest, and began to sob. [member="Kaine Australis"] was with Adara, Yasha's General standing guard over the little pup. There was no person in the universe Yasha could trust more to watch over Adara than the Alor of Clan Australis. Kaine's fighting spirit alone would strengthen Yasha's infant... even as Yasha felt her tightening stomach and fought to staunch her own sobs.

"Daddy."

[member="Spencer Australis"]

 

[Gaia Sunaris Cadera]

She stopped moving forward at Yasha's second scream. She begged for a target. Something to release the agony that was eating away at Yasha's emotions. She winced at the sound of Yasha's fist colliding with the chair - the metal bending, breaking. [member="Gray Raxis"] may not lose a daughter.

But [member="Yasha Mantis"] might lose hers.

The thought rippled through Cassiopeia's emotions. She wiped away tears that would only be replaced with more, soon. She stepped forward again as Gray began to speak to her. She would always be his daughter. Just as Yasha would always be her dearest friend.

But then Gray demanded again she take her armor off.

She looked with concern towards Yasha. A reassuring, concerned smile crossed her lips, towards her friend. She had nothing else to give, no words of comfort. What could she say? Yasha's daughter may not make it. Life may never be the same again. She felt light-headed - unsure if it was due to her pregnancy, her lack of sleep, or just the intensity of the emotions that were happening around them all. Cassiopeia sunk down and sat on the last step.

Her armor slowly came off. First, the helmet. Then, the rest. It felt to the ground. And then, the guilt poured out from Yasha. Gray did it. He brought the emotions out - they were no longer hidden by armor, by her buy'ce. Her agony was exposed to all in this room. Maybe, with this, healing could begin.

[member="Spencer Australis"] | [member="Kaine Australis"]

 

[Gray Raxis]

It finally happened. It finally karking happened. Gray finally got his daughter to expose her true feelings. She no longer had armor or pretense to hide behind. This was very good. Now he could actually do something for her. She began to spill everything that she was feeling. She was putting everything onto herself. The burdens of fear and regret and self torment. He was far too familiar with all of it. Those were things he never voiced to others himself, but he went through them all on a daily basis. As she finally got all of her armor off and began to call out for him, he heard her steps coming his way then stop. He needed to do something now for her.

Gray began to move forward not knowing what was ahead of him. His feet struck pieces of armor leaving behind pain and bruises. Forward he went. Once he was at the sound of her, he felt his toes hit the step. A jolt of pain but now he knew where he was at. Slowly he got himself sat down in a rather awkward way. But he was now next to her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his chest so she could cry there. He fully embraced her with his other arm and just held onto her tight. This was all he could do for her right now. She needed to let it all out. She needed to let it all have a chance to leave her.

" None of this is your fault honey." Gray said to her in as soothing of a fatherly tone as he could manage. He wasn't exactly more experienced at kid stuff than her. Baiko was the one with experience with kids. All he could do was rely on his own experiences. " All we can do now is wait. If she is fine then we celebrate. We thank the Manda for the extra time we get with her and make sure she has the fullest life we can give to her.... And if she isn't then we mourn. We mourn and we remember it is only temporary. We will see her again when we become one with the Manda."

It felt weird to Gray to be saying all of this. It almost felt dishonest to him as he could be saying this to anyone. She needed to know why it was going to be okay. She needed to know why Gray was keeping it together as well as he was right now, although he honestly wasn't. He was making himself focus on his own daughter to avoid worrying about his granddaughter. It brought up too many painful memories of his own mother at the end....

" I never told you about my mom and how she died." Gray said in a low voice that almost made it seem like he wasn't really there. " After I watched my dad get killed in front of my eyes by a pirate and where I got the scar running under my eyes and across my nose, she got very sick. I took her to a hospital. I can't even remember where at. They told me it wasn't good and she would need a lot of time to recover. It was very expensive to keep her there. I was working none stop taking any sort of merc job or even salvage job I could get. That wasn't even enough to pay for it, so I had to start selling off everything we owned. It went on like this for a few years and in the end all I had left was my armor, that blaster I got from my dad, and a set of casual clothes. But I paid for all of her treatments.... Then she past away in her sleep. I was in the room with her. I couldn't afford a room anywhere so I was having to use her room like one. So I was sitting there watching over her as she slept and just felt her slip away...."

Gray had to stop right there. Tears had started to bleed through his scarf and drop onto his daughter. He needed to collect himself. He needed to be strong for her right now. This was her time to grieve. She deserved to have this time to grieve. After a moment he said in a still slightly shaky voice, " No matter what happens, you did everything you could for her. If the Manda says it is her time then it is her time. All we can do is keep a watch over her and hope she goes peacefully...." He gave his daughter a squeeze.

[member="Kaine Australis"] [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"] [member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Spencer Australis"]

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSnBlJbvX1E​

She was breathing.

That was... oddly surprising. She wasn't breathing well, the doctors had to admit that. She was mostly breathing because a large machine was forcing her to breathe but baby Adara was in a better state than she was a few seconds ago. Yes, the poor infant would probably suffer a few broken ribs from the frantic panic to keep her breathing but every doctor would always argue that a few broken ribs were better than being dead.

They had a way to go until Adara was stable. She was way too early, too premature. Her lungs were no-where developed enough to be able to carry out any sort of oxygen transfer, but she was alive for now. So many doctors ran around, connecting more wires and tubes. To onlookers, the poor infant was more machine than flesh at this point, covered in plastic and copper.

Some poor doctor breathed a sigh of relief in the corner.

Another just looked more worried. Every doctor worked in sync, they hardly needed to talk to each other. They'd done this a-lot, saved so many lives after a battle. Children however were rare, they rarely needed treatment for anything more major than a broken arm or leg. Children tended to suffer fractures or breaks due to general stupidity, they rarely suffered a full body shutdown due to being born super premature.

Then the beeping started again.

A doctor swore.

Everything always got better before it got worse.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Gray’s daughter was breaking. Her father was a wall to hold the oceans back, allowing spouts to fill the reservoirs which could healthily drive Yasha’s healing.

Each stumble [member="Gray Raxis"] took rocked Yasha’s shoulders. She moved to stand, intoxicated by the grief of a once or future daughter. Within the arms of Gray Raxis, a wounded and lonely young woman found the abject and utter peace of being protected and loved.

Unconditional love, abundant and righteous, encased them in a stronger armour than any goran could forge. Where were the other men in her life? Why did Yasha have to push forward, skipping from fight to fight to survive with pieces thinned out of her heart?

It didn’t matter. A heartbroken woman rested in the arms of her father, tucked into him in an intimately paternal embrace. “How can a soulless woman like me enter Manda, Dad? The Force forsook me, how could I still be one with Manda, when I die?”

A further shiver rocked Yasha’s spine as she clung to Gray, dying in the desert of her lifetime experiences. Would she not return to the Netherworld, when she died? Would she be like Mama Mantis, locked away in Ember Rekali’s castle until eventually fading by inches day by day? The truth clung to Yasha’s paling, exhausted skin.

Her soul was a fracture sutured together with the cobwebs of a childhood promise for a woman who rejoined the dead. Part of her remained with Aditya, part of her held tight her mother’s hand for an eternity. Was it like Ember said, did her soul need an Ithorian Priest?

​

Would that make the difference?​

​

A breath of magic in the grim reality of Ra Vizsla’s Little Rekr?​

Far from numb to the story Gray wove, Yasha reached one hand out for [member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"], her dearest friend. The Mand’alor wanted to stop crying and tell Cassi her babies would be okay, to reassure her or make things better. She couldn’t. “That’s how grandma died?”

Rubbing her wet eyes on Gray’s shoulder, Yasha sniffled. Salt water welled over the barricades of her eyelids and down her pretty face. “I’m sorry, Daddy… I’m sorry… if it makes a difference, I still have grandpa's blaster.”

Yasha tried to laugh, picturing the blaster Gray handed to her on her life day celebration. The day he adopted her.

The day the Light won. ​

The beautiful tragedy of Yasha Mantis became the salvation of Yasha Raxis, when a wounded and beleaguered man stood against all darkness and all fear and rebuked it. The day Gray took a girl to raise, he begat a tidal wave, which shook Manda’yaim to its’ radiant sun and caustic inner core.

Yet again, Gray came to push Yasha toward the light her body had no cognizance of. A light that while good was ever merciful even in the deaths of those called by its’ name.

​

Manda. ​

Sobs struck Yasha once more as Gray spoke out a mother’s inward repulsion that her daughter would die before making more than two weeks of life. If she died, Adara would ferry them to Manda when they died. To Manda like [member="Ginnie Dib"], who told such heavenly tales of her eternity within the collective soul. [member="Kaine Australis"] [member="Spencer Australis"]

“Please don’t let my baby die. Manda, please. This can’t be her time. Not like this… Not like this…”

 

[GhostOfProtocol]

Time slowed down.

Every second felt like forever. Every movement felt like it being carried out in jelly, every movement was difficult. The child lay on the table had stopped breathing, stopped functioning. The blanket was pulled off her as more wires and pads were placed upon her chest. The beeping was just background noise, no doctor paid attention to it anymore. They were all too focused, all too dedicated on making the child breathe once again.

1:30 until brain death.

Until death.

A shock. Someone had shouted clear prior, they weren't heard. The shouting stage had begun, so many doctors trying to direct traffic and come up with the best way to keep this child alive. Another shout, another shock. They couldn't get the heart pumping blood around the body, it was too underdeveloped and too weak. The child was dying and they were struggling to helo her, to fix her. Every doctor felt guilty, even if they wouldn't admit it.

50 seconds until brain death.

They were slowing down. The grief setting in. They had accepted that the child was going to die. Only two doctors were trying to help, trying to fix the child and keep the child breathing, keep oxygen moving around her system. They were trying everything from chest compressions to direct shocks using an AED. Nothing was working, the child was born too early and was too weak to keep fighting and too weak to keep breathing.

0:00. Brain death.

She was dead.

The doctor looked up at [member="Kaine Australis"].

He was only slightly worried he would follow in the childs stead.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The spectre of death hung through the palace in tandem with the shadows. Cuddled up in her father’s arms, Yasha’s head snapped up as blaster fire thundered around Sundari, hitting as close as the palace. Yalilyr scurried through the halls. Yasha snapped to a stand, opening her hand as her warhammer returned to her palm.

The footsteps halted.​

​

Silence reigned. ​

“Cassie, get behind me.” Yasha barked, eyes flicking across the empty throne room as she bent down to begin replacing her armour upon her body. The agony of echoes dying filtered through her ears. Crushgaunts on her hands, Yasha gripped the warhammer tight.

“Tuulu. Report.” Crouching near the floor, Mand’alor the Infernal heard another set of footsteps.

“…. all clear, Mand’alor.” Tuulu spoke around gritted teeth, a growl in his ribcage.

Footsteps, and an infant’s cries. The throne room’s blast doors opened and Kaine Australis walked in with the gravity of a dying world. Adara cried in Kaine’s arms, mimicking the tears which dried on the old General’s face.

Rear Karyatesa clanged to the ground as Yasha sprinted to her General and threw her arms around him and her baby. A guttural wail broke out of her mouth as the young mother fiddled with Adara’s swaddling clothes, touching the girl’s face. The tragedy and pain of the last thirteen years of Yasha’s life shattered around her in an equal and opposite tide to Kaine’s shattered Sithly soul. Incapable of noticing the spiritual change in her General, Yasha burst in a thick and cloying sob, cuddling her baby to her nubile chest.

This child in Yasha’s arms was beloved of the Dark.

Infant eyes eased open, incapable of making out the shape of her saviour. Yet the eyes which peered up at [member="Kaine Australis"] were black as the shadows, irises as crimson as the blood spilt to save her.

“Aust- Aus-“ Yasha’s body shook, she clung to her child, “Kaine.”

Any thought to what the General had done were lost on the mother, who turned her chin to kiss Kaine on the cheek. He’d been there where she could not. He conducted the battles she could not throw herself into and now he brought her victorious child. Legs cutting out from underneath her, Yasha clung to her child as Kaine caught her. She cradled Adara to her chest, humming soothing tones to the child as her head splayed back, personal and vulnerable, in Kaine Australis’ arms.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you Adara, Adara my baby.. my baby, Manda… Manda you saved my baby. My baby…” Head leaned against Kaine’s armoured chest, Yasha wept in the safety of a pair of loyal arms. Incapable of the strength to stand on her own legs, Yasha lingered, holding the most precious child in the universe.

A child of which the cost was too high. ​

​

[member="Cassiopeia Caranthyr"] [member="Gray Raxis"] [member="Spencer Australis"]​

 

[Gaia Sunaris Cadera]

It was almost as if someone could feel the dams breaking in [member="Yasha Mantis"]. The pain, the worry, the grief - it began to crack like a dam under too much weight. Eventually, it would collapse and the water would rush out. Yasha was in such a situation as her armor was left behind, leaving her exposed to the emotional cruelty of the universe they lived in.

[member="Gray Raxis"] held her. He had her in his arms in an attempt to console the broken Mand'alor. Upon seeing Yasha reach a hand out for her, Cassiopeia made her way over and held Yasha's hand with both of hers. She stayed close to Yasha and Gray. She let her thumb rub softly against the Mand'alors hand as she listened to Gray's sad story. He was right, though. Yasha did everything she could humanly do for her child. It wouldn't be up to them, or the doctors, or Kaine, or anyone else if Adara lived or died. It would be up to Manda, that otherworldly conscious.

Her heart stung either way. Gray watched his mother die after watching his dad die. And then, Yasha begged Manda for mercy. Let her baby live. Let her win the battle. Cassiopeia did her best to hold back more tears as she watched her friend sob, begging for her child to make it out alive.

But all of a sudden, there was a shot. The Yalilyr footsteps could be heard all about. Cassiopeia stood with Yasha, carefully examine the room. Was there someone else here? Would this be another kidnapping attempt?

But then in walked [member="Kaine Australis"], with a small bundle in his arms. Cassiopeia would not know the change in her buir. She didn't pay much mind to the Force, anyway. It didn't matter, though. Nothing else mattered but that baby in his arms. Yasha's baby won her first war. She made it. Adara pulled through.

Cassiopeia ran to Kaine with Yasha, wiping her eyes as she saw the General and Yasha embrace. She joined the hug carefully before smiling, she put her hand on Yasha's armored back. A miracle happened. Cassi wouldn't know the price that Kaine gave for the child's life.

"Mom'alor. It has a nice ring to it."