Keepin Corellia Weird
Location: Concord Dawn - Somewhere in the Western Forests
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBYKdmgB2Ro
It had been years since he had been to this spot, hell it might have even been close to a decade, he mused. When she had gone, he had spent day and night for weeks erecting an empty tomb without a body. Neighbors brought food that was left to rot. Comrades came and stood vigil as he worked, pristine in their Journeyman Protector armor and colors, the family he had walked away from all those years ago. Still, they did their duty, and stood vigil with him until he was done, and not a one said anything when he just left. Truth was, he wasn't even sure she was dead, but when you were drug off by the hair by a Sith Lord, you didn't tend to survive terribly long. Or if you did, what lived was such you were dead to those you knew before. And Ijaat couldn't handle thinking of her in that way, twisted by science and the Dark Side into a cruel mockery of the loving woman he had raised his sons with.
Uncomfortably, he strode out to the first two markers, carved of simple plain limestone with a beskar plaque. His two boys, Darius and Quintus. Both, like their mother, were of flaming red hair, with their fathers breadth of shoulder and physique. Thankfully, unlike him, they were patient, kind and loving boys. Well, for the most part they were he supposed. Like any male of any species, they were prone to hijinks and outbursts, and a few times as they aged they made Ijaat shake his head in wonder at the surely cosmic vengeance the Universe had wrought on him for being such a terror to his own mother and father growing up. But truly, they were good boys.
Quintus was the 'smarter' one, and could ever be found following his mother around, trying to read whatever books she had from her time as one of the more brilliant minds on Coruscant- before the Sith had conquered it anyway. She would often be seen carrying a basket of laundry under one arm, an open book on Bio-Chemistry in the other, reading to a boy no more than eight about things his father could scarcely comprehend. But, whatever the subject, Quintus drank it in like a sponge, blue eyes shining. By the time the lad had disappeared - his mind still couldn't process such a sweet boy being dead at that age, he could tell you all sorts of things Ijaat suspected men four or five times his age might struggle with. But thankfully, instead of a sort of withdrawn precociousness that was common, Quintus as a boy seemed to take joy in showing others the world. Indeed, this spot here had been a favorite of his to come and sit or play at, and was part of the reason Ijaat had chosen it. It was something of a hallmark of the younger of the two boys that he would choose a shady wooded spot like this to come and play and read, rather than the local village with the other children his age, where he always said he felt more alone than in their remote home near the mountains.
Darius? How did one explain that lad? If there was fire and hell-raising and adventure personified, it was Darius. The oldest of the two, if only by minutes, he took his responsibility as 'eldest' seriously, and when others might tease Quintus for reading, Darius would swiftly show them what for. The number of times Ijaat's wife had held a packet of ice to the boy's face as he grinned through a split lip to tell his dad what he had done to the other boy were beyond count. But it was rarely where his son was in the wrong, even though as children he was sure he had been fed an exaggerated truth or two. Most often, Darius use his size and strength to protect his younger brother. And where Quintus' eyes were the same as his mother, blue and shining with laughter, the elder of the Akun twins took more after his father, dark honeyed brown eyes oft serious and piercing even at a young age. But of the two, when some sort of prank was pulled, you were best to look his way, if his howls of laughter didn't give him away at first. Darius was Ijaat's shadow, and the lad loved working in the forge with his father, small arms pumping for all they were worth on the bellows, streaking through the house covered in soot to rub his face and hands on his mothers clean dress.
Bending down, Ijaat silently ran a hand over the carven plaques, green with patina and covered in leaves and dirt. Calloused fingers trembled and shook as he ran their tips across the Mando'a that formed the names of his boys, the carven beasts that twisted around the borders, taken from old storybooks from Ijaat's father that both the boys had favored. Shapes meant to be beast and legends of the Mando'ade and their history, good things to raise strong boys on. Standing, slowly, he felt his knees ache and pop, but nothing could overshadow the ache in hs heart as he pulled a work cloth from his pocket and wiped his face, tucking it back into the bantha leather belt and stepping towards the modest mausoleum. His wife would have scolded him had she seen how he was dressed, and the very memory of her voice caused him to crack a wry smiled. Patched and darned old long sleeved tunic of that same drab off white cotton, open a few loops at the chest because he hadn't bothered to close it, tucked into battered grey fatigue pants from his time with the Journeyman. He even still favored the same high necked boots, though the ones he wore today were considerably in better repair than his old ones. Hesitantly, he stepped to the door in front of him, and paused with his hand at the lock.
Aerin... How did one describe the love of their life? Ijaat wasn't a man that was prone to terrible eloquence or poetics. Indeed, along with her mock exasperation as his insistence on a simple way of life even with the money they made, or his battered clothes, Ijaat knew it was that attitude that drew them together as young children. She was studious, quiet, and shy to most accounts. But her father was one of the most respected duelists on Adumar, and a nobleman to boot. When the brash young Mandalorian had flown in piloting a battered firespray type deriative and won her fathers approval as a student, he had scarcely seen her at first. But as time and tutelage passed, tales of the young warrior at the manner had grown, and so had the reputations of his good lucks and scandalous manners. In such a courtly society as Adumar, a Mando'ade would seem rough and crass by comparison, with their strange ideals and customs. Eventually, he had noticed Aerin taking excuses to have her tutors lecture out in the open aired courtyard where he and her father trained, ostensibly for the cool spring air.
The story of her courtship was a long one, and it made the old beskarsmith grin to think of it really. Sneaking through guarded corridors at night with a 'boquet' picked from her mothers gardens to scale a wall and sit in her windowsill and talk to her. Often she would convince him to tell her stories of his home, of his people. The adventures he had seen in the galaxy, and the people he had met. At rare times, he would take a bes'bev out from his belongings, playing the odd instrument for her as best as he could, and reveling in her look of shocked horror when he explained his people had made even a flute for music into an instrument of death as well. That had always made him laugh, to think back on, and it was around that time in their flirtation that his apprenticeship on Adumar had ended. In no way was it a sort of punishment, but as her father had said, the years had passed, and there was simply nothing further for him to learn from him. The offer was made to provide Ijaat with a living, and a house, but it was truly an offer of charity, and Ijaat declined, which quite upset the young lady. In the end, he left as he had came - unexpectedly without word, the only token of his passage being the battered beskar flute he left behind on her windowsill.
Over the years, they exchanged holos now and again as they journeyed. Aerin was on Coruscant and traveling to all sorts of other places, learning to become a Physician, of all things! Ijaat continued his galaxy crawling adventures, stopping on planets here or there for a few years, studying under various swordmasters or smiths to further his skills. He never wrote her about the wars he signed on for, though he suspected she knew anyway. But eventually the day came Aerin was to graduate, and it was that day Ijaat left in the midst of a conflict against the Sith in an Outer Rim territory and made the long trek to the Core without delay. For this occasion, he had even bothered to buy dress clothes, fine suit in green and cold cut in a Coreilian fashion. The ceremony went wonderfully, and he watched it from the back without interruption, waiting until her family received her from the stage and they went to pass out of the ceremony before approaching.
Now, the rest, as they say, is history. Well, not history in this case given the two were never movers-and-shakers in the galactic scene. But, it was the same stuff love stories were based on and you see in all the cheesy holo-vids. The educated and brilliant doctor and the world-weary swordsman met and the years apart fled like distant memories. Her father consented to the match, and in less than a year he had whisked her back to Concord Dawn, and with their own two-hands and the help of friends they had built a humble place near the mountains on the edge of a wood. She would come to be known as the best doctor for the frontier folk on Concord Dawn to come to, and he would be a sought after beskarsmith for warriors needing arms and armor, and on rare occasion he would take one under his wing to train with hammer and anvil or the blade. Eventually, children wound up in the picture (as is wont to happen) and then one day the Sith had struck, and it had all gone wrong from there. Ijaat hadn't been back here since this time, and as his hands pushed open the lock and swayed the door inside, the weight of his years weighed on him like an anchor.
Stopping before the little altar he silently lit some of the cinnamon and apple candles she had favored in their home, taking them from within his pocket, placing them on the rusted holders and admiring the laser-etch stone portrait of Aerin in the prime of her life, as he had known her when he first met her. Softly an old-fashioned zippo style lighter flicked open, the brass worn with age to where the etching of his family crest could barely be seen. She had gotten it for him on the day they wed, and something about the old-fashion smell of the lighter fluid and flint just took him back. Each candle was lit, and he stayed a moment, head bowed, before he spoke, rough voice echoing in the small space. What he said didn't come easy, and afterwards he couldn't really recall the words when asked, but it was the last goodbye, and needed to be said.
"Ahhh... You know me, lass... I never was much good at fancy words or speaking my heart when it came to my feelings... You'd be laughin that same laugh of yours if you could see me here squirmin, tryin to talk...It's been a while since I visited.. I missed you and the boys something fierce. I've been gettin on alright, I guess, since you left... Causing a ruckus all up and down the Hyper Lanes. Just like you were always tellin me not to. Guess I don't listen much better now than I did when you were al... when you were here. But you said it was part of my charm, that stubbornness. Been branchin out lately, makin new friends. And the sort I didn't even have to shoot first, which is a plus... Sure could use you around for the cookin though, none of the droids can make much of anything, and I still make the same three soups and stews and that's about it.. Tried baking that bread of yours a few times... Only lit the ship on fire once from it, so there's that... I... I guess I really I don't know what else to say... Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum... Aerin Akun.."
With that, the wandering mando'ad turned from the altar, his face wreathed in half-light from the candles and the fading twilight, and walked out into the forest, the door closing with a slow and grinding thud. It would, perhaps to some, be an abrupt and rather odd visit and way of remembrance, but it was his way. Some old wounds never truly healed, and that was just the way of life and how things went. And he would bear the weight, because that was just the way he was...