“That was… how?”
“Sacrifice.”
The single, whispered word weighed like a mantel of stone around his shoulders. Bril Teg Erinos trudged through the halls of his ship as it sailed through hyperspace, on its way to return from Arx to Dajorran space.
Their target had been handed over to the Exarch and his staff, wholly in one piece and barely worse for the wear thanks to being healed…except for his arm, which remained dead and black. Bril had seen to his teammates, ensuring they got cleaned up and refreshed, that Gand’s tanks were full, that Dolot was at least ninety percent, as the man himself might say. He’d made sure each of them had transport to where they needed to go, and that they’d all exchanged contact information after a debriefing.
That left one.
As soon as they’d returned to the ship, Rue had disappeared, though only after asking permission to do so. With his throat closing and bile on his tongue, the Zabrak had carefully informed Rue he could do whatever he wanted, that he didn’t need Bril’s permission, that it wasn’t like that.
Rue had bowed and hobbled away, quietly refuting more help from Gand.
In the refresher as he cleaned off the grime and blood, Bril messaged his ori'vod.
š„¼: I think I karked up and I don’t know how to fix it.
There wasn’t an immediate reply, meaning Foxen was probably asleep, or maybe away from his datapad, elbow deep in duracrete for one of his Gaile House Projectsā¢. The Zabrak pressed his forehead into the tile, focused on the love he felt in his bond to his tai'shan, tried to breathe as Ruka’s voice encouraged in his mind.
One, two, three, four…
He still had a job to do.
Redressing, he checked on Kesh, who was dozing on his perch. Breathing in and out. Alive. Alive when he had been fully, completely dead.
How?
Sacrifice.
The Zabrak opened his senses ever so slightly, immediately blinded by the immense Light nearby that was Rue. Just enough to find him, not enough to feel.
- His feet carried him through the halls, a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and suspicion heralding his steps, knowing what he approached. He found the odd hybrid on the floor outside his meditation chamber, the unremarkable door hiding the rituals within.
Rue was there. Still muddy and bloody. Just a ball on the deck plating, making himself small despite his height and long thin limbs. He flinched minutely at Bril’s approach, but didn’t move otherwise.
Bile came back up. Bril swallowed it.
The hand on the back of Bril’s neck was practically a permanent fixture, now. He approached with trepidatious steps; something deep within him urging him to go somewhere, anywhere, else. He’d really karked this one up. Idiot. His own ori'vod wasn’t much different, so he should’ve known better. Maybe he did. Maybe that’s why the image of Rue’s body going rigid beneath his command, of something behind those radiant eyes of his fracturing, made Bril’s stomach turn with guilt.
But his mother didn’t raise a moral coward.
Lingering spirits flitted about, unseen but fully perceptible in the disembodied will they exerted, and the faint whispers that rose and fell in his consciousness like embers over an open flame. They usually remained confined to the ritual objects lying just beyond the concealed compartment Rue currently huddled near. Even more strange was that Rue had found this place at all; he’d taken great pains to ensure that it was imperceptible to all but the most perceptive Force-sensitives.
“Rue? I uh … I need to talk to you.”
“Yes, Master,” was the abrupt, croaking reply that arose from the liminal space between knees tucked into chin and around ears. A shudder and flinch followed, and then Rue raised his head and turned to look up at Bril, dry mud – or blood, it was difficult to judge now, both dark brown-black – flaking off his hair, face, and clothes with the movement. “Th-this one means– I mean– yes, Sir? What can I do for Starosta?”
Bril visibly cringed at Rue’s use of the word “master,” but before he could correct him, the hybrid had already done it himself. That was good, at least. He heaved a sigh while crouching to make himself level with Rue. “I want to apologize to you, for the things I said toward the end of the mission. I felt like we had no other options, that we would have died, but that isn’t an excuse. It was wrong. You are a person, and I disregarded your autonomy and right to do what you wish. I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Rue’s dim saffron gaze flickered briefly to Bril’s eyes before fixing just past his shoulder, body shying a little tighter as he joined the hybrid on the floor. Rue’s hand lifted to his mouth, unconsciously gnawing on his knuckles, and the Zabrak could spy the wounds already there; his sharp teeth were pulverizing the meat and skin, but unlike other times Bril had seen, the holes weren’t closing over almost immediately. Something to do with his natural healing being exhausted? Or his power?
“This one understands. This one requires no apologies, but accepts them and forgives Sir Starosta completely,” he said with flat serenity. “This one is glad that the team is all alive and physically well.”
He cocked his head then, looking Bril over more intently.
“Sir is well? This one– I feel great pain from you. But I can hear your heartbeats are both synchronized and within normal range for a Zabrak your approximate age, as is your breathing.”
Without saying a word, Bril raised a hand to stop Rue from chewing on his knuckles. Although he recognized it as what it was, a coping mechanism not dissimilar from his beloved pur'ka’s habit of chewing on her inner lip or picking at the skin of her fingers, it troubled him to see it. “Careful, there,” he said him, pulling out a piece of white cloth and a small bacta dispenser from his pack. After spreading some of the green translucent balm across the cloth, he carefully wrapped it around Rue’s knuckles. A sad smile appeared on Bril’s face when he heard the hybrid accepted his apology. How did he forgive so easily?
“I’m … well, I’ve been better,” he replied, “Even though you’re not upset with me, it’ll take some time for the sting of remorse to fade. I betrayed you, my ideals, and honestly, I feel like I betrayed my own ori'vod by doing what I did,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Yeah, I know he’d say that I did what needed to do to ensure everyone lived, but he knows what it was like to be treated like an object.” And Morra had known that horror, as well. What would she have thought of what he did? Could he ever tell her?
Rue was completely passive as Bril treated him, allowing himself to be moved and handled, listening to the small advisement like it was another order, if a vague one. Careful how?
But Bril was also still talking, and Rue listened very well as he watched the Zabrak sign and ache and the shame and devastation that radiated from Bril.
“Your…bigger brother,” the hybrid interpreted, a question curling at the end of the lilt. He was still learning basic Mando'a. “Was he also an experiment?”
“Not an experiment, no, but he was enslaved for a time,” he explained, eyes dropping to the floor while he ruminated on his words, on the terrible history they conveyed, “Forced to fight and kill for others’ entertainment. He’s home now, safe. But he had to regain his autonomy, his personhood, just like you are now.” And as he now understood, that work would never truly end. That work would always be a part of them both; the opportunity to redefine oneself in spite of efforts of one’s captor to strip one of that identity presented itself in every single moment.
Rue cocked his head, a sorrowful scrunch to his brow.
“I am sorry that this happened to him and glad of his safety in the present. Although…” he trailed off, hesitating over even the smallest contradiction.
“What is it?” he asked, curious at the pause.
Rue’s thin shoulders awkwardly went up and down in an unpracticed shrug.
“This one is not regaining autonomy or personhood as it never had it previously. These are new concepts requiring a great deal of study, aptitude, and application with constantly changing or new rules and parameters that are contradictory and great room for error.” He looked away, that troubled furrow still tired in his brow. “It is…difficult. And also frustrating, at times.”
Bril nodded. “Right, sorry. That does sound like it can be frustrating … maybe even overwhelming, having to learn to just be in that way all of a sudden when you normally learn a lot of this as you’re growing up.”
“You do not need to apologize, Sir,” Rue offered. “Indeed it is quite overwhelming. This one was good. It knew exactly all the rules and followed them per-fectly.” He stuttered. Stopped. Curled even tighter on himself to brace for a blow. “Well. Almost so. It errored of course and was punished accordingly, and then learned better. But it can p-perhaps now. Now entertain…that there were. Times. When there could have been no good enough. When the purpose was not correction, but cruelty. And that this one did not always obey all the rules. Grandmother called them secrets. She said secrets were not lies. That is not lying to keep a secret. That is trust. That there is a difference between telling a deliberate lie to someone and not telling them something that is not yours to tell, or not telling them something that is yours…”
His voice changed slightly as he spoke, the faintest difference of pronunciation. Perhaps as if he was quoting something?
“But here in the Outside…rules change so often. Everyone wants something different from me. They want me to want. It is wonderful. It is also exhausting.”
For the first time in what seemed like weeks, not hours, Rue’s petal-speckled face curled in a smile, tiny, pleased mrr tripping out on the compliment to his grandmother. He stared at Bril thoughtfully at length, seeming to be ruminating on a reply before the Zabrak issued the sudden question.
“Mrr? This one…I do not know. No, yes, no. I…” His eyes closed again, and he slumped once more, tiredness in every line of him. “You ask something that is likely quite simple to others but very complicated to this me. Comfort is a novel concept, as so many. Like safety. Like loved ones being safe, or living at all. Like making decisions. Hoping. We did not have any of these things. We were not made to survive. Only perform and expire. I…this is a place I stopped. I was not thinking. I don’t know.”
His eyes closed.
“This one supposes…there is something… familiar. But it had not noticed until it looked.”
Seeing an expression of genuine happiness appear on Rue’s face warmed Bril’s hearts. It was certainly a welcome respite from the heaviness of the conversation thus far.
Sympathetic joy transitioned to curiosity as the hybrid described how he related to the space lying just beyond the hatch. Part of him, or perhaps it was merely an invasive thought, considered opening it to allow Rue in, but he quickly dismissed the idea. His people’s magick was not to be taken lightly, and exposing his colorful friend to it without proper preparation could end in disaster. And they’d been through enough in the last few hours.
Perhaps Rue could use a break from all the complicated things. Maybe he did, too.
“Here, come with me,” he said while extending his hand for Rue to take it, his tone carefully chosen to ensure that Rue knew that this was a request, not a demand.
The hybrid’s eyes snapped back open at the order– invitation. He blinked slow and blearily at the offered hand. He reached for it like a malfunctioning droid might, an automatic acceptance, then an automatic retraction, before a more conscious reaching again. As Bril helped hoist him, he’d find Rue about as featherlight as Flyndt, though the hybrid’s thin frame matched his weight, whereas Flyndt’s stocky, built form was deceptive while also hiding his strength. Yet more mud and blood flaked to the floor when they moved, and Rue frowned at it.
“This one is dirty. Apologies. If Sir has a place I can clean up, and it will clean this…”
“There’s a shower in my chambers. I’ll show you where,” he replied, leading him that way. As they walked, Bril didn’t notice that he was still holding his hand. Maybe because he felt how light, and therefore fragile, Rue was? Regardless, he stepped into his chambers and gestured toward the personal refresher at the other end of the room.
“There it is,” he said, “I honestly need to shower, also, so I’ll take one after you finish.”
Rue was silent as a mouse as he was led along, and only paused in the doorway as Bril ushered them in, their hands still linked, warm despite dried dirt and sin. His saffron eyes flicked about, the smallest candle flame of curiosity back in his shuttered demeanor, like that glimpse of a smile before.
“Sir need not wait for this one. This one can wait for Sir. Or if comfortable with nudity we could share. Hunyi and I bathe this way. Although, there are very many specific laws for the nudity and on which beaches on the Selen…”
He trailed off, studying a book left lying about.
Bril had pursed his lips to answer, but the words caught in his throat when Rue so casually mentioned them showering together. It obviously seemed perfectly innocuous to him, but for the young zabrak who had only in recent months learned quite a bit more about himself during a training session with his pantoran master, well …
“You know, I think I will go first,” he said with a sheepish smile before disappearing behind the refresher door. The sound of cascading water echoed out from its walls shortly afterward.
The book, if Rue continued to investigate its contents, was on the Light Side covens of Dathomir and Iridonia.
Rue bowed to Bril’s rapidly retreating back, then resumed tiredly looking about the room. He did peer closer at the book, but froze as soon as he took in the title.
Without entirely realizing his movement, the hybrid had crossed the room to wait outside the refresher door. He busied himself with the arduous and painful task of shedding his layers in preparation for washing. Each breath, step, and twitch he took jarred his barely-set tail, having not yet had the energy or time to begin mending the fracture after rebreaking it once he’d left the others. He was nonetheless silent as he worked at the knots of his sashes and belt pouches, so caked in mud and blood. His fingers shook and scrabbled. He couldn’t use his tail.
The barest whimper of frustration and pain escaped him. He sagged, then slowly, agonizingly knelt on the floor, half-exposed to the cool, controlled air and shivering, spine bowed.
It didn’t take him long to finish, less than ten minutes, as was common with military personnel. Although he hadn’t had the habit drilled into him like the servicefolk of Dajorra’s military, he’d nonetheless adopted the hait during his time leading the Marshals because they often had to be wheels up at any moment. He’d learned to eat fast, shower fast, and even sleep fast.
The sliding refresher door retracted with a hydraulic hiss, letting the steam of billow outward around him, partially obscuring his muscular form but still allowing for glimpses of what wasn’t covered by a towel: a slender yet sculpted chest and torso, sporting a long horizontal scar running across his stomach where a happy trail began that was jagged, clearly inflicted by an animal of some sort.
“Okay, you’re up,” he said while gesturing with his thumb toward the refresher.
“S-sir,” croaked the hybrid, another small mewl of some sort escaping his throat with the cracked title, “this one– I– I apologize, but. C-could you. May this one request. Assistance? In undressing. It–” he shuddered, his half-arm hugged across his partially bare chest, failing to really hide the brands there, while his hand gestured meekly to himself, “it is having dic-difficul-ty due to its impairment and injury. It is sorry.”
Bril tilted his head upon noticing Rue’s sudden fit of stuttering. “Of course, I can help you,” he said, “But are you alright? You’re stuttering.”
He started to carefully remove Rue’s clothes.
“I-I-i–” it couldn’t be told whether he was trying to speak in the first or third person as he tended to, the stutter too hard. Instead his mouth snapped shut and he nodded hard, though the trembling was all over his body.
As Rue rose to give access and Bril’s dark hands made much quicker work of the knots of his robes, the hybrid’s layers dropped heavily to the floor. A few more physically peeled off articles, previously various pale colors now indiscernible thanks to the mud and blood, joined the soaked belt pouches and outer robe one at a time. Bril had known Rue was light and thin, but it was incredibly obvious then, as every one of his gentle touches brushed dirty lavender skin that club to each bone and tendon. There was almost no sign of the deep shrapnel gashes that had rent him open hours before; only faint, silvery pink lines innumerable on his back and sides. In a determinedly quick search for wounds, the Zabrak couldn’t help but notice from what was visible that the only obvious blemish were precisely thin, yet somehow wickedly crude-looking silver slashes of script on Rue’s chest, cutting across his pectorals and over his breast. Though he couldn’t read them, the scholar recognized Ancient Sith in less than a second.
Blue eyes politely averted when they reached undergarments, and Rue seemed able to do those himself. His hair was a caked, heavy rope over his shoulders, and watching him shake was heartbreaking.
Bril was about to encourage him on when Rue tried to speak again.
-# “I-it is hard. To. Ask for. Anything. To be bur-densome. This once. Would have been. Punished. I-I-I thank you, S-sir.”
Bril’s eyebrows knitted into a troubled frown when he noticed the symbols carved into the skin of Rue’s chest. Bril only knew a little of the man’s past, not nearly enough for a complete picture of the suffering he’d no doubt endured, but the faint glimpses of his past that bubbled up from the Force’s vast memory into his own consciousness was enough of a window into the man’s past that he felt a deep, panging sorrow slam into his gut. Like words slowly chiseled into the stele of ancient rulers desiring for their presence to stretch forevermore into the future, someone had done this to him … marked him as theirs, as their property. How badly he wanted to strip those wods away, even though he couldn’t read them, and give Rue new memories. But no amount of healing on his part could help him. That was a journey that Rue would have to take for himself.
“Relying on help from your friends doesn’t make you a burden, Rue. It’s a part of life,” he said to him, reaching a hand toward the words engraved on his chest that whispered faintly with the taint of the Dark Side, only to retract it suddenly. Then, traced his fingertips across the long scars resembling an animal’s claws peeking out on his chiseled abdomen from beneath the towel. “We have a saying back home: every scar is stitched by another’s hand. It emphasizes the importance of relying on others to help us through hard times.”
Rue watched the movement of that hand, first approaching him and his scars, which caused him to tense, and then following as Bril touched his own.
“That saying seems kind,” he commented, teeth still chattering, a combination of nerves and cold as he stood bare. His gaze went distant. “Surely not literal, as this one has learned colloquialisms to be. Many of this one’s wounds were stitched by the Masters, but only before it learned itself, and thereof only when it was permitted or not pertinent to the experiment…this one is learning to accept help. Not because it thinks friends do not help one another, or that helping is burdensome – rather, if it were to choose a purpose for its life, it would help, if it can – but because it would not be allowed. To ask something, anything, was to sin, for it was to want, and to have thoughts beyond those of God and of the Masters and Mistresses, and to then dare presume upon the Masters the unclean thought of it, distributing they and their duties most holy with the necessity of correction. This one– I– have been very good for a very long time. Even knowing that what is ‘good’ here is to ask for things does not make it much easier to do.”
He’d begun gnawing again as he spoke, forcing Bril to drop the hand from his towel in order to pull Rue’s out of his mouth again. Rue looked back to the Zabrak.
“I will…add your people’s saying to the new list. Thank you. For sharing it. It is also a kindness. To learn things about people, and not only know things of their species.”
“I’m sorry that that happened to you,” he said, voice sympathetic, “Helping people, though. That’s a noble goal. It’s why I do what I do. Trying to make a real difference in the Galaxy.
"And I know you can, too. You’re kind, very empathetic, and your Force healing is the strongest I’ve ever seen. This wasn’t meant to be a pitch, but, we could really use someone like you.”
In his attempts to keep Rue’s hands from his mouth, he had noticed the towel beginning to slip of his waist until he came lose, briefly exposing part of himself before he snatched it up in a bundle.
“Sorry,” he intoned, mentally kicking himself before turning away and moving into his walk-in closet. “You’re free to take a shower whenever, by the way,” he shouted from inside the closet.
As Bril darted away, Rue turned and obediently went for the bathroom without further commentary. From the closet, Bril would eventually – after he struggled some to understand and then execute the workings – hear water running again.
Only once he emerged would the Zabrak see why it seemed the water was a little louder; the door was open. Rue hadn’t bothered to close it, and Bril could see directly into the small yet cozy – for a ship – personal fresher. Dirtied undergarments lay discarded with everything else, and Rue himself knelt on the floor under the spray, the water swirling brackish black and bloody pink under him. A wood and tape splint braced the base of his large, long, sinuous tail, which hadn’t been there before the team had parted ways, and the breadth of the limb effectively hid much sordid from view.
Everything else, though, was on full display, and if Bril had thought Rue seemed thin and delicate first in his robes and then without them, then the hybrid soaking wet and bare was the climax. With water running shining rivulets over his lilac skin under the overhead lights, every dip and divot was thrown into sharp shadow, stark relief: the crest of his hips, the knob and flare of each spinal vertebrae, the wings of his shoulder blades, the tendons of his only arms and long fingers flexing as he worked between his legs. He twisted and stretched, the curve of his spine flexing, only for the smallest, bitten-off whimper to reach the Zabrak’s ears.
- Rue retreated quickly from the movement he’d been attempting, perhaps jostling his still-mending tail or some other unseen hurt. He went back to his hunched position, though now turned enough that Bril could observe he he tried to scrub thick chunks of mud out of his hair, using the floor and his thigh as a brace of sorts to spread out the strands against, finger-combing and rubbing together. It was, very obviously, painful, painstaking, and ineffective.
And a lot of hair yet to go. He’d run out of water long before he was even half done.
A gentle sigh escaped Bril’s lips when he saw how Rue’s gaunt form. The man looked as if the water rushing from the refresher’s recessed faucet would wash him away at any moment, just like the dirt and grime washing away from his lilac skin. His wounds, both new and fresh, told stories of his life – of the hardships he’d endured. Strength came in many forms, he was beginning to learn, and Rue had it in the form of resilience born of necessity.
“Here, let me help you,” he said to him softly, rolling his sleeves back to avoid getting them wet. Then, he reached out to collect Rue’s hair in his hands, and started to work his fingers through the tangled mess starting at the bottom, washing the dirt out.
Rue had stiffened at the pad of feet and froze when Bril came to his side, spine curving tighter, as if he had begun to automatically kowtow but stopped himself. The soft tone of voice seemed to help, though, and when fingers carded into his hair, even for such an ardous task, his eyes slid closed and he unstrung with an ongoing purr that sounded more like soft sobbing.
“Thank you,” stumbled out, lilting and hiccoughy, and he resumed work on a different section.
Between them, the process was significantly faster. Chunks and patches of mud, roots, weeds, and even some shrapnel plopped and skittered out in handfuls as the dirt washed away, freeing his iridescent hair to the water and soap. As they reached his scalp after nearly twenty minutes of work, the purr redoubled, a few scattered mewls escaping the hybrid. When his hair finally parted cleanly around his shoulders, Bril caught sight of another scar, the only other on Rue’s impossibly smooth and soft freckled skin.
It was silver, like the other, but that was were the similarities ended. While the phrase on his chest was carefully cruel in its carving, it was still obviously by hand; this one was soft and duller with age, yet the shape was so perfect it could only have been machined. Another brand. The curved sword of a scimitar, easily recognizable to an anthropologist with a blade-fanatic for an older brother, sat over a serial number.
“You don’t need to tha—” Bril cut his words short when he glimpsed the symbol branded on his scalp. That he did recognize. He’d read the reports—hell, he’d even been on one of the early Envoy missions himself. This was the sigil of Darth Scimitar, a former Jedi of the High Republic who had fallen to the Dark Side long ago, and achieved a form of immortality through his twisted rituals and experiments, garnering a cult following. A cult. Now, the pieces were finally starting to come together.
A heavy sigh escaped the zabrak’s lips. He reached out to grip Rue’s shoulder, and gave it a squeeze. Now wasn’t the time to reveal to him that the person ultimately responsible for his creation, for all the suffering he’d endured and witnessed others endure, was dead. When would it ever be? His only hope was that his ancestors would help him find the right answer.
Rue was mostly oblivious to Bril’s plight, though the sigh couldn’t be missed, nor the grip. Rue fidgeted with some golden strands, speaking towards his knees.
“What did this one do wrong? How is thanking you for helping incorrect?” Mostly, he sounded studious, not sad, but there was a note of disappointment in his words.
Bril shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Rue. I’m just … realizing things about your past that I hadn’t connected all the dots on before.
"And thanking me isn’t incorrect, per se, I just don’t think you need to because I’m just doing the right thing. Being kind to my friends and helping them is what I’m supposed to do.”
The explanation was little distraction from Bril’s initial statement, and his reassurances didn’t seem to help. The work of loosening of the hybrid’s muscles and raising the purr in his throat seemed undone in a moment as he stiffened back up, cringing slightly away from Bril at his back in a manner that could have definitely been a bow.
“I– this– what does Sir mean, about this one’s past?” There was a fission of fear there, open and obvious, despite the hybrid’s attempt to dissemble.
A pause to consider how to answer that. There was no good way, it seemed. But he would try, nonetheless. “I just realized that i knew more about your upbringing than I initially thought,” A truth, yet avoiding going into specific details. “We should be arriving in Selen, soon. Are you hungry?”
A long pause followed that answer, Rue searching his face when his gaze didn’t skitter back to the drain. Each flash of those saffron eyes held ages of something. Finally the hybrid turned away and nodded, moving to stand with some difficulty. Bril offered a hand up.
They managed to wring the water out of Rue’s hair, and then the man tried to put his filthy clothes back on. Though it made sense, as he didn’t seem to have a change, it was still appalling and sad. The Zabrak stopped him.
“Hey, hang on, leave those. I can see if my big bro bro can clean them, he’s great at that stuff. I’ve got some extra clothes here, and trust me, they all got that drip.”
Rue blinked owlishly at him a few times, sort of like Kesh, who was still alive – no, alive again – to blink because of him.
“…Bril’s clothes are…also wet?”
Leaping for the possible bit of normalcy and teaching opportunity, Bril feigned dramatic gasping, like his Minmin might, slinging an arm over Rue’s shoulders.
“Only with style, friend. Let me show you…”
It turned out, everything Bril had was both too short and too loose on Rue’s stick-thin, tall frame. But he seemed happy just to be in clean clothes, thanking and bowing over and over, then balling up on the cabin’s couch when told to. Between Bril going to collect the packed dishes Foxen had shoved into his chest for this mission and coming back from warming them up, he found the hybrid passed out, still in a ball, all his limbs under him and at an angle with his tail curled close. He looked like Femi napping.
Bril gazed at him a moment longer, thinking of too many things, before he sat nearby in quiet overwatch and dug into his Iridonian-fusion curry. Over on his perch, Kesh ruffled a wing in his sleep too.
And in the quiet of Rue’s breathing, his voice echoed, so very old:
“How did you do that?”
“Sacrifice.”