Broken
“I think we broke her.”
She looks out the thin transparent something in front of her, wondering just how she can understand the aliens on the far side of the barrier. Then she lowers her head, deciding that it does not matter.
One of them raps on the barrier.
“Riina, look at me.”
She lifts her head, gazing into that terrible visage. She wants to recoil as it gets worse, as the alien smiles.
“It’s all right now Riina, you’re back among family. The Infidels cannot get you here. They can’t take you from us again.”
Family? She’s missed that.
Fixed
Her arms and legs kick out, and she flails herself from the bed, the echoes of her screams still reverberating in the small cabin assigned to her. She lands on the cool metal of the deck, her breathing slowly returning to normal.
A dream. It was just a dream.
A dream of the nightmare her life has become.
She scrubs at the scars on her forehead as the door chimes. She reaches out with the Force, and feels him there. Worried.
Smiling, she opens the door, and leans into him. His arms wrap around her and he whispers inconsequential things.
Light
She flicks the lights off and slips under the desk in her room. Hiding from the nightmares. Hiding from the stares. Hiding from herself.
Hiding from him.
The dark room is comforting to her. It is still and silent. The cramped leg area gives her a feeling of security. The walls support her.
Then the door opens, and light from the hall spills into the room. He’s there.
He comes in, and the door slides shut, plunging the room back into the dark. She feels his hand as it reaches out and takes hers.
That too is comfortable and safe.
Dark
Things like this are supposed to happy in dark alleys or dark forests. Not in the brightness of day in the middle of a street.
Even if that street is a Yuuzhan Vong slave camp.
She sees the blood as it dribbles between his fingers, and bites her lips. Huge parts of her aching, knowing that he probably will not survive.
Her body hitches in sorrow and grief.
He looks directly at her and smiles.
She can not help but smile back at him.
Why couldn’t it have been dark? Why did she have to see that bright red blood?
Shattered
He is gone.
Just like that.
A blossom of Force energy. An explosion of baradium.
And he faded from the Force.
All she wants to do is curl up into a ball and cry herself to sleep.
All she wants to do is walk down the hill she rests against, and slaughter every Caste down there.
All she wants to do is give him that kiss he will never come back for.
She notices movement, and sees the Anakin-sized husk being pushed out by the two intendents. She raises the sniper rifle to her eye, aiming for one of them.
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