Life Day Prompt: Remembering Lost Loved Ones

“This is where you’ve been?”

The whip-crack coldness of Satya’s tone was somehow perfectly at home in the darkness of the library. It cut the silence carelessly, but Tel didn’t startle; not when she spoke, and not when she emerged from the stacks and turned on the lamp on the table beside him. The sudden spill of light broke into glittering shards on his eyelashes, but his only reaction was to take another sip of his wine. The scent of fermented grapes and mulling spice hung in the air around him.

“Oh,” Satya said, inhaling, distracted. “Did the kitchen make another batch?” When Tel failed to respond to that, she folded her arms. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you sitting alone in the dark?” She was not technically Tel’s house-sister, but her tone implied a sisterly level of boredom, as if she was already irritated with the answers he hadn’t given her yet.

Tel tipped his head back slightly and gave her a flat look. His eyes were reddened around the edges, as opposed to the irises, which were always a rich, blood-crimson.

Satya’s deep violet eyes widened slightly. “Have you been CRYING?”

Tel’s expression only got drier. He settled, exhaled, hands folded in his lap, one long leg crossed over the other. “Tis the season for remembering lost loved ones,” he told her quietly. “I’m just being mindful.”

She glanced heavenward. “You know, Kes isn’t LOST. He’s just far away. I know you enjoy your melodrama, but you could do everyone else the courtesy of finding a better excuse, so we don’t regret asking you.”

Tel blinked up at her. “… You think Kes is the only person I have any reason to miss this time of year?” he said quietly. “If you exclude my imprisonment, we’ve spent four years studying together under the same Master and you’ve never bothered to get to know me, any more than you’ve bothered to get to know him as anything other than a living symbol of your hatred for aliens. What in the Emperor’s name makes you think you know who I’m holding vigil for? You never once asked for or earned that information.” His voice went sharp at the end, brittle, and Satya drew back a little.

But since Kes had gotten his hooks in her, she’d changed. Tel sympathized… his husband had that effect on people.

Satya sat down in the chair next to his. Her fingers tangled in the off-shoulder sleeves of her expensive sweater. Tiny chips of crystal no bigger than the head of a pin caught the lamplight and sparkled, along with larger, faceted crystals pinned in her hair.

“All right,” she said, with significantly more humility. “Who do you miss?”

Tel sighed, idly swishing the wine in his mug to keep the spices in suspension. Outside the huge picture window, slushy snow fell across the grounds of House Ekari, coating the trees with icicles and making the force field that topped the perimeter wall sparkle with every gentle impact. “You don’t have to ask. I was just making a point.” He turned those blood-red eyes on her. “You don’t have to pretend to give a shit about me, Satya. You’re off the hook there. Save it for Kryos.”

She flushed, embarrassed, annoyed at being embarrassed. “Just because I’m bad at it, that doesn’t mean I’m pretending.” She took a tight breath, searching for words. “I thought you were just missing Kes. I miss him too. I mean he’s really annoying. And just appallingly naive, and… but he’s really very nice, and…” She flexed her fingers. “It would be nice if he could join us for Life Day.”

“Riley says he’ll ward my quarters,” Tel sighed. “It’s just expensive. Takes time. With the holiday rush, unless he pulls rank… and he won’t, not over this.”

“That would make it easier for him to stay here?” she asked almost gently.

Tel nodded. “Almost tolerable. For short periods, anyway.”

“I see. Well… maybe next year, we can talk everyone into spending Life Day with House Thul. Holidays on Alderaan really must be seen to be believed. There’d be plenty of room, of course, and formal balls, and every seasonal diversion… but you know that, of course. Didn’t you honeymoon on Alderaan?”

He just nodded, sipping his wine. She knew where he’d spent his honeymoon, and he wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

She faltered. “So… well. If you’d rather be alone, I… I apologize for interrupting your privacy. It’s just… the children were wondering where you were. I’ll just tell them you don’t want to be disturbed.” She rose, spine straight, the picture of aristocratic grace and beauty.

Tel sighed and took pity on her. “My master wasn’t like theirs, you know?”

She stopped. “Your… Jedi master?”

“Jian Liu.” He took another sip of wine. “You won’t have heard of him. He didn’t do anything famous, aside from losing fatally to Lord Kryos.”

“… That’s right.” She sat again, more slowly, hands in her lap. “You didn’t run. Lord Kryos took you.”

“When he killed Master Jian I attacked him,” Tel said, absently, his gaze on the snowfall. “He saw the rage in me and decided I’d make a better Sith than a Jedi.”

“… Well. Arguably… he was right,” Satya said carefully, not sure how close she was to triggering Teleon’s notorious temper.

“Oh, yeah. Obviously.” He gestured with his mug. “But it’s not like it is with Tai and Auryn. It’s not a sure thing.”

Satya considered that for a long moment. This was unfamiliar territory… she’d never spoken to Teleon about his days with the Order. And now she realized that he was right - she’d paid so little attention, she had no idea how to talk to him about it now, or even how he felt about such a significant part of his past. She only knew him from the time Kryos presented him - a peer she had not asked for, with blazing crimson eyes and towering rage, who spoke little and hated their teacher even more than she did, yet quickly surpassed her under his tutelage. His hatred had bonded him to Kryos instead of isolating him from him, the way hers did. And so she had been left behind while an alien, an apostate, swept the honors.

“Were you happy there?”

“Hm.” He took a drink. “I always felt out of place. But I was arrogant too. I knew there were parts of me that weren’t in line with the expectations I was expected to fulfill. Too quick-tempered, too sarcastic, too cruel. But I always thought… or maybe I assumed… that we’d find common ground. That I’d prove myself, I’d grow up, I’d do great things for the Order, and I might never be the poster boy, but I’d be living my own life. I had flaws. It never occurred to me they were fatal. And Master Jian… he was so patient. Always. You could see stars in his eyes, the way he was always… looking at the whole picture, the whole galaxy. He had a sense of time I couldn’t comprehend when I was a kid. He was one of those people, I’d get upset, and he’d be asking, ‘Will this matter in 100 years?’”

Satya blinks. “Well, that sounds infuriating.”

Tel gave a brittle laugh. “Sometimes it was. You know when you’re a kid, everything’s… the MOST important. The MOST critical. Because you haven’t lived through it before, it all seems so…”

“… Dramatic?” she offered, and he tipped his mug in concession.

“But my drama, or ‘melodrama’ as you so kindly put it… he always kept it in perspective. He never made me feel like a bad kid for losing my temper. His lessons never felt like punishments. He wanted me to think about things. To consider what was going on outside of myself. And maybe if I’d grown up with him, if he’d lived…. I would have learned that, and things would have been different.”

Satya’s nose scrunched. “I don’t think I can imagine you as a Jedi.”

“Well, of course not,” Tel said calmly, sipping his wine, swirling it to get the spices of the bottom, then sipping it again. “That would require imagination.”

Satya gave him a sour look that did not improve when he gave her a ghost of his usual smirk. ‘Lack of imagination’ was one of Kryos’ most common criticisms of her combat ability. “It’s just that your anger is such a part of you. At least, it has been as long as I’ve known you. You say it was there before Lord Kryos got his hands on you. So clearly it’s something that’s integral to you. You could never really cut it out of yourself like the Jedi demand. Perhaps you would have learned to manage it, but you’ve learned to manage it here. In the Empire, it’s an asset, not a sin. I…” She pursed her mouth as she arranged her sentence more carefully. “I certainly am not criticizing your Jedi Master. I hope that he is at one with The Force and at peace. But if you have extended your Life Day mourning to include that person you never had the opportunity to be… then I think that might be a bit foolish. Or perhaps excessive. It…” She hesitated at his dry look. “It seems to me that you were always going to be the person that you are. The only difference would have been the color of your robe. And you are not suited for brown. Or white. That would have been truly dreadful, black is much more apropos.”

Tel just looked at her for a long moment, long enough that she began to stiffen her spine, certain that she’d said something wrong and he was going to lash back with an insult.

“Well,” he said at last. “It does match my tattoos better.”

She tried not to look as relieved as she was. This whole ‘connecting with people’ business was a bloody minefield. “Well,” she said softly. “There you have it.”

He smiled. “I do think it’s okay to mourn a lost future, especially when it’s tied to a lost person. Master Jian was a moderate. He was kind, and even-tempered, and humble. I see Taiko and Cass given to Jedi whose only concern is to beat them into shape… their masters didn’t appreciate them for who they ARE. They justified abusive means because they were so focused on the ends. And Kes is right, the goal of the Order has shifted so drastically since the war re-started, and now with the Eternal Empire… masters are turning their padawans into soldiers. Into weapons. And treating them as though, at fourteen, at fifteen, they’re threats and enemies if they don’t walk in perfect lockstep. If Master Jian was still alive, if Cass or Tai had been given to him as a padawan… I can’t help thinking how different their experience would have been. That they’d probably still be with the Order now. Well, Tai might not have stuck with it… but Cass, I think, would have been a great Jedi. Compassionate, smart, a caretaker, not a soldier.”

Satya blinked at him. “You’re… you’re still very fond of the Order, aren’t you? That’s surprising.”

Tel finally startled a little, eyes going wide. “…. I… I’m fond of the nostalgia. What I remember the Order being, what… what it was supposed to represent. But they shattered that image for me when I was their prisoner, and then working with Kes, and now with the kids… but it used to be something. Understand? Like… like how the royal houses of Alderaan used to have so much splendor and grace. Your concept of royalty is about what once was, not about what is now. It is,” he said when Satya bristled. “And for me, the Order’s the same. It was something once. Now… it’s something I rescue people from.”

“Was it the Order?” she asked, still eyeing him for his comments on Alderaanian royalty. “Or was it just Master Jian? Maybe you didn’t see the Jedi for what they were because he was such a strong influence on you.”

Tel sighed, shrugged, and sank deeper into the cushy leather armchair. “If that’s true, then his loss was even more tragic.” He finished his wine. “I would have liked to get to Tython this year. But with Kes exiled, I’m… even less welcome there than usual.”

“Tython. Is that where he’s buried?”

“Yes.” He gave a faint, bitter smile. “Kes was the one who finally took me to his grave. My other parole officers… well, I was so busy convincing them I didn’t care about anything, and you know how that goes. There’s no holes in a mask that thick, and I guess it didn’t occur to them that I’d want to pay my respects. Or they didn’t care. Probably the latter. THAT was surreal,” he said, giving a soft laugh that lacked any semblance of humor. “Being back in the Republic, being back with the Jedi, and NOBODY ever mentioned Master Jian. Not even to use him against me. It was like they’d already forgotten.”

Satya wasn’t sure what to say to that, especially since she could feel the turmoil churning under Tel’s skin. “… I’m sure your remembrance honors him.”

He gave a tight snort. “Yeah. But does my existence honor him?”

Theeeerrrreeee was the minefield. Satya’s chest felt tight. She’d been the target of Teleon’s explosive rage before, though it had been years since he’d turned it on her, and in fairness, she had provoked him. But she remembered what it looked like, that hollowness behind the eyes, that utter, sacred purity of murderous intent that the Sith prized above all else. It was one thing when she had her own anger to match it, and when they were both holding training sabers.

“Was Master Jian anything like Kes?”

Tel blinked. “….. I mean. They were different. But they had some things in common. I think… if Master Jian had known Kes, he would have liked him. They would have believed the same things.” Tel stared into the sludge at the bottom of his cup, as if trying to divine by it. “I think he would have liked me and Kes together, even if he didn’t approve of us actually marrying, since the Order forbids that.”

Oh thank the force. Satya effected a careless shrug. “Kes loves you. He has no problems with your existence. He said the galaxy is big enough for everyone. He’s a simpleton, of course - you cannot be a conqueror without conquering, and you cannot rule without subjects. But if Master Jian, as you said, was a ‘big picture’ person, then I think perhaps… while he might have been saddened by the semantics of you being Sith rather than Jedi, he would have accepted that you are yourself, and you have a place, and this is where you belong. If he cared for you, then he would have continued to keep you in perspective.”

“You can care for someone and still be grieved by their choices,” Tel replied, and Satya huffed.

“Well, what can I say, I’m not adept with comforting nonsense.” She glared at him.

Tel blinked. Then he chuckled. “Well, you tried,” he said, some warmth glimmering behind his eyes. “Honestly, you get full credit for that. Go get some wine, Satya, enjoy the evening. Comforting me isn’t your job.”

“It certainly is not.” She brushed wrinkles out of her sweater as she stood. “But I think you’ve forgotten, Teleon - Master Jian was who he was. You are who you are. Whether they are alive or dead, we all make choices our elders wouldn’t approve of, and one of the lesser-known perks of being Sith is that you don’t have to apologize to anyone for it.”

“Oh, really? Then all this you’re doing, trying to turn things around so you don’t shame Lady Elana….”

“Is about my personal growth, of course.” Satya tucked back a tight black curl. “If I was worried about Lady Elana’s opinion, I would have done things differently much sooner.”

“Oh, of course,” Tel conceded, nodding, the corner of his mouth pulling up. “My misunderstanding.”

“You’re excused. And by all means, continue to sit here in the dark and wonder about what might have been,” she said. “But when you’ve had quite enough of that, call your HUSBAND. He’s much better at managing this foolishness than I am.”

“That’s probably why I married him, not you,” Tel said sagely, and Satya inclined her head, giving him a queenly look.

“Certainly one of your better life choices. Goodnight, Teleon.”

“Goodnight, Satya.”

She hadn’t quite made it out of the library when he reached over and turned the lamp back off.