Kaddish


“Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum… sayri’ayr, sajpr, Makin, Kal, Varen.”

«”I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal…mama, papa, Makin, Kal, Varen.“»

Avirys woke gasping for air, her eyes quickly scanning the bedroom for danger. She extended her senses outward through the dormitory for something amiss. She sensed exactly what she anticipated, her dorm mates in the next rooms and Aschè asleep at her side. Avirys gingerly rose from the bed, and collected her datapad and the small black disk the Inquisitorial investigator had provided her with as she left the interrogation room so many months before.

“Take this, kid, it may explain some things out and help you make your choice.” He’d said under his breath, in a kind of conspiratorial sympathy. He pressed the small disk into her palm discreetly out of the camera’s view. Avi looked at him somewhat confused but just nodded, she’d had enough of his questions about the deaths of Lord Agatha, her daughter, and their entourage. She raised her palm to her head, rubbing the now completely hairless pate, a small, nervous gesture she’d picked up over the last week in recovery. She just wanted to be past it all, to move forward with her life… their life, such as it was.

“My choice.” She intoned flatly, nodding to him in thanks before she turned the handle and pulled the heavy metallic door toward her to leave. She passed through the doorway and looked to her left to see Aschè seated in one of the cold metal chairs that lined this wall. She met the pale girl’s gaze and offered a quick wink. Aschè stood as the officer trailed Avi from the room and offered her a supportive smile in response, collecting their bags as they left the tower.

Avi had tucked the disk into the bag they’d allowed her. One bag each to take what little she and Aschè had to show for the years Lord Agatha had stolen from them. A couple of changes of clothes, a datapad and the small orowood box Aschè had found hidden in a sealed compartment in Lord Agatha’s study. Aschè opened it and recognized it as belonging to Avirys, it took Avi much longer to recall why the box was familiar.

The box itself was simple, it contained a small talisman Avi’s mother had carved for her, nothing of actual power, just a token of her mother’s love, crafted with her own hands and hung on a leatheris strap. The other item was more complicated. A 30 mm beskar disk about 2 mm thick etched with the Clan Ordo sigil ; her aliik. It was to be the finishing touch on her Beskar armor once she completed its construction. She had a hazy memory of her mother handing her the small box, kissing her cheek and whispering in her ear the familiar refrain, “Ke barjurir gar’ade, jagyc’ade kot’la a dalcy’ade kotla’shy.” «Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger.»

The memory itself had taken weeks to come back, at first it had been just flashes, coming in her dreams where nightly her mind waged war upon itself. She could clearly remember almost all of her childhood, her family and Clan, until her fifteenth year and the day of her younger brother Varen’s first hunt… then things became confused and fuzzy. Her memories of that time caused her anguish and pain; fear, abandonment, worthlessness… dar’manda. Recalling the time and memory her pain became almost physical, her stomach threatened to revolt and a panicked sheen of sweat would cover her skin. It had simply been easier to forget.

Aschè laced her fingers through Avi’s as they left the imposing Inquisition building in Kaas City.

“Did they tell you about the Academy?” Aschè had asked excitedly.

Yes, aki’vek, they did. Is it decided then?” She grinned in response.

Avi cast an adoring glance to Aschè and smiled as she left their room, wincing at the loud pneumatic hiss of the automatic door as it opened and sealed behind her. She instructed the service droid to make a pot of caf and she headed to her favorite secluded desk in the library’s quiet corner. She placed the datapad down and took her chair, looking through the view screen to the planet the ship was in orbit around. She meditated a few minutes until the droid’s arrival with a steaming mug interrupted her thoughts, she took the offered mug and with a sip decided it was time to get some answers. The disk slid into the slot on the datapad’s side, she noted there was a single file on the disk, one labeled with her name and Imperial Identification number.

She hesitated a moment before opening the file,unease settling over her like a damp cloak. The first few entries were standard and she scanned over them briefly. The location, date and time of her birth on Ordo; her parents’ names. A jab of sadness at the list of her kin, her parents and brothers listed in order along with their birth dates, the date of her father’s death and small pictures of them all from the Imperial record and their ID cards. Avi smiled, the aay’han at seeing her mother’s face bringing tears to her eyes, she ran a finger over the image before drawing her focus downward to her brothers. In the five years since she had seen them they had become men, they looked more like her uncles than the brothers of her youth. She nodded at Makin and Kal’s images, still as handsome even with the youth gone from their cheeks. Avi’s eyes darted down further to the entry for Varen, the dread in the pit of her stomach growing as she looked at the entry. She blinked a few times, uncertain at the Imperial record’s error. This couldn’t be right, the image next to his name was familiar, but how could this be, Varen was dead, she’d killed him. Her mind flashed to the explosion of white light and his lifeless body, her mother weeping, the horror from the previous night’s trial and its vision flooding her mind once more.

She doubled over, clutching her stomach, the emotional pain becoming physical as her muscles clenched. “No, no, no, no” she began to mutter. She lifted her face to the datapad, scrutinizing the image on the screen next to Varen’s name.

Avirys sat in stunned silence for several long moments, looking at her younger brother’s face. He’d died at 12, this 17 year old version of him was more angular and strong than she expected. “How can this possibly be?” she thought, her mind scrambling to make sense of the official document, she began to read it from the top… and then she saw the entry. “Killed at Sith Academy, Korriban” next to her name, the date was two weeks from the day Lord Agatha had taken her from Ordo and her shame to Agatha’s compound on Dromund Kaas to be trained as a Sith. She pushed back from the desk and promptly vomited on the floor at her feet, staggering to the communal refreshers. She tore off her armor, taking one of the empty shower stalls and turned the heat up to full as she began to sob.

Forty minutes later she returned to the library to find Jollo finishing cleaning the area around her desk and Aschè looking over Avi’s Imperial file at a nearby table. She set it to the side as Avirys approached, offering a gentle smile and embracing her.

“I think I understand now what the dreams mean, aki’vek.” She paused, drawing back from Aschè’s arms to look her in the eyes. That witch did more than we thought to us.”