In the annals of Kaleesh history, there is not a leader more respected than Qymaen jai Sheelal. There are many things that mark the youngest khagan to sit on the throne of Kalee as a formidable leader, but the crowning jewel of his reign is his clos...
Ronderu stood resolutely. "I'm going to unlock the door and get Rón out of where I stashed her."
Bent nodded, his hand on Shia's lifeless cheek. They were not people disposed to grief. "Prepare her for burial," Ronderu said simply. "I've been entrusted with her children. I will be their mother."
It would be pure duty that spurred her to motherhood, a duty to Qymaen more than their mother. Perhaps she would grow distant from them, but she would not neglect them like he had.
Ronderu opened the door, with Quemáy in her arms, to find Rón asleep on the floor. Dried tears were crusted between her scales.
"Rón," Ronderu whispered. "Wake up."
Rón's gold eyes opened. "Where's Ama?" she mumbled, her voice stuffy from crying.
Ronderu stepped down. "I'm sorry, Rón. But your ama is gone."
The girl looked at Ronderu. "See?"
A pause. "I guess." She led the girl by the hand to the common room, where Bent began to wrap Shia's body in cremation linens.
"Ama!" the girl cried, running over to her mother before Ronderu could stop her. "Wake up!"
"Rón," she said gently, "come here. She can't hear you."
"She's my ama!" She shook Shia's face. "Wake up!"
Ronderu reached out with her free hand and grabbed the girl by her collar. "You'll wake your sister."
"But Appa is gone. Ama is gone." Rón sniffled as she sat next to Ronderu on the couch.
"Don't cry," she whispered in her most comforting voice. "Here—don't look at her. I'll be your ama."
Rón's face lit up. "You will?"
"Yes," Ronderu said. "I will be, and I'll be Quemáy's ama. I'll always stay with you."
"Always?"
"Always," Ronderu whispered.
✺✺✺
At nightfall the next week, Ronderu entered Shia's bedroom and down on the sleeping mat against the wall with Quemáy.
She had been feeding the baby with karabbac milk, brought to her from the Bos'wellia airport, but this practice could only go on for so long. The longer Quemáy went without natural feeding, the more likely she would be to have stomach problems when she was older.
Ronderu knew absolutely nothing about how to train one's body to nurse another woman's child, but it was possible. She had been trying, each day, for a little longer—to no avail. She had prayed, wept, pleaded for the ability to be a mother to this child in the purest form.
"One last time, May-May," she said with a sigh, pulling off her shirt and linens and laying the child across her chest.
And this time, when she lay in that bare corner with nothing but a blanket around her shoulders—it worked.
The baby found her cold fingers, and she seized one, giving a tiny sigh of contentment. Her peaceful features mirrored those of her father.
I'm starting to fall in love again.
✺✺✺
For the first week after the surgery, Grievous dragged himself from place to place amidst the Geonosian maze that became his home. The one mercy that the Banking Clan had given him was that nobody was around to see him as he weakly used his cybernetic hands to lug hundreds of kilograms of raw metal around the catacombs, his legs limp and useless.
The only thing that kept him from curling up permanently, giving up out of humiliation, was the fantasy of slaughtering the false khagan of Kalee, destroying the Order, and decimating the Republic.
Still the image of Shia and Rón drifted to the front of his mind. But he no longer wished to return to them. They were nothing compared to his modifications and improvements.
Improvements that may never be used if I don't learn to walk.
But in the next few months, he slowly began crawling. By the fifth month, he had resorted to staggering, nausea gripping his disembodied stomach.
And in some strange way, he felt good. He had suffered from psychotic depression, and by getting the cybernetics that issue had been fixed. He could not be happier, lighter, more at ease with his life and with the world....
If only the Jedi were destroyed, and the false khagan killed, his life would be perfect. The memories of getting kissed on the cheek by Rón and nights of bonding with his wife wove their way to the surface of his mind, but who truly understands what flesh feels like when all they are is metal? All he wanted and needed was death.
On the sixth month, when he had learned to walk on hulking metal talons, he sat immobilized in his stasis chamber. In the small window to his private quarters, the image of his blank faceplate stared back at him.
He closed his eyes, swollen from exposure to the Geonosian atmosphere, and waited for the pod to release him. I do not wish to go to Abesmi as nothing but a droid. I am unique.
There must be something to do, that I may be remembered among the galaxy.
His eyes landed back on his blank mask. Carvings. That's what I need.
He pressed the button so his medical droid would come, because as strong as he had become, he could not cut metal itself.
◈◈◈
Did you know....
● Grievous carving those designs is in pretty much every piece of Legends lore that references Unknown Soldier. However, I didn't put it into the book until at a very late stage of writing.
Tell me what you think....
● Is Grievous right in wanting to stand out? Does this come from a place of fear or vanity?
● How will Quemáy teach Ronderu how to bond with someone again?
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