A Taste of Forgivness

[Mu Satach]

The saber ignites in her hands and hums. She raises it above her head, the blue glow illuminating the beads of sweat and the strands of hair plastered to the sides of her face. Her muscles flex beneath her tank top as she begins slowly arcing the blade through the night air, the blade leaving a streak of light behind it.

Her bare feet slid across the granite floor, step, block, strike, swing. The blue streak arcs around gracefully in the large empty darkened room. Jungle sounds drift in from large open windows overhead, but provide little light.

She moves gracefully through the series of forms, each one increasing in speed and ferocity. She controls her breathing, she focuses her mind, she pushes her body, she flies and an enraged scream tears itself from her throat as she slams the blade deep into the structures flooring.

The floor splits and cracks open beneath her from the concentrated force of the blow. Her thumb flicks at the power switch on the silver hilt. The blade winks out and leaves only a red glowing hole pulsating in the rock.

Mu remains motionless. A bead of sweat dangles from the tip of her nose. She closes her eyes tightly. A single tear slides down and mingles with the sweat then drops onto the rock. It evaporates with a hiss.

Clouds move and moonlight streams into the empty space. The light exposing the vast ruins of a forgotten Jedi temple. Vines snake their way up pillars and across the ceiling. She sucks in a breath of air and rises to a standing position and opens her eyes.

At the far end of the temple room she can make out her neatly folded flight suit, helmet and gear waiting for her. She crosses the large room, in and out of the shafts of light.

She stands beside her gear and looks down at her hands then holds them up to the light. The scars so familiar and foreign to her shimmer in the moonlight. Her fingers trace the lines up her forearms to the twisted flesh of her shoulders and backside.

"Why can't you forgive him?" a quiet soft feminine voice asks silently in her head. "It's not really him your angry with, you know..." the voice was deep, warm, and caring. The voice came and went over the years. Mu was in the habit of calling it her conscience. She had a vague feeling it wasn't really her own inner voice, but the voice of someone she knew long ago. The voice was almost maternal, yet not. More sisterly, instructional, a voice Mu instinctively relied upon in times of need.

"Because," her voice cracked "he promised everything would be alright and then he left me to die alone."

"As did you."

An image of a cherubs face dressed in a light brown tunic loomed in Mu's mind. An echo of her own voice drifted in, "Don't worry little one, everything will be alright."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooo!" Mu screams, picks up the helmet and hurls it across the vast expanse into darkness.