Sith Business

Excerpt from 'The Sith and the Spy' - Chapter 8: Into the Maw

Nox noticed his hesitation, “The darkness doesn’t bite. Oh wait, this is a Sith temple. It very well might.”

“You’re not funny Sith.”

She rolled onto her feet and stood by his side, “I’m hilarious, but that’s besides the point. I’m also an expert on Sith temples and tombs. I can help you navigate this.”

“You can?”

Maybe without the cuffs, but with them on, she and by extension he, was hindered. Too bad they were also the only thing keeping him alive. 

She remained determined however, “I can help sense things out. I know the sorts of traps they have in these structures. When you’ve seen a few, you’ve seen them all.”

“That’s not entirely comforting.”

“Comfort is not my problem. Take off your shoes.”

He side-eyed her, “What?”

How could that possibly help anything?

“We are walking into darkness, we’ll not have sight to guide us. That means we use every other sense available. Touch is very powerful in these circumstances. You can feel through your hands…and through your feet.”

“Is this what they teach you in Sith school?”

Her voice was distant, “Not quite.”

He remembered the helmet she wore on the Doombringer, that solid sheet of metal wrapped around her head with no visibility. Was that what she meant when she talked about using your other senses?

“I don’t know, surely there’s some gnarly stuff I can step on in there. Poisonous snakes, toxic arachnids, venomous bats…”

She didn’t seem frightened by any of that. In one swift movement she kicked off her own boots and waited for him to do the same. Fine. If she was going to go bootless, so would he. He took off his own boots, and not wanting to leave them behind, he tucked them into his belt.

When she was satisfied she nodded into the darkness, “After you.”

“You’re the expert, why don’t you go in first?”

She frowned, “You’ve tied my hands behind my back, I’ll only be fodder.” 

“And that’s a problem because…?”

He only had a second to register her deadpan stare before she kicked him into the darkness, “Get in there, stay ahead and listen to everything I say.”

Nox forced her way through the undergrowth, following the spy as he marched on ahead. Every now and then he’d look back at her, making sure she was just behind him. They’d been out there for almost an hour and they hadn’t heard a thing since they’d left camp. Visibility was poor through the thick fog blanketing them. Every few minutes the spy would call out the Jedi’s names and her headache would reach new skull splitting heights. She desperately wanted to shut him up forever. 

After the twentieth time hearing him call out their names Nox scowled, “Perhaps they’re both dead.”

Oh, she sure hoped they were. It would certainly explain why they weren’t responding to his incessant calling.

He sighed, “And how would you know?”

“My desires whisper to me.”

He rolled his eyes, “My fault for asking.”

___

Theron Shan cursed his luck. Hanging out in the seedy underbelly of Coruscant wasn’t new to him, but the tightening security measures for what could only be described as a hole in the wall dump was. They’d taken his new audio kit, belt, bracers, blasters and they likely would’ve tried to take his cybernetic implants too if that had been possible without surgery. He’d bought a drink with the spare credits he’d stuffed into his back pockets and tried to look like he was mingling with some of the interesting characters at the bar before he slunk away into a back corridor. Two female twi’lek dancers were pawing at each other, making out sloppily, tongues down each other's throats and far too lust-stricken to notice him slip by. He held his breath and turned a corner as he reached the door at the end of the corridor. He heard talking behind the door, but couldn’t make out any particulars. Damn it! This is why he’d wanted to try out his new audio kit. He’d just have to improvise. He scanned his surroundings - luckily nobody else was around. He tossed the rest of his drink over his shoulder and pressed the empty glass tumbler to the door. It was primitive but effective. He could hear the murmur of actual words now. 

He heard Huttese spoken by a man of indeterminate age and species. Whoever they were they certainly weren’t a Hutt, they lacked their distinctive rumble. They spoke of the weather and another quieter voice replied, one that Theron couldn’t make out completely. He sighed, the glass could only do so much but it was as good as he was going to get. The conversation continued, just boring small talk that circled around nothing in particular for a good 7 minutes. Eventually Theron started to wonder if he was even in the right place. He eyed the chrono on his wrist. The longer he stayed back there, the more likely it was he’d get caught. He was about to cut his losses and leave when he heard something promising - a date and time. He closed his eyes and pushed his ear further into the glass as if that would somehow help him hear better. He caught the end of another sentence. “-meet at the Justicar Sector.” The voices became indistinguishable for a moment as they seemed to whisper something amongst themselves and then he heard, “- we expect cash on the day. No credit transfers.” The scraping of chairs on the floor broke him out of his position near the door. He needed to get out of there quickly. 

Just as he stood up straight, one of the dancers who'd been engaged in the make out session from earlier spotted him. She coughed loudly, “What are you doing here?”

It was time to put on his best act. He wobbled on his feet and drooped forward like he could barely walk, “I waaas looking for the ref-,” he hiccuped, “refresher.”

She frowned at him silently, clearly still suspicious of him. She sniffed disapprovingly, “Well you shouldn’t be back here. It’s off limits to customers.”

He smiled wide, all teeth and cheesy grin, “I thouuught it was down-,” another hiccup, “-here.”

She rolled her eyes and pulled him by the collar of his jacket back down the corridor and out into the main bar. “Stay out! If I see your ugly mug again it’ll be security giving you the boot out of here.”

He gave her a lopsided salute, “Yes ma’am.”

She tutted and marched down into the back corridors, and Theron finally let his act down. He’d gotten what he’d come here for- mostly. He just needed to find the stuff they’d confiscated from him and get out of here. He didn’t want to smell the lingering stench of death sticks and spice for a moment longer than he needed to. 

----

So that’s two Dark Council Lords, both women, both heads of the sphere of technology, dead by his hands.

And guess what the inquisitor has…a superweapon… designed by Darth Mekhis…that the SI develops with the help of Moff Pyron… before they ascend to the Dark Council.

In an alternate swtor canon I think Theron might’ve attempted kill count number three on the SI, especially with the isotope 5 powered Silencers coming into play.

Which is exactly the plot of my fic, would you look at that. Check it out here on Ao3 if you’re interested: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73954831/chapters/192915106

Her eyes flashed, her voice pointed towards him like a knife, “You’re a liar.”

He knew his words were the worst thing he could say in the moment before he even said them. That hadn’t stopped him from throwing it back however, “You lie too.”

She shook her head, taking several steps back from him. With each step and word he could feel the distance between them expanding, “No, no, no, I am openly cruel.”

When she looked at him he saw her eyes break through her anger into something so much worse, “You’re cruel in secret. You terrify me…and what are you? Just a man with no power. I am power. I am the wind and the charge in the air. Who are you to terrify me?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what to say. Was he not a professional liar? Had he not lied point blank to her face? Repeatedly?

She spit her words out like poison, her finger pointed at him, “You are nothing.”

Yes, yes he was.

And then she turned away, her voice a shadow of itself, “And you are everything.”

Heartbreak. That’s what her tone had been. Heartbreak.

Darth Ravage noticed Nox’s disdain and zeroed in on her, “I see you’ve finally joined us in the present Nox. What’s the matter, distracted by your new friend last night?”

She smiled tightly. In theory Ravage taunting her about the assassin would incriminate him but news of last night’s escapade had quickly spread within the council. She had been out in public in only her sleepwear after all. 

Darth Mortis stirred from his shadowy corner of the hall, his tone his usual mock politeness laced with condescension, “Yes Nox, you should really reinforce your security, we wouldn’t want to see you murdered in cold blood. I have some men you can borrow for the job if you’d like?”

“I believe my own people can handle it but thank you for the offer.”

Ravage chuckled beside her, “Are you sure it wasn’t your own people that set you up? I hear you've recently installed an upgrade. Didn’t work out for you, did it?”

They were speaking to her like she was a child. She was the only young woman on the council currently- and the only one to have lasted more than a few months. They’d never let her forget that, or her supposed inferiority, her dirty blood, tainted by generations of slavery. 

Her voice was firm, as it had to be when her authority was being questioned, “All avenues are being explored as we speak. We will find the mastermind behind this attempt and I will deal with them as I see fit. You know I’m not one to leave any stone unturned.”

Darth Marr’s voice rumbled from his mask as he sat at the head of the hall. He may have officially refused to become emperor but that hadn’t stopped him from becoming the de facto leader of the Council and Empire - he was after all the only Sith who commanded enough authority to keep the Empire, and more crucially, the Council together.

“I’m sure Nox has a handle on her affairs. The far greater issue remains of this bout of revolt from our colonies. We cannot allow this to continue for much longer.”

Ravage sighed like the answer was obvious, “Pick a planet and torch it to the ground. That’ll teach the rest of them to be quiet.”

Nox wasn’t surprised. Ravage had all the subtlety and wit of a foul smelling nerf in a perfumery. He would have the whole Empire burn just to feel its heat. 

“Ah, extraordinary idea Ravage. Let’s burn our own supply chains and waste fuel on a ‘lesson’ that would only fan the flames for further dissent.”

She knew from experience, hate had no bounds. The more her old master had tightened her leash, the more she’d plotted his demise. Now it was her who sat on the Dark Council whilst he lay dead and cold in the ground. If they weren’t careful the Empire would share the same fate.

“And what would your plan be? Make merry with the aliens? Give them our women and our children? You’d have them destroy us.”

“I’d have them reinforce our strength.”

Darth Vowrawn, who usually quietly observed from his corner and only interjected to inflame situations he found funny, interrupted their argument, “Are those our only two options? Destroy them or make them our equals?”

____

This is a segment of a future chapter for my long form fic on Ao3. Read the beginning of it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73954831/chapters/192915106

3 days before Operation Silence - Ziost - New Adasta 

The handy thing about Imperials was that you could always trust them to be bigoted. Well… some of them at least. Theron scratched at his collar as he pulled out a lit smokestick from between his lips and blew smoke out the corner of his mouth. He took a long look at the cards in front of him and sighed deeply. He threw them face up onto the table, “I fold.”

The Imperial officer at the other end of their dinky, little table laughed. It was a deep throated ugly sound, like a goat getting murdered.

“I knew you’d fold. You had that look in your eyes.”

Theron only shrugged as he took another drag of his smokestick.

The officer eyed him, his flabby round cheeks red from his excessive good humour, in stark contrast to his pale, blue eyes that held nothing but contempt for everything and everyone. He was a hateful little man that only took joy in smoking, drinking and gambling away all his credits and who filled whatever was left of his sad, little life with a burning hatred for the Republic and its tolerance of so-called ‘lesser beings’. In other words he was the very thing Theron despised most. Luckily they didn’t need to be friends for this to work.

The officer, a Lieutenant Brauker as he was called, started shuffling Theron’s credit stacks towards his half of the table. He mumbled his words out through the edge of his mouth that wasn’t filled with cigarettes, “Why do you even want this gig anyways?”

Theron rolled his shoulders back lazily and pretended to think about it, “I’m bored I guess. Heard Nox was testing something out. I wanted to see it for myself.”

“Heh. I wouldn’t get my hopes up. That’s just a rumour. Couldn’t care less about that sort of junk anyway, not when she’s got all those aliens infecting the ship.”

Theron didn’t bother replying to that.

“Well, if you want my post I ain’t gonna stop ya. There’s better things to do with my life than canoodle with Nox’s little freaks. Especially now that I’ve got these new shinies.”

He started rubbing his hands together and counting up his stacks. Theron watched him carefully, waiting to see if there was any hesitation or doubt in the middle aged, blonde man. Brauker only grinned as he pocketed the credits. Smoke from their cigarettes was starting to blanket them in a heavy smog, as dulled music from the cantina beyond the back room started to play. It was a bass heavy song that made the table rattle to its rhythm. Brauker pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and slid it over the desk.

“Here. The official form stating that you, Lieutenant Pyke, will be taking over my post. It’s a little messy but it’s the real deal. Got my signature and everything.”

Theron was careful not to get any stray ash on the form as he picked it up and assessed it. It had caf stains at the bottom left corners and it smelt strongly of grease and smoke, but it seemed legitimate. It also had a plastoid seal at the top corner, an Imperial artifact that was much harder to forge than it looked. There was no way someone like Brauker would bother going through all that effort; it had to be real. He nodded and slipped the sheet into his breast pocket. He needed to get this to an Imperial personnel and resources office as soon as possible if he wanted to board the Doombringer before it took off for Dantooine. Luckily, here on Ziost, there were quite a few of these offices around. 

This is a shortish piece exploring young 13 year old Theron's thoughts, a few months before Zho leaves him and he gets the final nail in the coffin confirming he has no powers. Enjoy his distress (love him really).

3 months After the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant (ATC) - Mid Rim - Strabin Sector - Silla

Theron Shan had never before been as monumentally anxious, in such a dramatically claustrophobic space, as he was right now. He’d been in tight spaces before, Zho has had him crawling through cave systems, but never with so much on the line. He squeezed his eyes shut - although it was hardly necessary in the utter darkness - and tried counting to ten slowly, just like Master Zho had taught him whenever his nerves had gotten the better of him as a young boy.

1 rolling roach… 2 rolling roaches…

He took deep breaths with each count, focusing on the cool air flowing in and out of his nostrils. He could feel his heart hammering through his chest, threatening to run away from him and escape. He was surprised it wasn’t echoing through the small cargo box he was hiding in.

3 rolling roaches… 4 rolling roaches…

The sweet, earthy scent of freshly ground chak-root drifted from the surrounding crates, smothering him. He wondered if he risked getting high if he kept taking such deep breaths. He’d seen ground chai-root before, all fine and floaty, and definitely bad news. It was used as a snuff after all. He remembered Zho’s stern words on spice and snuff and deathsticks - you keep them at a far distance, or risk letting them haunt you forever. This mission was too important for accidental highs or new addictions, but the deep breaths were helping him too much so he just hoped everything would be fine.

5 rolling roaches…

His thoughts veered towards the mission ahead. He was perfectly in place now, it was all up to him. He peeled one eye open and peered through one of the small holes in the cargo box, careful not to make any noise that would alert the slavers to his location. He could see glimpses of the cargo hold, patches of light filtering through the gaps in the cargo boxes stacked in front of him. From this angle he couldn’t create a mental map of the room, but it didn’t matter. He could see the energy switch at the other side and that’s all he needed.

The slavers were keeping their cargo, alive and inanimate, in a cargo hold at the rear end of their compound, a cold, musty dump of a place hidden in the middle of one of Silla’s forests. Zho had been the one to sense panic from where they were trekking through the Sanau plains north west of here. It’d taken them all day and night, but they’d found the compound eventually. It was after scouting the area out that Theron had noticed the smugglers had a faulty generator. Because it could only generate so much power and the idiot genius who’d worked on the compound's wiring had set it up as a series, if they faulted any of the energy switches when the power was down, then the whole system would collapse. The only issue was that all the energy switches were inside, and were each temporarily ‘down’ for seconds at most, before the power returned. So, one of them had to be at the right place at the right time to short one, and since Theron was the only one that could fit into an empty cargo box, he’d volunteered. Zho was hesitant at first but he’d been insistent. After all, this was what a Jedi would do.

6 rolling roaches…

He just really wished he hadn’t thrown his slingshot away before he’d crawled into the cargo box. He’d convinced himself he wouldn’t need it, that the stress of the moment would trick him into using his long dormant force powers, but now, sitting here curled up in the dark with nothing but his thoughts to entertain him, he was really regretting that decision. It was his trusty slingshot, crafted with his own hands and tailored to his own needs. He should’ve kept it anyway, even if never ended up using it. He didn’t know if he’d ever see it again. Heck, even just to have it in his hands, to rub the notch in the wood he’d worn away over the years. 

7 rolling roaches…

He’d hear when the energy switch would turn off. In an effort to save power the smugglers had routed the power so that it would alternate across the compound, leaving one energy switch off until the current returned, and another energy switch turned off. The cycle ran in hours rather than minutes, there were hundreds of switches and he could only see one. All he had to do was wait for the right moment to destroy it, and then Zho could come rushing in to free everyone.

Theron hadn’t seen much of the abducted children, but he could hear them. They were in a cell at the other end of the room, the buzz of a shock field a constant hum separating them from freedom - and a couple dozen armed slavers. Every now and then they’d whisper to each other and a slaver would shout at them to stop.

8 rolling roaches… 9 rolling roaches….

Flexing his hand in lieu of rubbing his slingshot, Theron ignored the sweat beading at his temple. It was freezing in the cargo room, but he was bottling up so much nervous energy he could light explosives with it. His eyes stayed steady on the energy switch, his pulse slowing. It was all he needed to focus on.

10 rolling roaches…

He heard distant shouting and a scuffle. The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. He glued his face to the side of the box, eyes peering out of the holes, trying to get a better look. The shouting got closer and more panicked. He could hear it was a young boy’s voice. The door to the cargo hold burst open, a giant houk slaver marching in dragging a struggling togrutan boy by his montrals. Theron could only see glimpses of them, mostly just shadows on the far wall, the boy slippery in the houk’s grasp.

“Get off me you slug!”

The houk backhanded him for that. Theron swore the force of that slap rang in his ears for seconds afterwards.

“Quiet freak.”

That was the moment the energy switch turned off. The lights in the room went down, the shock field still running on its own generator. This was the moment, he had to act now! Theron closed his eyes and tried reaching out, just like Zho had told him hundreds of times. The force was all around him, beautiful and bright, he should be able to feel it, to hold it, to ask it to help him reach across the room and smash that damn switch.

Nothing.

All he could sense running through his brain was sheer unadulterated panic.

The houk hadn’t finished teaching the boy a lesson. In the darkness Theron couldn’t see, but he could hear the boy begging for mercy and the houk’s violent response. His stomach churned like a whirlpool, his mind screaming ‘run’. He was a coward, a loser, pathetic…

The energy switch turned back on, and the lights in the room flickered on. His chance was over, it wouldn’t turn off again for another few hours and that boy didn’t have hours he had seconds. There was nothing he could do… not without risking his position. He’d failed them all, the boy and the rest of them behind the shock field.

Damn it! He heard the houk laugh, admiring the boy's tears, and something snapped in Theron. He jumped. The lid of his cargo box shattered as he stood up with such force he felt he could shatter mountains. He screamed as he ran at the houk, his small body slamming into the back of him. He landed a kick to his stomach and a punch to his pale, blubbery head, and the ugly thing screamed, disoriented by the young teenage boy who’d thrown himself at him. Theron had only moments to release all his vicious anger, before another slaver ran into the room and thumped him over the head. He was out instantly.

——

His head pounded like an old iron bell, ringing until his eyes felt like rubber and his temple throbbed. Dazed and aching, he peeled his eyes open ignoring how they burned. He heard hushed whispering to his side, several voices excited and nervous talking over each other.

“He’s awake.”

“He’s crazy. Who runs at a houk like that?”

“Where did he even come from? Have any of you ever seen him before?”

“No, he’s human. Never lived with humans.”

“I don’t care who he is, he wiped that ugly slug’s mug, he’s alright in my books.”

Theron groaned, the voices layering in his head until all he could hear was white noise.

He managed to force out a question, “Where am I?”

“In the cargo hold genius. You’ve been thrown in with all of us.”

That set his mind alight. What? He was here to rescue everyone, not get caught himself. He tried getting up quickly, but his head swam with his movements.

“Careful, you took a nasty blow to the head.”

He shuffled onto his elbows slowly, and then up into a sitting position. He glanced at the kids all staring at him, his hand gingerly rubbing at the back of his head. He felt blood. That wasn’t good. They looked at him like he was about to fall apart, and they looked fragile themselves, all malnourished wide eyed aliens looking at him like he was an opportunity for escape.

He didn’t know how to tell them that he was completely and utterly useless, so he didn’t, instead he just said, “It’s alright, Zho will come to save us.”

But Theron wasn’t so sure about that. Zho was waiting for the energy across the compound to shut down, that was his signal for him to come in and wreck the place. He didn’t know Theron had been caught, he could be waiting out there for hours, all whilst the slavers shipped them offworld discretely. And just like that he’d entered this compound as a free boy, and might leave a slave. Damn it all.

The togrutan boy, the one with a swollen and cuts all over his face, looked at him funny, “Who’s Zho?”

“A Jedi.”

Excited whispers echoed his response, “A Jedi? A Jedi is coming to save us?”

He shouldn’t have said anything. What if he’d given them false hope?

“Maybe.”

The togrutan boy picked up on the hesitation in his voice, “What do you mean maybe?”

“Maybe if he can find us.”

“You mean he doesn’t know where we are?”

“…Yeah…”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

A pantoran girl, the eldest and biggest of the group, placed her hand on his back and held him gently. He wanted to shrug her off, not because she was ugly, or mean, or smelly, she was none of those things. He wanted to shrug her off because he felt like he didn’t deserve her kindness and sympathy. Instead he just kept very still and willed his anxious breathing into sync. He couldn’t break apart now. They didn’t deserve that.

——

Hours later when his hope was thin, and his pride in tatters, Zho burst into the cargo hold, lightsaber blazing in his hand, his eyes wild with fear. Theron had never seen Zho look so distraught before, and he’d never seen such sheer relief on his face either, as his eyes locked on him and the other abducted children. Zho bust them out in a flurry of smoke and fire, and they all made it out, free, smuggled child-slaves no more.

——

Zho had done a thorough job of ransacking the place, but in case any slavers had escaped and called for back up, Zho had taken them all deep into the forests of Silla so that they could lie low for a few days before he could send them off planet to the nearest safe haven for abducted children. From there they could be taken back to their families once the tricky work of identifying them had been done. In celebration of their newfound freedom Zho had created a huge bonfire, barbecuing fish Theron had caught in the nearby river with his net invention he’d scraped together once he’d noticed that some of the fish liked to jump up the rapids upstream. They ate and ate until their faces shone with the oil of the fish, their fingers sticky and stinking. They washed their hands in the cool, sparkling river before the children sang, teaching each other songs, and dancing around the fire, Zho playing his makeshift wooden flute poorly.

It’d be magical, their joy almost infectious, if Theron didn’t hate himself for his failure. He’d skulked away from the festivities in the shadow of the night, so he could sit by the river and brood. He’d failed utterly today. Without Zho he’d be a slave, fated to be shipped off to galaxy knows where alongside the children he was supposed to save. Where was this force, this power that Zho had promised him was out there? Why couldn’t he feel it? What sort of Jedi would he be if he remained so straightforwardly useless?

The crack of a branch snapping broke him out of his funk. He whipped his head around, fearful it was an escaped slaver who’d come to take his revenge. Theron heaved a sigh of relief when he realized it was just the togrutan boy, or Samil as he’d learnt he was called.

“What are you doing here?”

Theron winced, he hadn’t meant to sound so defensive.

Luckily Samil didn’t seem to take any offense, “Looking for you. Noticed you weren’t out there celebrating with the rest of us.”

“Oh, I’ll join the fun later, I just want to be alone for a bit.”

Samil nodded, his one swollen eye still closed and bruised, “Hint taken, I’ll leave in a second. I just wanted to ask you something. If you’re Zho’s apprentice, were you trying to help us escape?”

Theron closed his eyes to the question, the taste of bile thick in the back of his throat. He’d hoped that nobody would ask him that question, but that’d be too easy wouldn’t it.

He opened his eyes, willing his voice to hold steady, “Yes, that was the plan. Didn’t work out.”

“Why not? Aren’t you training to be a Jedi?”

“You’re really rubbing salt in the wound.”

Samil balked at that, “I’m not trying to.”

Theron took a moment to take a deep breath in. His heart was racing as fast as it was in the slaver’s compound.

“I know you aren’t,” he paused for a moment and Samil looked relieved. Then he continued, “I thought I’d be able to connect to the force when it mattered. I’m supposed to close my eyes, feel it binding everything around me, a light so pure, so beautiful, it clears all darkness. I’m supposed to feel it connecting to me and I’m supposed to use it.”

With his eyes squeezed shut he reached his hands out, focusing on a rock by the river bed. He willed it to move, to gently float in the air and spin before settling back down again. He peeled one eye open hoping for a miracle. The rock lay completely still, as unmovable as a mountain.

He looked at Samil like his patheticness was as obvious as the night was dark, “I can’t do it.”

Samil’s gaze lingered on the rock. Theron could only guess what he was thinking. Why was he traveling with a Jedi if he couldn’t even lift a rock? Who did he think he was breaking into that compound and expecting to save them all? It was embarrassing.

Samil said none of that, “What does it matter?”

Theron’s brain short circuited. He hadn’t expected that, “What?”

“You barreled head first into that slug just to save me, what does it matter if you can’t lift a rock?”

Theron didn’t know what to say. Eventually he managed a response, “But I got caught. I saved no one.”

Samil shrugged, “Yeah maybe. You’re still alright in my book.”

The sound of another pair of footsteps pulled both their attention to the trees lining the bank. Zho’s warm face emerged from between them, his stride purposeful and long, “He’s right you know. You are far too hard on yourself, Theron.”

“But I-,”

“It will come when the time is right, as long as you keep listening. Your doubts will cloud your ears, you must let them go and listen.”

Theron had heard this all before, he’d been listening since he was practically a newborn. If the sound hadn’t come yet would it ever? He nodded, worn by his disappointment and eager to forget everything.

Zho pulled him in by his shoulders, his large, inviting framing hanging over him, “You’ll be fine my boy, don’t worry. Let’s return to the fire, it’s chilly by the river.”

Samil agreed, eager to get back to the fun and Theron followed along silently. He was quiet the rest of the night but he always smiled whenever anyone glanced at him. They had good reason to be happy, and he knew he should be grateful that everyone was safe and joyful. It was just difficult to convince his heart of the same.

——

By morning the fire had dwindled and the children had slept cuddled up to each other in a big, warm heap. They’d stayed up late telling each other stories of their homes and the moment they’d been stolen from their families to be slaves. Together they’d comforted each other until they could all sleep soundly.

Leaving them to sleep, Theron had disappeared to the river to fill up his flask with fresh, cool water. On his way back he heard a commotion, the sound of voices yelling, and feet running. He rushed back into the clearing where they’d set up camp to see all the children gathering around something, their voices excited rather than distressed. Heart still thundering from his adrenaline spike he walked up to them gingerly, somehow sensing that something was wrong.

But something wasn’t wrong, quite the opposite in fact. The children parted as he got closer, their eyes pinned to him. In the middle stood Samil, an ear splitting grin stretched across his face, his eyes alight with wonder. His hands were out in front of him and a rock, far bigger than any Theron had ever tried to lift, was floating in the air between them.

Samil burst into a flurry of energy as soon as his eyes locked on Theron, “I followed what you said last night. I closed my eyes, felt this energy around me- I had no idea I could do this!”

Theron’s smile was stiff. He should be happy for Samil, really he should, but instead his stomach sank.

Of course…of course…

Samil smiled and the ground fell beneath him.