#elutherius

Dear Elly,

I haven't written you in a long time. Because, well, you're dead. Sometimes when I'm really toshed I'll open up my datapad and draft up an EMail. Fumble through the spelling a bit. Drone on about how much life isn't worth it. You know, without you.

I remember after a week of you being gone, I started writing you on Korriban, while I was deep in the Kaas jungle. Your holos got me through basic training, and I know I got you through the trials. In a way, we kept each other alive.

But I'm not that far gone now. Not toshed I mean. Buzzed, maybe, but I don't know if it's in my nature to write my dead friend holos or the liquor talking through me instead. I don't think I'll ever know anything but that the two years witho-- no. No.

We're not going there tonight. I can relive tearful EMails, but me crying on a Holo. That's my line in the sand.

I'm writing because I get the inkling I can't relate to people anymore. Of course, I've always been somewhat serious; you know this, but the military called on my discipline as an example. I rose to that occasion, and I changed, as we all do for the Empire. It's not just a job for me. I don't clock in or clock out. I am always an officer, always the heir to my house, and when my father dies, I will always be its patriarch.

It was always different with you. I don't know why, but it wasn't until you ... Stopped talking to me that I felt the absence of what we used to have. We haven't been friends for years, have we?

I told Zi'aa that my social skills were shot after this week, but I'm not sure that's true. I'm not properly sure that I'm normal. I mean, I've never been quite typical; I've always been in control of my social presentations because they have to be perfect; I've no room for error. I've never been afforded that luxury because the Empire doesn't make room for idle thought. You say the wrong thing once to the wrong person, and your bindings come undone. I'm not, nor have I ever been in a position where I could afford that.

Zi'aa...you don't know her. I'm working as a liaison for the Regiment. The army scratched me from combat staff after my negligence got you and everyone else killed at that skirmish. Demoted me back to junior officer. Cheers. I'm on staff now because Marlowe is a merciful man. But I'm working with a Sith special ops group because, let's face it, Sith Purebloods in the military are a rare boon. I was just supposed to take a few names and interviews, and they'd probably file the information away in a cabinet somewhere and pat themselves on the back for not having gotten a messenger killed at the hands of the Sith Order, but the Empire's done that for so long without yield. We are suffering. I won't let it continue. The Order and the Empire should be one and-- oh I'm erm-- Rambling.

Zi'aa. Zi'aa is an Acolyte recently made an Apprentice. She's a former slave. I don't know to whom; it's not important. The girl's er-- sorry, woman. You used to hate that, I remember. The woman's made of glass. To be honest, I have a hard time of even thinking of her as a woman. She's childish still. Young. She might still be stripping off her teenage years in the face, but I don't think her personality a problem with her age; you and I had more maturity at fifteen. I don't think she's ever been properly enabled. You know what my father did to our slaves. I think it's very much the same. You break them. They learn dependency. Infantilism. Hate for their position but hate too for themselves. Hm.

She wants to be with me, you know. Poor gi-- Er-- Poor woman. She had it twisted out of her by another similarly childish apprentice, Beltafud. Only, he's childish in the way Taizi never grew out of her teenage years, but where Taizi was spoiled, he's being beat into submission. I love our people, but really, the Sith make you wonder at their own bloody arrogance sometimes.

Zi'aa, anyway. I saw an opportunity in the future should she survive, and I took it to write her a blank check. We might talk about being together after she finishes her training and I-- I don't hate that. I always had plans, since the military and turning down my betrothed, that I'd marry for love. The definition of such has changed with time, with maturity, but business and love go hand and hand. I can't see myself falling in love with anyone, but I don't see an absence of it around Zi'aa... when she’s closer to the age I am now. Father would eat her alive, and mother wouldn’t be mad. Just very. Very. Concerned. I hate that almost more than father’s disappointment.

...

At the end of the day, I don't know what any of those apprentices would understand about duty and the duality of self and persona, but they'll have to learn it quickly or they won't be saddled with so much responsibility that they'll ever have to; Zi'aa perhaps was the one who I thought could understand, but I suppose she wasn't that type of slave. ... Very few slaves are that type of slave. Very few slaves were you, but I suppose that's why you didn't die one.

Funny thing is. I never thought of you as remotely mortal, even... After what happened. After you stopped talking.

I should stop talking. This is venturing into Quirt's EMail territory because I have nothing else to vocalize except a lot of grief. And if it's nothing good, one shouldn't say it at all.

What do I say here to the man I fell out with before he died? Sincerely? Best wishes? Em-dash, em-dash. Love? Love.

Love,

Quirt

P.S. Remind me to tell you about this week sometime. It was a right proper fever dream. Though...so many things in my life have been for a while now.