The cold night’s air swirled through the canyon far below, small clouds of sand puffing up in spirals and dancing with the light of the moon. It was on nights like these for the past sixteen years that he had crept away from the house and made his way to this plateau and sat and waited for the first rays of day to creep over the distant horizon.
Nothing stirred; the barren world of Kihtaled II held little in the way of natural life, it was an industrial world devoid of forests and continents, just one giant dustbowl full of minerals and ores so needed for the almost unending development of the burgeoning temperate worlds of the Khanid Kingdom. He liked it like the stillness and quite, it let your mind free itself to think and remember and even imagine.
He closed his eyes tight, the cold searing his eyelids as the memories of his life here flashed randomly, the beautiful visage of Kiniska at her seventeenth birthday, his father’s stern gaze at having misbehaved, the gentle smile of Juan as he patiently taught Math’ra about self-defence. All of it and so much more passed through his mind in a torrent when a soft, deep but crisp voice shattered the utter silence.
“There you are, I was wondering where you had gone”
His eyes slowly opened, quickly wiping his eyes as the shadow belonging to the voice loomed over his hunched form.
“You know I always loved this spot, I never knew you had found it”
He couldn’t but help but laugh a bit at that, a soft chuckle came from behind him as well, a warm but firm hand was placed on his shoulder.
“Whats wrong?”
He sighed a long and mournful sigh, looking out into the distance but not seeing anything in particular.
“I’m going to miss this, all of this” He could almost feel the man smiling at his words
“Maybe after time you will, but you have a life ahead of you now, one of promise and glory, not that of a simple farmer”
“But it just feels wrong to leave, I mean what about Mom, Grandpa and Grandma?”
“You know Jacque is more than capable of looking after them, and we have enough labour now to survive” He nodded slightly at this then paused, gathering his thoughts
“But what about you dad?” The hand squeezed firmly, his fathers solid frame knelt down beside him, the warmth and comfort of his fathers presence shielding him from the cold
“I’m heading back out in a week, I’ll be patrolling around Genesis, so I won’t be too far from home should I need to get back, but you don’t need to worry about me, your mother does that and enough for you as well” They both laughed at this, they knew it was true.
“And don’t worry about your sisters either, Khanid II usually doesn’t enforce his will out here very often, and we aren’t a big enough family to be noticed.”
“Not yet anyway dad” His father chuckled at this.
“No, not yet indeed.” He looked up at the sky, all the stars twinkling and glittering in the night sky and he sighed, his father gently squeezed his arm again, slowly standing up beside him.
“Come on, your sisters wanted to give you something special before you leave, and the shuttle leaves early tomorrow and we can’t have you missing that” He laughed a little and stood up beside his father, easily a head taller than him now.
“Sounds like fun.”
“Oh don’t be like that, come on, if we run there might still be some chocolate pudding left” With a smirk his father set of at a pace down the hill towards the estate on which they lived, a grin forming on his own face as he sprinted after him, the darkness enveloping into a shadowy embrace as he sped towards home, and destiny.
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A short little story about Math'ra on the night before he left to join the Imperial Navy, it introduces his father and a few people from deep down in his past.
Its quite short, but I plan on spending more time writing about this part of his life in an attempt to really build out the people and places which helped build a Capsuleer.
Author
Topic: Destiny and darkness (short story) (Read 566 times)