The Duty of Care  

{no pictures} {author note at end}

Within our red planet… hid many caverns… dark… lonely…, and filled with… the emptiness of our desert home. Well, in truth…not all the tunnels were empty…. Within them held the bones of our ancestors and the machines of our Sith brethren… 

But abandoned and destroyed… lifeless… here laying with the corpses of my ancient predecessors… now pave the way for my surviving people, but being forced to walk these sacred halls with bleeding wounds and heavy heads… they fled… oh!... How they fled… from our enemy… who relentlessly hunted them for days! 

Where the to injured were left behind... and those who fell behind… were at the mercy of the tunnels… lost and twisted... Confusing and dark… and without a guide… those whose blood still dripped… whose scars still smell of freshly cooked meat… brought them out of hiding… 

The Tuk'ata and the Sith serpents! Vile creatures that our Sith neighbors tried to master! Guardian beast they left behind to watch over forgotten tombs and secrets…. Poor, pitiful creatures whose masters care not for their well-being… but hungry and starved, they picked out the weak and lost… 

Many fled into those tunnels… as they didn't have a choice… for when the raiders came close… and hoped to seem lost… they ran in any which way they could… but like rats and pests that our republic enemy saw my people as… grew bored and tired of the game of cat and mouse… 

They set out a new hound to chase my people… gone were men chasing men... machine scouting… no! Instead… instead… they let out… 

[what did they let out?] replied Leon with a pause, as he watched Lucifron pause with a disturbed expression at the narration of the scene playing out before him. 

{A plague…a virus… No…a disease… Nay! chemical war!} replied Lucifron with his head tilted down, bellowing his rage. 

{they let lose the vilest thing a species could do to another! The blaster fire… The Flammer's…. HA! Those… THOSE…. WERE MORE MERCIFUL THAN IT! } 

[a virus? The republic made a virus?] replied Leon confused, to which Lucifron begrudgingly said: 

{no... they didn't make it… they stole it…} 

[they stole it! From who?] 

{sigh…. The Sith… now what the Sith wanted to accomplish with this Bomb… I don't know… as I do not care… what I do care about though, is that the scientist of the republic tweaked the dam thing…. To not harm the human race, how they manage that is also something I do not know… as I'm not well versed in microbiology… as I just trust the force in that degree} 

[hmm… That… doesn't sound like something the Republic would do though… are you sure they didn't just accidentally release it?] 

{Ha! After all, I've shown you! You still have doubts about the republic's willingness to rage war!} 

[aw! I mean no disrespect Lucifron… it's just that…] 

{Ah! LOOK! LEON} screams Lucifron while pointing his finger at a figure! 

As Leon turned to look at the figure, Lucifron's own figure disappeared with the fog of the force, but with a voice that still whispered into Loen's ear… 

For the figure, Leon was staring at wore the symbol of the republic and was endowed with hazmat equipment… 

{now... Tell me, Leon... do you still believe it was an accident…} 

A plague as common as any disease you'll find in any world… a sickness deprived in blood… first came the coughs… then the weakness… silent in its care… it blew past each person… where the last tribe of my people hid…. 

{oh…ilthyx…oh… how she believed she could cure it… our Shamen our healer, whatever you call it, she was but a simple student, who through no fault of her own became the head healer… a simple student, who now had to bear the burden of everyone's hopes… oh! how heavy that must have felt… oh! how enviable it must have been, as she wept over her master corpse!} 

{oh… how many tireless nights did she stay awake… praying... Chanting…. experimenting…. Only to run from beasts and men… to the clean zones….} 

With blood-covered hands, she wept… as the nights grew into days and the young dying by the sunrise… clocks ticking away by the seconds… tick tock... Tick tock… the cries and the moans were the worst part… for her ears tried to silence the noise… 

But the clocks ticking away drove her sanity, while she watched them bleed from their eyes… while she watched whole families fail to rise…. And while she watched as the hounds of Tuk'ata ate their fill… as no one dared touch the dead… 

As pus and sore grew… and the darkened corridors expanded… once filled with hundreds of lights… now glow with a wee' few…. By this point, she knew her kind was lost… as even she was infected! And even down to the last of her tribesmen 'to' bear the mark…. 

Tick tock goes the clock… Tick tock goes the clock… and when the hands reached the midnight hour, while locked in her desperation... She thought of what her master asked her not to… what her people begged her not to… 

But that vile clock kept ticking and ticking in the background of her master face…her master pocket watch… gold and with a picture of a sunbird, cloaked in shadows on the back! Tick, it went and tock it made… as she closed her hands tightly with a cough…. She made her choice! 

With the corpse of her master, she pleaded with the force to send the plague into the corpse of her master! To lock it and keep it there…. but the force didn't move to her call… and she knew why… she was no grand healer like her master…and what she asked of… was not of healer way… 

And so… she made a deal… As the dark side was never about healing… only a continued path… a path she knew she would suffer from the most… a ritual of sacrifice… 

[master…I know you didn't want me to do this… but it's the only option left…. I'm…I'm sorry…] said ilthyx, as she placed her hand on the forehead of her former master. 

With hands closed, and surrounded by black and red crystals, with a strange pattern on the floor that represented the forces will…that bonded together by candles mixed with herbs-scented smells… she closed her eyes by her master's corpse… 

With legs crossed and a mind flowing within the force, the room around her became dark as the candlelight vanished, and the red crystal she used as a medium floated in the air, which bore the symbol of the tribe's many years of prayers. 

Sparks of lighting and life, as joyful laughter could be heard… children playing, and a time of peace… a crystal passed down through the ages from healer to healer… she saw it all! The force showed her, everything about her people's long history…. And with tears… she gave them all up! 

To sacrifice something so important ate away her life… but with resolution, she continued the path…. It wasn't enough… the dark side wanted more… took more… and so she gave it! 

As the mist left her body and entered her master's corpse, she felt her aging skin… she felt the disease leaving her… as she felt her life leaving her… in those moments…those peaceful moments of no pain and realization, she heard the ticking of a clock… Tick tock…Tick tock…and then a chime! 

A beautiful sound of a chirp of a bird… and an image of a pocket watch… as it paused its hands at a time and a date! Not knowing what it meant, and having no time to care, the ritual completed itself as she awoke in her master's body! Their… her true suffering awaited! 

Forever conscious in a corpse! That filled itself with the plague of her people… to keep it locked away… but with a mind to bear the pain for an eternity of time! 

[I... I don't understand… what am I seeing? Lucifron…] said Leon in confusion 

{a dreadful curse… designed and one that was foretold but never wanted…} replied Lucifron heavy-hearted. 

[designed? A curse? What do you mean? What did she do?] 

{it was a curse… one that was destined to happen... a destiny every healer dreaded….as Foretold by our force seers…. So, long ago…. Made for that very moment… to save what was left of our people…} 

[so, she saved them... Right?] 

{...} 

[Lucifron?] 

{no… it didn't save them… it only caused more suffering!} 

[more suffering?] 

{two bodies lacking the chosen Midi-Chlorian count…. Separately... But together… barley enough… barley… but not to save as they had hoped but to prevent…} 

[hmm… yeah… what!] 

{sigh…she believed her master… her elder predecessors… even in their lies… and in the end all that awaited for her… was suffering… to grow…} 

[grow? Grow in what? I'm still very much confused here!] 

{to grow in the dark side! For in that state, her or their body… absorbed all the plague… but at a cost, even I would dare say… I would refuse… for the price was to be alive in a corpse forever feeling the plague affects times a time…though she did not know that part…} 

[wait... So, she at least cured her people right!] 

With a head nod meaning no, Lucifron continued: 

{the extraction of the plague… also took the lives of the victims! In the end, the ritual she believed would save our people, only doomed them to extinction!} 

[...] 

{when I was released from my prison... I felt it… her relief and her vengeance!} 

[vengeance… but wouldn't her vengeance be placed on her elders and not the republic?] 

{vengeance… how quaint, I didn't think that vengeance would be the first thing you'll question…} 

[what do you mean?] 

{well, I thought you would instead be asking; if she was actually still alive in my puppet body!} 

[oh! Shit! Is she!] 

{ha! No... but I did give her a choice….} 

[choice?] 

{in any case, back to your vengeance… the answer is no! She wasn't angry at our elder's lies or those of her master…no… no! Instead, she was angry at the republic and the Sith but more importantly, she was angry at time…} 

[time? Why time?] 

{because time…time was the one that set her to be the one to do it… and not another… at least that how I interpret it.} 

[okay, so, time was her biggest enemy, but then, that still begs the question… why even have her do it in the first place... Surely the force seers would have known… Right? That it wouldn't have saved anyone.] 

{sigh… You're right it wouldn't save anyone… but do you remember what I told you… at the beginning?} 

[umm… what part…] 

{The part where the human race was immune to its effects…well… let's just say this was my ancestor's way of allowing the victims some semblance of vengeance! And more importantly…. Should my plan succeed… no! When it does succeed! It will have saved them in the end!} 

[your plan…what plan? save them? How?] 

{Ha… if only I could tell you… but no... you'll just have to hopefully live long enough to see it through to the end…} replied Lucifron as his voice disappeared. 

And with the dissipation of his voice, Leon looked back at ilthyx to see her squander in her pain! A mind trapped to feel the passage of time! locked with a disease and in a corpse! That even the Sith beast refused to go near… 

With a mythical clock ticking in a 'force' made sky, the desert sands rising and falling, and in that pedestal that Leon stood on… he felt such grief, as the force showed him a lonely tomb in the dark... Forgotten… left behind... 

Until the black rain came by the call of Lucifron! To free her from her shackles. There he remembered the birds, that horrible bird… that watched him… as he thought about fleeing to his ship. 

[so, that big vulture… was you… I see now…] said Leon as the vision ended.