The Fourth Moon of Yavin
The Jedi Temple,
Medical Wing
"Shuigh fear ann a raibh a ainm fada, agus ar an lá seo, canaim a amhrán. Nuair a bhí a leithéid d’am ann nuair a rinneadh fop a mheaitseáil, bhí a fhulaingt go léir neamhghlan. Scriosadh a chaisleáin, thit a impireacht, níor fhág aon mhaoin é ach tobar. Lig dom an scéal seo a insint duit, lig do chluasa glaoch, O amhrán an rí fitheach."
"There sat a man whose name was long, and on this day, I sing his song. Where once was a being of that matched a fop, all his suffering proved for naught. His castles did crumble, his empire fell, no possessions left to him but a well. Let me tell you this tale, let your ears ring, o' this song of that raven king." -- Unknown
The sterile light within the medbay burned down on his eyes. Aquamarines looked up, and while bloodshot, there was no feral rage brimming just beneath the surface. Idly, the man scratched at the ever growing beard on his face; the results of 6 weeks without even a slight amount of grooming. Hair splayed out, teeth were stained yellow. The only reason that his nails weren't turning to talons was because he'd whittled them down by scratching at anything, or just gnawing on them. To those who entered the medbay, he might look more like a recovering spice junky, instead of a padawan hopeful.
The raggedy man spoke no words, paid no attention to the one or two other patients around him. The tray bolted above his bed held up an empty soup bowl, and a plate with the leftover crumbs of crackers. Rather than wearing hospital gowns, he wore a simple, beige robe. It was a size smaller than what one might expect on a man of his stature, but it fit with how skinny he'd become. Here was a man who looked tired and worn; physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Could any truly grasp the depths of what had happened to him? Would any in the galaxy ever understand what it had been like? To witness a world die, to hear it's people's last gasps before they were violently rejoined with the force? To experience the suffering of untold millions, their confusion, their fear, their sadness and their anger? Had any men, untrained and on the scene, survived such experiences? Had any of them gone through, and emerged without going mad?
He didn't know this, and he doubted that anyone else did. Even the masters, who'd delved into his shattered mind and put it back together as best they could, couldn't fully understand. They'd witnessed a mind that had been destroyed, not one that was being destroyed. They'd tried to save a man who no longer existed. All they'd brought back from madness was... someone else. Someone who called himself Laeonas Tannaras, someone who shared his body, someone who sounded and even acted like him.
Yet it was not.
That man who they had brought back now sat in their temple. He wore their robes, at their food, slept in their beds. None could understand in the fullest sense, but they tried. They tried, and they cared. In truth, he understood that it was a good thing that he would have none to relate to on such a subject. There were no other dead worlds. There were no other massacres. No other survivors of tragedies that still lived.
But there was one who was coming to meet such a person.