Losing My Religion

[Brandon Rhea]

Jhon brushed the dust off the cover of the book she handed him as he looked down at the title: Brief Excerpts from the Journal of the Whills, from my time on Ashlan Four. It was the book he saw in the reliquary beneath the Jedi Temple, as Skhai brought him and Kiro Haas to speak with Bhikkhu Bo. The book had piqued his interests then, but not anymore. Not after all this.

This was the book of someone who had a destiny, and it belonged to someone who could carry that destiny out. Jhon was not that person. Nor was Skhai, and she knew it. Not through any fault or failing of her own. This book represented a destiny that involved her, just not for her. So Jhon grabbed it tightly, brought his arm back, and then tossed it forward, throwing the book straight across the room and over the ledge of the balcony, letting it fall into the streets below. Whatever happened to it was not his concern.

“Jhon Cordatus is dead,” he told her, resigning him, he thought forever, to his inability to snap out of it again. “Goodbye Skhai.”

And just like that, he was gone. Where a moment before stood a Jedi Master, there was a lonely room behind a closed door, one he had made the choice to walk out of. He left behind not just an apartment, but the people inside it. The woman who saved him. The little girl who someday would. For now, destiny was taking time off from Jhon Cordatus. He had to find himself again, find her. Andraste.

In the streets below the apartment, the man once known as Jhon Cordatus stopped in the streets, his hood tightly hugging against his head so he was not seen. There, between the garbage and the water that had crept up from the sewers, was the book he had so carelessly tossed out. He didn’t know why, but he felt compelled to not leave it there. He leaned over and picked it up, without any idea what it meant.

He didn’t know it yet, but it meant there was still hope.

 

[Empress]

" YOUR SUCH A JERK!" Skhai snapped as he walked out, and without so much of a though about it, the couch Jhon had called home for the last while spontaneously began to creak before it finally gave to the sound of splintering and compressed upon itself. angered by the loss of Jhon to his foolishness, and the loss of her new couch she had gotten specifically FOR him was enough, with unseen hands the Crystavian lifted the couches remains and hurled them at the door where they impacted solidly but fell harmlessly to the floor " AND THATS FOR LEAVING YOUR SOCKS ALL OVER YOU DAMN DIRTY APE!!!!!!!!!" she too fell to the floor, her yells replaced with sobs as she for a brief moment felt her own failures...that was until the sound of a much smaller set of lungs made themselves known, startled by the sudden noises, or perhaps the heavier feelings about the penthouse. The cries instantly silenced the Crystavian as she sat straight for a moment, blinking away the tears as she tried desperately to come to a decision as to what to do..

that was until the cries spiked in pitch, there was a twisting sensation in the Crystavians stomach she couldn't explain, and she could no longer sit there, she had to see to the girl. " baby!" she exclaimed, hopping onto her feet and vanishing into the back room to tend to Lana pushing out every thought she could of that Jerk who stood there just moments before.