Star Wars Republic Commando: Knight of Honor ✓

Chapter 38

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

As always, I continue to hope that I am doing justice to the spirit of Star Wars as well the respective authors and characters from which I borrow. Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

Mandalorian (Mando'a) words

Buy'ce (BOO-chay, BOO-shay): helmet; Colloquially: pint, bucket

Ika (EE-kah): diminutive suffix written as 'ika - also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form, e.g, Ord'ika - Little Ordo

--- --- --- --- ---

Chapter 38

The Force shows me that things brew beneath the surface, and I sense a churning of emotions, not unlike the undertow in an ocean. What I can sense in that undertow looks like braided ribbons, tightly woven and unbreakable. It's a rare bond, a beautiful knot of compassion and adoration, unique in that it is both innocent but deeply devoted.

Jedi Paxa Tener providing her insights to King Vollan Psach

Tochin Moon II, 786 Days ABG

Dusty tucked his arms behind his head and reclined with satisfaction onto the abundant and soft mattress. The wooden frame that supported the mattress was carved and etched to look like leaves on a vine reaching up towards the ceiling. The deep, redwood had been carefully stained to hide the knots, and it had been polished so that it was smooth to the touch.

Dusty closed his eyes for a couple moments and let his body contour into the soft bedspread. He didn't care that it was a lightly colored blue, not unlike the early morning sky he had witnessed during their journeys in the Tochin forest. He was just content to feel pampered and spoiled, and he felt that Crimson deserved the right to enjoy the moment. Even though he had once before experienced a short time with civilian splendor, he was certain that this would probably be the one and only time the rest of his brothers would ever have this experience, and he hoped they would relish it as much as he intended to do.

In fact, Dusty had spent the last fifteen minutes gently ransacking the communal guest room they had been given to use for the night. He had no intentions to take anything or leave anything out of place, but it was just the curiosity of the child that lived within him to touch new things and see the kinds of luxury that he couldn't even dream about living within.

Smirking silently, Dusty wondered if anyone would ever realize that his fingerprints had invisibly marked the thick paint upon one of the canvasses in the room. After his inquisitiveness had taken over him earlier, Dusty couldn't help exploring the bumps and ridges of an artistic craft that he had never seen up close before. He thought it was amazing how the paint looked so realistic from a distance but when he was close to it, there were textures he would have never believed made up the painted yellow blooms that were trapped inside the wooden framework.

After exploring the artwork, Dusty had also scavenged through the suite, opening every drawer he could find on the expensive furniture. Everything was made of wood, each piece carved exquisitely with adornments of leaves and flowers that replicated the kinds of plants found in the forests of Tochin. For as much as Dusty was admiring the beauty of the furniture he ransacked, he had also wondered if he would come across any small trinkets that he could consider a souvenir for his time on Tochin and for the night he would spend in a royal palace.

Now, lying comfortably with his curiosity fulfilled and no souvenir to have been found, Dusty opened his eyes again, allowing them to trickle throughout the vast room, taking in everything from the pink and sweetly fragrant orchids that were meticulously placed in a crystalloid vase to the walls of the luxury suite, finding peace in his mind as he stared at some of the other pieces of artwork.