The Next Day

[Meatslopper]

The Next Day

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I remember on Orsus, there was just this burning hot week, month, I can’t even remember the time anymore, I remember that the day it ended, the day it rained, the day all the birds praised with their heavily songs in thanks for life, for food, water, sustenance and could live free and fed. The farmers who had struggled to grow the tiniest protato, who had broken their backs and banks with substitutes, those sick of the sun, who toiled in the city, who’s skin shrivelled and collapsed in droves. It was all together they cheered and it became a chorus that broke the planet or so they say. 

I didn’t hear it.

The next day was hot again.

So it is today, I, Esme Roi, think I’m fed up with this life. I’m fed up of just every day where something seems right, that moment where I worked up the courage to ask Rekhen out and that day where I cheered in being made Sith Tarimra’s Apprentice, that day I clawed the smallest compliment, the most meagre of respects from a Master I wished so, just so, much to please. The moments where I think just for a moment, I’ve finally found where I belong, my place, my power, my respect. 

I have beaten odds, survived where no man should survive! I have challenged, stood up in those dire moments of my life where nothing seemed right where I will scream, I am here! I am alive! I stand for something! 

The next day is hot again.

It burns. It burns so much.

The next day I cried in the rain without friends or allies.

The next day I am helpless and kidnapped.

The next day I surrender and in doing so, I betray my Master.

The next day Sith Tarimra is dead.

You know, he told me, he told me I could be shaped. He told me I could gleam and he promised me a place, a place where I could just be at his side, listen and do. He asked me for loyalty and I said yes, I offered him my all, everything I’ve got, everything I could hope to give to him and then he just goes and dies on me. I warned him against Zikarn, I warned him, but he didn’t listen, he just didn't. Maybe if I had been stronger, maybe if he’d looked upon me and saw someone worth looking at, I could have convinced him, I should have convinced him, I… just, I don’t know, what is it worth to be an Apprentice without a Master, who do I surpass? Who do I go to when I haven’t a clue anymore. I’m lost and you’re a legend now, my Master.

Who do I go to when the next day comes?

I don’t want there to be a next day, that’s why I’m… I can’t even say it, he’s dead and I can’t say it, I can’t do it, I can’t think it, I can’t write it, I’m just such a pathetic coward deep down, pride, loyalty, love, I fought for them all and I can’t even take the step to die with him.

The ancient Sith were buried with their slaves.

Tombs are cold.

In them you can never burn again.

I just don’t want to burn again. I know deep down that unlike you I will never ever fly as high or burn so bright, never bright enough for the burns to be worth it and without you in my life, I will burn on every day to come.

I wanted to hear you sing, just once, just one last time, yeah, I admit it, I heard you Master, I don’t think you knew, I don’t know if you wanted it, if this was you before you ascended, at your weakest or strongest, I don’t know what it meant to you and now I never will. I will never have the opportunity to ask, to know you as something more. I threw my chances away, I blew those cold days on nothing but wasted time. I know I want back, now you’re gone. 

I will never know you, never as a friend, never as someone deeper than what we had, I don’t even know if you ever really cared for me, as a servant, as anything but as a Master, you were everything to me. I would have done anything if only you’d asked, if only you’d asked when we had days left to spare. But now you’ve just gone off and made yourself a legend.

You are a legend now. 

Keeping that alive is why I’m alive.

But I don’t want it.

I didn’t want you to pay the price.

I don’t want a legend, I don’t want a legacy, I just want my Master back.

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