Rain drifted over the roof of the tent, a peaceful sound, but Kellaro knew danger lurked in darkness. The Mandalorian lay on his back, his blaster on his chest, staring into space. Sleep was a long way off, even though his little sister Makkia had drifted off long ago in the cot beside him. It was partly for her sake he stayed awake to keep watch, but also partly because of a nightmare. He thought he had seen Brant being swallowed by darkness, and when he woke, he heard noises outside the tent that did not come from the storm.
As if punctuated by that thought, the definite crunch of a human footstep landed mere yards away from the tent flap. Kellaro rose up from the cot, all his focus oriented towards the entrance. He started his blaster charging, pointing it at the wall of the tent: at the dark shadow he could just make out on the other side of it.
Then Brant walked in.
“Kriff!” said Kellaro, letting his arm drop and almost falling back onto the cot in shock. “You gotta warn me — I was about to — what are you doing here, anyway?”
“Our father,” said Brant sharply, cutting him off. “What was his Sith name?”
“I-what?”
“Sith take new names when they Ascend. There is no mention of a Kyolath in the Sith records, not anywhere, but I know he was one of us! What was his name?”
Kellaro stared. “You came out here in the middle of the night just to ask me that?”
Brant glared at him. Kellaro took the pause in the conversation to look him over. Brant’s robes were hanging on his frame crookedly, strands of hair were escaping the gel-coated slick he usually kept it in. He was also sopping wet from the rain. He looked exactly like he had roused out of a deep sleep and come here directly from the city, seized by some Sith obsession.
“Yeah, I guess you did,” Kellaro muttered.
“I had a dream,” Brant explained hoarsely. “Now tell me!”
Makkia started to stir from the shouting, and Kellaro got to his feet again with a scowl. “Stop yelling, Brant! You’ll wake our sister–”
Brant stared at Makkia for a moment as she turned over in her cot. Her eyes half-opened, blinking up at them, then Kellaro had the faintest hint of something happening, like a slight bend in the tent or a darkening of the air between Brant and Makkia. The little girl then turned over and went back to sleep.
“Y-you did something to her,” said Kellaro, and he couldn’t keep the angry quaver out of his voice.
“I made her sleep,” said Brant. “That was what you were so worried about, yes? So she sleeps. Now tell me!”
“You can’t just go around breaking into other people’s heads like that!” Kellaro snapped back, ignoring the demand. “Even if you do have space magic!”
“It is the Force! Call it by the proper name!”
“SPACE MAGIC!” Kellaro bellowed back defiantly.
“FORCE!”
Makkia slept on.
Kellaro brought up his blaster again, pointing it at Brant grimly. “No more. Turn around and walk out. You can come back in the morning, when you can be… at least somewhat reasonable.”
Brant snarled, glaring at the blaster pointedly. “Now who is putting who in danger?”
“If you have so much space magic, you can dodge,” said Kellaro coolly. He didn’t feel so calm deep inside, though. Bewilderment at his brother’s behavior was beating its wings against the inside of his ribs, and the back of his eyes were prickling.
“Or you could just be cooperative,” Brant snarled. “The name. I need the name.”
“I-I don’t want to give it to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know what you want it for,” Kellaro said gruffly. “You’re going to go digging up the past. You’re going to go getting it in your head that just because Dad did terrible things, means you can too. I’m not letting that happen to our family!”
“Family!” Brant barked derisively. “What family? You are Mandalorian. I am Sith. We will never walk the same path!”
“That doesn’t matter, Brant,” Kellaro said weakly. “We’re brothers. Twins.”
“What twins are there where one has the Force and the other does not?” Brant snapped rebelliously, but he was backing down, Kellaro sensed.
Slowly, in response, Kellaro lowered his weapon. “Why is being a family so hard for you to accept? I know you can get in trouble for being too close to us, but you are a Lord. You can go your own way now, can’t you? If that means being friendly with Mandalorians, living with your own kin, what’s stopping you?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” said Brant sharply.
“Then maybe you should explain it to me.” Kellaro huffed a sigh and flopped back on the cot, loosening the powerpack in the blaster’s grip to prevent a misfire as he dropped it on the floor. He rubbed a hand through his hair, and it came back damp: nervous sweat. Now that the confrontation was over, he was surprised how shaky he felt, his adrenaline finally draining away.
“I still serve my master,” Brant said stonily after a moment. “He is powerful, and he is possessive. He wouldn’t just let me go as you suggest.”
Kellaro sat up. “So he’s keeping you from associating with us?”
Brant looked away. “No.”
Brant habitually kept his emotions under wraps, but Kellaro found him easy to read. In some ways, it was like looking at a mirror. He could sense the confused, nettled feelings, the anger, and the reluctance. “Then what?” Kellaro asked quietly.
Brant shifted, giving in a little more, sitting down at the foot of Kellaro’s cot. “…when I was going through the Sith Academy, everyone expected me to die. I was constantly being told how I weak I was. No one liked me, and I was constantly getting in trouble, beaten, kicked… offered no way out except to embrace more pain. You don’t know what that’s like.”
“Maybe not,” conceded Kellaro slowly, “but what does that have to do with Hu’izei?”
“Darth Hu’izei,” Brant correctly him snappishly. “He is a Dark Councilor. He could have had anyone he wanted as his apprentice, even some of the highest lords in the Empire. His power is secondary only to the Wrath and the Emperor himself. And there he was… Out of all the Sith in that Academy — all of them would have killed to have him as their master — he picked me.”
Kellaro slowly shook his head, though he wasn’t sure what he was denying. “But — why?”
Brant mirrored the head shake, though he hadn’t looked up to see it. “I don’t know. I didn’t even realize who he was at first — just some Cathar trying to get a rise out of me, I thought — but… all that trouble I got in, it didn’t matter to him. He chose me anyway. Yes, he would punish me, make me work for it, but he also protected me. Gave me almost anything I wanted, and for nothing! I was just an apprentice: cannon fodder. Useless. And yet…” His gaze went far away.
Kellaro swallowed, trying to accept the information but instead finding himself choking on it. “Brant… he made you–” He glanced at Makkia and lowered his voice. Even though she was plainly asleep, he never wanted her to know this detail about their parents’ deaths. “–he made you kill Dad.”
“No,” said Brant hoarsely. “Dad did. Kyolath forced my hand.”
“Hu’izei PUT you in that situation! Dad wouldn’t have had to force anything at all if it hadn’t been for that Cathar and his manipulations!” Kellaro shouted.
“You wouldn’t understand!” said Brant. “The pain is to help me learn. I trust him. I trust my master. He would not have made me go to all those lengths, put me in that situation, unless he was trying to show me something! Teach me something important…”
“I don’t think there’s any important lesson to be learned from murdering your own parents,” Kellaro growled.
His words brought a change over Brant. At first so open, the Sith shuddered, his grimace of pain turning to one of malice, and his eyes, brightening to yellow, landed on Kellaro in a glare. “I thought out of all the people who might understand, it’d be you. …but you’re just like all the rest.”
He got up from the cot, passing over to the entrance. Kellaro sensed the rift that had opened up between them: it had always been threatening so, but now it had, and his brother was faster and faster drawing away, falling into the dark, just like in his nightmare.
Kellaro didn’t know what to do. He wished their dad was still around; Kellaro was certain Kyolath would have had an answer. It was the kind of things dads did. You gave them broken toys, faulty blasters, even the shards of a confusing breakup, and they put them back together for you, just so. Even if they couldn’t fix it for you, they could make it okay.
That thought, more than any other, suddenly lit a thought in Kellaro’s head. He couldn’t be Brant’s dad, and he had the glimmering of a thought that that’s what Hu’izei had become to Brant, the bond twisted by pain and fear. Yet it wasn’t perfect. The trust Brant had for the Dark Councilor had wavered in the killing of their parents, and perhaps through that crack… Kellaro saw a glimmer of hope.
“Karkemir. Sun Eater.”
Brant paused, his fingers just brushing the tent flap. He turned his head, but he didn’t look back at Kellaro fully.
“That was his name,” Kellaro said softly. “He came from Serenno. The graves of our forefathers are still there. Maybe they’ll help you understand.”
Brant said nothing, pushing through the tent flap, his footsteps soon melding with the sounds of rain and wind just outside. The tent felt lighter now; even Makkia’s breathing had eased, but Kellaro wasn’t sure at the timing of it. Had it happened because Brant had left, or because of what Kellaro had said to him?
He crossed over to the tent flap and secured it shut, then threw himself on the cot again, making it creak and wobble. After a moment, groaning to himself with his face in his pillow, Kellaro edged over and gently touched Makkia’s shoulder. If he couldn’t be like a brother or dad for Brant, he had to strive to be so to their orphaned sister. She was the last remnant of their clan, Lok’kar — the last thing he could hold onto as family.