Get your ow
n diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

06 June 2022 - 20:26

epilogue and notes

Gonna try and organize my thoughts a bit more on here because my Epilogue outline is already frickin' huge.

After they eat breakfast, Q'Rek'rohr goes back to questioning Maul, but old man doesn't wanna talk about his past. Instead, he steers the topic of conversation back to the prophet's Spiritual Journey. Q'Rek'rohr explains the importance of the trip, and says how he feels the need to go, and then have something to show for it. This is when he explains that he chose to undertake the sacred duty of crafting alasl bowls. Maul knows what that entails and is now more set against it. Q'Rek'rohr says that if he even gets to craft one, he will bring it back to Maul. He feels as though he has never repaid his mentor sufficiently for saving him back in the day. He wants to make alasl because he knows how difficult they are to craft, and he feels that if he accomplishes it, Maul will be proud of him. Maul insists that this isn't necessary, that he is already proud of Q'Rek'rohr.

Q'Rek'rohr is touched and asks Maul to help him come up with a design to engrave on them. As practice, they make paint in order to decorate the cavern walls. Maul, not wanting to adorn the caves on the ground level, for fear that it could accidentally lead intruders to follow the correct path through the tunnels, leads Q'Rek'rohr up to the higher levels until he reaches his den. The two agree to decorate these walls instead. Maul is hoping that by passing the time there, he can convince the Tusken to turn back before they finish the murals. Except it sorta backfires.

While they paint, Q'Rek'rohr asks Maul to explain the various patterns. They are actually the tattoo designs for Icarus, Savage and Feral. Maul ends up telling his student a bit about each one as he recreates their tribal markings onto stone. Fast-forward through all the notes in my outline.

At the end of the day, Q'Rek'rohr is still set on leaving, and shows Maul his demon desert doll. They take some warmer bedding down to K'orli, and sleep together in the floor-level cave again. Only this time, Maul settles in with the Tusken and his bantha willingly and openly. All three cuddle and get a much better night's rest than they had the previous night. Both Maul and Q'Rek'rohr remove their masks to sleep, too, showing their intimate bond. Maul knows that he is the only being, aside from K'orli, to see Q'Rek'rohr's face as an adult. He is honored.

Next morning, they make their brotherhood pact, Maul gets a new Tusken name (Koruru), and gives Q'Rek'rohr his blessing to continue on his way. He walks with the boy all the way to the Teeth, then remains by the boulders and watches until the Tusken fades completely from view. He lets calls out in farewell, and from amidst the sands, Q'Rek'rohr and K'orli answer.

Maul returns to his den and truly takes apart his legs to do proper maintenance. By the time he finishes, it is late afternoon. He works on that armbraid and tries to figure out why he acted in such a vulnerable manner around Q'Rek'rohr, so... needy. He fishes out an old chronometer, trying to calculate the time that it will take his student to complete his pilgrimage and return, and it is in this manner that he realizes the date, and the reason for his unease and subconscious nostalgia: it is Icarus's Naming Day, according to the old thing. Back to the outline notes, yada, yada, flashback.

More nostalgia, and Maul senses Pain is there to see him. It is a bittersweet pain, however, as he has taught himself to let go of his brothers for their own good. He had to let go of Q'Rek'rohr now so the Tusken could grow and become a wiser man, just as he let go of Icarus Bukk decades ago so the Iridonian could live out his life in peace. He wishes good things up into the heavens and howls once the Heavenly Three leer at him from the hole in the ceiling of his cavern.

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! spread the insanity Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!