January 2022 Event Overflow

[reddosmod]

JANUARY 2022 EVENT OVERFLOW

OVERFLOW POST for the JANUARY 2022 EVENT

Comments

[rosae]

The way the boy flinches from her touch breaks her heart. It's so painfully clear how he's been hurt, and it wrenches inside of her, that awareness. And then, suddenly, he's crying and she's giving a soft, alarmed gasp, eyebrows lifting. "Oh—"

A pair of little arms are around her, holding on tightly, body pressing itself into her. Rose doesn't even have to think about it; her own arms slide securely around him, welcoming him against her. It's natural, like instinct, to hold the shaking child that way. She'd never shirk back from a child that needed her.

"It's all right, sweetie. I've got you," she says softly, warmly, though her own voice is thick with emotion. She swallows again, hard, eyes glossing over. She lets him cry like that, holds the small body to hers; he can cry as he needs to.

"I won't let anyone hurt you now." She doesn't know why the man is a child now or how long it will last, but that doesn't matter right now. She'll take care of him herself.

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul just continues to cry and cry, the miseries of the last three years of his life that he's been suppressing for so long coming up to the surface. He hasn't been held like this in years, not since his mother Talzin would hold him close like this after he had a bad dream or had fallen down, getting hurt as he played rambunctiously with his brother or some of the other kits. Knowing love has made going through what Sidious has done to him all the worse, for Maul knows he deserves better than what he's been given.

Rose says all the right words as she holds him close and it gives the little Zabrak the catharsis he needs. He soaks the fabric of Rose's coat plain through before he's done. Eventually, the sniffles and sobs begin to peter out, leaving him drained. He steps back, rubbing at his eyes, and Rose will notice there's been a change to the color of them. Instead of the bright gold that come with the eyes of a Sith who is angry, they are now brownish-grey, the normal color they should be.

"I'm sorry I cried." Even now, he can't quite escape the habit of apologizing for having the normal reactions a child his age should be having the way he would if he was around Sidious. "I just got really sad for a while." That's the understatement of the century.

He looks around. Right now, he's too mentally drained to want to play any longer but there's still something else he needs to address. "I'm hungry. Can you help me find something to eat?"

[rosae]

She lets him cry as long as he needs; she won't move at all. She'd stay there all afternoon, all night, if he needed. And when those little sniffles begin to wane, and the little boy takes that step back, Rose is still holding onto his shoulders, gently, looking down at him. She does notice the shift to his eyes, something she makes a serious note of, in regards to his older self. But for now—

"No, it's all right. You should never have to be sorry for crying, or for feeling. It's okay to be sad." She says gently, palms giving his small shoulders a soft squeeze. One of her hands moves up to cup his face, the pad of her thumb brushing tenderly back against a damp cheek. "I get really sad sometimes, too."

Then, slowly, the woman is standing, a small smile touching her face. "I can absolutely help with that. I was just about to start dinner, as a matter of fact. Maybe you can come over to my house, and help me? Would you like that?"

She reaches for his hand, where she'll lead him through the snow back towards her cottage home, a small but cosy little place.

"And maybe after that, we can have some hot chocolate. There's nothing like hot chocolate on a snowy day, right?"

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul looks up at Rose in amazement. "You do? Grown-ups get sad like that too?" He's never seen any of the adults in his life show that particular kind of emotion openly on the surface. Nightbrothers were taught to be tough and strong, while his mother and his master both seemed incapable of ever feeling that vulnerable to his small mind.

He hesitates for a moment before he tentatively reaches out and takes Rose's hand, trotting through the snow alongside her.

"I don't know," Maul says pensively. "I've never had hot chocolate." In this instance, it wasn't the malice of his master that has prevented Maul from tasting the drink, it was just the fact he's never been in a place before in his short life where it was popular to drink. Zabrak are carnivorous and his taste buds are more suited to finding savory things delicious than those which are sweet the way humans do.