Starlight

Night lay awake staring at a white ceiling. His armor was gone along with the shreds of his under shirt. His entire torso was bandaged. He had been awake for the better part of the hour. He winced as he propped himself up. The room he was in was white and a short row of beds extended to his left and right. His spare lightsaber lay on the dresser beside him. He smiled and lay back in the small bed. It had all been a dream, he thought. Reality came crashing in when he heard footsteps, or more specifically hoof-steps. He slid the lightsaber underneath the sheets and slowed his breathing to a crawl. The horse creature walked in to Night’s bedside. He heard it gasp a little. It left the room for a second, then sprinted back in.

“Ohh… You were just fine a few minutes ago, what changed?”

Night whispered back to the creature,

“I wasn’t awake when you checked earlier.”

It tried to rear back, but Night grabbed it by the throat and ignited his lightsaber.

“You have about ten seconds to start talking before I start cutting, clear?”

“Wh- what do… do you want to know?”

Sharp pain raced up Nights’ side. He stumbled back and fell to the floor. The creature in front of him now looked concerned.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! I just need to…”

The sentence trailed off as Night used the Force to scan through his body. He winced,

“Something feels… different. Like there’s something missing. What did you do?”

“Well during the surgery there were some… complications. Your side wouldn’t stop bleeding so we looked and found what was causing it. Some sort of organ. We couldn’t sew it up so we cut it out and patched the rest of you up. We didn’t know if it was important or not, but you seemed to stabilize after so we thought…”

Night clutched his side.

“Was it sort of small? A bit round?”

The creature nodded

“We still have it if you…”

Night shook his head.

“You cut out my appendix you twit.”

“Is that bad?”

“Only if I want to digest raw meat ever again. But that’s okay, didn’t want to survive in the wild anyway.”

He laughed at his joke, but it turned into a cough which turned into a splatter of blood across the floor. The creature ran to his side. Night looked at it over his shoulder.

“You some kind of doctor?”

It shook its head

“No I’m just an orderly.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Everypony just calls me Orderly Brown”

“Every…?”

“Pony?”

Night shook his head.

“Never mind, let’s get out of here orderly Brown.”

“What? We can’t leave; the princess is on her way down!”

“Look, there is a reason I got to where I am. I was running and got myself gutted. I intend to keep running until I can find someplace to think.”

“But-but…”

The door opened, interrupting the orderlies’ sentence. The first thing Night saw was the same white pony he had been chased by.

“Oh son of a…”

With a Force push she flew backwards and the door slammed behind her. Night stacked the beds in front of the door. Orderly Brown gaped at him.

“You just slammed the door in front of the princess!”

Night walked to the center of the room and plunged his lightsaber into the floor. He looked up towards Brown.

“You know how I said I was being chased? Well, that’s who was chasing me!”

By this point Night was halfway through the semi-circle he was carving through the floor. The door blew open, scattering the bed barricade. One of the beds flew right towards where Night was cutting.

“Oh, sh-..”

The bed knocked him backwards, leaving the lightsaber in the floor. He collided with the wall and fell to the floor. He coughed and hacked while holding his side. Brown ran over and scowled in the general direction of the door.

“Now look what you buffoons have done! He was speaking in full sentences before you came in here! Now look at him!”

“Been talking in complete sentences since I was three, don’t play me off as stupid.” Night grumbled

“Hush, that’s not helping.”

“Don’t care; help is the last thing I need.”

A different voice replied,

“It looks like you need all the help you can get.”

“Yeah, okay princess.”

Orderly Brown looked at him inquisitively,

“How did you know that was the princess?”

Night face palmed

“I was being sarcastic. I didn’t actuall-. You know what? Who cares?”

Night pulled himself up and faced the so called ‘princess’. He counted about twenty guards, two of which were poking at his lightsaber. He sighed and pulled the hilt towards him. Spears were pointed at his chest in a heartbeat. He raised his hands.

“It’s better that I’m holding it then you poking at it. So hold your hor-..”

He let the sentence trail off. He reached to clip the saber to his belt to find it was gone.

“Might I ask where my belt is? Or better yet, my shoes and armor? And why take my watch? It wasn’t hurting anything. Might I …”

One of the guards cleared its throat.

Night cast his gaze towards the ponies before him.

“Right, talking with a princess. So, what do you want?”

The princess cocked an eyebrow.

“What do I want?”

Night leaned against the wall behind him in an attempt to appear calm. Good thing I’m not wearing a shirt right now, he thought, I would have sweat clean through it.

“Yes, what do you want?  You captured me, chased me through a city, wounded me, and then preformed a hare-brained surgery to save my life. That’s an awful lot of trouble just to let me go. So I’m asking; what do you want?”

“I just want to talk.”

“Talk? You just want to TALK?”

He shoved off the wall and stopped right in front of her face.

“You did all of this, killed my friends and then went through all this trouble, to talk with me!”

Something punched him in the side. He fell to one knee. Over him stood one of the guards.

“You’ll think twice before you speak to the princess that way.”

“Will I now?”

Night shoved him against the wall. Igniting his lightsaber Night held it an inch from the guards throat.

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t end you, right here, right now.”

The room held its breathe in a tense silence. The princess stiffened.

“Put him down.”

“Or what?” turning back to the guard Night said, “You have my answer yet? I’m not a very patient man.”

A yellow aura surrounded Night. He dismissed it with a wave of the hand. The guards brought their spears to bear around him. He ignored them. He stared into the guards eyes.

“You are pathetic; I’ve killed scum for less. I would be doing this planet a favor by ending you.”

All of his anger drained from his body. His lightsaber clicked off and clattered to the floor. His eyes widened at the prospect of what he had been about to do. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a window. He ducked under the spears at his back and crashed through the window. He grabbed the nearest ledge and swung underneath it. He held himself in place and willed himself invisible to the naked eye. He watched the guards spread from the room to look for him.

He watched the princess fly through the window.

“Why do you keep running? What are you afraid of?”

He willed himself visible and sent her a mental note.

“I’m afraid of hurting those who don’t deserve it. I don’t know what happened back there but you’re right. We do need to talk. In private.”

She spun around towards his hiding spot. He nodded towards the broken window and began to scale the wall towards it. He was almost to the edge when two things happened at once. His side shot a bolt of pain up his side. He put a hand over the bandages. The second thing was that his other hand hold broke. Night fell backwards off of the wall. He tried to slow his descent to find that his Force reserves were gone. He reached for the wall and his arm caught on a ledge. He heard a snap but he stopped falling. He pulled himself over the ledge and looked at the now longer climb he had to pull off.

Night grunted and wheezed as he pulled himself through the window. Pulling the climb off with only one arm had been more difficult than he had imagined. All of the guards had returned by the time he crawled through the window. Not one had asked if he needed help. Well if I had watched someone threaten one of my soldiers I would love to watch them struggle, he thought.

He laid down in the pile of broken glass at the foot of the window. Orderly Brown rushed over.

“Are you okay?”

Night looked at him with pure amazement.

“I just insulted your leader, threatened to kill someone because they punched me and then shattered a window to try and escape. Why would you check if I was alright? Wouldn’t you want to grab a pitchfork and attack with an angry mob?”

“No, why would I want to do that?”

Night surprised the entire room by laughing.  Brown looked at him like he was crazy.

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head? This is a huge change from a few minutes ago.”

“No, no, I’m fine. It’s just that you remind so much of my friend John. You two are identical.”

His laughter subsided and his face fell.

“Or at least, were identical.”

“Why were?”

“I lost him recently, too recently.”

Night stood.

“But let’s not dwell on that. We have work to do.”

He propped his arm against the wall.

“By the way, you might want to cover your ears. This is going to hurt.”

“Wait, what are you…”

Night shoved his arm against the wall. It slipped into the socket. Everyone flinched at his scream, but then after a second the pain subsided and he tested the shoulder.

“Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk.