D A Y O N E
PROMPTS
Race against the clock | search party | panic attack | “if only we could hold on” (Ieysami x Renagaderrr, Strangers)
How long now, had he been searching the stars…?
Surely longer than was necessary.
Surely longer than was sane.
He walked in long spirals, traveling backwards along the Empire’s path of destruction, pausing in every crumbling port, every ash-caked planet, matching his bootsteps to those of the Soldiers who had come before him. He followed it back, long past his own time, back before the hope of the Empire has guttered out, smashed to pieces upon the grass.
He could still hear the screaming. Still taste the smoke on the air.
He had been young once. A strong Blade in the prime of his life, sworn to protect the shining Daughter, proud and upright. It was that night, he was sure, that that part of him died, ground into the dirt along with the remains of the unhatched rocam nymph the Resistance had murdered. The day was burned into his memory, bright and searing as any iron brand, and the imprint it left was just as unfading. The others may have forgotten… but he had not the luxury.
There had been more than one Daughter egg at that Flight.
But there had only been one casing discovered in the aftermath.
She was somewhere. But where?
At first, he had searched frantically, fervently, retracing every moment, every step, investigating the slightest whisper of golden orbs and stolen jewels, of kidnapped princesses or slaves, or any fool thing that could have been anything, any small grain of the truth. But the years passed and his spiral widened, taking him further and further away from the flotilla. Further and further away from true hope.
Days into weeks.
Weeks into years, into decades, nearly two…
But he couldn’t stop moving. He couldn’t stop looking.
There had to be hope, had to be a reason still, one more tiny shred of purpose still left for him within the confines of the Empire’s life.
They never ordered him to stop searching for her.
In the end, he couldn’t help but think that… they never needed to at all.