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Scorch stood at the sink and stared into the mirror. His face had become the face of a stranger. It wasn’t that he had changed much visibly; he looked still mostly the same, but it was about how he felt.
Everything had changed. Sev was gone. The Jedi were gone. The Republic was gone. Half of Omega Squad was gone. Everything had changed, and so had Scorch.
He studied his face, the permanent frown between his brows that hadn’t been there a year ago. This realisation made him frown even more. Other than that, it was the same old face that had always been his, the same old face he’d grown up surrounded by.
He raised his hand, touching what had set him apart from his brothers for years: the tight and knotted tissue of the burn scar covering much of the left half of his face. He traced it with his fingers, feeling the texture under his fingertips. He couldn’t feel the fingers on his face, though, as the skin covering the old wound was entirely numb.
Over the years of their training and throughout the war, they all had collected their fair share of scars, each one telling a story.
He took the wet piece of cloth from the sink and started cleaning his face, eyes closed. In his memory, he could still feel the pain on his face he had felt when he had burned it. The memories were as clear as if it hadn’t been more than a couple of weeks since it happened.
During an exercise in the infamous Death House on Kamino, he had pushed the detonator a fragment of a second too early, because he wanted to get his brothers out of the danger zone ASAP. It had damaged and blown off his helmet. Their training gear hadn’t been as good as the Katarn-class suits they were issued later.
Yes, he remembered that day very well. The way Sev had abandoned his sniper position to drag him to relative safety. His brother had disobeyed Sergeant Vau’s orders to do so. You didn’t disobey Vau without consequence. Scorch hadn’t been the only one gaining a scar that day. His fingers twitched towards his right cheekbone.
Good old Sev. Today marked one year since Scorch had last seen him. Since that fateful mission on Kashyyyk. Since they had lost him.
They all bore scars. The worst ones were not worn on skin.
He swallowed. MIA, not KIA, he reminded himself. As long as he didn’t have concrete proof of his brother’s death, he considered Sev to be still alive.
The cloth hit the water in the sink with a soft splash.
He took a deep breath, and his fingers curled around the handle of the razor. No, he refused to believe that Sev was dead. And one day, he would have to go looking for him, no matter what the Empire thought his place in the galaxy was supposed to be.
But he couldn’t do that just yet. One didn’t just run off from Imperial service. But what he could do was to make a promise.
His fingers were shaking when he raised his hand to his face. The razor blade was cool and sharp, and he barely felt it when it dragged over his cheekbone, drawing blood, bringing the scar on his heart to show on his skin. And echoing his brother’s face, the brother he so much longed to see.
He lowered the knife, staring into his own eyes. The wound was burning. With one hand, he covered his burn scar. His eyes wandered to the fresh cut, mirroring the one that Sev had sustained after rescuing him.
“I am going to find you, ner vod. I promise. I swear. Ni draar gar ven’digu. ”