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The Child did not cry.
He had learned not to after so many years. Though initially it came as a natural response to his wants and needs, the ones that took him for want of money and power swiftly quashed this. The long years of his life spent among enemies found that his cries were either ignored, or met with anger and rougher treatment than normal.
As he learned, he learned not to cry. He had cried for help so many times, but help was not forthcoming, and oftentimes he received the exact opposite for his efforts. When hunger and loneliness ate at him in the darkness, he whimpered to himself, but did not cry out anymore. There was no point.
When his father came into his life, the bleak scape of his life shifted dramatically. Suddenly he was no longer hungry or lonely. His father was there always, and when he dared whimper for food or companionship, he responded with gentleness.
Yet the Child still did not cry. The tears had threatened to come several times as they were faced with perils and danger, but he restrained himself. His father was kind and gentle, but the fear ingrained in him after the years of unresponsiveness or maltreatment lingered in his mind as a dark cloud, and so he kept his emotions to himself.
Until one night.
The Child came awake, his heart pounding. The Dark Men had been pulling him away from his father as they once had before, and he had been powerless to stop it, no matter how loudly he screamed and cried. His father had lain on the floor still as stone, and his spirit had been gone, unable to save him from the Dark Men.
He turned his head, and to his relief, found his father sleeping next to him. It had just been a terrible dream and nothing more.
The Child looked at his father’s face, seeking comfort in it. The helmet was gone, put to the side as they slept in the safety of the ship, and his face held a rare vestige of relaxation, the hard lines found in waking hours softened.
He reached out a shaky hand, fingers stopping a hairsbreadth from his father’s stubbled cheek. He sought comfort; normally the sight of his father was enough to banish all fear he felt, but not this time, and wanted nothing more than to wake him. However, he felt the sting of tears behind his eyes as the horrid images of the dream replayed over and over again in his mind. It had felt so real, and he knew he would not be able to restrain the tears.
He drew his hand away from his father’s face and started making his way to the edge of the bed. Careful not to disturb his father, he lowered himself off and onto the floor. Fortunately, the cabin was dark and there were plenty of crevices for him to hide in.
The first tear rolled down his cheek as he wedged himself behind a couple of crates. He hoped to cry and go back to bed, and his father would never know.
The Child did not cry.
Din learned this swiftly after taking the Child. It greatly perplexed him, for as far as he knew children of every species cried when they were hungry or tired or scared, but his Child did not. He whimpered and whined occasionally, but he had never cried outright. Din did not know whether he should be concerned or not; for all he knew, the Child’s species did not cry, and mere whimpers were how they voiced their discomfort to their parents.
He learned the truth when he came half-awake in the night. Instinctively, he reached out towards the small ball of warmth at his side before sleep claimed him again, but his hand landed on empty space. He felt around for a moment before finding nothing, and opened his eyes fully.
The Child was not in his immediate line of sight, which resulted in an immediate pang of worry. He scanned the length of the bed next to him, but it was empty. Now fully awake, he sat up, checking everywhere on the bed, but he found that he was strangely alone. The Child never left his side during the night, and Din felt panic rising in him.
He pushed himself to the edge of the bed and was about to stand when he heard a sound in the quiet of the ship. He stilled and listened. It was faint and high, interspersed with brief silences, and it took Din a moment to realize that it was crying, and in the same instant he recognized the warbling tones of his Child.
Din’s first thought was that the Child had somehow managed to hurt himself, and he rose swiftly, heading towards the crates on the other side of the room where the sounds were coming from. He leaned over the crates, checking the crevice between them and the wall, and sure enough, the Child was there, somehow seeming even smaller.
“Ad’ika,” Din said, “are you hurt?”
The Child looked up sharply at his father’s face that now loomed over his hiding spot and shrunk down even farther, desperately trying to stem the sobs that threatened to come forth. He had not expected his father to wake.
The sight of his Child’s face stained with tears and snot made Din’s heart drop. He reached towards the kid, but was surprised and horrified when he flinched away from his hands.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, now thoroughly concerned. He had never reacted like that before.
The Child watched his father’s face, expecting anger but only finding worry. He jumped as his father moved one of the crates aside, opening up his hiding spot. Out of instinct, he pressed himself further back into the side of the remaining crate like he had learned to do in his pram.
Din crouched down, eyeing his Child worriedly. He could see no sign of injury, so perhaps it was a case of a nightmare.
The Child sniffled shakily, rubbing a hand across his snotty nose in a vain attempt to clear his airways. Tentatively he reached out in his mind, testing his father’s spirit, but he saw no anger.
“Come out, ad’ika,” Din pleaded. “It’s only me. You know me.” He extended a hand slowly, hoping not to startle the Child and get his point across.
The Child looked at his father’s hand. Though the warnings of past experiences remained in his mind, the offer of comfort from his father was too much for him to resist. After a moment’s pause, he toddled from his hiding place and towards his father.
Din sighed in relief as the Child came towards him. When the little one was within reach, he grabbed him gently and took him into his arms, holding him close, his thundering heartbeat slowing with the contact.
The Child too felt relief in his father’s hold, though the horror of his nightmare still haunted him. Now confident he would not be punished for it, he broke down and cried in earnest without fear for the first time in decades.
Din could only sit there and offer comfort as the Child bawled in his arms, his loud sobs filling the cabin. His concern only grew; the Child had never cried like this before, and he desperately wanted to find the source and alleviate it, but for the moment all he could do was let the kid cry it out as he rocked him gently.
Eventually, the Child’s heavy sobs tapered off into sniffles and whimpers, which Din took as a good time to start talking. He gently pulled the Child away from him so they could look each other in the eyes.
“What happened?” Din asked, staring into the glossy blackness of his Child’s eyes. He knew the kid had nightmares, but he had never reacted in such a way before.
The Child knew his father sought understanding, but he hadn’t the words to offer, so he did the next best thing, which was to reach out to his father’s spirit, which was a cloud of confusion and worry.
Din stiffened as he felt a faint stirring on the edge of his consciousness. He had felt it before, vaguely, and he knew it was the Child using his sorcery, but it had never felt so strong before. He opened his mouth to tell the Child to stop, but faltered when the images came into his head.
Darkness. Hunger. Searing loneliness.
A cry split the silence, for one moment rewarded with the sight of precious, beautiful light.
Then the blow fell.
“Shut up you brat!” a voice snarled, then darkness again.
Another pitiful cry, this time rewarded with a hard ear pull.
“Be quiet!”
Hungry, so hungry, but no one seemed to hear him.
The cries eventually faded away into barely-there whimpers. There was no point in crying; no one would come, and those few that did were full of hate.
And then the nightmare.
The screaming, the faces of Imps as they grabbed at the small body, pulling him away from a beskar-clad body that lay still as he cried and cried…
Din physically recoiled from the images, and the Child pulled away from his father’s mind, sensing his need to get away. The man sagged back against the wall, breathing heavily, desperately trying to process all he had seen as the Child waited.
It took Din several moments to work things out in his head. He had come to the realization some time ago that the Child had been abused by those who had held him before, but it never had occurred to him that it would be so terrible as to prevent the Child from crying. And the nightmare…that had been the catalyst for the Child’s breakdown tonight, and he wondered how many times the kid had cried in secret without him knowing.
Finally he looked down at the Child, jointly horrified and relieved at this newfound knowledge. Horrified because he knew just how much the little one had suffered, but relieved that he now knew and could do his best to do better.
“I’m sorry, ad’ika,” he said at last, his words strangled. “I’m so sorry.”
The Child leaned forward, pressing his damp face into his father’s neck. He felt lighter, better now that he had let go of the fear and emotional weight that he had carried for so long. His father was different, so different, and he loved him.
“It’s okay to cry,” Din said, now speaking out of guilt for not realizing his Child’s plight. “It’s okay, I promise. I’ll always be there when you need me. I’m sorry for not knowing. I’ll do better.”
The Child felt his father’s guilt and sorrow, so he reached out again.
Din felt the Child’s sorcery in his mind, but this time it was different. It was a feeling that was not his own that took him a moment to realize what it was. It was love, warm and all-consuming and unconditional.
Din swallowed hard, having never considered the scope of the Child’s affection towards him, and now that he felt it, he felt wholly undeserving.
“I’ll always take care of you,” he promised, not caring if the Child understood his words or not. “You can cry, you can be angry, and I’ll always be there for you. I swear it.”
The Child held onto his father tighter. He did not know his words well, but he felt the resolve, the commitment in his spirit.
“I—” Din stopped himself, almost backing down from speaking the words that came forth in his mind, but forced himself to continue. “I love you.”
The Child felt the warmth surround them both, and he pulled his face away from his father’s neck to look into his father’s eyes. Those words were important—his father’s spirit and the softer expression on his face told him so.
He smiled and reached up, touching his father’s cheek. The nightmare now seemed like a distant memory; all the maltreatment he had suffered did amidst the warmth of love.
“Da,” he said, and leaned against his father’s shoulder, suddenly feeling quite tired.
“Go to sleep cyar’ika,” Din said, rocking him gently. “I’ll be here.”
The Child let his eyes close, never having felt so light before. He fell asleep as his father murmured an old lullaby, and he did not dream. But even if he cried, if he woke in terror, he had the promise of love from his father, and he rested in that.
“Go to sleep, go to sleep, my good boy, go to sleep…”