“I’ll do what you never could, teacher. I already saw it, in a dream.”
A long pause, the silver-haired man peering to the child with stern eyes.
“Why?”
He couldn’t muster much more. One’s last breaths are sacred, but it seems that spending them on interrogating a child is worth such air.
“Because everyone was smiling in my dream! The hero saved them all, and they couldn’t stop smiling.”
Another pause.
“Was the hero smiling, Solomon?”
The child’s joyful expression breaks for a moment, looking away from the bedridden elder.
“No. He can’t smile anymore. He gave all his smiles to save them.”
Solomon was on his knees in his home, cool tones of blues lighting the stonework. It wasn’t much, but it was a safe place for him, where he could escape. The barely audible trickling of fountains echoes through the few rooms. His eyes were shut, but there was no darkness. No fear. Only the Force, enhancing his other sense.
There was a sickening sweetness in the air, the faint smell of an electric spark, as he kneeled in the meditation room. It was distant and older, reminiscent of someone who was no longer there, but had lived within the walls for a time.
“I wonder if he smiled, in the end?”
A deep breath escaped his throat as he visualized the paradise planet, uncharted and distant, with a crystal cluster planted and undisturbed. Free. Unbothered and pure. His eyes betray a pair of tears as he stands and takes a deep breath. He lets a cigarra burnout in an incense holder, rubbing at his face.
“It won’t be for nothing, Sheriff. I’ll make sure that your smile was not wasted. Rest well, Hero.”