May the Manda’kyrja welcome you. May they sing your name with love and fury, so that we may know that you’ve taken your rightful place among the worthy.
“Come with me, fallen warrior, for you are chosen.
I do not choose the perfect, nor the unafraid. I choose those who, despite their fear, give themselves to the truth of who they are. That is courage, that is what it means to be mando’ad, and it is eternal.”
- The mission was to create Maycher in Halloween costumes. I failed the mission, but I like where this derailment landed anyway. Some sort of Norse/viking costume/ SW crossover travesty. 😊 In ancient Mandalorian culture, the Manda’kyrja were Valkyrie-like spirits who ferried the souls of the chosen fallen to the Manda (afterlife). Raven/Ice vulture hybrid added for good measure.
@febuwhump day 14 prompt
~3800 words
Characters: Crosshair/Mayday
Read Here on AO3
Synopsis: When Crosshair starts exhibiting alarming symptoms, he would rather hide than examine why they began and what must be done to save his life.
With gorgeous art by the amazingly talented @letshareapapou! Go view the full panel HERE and scream about how awesome it is!! <3
Hanahaki disease (Japanese: 花吐き病, Hepburn: Hanahaki-byō; lit. flower-vomiting disease) is a fictional disease characterized by the growth of flowers in the body as a result of unrequited love.
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The first time Crosshair woke to find delicate, blush-coloured petals on his pillow, he put it down to a prank by his siblings and proceeded to spend the rest of the day planning how he was going to exact his revenge.
And being seized by a coughing fit that saw him hack up a solitary, sodden petal was no cause for alarm – he had probably inhaled the damn thing by accident, it had been a blustery day on the island after all. Chewing awkwardly to try and rid his mouth of the taste and texture of the thing, he flicked the offending flora to the ground and went about his business.
He only started to worry when the he spat out the first fully formed bloom – stem, stamen and all –when he thought he had been trying to clear his throat from a mouthful of dinner swallowed the wrong way.
“You okay, Cross?” asked Wrecker, radiating genuine concern, hand still raised ready to thump him on the back again if needed.
All Crosshair could do was stare at the crushed and lifeless flower in his hand, fingers trembling in a loose cage about it whilst phlegm and saliva pooled in his palm.
“Not hungry,” he muttered abruptly, standing so quickly that his chair clattered to the floor as he fled.
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The petals clearly weren’t going away, but that didn’t stop Crosshair from doing his best to ignore them. It was a discomfort to be borne, like so much else in his life had been. He was a soldier, and elite clone commando trained to withstand the rigours of warfare and worse. He wasn’t about to admit that he was choking up maker-damn flowers of all things.
Asking for advice seemed like weakness, or torture, or perhaps both. Crosshair resolutely kept his new, embarrassing secret to himself and did everything he could to hide it from the others.
He would endure the way the scratchiness of his throat grew worse with each passing day. The occasional cough that couldn’t be repressed was carefully orchestrated so that he could wipe away the evidence of petals on his lips before anyone noticed.
When, after a time, those subterfuges were no longer enough, he resorted each morning to fishing about in his throat to clear out as much of the offending foliage as possible before the day ahead. It was awkward, missing his dominant hand, and he often make himself gag with a mis-aimed jab towards the tender back of his throat. Those accidental scrapes and grazes were nothing compared to the revulsion of retching up entire bouquets of pink petals, his ribs aching with the effort of it.
He would have suspected himself of hallucinating, if it weren’t for the seemingly never-ending supply of plant mulch he was relegating to the compost bin. Each time he cracked the lid and peeked in, the previous day’s shameful discards were there as well.
The plants on their small balcony garden weren’t even blooming. It was only a matter of time before one of the others questioned the growing layer of floral decay atop the rest of the plant trimmings and waste.
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Alone one night, the fingers of his off-hand trembled slightly as he typed in a quick search of the holo-net for symptoms like this, and then just as quickly shut it. He could imagine plenty.
It was getting hard to breathe, every inhale rustling like the sigh of air through a midnight garden. He was convinced he could feel the petals lining his throat, fluttering with each slow, laboured breath, as he panted as shallowly as he dared so as not to disturb the flower-garden that seemed to be twisting ever-wilder in his chest.
When his fearful imagination whispered at him that this would be some plant, some spore, from the living jungles on Tantiss, he shut down. He couldn’t bear to think of that place.
It was killing him, the creeping vines and the shortness of breath, but confronting the past would kill him too, and that was what he would be made to do if he told his brothers now. So he kept his secret: suffering was preferable to being forced to remember his time on Tantiss.
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It was during one of Tech and Phee’s frequent returns to the island that he finally collapsed.
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"You should have come to me sooner." Shep harboured a worried frown, tugging anxiously at his lower lip as he circled Crosshair who was perched on the edge of the table in the Archivum. "I've never seen a case this advanced – only read of it in the histories."
In response, Crosshair coughed up a pitiful lungful of crushed petals, and glared fiercely at the island head.
"But what is it?" pressed Tech, presenting his datapad. "Scans show that Crosshair's lungs and airways are full of these growths, but no other Pabu resident is affected. Surely an airborne pathogen would have affected more of the population than just him."
Shep sighed, a heavy hand lowering Tech's datapad without having looked at it. "This is no common pathogen," he explained gently. "In the legends, it is called the Weeping Maya Disease."
"Been spendin' too much time in that tree," said Wrecker with a jovial nudge, but his humour died at Shep's continued serious expression.
"I have seen galaxy-wide searches undertaken to find the cure for the disease," said Shep sagely. "But given Crosshair's condition, I don't know how much time he has left."
"What are the ingredients of the cure?" asked Tech immediately. "Perhaps it is something that we can synthesise here on the island–”
Shep was shaking his head whilst the engineer was still talking. "You don't understand," he said gently. "Let me explain.
"The legend of the Weeping Maya Tree states that if you stand beneath the boughs of the tree with the one you love, yet you do not confess your feelings to them, you will be struck by the Maya's Curse - the so-called Weeping Maya Disease. Maya petals will bloom in the victim's chest and throat until they either confess their love, or suffocate…" At the alarmed looks around him, Shep quickly held up placating hands. "But there are no known stories of it being fatal! Usually once the attraction has been confessed and reciprocated, the symptoms recede almost immediately."
"Confessed?" said Hunter with an amused eyebrow quirk, and "Reciprocated?" Crosshair echoed in dismay.
Tech merely rolled his eyes and turned to scan Crosshair with his datapad again.
"An unlikely legend made up to explain the symptoms of some unknown infection," he declared, "most probably caused by a fungal spore or the like harboured in the tree's bark or leaves. We shall find a cure."
"With all respect," said Shep gently, "this is an ancient tale. If there were some common cause, a cure would have been found by now." He glanced at Crosshair again, giving him a sympathetic smile. "Judging by how advanced Crosshair's condition is, I'd say he's been harbouring these feelings for some time."
Crosshair's cheeks flushed as crimson as the weeping maya petals, and Wrecker grinned and thumped him on the shoulder.
"So who've you got a crush on?" he boomed, unperturbed by Shep's dire warnings.
Multiple pairs of eyes swivelled to Hunter, who held up his hands defensively.
"Hey, it's not me," he protested. "Crosshair and I sorted our shit out long ago."
"Go back to the bit about it being requited." Crosshair’s voice was a rasp that had him spitting more broken petals free from behind clenched teeth.
Shep hesitated, then spread his hands in a helpless gesture.
"If the victim's misfortune is such that they confess their love, and it is not returned, then the disease will continue to progress. There is a surgical option…" He hesitated on the words. "But that comes with its own complications."
"What complications?" hissed Crosshair.
"It is said that by forcibly removing the weeping maya petals, the sufferer's heart is removed along with it. They can never love again."
For a moment, silence hung in the room. Then Wrecker spoke.
"Sounds like we need to find you someone to confess your love to," he said, not quite able to hide his delight.
"I'd rather die," deadpanned Crosshair in retort.
"You may well do if we do not take some action to avert the course of the disease," said Tech matter-of-factly. "Your lung capacity is reduced and you are struggling to eat. You cannot go on like this, Crosshair."
"Watch me," spat the sniper, easing himself off the table with a grimace and shoving past his brothers. "And don't follow me," he warned, as he stalked back outside into the blazing Pabu sun.
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Crosshair's condition continued to deteriorate.
He'd heard clones addicted to deathsticks hacking up their lungs every morning, and imagined that tarry experience must still be more tolerable than this. No matter how much he coughed, forcing the motion long past the point there was enough strength in his body to sustain it, the torment was never-ending. His diaphragm spasmed uncontrollably, wracking him with hiccups which clogged his airways with tiny blossoms. Velvety petals cloyed inside his throat, choking him until his ribs heaved, dry-retching, to try and clear them.
Though his family tried to coax him to part with the secret of who he harboured unrequited affection for, Crosshair’s stubbornness only increased with each attempt. Being suffocated by flower petals was awful. Confessing how he felt and having to live with the repercussions – having to confront the fact that his latent feelings weren’t returned – was intolerable.
At least it wasn’t a lingering after-effect of Tantiss.
He’d kept it to himself all this time; there was no point changing course now. It was bad enough that the ridiculous ‘Maya’s Curse’ had alerted his family to the fact he liked someone, but he didn’t have to put himself through the humiliation of baring his soul for them to scrutinise.
Most uncomfortable was that it was forcing him to confront for himself just how deep those feelings ran. It had been much easier to sideline and ignore the fluttering in his chest when it hadn’t been accompanied by cascades of vomited maya blossoms.
They still spoke infrequently via com. Crosshair made excuses not to appear in the holo display. He blamed his hoarse breathing and frequent coughing fits as ‘allergies’, and was teased in return about how clones don’t get allergies.
Despite it all, it made him smile. And then loathe himself all the more when the call ended and he reminded himself, again, how they were just friends.
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The only time his conviction wobbled was when Omega rested her head on his shoulder after their morning meditations, slipping her hand into his one remaining one as she kept her gaze resolutely on the horizon.
“Is telling this person how you feel really such a bad thing?”
Crosshair hesitated, then shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter. They don’t feel the same way.”
It was painful to say aloud, and he didn’t think he could have told his brothers. Omega though, wouldn’t think less of him. His beautiful, mature sister would understand.
“Will you consider the surgery?” she asked, and she was good at keeping her voice steady, but she was still a kid. Crosshair’s heart wasn’t so hardened that he couldn’t parse the meaning behind the question.
It was the first time one of them had asked him openly about the alternative. Hunter, Shep, Phee – even Tech – had been needling him for weeks about who they needed to summon for him to speak with. He couldn’t have a simple conversation with another islander without Wrecker jumping in and asking if this was the one.
Crosshair squeezed her hand gently, resting his cheek in turn atop her blonde curls.
“And risk not being able to love you?” he said, his voice a breath of affection. Things he could only say because no-one else was here. Things he could only whisper to the horizon. “No.”
“Isn’t that better than dying?”
The emotion in her voice made him falter. Death had been a constant threat his whole life, and he was completely ambivalent about it. He had forgotten what it was like to care more for the alternative.
A dry cough wracked him, and he freed his hand to pull a large petal from between his lips. He turned it this way and that, watching it catch the silver-gold light of sunrise.
Time was slipping away.
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Tech was on the Providence with Phee, having successfully liberated another ancient wonder, when the call came in.
“Echo. How can I help?”
The cyborg clone looked worried, as the secure line from rebellion base flickered and then stabilised.
“We’ve got a problem, and I was hoping you might be able to find the answer.”
Tech leaned forwards in his seat, already calling up an additional display.
“Would you like to transfer the files for me to review?”
“It’s not that kind of problem,” said Echo. “One of our men is sick. I was wondering if you would be able to identify the cause and find a cure.”
A slight frown furrowed Tech’s brow. Medical research was well within his remit, though it was not a skill he was usually called upon to utilise, not when the rebellion had the Kaminoan droid AZI-3 with its encyclopaedic knowledge of clone physiology.
“It’s Mayday,” Echo said, as scan results appeared on Tech’s screen. “I don’t know if he was exposed to some sort of spore. The rest of us are fine, but his armour isn’t in the best condition and I don’t know if the environmental seals failed–”
“I know exactly what needs to be done,” Tech interrupted, with a faint, triumphant smile. “You should meet us at Pabu.”
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When Crosshair heard that Echo would be visiting with Mayday, he did what he did best – he made himself scarce.
It was easy enough. Pabu Island wasn’t large, but it was convoluted, full of winding streets and sheltering outcrops and isolated caves and bays which the sniper could explore whilst his communicator remained resolutely left back at the house, switched off.
His enhanced eyesight and training at spotting far-off threats served him well also. He would be alert to any search-party long before they had a hope of reaching him, and could slip away without being noticed.
He wasn’t hiding, he told himself. Just. Avoiding an uncomfortable situation. Echo’s layovers were usually short-lived affairs, so he’d only have to spend one night, maybe two, away from home.
All the time, he cursed his ill-luck that it was Mayday with him this time. Why couldn’t it be Howzer, or Gregor or Rex who had accompanied him back to the island?
Usually he would jump at the chance to spend even the smallest amount of time with the Commander who had saved him on the Barton IV outpost. But then usually, he wasn’t retching up crushed flower-blossoms from some stupid ancient curse he had no hope of breaking.
The others were bound to mention his illness to Echo and Mayday. And then there would be no hiding and Crosshair simply wasn’t ready to face that situation.
So avoid him it was. Wait it out until they left, and Crosshair could go back to dying of a broken heart in peace.
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“You’re a tough one to pin down.”
Crosshair startled from his position lounging in the boughs of the Weeping Maya tree. He hadn’t meant to drift off into his own thoughts – how he couldn’t help but admire the swollen, perfume-heavy blossoms even as they clogged his lungs and threatened death with every laboured breath.
Glancing down through the branches, he found himself looking into the upturned face of a bearded clone, a little older than him, longish hair swept back from his temples whilst a beard always just this side of unruly framed a wry smile.
“Will you come down here so we can talk?”
Dread pooled a chill pit in Crosshair’s stomach. There was no avoiding this – he was well and truly caught. Going to speak with Mayday would betray everything he had worked so hard to hide. Fleeing would fracture even the bond of friendship they had, the thing Crosshair had consoled himself with for so long when he couldn’t have more.
Reluctantly, he slithered from his perch, taking his time as he made his way down through the branches with a heavy sense of inevitability.
Mayday merely waited patiently, that same relaxed smile painting his face as he tracked Crosshair’s progress through the tree. At the last, lowest branch, he raised a hand to help the sniper down, and Crosshair’s heart seized as he took it to allow himself to be helped to the floor.
Standing on the grassy pedestal around the base of the tree, the sunset chirp of birds and moonyos and the chatter of island life receded until the moment contained just the two of them.
A cough snagged in Crosshair’s lungs and he swallowed it, unable to help the discomfort that grimaced across his face. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Flight and freeze warred in his brain, leaving him paralysed as he waited for the other clone to speak.
Mayday cleared his throat to speak, and a single, solitary petal puffed free of his lips and floated serenely to the ground between them.
Crosshair’s gaze tracked the progress of the petal, eyes going wide with disbelief, before he shot his gaze back to Mayday’s face with wild, reckless hope.
The former commander wore a pained smile, rubbing one hand awkwardly through his beard.
“You saw that, huh?” he asked, less a question, more a conversational placeholder. “So, I’ve been told about this legend…”
Crosshair couldn’t have replied if he’d tried. He could feel the maya blossoms swelling in his throat, petals closing off his airways, choking off the question he was so desperate to ask.
Is it me. Could it be me.
Breath wouldn’t come. Each shallow, aborted attempt at an inhale served only to swell his chest and send lancing pain through his ribs, muscles straining as every bud inside his lungs came into bloom at the same time.
Trembling with effort, he forced himself to take a step closer to Mayday. Close enough that he could smell his breath, sweet-scented with nectar, even above the heady pollen of the Maya Tree which surrounded them.
“Mayday…”
It was a whisper past silken petals, which fluttered free with the gust of the name he exhaled. For a moment the other clone looked alarmed at how many rose-pink petals were expelled in his direction, and then he was catching Crosshair as he sagged, the sniper exhausted without breath.
A gentle hand ghosted over the ridged scar tissue at his temple, Mayday cupping the back of his head to support it as Crosshair’s gaze went hazy, lips tinged grey as he struggled to breathe.
“Say it,” Mayday whispered, pulling Crosshair’s limp body close, his expression and voice both aching with tenderness. “Say I’m not the only one who felt it all this time.”
It was a supreme effort but Crosshair raised his left hand, brushing a longing caress along Mayday’s bearded jaw.
And oh, it was so hard to vomit forth those words – to claw open his own chest and bare his heart in a way he had never done in his life, was not ready to do now.
But Mayday was there, was holding him, with concern and with love glowing in his deep brown eyes, and Crosshair dragged the words, bleeding and ragged, past broken lungs.
“I think I loved you since the first time you spoke my name.”
Then he was retching, gasping new life into his lungs as with every wracking, choked exhale more and more petals spilled forth. The air around them spun in a tornado of blossom, velvet petals brushing their skin, and Mayday was holding him tight and for the first time in months Crosshair could finally breathe.
As the storm subsided, petals dancing in the evening breeze before gently settling to the floor, Mayday laughed – a delighted, low sound accompanied by its own expulsion of petals which puffed into Crosshair’s face and made him grimace as he swatted them away with the stump of his right arm.
“What a pair we make,” he teased gently, plucking a stray petal from Crosshair’s lips before stroking a tender caress along his sharp cheekbone. “Why didn’t you say something before I left for the rebellion?”
“Why didn’t you?” retorted Crosshair waspishly, wary and defensive. The clogged and bloated feeling had left his chest, but the hollowness that replaced it was still uncertain.
“I asked you if there was anything worth staying on Pabu for. I guess I was hoping…” Mayday trailed off with a wry laugh. “I should’ve been more direct.”
Crosshair flinched in on himself, curling his truncated arm into his chest. “I’m just a cripple,” he spat sullenly. “A broken toy of the Empire. Not worth sticking around for.”
“I’d do it all again,” Mayday murmured, and this time his voice was pitched low with genuine feeling. “I’d go through that avalanche ten times over if this was the outcome I’d get each time.”
A heated blush rose to Crosshair’s cheeks, as Mayday’s arms encircled him more gently and pulled him close. He tilted his head to rest their foreheads together, finally relaxing enough to close his eyes as he took a deep breath, tasting Mayday’s closeness in the air between them.
“What do you say?” asked Mayday, a soft smile in his words. “Think the curse is broken?”
Crosshair gave a careless shrug, cracking open one playful eye.
“I guess so,” he said nonchalantly, receiving a teasing pinch under his ribs for his trouble.
“Gonna stop hiding from your family and finally come home for dinner?”
With a rumble, Crosshair’s stomach announced its enthusiasm for that plan. It had been weeks since he had eaten properly, after all.
“I suppose I could do that,” he grumbled, pulling back to put a breath of space between them. Then he darted in, pressing a fleeting, feather-light peck to Mayday’s cheek.
The older clone grinned, dropping one arm to drape lightly round Crosshair’s waist as he turned them towards the path leaving the plaza down to the Batch’s house.
“I’m gonna need you to do that more often.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“What can I say, I’m feeling good about my chances.”
At the crest of the island, the Weeping Maya tree stood, silent and eternal. Heartache-pink blossoms curled and closed with the onset of night, and if the cool breeze fanned away more stray petals from the base of the tree than usual, well…
Hello! I’m sharing another Shirtless Clone “Sketch” (it’s has more details than normal for my sketches).
This time it’s the Clone Commander, Mayday!
For some reason, he kinda looks like Blackwall from Dragon Age Inquisition (who was my canon Inquisitor’s romance). Maybe that’s why I tried to give more details than I normally do…
I attempted to do body hair, and I don’t much care for the chest hair, but I liked the armpits and the happy trail. Might update some of the older Shirtless Clones when I get more comfortable with body hair.
