Returning Home / Scars

[Ceto Rübezahl]

Loronar - 10 ABY

Supposedly, it was good to be home. Such was a sentiment that Ceto had never fully been able to experience for himself. For better and worse, Ceto had enjoyed and endured the benefits of being born into the Rübezahl family, whose wealth and influence spanned and scattered across several worlds. Ceto for the most part had grown up on Coruscant, an infant accessory gripping the hand of his Galactic Senator father. Rare were Ceto's visits to his father's constituency on Byblos, and rarer still were the visits to the ancestral Rübezahl homestead on Loronar. It was a place that in his youth, Ceto recognised only as the backdrop of holostills, and in faint recollections of time spent with half-remembered grandparents. Perhaps those same grandparents were the reason that his father Ophion avoided the world so consistently; or perhaps it was merely a symptom of Ophion's political career, his time increasingly devoted to the Senate.

Regardless, it was a series of Coruscant apartments that came to mind whenever Ceto thought of his childhood home, a trend that had continued when his acting career had begun to flourish. Those years were a blur, as were his first as an officer within COMPNOR, migrating from assignment to assignment, his role and dedication increasing in significance the cooler the embers of his prior career became. It was not until Bothawui that Ceto had lingered for long, and that Moffhood had been stripped away by the Rebel Alliance. Now, home was ostensibly the Greater Javin, but that trifold territory cast a wide net: should he make his home on coreward Javin, on centrally-located Gerrenthum, on the Figg-dominated Isde Naha; or should he attempt to avoid preference to any of the prior sector capitals, putting down roots on Bespin where his work gentrifying the Greater Javin had already begun?

Whatever the correct choice, at least the dilemma was consistent. Ceto Rübezahl was a man with too many homes, and none.

Ceto resented the quiet, dimly lit interior of the Lambda shuttle for giving him time alone with such thoughts. The peace was a welcome reprieve from the thinly veiled interrogation conducted by the Intelligence Officers and Inquisitors - if such a thing even existed; things had begun to change, it seemed, during his brief time as an Alliance prisoner of war - who had debriefed him. Their questions had been as much about the shared encounter by the Warspite and Novgorod with a mysteriouus incursion of technological reptilians from beyond known space. Rather than seeking actionable intelligence however, his questioners were far more interested in Rübezahl's perceived misdeeds or disloyalty in allying with the Rebels, and in offering himself as a more valuable prisoner of war in exchange for the safe release of the other Imperial survivors. Whatever testimony those officers had provided had not been to the liking of Imperial Command; Ceto had been more than willing to set the record straight, to properly paint Captain Crichton Stark's death as the noble - albeit classified - sacrifice it was, and to remind his accusors of the harm that might be done by tarnishing the reputation of an Imperial official who had been so publicly exchanged as a gesture of cooperation with the new Alliance of Free Planets.

He felt the ground kiss the landing struts of the shuttle, and the quiet interior became quieter still as the repulsorlifts powered down. What lay beyond the ship was bound to be an inquisition of a different sort; one better intentioned, granted, but likely no less uncomfortable to discuss. Worse, somewhere beyond the durasteel, Ceto could already feel his father's disapproving eyes waiting for him, ears already hearing the veiled but unmistakable lecture that would convey his disappointment in Ceto yet again cementing the infamous slant of his reputation.

For a few moments, he gave serious thought to ordering the pilots to take off again, whisking him away before his reunion with his family could transpire. His hand scrubbed thoughtfully across the few days of growth that bristled across his chin. The Alliance had been more gracious captives than Imperial propoganda might have led one to believe, Ceto's hygene and comfort not suffering unduly during his time in incarceration; but since his release he had left his appearance unattended, not quite able to break the habit of preparing himself for the role his family would expect him to play. They would have seen the holos of the prisoner exchange, the press statement he had made soon after; it wouldn't matter. They would expect their son and brother to look the part of an ex-convict, and so he would. A deception, or subtle manipulation perhaps, but one that would make the ordeal far easier for all involved. It had been a lesson Ceto had learned slowly, and reluctantly, but with the Rübezahl family it was better to surrender and conform than to rebel.

The pressure seal hissed, and servos began to whir as the ramp slowly descended. Like a bandaid from a wound, Ceto forced himself to his feet, brushing a crease from the front of the Moff's uniform he seldom actually wore, and strode his way to the top of the egress ramp, making a show of squinting against the Loronar sun as he came into view.