Model Write-Up #22 - Kodaan Orion

(With help from my friend, Vlad Draghici.)

"I am a failure, to the name Mandalorian, to the family of Orion. Never did I stray far from the Path of Combat - the venerated trials and life methodology all of my family have been obligated to follow, by tradition, since the very first Orion was born fifteen hundred years ago. I have always fought with bravery; I have never fled a fight. My scars prove my worth, and I was to undertake the greatest challenge any Mandalorian could - raising a son, and bringing him up to be a good warrior. My son had showed signs, at first, of following the same steps as his father - he rejected his mother, as all of my family have had to, to prove their independence in a world full of suffering. There would be no coddling from here on out, and he seemed to acknowledge this fact. His teachers, however, began to tell me disturbing news as he grew of age - stories of him being a dreamer, a writer - his creativity was "limitless - a mark of a true artist." I would not be the first Orion father in centuries to fail the raising of my child, and so I took him from this school and elsewhere - to a place where there would be no acceptance of such things. I took him to Nar Shaddaa - he was to fight and kill, or be killed in turn. He would learn his lessons here, I thought - he would have to. How wrong I was! How foolish! In retrospect, I would have taken him elsewhere and punished him, as honour demands, for ignoring his calling; he lashed out against and broke every tradition our family name had carried for centuries, and in doing so, destroyed my name as well. I knew the name 'Kodaan' would come to mean fool. I had only to wish it did not come to mean failure, too.

On Nar Shaddaa, he killed, and survived, but he grew to resent me. The bond between father and son, broken on his end, festered like a corpse, until all that was left of his love for me was a dying spark in an endless void of hatred. I had lost my son to his resentment of me.

I spoke with him, finally, asked him to tell me why it is he refused to follow the path of tradition. Passionately, with the tongue of a warrior, he made his case; "What good was tradition?", he argued. "Why could I not pick my own path?" I knew his questions valid, but I told him the unfortunate truth - that as a people, us Mandalorians have little to ground us but tradition, and so to tradition we must hold. I thought he learned. He did not. And so, in my efforts to bring him to terms with his fate, I made my ultimate mistake - I took him with me to meet Mandalore the Crusader's call, father and son of the Orion progeny. When we were both lost in the Unknown Regions, our bond was broken entirely; he refused to come with me to Mandalore the Infernal's side - the true embodiment of warriorhood. He joined Nidas Fett - an honourable man, but not holding the values I had in mind for my son. I tried to guide him towards his future, but my son would not listen. For the sake of my honour, and the honour of the Orion name, there is but one course left to me.

My son, Vistnel Orion, must die."

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