SW: Wounded

Wounded
A story about two Jedi and love and the dark side...

RATING: PG. For action and angst.
GENRE: General fantasy, drama, angst, action.


<><><>


Hey. Remember back then? When we used to be friends? It was really a long time ago, though. Back in the Temple. Remember?

It’s all right. I don’t exactly expect you to remember. It was really a long time ago. You know, back when we were all made of professional, outward appearances and we strode around like the galaxy was laid bare at our feet, all cocky and so plastic. We laughed on cue, we stalked into battle on cue, we glowered down at ambassadors threatening our position—well, you glowered down, I glowered up and threatened to kick them in their most sensitive areas, of course. I never could really glower down to anyone. I was always the short, little one.

Remember? When they used to give us orders and we’d leave Coruscant as ambassadors of the peace, holding our lightsabers out and smiling only for the good of the Force, frowning for the sake of our own faces.

Emotionless.

Unless the Force said otherwise.

Remember me? They sent us on a mission to Dantooine. Something about a cave and fragments of the old Order…

We never made it that far.

We were shot down and crash landed and ended up in that tiny hotel with the aliens not even my height, pulling two beds side by side so that I could lie down, and you could sort of cramp yourself in beside me, your long legs dangling off the end of the bed and propped up on a chair, a blanket tossed over your feet.

It was kind of funny back then. I laughed at it and you reprimanded me for it, too. I laughed back at you and told you that I only took that tone from Althea.

You glared more at me with your icy grey eyes. I remember giggling, hysterical at the thought of being glared at by a Jedi Master who couldn’t even fit into bed.

I remember you got drunk that night. Too drunk. A few too many glasses of wine and then one, just a little one, of port and a couple of that weird mixed drink they said wouldn’t possibly make you any more drunk than you really were. They were right. By that point you were giggling and walking into things and attempting to balance spoons on top each other with the Force—and miserably failing.

I was the one who reported back to the Temple to say we’d crashed our ship, there was a pirate team after us… I was the one who got us permission to pursue them.

So we did. Your Padawan was back at the Temple and they sent her to Dantooine while probably shaking their heads at us for failing to make it even that far. I don’t know why they sent us in the first place. We weren’t really compatible. I was short and giggly after that, you were tall and gloomy and stared out windows while I laughed at you.

You had a long, silver lightsaber. I had a short hilt and could barely use it to protect myself from blaster-fire. I carried a blaster too; you always questioned my sanity and why I would carry something so conventional, so unethical.

I remember telling you I wasn’t really an ethical Jedi.

I was right.

So why was it you who fell?

I guess I should tell you this before…

…Before the end. That’s a little hard to type, you know. But so’s this:

You have a daughter.

Her name is Diana.

<><><>

Apoque traced him to Sullust. The galaxy was dissolving into turmoil; ironic that he’d be directed to a planet that was also turmoil. Or perhaps it wasn’t turmoil. Perhaps it was just that he knew she’d come after him, he knew that his tiny lover would leave the Temple and vanish on one of her missions and direct her ship into the darkness of the galaxy and into the will of the Force.

And the Force had brought her here, had reached down and kissed her mind and whispered here. Here he is. On a planet covered in toxin, the one suspended by toxin waits for your black eyes to cross his once more.

It had given her a vision, had granted her the sight of him, sitting on a stone and patiently building another lightsaber, a rebreather in his mouth, the power of the Force sustaining him in the poisonous atmosphere, protecting his flesh from the sulphur and acidic rain. His breath was fog, and in that moment, she hated him. She hated the Force, she hated the Order, she hated everything that permitted him to sit there, living and breathing in his embraced shadow.

She knew she should’ve hated herself for growing attached to him.

She shouldn’t have tracked him here. It had been years; fourteen years of aphotic hell for him and fourteen years of turbulent faith for her. She shouldn’t have hidden their daughter and left her as just another person, just another Padawan. She shouldn’t have.

Apoque knew she shouldn’t have been setting her ship down on the wracked soil. But she did, anyway, breathing slowly as she listened to the planet moan around her. Lightning, volcanic activity; the entire surface was volatile and prone to destruction at any moment. Not really a safe place for a Jedi Knight with only a small lightsaber hilt at her side, and a rough brown robe and farmer’s clothes pulled over her pale skin. It covered her, but it wouldn’t protect her from acid and magma and the toxicity of the air.

The Force would do that.

She drew her hood up and pulled a mask over her mouth and nose, goggles over her eyes. The goggles were for sand, but they’d suffice. And then slowly, ever so slowly, she drew a pair of black gloves over her fingers. They slid into the armoured fabric, and then she sighed.

She didn’t think she regretted coming here.

She only regretted that she was about to die.

Extending her focus around herself, forming a shield of clean air and sustained air, she walked off the ship.

Even the Force didn’t prepare her for the assault of pain as she strode into the planet’s chaos. She couldn’t… not with the heat, not with the storm, not with the…

She’d walked into a pit of steam.

…The darkness…

Not when her feet buckled under her and it was all she could do to fall into the Force and let it protect her as the poison began to creep into her lungs.

<><><>

It was a presence, like nothing he had felt before. It was familiar, it crept into his mind like the poisonous atmosphere of the planet. Enovik set his lightsaber aside, taking his old one and clipping it to his belt. Familiar, like the sound of the spaceship setting down not too far away. Familiar, like the clearing a few meters below sea level, where a thin layer of sulphuric gas gathered, the atmosphere congealing on the rocky desert. It filled with steam at this time, but as the night crept in, it became thick, boiling water poisonous to any man.

It was the feel of the light side of the Force.

He swore softly to himself—stang—and strode to the entrance of his cave. It was a short walk through stones and crevasses, but he knew this land well by this point. He knew where the ash angel’s flight paths lay, and where to find the sweet Drutash grubs the Sullastians craved.

And he knew how to avoid the underground, cave dwelling aliens that populated the planet. And how to find them, when his supplies grew low, and when his air scrubber began to groan from overuse. But mostly avoid, all the native species got in his way unless he required something from them.

The ship that had set down was no native’s ship. It had the high pitched, familiar whine of a Corellian ship, the JMK-9. He only knew one person who had a ship of that class.

And it was someone he had to admit, he didn’t quite expect here.

But the ship certainly wasn’t one of the freighters or cargo ships he often saw from the locals. No one needed a long-distance scout ship here. They needed a large ship to get them safely through the atmosphere and the electric storms constantly pummelling the planet. Or a starfighter to get them through unharmed. Not a scout’s ship…

He crested a hill. Sure enough, it was the Abroidine that perched in the middle of the steam pit. And a Jedi Knight that lay in the middle of it, steam pooling around her as night crept in. Enovik stormed through the steam, the hot water evaporating around his boots as he walked to her, picking her up.

It was like holding a ghost.

“Apoque,” he murmured, touching her face lightly. She was still breathing, just unconscious and burnt. The mask would’ve protected her from the gaseous air; now he would have to protect her from the treacherous, boiling heat. He started back to his cave with her in his arms. “Did you come to kill me, Apo?”

She didn’t stir.

“Or did you just come for the wonderful scenery. You always loved art,” he absently joked, moving around stones with the smaller woman in his arms. “I’m certain you would have found beauty here. Among the ruins of a planet that shouldn’t even have to be populated… or perhaps among the ash angels with their fleshy wings, swooping over the melted stone, shaking off the ashes that litter the air after an explosion.”

He skirted another chasm, a puff of steam blowing his cloak aside and his hood off. His hands were busy and he left it down, squinting to keep the airborne silt out of his eyes.

“Or are you just here to end it?”

<><><>

Clutter in her mind shattered her from the coma, the notion of a figure crossing steam, the patter of rain pouring down, and the shadow reaching its fingers out into—

She sat up with a gasp.

Enovik glanced at her; he’d picked up his second lightsaber again, patiently working on it.

“Good morning. Or should I say evening?”

She stared at him. He looked just like the vision, sitting on a stone with a lightsaber hilt in his hands, patiently assembling it with all the focus of any Jedi Knight. His short cropped black hair was struck through with grey and his eyes the same pale silver, not quite heartless but hardly full of remorse for his wrongdoings.

A shadow seemed to hold him.

“Good morning,” she finally managed in reply. Her breath felt hoarse and after a moment, she realized he’d taken her mask off. She looked around for it and picked it back up, pulling it back on.

“You needn’t worry about that. The air here is quite clean.”

“I don’t trust you.” She turned away, looking for the remainder of her supplies. Her belt lay a metre away, and she picked it up, tugging it back around her waist. Her lightsaber still hung on it, and she took it off, absently tossing it between her two gloved hands.

“Of course not,” he murmured. “So, why are you here, if not to trust me?”

The recognizable snap-hiss of a lightsaber was his only reply.

He sighed and stood up, setting the half-finished hilt down and picking up his own blade. “Of course. Apo…”

She stared at him before bringing her violet lightsaber up to bear.

“Apo, you hardly know anything about this… don’t be rash.” He flicked his lightsaber on and with a gasp of electricity it snapped into existence, hovering in the air. “Did the Council send you here?”

“I came here myself,” she finally said. Her voice seemed so distant. “I came here myself, to kill you.”

“Are you certain you wouldn’t rather stay for tea?” he asked mournfully. “I would rather not kill you.”

“I’m sure.”

“Now, Apo. Don’t be sarcastic.”

“You made this choice yourself,” she growled. “When you first subsumed passion.  When you first fell in love. When you first fell into madness. When you first began questioning the Order’s ideals and every little word in their rule-filled datapads you absorbed and spat at everyone else. When you first turned away from what you swore you’d always… when you… when you said the Code was a mockery of everything that defined humanity, when you first stared at me entirely sober and told me…”

“And I meant every word! I loved you. And you let me love you.” He fell quiet, holding his lightsaber at ease. “And then you didn’t anymore.”

“You turned away from the Code!”

“You made a mockery of the Code to begin with!”

“I wasn’t the one who killed them!” she screamed.

“They threatened you!”

“Exactly!”

“Don’t you… no! No, you don’t.” He flicked his lightsaber off, a swallowing hiss-snap drawing the silver blade back into its metal maw. “You don’t understand. It’s why I had to leave. Because you knew I loved you and you couldn’t even stand me defending you!”

“You were consumed by your love! You went against the mission!” She fell into an attack position. She hadn’t lunged, though. Not yet.

He’d never seen her this way. Her face frenzied by her fear of being loved. And it was years ago.

No. Not of love.

Of the dark side.

Of the shadows that came with love.

“Love isn’t a bad thing,” he said desperately. “If there was no love, there would be no galaxy. No people for the Jedi to defend. No world around us. The Council was wrong, Apo.”

“They banished you for a reason. Because you’d been taken by the dark side. And you still have. You stand there and you try to feed me lies. Bantha fodder,” she snarled.

“I’m not feeding you lies. I’m actually just trying to keep you from impaling me,” he added.

“You… gah!”

They’d never understood each other that well. And he couldn’t understand then, why her eyes narrowed and lit with fury. And he couldn’t understand why she lunged then, and there wasn’t a moment to blink before he had his lightsaber out and ignited, slamming into hers.

Couldn’t she understand?

He’d only wanted to protect her.

The sulphuric smell of the planet masked the stench of two blades of pure energy meeting in the cave, but it didn’t hide the flying sparks. She gasped and doubled back a moment, reaffirming her defence before diving in on the offence again. He didn’t want to hurt her and only defended, flicking his blade in and out where it needed to be, trying to drive her back into the cave where she’d stumble over. The cavern wasn’t high enough to jump around, but the air was clean here. He didn’t want to be forced out, and directed his attacks at her legs, keeping her in motion, keeping her moving backwards.

She watched her footing but missed it for one moment, the back of her heel catching on the bed.

She stumbled.

Fell backwards.

He flicked his lightsaber forward and held it at her heart.

“Don’t be silly, Apo…”

“Not! Silly,” she gasped, reaching out with the Force and throwing him backwards. He stumbled and hit the ground.

The split second was all she needed. She bounded back to her feet and dashed to the mouth of the cave, standing at the midpoint where the air began to grow toxic as it dissipated from his protected bubble.

He groaned and grabbed his rebreather. “Apo…”

“Afraid to fight me?” she jeered. There was fire in her eyes, her voice cruelly distorted by the breathing mask.

Part of the Jedi kicked in, in his mind. She was falling and he had to get her up. He had to throw her a lifeline.

And he wouldn’t be able to talk with the breather in his mouth.

“I’m not afraid,” he murmured, holding it in his left hand, the blade in his right.

She strode forward and with one fast motion, moved in to attack.

He made up his mind.

One hand slammed the breather into his mouth, the other coming up to block her attack. It pressed too hard, wavering as she started her attack once more. Swiftly, he took hold of the handle again, throwing himself back into the attack. A predator. His wife had become a predator, and he was her prey. As if the threat of war wasn’t enough for the grey Jedi…

The threat of love had become an immediate threat.

Her emotions were turbulent, unreadable. Every single thing about her was desperate, threatening him and only him. But soon it would reach out and cast a shadow around her, around everything, and it would get into her mind and her eyes and her heart would act only out of that need to shatter her beliefs…

She was no longer peaceful. She was chaotic, passionate, intense.

His heart groaned.

He was losing her. Just like he’d lost himself to her.

As the heat of the battle picked up, he lost the sense of despair to a sense of methodological attack. But the words were still there: he’d never seen her like this. So caught in interminable vengeance, so swallowed by torrid emotions, so volatile and turbulent. Every bit like the planet beneath their feet.

He wanted to swear, but the breather in his mouth prevented him from saying anything, from making any noises but breathing and occasionally gasping around the mouthpiece protecting him from the venomous air.

The dark side was venom. It had poisoned her.

Please!   he internally pleaded. I only want you to see reason.

And so, he directed his attacks towards her hands. To catching her saber’s hilt and sending it off into the rocks, as they worked their way outside of the cave and into a larger, but more treacherous duelling area.

One slip of a blade and they could lose their masks.

One slip of their minds, and they could be burnt alive.

One slip of the foot, and they could fall into boiling, acidic water, or worse—into molten rock.

And worse. One slip of their foundation, and they could slip into the waiting, taunting shadows.

He feared—and felt—they were already there.

Please!

I only want you to listen to me.

This isn’t the Jedi way!

She was lithe and fast; she dodged his attacks and made the environment her ally. Where it was familiar to him, she took advantage of the misshapen and deformed and unpredictable stretches of stone. Where he tried to protect her from the bursts of heat, she used the rocks as shields and the Force to drive him towards vents of steam and hot air.

Rain streamed down, splashing and sizzling off their clashing blades. His black hair plastered to the top of his head, rivulets of water running down his face. Her hair, gathered into thick strands of black—it had formerly been brown but the cold water plastered it down and darkened it. It only served to make her pale skin all the more evident in the grey world.

Again, she threw herself forward and into an attack. He defended—blade there, and then she feinted around and it was cutting into his leg. He stumbled and fell backwards, a quick movement twisting his body in midair and throwing him down to the ground. His lightsaber embedded itself, cutting into rock and sending up a burst of caught air. He gasped and let his saber go, bounding back to his feet.

A gesture drew it back into his hand and a flick ignited it once more.

The cold rain splattered around them, sending up tiny bouts of steam from the superheated stones, and left a thin mist over the ground.

Why are you doing this? his mind screamed at her.

And the answer came in the form of the face of a Padawan, a little girl…

He stumbled back, thrown off-guard. The thought—it came from Apoque—was disarming in its simplicity. A child. There had been a child?

And the Council had found out…

It wasn’t the mission…

It was…

The acid in the rain burnt his skin. It was already tearing through their cloaks and leaving singing burns along their exposed skin.

He extended his awareness, and the foul air crept away. He took out his breather and stared at her; rasped, “Why didn’t you tell me…?”

“It doesn’t matter now!” her distorted voice came. She swung back, he groaned and parried, throwing himself into the systematic duel once more.

It took him a moment to recognize it—his breather was no longer in his mouth. He was breathing poisoned air.

He threw her back with the Force and held his breath, shoving it back into his mouth and gasping for clean air. The Force would purge his body of the chemicals, it hadn’t been that much of the toxin, for a Jedi that was nothing… whether dark or light Jedi.

And she stole that moment.

The Force wrapped its clammy fingers around his lightsaber and she hurled it away. It clattered off into the rocks, a shimmer before it vanished. A clank before it began to roll into a chasm not so far away.

Friend against friend, ally against ally, love against love…

He was the better fighter, and now, he was the better loser. He stood still as she advanced on him, her blade firmly in hand. Little bursts of lighting hissed off it as rain met the blade. Larger blasts lit the sky to the east; a storm was brewing.

He took his breather out.

“Apo, see reason,” he gasped. “There’s no call for this…”

“You turned!”

“Do you honestly… think… what you’re doing…”

“You turned against the Code. I have to make you see reason.”

I have to make you see reason, his mind echoed. “You could join me, Apo! You’re here already. And… we could be a family…”

“A Jedi has no family but the Force!”

She raised her lightsaber. His eyes narrowed in grim regret and then he dove backwards, dodging her strike before fleeing towards the chasm. His lightsaber might have survived, if it wasn’t that deep of…

Of course, it was the deep chasm, the one with the red-hot river that ran threw it, he realized with a bitter snarl through his mind. All right, then.

And he threw his focus to the Force, pushing the breather back in and dashing for the cover of the rocks. A burst of focus let his feet speed across the contorted ground, another bit let him become just a ghostly blur for a moment…

And he vanished into the shadows as night fell.

<><><>

Lightning strikes colored the sky a more brilliant shade of purple-grey. Apoque walked calmly through the stones, her lightsaber held out as the light faded, using it as a pseudo glowrod.

What had drove him to this? Before, he never would have…he’d been such a kind, gentle soul. So driven by the Code, such a perfect piece of the Jedi Order. And now he was a monster, torn apart by the dark side, fleeing from the light she held out.

We could have loved each other. What made us do it? she thought. Was it the desire to rebel? But he was never a rebel. And I had such faith in the Force.

And now…

Now…

He knows.

He knows about Diana.

I have to kill him. He’ll find her and track her down.

In places, oddly enough, it was beginning to ice over as the temperatures dropped. It was cold here, but the rocks were heated. And the downpour was cooling things down. Steam made it hard to see, and she pulled her goggles off for a moment, wiping out the silt within and the dirty rain off the front.

I know you’re here, she thought. His presence became all too clear. Putting her goggles back on, she headed towards the presence in the Force…

Fool…

His body slammed into hers and she hit the ground hard. His large fingers closed around the back of her neck, holding her down, his other hand grabbing for her lightsaber.

Stupid!    She swore to herself. Throwing her weakening effort to telekinesis, she began to toss rocks at his head. He gasped as one collided, rolling over and reigniting her lightsaber to bat them away. It looked so childishly small in his hands, she thought, as she bounded back to her feet and continued using the Force to rain stones on him.

Distracted…

He threw her backwards into a rock, pointing his—her —blade to her neck.

Her eyes were still fire; his were beginning to ice over.

He spat out his breather. “Please, Apo…”

In response, she reached out and pulled her blaster from its leg holster into her hands, firing at him. He swore and threw her aside with the Force, tearing the blaster from her fingers with an invisible hand.

The earth rumbled. She stumbled back, near the edge of the canyon.

He stared at her.

The fire within began to rise. Fire, she thought—fire that came from her eyes and obeyed her beckoning as she called it forth from the canyon’s river.

She saw him mouth the word no before slamming the breather back into his mouth and holding one hand out.

Invisible fingers encased her, holding her frozen in time for one moment. There. She had foreseen this; seen her death at his dark hands.

The wind swept her off the cliff.

As she fell, she found one part of her mind told herself—no. No, it wasn’t her that had made him cry out as she fell. It was just what she had taken from him.

<><><>

He stood on the edge of the cliff, burns running down his face from the acid rain, and her lightsaber clutched in his right hand. He slowly clipped it back to his belt, heading west, towards the lower entrance to the canyon.

He told himself—over and over again—she didn’t care, she had ceased to care, she had been taken by the dark, convinced that he was gone from her.

And now, he was convinced.

She was gone from him.

He forced back the tears. She hated him; she wasn’t worth spending the emotions. He told himself he was only keeping her lightsaber in case of another attack. Sometimes the ash angels grew violent; sometimes there were other creatures on the toxic surface of Sullust, sometimes animals, sometimes sentient. And there was a possibility she could have survived the plunge into the fire-filled canyon.

He told himself that was the reason he was going. Her death would have been better than the trickery, the hope that maybe she cared for him. Maybe she hadn’t been taken in by the tendrils of lies the Jedi Council spun, creating a cult of little people to do their bidding.

Their bidding wasn’t the Force’s. The Force’s bidding was balance. It was the world, carrying on as the world needed to go. It was peace combined with chaos, twisting together to form the icy cold reality of life.

Fire and ice.

Apoque and Enovik.

He shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

Striding through the stone, occasional loose bits clattered under his feet. She would never see him like this, his eyes narrowed and cold, trying to convince the rest of his heart that he was cold to her, since she had turned against him. But in a way, he wished she could. He wished she would look at him with burns on his skin from the acid rain, his hair plastered down and his robes melting. Her lightsaber on his belt and a firm, yet shaken look in his eyes.

Maybe, if she would’ve actually seen him …

Maybe it would’ve changed her mind.

He wanted her to be dead.

That way, he wouldn’t have to kill her.

<><><>

The fall down the hill took her, screaming, to a rocky outcropping so near the bottom she thought she had smashed into it. But the bottom was covered in molten rock and fire, and this stone was only slippery and hot from the nearby river of flame. She raised one hand, her fingers could barely move. But she could still breathe—though her mask had been shattered in the fall, the rebreather part of it remained. Her face was exposed to the cutting acid rain now, but the canyon sheltered her from the wind.

With an empty sob, she pulled back into the shadows of the outcropping, pressing herself against the back of the canyon. There might have been a safe path out, but if anyone knew it, it was him, and encased in his icy shadows, he would never help her.

If anything, he would stride down there and strike her down.

She convinced herself, her thoughts hollow and without any real meaning, that her face was only wet from the rain, even though she’d been wearing goggles and a mask. She convinced herself that he would leave her here to die and go back to his dark cave, making lightsabers and humming idle tunes, the world going on around him—feeding the darkness by permitting war to boil.

She convinced herself she was alone.

The Force said otherwise.

The Force said there was a man, burnt from her attacks, burnt from the rain, coming for her with a toxin in his mind.

Her own body screamed fatigue.

Just like a snow sleep, she thought. Fall asleep, and never wake up.

She drew her tattered robe around herself and closed her black eyes. The fire had faded, it was just Apoque now, Apoque and her shivering, worn body, her legs screaming from scrapes and burns, her fingers clenched, and her back and arms scraped from the rolling fall.

She closed her eyes.

She let sleep claim her.

Sleep wasn’t as threatening as the laughing dark.

When she opened her eyes again, it was to a snap-hiss, and her violet blade inches from her throat.

She’d wounded him worse than she thought. There were burns on his face and arms, and not all of them from the rain—some of them were obvious lightsaber burns. And now she could see, she could see his eyebrows narrowed in careful consideration, an icy fury burning through his grey eyes.

She opened her mouth, thought to plead and thought better of it.

He slammed her lightsaber down, moving it inches away. It melted into the rock, melting and sputtering before finally shutting down as he took his hands off it. The hilt fell aside and he bent, picking her up by her neck, hauling her up to where she was forced to stare into his eyes.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done,” he snarled.

It was the first emotion she’d heard in his voice.

No.

The first emotion she’d recognized.

She realized now, there had been emotion there all along. She just hadn’t listened to it. Not all the wet on his face was rainwater like hers. Not all his words had been mockery—

—Like hers.

His fingers tightened around her throat. She felt her air choking off. Maybe this is what it feels like, to fall madly in love and have all your trust and faith in your partner torn away, she thought. She gagged, and tried to fight back, tried to pull his hands away.

“Please,” she heard herself gasp. “I’m… I don’t…”

As his fingers tightened, she no longer had the words to gasp out the rest of the sentence.

I don’t know what came over me.

Except she knew.

The other  side of the Force.

The shadow.

The fire within.

She closed her eyes and let him take her breath away.

Maybe she was…

She involuntarily tried to gasp, and no longer could.

Suicidal? Fight back! But she couldn’t.

And, unknowingly, he choked tears out of her along with her breath. She found she sobbed, even though her breath wasn’t there to gasp with it, and there were just the trails of salty tears that went along with the gagging darkness encroaching on her mind.

And…

She slammed into the ground, and stared up at a wounded man.

A man who had wounded himself.

He stared at her for one long moment, his eyes falling from hers to his hands. For one mere second, he glanced back to her and then with a strangled cry he turned and fled.

“Wait!” she gasped.

He was wounded.

Her voice was hoarse, and croaky.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, collapsing back onto the stone.

She  was wounded.

It felt like a nightmare, a horrible bad dream where she could loop it over and over in her mind: his icy eyes wracked with the pain of wounds reaching further than his skin and further than any lightsaber could cause. In a way, she found herself desperately relieved she held her lightsaber. That way he couldn’t… wouldn’t kill himself…

Not yet.

It felt like a nightmare. Maybe it was. Maybe it was his bad dream, breaking through the Force and through the bonds of their relationship, and she’d wake up beside him and rub his short hair and whisper: it’s all right.

You didn’t really try kill me.

I didn’t really try kill you.

It’s all right…

But it wasn’t a bad dream, and his face, with icy rain and blood and exhaustion streaking his forehead was a memory too immediate. Her own exhaustion and the agony in her throat was too immediate.

After what seemed an eternity, with liquid fire lapping at her feet, she dragged herself up the canyon and back to her ship. She collapsed into the pilot’s seat, digging around for bacta pads, and started takeoff procedures.

Somehow she knew he wouldn’t have touched her ship.

“Abroidine,” she gasped at the ship. “Get me coordinates for Myrkr.”

After all, a planet where the Force didn’t exist had to be better than one where the Force guided to kill and to dark.

They were wounded.


[fin]