This one's been brewing on the back burner for some time. I've always wanted to write a passage in the style of Matthew Stover's wonderful novelization of Revenge of the Sith. And what better subject for a "how it feels" passage than the infamous moment when Revan's true identity comes to light?
Enjoy.
This is how it feels to be Darth Revan, resurgent:
You hear the words warble out from Malak's jaw guard, hissing and sinister as if falling from the tongue of a mechanical serpent. They spear through you, constricting around your heart and leaving you breathless, gasping, desperate for a time when this revelation did not exist, when things made sense. Your thoughts, your world, your very galaxy is crumbling beneath your feet and you stagger through the dark in a desperate search for reason to deny these words. Reason to crush and crumple them and throw them back into the ravaged face of the cackling tower of flesh and metal standing before you.
"I wonder how long you would have stayed blind to the truth?" he had asked with all the smug superiority available to his warbling, monotone voice.
You search in vain. And deep down, in a recessed cavern of your soul where even you dared not to look, you are not surprised. Because he is right. You cannot stay blind to the truth. You cannot crush the truth, cannot take it and throw it back at the one who presented it. You cannot hide from the truth, no matter how much you may want to.
And now, in the harsh light of the truth, you realize that it is all you really have. All you have ever had. This one perfect, terrible moment in which it all comes together once more. A moment in which you, after so long wandering alone and forsaken within the labyrinth of your own shattered mind, finally know the truth.
You feel yourself breathe, short and fast as your world is plunged into ice. You feel the tide rising within you, feel it overcome you and envelop you with its winter chill. It takes you, submerges you in an invisible arctic sea from which there is no escape. From which there will never be escape. There will only ever be this moment.
The moment it all changed.
You remember your training, remember the Masters' words and teachings telling you to reject this feeling. You remember it well in this endless moment, for this is the true feeling of the Dark Side; not the hot flash of anger in battle or contempt and arrogance outside it, but the true darkness, the cold and all-encompassing rage that consumes all and leaves nothing but ash in its wake. You feel it rise within you, an unstoppable roar of fury and hate directed toward everything and everyone in reach.
It washes over the scarlet-clad Sith Lord, still cackling before you with lit lightsaber humming malevolently in hand. It washes over those at your side, over Carth and Canderous sporting identical scowls that turn to confused and frightened glances to each other in the face of your rage. It washes over Bastila, standing beside you as she promised to always do, with a power that makes her wince and hold a hand to her eyes. When it lowers her face is pale, eyes wide and fingers trembling.
Only this moment. And everything that comes after will never be the same.
You had responded to Darth Malak's taunting with a defiance you now realize was foolish. You were blind. Blind to everything. But now your eyes are opened, opened wide and held there by the sheer horror of the Dark Lord's words. Of the truth. The truth that your hands are stained with not only the blood of those you conquered on your path to this single frozen moment, but with all the lives who came before. Hundreds more. Thousands more. Maybe even millions. You are drenched, soaked in the blood of a past to which, until now, you had remained mercifully blind.
Others' words echo back to you now, fragments of the truth dancing in your mind, dangled before you like tantalizing morsels offered by a cruel master who knows you cannot grasp them. Words of friends, mentors, family.
"The Jedi do not believe in killing their prisoners. No one deserves execution, no matter what their crimes."
"The Council would not normally accept an adult for training. But this is a special case."
"They say the Force can do terrible things to a mind. It can wipe away your memories and destroy your very identity."
"The lure of the Dark Side is difficult to resist. I fear this quest to find the Star Forge could lead you down an all too familiar path."
"What greater weapon is there than to turn an enemy to your cause? To use their own knowledge against them?"
The pieces come faster now: flickering lights, flashes of twisting holograms, of lightsaber blades clashing and showering sparks through the midnight void. Faster and faster they plunge into the frozen sea in which you now swim, foaming up around you and dragging you down. Down, down, down until…
"You cannot hide from what you once were, Revan."
That knot in your gut shatters and it comes flooding back. It all comes flooding back. The war. The Mandalorians. The twisting, tearing of your heart as you watched them swarm over worlds and leave naught but blood and rubble in their wake. The fire in your soul as you watched the Jedi Council do nothing, preaching peace and passivity during a time of total war. The swell of pride as you gathered together your friends, those like-minded Jedi who agreed their duty was to protect the galaxy from destruction always, not just when it suited them.
The Revanchist…
You remember charging into battle, twin lightsabers blazing and cutting down any who stood in your way. Blue and amethyst working in perfect harmony, felling those evil armored warriors wherever they stood. You remember the cheers of Republic soldiers as Jedi took the field against the wishes of their own Council. You remember laughing with those same soldiers, hunkered down together within the shelter of a bombed-out Republic walker for the night, trading stories and playing cards. You remember those soldiers being the first to kneel to their new commander, their savior. Their hero. Their Lord.
You remember bringing Ultimate himself to his knees, feeling the dark satisfaction as your saber parted his head from his shoulders. The pride as Mandalorians across the galaxy hung their heads in defeat. You remember standing on the bridge of a starship, watching as fire consumed Malachor and listening as countless combatants, enemies and friends alike, screamed their agony to the stars in a chorus of final dying moments as the planet was rent and ruined beneath your shadow. You remember moving on from that wasteland, setting your sights even further. To the one who started all of this. To the black beyond the stars.
Revan…
The cold grows stronger now, surging up within you, racing through your veins like winter fire. Unspeakable power builds inside, threatening to burst you at the seams. But you do not hide from it any longer. Because now, in the cold light of the truth, you know it is only returning to its rightful place. This power is not to be feared because it is yours.
It has always been yours.
You remember journeying with Malak, your oldest and closest friend, to that hidden world beyond the edge of the known galaxy. You remember trekking through jungles and felling dangerous beasts, fighting your way to the center of the dark maelstrom you so long ago sensed. The end of your journey, so close at hand…
And you remember taking the knee, bowing before the source of that maelstrom. You remember the smile that crossed those pale lips, the way those long, spider-like fingers steepled as you and your oldest friend offered up your sabers in servitude. How you emerged from that hurricane of shadow not as Jedi, but something far, far more. Something new, shrouded in twin cloaks of midnight, twisted and molded into an amalgamation of everything you were and everything you now are.
Darth Revan…
A hand falls on your shoulder, soft but insistent. Bastila. Bastila Shan, your Jedi companion, mentor, and, until moments ago, your closest friend.
"Don't listen to him."
Revan.
The Revanchist.
Darth Revan.
With a shaking voice that is no longer truly yours, you ask if it's true. If she is false. If they've all been false, this whole time. Has everything you've been told, everything you've learned, been a lie?
She doesn't answer. She doesn't have to. After all, you know the truth. It is the ice flowing through your veins, the breath in your lungs, the flies buzzing through your skull. It is the ground beneath your feet and the blades in your hand — twin blue, not the red and violet they used to be.
I am Revan. I am the Dark Lord. I am the very evil I sought to destroy. I am and I always will be.
This is how it feels to be Darth Revan, from now until your dying day.