This may come as a surprise to anyone who read my previous work, but I can write serious things. Anyway, this is the thoughts of a female Twilight Jedi (one who uses both the Dark and Light sides) about why she left the Jedi. Set after ROTJ but before NJO. Rated PG for a little swearing and dark themes.
Oh, yeah... Star Wars belongs to George Lucas-sama. Not me, no matter how much I wish it did.
****
There was more than one reason I left the Jedi.
There were the obvious ones - I wanted to see what home was like, and that I wanted to recliam some part of my past. But there were others.
One of the biggest was that I felt I had failed Master Skywalker by never fully accepting the Light Side. He might not think so, nor the other Jedi.But the apprentices of my age group were merciless when I came back, "reeking" of the Dark Side, as they put it. They threatened to kill me if I stayed (and many of them could), and they tied me up in a tree and practised hurling rocks at me. At least when rocks are actually thrown, some miss. But when they're guided by the Force, they reach damaging speeds quickly, and almost never miss. So there's another reason I left.
I needed a new start, a fresh start, where nobody knew me, what I could do, or the limits of my powers. Where people could know me and like me, not knowing or caring what I knew about the Force.
The Dark Side gives me a rush, sure. It's great for some things too - the Light Side can't match it for pure destructive power, and when wrapped in it one becomes a killing machine. That's a good thing when you're embroiled in dogfights where your only objective is to kill the enemy, and self-preservation comes with it so you can keep on destroying things.
The Light Side is good for other things - healing and pure defense for example. There are some situations where killing everything in sight isn't the greatest idea, like when you're on a rescue mission and your only objective is to get out with both your own and your rescuee's hides intact. Without the Light Side, though, I think I'd go insane.
Light and Dark. Yin yang. The duality. Neither can exist without the other. Take away all users of the Dark Side, and the Light Side becomes something . . . else. Both Light and Dark. I guess I'm the embodiment of all that. It's just my darker side is displayed more often than most people's.
Sometimes I think finding the Sith Holocron when I went on a meditation excursion the best thing that ever happened to me. The things I learned have saved my life a hundred times. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to get out the tree the apprentices tied me in. I used the Dark Side to create a wall between me and them while I used the Force to burn through the rope. Without what I learned, I might not have survived any one of hundreds of hundreds of dogfights I've been in since joining the planetary defense corps.
Other times I think it's the worst thing that could have happened to me. Even though some of the things are useful, even fun, other things I learned scare me. They might not have then, but now, ten years later, they scare the shit out of me.
Sometimes, I'll wake up in the middle of the night, tense enough that I feel like I'll break into pieces if I get any more tense. Only my husband can calm me down when that happens. He'll talk to me of summer - not the hot dry days, but the warm, moist ones by the ocean. He'll tell me of all the reasons he loves me, and speaks of all the good times we've had. The good memories will usually wash away the memories of my dreams - dreams of what I could have been, had I done what the Holocron wanted me to: destroy worlds, exterminate populations, and spread a reign of terror throughout the galaxy. When the dreams are gone, I'll relax and curl up against him, and we'll both go back to sleep.
But when he doesn't manage to wake up, things explode. Quite literally. All the tenseness in me goes into lashing out at something, be it a tree outside, or a can of lubricant in the garage. Something in me keeps me from striking my husband or my son, which is a very good thing. If something happened to them, I don't know what I'd do.
I don't have the Holocron anymore. When I realized what it was trying to do to me, I got into my fighter and shot the Holocron into the sun. If I still had it, I might be reigning over a galaxy-wide dictatorship instead of having a family and friends. I know I'd rather have a home and family and friends.
It's good the Force isn't particularly strong here. If it wasn't, the Holocron would have gained a larger foothold, and I'd be sitting on that cold throne right about now.
For a while there, when I was trying to figure out how to get rid of the Holocron, I was constantly cloaked in the Light Side. I sometimes think it was the only thing keeping the Holocron from completely taking over my thoughts.
The best part about the Light Side is that I can use it to take away the knowledge I gained from the Holocron. Slowly but surely, I'm using it to take away my memories of the atrocities I could commit if I wanted to. I just brush it over the memories, and they go away. My brain creates new passage wasy to go around the memories, erasing any way to them. Sometimes it takes several tries, but they go away. The only bad part is that I have to relive the memories in all their gory detail in order for them to go away. Sometimes my husband will walk in on me when I'm reliving them, and I'm curled up in a fetal position on the floor, crying my eyes out. He just sits next to me, sometimes rubbing my back, just letting me know he's there.
He's my savior in some respects. If it weren't for him and my son, I don't think I could go through with it all.
Almost all the memories are gone now. I only have a few more to go until the dangerous ones are all gone. Once I'm free of them, I won't wake up in the middle of the night ready to destroy anything that moves.
I'll finally be able to move on with my life, and leave the Holocron behind.
Oh, yeah... Star Wars belongs to George Lucas-sama. Not me, no matter how much I wish it did.
****
There was more than one reason I left the Jedi.
There were the obvious ones - I wanted to see what home was like, and that I wanted to recliam some part of my past. But there were others.
One of the biggest was that I felt I had failed Master Skywalker by never fully accepting the Light Side. He might not think so, nor the other Jedi.But the apprentices of my age group were merciless when I came back, "reeking" of the Dark Side, as they put it. They threatened to kill me if I stayed (and many of them could), and they tied me up in a tree and practised hurling rocks at me. At least when rocks are actually thrown, some miss. But when they're guided by the Force, they reach damaging speeds quickly, and almost never miss. So there's another reason I left.
I needed a new start, a fresh start, where nobody knew me, what I could do, or the limits of my powers. Where people could know me and like me, not knowing or caring what I knew about the Force.
The Dark Side gives me a rush, sure. It's great for some things too - the Light Side can't match it for pure destructive power, and when wrapped in it one becomes a killing machine. That's a good thing when you're embroiled in dogfights where your only objective is to kill the enemy, and self-preservation comes with it so you can keep on destroying things.
The Light Side is good for other things - healing and pure defense for example. There are some situations where killing everything in sight isn't the greatest idea, like when you're on a rescue mission and your only objective is to get out with both your own and your rescuee's hides intact. Without the Light Side, though, I think I'd go insane.
Light and Dark. Yin yang. The duality. Neither can exist without the other. Take away all users of the Dark Side, and the Light Side becomes something . . . else. Both Light and Dark. I guess I'm the embodiment of all that. It's just my darker side is displayed more often than most people's.
Sometimes I think finding the Sith Holocron when I went on a meditation excursion the best thing that ever happened to me. The things I learned have saved my life a hundred times. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to get out the tree the apprentices tied me in. I used the Dark Side to create a wall between me and them while I used the Force to burn through the rope. Without what I learned, I might not have survived any one of hundreds of hundreds of dogfights I've been in since joining the planetary defense corps.
Other times I think it's the worst thing that could have happened to me. Even though some of the things are useful, even fun, other things I learned scare me. They might not have then, but now, ten years later, they scare the shit out of me.
Sometimes, I'll wake up in the middle of the night, tense enough that I feel like I'll break into pieces if I get any more tense. Only my husband can calm me down when that happens. He'll talk to me of summer - not the hot dry days, but the warm, moist ones by the ocean. He'll tell me of all the reasons he loves me, and speaks of all the good times we've had. The good memories will usually wash away the memories of my dreams - dreams of what I could have been, had I done what the Holocron wanted me to: destroy worlds, exterminate populations, and spread a reign of terror throughout the galaxy. When the dreams are gone, I'll relax and curl up against him, and we'll both go back to sleep.
But when he doesn't manage to wake up, things explode. Quite literally. All the tenseness in me goes into lashing out at something, be it a tree outside, or a can of lubricant in the garage. Something in me keeps me from striking my husband or my son, which is a very good thing. If something happened to them, I don't know what I'd do.
I don't have the Holocron anymore. When I realized what it was trying to do to me, I got into my fighter and shot the Holocron into the sun. If I still had it, I might be reigning over a galaxy-wide dictatorship instead of having a family and friends. I know I'd rather have a home and family and friends.
It's good the Force isn't particularly strong here. If it wasn't, the Holocron would have gained a larger foothold, and I'd be sitting on that cold throne right about now.
For a while there, when I was trying to figure out how to get rid of the Holocron, I was constantly cloaked in the Light Side. I sometimes think it was the only thing keeping the Holocron from completely taking over my thoughts.
The best part about the Light Side is that I can use it to take away the knowledge I gained from the Holocron. Slowly but surely, I'm using it to take away my memories of the atrocities I could commit if I wanted to. I just brush it over the memories, and they go away. My brain creates new passage wasy to go around the memories, erasing any way to them. Sometimes it takes several tries, but they go away. The only bad part is that I have to relive the memories in all their gory detail in order for them to go away. Sometimes my husband will walk in on me when I'm reliving them, and I'm curled up in a fetal position on the floor, crying my eyes out. He just sits next to me, sometimes rubbing my back, just letting me know he's there.
He's my savior in some respects. If it weren't for him and my son, I don't think I could go through with it all.
Almost all the memories are gone now. I only have a few more to go until the dangerous ones are all gone. Once I'm free of them, I won't wake up in the middle of the night ready to destroy anything that moves.
I'll finally be able to move on with my life, and leave the Holocron behind.