Title: "Such Sweet Mercy"
Characters: Arcann, Senya, Jedi K., Imperial A., Sith I.
Rating: K+
Genre: Friendship/Hurt/Comfort
Pairing: Arcann/Fem!Sith I.
Description: "Arcann is not used to being put first."
Pt 1: Senya
She nearly dies several times trying to keep him safe.
Life on the run is difficult - and with the Alliance, Empire and Republic all breathing down their necks, it's no surprise that resources are scarce. Arcann is still weak from his confrontation with the Outlander above Odessen and is barely able to sit up by himself, let alone look after his battered body. That job is left to his mother.
Senya spends all her free time tending to him. If she isn't busy navigating hyperlanes or dodging Alliance patrols, she's looking after her wounded son. She feeds him and waters him and changes the bandages on his wounds and gives him medicine to help him heal faster. If supplies are running low, she will go hungry just to make sure that he has enough to eat. And the few times that they find themselves at the mercy of any pursuers, she will put herself between them and him as a literal human shield.
It's so unlike what he's used to. Arcann is accustomed to constantly watching his back, accustomed to expecting Vaylin or someone to gut him from behind when he's not paying attention. He's certainly NOT accustomed to someone placing themselves between him and a blaster, or starving themselves to make sure that he stays alive. He'd tell her to stop if he could, to look after herself better, to not worry herself with him, but he can barely talk, is hardly ever coherent or even conscious most of the time and isn't in any shape to communicate anything.
She hardly ever leaves his side on Voss, staying close to him and trading between begging the healers to help him and demanding to know what the hell is going on outside as Vaylin's troops storm the shrine that they've holed themselves up in. She leaves his side briefly when the Outlander catches up to them, going off to plead with her former Commander for Arcann's life, but only minutes later she is at his side again, stroking his face and promising that help will be there soon.
Arcann doesn't remember much of that, as he spent the entire time drifting in and out of consciousness. His first clear memory is his mother's voice singing softly into his ear, and a strange warmth coursing through his veins. Next thing he knows, he's waking up and the Voss are sitting in a circle around him, and his mother is slumped over as still as death, and no matter how much he nudges and pleads, she won't stir.
It hits him, then, what happened, that she gave her own life to save him. He wants to cry, to scream, to rail about the unfairness of it all, but he doesn't. He has to be stronger than that, stronger for his mother, to honor her sacrifice.
She's the first person in years to voluntarily put his needs before her own, and by the Force, he's going to honor that.
He's going to make his mother proud.
Pt 2: Tasir
He's far kinder to him than Arcann deserves.
Arcann knows that he does not deserve mercy from this man. After all of the pain he has caused, the people he's murdered, the planets he's leveled, the lives he's destroyed… he knows that he deserves nothing less than death. All the good deeds in the universe cannot atone for all of the blood that is on his hands.
And yet, the Outlander not only spares his life, but even willingly permits Arcann to join his Alliance. The former emperor remembers all too clearly the compassion in the Pureblood's face as he had waited for his former enemy's judgment with bated breath back at the tail end of Vaylin's party. It is a compassion he has not seen in a long while; not since his brother had taken his last breath all those years ago.
In many ways, Tasir reminds him of Thexan - kind and patient, a natural leader who puts his people first and yet is still too quick to forgive - and Arcann isn't sure what to make of that. He doesn't know if he should be relieved that the Jedi accepts him so readily, or if he should be concerned that he is so quick to forgive crimes of that magnitude.
Forgiveness is a virtue; but it can be a costly one, if not exercised carefully.
More baffling still is the way that the Outlander consistently puts himself in harm's way on his behalf.
The first instance of this happens while they are facing Vaylin on Odessen. Vaylin has Arcann at her mercy, her lightsaber at his throat and an inhuman cackle on her lips. Lightning dances at her fingertips, licking outwards, desperate to feed on his battered flesh. He meets her eyes defiantly and clenches his fists, braces himself for the killing blow -
- when a large, red-and-white something slams into Vaylin from the side and sends her crashing into the nearest wall.
Arcann blinks at the haggard form of the Outlander, muscles taut with tension and his mouth pressed into a thin line, as the man stands his ground in the very spot where only seconds ago the Empress of Zakuul had held a lightsaber to her brother's throat. Tasir's left arm is limp where Vaylin's lightning hit him, and his offhand lightsaber is missing - but his head is tilted defiantly, and his posture is defensive as he stands over Arcann's prone body.
Everyone knows that the Outlander is fiercely protective of the people he commands, but Arcann still can't help but think that this is overkill. They're not exactly friends. Tasir barely even knows him. Hell, they spent most of the last year trying to kill each other - yet the man still goes and throws himself between Arcann and a lightsaber.
Arcann doesn't understand it. He can't understand it, can't understand how somehow who he wronged so severely would be willing to take a blow for him like that. The situation is so foreign to him that he can't wrap his head around it.
Tasir Ri'in is a conundrum - one that Arcann desperately wants to understand.
Pt 3: Vaarith
He's more of a father to him than Valkorian ever was.
Vaarith T'lankis is a hard man - that much is plainly obvious. His face is weathered and scarred, the furrows on his brow and around his mouth and eyes etched deep by years and years of hardship. The whole right side of his face is covered with scars - from where, nobody knows, and very few have the courage to ask - and his gray eyes are far older than his forty-three years of life would suggest. The Rattataki is distant and sad, haunted by images that no one else can see - but even as jaded as he is, Arcann knows a kindred spirit when he sees one.
The older man is a bit rough around the edges - he's gruff and distant, occasionally irritable and speaks his mind more often than is probably appropriate - but he's kinder to Arcann than everyone else in the Alliance sans the Outlander himself. He doesn't share Senya's unflappable belief that Arcann has good in him, nor does he have Tasir's undying patience and natural tendency to look for the best in people - but he nevertheless is willing to give him a chance that most members of the Alliance don't think he deserves.
The difference between him and them is that Vaarith knows what it's like to have regrets, and so he does not condemn Arcann for what he has done.
Though the man rarely discusses his past, he says enough for Arcann to know that Vaarith is a professional killer. He is a spy, employed by Imperial Intelligence and was once one of their best agents, and as such is highly trained in both assassination and espionage. He has caused more deaths, both directly and indirectly, than most of the rest of the Alliance combined. Only Arcann himself has (knowingly) exceeded his body count. And even though he retired from that life many years ago, those deaths still haunt him.
Vaarith alone truly understands.
It doesn't take long for the former agent to take the ex-emperor of Zakuul under his wing. He is Arcann's friend and sole confidant in his early days among the Alliance. Vaarith listens to him and consoles him, gives him advice when Arcann is faced with difficult choices, and teaches him the basics on how to interact socially with other people as a peer, instead of as a superior (that is one lesson he never had the chance to learn in his youth). He teaches him other things, too - how to shoot a blaster ("You never know when you might need one"), how to fix a speeder ("Keeping your mount in working condition can be the difference between life and death") and even how to interact with the opposite sex ("Women always figure out the truth. Always").
He walks him through all those subjects that fathers are supposed to instruct their sons in, and Arcann can't help but wonder how things would have been different if Valkorian had given him and his siblings the type of attention and care that Vaarith is giving him. But Vaarith and Valkorian are so different that it's probably not a fair comparison, anyway.
Arcann doesn't even realize that there is a void in his life until Vaarith is there to fill it. He had never before thought that he had any need of a father figure. After Valkorian's abuse he believed himself to be better off without one.
Vaarith shows him how ridiculous that line of thinking is. And Arcann has never been happier to be wrong.
Pt 4: Occlus
She is easily the most confusing person he has ever met.
They call her Darth Occlus, and she is Sith. Arcann knows nothing about her past. Nothing about her family or her beliefs or even her real name. All he knows is which trumped-up Force-Sensitive Order she identifies with. He doesn't even know how old she is - if he had to venture a guess, he'd say that she's approximately his age, but as he is not well-versed in how aging works with Cathar there's no way for him to know for sure. And she's not exactly the most forthcoming of individuals.
Occlus hates him.
Not that that is any surprise, most people seem to hate him, but for some reason her opinion bothers him more than anyone else's does.
(It's probably because she is a healer and as such he quite frequently finds his life in her hands and is a little nervous at the thought of a Sith Lord who so obviously despises him having power over whether he lives or dies. It definitely does not have anything to do with the way that his stomach lurches every time she walks into the room.)
She is usually harsh and abrasive, always glares at him whenever they are within fifty feet of each other and is quite fond of using sarcasm and mockery against him every time they have a conversation. Despite this, though, Arcann has a hard time disliking her. She is clever and brave, quick-witted and has an interesting sense of humor that shines through even when she's giving someone (usually him) a verbal beat-down. And she's not afraid of him, unlike most other people in the base. She's completely unperturbed by his reputation and isn't the slightest bit scared to show it. Arcann can't help but respect that.
(If he's completely honest, he's more impressed and fascinated by her than anything else - but there's no way that he would ever admit that out loud).
As abrasive as she can be, however, she isn't cruel to him. She never brings up more sensitive topics, like his family or childhood, and she doesn't taunt him about his father, like most of the other Sith do. Occlus is not kind to him, but she has standards, sets limits. Her words sting but they don't wound. Their pain is brief and more annoying to him than harmful.
And she is surprisingly gentle with him whenever she is called on to heal him. Darth Occlus is shockingly professional. When he's in her medbay, he isn't a tyrant, isn't a murderer or a former enemy. He's her patient, and she'll do everything in her power to make sure that he is healed. She still gives him some severe scoldings if he doesn't follow her instructions to the letter, but as she does that with all of her patients he hardly considers those telling-offs to be signs of her usual hostility towards him. She keeps him alive and keeps him healthy, and Arcann is pretty sure that none of the other Sith would have done even that much for him.
Darth Occlus is a puzzle. She makes no sense. Her words and her actions are in direct contrast with each other and Arcann doesn't know what to think. Does she hate him or not? Are her snide comments meant to wound him, or is it something else? Why is her behavior towards him so different when he's hurt?
He has so many questions about her.
Maybe someday he will manage to get some answers.