Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned, nor the SW universe.
Duty
...
Evening wind is whistling over the plains, rustling the grass; a whispering sea of molten gold and amber, under a burning sky. In the distance, a lone kath hound is howling.
He takes in a breath, slowly, savouring the fresh scent of the wind; a moment of peace, one of only a few, each of them so precious because of their rarity. His footsteps make almost no sound as he ventures deeper out into the plains, a failed attempt at an escape he is dreaming of now more and more often. Further and further, but no, not too far away, for he has to be back at Khoonda by night.
Midnight, he tells his conscience, Let this once be it midnight. He is craving for solitude, and for that fragile perfection that can be found out on the planes still, even after everything the land has suffered from what seemed a constant wave of destruction: Revan, who took so many out into the space, none of whom returned; Malak, and his troops and assassins; Mandalorian raiders, roaming the once safe grasslands for long years after the war. Yet even after that all, or maybe because of, or maybe contrary to, there is still peace.
Peace in the wind which is ruffling the remains of his graying hair, promising rest. Eternal rest, his mind prompts him, yes, eternal rest soon. Soon, but not soon enough.
First star are climbing up into the sky, cool, almost painfully bright against its dark velvet. They are almost like Adare's eyes: they, too, are painfully bright, painfully bright with life in her exhausted, pale face; once she might have been quite pretty, but he does not remember.
Strange, how after everything he is still unable to think of her using her name; it seems inappropriate, out of place. She is a leader, not a woman; a function, not a name.
He looks up into the sky, watching the stars. The young one is somewhere out there; their most splendid success, surpassed only by Revan, their most painful mistake, now their last, desperate hope. How many mistakes did they allow, how many wrong decisions? You have no heart, Adare told him once, Only reason and conscience. Yet if he has no heart, then why his chest feels heavy with an invisible burden every time he is thinking of their errors? Remorse, guilt, yes, but there is more. Compassion, for the young one, and fear. Young one... Ah, no longer a young one. His apprentice once, then a brilliant Knight, then a rebellious general under Revan's command, now only a shadow of the former glory, a "wound in the Force"... Have they ever considered what it must have been like, to suddenly lose the Force? Like losing sight and hearing and touch, all at once, and being separated from a constantly present source of internal strength. Lost young one – it will always remain a 'young one' for him – lonely, somewhere out there, among cold merciless stars; a child who had to grow up too quickly, something he knows well himself and has always wished silently it would not happen to any of his students, least of all to that one; so bright, so hopeful, with such a passion for life...
"Forgive me, child," he whispers to the sky, knowing that his words will not reach the ears they should, that they will reach no one, but it diminishes his burden all the same, if only a tiniest bit.
For a moment he wonders if the others regret that one decision, too. Where are they, are they even alive? Probably yes, though he is not sure any more if he would feel their passing in the Force; once friends for life, almost like a one mind, now scattered across the galaxy, every day more distant... Does he, when thinking 'we', really means it? Is there still a 'we'? Was there ever, truly? He knows, remembers it was, but it is becoming difficult to believe it.
His thoughts turn from his friends to another; once his fellow Jedi, his friend, his-... One who could always understand, yet whom he was never able to understand fully, but offered acceptance anyway, acceptance, and much more, knowing she would not tell him she needed him. And knowing she did need him anyway; knowing it by the glimpse in her eyes, by half a smile she sometimes graced him with... by her gasping breaths and closed eyes, by they way her fingers clutched at his hand. Knowing it by the fierceness of her voice when she was urging him to go with her, by the look of disgust in her eyes when he declined, by the way next morning she left without a goodbye. Knowing it by sensing her presence on the planet, her signature in the Force shadowy and barely tangible, and because she did not come, avoiding meeting him again. A few days ago he felt her very close, just behind a wall, in the adjoining room, but he did not move from Adare's side, listening to the Exile. That was his place; this is his place now: by her side.
Wind takes his deep sigh, and with the wind he slowly wanders back, lights of Khoonda twinkling in the distance. They should make him feel like walking home; they do not. He never had a real home, at least not a one he can remember; the Enclave has been his home for years, but it is now only a ghost of the past, burned down and turned to ashes. He no longer has a place he can pretend is home, and no place in the universe other than this planet, the planet he swore never to leave, and protect with his life; something for which Dantooine sometimes – though very, very seldom – repays him: when he is out in the grasslands and the stars are rising, there are rare times it feels like a right place to be, a last place that still welcomes him.
...
He slips into the building, noiselessly, only to find her waiting in his room.
"You're late." She looks at him with eyes dimmed and tired.
"Apologies."
She sighs, but does not respond. He is thankful for her silence.
"Don't go anywhere tomorrow." She does not ask, but he has been trough this before. She never asks, she never pleads, she just speaks, commands or suggests, and looks at him with her dimmed eyes – as they always are in the nights; during daytime her eyes are sharp and bright, starlike – and he knows he has to listen.
Her stare reluctantly leaves his face. Before she turns to leave he comes closer and kisses the corner of her lips gently. He can feel she wishes for more, but she does not ask him to stay with her tonight, and he is glad; he needs solitude.
"Sleep well, Terena." He manages to call her by her name, and the tiny smile appearing on her lips assures him it was worth the effort.
"Sleep well, Lamar."
He watches as she walks out of the room, then collapses onto a chair.
She never uses his given name. Somehow, it fits; his name does not suit him any more, one syllable, sharp, cutting, like a blade of a lightsaber. He is no longer like a blade; the crystal of his will is slowly burning out.
The yearning is there again, yearning to leave the planet that took his life, to leave and never come back. He could do it, this night; he could have done it any night, and no one would stop him, yet he stays. A Jedi's life is duty, and his duty is here.
Once his duty was to bring up Force-gifted children, to teach them, to help them grow, to help the people of Dantooine with his counsel and the work of his hands, to protect these people and to ensure their safety; now his duty is still to protect people of Dantooine, to help preserve the planet, to help them survive. That is why he stands by Adare: because she is the leader, the chain that keeps the planet whole, because she unites the people, because now she is taking care of the planet's safety. It is his duty to support her.
She never asks for help and always keeps her head up proudly, but he knows. Her burden is heavy, and in the nights, when she is alone, she is longing for a friend who would listen, or just be near. So he gives her all she needs: support and counsel, friendship, strength and safety, and sometimes, although it requires great exertion of self-control, he offers tenderness and passion even. She does not need him to pretend love, she knows he cannot offer that much, and he does not strive to offer. Her words were true: he has no heart, only conscience, which reminds him of duty.
So he stands by her, because of his conscience, and not because of his heart, which is by now dry and withered. But there is one more reason, a reason which makes him wish he could at least try to offer more, and at the same time making him unable to offer. Because she reminds him too much of his loss, because she is strong and proud and unyielding, ready to give up everything she has for the truths she believes in, and in these he sees in her a reflection of Kreia. And all he can do is mind his duty, because otherwise he would betray one of them, and he feels he is betraying them both anyway: Kreia, because he was not able to stop her, to reason with her, or at least to accept her last decision of leaving, and because he still contempts her for her turning, and Adare, because she has almost everything Kreia once had, and she is a woman brave and worth of admiration, but she is not Kreia.
He has tried to live a Jedi's life: no attachment, because even with Kreia his duty to the Order always came first, no posession, because he let go of his students, and then of his heart, friends and love alike; but there is no serenity, and no peace, and he finally understands a Jedi's life is endless striving, an endeavour for someone else's peace and serenity, and the price for that is life. It is his duty to pay, but his heart, almost dead by now, is still trying to convince him he is paying willingly.