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Defining the Jedi: Choice

It was cold. She was accustomed to the cold, however. It was dark, but she was not afraid of the dark. But there was a terrible cramping in her body that she could do without. Her vision was blurred, indistinct, and her brain was sluggish, the result of an unnatural sleep imposed upon her by the Force.

Kreia! She tried to move, but could not even twitch her smallest finger. The Force that had dulled her senses and enveloped her consciousness still held her prisoner as surely as carbonite freezing.

A trap. Kreia was proud, so proud, but the Sith had not surrendered to her to confess her crimes to Atris. Kreia had allowed herself to be escorted here only because it was the next part of her plan. She'd allowed her emotions to blind her to the old woman's intentions. Darden always warned her against such slips in control. They could be fatal to a Jedi. Or fatal to the ones a Jedi was sworn to protect.

It was not the first time she had allowed her emotions to master her. On Korriban, she had given way to her fear, and to her dishonor, her friend and master had faced Sion without her. Darden had gone into the tomb of Ludo Kressh alone. She had been wounded. She had nearly been killed. The Handmaiden did not believe that she could have prevailed against the Dark Side barrier where Mical, the strongest of them, had failed, but nevertheless she had been shamed that day.

It was why she had been determined not to fail again. After her experiences on Korriban, Darden had been certain that some great threat approached, and Mira, who saw farther than any of them, had only agreed. A silence had fallen over the Ebon Hawk. Not a dead silence, like the one on Telos, nor a hostile silence, like that of Korriban. An expectant, wary silence. Darden called it 'the calm before the storm.' No one had been able to imagine what form the storm might take, but she had increased her training, and hoped that it would be enough, that she would be prepared when it broke.

And when she had sent the message to Atris that the Jedi were found, and there had been no word, either from Atris or from her sisters, when Administrator Adare said there had been no ship from Telos since the Ebon Hawk had last landed, she had known for herself that the storm was breaking.

The old woman had gone silent. She had ceased communications with the crew. She had not eaten, except that food which Darden brought to her personally and ordered her to eat. The old woman had known as well that the storm was breaking. All of them had suspected her, Atton especially, and men such as Atton Rand had an instinct for survival. He who had been untrustworthy knew his own, he had been with Kreia and Darden longer than any of them, and more than any of them watched for their master's safety, mixed as his motives were.

And Darden had refused all company as she set out for the Jedi Enclave. She had gone across the plains without the Handmaiden, without Mical or Bao-Dur or any of them, even Atton. She had refused all company but this old woman who was no longer her teacher, and not to be trusted, and Atris had not come.

She had decided that she would not let Darden go into what awaited her alone, orders or no. She was apprentice and friend to Darden Leona, and she would not allow her Master to continue on in exile from all others. Not with what had happened in the tomb of Ludo Kressh. Not when the Force told all of them that something was coming. She had followed them over the plains, and entered the Enclave, to find she had not been the only pupil of Darden's that had done so.

For a long time, she had been unable to think. Even to breathe was an effort. She had seen Visas there, on the ground insensate, her crimson robes smoking. The metallic scent of Force Lightning had filled her nostrils and burned her tongue, and she could feel the Dark rift in the Force where the violence had left its mark, even above the screaming that already filled that place.

And the old woman had emerged from another ruined hallway, unhooded, unmasked, calm and terribly cruel. It is true; I am one of the Sith. She had said that Darden was dead with all the Jedi, that she had killed them, and the Handmaiden had reached out through the ruins, and felt nothing but gaping emptiness, yawning void.

She had activated her lightsaber, and Kreia had not moved. Foolish, she'd been so foolish, not to realize the old woman wished to be taken. Kreia had read her too well, for she had been unable to kill her in the ruins. One teaching of Darden's stayed her hand: that if she killed the murderous witch in her anger, she would be no better than a Sith herself. It would be giving into her grief and hate; it would be a fall. And Darden would never have done it.

So with her mind blurred, distorted by grief, she had taken the old woman, exactly as Kreia had planned. Kreia had known, too, that the Handmaiden had read the others, and judged that every one of them would make the same choice in the moment, save perhaps Atton, and would not be able to enact the judgment upon the old woman that she deserved. And if Atton killed Kreia, he would fall, and Darden would not wish that, either. But the emptiness in the Force screamed out for justice, so she had taken Kreia to one whom she knew would enact justice upon her, without reservation, because Atris did not love Darden Leona, but knew the Sith must die.

Of course Kreia had not put up a fight, and it had been a simple matter to purchase a rundown double-man fighter from Khoonda. Rundown, but able to do the job. The Dantooine government was happy to sell to one of those that had preserved their planet.

The two of them had flown nearly a week and a half before Kreia had made her move. In all that time, the Handmaiden had not spoken a word, and neither had the old woman. But just as they broke out of hyperspace above Telos, just as the she set course for Atris' Academy, her mind had gone black and her senses had failed her.

The Handmaiden lay stiff and cramped in the passenger seat of the fighter, completely immobile, and cursed the reckless rage that had enabled such a lapse in judgment that she had escorted a Sith to the last of the Jedi, and to her sisters.

Regret, fear flooded her mind, and as it did, it dampened the rage. She felt a presence make itself known then. A small, irritated voice spoke in the back of her consciousness.

"Figured out she wanted to go now, have you? Can you hear me? You can…Finally. Good. Listen."

Joy surged through the Handmaiden's heart. Darden! It was Darden, alive, and speaking to her through their bond. Such speech was Darden's strength, and Atton's, not hers. She could not form the words to send back her relief, the fear and embarrassment she felt now. But she could listen, and she did so, quieting her mind so as not to blur her Master's message.

"No. I'm not dead. Kreia lied about that, to get away from me and to Telos. No. She didn't lie about the other Jedi. Or about being a Sith. She killed them. All but Atris. Because Atris didn't show up on Dantooine. You know why she didn't."

During their meditation sessions, the Handmaiden had grown accustomed to the way Darden could telepathically answer questions that she had not verbalized, even in her mind. It was a great strength of her Master's, but this was the first time she had realized how very useful it could be. How potentially lifesaving.

Nevertheless, Darden's direct address of something that the Handmaiden had been trying to avoid confronting for months made her recoil somewhat. But she could not deny the truth in Darden's implicit accusation. The Jedi did not kill their prisoners. So why had she brought Kreia to Atris?

Her face grew hot with shame. But she was a daughter of the Echani, born and bred to face her failings with honor. More, she was a Jedi, and she was no longer blind to the Force. She reached out with the senses her Master had taught her to use, and she felt the currents in this place. More specifically, she felt the lack of them. The Force here was not like a river, it was like a lake. It was a stagnant pool of stinking water, deep and dark, cold and full of lurking danger and unhealthy slime. Atris had locked herself away from the galaxy in this place and meditated on her grief and anger until it had become hate. And those holocrons that had spoken to her once—she had studied enough under Darden, and read enough in Mical's rescued archives, to know now what they truly were.

Anguish filled her mind, and anxiety, for her sisters that did not know what they protected.

"It'll be alright," Darden told her, sensing her distress.

But they were still linked, and across the link, she could feel that the words were more than half a lie. There was something Darden was hiding from her, and her teacher was very uncertain that things would, in fact, be alright. "We left just a few hours after you did. Atton's a better pilot than you are; and the Ebon Hawk's a better ship than that fighter you took. We'll be there in just an hour. Just stay where you are, Handmaiden. We're coming for you."

Darden's consciousness receded. She felt hope for the first time in over a week, but she also knew she was not going to stay where she was when a Sith, perhaps two, threatened Telos. She attacked the Force binding her with her will, searching for a chink in the grip that held her, anything.

In the end, she did not break free. She was released. Five minutes after she heard the sound of Atris' own fighter leaving the hangar. Kreia had escaped, bound for regions unknown.

She sat up. The Ebon Hawk was near. She felt Darden's presence approaching. She even felt the others, faintly, though sensing such things was not her strongest point.

She crawled out of the cockpit of the two-man fighter, stretching her cramped limbs. She could sense Darden, but she could also sense Atris, and Kreia had not destroyed her. Which meant that this was still another trap, and her master was flying straight into it. She wondered how she had missed it before, the bitterness, the hardness. But now it had been kindled into a glowering, simmering rage, and sharpened to a terrible resolve.

She should not have come here, but now that she was, perhaps her presence here served some purpose. Kreia had manipulated her, but the Force was with her still, and perhaps there was still time to avert the coming battle. She finished her stretching, and the last of her soreness dissipated out of her fingertips, the soles of her feet, and she made for the other side of the irrigation system, toward the barracks, and toward Atris' meditation chamber. Perhaps she could speak to her sisters, to Atris, make them understand somehow, stop this. There did not need to be violence here this day.

Her body moved, separated from her mind, as her training took over.

But she stopped when she came to the room that Atris had set up as a Council chamber, with white seats arranged inside the perimeter of the circular wall. Her five sisters stood between her and Atris, barring her way.

Their stances declared in an instance exactly where they stood, that they knew she had broken her oath to Atris and studied the Jedi ways. Their feet were firmly planted shoulder-width apart, a strong stance. Their faces were hard and cold as the plateau outside. Each gripped her staff, and it was leveled at her. Her sisters had cared for her since she was a child. They had taught her to walk, and then to fight. They had taught her the Echani history and the forms of combat. But the Handmaiden well knew that to her sisters, she had always been a symbol of Yusanis' shame. They had cared for her out of duty, and not out of affection. She stood before them now as a traitor.

"The last of the Handmaidens is before us," said the eldest coldly. She had requested that Atris take the Handmaiden on as a favor. The Handmaiden remembered how proud she had been that day, thirteen years of age, when she took her oath. She had not understood what it meant.

"It is good that you have returned," said the second of her sisters. She had taken an hour out of her own training each day to help the Handmaiden practice certain rituals that did not come easily to her. "You have much to answer for."

The Handmaiden bowed. "What are you saying?" she asked. They would not hurt her. But she looked at each of their faces in turn, and found she was not so certain, after all.

"You have betrayed us," her third sister said. The Handmaiden remembered her from her earliest days. When the Handmaiden had woken in the night from a child's nightmare, she had gone to her third sister, and her third sister had told her Echani stories, and tales of their father, Yusanis. Later, when they were alone, her third sister had even told her of her mother. She had always been more sympathetic, and on the days when the Handmaiden had imagined that she was loved at all, she had thought her third sister might love her. But now her third sister's face was hard, hurt. "You have betrayed Atris."

"You are no longer one of us. You followed the Jedi, betrayed your oath," accused her second sister. The Handmaiden shook her head, held up her hands, presenting a peaceful image.

"Listen to me," she begged. "Atris has been touched by the Sith. It is not too late to—"

"Silence!" cried her third sister.

Her first three sisters had not used their names as long as she could remember. But the last two—the fourth was only two years older and the last only a few months older than she—they had carried names at the same time. She had been unable to forget them, even as she had been unable to forget her own. And Reni and Rayhal hated her.

"It is a crime to kill blood," Reni said coldly. She was shaking. Her anger had always been her weakness. "But not to kill a betrayer such as you."

The Handmaiden kept her hands raised. "I will not fight you," she said.

Rayhal's face was stern. All of her sisters were stern and unyielding, though the Handmaiden saw regret in her first and third sisters' eyes. "Then you shall fall," said Rayhal.

All her sisters attacked her.

The Handmaiden's training took over, both that she had received as a child among her sisters, and that she had received as the apprentice of Darden Leona. She heard her first and second sisters speaking to her as a child of six or seven.

"The true test of battle is how much to bring to your opponents. If you wish to kill them, do not hold back. But if you wish to stun them, incapacitate them, then you must choose your attacks carefully, using just the right amount of force, just the right weapon, to stop them."

She did not reach for her lightsaber. The blade would cut through her sisters' weapons like twigs and through their bodies like butter, and she did not want to kill them, though they sought to kill her. Instead, she moved in the Shien mode, the one for use against multiple opponents, striking underneath their guards with fist and feet…and with the Force that they were deaf to.

Her elder sisters moved more slowly than she was used to. At first, as the Handmaiden disarmed Reni, held her immobile with the Force, then dropped her unconscious with a well-placed blow to the head so she need no longer expend energy on her, she believed that her sisters were not nearly so eager to fight her as they claimed. As the battle progressed, however, the girl that up until now had been known as the last of the Handmaidens realized that her sisters were fighting as they always had. Their faces were resolute, their movements both rapid and powerful. Yet they could not overcome her. Sometime in her travels, she had surpassed them.

Finally she had incapacitated all but Rayhal, the most passionate of her sisters, and her eldest sister, the most experienced of all of them. Rayhal came at her, eyes blazing. "Why do you not use your lightsaber, traitor?" she spat. "Why not just kill us?" Rayhal leapt at her, and she blocked Rayhal's attack with an ease that she certainly had not commanded months before. At the same time she reached out with the Force and pushed her eldest sister out of a jumping kick. Her eldest sister fell to the floor.

She and Rayhal's limbs were locked together. She stared into Rayhal's face. She had been born not nine months after Rayhal. While her sisters' mother had carried Rayhal, their father had been betraying them with her mother. "You have always hated me," she said, with some wonder, and more than a little sadness. "I can feel it in you. You have waited for this, wanted this. But I do not hate you, and what I do here is not a betrayal, but an action that is true to what I am. And I- I am your sister. But I am not one of you."

She put Rayhal to the ground beside her older sisters, and turned to her eldest sister, just rising.

"You are not one of us," her eldest sister agreed. Her eldest sister's face was resigned, but she felt no hatred from her. Her eldest sister squared off against her. "Nevertheless, you swore an oath. Whether or not you understood it, whether or not you were even capable of abiding by its terms, Atris holds you to that oath. And I am bound by my oath to her to detain you."

"Sister, please," the girl that had been the last of the Handmaidens pled, sensing something that might be mercy. "Atris is not what we have thought her, and Darden Leona is not what she says. The holocrons in her chamber, they are not of the Jedi—they are Sith, and Atris is fallen. Atris, not the Exile!"

"What you say may be true," said her eldest sister. "But you may have been taken in by the Exile's lies. You would not be the first. And in any case, I am sworn to Atris, not the Exile, and I will not betray my oath. I cannot betray my oath."

The girl that had been the last of the Handmaidens bowed her head. "Forgive me," she murmured. While her eldest sister was still poised for action, she moved, and dropped her eldest sister to the ground with one, economical blow, just like the others. To all five of them she whispered. "I hope you will one day understand."

She moved from the Council Chamber. Atris met her on the bridge over the reservoir, like she had Darden, the first time Darden had come. Darden's lightsaber, the one she had wielded during the Mandalorian Wars, was clenched in Atris' right fist, though it was deactivated. Still, Atris came forward to meet her, and Atris grasped her by the shoulders.

"Where have you been?" Atris asked. "You have been absent so long. I feared for your safety."

Like her sisters, Atris had looked down on her for her parentage. She had hung on Atris' every word, starved for the trickle of the Force that she had felt back then, the breath of breeze on her face that only made her yearn all the more for the open air. More than anything, more than her sisters' love even; she had craved Atris' approval. And now Atris was looking at her with such concern…had Atris cared for her? Had there been room in her hardened, cold heart for the least of her Handmaidens? It hadn't seemed so, and yet…

"Were you with the Exile all this time?" Atris asked, and Atris' fingernails dug into her shoulder. Immediately the girl that had been the last of the Handmaidens knew that it was a lie. Atris still lived in the Mandalorian Wars, still stayed behind as Darden Leona left, and still hated Darden for it. And now that hatred was extended to her. She had an idea how deep that hatred went, but she did not truly know. So the girl decided to tread carefully.

She reminded Atris of who had told her to go with Darden. "Mistress, as you commanded, I—"

Atris stepped back, and her face was hard, icy now. "Commanded?" Atris interrupted. "Did I command you to follow her teachings? To betray your oath?"

She tried again. "Mistress, the Exile taught me many things—"

Atris smiled cruelly. She had been hard before, but never cruel. "I'm certain she did. And now perhaps it is time to show me what you have learned."

Atris activated her lightsaber.

The girl that had been the last of the Handmaidens stepped back. Atris was a Jedi Master. It had never been her intention to challenge Atris to a lightsaber duel. She had hoped that Atris might allow her to speak, that she could somehow get Atris to see what she had become before the situation was unsalvageable. "Mistress, I do not understand—"

"Of course you do not," Atris sneered. "But you will learn. You have had a long journey, and I am anxious to see what you have learned of war and battle."

Atris came at her, and reflexively, she activated her own lightsaber to block the downstroke. When Atris saw the color and make of the blade, the same as the one that she held, she snarled. Atris moved into an Ataru form, but the Echani girl countered with Soresu, unwilling to meet her mistress' aggression with aggression.

"Atris—we need not battle," she insisted. "Listen to me—"

She stepped back and defended again, falling now into the rhythm of lightsaber combat. It struck her suddenly how many years it had been since Atris had battled with a lightsaber. It was there in the weakness of the arms, the sloppiness of the stance. Her mistress had spent a lifetime avoiding battle. Of late, she had avoided Jedi altogether, sinking into her hoarded knowledge of the Sith in a self-imposed Exile. It had frozen her, and she was breakable. The anger was there, yes, the hatred. But no conviction, no self-assurance. The daughter of Arren Kae, the apprentice of Darden Leona, realized that she could easily defeat Atris.

But as she fought, she realized she was a Jedi, had always been a Jedi. This was her choice: to meet the Sith and to protect her true Master, to be a line of defense, but never a weapon, never a killer. As the Force swirled through her body, her movements, her spirit, Brianna embraced her identity.

She did not press her advantage. She merely defended herself. But Atris realized this was what she was doing. Her attacks grew steadily more desperate, more frenzied. Her face twisted until it marred the beauty that Brianna had always admired, warped it into a mask of hatred and jealousy.

"You battle as she did," Atris sneered. "It is so easy for you. Battle calls to you, does it not? Sings to you, like a siren. What is it costing you to hold back now, now that you have betrayed me? Enough!"

Brianna was thrown back to the floor of the reservoir bridge with a Force she could not match. Not in raw power. Lightning hit her chest, and she screamed, thinking, so this is what scarred Visas. How is she yet living?

Electricity burned through her muscles and fire through her veins. She could not control her movements and her lightsaber fell out of her hand and rolled away, useless. Atris stood over her, shooting the blue bolts from her fingers.

"Did she say she cared for you?" she demanded, in a shrill, breaking voice. "Did she call you her sister, her friend?"

Another bolt. Brianna tried to answer Atris, but she bit her tongue and blood filled her mouth. Her cry came out garbled. "There is no kindness, no friendship in that one!" Atris screamed down at her. "She is a shell! All that she was died at Malachor, and she dies there still!"

Another bolt. Ringing filled Brianna's ears and the edges of her vision went red as blood vessels in her eyes burst.

"Darden!" she screamed, with mouth and mind. "Darden!"

"She dies there still!" Atris repeated bitterly. "As she should!"

"Atris!" Darden's voice rang out like a bell, echoing across the reservoir. Her apprentice heard it and smiled just before the world went black and she knew no more.

Atris, my Master is here. Do you fear her? You should. You have expended too much power in your hatred and resentment of me, and in any event, she is capable of dealing with the likes of you.

A/N: This is Part Two of my Defining the Jedi student series. The first installment, "Strength," is Atton's narrative and takes place within the main Defining the Jedi storyline. Defining the Jedi will pick up again where this story leaves off, and further installments in the series will run parallel to the main storyline, with the exception of Part Four, Defining the Jedi: Freedom, Visas' narrative, which will recount events actually covered in the main storyline, but from Visas' POV instead of my Exile, Darden's.

If you're following the series and didn't just start here, a timeline.

Defining the Jedi is the main storyline of Sith Lords, slightly AU, from the POV of Darden Leona and occasionally Atton Rand, as told to my Revan, GSF Aithne Morrigan, about a year after the fact.

"Strength," the first installment of the student series, is already posted in the main story, and covers Atton's realization of the strength a Light Sided Jedi possesses as he leads the team in the tomb of Freedon Nadd.

The third installment, "Shield," takes place at roughly the same time as what will be the thirty-eighth chapter of Defining the Jedi, but will be posted beforehand. It covers Bao-Dur.

The fourth installment, "Freedom," as I said, is Visas' narrative, and covers the same events as what will be the thirty-ninth chapter of DtJ from her POV. It will be published at the same time.

Mira's narrative comes fifth, and Mical's sixth and last. I'm not yet certain of their titles, or exactly which chapters of DtJ they'll precede, accompany, or follow, but the events in both do overlap with one another, if not always the main storyline. For those of you familiar with the game, these chapters occur on Malachor.

If you're new to the Defining the Jedi main story, I urge you to check it out, if only because things might make a little more sense if you do. Either way, I appreciate your reading and hope you enjoyed. As ever, I'm extremely grateful for any feedback, positive or negative.

May the Force be with you,

LMS