Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all of these things, Revan... and yet you are nothing. In the end, you belong to neither the light nor the darkness. You will forever stand alone.

Darth Malak to Revan.


Down in the depth of the retched Shadowlands, there is a tree more ancient than the desire of the first human to touch the stars. You can feel this as you lean your head against its fallen bark, palm flat against the dark tainted soil rich with its seeds. Above, over the patchwork canopy of the leaves the sky is overcast, invisible to all the prying eyes. Yet you need not to see, your senses expand all over the galaxy, past the darkness of this world. The universe shifts with you, within you, you can feel every small burst of new life, feel the light dwindle as the death claims yet another prey. You touch them all with small fingertips of wonder, watch in awe as they do not shy away from the darkness of your heart, do not wither away from the taint of your past. The force is strong with you. It flows through you in gentle waves, calls out to you with promises of absolution, peace and redemption for the undeserving. You once have bowed your head before it in humility; you once have corrupted its light with your arrogance, it's a dance you should know the steps well by now, but alas the tune has changed. Still an answer must be given, a shift in the balance is inevitable, time flows with the Force inside your veins ticking away like an ancient clock, shattering any illusions of immortality.

But immortality has never been the object of your desire, as once knowledge was, an eternity ago when peace, despite the lust for learning had been absolute. And the light had absolved you, its champion, so benevolently from your sins. But then you took a step astray, and then a hundred more, and fell and took the world down with you.

You've been hailed by so many names, cursed by many more. But even here in this far-off corner of this far-off world where you are simply known as the outsider, you still cannot outrun the name you have spent a lifetime to build and another lifetime to ruin. You are Revan and once the mere mention of the name, your name would have been enough to engulf a whole world in blood.

Child of light and servant of darkness, savior of world and the bane of the sith, trembling with anticipation and apprehension on the verge of a new dawn, you look back at a memory, the days of ignorance that had not exactly been a bliss have led you to something precious only so few of the gifted have touched; Mortality, guilt, this wonderfully painful weight of a human conscience. And the knowledge that with a single tread, a small shift, all these too will be snatched away.

There is no emotion, there is only peace the jedi code recites and you know that guilt and self-reprehend are poisons as astute as any other, but they are also your last hope for penitence your last links to humanity. Before the force overwhelms you and takes away the small scraps of your individuality.

And there was a time when this had seemed such a small price to pay, for wielding all this power and defending the life itself from all things foul, later even smaller against the promises of darkness.

You feel old, timeless almost; the Force is strong with you, it convulses against the golden bars of the confinement of jedi code. It threatens to break you in pieces, to finally break free. Tempting you to give in, reminding you how your arrogance has once brought ruin to all things you've loved. But now your conscience struggles, refuses to give in to be absolved in this entity- eternity- that takes in the vile and the holy with no discrimination. Still an answer must be given, an answer will be given and an alliance will be sworn.

And that is why you allow yourself this moment of weakness, to look back, remember and lament all those you've failed, before this last spark of humanity inside you dies out to make space for something far more greater, the last chance to honor those who followed you before you twisted and warped them under your dark reign, the innocents slaughtered in your name and also Malak, who once had been of the purest of hearts, the first to fall to your betrayal long before your confrontation on the Star forge. Your brother, your kin, your comrade whom you yourself led down on the spiral of corruption and deceit, is now lost to you forever. And you yourself, before the war, all those things you could have been.

You cannot atone and this will be your punishment, even guilt is a luxury you cannot afford. You can try and save a life for each one you have taken, to build a world in place of the one you've destroyed, but the peace will come to you unasked and unearned, for the Force is strong with you and takes you to the ways it desires. And has no regard for the broken scraps of your human morals. Once you take that step, the final tread into the either light or darkness, you will be stripped of your last threads of humanity.

But the blood on your hand is even older than the tale of your conquests. You've taken lives both in the name of light and darkness, and it weighs impossibly cumbersome on this fragile newly constructed conscience of yours. you have walked the old paths both as ancient as the time itself. You have pledged your loyalty to both, failed them both. And now under the shades of grey you lie, past redemption past humility and for once fully aware of the dangers of this unassuming line you teeter upon. But in the end it's the same old tune. Even if the steps have changed. It all comes down to the choice, your choice. Despite the darkness inside, despite the noble intentions of the heart, the powers flow from word to action, the manifestation of your own true will: you will not fall. It is a mantra tattooed on the inner walls of your heart, engraved on your mind. And will make all the differences in the world; Even though they might not be enough.

peace and harmony, passion and chaos, the two extremes of might connected by the weakest link in the chain: ignorance and innocence, where the love gives way to passion, the reign of grey, and you wonder, if perhaps this is the point the sundering blow must fall, where the chains would finally give in. Where the Force will finally be set free of the clutches of the body, you wonder in a brief moment of blasphemy if the freedom of the true sith is really that different than the peace of true jedi, if they are not merely two halves of a universal truth.

And this is your last single moment of clarity before the inevitable storm, before the tree is stricken down by lightning and the false haven of shadows you've woven around yourself falls apart to the ever duality of white and black and a single choice. You are a servant of light Revan, even though in light you truly don't belong. Its rays cast off your jagged edges and reveal your imperfect, non- congenial pieces. It is in the absolute reign of darkness that you shine your brightest and that is where your fight will take you but in the end it is your human heart that will guide your steps and you pray to everything holy for it to be enough.


A/N: Me thinks there are way too many fallen heroes in star wars universe, they are delicious in small dosages but the novelty can only last so long.