Sereyna closed her eyes and tried to listen to the engines. She wanted their hum to sink into her skull, drown out all of her thoughts, lull her to sleep. But for the first time since she could remember—which really isn't that long—it wasn't working. Her mind kept twisting, jumping from one thought to another until she was dizzy with the effort of following it.
She'd barely managed to keep her calm facade in place for Carth-
You were right all along, she'd wanted to say. You told me nobody was trustworthy. . .and here I am, your point proven, in the flesh.
-but she'd managed to keep her face smooth and her voice even until he went away.
All this time, I wanted to earn your trust. Ah, Carth. I think the universe hates you.
She clenched already sore jaws against a burst of bitter laughter. She refused to lose control. No hysterics from Sereyna-turned-Revan. It would only worry everybody.
She shifted a little to pull herself into the cross-legged pose of Jedi meditation. She'd never had much luck with it before, but nothing else was working either. She tried to remember how she'd felt on Dantooine, that one moment of perfect awareness when she'd managed to hold every object in the room aloft with only her will.
There is no emotion, there is peace-
-But she'd never really believed that. There was always some emotion jumping and snarling inside her. Peace only came with complete exhaustion or utter resignation, and she couldn't find either, though she should have succumbed to one or the other by now-
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge-
-She could almost laugh at that. All this time she thought she'd been learning from the Jedi Masters and Bastila, and they'd been lying to her, manipulating her, using her-
There is no passion-
The words rang hollow in her mind. Sereyna opened her eyes and stared down at her hands. Her fingernails had made half-moon marks in her palms. She forced her fists to unclench, stretched her fingers. Her muscles jumped and flexed beneath her skin as if they wished to shake it off.
I am a stranger in my own skin. She shuddered at the thought. Worse than the lies, worse than being Revan, was the knowledge that everything she thought she had been was a fabrication. Every memory, every feeling, every decision . . .Was any of it actually mine? Did I really want nothing more than to explore, to see strange stars in the night sky every time I landed somewhere?
A low gurgle interrupted her thoughts. Her gizka hopped into her lap and peered curiously up at her. It rubbed its head against her chest insistently, and she reached to pet it—then stopped, frowning. Maybe I don't remember being Revan, she thought, but she wouldn't keep a pet gizka, She'd probably break its neck for disturbing her. . . It would be a small step—so very, very small—towards reclaiming who she had once been. . .
Carefully, Sereyna picked up the little creature and set it aside. "I should have left you on Manaan with the others," she told it, ignoring its imploring gaze. "This was no place for you before, and it certainly isn't now." She got to her feet before the silly thing could worm its way back into her lap. Sitting here wasn't helping, anyway. Her teeth hurt from being clenched and her head ached. "I need answers," she told the gizka. "I need. . .something." But everybody who really knew what had happened to her was gone, killed or captured by the Sith. And she wasn't even sure how she felt about that.
The gizka looked at her reproachfully, then hopped away. With a sigh, she left the engine room. Jolee was the only one who might be able to help her make sense of anything, though she wasn't sure how much she trusted him anymore, either. She could sense him puttering about in the medbay. His calm presence only seemed to highlight her own turmoil.
Maybe some it will rub off on me, she thought dully.
The self-exiled Jedi was waiting for her. He didn't smile or offer reassurance, and for that she was grateful. The most unnerving thing about finding out she was Revan was the way all of her companions had taken it in stride. Except for Carth. But as much as his blatant distrust stung, it was better than the others' calm acceptance. He was the only one who seemed to realize something was wrong.
She sat down on the medical bay's cot and took a deep breath, trying to marshal her thoughts. "You weren't part of the Council or the strike team," she said without preamble. "You've been hiding out on Kashyyyk for the last twenty years. So how did you know?"
"I guessed," Jolee said simply. "It wasn't that hard to figure out."
"Really," she said flatly. "It sure took me by surprise."
"Well, you were in the middle of everything. Running around, trying to save the galaxy from itself. . .I'm not surprised you didn't notice." He shrugged. "From the moment I met you, I knew there was something off about you. You remember I told you that, don't you?"
"Yes." She had been too worried about Zaalbar to give it any thought. "But I thought you were just a crazy hermit at the time." She paused, then added, "Still haven't changed my mind about that," because it was something she would have said before. But she wasn't really teasing him—the words were mere habit, spoken by rote like a part in a play. I am pretending to be myself.
"Hmph. Have I ever claimed to be anything else?" Jolee frowned down at her. "There were all sorts of clues," he continued. "Little things that didn't add up. Like how you mastered Jedi training so quickly. Did they say you were some sort of prodigy?"
"They implied it," Sereyna admitted. Never before have I seen someone progress so quickly. "I just accepted it. There didn't seem to be any other explanation."
"Uh-huh. I'm sure you weren't flattered, either, not even a little," said Jolee snidely. "Your bond with Bastila was another clue. A connection like that just doesn't come out of nowhere. It can take years to develop, like the bond between master and an apprentice—or a split second, when one person's caught between life and death, and someone else tips the balance back to life."
"How was I supposed to know that?" she said bitterly. "I never even heard of. . .I mean, Sereyna never even heard of bonds like that, and. . ." She faltered. I can't use that name any more.
"Of course you didn't" he said, his voice taking on a gentler tone. "And the Jedi Council didn't educate you. They just let you assume what they wanted you to." He shook his head disapprovingly. "But my first real clue was back on Kashyyyk. That interface recognized you, and you. . ." He shook his head. "You weren't just giving it the answers you thought it wanted, were you? Some part of you knew."
"Maybe." She looked down at her hands. They'd become fists again. She concentrated on uncurling each finger as she spoke. "The first two questions I could. . .compromise on. But the third question. . ."
Jolee waited. She could almost hear him listening.
"Everything makes much more sense now, you know," she said at last. "Why I can't remember anything but facts about my parents, or any friends I was close to. Most of my memories before Taris are just. . .words and images, with no feelings attached. Like a holovid. I should have known, but I didn't have anything to compare it to." Empty thoughts, cluttering my mind.
"Was this supposed to be compassion?" she asked bitterly. "This. . .unmaking? Why would the Jedi even want to save Revan?" She looked desperately at Jolee. "You would have killed Revan, wouldn't you? If it was your choice?"
"I wouldn't have tried to save you," he said honestly. "Not my style. But Bastila, now. . .that girl feels more than she lets on. I don't think she had any plans for you, not at first. That must've come later. Even the Jedi have to bow to necessity sometimes."
"Because of the Star Forge."
"That's right," the old Jedi told her. "Fate of the galaxy still depends on you, kid. Sorry about that."
Another thought struck her. "If I'm Revan, I must be older than I thought," she said slowly. "Ten years at least, maybe more."
Jolee snorted. "Ten years, twelve, twenty. . .doesn't matter. You're still a kid to me."
She had to smile at that, though it died quickly. "I wonder why they made me think I was younger. So I would be closer to Bastila? More uncertain of myself, more easily led?"
"Or maybe," her mentor said quellingly, " because twenty-five years of memory were easier to fabricate than forty."
Forty. I might be forty. It was a strange detail to fixate on, but now that she'd realized it, she couldn't leave it alone. I had a whole life as Revan. A whole life as a Jedi. And less than a year as Sereyna Tahl, Republic scout and adventurer. There's no reason to cling to that life, she thought bleakly. That was what she'd been trying to do by dressing up in her old uniform, setting aside her lightsaber, and hiding in the engine room like a homesick child. Sulking, she realized, with a certain amount of disgust.
Sereyna Tahl was gone. And in her place was nothing but a name.
"I don't even know who Revan was," she said hopelessly. "But I want to. Is that wrong?"
"I should probably give you some speech about how what you call yourself isn't important and you can only know yourself through your actions, blah blah blah, etcetera," said Jolee dryly, "but I don't think you'd believe me."
"I wouldn't," she admitted. "I have to know how much of me is. . .me. And how much of me was just. . ." She searched for a word. The only thing she could think of 'reprogrammed.' "Falsified," she said instead, unwilling think of herself as a faulty droid sent for a memory wipe.
"I wouldn't worry about that too much," Jolee told her. "Think about it: if the Council could really change you, they would've done a better job. You haven't exactly been a model little Jedi, have you? Ducking out of docking fees, charging headfirst into problems that were none of your business, flirting with your pilot, insulting a venerable old man. . ." He clicked his tongue in mock reproof. "If there was nothing of Revan left, they wouldn't have needed to watch you so closely."
Why does that make me feel better? "So you're saying I could turn back into Revan if I wanted to—start shooting lightning from my fingertips and killing whole worlds?"
"If you really want to, I don't see how I can stop you," he said philosophically. "Just not right now, okay? I'm enjoying the peace and quiet. Well, I would be, if some young upstart would quit bothering me."
She snorted. "Don't try that on me. You love to hear yourself talk." She slid off the cot and smiled at him, trying to gather enough feeling to make it seem sincere. "Thank you. For giving me some straight answers. I know it couldn't have been easy."
"Well, I see you're getting back to your old self," Jolee said sourly. "Didn't take as long as you thought it would, did it?"
"I mean it," she said, abandoning her half-hearted attempt to tease him. "Thank you."
"Any time, kid," the old Jedi said softly.
She went to the dormitories because she couldn't stand the thought of lurking in Sereyna's old favorite spot any more. Mission was asleep, curled up under her blankets with her lekku spread across the pillow. Quietly, she took off her old uniform, folded it up, and put it at the bottom of her bunk's drawer. She didn't want to put on her Jedi robes, either, so she dug out the jumpsuit she usually wore for heavy maintenance and slipped into it. Maybe it was stupid to worry so much about clothes, but she couldn't help herself.
Anybody can wear a jumpsuit, she thought. It doesn't mean anything. She'd worry about what to wear later when it happened. I should've kept the Sand People wrappings, she thought wryly. A disguise would suit her perfectly right now. After all, she'd been living in one for nearly a year.
She lay down and reached for the cold-calm that she now knew came from her old self, her real self. Revan, she thought, wouldn't worry about who or what she was. She would just be it.
And I want to be Revan, she acknowledged. I want to be myself. Wrong or right, even if I'm the most evil creature in the galaxy, I need to be myself.
No more lies.
Revan closed her eyes and listened to the engines.