Chapter 3: We'll Always Be Okay
Only after the assembled Sith soldiers and officers have dispersed do I slip like a spirit into the Dark Lord's chambers. Ours is a love born of unbridled passion and loosed restraints, but to outside eyes, it might be perceived as a simple weakness – a cord around our ankles, an unchecked flame, a slow-working poison in our minds. But I know better.
I know that the whirling tempest of emotion between us only makes us stronger, each of us empowering the other through the electric connection of our Force Bond. I know that desire is, perhaps, a sharper sword than a clear mind. I know that love so easily twists into a volatile, ferocious thing – giving birth to jealousy, anger, hunger, need.
I am not gentle with Revan, and he does not coddle me. Should he cease to please me, or I him, our vows spoke nothing of compromise, kindness, or submission. If fate commanded that my love strike me down, he need not hesitate.
This is the essence of the Sith – Master and apprentice, lover and beloved, dealing adoration and anguish in equal measure. We are one being, a single shadow warrior, able to slay the most savage of foes, and yet always at war within. Two continually warring winds in a single violent maelstrom. Thunder and lightning.
I sense the wild, resonant pulse of Revan's power even before I cross the threshold. The chamber is dark, but I see the shape of him shift beneath the shimmersilk sheets, his eyes sliding lazily open at my entrance. The irises gleam like those of a predator, lucid and lupine.
Revan's lips lift into a smile. "Hello," he says.
"Hello." I am keenly aware of the thinness of my nightgown, the deliberate way his eyes rove over my body. My heartbeat flutters to life in my fingertips, my collarbone, the soles of my bare feet. "Sleep evades you?"
"I find you..." He straightens, disentangling his bare chiseled chest from the sheets, and again I am struck by the lightning-charged knowledge that this beautiful, powerful creature belongs to me, and I to him. "...distracting."
His lips graze mine – a soft, light, lingering touch that makes my pulse stammer – and I close my eyes. He tastes faintly of salt from the Rakatan sea, smells like dying embers and tossing oceans. I feel the hard, ropy line along the back of his neck where my saberstaff seared his skin. Even in the dim, synthetic light of the room, my fingers find his face, trace the strong smooth line of his jaw.
I look into his wolfish yellow eyes. "I am difficult to ignore."
His mouth finds mine again, more insistent this time, and I lose myself in the impossible reality of him.
~x~X~x~
Asleep in the Dark Lord's arms, I am visited.
"Bastila."
A low, rich voice, not that of a phantom.
My eyelids flutter open, and Revan's chambers have dissolved. Numberless trees stand at attention, their outstretches branches saluting the brilliant sun that hovers in the blue, blue sky. Their wooden fingers cast spidery shadows along the ground. Above me, a bird warbles a melody, then wings away into the ragged wisps of cloud. The breeze plays with my hair, carrying a faintly floral aroma.
"Bastila?" the voice calls out.
My lips are numb, my throat dry. My lungs are empty of words.
"Bastila, I know you're here. Come out. It's alright."
I inhale sharply. I'm here, I think. I'm right here.
Then a bush rustles, a tremulous breath cuts through the birdsong, and a little girl stumbles out of the brush. Leaves are tangled in her brown hair, and something nameless and awful darkens her pale blue eyes.
"Daddy..." the girl gasps.
Now I see him – and my heart is a turbohammer in my chest.
The child leaps into his great strong arms, clings to his neck, shivers against him while he whispers soft assurance. "T-T-There was s-so m-m-much b-b-blood..."
He holds the child securely against him, his chest heaving. "Bounty hunters... are bad men. But I'm here now; I'll keep you safe. You're safe now."
"T-They... k-killed Darren Ulgo."
"Trask's father?"
The girl nods, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. "Trask is my friend," she says. "And they killed his father, Daddy."
The man's jaw tenses. "What did you see?"
His daughter turns her face away, and from my vantage point, I can see the haunted veil over her eyes, the filmy gleam of terror that will not abate for many nights. Still my legs are rooted to the earth.
"R-R-Red," the girl chokes out. She lifts her head, looks into her father's weary gaze. "What if they try to hurt you, Daddy?"
"They won't."
"What if... they try to hurt me?"
The man chokes. "They won't," he says, and he holds his daughter close to his shaking chest, cradling her head against his shoulder. "They won't."
The girl wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. "I'll never let anybody hurt you, Daddy."
Without warning, the sky wavers like a sheet. The ground trembles beneath me. Frantically, I glance back at the man and his daughter, but they reveal no reaction, and I realize that my world alone is tearing apart. My head is splitting open, a white light cracking across my skull.
I find my body and lunge forward into the clearing, towards the man and his daughter. At any moment, my heart will splinter my ribs, my feet will sink into the earth if I cannot reach him.
"I'll take you back into the city," the man says, "and we'll bring Trask along with us, and we'll be okay. We'll always be okay. Talravin is a safe planet –"
I am directly in front of them now, but neither father nor daughter pays me mind. On and on the softly spoken words pour out, but I do not hear them. Not anymore.
My legs leaden, I run towards the man. Anguish is rising in my gut, closing up my raw throat.
"– now come home with me, Bastila."
The little girl nods. "Okay."
"Daddy!" someone screams, a high sharp plea for one last answer, reverberating off the trees and sky and earth alike. Too late, I realize it's me.
I fall with a cry like a fallen deer, stabbed through the heart by a hunter's arrow. I lay gasping in the dirt. I think that I taste blood, but blood is a rusty, sharp tang on the tongue; this liquid tastes of salt.
It takes all the strength in my body to lift my head.
Her arms around her father's neck, the child before my eyes, the child that Bastila Shan once was, whispers, "I'll never let anybody hurt you, Daddy. I promise."
~x~X~x~
I awaken in a sweat that drenches me. It is colder than the ice-crag wastelands of Hoth. My heart is ice, the air is bitter, and I'm afraid that if I close my eyes, I'll melt like snow in the rain.
Even in sleep, Revan's arms are tight around me. For the first time, I feel utterly naked – horribly, sickeningly vulnerable before him. I slide loose from his grasp and return to my chambers down the hall, my every footstep echoing off the ancient Rakatan stones that form this temple.
Behind me, my door panel closes with a hiss.
I am alone in midnight's embrace. The darkness welcomes me, clothes me like silk. Quietly, so that Revan will not hear, I bury my head in my hands and sob.
~x~X~x~
A/N: To every one of you who has taken a moment to revive a worn-out writer with a review of this fic (at the moment my only reviews are on Fan Fiction, not Figment,) thank you. I read all the feedback I receive, often returning to it when I need encouragment. Thank you. :)
To the reviewer on Fan Fiction who wanted Bastila to remain aligned with the Dark Side of the Force throughout this entire story – I won't tell you where this story is going (picture River Song from Doctor Who... yes, I'm a Whovian, albeit a new one... yelling "SPOILERS!" and you get the picture...,) but I will say that I already have an ending in mind. Whether or not it pleases my readers is out of my control, but as a writer, I need to be true to myself first and foremost. How the plot is received is up to the eyes reading the story.
I hope that the ending will make everyone happy, assuming I complete this fic (I may go on periodical hiatus to work on my YA fantasy novel,) but I know that no story can please absolutely every reader. Thank you for your feedback, but I'll leave the story's direction to the characters. ;)
