Identities

Juhani

The rakghoul's severed head morphed on the dank sewer floor in front of her. She braced herself for another lance of pain at seeing her master's lifeless eyes staring accusedly up at her, but her torture was not yet complete.

The eyes of the rakghoul snapped open and Revan's voice came from its lips.  "Juhani," she said.

Juhani cried out. Not this!  Striking down her master was one thing, but striking down her savior, who had lifted her up from squalor and slavery into the intoxicating joy of communion with the Force as a Jedi--it was too much to bear.

"Juhani!" The rakghoul with Revan's voice said again.  The beast's red eyes cooled into the sabercrystal gleam of Revan's and Juhani moaned, dropping her lightsaber.  It is good that I am defeated here, by beasts, when I am a beast myself.

"You are not a beast!" Revan shouted from the rakghoul's head.  "You can fight through this.  I believe in you, Juhani."

She huddled in on herself.  "No, stop!  I beg you."  Revan's belief in her was fool's faith.

"You stop, Juhani!"  Revan said.  "Remember who and what you are!  This isn't real."

"No!  Go away," she shouted miserably from the safe prison of her own hands.

"I thought cats could see in the dark," she said.  "Look through the dark, Juhani.  Don't make me have to hunt down cat toys to lure you back to me."

Juhani's head jerked up.  Only Noura would say something as bizarre and silly as that at a time like this.  "Noura?" she whispered.  "I am trapped here."

"We're all trapped.  But if we work together, we can set ourselves free."

She believed her, but how?

"Juhani?"

"I am right here," she said, calming herself.  "But the sewers, they are different."

"I can't see you," Revan said.  "And I'm not in the sewers, I'm on top of the Rakatan temple."

"We are each in prisons of our own choosing."  Rakghouls roared from the other end of the sewer tunnel.

"I picked a hell of a prison, then," Jolee's voice came to her from the rakghouls at the tunnel's end.

"It does not disappear when I close my eyes," Juhani said.

"It's not real," Revan said.  "Or rather, the context isn't real.  We have to find its source."

She opened her eyes to see the mouth of the tunnel foaming with rakghouls. Laughter she had thought silenced on Korriban sounded as Xor's mocking voice echoed down the tunnel.  "I believe I can see the source here." 

She sprang to her feet and called her lightsaber.  I am not an animal.  I am a Cathar.  And a Jedi.

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