The red-skinned woman cringed beside the door when Jay pushed it open, and despite the plea in her mind, she cringed away from both of them. Atton brushed her mind, and felt, beyond the screeching, that her eyes smarted. A quick look through the Force, and he cringed at the almost twin red figures before him. Revan smirked at him as he shuddered, and he knew the old man had lodged himself firmly in his mind. The woman didn't say a word to Revan, but instead, kept as much space as she reasonable could between the doorway and him. He'd expected Revan to be meditating out there, but instead, the man leaned half-lazily against the opposite wall. His eyes drifted to Jay and her bright blue, and his gut settled again.
The woman bowed deep at the waist to him, and kept her eyes averted from Jay. "Salu-ya, shekosa."
"Esh-salu-ta, meyaam."
"Ah-ma Kevel, esh-salu-ta," Jay said and circled her heart.
Kevel. So he did know her, but by reputation only. Jay had helped her husband's workers escape the worst of her husband's droid-delivered tyranny by slicing the control systems. Al-hem Pervon had flown in several offworld "computer experts," but none had been able to repair his droids. With vassals like that, how can you not be that dark? He remembered the way the slaves had writhed at the droids' shocks if they carried too little and cringed again. Should I feel sorry for a monster like that? But I do.
Kevel studiously avoided looking in Jay's direction, and hailed him instead. "I need your aid, shekosa, if you would. And shekola's as well, if she would see fit. My son…"
"Of course," he said as Jay nodded. Was this some Sith custom he hadn't encountered yet, for the woman to hail the husband, not the wife?
"Kevel-oska, what can we do for you?"
Kevel flinched as Jay spoke. "Shekosa, my son…"
"She hates you, Jane," Revan said, and cackled.
"Whether she hates me or not doesn't matter. Kevel-oska, what's wrong with your son?"
The Sith woman narrowed her emerald eyes and glared at Jay with enough fury that he swore blaster bolts would shoot from them. The woman said nothing, though, as Jay met her eyes with an almost inhuman calm, and cast her head down. Her unbound hair covered her face like a fuel spill. He tried to find traces of the dark side's unnatural aging aging in his memory of her face, but he thought her maybe his age, or a little younger. These half-Sith are born and bred to the dark side—they must have adapted over the centuries.
"I speak to shekosa only."
"You hate Jay that much? Why?"
"She is my failure, cast in my face. The blame of what has happened to Wansel stares at me from her eyes, from her brightness. She mocks me in her perfection."
"Wansel is your son, meyaam?"
The Sith said nothing under the oil-colored swirls that covered her face.
"Love, ask her if…" Why she believes she failed her son.
He nodded. "Kevel-oska, meyaam." He lay a hand upon her shoulder and the woman didn't flinch away. "Why does Jay remind you of your 'failure?' What's wrong with your kid?"
"Echoes of her light," the woman whispered. "You share it, but it doesn't sear me and torment me as she does. Skreketh knows what I speak of, don't you, black one?
"Jane hurts many," Revan said. "But in her brightness, she's something rare here."
Echoes of her light.
"Does it really matter? Your kid's in danger, and you haven't told us why. We can't help him—or you—until you tell us what's going on."
"Danger, yes. Danger from me, from his father."
"You're trying to hurt him?" He remembered his own attack on Jay, and he hadn't been anywhere near as possessed as this woman.
"Trying? No, not trying. What he sees, what I have become, slays him a little day by day. His father—he destroys him more, just by his very being. Pervon destroys me as surely every moment, as surely as he destroys Wansel. And my hate…"
"I don't get it. Your kid is dying from hatred and the Force?"
She nodded and her hair fell back to a blood-colored rainfall. He hadn't heard any hint of choking or sobbing from her as she spoke. "The darkness eats at him and he weakens. He no longer walks, and his father wishes to end him. 'Weakness must be destroyed.'"
"Kevel-oska," Jay said, her voice thick, "I wish I knew how…"
"You don't know what's wrong with him?" And if she didn't…
"I've never heard of Force-sickness, of it destroying the very life that wields it. The dark side twists and corrupts, but it doesn't kill the wielder."
"Ignorant," Revan muttered.
"Care to enlighten me, exalted one?" The words seemed mocking, but she smiled.
"You haven't traveled here much, have you? The Force is different here, and has different effects. Some, who don't bathe in it, can fight it, and others are consumed and destroyed. You remember who died and who didn't at Malachor."
He slipped an arm around her as she shuddered.
"Either the Force calls to you or it sickens you. You have to be strong in spirit to resist its call or you die. A child with a spirit like yours doesn't stand a chance."
"I hope you know how to cure it, Sy, because I have no idea how you'd even start."
"I've learned a technique or two. If you have the cred-isk-a, Sith, I'll help your son."
"Very mercenary of you," he said. "You can't just help her out of the goodness of your own blackened, shriveled heart, or to 'change.'"
"No money, Sy. Not a single cred-isk-a."
The Sith stared at Jay again, but the hatred seemed strangely muted. "You control skreketh, shekola?"
"No. If I did, things wouldn't be the disaster they are now. What happened to your son is in part my fault. I angered your husband, and moved him further into corruption. I'm sorry, Kevel-oska."
"Shekosa, your look brings memory. Pervon once looked at me as you look at shekola. I need to remember… Shekola may have ruined our droids, but she forced the change I once tried to counsel Pervon to accept. Our yields have doubled and the slaves live and prosper, but…"
"He achieved more power, but he hates the one who brought it to him. Kae would have loathed that man," Revan said.
"Darth Traya hated everyone. She'd have hated Jay for making him more powerful."
"I need both of you if I'm going to do this, both of your strength. I could have done it with only Jane's help before I met you, but it would exhaust me now." Revan's matter-of-fact tone threw him. "And I'll need Bastila."
"Skrekeshtah? Shekosa, this makes no sense. He suffers from darkness, but you would surround him again with it?"
"I don't know. Jay might have enough light for the rest of us…"
"I think I see what Sy's getting at. Bastila's talent might strengthen us enough to fight off the darkness. Am I on the right track, Sy?"
"Darkness driven off by darkness. Jay, this is crazy! I can't do this! You told me yourself I should stay away from using the Force."
I'm not so sure about that anymore. Kevel saw you clearly enough, even if you haven't bothered to look at yourself.
Fine, Jay. Fine. The faintest hint of blue in a field of mostly grey, where he'd been pink the evening before.
"You're right, Jane. If the Padawan can handle it."
She grinned, and her grin widened as she caught his own look of, well, he wasn't sure what he was feeling. That was him? Welcome back to the light, love.
"Kevel-oska, I think we can help Wansel, if you'll let us."
Welcome back to the light. Hunh. He stared at her and basked in not just the pride in her smile, but in her thoughts. Not light enough, though.
"Now what, Jay?"
"Sy will tell us what has to be done, won't you?"
"I meant about this whole light thing."
"How far you want to go along the path is up to you. But you're on it, and on the right side of the Force again."
Revan glared at him, and then at Jay. "If I have to."
Kevel bowed to each of them in turn. "I thank you, shekosa."