Frailty

Bastila

Of all the things that I thought might knock me out of the black spiral that pulled me downward, being told I'm good in bed by a Mandalorian wasn't one of them.

I had gone to him in the absence of self-respect and he returned what was lost tenfold.  I laid my cheek on the cold, damp stones of the tunnel floor and let the Force pull me under.

I found myself in the chambers of the Jedi Council on Dantooine.  Master Vrook stood over me, his features a mask of implacability, yet radiating disapproval.  "Fallen," he spat, turning away.

"Such a waste," Master Vandar said.

"My fears have been confirmed," Master Zhar shook his head sadly.  One by one, they left the chambers, and the place began to shake around me.  The earth trembled and shuddered, and I smelled the burning ozone acridness of energy fire, the size of which could only come from orbit.  Malak and the Sith Fleet were attacking!

I tried to rise, to run, to join the frantically fleeing people in the hallways outside, but my legs would not hold me.  My strength had been in the Jedi Code, and the Council's faith in me, and now I had none.

The lights flickered and went out, and I was alone, weak, in the darkness.

I curled in on myself as the building shuddered and rocked, the distant screams of people and thud of planetary blaster fire echoing in my ears and sending shockwaves through the floor.

Hazy smoke of plascrete dust filtered into the room, and a figure emerged from the shadows.  "Well, well, well.  The princess has been tossed from her throne at last."

I knew that voice.  Knew it too well.

"Did you honestly believe the Council would welcome you back a sinner?"  Her mocking words pierced my ears.  "Did you really think you could return to ignorant innocence after tasting the power of the Dark Side?"

"No," I moaned.  "I asked forgiveness."

Her mocking laughter rang through the Chamber.   "There is no forgiveness for one such as yourself!  The Council is wise to quarantine your poison, keep it away from their vaunted halls."

She was right, of course.  The Council was correct to protect the Order from a hazard such as myself.  My vision wavered, and the chamber walls became liquid, melting in on themselves.  I heard a new voice.  "Join me."

"Revan?"

My tormenter laughed again, and the walls returned to solid.  "Yes, the great redeemed one.  They welcome her back with open arms.  But there is only room for one prodigal to return to the fold."

Revan.  The Council had--wait.  No.  The voice was wrong.  The Council wanted to keep me.  Revan had fought to take me away from them.  Revan wanted to give me back my humanity, asked me to trust her.  "Revan!" I shouted.

My torturer shrieked back.  "Fool!  No one cares for your fate!"

But she did not scream loud enough.  From a great distance, Revan's voice came through faintly.  "It's not real!"

You're mine, too, Bastila.  Her words on the Star Forge returned to my mind, as if pushed there.

Of course!  The Force-bond.  But I was trapped in nothing but the Force. 

A glistening, tenuous tendril no more substantial than spidersilk appeared before me.  I took the lifeline and fought to bring my useless limbs under me, and after an agonizing eternity of white-hot pain, rose to my feet.  I faced my tormentor. My lightsaber was in my hand--how did it get there?  I raised it and the blue glow flickered to life.

At the hands of Darth Malak, I fell to the Dark Side.  I was lured, tempted, tricked unawares.

Now I know what the Dark Side looks like.  I brought my lightsaber down in an arc that cut cleanly through the torso of the woman standing before me.

The Dark Side looks like me.

Even cut down, my tormentor still had weapons at her disposal.  "You are nothing but a spoiled Jedi princess," she hissed at me.  Wearing my face, using my voice, and speaking words that articulated the deepest fears of my heart.  "You play at understanding the Jedi Code when there is too much blood on your hands to ever make the Masters welcome you back."

I could not kill her.  Even in pieces, she still taunted me.  I ran from the crumbling enclave chambers.  The hallway outside the chamber stretched out in familiar panels of native wood and woven-grass wicker, and I ran as fast as my weak knees would carry me.  The corridor stretched on, endlessly, but anywhere was better than that council chamber.

Ahead of me, the wickered wall bulged out and I watched in horror as my dark twin emerged from the wall itself.  "You can't hide from me."

I stopped short and turned around.  She could only be in one place at a time, right?

She stood before me, the mocking smile on her lips and calculating frigidity in her gaze.  "Spoiled princess, amusing herself with delusions of authority.  You fell as soon as you tired of playing mission leader."

Against my will, I argued with her.  "No!  I sacrificed myself for the mission."

"Indeed?"  She raised an eyebrow.  "You 'sacrificed' yourself to an enemy you knew wanted you alive all along, in an effort that was unnecessary.  Revan was holding her own against Malak, and you knew it."

"No," I whispered, shaking my head.  Revan's voice in my mind kept insisting, it's not real, it's not real, but she didn't understand.

The walls, the enclave, the sound of planetary laser fire in the distance and explosions in the vicinity didn't have to be real.  But what I faced--the ugly, twisted, bitter woman who faced me no matter where I turned--she was real.  She was me.

Around me, the walls began to burn.  I expected to feel heat, but nothing pervaded my internal chill.  It wasn't real.  Once I recognized that, the scenery was no longer necessary.  Only my other self remained.  "I've tried to atone," I said weakly.

"By flogging yourself with a Mandalorian whip?"  She laughed.  "You lie to yourself even here, in the Force, where all is revealed."

My jaw worked soundlessly.  Before me, her features twisted and morphed into Juhani's.  "Why did you seek out Canderous?" she asked in that lilting Cathari accent.

I could not bear for anyone to know the secret shame of my baser needs.  I should be above all that.  "I was misguided," I said feebly.

"Liar," she parried, and twisted into Mission.  "Why Canderous, huh?"

I shrank from her.  If anything, my selfish actions hurt her the most.  Turned her from me when we'd just earned each other's tentative respect.  "Mission, I--he--"

"Not that I blame you," she said, shrugging.  "If someone looked at me the way he looks at you, I think I'd take him up on whatever he wanted to offer me."

"Mission!" I said, horrified.  She was so young, so innocent.  "You shouldn't speak of such things.  You shouldn't even know of such things!"

She laughed harshly.  "That's rich.  I shouldn't know, but I do, and you should know, but you can't even buy a clue!  How could you, kept in that tower and raised by sexless automatons?"

"I--"

"How many times did you envy the other apprentices when they snuck away in pairs at night?"

"I never--"  Remember, it isn't Mission!

"Liar."

By the Force, not you.  I looked up into Canderous's face.  Suddenly, I had my answer.  "Because I'm like you!" I screamed like a banshee at him.

He laughed.  "You?  Like me?  Hiding behind your Jedi platitudes?  Denying your nature?  You insult me."

Revan's voice assaulted me next.  "Maybe while you were so busy lecturing me, you should have listened to yourself."

"I was," I protested, realizing a truth previously hidden from me.  "The teachings were my refuge."

I faced myself again.  "Your refuge has been taken away from you.  You are nothing.  Useless princess of an imaginary kingdom."

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