The next day, Bastila awoke to glare at her chronometre. She desperately wanted this day not to come—the day when she would begin the nigh-insurmountable task of understanding what had taken a powerful, if rebellious Jedi Knight, and twisted him and contorted him into a man whom many believed to be the embodiment of evil. Still, it was her duty to bring him back into the fold of the Jedi so that the galaxy might at last know peace, and so with a groan, she slipped out of bed and went to clothe herself. As she swept her hair back, she caught sight of a mark of some sort. Upon closer inspection, she found it to be a series of contusions at her throat—a reminder that the man who she was to visit, while captive, was far from powerless.
Making a note to step carefully, she clipped her double-bladed lightsaber onto her belt as the last piece before she could step forth and walk abroad with any degree of comfort. Her nerves robbing her of the vast majority of her appetite, she was able to force down a light meal before descending. As she walked towards the stairs, she came across a pair of Jedi Knights holding a tray of food, standing paralysed before the door and talking in hushed tones. She assumed they were discussing Juhani's fate upon attempting to talk to the captive Sith Lord, stalling for time before they would be forced to go down and give him his sustenance—the Jedi did not believe in cruelty.
Bastila huffed in frustration and stalked forth. "I will handle it," she snapped at the two gossiping Jedi. They looked to her with a mixture of relief and disbelief evident on their faces. "I have to go down anyways. Might as well bring him his food since you two are so very terrified by his mere presence."
Missing or ignoring the sharpness of her tone, they bowed and thanked her profusely as they placed the tray in her hands and walked away as quickly as they could without breaking into a dead sprint. Bastila sighed at her rotten luck before reminding herself that there is no chance or coincidence—only the Force.
Like the day before, she stepped very carefully down to the lower level, but saw the cell empty of Revan. She began to panic until she saw that the meditation chamber was closed, and supposed that Revan must have felt the need to meditate. She found this strange because Dantooine was largely bereft of the Dark Side, but shrugged as she came closer.
As she approached the cell, sure enough the white egg-shaped chamber began to open, venting its pressurised atmosphere in an audible and substantial rush of air, and Revan turned to regard her, and while she still only saw his glowing yellow eyes beneath the shadow of his hood, already she felt much less looked down upon than the previous day, when Revan refused to do so much as to turn and face her until she had angered him almost to the point of him killing her. "Ah, Bastila," he addressed smoothly.
"I brought food," she said so as to break the ice.
Revan nodded. "I can see that. Please, simply put it on the floor. There is a port that opens so that I may receive my meals. That shall be a sufficient method of conveyance."
Bastila did as bidden and then stepped back into the shadows, watching as a small port, far too small for even a youngling to crawl through, opened up; he did not move, and yet the tray flew through the slot and into the cell. The port snapped shut after that, but he made no move toward the food, and instead levitated it and manipulated it through the Force.
"Bastila, I noticed that there were two others—full Jedi Knights—who were about to enter this area and bring me the food instead of you," Revan began conversationally as the tea prepared itself. "You relieved them of that duty. I would like to understand why."
Bastila shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"It matters quite a bit more than you seem to think it does," Revan replied, and Bastila could not help but feel like she had just been reprimanded. "The desire to comprehend, after all, is the mark of adulthood. So, I repeat: Why did you relieve them of that duty?"
Bastila considered that as Revan sipped the steaming tea cup with the Force. "They were afraid to do so," she answered.
"And so you feel that they deserved to be free of that fear?" he asked, and though his tone was perfectly neutral, Bastila could not help but feel as though he was disbelieving. "Do you believe their fear to be unwarranted, then?"
Bastila shook her head. "They feared that entrance would consign them to the fate that Juhani suffered at your hands."
"And yet you know that Juhani only suffered that fate because she believed me to be harmless," Revan countered. "You could have told them that. Why didn't you?"
"Because I don't believe you were telling the truth," Bastila said without thinking.
Revan cocked his head in an almost disturbingly avian fashion. "You forget that I am at least as aware of our bond as you are," he replied. "You know that I wasn't lying, just as I know that you are."
Bastila looked up at him in irritation. "What is the point of this?!" she demanded.
"To get you to think," Revan responded, his voice once again cracking through the air like a slavemaster's whip. "You can never hope to understand another if you do not at least attempt to understand yourself. A little introspection goes a long way, Bastila."
Bastila huffed, sufficiently chastised. "Very well. I did it because…"
"You did it because you believed that if you came bearing food, not only would it break the ice between us, but you would get the chance to see my face," Revan interrupted. "I gave you the answer this time. Do not expect me to do so a second time. And if you ever lie to me again, you will die. Do you understand?"
Bastila nodded mutely.
"Good. Now," he said as the now empty tea cup alighted gracefully upon its proper saucer. "I said that I was going to tell you of my life, did I not? Or have I spent the entire night contemplating how to convey it in a way that you might have a chance of comprehending it for naught?"
"Yes, you did," Bastila sighed, sitting in half-lotus before the well-lit cell.
"Very well, then. I shall start at the beginning."
I was born on the planet Ziost some twenty-seven years ago, when the ship upon which my pregnant mother travelled had to make an emergency stop at the planet. She went into labour sixteen hours after the Basilisks hit the ground and established a planetside perimetre that was sufficiently defensible. My father was not present amongst the passengers, as he was not a born Mandalorian. My mother, however, was several generations pureblood of Mandalore, of the Wren clan. I do not remember her name.
My first memory was of my mother coming home. She was an avid advocate of the Resol'nare, after all—the six pillars of Mandalorian society—and so always wore her beskar'kandar whenever she was to be seen in public. To this day, one of my most prominent memories of her are of her helmet, and not the face beneath.
The clearest memory I have is of when Master Kreia visited our ship while we were resupplying over Kashyyyk, saying that she sensed a Force-sensitive in our midst. Now, one must first understand that Mandalorians have an inherent distrust of the Jedi, and from that comes a distrust for most Force-sensitives. It did not take long for her to find me—a small half-Mandalorian boy, the first life-form born on Ziost since the original Sith abandoned it. Master Kreia once related to me that I was a brilliant light in the midst of the crowd of Mandalorian warriors. I didn't really believe her—I was always above average in terms of Force sensitivity, but wielding the Light Side always felt…off… Like I was doing something dreadfully wrong. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Why don't we begin with that day? Let's see…
"Kylo! Kylo!" My eyes opened slowly, and blinked blearily to clear my vision, looking up at the ceiling of the Kandosii-class ship that the Wren clan had selected to attack Kashyyyk in hopes of doing battle with the famously vicious warriors of the Wookiee race. Groaning, I rolled over and onto the cold floor of the Mandalorian ship with a grunt on impact.
Looking up, I stared into the mask of my mother, who really should have been planetside by now. "Buir?" I asked in confusion.
"Kylo, verd'ika, ogir…"
"Wait, stop, please," said Bastila, pleading.
Revan cocked his head, seeming less annoyed than intrigued by this interjection. "Yes? Is there a problem?"
"I don't understand what you're saying," Bastila replied.
He was quiet, and mild surprise radiated from him as a gentle aura. "You never learned to speak Mando'a, did you?" He sighed. "So little respect for ancient cultures these days… Though, this could well be argued to be my fault…" He chuckled, shaking his head. "Very well. Galactic Basic, then."
"Kylo, little soldier, there is a Jedi here," my mother told me in a loud whisper. "She says she is here to see you."
"What?" I asked, still half-asleep. "Why would a Jedi…"
"I don't know," she replied quickly, looking back over her shoulder. Mother was always a stoic woman, and so to see her so nervous… To call it 'unsettling' would be an understatement, I think. "Just get up and come out. We haven't got long—the basilisks are planetside, and this Jedi… Even Mand'alor himself does not keep her waiting."
Appropriately chastised and sufficiently terrified, I quickly got up and donned my clothes as quickly as I could—beskar'kandar was a mark of adulthood, after all, and I was no older than five when this happened—and stumbled out into the common area of the ship. Sitting on one of the few seats in the area, as Mando'ade when not on duty most often go to practise their combat skills, was a woman. Her hair emerged from beneath her hood, marking her age, but in those days, it was less white and more the same colour grey as beskar—or, at least, I remember making that comparison. She was clad in brown and ivory robes as many Jedi are, but she lacked that aura of sanctimony I was told about when my mother told me stories of the jetti—the Mando'a name for Jedi—and instead seemed to radiate an aura, not of menace, but close enough to menace that it commanded respect from even the most arrogant warriors in the clan.
When she stood, I remember wondering at how such an old woman, a Jedi, no less, who as a whole we viewed as self-important, cowardly bureaucrats, could have such good posture and not be among the Mando'ade. She bore no weapon, which I thought strange, as I had heard that Jedi were marked by their possession of lightsabers from which they never parted.
She walked towards me, and with every measured, precise step she took, my mother stiffened further and further, until when the Jedi crouched to my height, my mother could have been mistaken for a statue. "Hello, young one," said the Jedi, her voice creaking with age but rippling with power and authority. "And what is your name?"
"Kylo, of the clan Wren," I replied proudly—I knew not where my trepidation had gone, but to be honest, at that point it could not be rightly said that I particularly noticed or cared.
"Kylo Wren. A good name," she said, and I caught a glimpse of what the hood hid—eyes that were milky white and without sight. She was blind, and yet commanded such respect from my people, which was a sign to me that I really should have been more frightened by her than I was at the time. I freely admit that I was a foolish, idealistic child, believing fully in the Resol'nare and the power it gave to those who lived by the code. She stood. "The child will accompany me."
I was about to protest until I felt my mother's grip on my shoulder tighten almost painfully as she spoke, her voice strained even through the vocabulator—the Jedi either didn't notice or didn't care, and knowing her, I'm sure it was the latter. "Very well. Shall he return?"
"No, I don't imagine he will," the Jedi said rather blithely. "I shall give you half of an hour to say your farewells. Then, the child will come, or he will be taken." She then exited the room and made her way back to her own transport.
As soon as she was out of earshot, my mother knelt before me, grasping my shoulders tightly as she pried off her mask, looking me in the eye. "Be strong, Kylo. Be brave."
"But I don't want to leave!" I objected.
"We have no choice. You…you are Force-sensitive, and even if you stayed here, your life would become far more difficult." At this point, my mother was near to tears. "I do not wish that kind of life upon anyone, least of all you, my little soldier." She kissed my brow at this point, and it was desperate and filled with sorrow. "Go, and become powerful, but never forget where you came from. Never forget your aliit."
"Never," I swore, shaking my head profusely.
It was at that point that my cousin Drex and his friend Ka'an grabbed me by the arms and escorted me away from my mother, away from the life I had known, and towards the hangar. They tossed me like a ragdoll into the Jedi woman's ship, as she stood there and watched in a fashion somehow at once dispassionate and expectant. I had come to expect most adult dar'manda to change their tone of voice and demeanour when talking to children; this woman, however, was hard and harsh, and as this was closer to the ways of the Mando'ade, it did far more to put me at ease than empty platitudes and false assurances could ever have done. "Step lively, Kylo Wren. We are expected, and I do not tolerate tardiness."
I nodded, unable to find the strength to speak what was on my mind, and stepped onto her transport ship, sitting silently in the corner as we made the hyperspace jump to Dantooine.
"That's it?" asked Bastila. "No tragedy? No murder?"
"Nothing begins evil, Bastila Shan—neither sentients nor stories," replied Revan. "Though I remember not seeing it in quite that way at the time."
Master Kreia, as I later learned the Jedi was named, was as hard of a woman as I had expected after our first meeting. She brought me before the Jedi Council in the Enclave while I was still glassy-eyed and more a marionnette than a human being, given how I had been forced to leave my family behind and become dar'manda. Life had no meaning to me anymore, and not even Master Kreia, with her ability to act with relative impunity, could get a word out of me all throughout my 'adjustment period,' wherein I stayed in Master Kreia's cottage some fifty kliks away, with only her and myself as the occupants. I know not who cooked, for at the time, I lacked the knowledge and she lacked the inclination. Regardless, I was fed three times a day at regular intervals, had my own room with my own cot, and basically had my every physical requirement seen to.
I never needed to speak around Master Kreia, which was fortunate; I learned the penalty for annoying her years later, and I do not think that I, as I was at that age, could have survived her wrath.
"When did you learn what it was to irritate her?" Bastila interrupted.
Revan responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. "A story for another time—perhaps tomorrow, even. Now, where was I? Ah!"
What was supposed to be three days became three weeks. Then three months. Then six months. I was almost six years old when I spoke my first word in Galactic Basic—in which I was hardly fluent at the time, mind you. It was the day that I met them… My new aliit.
News of my arrival had spread throughout the Enclave like a pack of gizka. Rumours began amongst the younglings—that I was some dashing rogue or abandoned runt. Because the Jedi take all Force-sensitive races, there was even a rumour that I was a female Zabrak at some point. But no rumour and no amount of cryptic information could have stopped a single intrepid youngling from making contact, and dragging a young boy with her along the way.
I still remember spotting her out of the corner of my eye as I struggled to meditate. I remember the gentle breeze making her pale blonde hair billow, her eyes like blue crystal that was focused on hunting her quarry, her face beautiful in a way I had never before seen. Among the Wren clan, there weren't really many children. Why, I don't know, but I had never before met a person near to my age. And I remember seeing the boy, bald and somewhat shy and tentative as many children are at that age. But, all of a sudden, when I focused on them, I could feel them in the Force—her power was wild and untamed and brazen, while his was quiet and unassuming to a great degree. Alek always was the least of us in terms of his command of the Force, and that nagged at him to no end as we aged and our connections to the Force grew exponentially.
Once darkness fell, and I was attempting to meditate so as to stave off the nightmares, or so I thought at the time, I snuck out of Master Kreia's cottage and made my way to the Enclave. I hadn't been there since I got to Dantooine, and so I employed the tracking skills my mother taught me while hunting to track them both back to the Enclave. Now, if you've ever tried to sneak in or out of the Enclave under the cover of night, as I'm beginning to be increasingly certain that you have not, you'll know it's not an easy task—well, for a dar'manda, that is—but it was still a bit of a daunting prospect for me.
The Republic was in a state of relative peace at the time, and Exar Kun's adherents had long since perished, and so security was relatively lax—nothing like it is now. And before you say anything, yes, I am aware that it is solely due to my actions that that is no longer the case. If I wanted a lecture, I'd have requested Vrook come visit me. Now, where was I again? Ah! Yes! You must understand that this was long before Kavar went off to die in the Mandalorian Wars, and so it was that the girl for whom I searched slept near her master, as she had already been taken on as a Padawan, having shown great promise in her connection to the Force. I know not by what providence I was able to reach her bedside relatively unmolested, but I did.
She was the first dar'manda girl I had ever seen—Mandalorians live rather reclusive lives with regards to the outside galaxy, after all—and I was…stricken…by her beauty. Her hair was, in those days, long and a vibrant blonde, almost to the point where the padawan braid was straining at the seams, for unlike those who most often have hair of that hue, hers grew in thick and somewhat unruly. Her face was fierce, even in restful sleep, and it seemed that youth and aggression flowed from her in a way unlike that of any other I had known. I stared at her as she slept in contemplation. When my legs ached, I retrieved a chair and sat, puzzling over the unfamiliar geometries of her wild and vivacious features. I felt…drawn to them, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to know why. Why was I drawn to her when the thought of meeting anyone new made my stomach turn.
Invariably, I was gone by the time the sun rose, but as days turned into weeks and weeks into months, I slowly became more brazen. I wouldn't return the chair I had put at her bedside, for example. Having heard nothing from Master Kreia on the subject, the evidence of my visitation became more overt. It was a slow growth, but an undeniable one.
The final straw, I think, was when I left Iridonian lilies in a vase next to her bed, because the next night, as I snuck into her room—having grown familiar with her at rest and now nowhere near as conscious of changes as I ought to have been—I sat down at her bedside, a full bouquet in my hand. It wasn't until I placed the bouquet in a crystal glass vase that she spoke up and said, "Personally, I preferred the Iridonian lilies. They're a far more personal touch."
It was at this point when I noticed that I was quickly entering a state of cardiac arrest.
"Cardiac arrest?" Bastila asked, baffled that such an imposing figure could come from such a skittish child.
"Perhaps that is a rather…hyperbolic way of putting such things, I admit," remarked Revan. "Regardless, the fact that she was conscious startled me and sent me into a state of slight panic nonetheless."
You see, Bastila, I am, by nature, a very paranoid sort, and that was especially true as a child, being taken from everything I knew and being thrust into this unfamiliar, possibly hostile situation. The fact that the one facet of my life over which I felt I still held any control now was self-aware was enough to…aggravate that nature, if you will. Suffice it to say that when I made contact with her eyes, blue as a spirit crystal, I was very frightened, to the point where I could not say a word, neither in Mando'a nor in Galactic Basic. She seemed to find this trait of mine suitably amusing, and laughed at my speechless state.
However, amusement slowly turned to confusion, and then concern. "Are you alright?" she asked. "Hello? Anyone in there?"
"You are…awake…" I managed to force out in Galactic Basic, keeping in mind that my ethnicity would not make me very popular around the other younglings and Padawans, and so preserving the wherewithal not to respond in my mother tongue.
"No, I'm a sleep-walker. Yes, I'm awake," she joked. It took me a moment to realise that, of course, and so it took me a while to calm down. "You're the newcomer, aren't you? Master Kreia's pet project. Kylo Ren, right?"
My immediate instinct was to correct her until I realised that of course Master Kreia hadn't given everyone my real name, and so I simply nodded.
She smiled brilliantly. "Meetra Surik," she introduced, sticking out her hand. Tentatively, I took the proffered limb and shook it firmly, though she herself possessed a nearly hand-crushing amount of strength behind it—which was reassuring; I'd imagine my mother had a similar grip.
She talked at me for a while, and I responded in halting Basic until the sun neared the horizon. At that point, her eyes were bloodshot from not having slept, but as there had been nothing I could do to turn down her bubbly personality to a sensible level, and so I had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and didn't push the issue. Finally, her body just gave out and she fell into a deep sleep, and I made to escape the Enclave before anyone noticed. I knew not the significance of the meeting at the time, but I had just met my first friend.
"And did you succeed? In escaping the Enclave?"
Revan's response somehow sounded wry, and she could hear the grin on his face. "No. When I got back to the cottage, Master Kreia sat in wait for me. Contrary to my immediate fears, she wasn't angry. 'It seems you've adjusted rather well,' were her exact words. 'Well enough to go train with the rest of them, at least every once in a while, my Padawan.'" Revan laughed bitterly. "She had known the entire time about my moonlit escapades, it seemed, and took me on as a Padawan only after I had developed something of an anchor here on Dantooine. Though I find myself curious as to how much of what would later transpire was well within her powers to predict…" He sighed. "Anyway, that's the end of that story."
"What about Malak?" Bastila could not help but ask.
"That's something of a different story, and a far less interesting one at that," Revan said. "Alek and I only grew close due to his friendship with Meetra. In fact, I'm almost certain that he followed her out of a certain romantic interest which the war and the Jedi Council made impossible." His tone, while nonchalant on the surface, seemed to seethe bitterness and anger. Bastila made a note of that—that he had had some profound emotional connection to her, the very same woman who, until Malak and Revan returned from the war, was thought of as a genocidal egomaniac for the wasteland that was left of Malachor V. But Revan—Kylo, she corrected herself—had not seemed the type to have that strong of an emotional attachment to someone like the way Surik had often be described. This would have to be discussed with the Council. Though…
"Wait, Padawan?!"
"Yes," Revan said, seeming surprised at her tone. "Master Kreia took me in as her first and only Padawan."
This boggled Bastila's mind, that a child be taken as a Padawan at such a young age. "Wh…"
"Why?" he supplied with an edge of incredulity, tempered with amusement. "I feel as though that was always the question whenever one spoke of or to Master Kreia. She had no agenda and nothing to gain. If this were before the war, and I was a Jedi still, I would suppose it was a cautionary measure against the Jedi Council discerning my true heritage, but knowing what I know now…" He shrugged. "It was probably because the Force told her to do it."
"The Force…" Bastila repeated somewhat incredulously, "told her to…?"
Revan chuckled, shaking his hooded head. "Bastila Shan, have you ever heard of the Bendu? It's an order of Force users so intimately connected to the Force that the disparity between the Light Side and the Dark has lost all meaning to them. They simply live by the Force and discern its echoes as what it desires." Revan sighed. "I'd imagine that we'd have quite different world views by this point, what with me being Sith and all—though, if you think about it, the label and all it entails fit her pretty well, seeing as the Bendu see the Sith and Jedi both as nothing more than foolish children bickering over what she would probably say is an arbitrary distinction."
"But…that's wrong," Bastila objected.
Revan chuckled. "You know, once upon a time, I would have agreed with you fully and completely. As it stands, however…" He shook his head again. "When you think about it, all distinctions are by their nature arbitrary and subjective. Dark and Light, good and evil, life and death—in the end, all is as one before the Force. Now, granted, I can observe the fact that they are correct and still follow the Sith Code; I am simply not shackled to the idea that my way is the only way. My rage, my pain, my fear, my sorrow—all these things fuel me as a person as well as my connection to the Force so intimately and completely that the state of perfect neutrality possessed by the Bendu is, to an extent, impossible for me." Revan fell into silence for a time, before saying in a chiding tone completely at odds with the tone he had taken to tell the first part of his story, "Now, run along, Bastila Shan. I'd imagine it unwise for your Jedi Masters to be kept waiting."
"I…"
"Oh, don't give me that," he spat in exasperation. "I am not unintelligent, Bastila. We both know that these little…visitations we have are contingent upon your reporting to the Jedi Council every so often."
"Then…if you hate the Jedi so much, why are you…?"
"Talking to you?" Revan supplied. "Not entirely sure myself. But ultimately, it is no matter. The answer will soon make itself apparent to us both, I feel. Now, do run along, Bastila."
"What will you do here?"
He shrugged. "Sit in the capsule and meditate, I should think? Remembering the days before the war is a bit of an exhausting task for me, and one from which the Dark Side would rather I would refrain, if the amount of it clouding my mind is anything to go by."
"If you know it seeks to consume you, why do you serve it?"
"Because it is power," he replied easily. "Power that is dangerous and not to be trifled with, most assuredly, but power all the same."
"And was the power worth it?"
He spread his arms out so as to encapsulate the entire cell. "'I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.' You tell me, Bastila—is the ability to derive strength from your pain worth the cost? I should think so."
With that disturbing last thought of R—Kylo's, she turned and left the room, careful and precise in her maintenance of her decorum.
Darth Revan watched every measured step that Bastila Shan took up the stairs before chuckling to himself and shaking his head as he returned to his meditation chamber. He was getting to her, and he knew it. One thing that many Sith had never understood, and a very large part of the reason why their seductions were able to be resisted, was that deception was often unnecessary—usually, the truth, blunt and unabridged, was terrible enough.
To be continued...