Dark and Light.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, any recognised people/places in the fanfic. The excerpts are taken from the novel SW:ROTS (I will put ROTS on these excerpts), but some of them will belong to me or others
Tyrael Xiltherion belongs to Tyrael.
Delta-159 and Ki'ara Tonan belong to me.
(ROTS)
The dark is generous.
Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lies in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed still. But the greatest concealments lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from us the truth of others.
The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in day's harsh light. But the greatest comfort is the illusion that the dark is temporary.
Day is the illusion.
Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self.
With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.
(ROTS)
The dark is generous, and it is patient.
It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt.
The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout.
The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is in the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light.
The dark's patience is infinite.
Eventually, even stars burn out.
(ROTS)
The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
It always wins because it is everywhere.
It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.
(ROTS)
The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins–but in the heart of its strength lies a weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
Love is more than a candle.
Love can ignite the stars.
This is what it feels like to be Delta-159:
The room was no bigger than six feet high and two feet across on both sides. My life is this room and this room is my life. I don't know who I am or where I come from, I don't even know what I looked like, how old I was. I can't remember much before coming into this room. Just flashes really, and very brief ones at that. A hand reaches through the door with a bowl of food. I fall on it hungrily and drink the glop; I'm so hungry I barely even notice how disgusting it tastes. I question how long I've been here, but it's hard to say, with nothing to do the time could pass slowly or fast, I just don't know and eventually I give up trying to figure it out. I've already tried to open the door, but it's protected by some kind of forcefield that give a nasty shock whenever I go near the door, so I have learned to stay away. I sit in the middle of the floor, hoping that soon they; whoever 'they' are, will let me out.
Time passes as it inevitably does.
On many worlds the sun or suns rise and set. Darkness takes the place of light as night comes.
But the light will come back. The light will always be there; just as the darkness will.
I hate the dark, I have always hated the dark. Or at least I have hated the dark for as long as I can remember, it begs the questions; once again, of just how long I have been here. I don't even know the answer, but it scares me. The room shudders violently, sending me sliding across the floor, I put out one hand to prevent myself from crashing painfully into the wall. I can see the doors forcefield sparking, before it blinks out completely. I approach the door cautiously, and stretch out a hand to make sure the forcefield was really down, when I didn't get blasted across the room I opened the door and looked outside. The long corridor beyond was empty of anyone, the lights in the ceiling flickered spasmodically. Where would I go? Where was I? Questions that I could not answer at this very moment. All I wanted was to get out of that room. Get into the light where I knew it was safer, where I felt safer. In the light nothing could touch me.
I walked down the corridor in stumbling steps, stopping every time the lights went out and only walking where I knew the light would be. I was scared to walk in the shadows, where the dark would be. The floor lurched beneath my feet as I came into a large open area of this…place. People were arming themselves with weapons. They did not notice that I was there and some part of me whispered that they must not know, so I stayed silent, but refused to move into the shadows, where I would have a better chance of remaining unseen. They moved with an urgency that was in complete contrast to the way they talked and joked with each other. Something was happening that was not a good thing for them. Some of them hurried from the room, I could hear their footsteps fading into the distance. This left only a handful of them in the place with me. One of them finally noticed me, his face darkened into a scowl.
"One of them got out!" He yelled to those nearest to me, two of them instantly started moving in my direction. The place I was in chose that moment to turn sideways, sending everyone sliding along the floor.
"Get her back to the cell!" The first man yelled again.
I rose to my feet, even as one of them grabbed my arm and started pulling me back in the direction of the corridor and that dark room. I screamed at him, telling him to let me go, not to bring me into the shadow. He ignored me. I felt it then. The darkness touching me. He dropped my hand as if I had burned him.
"The Jedi must not know they are here! Get her back now!"
"No!" I screeched. I wanted to reach out and stop them all and somehow I did.
The darkness has come. The darkness is here. The darkness is everywhere.
The darkness is part of everyone. It is just that some hide it better than others.
The darkness is part of you; you will never escape it.
I yelled as some of them fell choking to the floor and others writhed as blue lightening attacked them and yet others just seemed to explode. Blood sprayed in every direction, body parts dropped, still twitching to the floor. I covered my eyes with shaking hands. I did not want to see.
This is what it is to be Tyrael Xiltherion:
He can sense it even though he still far away from the room. One moment there is life in the room ahead of him, the next there is only one. Destruction on such a scale caused only by one being he has never sensed before and yet he knows it for what it is. The deaths can not have been caused by a weapon. At least not a weapon as most would understand it. He knows what these people have done here, he knows what they are doing. They are slave traders dealing mostly in sex slaves of all ages, but mostly children. Within the Republic slavery is illegal and the Senate were still debating the issue of what should be done about it. Waiting for the Senate to make up its collective mind to do something about this could take weeks, even months and every day people from planets within the Republic were disappearing, never to be seen by their loved ones again. The Jedi council; at the request of the Supreme Chancellor, had acted, sending one of their own to deal with the matter. His name is Tyrael Xiltherion, he is a Kellfiirin from the planet Kellfiir. He moves through the ship with a stealth that belies his size; his species top the scales at well over seven feet tall and he is no exception. This is not the first time that he has seen slavery first hand. He does not like it, but his face does not show his disgust for this. His body, including his face is covered in a hard exoskeleton, bright red beneath his Jedi robe. The slavers don't need to see an angry expression on his face though, the look in his eyes; the two in his face and the two on eyestalks over his head glow a bright glowing green and in them the slavers can see their own deaths coming. Armblades extend from both wrists and a tail that slashes at them has a blade at the end of it as well. If this isn't enough to make them think twice about going into another line of business then the long silver lightsaber in his hands pretty much screams that he means business. He is here to do a job and he intends to carry it out. If it were up to him these people would get no trial, they would not get the same consideration that any normal criminal would get.
If it were up to him they would die, right here, right now, by his hand if necessary. But he is; after all, a Jedi master and such thoughts are unbecoming of a Jedi. He has already passed through many rooms, most of them empty, but some of them containing the corpses of what he could only assume were supposed to have been slaves. Most of them had been children and they had not died quickly nor painlessly. Tyrael Xiltherion is not one usually given to feeling pain or sadness and many would say that he does not care for anyone, but seeing those bodies like that had made him pause; just for a moment, over their bodies and ask that the Force give them the peace in death that they had not been given in life.
He had continued on to the rear of the ship. Driven by his barely controlled rage. He was no longer interested in capturing the slavers to bring them back to Coruscant for trial. His silver lightsaber was a blur of white light, deflecting blaster bolts back at those who had fired the weapons. His eyes smiled humourlessly as they fell with burning holes in their bodies.
Fire a blaster set on kill; die by a blaster set on kill. He thought sardonically. And that was when he felt it. Terrified pain that he felt through the Force. That and the eruption of sheer power that came from the armoury just ahead of him. He entered the room and saw the bodies that were strewn on the floor. On the far side of the room stood a child, pale white, long fingered hands covered her face and she was muttering something that he could only hear as he got closer to her he could hear her words.
"Not me, not me." She was saying. She continued muttering these words over and over, as if by saying them she could make them true. She finally noticed that he was there and her silver eyes stare fearfully up at him through her fingers and the bright blue hair that dangles in front of her face.
"Wasn't me," she told him.
"I told them. They wouldn't listen. I told them and they wouldn't listen."
What happened? He asked, clipping his lightsaber back on his belt. Whatever she had done to them, she didn't seem to be a threat now.
"Their fault! I told them and they wouldn't listen!" She gestured at the bodies.
"Now look!" Spittle flew from her mouth as her voice rose in pitch. Tyrael crouched down in front of her, placing one unusually gentle hand on her shoulder.
You told them what? He asked. He could sense fear, anger, pain and just a touch of madness coming from her. She seemed to calm down a little as she stared into his green eyes.
"I told them not to drag me into the shadows and they wouldn't listen. The dark made me do it, I didn't want to but it made me. The dark is bad, light is good." Her eyes lost focus and the madness seemed to return to as she muttered that the 'dark was bad and the light was good' like. It was almost like a mantra. She lurched away from him and stumbled around the room like someone in shock. Tyrael watched her for a moment until she sat down on the deck, pulled her knees up to her chin and buried her head there.
At the time what we do with the darkness seems so right; we believe we are just doing what needs to be done.
The darkness makes us do things that we; under normal circumstances, would not want to do.
She would not be going anywhere; she would stay on this ship until it went down in flames. Tyrael could see that all too clearly. He would have time to explore the rest of the ship and help anyone else that needed it and the slavers…well he would do to them what needed to be done. He could not bring her with him, but he would return here for her after he was done.
I will be back shortly. He told her. She did not raise her head and nod in acknowledgement. She did not wave to him. She did not say goodbye. She did nothing at all. Tyrael sighed as he left the room. When he got her back to Coruscant she would need a lot of time to heal. Through the Force he could tell that right now she was mentally destroyed, she could make no sense of what had happened and trying to figure it out was just making her worse. That was probably to be expected after what she had done. Tyrael did not blame her for the slavers death, he blamed the slavers themselves. He had seen the bodies in the rooms before he had gotten to the armoury and he knew what they were capable of. These men had broken the child in the armoury; she had in turn broken them. Only now she had broken herself, her mind, and her spirit; all that was left to break was her body and it was quite possible that the slavers had already done that for her. Tyrael shook his head. Keep your mind on the task at hand, he mentally chided himself.
This is how it feels to be Delta-159:
I close my eyes tightly. No matter what I do I can't block out the bodies, or the blood smeared on the walls, or the limbs that are no longer attached to bodies. I can't block out their screams as the darkness took them. I can't block out the smell of burnt flesh, the smell of freshly spilled blood, the scent of singed hair and clothes. All this death terrifies me. I never want that to happen again. I could feel their pain as they died. It was almost as if I was the one writhing in agony, as if some part of me was dying. I hated the dark power that I could feel washing over me as the darkness did that, it was horrible, disgusting, like being dumped in a dirty swamp. Never again.
And yet,
I want more.
I want to hear their cries for mercy as the life is squeezed out of them.
I want to see their bodies thrashing helplessly.
I want to feel the power coursing through my veins, such power like I have never felt before. It was glorious, like stepping under a cool waterfall and having it wash all the dirt away.
It was like being free.
I need more.
You fight with the light and the dark every day.
You make decisions every day and whatever your answer you are using the light and dark within yourself.
Choose wisely. There is far more at stake than you may think.
This is how it feels to be Tyrael Xiltherion:
He is on his way back to the armoury. Even from this distance he can feel the struggle she is going through. The light and dark within her is fighting for supremacy. He walks into the armoury and stops.
The child sits in the same position that he left her in, her whole body trembles and he can feel the fear, the anger, the pain and the rage that seems to emanate from her; not in bursts, but like one huge, never ending wave.
He does not disturb her. This is something that he cannot do for her.
This is a decision that she must make for herself.
The light may win, but even if it does Tyrael knows what will happen to her when he returns her to Coruscant.
If the dark wins?
Well, let's just say that if Tyrael believed in a god he would be on his knees right now begging that god not to let her fall. For if she does he knows that he must strike her down. Right here. Right now. He cannot let her live. And that is something he does not want to do.
And yet even if the light does win he knows that from this day until the day she dies she will fight with the darkness within her every day. She will fight even harder than other Jedi. For he knows what it is like to react in anger.
He knows what it is to use the darkside of the Force for ones own gain. And he knows how much harder it is to walk the path of light after doing such things. The light will break through the shadows and shine all the brighter because of this struggle she goes through now.
He knows how hard she fights. He knows the struggle she is going through. He knows what it is to fight such darkness.
Tyrael knows all this. And yet he does not intervene. He crouches down on his hunches and closes his eyes; meditating. He has faith that whatever happens will happen the way it is meant to. He waits for the storm within the alien child to blow itself out.
He waits for a long time. He can wait as long as needs be.
And yet he still waits. He does not move. He does not speak.
Seconds pass into minutes. Minutes pass into hours.
Tyrael feels the ship buck and shudder beneath his talons. He can sense it. Even without Jedi powers he knows that the ship will break apart. If he is to survive, if the child is to survive they must leave soon.
He simply waits.
If you do not learn from the mistakes of your past then you are bound to repeat them.
Take heed from your past, learn from it, put those lessons to good use and you will not fall.
This is how it feels to be Ki'ara Tonan:
I am no longer Delta-159. That designation no longer has any meaning for me. I am Ki'ara Tonan. I do not know where the name comes from. I do not know if it was once my name, or if it is the name that the light has given me. It does not matter. I stand up and walk over to the Jedi master who still crouches on the floor like some giant bird of prey. I know he can sense me coming to him. His green eyes open and he to stands. He looks down on me from his immense height and his eyes seem to change. I do not realise that he is smiling at me. He gestures for me to go ahead of him and I do. We run down the corridor; or rather I run, he just takes longer walking strides. The ship shakes like a leaf in a gale and I loose my footing. The Jedi catches the back of my tunic and sets me back on my feet and we continue running. I can feel the heat at my back and I try to run faster. I do not want to look behind; I know what I'll see. Fuel capsules have ruptured and the ship is burning up. All pretence of calmness is now gone from the Jedi. He snatches me up and runs faster than I have ever seen anyone run. He dives through an airlock and rolls right back up onto his feet, he drops me on the floor and smashes one fist into the airlock controls of his ship. He does not even wait for the airlock to cycle closed. He heads deeper into his own ship and I follow him. He drops into the pilots chair, se he runs his hands over the controls he turns one disconcerting eyestalk in my direction.
You may want to strap in. He tells me. I move closer to him and watch as his fingers dance a symphony over the controls. The ships jerks once as he disengages from the other ship and then the ships lurches as it's hit by the exploding slaver ship just as he enters his ship into hyperspace.
I stare up at him standing over me. For a brief moment I wonder why he is standing on his head.
I told you should strap in. His eyes smirk down at me. I realise then that I am mashed upside down against the wall, watching him from between my own legs which are dangling down in front of my face.
"Next time I'll know to listen to you." I smile up at him innocently.
Tyrael:
"Next time I'll know to listen to you." She said to him, smiling in an…almost annoying way, as if she knew something he did not. He nodded his head once, as he returned to the controls and she clambered back to her feet. She joined him, strapping herself into the co-pilots chair.
In seven hours we will arrive at Coruscant. He said almost absently.
"Where's a Coruscant?" She asked. He looked over at her. She was young, in human years he would guess her age to be somewhere around four. That did not explain how she did not know of Coruscant.
Coruscant is the capital. He told her.
"Capital of what?"
The capital of the Republic.
"What's the Republic?"
It is an alliance of many different planets. He explained. She nodded as if that made sense and then.
"What planets?" She asked.
To many to name all of them.
"Why? Don't you know them?" She asked innocently enough.
I know them all by name.
"Then why can't you tell me?"
Do you always talk this much? He asked, just a little bit tetchily.
"I don't know. Don't remember anything before that ship." She shrugged. Great, Tyrael thought. I find a child and she can't even remember what day of the week it is.
"Wednesday." She said. He looked at her oddly.
"I know what day of the week it is, I even know what month it is, not sure on the year though." She shrugged. The fact that she not only didn't know what year it was or that she didn't have any memories of her life did not seem to disturb her as much as Tyrael would have expected it to. She took it in stride, she took it with the same seemingly unaffected calmness that he would take most unexpected surprises with. Which made him wonder just how much it did in fact bother her.
" 'm tired." She mumbled.
There is a… He trailed off as he turned to her and saw that she was slumped in the seat, already in a deep sleep.
Well, Tyrael thought to himself, at least I won't have to answer any more questions on what she should already know.
"Are we there yet?" She asked. His eyes blinked once, the only sign that he had not even sensed she was awake. Falling down on the Job, he berated himself silently.
I am waiting for Traffic Control to give me clearance. He told her.
"Wh-?" He cut her off with one upheld hand as the controller finally got back to him with permission to land in the Temple docks. He negotiated his way easily to the Coruscant traffic and landed the ships smoothly. Then he turned his attention to the child next to him.
You and I have a meeting with the Council. He said. He stood up and headed for the ramp, trusting that she would follow him.
"Council of what?" She asked as she walked after him obediently.
The Jedi council. He explained. He looked back at her and he could tell by her face that while she knew he was a Jedi she really had no idea what exactly a Jedi was, but for once she did not ask. She was to busy staring around at the tall pillars and the Jedi that passed them. When she realised that she was lagging behind she trotted to catch up with him. He smiled inwardly. Like any child she wanted to explore her new surroundings, but she also didn't want to be left on her own with people she didn't know and while she didn't really know him at all, but in this strange place he was all she knew.
They rode upward in the lift, they had to wait a few moments before the council could see them. A Jedi and his apprentice came out of the chambers, the Jedi nodded to Tyrael in hello. The Padawan paused briefly by Ki'ara.
"Good luck, kid." He murmured to her before continuing after his master.
Come, they are ready for us now. Tyrael said to her. She watched the apprentice leave, wondering just what he had meant. She walked into the room after Tyrael.
Ki'ara:
I stood in the middle of the room next to Tyrael. Some of the chairs were empty. The rest had people sitting in them. Intimidating people, especially the dark, bald man in front of me. He looked me right in the eyes, as if trying to figure something out about me. I stared right back, I refused to look away. He held some kind of paddle in his hands. They were all staring at me. I moved even closer to Tyrael.
"What do they want?" I whispered to him. He remained silent, he took a step behind me. He seemed to be waiting for something. The bald man held the paddle up and looked at it with half an eye, keeping most of his concentration on me. After he moment he looked at Tyrael.
"Have you explained why she is here, Master Xilltherion?" He asked.
No, Master. I thought it best that she not know. That way she can truly be tested. Tyrael responded. I looked from him to the bald man, wondering just what, exactly was going on.
"Perhaps," the bald man mused.
"Tell me what you see on this." He held up the paddle.
"Your hand, a handle, a screen, wires, dust…" I stopped when he held up a hand.
"I meant what you see on the screen." He said. I shrugged, once again wondering where he was going with this.
"An E-Wing, a blaster rifle, a datachip, a…a…whatever it is you're wearing, a blaster pistol, a-"
"Enough, we will make our decision. Master Xilltherion, away take the youngling." The small green troll said. Tyrael bowed once and led me out of the chamber.
Tyrael:
She stood next to me. There was no sign of fear or worry on her face now. There was an aura of calmness about her now, that was not there before. It is almost as if she knows she will be accepted into the Jedi fold. Yet there is something else as well that begs a question.
You do not want to stay here. I ask her. She jumps as if startled.
"I do not want to stay," she shakes her head as if it does not make sense even to her.
"But I do not want to leave either. I feel as if being here is right, right for me anyway. Like I belong here." She looks up at him now, and he can see the unsure look in her eyes.
"Yet I also feel like I don't belong here, not after what I did to those people on that ship."
Perhaps, Tyrael spoke slowly, as if he was unsure whether he should tell her this or not.
Perhaps they deserved it.
"Maybe, but who am I do punish them! And what if it does not end there. I could do the same to you that I did to them. I could do the same to anyone here." There was despair in her voice as she leaned over the railing and stared downward. Almost as if she were contemplating ending it all. That, mused Tyrael, is something that we all try not to forget.
Do you think that you are the only one who has done bad things? He asked her. She shifted her head around to look at him, one eyebrow raised quizzically.
We all; even Jedi, fight the darkness within ourselves. You are strong in the Force, that is one of the reasons that I brought you here. Another is that you will be able to learn from others like you, others that have done the same things you have done.
"Set a man on fire? Make him explode, they've done that before?" She asked sceptically.
Perhaps not quite that. To put it into words you will understand, people kill in anger, in pain and they kill in fear. He said lastly. Her face screwed up.
"I'm not afraid." Her voice came out strong and she stood a little straighter.
Not now, maybe. But back on that ship you were terrified. He said. She shook her head stubbornly and turned back to look over the edge, she didn't say anything else.
Tyrael lifted his head slightly and listened for a moment.
They are finished discussing the matter. He turned and strode back into the chambers and she followed him.
"Decided this matter is. To old the youngling is." Yoda said. For a moment Tyrael was surprised, he had fully expected her to be let into the order; at least for training. He crouched down next to her.
Ki'ara, wait for me outside. He told her. She nodded obediently. Tyrael waited until she had left the room before turning back to the council.
She is to young? He asked in a deceptively calm voice.
"Question the decisions of the council you should not. The Force wills it." Yoda said.
I know that the 'Force wills it' has nothing to do with this matter.
"Master Xilltherion, do not argue with us, her path is not that of a Jedi." Mace Windu told him.
No, perhaps her path is that of the Sith. Tyrael said.
"The Sith no longer exist." Adi Gallia said quietly.
The Sith will always exist, just as the Jedi will always exist. Tyrael paused briefly.
If the Jedi do not train her then she will turn to the darkside, I have already seen what she can do. That is the main reason I brought her here. She is strong in the Force, we can all sense that and if she is not trained how to use it properly then we all know what could happen to her.
"Deal in what may be, we do not. Deal in what is." Yoda said.
Then you will deal with her in a few years when she is far older and far stronger for you to defeat! Tyrael exploded.
Train her, allow her to become one of us and she will become a great ally. Do not let this chance go by without at least giving her the chance to prove that she is worth so much more than the garbage she believes herself to be.
Yoda glanced sideways at Windu.
"What think you of Tyrael's plan?" He asked. A muscle popped in the side of Windu's jaw.
"It has merit, but I do not believe that she should be allowed train with others her own age. At least not only with them." He said. Yoda looked around the chamber at the other masters and they nodded their approval.
"Make a compelling argument you do, Master Xilltherion. Hope you regret it one day, I do not." Yoda said to him. Tyrael nodded and then froze as the full meaning of what had just happened hit him and his eyes widened almost comically.
What? Me? But I can't. I haven't trained an apprentice in over a hundred years. He stammered; if speaking telepathically could be called stammering.
"Time to take a new one then it is." Yoda smiled infuriatingly at him.
But she's to young to become a…
"You just made the argument that she should be allowed into the order despite everything. You can hardly change your mind now." Mace Windu said serenely.
But I… He trailed off again. Dammit, he had just dug himself into this hole and now he was trying to get back out without considering the consequences…again. As a human would put it; Tyrael shut his mouth, bowed rather stiffly and left the room, before he managed to sign away the rest of his life as well.
This is what it feels like to be Ki'ara Tonan; Jedi apprentice to the (bigmouth) Jedi master Tyrael Xilltherion:
He came out of the chamber looking as though someone had slapped him in the head.
"What is wrong, Master Xilltherion?" I asked.
Nothing, he paused and started again.
It would appear that you are now my apprentice.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
It means that I will now teach you everything I know about being a Jedi. His 'voice' sounded almost dazed, as if he had no idea what was going on.
"Oh," I paused.
"Master, what does 'will of the Force' mean?"
It is hard to explain. He paused and thought it over for a moment, no one had asked him that question before.
We are still like children when it comes to understanding the Force, we do not truly know very much about it. We say the 'will of the Force' when we do not understand something, just as one who does not understand gravity admires the way water drops down in a waterfall.
"Well that makes sense, I guess." Then she grinned up at.
"So what are you going to teach me first?"
Darkness is everywhere.
Some try to fight it alone and they will lose.
Give me your hand and together we will shine a light that will never go out.