A/N: I got a bug to write something about Dustil because I never quite understood his motivation to run off and join the Sith. Sure, there's the "let's make daddy angry" view, but somehow, I think Dustil is much more like his father than previously suspected. Oh, and yeah, the characters and premise are obviously not mine and I just write for my own amusement.
Dustil shifted anxiously in his seat as the shuttle began its decent into Coruscant's atmosphere. His hands clutched the datapad he'd been trying to read during the flight. Somehow he'd thought that Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice: The impact of the Kessel Run on the Galactic Economy would have held his attention better than it had. Any other day, it probably would have, especially since it fed his obsession with history, politics and economics all at once. However, today he was having trouble focusing. Today he was being reunited with his father.
Dustil wasn't sure how he felt about all this. A few months ago his feelings on the matter had been very clear, but ever since his father had shown up at the academy with that Jedi woman things had been much less clear. Before his father's surprise appearance Dustil had grown to hate him. It was easy to hate someone you barely knew but were supposed to feel something for. Dustil had quite a few good memories about spending time with his father as a child, but many, many more of his father leaving. He had grown to hate the Republic and everything it stood for. They claimed to be democratic and protect freedom, but all he had seen was slavery.
Sure, they called it a career. They called it duty and honor. But it was flat out slavery. - slavery to a faulty ideal. How could his father not see that the "freedom" he fought to protect only gave people the freedom to be cruel and wage war against each other? War that left children as orphans and wives as widows. Even if then men who fought weren't already dead.
Five years ago Dustil's world had changed. He had been 12 and when the bombs began to rain down on Telos he had been scared. He remembered odd flashes of that day. He remembered his classroom at school shaking; the look in one of his female classmate's eyes as she cowered beneath her desk, her hair falling into her face; the fleeting thought of how he was going to miss lunch if the bombs kept up. As they flipped on the school's Holonet to get more information Dustil's fears overwhelmed him. Sith ships surrounded the planet. All settlements were being bombed. "Get Underground!" the reporter bellowed. Suddenly all Dustil could think about was his mother. He had to get to her, he had to make sure she was all right. It was his job, after all, it always had been.
As the teacher ushered his classmates into the school's bunker, Dustil slipped out the backdoor of the school, unnoticed in the confusion. As he ran towards his home, he saw her coming towards him. One minute she was standing there… the next there was a horrible noise and smell. Burning plasticrete and earth rained down around him. When he got up again, he couldn't see her. He tried to run towards where she had been, but his leg was shredded from flying debris and the remnants of shattered buildings blocked the street.
"What was she doing out here?" he wondered, fear and anguish gripping him. He climbed over the debris inching his way toward where he had last seen her. At last he did see her, but she wasn't alone. His father was there as well. At first he was relieved but as he grew closer to the pair he heard the panic in his father's voice. He was screaming for a medic, he was sobbing. Dustil gritted his teeth. What right did his father have to cry? What did he care if the woman he almost never saw wasn't there to worry about him anymore?
From a distance Dustil watched as his mother died in his father's arms. As his father stood, carrying the lifeless body away in the opposite direction, Dustil's stomach knotted. The resentment, anger and bitterness of the years welled up inside him. What right did his father have to show up now? It was Dustil's job to take care of his mother. He'd been doing it all his life. He should have been the one to hold her while she died. His father, who had never been there, had robbed him of his right - the right to hold her, to hear her last words, to say goodbye. He thought about following them, to give his father a piece of his mind, but he couldn't make his legs move in that direction. Instead he collapsed on the street.
When he'd awoken in the triage at the refugee camp the memories flooded painfully back. When the relief teams asked his name he emotionlessly gave them a fake one. He didn't want his life back. He heard of a Republic soldier looking for his son, but he didn't speak up. He wasn't about to let his father have the satisfaction of "taking care" of him now. It was too late for that.
At first he had been relocated to Nar Shaddaa with most of the other refugees when the atmosphere on Telos began to turn acidic. He was by no means street smart but while Nar Shaddaa was a vicious place, Dustil had never been lazy. He began to get odd jobs where ever he could. He scavenged for things to sell and he saved his money to get off the scum infested moon. It had taken him two years to save up enough money for a shuttle ticket, but the question remained, where should he go?
Selene had answered that question for him. She had been one of the refugees from Onderon, also an orphan, and they had become good friends over the years. She wanted to go to Korriban and see about joining the Sith. At first he had been completely against the idea, but she wore on him with her persistence. Anyone who joined the Sith could climb their ranks. It was not an organization twisted by politics like the Republic military. Anyone who endeavored to work hard and prove themselves worthy (and show some blood-thirsty ruthlessness) could become the next leader. Besides, with Revan leading the Sith forces the Republic wasn't going to exist much longer anyhow.
Dustil was still hesitant until his daily reading of the Holonet turned up an article about Saul Karath. Saul had been a friend of his father's. He had often given Dustil candy as a child and told him how much he'd grown. But now Dustil realized that it was Saul who had commanded the attack on Telos and was now Admiral of the Sith fleet. Dustil's stomach burned with rage at the man he once thought of affectionately. Saul had killed his mother. Just as surely as his father had let her die. Dustil vowed his revenge.
Another boy might have run off to join the Republic fleet upon swearing revenge up on a Sith Admiral, but Dustil didn't think like most children. He wanted personal revenge. He didn't care about Sith or Republic. He cared about betrayal. He wanted to hold a blaster to Saul's head and make him pay for destruction he'd caused. He would never get close enough to Saul to carry out his revenge as a goon in the Republic Army. But joining the Sith was another matter. If he worked hard enough, and played his cards right he just might be able to make it onto Karath's ship and put that blaster bolt into his temple. And the best thing about it was that the Sith generally approved of soldiers killing their commanding officers. So he wouldn't even go to the brig for exacting his revenge.
When he and Selene arrived at the academy Dustil had soon begun to stand out above the other students. His anger and lust for revenge were perfect fodder for the Sith teachings. He craved advancement and pushed himself to achieve. When he wasn't in classes or weapons practice, he spent most of his time in the library reading through the archives, gleaning any knowledge he could from their contents. He knew that to really get close to Saul he had to be more than just a good soldier. He had to be smart. He had to prove himself worthy of command.
He became obsessed with the Sith histories: Exar Kun, Ajunta Pall, Freedon Nadd. These men and their incredible minds fascinated him. But when it came to battle strategy Darth Revan put all the others to shame.
Dustil had read anything he could get his hands on regarding Revan. He poured over battle histories and strategies. He had been surprised when he had learned that Darth Revan was female. Most of the students assumed that the dark lord was male and there was not much in the archives to contradict that assumption. Dustil had only found it out when he happened across a holovid from early in the Mandalorian wars in which Revan was speaking to the Senate about the Jedi involvement in the war. Shortly after that appearance, Revan began appearing in public wearing a strange mask and heavy robes that disguised her sex and inspired fear in her men.
The only time Dustil relaxed at the academy was when Selene would drag him away from his work. At first he had been reluctant leave his studies, but over time he began to seek her out more and more. She had been the only one in the academy he trusted at all. He wasn't sure when he realized he was in love with her, but as he did his studies had started to suffer. When she didn't return with the exploration party he had nearly broken down. Instead he threw himself into his work again, focusing on the one thing that he thought would bring him peace. Revenge.
Dustil had thought of his father regularly over the years, but usually just in the context of his father's foolishness fighting for something so stagnant and repulsive as the "Republic". How could his father justify protecting a government that had failed so completely at keeping the peace and protecting its citizens? Didn't he understand that the "freedom" he fought for was a sham? It was just another piece of propaganda by a political machine.
But then one day, his father walked into his quarters at the academy. He couldn't believe it. What the hell was a Republic goody-goody like him doing there? Dustil's hate and resentments came flooding back, fed by the darkness of Korriban. He lashed out at his father. He wanted his father to respect him, to understand that it was too damn late to start parenting him now. The woman that was with his father had managed to calm Dustil down enough for him to give them a chance to prove the "evils" of the Sith.
Dustil wasn't too worried about what they could tell him. He knew the histories better than they did, he imagined. The Republic was guilty of at least as many atrocities as the Sith. Many more if you counted all the times they failed to keep their promises to protect their citizens from outside attacks. What he wasn't counting on was the datapad from Master Uthar detailing the orders for Selene to be killed as she was hindering his progress.
Had it been anything else, Dustil could have lived with it. He could have woven it into his consciousness as part of the natural brutality of life. But he could not rid himself of the guilt of Selene's death and he promised his father that he would leave the academy, eventually. He had said it mostly to get his father to leave him there, though. The truth was he still planned on killing Saul and now he had to kill Master Uthar as well. It would be a long time before he was free of the Sith chains he'd so willingly bound himself in.
Or so he thought. As it turned out, Master Uthar died mysteriously the same night that his father and the woman Jedi had left Korriban. Dustil wasn't naïve enough to believe that it was a coincidence. Something about the woman had seemed familiar to him. She emanated a power within the force that he'd never seen before. And yet, at the same time, she didn't have the physical presence of the kind of powerful force she channeled. Not that she wasn't talented and capable, but it seemed like she was unaware of her power somehow.
It had been some weeks later when Dustil finally realized why she had seemed familiar. He had seen her face before… in the holovid of Revan speaking to the Senate during the Mandalorian wars. The shock of it was… well… dumbfounding. That explained why she had been able to dispose of Master Uthar so easily, but it did not explain what his father was doing traveling with the "Dark Lord of the Sith" who was supposed to have been killed by Darth Malak. He wondered if his father even knew who she was. Of course, it was possible she didn't even know who she was. That would definitely explain the odd force aura surrounding her.
Things only got more confusing for Dustil as he began to hear rumors of an attack on the Sith flagship – Admiral Karath's ship. Apparently Saul hadn't made it out alive. The stories he heard within the academy spoke of a trio of prisoners, two jedi and a soldier who fought their way to the bridge to fight and kill Saul. Some stories ended with the trio escaping, while others suggested one of the Jedi had been captured by Malak, who was trying to turn her into an apprentice.
When Dustil heard that Saul was dead he became listless. All this work plotting his revenge and it had been taken from him. When he heard the stories of the Jedi and the Soldier, he knew who had managed to steal his only sense of purpose once again. Father.
Dustil left the academy then. His purpose there was no longer valid. It was time to move on. He had promised his father he would go to Telos when he left Korriban. He contemplated running away again. He really didn't want to give his father the satisfaction of knowing his fate. But something in him drew him to the dead world he had once called home.
It was there his father had found him. Two months after their encounter on Korriban his father and his Jedi companions had been declared "Heroes of the Republic". Apparently they had battled and killed Malak and destroyed some sort of facility cryptically referred to as the "Star Forge".
Dustil was torn. He didn't quite know whether to be proud of his father or angry with him. On one hand he craved a relationship with his father. But on the other, the anger and resentment of all the years still coursed through every cell of his being.
So it was with a conflicted spirit that Dustil came to Coruscant. His father had sent for him shortly after the news of the Star Forge's destruction. Dustil hadn't wanted to come at first, but his curiosity finally got the better of him. He was especially drawn by the idea that he just might get to meet Revan again.
When the news had broken that the savior of the galaxy was actually the person who'd thrown it to hell in the first place, many were outraged. Dustil, however, had already figured out who she was and was intrigued. He had admired Revan for far too long and the idea that she had been traveling with his father and had "redeemed" herself left him in awe of both her and his father.
He stepped off the shuttle anxiously. His eyes searched the small crowd on the landing platform. They rested finally on his father. The expression on his father's face perplexed him. He was exhausted, restless, fearful and radiantly happy all at the same time. Dustil pushed his way through the crowd, to his father and then stood there awkwardly for a moment, unsure how to greet him.
Carth didn't have such reservations however. As soon as Dustil was within range, he threw his arms around him and hugged him like he was 5 years old again. Dustil was put off a moment, but something in that embrace said so much. He felt the sorrow and regret rolling off his father and he wrapped his own arms around his father's shoulders to try to comfort him.
They stood there like that a moment, in a silent embrace. The fears and resentments of the past washed over them both. When they broke their hug, Dustil had gone a long way towards forgiving his father, though he wasn't quite ready to let go of all the hurt yet.
"You've gotten so tall, son." Carth said, sorrow and joy radiating from his eyes.
Dustil smiled and nodded. "I haven't quite caught up to you, but I don't think I'm done growing yet." He said.
Carth smiled again and directed Dustil to the lower platform where his speeder was parked. They climbed into the speeder silently and made their way towards the hotel where his father was staying. Dustil was surprised when they pulled up in front of a building that appeared to be a restaurant.
"Are you hungry?" Carth asked, not waiting for a reply. "Let's get some food and catch up a little bit before we get back to the hotel. The crew is still there and, well… it's hard to get a quiet moment when they're around." He said with a smile.
Dustil followed his father into the restaurant and was instructed to get whatever he wanted. Apparently Carth was still living on the Republic's tab. After they ordered a fairly lavish meal they sat in silence a moment awkwardly.
"I wanted to talk to you about some things before we get back to the crew," Carth began hesitantly. "I know that things aren't settled between us. I know that you have every right to be angry with me for not being there as you grew up and especially not being there when the attack began." Carth took a long drink, trying to recollect his thoughts. "I don't know where you and I stand right now, but I do know that you are not a child anymore. I want to make up for not being there in the past, but I know I can't do that by trying to father you now. I can only treat you with the respect you deserve as a man. I hope that in time you will forgive me, but I know that you will have to handle it in your own time."
Carth hesitated again, gulping down another drink. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know that this isn't going to be easy. And if you ever feel like you can't do it or don't want to, I can respect that." Carth slid a credit chit out of his pocket and handed it to Dustil. "This was your mother's. She was saving it for you for when you grew up. To help you establish yourself. It's yours now."
Dustil looked down at the chit and his jaw gaped. He'd never seen so much money in one place. "It's not as much as it looks like," his father chuckled, "but it should get you a speeder or a help with a house or something. I also want you to know that no matter what happens between us, if there is ever anything you need, anything at all – money, connections, a good word put in for you somewhere – just let me know. I'll do anything I can." Dustil nodded, "That being said, there's something more I think you should know."
Carth stopped again, taking another long drink and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Do you remember the woman that was with me at the academy?" he asked, avoiding eye contact with his son.
"You mean Revan?" Dustil answered back. Carth's eyes shot up to Dustil's trying to evaluate the emotions his son held there. "Of course I remember her. It took me a while to figure out why she looked so familiar. But you don't forget meeting someone like her, even if you don't know who she is."
Carth smiled. "That's good. I wasn't sure if you knew. It was hard to miss if you were keeping up with the holonet stories at all, but I never would have figured it out if Saul hadn't told me."
At the mention of Saul's name Dustil tensed visibly. "You killed him, didn't you?" he asked quietly.
Carth blanched. "Yes, well, we did. Revan, Bastilla and I were all on the bridge. I swore I would make him pay for what he did to Telos, for what he did to your mother."
Dustil nodded slowly his jaw clenched. Carth spoke again, not sure what his son's silence meant. "Killing him and getting revenge was the only thing that kept me going… until I met her." Dustil looked up at his father and saw the emotions written on his face as he mentioned her. He smiled.
"Does she feel the same way about you?" He asked, a knowing smile playing across his lips.
Carth grinned, "I think so," he answered. "Though, we've no idea where the future will take us. She still has to decide if she's going to stay with the Jedi Order or not, and if she does, well, that makes things considerably more difficult." He paused a moment and then asked tentatively, "So you're ok with… us?"
"I think so," Dustil said. "It's weird, don't get me wrong. Thinking about you being with anyone is… well… a bit disturbing," Dustil made a face to which his father grinned, "but mom's been gone a while now. Five years is a long time to live alone." A pained expression crossed Dustil's face as he remembered Selene. "I can only hope I find someone that lives up to Selene's memory. I don't want to be alone forever."
Carth studied his son's face carefully. He was too young to have such sorrow in his life. Yet, there were few who didn't have those kinds of sorrows these days young or old. Carth reached out and patted his son's hand gently. "I'm sure you will someday, son." He said quietly.
Dustil nodded as he played with his food absentmindedly. "So you don't mind that she's Revan?" Carth probed further.
"Mind? No, why would I?" Dustil looked completely puzzled for a moment. "Oh… you mean because of what the Sith did to Telos?" Carth nodded. "Revan didn't give the order to attack Telos, Malak and Saul did that. And you and she have made them pay for their crimes. I am indebted to her and you too, I guess." His answer didn't sound very enthusiastic, however, but even still Carth's surprise was visible. "Father, I spent 3 years at the Sith academy. We studied the histories. Revan was brilliant. I studied everything I could find about her. I knew if I was ever going to get close enough to Saul to kill him, I had to think like she did."
Carth blanched again. "You wanted to kill Saul?"
Dustil nodded, his eyes becoming steely. "Yeah, but you beat me to it," he replied with a wry grin, the bitterness seeping out in his voice.
"If you wanted to kill Saul, why did you join the Sith?" Carth asked almost angrily.
"The Sith academy offered a good opportunity for me. I knew that I would be able to climb the ranks easily once I left the academy. That would put me closer to Saul than anything the Republic could give me. And I didn't care about the Republic… still don't actually."
At this Carth tensed and raised his voice slightly, "How can you still say that, son? You of all people? You've seen what the Sith are capable of, the destruction they've caused. How could you not care about the one thing that stands between us and them?" Carth ran his fingers through his hair frustratedly.
"Father, surely you can't be as naïve as that. The Republic is not the bastion of nobility the propaganda machines want you to believe it is. They allow all manner of horrors to go on in the name of 'freedom' - usually because it's lining some senator's pocket. The Republic is a corrupt and dying beast."
Carth fumed. "Corruption or no, at least they don't go around razing planets and killing everything they see."
"Malak corrupted the true goal of the Sith. Revan's goal. At least her initial goal. After the Mandalorian wars I believe she was trying to build the fleet up again, preparing a strong defense to protect the galaxy from future threats. The silly pandering of the Senate just wanted to disband the majority of the forces. She was frustrated, the bureaucratic nonsense hindered something she knew she had to do. So when she received the order to return the fleet to Coruscant, she declined."
"Revan was evil! She had fallen to the dark side!" Carth protested loudly confused by how he could be arguing this side of the issue with his son.
"Well, yeah, something evil took over, that's for sure." The younger man replied. "Once she began wearing her Sith mask something was decidedly different. More sinister. She had indeed fallen to the dark side. But I believe the motives that sent her down that path were basically good. She wanted to save the galaxy. She went about it the only way she knew how."
Carth gritted his teeth, wondering how much more Sith propaganda Dustil had bought into so completely. "Well, regardless of the history, she's different now, she is a wonderful, fun, kind woman, and… I love her."
Dustil nodded, not quite ready to let go of the argument yet. "Are you so sure she's different, Father? What did you know of her before?" Dustil watched as fear came over his father's face. He reached out and touched his father's hand. "You misunderstand me. I do not mean that she will fall again. I just mean that you should give her more credit. I've been studying her for years. Yes, she has many 'atrocities' to answer for, but no more than you do, father. How many men did you send to their deaths?"
Carth paled and nodded. "I only wanted to protect you and your mother."
"Of course, father. The same was true for Revan as well. She wanted to protect the worlds she had sworn to protect as a Jedi. The motives of most of the other Sith were not quite so pure of course, most of them just wanted power and personal gain. But she wasn't like that. At least not according to the archives on Korriban."
"I think you know more about her than she does." Carth said quietly.
Dustil smiled. "I have to admit, I was…am… a bit obsessed. I can't believe you know her… that you…" he grinned as he broke off, "I thought she had died when Malak betrayed her. I never believed I would ever get the chance to meet her. Certainly not as a fellow student at the academy." He chuckled, his eyes glowing with admiration.
"Well, she's waiting for us back at the hotel. She's worried about whether or not you'll like her. She's scared you might blame her for Telos, like I did, like she does."
"How can anyone blame her for something she didn't do?" Dustil asked obviously puzzled.
"Well, I know that before I knew who she was, I always just lumped Revan, Malak and the Sith together. They were all equally responsible for the atrocities. I know that she feels responsible because if she hadn't fallen to the dark side, Malak wouldn't have followed her and none of it would have happened. I still wrestle with it all. The idea that she did those things, that she was the dark lord… it scares me sometimes. I wonder what your mother would think."
"Mother…" Dustil said the word affectionately. "There's no telling with her, is there?" He said with a chuckle. "If I had brought the Dark Lord home for dinner one night I can imagine what she'd say. She'd probably give me a lecture about hanging out with the wrong crowd and then proceed to give the poor girl the 3rd degree. Actually, mother would probably do all that no matter who I brought home." Dustil smiled a moment, but then it faded, replaced by an empty longing. "When it comes to you though, I think she would have trusted your judgment. She always told me that she knew you couldn't live with yourself if you thought you weren't doing the right thing."
Carth blinked, tears beginning to form in his eyes. "But I didn't do the right thing, did I? I let her die, I failed her. I should have been there for her – for you."
Dustil forced a grim smile and they were quiet for a moment. "We all have our regrets," he said quietly as he took another drink. Carth nodded and they sat there a bit longer, memories running over them.
"So what happened to you after the attack on Telos? I looked everywhere for you." Carth asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.
"I was in the refugee camp – went to Nar Shaddaa with the rest of them. Lived there until I could save enough creds to get off… met Selene… went to Korriban. That pretty much sums it up." Dustil replied.
"I checked all the camps. You weren't there. You weren't on any of the lists."
"I was there. But it was so disorganized, everything was crazy. It would have been easy to miss someone you were looking for."
"Why didn't you seek me out?"
Dustil felt a slight wave of guilt hit him. "I… I needed some time to sort things out on my own."
"I thought I'd lost you too…" Carth's voice trailed off.
"You had." The younger man replied. "I hated you. I hated you for not being there – for letting her die – for being there to say goodbye when I didn't get a chance to."
Carth's eyes began to water, "I'm sorry, son. If I could change it all, I would."
"Would you, dad?" He asked almost accusingly, "Would you have quit the fleet? Would you have stayed home and taken care of us?"
"I don't know. If I knew what I know now… I wouldn't have been able to stay home. I would have tried to stop Saul before the attack on Telos."
Dustil nodded grimly. "Hard to be a family man when there's a galaxy that needs saving." The bitterness dripped off his words.
"Dustil…"
"I'm still not sure if your sick obsession with saving the galaxy is because of your vanity or some twisted sense of duty." He paused a moment and then asked accusatorily, "Would you leave Revan if you were given the orders?"
"Dustil… I don't know… yes, if I needed to… I'm hoping it will somehow work out that I don't have to leave her… that she doesn't leave me out of duty to the council." Dustil was surprised at the fear he heard in his father's voice.
"Ah, so now you know a bit how it feels then?" Dustil said, his voice calming somewhat.
"Yeah, I guess I do." Carth took another long slow drink, letting the silence wash over them again. "I guess I always hoped there'd be just one more mission. That I'd have made a difference and that I could come home then. I'm sorry it didn't work that way, son." Dustil nodded, not sure what to say as Carth finished his drink and made motions to leave. "But I can say I'm very glad to have a second chance."