Shadows of Heroines and Heroes
-- Back to the Parents --
Revan sat staring moodily at the river, as she lay on her stomach on top of the roof. She had been avoiding the others and him, ever since she had nearly killed him and her friends to.
It was mutual avoidance.
Carth, Atton, Biggs, and Elaine had known that Revan did not particularly like the Disciple, saying that he would get into trouble one day, flirting with every woman he saw and deemed pretty.
He had even tried to court Revan's hand once himself, and Revan had responded by almost cutting off his. It had worked, very well.
Bastila sighed as she made her way up to the roof, watching her friend who was silent, as silent as the dead. Revan's presence in the Force was defiantly noticeable and her absence was taking its toll on Bastila as well, especially in such close proximity.
Bastila leaned against the stone and caught her breath, rubbing her forehead tiredly. She would never learn why Revan had built this erratically strange settlement on Dxun when she could have stayed any number of places on the planet or on another more secluded area.
She had once asked her friend as to why Revan had built one here, and Revan had given her this look and then told her.
"Do you see that tomb over there, Bastila?" Revan asked, pointing towards Freedon Nad's tomb. "That tomb there holds great power and is powerful in the Force." Bastila struggled to understand Revan's cryptic answer.
"But Revan, that tomb is of the dark side, it's corrupted and a danger to all things living peacefully!" Revan gave her a small smile.
"Then I wonder what I was Bastila, because my parents were great Sith Lords. The greatest of their time, as you and I both know." Revan did not shiver like Bastila had, remembering what the two of them had seen last night, in a nightmare of Revan's.
"Revan, how are you feeling?" Bastila asked as she stood beside Revan, looking down at the river. Revan snorted bitterly.
"How do you think I feel, Bastila? I haven't seen Alison since she slipped off the wall, Mical tried to rape her, I nearly killed him like I should have and I've got this damn invention of my own on my bloody neck!"
Bastila sighed and stayed quiet as Revan ranted a bit more, and then she looked around in surprise.
"Revan, where's HK?" Revan stopped in mid-rant and looked at Bastila, curiosity getting the better of the heroine.
"Surely you've seen him tagging along with Alison, haven't you? I told him to protect her after Mical tried to rape her."
Life had its errors and mistakes, and now Bastila wished she had never mentioned HK's absence.
"Damn it!" Bastila swore and dropped to her friend's side as she fiddled with the collar. Revan had constructed it so that ever time the prisoner tried to use the Force, they'd get a light zap of electricity, even though they could not use it at any rate.
But its ultimate secret was that only a Jedi of the light side and a Master could release the collar. Not the victim, no matter who they were or what alignment in the Force they held.
Revan was suddenly thrust back into the world of life, as Bastila released the neural collar around her throat. Revan would have fallen over on her knees if Bastila had not steadied her a moment before.
Revan closed her eyes and searched the planet, probing the life around her for her daughter.
What she found instead was emptiness.
Alison and all the children of the Jedi and non-Jedi were gone.
They weren't here.
Revan screamed.
Dinnertime was very quiet as the entire group minus the Disciple ate their dinner.
Revan ate slowly and mechanically as she spooned the food into her mouth without any life at all. Carth sat to her right, concern creasing his face as he watched his wife barely eat, Bastila on her left with Canderous besides her.
Down the table, Elaine sat with Atton, very much like Revan, no life at all. In fact it was the same, mostly for all the women at the table, and the men had to stay alert.
"Revan, come on let's go to bed." Carth spoke gently too Revan as she reached for her tenth bottle of Tarisan ale. Atton watched as Carth lead the drunk and unresisting woman away, mostly everyone following them out of the room.
"Let's go." Canderous' voice was gruff and hard as he went to the Disciple's cell where he had been left without food or water for a couple of days now, actually a week.
Atton, Biggs, Canderous, Zaalbar and Dustil filed into the cell holding area as Mical sneered at his captors.
"What have you decided to do now?" He asked, the gaunt face staring at them leering all the more. "You're Jedi, and we're too thinly stretched to kill any potential, or so I have heard from Rev-" Dustil stepped forward and slapped the Disciple with the Force.
"Don't you ever talk like that again in front of me; if it had been my choice, I would have let my mother kill you there and then..."
"Oh, has the boy gone all soft now?" Mical laughed and spat at Dustil's feet as Zaalbar and Canderous both restrained the younger man. Atton edged closer and smiled grimly at Mical.
"I knew there was a reason why I hated you and it's proven after all these years. Only reason I never killed you was because Elaine asked me not to."
He jerked his thumb at Biggs. "Same reason, Elaine and Brianna asked that we not kill you, otherwise you would have died back there on the ship or Dantooine no matter what then."
Biggs leaned in closer and spoke. "Death isn't good enough for you, it's too quick so we're going to play 'let's dance to the razor's edge',and see how well you deal with it, Mical."
He spat onto the ground at Mical's feet and unlocked the cell as he, Atton, and Canderous pulled the weakened man out and placed a neural disruptor, the same model that Revan had on earlier, and left moving quickly towards the hanger bay.
Jolee and Bao-Dur met them in the hanger bay on the Black Pearl, named for an old folk tale from Deralia about Pirates who sailed on the seas and not the sky. It was an old myth tale told over and over again, though it was only fantasy.
They climbed aboard the Pearl and dragged Mical towards main hold but stopped when they saw a red haired figure in their way. She grabbed the Disciple from them and hauled him by his only remaining ear to the life pod. She threw him in with the Force and bent down to talk to him.
"Now, Mical seeing as death is too good for you, I'm going do the same thing you did with your teachings." Mira spat in his face and growled. "This pod can't be unsealed by the user, so I figure that if I leave you in here long enough, with all the space floating around you, you'll have lots and lots of time to meditate on your crimes."
"You're, letting me live?" Mical asked and shook his head. "No, you wouldn't do that."
"Exactly pretty boy, so you're going to think long and hard about your actions." She smiled dangerously and closed the door shut and sealed it as she watched the pod shoot away into space, her husband Bao-Dur standing besides her with his arm on her shoulders.
"It's too good for him, still." Mira whispered brokenly. "I warned Elaine and Biggs then, I warned them."
"None of us could have seen it coming. It's better this way, Mira." Bao-Dur said quietly as he hugged his wife tightly.
Upon return, the husbands all went back to their wives, and sat awake through the night comforting them.
"Carth, she's going to be all right."
"What?" Carth sprung out of the bed and realized that it was Revan who had spoken. He knelt down in front of her and clasped her hands gently, as though she was a fragile doll that might break.
"Who's going to be okay, Revan?" He asked as she looked at him through a tear-streaked face, though the sadness was mixed with the fierce pride of a mother.
"Alison… Alison and the other children are going to be fine, Kari's with them." Carth pulled Revan into an embrace as her body shook and carried her to bed. He just sat there for a long time after she had fallen asleep, cradled against him like a child.
Kari was with them…
They're going to be fine…
She's going to be all right…
Carth just wished he could share his wife's optimism. There was a lot more out there, that shouldn't be messed with at all and knowing his daughter, she would end up in trouble.
He just hoped that she could get out of it before it killed her.
"Come back, Alison." Carth whispered, tears shimmering in his eyes. "Come home before it's too late."
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