A Life That Is Mine

Revan strode angrily down the walkway of the large fleet ship, Eminence, fuming over her latest holo meeting with the remaining Jedi Council members. There were only a four left, but all of them said the same thing: "The Sith are a threat that we must deal with, but first we must evaluate the situration. We will discuss your argument, young Jedi, before coming to a decision." She was wary of any anger that she felt, but she also knew that they would not act fast enough, or even if they did, would not know what the solution was.

But the Council would do the same thing that they had done so many years ago; they would wait too long sitting and evaluating. Revan did not debate the fact that it was usually necessary to look over one's decision before making it, especially something like this, but not to the point that that was all you did until it no longer mattered what you decided, because the time for salvation was past.

It had been a year since the events at the Star Forge, when she had begun to think that maybe, just maybe she would be able to lead a somewhat normal life. And she wanted that life to be with Carth. She loved him more than she'd thought was possible, but she didn't deserve him. Sometimes she wondered, if he had known the things she knew now, would he still have made the same declaration to her? Part of her insisted that yes, he would have, while the other part told her that such a thing was not possible, even for Carth Onasi.

Revan rounded a corner of the metallic hallway, barely paying attention to where she went, but knowing where she would end up. She entered a small room with a very large window looking out at the billions of stars outside the ship. She didn't know where the room came from or what its purpose was, but its seclusion helped her to think, and it allowed her to see the sky.

Rubbing her face wearily, Revan replayed her latest recovered memory in her head. It was one in which she was torturing and murdering Jedi, good Jedi that were dedicated to saving the galaxy from death. She had been that death, the one that would bring the galaxy to its knees if allowed to continue on her path. But she had been stopped. From what she had learned about her past self, she was not so sure that it was not Revan that allowed her capture, to be jerked off the path she was on. Not consciously, maybe, but the hidden wish had been there all the same.

Sometimes she would have memories surface that she could not place, ones that she wasn't sure whether they were from her real past as Revan, or from the past the Council had made up and implanted in her mind of her fictitious life far from her true identity. Were the pictures of her childhood she had in her head real, or made up on the whim of a Jedi? She didn't know.

Revan walked forward and put a small brown hand against the cool window, spreading her fingers out across the clear surface, each fingertip touching a star. "Who am I?" she whispered. There was no answer, only the mechanical thrum of the moving vessel that carried her through the endless black abyss of space.

Who was she? Was she who the Council had programmed her to be? Was she Revan? Even though she had accepted the name, she was not sure that was who she was.

An unusually bright star caught Revan's eye as she gazed at the inky blackness interrupted by pinpoints of light. The star was not large, but it shone with a hue similar to the emerald in her eyes. It was beautiful, but probably a gaseous cloud that would kill her if she got too close. "Am I the same?" she murmured into the silence. Was she an unusual being, nice from a distance, but lethal, whether intentional or not, when one got too close.

She had begun noticing the way her companions were devoutly loyal to her. It was unnerving the way they followed her lead so completely and usually without question. It is because I am a leader, she told herself firmly.

It is because they have no choice.

Revan winced at the words that had come unbidden through her mind. But she knew it was true. She had been studying it, and had discovered the connections she had to people were alarmingly similar to Force Bonds, only they could be one way. That wasn't exactly what they were, but close enough to make her worry about the rapidity with which they were formed. Had that been they way of her past? Was that how the Republic fell so easily? Had she been able, even without knowing it, to pull them in so that they had little to no choice in their actions? The thought made her shiver with fear.

What was she? A Jedi? As much as she wanted to be, she doubted that she would ever be able to call herself so again. A Sith? No, that was over, and she wasn't going back. For if she did, she would not be the only one to fall, and Revan would be damned before she let her actions destroy her friends. But her damnation might not be so far away from what her memories told her.

Watching the stars in front of her moving out of view as the ship continued on, Revan wondered about the line between good and evil. She hadn't meant to cross it, back then, but it wasn't as apparent as she had believed it to be. It was fine, oh so fine, and one wrong step could send you over it.

"Revan…" she murmured her name, searching for the person behind it. Maybe that wasn't her name, maybe there wasn't something she could be called by. Not a Jedi, not a Sith, not Revan, not Shayla, not dark, and perhaps not light, not with the past she was remembering. She was a gray shadow, there only for something else, not her own.

She knew there were dark things that she had begun, set in motion, that had to be stopped, but she did not want to leave the future she was offered. Her future with Carth, with her friends. A home and a family. Happiness, safety, love.

But the darkness must be fought.

With an angry scowl Revan snatched her hand away from the window and began pacing the room. It seemed that everyone had a claim on her life, everyone but her. The Council wanted her to follow up with her mission, but only when they were finished deciding what her fate would be, and the fate of the galaxy. The Republic spent half of it's time hating her, and the other half requesting that she rejoin their ranks and help rebuild the galaxy. Carth had managed to convince the most important people that she had changed, and in doing so probably spared her life. Even the people of the galaxy had more of a claim on her life than she did.

"When they cry out for help, I come. When they demand justice, I give it. When they summon me, I obey. When I have nothing left to sacrifice, I still march on and lose more," Reven whispered, speaking of the Council, the Republic, and the rest of the galaxy.

A Jedi's life is a sacrifice.

"I don't want to be a sacrifice," she hissed.

Jedi belong to the galaxy.

"Let me choose to whom I belong!"

Jedi exist for others, not themselves.

"I want a life that is mine!" Revan cried, hot tears burning trails down her face as she swung around and faced the window once more, silently begging the people and planets around her to give her the rest of her life as her own.

Your life has been forfeit from the day you joined the Jedi.

"I did not choose that life! It was chosen for me!" Revan croaked, sobs choking her, tasting the salty drops on her lips. She gripped the clear window with her fingers, the tips of them turning white.

As one who is born into a life of slavery and is bound to serve a master, so you are bound to serve all life. But where slaves do not choose the path they walk, you have chosen the way of a savior.

"But I do not want it…"

Revan hung her head, tears blocking the stars from her view. When she cleared the salty liquid away from her eyes, she saw that they had entered the atmosphere of Telos, and that clouds had obscured the far off planets. She nearly panicked, feeling trapped and shackled to the ship. She wanted to reach out and tear the clouds away, to escape to the future she so desperately wanted to live. Was that to be her life? The things and people she loved and desired would always be right beyond her grasp, so close, and yet never to be hers?

Can you turn your back on the lives that depend on yours? Will you abandon them for yourself?

Revan desperately wanted to leave the part of savior to another, but knew in her heart that she was to be the salvation of the age. There were many saviors before her, and would be many after, but it was her turn to give her life for those that needed it.

"A Jedi's life is a sacrifice," she breathed.

A single star broke through the cover of the thick clouds that obscured the heavens, its light tiny, but stronger than all the darkness in the galaxy; it could not be put out by the dark. But it will die when it gives all it has left to its purpose, Revan thought, As it will be with me.

She would go to save the galaxy, and she would have to go alone.

With a final glimpse at the sky, at freedom, Revan turned her back to the window and the future that lay just out of her grasp, and began her walk down the path she was meant to walk.

It was really, really late when this idea came to me, so I decided to just roll with it. I am rather pleased with what came out of my single, puny thought: Revan's life is not her own. I mean, who would just decide, "Hey, I'm going to leave the man I love and go gallivanting across unknown space to almost certain death! Yay me!"? (In case you're wondering, yes I am crazy, and it is also past two in the morning!)

I remember that when I played KotOR, this was the impression I got at the end, and coupled with KotOR II, well… You can see what happened.

I think the way it is with Revan is the way it is (or maybe should be) with a lot of us. Sometimes we have to give up what we want the most.

Let me know what you think.