Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars
A Shift in the Force: Chapter Seventeen: Temptations of the Dark
AN: Haha, someone mentioned I've been updating this fic a lot lately, and yes, I am. I'm riding out my Star Wars obsession for as long as possible, and I'm glad that school doesn't start for another week, which gives me the opportunity to write a bit more.
I could be writing for some of my other fics, but this is the only one that's taken over my mind completely, and it's one of my shorter fics (seeing as Looking Beyond is over 600K) so I figured why not write a bit more for you lot to enjoy…especially since we've reached the part of the fic where you have no idea what will happen *cackles*
I believe Part II, A Shadow's Teachings, should be at least fifteen chapters and might go from the time Talik and Anakin are thirteen/fourteen into the Clone Wars, to a certain point, but I make no promises.
I found a great post on tumblr about the potential that the prequels had (as well as a post thrown my way by cheesew97) and I'm really digging the slow build relationship for Anakin and Padmé and the potential for Padmé in this fic…I look forward to writing her again.
Sabé could taste the coal on her tongue when she awoke, and she sat up, rubbing at her throat gingerly. Breathing was uncomfortable, like she'd had something sharp down the back of her throat, like she'd swallowed a dagger.
It wasn't an experience she would wish upon anyone.
The last thing she remembered was a bit of a blur: a lightsaber gleaming red as it crashed against her own, the invisible chokehold around her throat, strangling her of her breath.
It wasn't something Sabé would be able to forget in a hurry; the cold fist of the Force locked around her neck, throttling her as she struggled to breathe.
Sabé had never known the Force could be used in such a way and the mere memory of it sent a shudder down her spine. She could already feel the bruises ringed around her throat from the move, but she still sat up, looking around her to ascertain where exactly she was.
The walls had a curvature to them, but with sharp, jutting rocks that could not have made it plainer that wherever Sabé was, it was both underground and in a tunnel of some sort.
It was safe to say that whoever she had briefly fought with had taken her deep into the mountains that the Zabraks of Anobis mined in.
A hand reached for her waist, but the belt at either side of her waist was void of her twin lightsabers and Sabé felt the loss keenly, though she couldn't say that she was surprised. It seemed to be the first rule of taking a Jedi captive, ridding them of their lightsaber.
"Looking for these?" a voice came out of the darkness, one that Sabé found to ring with familiarity to her ears, though why she couldn't yet say.
Sabé turned in the direction of the voice to see a hand tossing her twin lightsabers into the air and catching them far too lightly, a feat only capable of those skilled in the Force.
The Force hummed a warning to her as the figure stepped into the light.
Ice gripped her heart, pumping through her body in the stead of blood and Sabé's lips parted in incomprehension at the figure standing before her.
"Impossible," she hardly dared to breathe.
Sabé recognized the Near-Human, with her long pale face and slightly sunken cheeks that others like her were known for, her blue eyes so light that they were almost silver with dark facial spots close to the outer edges of her eyes.
Her similarities to the newly Knighted Mira Orfang had always been a subject of amusement between both females and Sabé couldn't remember a time when she hadn't seen the woman before her smiling.
"Korinth'Kel Dorma?" Sabé uttered the woman's name with wide eyes. "What are you doing here?"
Later it dawned on her what a foolish question that was, but Sabé couldn't begin to comprehend that Korinth'Kel Dorma, a Jedi Consular, a Jedi Seer, was the one who had crashed a red 'saber against hers, that had used the Force to starve her of air.
She had grown up with Korinth'Kel, from the crèche to Padawan-ship. Korinth'Kel was one of her favorites for people she enjoyed debating the Code with, especially since the Near-Human was such a staunch supporter of the Jedi. When she'd heard that Korinth'Kel had left the Order it had been nothing short of startling.
"You know, I never understood the appeal of Jar'Kai," Korinth'Kel mused, rubbing her thumb over the design of Sabé's hilts. "I always felt relying too much on skill rather than the Force was a huge drawback."
Sabé drew herself upright as carefully and as slowly as she could as though worried what Korinth'Kel would do if she moved to quickly.
"Master had his apprehension when I first started," Sabé conceded, brushing the particles from her leather jerkin that she'd picked up after she'd been knocked out. "But I am quite capable of utilizing the Force while using my 'sabers."
"Oh, I know." There was a definite note of fondness in Korinth'Kel's voice. "The Great Guide with her skill in the Force…"
Sabé had never liked the name, just as Anakin found it annoying when others called him the Chosen One. They were people not prophecies.
Her lips drew downwards at the mention of 'Great Guide' and her eyes narrowed.
Then, to her surprise, Korinth'Kel tossed Sabé her 'sabers, and Sabé caught them easily, no matter how confused she was.
"Why are you here, Korinth'Kel?" Sabé asked. "Why did you leave the Order?"
Korinth'Kel's eyes gleamed eerily in the semi-darkness and Sabé discovered it to be an unnerving sight.
"I was…contemplating the Force when I Saw it," the Near-Human spoke with a tremble of awe. "It came to me…a vision."
"What could you have seen that would have made you abandon the Order you love?"
"I didn't abandon the Order," Korinth'Kel seethed, her voice rising gradually. "The Order abandoned ME!"
Sabé recoiled sharply at the fiery hot ripple that was sent through the Force. Korinth'Kel, one of the kindest Jedi in the Temple, was overflowing with hate.
"What did you see, Korinth'Kel?" Sabé pressed.
"I saw you," Korinth'Kel said, calling her 'saber to her hand and igniting its crimson blade and it cast a glow across her eyes that made Sabé swallow. "I saw Darth Carina."
Sabé's heart stuttered out of rhythm and her mouth went dry as her hands tightened around her 'sabers, and Korinth'Kel smirked at her response.
"Was that a flicker of fear I sensed from the Great Guide?" she mocked.
"Don't call me that," Sabé snapped automatically, trying to cover her fear with irritation.
Korinth'Kel ignored her and Sabé didn't blame her; the retort was rather weak. Instead she settled into an Ataru stance, curling her fingers inwards towards Sabé. "Come, old friend, let me show you how to use the Dark Side!"
And she threw herself forward, allowing Sabé barely enough time to activate her own 'sabers to block her strike. Korinth'Kel's slash caused Sabé to skid back as she struggled to keep her 'sabers in her hands, determined not to yield.
"I am not Darth Carina!" Sabé bit out furiously. "How could you let one vision change you so much, Korinth'Kel? That is not the girl I remember!"
"The girl you remember is long dead!" Korinth'Kel laughed as Sabé dodged and sliced her 'sabers, battering her back. "She was too weak to see the potential embracing the Dark Side has! But my fate is greater, I will forge the next Sith!"
"I will never turn!" Sabé vowed, blocking with one 'saber and aiming a strike to Korinth'Kel's shoulder with the other.
"Says the woman who questions the Code at every turn!" Korinth'Kel spat and Sabé was struck by how utterly mad her old friend looked. She had the utmost respect for the Jedi Seers, who had always had far more skill than her in predicting future events, but she could never have imagined a vision to have the kind of effect that it had clearly had on Korinth'Kel.
Sabé would have never thought that a Jedi could go Dark just like that.
"You hate its restrictions, you don't deny it!" Korinth'Kel's strength through anger was overpowering, and Sabé struggled to center herself. "You scorn the idea of no attachments, you have even before you reconnected with your family!"
Sabé gritted her teeth together, parrying her strike. She couldn't deny that she chafed under the restrictions of the Jedi, just as she knew Anakin did, Anakin who had grown up with a mother's love. She was already proving that a Jedi could love and be in control of their emotions.
A sudden kick to her chest sent her flying, her 'sabers leaving her hands in a single instant, a single moment of weakness, and Korinth'Kel brought down her blade on Sabé only to be blocked with twin emerald ones and the fierce glare of Talik Shala.
Talik forced the Dark Jedi back, nearly growling as she snarled, "Stay away from my Master, Dorma!"
Korinth'Kel appeared remarkably unfazed by Talik's reappearance. "Of course," she said, "where there is Sabé Amidala, Talik Shala is not far behind."
Sabé could sense the righteous anger pooling within her Padawan. Attacking my Master! How dare you! You were her friend! Sabé could hear her thoughts clearly as though someone was hammering them against her skull.
"Dorma," Talik snapped, her lekku twitching in agitation as she positioned herself protectively in front Sabé. "It's two on one, now."
"You think so, do you?" Korinth'Kel said, appearing to be faintly amused by the prospect, and it was true that Talik's skill in lightsaber combat wasn't as impressive as her skill in Force-healing.
And then Talik dropped her 'sabers, both powering off before they hit the ground, her hands clawing at her throat as she was lifted up into the air only to be thrown powerfully against the tunnel's wall and collapsing on the ground, unmoving.
Anger overcame Sabé, rage ripping through her heart at the sight of Talik's stilled form.
Dead or alive?
The thought ran fevered through her and Sabé could barely tell how their Master-Padawan bond was still intact, tethered to them both as they lived, until it was manually severed when Talik achieved Knighthood.
Sabé lost herself in her anger, calling her 'sabers to her hands and leaping forward to clash the twin blades against Korinth'Kel's single one.
Korinth'Kel was good, she always had been, but she had been trained as a Jedi Consular, not a Jedi Guardian, and Sabé had strength over her.
"What's the matter, Sabé?" Korinth'Kel purred, their faces so close to their blades as both strained against each other. "Angry? But you know anger is the path to the Dark Side."
And Sabé did know, she knew that lesson better than most. She had thought that she'd known anger before when she'd lost her arm to Darth Maul when she was sixteen, but the sight of Talik –lively and bright Talik– crumpled to the ground because of her old friend's attack made her blood boil.
And that ashamed her. She was a Jedi, she should have been better than that, and Master Yoda's voice rang in her ears "Forbidden, attachment is."
If this was how Sabé became when Talik was only concussed –though from a very powerful blow– then she was already destroying the idea she'd developed for several years, the idea that one could form attachments but could still act as a Jedi did.
Sabé gritted her teeth, breathing in sharply before releasing all of her anger and all her rage into the Force.
Korinth'Kel's annoyance from her doing so was clear. "You cannot defeat the Dark with your feeble Light, Great Guide."
"Yet the Light has always outnumbered the Dark," Sabé retorted evenly, "I wonder why that is?"
Korinth'Kel's lip curled. "You cannot run from your fate, Darth Carina."
"There is something far stronger than fate in this world," Sabé said, throwing her back only to beat her twin 'sabers against Korinth'Kel's single one and the woman had to execute a few swift moves in order to miss death by mere inches, "you used to know that."
Sabé hefted her 'sabers, spreading her legs and arms into a familiar Jar'Kai stance. "The Korinth'Kel I knew would never have done what you have. She would have never taken over an entire planet or tried to turn a fellow!"
"I have to think about the bigger picture!" Korinth'Kel's eyes were wild with an insane light. "I have seen it! I have seen what you become! I have seen what you do! I have seen the Light snuffed out by the Dark! And I have seen how the Dark now infects you, Sabé Amidala! I will be the one that starts you down that dark path!"
Sabé forced her voice not to tremble. "I believe that you believe those visions…but I do not."
And Sabé's 'saber speared through Korinth'Kel, going right through her heart, killing her instantly. The body of her former friend slumped against her and Sabé caught it before it hit the ground, lowering her gently.
"I am sorry, Korinth'Kel Dorma," Sabé whispered. "I truly, truly am."
There were tears wet on her cheeks as she closed Korinth'Kel's eyelids over her blankly staring eyes.
"May you become one with the Force," Sabé murmured, pressing a hand against her heart, allowing herself a brief few moments to mourn the death of her friend before crawling over to Talik to ascertain her condition.
But Talik was alive and breathing, pure and Light, and that was how Sabé always hoped she would remain.
When Kit arrived on Anobis, it was exactly as he had predicted: Sabé had things well in hand and the issue had been resolved.
"You didn't need to come out, Kit, I had it sorted," Sabé said with a bit of vexation, her braids swinging behind her as she moved towards him when he hopped out of the Starfighter.
In the past nearly four years Kit's old friend had not changed much. Her braids were longer, of course, and Sabé was considering cutting them shorter, and she had a few more scars from her Shadow missions, but she was still the girl Kit remembered meeting in the Jedi Archives, using a datapad as a shield between herself and him.
"That's what I told Master Yoda," Kit said easily, as Arthree tootled a hello to Sabé, earning the astromech a smile and a wave, "but he still asked that I check up on you…you do have a habit of running into trouble."
Sabé rested her hands on her hips, scowling at him. "That business on Endor doesn't count, Kit."
Kit raised his hands in surrender. "So, what kind of trouble did you have to deal with? A Dark Jedi?"
The light in her eyes faded completely and her lips thinned into a line before she gestured wordlessly for him to follow her. It was like there was a dark cloud weighing down on Sabé and Kit could sense regret and guilt spilling out inside her; she was practically drowning in those emotions.
"Is Talik all right?" he asked instead, noticing the void that her violet-skinned Twi'lek shadow often filled.
"Talik has a serious concussion, but it isn't anything to be worried about," Sabé said, her words stiff.
"And you?" Kit asked archly.
He had seen the ring of bruises around her throat and the exhaustion her body was nearly shaking in.
"Given the circumstances, I think I got off relatively easily," Sabé said as she led him into the transport she and Talik had taken to get to the planet's surface, taking him into the rather small medical room, in which Sabé's opponent's body had been placed in stasis and Kit's heart fell into his stomach.
He knew that face, he knew it quite well, and it wrenched at his heart.
Korinth'Kel Dorma looked as though she was sleeping, but the lack of movement from her chest dispelled any chance of that possibility, as well as the blackened hole over her heart.
"Korinth'Kel…attacked you?" Kit asked hollowly, his emotions bubbling deep beneath his skin.
Sabé nodded solemnly. "This whole thing…she took over a planet just to get to me, Kit…she was completely mad from whatever she'd Seen, and she was so determined to make me become Dark…"
The Force swathed her in an attempt to comfort her in warmth, but Sabé remained cold.
"Kit," she whispered, her artificial fingers touching his arm lightly, making him turn to look at her, to see the pallor her skin had taken on, the anxiety in her eyes and in the tenseness of her jaw, "Kit, I'm worried."
He brought a hand up to cup hers where it rested on his arm. "Worried? Sabé, worried about what?" He had rarely seen her with such an expression on her face, and not nearly to the degree that she was currently showing.
"The Dark Side, Kit," Sabé said, her words choked and hoarse. "It's…It's tempting me."
Kit's words caught in his throat at that declaration, besides, sometimes he found that actions spoke louder than words, and he embraced her, feeling the trembling strain rolling off her body. "The Dark Side has tempted you before," he murmured, "and it failed."
"But—"
"Just as it will fail now," Kit said, drawing back to look at the face of one of his closest friends. He held her face in his hands. "You aren't alone, Sabé, you don't have to be afraid. You have me, and Aayla, and Obi-Wan, and Taria, and all of us."
He leaned his forehead to press against hers and Sabé closed her eyes, soaking into the warmth of the Force that he washed over her. Kit was usually very good at assuaging her fears –during the occasions that she did indeed have them– but this time it did little to help her and Sabé felt colder than ice.
"Master, are you sure you're all right?" Talik pressed when they returned to the Temple. To be completely accurate, she had questioned Sabé more than five times since they'd left Anobis, but Sabé had always waved her off.
Kit had left before them, having his own Starfighter bearing Arthree (with the promise to return him to her once he'd landed), and since he wasn't technically a part of Sabé's mission, he didn't have to remain with them.
"Yes, Talik," Sabé said with nearly a sigh, "I'm all right."
Even she couldn't have said at that moment if she was lying or not.
"Hey, you're back on-planet again!"
Sabé smiled automatically as Aayla Secura bounded into view. Her friend was the usual: the blue-skinned Twi'lek that as midriff-exposed as Sabé remembered from the last time their paths had crossed, which had been well over three weeks ago.
"Yes, Aayla," Sabé sighed as her friend threw an arm over her shoulders, "we are back. How are you?"
The dryness of her words was lost on Aayla, but not on Talik who snorted.
"They put me back on 'saber training with younglings, Sabé!" Aayla spoke, a horrified note in her voice. "Younglings, Sabé! You know they don't listen to a thing you say!"
"That is why they're younglings, I gather," Sabé said wryly, rolling her eyes for good measure.
"But somebody keeps volunteering me for it instead of sending me off on missions!" Aayla bemoaned, leaning nearly all her weight on Sabé, which made the Nabooan female trip briefly before adjusting to the sudden weight.
"Probably because you're a hellion on missions," Sabé muttered out of the corner of her mouth, but Aayla still caught it with narrowed eyes and an elbow dug into Sabé's bruised side.
"Ow!" she complained.
Aayla opened her mouth, undoubtedly to say something playful or sarcastic but the words never formed. Instead she said, "Kit told me about Korinth'Kel."
Talik's hands were hidden in her pockets, but they drew into fists at the mention of the woman who her master had been forced to kill, her old friend. Korinth'Kel Dorma's death still weighed heavily on Sabé's mind, that much had been quite clear to Talik.
"Oh, look, there's the Council door, looks like we've got to go." And Sabé was far too eager to make a quick getaway, dislodging her friend's arm so neatly that the Twi'lek fell in an unceremonious heap on the ground.
"Well, you know I'm here!" Aayla called after her as Talik jogged lightly to catch up and Sabé gave a careless wave over her shoulder before pressing the button beside the door that led into the High Council.
Explaining all that had occurred at Anobis was simple, but admitting what she'd done, what she'd felt, now that was hard.
"I find it difficult to believe that one as pure-hearted as Korinth'Kel Dorma could fall so suddenly," Master Plo Koon said in his muffled voice from his antiox breathing mask.
"She claimed that the Order failed her, Master," Sabé said with a polite incline of the head towards the Kel Dor that had originally brought her to the Temple as an infant. "Whatever vision she had, it affected her so profoundly that she willingly abandoned the Order she had sworn an oath to."
That sent a ripple of unease through the masters gathered on the High Council. Never before had visions interpreted by the Jedi Seers had the power to turn a Jedi from the path of Light to Dark. It was a startling thought.
"Convinced you, she tried, hm?" Yoda prompted and Talik looked up to her master, blinking in surprise at how she swallowed thickly.
"She made an attempt that ultimately failed," Sabé said finally. "But it was her intention to turn me."
Mace Windu considered her with his fingers knotted together on his lap. "And did she say why she desired to turn you?"
Sabé shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time someone told me I was meant to join the Dark."
"Yours is a name destined for darkness." Darth Maul's words still haunted her nightmares and Sabé had to strain not to shudder in front of the High Council.
"She called me a name that I have had visions about, though," Sabé conceded under her old master's penetrating stare. "But those visions are all over the place and half of them I can't make out—"
"What is the name?" Mace Windu asked not unkindly.
Sabé took a deep breath. "Darth Carina."
Talik recoiled sharply, looking her master up and down. "I thought only the Sith have names like that."
"That, Talik," Sabé said wryly, "is what the point is."
Becoming a Dark Jedi was one thing, but becoming a Sith? If Sabé Amidala becoming a Dark Jedi was unlikely then her becoming a Sith was impossible.
"Anger from you, I felt," Yoda said with just a hint of reproach. "Anger from you, she wished."
"Yes, Master," Sabé agreed, "but I defeated her without my anger…and with the help of my young Padawan."
Talik ducked her head slightly, a flush of pleasure spreading across her cheeks.
"Unbalanced, you are," Yoda countered, "affected you deeply, Korinth'Kel Dorma's death did."
Sabé blinked, straightening her spine just slightly. "I never anticipated that I'd have to kill a friend, Master."
Yoda nodded gravely. "Hurt us the most, the ones we least expect."
Sabé said nothing to that.
"Knight Amidala, you will be sent on a two-week meditative retreat," Mace Windu said so suddenly that Sabé had to jerk to stare at the man seated beside her old master.
"Master Windu, I can't go on a meditative retreat!" she said, part stunned, and part appalled. "I have a Padawan to train! I can't just go running off because my emotions are a mess after I had to kill a friend!"
"And I suspect in your present condition you wouldn't help much with your Padawan's training."
Sabé spluttered. "'Wouldn't help much'?"
He gave her a steely stare. "That is the decision of the Council."
Sabé gaped at him, before glancing towards Yoda who nodded in agreement. Then Sabé sagged, bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Very well, Masters."
She bowed swiftly with Talik moving in tandem, before both left the room.
"Concerning Korinth'Kel's vision is," Yoda said once the panel-door had slid shut behind the pair, "if a Sith she saw."
"But what could the Sith have to gain?" Plo Koon questioned. "It is clear that Sabé Amidala has always ingrained herself in the Light."
"But she has always had some frankly grey views on the Order," Pablo-Jill responded, always Sabé's staunch opposition on the Council.
"Be zat as it may," Even Piell said with his thickly accented Basic, "her views have never drifted into Dark territory."
"Still, the best course of action is to send her on a meditative retreat," the Zabrak master, Eeth Koth, who was one of the newest Masters on the High Council. "The turbulence within her is substantial enough that we can all sense it."
And it had to be substantial, because Sabé usually kept all her feelings locked up within the many shields in her mind.
Sabé frowned at the projection. "Tell her this is a call from Sabé Amidala, I'm sure she'll want to speak with me."
A meditative retreat…Sabé just wanted to rattle Mace Windu by the shoulders. She didn't need a meditative retreat, she needed to be here, on Coruscant, training her Padawan.
But Talik hadn't been too put out, though, she was largely used to the arrangement by now, seeing as whenever Sabé was sent on Shadow missions she always ended up placing Aayla in charge of her Padawan.
"Don't worry, Master," Talik said, giving her a blinding smile and a hug Sabé didn't feel she deserved, "Master Aayla's cool, and when you get back you can help me with my Jar'Kai!"
Sabé had smiled at that; Talik was nothing if not enthusiastic.
Her holo-projector in her hand gave a small beep before the image of the one she had been hoping to speak with appeared.
Padmé Amidala was now seventeen, nearly eighteen, and approaching the end of her first term as Queen of Naboo, though, if the HoloNews was to be believed, it was likely she would be elected for a second term without hardly any opposition.
Even as a blue hologram, Sabé could see that her younger sister's face was painted thick with face paint that hid her identity rather well, a useful tactic, Sabé knew, for when she switched places with her decoy.
"Sabé," Padmé smiled brightly, and Sabé returned her own, "this is a surprise. I wasn't actually expecting you to send a Holo, usually you just send datamessages…"
Sabé Amidala, it seemed, was exceptionally bad with no-attachments rules, especially with her family. Padmé had sent her datamessages initially just to inform her of all that was happening in the family and on Naboo, but, to her surprise, Sabé had sent her datamessages in reply. Padmé now knew quite a bit about what her old Jedi protectors and their students got up to thanks to datamessages she received from Anakin as well.
"Some attachments are good," Sabé had once said to Obi-Wan as he watched his Padawan write the Naboo Queen a detailed datamessage about what had happened that day with Talik interjecting things he should add. "You can't deny a boy friends, Obi-Wan."
"How would you feel about me dropping by for a visit?" Sabé asked her and Padmé blinked.
"I –are you allowed to do that? I thought the Jedi—"
"The Jedi are sanctioning me to go on a two-week long meditative retreat," Sabé responded easily, "and they didn't exactly specify where…" She smirked slyly.
Padmé was probably splitting the Scar of Remembrance with that beaming smile. And that warmed Sabé's heart more than anything else, because she had once thought their two worlds were so separate, and, in truth, they were in many ways, but Sabé had found a similarly loving soul in her sister, and it was a bond she didn't want to give up, not even for the Jedi.
AN: Shini (myself) is an advocate for Jedi attachments, if it wasn't already obvious. And I've fallen in love with the idea of Sabé and Anakin sending Padmé datamessages, especially since it's a good way to develop Anakin and Padmé's relation a bit more than is in canon. And we all know how Sabé feels about attachment *nudges Obi-Wan in Sabé's general direction*
I have a lot of great ideas for book two and Padmé is a part of some of them.
And if Anakin can go on a meditative retreat in the middle of the Clone Wars, then Sabé can do it during peacetime. Sorry that Obi-Wan and Anakin weren't in this chapter other than by name, but we can't all get what we want. There might be a mention of them in the next chapter, but if I'm planning it right, next chapter will focus on the Naberrie family
As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!
