What If This Storm Ends?
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I. Nar Shaddaa, 51 ABY
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He wakes in the dead of night, as he often does, staring up at the low ceiling of the hastily rented tenement. His twin brother is across the room, sound asleep in his own bed, as usual. Snoring like a congested Hutt – again, typical.
Freedom is still new to him. It reminds him a little of being thirteen, standing in the barracks on Korriban for the first time, dried blood from his first kill still crusted around his fingernails. A whirl of excitement and dread and noise as his brother dragged him over to show off his bunk. Not understanding what he was supposed to do next, why he was still so scared when his nightmare was supposedly over. This new freedom feels a lot like that.
Rage snakes through him in these quiet moments, as memories fill every dark corner of his sleep-addled brain, and he finds he can barely breathe. Traitor, he thinks, clenching his fists against the sheets, remembering his master's face. No good bastard. There are other thoughts, too, tumbling around in his head, thoughts he is reluctant to give form or voice to. Easier to rage against his old master than to examine the truth of him too closely.
Her face flashes through his mind unbidden, and it's all he can see now, that moment he knelt on the ground, waiting to be struck down. Helpless in the face of so much power and fury. Her voice, so quiet as she stepped between them. She had to know it was in vain, didn't she? When the Master decided to kill someone, they were dead – no exceptions. She couldn't possibly think her pleas would fall on anything other than deaf ears. So why did she do it? Why?
Why can't he stop thinking about it? Remembering the way she finally looked over her shoulder at him, her expression frightened and resolute and sad and—
He drags his fingers through his hair, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach, the one he still doesn't understand, even weeks later. He hates it, hates thinking about how he owes his life to her twice over, how he's just a worthless weakling who needed some Jedi princess to save him.
Most of all, he hates her. He hates the fact that she stayed behind while his brother dragged him away. As if she was somehow stronger and better than him, able to stand up to the Master when he couldn't. Daughter of legends, of heroes, of everything he will never be.
Pure.
Compassionate.
Merciful.
He raises a hand to his face, roughly wiping away tears before they can fully form. Already knowing he won't be able to go back to sleep.
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II. Kordros, 54 ABY
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"What do you mean, you lost him?"
He throws himself into the co-pilot's seat without answering. His brother ignites in the Force like a flare, punching the back of his own seat.
"That's great, first you lose the guy, and now you're gonna drip water all over my damn ship?"
He knows what Ferrus is doing, trying to goad him into reacting, trying to pick a fight. He can barely hold that thought in his head, though. Can barely spare his twin more than a glance as he stares out the viewport at the dark storm clouds gathering just offshore. He was so close. So close.
Behind them, the murderer in chains laughs, an ugly, guttural laugh that fills the entire hold. "You two are really hilarious, you know that?"
Ferrus turns on the man and points right at him. "You shut up, or I'll kill you right now."
"I wish you would," their captive says, sneering. "Anything's better than listening to your whining."
Ferrus crosses the hold and grabs the man by the throat, lifting him high off the deck, as if he were little more than a rag doll. "Give me one more reason," he says with a growl.
Festus leans forward to power up the ship. "If you kill him, we won't get paid."
The bounty drops to the floor as his brother turns toward him. "He speaks." Ferrus stomps to the front of the ship and drops into the pilot's seat. "Would you stop that?" he snaps, smacking Festus's hand away from the navicomputer. "You're going to short-circuit the controls. Go dry off or something."
Festus looks down at his clothes, completely soaked with seawater and covered in sand. He can feel the storm approaching from the west. He wonders where she escaped to, if she's still on-planet, if she's thinking about him the way he can't stop thinking about her—
"What's with you today?" his brother grumbles, using his sleeve to wipe water off of the control panel. "You've never lost a kill."
Festus lets out a long breath. "First time for everything," he mutters, watching fat, dark clouds roll in over the coast, covering the beach in swaths of torrential rain. Lightning splits the sky in the distance as their ship jerks into the air. "You know, I wouldn't mind coming back here again."
"A thousand planets with beaches, and you want to come back to this freezing hellhole?" His brother lets out a derisive snort. "You really are crazy."
He tips his head to the side and studies his twin's face for a moment. "Yeah," he says quietly. "That's me."
He watches the storm-struck beach and the dark layer of clouds until they're nothing more than dull splashes of color in the corner of the rain-freckled viewport.
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III. Reialem, 56 ABY
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The cerulean blade slices through the air, sizzling with pure, deadly energy as it misses his chin by only a few centimeters. Too late to block, he bends backward as far as he can and readies for her next attack. Her saber reverses course, and he meets it with his own; and he wonders how she put him on the defensive so quickly.
As the light from their weapons dances across her face, she flashes a tiny smirk, and he thinks: Oh, right. That's how.
"As much as I'd love to stick around and get murdered," she says, slightly out of breath, "I have somewhere to be."
He laughs as their blades lock against one another. "You think I'm going to let you go that easy?"
He uses his greater height and weight to push her back. She tries to dig in, but he's gaining momentum now, forcing her through the jungle's dense foliage, up a slight incline, only for her back to crash hard against a massive, gnarled tree.
The impact jars them both. The part of him that usually aches to dominate and destroy his opponents – the part that revels in their fear as they wonder what he'll do to them next – is strangely silent as he holds her against the tree. In its place is something else, something hungry and heated rising up in him as he leans into their crossed lightsabers. For a few fleeting seconds, he imagines surging forward to kiss her.
—weak, pathetic, what are you doing, don't you dare—
—you really are a monster, aren't you—
He doesn't know what to do next.
Her gray eyes go wide, and in that instant, he sees the young girl he fought on Vjun. He remembers his hand tightening around her throat, recalls the intensity of his hatred, how he'd wanted to punish her master and every Jedi in existence by taking her precious little life. Darth Krayt had rescued him from the lands of the dead and given him purpose, filling the void at his center, focusing his rage; and by the Force, the young and eager Darth Festus was going to repay his master in every possible way, starting with the death of Ben Skywalker's apprentice.
The memory of that hatred is staggering in its ferocity and in the way it stands in such stark contrast to how he feels right now. Because as he looks across the blades into her suddenly terrified eyes, he's not thinking about how much he hates her or how he needs to kill her. He doesn't want her terror. He wants her to flash that little smirk at him again. He'd do anything to see it.
He's thinking he never wants this to end.
It's a game, he tells himself. That's all it is. And if he kills her now, the game is over, and where would be the fun in that?
"Come on, Princess," he says in a low, mocking hiss, with just a hint of a grin. "Is that really all you've got?"
That sparks something in her, and she shoves him hard enough to force him back a step, giving her an opening to hit him with a wave of Force energy. He staggers down the hill, tripping over a raised tree root and nearly falling to his knees. Once again, she has the high ground. As if there were any other way it could be.
"Not even close," she says, brushing a few strands of copper hair from her eyes as she twirls her lightsaber at her side. Then she leaps forward, swinging from over her shoulder, aiming at his head. He catches her blade against his and parries, driving forward with a series of blows she is only barely able to block. The tables turned, he swings hard and looks down at her through the union of crimson and cerulean light, utterly transfixed.
"Now pay attention," she says, that little smirk finally playing at her lips again, "because I'm only going to do this once."
Oh, what he wants to do to that soft, smirking mouth. Pay attention, right, not like he's at all distracted by her lips or her voice or every damn thing about her.
He pitches forward suddenly, his lightsaber clashing against nothing but air as she deactivates her weapon and ducks to the side. He throws out a hand to slow his fall, but she slams both fists and her saber hilt between his shoulder blades, knocking him hard to the ground. A blast of energy smacks his head against the jungle floor, and he sees stars.
He hears her take off, her footfalls light as she runs up the hill, away from him. Something stings his face, and as he drags himself to his knees, he finds the mossy ground dappled with his blood. He swipes a hand across his face, identifying the source of the blood – a gash above his left eyebrow. A ragged laugh slips past tightly clenched teeth. She could have killed him, could have stabbed him right in the back. Why didn't she? Why won't she kill him?
He stands in time to see her cresting the hill. She looks back at him before she disappears beyond the trees, and in that second, haloed by the brilliant sunlight that pierces the canopy, he knows he's never seen anything or anyone more incredible.
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IV. Taris, 58 ABY
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He doesn't usually leave their dwelling unless there's a job to do. He's learned that he can't even pretend to move through normal society like any other citizen. Everything about him reads wrong to people, and they are always instantly suspicious of him. There's a part of him that thinks he should be a little better at it by now – it's been over seven years, after all.
His brother doesn't have a problem blending in. In fact, half the time he doesn't seem much different than any of the other criminals and lowlifes they have regular dealings with. Which, Festus supposes, is why he's being practically kicked out of his own home in the middle of the day. As he pulls his jacket on and slips his lightsaber inside one of the inner pockets – because he'll be damned if he gets caught anywhere without it – he glares over his shoulder at the door leading to his twin's quarters.
The muffled but definitely delighted laughter of Ferrus's female companions is enough to make him want to murder someone. Possibly Ferrus himself. He grits his teeth, remembering the stupid grin on his brother's face as he tried to convince him to stick around. You honestly need this more than I do, Ferrus had said, glancing behind him at the women just visible in his room. One human, one Twi'lek, by the looks of them. Ferrus's grin had turned sly as he nudged Festus hard in the shoulder. I'll take the Twi. I know you like redheads.
Rage twisting up inside him, clawing up his spine… it had taken everything in him not to punch his twin in the face.
Now he slips out of the apartment and makes his way down to the pedestrian level. The weather is just cool enough to justify pulling the hood of his jacket up, offering him at least a little concealment in the bright light of day. He's not really sure where he'll go, but as long as no one bothers him, he figures he'll just walk for a few hours.
That's enough time, right? He honestly has no idea. Ferrus usually goes somewhere else whenever he needs that particular itch scratched.
He realizes his hands are clenched into tight fists inside his pockets. He decides he doesn't care. The anger feels good, in its own way. It always has.
He's about to turn a corner – barely avoiding a speeder that veers too close to the walkway before pulling back into traffic – when he hears it. A voice he's heard so many times in his sleep, it's as familiar to him as his own.
"Looks like your contact got cold feet."
He closes his eyes for a second, letting the sound of it fill him. His mental defenses are up almost all the time now, but he holds fast to them nonetheless. Then he edges out from behind the corner of the building, looking for the source of that voice.
She's standing in profile about ten meters down the walkway, chin tilted up to address the man next to her. Her long, copper braid draped over her right shoulder, as always. Her expression tired, but determined. He has to remind himself to take a breath.
"What do we do now?" she says.
Her companion turns so that his face is visible, and Festus can feel his hand itching for his lightsaber. Ben Skywalker shakes his head, saying something he can't quite hear. Then Skywalker holds out a hand before stepping away, disappearing into the crowd. She watches him go but remains in place, standing off to one side of the walkway. Alone.
He knows he can't let her see him. If the Jedi know they're here, they'll have to pick up and leave and start again somewhere else, and his brother will be furious.
Festus smiles to himself at that thought, and he steps out onto the walkway.
There are so many beings moving between them, it takes a moment for her to notice him. He doesn't move, just stands there waiting, letting the sea of pedestrians part around him. He thinks maybe she's too lost in thought at first, but then her eyes shift up and go very, very wide.
He's reminded of the beach on Kordros, a few years ago, where they stared at each other like this. Silent, unexpected. Heart in his throat, pounding nearly as hard as the waves against the rocks.
—don't pretend you haven't thought about her each and every day since she saved your miserable life—
She hasn't moved yet, which is a little surprising. He stares back at her, into those gray eyes, and he tries to imagine what it would be like to hear her laugh. Then he cocks his head to the side, puts on a smirk, and shrugs.
That seems to jar her. She snaps her head to the side, searching the crowd, and he realizes she's looking for Skywalker.
And that's my cue.
He darts back around the corner, looking for the nearest escape route. Figures he'll head down to the lower level and make his way back to the apartment from there. He doubts Skywalker will want to give chase right now, especially without a visual. But they won't be able to stay here, that's for sure. He smiles at the thought of his brother's face when he tells him the news.
He descends to one of the filthier lower rungs of the city, pausing every so often to check that he's not being followed. A few blocks from home, he finally stops and ducks into a rusting public transit shelter. Pulls his hands out of his pockets, only to find them shaking.
—don't be weak, what's wrong with you—
He feels the spot where his brother shoved him, sees that stupid grin on his face, hears the laughter from the bedroom— and he thinks if it was her laughing, he never would have left, not ever. She fills his thoughts, fills every part of him, making him sick, and he wants—
—this one thing, can't I just have this one thing—
—stop it, don't even think it, who do you think you are, like you'd ever deserve her—
Get a grip, he tells himself. Get a damn grip, already.
He draws his mental wall up high and blows out a long, steadying breath. The shaking subsides. He looks up in the direction of the apartment building, able to just make out one corner of the structure from where he stands. Plaster on a smile, and play the part. He's gotten awfully good at that over the years. Most of the time he doesn't know the difference.
He leaves the shelter, turning toward home, and grins.
His brother is going to be so mad.
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V. Argeneen, 61 ABY
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Darth Festus lies on his back, staring up at a sky so blue, it doesn't even seem real.
The rust-colored mountain range he is currently occupying hews slightly more orange than the ones he grew up around on Korriban, and he thinks that color contrast is what makes the whole landscape look even more surreal. Like an illustration from one of the stories he used to read as a kid.
Huh. He hasn't thought about those stories in years.
A breeze flutters through the canyon, whipping up around the ledge he is camped on, and he closes his eyes at the feel of the warm air brushing across his face. He could just lie here, he thinks. He could just listen to the wind and feel the sun on his skin and not have to do anything at all.
He takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly.
His fingers grasp the pair of macrobinoculars at his side, and he rolls onto his stomach, peering down at the city nestled in the valley below. It still feels a little weird to be hunting someone so mundane, someone that even the most inexperienced bounty hunter could probably bring in without much trouble. Someone who is wanted most definitely alive. He feels that slowly-building pressure in his chest, the need for release, the need to crush someone so completely that they never rise again. He grits his teeth against the feeling and adjusts the settings on the binocs.
His target is just arriving in the city center, sitting in the back of what looks to be an expensive Nubian speeder. Baron Torith Valdos, wanted by the Hutts for… well, he honestly doesn't know. Probably stole from them, or insulted one of them, or did something equally stupid. Why isn't his brother the one bringing this fool in? Oh right, because he's decided to play crime boss now, isn't that a fun game?
There's no rush to bring Valdos in right this second. No one down there will be able to stop him, and he figures he might as well enjoy his time away from Denon. He scans the group assembled near the speeder, a bunch of dignitaries and aides. Valdos exits the speeder and greets a few of the men and women gathered there.
Wait a damn minute.
He lowers the binocs, quarry forgotten as he blinks and wipes dust from his eyes. He raises the binocs again, adjusting until he has a clearer view of the woman standing to the right of his target.
Okay, he thinks, forcing himself to breathe in and out. If this isn't some kind of fate nonsense, I'm going crazier than usual.
Because that's Allana Djo, Jedi Knight and one-time princess, standing there next to his prey, completely unaware of the forces – or maybe even the Force itself – conspiring to bring them together yet again. Kordros, Ord Mantell, Reialem, Taris, Kurin, and now here, on Argeneen, a freakishly-colored dust-ball in the middle of nowhere. And before any of it, before Vjun even, before the doctor and the Sith, before he'd been put on that shuttle and sent away…
He shakes his head, forcing those thoughts out of his mind as he returns his full attention to the woman he has spent the last ten years chasing after.
He wonders, in a distant sort of way, what he would actually do if he ever caught her, if he ever defeated her again. He knows what he should do. He's known that since he was eighteen years old. He used to picture it, that moment when he would drive his lightsaber through her chest and burn out her heart, always feeling that sick, sick twisting of his stomach as he did. But now, every time he tries to imagine killing her, all he can think is that he'll never hear her voice again or look into her gray eyes or feel the rush of being so close to her.
—it's just a game, it's just a game, but every game ends eventually, doesn't it—
—don't be weak, you idiot, you can't be weak, as if she could ever love you—
He grips the binocs hard, knuckles bone-white, fingers aching. She couldn't. She wouldn't. Not someone like him. Not ever.
The doctor whispers to him across time and space, almost kind, almost tender: Don't try to hide from what you are, what you were always destined to be…
What am I? he'd asked back then, desperate for truth, for anyone's truth. And what was it his old adversary – his old mentor, captor, patron, opponent, teacher… his guide through the lands of the dead – what was it he had said?
The only one who can answer that question is you.
There have been many answers to that question over the years, all of them falling short of the truth. All of them except one:
Monster.
He thinks of the stories he used to read as a kid, the ones where the brave knight always slayed the monster in the end.
Down in that valley is a brave knight. Maybe the bravest he's ever known.
All right, he tells himself as he puts down the binocs and picks up his lightsaber. Time to go be a monster.
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I. Jedi enclave, unidentified location, 43 ABY
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The boy kneels down in front of her, holding the toy out for her to take. "I'm sorry," he says, and she can tell he really means it. She doesn't know why he's sorry. It's not like he did anything wrong.
As she reaches out for her most precious possession, he smiles at her. She tries hard not to look away, much as she wants to. She's gotten used to people looking down on her or over her or past her. Like she's not even a real person who matters. His daughter, they whisper when they think she can't hear. Isn't that why those other boys stole her toy in the first place? To punish her?
Her fingers grasp the soft, slightly worn plush of her stuffed tauntaun, and she hugs it against her chest, dipping her head to breathe it in, or maybe to hide her face. "Thank you," she whispers, slightly muffled.
He's still smiling at her, a little wider now, she thinks. For just a moment, she thinks of the stories she's heard, about what a princess is supposed to do when someone comes to her rescue. But she's not a princess anymore, is she? She doesn't think she ever really wanted to be one anyway.
"You're welcome," he says, tilting his head ever so slightly to one side. "I'm Dorian, by the way."
She peeks out from behind the plush. "I'm Allana," she says, so quiet she's not sure he can even hear her. She hugs her toy tighter, unsure if she should say something else.
"I know," he says gently. "I've seen you around." Finally, he stands, and this time his smile is a little sad. "They won't bother you again. I promise."
She nods, silent as she watches him turn and walk away. She doesn't think about it until later, why he chose to kneel. It's not like she's a toddler that he would tower over her. He can't be more than two or three years older than her. She wonders why he did it.
She sees him a few more times in the days that follow. He mostly sits alone, reading on his datapad, but she's too shy to approach him. Not long after, she learns he was transferred to one of the other enclaves, along with his brother, and that something had gone wrong along the way. The adults are reluctant to say more, but her grandma pulls her into her lap when she asks, and she explains what happened.
She thinks of him often, for a time, wondering where he is, if he's even still alive. The sadness eats at her, and her grandma smooths the hair back from her forehead and sings old Alderaani lullabies; and she remembers him the way she remembers a dream – hazy, distant, not quite real.
Dreams pass in time, her grandma whispers, and she's right. Eventually, all she's left with is an ache, like what she feels when she thinks of her mother, her father, her grandpa… everyone she's ever lost. A quiet heaviness in her heart for each of her dead.
Fin