Dear Elegos

NOTE: Originally posted to my now defunct Corran Horn website. Letter 1 was posted on September 9, 2000, and Letter 2 was posted October 21, 2000.

Letter 1 (The Vicious Circle)

Dear Elegos,

I'm writing you this letter, even though I know that you will never get to read it. Part of me feels silly, writing a letter that will never be sent, but Mirax suggested it, saying that writing can sometimes help a person release or deal with what's troubling them. I've never been much of a writer, but I don't know what else to do. The one thing I really want to do is something I can never do again. The other thing I really want to do is the thing I've already done, the thing I should never have done.

Therein lies the problem. I crossed the line over to the dark side. And the one person I feel I could really have talked to about it, the one person who could have said the right words and told me what I needed to hear, who could have helped guide me away from the dark side, was you. I really need to talk to you, my dear friend. But I can't.

I feel as if I'm caught in a vicious circle, one from which I'm not sure I can escape. I need you to help me deal with these dark side tendencies that I'm finding in myself before it becomes too late. But yet, I wouldn't need your help to deal with it if you hadn't been killed, making me angry and seeking vengeance in the first place, bringing those tendencies to the fore. These two things chase each other around in an endless circle in my head.

What's even worse, though, is the music to which those two thoughts dance. There's always this little voice underneath it all that says, "You failed. You screwed up. You thought you were too good to fall to the dark side. You underestimated the power of the dark side, and now it's going to be a part of you forever." Sometimes these words are spoken in my father's voice. Sometimes it's my own voice. Sometimes it's Luke's, bringing to mind that one conversation we had so long ago about the dark side. I can still hear the words I said to him ringing in my ears. "I've nothing to fear from the dark side." Oh, how wrong I was, Master Luke. How wrong, and how arrogant.

You saw it, Elegos. You saw it back then, when we first met. You tried to warn me, to deter me. And it worked. Sort of. You turned me away from the dark path then, but I was too blind to see that it wasn't just a one-time occurence. These things were, and are, a part of me. Oh, why couldn't I have seen this when you were still alive? Why did this realization have to come now, upon your death, when it's too late for you to help me?

If I had those tendencies then, and I still have them now, then I am forced to conclude that I've always had these tendencies. I've spent much time in meditation since I've come back to Grandpa Rostek's, and I've been forced to realize that, when things are bad, I have always dealt with things in less than a positive way.

When my mother died, it wasn't so bad. I had my dad there with me. I felt I had to be strong for him, because I knew how close he had been to Mom. He had to have felt as bad as I would if something ever happened to Mirax. But, even though I knew he was hurting inside, he was still able to focus on the good things in his life. We had been close before Mom's death, but we grew closer still as we helped each other through it.

When my father died, on the other hand, it was completely different. I felt much as I do now, like a hole had been ripped inside of me. Again, I didn't know who to turn to. I talked to Grandpa Rostek, but I didn't want to burden him too much. After all, I knew he was grieving for a son as well. I had friends who helped me get through it, but it wasn't the same.

He was more than a father to me. He was a mentor and a friend. And I felt I had let him down by not being able to save him, by letting him die alone. Who could really understand that? He was the only one I could have talked to about it that I knew would have a chance of understanding, but now he was gone. I did talk about it, with Grandpa, and with Iella and Gil, but it wasn't helping. I was feeling the same way. I didn't know what to do, where to go.

Burying myself in my work didn't help, for it was while I was doing my job that my father had been killed. Bringing in my father's murderer didn't help because that idiot Loor let him go on some technicality. There were nights when I would lie awake, thinking about hunting down Bossk and exacting my own justice. Only two things held me back during those times, Elegos. One, CorSec frowned upon those who engaged in vigilante justice and, although I knew CorSec would chalk it up to a "weapons malfunction" or some other excuse, I would have to live with the knowledge that I'd stooped to the level of some of the people I'd hauled in.

The other thing that stopped me, the one thing that stopped me when nothing else could, is the knowledge that my father wouldn't have wanted it. In all the cases he'd ever worked, not once did he ever make it personal. When the accident that led to my mother's death was investigated, not once did he scream for the guilty driver's blood or want him thrown in jail for the rest of his life. He just wanted to see justice done. By chasing down Bossk, I would have been making it personal, and I would have betrayed him.

I didn't think of all that last part then, of course. It was many years later when I realized Dad never made his cases personal. But I still knew he would not have wanted it. I felt I'd let him down enough already by not being there when he most needed me. I wasn't going to compound it by ending the investigation into his death in a way he would not want.

So, as I said, I didn't know what I was going to do. I felt like I would go crazy if I couldn't get rid of these feelings. Iella, dear friend that she is, saw this and did the only thing she could think of to help me get rid of them. She and Gil took me to the worst cantina in all of Coronet City and got me involved in a bar brawl.

Oh, how good it felt to beat those guys up! With every person I punched, kicked, or otherwise was able to hurt, I was able to release a little bit of my anger and frustration. I walked out of that cantina feeling better than I had in months.

At the time, I thought this was a good thing. I felt more like myself, after all, and had been able to rid myself of those awful feelings. No longer did I lie awake plotting the murder of Bossk. I've never told anyone about that, you know. Not Iella, not Gil, not Mirax, not Grandpa. I wonder now if Iella saw that desire in me, however, and if that was why she took me to that cantina.

At the time, I thought it was a good thing. Now, I look back upon that time, and I see way too many similarities. No, I did not actually lie awake at night, plotting Shedao Shai's murder. But the whole time I was setting up that duel on Ithor, the whole time I was convincing the galaxy and myself that my intentions were purely honorable and noble, my subconscious was anxiously awaiting the day I could take my revenge.

I never realized that. When I proposed the idea of the duel to the Council, when Shai and I set up the week's waiting period before our fight, the whole time I was on Ithor awaiting Shai's arrival, even when I was fighting him, I could never see the underlying motives stemming from the darker part of myself. I wasn't doing it for Ithor. I wasn't doing it for all the innocent people that would mourn if their planet was lost. I wasn't doing it to avert a threat, or to save the pollen that could damage Yuuzahn Vong armor. I wasn't even doing it for you. I was doing it for me, for my own selfish reasons, to fulfill my own selfish desires.

I did it for me, Elegos. I didn't even do it because I wanted justice for your murder. I didn't want justice. I wanted revenge. I wanted him to suffer, as you had suffered. I wanted him to know that his time had come, and that he would never again get to hurt another person. In that one instant, I released my outrage and anger at your death. In that one instant, I truly made that duel personal. In that one instant, I betrayed not only my father, but you and myself.

So now, I come back to where I started. I still really want to talk to you, but it's just as impossible now as it was when I started this letter. And what's even worse, now, is that I am faced with temptation again. Do you know how badly I want to go down to Treasure Ship Row, find the seediest cantina, and get myself into the biggest, most violent bar brawl I've ever been in? It'd even be so easy. All I'd have to do is walk in and show my face. I mean, who wouldn't want a crack of ridding the galaxy of the Man That Destroyed Ithor?

It'd be so easy, and it's so tempting, but I can't give in to it. Not now. Not ever. For if I did, there really would be no coming back. I would be irrevocably lost.

So I won't go to Treasure Ship Row, and I won't go into a cantina and try to start a fight. But that doesn't help me rid myself of these feelings. How can I do that, Elegos? How can I break this circle? I feel that breaking this circle is the key to my salvation, but how? And how long will it take? I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Your friend,

Corran