Her escort, her welcoming party, stood out like a sore thumb and she sighed. Of course there would be one and of course, he would be Jedi. Obviously so. He stood like he had been raised on a steady diet of the Code all wrapped up in robes, but then, he probably had been. And she probably had been as well...if she could only remember it. But even when she had been able to remember it, she'd still strayed. That, she was certain of.
"Amasri Idarn?" He was a good looking example, tall, thin, watchful...and he just breathed serenity from every pore. He was just so very, very, very trustworthy. She pushed that away, she was not some young one to fall for that and she honestly didn't think he even realized he was doing it. He gave her a once over and she wondered if he even knew who...what...she was. Surely if he did, she would have gotten more of a measurement than that fleeting skim of his eyes...
"If that's what you want to call me." It didn't really matter which of the names the Temple used... Amasri Idarn, Revan, Sarah... They were all just labels for her. It was her first name and it only made sense that it was how the Temple identified her. She supposed it was probably still her legal name, since there was nothing legal in her flimsy 'Sarah' identity.
"Is that not your name? You are the one that the Temple sent me to meet?"
He's clueless. So the Temple was still taking this softly, they'd sent an escort to meet her and bring her along, and they'd chosen a very gentle one at that. Nothing about him felt like a Jedi chosen to bring Darth Revan to trial for all of her crimes and sins. "It was my name, once." She picked up her case, stepping into place beside him. "I am the person that they've sent you to meet here." That was all he really needed to know.
He obviously puzzled over her replies, his brow furrowed. "Are you hungry? I don't know how long you traveled to get here."
"I've come from Brentaal. And yes, I am hungry." Dealing with Jedi masters always went over better on a full stomach. Dealing with a trial required that and a dessert. Or two. She was really, really getting too old for this...
"Ah, Brentaal, not too terribly far. I'm Luel. If you do not go by Amasri, what should I call you?"
Are we going to actually need to call each other by comfortable names? He certainly seemed to think so, or he was merely being terribly polite. "Sarah. I go by Sarah. So is the Temple picking up the check?"
Again, that puzzled look. He really, really didn't know what he'd been sent to do, here. It was either funny or sad, Sarah wasn't certain which one she wanted to settle on. "Yes." He finally stated, his gaze locked on her face. She wondered if her emotions were stamped on her eyes, she could keep her expression placid and unreadable, but her eyes often betrayed her. She had been teetering on the edge since coming back, it was so difficult to scramble back from cavorting with the dark side, but it had been necessary. She knew it. Carth had known it. This one would not understand.
"Good." She chuckled. If the Temple was footing the bill, then it would definitely be two desserts. And a repeat of the wonderful Telosian cuisine that Carth had introduced her to the last time she'd been here. "I know just the place." That brought worry to his eyes, but she was fairly certain it wasn't exorbitantly pricey. Although with Carth...it just might have been. It had been the dinner he'd promised her for weeks, months, one hope to hold onto, it might have been a major extravagance.
Actually, it turned out to be a hole in the wall set up off of a main throughway, and it obviously concerned her keeper. He measured everything, tracking the people on the street, but Sarah sensed no danger. Maybe he had been told who she was and he was wise enough to worry about the dread Darth Revan taking him into a slightly low brow family owned restaurant. Although if she wanted to take him, a well lit and traveled boulevard was not going to save him. "Relax." She chuckled, "It's just a restaurant. I promise, you and I can probably take on the entire block." No probably about it, but she didn't need to oversell herself here. "I'm not going to run. If I meant to do that, I wouldn't have come to Coruscant in the first place. I'd've made the Temple chase me down...or try to." She could have run. They'd never find her if she had really tried to vanish, there were so many places she could go and disappear into, never to be seen or heard from again.
"You make it sound like you think you're in trouble." He settled slowly down across the small table from her, his back to the wall, while Sarah gleefully surveyed the menu. The place was a dump and she loved it. It was worn, sad, a little desperate...run by refugees from Carth's homeworld. The homeworld that Malak had...
Nope. Not going there. She shut the train of thought down, forcing her attention back on the food. Back on the memories of Carth bringing it to her while she had been recovering, the wine...the flowers...the cake. I am loved.
"I'm pretty sure the Temple hasn't called me here to pat me on the back and give me an atta girl." Carth would get the back pats and the atta boys, and he deserved them. She'd just be happy to come out the other side of this alive and free. She liked to think she deserved that, well...maybe. At the very least, Carth deserved that. He wanted her back.
"I would not know." Luel answered, finally giving his attention to the menu as well. "All I know is that my master asked me to pick you up at the spaceport, perhaps buy you dinner, and bring you to the Temple. No mention of any trouble. Why did you pick this place?"
"It's my fiance's favorite restaurant on Coruscant. It reminds me of things I need to remember going into this." She would be what Carth needed her to be, whether he liked it or not.
"Fiance? But...?" It was funny. She'd staggered him to the point that even his almost perpetually puzzled look failed completely. "Aren't you Jedi? Aren't you one of us?"
No. Not in the way that he meant. She could even start to remember when that part of it had broken...what had happened after the War was still a complete and total blank, darkness she could not see into, but she could begin to see what had happened before the War, during it. Those had been her decisions and she owned them. Things after that were less comprehensible, there was the underlying layer of compulsion that left her queasy and panicked. I did not do things of my own free will... "I've broken with the Order." Well, that was one way to put it.
"Oh." There was a depth of sadness and loss in that single syllable and she merely grinned at him as their waitress laid down drinks and took their orders. Leaving the Order was not a loss, it was her only hope. Only her family...Carth, Dustil, Bastila, all of them, could pull her up out of the darkness. Not the Order. They'd become strangers to her somewhere along the way, and the Enclave had done desperate and regrettable things to her, things she would probably never recover completely from. And she wasn't certain just which faction in the Order was to blame... how much had the Temple here known of what the Enclave on Dantooine was up to? She suspected they hadn't known a thing, but she didn't know. And she shouldn't assume anything.
Hubris has brought you to your knees before.
That insight was perfectly alone, crystal clear, spoken directly from the Force itself and she nodded to herself. There was obviously a history there, but that had been excised from her unreliable past and shown to her in clarity. And she could see it...she'd been very full of herself coming off of the War, after Malachor. She'd felt like...it had not been...quite...finished. Something... The world hazed around her, darkened, and filled with a rushing, deafening noise...
"Hey! Don't do that...whatever that was! Are you alright?" She'd started to slide...literally...under the table and Luel moved to push her back upright again. She preferred his puzzled stare to his frankly concerned stare, now that she'd gotten to experience both of them. Puzzled meant she was in control, concerned meant she had lost control. She just wanted to go home, she didn't need to play these games with Carth or Dustil.
"I'm fine." This was going to be a long, long trip and she almost regretted suggesting eating out. She could have had a nice, reflective, solitary meal at the Temple...
No. You must hold Carth close. You're not some thing that can't be trusted in public. You are Sarah Onasi. You cannot get through this as Revan. You don't even remember being Revan after Malachor.
And that was everything...Revan after Malachor. It was that part of her life that she wasn't allowed to know, but it was the real reason why she had been called before the Temple here. She was going to go into this blind. She was going to stand trial here and not even remember the worst of the things that she knew she'd done.