Fear No Weather

[Dutch]

“You know, all of this could have been so easily avoided.”

Jessoin broke the long silence finally. Within an open cell he lounged across the cot meant for Vance. With one boot on the bedding and the other leg crossed across the opposite knee, both hands rested underneath his head as the Sith stared at the ceiling above. His emerald eyes flicked to look at the teen for any perceivable reaction. A coy grin spread across his face he turned his head to better face the lad. With a lift of both eyebrows the zelosian would continue.

“Would it not have been wiser to willingly walk away with us?” Jess prodded further, his gaze never leaving Vance as he awaited the answer he already knew wouldn’t come. With a sigh of resignation the Sith nestled further into the cot and resumed staring at the ceiling as they awaited Darth Novus. A smugly satisfied smile sat perched upon his lips at the thought, the pale woman’s insulted scowl at receiving his transmission recalled in his mind’s eye. Facts were facts though, and while Jessoin had been the one to disable and drag Vance back to Korriban there were Sith witnesses that saw the teen make his attempt to flee.

And yet now there he sat, as far from Jessoin as he could possibly get in the cell. The door remained wide open, the jail meant for less special prisoners of the Sith. Dignitaries, Republic nobility, and now a disgruntled former padawan. In theory, Vance could just sprint for freedom. He could get away before the Darth came to retrieve her betraying pet. Yet both the boy and the Sith knew he would make no such attempt. The fear kept him anchored.

“I’ve heard the Dark Lady has been good to you. Prefers you over that other dull excuses for fallen Jedi, which none of us blame her for.” Jessoin would suddenly swing his legs to the side, and used the momentum to sit upright. Both boots planted with a pair of full thuds that echoed in the otherwise silent cell. With fingers still intertwined his arms rested at knees, eyes once more attempted to make contact with Vance’s.

“You’re the envy of male initiates, not only chosen by a Darth but by her.” Jess smirked at the teen, a slight eyebrow wiggle given in suggestion. “I’ve seen your eyes wander her before, boy. When you think no one notices. Quick, guilty ridden glances. Quite a figure, wouldn’t you agree?” Jessoin would continue as he leaned forward a bit more to peer upwards at Vance.

“I now realize, you could shed light on something myself and a few others in the Order have wondered. Does the rug match the drapes? I’ve seen her dye her hair before, but prefer the natural white. Always wanted to see a hoary patch before...” The Sith chuckled languidly, smirking wickedly as he scanned the boy for any irritation.

“Well? Going to remain quiet? You can confess, I would never betray your trust…”

Almost as if on cue, the sight of the woman at the corner of his eye caused Jess to click his tongue in disappointment. Slowly he rose to his feet before a step lead him within arm’s reach of Vance. The Sith leaned low and patted the teen’s face twice before he turned to exit. He would bow fluidly to the Darth, the show of respect given as expected of him.

“So glad you got my comm, my Lady.” Jessoin crooned as he stood straight once more. With a wave of his arm he displayed the awaiting Vance, a barely restrained smile turned towards Novus.

“I imagine you’ll be wanting a private moment with the boy. Renata will be wanting my report on Taris as well, so I’ll leave you be. “ The Sith ended with a wink at her before he smoothly stepped around the Darth to leave the brig. His hand on the door panel to leave, it would hiss open and the zelosian would step past. But not before he peered over his shoulder back at her. 

“Oh, and no reward is expected. I live to serve the Empire.”

Even after the door shut, bemused laughter could be heard echoing in the hall outside.

[Fromikeable]

Vance hated a lot of things right about now. He hated this cell. He hated this temple and this planet. He hated the heat. He hated Taris. He hated Novus, and Levin, and Force only knew how much he hated Jess. He hated the heat again (he was more of a winter creature). He hated the hard floor. He hated the bars of the cell, particularly the open door mocking him, goading him into trying to flee through them even once.

But more than anything, Vance really hated himself.

He’d killed a Jedi. He’d fought a leading member of the Blades, a High Council member of the Jedi Order. He’d seen people be eaten, seen people murder one another only to all be ripped limb from limb indiscriminately. He’d led half a dozen people to their deaths, and left another half dozen to die in a structure literally being torn through by the stuff of nightmares. He’d felt death swirl over an entire planet like a cloud of universally toxic, all-encompassing gas, staining everything with its scent of lifelessness.

Frankly, he hadn’t been crazy about having his skull nearly pulverized either. But he was almost used to that by now.

No, he hated a lot of things, both about the world and about himself. And even as he sat on hot stones in the bottom of the Sith Temple, a smart-mouthed ass of a Zelosian mocking him with comments that would’ve driven a good deal of other people to the brink of snarling madness…

Vance sighed, and hung his head lower. Pulling up his knees, he continued to stare aimlessly into the dirty, bloody fabric that covered them, barely feeling the bruises and cuts beneath.

That did it. He gave up.

By that point, Jess’s taunting was just noise against the wall. Vance had seen too much and succeeded too little to ever again feel the need to hope, or find meaning, or even just strive to become content in some capacity. Could this have been avoided? Probably. Could he have been wiser? Almost undoubtedly. Did Novus prefer him over others? Eh. Did his eyes wander? Well, he was only sentient. Evidently he wasn’t a Jedi anyway, so what did it matter?

But would he confess? That, he had decided more by simple virtue than dedicated thought, he would absolutely do. He didn’t care if he faced a lifetime of torture or a swift execution or mercy or a full-fledged parade in his offer.

He was just ready for it all to be over. Done and finished. Complete. If that meant the end to a short, foolish life? So be it.

A small part of him that contained what was left of his get-up-and-go demanded that he say something to the bastard walking out of the cell. Something… threatening, something equally snide, something even just… just acknowledging of how much of a low-life he was being. A little crack about the man’s aggressiveness as an obviously lame opponent, or maybe… maybe a vicious provocation that if Jessoin wanted to see a whore-y patch, all he had to do was take a look down Tesa's-

Force, that was unkind. That small part immediately found his voice as dead as the rest of him, his presence less like that of a living person and more like that of a flickering flame, simply awaiting its own extinguishing.

So he’d barely noticed Novus finally standing on the other side of the bars, his mind taking a moment to muster enough effort to finally shift ever so slightly enough to see her feet, needing another moment still to register who she was and what that might mean.

She, unlike his first captor, actually got a small response. Mainly him curling into a tighter ball, his survival instinct protesting ever so slightly as he closed his eyes, expecting nothing less than immediate and relentless beratement, displeasure, and/or a swift chop to his head.

He deserved it.

[Neology]

Novus descended into the bowels of the temple dungeons two steps at a time. Vance was alive! Jessoin's prisoner, but alive.

Impossible.

Yet no one would have rescued a corpse from Taris. Zarander was a number of detestable things, but outright suicidal was surely not one of them. He'd brought her apprentice back. ... And she would kill him if he was lying. The certainty of that was something to hold on to, to steady her hands and measure her breathing. She would not show emotion to that preening ass.

Every door was unlocked. Odd policy for a prison, but it seemed she was expected. Empty cells lined the hall, and there, at the end, she could feel them. Novus rounded the corner, impassive, inclining her head very slightly in acknowledgment of the zelosian's play at etiquette.

“Of course. Give Lady Renata my regards. I wont be staying long, I fear.” She waited, still, until the man's echoing laughter faded. She turned to study Vance, gaze lingering on the bloodstained robes. Had he been offered nothing else to wear or was he too insensate to change? Silence stretched between them for several moments and Novus decided it must be the latter. Despair hung in the air, a languid cloud.

“Vance?” Her voice was soft, uncertain as she watched for a reaction. ”Come on. My ship's waiting.”

[Fromikeable]

He always thought it was odd when Novus used that… light tone of voice. As if she was talking to an infant, or a dying man. In a way, Vance figured she was; he was certainly an immature twit by his own reckoning, and it certainly did feel like he was knocking at death’s door. But the tone always made him feel suspicious, nervous. Compassion always came at a cost, and he knew her better than to be able to believe that she would just dispense of it freely because he was in a jail cell.

It actually took him a moment realize that that light tone of voice had said words, and furthermore that he could understand them. Her ship was waiting. Great. Excellent even. So why didn’t she just go?

He was worthless to her now. Not that he had ever understood why precisely she had wanted him in the first place; he had just assumed she had just as little choice in the matter as he did, unwilling to desert him due to some latent sense of compassion, but unable to accept him as the Jedi he’d been raised to be. He’d certainly had to try and strike a balance between the two; he’d learned a lot about her, and he’d liked to think that somewhere under that lithe and lethal exterior was a genuine, honest soul.

What a crock of Banthash-

She hadn’t been training him. She’d been breaking him slowly, knowing that he would be resistant to a sweeping change in one sudden motion. No, she’d been biding her time, making him think that he could retain who he was, what he was doing. She’d given him odd jobs that had seemed harmless, set him with odd people who had defied his expectations, and talked to him in odd ways that had defied his thoughts.

And all of it had come around full-circle and turned him into a murderer.

He didn’t blame her any. In fact, he didn’t blame her at all. In her mind, he supposed, this was all perfectly fine. She hadn’t been manipulating him; she had been displaying errors in his own line of thinking. He would be a fool to assume that his thoughts or expectations or work had been perfect in any way; Vance was not so proud.

But he could have done things differently. When doing those odd jobs, he could have thought about them harder. When meeting those odd people, he could have learned more about them. When having those odd chats, he could have asked better questions.

No, he only had himself to blame. Himself and his own pathetic cowardice, choosing his own life over others when it mattered most.

So she was received with barely any reaction at all, his eyes still staring at his bloody, muddy, torn robes, glazed and unfocused. He didn’t even remember if he was offered clean ones; if he was, he probably hadn’t even noticed, and even more probably wouldn’t have accepted.

He deserved to be dressed like scum.

[Neology]

No reaction save for a swirl of thought in the gloom, like mist parting around her ankles. Novus stepped into the cell, fingers trailing against the durasteel bars. Not a secure cell for anyone trained in the Force. Vance was here because he wanted to be – or, at the least, because he didn't want to be anywhere else.

“You shouldn't have run.” She left it at that, unwilling to go into detail when the room could be bugged. Frankly, she'd be disappointed if it wasn't. Another moment of silence and the Sith Lady dropped heavily onto the empty cot, slouched like a big cat. Jessoin was a predator, too. Like most Sith. See something run and well, hungry or not, he was bound to chase it.

“I hate this place, you know.” Novus fiddled with her collar, starched Imperial gray and black. It chafed uncomfortably against her neck, irritating the skin. “Too hot, too much sand. Too many people.” No reply. She leaned, back of her head against the stone.

“So. What's the plan? You know I could have you dragged out of here. Or do it myself for that matter.” What a pretty scene that would make. Vance had four inches of height and at least fifty pounds on her, but she had carried him before. Still, that was not exactly the image she wanted to present to the other Sith. No one ever really got around unnoticed in the Sith Temple.

“We need to talk. Someplace without that leering Zelosian.”

[Fromikeable]

He shouldn’t have run. Should he have? He… that provoked his first actual reaction; a short, shallow sigh. He had no idea any more if he should have run. It wasn’t a meditated act, mind you. The shuttles had been leaving, the moment had been closing in, and he just… the Jedi had been right there, and that monster had left them.

I shouldn’t have run. I should’ve killed that monstrosity. Even despite his newfound distaste for rakghouls, he would have much rathered their company over Jess’s.

But that only tempted him to sigh again. Such dark thoughts. Was he so lost now that he would just start killing? Even if he already had…

She tried to break his silence with something a bit less serious. This damn climate. A small part of his mind welcomed the reprieve, shifting his focus to the fact that his cell hadn’t been air conditioned, and that on top of the assorted gore and grime on his decimated robes, he could now number sweat as one of its many components. Beyond that, he hated Korriban too; aside from his moral fiber feeling like it was burning by virtue of just being there, it was also, in his opinion, one of the least hospitable, least welcoming, least pleasant places in the galaxy.

And in a galaxy of trillions of planets, most of which didn’t have any of the basics for supporting basic life, that was saying something.

But talking. Talking was… good? Talking wasn’t really anything, he supposed, except for… closing. A way to learn. A way to get closer to answers, right?

Well… he didn’t really want answers any more. He’d gleamed far too many of them on Taris, or perhaps it was better to say he hadn’t found them in time. He had wondered if he would’ve had to kill anyone. He had wondered if the Jedi would’ve fought him. He had wondered if he could saved Lev. He had wondered if he could have trusted Jess and Tesa to actually help people they didn’t like.

Wondering had turned out to not only hurt him, but every single person he’d tried to help.

Wordlessly, the apprentice answered her question slowly. He stayed curled up for another moment before one of his legs finally straightened out, followed by the other. Over the next minute, through a combination of legitimate physical trouble and barely having any will to do so, the young Human managed to lift himself off of the ground and onto his feet. He found his stance awkward; his legs were beyond asleep, beyond achy, and his right leg did indeed seem to have a weak knee for some reason, making it stay bent even at rest.

His eyes didn’t look at her, still dead and glazed. They instead stared at the floor as that odd sound known as his voice tried to form, coming out chokey, garbled, and cracked.

“... but I did.” Whether he should have or he shouldn’t have, he did run. That was all he knew.

[Neology]

She watched him stand, appraising. His wounds seemed healed, though it was a little hard to tell beneath the grime. He moved like a man four times his age – a combination of mental anguish and disuse, she supposed. Just how long had he held that miserable pose?

He spoke, though it took her a moment to recognize it was such. His voice sounded much as if he'd spent the last few days gargling sand. Novus cocked her head to one side, brows raised.

“Yes. You did.” She exhaled audibly and rocked to her feet, thumbs hooked into her pockets as she considered her wayward apprentice. “You've always been clever. I'm sure I don't have to explain that there will be consequences for your escape attempt, and moreover, your failure to make good on it.” Novus shrugged, popped her knuckles, and stepped out of the cell.

“Really, Vance. You could do better, or else I'm the galaxy's worst teacher. Though I'm not counting that out just yet, either.”

---

Novus stepped out of the desert heat and into the air conditioned comfort of the NZT-331's main cargobay. Her posture shifted as the ramp closed up behind them, sealing them in, an odd quality to the air in the spy ship's individually soundproofed compartments. She ushered him through an automatic door and into the connecting hallway.

“Most of your things have been brought aboard. The Socorran tailring. Your lightsaber.” Would that get a reaction? She paused a moment, waiting, then continued. “Excuse me, I need to set our flight plan. Get cleaned up, please, then meet me in the galley.” She nodded, a curt little gesture that she imagined was reassuring, and turned, heading for the bridge.

[Fromikeable]

He couldn’t quite tell if she was being sarcastic or not. He was far from clever; by his own count, he probably one of the dumbest people in the galaxy by now. A Sith apprentice who’d kidded himself so well with the idea that he was still a Jedi padawan that he’d mindlessly glossed over all of his wrongdoings and inhumanities, only discovering their effect until it was far too late.

An irresponsible nitwit with a light sword. What could be more detrimental?

Her mention of consequences almost sounded welcome, however, and as they walked, his mind was filled for the first time in days with possibilities. His feet dragged slowly on the hot floor, and every step sparked a new image. Him losing one arm, him losing another. Him losing his hands, or his tongue, or his feet. An eye? No, Novus was more creative than just physical deformation. Perhaps something psychological; she’d done something similar with Locke.

... No, wait… that was me. Another blow to good people on a long list of stupid, grave mistakes.

Finally they found themselves on her ship, the cool air not quite lost on him, but rather unnoticed. Hot, cold, frigid, sweltering, it made no difference; his body was far too pained by simple movement to care, and his mind far too muddled to register it. The change only affected him as he finally stopped sweating; a small fact that made him consider that now he could drink less water and yet live. Alas.

She piped up again. Hedrax and his saber. Two shining examples of how he’d… he didn’t know. Tried to retain himself, he supposed. A tool crafted for the protection of life and advance of peace, and a creature being innocently nurtured and raised.

Keep them away from me. He didn’t speak the response, but his expression surely gave away his feeling toward the objects; his face turned just a little more pale as his eyes sank a little lower, the floor and her feet being all that met his gaze.

With that, she asked, no, told him to clean up and meet her at the galley. That nod though. So typically Novus, as if not a thing in the galaxy had changed. Was this just another day in the life for the fearsome Sith Lady? Perhaps she was made of sterner stuff. Perhaps she was far, far better at hiding her lamentations. Being left alone to stand in the hall, a small part of him hoped it was the latter.

The larger parts of him suspected the former. He ignored both and slowly limped to his room.

Changing his robes was an ordeal, his joints feeling like stone and his muscles like gelatin. With a lengthy struggle not made any quicker by his reluctance to really do anything aside from just exist, he managed to strip himself and hovel into the shower, running the water cold without regard. His hair, formerly matted, dirty, and unkept, quickly became somewhat clean, loose, and unkept, the tight curls straightening a bit and beginning to hang down over his face more like a veil than an afro, covering his eyes. As such, he closed them, trying to be as quiet as possible.

He only opened them again when his leg buckled from exhaustion, and he had to kneel for a moment.

Stepping out and barely drying himself, the padawan threw on the minimal set of clothing; a loose white T-shirt and an oversized pair of sweatpants that probably belonged to someone else. A small part of him bore a bit of curiosity about them, given that (to his knowledge, anyway) no other male had ever inhabited Novus’s ship before himself.

Had he cared enough, the implications might have been… noticeable.

Alas, he accepted them virtually without thought. He would need another few minutes’ time before managing to convince both his mind and body to get up off the edge of his bed. It figured that of all the times the two were in perfect harmony, it was a time where neither wished to do a single thing. He supposed he didn’t really want to either, but…

… well, for once a new player was at bat. His soul needed something, and getting it was a matter of dire importance.

Shuffling out into the galley at a snail’s pace, the young Sith finally collapsed onto one of the chairs, his eyes shutting again as a tired, shaky hand gently rubbed them. If she wanted to talk, then he would certainly let her.

[Neology]

The computer emitted a string of affirmative chirps as it digested her flight plan. Rhen Var. Home, or as close to as she had these days. She missed the cozy office, Richter to fetch her tea … Somewhat less worrying about spies and assassins, though she never dropped her guard completely - Paxis had been a wonderful teacher in paranoia. His health had been so fragile, she could hardly blame him for that particular sin. She engaged the autopilot with the flick of a switch and stepped away from the console, ducking back into the hall.

Novus stopped by her room, retrieving Vance's lightsaber from her desk. The Zelosian had been kind enough to turn it over, though not without a sneer. How to pay him back? That woman he dallied with, Iniquitous apprentice, made a tempting target. She could pull some favors – she had just captured a planet for the Order, after all. See Tesa Yarum assigned somewhere very far away from her infuriating paramour.

It was something to consider, if nothing else.

Novus made her way to the galley and waited for Vance, filling the intervening minutes by heating two Redi-Meals and arranging silverware. Pasta and vegetables in a red sauce, crackers, dried fruit, with a slightly dubious dessert bar to finish. Fine dining it was not, but she'd never fully adopted the lavish Sith lifestyle enjoyed by her peers. Her ship's kitchen was stocked with very little else. She set Vance's lightsaber at the center of the table.

He joined her eventually, sodden hair and rumpled (but clean) clothes. Novus grabbed two bottles of chilled water from the fridge, then sat down across from him.

“I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Korriban sooner. Eat. You must be hungry.”

[Fromikeable]

The food smelled good, at least. The congress between body and mind was broken as his stomach audibly grumbled; he hadn’t eaten a thing given to him during his incarceration. The pasta therefore would’ve seemed like gold in a plastic plate…

… if it wasn’t for his mind seeing every piece as a finger, every drop of sauce as blood. The crackers and vegetables were little more than debris, and the dessert bar? Dirt.

So a weak hand gently took up the water and brought it to chapped lips, sipping what couldn’t have been more than a few drops before setting the bottle down like an old man might handle a precious memory. Even water was nothing but the puddles he had splashed through as he’d run for his life, but…

… well, that didn’t have a negative connotation. At least, not a direct one.

Still, an apology. For what? Not getting him sooner? That made him cough in a small degree of protest, moving to say something only to find his throat very uncooperative to do so. She was sorry for him? Sorry for him[/i]?

Another miniscule sip of water would have his broken voice speaking at just above a whisper.

“... I killed a Jedi… killed soldiers… killed people... couldn’t save Jedi or soldiers or even Master Caelum…” He shook his head lightly, keeping his eyes on the morticious meal.

“... and you’re apologizing to me?” He coughed again, pushing the food to the side and purposefully knocking his saber to floor. He couldn’t even look at it; a small part of him hoped it would decompose as soon as it hit the floor, the metals returning to their planets, the crystal zipping back to Illum to tell tales to the others of how it once belonged to a padawan who became a murderer.

At least then there’d be some justice in the galaxy.

[Neology]

Blue eyes narrowed to inquisitive slits. He wasn't eating, wasn't talking … Had Jessoin brought her the same teenager? Well, no mistaking that hair, but ...

“No, Vance, come on. You need to eat.” She stood and turned, opening the cabinet. A moment later, she drug down the full box and set it on the table. “Any of these? I think there's six different ones. Or maybe twelve.” She eyed the cabinet, frowning slightly. Vance had never complained about the food before, or had she forgotten?

Then he spoke, and she stopped. Slowly, she turned back to face him. Leaning back against the counter, she watched him in silence for several moments, all elbows and sharp angles. Vaguely defensive.

“I'm apologizing because I know I made a mistake. Is that really so strange?” Novus flinched as he knocked his lightsaber off the table. It slid across the tiles, a dreadful metallic clatter. She called the object to her hand, turned it over and over, examining the design.

“You defended yourself, Vance.” She paused, venting a short sigh. “Jedi, Sith, whatever. We all have a right to self defense. That doesn't make you a bad person.” Another pause. Then, quieter. “As if you'd trust me on that.” Leaning away from the counter, she stood, shaking her head.

“Look, it's not all like that. You helped me find Levin. He's alive. You saved him.”

[Fromikeable]

“You made a mistake. He made a mistake. Taris made a mistake.” He sighed, hanging his head over the table as his arms lightly rested on the surface, limp and sore. He shook his head a little. “Everybody made a mistake.”

He was quiet for a just a second. Lev had lived, huh? Not by his doing, he didn’t think. He’d tossed him off a ledge practically, sent him flying when he hadn’t been able to defend him, hadn’t been able to save him. He bit his tongue as every single emotion he had shoved down that fateful day began to slowly awaken all at once, much like a battlefield of the dead beginning to slowly rise.

He finally lifted his head, his eyes somewhat narrower as well, his voice a little louder and a little more strained. He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t sad, but… just the slightest flavor of intensity surfaced in him, as if he needed more to simply express himself than to make a point.

“I didn’t save anyone. Not a single person.” He took a few shallow breaths before continuing, his hands getting a little clammy.

“I don’t care about what you did, or what he did, or what the Republic did, or what the Empire did, and you know why?” He wiped his eyes. “Because I don’t have to spend every second of the rest of my life dealing with any of you.”

His eyes glanced at his saber in her hand. Oddly appropriate. “I didn’t defend myself. I made a choice between living at someone else’s expense or dying at my own.” His voice caught, and he had to swallow before taking another shallow breath and looking at her with sad, hard eyes.

“Y’know which one I chose?”

[Neology]

“You saved yourself.” She interrupted briefly, one brow arching.

Novus listened to the rest, expression blank. Her patience had begun to strain under the weight of the teen's self-pity. Taris was part of the war, not a house fire or a wayward kitten in a tree. Why did he expect to save anyone? Why did he need to?

“You've spent your whole life with the Jedi. What exactly do you think that means? To be a Jedi?” She lifted his saber, pushing his plate back in front of him with the end. “Whatever else a lightsaber represents, it is first and foremost one of the most dangerous weapons in the Galaxy. You've spent every day of your life, since you were six or seven years old, learning how to wield it.” She hooked the saber hilt onto her belt. A temporary arrangement, she hoped.

“It's not all black and white, even for a Jedi. It wouldn't have all been meditation and books and the occasional monster. They'll get sucked into this war soon enough. Within the year, or maybe the next - and I mean the real ones, not the Blades. It's all inevitable.” She moved around the table, settling into the chair next to him.

“So, hypothetically, had I not come along when I did, all those months ago ... Say you'd made it back to the temple alive. Say you'd found yet another master. Would you feel better, more righteous, on the other side of something like Taris?” She shook her head, no, answering for him.

“You want to be punished for living? Fine.” She raised her hand, striking him hard across the face. “You're a selfish pain in the ass.” Novus sighed, resolve and frustration flagging. Rather impulsively, she looped her other arm around the boy's shoulders, a quick, awkward hug.

“But I am happy that you're safe.”

[Fromikeable]

Well, she was right. He didn’t know what it meant to be a Jedi. And he didn’t know was what it was like to be a Sith, for that matter. All he did know was that, for whatever reason, people had seemed to lead him on in thinking that at the end of the day, his job was helping people. He would’ve been chopping off the right hands, or killing the right people…

... oh Force, that sounds even worse. Even as his emotions began to breach his mind’s surface like mighty submarines, he could see his own flaws in thought. They only made him more emotional.

And no, a lightsaber was a… was a tool, right? It wasn’t designed to hurt people… he meant, it was was, but… not just for the sake of hurting them. It was all about how… or, er… all about who…

...

…

… f*ck! He listened with his jaw set and his face slowly losing that disinterested look.

The slap was really what did it though. Of all of the emotions that were competing for his attention, the searing pain in his cheek quickly elected anger as the principal, and his face immediately flushed with blood, his hands balling into fists. He was so ready to… to… he didn’t care what. Wreck the ship, fight Novus, escape, the list went on and on. Hell, he’d find Lev again just to take back what he’d done. That man had no more a right to life than anyone else.

And who’s going to judge who lives and who dies, hm? You? The thought paused his rage just long enough for Novus to call him a selfish pain and, in something that definitely returned some shock to him, hug him.

… huh… so that’s what hugs felt like.

His anger didn’t really recede, but the other emotions began to muscle their way past it. Sadness. So much sadness. So many flashes of bodies and ghouls, explosions and crumbling buildings. Everything just… being sacrificed. For the first time since Taris, tears basically blinded him, and without a single thought, his arms shot around her and grabbed her like a vice, pulling her close. The sadness began to mix with the anger, and they began to pick up parts of joy for being alive and that she was alive, and guilt that they were alive, and pain that others were dead, and joy that they were dead, and guilt for feeling joy that they were dead…

So really, the only thing left was confusion. Burying his face in her shoulder, he only hugged a little harder.

“I know, okay?!” He coughed off to the side, quickly continuing. “I know that I’m a selfish asshole, and I hate that I am.”

He was silent for a moment, his breathing labored as his arms refused to release her. After a second moment, he added a bit more quietly than he’d intended, “... I’m happy you’re alive too.” Regardless of what he thought of her or what she had or hadn’t done… well, frankly?

She was all he had.

[Neology]

It was too much. The roil of the teen's conflicting emotions was enough to make her dizzy. Yet she could not look away. Inevitable, yes, but this was damage she had wrought. She'd been older than this, the first time she'd killed. No amount of saber practice prepared you for how easy it was, or how hard it could be to live with.

There is no death, there is the Force. Not much comfort in that, as far as she was concerned.

He hugged her back and she froze for a moment, uncertain. Face hidden against her shoulder, he'd nearly squeezed the breath out of her lungs. When he spoke, his voice came out slightly muffled. Slowly, Novus began to stroke his hair – she'd found that soothing, once upon a time. Rapidly drying curls frayed into springy clouds beneath her fingertips.

“It's okay. Everything's okay. What you did, it's how we're wired. Self-preservation is a very strong instinct ...” She stopped, brow creasing, and discarded the rest of that line of thought unsaid. Being assured that he was just like everyone and everything else would not, she wagered, console the idealist in Vance.

“You need to eat, and you need to sleep.” Novus delicately tried to extricate herself from the young man's grip. Sometimes it was easy to forget that beneath that ridiculous hair and the customary barrage of questions, Vance was taller, heavier, and stronger than her. He'd make a good duelist someday, if he didn't let that leg cripple him – she'd noticed the limp.

“I uh …” Novus hesitated. “I really can't let you go back to the Jedi now. You know that right?” She'd never wanted to send him back, though she'd put some thought into it anyway. Nemsee would have been Vance's best chance she figured, though the Jedi Investigator had every reason to hate her. Now, though … Well. There had to be some nominal trust between Sith.

[Fromikeable]

The Jedi, for all they taught, had been relatively quiet about how to deal with emotions in Vance’s experience. He’d always had to sort through them in his own way, whether it had been by shoving problems down or meditating on them.

Today he had neither luxuries, as his emotions were streaking down from his eyes.

Ergo, he went with his final, time-tested strategy; block everything out. One by one, he drew on what knowledge he had of meditation and intense focus, less to actually meditate or focus, but rather to try and cut down on the world. The universe beyond the ship didn’t exist. The rooms beyond the one they were in didn’t exist. The space beyond the table didn’t exist. The physical matter beyond Novus’s shoulder didn’t exist. There was nothing to feel, nothing to smell, nothing to taste, nothing to see (an easy one, considering his eyes were buried in her top and couldn’t see anything anyway).

The only thing he left untouched was his ears, listening to her as she spoke, trying to reign it all in. He would find little success, but his vice grip on her would slacken just a bit, and he would try some deep breaths.

In all reality, the only thing that would help him deal with anything was time. Time and lots and lots and lots of questions. He’d stopped asking those, hadn’t he? His first mistake in a list of many; one he silently resolved to fix in the coming future.

For now, there was Novus’s voice, obviously a little out of both of their elements. He hadn’t known her to be inhuman, but he’d also never known her to be… consoling or comforting. Less from a lack of desire to be so and more from a lack of experience in being so, he’d always thought. But the hand on his hair was nice enough (although a little off putting, as his scalp rarely felt much under all that hair), and her voice was kind enough.

Her first few words about it all just being instinct, however, made his stomach grumble in nausea. He was more than happy when she abandoned the line of thought; the last thing he wanted to consider today was that everyone was just a bunch of kill-happy sociopaths. Whatever validity or falsehood that claim might have had, that evening was not the time to approach it.

Still, after a little struggle on her part, his arms finally released her and his head finally unburied itself from her shoulder. He covered his face as soon as it was exposed, the skin practically ablaze with blush, his nose running, and small cuts and bumps still marring the fleshier bits. After a half-hearted attempt to wipe it off and stop sniffling, he finally looked up at her, albeit from the corner of his eyes.

“... let’s be honest.” He couldn’t help but actually smile a little, trying to focus more on the irony of even mentioning returning to the Jedi rather than the crushing feeling in his gut he got when he considered how right she was.

“Could you ever have, really?” He’d come to a very slow realization that even if, by some combination of events completely unforeseeable, he ever wound up back on Coruscant on the steps to the Jedi Temple, it would probably be in his and the Order’s best interests to never walk back in. The Council would never let reinstate him in any regard after having spent so much time basically willingly under the tutelage of a Sith Lady. Even then, he’d not only been voluntarily taught by a Sith Lady, but he’d also knowingly fought for the Empire in the war and assisted in the assassination of Republic investors.

Oh, and there was the cherry on top of the figurative sundae; fighting Levin, even if only for a moment.

Speaking of, his mind, now blank thanks to its former overload, slowly began to focus on the little things. Wiping his eyes with a napkin, he disregarded the advice that he should sleep and eat in favor of questions.

“... you said Master Caelum’s alive?” A positive question, even if he wasn’t sure what to make of the Jedi Master after that performance. Didn’t he deserve flack in equal measure to the Sith? How many people had the Blades killed for a similar reason? He didn’t know about any of that, though the knowledge that he possibly saved a life after failing so many…

… well… it was a scant comfort, but a comfort all the same.