Choices and Consequences (Final Part): Not Fade Away

As by Natalia:

 

There’s moonlight down here. I don’t exactly know how it’s managing to pierce this far down, but it is. It’s shining down wherever it can, making this place look more ghostly than it should. Moonlight, spider webs and a dark forest―it would be frightening, but I've been here before and I've seen the worst of it. It's almost lovely.

Canderous shifts his bulk off the lift with an annoyed grunt. “Didn't think I'd be coming back down this way.”

“Didn't say you had to.”

“You didn't have to.”

I shrug and continue on into the woods. His coming or his going doesn't really matter anymore.

I spy out the old trail, the one the three of us made on our first foray into the dark. The woods have already crept back in, slipping closer with new tendrils and branches where we'd slashed them clean. A lovely thought slithers up through the others, and wonders if it would be nice to walk back down that trail. It's a little roundabout, not straight to where I'm going, but it's familiar. Feels safe.

I start down it, drawing my saber and tossing my cloak over my shoulders in the same motion. My blade hums like an aging fiddle as it slices through and through the encroaching forest. Reminds me of a song or two.

“Was waiting for this,” Canderious says. He's close behind me, close enough so I can smell his sweat and the dried blood on his skin. It's a dank smell. The wookie villiage was dense with it.

“Waiting for what, Candy?”

“Just you and me,” he says, and so casually it's odd. Ignored my barb, ignored the little waver in my tone that should've told him to walk on tip toes. “No Republic, no Princess. Two warriors, and their hunt.”

“Their hunt?” I ask, turning back towards him. “And what would we be hunting now?”

Again he shrugs. “Figured you'd tell me when you got a mind to.”

If that's not the saddest thing I've heard all day, I'll kiss a tach. Figures it would take me slaughtering a gaggle of primitives to get his respect. It's almost chilling the way he looks at me―I'm red from head to toe, face and hair and all splattered with blood and cooling guts and he thinks it's lovely. Like I finally look the part.

“No hunt today. Just one more we need on the team, before we head to the Forge.”

He doesn't have the slightest clue what I mean. But he's quiet like a good Mandie, marching silently behind me. Hardly a word passes before we reach our old campsite. A few ashes lay scattered, and an empty bottle of Tarisian Ale beside an equally empty draft of Corl Brandy.

“You're waiting here,” I say, tapping the marshy spot with my toe. “So this is goodbye.”

He stands there a bit, then slowly sits down against a tree. “Not sure I like how you said that.”

“Too slow? Too long? Or was I not sad enough? How'd I say it?”

“Like Mandalore said it, day he went out to fight you.”

“Ah.” I strain back in my mind, searching through the sea of fragmented memories for a snapshot of that day. Best I can find is me holding Mandalore's helmet in my hands, grinning like a banshee and not minding a bit the dripping head slipping out. “He didn't come back from that one, did he?”

“Not all in one piece.”

Silence again. He's staring me over with those beady grey eyes of his, like I'm up on platform heels spinning round a pole.

“Wouldn't mind you coming back,” he says.

“Hmmmm?”

He scowls like hell, stands up and aims it at me. “I told you I'd follow Revan to the edges . Past, if you were headed that way.”

I stare him in his bloody grey eyes. Not a flinch. He's not going to stop me, or follow me against my will, even though he wants to. He's all soldier now, still awed by the whirlwind of blood and death he saw me become, and eager to shadow me to more battles and battlefields, until he bleeds himself out of blood or years under my approving gaze.

“You never really liked Natalia much,” I say. “She was something you endured for those short little flashes when you could see something grander shine through the cracks. No―don't contradict me.” I hold up a finger over his lips. “You're making out grand with this one. Enjoy.”

I turn away towards the clearing. He makes his typical grunt, shrugs and mutters something I can't hear. Thats fine.

Once more, I break out into the little glade. The Star Map sits quietly before me, its own blue light adding to the scene. I walk to the artifact, slide my hands over it same as before. My mind slips backwards into memory, mine and hers. It's laughable. Where I creep to star maps behind monsters' backs she strides up like the sunrise and takes them. Unstoppable, uncrackable. Her first trip to the shadowlands took her a day, a brisk little walk through the woods and back―and she whistled as she went. I can't even compare that to my experience here.

A low whistle starts up along the edge of the glade. Soft footsteps. A pair of hands grip me at the waist. They slip slowly over my hips and stomach. And now I've gone too far to go back. There's some relief in that.

“Hello,” I sigh.

The hands stop just under my breasts. Revan chuckles into my ear, “Hello darling, round two. And considering how nicely you treated me last time, I think I’ll also call this rape.”

If all goes well, there will be a perfect look of astonishment on her snarky lips. That’ll be lovely, and beautiful, and a little cube of sugar in my tea.

“But see,” she continues, “I’m not a complete idiot. You’re not a complete idiot either. You have your moments, but overall, I think you’ve got a good head. So why’d you come back here alone? I mean―darling! Seriously. Who do you think I am?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” I say truthfully.

“Lovely. I’m listening.”

“Right.” I watch my fingers tap a rhythm on the Star Map, feel hers creeping like ants up my spine. “I’ll jump right in here. Have you ever loved someone?”

“Look at me.” Her hands turn me around. “Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. I’d have to say no. I’ve been loved, but I’ve never loved per se.”

That might explain her twisted selfloving. Or the latter explains why she never had the time to love anyone else. Not sure it matters.

“Well when I found out who I was―that'd be you―I gave up on a lot of things. Things didn't seem so important. But I didn't have it all figured 'till I came down here, and that got it clear. There's only a few things I want.” She's quiet, so I draw a breath and say it. “I want the people I love safe. I want this whole damn thing to stop. Tired of watching of them get slapped off one at a time.

“And I want this whole thing settled, what we―what you started. And I can't do it.”

She doesn't answer that. Don't think she got it.

“Can't win.” Never said that before. “Numbers are killing me. We get to the Star Forge, and it’s our fleet against theirs, and that’s not working. Star Forge has to have system defenses, fleets, minefields, and there’s only one hyperspace route in and out, and that means we can’t count on the fleet to destroy it. Someone has to go in, set up explosives on the shield generators, make it a sitting duck.

“Not many Jedi left now, and the Forge will have the largest concentration of Sith forces anywhere in the galaxy. Station that size has to be operated by one, two hundred thousand at least? Then there’s Sith, droids, special forces and the station defenses―and that’s all assuming we can even get in. And after all that there’s the Dark Lord―a bloody dreadnaught of a bastard! We’re―fracking fracked!”

I catch my breath, and I catch that look I was waiting for. It's dawning on Revan's face like a slow, glorious sunrise.

“You want old darling Revan there, don't you?”

I shrug. “Yes.”

She's quiet for a bit while she chews her bottom lip. Can't tell what in the hell she's thinking about.

I finally shrug and kick at a vacant pile of leaves. “So that leaves me here, wondering about where I am. And I think I’ve made a decision. I want you to take me.”

Her head tilts to one side. “You mean―sex?”

“Holy gods, you’re sick! But―no, I mean I want you to literally take me. As in, I’m not going to stab myself this time. I’ll let you take me.”

She laughs. “As in, you’re really not going to pull any stunts this time? You’re going to lay down, open your legs and―let me? I mean, I was all geared up for a titanic struggle, a bloody, gory battle! I was all set for the kissing, suffocating thing and―”

She cuts herself off, pauses. Her grin fades a little. “ But why the sudden despair, darling? You were down here not a week ago, all big and brave and dare I say suicidally committed to your mission. I had this darling image of you on the Forge, dragging your bloodied self towards Malak, and dying in the lift. Seemed likely to happen.”

“It's like I said,” I whisper, try very hard to keep my voice up and even. Not going to end all this in tears. “This place stripped it all back, I got to see me. And you were right. I'm not you, I'm not Revan, and that's the problem. I'm a soldier in the Republic Army with a few months of Jedi training―and a few bloody memories from you. I can feel power curled like muscle under my skin, all there and ready and wanting to be used―and I can't use it, not like it needs to be used. It was never my power to begin with.”

I catch my breath as Revan's cold hand touches my neck. It gently lifts my chin until I'm looking straight into her yellow eyes. Her smile falls slowly away. The sardonic lines in her face smooth and reshape into thin grooves―marks of stress, of a stubborn mind well-hardened.

“So,” I breathe, “there really is something underneath all that nonsense.”

She tilts her head to one side, stares at me up and down and through and through. “I hide very well. Never know when someone's looking for you.”

A shudder flitters down my spine, and I can only sigh my relief. I wasn't wrong. I can see her as she is, as she always has been. There's insanity, and fear and hate, but it's all layered around a core of steel―unbendable, uncrackable. She knows what she is, and she's not afraid of it. It's her power.

“You really want this,” she says. “Don’t you? You’re willing to die for this? Why? It’s just a Republic, darling!”

“Not to some people.”

“'People' is a broad term for a single person,” she sighs, breaking away from me. Her hands massage her forehead. “That’s why I never allowed anyone to get that close. Can’t let them get that close, because before you know it they’re your crutch, they get kicked out from under you, and there you have it. You’re fracked.”

She makes short, terse little steps back and forth. “So―you want me to destroy the Star Forge? That makes things awkward but…” She looks up at me and smiles. “There’s more than one way to lobotomize a tach.” She punctuates that with a wide kick at one of the nearby creatures. “Alright, I’ll do this the hard way. No Forge, some more hands-on work―yes, I can do this. There just might be as much to me as my vanity says there is. Alright than!” She cups my cheek in her hand. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

“Lie down, darling. This won’t hurt hardly at all.”

She gently tips me over until I’m lying full on my back. She climbs on top of me, leans over until her lips are just touching mine.

“Don’t,” I sigh.

“One kiss,” she sighs. “A mirror just isn’t a proper substitute for you. Just one, solitary, single…”

I glance up at the moonlight washing over us, over at the trees standing silent spectators, and finally at Revan as she leans just overtop of me. Her tongue runs circles over her lips.

“You’re sick,” I say. “But I don’t give a damn, really.”

Her lips pause an inch from mine. “Natalia. You know that if I destroy the Forge―that's the only place I know of where I could bring you back. There's no coming back from this.”

She's so far into my mind I don't even need to say anything. She can feel everything, every fear, every wish and dream I've already let go of. But I feel like saying it anyways.

“Knew that coming in.”

The moonlight disappears as she leans in closer. Her lips sink into mine, and a chill cold and empty as the space between the stars settles into my bones.

I feel like I should be laughing.

 

---

Breath flowed into her lungs—real air, for the first time in years. Damp earth underneath her back, sinking into her fingernails. Moonlight on her face.

Slowly, carefully, she stood up from the ground. Her muscles flexed and stretched, one at a time, coming back to life again. She reached out her hand towards the floor, thought it, and a river of blue fire streaked out and exploded on the leaves. Red flames dashed upwards, and vanished with a motion of her finger.

“I'm back,” she said to no one, and stepped into the trees.

The woods slipped by, and Canderous' figure soon appeared in the clearing. Revan heard a grunt and mutter, and stepped up underneath his chin.

“Thought you weren't coming back,” he said, blowing smoke over the top of her head.

She regarded him carefully, up and down and deep as her senses could penetrate. She found a realization buried deep, so deep she doubted he actually realized it was there. And sadness, and acceptance of what his Natalia had to do. His Natalia.

“It was never you,” Revan said.

“Never over 'till it's over,” came his predictably stubborn response. Revan chuckled a little. It struck her oddly that she felt she knew this man to the core, and yet had never truly met him. She wondered what the rest of the crew would bring, and wondered if they'd mind her laughing a bit. She guessed they were used to it.

“Well Mandalorian. I'm off thataway,” she gestured skywards. “Bit of business, bit of vengeance, and—”

A sudden, single burst of pressure leaned in on her mind. She could have sworn she heard herself laughing, or at the least, smiling very wide and very loud.

"Also I now have some promises to keep.”

Canderous crushed his cigar underneath his boot, hoisted his repeater up over his shoulder. It seemed he was thinking hard, and for the life of her Revan could not tell what about.

After a moment, he nodded and started off towards the old lift. Revan started to follow, then paused as pressure again rumbled inside her head. She scowled, and knocked her knuckles against her forehead.

“Shushy,” she whispered.

And answering her, a smirking little laugh. “Got a great view here.”

“Thought you were going to fade away,” Revan growled. “That was the deal.”

“Ahhhhh. But deal ain't quite done yet. Let's just see how this all turns out first.”

Revan sighed, gathered a small bit of healing power around her new-forming headache, and started off towards the lift.

But hard as she thought, there wasn't a trick she could conjour to drown out the voice in her head that seemed intent on humming out the entire Twisted Rancors Greatest Hits collection.

She sighed again. “Look's like I'm destroying the Star Forge.”