Choices (KotOR fic, one-shot)
Posted: 2006-10-08 02:29am
This is a very short piece I wrote up for a contest on another board (dealing with a female PC, just to be clear), and I thought I'd post it here and see what people thought. I don't think it directly contains any spoilers for KotOR, but if you don't already know the plot of the game, you'll probably be a bit lost.
Anyway, without further ado:
* ~ * ~ *
Choices:
Her hands were shaking.
They hadn’t stopped shaking since they’d left Korriban.
Desperately squeezing her eyes shut, she shoved her hands into the refresher’s sink and scrubbed furiously. With a fervour born of desperation, she ran the Jedi Code through her mind over and over, as though to drown out the memories with sheer volume.
None of it helped. She could still hear the crack of Uthar’s neck she grasped his jaw and twisted… still remember the exultation of holding his life in her hands and snuffing it out. Still see herself through Yuthura’s eyes as she stood over the Sith Master’s corpse, face and hair streaked with blood, eyes all but glowing with Dark Side energies. Still feel the power as it sang through her veins, banishing all uncertainty and making her the centre of the universe-
No. That, of all things, she could not afford to think of right now. Shoving that particular memory away with a supreme effort of will, she took her hands out of the sink and dried them off. They were pink and raw, and smarted like anything, but she hadn’t actually taken the skin off anywhere. Having towelled them off with probably more care and attention than they really warranted, she finally dared look at herself in the mirror.
She stared at herself for several seconds, then snorted. What had she expected? Yellow eyes? Sith tattoos? A flashing sign on her forehead saying “MURDERER”? And yet, somehow, she’d expected to see something. To look at her now, you might not even think she’d done anything wrong.
And did you? A small voice whispered at the back of her mind. Did you really?
She frowned. “Of course I did.” After a moment, she realised she had spoken aloud. “I killed a man, and I enjoyed it.”
More than simply enjoyed it. Clenching her hands around the towel she was still holding, she pushed that thought away again. It wasn’t getting any easier.
So? Uthar was a monster. You made the galaxy a better place by killing him. Why shouldn’t you take pleasure in that?
The voice changed as it spoke, taking on the velvety tones of Yuthura Ban. Sometimes anger and hate are deserved and right. Sometimes things change because of it.
That was a line of thought she’d been doing her best to avoid – because, if she was honest with herself, she had no easy answer.
In the end, she settled on the most basic answer she could give. “Because it was wrong.”
Really? Did it feel wrong?
And that was the heart of it right there – the part she’d been trying not to think about. It hadn’t felt wrong. It had felt…
It had felt like being alive for the very first time.
The path of the Jedi was difficult. Even now, when calling on the Force had become as natural as breathing for her, there was always a certain struggle in it, in releasing control of her own mind and letting the Force flow in of its own accord. She could shape it and guide it, but never truly control it.
The path of a Sith – that was something else altogether. In Naga Sadow’s tomb she had cast aside all Jedi restraint and seized the Force in a grip of iron – and the power that had come to her had been beyond her wildest dreams. The secrets of the universe had been unrolled before her, and there had been nothing she could not accomplish – nothing beyond her power. She had slain Uthar with her bare hands, and Yuthura now lived only by her choice. Even Malak had been beneath her – a bug to be crushed at her leisure, her defeat on the Leviathan washed out with his blood.
That wasn’t the worst of it, either. The part that truly terrified her about it all was that, for the first time since the disaster of the Leviathan and Malak’s revelation, she’d felt good about herself. The shame and self-loathing that had eaten at her since learning who she had once been had vanished, and for the first time, she didn’t have to fight to remain focused on her mission – because she was focused, without having to try. She hadn’t had to fear what she’d see if dared look Carth in the eye – because she didn’t care any more. She had the power, and she would use it as she saw fit – and if anyone dared disapprove, they were beneath her notice. The universe was hers to command, and woe to any who stood in her way.
The memory of that feeling was both terrifying and deeply, deeply seductive. Even now, with Korriban light-years distant and fading by the second, the darkness still crawled within her skull, promising everything she could possibly want. And all she had to do was reach out and grasp it.
She was sure she could resist it, if she tried. Except…
She was no longer entirely sure she wanted to.
* ~ * ~ *
Comments, critiques, etc are welcome.
Anyway, without further ado:
* ~ * ~ *
Choices:
Her hands were shaking.
They hadn’t stopped shaking since they’d left Korriban.
Desperately squeezing her eyes shut, she shoved her hands into the refresher’s sink and scrubbed furiously. With a fervour born of desperation, she ran the Jedi Code through her mind over and over, as though to drown out the memories with sheer volume.
None of it helped. She could still hear the crack of Uthar’s neck she grasped his jaw and twisted… still remember the exultation of holding his life in her hands and snuffing it out. Still see herself through Yuthura’s eyes as she stood over the Sith Master’s corpse, face and hair streaked with blood, eyes all but glowing with Dark Side energies. Still feel the power as it sang through her veins, banishing all uncertainty and making her the centre of the universe-
No. That, of all things, she could not afford to think of right now. Shoving that particular memory away with a supreme effort of will, she took her hands out of the sink and dried them off. They were pink and raw, and smarted like anything, but she hadn’t actually taken the skin off anywhere. Having towelled them off with probably more care and attention than they really warranted, she finally dared look at herself in the mirror.
She stared at herself for several seconds, then snorted. What had she expected? Yellow eyes? Sith tattoos? A flashing sign on her forehead saying “MURDERER”? And yet, somehow, she’d expected to see something. To look at her now, you might not even think she’d done anything wrong.
And did you? A small voice whispered at the back of her mind. Did you really?
She frowned. “Of course I did.” After a moment, she realised she had spoken aloud. “I killed a man, and I enjoyed it.”
More than simply enjoyed it. Clenching her hands around the towel she was still holding, she pushed that thought away again. It wasn’t getting any easier.
So? Uthar was a monster. You made the galaxy a better place by killing him. Why shouldn’t you take pleasure in that?
The voice changed as it spoke, taking on the velvety tones of Yuthura Ban. Sometimes anger and hate are deserved and right. Sometimes things change because of it.
That was a line of thought she’d been doing her best to avoid – because, if she was honest with herself, she had no easy answer.
In the end, she settled on the most basic answer she could give. “Because it was wrong.”
Really? Did it feel wrong?
And that was the heart of it right there – the part she’d been trying not to think about. It hadn’t felt wrong. It had felt…
It had felt like being alive for the very first time.
The path of the Jedi was difficult. Even now, when calling on the Force had become as natural as breathing for her, there was always a certain struggle in it, in releasing control of her own mind and letting the Force flow in of its own accord. She could shape it and guide it, but never truly control it.
The path of a Sith – that was something else altogether. In Naga Sadow’s tomb she had cast aside all Jedi restraint and seized the Force in a grip of iron – and the power that had come to her had been beyond her wildest dreams. The secrets of the universe had been unrolled before her, and there had been nothing she could not accomplish – nothing beyond her power. She had slain Uthar with her bare hands, and Yuthura now lived only by her choice. Even Malak had been beneath her – a bug to be crushed at her leisure, her defeat on the Leviathan washed out with his blood.
That wasn’t the worst of it, either. The part that truly terrified her about it all was that, for the first time since the disaster of the Leviathan and Malak’s revelation, she’d felt good about herself. The shame and self-loathing that had eaten at her since learning who she had once been had vanished, and for the first time, she didn’t have to fight to remain focused on her mission – because she was focused, without having to try. She hadn’t had to fear what she’d see if dared look Carth in the eye – because she didn’t care any more. She had the power, and she would use it as she saw fit – and if anyone dared disapprove, they were beneath her notice. The universe was hers to command, and woe to any who stood in her way.
The memory of that feeling was both terrifying and deeply, deeply seductive. Even now, with Korriban light-years distant and fading by the second, the darkness still crawled within her skull, promising everything she could possibly want. And all she had to do was reach out and grasp it.
She was sure she could resist it, if she tried. Except…
She was no longer entirely sure she wanted to.
* ~ * ~ *
Comments, critiques, etc are welcome.