A Pass In the Halls

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"No." Her voice snapped, resounding within the white room. "No not her."

The Handmaiden would press closer, deeper, there was something else, someone else that he was trying to hide. Someone that he did not want her knowing about. She shifted slightly, a single foot moving closer to him, a hand half reaching out. Her eyes settled on his own, searching, trying to find something. Oh there...there...she tried to see, tried to find. Her lips thinned, her eyes set in concentration. Something was not right, something was split, broken.

The room seemed to shift again, the stark white walls becoming hazy, melting into fog.

Everything around them seemed to destabilize for a moment the walls turning to mist and the floor below them suddenly growing translucent. The Handmaiden arched her back, standing taller, vexation crossing her features for half a moment. "Tell me, Hal."

She tried to push him, press into his thoughts. "Tell me her name!"

Like a needle, The Handmaiden would drive into Hal's mind.

 

[Hal Terrano]

Not her.

Hal already knew who she meant.

Ever since the Prakith Dungeon he had sought to keep that name from entering his thoughts. A task that had been much harder than the man could have ever anticipated. Thoughts of her whispered at him on a moment's notice, nothing much, no major flashbacks but small inklings of what once was, and of her.

Tea with honey. Helps soothe the soul.

At this stage in his downward spiral he wasn't sure if he had suppressed Avalore Eden to protect her, or to protect himself. As if he was capable of protecting anyone any more.

“No,” he replied, voice shaken and not nearly as firm as it once stood.

Nyork chowder.

He wouldn't, he couldn't. Even if she were his greatest weakness in the Galaxy, he did not want to relinquish her to this woman, this creature of nightmares and visions. Lest he would put her at risk and perhaps even doom himself to this breed of insanity.

However, as the topic still loomed, the woman pressing further for the answer that she knew was inside, more and more small inclinations escaped his head.
"No, I w-won't!"

Jeebus, Hal.

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

Oh.

There it was.

it was a tiny blip of something, a tiny...hint. She couldn't quite see it clearly, couldn't quite see her clearly. It was a face hidden in the fog, a face that she couldn't quite make out. Gentle and soft, a Jedi to be assured. Her eyes opened a bit wider, the needle driving a bit deeper. The Handmaiden searched and searched, digging deeper into Ha'ls mind and looking for that last lynch pin that was still in the way. She knew the others, knew their names and what they had done. Nemene, Vrag, all the other Jedi.

Yet this one.

This one was special.

The rolling fogs would turn to tides, the stark white would somehow shift to a softer beige mixed with blue. Within half a second they found themselves not standing in that white room, not within the Jedi or Sith Temples, but within the open city of Manaan. It had been sunk by the One Sith, but Handmaiden and Hal stood within its center, a clear after image of what Hal had once experienced. There was silence in the air, then suddenly the rolling call of the tides, the singing of sea birds, and even the distant sounds of war.

"Tell me, Hal." Her voice was sweeter this time, but still a clawing rasp. "Tell me her name."

 

[Hal Terrano]

Once more the scene shifted, to something more familiar, horribly familiar.

Manaan.

He could remember it so clearly, how could he not? That one moment in time, that single moment that he had agonised over, again and again and again. What could he have done differently? Should he have said it? Should he have kept quiet?

Because…

It was a catastrophic moment in the midst of battle, she was desperate to go out and help civilians and he wished to preserve the archives first. They argued. He insisted that they waited, and she demanded that they went. It got heated, he actually got angry. She made him, the picture of a stoic Jedi, angry.

BECAUSE…

Just standing there with that scene around him, hearing those words said in his head once more made thoughts of her escape, and for a split second her name ran across his mind. Avalore Eden. Even now she left him vulnerable.

"No! PLEASE, STOP THIS!"

BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, DAMN IT!

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

That was her name. She had never heard of her, though that wasn't really a surprise. Most of the Jedi were useless in her eyes, most of them held no benefit at all, but this...this one would have the intended effect. The oceans of Manaan and the bright buildings would fall away, the sounds of the tides would disappear and the sounds of battle would slowly wash away. The Handmaiden would return them to the hallway that they had originally stood in, the one within the Sith Temple.

He was not free yet, though.

Not yet.

"Avalore." The Iktochi hissed. "So that is her name. The one who caused your fall, the one who denied you your right. The one who turned you to this path."

The Handmaiden pressed the needle in further. "It is the women in your life, Hal. The fairer sex that caused you to fall. Nemene, Avalore, Vrag. They are the cause of your failures, the beginnings, the ends, and the reasons. Do you see that? Do you see what you were made to do by their hands?"

She spoke more softly now, almost comforting.

 

[Hal Terrano]

The hall of the Sith Temple finally returned, and it was likely not because she had listened to his frantic pleading. Rather it seemed that the woman had exactly what she wanted, and his fears were confirmed as soon as Avalore's name left her lips.

The man could no nothing but wince at the accusations that the woman threw out, the allegation that the Jedi Healer was responsible for his fall. That she had denied him his right. It made him feel sick to his very core. It wasn't the fault of Avalore that he had fallen, it couldn't be. He refused to believe it!

“No!” he returned angrily, fists clenched and brow furrowing, “It's not her fault!”

He wouldn't dispute that Nemene and Vrag both played their hideous parts in his fall, and he himself was a failure, the other contributing factor. But he couldn't, no, wouldn't believe that Avalore Eden was too at fault for his fall. She had been his friend and one of his only friends at that.

“She cared about me!”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"Did she?" The Handmaiden hissed. "Or did she speed your fall?"

The world around them changed once more, this time it twisted, the hall suddenly closing around them, the walls changing and tightening to almost constrict the two of them in place. Large jagged spikes grew from the walls themselves, massive spines that stretched out towards Hal and threatened to pierce him in an instant. Oppressive facades began to form within the jutting spikes, masks, faces that would appear familiar to the Sith Lord. They were the visages of hundreds of Jedi, of dozens of men and women that had served with him, judged him, helped him, and in the end betrayed him.

"Look at them!" She shouted at him, her voice echoing within his skull.

"Look at them all." Suddenly one of the faces seemed to gather a light upon it, the feature of it soft and curved, a memory dug from Hal's mind. "Look at her. Remember what she did, remember the pain, the rejection, remember. She brought you to this. She brought you to the edge. She took you to it and you fell from it."

The spikes seemed to move closer to Hal. "Right into her hands."

The face changed in an instant, features becoming angular, rough, angry.

 

[Hal Terrano]

When laid about upon the table as a cold hard fact, it was difficult to deny Avalore of some responsibility in his fall.

The wound in his psyche that Nemene had wrought and his own stunted emotional growth combined to work against him. He had feelings, he had desires and as much as Hal tried to suppress them, he couldn't. She made his heart falter in his chest, made him less sure of the words that he said, of what was right, what was wrong and even made him question if he was a good Jedi.

Faces of the Jedi Order surrounded him, closing in upon him as if they were an oppressive reminder of what he once was. Who he once was.

Avalore's face sought illumination, standing out amongst the others as it always did as the hooded woman still pressed home her twisted point, still blamed his fall upon Eden. It wasn't that she didn't hurt him, she did, and her rejection had hit the man undeniably hard given that it was one of the only times he had opened up, albeit in a ham-fisted manner.

His teeth were gritted, face twisting into a mask of disgust at her continued insinuations.

“It's not her fault,” Terrano replied, voice pained at the notions of anything else, “she didn't do it intentionally...she just...I just...”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"Intentionally?" The Handmaiden parroted, throwing the word in Hal's face and letting it resound within his skull over and over again. There was a bite to it, a strength that denoted her disgust with his excuses. She seemed to loom over him now, somehow having grown taller than him, making him look small, weak, tiny in comparison to the Sith Lord. The mind was a terrible thing to play tricks on, easy to fool and even easier to bend when one knew how, and The Handmaiden knew how.

"Intentionally?!" She screeched at him. "Does it matter? Does it matter Hal?"

She dug her claws into him, the blades of the wall beginning to slowly prick against his flesh. "She still did it. She left you. Left you for her to take, to break. You became nothing, you are nothing, because of them, because of their actions, their choices."

The Handmaiden curled her hand, her eyes looming down at him.

"You are a failure." She drove the point home. "Because of what they did."

 

[Hal Terrano]

Still she pressed.

Pushing forth the idea that it was irrelevant what Avalore's intentions were, that she still played as much of a part in his failure and his fall as Nemene and Vrag. The woman grew larger, her presence becoming oppressive and almost overwhelming as she towered over him, screeching, like a creature born from nightmares.

He winced, trying to shirk away as she dug her nails into his robes but only found spikes at his back. Terrano was trapped, more akin to a cornered animal than a man, it made his chest tighten further, breaths becoming short and stifled.

Still, something began to boil. Rage, but not so much at Avalore herself as intended but at the monster that towered over him. Specks of red began to appear within his alien irises, his inability to hide the ebb and flow of his emotions an obvious disadvantage in this situation.

“No!” he practically spat, chest beginning to rise and fall ever quicker as the man's rate of breathing continued to increase.

“I won't blame her! I WON'T BLAME HER!”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

The figure shifted above Hal.

There were no words for a while, no taunts, no presses of the mind. Instead The Handmaiden simply watched the former Jedi, watched the Sith Lord, watched the crumbling failure of a man that stood before her. The world around them shifted once more, the spikes growing, the faces returning. Avalore would stare at him, her eyes broken and taunting, her lips slightly parted as if she were about to speak, as if she were about to mock Hal and everything that he was.

The Handmaiden took a step forward, looming over the Sith. "Why?"

She questioned.

"Why?" The word repeated itself within Hal's skull, a resounding echo that would thrum over and over again within his mind. "She abandoned you. Left you. She never came looking. She never tried to rescue you. She left you to your fate...and then moved on."

The echo rang out. "You are forgotten Hal. A failure. A forgotten wretch. Because of them, because of her, because of what they did."

 

[Hal Terrano]

Her face appeared again, staring almost judging the man and he could no longer bear to look. A torrent of feelings and memories began to surge within both his chest and his mind. Words that had been said and the words that he only wished he had said. Terrano forced his eyes shut and tried to think of other things, of anything.

Still, the man could not escape the question.

Why?

It did seem as though nobody had come to find him, no great rescue party had ever stormed the gates to come and save him. Why not? Was the danger too grave? No, no he had heard whispers of another Jedi being saved from the Sith by this Galactic Alliance. They had done it before. Why not again?

“...no...they're….they're looking...she's looking for me...”

Why wouldn't they come for him? Had she...had Avalore really moved on? Just purged him from her memories and then carried on with her life? No. No, she wouldn't do that. But, but they had gone to Prakith before in the face of the war, they had rescued people from the clutches of the One Sith. Why not him? Where were they?

His eyes were still squeezed shut, now in denial of her words and not just vision.

“…why haven't they come…?”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"Because they don't care." Her voice echoed throughout the room.

"They don't care Hal. They don't care about you. They don't care about your suffering, what has happened to you. They just don't care." The Handmaiden began to worm her way deeper into the mans thoughts, drilling herself into place and jabbing deep. "They've moved on. She's moved on."

The face in the stone flashed to that of a man for only the briefest second, his feature unidentifiable and his visage stark, quickly the image shifted back to Avalore. "You are the victim, they are the reason you have failed. The reason you are so broken."

She began to tempt him.

"Feel you anger, Hal." Her voice resounded. "Let it take you, dive into that river and see the truth within the rage."

 

[Hal Terrano]

Could it be true?

The man opened his eyes, an expression of hurt and confusion etched upon stone. It would explain why they had never come, never made any attempt to rescue him despite saving others. He had always imagined that at least Avalore would have been trying...but...maybe it wasn't so.

She's moved on.

Another face flashed before him but for the slightest moment, enough for him to catch but not enough for him to notice. It was like a punch in the gut, leaving Hal feeling as if his heart was caught in his throat. There was somebody else.

She's. Moved. On.

Of course there was somebody else. Upon Manaan it was only he that confessed his love for Avalore, only he that had spilled his guts on the floor. Never her. Unrequited. The Jedi Healer had never loved him, she never would. Perhaps it was a relief that he was gone, perhaps she was even glad deep down and past her kind demeanour. Who wanted the burden of Hal Terrano upon their shoulders? Stiff. Awkward. Rude. She wasn't coming for him because she didn't want him.

She didn't love him.

How had it taken him until now to realise this? Perusing archives didn't glean knowledge of the human condition, he knew a lot of things but this was something that had eluded him the entire time.

In that moment it was hard to think about Nemene or Vrag, it was hard to even think about rage in the midst of despairing realisation. Physically strong legs came out from beneath him, the man falling forward onto his knees as everything came crashing down around him.

“...what am I...supposed to do?”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

"Kill them." The Handmaiden said.

The spikes withdrew from around Hal, the face of Avalore seemed to lift from the wall. It split off, suddenly parting to three identical visages. Within half a second two of them changed. One to Vrag, one to Nemene. They floated around Hal, the three of them rotating with a soft, almost droning noise emanating from them. They shifted, hypnotizing as they bobbed up and down, circling around Hal and capturing his eyes. The Handmaiden stood beyond the three masks, staring, watching.

"Kill them, Hal." She whispered. "Nemene...Vrag...Avalore."

"They did this to you. They ruined you. They turned you into a failure. One splintered you. One broke you. One abandoned you. They did this to you. They took what you were and twisted it to their own desire. It's their fault, Hal. It's them. It's always been them. Just look at it. Look at what you are, what you've become. It's because of them, because of what they did. Each one made their choice, and each one has to pay for it." her voice was a hiss.

The masks seemed to close in around him, moving within a breath of his eyes.

"You have to kill them Hal. You have to kill her." The echo rang out.

 

[Hal Terrano]

Excessive. Her solution was excessive.

Hal Terrano if anything, was a man who did not kill. Whether his robes were black or brown, it wasn't in his programming. Lira's death at the hands of Vrag was the closest he had ever come to wanting such a thing. He could remember his fists crumpling into the monstrous woman's spiked Yuuzhan Vong armour as he was overwhelmed with grief and rage.

He had wanted to kill then, yes, but it was the rarest of moments, perhaps the very peak of his downfall.

The faces of those pivotal women in his life circled him and stared. Nemene and Vrag commited atrocities, not simply upon him but upon the galaxy at large but he had always believed in apprehension before vengeance. Some would believe that they deserved to die, but he was hard-wired to believe otherwise.

Avalore. To be killed for not feeling the same way? For forgetting him? It was...too much. It was madness.

Still upon his knees the masks continued to encircle him, so close that it felt like suffocation. Ever-so-slowly the man shook his head. It wasn't a defiant rejection but a soft one.

“No...I can't...I can't do that. I won't kill...I won't...”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

He was unwilling to take that step. He was unwilling to take that dive, so she would have to push him. She would have to press him over the edge and completely twist him. It was a shame really, it would mean that he would be broken, that he would have but one thing within his mind. The environment around them changed once again, the hall shifting to a more open space, the darkness encapsulating and reaching them. The masks would suddenly float away from them and The Handmaiden would slowly float down to eye level.

"Hal." She said, her voice echoing. "Hal."

The Handmaiden repeated herself, and then suddenly began to twist and change. She grew shorter, a bit more stout, he face suddenly beginning to morph and twist in upon itself, horns completely disappearing in burning flames as her hair changed color too.

"Haaal." Her voice rang out one last time.

It took only a few seconds, the blink of an eye, the twist of a heart. The Handmaiden would transform, she would shift and become that which Hal coveted the most, would become the very spitting image of Avalore Eden. She would look up at Hal, her eyes locking on him. She was an exact mimic, a silent mime that would stare into Hal's eyes. She would say nothing, but instead simply stare, exert pressure into his mind and watch as he reacted.

 

[Hal Terrano]

So the nightmare continued.

The trio of faces floated away into nothingness as the backdrop to the scene became much of the same. It wasn't over yet, she wasn't done with him yet. Slowly, like a wounded animal Hal lifted his head to look up at this woman, this creature, features etched with both sorrow and pain.

His name repeated floated through the darkness, seemingly never ending as the woman before him began to change once more, a further strain upon his already shattered psyche.

Not this.

Avalore Eden.

He hadn't seen her face in so long. Perhaps in his mind but not there, standing before him. It had been years. Terrano's features began to twist, as if he had been stabbed in the stomach by the figure before him. It wasn't really her, but even still all the feelings that'd swam beneath his skin tried to burst forth like pus.

All that shame.

That guilt.

Even anger.

Still upon his knees, Hal's hands moved to cover his face, to cover his eyes, to hide. He didn't want to do this, he didn't want to see her. Never like this.

“...stop...stop this...”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]

 

[The Handmaiden]

[member="Hal Terrano"]

Avalore stood in front of him now, true to form. An exact copy.

She was a perfect image of his memories, the perfect statue, the perfect reverent image of the Jedi Master that Hal had cared about so much during his life as a Jedi. It was almost too perfect, almost too exact. There was a hollowness to her, a certain effect of simply...not being real. It was almost impossible to place, almost impossible to say what it was, but there was something off about it. There was no joy in her eyes, no care, nothing that one would have described as human.

"You deserve this." She said. "You deserve to be nothing."

Her voice would ring in Hal's ears. "Look at you. You're disgusting. Do you think I wanted to save you? Do you think Anyone wanted so save you?"

A sneer pulled across her face, false or real, it didn't matter. She spoke with such command in her throne, such authority and strength that it was hard not to believe her, eyes settling on Hal before her. There was a disgust within her gaze, a sickening feeling of absolute scorn and hatred. Was it real? Was she real? It was hard to tell, impossible, but she kept speaking, she kept pushing and press.

She kept telling the truth.

 

[Hal Terrano]

“...stop...”

These weren't revelations.

These were all thoughts that had existed within his mind for the past few years, and they weren't quiet subtle inklings. They were loud, they were screaming at every day, at every moment. When he walked or ran, every footfall came with another accusation.

WEAK.

COWARD.

DISGRACE.

These words may not have been new, but they had never been said by that voice. Avalore Eden has so often been the voice contrary to his doubts. The voice that told him to soothed him, that laughed softly when he failed to understand a turn of phrase, even the voice that scolded him kindly. So hearing her tearing into his crippling sense of self-doubt was nothing short of devastating.

His hands remained over his eyes, as he simply could nott bear to look at the healer's visage. He didn't want to look. He could scarcely imagine the look that accompanied that voice of scorn, and Terrano refused to let it be seen by his own alien eyes.

“...I...don't….I can't...”

It's always the same. I don't. I can't. I won't.

“...I want it all...to stop...”

---

[member="The Handmaiden"]