Ashin Varanin
Professional Enabler
“No.”
An upraised hand, and the shadow-Ashin paused in the middle of another crushing strike. “You have no power to command me.”
“But I have power to talk, and you have power to listen and make your own decision, wherever you spring from. If this is about my worthiness, hubris is significant, and I'm sure it's been crucial for every Jedi and Dagoyan who has come here to be tested. But not me. I may have redirected conquering hordes to targets that could resist them, but the blood of billions is on my shoulders. What kind of shackle could hubris be compared to that? Test me if you must, shade, but you're irrelevant.”
The tangled darkness of the cave withdrew, and in a flash of light Ashin found herself somewhere else. Somewhere deeply familiar.
The Spires of Hell. Bluespire, to be precise, ten thousand miles above the Strigari nomad's moon, with the spiky nomad hanging above her. This was the rimless balcony where she had trained a hundred Fringers in the Force, immense enough to hold a crowd, a dragon, everyone. And everyone was here, and everyone lay dead. She searched her heart, her instincts, for any sign this was illusion and not another teleportation. She found no such sign. They all lay dead, their bodies slashed and burned. Jared Ovmar, Sargon Vynea, Morna Imura, Alen Na'Varro, Rave Merrill-
Spencer Jacobs.
She fell to her knees, casting through the Force to find any spark of life, any hint of unreality, but everything she felt confirmed that this was wholly real. The worst fear, the ultimate failure.
“Ashin.”
The voice was deep, rumbling, ephimeral. She looked up through irresistible tears to find Velok's outline wavering before her.
“Ashin, let me take you somewhere.”
She stood; her toe brushed Spencer's fallen arm. Within one of the passages of the Spire, blue lightsabres glinted. Absolute hatred could destroy them – Apparine, Moridena, these jumped-up children playing god with her family. She could wipe them off the face of the universe.
Instead, she nodded, and the Whiphid grunted in satisfaction. His ghost-talons flicked, and a Spear of Midnight Black sprouted in the centre of her chest. In a jarring moment of physical pain that even blotted out her agony at Spencer's death, she was ripped from this place to somewhere else.
The Jedi Temple. A courtyard with a tree. A crowd – all those she'd just seen dead, garbed simply, peace in every face, a smile on all their lips as they noticed her. Jared, Sargon, Morna, Alen, Rave, all the rest. Velok himself, and Zaiden. Darron Wraith, Ben Watts, Daella Apparine, Diana Moridena, Joshua DragonsFlame, Selena Halcyon. All glad to see her, all pleasant together. All unharmed.
“Welcome, Master Varanin,” said Halcyon.
A hated suspicion grew into a certainty. “To see my family alive, at peace, accepted by the Jedi...transparent. So transparent.”
The Jedi Masters' eyes burned red, and blue lightsabres flared to life. A windstorm distorted reality, sweeping away light, detail, her friends, everything but the tree and the Jedi. Tyrfing's hypocritical light blazed, and she closed her eyes.
“Kill me. It's no more than I deserve. You'll get what's coming, at someone else's hand.”
When she opened her eyes, she stood on the nameless world, with Serenity standing before her. A long and silent minute passed, as reality re-imprinted itself on Ashin's mind, and clarity returned.
The masked priestess tilted her head. “Why do you persist in the life you lead, when in your heart you know that only death can absolve you of your crimes?”
“Why do I endure? Why do I keep fighting? Because of them – my wife, and all the people who depend on me, the people I promised to protect.”
“Do you think they can't do it on their own?”
“That's not relevant. Regardless, it's my responsibility to-”
“To what? What, exactly, do they need most?”
“Support. Guidance. Someone to stand at their backs, someone who knows what they need. And for Spencer – so that she'd never be alone. So that she'd-”
“Master Varanin, what part of this could you not accomplish if you used what we are going to teach you? And of that part, which is of one set but not the other...how much of that is sufficiently tied to your hubris that it may actually be holding you back from all you seek to accomplish on their behalf? You seek power to stay alive, and to keep them alive. You seek to stay alive, despite what you know of your redemption, in order to keep them alive – but Master Varanin, what if guidance and other means of support are mutually exclusive? What if you can only guide them in the ways they need – not for victory here and now, not for survival at any cost, but a victory for all time – if you are not there to fight at their side?” Serenity's question, like the priestess, hung in the air. “We will teach you what you want, because it is what you need to make your redemption complete. We will teach you...if you can be selfless enough to use it. Before your time.”
“How soon?”
“You'll know. But soon.”
“But look at them, priestess. They're not ready, they're not grown, they haven't accomplished the things they could have, and maybe they never will. I say I'd sacrifice myself for them, but look what I've done. And I could do so much more. So much more than them, more than I ever have. I can save the universe.” But the priestess said nothing, and Ashin hesitated. At last she let her shoulders slump. “You're right, of course. I borrowed time and then I stole it. It's been my time for years. So you'll teach me?”
“Master Varanin, I can promise you this. Let go of yourself and you will find the power to lead them to eternal victory.”
“How do I let go of myself?”
Orbs of dancing light appeared, dancing in through the trees, and warped into the other masked priestesses. “We are already showing you,” said Anger.
Another question took form, unbidden, and Ashin found words for it slowly. “Will I find peace?”
“You will find peace,” said Serenity. “You know the only way; all you have to do is walk it. Remember, child, the power of example. Many look to you, not for you to fight at their side, but to walk before them. What is better for those you love? To have you stand with them forever? Or to have your best self always before their eyes, present in another way?”
***
A physicist was asked, once, to explain relativity. His explanation acknowledged the spiritual dimensions of time, and hinted at what would eventually be known as the Anthropic Principle -- a matter of some debate. Insoluble. It had to do with the purpose of all things.
What he actually said, of course was this. “When you’re courting a pretty girl, an hour feels like a second. When you’re sitting on a hot coal, a second feels like an hour. That’s relativity.”
Ashin had courted a pretty girl and become well acquainted with hot coals. She understood perceptual time dilation. But try as she might, she couldn’t say how long her time with the priestesses felt. The most important thing, they assured her, was that she wouldn’t leave a century later, having slumbered through dynasties. Letting go of her sense of time, the urgency that drove her back to Spencer and her duties in the Fringe -- letting go of that was a major portion of her trials, and her training as well. In a specific and moderately disturbing sense, they wanted her to stop caring. Why should that be disturbing? Well, it came down to the standard set of mortal, experiential priorities, and those priorities’ insufficiencies in relation to the truths of the universe.
There was more to life than what she could see. They drilled that into her, five androgynous floating masked alien women in shapeless robes, until her new experience normalized.
At last she stood beneath the conflux of light that streamed up toward the surface, through the roof of the unbounded cavern.
“Someday you’ll return here,” said Joy and Anger simultaneously. She’d grown accustomed to the slightly different timbres of their voices, and the way they all adjusted their position in midair to give each other precedence when speaking.
“I hope so. I know you need nothing, but if there’s ever anything I can do…”
“Use what we have taught you,” said Serenity, and after a long moment, Ashin nodded. She called upon the Force, and began to rise, up through the yellow clouds and floating islands, up through accumulating strands of energy, up through the vertical shaft that led to the surface.
She found the Sojourn sitting right where it had been. The battered old diplomatic transport welcomed her with open arms. Ignoring the droids, she stumbled to her cabin and checked the time elapsed. A week, no more. Enough, hopefully. And hopefully not too much.
“Pilot?”
“Yes, ma’am?” the pilot droid called back.
Ashin lay back on her bunk and closed her eyes. “Take us home.”
“Where is home?”
“Don’t make me get profound here. Annaj will do fine. Take us to the Citadel.”
***
@[member="Spencer Jacobs"]
I found something I can't explain, something that's bigger than both of us. When I come back, I'm going to be different. Better. That's as much a statement of intent as it is a prophecy. I found out what I'm doing wrong, and how to fix it. I found out how to be what you deserve, what you need, and I learned to...well, I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
I found the key to victory, Spencer. Not defeating the Sorcerers of Rhand or the Republic or the Protectorate or the Confederacy, nothing like that. Victory for all time, they called it.
I can't wait to tell you about them, the ones who've been teaching me. You won't much like what you have to do to learn from them, what you have to become. Or maybe you will. You're always surprising me.
I hope I find a way to make it up to you, the things I’m going to have to do, the people I’m going to have to disappoint or scare or inconvenience. All of that will be banging at your door, and there’s so little I can do about it. But what I’m going to do is all for your good, and for the Fringe, and for the good of anyone who’s ever trusted me or followed me, through fire and water, through the Sith Empire or the Vagrant Fleet or the Fringe’s fight against the monsters of the dark. This is for all of them.
This is the day everything changes.
An upraised hand, and the shadow-Ashin paused in the middle of another crushing strike. “You have no power to command me.”
“But I have power to talk, and you have power to listen and make your own decision, wherever you spring from. If this is about my worthiness, hubris is significant, and I'm sure it's been crucial for every Jedi and Dagoyan who has come here to be tested. But not me. I may have redirected conquering hordes to targets that could resist them, but the blood of billions is on my shoulders. What kind of shackle could hubris be compared to that? Test me if you must, shade, but you're irrelevant.”
The tangled darkness of the cave withdrew, and in a flash of light Ashin found herself somewhere else. Somewhere deeply familiar.
The Spires of Hell. Bluespire, to be precise, ten thousand miles above the Strigari nomad's moon, with the spiky nomad hanging above her. This was the rimless balcony where she had trained a hundred Fringers in the Force, immense enough to hold a crowd, a dragon, everyone. And everyone was here, and everyone lay dead. She searched her heart, her instincts, for any sign this was illusion and not another teleportation. She found no such sign. They all lay dead, their bodies slashed and burned. Jared Ovmar, Sargon Vynea, Morna Imura, Alen Na'Varro, Rave Merrill-
Spencer Jacobs.
She fell to her knees, casting through the Force to find any spark of life, any hint of unreality, but everything she felt confirmed that this was wholly real. The worst fear, the ultimate failure.
“Ashin.”
The voice was deep, rumbling, ephimeral. She looked up through irresistible tears to find Velok's outline wavering before her.
“Ashin, let me take you somewhere.”
She stood; her toe brushed Spencer's fallen arm. Within one of the passages of the Spire, blue lightsabres glinted. Absolute hatred could destroy them – Apparine, Moridena, these jumped-up children playing god with her family. She could wipe them off the face of the universe.
Instead, she nodded, and the Whiphid grunted in satisfaction. His ghost-talons flicked, and a Spear of Midnight Black sprouted in the centre of her chest. In a jarring moment of physical pain that even blotted out her agony at Spencer's death, she was ripped from this place to somewhere else.
The Jedi Temple. A courtyard with a tree. A crowd – all those she'd just seen dead, garbed simply, peace in every face, a smile on all their lips as they noticed her. Jared, Sargon, Morna, Alen, Rave, all the rest. Velok himself, and Zaiden. Darron Wraith, Ben Watts, Daella Apparine, Diana Moridena, Joshua DragonsFlame, Selena Halcyon. All glad to see her, all pleasant together. All unharmed.
“Welcome, Master Varanin,” said Halcyon.
A hated suspicion grew into a certainty. “To see my family alive, at peace, accepted by the Jedi...transparent. So transparent.”
The Jedi Masters' eyes burned red, and blue lightsabres flared to life. A windstorm distorted reality, sweeping away light, detail, her friends, everything but the tree and the Jedi. Tyrfing's hypocritical light blazed, and she closed her eyes.
“Kill me. It's no more than I deserve. You'll get what's coming, at someone else's hand.”
When she opened her eyes, she stood on the nameless world, with Serenity standing before her. A long and silent minute passed, as reality re-imprinted itself on Ashin's mind, and clarity returned.
The masked priestess tilted her head. “Why do you persist in the life you lead, when in your heart you know that only death can absolve you of your crimes?”
“Why do I endure? Why do I keep fighting? Because of them – my wife, and all the people who depend on me, the people I promised to protect.”
“Do you think they can't do it on their own?”
“That's not relevant. Regardless, it's my responsibility to-”
“To what? What, exactly, do they need most?”
“Support. Guidance. Someone to stand at their backs, someone who knows what they need. And for Spencer – so that she'd never be alone. So that she'd-”
“Master Varanin, what part of this could you not accomplish if you used what we are going to teach you? And of that part, which is of one set but not the other...how much of that is sufficiently tied to your hubris that it may actually be holding you back from all you seek to accomplish on their behalf? You seek power to stay alive, and to keep them alive. You seek to stay alive, despite what you know of your redemption, in order to keep them alive – but Master Varanin, what if guidance and other means of support are mutually exclusive? What if you can only guide them in the ways they need – not for victory here and now, not for survival at any cost, but a victory for all time – if you are not there to fight at their side?” Serenity's question, like the priestess, hung in the air. “We will teach you what you want, because it is what you need to make your redemption complete. We will teach you...if you can be selfless enough to use it. Before your time.”
“How soon?”
“You'll know. But soon.”
“But look at them, priestess. They're not ready, they're not grown, they haven't accomplished the things they could have, and maybe they never will. I say I'd sacrifice myself for them, but look what I've done. And I could do so much more. So much more than them, more than I ever have. I can save the universe.” But the priestess said nothing, and Ashin hesitated. At last she let her shoulders slump. “You're right, of course. I borrowed time and then I stole it. It's been my time for years. So you'll teach me?”
“Master Varanin, I can promise you this. Let go of yourself and you will find the power to lead them to eternal victory.”
“How do I let go of myself?”
Orbs of dancing light appeared, dancing in through the trees, and warped into the other masked priestesses. “We are already showing you,” said Anger.
Another question took form, unbidden, and Ashin found words for it slowly. “Will I find peace?”
“You will find peace,” said Serenity. “You know the only way; all you have to do is walk it. Remember, child, the power of example. Many look to you, not for you to fight at their side, but to walk before them. What is better for those you love? To have you stand with them forever? Or to have your best self always before their eyes, present in another way?”
***
A physicist was asked, once, to explain relativity. His explanation acknowledged the spiritual dimensions of time, and hinted at what would eventually be known as the Anthropic Principle -- a matter of some debate. Insoluble. It had to do with the purpose of all things.
What he actually said, of course was this. “When you’re courting a pretty girl, an hour feels like a second. When you’re sitting on a hot coal, a second feels like an hour. That’s relativity.”
Ashin had courted a pretty girl and become well acquainted with hot coals. She understood perceptual time dilation. But try as she might, she couldn’t say how long her time with the priestesses felt. The most important thing, they assured her, was that she wouldn’t leave a century later, having slumbered through dynasties. Letting go of her sense of time, the urgency that drove her back to Spencer and her duties in the Fringe -- letting go of that was a major portion of her trials, and her training as well. In a specific and moderately disturbing sense, they wanted her to stop caring. Why should that be disturbing? Well, it came down to the standard set of mortal, experiential priorities, and those priorities’ insufficiencies in relation to the truths of the universe.
There was more to life than what she could see. They drilled that into her, five androgynous floating masked alien women in shapeless robes, until her new experience normalized.
At last she stood beneath the conflux of light that streamed up toward the surface, through the roof of the unbounded cavern.
“Someday you’ll return here,” said Joy and Anger simultaneously. She’d grown accustomed to the slightly different timbres of their voices, and the way they all adjusted their position in midair to give each other precedence when speaking.
“I hope so. I know you need nothing, but if there’s ever anything I can do…”
“Use what we have taught you,” said Serenity, and after a long moment, Ashin nodded. She called upon the Force, and began to rise, up through the yellow clouds and floating islands, up through accumulating strands of energy, up through the vertical shaft that led to the surface.
She found the Sojourn sitting right where it had been. The battered old diplomatic transport welcomed her with open arms. Ignoring the droids, she stumbled to her cabin and checked the time elapsed. A week, no more. Enough, hopefully. And hopefully not too much.
“Pilot?”
“Yes, ma’am?” the pilot droid called back.
Ashin lay back on her bunk and closed her eyes. “Take us home.”
“Where is home?”
“Don’t make me get profound here. Annaj will do fine. Take us to the Citadel.”
***
@[member="Spencer Jacobs"]
I found something I can't explain, something that's bigger than both of us. When I come back, I'm going to be different. Better. That's as much a statement of intent as it is a prophecy. I found out what I'm doing wrong, and how to fix it. I found out how to be what you deserve, what you need, and I learned to...well, I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
I found the key to victory, Spencer. Not defeating the Sorcerers of Rhand or the Republic or the Protectorate or the Confederacy, nothing like that. Victory for all time, they called it.
I can't wait to tell you about them, the ones who've been teaching me. You won't much like what you have to do to learn from them, what you have to become. Or maybe you will. You're always surprising me.
I hope I find a way to make it up to you, the things I’m going to have to do, the people I’m going to have to disappoint or scare or inconvenience. All of that will be banging at your door, and there’s so little I can do about it. But what I’m going to do is all for your good, and for the Fringe, and for the good of anyone who’s ever trusted me or followed me, through fire and water, through the Sith Empire or the Vagrant Fleet or the Fringe’s fight against the monsters of the dark. This is for all of them.
This is the day everything changes.
Word Count: 10,000 on the nose.