Private Cast a Light

[Rakaan Horne]

He was so soon stunned into a brief silence, his face contorted in disbelief as a result of the extent of the uttered lie. Rakaan believed it was a lie, nonetheless, but ever combative - even with words, the former-Jedi could not resist the chance to offer an answer. "I am no Jedi," his immediate counter stated, "But convenient is not what I call fact."

"You are monsters, all Sith are." He continued and said as much as matter-of-fact, "Genocide, that's the aim of the Maw. Or was, when Solipsis was still alive. Utter annihilation. If you can stand there and tell me that there is merit to that side of the Force, then you're as insane and delusional as the rest."

Darth Daiara

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia simply raised a brow. His was not the first up-turned nose she had ever seen, nor would it be the last. Aradia had spent her life-time dealing with people like him. She survived because she knew how to pocket a fight, and just how to get a dig in later.

"You sure sound like one to me."

She held his gaze and closed the distance, lingering just far enough to avoid a saber to gut if he decided to snap one to life. Her energy rang with the faint taunt of the darkness, as indiscernible as mist as it coiled around her.

"What is your name?"

 

[Rakaan Horne]

He seemed pleased with himself, a smirk evidently spread across his face as his eyes gleamed with self satisfaction. She had no retort, Rakaan mused internally.

“Rakaan,” he answered confidently with the tilt of his head, “And what’s that to you?”

Darth Daiara

 

[Darth Daiara]

"Well," she started, stepping past him and moving down a new hall. "You're standing on my ship. You're insulting me. You're refusing to go. I just want to what name I should have on your grave when I give you what you want." She keyed in a quick number, then turned as the flight deck opened.

"Buckle up, I'll take you to her." Her lips twitched as she waited for the exact moment the jedi realized his ego had gotten him in over his head. Sometimes the way to neutralize someone was to give them exactly what they asked for.

 

[Rakaan Horne]

Rakaan mused on the idea of it all. To find himself in the belly of the beast, the midst of a Sith den; one stroke of his saber, that's all it would take to plunge their kind into further barbarism and set them on the road to continued destruction. The Jedi could continue their assault, them and their armies to follow that carved in coridoor into the heart of the Maw. Or the Empire could make a move against them, the Imperial Knight thought, to strike at the Sith and defeat them again as they had before. It hardly mattered, as long as the Sith were dead. Extinct, but that was once thought before. It was only a matter of time before their resurgance, but maybe then the Galaxy could be ready.

"Try a little harder," Rakaan remarked as he paced after the Sith apprentice, "I didn't come here to hitch a ride to Exegol. I came here to bring her to me, not the other way around. You're the bait."

His features almost soured, softly, slightly, until a subtle shake of his head followed. "You're just some misguided kid," he groaned and muttered in annoyance, "Better off sending you away from here, let you learn what Sith really are."

Darth Daiara

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia sighed and flicked her engines on, her squared and cognitive of his presence behind her.

"You're so naive." And she was a sentimental fool. All it took was one rouge scoundrel that reminded her of him and suddenly she's a softy. Maybe he was watching. Maybe she'd get points for letting this one go. It was a fantastical justification, but they were... all she had. Either there was some cosmic camera following her around that Zaavik was tuned into, or he was dead.

Or hated her. Or was being tortured right now.

She turned, pained lines finding their way to the corner of her eyes. "I know the sith. I know the jedi too. You want to know how two of our kind ended up rouge together? We stopped buying the chit others said."

Rakaan Horne

 

[Rakaan Horne]

Some dismal sense of self overcame him, his eyes softened and his mouth frowned. Part of him resonated with the idea. Rakaan was neither Jedi nor Sith now, another former-Jedi in the arms of the Imperials. He wondered, if but for a moment, if there was much difference between them and him. Had Rakaan not come to his own beliefs, for one reason or another? Possibly, the man considered, even as all the lessons of the Jedi still felt so firmly entrenched within him.

He made his way towards the exit.

"Just..." He breathed in a sigh, "Take a look around the Galaxy. See who's hurting people, who's saving people. If you can't see reason then... the darkside has a stronger hold on people's minds than I thought."

Darth Daiara

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia scowled, the insinuation darkening her already frustrated mood. "Do me a favor. When you get home to your comfortable little life of righteous jedi, look up Ziost. Look up Bastion. Look up Korriban. Look at what they did to the Academies there, and tell me if this war you hate is really as one sided as you claim.

"The MAW didn't exist until your jedi tried to kill us all. They slaughtered us. Like we're animals-- using pretty little words like purge instead of murder. I'm sorry that my attempt to survive doesn't meet your high moral standards, but take a look around," she mocked.

"There are no good guys. Just agendas and the idiots that buy them."

 

[Rakaan Horne]

"Your little genociders died," the Imperial callously replied with his hands lazily thrown up in protest. He remembered the worlds plagued by the darkside and their cleansing crusade torn into the heart of them all, the acts that had seen to the hold of it torn out root and stem, and though the act of killing brought no joy, the promise of a better tomorrow it enabled certainly had. "The Sith are animals and murderers, chaotic forces of evil."

His hand held onto the frame of the craft's doorframe, on the verge of leaving altogether. "For what it's worth, I'm no Jedi." Rakaan solemnly confessed, "Though I'm not so blinded by my hate for them that I can consider the Sith a victim in the Galaxy. The Sith Empire, the Maw; two sides of the same coin, one just lied about what kind of evil it was."

The former Jedi huffed with a small fragment of amusement tinged through with mild frustration after seconds of idle air. "There's good and bad out there," he nodded along, "Just don't lie to yourself about which is which."

Darth Daiara

 

[Darth Daiara]

Pah, she breathed, giving it all up. "Are you talking to me, or yourself? I see the darkness on you. You're going to eat yourself alive if you don't stop this bullshit. But what do I care? I'm just a monster." She mocked again.

Could she hurt him now?

Zaavik would have. He hated this arrogance. He hated the finger pointing and and yet-- Zaavik was the exact same way. Her composed demeanor grew heavier, like a thousand invisible molecules collected on her shoulder, gaining mass that weighed down the whole room.

"Get out of my ship," she spat.

Rakaan Horne

 

[Rakaan Horne]

Yes, his own mind decidedly mused. Even as Rakaan wished for another outcome, to not be so burdened with a darkness that boiled from within; all the time that had been between the believed loss of his own life and the abandonment that ensued. Some small sliver of the man wished all those times she referred to him as a Jedi had been true to the fact, no matter all the hate that existed around them - to be back there, in the then rather than the now, a fresh-faced Jedi Knight so content to take on the Galaxy.

Neither Sith nor Jedi now, somewhere between in whatever school of the Force the Imperial Knights held themselves to. It felt rotten and foul, and a war for his own soul had been waged. It disgusted him, no more than it allowed Rakaan to be disgusted with himself.

Wordlessly, the Imperial stepped off and made way for the not-so-distant crowds along as he raised his hood over his head.

She was right, as much as Rakaan refused to openly admit it. On both counts.

Darth Daiara