Gospel

[Arage Bao]

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION​

[member="Liya"]​

​

His master had died in his hands.

Wise, strong, confident, always a laugh just peeking around the corner of his mouth.

Dead.

There was nothing he could do about it and no matter how much he tried to knit back together the wounds... Gideon knew that the effort was wasted. His essence had already left his body, already the skin was cooling, already the sad smile was waning and already Gideon could feel loneliness starting to overwhelm him. The Jedi Knight rose up, fires around him, the heat was starting to rise as well and he knew that if he didn't go now that it would be too late for him as well.

His thoughts went briefly to his room, before realizing that everything he needed was already on him. His lightsaber and a set of robes, the contents of its pockets would have to do.

He left Master Draya there, amidst the fires and smoke, a pit of doubt only raising itself in his stomach. So self-involved and introspective was the Knight that he almost missed the feint sense of life next to him as he rushed beyond it.

So feint.

Barely holding onto life. It was tainted, yes, but... Draya had always said that every life mattered, no matter what they did with it.

"For you... Master." Gideon murmured, before kneeling down and wrapping his arms around the slender form of the Sith. It had to be Sith, tattoos, signature corrupted beyond repair, blood spattered on her skin that wasn't hers because her wound was a lightsaber burn.

It took him ten minutes, backtracking and climbing with her in tow, before the Knight dashed out of the burning Green Jedi enclave.

He fell, she fell with him, beside him.

Coughing, the smoke forcing itself through his lungs and causing them to constrict. Too much. Too much. But it was the Force beckoning just beyond that allowed Gideon to center himself, to find his breath and realize that his duty was not yet over.

The signature of life was quickly fading from... her.

Part of Blackford thought she deserved to die- a larger part felt shame at that admission. His hands were already cradling the gash of burned and scorched flesh, calling upon the Force.

Eyes closing and focusing.

Light shimmering softly from his skin.

"Not your time yet, I promised Draya."

 

[Rory Naasade]

Everything was pain.

Pain and cold.
Red mountain and red sands and
spikes reaching up into the black sky like
hungry fingers.

She huddled, a fleck, a shard, a shadow, silver and shiver. Somewhere, a line was drawn, tension singing up that wire to someone far away- or was it? Was it real or just an illusion, a phantom brought on by hurt and the slow, slow drain, drip by drip of existence as it was swallowed up by thirsty sands?

Time was meaningless. She had the feeling that it was both eternity and a single moment, all wrapped together and hanging on the tip of that jutting spike, but that was impossible.

Nothing existed but the pain.

Until, from one moment to the next, it did.

She didn't know what it was. But the hellscape shook and heaved. It rattled and clattered, stone on metal on stone.

Bones.

And the sensation of great,
tawny
eyes.


Pain. Weakness had kept her here, wherever here was.

It was fear, however, that galvanized her.

She didn't run. There was no running to be done, no running possible. But she clawed her way in the direction farthest away, eyes wide- if she could breathe, draw even a single breath it would be ragged and hard, too high in the chest and offering not enough to feed the lungs and brain as terror swept over and she moved.

Crawling up.

*****

For a long moment, the woman's heart stopped. No breath reached her lips. Preternaturally still. It would be easy, to tell himself that he had done everything in his power for her. To forgive himself, in the eyes of his master.

And then suddenly she drew a breath, hard, harsh, ragged. Heart fluttering in her chest.

Had he done that?

He must have.

With a shudder and a gasp, grey eyes flew open, darting around in something that could be mistaken for nothing other than the castings of a frantic animal. Fear, desperation.

And confusion.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

Empty inside as a stray hand brushed eyelids down and softly murmured a last rite.

She was Sith, but before that she had been a child, a daughter, perhaps a sister or a lover, before the woman dealt in pain she had known innocence how ever briefly. That is what Gideon kept telling himself, repeating his Master's lessons ad infinitum. He was already ready to let her go, dig a grave and bury her, before leaving this place... when it happened.

The shudder of breath hitching through her body and causing warmth and tension to return in her body. It was astonishing and all that Gideon could do was blink and stare at the woman in his lap.

She had been too weak, had she not? The wound healed... barely, but something tugging at the Sith hard and unwilling to fight against it. This usually didn't happen, scrap that, it never happened. Not once that Gideon could remember.

"You... live." Master grant me strength. "I did not think you had it in you."

Gideon knee she didn't have it in here, had he not seen it with his own eyes? Yet, here she lay, breathing, eyes wide open and staring in confusion.

"Who are you, why did you come here?" His tone became insistent.

 

[Rory Naasade]

For all of the comprehension in those grey eyes, he might have been speaking in another language entirely. Gaze cast frantically back and forth between his eyes and suddenly she was trying to sit up, trying to stand, trying to move- something anything because those sulfurous eyes were still somewhere behind her-

But she cried out, falling back again, surprise and puzzlement at the pain in her abdomen. She reached down, not touching the wound, but looking at it oddly and then back up at him.

"I ran," she whispered, eyes wide, but slowly realizing that whatever it was she was running from, it hadn't followed her from....

From where?

And to where?

"Who.... who am I?"

She frowned, not understanding the look on his face, the pain in his eyes.

"I.... I don't know... I can't remember. What.... where is this? What.... what happened?"

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

"Peace, the battle is over..." ...and they all lost this day. With much difficulty he managed to lower her to the ground, away from his lap and steady in purpose. Once more fabric was pushed away and the wound was studied intently.

Better.

But that quick movement had managed to tear some of the edges out again and that would be a problem.

"You- don't remember?" Gideon studied her face, taking in every detail, while his hands closed around her wound again. It elicited a hiss of pain, again she tried to pull away, but the cold of his hands spread around the area of her wound and calmed the fire she felt. "You and your... friends came at the edge of night." when the sun rose on the horizon and their watchers were blinded from red and orange. Then her and hers had come and started a battle neither side could truly claim a victory.

Not with only the two of them surviving.

"You slaughtered us in our sleep, but we fought back."

Pain-laced tone struggled as Gideon took some of her pain in him, easing hers while allowing him a glimpse inside. Just a glimpse and what the Jedi found there concerned him... it was ignorance, not in malice, but the one found in innocence.

But also guilt.

"You really do not remember, do you?" Even her presence was somehow dimmer, less here, weak, filled with doubt and fear. "We were a peaceful enclave of Jedi."

We didn't deserve this.

Fingers traced from the wound, closing on its own accord now, towards her neck and head, trying to find anything that would suggest her head had been hit somehow.

 

[Rory Naasade]

The blank look in her eyes told him everything.

Not a single word of what he said was familiar to her. She searched, trying to find some inkling of what he spoke of so heavily, but only came up against pain.

Impaled upon a spike.

Golden eyes.

​No sense of 'friends'. Of an attack. No memory of any of it.

But there was guilt.

A deep and wracking shame that seemed to fill every crevice of her soul. There was a great gap, a cavernous emptiness that it poured into, filling in deluge to the brim and threatening to spill over. That emptiness..... where her memories used to be?

He could be lying. But why? She didn't get that impression from the earnestness of his own heart ache, shining clearly through his eyes. She looked down at his hand on her wound-

The spike? Was that the pain she remembered? Her mind offering a different visual to cope with the idea?

How did she know about those things..... distantly she recognized the psychological implications of distancing, the brains capacity to protect itself from trauma and the brain's plasticity of experience.... but couldn't remember her name?

Her hand snaked out, grabbing his before it could move to her head, her face.

"I d-don't remember any of it," she whispered. "But I'm sorry..... I'm sorry...."

There was so much guilt, the weight of it crushing. Surely, that must be what it came from.

After all, who could slaughter innocents and feel nothing?

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

His hand was grabbed before he could move to her head.

Throughout it all Draya's teachings spoke sternly at the back of his head and they spoke of forgiveness, of acceptance, of finding peace within the Force and to never give into hate or thoughts of revenge. It was difficult, even the idea of holding her hand for a single moment felt like an eternity, but Gideon did not pull his hand back and instead squeezed it once.

"I believe you." And he truly did believe that she was sorry, it was one of the reasons why he could do this and ignore the nausea, but the Jedi did not offer forgiveness. No matter what Master Draya's words told him to do.

It was not his to give.

Perhaps for his own suffering, perhaps for the death of Draya or the good and kind Tizshi, but he had nothing to offer now.

Not yet.

"Let me look at your head." Softly Gideon disentangled his fingers from her hand and went to work. Exploring her scalp with careful fingers, rubbing, pushing and trying to find an angle of entrance he might have missed at first inspection. It took him a few minutes, before Blackford was satisfied that there wasn't anything wrong with her head.

Didn't mean she didn't suffer brain damage of some kind, but there wasn't a lot they could do here.

Gideon sighed. "Can you walk? I need some time to figure out... what to do with all of this." If possible, he would help her up to her feet.

 

[Rory Naasade]

She let him, not knowing what else to do. She felt helpless, confused. Nothing fit, settled at just off angles. What he was saying made sense with how she was feeling. Didn't it? It explained the pain, the guilt.... but where then, did the fear come from? If she had been the aggressor, who was it that loomed with golden eyes? That was why she was here. She just didn't know what it meant yet or how it factored into any of it.

The woman didn't answer right away, gaze distant for a moment before coming back to him.

"Was there anyone here.... with me..... with yellow eyes?"

It wasn't demanding, but it was with a greater force than any words she'd previously uttered.

"Please- I need to know- was there?"

Intent, insistant.

Afraid.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

He blinked.

Maybe the damage was internal rather than external. Pressure exerting a shake or something similar- Gideon wasn't a doctor, he knew the basics, yes, but unless the Force assisted him he could not actually provide any elaborate medical assistance. His focus had always been elsewhere, you could only train for a couple of things, before stretching yourself out made everything ineffective.

"Yellow eyes?" Once more Gideon couldn't sense any lies from her. The question was genuine, as was her lack of knowledge... unless she was far more powerful than he thought she was.

Powerful enough to veil her presence in the Force, to cloud her mind from him, to hide her intentions.

But that was the path towards paranoia and fear. The what if's would bury his thoughts and make him indecisive, his Master had warned him against such pursuits.

The most logical and simplest answer is usually the right one, Gideon.

"You fought with Sith, every single one of them had yellow eyes." Unless it was too much for her the Jedi would help her get back up on her feet, supporting her as she leaned against him. Now the question was where they would have to go. The entire complex was in flames and there wasn't actually-

Gideon blinked again.

Stupid, his mind on the here and now, forgetting the most obvious path for them. "There is a path nearby, leading near a river... that will be our salvation."

 

[Rory Naasade]

She was silent after that, trying desperately to fit the pieces together.

And failing.

Flailing.

Leaning on him heavily, the tightness of the half healed wound pulling with every step, she stared up at the fire. She.... they.... had done this. Killed them. Murdered them. Sith. She knew what that was, and there was no innate recoil from the word. If anything it had the comfortable familiarity of a well worn stone.

It only cemented for her that though she couldn't remember any of it, what he was saying must be real. Must be true.

It dovetailed into the feelings that welled up.

Almost.

Close enough, surely? But somewhere in the back of her mind, something was screaming. That all of this was wrong. Every last part of it, none of it fit because none of it was real. Reality looked.... like.... something else.

This was wrong.

But what other explanation did she have?

And attempting to claim any other explanation.... well.

She looked back over her shoulder at the fire as they moved away.

She had done that.

How could she possibly pretend otherwise?

"What happens now?" She asked softly, already knowing. There was only one thing it could be.

When someone lit a fire.... when someone killed others.... Justice was the only path forward. She couldn't tell where that unfailing awareness and stoicism on that particular thing came from. But at the moment, it didn't matter. Justice.... or revenge. Those were the only options in front of him.

And she wouldn't even pretend she didn't deserve it.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

Silence was her reply for a while.

Gideon wasn't ignoring her, he was mulling it over. "I don't know."

There were options here.

Always were options and one of them was revenge. Kill her now, execute her for her crimes and then see what happens after that. It was the wrong option and Gideon knew that the moment it popped up in his mind- the shame for even contemplating it, the stern expression of his Master looking down on him and shaking his head.

It was an impossibility.

"Justice demands you stand trial for what you and yours did." But that was the issue, was it not? Where would Gideon be able to find true justice for these deaths? Who could truly offer it to him? To those whose lives had been cut short by this butchery? The Silver Jedi Order? By all accounts they had their own problems to deal with - from the continued barrage of incursions against their territory by the Remnant and the First Order, and now apparently they had started a war on a third front.

Insanity.

What else was there?

The Metal Lords? They held Corellia, but they were not... they weren't Corellians and never would be.

The Alliance then.

Hazel eyes briefly skimmed over to Liya for a moment, as she struggled to maintain balance, they kept on the path. But it was difficult, the forestation was getting thicker the further they came, the path less solid and more sandy filled with rough rocks. They would execute her- her guilt was beyond dispute.

Did she deserve that?

No. But that wasn't his voice, it was his Master's and for once Gideon pushed it away, setting his jaw. If the Alliance decided that execution was the just punishment for this slaughter?

Then execution it would be.

All lives mattered.... and to not demand justice for the lives lost would turn them irrelevant.

"We will travel to the Galactic Alliance. They will give you a fair trial." That's what Gideon told her... told himself too, but words alone did not make for truth.

 

[Rory Naasade]

You and yours.

What you did.

She couldn't even find it in herself to be angry- to rail against it. Even if she didn't remember doing it, she could look down and see the blood and ash on her hands. Grey gaze traveled up from there, to tattoos that patterned her flesh. Most of them she didn't recognize, didn't know what they meant... to her or to anyone else. But one of them she knew. One of the runes traced in black on the soft, inner flesh of her forearm. Sith rune.

The evidence against her, even in her own mind, was damning.

Why couldn't she remember?

Name, history, why she was here- and yet she knew that she was not the kind of person to shirk from personal responsibility. So she swallowed it, took those sins and carried them into whatever desolate land stretched before her.

Never realizing they were the sins of others.

"The Alliance," she said quietly. "They.... don't-"

She stopped, the words 'like me' almost coming out.

How did she know that?

Of course they wouldn't, she grimaced. She was a sith that had murdered and set fire to a Jedi enclave.

Instead she nodded, chest full and heavy. There was something still wrong, but she couldn't pinpoint it. Couldn't separate her guilt from the simple answer of why she felt it. Why look deeper with a very, very good reason staring her in the face, after all? She knew, deep down, that she had hurt people. For her own gain. The fact that she didn't remember that it was these people in particular?

Did it matter?

If she had done it before and knew it, all the more reason to accept whatever they decided.

She deserved it.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

Gideon waited for her to elaborate.

The Galactic Alliance did not... what? Did not have fair trials? It didn't seem to be that, because her emotive state had nothing of the outrage and fury that would arrive with that sort of sentiment. Instead there was a sense of defeat, shame, loss and even fear. He ignored it, pushed it away and closed the door.

The world always seemed muted whenever the Jedi stopped listening to every breathing song around him, but sometimes it was necessary.

It was definitely necessary now.

"I will ensure they will treat you fairly." Inside of him the ugly animal roared in anger. It did not want her to be treated fairly, it wanted to rip and tear and make sure that she would suffer as much as those had suffered by her own hands. Gideon had seen her from across the corridors, slashing, cutting, laughing.

Smiling.

She had cut down dozens, younglings, padawans and even a Master. Gideon had not been able to save them, not one of them, but he could sense Draya watching over him.

Perhaps Blackford just imagined it, but every time he thought of revenge... disapproval welled up fiercely.

They arrived at the river and Gideon froze, by the creek was a form. Green robes and twisted, one arm still shaped in a claw, trying to crawl away from the battle and over the river to isolated safety. The Jedi lowered Liya carefully, before stepped forward and kneeling besides the body. He turned her around and brushed red strands of hair away.

Deema had always been a kind soul.

"Your fight has ended, but your journey has just begun." Gideon murmured, hand brushing eyelids shut and giving her her rites.

 

[Rory Naasade]

She almost said that hasn't been my experience.

But held it back the moment it leapt into her head.

Not because she was hiding it. But because she couldn't actually remember just what events had formed that opinion. She couldn't explain why she felt that way, just that she did. That bothered her, and so she kept it to herself.

Of course, a moment later, it all seemed deeply irrelevant.

She stayed where he left her, watching him. The hunch of his shoulders, the grief in the tugging at the corners of his mouth. The way he closed her eyes and the words he murmured. She didn't know them, they weren't anything ingrained on her psyche. But once again, she was struck with the weight of this is my fault. Surely, the blame could be spread amongst all of the Sith that had come here today. It was hard however to not draw it into herself when she was the only one left. The others.... they had gotten what they had deserved.

Watching him, she realized that she didn't deserve a fair trial.

Struggling slightly, she moved to her knees, settling into an uncomfortable and unfamiliar position. Sitting against her heels, kneeling. Head bowed.

In part it was out of respect for what he was doing.

But she didn't move from it when he approached again.

"I don't-" She struggled with it, voice breaking slightly. "I don't deserve a fair trial, Jedi. Kill me. If anyone has that right, it's you."

She didn't look up at him, hair hanging in her face as she spoke to the ground.

What she had taken from him.... she deserved worse than death, in truth. In a way, she realized, putting that in his hands made her a coward. Selfish. Because it would be easier to simply not feel anything than to truly get what she deserved.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member=Liya]

First confusion played on his expression as he turned around and noticed her sitting.

Then she spoke.

Understanding dawned and the pit inside his stomach grew more pronounced. Gideon hadn't even noticed its existence until his stomach dropped underneath him, until nausea returned and made the Jedi want to throw up. But underneath that, there was a struggle. Hands tightened, nails scratching deep against the skin of his palms and hunger made itself known.

Easy to ignore when you pushed yourself forward without looking back, but now Liya forced him to take a good long look at himself.

Was this not justice? Did she not speak the truth?

No. This is vengeance. He could practically hear his Master now, by his side, tone strict but understanding and Gideon knew he was right. This would not be justice and the people who lost their lives lost it because of the ideals they served.

It would have been a taint on their memory to break their ideals now..

"Everyone deserves..." Gideon swallowed the dryness away. If this was right... then why was it so hard? "-a chance to make things right. A chance at life. Maybe the Alliance will want your death, maybe they will want your salvation."

Frown as he thought about it.

"You deserve a shot at redemption, Sith." He looked back at the body of his friend. "...we all do."

There was warmth at the edge of his awareness. Draya approved, but why did it feel like he had betrayed everyone?

His hand curled around hers, pulling her up gently. "Come, we need to move."

 

[Rory Naasade]

She closed her eyes, waiting. But it never came.

The death blow that would end all of this.

His words were distant, as if heard through a long tunnel and it took her a moment to parse. It wasn't until he reached down to touch her hand, and she flinched- the weight of expectation of a death blow singing tension through every muscle of her body- that it sunk in.

She looked up at him, grey eyes confused, uncomprehending for a moment as he drew her up. She resisted for only a moment, then any trace of that drained from her and she simply nodded mutely.

Despite her willingness to let him end it, she didn't want to die. There was relief, a flood of it that almost turned her knees into jelly and sent her back to the path on her knees. But after just a single stumble she righted herself.

"I'll accept whatever punishment they deem appropriate," she said, looking away from him. "I don't know.... if there's salvation. For something like this. But if they let me live....."

She paused, looking back at him. The guilt, surely from these people she had slaughtered, pressed like a weight. She didn't remember the act itself, but there was real regret in the lines of her face, the tightness around her eyes. Whatever she had done, she wasn't sure she could forgive herself for. Not when it felt like this.

"I'll do my best to make it count."

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

Everyone deserves a chance.

But Gideon couldn't bring himself to saying it again. The first time had been agony, but now that they were moving he forcibly pushed his mind forward and away from this moment. Perhaps he would come to regret it in the future. But he lived in the here and now and in the now? He wouldn't have been able to live with himself, staining his hands with blood.

It was one thing to kill in a fight- difficult, never the easy path, but it was possible.

To do it while she was kneeling, eyes closed?

Impossible.

They walked alongside the river, until eventually the roaring churn of the waterfall welcomed them to a sheltered lake. Forest was all around them and the great rock wall rose up along the waterfall.

"The Masters had an isolated hangar bay installed behind the waterfall." Gideon informed her, before steadying her as she stumbled from the loose rocks around the bedding of the river. Her balance was improving with the amount of time walking, but the Jedi could feel how much it took out of her to do this.

Almost there.

"After the breaking of Corellia and the chaos... we figured it was best to have a place to evacuate from, if something would happen."

Not that it helped them much today.

 

[Rory Naasade]

It didn't take them long to reach the hangar. A small transport was their destination, and she looked around thoughtfully. All of this put in place by....

Deadmen.

At her hands.

Looking down, she flexed her fingers, every line and crevice still rimmed with blood.

She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply. There was a pause in her step, but she started up again when he kept walking, only the barest hitch betraying it. Up into the belly of the ship they went, both grown quiet with their own thoughts and, she assumed, the undesirability of casual chatting with the murderer of his friends.

"Do whatever you need to do to feel safe while we travel," she said out of nowhere. "I understand."

Their blood was on her hands. And while she was injured, he was a fool to not bind her hands. To lock up her somewhere.

[member="Gideon Blackford"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Liya"]

His thoughts had been circling around that very problem.

The issue was that their transport hadn't been made with prisoners in mind. No universal force cages that would rebound force powers, not even a regular cell with bars, the closest they had was a hold where they put their supplies during short jaunts to other places. They hadn't been the Galactic Alliance, their focus wasn't on apprehending criminals, killing Sith, none of that. Perhaps that was the reason why she and hers had targeted them in the first place.

An easy mark that wouldn't fight back, but would send a message to the other enclaves.

Hadn't gone that way, of course. The fact that they didn't want to fight didn't mean that they couldn't and wouldn't. It made him briefly think of a conversation between him and Draya during his first year with them.

But Master, you teach peace and quiet and patience... why then are we taught how to kill?

Draya had looked sad, but there was also a hint of bemusement, already the Jedi Master was getting used to insistent questioning anytime he said something. Any explanation was met with more questions, hungry devoured like a black hole. It was silent for a while, until the Jedi nodded. You are right, of course. Draya responded before sitting down and gesturing for the seat next to him. We do practice peach and patience in all that we do, Gideon. But... we also realize that we cannot protect anyone, if we cannot protect ourselves.

"You could have killed me many times over already." Gideon pointed out as the ramp closed behind them and they passed through the cargo bay and into the ship proper.

"Why haven't you?"

No cell, no shackles, but they could improvise. His eye was caught by rope discarded in the corner of the 'living room'. Picking it up Gideon gestured for her to follow him into the cockpit. He needed to keep an eye on her and he wouldn't be able to do that while she was in a different room, it was all about.. precaution.

Why did Gideon feel silly? Why did he feel shame for feeling it wasn't necessary?

 

[Rory Naasade]

Reaching the cockpit, she turned toward him, offering her hands. But with a shake of his head and a gesture, she nodding, turning around, away from him, and putting her hands behind her.

She started out the view port, into the hangar. Hints of the greenery outside were visible through a slice she could only assume were the main doors they'd be leaving through, since their entrace had been far too small to accomadate the ship.

She didn't answer him right away- not because she didn't have an answer- she knew as soon as he asked. But trying to reconcile the immediate, instinctive response with the knowledge that she had killed, or helped kill, everyone in that compound but him.

"I don't.... I'm sorry, but I just don't remember anything that came before now. I.... I believe you. When you say what happened. I can.... I can see it-"

The blood on her hands, he couldn't possibly miss it as he was binding them.

"But please.... believe me when I say that I have no desire to hurt you. Or anyone. Never again. It's why.... why I'm going with you now. Because maybe.... maybe there's.... some way..... to.... I can't undo it. I don't even remember it. But I want to try. To make up for it. In whatever way I can."

[member="Gideon Blackford"]