Private The Unofficial Trial of Jem Fossk

[Jem Fossk]

A week.

That's how long it took for a half-blooded Firrerreo to grow a face back. For any other species it was an remarkably quick recovery, for Jem it was a lifetime. She laid in a medical bacta bath, deprived of her senses and imprisoned in her own mind. She was unable to speak, or see, or die. Her body frequently thrashed against the nightmares that chased her through the haze. Her spots of clarity were filled with tortuous anticipation. Someone was keeping her alive. She dreaded their reasons.

She didn't know if her had father died or survived her betrayal. She supposed it didn't matter. She was just as much a traitor to the jedi as she was the sith. Whoever had her would make her pay.


The doctors tried to prepare her for the summoning but there was only so much that could be said. Their platitudes of safety were hallow. Safety was an illusion. Her father showed her that.

Her heart slugged against a necessary sedative as the chamber doors opened. She couldn't look up. She could barely make her shaking limbs step into the room. They had cut her off from the force but she could feel her fear all the same. These were all people that she had loved.

She stood frail, her skin an ashen gray.

Consumed.


Valery Noble Dagon Kaze Corin Trenor

 

[Dagon Kaze]

In a chamber full of seats, a raven-haired Jedi remained standing. Orthodox ethics and conduct of an ancient past had, for the most part, eluded his generation of the New Jedi. Sitting, remaining still, everything that didn't demonstrate some form of motion, of action, had been equated to passivity and apathy. Robes and tunics draped the hubris that had led to the deterioration of their elder Jedi, their comfort had been cast away for the confines of leather jackets.

And yet, the last weeks had all but realigned him more and more with the old teachings of his master Asmundr Varobalder ; teachings and lessons Dagon had dodged left with every second step he took. Where before he would seek the thrill of a chase and a fight across the skyscrapers of Denon to exert away his mistakes through the sweat peeling off his flesh, now the Knight had spent the days in the solitude of meditation. Tython had scratched off the last remaining names of his closest ones - those with which he had marched into the Stygian Caldera. He felt like one of the last of a dying breed and the guilt of surviving had all but plagued his meditative trances like a dark veil obscuring the center he longed for. Needed.

But Dagon had a vow to withhold. A vow to the Order and the galaxy. And by the Force's will, everything hinged upon the resolution of today's trial. In more ways than one, Jem's fate was the knot that had tied his pasts and futures together.

His chest tightened as the doors slid open revealing her pallid, sickly form - it mirrored the state of his soul, broken and shattered. The wounds across his face and body itched at her sight as if they were once more cut open by her saber. The grim facade over his facade mirrored everything Dagon had never been.

No words escaped his lips, but his sullen gaze settled over her.

Valery Noble Jem Fossk Corin Trenor ​

 

[Valery Noble]

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Location: Trial Room
Appearance: Link
Tag: Jem Fossk Dagon Kaze Kahlil Noble Corin Trenor

Pain.

It was a constant pulse in the Force within the trial room. Tython had been disastrous for all those who were there to withstand the Maw's attack, but what she felt from Dagon and Jem was far beyond what she had experienced herself. On Tython, her mind had taken a beating worse than her body, but she hadn't lost people close to her the way Dagon had, and she certainly couldn't relate to the way Jem was feeling about the massive changes in her life.

But that's why she wasn't alone today — she had brought along her husband because Kahlil Noble understood better than anybody here what it meant to be Sith, what it meant to leave them, and the difficulties that came with such transitions. She was here as a member of the NJO Council, and as a friend to support another, but he was here to offer her a perspective she could never truly grasp.

Valery knew it was going to be extremely helpful.

Finally, her eyes turned to Jedm as she actually stepped into the room, and her appearance brought a frown to her face that lingered. She had seen the woman many times, back when she was staying with Yula and Dagon on Denon during her pregnancy — it felt like ages ago, and so much has changed, and not for the better. It was difficult to realize that all of this was real and happening right now, but it was their reality.

 

[Corin Trenor]

Corin felt a burn on his side. It was the line - the crease of scar tissue that settled next to his stomach. To see Jem, it allowed for the remembrance of that and all that formed it. His features, absent of all emotion and otherwise forced into a blankness, were lined with various small cuts and slices, as much as the rest of his form coated in leathers had become a canvas for them as well as bruises. He last remembered her face a bloodied mess, a testament to his own failure to be as fast as he needed to be; she was dead, of that Corin had been convinced.

'I should not be here.' It rolled around in his mind, no matter which corner it ran to, it returned to be even more irksome has before. Corin had so little to offer, but this was a lesson nonetheless. Had that been the cause behind it? Some lesson? Had it been a time to learn, a time to see his Master in a state of brutal defeat. He wished to return to Denon, to don his favoured mask and hide from one set of responsibilities in another.

"Get on with it." His attention turned to his Jedi seniors, an uncertain look stretched across his features as he cut into their silence. The Golden Starbird, pinned to his collar, felt heavier than ever.

Someone say something...

It was torture to suffer in the silence, to see the words on their faces for none of them to be uttered. He wondered, for a brief moment, how it must be for Jem to confront all their quiet shame.

Dagon Kaze Jem Fossk Valery Noble Kahlil Noble

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[Jem Fossk]

Jem flinched at the voice that broke the silence. She knew who that was. Their presence was a hot lance of pain in her chest.

Her red eyes snapped up and glared at Corin.

"Careful, padawan," she mocked, unable to stop herself. "Hate me and you'll fall." Her pain pulsed audibly in her ears and made the rest of the room inconsequential. She straightened from her slump, her chin set defiantly as she finally met her master's gaze.

"Then you can replace him too."

The fear left her aura, the chaotic energy souring to callous spite. It was a thick skin that protected her from the horrible reality of his pain. What did he want from her? An apology? It would change nothing.

She was still a Sith.

Dagon Kaze Corin Trenor Valery Noble Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"Fear leads to anger. Then to hate. It's very much how the Sith work, right?" Kahlil set a hand on Valery's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. Everyone here was so sullen and broken. For what? He actually laughed as he found a place to sit down, shaking his head.

"You're all alive, y'know. Not many can say that in this war. So say what you need to say, now that you can."

Dagon Kaze | Corin Trenor | Jem Fossk | Valery Noble

 

[Dagon Kaze]

The doors hissed close behind Jem and an eerie silence settled chilling the bones. No one seemed to dare to speak as if the tension that hung over their heads would collapse like an avalanche of rocks. Surprisingly, it was Corin who broke the stillness of the room but only aggravated the looming friction. He and Jem together had been nothing more than rock and tinder in a stack of hay.

Kahlil was quickest to dowse the rising smoke, bathing the chamber in a cold shower of clarity -- they had all lived. Survived. Still breathed unlike most of their friends, mentors, peers, and loved ones. Dagon latched onto it desperately, loosening the noose of survivor's guilt wrapped around his throat.

"Enough." his gaze drifted between Jem and Corin, "Kahlil's right -- now's the time to talk and find a path forward for both of us, Jem. Whatever it may be." she had fallen to the Dark Side but Dagon had failed to prevent that. It was why Valery and Kahlil, both far more experienced than the former two, were here - to assess the situation and find the correct decision for the Jedi Order as a whole.

Jem Fossk Corin Trenor Kahlil Noble Valery Noble
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[Valery Noble]

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Location: Trial Room
Appearance: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jem Fossk Dagon Kaze Corin Trenor

When Kahlil's hand settled on her shoulder and squeezed it, Valery's body visibly relaxed and she briefly met him with a soft smile. He was right, and it was important for them to not forget that they were alive, and that this was about moving forward. They couldn't allow themselves to remain stuck in the past —in the pain and anger.

Her eyes then shifted to Dagon as he spoke, and Valery nodded in agreement, "There are many paths forward, and I'm here to help make a decision for that in the end. But to do that, I need to know where exactly we currently stand." She looked between Dagon, Jem and even Corin. Whatever caused all of this to grow and reach a conclusion that brought everybody together in this room was mostly between them. So she needed to understand their perspectives better.

Deep down, she hoped a path of recovery could be recommended and followed — Valery had a lot more experience with that now, and would even be able to help guide it along. But not all can be redeemed or sometimes, they just aren't ready for it yet. But if one person could open Jem's mind to change, it would be her former Master. The bond between a Padawan and Master could never be underestimated, even if the corruption of the dark side severed it at any point. There was always something that lingered in the Force and within the people themselves.

"Jem, Dagon, this might be the right time for you both to be open about everything that happened, and about where you stand for the future."

 

[Jem Fossk]

A noise caught in her throat. The insinuation of resolution was almost cruel. Did they not understand? "I have fallen. I am the Dark Lords, Daughter. I'm their key. There are no other paths. As long as I am alive, his vision will come to be. Are you all so stupid?"

Her voice echoed out around the room, raw with spite. She did not know the hand she played in the resolution of Typhon. She didn't think it mattered. Her father had turned her into a weapon. There was only one path for her.

She swallowed back the shame and managed to look at every face there, desperate to find one that understood.

"You have to let me die. He can't win, you have to do it-- he can't--" Her state switched on a dime, her alert mindset quickly crumbling to unhinged dissociation. She repeated the words like warning broadcast.

"He can't, he can't, he can't."

Corin Trenor Dagon Kaze Valery Noble Kahlil Noble

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"He's dead."

Kahlil had intended to mostly sit in an advisor position here, add insight where he could to help the other Jedi from his own experience. That didn't really last, watching Jem struggle through it all. He understood. He'd been there. He still was, in a way. But she'd done something he hadn't been able to, despite running from the Sith, despite refusing his family and the darkness they brought.

"Because of what you did, he was defeated. You beat him. I can't praise you for trying to throw away your life, but that resolution is the only reason he's gone."

Corin Trenor | Dagon Kaze | Valery Noble | Jem Fossk

 

[Jem Fossk]

The air left her. Her knee slammed into the tile, smarting as the news brought her to heel. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't trust her own memories, or the reassurance of jedi who had tricked by the maw before. Her eyes went to Dagon, seeking out confirmation from the one person whose judgement she knew would be sound.

Could it be true?

Were they safe from her father?

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Dagon's judgment was anything but sound.

The razor that was the detective's mind had been dulled over the course of this war. Dulled by the wariness -- the fear -- from the consequences of his decisions. He had remained overprotective of his padawan, always cautious in trusting her to spread her wings and when he had braved that line - Jem fell to the Dark Side. In the thousand scenarios, the thousand contingencies the Jedi investigator had spawned, he had lost his solid grasp of reality. So much that he did not even realize Jem had not known the outcome of her actions on Tython until Kahlil's revelation.

"He's dead." he confirmed dryly, the reality of it reminding him gravely of the cost they had paid to bring Solipsis down. "The Dark Lord's dead." he repeated as if to reassure his own self of the fact. "You turned on him, Jem... freed yourself from the corruption in our greatest hour of need." Dagon softly reaffirmed Kahlil's words but his apprehension kept him nestled in place, not daring to take a step forward. Each intimate approach he had tried before to redeem his own twin brother had resulted in the latter's deeper fall to the darkness.

He swallowed hard, pursed his lips, and looked at Valery for guidance.

Jem Fossk Corin Trenor Kahlil Noble Valery Noble
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[Valery Noble]

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Location: Trial Room
Appearance: Link
Tag: Kahlil Noble Jem Fossk Dagon Kaze Corin Trenor

When the revelation hit Jem, Valery could see the effect it had on the young woman. The surprise, the doubt — she had turned against her own father, but not been able to see what happened as a result. It was only when Dagon, someone she trusted even now, confirmed what Kahlil said, that she seemed to accept it.

And at the same time, she heard those words echo over and over again in her mind.

"He can't, he can't, he can't."

The eyes of those around her finally turned to her while she sat in silence and just listened to the conversation. The tension and emotions in the room had changed very abruptly now, but it was still important to push this trial forward. After a few seconds of thought, a single question for Jem came to mind.

"Why?"

She let it linger for a moment and kept her fiery gaze fixed on just Jem, "Why did you do it?"

 

[Jem Fossk]

Dagon couldn't look at her. She tried to force it-- her own gaze heavy as she followed his every muscle twitch. No amount of willing got him to acknowledge her again. It hurt more than any of this-- her fall, the shame, they were credits in a bucket compared the realization that she was no longer a person to her master. Everything from Before had ceased to be.

She was a sith.

"Why?"

She let it linger for a moment and kept her fiery gaze fixed on just Jem, "Why did you do it?"

Her jaw worked at the air, fighting against herself. "I didn't," she finally answered, not looking away from Dagon. She watched the ticks of pain across his face. She felt his withdrawal with poignant clarity. She forced herself to witness it all, afraid that her own resolve would crumble to the presence of old friends.

There was no going back. No going back. She looked to Valery and clarified.

"I didn't turn on my father, he never actually had me. Not the way he wanted. When he took me I-" Her chest squeezed. "I survived. That was all I could do-- survive. I didn't chose it, I just used it. I did what none of you could do to stop him, and even then I almost failed..." There was only one person in the galaxy that would understand that statement-- another friendship lost to the cost of what had to be done. Ishida Ashina

She picked herself off the ground, each clank of her chains driving home her resolve.

"Which is why you need to kill me; so it never happens again."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

It was hard to speak with the situation’s complexity at hand. Normally, Ishida would have leapt at the request of a Sith desperate to be killed. In any other circumstance, the white-haired warrior would have been all too happy to eliminate one more dark soul from plaguing the galaxy with its infectious malfeasance, but this was no such case.

As soon as she heard about the story of the Dark Lord’s daughter, Ishida’s mind cast back to those conversations shared with the shimmery-skinned duelist. They’d found mutual ground under the gravity of blood, and the great, heaving effort it took to defy evil fathers.

If Ishida ever used the term friend, Jem might have met the scope. In an alternate reality, Ishida might have been the one to hand Jem the sword to kill herself with.

But in this one, the silver-sometimes-gold-skinned-daughter-of-the-damned was in chains.

All because of one conversation. That was the risk of words. They sometimes took the shape of suggestion, or inference, and wormed into the ears of the believing and opened up the risk that whatever was conceived in camaraderie was an acceptable venture.

Whatever the cost."

To that end, culpability was the only thing that kept Ishida present. And her tongue held.

She watched as Jem vied for Dagon’s attention unabashedly, desperately, and the Noble’s appealed similarly at Jem for more motive. Only the other Jedi, Dagon’s new Padawan, held a manner of stoicism.

"Which is why you need to kill me; so it never happens again."

Silver eyes rolled.

Usually placid and indifferent, Ishida could hardly stand the proceedings of this so-called trial. It was all about emotion and attachment, and she stepped forward from her silence.

“You know nobody in this room will kill you.” Her voice was thin and sharp. Almost irritated. The jury was out on whether that irritation lay with Jem or those presiding over the arbitration. "Not when there's the chance for redemption.

But that is your unique position, depending on your redeemer.

You hold..a lot of information and connection. Not just with The Jedi,” she gestured to the medley of eyes in the room, then looked back at the Fosskspring. “But with your father. There was nobody else that could have gotten as close to him in the way you did, try to appeal to The Voice as you did because there was nobody else he paused for or wanted to trust.

No other he gave as much opportunity to.”

Her expression remained listless.

“What you did to leverage that opportunity, to make it believable, is probably the testimony you should indulge on.”

---

Jem Fossk | Valery Noble | Kahlil Noble | Dagon Kaze | Corin Trenor

 

[Jem Fossk]

“You know nobody in this room will kill you.” Her voice was thin and sharp. Almost irritated. The jury was out on whether that irritation lay with Jem or those presiding over the arbitration. "Not when there's the chance for redemption.

Jem knew that voice. It's reedy pitch was almost welcome inside that stale chamber. She found the speaker in the far back corner and almost, almost, smiled at her final inflection.

redemption

They shared the narrow view on the viability of a sith in their world. It was an fact she thought she could lean on-- the first set of eyes in this room that would understand-- but as Ishida continued on Jem found herself increasingly disappointed.

Betrayed, even.

“What you did to leverage that opportunity, to make it believable, is probably the testimony you should indulge on.”

Red eyes narrowed on Ishida's bland expression. "Why? So they can get it in their stupid heads that there's a chance? I thought you were beyond notions like that." Chains clanked as she tried to step towards her, specks of warm color moting her cheeks as she faced off her friend Ishida. Her accusation needed no words, nor did the desperate plea that laced it all.

Don't let me become this.

Her features twisted as she broke away, addressing the whole room again.

"Well I hate to disappoint, but she is wrong. The only leveraging I did was holding off my fall for as long as I could. It was not a farce, I wasn't given the chance.

He broke me the first night.

I don't feel the light anymore. He took it away, there's only the dark," she informed, her voice cracking at the confession. "Even now, with these cuffs, I sense it. It's calls for me-- it's waiting for me."

The specks of warmth died on her skin, leaving her ashen as she faced the cold silence of the room.

"I am the Dark Heiress. It's fated."

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Ah man. Kahlil scratched at the back of his neck, glancing between everyone now. He wasn't here to put Jem on an actual trial. Hell, he cast Ishida a rather disappointed frown. What did talk of redemption or testimony matter to a girl who'd been through that kind of evil first hand? No, no. Most Jedi didn't understand what it was to face the darkness when they were powerless to resist.

When they were prisoners.

"Hello, Dark Heiress. I'm the Dark Vessel." Dad humor. He was a dad, it was fine.

Not that he was smiling. "The Dark's never going to leave. You're right. Every day will be a struggle to push past it's influence. But it's a struggle you only loose when you give up. From the moment I was created, my father, Carnifex, intended for me only to be a vessel. So when his body died, he could just move onto mine. When he did, I'd cease to exist. So I dove into the dark to prove myself. Become a Sith that didn't need to just be erased. Become something of value.

I've done terrible things for that sake. There's no amount of redemption or testimony that will erase those sins. And yet, there's nothing wrong with surviving. The Sith are not a place where you can survive unscathed. You survived him. And because of it, he was defeated. I can't say the same."

He leaned back in his seat before waving a hand towards one of the guards. "Would you unchain the poor girl already?"

Jem Fossk | Dagon Kaze | Ishida Ashina | Valery Noble | Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

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Corin cocked a brow and tilted his head, a soft smirk teased at the corner of his mouth as he folded his arms across his torso. He tried to listen, tried to understand, but after it all, Corin had heard all that he needed to. He could never trust her all the times before, and that lead to an effort to choke the life out of her, and himself stabbed in the abdomen for his troubles then thrown off of a roof. But that was well before Jem rambled on with refusals and denials, and the mention of this... Dark Heiress.

He struggled to maintain his composure.

"That's a little dramatic." Corin remarked cold-heartedly. "Heiress to what? He's dead. The Sith'ari is dead, and without him the Maw will soon be dead too. You can sit in this woe is me attitude all you like, and no amount of kind words can lift you out of it, or you can make an effort yourself to right whatever wrongs you've done."

Jem Fossk Dagon Kaze Valery Noble Kahlil Noble Ishida Ashina

 

[Jem Fossk]

"The only wrong I did was not stabbing you a little higher," she hissed, caught up by Corin's remark. "Get off me!" She jerked her wrists from the escort as they tried to remove her cuffs, her panic snapping like wildfire.

"Don't you understand? I'm going to do horrible things, I'm going to become him-- you can't-- keep them on!" She kicked the escort in the gut and clutched the force suppression cuffs close to her. She looked wild in that moment.

She felt wild too.

She reached out to her left and tried to remove the blaster from the guards belt.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Dagon remained still, passive even. Almost like a ghost among the living. The signature bravado pumping his chest up had deflated, pulling his whole posture downcast. The bitterness of Tython still loomed in his heart and mind, with this trial a natural continuation of it. It was the mention of redemption uttered by none other than Ishida that made him blink. How long had it been since her ambush in the under levels of Coruscant?

But even this unexpected flicker of hope was dowsed by Jem's repulse.

Only instinct raised his hand to freeze Jem's attempts of snatching the guard's weapon. An invisible barrier formed between the two and softly nudged them away from each other, "Leave us, please." he asked of the guard who nodded in return and left the chamber to the Jedi. Then his hand curled into a fist and the cuffs snapped open, "I don't know if you would become him, Jem. But on... Tython, you made a decision, a choice to stand against him. We, Jedi, do not believe in coincidences -- only in the will of the Force."

Jem Fossk Corin Trenor Kahlil Noble Valery Noble Ishida Ashina
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