Wind in My Sails

[Adder]

Sniffing at the ocean air, Adder shrugged a shoulder. “Alright. Just… let’s stick to the edges of the forest, alright?” A furrow marred her forehead. “There’s pools of quicksand… or some shet.”

Not really the kind of trouble you wanted to run into in the middle of the night.

Dusting off her salt-crusted jacket, the redhead draped it over her shoulders to ward off the chill. Her fingers found the worn handle of her knife, and then they were off. You’d think after a full day of traversing dunes, it’d get easier. Well, you’d be wrong. Her mouth twisted into a deep scowl as she trudged through the fine sand. Felt like someone had chained her legs to wrought-steel weights.

“This time of day? Kind of doubt that.”

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"I mean for later." She said simply.

"If one passes at night, hell even during the day we want the flames as big as possible." That was one way to signal. "I could use the force to do it, but it tires me out."

Not a good idea.

"First thing is fresh water." That was really the most important thing. Without Fresh Water they'd drop to the floor after a day or two, which would of course not be very good at all. She shifted slightly for a moment, stretching as she looked towards the jungle of the island.

"There's gotta be some." She said with a frown. "I doubt rain is enough to sustain all this."

 

[Adder]

The evening brought with it a cooling breeze. Adder welcomed it with a long exhale, letting the wind dance through her salt-stiffened hair.

“I might’ve heard a stream back in the woods,” she said as they marched further on. “But then the whole quicksand thing happened and… well.” The redhead scrunched her nose, looking away. That was embarrassing.

“But the forest is probably, uh, alive. You know. It’s night?”

Adder was an urban creature. Though she was by no means a stranger to wilderness – she’d crashed on remote planets numerous times (That’s what you get for flying rustbuckets) – she held no love for insect-infected forests and buzzing swamps. At the end of the day, she’d still choose civilization. Its fringes, to be sure, but society and sturdy walls; that was her home.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Right." She blinked a few times.

Aela was pretty sure that Adder was out of her element here. The Jungles and Islands were generally something that she herself was more accustomed to. For a moment the Jedi Master simply sat there, considering as she thought about exactly what they would have to do. They needed water, and they needed more wood.

That was really it. "Come on."

Aela let the force flow through her for a moment, power gathering within her. Then suddenly a spark welled within her palm. For a moment a muted wisp of nothing appeared, and then a light began to flake out from within that wisp.

"I meant later." She pointed to the horizon. "When the sun is completely gone."

They would just need a few more branches.

 

[Adder]

The older woman shrugged, flashing her a sheepish smile. She rubbed the back of her neck, fighting the flush that was threatening to turn her cheeks the color of her hair. What the hell, Adder.

She was thankful for the distraction of space-magic to focus on. Her mouth fell a bit open as she watched the other woman generate a light out of nothing, washing their surroundings a gentle blue.

“That’s cool,” she breathed, grinning. She’d seen Jedi pull off tough stuff in combat, but who knew they could do shet like this too? Adder swallowed the small lump of jealousy in her throat and pushed ahead.

“I’d have just used a torch,” she laughed, patting the inside pocket of her jacket, “never leave home without a lighter.”

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Not as bright." Aela pointed out as she turned away from Adder with a smile.

"The force has its advantages." Pretty large ones at that. "But its a burden as much as it is a boon."

Perhaps that would sound odd, even contrived to a non-force user, but for Aela it was certainly true enough. The force bestowed a sense of duty upon someone, whether it was for good or evil, there was always the general thought something needed to be done. The Jedi Master knew she felt it, and she knew that others from the Order felt the same. They all knew that something that to be done, something had to be pushed.

Often Aela wondered if Sith fell the same, save instead of serving others they served themselves. "We won't wander too far."

She told Adder, not wanting to be caught out at night.

 

[Adder]

Before she could stop it, a snort escaped her. “A burden? You’re joking, right?”

Adder shook her head as she pushed away a knot of branches blocking the path. Unbelievable.

“You... you actually wanna go there? Tell me how horrible it is for you guys to have all that power to change stuff? Actually change stuff? Not just fething dream about it?”

She was too tired to keep her emotions in check. The day had been tumultuous and draining and kark, she’d never been that great about it in the first place. Her voice climbed in pitch as she turned around to face Aela.

Fatigue and sore spots always ended so well.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"It's pretty simple." There was no indignation in her voice, no anger or anything of the sort.

Aela seemed to be perfectly serene in fact. Perhaps it was because she'd had this argument before, or maybe because that was just her nature, but to her this was something to simply talk about. The Jedi Master stepped through the jungle for a few seconds, ensuring her footing was correct before she kept speaking.

"The force isn't just another tool, something that lets you jump higher and move faster. It's not just a neat little glove that lets you lift things and throw people around." This was a lecture she had received from her father when she had been twelve. "The force is living. It is grand, and at times it is insidious."

She glanced at Adder. "The force creates a sense of duty. The very duty that you just criticized. We have the power to change stuff, but do we have to? Do we want to? Do we even have a choice?"

That alone created a burden, the burden of responsibility.

"If we use the force incorrectly. If we use it too much, we fall." Aela explained. "Power corrupts. Politicians, governors, even police officers. You know this, you understand this, but the force is power. Pure power. With the force I could have the strength to destroy this whole island in an instant. Now imagine that power, that strength, what you could do with it. Imagine seeing the possibilities. Saving whole villages, whole planets."

She snapped her finger. "In an instant. So you seek more power, because you think you can help. You're well intentioned, you want to aid those who cant aid themselves, but as you gain more and more strength, you fall. Eventually all you care about is power itself. The Strength that you hold. It becomes less about your intention and more about you. What you can do"

Aela stopped for a moment.

"That is our burden." She looked at Adder. "Finding balance in our abilities. Finding what it used for. Being a Jedi is not easy just because we have the force."

 

[Adder]

“No. It’s not fething simple,” she bit back, chest filled near to bursting. Why was she so damn angry? What’s wrong with me?

“If I could... “ she caught her breath, stumbling over her own words, “I’d have stopped them. I remember what it was like, Aela. You have no idea.”

Squeezing her fists so tight they went white, Adder took a step forward. “The Sith just… they came, and the fething Jedi did jack shet to stop them. They were all so— so damn useless!”

Her voice broke as she crumbled against a tree, screwing her eyes shut.

“And all I could was watch…”


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She stared back for just a few moments. "Not all Jedi are powerful, not all of them are dedicated or committed, but all of them are just beings."

It was a harsh thing to say, but a truthful one.

Aela was sure that many people liked to imagine Jedi was some powerful undying force that couldn't be stopped and could save everyone, but that simply wasn't true. Jedi were flawed, they had more power, but that didn't really mean anything. Even she was flawed in a way, selfish, and lacking knowledge in so many areas. Jedi weren't perfect, and at the time of Coruscant's fall they were fractured and broken at their very core. Aela knew this, her mother had told her about it.

"I'm sure some of them tried, some of them fought." She frowned. "Sometimes an enemy is just stronger than you."

She had lost more than once, Lujo, Telti, half a dozen other places. "The force isn't something that will instantly let you save others, it doesn't work that way Adder. It makes you stronger, yes, but it twists you up in ways that you couldn't imagine."

Aela paused. She wasn't trying to put down her friend, just provide her with some understanding of exactly why, or what had happened. Why things weren't so simple as they seemed.

"Sometimes." She paused. "Sometimes you just lose. No matter how strong you are."

 

[Adder]

Her lips curled, nose scrunching up. Her eyes stung – fething lying cybernetics, it’s not real, it’s not real—

“You don’t get it, do you?” A breath. “Frak!”

She pushed off the tree and stalked blindly into the jungle, shoving reaching trees out of the way. Heart in throat, heart in gut.

With a scream she brought her boot down onto a branch blocking her path – it came apart with a satisfying

CRACK

Loud enough to send birds chirping out of the canopy above.

Loud enough to drown out the blood boiling in her ears.

“I’m tired! Of fething! Losing!”

“You do the right thing all your damn life, and where does it fething get you? Huh?! Jobless, scraping for food and a place to sleep, while the bastards who burned down your home and killed your family get away with it? Shet, scratch that, they get to steal and murder their fething way across the whole fething Core! And you precious fething Jedi, oh, you tried, but shet, bickering over power and— and goddamn bureaucracy, well, that’s the important shet, innit?”

“Don’t you dare tell me how they tried, Aela.”

Eyes wide, breathing hard, finger shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm.

“They fething ran.”


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"But we won in the end." Aela pointed out flatly.

Not to mention that the Jedi kept the Core safe from the Sith Empire for more than twenty years.

"The Sith took Coruscant, it was horrid, they held it for nigh on a decade, but we won in the end." Her tone was a bit harsher. She understood the hated in Adder's voice, she understood the emotional toll, but she would also not stand for the idea of ignoring the actions of the New Jedi Order, for ignoring the actions of the thousands of Jedi that had come before. Some were flawed, but most had tried their best to defend others. "We took back Coruscant. We took back Anaxes, a dozen other Core Worlds."

She paused a moment. "They ran to fight another day, because that's what you do."

The Jedi Master frowned for a moment.

"My mother was one of those who ran." That was the simple truth. "She tried her best, but sometimes you can't win. Not against odds like that."

She paused again. "The Jedi, those in the Republic, they fought the Sith Empire for years and years, they even won, beat them. When the One Sith came into being things were chaotic, disorganized. They were an enemy that no one predicted."

Her stare became a hard one.

"You can't expect perfection from Jedi, from anyone." Aela continued. "The force makes you stronger, it gives you abilities that others only dream of, but it doesn't make you perfect. It doesn't make you invincible."

 

[Adder]

“Yeah, we won,” she laughed, empty. “After they’d finally fething lost it and killed each other. We didn’t fething win jack shet, Aela! We just came to nail the fething coffin shut.”

“You think I don’t know all that? I was there, Aela, I saw it with these fething fake eyes! Wish I hadn’t but shet, the universe didn’t ask me what I wanted, did it? I got it all, high-definition, slow-motion, whatever floats your boat. So don’t give me your second-hand lectures. Just— don’t.”

“Oh, feth you. I never asked for fething perfection, Aela. Nobody’s perfect – frak knows I’m the worst of it. But—”

Throat thick with tears, she slumped against a tree, breath run out. A hand flew to cover her face as Adder ground her teeth to choke back a sob.

“It was too late, Aela. We were a fething decade too late.”


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"We tried earlier." She pointed out. "Lujo, Telti, half a dozen other times."

The latter was still during the days of the Old Republic, when she and the Covenant had fought to try and hep the dwindling Republic forces still win. It was a difficult time, but it was something that Adder seemed ot be completely ignoring.

Aela understood the pain, the hurt, the frustration, but stating that people were useless, that they didn't try...that was just wrong. Thousands, millions had died trying. Their efforts had simply not been enough at the time, but ignoring their sacrifice was not only wrong, it was disrespectful. "People tried. Jedi included. Me included."

Her voice grew cold.

"No one sat there for a decade and did nothing, no one." She scowled. "The Republic might have been inadequate, their government corrupt and faltering, but thousands of people still tried. Jedi, Soldiers, even civilians."

She was in the latter group. "It took time, and in that time people were lost, I know that, but blaming the Jedi, The Republic, yourself, or anyone for that loss just doesn't work. The One Sith were an enemy near impossible to beat. Even with that, no one stopped fighting."

That was simply how it had been, three galactic government had tried, and all had failed. "It took time. It was grueling, it was painful, and in the end we didn't even vanquish the Sith."

Aela was not naive enough to think they had defeated the Sith forever, it was impossible.

"We freed trillions." That was an exaggeration. "Saved billions from slave camps, restored entire worlds."

Alderaan after it's destruction, Corellia, all support heavily by the Alliance. "That is what we did."

Even if maybe it was a bit later than she would have liked.

 

[Adder]

“I know! I know.”

“It’s just… feth. We didn’t do enough. Yeah, so we tried, frak all good that it did. I save one guy, the Sith slaughter a thousand. Feels like pushing an airspeeder uphill with dead repulsorlits, don’t it?” Adder shook her head, sliding down to crumple into a sad heap at the foot of the tree.

“I’m tired of excuses, Aela. I’m tired of watching greedy fethers take what they please and get away with it. I’m so fething tired…” the redhead trailed off, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“It’s just— it’s never enough. Whatever the feth we do, some other shethead springs up on the other side of the galaxy. Usually ten times worse that the one you just beat.” An empty chuckle. “And then it’s, you know, it’s fething pointless! Why the Nether do we throw our lives away doing this crap when one crazy bastard with the Force can level a whole city in an afternoon?”

“All these… these religious wars over who’s best and whose fething code will bring the people salvation— feth off already! Sometimes, Aela… feels like you Forcers do more harm than good.”


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Blaming wars on force users makes as much sense as blaming a Bantha for living in sand." An apt analogy really.

Though she would readily admit that Sith caused a great many of the wars of the last few centuries they were hardly responsibily for all of them. They took part, yes, but the conflicts weren't just born of force users, they were born of people.

The greatest example of that was the First Order.

"We take part in wars, but they're not about us." At least not in her view. "They're an excuse. The codes are an excuse, everything is. War is caused by greed, simple and pure. Greed isn't something that's just contained to us."

She had to remind Adder that she herself was a force user. "I told you, the force is a responsibility, a burden, and some misuse that burden. Those who do are filled with greed, they want more power, strength, they want to live forever and rule over everything, but that's hardly contained to Sith. Look at the First Order, the Hutt's, the Mandalorians."

She motioned with her arms.

"You blame us because we're forced to be at the forefront. We have power, and people expect us to use that power. Jedi keep the peace. Jedi fight Sith. Jedi fight Imperials, and if they don't? Then they're cowards." That was simple truth. A great example was that of the Silver Jedi. They had been self contained for nigh on a decade, protecting their own worlds and seeing to their people, yet most of the galaxy considered them weak and worthless. "So what do you want? You want us gone? Entirely?"

"Force us away, exterminate us, and you still have greed, you still have war, and you still have people dying on a scale that should unimaginable." She scowled. "We are not the problem. We're just another symptom."

 

[Adder]

She swallowed a sob, turning red-rimmed eyes on the younger woman.

“Oh, what, you think you’re so special? You think nobody else’s got shat on? Get off your fething high horse for once. You think others don’t get fethed over whatever they do?”

Before she knew it, she was standing again, closing on the tall Jedi. “Get over yourself! Not everything is about you Forcers! If you were gone, people’s lives would go on, believe it or not. Folks would still die and folks would still kill, and— and feth!” She stumbled over a breath. “Boohoo, it’s a responsibility, you don’t understand how hard that is. Like nobody else got responsibility!”

“Fine, fine, take First Order. Yeah, they kill and conquer and all that bad shet, but Nether, at least I know they’re human – I shoot one, he dies. Space-mages will fething kill me with my own fething blaster, Aela!”

Blazing greens found stoic orange. “So don’t fething tell me how bad you got it. You ain’t never been the little guy.”


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"So now I'm inhuman?" He stated simply, a beat of heat to her tone.

There was more than a bit of hurt to what she said. Aela had heard that very wording before, from several members of the alliance, but worse, from Sith inquisitors when she had been captured. They had told her she wasn't human, that she was something else, something better. Adder's argument wasn't the same of course, but the wording was.

"A second ago you said if force users were gone everything would be better. Now you're claiming things will be the same." Anger touched her tone. "Your argument keeps shifting because you don't even know why you feel the way you do. You just hate."

She stared at Adder. "Blind. Senseless hate."

Her voice was cold.

"I've never been the little guy, no." She stared down Adder, more than a hint of anger on her features. "But I've fought for them my entire life. I've saved thousands. I've rescued slaves, political prisoners, I've helped free entire worlds. I've seen everything sentients can do, a whole rang of horrors most couldn't even imagine. I've seen Warlords slaughter villages. I've seen Men beat their wives. I've seen children tossed into fields of battles as Soldiers."

She scowled. "And you know what? I still don't hate. I don't hate the Sith. I don't hate Humanity. I don't hate those who perpetrate war."

"Why?" Aela scowled. "Because it's childish, because it's stupid, because hate doesn't solve anything."

"I've never been the little guy, but how are you helping them? By calling me and other force users inhumane? By exterminating us?" Her lips turned down again, almost as if she wanted to spit. "How is that going to help? You just said things will be the same, that the first Order will keep fighting and you'll keep killing them. How does that help the little guy?"

She didn't let Adder answer. "It doesn't. You're just looking for something to blame. Something to put your anger on. Something to hate."

 

[Adder]

Gnashing teeth.

Eyes wide.

Bitter bile scorching her throat. Breathing so fast she got no air at all. Ribs aching. Gut a tangled mess. Cold sweat down her neck, down her spine, down her palms…

An ugly, twisted, painful thing rose in her breast. Sudden and vengeful, it blazed her tongue—

“I HATE YOU!”

Her hand snapped forward, quick, inhuman.

But Adder… wasn’t.

The metal cybernetic hovered but an inch from Aela’s face, shaking with a world of anger. A world of hurt. Her mouth hung open with the shock reflected in stark green eyes, her heart drumming up a storm in her ears.

“I—”

“I’m not— I— I didn’t…mean that.”

Her arm dropped like a stone.

Ad Yrá Kjormenkaur Traficit cried for the first time in fifteen years.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Aela didn't say anything. She didn't move.

Normally she would have felt some sympathy, she would have felt pity, and in truth she did, but it was masked by a low rumble of anger. She couldn't just instantly switch, she couldn't just turn on a dime. Aela was practiced in controlling her emotions, she could reign them in, but she wasn't a droid.

She was still mad, angry about what Adder had said.

Her friend had been insulting, insensitive. Perhaps part of what she said had been right, and Aela knew where the arguments came from, but that didn't make them sting any less. Some force users might have been bad, some of them were outright horrible, but she was still in a way the same as them. So were her parents, her siblings, half of the people she knew and loved. Lumping them together, implying they weren't human, that the galaxy would be better without them...

It hurt.

It burned to her core, and so she stood there, watching with a face not of scorn or anger, but melancholy.