You can’t fight anymore.
It’s not that you want to give up. You don’t– you’re certain the only thing that has kept you going for as long as you have is sheer determination to just get rid of these cockroaches, these wretches who have used their gift to make so many suffer. You want so desperately to prove yourself at last, to know that even like this you’re doing the right thing. Every time so far you’ve thought about sitting down and giving up you realised you couldn’t. Because what about Nex? What about Amara? Calclif, too, and the promise you made to Solomon. Even Sildani and Maze, angry as you are at them, floated unbidden into your mind’s eye, and you steeled yourself and went forward.
But their faces are slipping away from you. You lost a lot of blood when the half-metal, half-man thing crushed your arm under its fist– dimly you recall that crush injuries can become infected quickly, something about going into shock. You’re probably going into shock right now. You’ve been drawing on the Force almost constantly since the group delved Lady Keylis’ old base, and now it is slipping away from you.
Now, as the Lord Vilis revels in his twisted new form, rending Sith trooper and sorcerers alike limb from limb, you are starting to realise you are dying. Your vision grows dark at the edges, and you’re finding it hard to concentrate on Nex’s instructions to breathe, focus on the Force. You could laugh if you weren’t so weak; what a way to go out, your body slowly failing because a monster didn’t even kill you right away. You wish, bitterly, that your vision had come true. At least you would have died at peace.
Peace.
Peace.
It’s getting dark.
it’s
warm
…
You see light. Warmth, all around you. The agony is a mere memory. You can hear… voices? Are they that of your allies, or do they come from somewhere else?
And all of the sudden, you feel a presence. Even after three years it is hauntingly familiar.
You remember his face– the stern jawline, the pale and faintly freckled skin, his light blond hair that was beginning, just faintly, to grey at his temples. If he were here, he’d be looking at you and smiling serenely. The way he always did.
Master, you think. I have failed you.
I know.
Was she right? Am I deserving? If he were here his smile would fade, and he’d watch you with those dark eyes of his.
It is not about deserving. Did I impress so little upon you?
No, Master.
Then you understand you never needed to deserve in the first place.
Screams come to your awareness, beyond this place of warmth and light. You know without knowing that your allies are suffering, failing against the botched creation.
Do you forgive me?
My apprentice. It was never about needing to forgive, either.
This answer is no answer at all, you want to weep. You’re haunting me even now. You’re going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
He doesn’t answer. If he was here, he wouldn’t answer either.
Everything goes dark.