Legacy

[Allyson Locke]

Sopher didn't remember much after the door opened and he came face to face with @[member="Diana Moridena"]. The woman of course was smart enough to figure how who and why Sopher was this gore filled mess. After the droid did what it needed to do , Sopher soon opened his eyes and once more came face to face with the Jedi Master. The bacta working its wonders made him feel slightly better and he was now capable of having a conversation especially now that his life was somewhat out of harms way. Possibly.

"Its what it looks like isn't it?" He moved slightly sitting up where he was laying, his eyes fell from the Master as he sighed softly. The same determination showed on his face and it was obvious that he wasn't done with the Sith."Once I'm better and capable of moving around again I'll be leaving to head back to face him. I won't stop till I defeat him Diana." Pausing, he looked back up at the Master and nodded. He knew what her response would be, she would probably once again urge him to forget the girl, to move on and find someone else. He couldn't though, there had been no one else that cared for him the way Evelynn did. Despite everything, he still saw her as the girl he met on the beach.

"I need to become stronger, I have to do so..." A hand raised and pinched the bridge of his nose, the horrid memories filled his mind, the altered images he had seen from the mental torture killed him from the inside. He wouldn't be able to forget anything that had happened and he wondered if he would be able to sleep with out the aid of the drugs the droid had administered him. Shaking his head slightly he felt defeated, but did his best to remain focused on saving @[member="Evelynn"].

 

[Cedric Dorn]

Diana stared down at her bladesisters apprentice, a certain coldness creeping into her eyes. Part of her wanted to console him, part of her wanted to say that everything would be alright, but she knew it wouldn't help. He had been a fool, an idiot of the highest order. If Daella found out about this Sopher would be made to suffer, one way or another. Diana wouldn't tell her of course, but she would not give the boy sympathy either.

Perhaps it wasn't very Jedi like, but she did not care. She had warned him, and in his hubris he had chosen to ignore that warning.

“Sleep, little fool.” Then Diana turned on her heel and walked away from the small bed.

As she left the room her jaw was set, something very akin to anger flowing through her. Clenching her fists she walked into the other room, her eyes shifting about and looking at her things. Kaine could have killed him, should have killed him. Only by the divine intervention of the force was Sopher still alive, by a whim was he still among the living. Her teeth gnashed together.

Perhaps it was time to leave Cato Neimoidia.

 

[Allyson Locke]

He watched as she left the room, he was once again alone to his thoughts and taking her advice he laid his head back onto the small pillow. He could have died, he should have died, something kept him from dying and he knew that it was a second chance. Laying there he lifted his hand despite the struggle and stared at his palm. Bringing his hand into a fist, he tightened it as tight as he could then released it. The hand shook from the straight, but he was able to make a fist and hold it which was a good thing. Resting his hands on his stomach he sighed softly and settled his body into the small bed. His feet hung over the edge, but he did his best to get comfortable. The force horror he had experienced had a lingering effect and he lived through his nightmares over and over.

Still, his body needed sleep and he dealt with it.

Few days later...

Night had come again and his eyes opened as the light from the moon shined through the small windows. Sitting up, he groaned, but his body felt stronger than it had a few days ago. The bacta had done its work and he looked at the changed bandages and wondered if Diana had cared for him while he rested. She was a good woman and a small smirk spread across his face as he patted the clean bandages, a man was lucky to have her love. Standing, he gave his body a slight stretch and felt the strain from his healing wounds. His face wrinkled into a wince as he caught his breath making sure he didn't cry out in pain. Looking around the place, he wondered if like the night he left Diana was lurking about. He wanted to feel the air he was tired of being cooped up in the lodgings and made his way out the back doors of the apartment. Resting his back against the railing, he pulled a tank-top from a nearby basket of clothes he had left and pulled it over his now scarred chest. After a few moments, he decided to search for Diana. Soft footsteps despite his size, he made his way to her room, softly knocking he hoped he wasn't waking her up.

"Diana? Uh...Master Moridena...are you awake?"

@[member="Diana Moridena"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

Diana was awake, sitting at her desk and scribbling something down on a piece of paper. When sopher knocked at her door she simply stood from her desk without a second to spare, dropping the pen onto the piece of flimsy and wandering towards where Sopher was. She pressed the button, and the ornately carved wooden door that she had made herself slid into the wall almost silently.

When her face revealed to him she wore an expression of disdain, anger, and mistrust. Her eyes were listless, and almost uncaring.

It was not to say that Diana did not care, it was more to say that she was extremely and entirely disappointed in Sopher. He had broken her trust. He had used what knowledge she had given him and twisted it to suite his own means of suicide, or what she saw as a method of suicide anyway. One did not just throw away their leaves like that, especially when one has been taught by Diana.

“Yes?” Her voice was startling deadpan.

 

[Allyson Locke]

He stared for a moment into her eyes and he saw what he had feared. She was upset with him, somewhere beyond upset and generally and utterly pissed off. His gaze fell from her and he felt smaller than when he was when he was younger. He had destroyed anything he had built with the Master because of his own desires to save Evelynn. He didn't regret going, he regretted the way he left and his disobeying an order from one of the only Master's he trusted. Leaning against the door frame he looked towards the ground trying to find some sort of words to say to her. Sopher wanted to apologize, he wanted to learn more and everything he could, but he felt he might have screwed that up.

"I wanted to say thank you, for every thing. The only reason he didn't kill me was because of you. I understand what I did was foolish, but..." He paused for a moment trying to find the right words. In his mind, the only reason why it was foolish was because he wasn't as prepared as he should have been and because he didn't bring Evelynn back. Glancing back towards Diana's face, he sighed softly and then continued. "You were right, she's not the same girl I fell in love with." Straightening his frame against the door's he almost looked like a child again as he searched Diana for something to give him some sort of hope. "I felt her still under the monster she is starting to become, can I still save her? Also, is there a way to fix what I've done to you and your trust Diana?"

@[member="Diana Moridena"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

“Perhaps.” Everyone could be redeemed. It was a strange thing to think about, and it was a hard fought battle. Diana knew this, no matter who it was that fell to the darkside everyone could eventually return to the light. The problem with that philosophy was that a person had to want to come back to the light. They had to want to change themselves and become good once more, and even then it took years, perhaps even decades of meditation and constant fighting with ones own emotions to even begin to turn.

The Darkside was a drug, a powerful addictive substance that many could not resist. One had to want to change, and she doubted that Evelynn did. From all the report that Diana had received Evelynn was no longer the innocent little girl that she had met on this very world so long ago, no...she was something completely different now. “Anyone can be redeemed, but they have to want to be redeemed.”

She left unspoken what she thought of Evelynn's redemption. It was not like Diana to lose faith in people, but perhaps she was changing.

“And no, Sopher. There is no fix. No easy solution. nothing. You took what I gave you, the training, the teachings, and you threw them away. You went on a suicide run, even though I directly forbade you from doing so. You nearly got yourself killed for a goal that I told you could not be met. Perhaps you could argue that I did such things when I was a padawan, but theres a difference. I had no Master. I had no one to teach me directly, no one to guide me, no one to listen to.” Diana spoke in a flat tone, with facts. “You have one of the greatest Masters this Order has ever seen. Daella is strong, stalwart, and wiser than I, yet you still fell for a woman. Fine, understandable even. Jedi are not droid, we have emotions and feelings. But then you come to me, you ask me for the tools you need to save her, and I tell you I will give them to you, if you listen. And what did you do? You didn't listen.”

She scowled now, a bit of bile in her voice. “I told you that you needed more time, and you didn't listen.”

 

[Allyson Locke]

Sopher listened, doing his best to remain calm. The cloning process had a draw back, he was prone to fits of uncontrolled rage, but with the dosage of medication he was able to keep them from happening and with training he was able to control them with the Force. Though as she spoke to him, his frustration and guilt continued to rise. He knew he was one of the lucky ones to have not only a good master, but a great one. Daella trained him and Diana had done so as well, Sopher knew the only reason he even survived any of the encounters he faced while growing up was because of them. His hand made a fist as he had the urge to drive it through something and with a strain in his voice he spoke.

“You sound as if I don’t know this, I know what I did was stupid and suicidal I wasn’t thinking. My Master in one of the greatest Jedi that had ever passed through those temple doors and I am a disappointment. I fell for a woman and I cling to those emotions even when she tells me to forget her. I can’t forget her, I’ve tried. I tried forgetting her after first meeting her, I tried forgetting her when she stopped talking to me, and I tried again when she was arrested by the Jedi. I can’t forget her.” Taking in a deep breath he felt the pain from his wounds burn through him, but he did his best to calm himself despite it.

“I left when I did because I didn’t have time, she’s falling so fast that I feel her just slipping through my fingers. How can I be a Jedi if I can’t protect someone I love? How can I be a Jedi someone who protects the galaxy, the innocent and the weak - when I can’t even protect her? I have lost her and yet I still want to fight for her. Is is resolve or stupidity Diana I don’t know. I need to learn, I need to know how to be strong - I need you more than before Diana, I know I need more time, but…”

Stepping closer he looked at her with a stern brow, a look he had developed under Daella’s training. “I don’t have the luxury of time. I don’t know what’s going on with you and why you left to hide on Cato Nemodia, but maybe in this case we may need each other especially how the Order is...You and Daella are the only Jedi I can trust."

@[member="Diana Moridena"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

Diana stopped. She felt conflicted. Sopher after all this time was still young, still not much more than a boy, not much older than she had been when she slew Velok upon that ship. He knew love, or had known it, perhaps it was dying now, wilting like a flower. She frowned slightly, was she wrong to hold this against him? She had chased after Velok, chased him through star systems and caught him on a planet.

There he had destroyed her eyes, wasted them into nothingness with force lightning. That was a scar that still clung to her, would always be with her. She had not been much different than Sopher, and in truth she had been even more foolish, more reckless.

He had gone for love, she for vengeance.

“Come in.” She said the words with a hint of warmth. She could not trust him completely yet, that would take time. It was a wound that needed to be healed and mended, but he was right. With the Order the way it was now, they needed friends, and she could not turn her back on someone that wanted...no needed her.

 

[Allyson Locke]

She only said two words to him, but it was enough for now. A hand slid against the door frame and he pushed himself off of it, his wounds not hurting as bad as they were before. Pushing the button, she had used to open the door, he shut the door behind him as he stepped into her room. There was something that lingered in the back of his head and if something or someone had followed him here – it was a better precaution to make sure they were left to privacy. He stood in her modest room, his eyes fell upon the abandoned desk and notes she had been scribbling on when he knocked on her door.

“Thank you.” He let silence fall between them as he looked around her room taking it in, sometimes you could tell a lot about a person by how they kept their room. He was curious on how Daella kept her room, but knowing the woman she probably just had a bed and a closet filled with robes. Keeping a chuckle from escaping his lips at the idea, he covered his mouth and then returned to the seriousness of the matter.

“I’m sorry for my outburst, I’m constantly conflicted now a days – it seems like I can’t catch a break anywhere.” Pausing, he felt as if he had made everything so far about him. He hadn’t learned anything about the woman before him and like when he was younger he was curious about the real @[member="Diana Moridena"]. “Why are you here and not on Coruscant or on Ossus with Daella? Why are you hiding?”

 

[Cedric Dorn]

“Because it is the only place I am wanted.” That was a sad fact of reality, though not entirely true. She was more than welcome on Ossus, Daella had extended the invitation to her every single time they spoke. Yet in truth she did not feel well on Ossus. It was there that she had turned into something new, it was there that she had fought Mikhail Shorn to a standstill and it was there that she had earned the title of Master.

She was the Hero of Ossus, but she had no desire to returned.

She chuckled wryly, then spoke again. “Ossus is no home, and Coruscant and Tython no longer want me. The council does not enjoy mine or Daella's way of doing things. They think us Warmongers, murderers, outcasts.”

Diana shrugged slightly, trying to seem as though she did not care about their opinions, though of course she did. She gave him a weak smile and then turned away from him, wandering back to her desk and shuffling a few of the papers about.

“Only a tiny amount of Jed live here, mostly students. All under my watch. I can stay here in peace, and no one bothers me.” She shrugged, as though it were that simple.

 

[Allyson Locke]

Sopher wasn’t an empath, but he picked up on minor things that gave away how the woman truly felt. He had heard whispers about the council and how they looked down upon Daella and Diana, it was hard not to confront the Masters that would rather sit in their comfortable council chairs instead of getting their hands dirty. He was surprised any of them even taught padawans, though it would make sense why so many of the young students perished during the times of war.

“They’re foolish. You and I know that, Daella knows that. They only see what they want to see and not the value that you and my master provide. Their students, I’ve seen them, I’ve worked with them – they do not know what it means to be a Jedi. They sit on their comfortable chairs acting higher than the Order. They know nothing.” He stepped forward towards the Master as she turned her back towards him. She busied herself with papers for some reason, he watched for a moment and then rested a hand against her shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze.

“Diana, I want you.”

 

[Cedric Dorn]

“Don't.” Diana said as she grabbed his hand and removed it from her shoulder. She didn't need pity, she didn't want anyone to want her. She simply wanted to be. A frown appeared on her face, and slowly she covered a stack of papers with a small leather binding, tying it in place and then leaving it be. She turned around and face Sopher once again. The listlessness was gone from her eyes, her expression one of cold determination.

This time there was no hesitation. “Go to Ossus.”

It wasn't a request this time. She needed to prepare on her own, Sopher would get in her way here. It was time to leave Cato Neimoidia, time to go back to the Order, time to become a true Jedi master once more. “Tell Daella I'm coming.”

It had not really been Sopher than convinced her, she would have gone eventually. He was just a trigger. Suddenly a thought to occurred to her.

“In the main courtyard. My blade, Tyrfing is trapped in carbonite. Take it. Crack the carbonite with the force at its base first. Simple trick really.” That was all she said before she turned about and left the room, fully expecting him to follow orders.