Look Back, But Don't Stare

[Connor Harrison]

Abandoned Imperial Outpost
Vaal, Vaal System​

Connor Harrison stood atop the large cliff-face clearing, his ship behind the old outpost. His crimson cowl flapped gently in the high breeze and his black and grey tunic was a far cry from the crimson one. His blue eyes were tainted, spotted with amber and dark like his heart. If anything, Connor was a far cry from the man Keira Ticon had last seen here months ago.

He looked at the base of the outpost, weeds growing through cracks in the stone, and was certain the imprint from where he had been thrown into it was still there; a nice dent in the crumbling building.

The last time the ex-Silver Jedi and Mandalorian had met here following a fall out on Voss, both left in a sad state after a violent clash. Looking at his left hand, he flexed it and watched the thin lines of crimson scar tissue move gently with the reconstructed muscle and bone beneath it.

How amusing it was to him now.

Reaching out to Keria was a risky move, but he had moved on far more than had he had last time they met here. It was a long shot, and he would give her a bit more time to arrive at the designated spot she would know. If not? He would leave and not bother again. There was no ulterior motive here; no score to settle.

Connor was not a Jedi anymore. He had no ties to the Silver Jedi Order. He bore no hate for the Mandos. He was an agent of the First Order and a Disciple of Ren, embracing the Dark Side and forming alliances with Sith alike. He was in a new place, and it was time to see if bridges of the past had well and truly been burnt of if there was still time to salvage a once promising and powerful friendship.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

His was a name Keira had nearly forgotten in the past months, and she didn't feel bad about it. The last time they had crossed paths she'd nearly killed him, and she didn't feel bad about that either. All of it had been deserved, all of it consequences of his previous actions that had built up over time only to be released explosively. The only kindness she had granted him throughout was that he was still breathing, unworthy of her time even if it was to just put a blade through his throat. Someone like him deserved to live simply because they weren't worth the time or effort it would take to end their life. Though she had proven herself capable of it once before, she'd had no desire to seek him out again in order to finish things.

How fitting, then, that he would make a call to her from that same planet. Fitting, and yet entirely nonsensical and pointless. There was nothing there, not even shreds of what had once been their bond to cling to, but he persisted all the same. Either he felt something there that was long since dead to her, or he sought to rebuild all that had once been, as if that was a remote possibility to begin with. Bridges burnt were best left as ashes, but apparently he was determined in finding some way to meld those back together into something tangible.That was his business, and he had his own motives that she didn't care for. This was on him, all of it.

Except it perhaps reflected more on her that she'd decided to show. Damned if she had any kind of good reason for heeding his call, but she had all the same. Sentimentality was more to blame than anything, but nipping at its heels was a want for closure and an end to things. She had thought leaving him bloody and broken was enough to communicate how she felt, but it seemed he was the sort to require a second reminder before it was all said and done. Of course she wouldn't hesitate even a second to give it to him, as perhaps something like this was more overdue than she would admit. He needed to understand his place, and she needed some form of catharsis. He would be able to remedy both of those.

Her ship touched down and she could only sigh, looking on the old outpost that had witnessed both of their clashes, the first peaceful and the second bordering on death and the beginning of war. Now it would host a third and hopefully final meet, one that would bring this to a close whose ending was more permanent. If she had to break his neck as opposed to his legs, then so be it.

The presence she felt wasn't his, at least, not in the way she remembered it. This one was far darker than any he'd sported in the past, more tainted even than what it had been when he had dared to call himself a Dark Jedi and among her number. It was far more familiar than that and for all the wrong reasons, for it was a toxicity that she had long since hunted down with the intent to kill. Sith. And so with that he had properly earned death in her eyes, falling past the point of any semblance of redemption and fitting now for nothing more than another kill in a list already thousands long. His head wouldn't be the first she had taken of that order she so despised, nor would it be the last by a long shot.

Without ceremony she disembarked, unarmored and armed sparingly, halting within a stone's throw of where he stood. "Talk while I'm still of a mind to listen."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The ships engines could be heard first, as always. Second, he spotted the craft coming in low and he braced himself for the boost of engines as it touched down away from the outpost. This was a haunting moment of deja vu. Third time lucky?

Why Connor asked Keira here, he didn't really know. Maybe it was to end their tragic past of recent months now he himself had moved forward from the man he was, and to bear no grudge against her. Connor of old deserved the pain he was dealt. Connor of today didn't, and wouldn't, stand for it. He wasn't here for a fight.

She came out of her craft rather quickly, and she looked...different. It was still here, but that strength and confidence she once showed seemed to have faltered. He couldn't be sure.

Either way, her direct and to the point attitude was on top form.

"Just thought I'd reach out. See how you are.”

He clasped his hands behind his back.

"Are you alright?”

Sadly, his concern was real as much as she didn't want it to be.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Music

There had been a time where his question would have been answered in earnest, but if such a place had ever existed, it was long gone now. His genuine concern was noted but not reciprocated, and she looked upon him with no true regard for his well-being. The amber that dappled his eyes was more than telling as to where he'd found himself since her disappearance, and Keira was beyond the point of being disappointed in the majority of people. Disappointment was better saved for those who deserved her investment in their future to begin with, and he'd long since sacrificed that. He'd been meaningless as a Jedi and amounted to even less than that as a Sith, until she felt no attachment to him other than perhaps a willingness to end his life if he came too close.

"I'm fine." That was the most common lie people like her told, and one he would see through nearly immediately, but she didn't have the desire to waste her breath in order to give him a proper explanation of all that had transpired in their months apart. He'd lost that right the second time here, and while the third time may have been the charm in other cases that was far from the truth between them. The only thing charming about this would be if it ended with his death, or at the very least an understanding from him that once ties were severed it was best they remain that way. There would be no mending any frayed ends, no picking up any pieces that were best left to shatter.

There would be no turning away from him this time, no toeing the line that had always divided them. That line was gone, and so was any trace of respect she'd once held for the man before her. "Last time we were here you told me to trust you. Said you were going to fix everything and make it right again, told me I was making a big deal out of nothing and that you weren't one to be crossed. Warned me that I hadn't seen anything yet from you." Pausing, her gaze didn't waver, brown eyes meeting dappled cobalt. More than being tired of all the wars and the fighting, more than her exhaustion at constantly having to pick up the pieces and start over, she was done with being lied to and hearing the same half-truths and falsifications spoken over and over again, as if they were any more believable the hundredth time around.

In that second something would change in her eyes, the clouds always roiling behind her eyes solidifying into a true storm, promising hell for all that had once crossed her. There would be no retaliation save a pressure on his throat as he stood there, one that would make breathing just a touch more difficult and serve to remind him of his own morality and the fleetingness of human life. He was just as human as the rest of them, but it was that he seemed to have forgotten, first as a Jedi and now a Sith. "Tell me why I should spare the life of a liar and a coward." For all of that volatility, her voice was perfectly serene and entirely even, betraying only vague emotion.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

From everything that had happened between them, and since, Connor held no expectations from what was going to happen right now. There was no gain for either to build bridges and certainly nothing to benefit their standings with new Factions or allegiances. The only thing, for Connor at least, was a chance to put ill behind them, and lay to rest whatever had gone on so he knew he had tried.

Her defence was straight up, and as much as it presented a black hole of opportunity to get through to her, he didn’t have much chance to speak before she resorted to violence and the tightening of his throat muscles began.

So be it.

Connor wasn’t enraged by bloodlust right now or blinded by the Jedi. He was free because of the Dark, and he wasn’t on a vendetta anymore. But he refused to be treated like the Connor of old. His chin rose slightly to open the windpipe more against her grip, and he twisted his left hand – the one she broke and pulled her Force aura in.

The hold on her throat began, matching hers on his. Not to kill or cripple, but to make a point.

"You don’t earn the right…to call me a lair or coward…as you don’t know me at all…but if so…then you’re as much a liar and coward…as me.”

He fought for the precious oxygen without rushing or panicking.

"We’re not…doing this again,” he gasped quietly.

The grip was held, and would be released when she chose to. His aura was otherwise calm and controlled.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Music

The invisible grip on her throat was acknowledged with the fleeting trace of a smile, though instead of attempting to draw breath she simply ceased doing so, allowing the Force to supplement where natural means failed. It wasn't a technique she would be able to maintain forever, but it would settle for as long as she needed it to. Presently this amounted to nothing more than a battle of their wills, and while Keira didn't have anything riding on her coming out on top, she knew that if need be her ability to hold out was likely more formidable than his own. After all, she had survived plenty encounters with Sith to know what to expect, even they had once been close friends and allies.

A handful more of stubborn seconds passed before she released her telekinetic hand about his throat, exhaling measuredly when he returned the favor in order to remind herself what it meant to draw breath. When her awareness returned her focus narrowed once more on the man before her, the pain of having air restricted a nearly forgotten thing despite the fact that shades of blue and purple were likely blossoming across her throat from broken blood vessels and sheer force. Like her other wounds they were just more marks of her ability to survive, and regarded with nonchalance. She had sustained worse during other encounters, as had he.

"Doing what again, Connor? There's nothing left." Whatever he'd been trying to salvage was laughable, because there was nothing there. Without another word she pulled her tomahawk with her left hand, throwing it with a strength that was inhuman, its path intended for the center of his chest, the strike capable of cracking through his sternum and into his lungs and heart. Mere threads of a telekinetic grip were maintained on the hilt, lest she need to redirect the path or snap it back into her grasp.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The stalemate seemed to last forever.

The pressure vanished from his throat, and second later he did the same for her. Rubbing under the collar of his tunic, the muscle was bruised already, that much he could feel. Connor looked at her, realising the two were almost mirroring the other in ability and physical stance and actions such as rubbing the throat.

Knowing what followed next, Connor was more prepared than before with the ticking TIcon time-bomb. And sparks flew as another explosion came from it. She moved for her weapon, and Connor found it with her Force fingerprints.

She threw it with intent to kill.

Connor wrestled the melee weapon in the air with his precognition, and brought the hilt to his palm with a loud smack as the soft material connected with his flesh.

"THIS.” He said loudly. "It’s getting real boring, real quick. If all you want to do is kill me, get in your ship and go back to your rock. You’ll never here from me again.”

He already felt her tugging it, and he held as tight as he could, glaring at her.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

For a second Keira only stood there watching him, entirely calm and unfazed as he caught the tomahawk. In truth it was something she had anticipated, knowing full well that he'd likely expected her attack. They were damned to repeat the same cycle, it seemed, never finding recompense from the wheel of violence that had encapsulated their relationship since day one. Both had always been far too volatile for their own good, only one of them finding it in themselves to express such a thing openly, it being her the majority of the time. As different as he claimed to be, he was oftentimes the least violent out of the two, and that didn't seem to have changed this time around, either.

Cocking her head slightly to one side, she appraised him with a violent nonchalance he would find familiar, thought it was one he hadn't been on the receiving end of in years. "Boring, huh? You're supposed to be the big, bad Sith. I thought your kind was the sort to find enjoyment in the violence. Maybe you were better off as a Jedi. You did about as much good with them." Goading statements, certainly, but also those she held as truth. He had the potential to make something of himself, but that was wasted among the various orders, and he'd already lost his opportunity when it came to being unchained such as her and her ilk. He'd chained himself down a thousand times over, and his attempt at breaking them had only fettered him down more.

Where there was anger in his gaze hers was comparatively devoid of any truly strong emotion, only holding within itself a need to do what was necessary. The Sith were best comparable to rabid animals in her eyes, and in need of putting down. All it took was a singular redirection of Force energy for her form to become a blur as she darted towards him at inhuman speeds, her intention to disarm him of her weapon and summarily lodge it between his shoulderblades just as he'd done to her on a separate occasion. Unlike his own strike, however, there wouldn't be phrik plating to stop it, and an alchemized tomahawk tended to do a rather fine job of cutting through flesh and cracking bone.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Numerous encounters, and numerous patterns. Keira was sitting on an awful amount of blind rage and bloodlust towards Connor – or maybe herself. Either way, he was the outpouring for it. He was here where he had been twice, and also add to that the numerous encounters in battle. It was tragic that the memory of lying in his quarters, holding each other and reflecting on their life gone by was now a shattered piece of the past.

He was ready. After one attack and one put down, another always came. He was ready. He was waiting for it.

First, the putdown. He opened to her aura.

Second, the attack. He felt the pull and let his body be controlled to meet her with a sharp spin.

The Force acted for him and he didn’t think consciously.

His palm slapped against the strap of the tomahawk, her fingers teasing below his as they quivered with strength trying to drive the weapon into his back.

Looking directly at her, his eyes clouded with burning amber that cracked with blood red. The Connor who stood by and did nothing when trying to be murdered was long gone. This time, he didn’t appreciate trying to be bludgeoned.

There was nothing he wanted to say to her. He tensed his jaw muscles as their hands shook on the tomahawk, inches from either of them.

There was only one way to move out of this – Connor moved right suddenly to use her momentum on the blade to push forward. His aim was simple; to twist her arm back on itself with his hand on the weapon and drive the tomahawk into the base of her spine to sever the cord.

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

For once he managed to impress her, moving quickly and switching their positions in the blink of an eye, her tomahawk now poised to impact her in the spine and effectively end her life. Matching his speed she spun so her arm was no longer bent back on itself, allowing her to more effectively counter his momentum, their arms once again shaking as each did their best to push the weapon between them. Lifting her right leg, she hooked it around his own and pushed backwards, a move that would knock him onto his back if it was performed successfully and he didn't manage to regain his footing in time. He may have been learning how to handle himself, but she had been playing this game for as long as it took him to come out of his shell.

Assuming the strike was successful she would instantaneously crouch, pinning him to the ground with her cybernetic right knee on his chest, holding the lethally sharp blade of the tomahawk against his forehead, meaning that any movement would give him a gash of some severity. "Like I said, Harrison. Give me a reason why I shouldn't cave your skull in and leave you for dead. You've gone back on everything and everyone you ever claimed to care about. At this rate I'm doing the galaxy a favor." Her left hand tightened on the tomahawk, edge shifting across his forehead to nick it slightly and draw blood. A warning as opposed to a strike intended to cause any real damage. The last warning he would get.

"People like you are better off dead." She raised the tomahawk, swinging it down towards his skull with deadly intent.

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor felt her leg around his, and he couldn’t do anything that wouldn’t leave him over-exposed and totally ripe for a fatal strike. Instead, he gripped tighter and absorbed what he could from the hard fall back that was sudden and swift.

A pressure rooted him down; Keira’s knee rested on his chest.

His left hand gripped the handle of the tomahawk, but with little strength due to the position he now had. It was enough to prevent a gruesome impalement, but the blade was resting on his brow and he could feel it with each breathe.

Her words cut deeper than the blade did when she flicked it. His hand stayed clamped down on the weapon and his eyes never left hers. His gaze was full of hate and frustration with her narrow-minded and self-obsessed way of thinking. He just wanted to get through to her – to have her listen.

Before he could speak, she launched the tomahawk down, pulling it from his grasp. He moved as hard as he could, both hands up to grasp her wrists and exert what strength he had at the angle he was in. The blade crossed into her personal space, above his brow, and he glared at her.

"You’re a cancer to yourself…Keira!”

Jerking his arms left to take her strength with him, her momentum to swing the blade down was still there as he moved her, and she fell almost forward on top of him, her knee wobbling out to get balance atop his body.

Then, he moved with a clear intent.

Rolling over onto her, hands gripped on her wrist, wrestling for the blade, he snatched it from her hand. He went for a series of moves.

He shifted quickly to sit on her chest, right boot crushing down her right wrist to pin it, and the tomahawk cleaved down with anger and rage behind it to go for her cybernetic left hand. With his free left hand, he wanted to shove his hand under her jaw, gripping her throat tight, hand trembling fighting the urge to lethally bludgeon her throat with his fingers tearing through the flesh.

"I urge you to stop NOW before I take your body apart limb by limb. You know NOTHING of me.”

He squeezed.

"I am no Jedi, nor am I Sith. I am beyond their codes and their quest for mindless peace. I serve a true purpose. A true calling. Unlike you….” he squeezed harder, "…you disgust me with what you’ve become. A mindless, violent and deluded woman.”

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

The repulsor field that surrounded her left hand was enough to impromptuly deflect the cut of the tomahawk, and using that momentum she turned her arm forcefully in order to hopefully elbow him in the face and cause enough disorientation to loosen his hold on her throat and relieve the pressure on her right arm. With zero hesitation she followed up her initial strike with a kick intended for his abdomen meant to push him to the side and effectively off of her, hopefully winding him in the process. Where her tomahawk remained was of no concern to her, as she had plenty more up her sleeve than a simple war axe. With her left hand she lashed out with a punch to the jaw that would knock something loose and likely break bone if it connected in full, not to mention the disorienting effect it would have.

"The last time we were here you were the one getting torn to pieces, and don't think I'm so lenient as to not to do the same again." Keira spoke not with animosity but an unrivaled certainty that encompassed her words. No longer were these threats, but instead a foretelling of what was to come. Again with her cybernetic arm she struck, this time with the intention of grabbing his throat in a phrik-plated grip that would hopefully immobilize him for the present moment. "Are you so eager for a reminder of what happened before?" Except this time she wasn't keen to settle on broken bones and near-death as a deterrent.

Turning, she pushed him up against the wall she had thrown him into during their previous encounter, and with a flex of her right hand the carbon-fiber pistol strapped there - the CW-77 - sprung to life. Without a word she pressed the muzzle beneath his jaw, the safety clicking off audible in the tense silence. "You know damn well I won't hesitate. Your call."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

The tomahawk was deflected, and his balance was off.

The blows came fast and hard – one to his cheek, and the next to his gut which doubled him over. Connor has his arm up to soften the punch to the face, which knocked him back off Keria and sent a ringing through his ears and a mouthful of iron. Blood dripped from his lips, and blinking to get his bearings on his feet, the grasp of metal clamped around his throat and pushed him back against the stone wall.

He let out a deflated sigh, and the blood dripped forth onto her hand. He rolled his tongue inside and felt around for the tear and the cracked tooth he could feel.

A muzzle was pushed up to his jaw and a click sounded as she made her call. Connor laughed a little at the absurdity of it.

"I know you won’t,” he slurred.

The hand by his side had the silver lightsaber hilt now in it, and he pushed the emitter into her hip. His thumb pressed the ignition switch but he held it, not releasing the piercing crimson blade though her body.

"Nor will I. So kill me, and kill yourself. How fitting.”

Connor lifted his neck a little.

"What even are you, Keira….you’re certainly not the warrior I knew….and no, before you ask, nor am I. I’m not a Jedi anymore….and I’m certainly not your enemy as a Sith….so you need to think before you act for once right now….okay?”

He looked at her, trying to find the human behind those glassy eyes.

"I know you don’t hate yourself that much.”

[member="Keira Ticon"]

 

[Keira Priest]

Music
"You're right, I don't." Dark eyes met easily with amber, her gaze now crafted of stone that held within itself impossibly sharp edges, the precision behind her eyes carefully honed. There wasn't a single fiber of her being that wasn't prepared to end it all in a spray of blood and viscera, if just to do nothing more than settle what had become some kind of grudge and leave it all behind. Certainly she may have been risking her own life in the process, but she was more confident in the lethality of a gunshot to the head as opposed to being stabbed through the hip. Her own potential wound had a higher rate of survival, whereas he would be left with nothing more than a hollowed out skull. Not that much would change, in her opinion.

The pressure at her hip should have perhaps served as a reminder of her own mortality, but Keira had never been the sort to take hints. She had learned long ago just how little life was valued in the greater galaxy, and that included her own. If she died killing a Sith, all the better. At least that meant she was doing something right for once. "It's not myself I hate." It hadn't been for a long while, after she had finally learned to live with herself. Her hand tightened around his throat, all traces of the respect she had once held for him gone. In an instant her finger tensed on the trigger, but there was no crack of a gunshot to follow quickly behind, no spray of blood as his body fell limp.

There was only the click of an empty chamber sounding out the last second chance he would ever get.

"It's you." All at once the pressure about his throat would release as her left hand fell, the chamber of the pistol cycling, this time holding a live round that wouldn't hesitate to deliver its promise. Stepping backwards so as to allow herself room to move if he chose to strike, she only watched him for a long few seconds. She was operating purely on instinct and her own emotion at this point, no longer having to worry about the ramifications of starting a war. The thing about her and inhibitions was that she was better having them, and this situation presented no reason to. Still the safety of her weapon didn't engage, and she kept it leveled steadily at his head. "Walk away before I change my mind."

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

At the sound of the empty chamber being fired, the tension in Connor’s body sagged a little. No man wanted to face death, especially not in such an undignified, cheap way from a blaster to the head not even in battle. He gripped his hilt tight as she stood back and the pressure fell from his throat.

Coughing and clearing his throat a little, he rubbed his neck and looked at her all the while she readied her next shot and made it quite clear where – and what – her problem was.

So be it.

He wasn’t going to waste his time or his breath on a woman as volatile as this. Keira was gone, at least the woman he knew. Now she was some narrow-minded and bitter failed Mandalorian who was grasping at what she could to prove to herself she was still worth a damn.

He had supported here when nobody else would, and confided in her himself when he had nobody else. Held her babies and held her too. Now, whatever had happened, had made it all nothing but a memory.

Connor stepped away from the wall and pulled his collar a little tighter and wiped his hands down.

"Once I felt sorry for you. Now, the only ones I feel sorry for are your children.”

Her over-reaction to everything would be confirmed if she thought that was a threat, but no. It wasn’t a threat. It was a statement from a man who had been a friend to her, who now saw this wreck of a woman – and mother – threatening to either land her children in danger or leave them without a mother one day when she took a bullet in the back or a blade to the neck.

With a few more seconds of silence, Connor ended it with no trace of a poignant or sad smile. Just a cold statement.

"Goodbye, Keira.”

The First Order was his home now. Not the Jedi of Voss or the Sith. He was no Jedi, nor Sith. He was more than any of them. Keira couldn’t see it, and he wouldn’t waste his time trying to convince her. For all he cared, she could use the last bullet on herself and he wouldn’t look back.

Not now.

[member="Keira Ticon"]