Private Ready or Not

[Lily Rhodes]

There was a flicker of something in her chest as he spoke, a tug of connection as she realised that he was once her. Nobody and nothing. No direction, no plan just drifting from one mess to the next. For one horrible moment, she felt like she was looking at her future. Her mouth went dry.

Was it truly the only way?

Her mind was filled with the sight of the dozens of children she had seen die under the shadow of the Jedi temple, their complancency and inability to control or quiet the undercity of Coruscant had been the misery of her childhood. Sure, there had been peace in the galaxy, but only those with aanything o their name had been able to appreciate it.

Her hand curled around the hilt he offered her. It would have been easy to activate it, to have the emmiter burst through his chest, to end him. She blinked, staring into the faceless visor.

She wanted to say something. To tell him that Malum didn't understand. To tell him that she needed help, she needed a path, a direction, something. But it all caught in her throat. She swallowed hard, her free hand shufting to dislodge the datastick she'd hidden up her sleeve. It thudded quietly to the floor as the medics lifted her onto the stretcher, she pressed the lightsaber against her chest.

"I don't have a purpose." She whispered. That pain far outweighed the physical one as they lifted the stretched from the ground. Lily closed her eyes against the flood of tears the threatened, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat as her chest felt like it was going to burst.

Darth Strosius

 

[Darth Strosius]

The falling datastick didn't escape the masked man's notice, even if unseen gaze never flickered to it. It was exactly what he was looking for of course, without it only her memory would serve as any possible weak link in his plan, but he highly doubted that she had memorized any coordinates before he had interrupted her. Without it in her possession she no longer posed a threat and that was exactly how he liked it. He didn't immediately retrieve it though, instead watching as she was loaded onto the stretcher and halting the medics before they carried her off.

Her tears drew a small sigh from him as he cross his arms behind his back and summoned the fallen datastick into his waiting fingers. "The young rarely do." Darth Strosius agreed with a small nod. "Flittering about the galaxy with all the time in the world yet no wisdom in how to use it, but if you listen and learn then you can overcome this setback. So heed me well in this, even if you haven't listened to anything else that I've spoken of during your little visit."

Were she to open her eyes she'd see him looming over her form, making the medics surrounding the stretcher somewhat anxious with his presence alone even without his visor being trained on any of them. "Perhaps you have no purpose. Perhaps you have no concept of what it is you wish to do, of who it is you wish to be, but you already have all that you need to discover it. You have your morals, you have your friends, and most of all you have your freedom. Freedom to make your own choices and stand by them. Freedom to find your purpose, not to have it simply handed to you."

After a moment he stood back and nodded to the medical team. "Take her to the med-bay and treat her properly, I shall stop by later on to check up on her progress." Behind his back he dropped the datastick onto the floor and as the medics began to move he shifted his footing to let them by, conveniently crushing the device underneath his heavy boot as he watched the girl get carried out of his office.

Lily Rhodes

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tears spilt quietly from the corners of her eyes as she opened them to look up into the faceless mask as he loomed over her. Her grip on Malum's lightsaber tightened if only to stop the tremble in her hands. He said it, like it was easy, like a purpose was something someone simply knew. Survival had been her only purpose, then exploration and learning…and then she had found her family. She felt the pressure of accepting her true nature bearing down on her every day, of becoming a Sith and falling in line like the rest of them.

Malum would never say it, he would never ask it of her, but she saw that every time she pulled away the pain it caused him, the shame of his forebearers weighed on him. Her thoughts drifted to Velok Brokentusk to how he had tried to shield her from the worst of the dark side, from his dark past and her heart broke. She should have stayed with him on Jaibrek, she should have stayed with the Nagai and finished her training there, but the itch had become too much, the pull to come back and seek more. But more of what?

She closed her eyes as they carried her to the medbay, not wanting to stare up at the harsh lights or feel the eyes of those they passed on her. Hearing their thoughts was bad enough until she shut them out. Everything that had led her hear had been driven by a child's dream, she'd been caught up in the possibility of a happy future where she could turn a blind eye to the rest of the galaxy. But the truth was she was meant for more than that and she knew it.

What exactly, had yet to reveal itself. When it did, would she be ready for it? As they set her into the bacta tank, she slipped out of thought and feeling, drifting along the currents of the force trying to discern her place within them.

Darth Strosius