Location: Dark Side Cave, Dagobah
Most offshoots weren't collared, chipped, and chained. They were second-class citizens, getting the worst jobs, toughest jobs, most dangerous jobs, for nearly nothing. If they got any work at all. Many were homeless or near it, subsisting on basic assistance. Access to healthcare was limited at best. Oh, but drugs, and other vices were always cheap. It was a series of systemic problems that kept her people in the gutter, unable to do anything but suffer and try to claw their way out, only to get dragged back down.
She was lucky to have ever made it out, really.
Though some of her people were bound. But this was a nightmare version. A fever dream.
Des closed her eyes, hands balling into fists at her side so hard they ached and her palms bled a little. She opened her mouth as if to speak, to protest, but the words died on her lips, tasting like ash. Yes, she'd left. But she thought she was running toward something better.
But was she really? Or was she just running away?
"
You left us behind." The voice was all too familiar. Memories flooded back of nights spent skin to skin, tangled together in sheets, wishing the world outside didn't exist. Normally silky sweet, Elidea's voice was dripping with disgust. "
You left me. So much for love."
"
Ellie," Des cried, her voice cracking a little, her throat dry as the deserts of Deneba. The look on Ellie's face, her words took the breath out of her and her legs buckled as though she'd been physically struck. After a moment she straightened and rolled her shoulders. Determination flared within her. "
Yes. I left. And I did leave you. I know how badly you wanted to come with me. But there was no place for you where I was going. Or so I thought. I was foolish. And perhaps selfish." She grimaced. Elidea would have been better off serving in the Enclave as a caretaker or other non-Jedi personnel. Rather than being left in the gutter.
"
You never really loved me. I was just a distraction for you from all the shit in your life," Elidea hissed, her face twisted into a sneer. She stalked ever closer. Hostility radiated off of her like a burning sun.
Des took a step back. "
That's not true." She paused. "
Okay, maybe partially true. You were a distraction, yes. But I ..." Her protests died away on her lips again. She'd never seen a future with Elidea. But she hadn't really looked for a future, not at the time. "
I did love you."
"
No, you just loved the distraction."
"
Maybe. But I still cared for you."
"
Sure you did."
Des balled her fists once more. "
Did you forget, you were the one who helped me fix up my ship? The whole team did. You guys helped me."
"
Because we believed in you," Elidea shouted, her voice echoing off the trees. "
Oh, I'll be back, I promise," the apparition mocked in rather eerily close facsimile of Desbre's silvery voice. "
You left us all to rot."
"
I wanted to come back. So bad. I wanted to make everyone proud. You. Hanna. Ledos. Mom. Dad," Des said, shaking her head as her vision turned watery. "
I pushed and pushed and pushed. Trying to get to where I could come home." Her voice cracked on the tail end.
"
Want in one hand, crap in the other. See which one fills up faster. Did you push? Or were you just marking time?"
To hell with you, Des snapped internally. "
If you had any idea what I went through, Ellie, you wouldn't ask me that," she said, wiping her face with one hand in frustration.
"
What about what I went through? You didn't see it or chose not to see it, being in tears while helping scrape together that rust-bucket of a ship. How I broke down after you abandoned me. I was so alone," Elidea's apparition accused, stalking, pacing around Desbre.
"
I was dealing with the same things," Des countered. "
Only I lost my entire world. And yeah, I probably could have stayed. Gramps only wanted me out of his house. But he gave me a new direction. A chance at a better life. The discipline he wanted for me, sure. But I took it because the alternative was... death. Death of the spirit, of mind, and then of body. I'd have been dead of an overdose inside of a year. Probably. Or I would have been splattered in the tunnels in another race. Leaving saved my life. And I hoped that I could save all of you in the process. I failed in that regard. I didn't just run away. I ran so I could get help, and maybe bring something resembling hope back."
She was advancing on Ellie now. Anger rose within her, only fueling her resolve, but not overriding her senses. . "
And it was probably foolish and naive of me to think that. I can't save everyone. Back then I couldn't save anyone. Not my grandmother. Not my parents. Nobody but myself. But I've more than made up for the red in my ledger. I've fought, suffered, and bled to make better lives for people I've never even met. And every single day I think of the sacrifices I had to make. The decisions that brought me where I am. I can't fix the past. But I don't have to live in it either."
Punctuating her words, a pulse wave of energy rippled off of her, almost invisible. It wasn't meant to be dangerous and wasn't even intentional. It was a subconscious use of the Force, a repulsion matching her refuting the words leveled against her. She stood there, hands at her sides loosening.
Huh, she thought. Her skin was cold, gooseflesh raised, but it was as though a layer of weight had come off her, a release of negative energy that had piled on her for years. She really could and should stop living in the past. It wasn't serving her, and it was ancient history now. Letting go was not a sin or a crime, even if it was of the people you loved and cared for.
Desbre Gensan
