Private So Talk

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

THE BEZHARL
EN ROUTE FROM SVOLTEN TO ELSEWHERE

Though the Jedi ship had no dedicated confinement space, they'd made do. Ashin still wore serious cuffs, the locked room had ysalamir behind at least a couple of walls, and she caught a whiff of carbonite when the door opened.

Here came the ostensible leader of the pack. Like most of the Jedi Masters on the team, she couldn't put a name to the face. She eased her sore legs off the bunk and sat up to face him.

"If you're bringing someone like me to justice, I can only assume you have grander plans. Zambrano? Raaf? The Worm?"

Wyatt Morga

 

[Wyatt Morga]

"Them and more.", Wyatt offered as he glanced about the room for a place to sit.​

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The opposite bunk, an uncomfortable thing as it were, proved to be where he would rest. He took a moment to adjust for comfort, then spoke;​

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"My name is Wyatt Morga. I was Grandmaster of the Jedi Order before I left them to fight the Bryn'adul - and now, I am here. I don't expect any of that to matter to you - but I don't see a need for us to fight any longer. Other's would disagree - many of the Jedi would rather see you executed here and now, so that you won't get a chance to escape; but I'm not so foolish."​

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"You'd find a way to come back, like Carnifex and the others. Personally, I'd like to offer you redemption - but I think if that was something you wanted, you would've reached out to us long ago. So here are, at an impasse - killing you would achieve nothing. Offering you redemption simply gives you an outlet to take advantage of our kindness."​

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"So I'll ask you, Ashin. What should we do with you?"​

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Ashin Cardé Varanin​

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin offered a nod of grudging respect. "Anyone who fought the Bryn'adûl has stones. And yes, I'll tell you plainly that I'd come back in one form or another. I've died half a dozen times.

"Let me tell you a story, Grandmaster. About thirty years ago, for a variety of reasons, I surrendered myself to the mercy of a combined Jedi council at great conclave. I asked to be stripped of the Force, broken down to Padawan. They agreed. I served as a Jedi Knight all over again. I was on my way to a new life. Then a man named Darth Odium woke up my old addiction to draining life, and I...made my choices.

"I have no answers for you. I am what I've chosen to become. If you're asking what I think I deserve, that's another question entirely."


Wyatt Morga

 

[Wyatt Morga]

"I appreciate your honesty, and your appreciation. The Bryn'adul were...", he paused. Memories flashed on his eyes, visibly on the wrinkles of his face before he frowned and shook his head.​

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"Rough.", he said with resignation.​

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He quickly transitioned the conversation;​

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"I considered that exact thing. Stripping you of the force, taking what memories you have and letting your build yourself up from nothing. Others may propose Force Light to destroy your soul, more still may hope for Force Ghosts to bind your as they did Sidious. More still don't even want a trial, especially after what Darth Carnifex did to the Ashlan Crusade."​

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He exhaled heavy.​

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"But I want you to understand why I need to do this. Ashin, as a Sith of your caliber, you represent great darkness. Guilt with no justice, crimes never answered - your very existence as you stand is a threat to Galactic peace. Not because of who you are, but because of what you are.", he said with a further deepening frown.​

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"With what Darth Solipsis has done to the Galactic Alliance, for what Carnifex has done to the Crusade, and no doubt what others will do soon - I have to prove Jedi can still do what Jedi must. I am sorry that you are the target of that, but I will do what I can to ensure you are fairly treated, that you get a chance at something more."​

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"Even if that isn't what you want - I must at least offer it."​

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Ashin Cardé Varanin​

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin tsked. "No, no. I'd expect a veteran of the Bryn'adûl wars to have more, what's the word... conviction. I haven't conquered a planet in thirty years or more. I'm the captain of a ship — a special ship, but just the one. I'm a soft target, barely symbolic. And yet you chose me instead of the Zambranos and their fellow genocidal maniacs — the missions that would actually save lives.

"I live by two principles, Master Jedi. First, I decide what matters most to me and do what's necessary for it — the fundamental doctrine of the Sith. And second, I live so I won't hold myself in contempt. If I'd gone on a mirror of your crusade and set out to strike a valiant blow against Jedi hegemony by gunning for, oh, Jorus Merrill or someone equally retired...you wouldn't take me seriously, would you."

Wyatt Morga

 

[Wyatt Morga]

"I'd take you as seriously as any other Sith, Ashin.", he offered back with a sad resignation.

"You were a strategist from what I understand. A smart one.", he continued.

"Jedi are often accosted for not saving lives when it's convenient for someone else to judge them - but are lives always more important than the ends? Were that so, would it not make more sense I dedicate myself to be a doctor?"

"As we can see, I'm not a doctor, and youre not Mon Mothma asking for galactic peace. I'm a Jedi, you're a Sith, and your punishment serves to save lives in a different way. You're not dumb, and while I'm sure you understand what I'm doing - attempting to take the moral high ground is both overplayed and underwhelming from Sith Lords.", he offered her with a quiet exhaustion almost hidden in his eyes.

"So tell me, Ashin, what do you think you deserve?"

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"I thought I'd made it clear by this point," she bit out, "that I claim no moral high ground. I simply object when you do it. Consider me stunned that a Jedi hears what he wants to hear."

She laid back down on the bunk and put her cuffed hands behind her head, looking up at the ceiling.

"Let's try something else. You clearly don't have the first clue who I am or what my sins are, and since I don't actually know who you are, a round of introductions are in order. Hello, I'm Ashin Varanin. For most of 835 ABY, I was a Jedi infiltrator and also the Sith Empress, and I used all the same threadbare, patchwork little justifications as people like you. But what can I say. I was young. I was still in the business of justifying myself.

"Your turn, son."


Wyatt Morga

 

[Wyatt Morga]

He offered a hum, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"We are creatures built on threadbare moral fabric, but you've offered me nothing I havent heard from Voyance, Carnifex, or Arcanix. Sith often play by this same toxic philosophy - that morality is so subjective any attempt at justice is seen at injustice. That the difficulty of our world offers no chance of philanthropy without contradiction - but we all make our choices, Ashin."

"I can accept what I do is not without holes, but I accept my guilt; not accost and deflect my insecurity when faced with it across a cell and a pair of cuffs."

A shake of his head.

"And here we remain, with your spitting vitriol. Deflecting. Playing on semantics as justification for your deeds. Perhaps you have not genocided the Mandalorians and stripped their planet for resources, but you waged wars of conquest on hundreds of worlds. Surely you remember Atrisia?", he said with a frown.

"So I ask again, Ashin, what do you deserve? A life with your wife, of peace and happiness when you have stolen so much from so many? Continued existence despite your admittance to consuming life through the Force?"

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Jorus Q. Merrill]

The moment Wyatt Morga mentioned Atrisia, an incredulous little laugh got away from Ashin. She kept chuckling as he spoke — she couldn't help it. By the time he finished asking his question she was laughing harder than she'd laughed in years.

---

The Bezharl hadn't taken damage, but she was a new ship, newly-refitted anyway, and Jorus was the one who'd refitted her. He stalked the decks with a compact toolbox in hand, pacing from minor task to minor task.

He knew exactly which door concealed Ashin Varanin; he'd set up the ysalamiri personally, and made sure the room couldn't be unlocked from the inside without serious biometrics keyed to the Jedi strike team. The door still made him nervous. So when uncharacteristic laughter echoed through that door, it hissed open in fairly short order.

"Everything alright in here, Master Morga?" he said, giving Varanin a flat glare. They'd flown together almost forty years ago in the Vagrant Fleet, and he'd had a chance to kill her before she set the Lords of the Fringe in motion. In any number of fighting retreats from the Fringe, and in the long years since, he'd often regretted not taking that chance.

So what if she could survive death, he'd said to Julius Sedaire earlier today. Space her on general principle.

 

[Wyatt Morga]

Wyatt frowned at her laughter, but turned to Jorus Q. Merrill with a reassuring glance. Ashin may have found humor in Wyatts talk, but he wouldn't allow her to upset the others - if he were so able.

"Simply talking." He said reassuringly.

"Asking her what would be a proper punishment would be for her deeds - but as you can see...", he said with a motion to her.

"She has found humor in it. Par for the course, as far as Sith go. I would appreciate your advice, however; what do you think?"

 

[Jorus Q. Merrill]

As Ashin's laughter wound down, Jorus tore his gaze away from the grimy, cuffed woman on the bunk and focused on Wyatt Morga .

"Put her outside," he said. "It's not the same as a normal execution; it's just a delaying tactic. Maybe it takes her a month or a year to wind up in a new body, but who cares. That's a month or a year she's not running the Pomojema, which as I hear it is probably a Sith academy. Varanin is who she is. She's had chance after chance to make right, and it never sticks." He grimaced. "And if you can't sell the other Jedi on airlocking her, I'm pretty sure I can set up a carbon-freeze chamber with what we've got onboard — doing that's an emergency rig as old as pre-hyperspace travel. If you don't know what to do with her yet, put her in hibernation until you do."

 

[Wyatt Morga]

Wyatt studied Merill for a moment, testing his emotions with a vested interest before he nodded and turned back. The frown returned to him as he looked upon Ashin;

"Unfortunately, I think he's right. You've had a long time to make right, under your own admission opportunities to do good. You've failed or rejected it, time and time again."

He stood, resting a hand on the hilt of his lightsaber. Less so as a threat, more a force of habit manifested in an inopportune time.

"I may not be your judge, but I will be your guard. I will prepare a carbon freezing container for you."

He moved to the exit, with Merill before he glanced back and offered her a final condolence;

"May the Force have mercy on you, Ashin. I fear the Jedi will have none."

And he'd press the close button on the door and depart.

Ashin Cardé Varanin