Private The Tomb of My Wrongs

[Cale Gunderson]

Cale had sworn he’d never come back to this place, never again would he walk its grounds, or wander its near-endless maze of corridors. He’d promised himself that. But there he was, at the mouth of Coruscant’s grand temple, alone. He had to face this by himself, as much as Aleks had insisted to the contrary.

This was where it’d happened, where he’d ceased to be, where that thing had taken hold of him, and then as if to rub salt in the wound, it had him do its work there. This had been his home, and now it was his hell. But things were different than he’d ever thought they’d be. Cale was standing on alliance soil a free man, a saber at his side of his own construction, his status as a Jedi Knight restored.

Never in a thousand lifetimes did he think he’d be standing where he was then, as he was then. But even still, Cale was damned afraid.

He took a long drag from his stimstick, and blew smoke into the air as he tried to let the narcotic calm his nerves in a way that something like the force simply couldn’t. It wasn’t helping, but he liked to think it was, and that was something at least. The knight swallowed his fears and his pride and crossed the threshold into one of the places that made him, and that he in turn had unmade.

They’d burnt it again, the Sith. A different Sith, under a different flag, but the result and even some of the hands carrying it out had been the same. But he hadn’t been there that time, and if that was a blessing or a curse Cale didn’t know. Part of him longed to have been there, to have stood alongside the Jedi and died there finding some kind of peace.

But another part of his soul, a darker one, knew Cale couldn’t have kept himself together then, he hadn’t been ready. He was now.

It was somehow more terrifying empty than it had been filled with the friends he’d tried to kill or the screams of those under the knife. The silence was deafening, he was alone with all the ghosts, and he could not tell if they were mocking or scorning him, never once did he consider they might’ve been welcoming him home.

Then he realized he might not have been as alone as he'd thought.

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson ​

Auteme's visits weren't frequent. Despite the excitement of her last outing to the Coruscant temple, she still found the place surprisingly liberating. The emptiness of the halls, the great silence... it'd been here before, even when the New Jedi Order had held this place. She could run, dance, breathe; not an eye was on her.

But still, the guilt loomed. Every time she walked in, she remembered the locked doors. She should've seen it coming, done more, told someone; instead Coruscant burned. When she'd come back, the very soul of the Temple seemed to reject her.

Now, abandoned, she felt tolerated at the very least, as though these great halls were lonely. It seeped into her, too, and they were lonely together.

Her melodramatic contemplations were interrupted by the presence of another. A low hum in the back of her mind alerted her, and a few moments later she rounded the corner to see a bearded, sunken-eyed man.

"Er- hello," she said. He didn't look like he was in a rush, or really looking for anything -- she got the sense he was probably a Jedi, if a sad and potentially stimstick-addicted one. Lonely together, again.

"Sorry, ah- I'm Auteme. I wasn't really expecting to see anyone around here tonight."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

Cale to his shame almost jumped. Muscles-tensed beneath the fabric and his hand almost went to his side, as if a saber would help him with ghosts. Tired blue eyes turned and settled on the woman, one who mercifully, he did not recognize. She wasn't a ghost there to haunt him, just a stranger wandering in the night. Assuming she didn't try to kill him in the next few seconds, the single-armed Jedi reasoned that she wasn't there to initiate a years overdue grudge match. His guard dropped, and the tension released.

He let her go first since she chose to start talking as Cale took a long drag. He wondered if he should've tried quitting, it was probably a terrible example for Aleks, and he had just been restored to his status as Jedi Knight. But Cale still didn't sleep, just like he hadn't for decades, so he pushed aside the thought of shedding one of his vices.

Auteme, it wasn't a name he knew, and there was no familial title following it, thus Cale once again confirmed to himself that she was exactly the stranger she presented herself to be. No harm intended, no hidden traps, she was just another person alone in the temple.

"Yeah, me either." He answered, half-intending to leave it at that, then be on his way. Maybe it'd been stupid to come here, to reopen the wounds, after all what did he have left to face here? What did he have left to prove? But something stayed his feet, and Cale did not run anywhere.

"Cale."

He introduced himself and exhaled a cloud of smoke, the warm orange glow of the stim casting itself over him, painting his tired features in its light. Scars and sunken eyes, a messy beard, but blue in his gaze had a life to it now, one that hadn't been there once again until recently. He could sense the force on her, the same as she could him, and so he did his best to guess at what her intentions were.

"Lose someone here?" It was a stupid question admittedly, what Jedi hadn't at some point? Hell, Cale had lost himself on top of all the friends and comrades. The place was more a tomb than a temple now, perhaps it was better off empty.

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson ​

"Uh, not really. Well, yeah, but... no." She scratched her head. She held her breath a moment and let the puff of smoke pass by.

"Sorry, just- you're a Jedi, right? Are you with the New Jedi?" She didn't recognize him, but maybe he was a newer member. It struck her that not recognizing New Jedi was becoming more frequent.

It wasn't her place, after all. She could wander the halls, breathe the peace, but it wouldn't accept her so easily.

 

[Cale Gunderson]

"Sounds complicated." He shrugged before she followed up with a question which set him right back on edge.

"Who's asking?" In a heartbeat Cale was on the defensive, his eyes narrowing and hand flexing open, ready to call his saber to him. And then he remembered he wasn't a fugitive anymore, there was no one hunting him, no reason to hide but shame. The embarrassed flush was hidden by the beard he'd let go untended too long, but his eyes said all they needed to. His hand relaxed and he sighed.

"Sorry, I- yeah. I'm with the Jedi, you one of the new ones? I'm trying to get acquainted with the new faces" He barely recognized some parts of the temple now, so many attacks and reconstructions had seemingly passed him by, he wondered what it'd been like when whoever the stranger was had first seen it. If she'd seen it. He wasn't as good at reading people as he used to be, maybe she was no Jedi at all and he was just a fool.

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

Auteme raised her hands slightly, as though apologizing for triggering some trauma response in him. The man seemed... jumbled. He didn't sound convinced of his own Jedi-ness. Also seemed weird that he was looking to meet people in an abandoned temple.

"I was just asking if you were part of the New Jedi Order," she clarified. "I used to be. Part of the Circle, actually."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

"I, yeah. It's complicated, but yeah. " Cale shrugged, still unclear why they'd ever bothered changing the name of so many things. Probably to set themselves apart from the Republic, if he had to guess, that'd make the most sense. It was still strange though like his generation had just been brushed aside and forgotten. Maybe they had, maybe they deserved it.

"The wha-oh, right, that's why you all call the council now." She'd left them, and he couldn't help but wonder why. He hadn't been given a choice, that had been made for him, but Cale wasn't the only one with a complicated relationship to the order so it seemed. Not all that surprising he'd admit, knowing all he did now, it was hard to see it the same way.

"Used to be? What, they cut your hours? Give you swamp world detail" Cale questioned, an edge of snark on his tongue in a half-hearted attempt at being friendly. He was sure she had her reasons, it wasn't like she'd abandoned the order to get into politics.

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

"No. I, ah... the attack on Coruscant. Here. I-" she stopped herself. If Cale didn't know her or the history of the New Jedi, then perhaps it was best to keep things light.

"A lot happened. I decided to leave. Now I'm a Senator." She shrugged, glancing away. "Um, I realize- were you going somewhere? I didn't mean to interrupt anything, if you were busy."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

"A senator?" Cale scoffed, the edge returning to his voice as a look of something close to disgust spread across his features. "What, you get tired of doing things that you could at least pretend mattered and just went for comfort?"

For once, the accusatory hostility was completely genuine. Cale had nothing but contempt for politicians, this iteration of the Galactic Alliance had lasted a good half-decade longer than the last, but it was far from permanent. In his mind, they ought to have saved politics and democracy until they'd lasted a decade or two. After all, what good was representation to the dead? Or to people who wouldn't be under your flag in the next five years? She'd alleged a lot happened, and found himself wondering what a lot was to her.

It was a selfish thing to even contemplate, he'd suffered greatly to be sure, but that did not make him eligible to discount what others had gone through. But still, something boiled inside him.

"Wasn't going anywhere, just have history here. Ghosts to lay to rest."

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

"That's a pretty cynical view of politics," she said. A surprisingly Jedi view. No wonder she'd decided to step away.

Part of her wanted to just leave him there -- he seemed a touch angry, perhaps grieving, in that slowly-remembering way. But he was a Jedi, and that made her have a touch of hope. Plus, there was some small thrill in trying to change the mind of a stranger she met in the middle of the night. No downsides. "Let's go find some ghosts," she said, beckoning him.

She started to lead down the corridor, remembering the route to one of the great halls ahead.

"I confess I'm curious," she began. "What do you think matters? If the things the Jedi do don't matter, and you think the actions of the Alliance matter even less so."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

"It isn't cynical if it's true," Cale argued, but not with any great deal of effort. The life cycles of alliances and empires alike were all dreadfully short, and politicians who played at long games were the worst among their ranks, not for any tendency to commit the gravest offenses, but because they were arrogant enough to be blind to the tide. What he'd expected was for her to storm off in that entitled way senators often did when confronted with opposition where no show could be made of engaging them, instead she called him to join her.

To hunt ghosts, his ghosts. Cale didn't say a word, he just followed after, huffing smoke into the air as he did, a soft orange glow wafting outwards from the stim. He wondered if he'd need to be drunk to sleep tonight as if that were a question to which he lacked an answer. Obviously, he would. Then of course came the questions.

He'd seen it coming a parsec away, the same probing questions his padawan asked him when they'd met, that he asked himself time and time again. What did matter?

"Nothing," He answered bluntly. "Nothing matters, not really."

He sighed and dropped the stimstick, stamping it out as he kept pace, looking at the temple around him. "Look at this place, how many times have they had to rebuild it in the past, oh, fifty years? Three times? Five? I don't even know."

This had been his home once, but he barely recognized some of it now, not due to damage, but from the reconstructions. How many of the halls he'd once known had become something else entirely, only to be destroyed again.

"There've been what, three Galactic Alliances in that period? Two Republics? Maybe twice as many Empires, Sith or otherwise, two or three confederacies? And forget talking about the Mandalorians. No time in Galactic history has ever been like this, and it's only getting worse." He wasn't sure why he was saying as much as he did, or why the frustration in his voice seemed so directed at this woman he didn't even know personally, but he didn't find it in himself to stop.

"Nothing we do lasts, good or evil. In a decade at best the state responsible falls, shatters, its opposite emerging in its place. Children live under three different flags or more on some worlds before they ever reach adulthood. Jedi fall, Sith rise and change their ways. Whatever hell we live in now, its galactic history repeating itself but on an ever faster damn loop. Look at a holo or something." He imagined the ranting raised more questions than it answered. Why be a Jedi if it was all for nothing. "I just choose to fight 'cause I might as well. None of it matters sure, doesn't mean I have to make things worse, gotta set a good example for a kid."

His voice again lost its edge as the maimed knight cast a glance at his fellow as he walked slowly alongside her. But now he was curious, genuinely. She seemed smart, most senator types were, even if it was in a self-serving way, though something about Auteme made him think she was one the ones who weren't inherently corrupt.

"What about you? Why do you think sitting in that senate matters when this alliance probably won't last another decade?

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

Auteme managed to hold her tongue all the way to the end, but once he was finished she chortled a little bit. "Gotta say, pretty based."

She was 50% sure she was using that word right. Still, she said it with confidence, and that was what mattered.

"You're right, nothing really matters. We live in an indifferent galaxy, tiny specks of dust in the grand scheme of the universe. Time washes away everything." She shrugged. "If that's the case, then what I do -- what the Alliance does -- matters as little as what you do, what anyone does, and we could leave it at that, satisfied by knowing nothing matters.

"But wallowing in nihilism is a poor way to live life, as I suspect you know." She smiled. "Your... kid. Padawan? That sounds right," she said, half-looking to him for an answer, "you want to set an example for them. Why do they matter over everyone else?"

There was, of course, no answer to that save whatever Cale might feel. "It's up to us to create values, build meaning; we can look to a lot of places for inspiration, but in the end we have that power.

"A Jedi can fight, certainly, solve many problems; probably better than most people. But a trillion sentient beings lending their power to a state, however fleeting it may be, trumps the power of any individual. My role as a Senator, even one among thousands, is orders of magnitude more powerful than anything I have on my own, or even as part of the Order.

"You can fight Sith, set a good example, all that. I do the very same, only with the strength of a nation. Our reasons and means may differ, but the ends are the same. My values simply demand that I extend my example, my protection, my compassion to as many as possible. The Alliance is how I do that."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

For a moment he regarded her with something akin to disbelief, but he said nothing as she laid out her own reasoning. Smugly, smartly, and with a passion. She meant what she was saying, believed every word, and as jaded as he was he wondered how she'd lived to adulthood being so naieve, then remembered his disposition hadn't always been as it was now. Once upon a time, Cale might've agreed with her. When he'd been younger, a thrall in a mask, the Republic had appointed a nineteen-year-old Jedi as Chancellor. Though trapped and enslaved, Cale had hoped such youthful leadership might've saved the crumbling state.

It hadn't. In fact, it'd made things much, much worse. But Cale had believed in that girl, stupidly. In regards to Aleks, the truth of it was, nothing made the boy more inherently important than any other bar the fact that in Cale's mind, Aleks was his. He might not have born Cale's name, nor shared his blood, but Cale had been there for every crucial year of his growth from boy to man. He could never say it, never dare to put himself in place of Aleskandr's passed parents, but the boy was his son in all but name.

And that made him more important because he was his boy. Cale didn't care if that was selfish.

"You're wrong." He'd have laughed at himself once, how damned bitter he sounded. "If this were thirty years ago, and the Republic still stood, I might've even agreed with you. But the galaxy has changed for the worse. That power you hold, those trillion voices, they aren't fleeting, you could do something with fleeting, they're practically nonexistent. Politics are slow, the policy takes time to pass, and more to initiate, and that means nothing if the senate passing it doesn't exist two years into deliberation."

"I kill a Sith, you kill one, they can't hurt anyone ever again, doesn't matter who's flag is flying. They stay dead." He thought a moment on the last line, and thought better of it, given all he'd seen. "Mostly. I don't know, a few of them keep coming back."

He tried to crack a joke, the hint at a smile, but his mind reminded him of Darth Vulcanus' twisted form, pulling itself back together, and remembered the fear in his veins. Nations did not stand, the change did not last, and sometimes the enemy simply would not die.

"If you're lucky, you'll outlive this alliance. What you do on your own is gonna last longer than anything you do in that Senate. Your compassion is empty if no one lives to see it-" He stopped his rambling and sighed, eyes drifting down to his right, where his absent arm ought to have been, and he realized that his anger had no direction, so he'd simply directed it towards someone who'd never given him reason to.

"I used to think like you." Cale came to a stop as they entered one of the grand halls, one he still recognized. "We beat them once. Really beat them. My brother and I, we watched Korriban get bombed to glass, watched their empire fall, the light triumphant."

He remembered the joy of that victory, the swell of triumph as he and the other young kinghts celebrated a galaxy liberated from darkness, and toasted to a thousand years of peace. Instead, they'd gotten two.

"Then they came back, they...I, you don't," He still heard the whisper in his nightmares, the Dark Lord's grand boast as darkness fell over the hall they stood in now, as robed shadows came from the darkness and struck down all he'd known, and he'd joined them. His body had, at least. "They come back worse, and we come back weaker. They take you, and they make you, I-feth."

He cleared his throat, and tried to stop his rambling.

"Being here is hard. I'm sorry. I don't know if I even make sense." He wished he'd been buried here, he wished he'd died with the others.

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

"No, it's okay." This man was carrying quite a lot of baggage. It wasn't a surprise that the trauma affected his view of the galaxy.

"Do you want to talk about it? I can listen for a little while, if you want. Though, uh, I obviously can't fix your problems." She slowed her walking speed a touch. "Alternatively, I could, ah, give you my therapist's number. He's great."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

"No, not really. I just wanted to see where I killed my friends, and ask them to forgive me for not fighting harder." There was no point sugarcoating it. He remembered feeling them die, watching, screaming at himself to stop whilst his body failed to listen. So many years in an iron mask, a metal tomb that he'd been sure he'd die in. "Don't think your shrink is rated for me anyway, plus I'm broke."

Cale laughed, harsh but genuine, tucking his hand into the pocket of the leather jacket he'd been gifted by one of the Knights. Didn't know his name, but he seemed like a decent sort.

"What about you Senator, what do you need a shrink for?"

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

"Oh. Wow." Auteme made a mental note to push for better mental health initiatives in the Senate, and to mandate therapy for members of the New Jedi Order. Cale seemed to skip over the topic rather quickly, though, so she didn't press him on it.

She regained some composure as they strode into one of the grander halls -- the Room of a Thousand Fountains sprawled out before them. The vast greenhouse was a literal breath of fresh air compared to the Coruscanti cityscape; even with minimal tending it kept itself tidy. The stone walkways were clear enough for them to go down.

"I, ah- don't think it's appropriate to call them 'shrinks', since that's slang originating from a particularly antiquated ritual practice unrelated to modern therapeutic and mental health practices. A therapist will do far more than headshrinking, so, ah," she smiled, "I think it's a little reductionist.

"Anyways, I just -- have stuff to unpack, you know? Maybe not as serious as-" she made a little gesture at him, trying to be as inoffensive as possible, "but still stuff. Going to war isn't exactly healthy. The last decade has been me running around while whatever crisis is going on. Not good for the mind."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

"Huh, learn something new every day." Cale shrugged off the lesson, as unbothered with being corrected as he was with having spoke it in the first place. Maybe he needed to get with the times, maybe he really was getting old, or perhaps he was once again simply being jaded and bitter. He reserved his judgment, though the impulse to dismiss her own suffering in comparison to his did try to rear its ugly head. It was a bad habit, something he'd been trying to break for some time.

"Does it help?" He didn't even realize he'd asked it aloud for a second, wondering if it was his thoughts or the whispers of some restless spirit rattling around in his brain. But no, he'd outright asked the question himself like he didn't already know the answer. Of course, it didn't help, if it did he wouldn't be this way. There was no way it could ever be so simple.

Cale looked around, eyes wandering the temple's architecture.

"This place has changed since the last time I was here. Lots has, I mean we aren't the Republic anymore. But half the halls don't even exist how they used to."

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

"Shrink? Reductionist?" Auteme looked at him, before sighing, defeated. "I'm not funny, sorry."

She let his sentiment hang a little, breathing in the fresh air of the great hall.

"Things change," she mused, turning to him. "Same thing with therapy. It works. The hardest part is usually just trying it.

"I get that, you know, being a Jedi's a weird time, but you're still allowed to do normal people stuff, you know? Like... grieve. Make mistakes. Get better -- with help." She shrugged. "Otherwise it's like you're... waiting for character development, like the Force is gonna write your story to finally make you better. That sucks."

 

[Cale Gunderson]

Cale's eyes slowly widened as he realized he'd missed the joke, and he couldn't help but allow himself to chuckle quietly.

"Haven't slept in two days, guess that flew over me. It is kinda funny." He mused, practically embarrassed that he hadn't caught the act of levity in the moment. He'd always been good at catching those sorts of things. Not anymore apparently. He tried to believe her, that speaking about it with some kind of professional would help, but he'd talked about it before, and all it had ever done was leave him with more nightmares when he accidentally remembered some horror he'd repressed.

If he started speaking about it to someone regularly, what guarantee was there that the horrors would ever end? That the newfound nightmares would ever stop? It seemed too great a risk to take, too big of a danger. But he was a Jedi knight, was he not supposed to face that?

"The force is a horrible writer, best not to leave that to it." He mumbled, a half-hearted joke of his own. "Even if you're right, how do you keep doing all you do, given the galaxy? Things have never changed so drastically so often. Coruscant has been under what, six or seven flags in the past few decades? The Republic, the One Sith, the Alliance, I think they tried Independence once and there was a Republic Remnant at some point, then the alliance again? And what about the others, whatever world you speak for, how many governments have they known?"

It was more a question than the damning accusations from before.

"What good are promises and legislation to people who can't be sure the alliance will even exist to deliver on them?"

Auteme ​

 

[Auteme]

Cale Gunderson
​

"I don't know. Trust? An educated guess? This galaxy sees weapons capable of annihilating entire planets, but I still usually go to sleep thinking I'm going to wake up the next morning." She shrugged. "Promises don't work if you don't trust the other person. You can call me naive, but I'll just keep working to prove you wrong and make people's lives better. It's what I want to do, it's what I care about."