Because it's better than being confused and irritated...
...have some hurt_comfort bingo instead. :)
Title: Watch Me Burn: Ten Things About Darth Caedus In The RR-Verse
Summary: Because sometimes the best you can do is never quite good enough.
Prompt: Ostracized from society.
Warnings: Other than angst and some rusty writing skills (plus some triggering content involving torture and...other things) you have nothing to fear.
1. Even long after the First War Against The Yuuzhan Vong ends, you can't help but feel a sense of alienation. You check everyone's eyes for some trace of Jacen Solo, but you find nothing. If anything, they've been just as damaged as you are. Jaina, Zekk, Qui-Gon -- even though they refuse to admit that it's happened, they've been damaged. Ben's death has taken something out of each of them -- and Yoda, especially, seems to be taking the brunt of the blame, considering that he was the one who sent you to this guaranteed suicide mission to Myrkr.
But you doubt that they would have gotten anywhere if not for the mission to Myrkr. For all everything that happened later
Raynar being turned into UnuThul. Ben dying. You being tortured
in a way, the Jedi have emerged triumphant from this crisis. And yet, it's hard to tell Qui-Gon this, or Mace for that matter, considering he seems determined to think that Ben's death was his fault and his alone.
Does Mace even recognize his own greatness? Do the Jedi even recognize their own greatness?
Perhaps not. If anything, in your captivity by the Vong (and your subsequent travels afterwards -- you couldn't stay in the Temple, not for long. Everything seemed too suffocating for your own good), you've learned that people don't recognize the Jedi's greatness -- they hate them. And though you try to pretend it's not true, you already know, deep down, that they deserve it. Learning about the darkest secrets of the Jedi, those they tried to bury deep down
the brainwashing of ex-Sith Lord Darth Revan to suit their own ends, the punishment of the Jedi Exile, the genocide of Katarr
is enough to revolt you. And though Jocasta Nu tries to justify them to you, somehow you don't believe it.
You have to find a way to restore the Jedi's former glory -- but the problem is, you're not even a Master. You're just one man. In the eyes of the Order, you're nothing.
You don't stand a chance.
2. They don't call you "Vong freak" to your face -- they don't even say it explicitly when they think you're not listening. If anything, though, you can sense it in their voices -- he doesn't belong there. one wrong move and he could snap. he's a lunatic -- and something about it stings you. You didn't ask to be tortured by the Vong, but from the way they talk about you...
The best you can do is serve the Order as best you can. It's only after Mace dies that you decide to leave the Order -- there's nothing left for you here.
3. Qui-Gon Jinn, of course, tries to stop you, like he always does, but you merely turn, sadly, to look at him.
"You set out to save Alderaan," you say. "We all did. And it has been saved -- just not for me."
"Don't talk like that."
"Qui-Gon -- I'm not welcome here. I know it. You know it. They know it." You gesture towards the Jedi Temple.
"So you're leaving again." He doesn't protest anymore -- he's Qui-Gon, after all. He knows the burden of duty as well as anyone else.
You smile. "Just have faith in me, Master," you say. "When I get back...everything's going to be set right."
"I wish it were that simple. But..." Qui-Gon sighs, presses something into your hand. "Something of Luke's. He gave you this so you'd remember him."
The japor snippet. A "good luck" charm, of sorts, from Tatooine. You look at the charm in your hand, trying to memorize it.
"It's...beautiful," you say. "He made this himself?"
Qui-Gon chuckles -- it takes a while to realize that you were being naive as well. "Yes. Yes, he did. He's quite a gifted boy, Jacen -- he takes after you far too well."
4. Qui-Gon was probably the only one who knew about your secret marriage to Tenel Ka. For all she was gifted in shielding her emotions, he said to you, she couldn't shield the light that came to her eyes when one so much as mentioned your name. "And the same is true with you," Qui-Gon told you, with a faint smile. "You wear your emotions like a Holonet banner -- it wasn't hard to decipher it."
"You told Tenel Ka you...knew?"
"Well, yes," Qui-Gon said. "I half-expected her to react worse than she did."
"What did she say?"
"That yes," Qui-Gon said, "It was a fact. You two were in love, and that was all that mattered."
"You're not going to report me to the Council?"
Silence. Then Qui-Gon laughed -- that lovely, rich laugh that somehow, you never got tired of hearing.
"Jacen," he said. "You barely know me at all, do you?"
5. Once you left the Order and became Caedus
even meeting up with Lumiya, you never wanted to do this. it was only seeing Lumiya's visions that you even agreed to join her
the people you cared about most were in the forefront of your mind. Qui-Gon... You could almost imagine his disappointment, his grief that another one of his apprentices had died or fallen to the Dark Side. Tenel Ka...Luke... The most potent reason to join Lumiya was to protect them, to save them. To protect this luminescent, priceless boy that you and Tenel Ka created together -- to protect him, everything for him, all for him...
And then there was Jaina and Ben. Jaina was obvious -- she was your sister, your heart. You'd never abandon her, no matter what the cost may be.
And then there was Ben. On the surface, Tenel Ka and Luke may have seemed like the only reason to join the Dark Side -- but then there was the matter of the crumbling Republic, your own feelings of alienation and want, and then...
...and then there was Ben.
Tenel Ka and Luke may have made you feel at peace, but Ben made you feel alive -- he gives you energy during the day, encourages you, goads you on...
...and yet even then, late at night, you can't help but feel like you'll never quite be good enough.
6. You never expected to meet up with Luke at Geonosis again, but one thing you've learned as a Jedi, one thing that sticks out to you most in your years and years of training, is Qui-Gon's statement: The Force has a will. There are no coincidences.
It's a frightening thought -- the fact the Force could have sacrificed so many innocent lives to fulfill its own whims, and yet it's reassuring as well. Frightfully so. Perhaps in a way you are following Qui-Gon's wishes -- the will of the Force. The galaxy doesn't acknowledge the Jedi's greatness -- if anything, they hate them, and you know they deserve it. Perhaps you can get justice for the Vong
they are far from evil. if anything, they've been warped by their beliefs. they are as capable of good as anyone else
and for Ben's death, as well as the long-dead memories of Revan and the Exile. And yet...
Somehow, even as you send Luke
your son
to his death in the Arena, as well as Mara, somehow, you're not quite sure anymore.
7. It's long after Lumiya manages to heal your wounds after the battle with Qui-Gon -- even with your new powers, your months of training to be a Sith, he still managed to give you quite the workout, to put it mildly -- that you finally get to speak with Tahiri. At first, it mostly involves the stock phrases of "it's a miracle that you survived" and "you shouldn't have done this for me, Tahiri"
both rather true, but the latter most of all -- you aren't worth saving. you're a half-Vong freak, an outcast Jedi -- a traitor. you're effectively nothing. and as Lumiya said, "outcasts such as us aren't welcome here"
and then, much later, it gets to the matter of Qui-Gon. "Was he important to you, Master?"
"Yes," you finally say -- even now, it feels like speaking through a mouthful of broken glass. "For our part."
8. It's a familiar nightmare that you've been having post-Geonosis: standing against the flaming backdrop of Coruscant, facing Qui-Gon, trying so desperately to make him see things your way.
"I did everything, everything you ever asked!"
"As you saw it."
"I did this for you. All of you! To protect you!" And yet he's backing away from you -- there's no fear in his eyes
Jedi aren't allowed to feel fear
but there's a sadness and a disappointment in his eyes, as if he's questioning whether he ever knew you at all...
9. Growling at your inability to sleep, you get yourself to your terminal and begin typing out another one of your unsent letters to Ben. You don't know what you're doing, really -- if anything, you're mostly putting random thoughts and sentences together. You're pouring out everything you've felt ever since your experiences with Vergere, ever since...everything that's happened, to put it mildly. Nothing's changed, the Order tried to reassure you when you came back from Vergere's captivity, and yet, with the way they looked at you, with those icy-cold glares
or worse, looks of sympathy
and the way they talked about you, you know that everything changed when Vergere got ahold of you. Mace's death was just the final blow.
So you type. You don't know what you're even typing, but everything you are, everything you were, and everything you can't help but feel you're becoming is flowing into the terminal -- everything inside you is screaming help me, pull me out of this mess, save me to someone who can't find the courage
for lack of a better word
to do so.
10.
"...It's completely ridiculous, Ben. I shouldn't even be doing this -- this is nothing more than a petty power-struggle. It's not about preserving peace for the galaxy, no matter what the Jedi may want to believe -- it's about two equally delusional sides trying to crush the life out of one another to see what they have to prove. The only reason I'm even here is because...I'm an idiot, Ben. A sick, lovelorn, sad, delusional, woefully naive idiot. I keep trying to make things right and yet every time I do, it gets worse.
Vergere and Lumiya drove the value of sacrifice into my head. And I respect that -- more than anything else. But I gave up everything I had for what? To suffer in silence at night, grieving for Qui-Gon, grieving for you? Would I even have gotten this far without my grief, without my anger? For all Lumiya tells me about the power of hatred, I don't believe it. I can't bring myself to hate this galaxy -- for all its flaws, there's so much beauty in it, so much *light* -- contrary to what Vergere says, there are no weeds here. There have never been. But does it mean my crusade for justice and peace, my crusade for closure, is ultimately for nothing? I can't believe that. I shouldn't believe that, and yet here I am, grieving and worrying and over and over again, sacrificing my heart and hurting myself over you, all for you.
So...farewell, Ben. Whereever you may be. I may not know what I'm doing, but all the while, I shall fight in the shadow of Revan himself and try not to be afraid.
Your brother,
Jacen Solo (Darth Caedus)
You save the letter to the terminal and then go back to bed. Tomorrow...tomorrow may be a different day. A better day, maybe. Perhaps you'll win the war -- perhaps you'll reconstruct the galaxy in the way it was meant to.
And yet, despite everything, you can't help but feel the prickling in the back of your skull -- a voice that whispers, you may not be coming back. That the war may go on for longer than even you can foresee.
You were Jacen Solo once -- and with that came naivetie, overwrought idealism that would hardly survive in wartime. It was doomed from the moment you were first exposed to the Yuuzhan Vong -- an enemy that could hardly be felt in the Force, an enemy that would never stop until all Jedi, all of humanity, were exterminated.
And somehow, you doubt this new war
the Vong Wars, they call it, as if the previous war was nothing more than a border skirmish, such a sickening way to dishonor the Jedi who died there
will be any different.
Title: Watch Me Burn: Ten Things About Darth Caedus In The RR-Verse
Summary: Because sometimes the best you can do is never quite good enough.
Prompt: Ostracized from society.
Warnings: Other than angst and some rusty writing skills (plus some triggering content involving torture and...other things) you have nothing to fear.
1. Even long after the First War Against The Yuuzhan Vong ends, you can't help but feel a sense of alienation. You check everyone's eyes for some trace of Jacen Solo, but you find nothing. If anything, they've been just as damaged as you are. Jaina, Zekk, Qui-Gon -- even though they refuse to admit that it's happened, they've been damaged. Ben's death has taken something out of each of them -- and Yoda, especially, seems to be taking the brunt of the blame, considering that he was the one who sent you to this guaranteed suicide mission to Myrkr.
But you doubt that they would have gotten anywhere if not for the mission to Myrkr. For all everything that happened later
Raynar being turned into UnuThul. Ben dying. You being tortured
in a way, the Jedi have emerged triumphant from this crisis. And yet, it's hard to tell Qui-Gon this, or Mace for that matter, considering he seems determined to think that Ben's death was his fault and his alone.
Does Mace even recognize his own greatness? Do the Jedi even recognize their own greatness?
Perhaps not. If anything, in your captivity by the Vong (and your subsequent travels afterwards -- you couldn't stay in the Temple, not for long. Everything seemed too suffocating for your own good), you've learned that people don't recognize the Jedi's greatness -- they hate them. And though you try to pretend it's not true, you already know, deep down, that they deserve it. Learning about the darkest secrets of the Jedi, those they tried to bury deep down
the brainwashing of ex-Sith Lord Darth Revan to suit their own ends, the punishment of the Jedi Exile, the genocide of Katarr
is enough to revolt you. And though Jocasta Nu tries to justify them to you, somehow you don't believe it.
You have to find a way to restore the Jedi's former glory -- but the problem is, you're not even a Master. You're just one man. In the eyes of the Order, you're nothing.
You don't stand a chance.
2. They don't call you "Vong freak" to your face -- they don't even say it explicitly when they think you're not listening. If anything, though, you can sense it in their voices -- he doesn't belong there. one wrong move and he could snap. he's a lunatic -- and something about it stings you. You didn't ask to be tortured by the Vong, but from the way they talk about you...
The best you can do is serve the Order as best you can. It's only after Mace dies that you decide to leave the Order -- there's nothing left for you here.
3. Qui-Gon Jinn, of course, tries to stop you, like he always does, but you merely turn, sadly, to look at him.
"You set out to save Alderaan," you say. "We all did. And it has been saved -- just not for me."
"Don't talk like that."
"Qui-Gon -- I'm not welcome here. I know it. You know it. They know it." You gesture towards the Jedi Temple.
"So you're leaving again." He doesn't protest anymore -- he's Qui-Gon, after all. He knows the burden of duty as well as anyone else.
You smile. "Just have faith in me, Master," you say. "When I get back...everything's going to be set right."
"I wish it were that simple. But..." Qui-Gon sighs, presses something into your hand. "Something of Luke's. He gave you this so you'd remember him."
The japor snippet. A "good luck" charm, of sorts, from Tatooine. You look at the charm in your hand, trying to memorize it.
"It's...beautiful," you say. "He made this himself?"
Qui-Gon chuckles -- it takes a while to realize that you were being naive as well. "Yes. Yes, he did. He's quite a gifted boy, Jacen -- he takes after you far too well."
4. Qui-Gon was probably the only one who knew about your secret marriage to Tenel Ka. For all she was gifted in shielding her emotions, he said to you, she couldn't shield the light that came to her eyes when one so much as mentioned your name. "And the same is true with you," Qui-Gon told you, with a faint smile. "You wear your emotions like a Holonet banner -- it wasn't hard to decipher it."
"You told Tenel Ka you...knew?"
"Well, yes," Qui-Gon said. "I half-expected her to react worse than she did."
"What did she say?"
"That yes," Qui-Gon said, "It was a fact. You two were in love, and that was all that mattered."
"You're not going to report me to the Council?"
Silence. Then Qui-Gon laughed -- that lovely, rich laugh that somehow, you never got tired of hearing.
"Jacen," he said. "You barely know me at all, do you?"
5. Once you left the Order and became Caedus
even meeting up with Lumiya, you never wanted to do this. it was only seeing Lumiya's visions that you even agreed to join her
the people you cared about most were in the forefront of your mind. Qui-Gon... You could almost imagine his disappointment, his grief that another one of his apprentices had died or fallen to the Dark Side. Tenel Ka...Luke... The most potent reason to join Lumiya was to protect them, to save them. To protect this luminescent, priceless boy that you and Tenel Ka created together -- to protect him, everything for him, all for him...
And then there was Jaina and Ben. Jaina was obvious -- she was your sister, your heart. You'd never abandon her, no matter what the cost may be.
And then there was Ben. On the surface, Tenel Ka and Luke may have seemed like the only reason to join the Dark Side -- but then there was the matter of the crumbling Republic, your own feelings of alienation and want, and then...
...and then there was Ben.
Tenel Ka and Luke may have made you feel at peace, but Ben made you feel alive -- he gives you energy during the day, encourages you, goads you on...
...and yet even then, late at night, you can't help but feel like you'll never quite be good enough.
6. You never expected to meet up with Luke at Geonosis again, but one thing you've learned as a Jedi, one thing that sticks out to you most in your years and years of training, is Qui-Gon's statement: The Force has a will. There are no coincidences.
It's a frightening thought -- the fact the Force could have sacrificed so many innocent lives to fulfill its own whims, and yet it's reassuring as well. Frightfully so. Perhaps in a way you are following Qui-Gon's wishes -- the will of the Force. The galaxy doesn't acknowledge the Jedi's greatness -- if anything, they hate them, and you know they deserve it. Perhaps you can get justice for the Vong
they are far from evil. if anything, they've been warped by their beliefs. they are as capable of good as anyone else
and for Ben's death, as well as the long-dead memories of Revan and the Exile. And yet...
Somehow, even as you send Luke
your son
to his death in the Arena, as well as Mara, somehow, you're not quite sure anymore.
7. It's long after Lumiya manages to heal your wounds after the battle with Qui-Gon -- even with your new powers, your months of training to be a Sith, he still managed to give you quite the workout, to put it mildly -- that you finally get to speak with Tahiri. At first, it mostly involves the stock phrases of "it's a miracle that you survived" and "you shouldn't have done this for me, Tahiri"
both rather true, but the latter most of all -- you aren't worth saving. you're a half-Vong freak, an outcast Jedi -- a traitor. you're effectively nothing. and as Lumiya said, "outcasts such as us aren't welcome here"
and then, much later, it gets to the matter of Qui-Gon. "Was he important to you, Master?"
"Yes," you finally say -- even now, it feels like speaking through a mouthful of broken glass. "For our part."
8. It's a familiar nightmare that you've been having post-Geonosis: standing against the flaming backdrop of Coruscant, facing Qui-Gon, trying so desperately to make him see things your way.
"I did everything, everything you ever asked!"
"As you saw it."
"I did this for you. All of you! To protect you!" And yet he's backing away from you -- there's no fear in his eyes
Jedi aren't allowed to feel fear
but there's a sadness and a disappointment in his eyes, as if he's questioning whether he ever knew you at all...
9. Growling at your inability to sleep, you get yourself to your terminal and begin typing out another one of your unsent letters to Ben. You don't know what you're doing, really -- if anything, you're mostly putting random thoughts and sentences together. You're pouring out everything you've felt ever since your experiences with Vergere, ever since...everything that's happened, to put it mildly. Nothing's changed, the Order tried to reassure you when you came back from Vergere's captivity, and yet, with the way they looked at you, with those icy-cold glares
or worse, looks of sympathy
and the way they talked about you, you know that everything changed when Vergere got ahold of you. Mace's death was just the final blow.
So you type. You don't know what you're even typing, but everything you are, everything you were, and everything you can't help but feel you're becoming is flowing into the terminal -- everything inside you is screaming help me, pull me out of this mess, save me to someone who can't find the courage
for lack of a better word
to do so.
10.
"...It's completely ridiculous, Ben. I shouldn't even be doing this -- this is nothing more than a petty power-struggle. It's not about preserving peace for the galaxy, no matter what the Jedi may want to believe -- it's about two equally delusional sides trying to crush the life out of one another to see what they have to prove. The only reason I'm even here is because...I'm an idiot, Ben. A sick, lovelorn, sad, delusional, woefully naive idiot. I keep trying to make things right and yet every time I do, it gets worse.
Vergere and Lumiya drove the value of sacrifice into my head. And I respect that -- more than anything else. But I gave up everything I had for what? To suffer in silence at night, grieving for Qui-Gon, grieving for you? Would I even have gotten this far without my grief, without my anger? For all Lumiya tells me about the power of hatred, I don't believe it. I can't bring myself to hate this galaxy -- for all its flaws, there's so much beauty in it, so much *light* -- contrary to what Vergere says, there are no weeds here. There have never been. But does it mean my crusade for justice and peace, my crusade for closure, is ultimately for nothing? I can't believe that. I shouldn't believe that, and yet here I am, grieving and worrying and over and over again, sacrificing my heart and hurting myself over you, all for you.
So...farewell, Ben. Whereever you may be. I may not know what I'm doing, but all the while, I shall fight in the shadow of Revan himself and try not to be afraid.
Your brother,
Jacen Solo (Darth Caedus)
You save the letter to the terminal and then go back to bed. Tomorrow...tomorrow may be a different day. A better day, maybe. Perhaps you'll win the war -- perhaps you'll reconstruct the galaxy in the way it was meant to.
And yet, despite everything, you can't help but feel the prickling in the back of your skull -- a voice that whispers, you may not be coming back. That the war may go on for longer than even you can foresee.
You were Jacen Solo once -- and with that came naivetie, overwrought idealism that would hardly survive in wartime. It was doomed from the moment you were first exposed to the Yuuzhan Vong -- an enemy that could hardly be felt in the Force, an enemy that would never stop until all Jedi, all of humanity, were exterminated.
And somehow, you doubt this new war
the Vong Wars, they call it, as if the previous war was nothing more than a border skirmish, such a sickening way to dishonor the Jedi who died there
will be any different.