[fic] Light and Dark - SW:TOR, Lord Scourge/Jedi Knight (spoilers!)
Older start to a work, abandoned, re-found, tweaked a bit, left to rot some more, then brushed up and expanded in a rush of creativity lately. Now posting, because, fuck it, get back on the horse, pax! Post... post or die...
Light & Dark
paxnirvana
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Lord Scourge/Male Jedi Knight
Teen (for innuendo, tension)
**The problem with SW:TOR fanfic is that the Jedi Knight is a player-chosen character -- so every player makes their own visual, literally. Mine happens to be a Mirialan (they're green-skinned) male, with the slenderest body shape available and shaggy brown hair that nearly covers his eyes. He's not exactly pretty either, but I wanted that too. I liked the idea of a less physically imposing person being all strong in the Force.
~*~*~
After escaping the Jedi Council’s judgmental scrutiny on Tython, Lord Scourge was relieved that their ship’s entry into hyperspace was unimpeded by any more Council interference. He was singularly unimpressed with the honor the Jedi Council had accorded him as the sole Sith to be allowed to set foot on their precious retreat. Out of respect for the Jedi he had waited three centuries to meet, he had not taunted them over this fact unduly. Restraining himself from attempting to slay them all had been easier than he’d thought, however; they were simply Light-hampered fools. Unworthy of his notice, save for how they tugged his Jedi’s strings.
The Council Leader Shan’s own hubris had not blinded her to the Force’s confirmation of the truths he had spoken before them, at least. It had taken a while, but the rest of the idiots had finally conceded that the Emperor’s threat was true. All that truly mattered to him was that his Jedi had finally been loosed in order to pursue the threads of the Emperor’s plot. And that was more than enough contact with the Jedi Council for his taste. Fools.
Lord Scourge had claimed a small, lower-level cargo bay of the Jedi’s ship as his own. A pallet and a space in which to practice his forms were all he truly required. Luxury was an indulgence he no longer allowed himself. Yet basic as they were, the ship’s official crew quarters were simply unacceptable. He would not rest in the same place as those fit only to be his slaves. The soldier with his cold, untrusting stare did not concern him overmuch, but the doctor and his endless nattering about the tiresome and dubious charms of the women he pursued threatened to try even his legendary control.
There was still so much he wanted. Needed. Thwarted desire raged within him, fanning his banked anger. Because now, more than ever, he wanted the Jedi. His presence. His body. His mind. Everything.
He had waited far too long for him already.
Despite that desire, it mattered not to him that the Jedi appeared to share the Captain’s cabin with his silly, flighty apprentice. He understood the Jedi ways far too well to doubt that the girl lay anything but chastely by her master’s side each night. The arrangement was more for the rest of the crew’s benefit. Or, more truthfully, the doctor’s. Who, Scourge had noted, had more than once looked upon the apprentice girl with clear desire. A desire the child had, so far, denied the man. But he could sense the temptation within her. As, no doubt, so could the Jedi, her master.
But the apprentice girl was on the bridge of the ship, as usual, attending to the communications and news of the galaxy. The child was overly fond of gossip. Of the rest of the motley crew, the soldier remained in the lounge, attending his weapons, the doctor in the medical bay, nursing his latest romantic defeat, and the annoying droid lurked in the engine compartment. Leaving only the Jedi himself unaccounted for.
Scourge paced the halls of the ship silently as it sped through hyperspace on the first step on the path to destiny. They were en-route to the remote planet Belsavis - a distant prison world the Republic mistakenly believed to be a secret from the Empire - there to respond to what could be a first trial of the Emperor’s final destructive ritual.
He paused, pleased when he finally found his quarry, the Jedi, alone, in the secure room off the main level’s lounge. He had no qualms about interrupting the Jedi’s meditations. As he let the door slide shut behind himself, the bent head and bared neck of the other seemed almost like an invitation. The faint glow of the Force summoned danced about him like a beckoning hand.
“Belsavis will be only one of many proving grounds to come; if the Emperor succeeds at any step, then he will make his true move all the sooner,” he said, his voice deep, rough, the sound of it echoing through the small space. “You need me.” The glow faded away from the other’s form as the Jedi lifted his head until eyes that were barely visible beneath ragged bangs fixed on Scourge’s own.
“So it seems,” the Jedi replied, those full lips curving into the faintest of smiles. It was a crime that such a lush mouth belonged to one who was reluctant to put it to its best, most passionate, use, Scourge mused, staring at it. Clearly the Jedi sensed his focus almost at once, for he abandoned his meditative pose and rose slowly to his feet, that fragile smile falling away.
Scourge took a step closer, well aware of his own height, his own breadth as opposed to the Jedi’s slender build. Such a frail thing, he seemed, yet the Force filled him with such strength. Enough strength to resonate even across time itself. Scourge stared down into the Jedi’s calm face - the same face that had haunted his dreams for over three centuries -, and frowned. Still so calm. Even after his brief fall under the Emperor’s sway. Yet he had not fallen easily. And he had not stayed in the Emperor’s darkness… no indeed. His will burned bright and fierce despite that calm demeanor. But it was not enough. He needed to be stronger still.
“The Emperor must be destroyed,” Scourge said.
“His plan must be stopped,” the Jedi replied quietly, meeting his narrow gaze with calm regard.
Crimson eyes. Clear and bright. So unlike the red shade of his own people’s which was dark and dulled like dried oxy-blood. The Jedi had a name, Scourge supposed, but he could still only think of him as ‘the Jedi’ in his own mind after all those centuries spent waiting for him to appear.
Scourge laughed suddenly, something like elation bubbling within him. “Do you hope to turn him from his dark plans, young one? Do not be a fool. There is not even the faintest glimmer of light or mercy within the Emperor. He is wholly and joyfully of the dark. Did you not sense that truth when he had his boot on your throat?”
That made the Jedi turn his head, his lips tighten. “I did sense it.”
“Then do not mince words with me, Jedi. I am not your petty Council to appease with weak words and the illusion of compassion. Speak the bare truth to me; we go to kill him.”
“So we do,” the Jedi said, lifting his head again and meeting his gaze steadily. “He must die so that the whole galaxy does not suffer.” He felt the Force shift within him at the impact of that gaze. Light against Dark? Or just will against will? A strength of will that made something inside Scourge ache with hunger. The Jedi had not truly understood, before his utter defeat, his crushing enslavement, what he faced in the Emperor. He did now. Scourge wondered if it had truly been enough to free the full power of this boy, as the Force had shown him so long ago.
He had to hope that it had.
He took a step closer. Into the body-space most species held to themselves. It was a clear intrusion, an aggressive stance, yet, to his delight, the Jedi did not shift or show any discomfort at all, still cloaking himself in the impassivity of his Order’s training. Foolish boy. The way had already been opened; old defenses were no longer enough. He would have to build new.
“The training of the Sith is harsh for a reason. It tears down the weak; only the strong rise above it.” The Jedi’s head tipped back and those clear red eyes met his own gaze steadily. So bright and clear. So startling a contrast in the midst of that green-skinned face. “You are strong to have survived the Emperor’s training at all.”
“The Force was with me,” he replied with typical Jedi evasion, though his voice was low, strained. Scourge fought back his hunger for the boy before him. No, not a boy. Not really. But still far too young-seeming to one who had lived centuries beyond his normal span as reward for bloody betrayal.
Scourge lifted a hand and set it about the Jedi’s throat. The skin beneath his hand was smooth and warm. Vulnerable. He stroked the steady pulse of blood through the jugular vein with a rough thumb.
“Your guard is down,” he said, his voice deliberately hushed. A ploy. Feigned intimacy. He kept his own impulses leashed with effort. The desire to break this one… it clawed like hunger within him.
“Is it?” the Jedi responded, calm.
“The Emperor was a fool,” Scourge said, still softly. “For all his insight, all the time he spent on you, still he did not discern the one, true way to break you.”
The Jedi stayed silent. But watchful now, wary. “You know of what I speak,” Scourge pressed, watching him closely in return, gleeful as the pulse under his thumb speed up slightly. Ah. A crack in the façade. Good.
“How did your Jedi masters miss this flaw in you? Let it go so long unchallenged?” He fanned his fingers over the boy’s throat, up to his jaw, letting his fingertips stroke along the line of it gently. The Jedi’s race had no facial appendages. No fangs or tusks to break the soft line of his mouth. No ridges or facial hair to blur his jaw-line. Scourge felt only smooth, fragile skin beneath his fingertips.
“They did not miss it. But it is the Jedi way to respect the traditions of all cultures, and they respected my choice to continue to honor my people’s ways.”
“Sentimental fools,” Scourge said, baring his teeth in a brief snarl and tightening his grip on the boy’s jaw slightly. Enough to feel bone through the skin. “They should have driven that flaw from you long ago. Untried mastery is not mastery at all.”
It took less effort than it should have to force the Jedi the short distance back into the bulkhead. To cage him with his far heavier body against unyielding metal. One hand he braced to the side of a narrow shoulder, boots bracketing the other’s, metal-armored thighs brushing hard against leather and cloth. The pulse under his hand leaped once, then calmed, even as the red eyes flared with heat, then went impassive again.
“Do not count on such mercy from me, boy,” Scourge leaned in to hiss against an exposed ear. “I will use your flaws to make of you the perfect weapon to bring down the Emperor and his mad plan.”
Still the Jedi made no move against him. Though Scourge knew well the boy’s skill with the paired sabers at his hip; the one he had made with his own hands in order to pass his first Trial as a Jedi, and the blade he had taken up later. His fallen Master’s blade.
“Your student believes you a paragon of the Jedi Way for refusing her so blatant offers. She is blind as well as foolish to miss the truth before her eyes,” Scourge said, his breath hot upon the boy’s throat. “Like your own apprentice, did you lust for your master? For his touch, his mouth upon you?” He let his teeth brush against fragile skin. Sharp and quick. “Do you pine still, my Jedi, for the hands of your slain Master, Orgus Din?” Felt the shiver of reaction, though swiftly hidden, and smiled again, this time in triumph.
“My third Trial was to overcome those feelings, through mindfulness and meditation. Master Orgus agreed that I had, even if some on the Council did not quite concur,” the Jedi said, his voice low, faintly breathless. Did he not hear the lie in his own voice? The poor fool. Scourge smiled wider against his skin, felt the pulse speed more.
“There is no passion; there is serenity,” he quoted mockingly, then deepened his voice, roughened it, to continue, “There is only passion; through passion, strength.”
“No,” the boy replied, his voice firming, his pulse calming. Still he did not try to escape Scourge’s grip, Scourge’s mouth against his throat.
“There was another Jedi Code once,” he said into that fragile skin, letting his eyes drift closed with satisfaction. “Do they let you know that truth? One far older than the puerile, bastardized version of the book-loving, solitude-craving Odan-Urr you labor under now. And it stated Passion, yet serenity. Accept your need as truth, boy, and give in to it. Only then will you find your true strength.”
“I will not,” the Jedi answered, his voice sharper, his breath coming faster, the pulse under Scourge’s lips racing now. He slid his broad hand up the far side of the boy’s neck and under the ragged fall of hair, shaping the warm curve of jaw, of neck, and scraping his thumb across the corner of his mouth. Felt the tension there grow as he drew back far enough to catch the Jedi’s gaze with his own. It was clouded now. His eyes no longer clear, untroubled red, but shadowed and uncertain.
“I can teach you passion, boy, teach you to leash its strength to your will,” Scourge murmured, watching him struggle with his need, against himself. And he was losing. His breath was coming faster now, his pulse dancing beneath Scourge’s fingers, his skin warming with need.
“No,” the Jedi said, his voice soft yet strained, his eyes closed as he gathered his will, trying to ready himself to resist a battle already lost. With the finely-honed sense of a master torturer, Scourge knew that if he pressed in and took that lush mouth now he could have the boy’s flesh; sate them both in his re-awakened physical desire. Lead him a long way down the path of indulgence and passion. But to do so now would only break him. And then he would lose his battle with the Emperor, lose the fight Scourge had waited three long centuries to finish .
“No,” Scourge agreed, straightening up, letting his hand fall away from the Jedi’s face. “It is not yet the time. So I will wait. And watch.”
He backed away, waiting for the instant when the Jedi opened his eyes again, caught and held that troubled gaze for a moment more, pleased with the shadows there, before he turned and slipped out of the room to leave the Jedi to his solitary meditations once more .
-end-
Light & Dark
paxnirvana
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Lord Scourge/Male Jedi Knight
Teen (for innuendo, tension)
**The problem with SW:TOR fanfic is that the Jedi Knight is a player-chosen character -- so every player makes their own visual, literally. Mine happens to be a Mirialan (they're green-skinned) male, with the slenderest body shape available and shaggy brown hair that nearly covers his eyes. He's not exactly pretty either, but I wanted that too. I liked the idea of a less physically imposing person being all strong in the Force.
~*~*~
After escaping the Jedi Council’s judgmental scrutiny on Tython, Lord Scourge was relieved that their ship’s entry into hyperspace was unimpeded by any more Council interference. He was singularly unimpressed with the honor the Jedi Council had accorded him as the sole Sith to be allowed to set foot on their precious retreat. Out of respect for the Jedi he had waited three centuries to meet, he had not taunted them over this fact unduly. Restraining himself from attempting to slay them all had been easier than he’d thought, however; they were simply Light-hampered fools. Unworthy of his notice, save for how they tugged his Jedi’s strings.
The Council Leader Shan’s own hubris had not blinded her to the Force’s confirmation of the truths he had spoken before them, at least. It had taken a while, but the rest of the idiots had finally conceded that the Emperor’s threat was true. All that truly mattered to him was that his Jedi had finally been loosed in order to pursue the threads of the Emperor’s plot. And that was more than enough contact with the Jedi Council for his taste. Fools.
Lord Scourge had claimed a small, lower-level cargo bay of the Jedi’s ship as his own. A pallet and a space in which to practice his forms were all he truly required. Luxury was an indulgence he no longer allowed himself. Yet basic as they were, the ship’s official crew quarters were simply unacceptable. He would not rest in the same place as those fit only to be his slaves. The soldier with his cold, untrusting stare did not concern him overmuch, but the doctor and his endless nattering about the tiresome and dubious charms of the women he pursued threatened to try even his legendary control.
There was still so much he wanted. Needed. Thwarted desire raged within him, fanning his banked anger. Because now, more than ever, he wanted the Jedi. His presence. His body. His mind. Everything.
He had waited far too long for him already.
Despite that desire, it mattered not to him that the Jedi appeared to share the Captain’s cabin with his silly, flighty apprentice. He understood the Jedi ways far too well to doubt that the girl lay anything but chastely by her master’s side each night. The arrangement was more for the rest of the crew’s benefit. Or, more truthfully, the doctor’s. Who, Scourge had noted, had more than once looked upon the apprentice girl with clear desire. A desire the child had, so far, denied the man. But he could sense the temptation within her. As, no doubt, so could the Jedi, her master.
But the apprentice girl was on the bridge of the ship, as usual, attending to the communications and news of the galaxy. The child was overly fond of gossip. Of the rest of the motley crew, the soldier remained in the lounge, attending his weapons, the doctor in the medical bay, nursing his latest romantic defeat, and the annoying droid lurked in the engine compartment. Leaving only the Jedi himself unaccounted for.
Scourge paced the halls of the ship silently as it sped through hyperspace on the first step on the path to destiny. They were en-route to the remote planet Belsavis - a distant prison world the Republic mistakenly believed to be a secret from the Empire - there to respond to what could be a first trial of the Emperor’s final destructive ritual.
He paused, pleased when he finally found his quarry, the Jedi, alone, in the secure room off the main level’s lounge. He had no qualms about interrupting the Jedi’s meditations. As he let the door slide shut behind himself, the bent head and bared neck of the other seemed almost like an invitation. The faint glow of the Force summoned danced about him like a beckoning hand.
“Belsavis will be only one of many proving grounds to come; if the Emperor succeeds at any step, then he will make his true move all the sooner,” he said, his voice deep, rough, the sound of it echoing through the small space. “You need me.” The glow faded away from the other’s form as the Jedi lifted his head until eyes that were barely visible beneath ragged bangs fixed on Scourge’s own.
“So it seems,” the Jedi replied, those full lips curving into the faintest of smiles. It was a crime that such a lush mouth belonged to one who was reluctant to put it to its best, most passionate, use, Scourge mused, staring at it. Clearly the Jedi sensed his focus almost at once, for he abandoned his meditative pose and rose slowly to his feet, that fragile smile falling away.
Scourge took a step closer, well aware of his own height, his own breadth as opposed to the Jedi’s slender build. Such a frail thing, he seemed, yet the Force filled him with such strength. Enough strength to resonate even across time itself. Scourge stared down into the Jedi’s calm face - the same face that had haunted his dreams for over three centuries -, and frowned. Still so calm. Even after his brief fall under the Emperor’s sway. Yet he had not fallen easily. And he had not stayed in the Emperor’s darkness… no indeed. His will burned bright and fierce despite that calm demeanor. But it was not enough. He needed to be stronger still.
“The Emperor must be destroyed,” Scourge said.
“His plan must be stopped,” the Jedi replied quietly, meeting his narrow gaze with calm regard.
Crimson eyes. Clear and bright. So unlike the red shade of his own people’s which was dark and dulled like dried oxy-blood. The Jedi had a name, Scourge supposed, but he could still only think of him as ‘the Jedi’ in his own mind after all those centuries spent waiting for him to appear.
Scourge laughed suddenly, something like elation bubbling within him. “Do you hope to turn him from his dark plans, young one? Do not be a fool. There is not even the faintest glimmer of light or mercy within the Emperor. He is wholly and joyfully of the dark. Did you not sense that truth when he had his boot on your throat?”
That made the Jedi turn his head, his lips tighten. “I did sense it.”
“Then do not mince words with me, Jedi. I am not your petty Council to appease with weak words and the illusion of compassion. Speak the bare truth to me; we go to kill him.”
“So we do,” the Jedi said, lifting his head again and meeting his gaze steadily. “He must die so that the whole galaxy does not suffer.” He felt the Force shift within him at the impact of that gaze. Light against Dark? Or just will against will? A strength of will that made something inside Scourge ache with hunger. The Jedi had not truly understood, before his utter defeat, his crushing enslavement, what he faced in the Emperor. He did now. Scourge wondered if it had truly been enough to free the full power of this boy, as the Force had shown him so long ago.
He had to hope that it had.
He took a step closer. Into the body-space most species held to themselves. It was a clear intrusion, an aggressive stance, yet, to his delight, the Jedi did not shift or show any discomfort at all, still cloaking himself in the impassivity of his Order’s training. Foolish boy. The way had already been opened; old defenses were no longer enough. He would have to build new.
“The training of the Sith is harsh for a reason. It tears down the weak; only the strong rise above it.” The Jedi’s head tipped back and those clear red eyes met his own gaze steadily. So bright and clear. So startling a contrast in the midst of that green-skinned face. “You are strong to have survived the Emperor’s training at all.”
“The Force was with me,” he replied with typical Jedi evasion, though his voice was low, strained. Scourge fought back his hunger for the boy before him. No, not a boy. Not really. But still far too young-seeming to one who had lived centuries beyond his normal span as reward for bloody betrayal.
Scourge lifted a hand and set it about the Jedi’s throat. The skin beneath his hand was smooth and warm. Vulnerable. He stroked the steady pulse of blood through the jugular vein with a rough thumb.
“Your guard is down,” he said, his voice deliberately hushed. A ploy. Feigned intimacy. He kept his own impulses leashed with effort. The desire to break this one… it clawed like hunger within him.
“Is it?” the Jedi responded, calm.
“The Emperor was a fool,” Scourge said, still softly. “For all his insight, all the time he spent on you, still he did not discern the one, true way to break you.”
The Jedi stayed silent. But watchful now, wary. “You know of what I speak,” Scourge pressed, watching him closely in return, gleeful as the pulse under his thumb speed up slightly. Ah. A crack in the façade. Good.
“How did your Jedi masters miss this flaw in you? Let it go so long unchallenged?” He fanned his fingers over the boy’s throat, up to his jaw, letting his fingertips stroke along the line of it gently. The Jedi’s race had no facial appendages. No fangs or tusks to break the soft line of his mouth. No ridges or facial hair to blur his jaw-line. Scourge felt only smooth, fragile skin beneath his fingertips.
“They did not miss it. But it is the Jedi way to respect the traditions of all cultures, and they respected my choice to continue to honor my people’s ways.”
“Sentimental fools,” Scourge said, baring his teeth in a brief snarl and tightening his grip on the boy’s jaw slightly. Enough to feel bone through the skin. “They should have driven that flaw from you long ago. Untried mastery is not mastery at all.”
It took less effort than it should have to force the Jedi the short distance back into the bulkhead. To cage him with his far heavier body against unyielding metal. One hand he braced to the side of a narrow shoulder, boots bracketing the other’s, metal-armored thighs brushing hard against leather and cloth. The pulse under his hand leaped once, then calmed, even as the red eyes flared with heat, then went impassive again.
“Do not count on such mercy from me, boy,” Scourge leaned in to hiss against an exposed ear. “I will use your flaws to make of you the perfect weapon to bring down the Emperor and his mad plan.”
Still the Jedi made no move against him. Though Scourge knew well the boy’s skill with the paired sabers at his hip; the one he had made with his own hands in order to pass his first Trial as a Jedi, and the blade he had taken up later. His fallen Master’s blade.
“Your student believes you a paragon of the Jedi Way for refusing her so blatant offers. She is blind as well as foolish to miss the truth before her eyes,” Scourge said, his breath hot upon the boy’s throat. “Like your own apprentice, did you lust for your master? For his touch, his mouth upon you?” He let his teeth brush against fragile skin. Sharp and quick. “Do you pine still, my Jedi, for the hands of your slain Master, Orgus Din?” Felt the shiver of reaction, though swiftly hidden, and smiled again, this time in triumph.
“My third Trial was to overcome those feelings, through mindfulness and meditation. Master Orgus agreed that I had, even if some on the Council did not quite concur,” the Jedi said, his voice low, faintly breathless. Did he not hear the lie in his own voice? The poor fool. Scourge smiled wider against his skin, felt the pulse speed more.
“There is no passion; there is serenity,” he quoted mockingly, then deepened his voice, roughened it, to continue, “There is only passion; through passion, strength.”
“No,” the boy replied, his voice firming, his pulse calming. Still he did not try to escape Scourge’s grip, Scourge’s mouth against his throat.
“There was another Jedi Code once,” he said into that fragile skin, letting his eyes drift closed with satisfaction. “Do they let you know that truth? One far older than the puerile, bastardized version of the book-loving, solitude-craving Odan-Urr you labor under now. And it stated Passion, yet serenity. Accept your need as truth, boy, and give in to it. Only then will you find your true strength.”
“I will not,” the Jedi answered, his voice sharper, his breath coming faster, the pulse under Scourge’s lips racing now. He slid his broad hand up the far side of the boy’s neck and under the ragged fall of hair, shaping the warm curve of jaw, of neck, and scraping his thumb across the corner of his mouth. Felt the tension there grow as he drew back far enough to catch the Jedi’s gaze with his own. It was clouded now. His eyes no longer clear, untroubled red, but shadowed and uncertain.
“I can teach you passion, boy, teach you to leash its strength to your will,” Scourge murmured, watching him struggle with his need, against himself. And he was losing. His breath was coming faster now, his pulse dancing beneath Scourge’s fingers, his skin warming with need.
“No,” the Jedi said, his voice soft yet strained, his eyes closed as he gathered his will, trying to ready himself to resist a battle already lost. With the finely-honed sense of a master torturer, Scourge knew that if he pressed in and took that lush mouth now he could have the boy’s flesh; sate them both in his re-awakened physical desire. Lead him a long way down the path of indulgence and passion. But to do so now would only break him. And then he would lose his battle with the Emperor, lose the fight Scourge had waited three long centuries to finish .
“No,” Scourge agreed, straightening up, letting his hand fall away from the Jedi’s face. “It is not yet the time. So I will wait. And watch.”
He backed away, waiting for the instant when the Jedi opened his eyes again, caught and held that troubled gaze for a moment more, pleased with the shadows there, before he turned and slipped out of the room to leave the Jedi to his solitary meditations once more .
-end-