Prologue

[D.C.]

It all started here on this rainy evening on Taris. I was in the capital city and had stopped looking for a place to shelter from the deluge a few minutes ago; I was already soaking wet so I had decided to just embrace the cold and wet rain, allow it to become a part of my existence, of who I am, and then suddenly I didn't feel it anymore. I wasn't bothered by it anymore. It was only later that I found out that this was actually a strange, arcane power hidden within me. A power I had yet to discover. A power I had yet to master. A power I could only use on instinct.

So I walked down the streets, my hands tucked in the pockets on my hoodie, my hood far over my head, and my boots filled with water. I walked on for another hour, never looking over my shoulder, eyes always up front. I passed by the clubs, the cantinas and the alleys and I saw the downtrodden, the poor, the junks. I saw them all, and I wondered...aren't these my brothers and sisters? Aren't these the people who have seen the truth? That answer never came, and I guess I'll never know. But it seems plausible indeed. They are the ones who have little to nothing. They are the ones who are alive. Aren't they?

Up ahead was the Prancing Bantha. Kind of an odd name for a cantina on Taris, but what's in a name? I entered the place and made my way to the bar where I ordered a whisky. I got a double. The bartender was an acquaintance of mine and every now and then he did this. He was generous. He understood the concept of sharing. I tossed some of the credits I had earned that day on the counter and nodded to the man. He nodded back. That was that: our way of communicating.

I didn't speak much. I mostly just observed, saving my breath for words that truly held a meaning.

I sat down in a booth and took a sip from the whisky and I closed my eyes, savouring the taste in my mouth. I still had miles to walk and thousands of miracles to behold until I would get to the point where I am now, but this here, in this tavern...

This was the beginning.

My prologue.

 

[Wit]

It had been a long time since Kain had worn the formal robes of a Jedi, he had not really been much of a fan of them even when the Jedi had not been in hiding, but right now he missed them. He was already drenched from the rain, his hair sticking to his face, his clothes soaking wet all the way though. A set of nice, thick robes would have done a better job of keeping him dry, but the Sith had made sure that he would not be openly walking around in his Jedi robes any time soon. Funny how the most mundane of things made you realized how messed up of a place the Galaxy had become.

He had stopped outside a shop, taking shelter from the rain under the fabric shade that the owner had put up just outside when he spotted the other man. He was drenched just like he was, obviously feeling the cold, but then Kain sensed something from the man that he had not expected, a pulse in the Force. The man had stopped for a moment or two and Kain was sure that he had felt him use the Force, though the usage was rough and more instinctive than trained. His eyes were still on the man when the shop owner suddenly suddenly poked his head out of the shop and shouted at Kain to move.

In that moment he lost track of the man, though after a few moments he was able to spot him walking down the street and rushed out after him. As he followed the man he reached out with the Force, studying the man,observing him. He could sense the Force around him, faintly but still very much there. The longer he studied him the more apparent it became to him that the man was a Force sensitive, but an untrained one from the looks of it.

As the man entered a bar, Kain followed him in, glad for the warmth inside. Taking a seat next to the man, he ordered a drink for himself. He still wasn't sure what to do with the knowledge he had just gained, he couldn't just walk up to him and blurt out Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but would you like to train to be a Jedi maybe? That would most probably just scare him away. Finally he decided to just get to know the man a little more before doing anything. Good thing that they were at a bar, what better place to spark a conversation with a stranger? "Some weather, huh?" He aimed the comment at the man, accepted his drink from the bartender and raised his glass in a mock salute to the man as he introduced himself, "Kain."

 

[D.C.]

I am a dreamer, but I am awake from time to time these days.

Back then I only dreamed.

My life was a dream.

Until a man named Kain came into my life and woke me up.

As I sat there sipping from my drink, he suddenly appeared in front of me, as though he had come out of nowhere. He stepped out of the shadows--out of the grey and into my life.

"Some weather, huh?" he said. Those really were the first three words he ever uttered to me; that was what one of the key figures in my story first told me. He just said something about the weather. No crazy prophecies or ancient poems that are supposed to be long forgotten by man. No riddles, no games, no dark words, no arcane messages.

He just talked about the weather.

"Kain," he said to me, and first I thought he said cane, and I was confused because there seemed to be nothing wrong with his legs. Only then did I realise he had told me his name.

I pulled my hood off my head, revealing my grim features to him: those pale-brown eyes, my dark beard and long, dark hair. I glanced at him and then said, "Dastin.

"What can I do for you, Kain?"

 

[Wit]

Kain bowed his head gently when Dastin shared his name. "Do for me? Why nothing." He paused and took another sip from his drink, feeling the heat from it spread through his body as the drink trickled down his throat. "Can a man not share a friendly conversation with another without wanting anything from him?"

He smiled at that, a cocky, lopsided grin that was more of his old friend Moridin and less his own father. His father after all had been a very different kind of man. "Surely the world has not yet become quiet that dark a place?" He let the question hang there between them, waiting to see how Dastin responded to it. He might very well ignore it as the ramblings of another drunk, in which case there was no harm done; but at the same time he might reply in a manner that might reveal a little about him to Kain, making his decision about what to do with him a little easier. After all he had been called many a things by a number of people, what was another man thinking of him as as drunk or worse?

 

[D.C.]

It turned out that I could not help this man, or at least that's what he told me. He just wanted to chat. He then asked me a question that might have seemed more important to me than to him. At the time, however, I couldn't tell whether or not he was being serious. I didn't know him at all yet.

"Surely the world has not yet become quite that dark a place?" he asked me.

I frowned and sat back, then gestured for this man to sit down if he wanted to. Meanwhile I thought about his haunting words, for haunting they were. I wondered if this man even had the slightest clue as to how dark the world truly was, because I had seen it. I had seen darkness; I had tasted darkness. I had almost become darkness. Almost got dragged into a bottomless pit by darkness. In fact, darkness was still looming over me like an ominous shadow. It followed me everywhere. So I looked at him, my stare cold and hard and my mind back in the past. Back in those dark days.

"If only you knew, stranger," I said. "If only you knew. Is this why you approached me? To talk about darkness? Then let me ask you an important one, if this is truly what you want to talk about. If it's not what you want to talk about then I suppose you don't have to answer this one. So here it is: what do you know about darkness, Kain?"

 

[Wit]

Darkness, what did he know of darkness? Kain almost wanted to burst out laughing at that. He didn't even know how to answer such a question, he had been on Coruscant, he had seen his father die defending Light's last bastion, he had felt what the Sith did to the planet, he had lived through hell on Taris. He knew darkness oh so well, he had seen it face to face, had been beaten down by it, but he had survived, he had fought back. Darkness was an old friend for him, albeit a friend he did not want meeting him too often.

"No, that wasn't my intention, not really. But I will say this, you almost speak like one who seen more than his share of darkness and has given up, or is about to give up." He turned to look into the man's eyes as he continued speaking. "You are far too young to be so grim my friend. What if I told you there was a great light within you, and all that you had to do was reach out and grab it."

He knew how stupid that must sound to Dastin, after all he must look almost a kid to him, the words that he had said would have seemed so much more fitting coming from the mouth of an older man.

 

[D.C.]

I just stared at this man and wondered why he was saying this. My face was emotionless now, but my eyes were grim. My eyes were dark. My eyes actually were the eyes of my very soul which inhabited my body. If Kain would look into my eyes, he would stare into my soul. He would see the truth--the cold and hard reality. Of course he would not know what kind of darkness had taken possession of me, but at least he might see that it was a great rage. It was a great pain. It was a great sadness.

It was doom.

But it was all that I had.

I raised my glass and took a sip from the whisky. I wasn't sure if I was comfortable with this, talking to a stranger about hell. I wasn't sure if I could open up to anyone anymore, to be honest. It was even so crazy that I wasn't even sure whether or not I would ever be able to talk to anyone ever again without messing up. Without losing control. Without coming off as a total jerk.

You see, I was afraid of the darkness but at least the darkness had become familiar to me. And then there was the light. I feared the light as much as I feared the darkness...or maybe I feared the light even more.

"Look," I finally said after thinking in silence for a long while, "that is exactly the problem. The light blinds us...if I stare into it for too long..."

I looked up from my glass and looked at him.

"I don't want to be blinded. In darkness I know where to go but if I'm blinded I will lose my way. I don't want to be lost. Not again..."

 

[Wit]

He could sense the sadness within Dastin, see it in his eyes. So when the man spoke, and what he spoke, words like those didn't really surprise him coming from such a man. He had seen great sorrow, that was evident to him, why else would someone be so scared by the light? Why else would someone become so used to living in the gloom that they would prefer the dark?

"You ever been out in the sun on a really cold day? Ever closed your eyes and just enjoyed its warmth?" He took another sip from his drink, the cold of the rain almost forgotten now.

"The light is like that my friend, it warms you, keeps you alive. The sun might be blinding to look at, but it is its light that allows you to see, it is what keeps us alive. Even a blind man can feel its warmth, bask in its glorious radiance. No one's asking you to stare into the light, just let it light up your path, let it illuminate the world around you and you'll realize just how blind you were without it."

 

[D.C.]

"If only it were that easy..." I muttered. "But it ain't. It never was. There's too much evil in this world...I can't...I can't move into the light because there isn't any left--" I cut myself off and just buried my face in my hands, it was the only way I could stay in control of the sorrowful emotions. I wasn't crying or anything, I wasn't. I just had to stay in control of the gloom and the doom and the dark. If I wouldn't this conversation would end badly.

So who was this man who called himself Kain? Who was this man, who had stepped out of the shadows and into reality? I reckoned he had to be a watchman, in the sense that he watched over people like me--people in need of support. The lost. The powerless. Where did he come from? Did he journey through the universe just to give aid? Did he journey through the universe because he was on some kind of holy quest? Who was he? Where did he come from? What was he?

Those thoughts now occupied my mind and kept the sorrow at bay for a while. I could lower my hands and look at him once more. I could see how he radiated; I could see how he basked in the sun. We were opposites. Complete opposites.

"This can't be happening," I said. "What if you are just a figment of my own imagination? What if I sit here talking to myself? What are the odds that a total stranger walks in and the first thing he does upon meeting someone is trying to convince them to leave their sorrows behind and step into the light? What if you are just a Tyler Durden? What if you aren't here?"

At this point I was thinking out loud, simply uttering the thoughts that echoed in my mind.

"Heh...next thing you know I sit here talking to a Jedi or something..." I sounded like I thought that this was the most ridiculous, crazy idea ever. As if this couldn't be, because Jedi were those mythic beings who featured in fairytales that were being told to children so they could sleep peacefully. We all need heroes after all. We all need figures to look up to, figures who resemble hope. We need those, whether they're real or not.

"Should I stare into the sun, then?" I suddenly asked him. "Should I stare straight into the sun, until I understand...or go blind? Because just letting it light up my path won't be enough."

This may sound strange to you, but looking back at this one moment all those years ago actually fills my heart with joy. This was how far I had fallen, but look at me now. Look at this pillar of light and hope and righteousness. And it was that man, in that cantina, who sat right across from me, who had first opened that door to that world of light and joy for me.

 

[Wit]

Kain felt a darkness within Dastin then, had a moment of complete clarity that sometimes strikes someone and leaves them feeling like a veil had suddenly lifted from their eyes an allowed them to see the world for what it truly was. He could sense a darkness within this man who sat in front of him, but there was also light, despite what he might think, there was still a great deal of light left in him. He knew then why the Force had made their paths cross, why he had been brought back to Taris after all these years. Everyone needed a guide from time to time, to show them the path that needs walking. His first guide had been his grandfather, he had held his hand and helped him take his first steps down the path of the Jedi, it seemed the duty now fell to him to lead another down that path.

He stared at Dastin as he spoke, once more wondering what had happened to him to leave such a mark on him. "I cannot prove to you that I am real, that is for you to decide. But I think you already know that this is real. You can already sense it in me, can't you? Something that sets me apart from everyone else in here?" He let that sink in, leaning in close and speaking softly so that the next words out of his mouth would reach only Dastin. "You have it in you as well my friend, that is why the sun won't blind you. There's a sun that burns away within you as well, and that is what will protect you. I can show you, if you let me."

He leaned back again, finishing his drink in one go. "Our parents told us stories of heroes to give us hope, while they kept none for themselves. They themselves did not believe in those heroes." Saying so he leaned back a little, letting his jacket part a little to give Dastin a glimpse of the lightsaber hilt that was hidden within. "But you see my friend, the children are correct, and the parents are wrong. Heroes do exist, and there is always hope."

 

[D.C.]

This may sound odd, but the moment he showed his lightsaber everything sort of became clear for me. I understood that this had to be real indeed, because the lightsaber proved that he was a Jedi, and if he was a Jedi it probably made sense that he would come to me to help me drive away the darkness. Who else would do such a thing? Only Jedi would...or so I believed. I was still young and inexperienced, I knew little of the world and knew next to nothing about Force Users who set out to do good things on their own, and who weren't part of the Order. But right at that very moment him being a Jedi served as a justification for why he would be here, and thus proved that he was real.

"Hope..." I mused. "A way to drive out the darkness."

I looked at him with narrow eyes with a slight hint of suspicion, and asked him in a quiet voice so nobody would hear it but him, "You a Jedi?" I just wanted to have this confirmed.

 

[Wit]

"Maybe," replied Kain with a grin on his face, "Or maybe I just killed a Jedi and stole his lightsaber." He let the joke linger for a second before continuing speaking again, this time his voice serious, his face earnest. "My words can count for nothing, you must learn to trust your gut, more often that not it is the Force guiding you. Trust in what you see, what you feel, what seems right to you."

Once more he let the silence linger between them. Without knowing it he had laid out the first test in Dastin's journey to becoming a Jedi. He could not make him trust him, he could not force him to come with him. He could only try and show him the path and hope that he chose to follow it of his own will, made that decision because he wanted to, not because Kain did.

"So, if you think you can trust me, think that I am indeed a Jedi, then I can offer you a way out of here, a way to push back the darkness." Saying so he got up and passed a few credchips across the counter to the barkeep.

"A commercial shuttle to Kuat leaves from the spaceport in an hour. If you want a way to drive out the darkness then find me there. May the Force be with you my friend."

 

[D.C.]

He spoke words of wisdom--or at least words that mattered--and left immediately afterward. I remained seated for some time, staring at the exit of the cantina, wondering whether or not the man had truly been real. Him vanishing so quickly, so suddenly, made me doubt his existence once more. Then I lowered my gaze to the glass of whisky on the table in front of me, and I took another sip.

I thought about what the spectre, the eidolon, the vision, the Jedi had said. I thought about it awhile and was trying to decide if I really should go to that shuttle to Kuat, or if I should stay here awhile longer, drinking whisky and listening to sad saloon songs that held so much sorrow and pain...but I was already used to the pain. I was used to sorrow. I was used to the darkness. I knew it so very well. Why stay in the same dark place forever?

I drew a conclusion as I stared into the glass, eyeing the little bit of liquor that was still in there. I concluded that I had already fallen far, that things had already gotten utterly f#cked up and that staying in this dark pool of eternal nothingness wouldn't get me anywhere. Yes, I could keep on running from the darkness and the people who tried to kill me, I could do so forever, but would that really be a life worth living? I could only answer that question with a firm and solemn, No.

So I raised the glass to my lips. "Figment of my imagination or not," I whispered to myself (or perhaps to the devilish liquor), "this might be that silver lining that I've been searching for for quite some time now." I took the final sip, then set the glass down on the table. I stood up and headed for the exit of the cantina, pulling my hood far over my head, and stepped into the rain.

"Let's get this show on the road," I rasped as I walked into the direction of the spaceport.

So it happened. This was the beginning of my journey toward redemption, toward the Light. This was the beginning of my voyage to Heaven. This was it. I would stare at the face of God and ask Him burning questions, and He would give me Answers and Wisdom and Light and Hope and I would become a Guardian. A harbinger of Justice. A protector of the Truth.

I travelled to Kuat and on that strange world (I had never set foot on it before), Kain appeared once again. He gave me directions to a place some Jedi called Home--it was the Jedi Temple on Arbra. I was to travel from the one world to the other, and finally, when this planet-hopping came to an end, I arrived on Arbra.

I roamed the woods there for some time, lost in the wilderness, almost sure of it that I would die there. I had no more food, no more water; I was too scared to drink from the pools, fearing that the water here might poison me. For a moment I thought that maybe Kain had led me into a death trap, but then something inside me told me that this could not be it because Kain was a Jedi and Jedi wouldn't lead people into death traps. No, the truth was that this was like a Test. If I could survive this jungle and find my way to the Temple, I would finally find what I was looking for. I would find peace. I would find a way to destroy the great darkness inside me.

With these thoughts in mind I moved on, never giving up. I moved on and on and on, step by step, determined to complete this quest successfully.

This was the end of my prologue and the beginning of my quest for the Truth.

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