In the End, We're All Alone

[Varyn Atrix]

In his heart, Varyn was and always had been a loner. The exact reason for that was one that could be debated. Whether it was lack of trust in others, lack of interest in others, or preoccupations that could be pursued without others was up for debate. Most likely it was all three and more. Maybe that was why he'd chosen to go undercover in the first place: he was already used to being alone, and to do it among the enemy was just one more step on a logical path.

It was only in the recent days that he had begun to reach out to others, and that had come with mixed results. Shockingly, it was Sith and former-Sith upon whom he had come to rely. His answers hadn't come from the Jedi. They'd come from those who were condemned by the Order.

So why was Varyn here on Dagobah? Because he was searching for answers, and he was searching for them alone. Whatever creed he may have followed, all proclaimed that the Force had the answers. So when all else had failed him, when he'd lost his way, he'd turned to the Force. A nexus where the Light and the Dark both vied for power in equal measure.

The Nightsweeper-class star yacht and its droid pilot had been purchased with the money that remained after he'd sold everything his family had once owned. It was finally a place he could call home, and it was wherever he was. He set the ship down amidst the swamp, feeling the pulse of the Dark Side even from here pulling and drawing him in.

He grabbed his helmet and slipped it over his head as he plunged into the swampy Darkness.

 

[Varyn Atrix]

The trip through the swamp was a trudge. His progress was impeded by his attempts to keep the water out of his boots to no real avail. Eventually, he gave up staying on dry land and accepted the murky water that came up to nearly his knees.

It wasn't any particular direction that he followed, but the call of the Force itself. It was leading him on to whatever end it had for him. He had spent his whole life agonizing over every decision he made. Weighing the repercussions, trying to walk the path of a good Jedi. Now, he wasn't so sure that course he'd been taught his whole life was the right one.

He lit his lightsaber, the crimson blade glowing against the dim light that barely broke through the tangle of trees above. Creatures scurried all around him, and he had to stifle a jump at every instance. This entire world was alive, but not with intelligence or sentients. It was just the Force in perfect balance, wasn't it? Life and death, tendrils that tied together countless different creatures. Everything was connected.

He as he rounded a small hill, he could see the cave ahead. Why he was supposed to go to that cave in particular, he wasn't sure, and he wasn't even sure how he knew, but he did know.

He passed the mouth, and here everything became even more clear. He could feel the power of the Force wrapping itself around him. The Light like a blanket wrapped around him and the Dark like a cool breeze. They worked in tandem to provide a sense of comfort in their own way.

He moved further inside before finding a dry, clear patch of ground where he sat.

Before him, he placed two crystals. One, the blade of his old Jedi saber, and the other the Sith crystal he had liberated on Denon. Two sides to a single coin. Two paths to take, and only one warrior to tread it. He knew he was at a crossroads, and he felt fear.

 

[Varyn Atrix]

He closed his eyes as he let the Force flow through him, connecting him to everything that there was on this planet. He could see it all, the animals and creatures that called it their home, those who even seemed capable of sensing the power in the cave, and the connections that it had to the galaxy beyond.

Varyn hadn't spent much time in or around nexuses before, but there was a clarity here that he didn't have most other places.

His breathing slowed, and as the Force poured through him, he was taken out of body and transported through time. Many people said that their lives flashed before their eyes at the moment of death, but this wasn't so crude an experience.

It was slow, the Force taking him gradually through all he had done and experienced. He saw first his home on Coruscant. His days spent making trouble in the undercity and the way his parents always tried to keep out on the straight and narrow. He'd been blissfully ignorant of the danger that always surrounded him or the poverty his family lived in.

His mind turned to the darker event, the night his mother had been killed by the bandits and the Jedi had appeared. He'd killed some of them and others were driven back, but they hadn't been wiped out. Why hadn't the Jedi wiped them out? He'd been told that the Jedi valued all life, but that wasn't true. By allowing those to live, others had died. Namely, his father years later. He thought of how he and Vahliri had killed what remained of the gang. He told himself that he was acting in defense. That he had supported Vahliri as she meted out the penalty, but had he? He certainly hadn't stopped her. It had felt good watching them die. Knowing that they had gotten what they deserved.

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Anger tore at Varyn as he remembered it, boiling over as his fists clenched and he screamed at the top of his lungs. He hated them. The Jedi had tried to teach him to let go, but they deserved to die. They had taken everything from him, and for what? Their own greed? Every one of them deserved to be punished. Everyone like them deserved to be put in the ground.

It was an anger and grief that he had buried for years, trying to let it go and put it aside, but he couldn't. No matter how much he tried to empty himself, he was sick and kriffing tired of trying to be a robot. That was the Jedi ideal, wasn't it? Cardboard cut outs of their ideal. Free from influence of emotion, restricted by rules until they were beyond usefulness. The Jedi Code may have held elements of truth, but the truth was it got so many things wrong. There was emotion. There was chaos. All one had to do was look out into the galaxy with their eyes actually open to see it. Yes, yes, he knew that that was supposed to be the Jedi looking inward, but that wasn't how the galaxy worked, was it? Were the Jedi so far above everyone else that they denied the way that the galaxy functioned on a day-to-day basis? The galaxy was not devoid of emotion.

But embracing them wasn't an admirable quality, was it? How many people had been foolish and done harm "in the heat of the moment." The heat of passions. But Varyn was tired. He was tired of always denying what he felt. He was tired of holding back. The galaxy needed people willing to do the hard things.

 

[Varyn Atrix]

But was that what he was doing? Was he going to do the hard things or was he just giving up? That brought him to the question of the Empire. Always the question of the Empire. He thought back to the night the Sith sacked Ajan Kloss. He still remembered the sucking of the Dark Side as it pulled away the life force of those who had stood near him. He remembered the way the Jedi who had opted to defend the Padawans had been slain. He had watched the Sith Lords ravage the temple and even the Councilors.

For years, he had faulted them for it. He had hated them for what they did, but now, as he sat here amidst the truth of the Force, he wondered. Was it really so bad? As a young child, raised to be a Jedi it had appeared to be the apocalypse. But it was Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi who said "many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view." He had told Vahliri that New Alderaan was different from the massacres because it was. But it wasn't different than Ajan Kloss. Not really, and he had held onto that because he'd experienced it when he was a child. But the hard reality was that he was a child in an army. He had been raised and trained to fight since he was young, and could he blame the Sith for targeting a military base? A housing and training ground for the warriors of the future? And was what he'd done on Dromuund Kaas any different?

He knew the last part was different because it had been empty of students when they had hit it, but... was it so different? Were the Jedi really just the opposite side of the coin to the Sith? The Jedi looked out for the little person, but the Sith guided the entire galaxy. The Jedi had refused to take the helm of the galaxy, eschewing "control" as not being Jedi-like, but if not their hands, then whose?

The safest hands are still our own, a voice said. Though he couldn't have recognized it as the voice of Darth Kravos, former Jedi Shadow, the words struck true from the Force.

 

[Varyn Atrix]

In that moment, he understood. He understood why the Sith did what they did. They saw that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. It was the same thing he had reminded himself on Corellia. Sacrifice ten billion over here so that twenty billion over there could live. Ruthless calculus. What was the galaxy if not a series of numbers? In a thousand years, the names of those killed on Kashyyyk or Firrerre would be forgotten, but the names of those who had changed the galaxy would remain.

He couldn't say he liked it, but he did start to understand. There is no death, there is the Force. They all joined the Force eventually whether in turbolaser fire or when your heart gave out at the end of your life. What was the difference in the end? Perhaps the only thing that mattered was the here and now. Keeping order while we are here in this galaxy, and that order comes with a cost.

He thought back to all he had been through in battles. The people had had killed alongside Altair. He thought about the fact that he cared about the people around him more than those he would never meet. A part of him hated himself for looking inwardly, caring only about himself and those around him, but if he didn't care for those around him, then who would? Certainly not the enemy on the other side, pulling the trigger. The enemy led by the Jedi and filled with hatred. Truly, there was no difference between the armies led by Jedi and Sith.

Even in the Clone Wars he'd heard stories of how the Republic had bombed planets into submission. Destroying factories and other key centers. Were all those people evil? How many had followed Dooku to the Separatists not because they were evil, but because they believed in their own freedom? And how many of them had been killed by the Jedi and the clones? Even Dooku, himself, had once been a Jedi before he had had to leave the Order to care for his family and his home, something the Jedi should have allowed him to do, but didn't.

Two sides of the same coin.

 

[Varyn Atrix]

It struck him in that moment, that perhaps it didn't matter. The Jedi had always advocated for "living in the moment" and perhaps that was all there was to life. Living for those who were directly beside you, fighting for them because no one else would, and bringing order today no matter the consequences.

The freedom he had felt on Telos settled over him again. He spent so much of his life worrying, but why? Who did he have to give account to but himself and the Force? It was the Force that had led him here, and as much as the Jedi liked to claim the Dark Side was unbalance to the Force, here it was. In the natural galaxy without being created or designed by anyone. It may not have been the only natural state of the Force, but it was one.

If this was the path the Force had for him, then who was he to argue? Time and again the Dark Side had raised up its warriors to battle against the Jedi and restore things to a true balance between powers. It was almost as clear as if it had spoken to him, and he let it in. For the first time since his mother and father died, he let the anger pour through him. His hatred and disdain for the people who took them. All the pain of loss, the pain of confusion, the pain of isolation, he let it pour through him and beyond.

He embraced it, letting the words of the Sith Code truly reverberate within him for the first time. It poured into both crystals, and he let it feel his pain. Storing it, and resonating with him. He was one with them, truly and fully embracing all that he could be.

His eyes opened, and all his muscles relaxed. There was no longer any guilt, uncertainty, confusion, or conflict. He felt peace. He felt at liberty to act as he saw fit, an avatar of the Force's will.

His eyes fell down to the crystals in front of him. The one that had previously been red remained so, but with a hue and glow to it that it seemed not to have before. The other - previously purple - now glowed the same color of blood red. For a long moment, he looked down at it, lost in thought about what it meant.

He was a long step from the path he had originally begun to tread, but he was no longer so sure that was a bad thing. To make change in the galaxy, he needed power, and he had only now taken his first step toward seeing that a reality. He knew he had a long way to go, and he truly didn't know where this path would lead him, but as he picked up both crystals, they seemed to whisper to him. Whisper of the change he wanted to see and the order he could bring to the galaxy.

Every journey began with a single step, and sometimes you didn't even realize you had taken it.