Knightfall: Sins of the Master

[Wyck]

There was one last task Wyck had to preform before departing on his final mission as the Grand Master of the Jedi Order. But this task he would preform, not as the Grand Master, but as himself. He had sent out a transmission t her from orbit as his shuttle jumped into the Ifrane system. They would meet in a place sacred to her people. A place where the Force ran strong. And so his pod touched down, moments later, beside the large river that turned into magnificent, cascading waterfalls.

Wyck took in the air of Ifrane for what he assumed was the last time. Even if he survived his final mission as a Jedi, he would only endanger this beautiful world by coming back. But he needed to see it one last time. He needed to see her one last time. To explain himself. To apologize. To ask for her forgiveness. She had always been his one weakness. The one attachment he had allowed himself, despite the Jedi Code. Of all the Padawans he had taken over the centuries, she had been the most dear to him; and he refused to leave on his last mission without mending the brokenness between them.

Of course, he didn't even know if she would come. She had not been pleased with him when last they spoke. But he hoped that she could put that resentment aside this last time, because the day he had warned her about had finally come. The Sith Empire was taking over... and soon none would be free. But, as the sky purpled and evening set over the falls, even his hopes of that were diminishing—she had not come. Still, patience was a virtue, so he decided to wait until nightfall. Just in case. @Deviant

 

[Imani Sage]

Nightfall was coming. The sun and its heavy eye inched to a close as it passed into the horizon, replaced by the pale eyelid of the moon. Still, daylight remained. Countless threads of sunlight sewn itself into the sky, weaving a blanket of dull reds and deep purples and golden pinks. Every sunrise and sunset on Ifrane was one worth dying for, and that was no different for Imani. She fought and bled for her homeworld, its people, its every gorgeous sunset, and she was more than willing to die for it. She had been since the moment her feet touched its lush ground and walked under the roof of its many forests. It was in her blood, as a child of Ifrane, to defend Ifrane.

But what about the Jedi Order? Imani had never reached out since departing Tython all that time ago. Her focus was always on her people and the invading empire that threatened their way of life. They had come close, very nearly seizing the capital city only days ago. Much of the city was burned. Many were killed and far more left homeless, wandering in the wilderness. Still, the city was theirs. The Zyggerians were repelled, their casualties too grim to continue an assault. By some miracle, Ifrane emerged momentarily victorious. The war was coming to a close. Imani could feel it.

She could feel it in the Force, and every whisper that came with it, now more than ever. Beyond Ifrane, the tide was shifting, the scales were tipping, yet from that distant feeling in the air, she knew it was not in their favor. The nights were getting colder, the stars dimmer. Indeed, this war was coming to a close.

Imani clung to her robes, worn from wear and battle. Stepping from the surrounding trees, her presence masked, she looked to a waiting Grandmaster. There was no welcoming smile, but neither an unwelcoming scowl. She remained expressionless, but her voice hopeful, as she looked to sky. “Since coming here, I don’t think I have ever seen the same sunset twice. It’s always different. Always new, beautiful, and unique. And every night, I fall in love with Ifrane all over again.”

She stopped once she was beside him A silence, accompanied only by the roar of the waterfall, descended between them, followed by her voice. “Why are you here, Wyck?”

 

[Wyck]

The night falling across Ifrane was poetic in a macabre sense. As the burning sun sank beneath the horizon and the sky turned a deep purple, only a few strands of its light still reached out to embrace the sky. But in the sky opposite the sunset, large cumulonimbus billowed over the mountains, themselves blacker than night. Only the occasional flash of distant lightning lit them. To Wyck, it was like watching nature mirror the state of the galaxy. As the light side faded to the last strands against a bleak sky, a rising storm of darkness was growing uncontrollably nearby. Soon it would come and swallow the light up and then this planet, like the galaxy, would be at the mercy of the storm.

As if on cue, the wind began to rise and Wyck's robes fluttered even as he sat on a stone, picking at the ground with his cane as he waited for his Padawan. He was less a Jedi now than when she had last saw him. No lightsaber rested on his belt; he had lost that during the fight with the Eternal on Tython. And, now, even his holocron was gone. He had entrusted its safekeeping to Fennex in hopes that it would one day be used to restore the Jedi Order—to be the first rays of light to pierce an ending storm. Now Wyck was what she had always seen him as: old, decrepit, a failure.

Never was this more apparent than when she finally appeared. He sensed her approach first. Her presence was like a beacon to him in the Force, and there was a certain order to her thoughts that made her easy to detect even amidst all of the choas in nature around him. And her first words were of awe and optimism. She had always had a knack for seeing the beauty in places, even when she was little. Normally, Wyck would would use the words she spoke as a teaching moment to elabtorate on the beauty of the Force.

But not this time.

Wyck felt every bit as frail and old as he must have looked sitting there on that rock. For he had not come to her as a teacher or a leader or even as a Jedi, for that matter. He came to her as a former guardian and, he hoped, a friend. The time for lessons were passed. Her words—resolved, evenly spoken—revealed she knew as much as well. Perhaps she sensed the growing storm in the Force too. He doubted there were any among those who could touch the Force who could truly ignore it.

"Tython has fallen." He said it simply and definitively. Two centuries of Jedi experience had taught him how to do so without a fleck of emotion, but that was deception. There was pain inside. So much pain. Tython had been his home. She had helped him reclaim it; and now it was gone again. "And the Order is routed on Ruusan. Compared to the Sith, we Jedi now number only a handful. Sending half of the survivors into hiding, I am. And the rest—" He picked the ground with his cane some more. The rest he didn't need to say. She would know.

"One last thing must I do," he confessed with a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "But, before that—" He turned now fully to face her and, perhaps for the first time since he had plucked her from the Zygerrian slavers all those years ago, he allowed her to see his eyes shimmer with held-back tears. "—come to ask your forgiveness, I have." Where did he begin? How did he even start? He didn't know, so he simply said, "A terrible Master, I have been. Kept secrets from you, I did. And, at times, I've put my duty before you. No excuses do I offer. Sorry, I am." @Deviant

 

[Imani Sage]

Imani was silent at his words. Tython was gone. Her efforts for the Jedi Order came to nothing. The endless fight against the Sith was nearing its end. Everything was worse than she could have ever imagined, and yet, rather than scream above the waterfall, she was quiet.

Despite the terrible news, Imani was ensnared to her surroundings. Birds sang, the river ran and the waterfall thundered on. Since leaving the Order behind, she had come to realize that the Jedi was never the defining force of good in the galaxy. Rise and fall they may, but the galaxy would continue on. It would persevere, as it had for the hundred years of darkness before her.

She mourned the loss of so many, but as she turned to Wyck, hope could be found. Settled on a rock close beside him, she leaned close and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers threaded into his robes. A simple squeeze of her hand, enough to say enough. Then, in a low voice, she answered. “There’s nothing to forgive. We’ve both lied, each of us have made mistakes— and in the end, we are all the better for it.” She turned back to the horizon, because as Wyck was captive to his thoughts, she was seemingly free to look what laid ahead. “We lived and we learned.”

Her hand drifted away. From first joining the Order to leaving it behind, she had grown far and well. No longer was she the student, but she too was a master. Surely not to Wyck, but she was neither his wide-eyed pupil any longer. Both of them had changed.

As the last trickles of daylight evaporated into the night, Imani gazed down the waterfall. It was vicious, the descending water crashing into the river below, but only seconds later did the water still, as if nothing had happened. The river was at peace, now a mirror of the world above. Stars shined, the moon blinked, and anyone could see that even in nightfall, there was light.

Yet as uplifted as Imani was and had become, there was still doubt and darkness. Underneath the reflections in the water, Wyck might see the shape of her shuttle, submerged. She had arrived to Ifrane in it, and shortly after engaging the Zyggerians, abandoned it to the river. Her attachment to her homeworld was too great. She could never leave them. Indeed, if they died, she would with them.

Before the two plunged back into silence, Imani’s attention returned to her former master. She understood what he meant to do now. She also realized the extent of his own attachment, this time to the Order.

“You don’t have to do this, Wyck.” She whispered. “You have already given the Order everything. Even now, you understand, as I did and do, that they are a lost cause.” Her hand reached out again but hesitated and found only the cold stone between them. “The galaxy still has a future and you can be a part of that future. Don’t throw your life away. Not like this. You can stay here. You can keep living and learning, for the better of all the galaxy.”

She knew what she was saying. Hypocrisy. She would gladly toss herself into the fire for her kin, why couldn’t Wyck? The answer was clear: Imani loved him, as a father and a teacher. She could not bear to lose him now, because as hopeful as she was of the future, she was not entirely sure. As enlightened as she was, dark thoughts lingered.

@Malon

 

[Wyck]

Just as Imani loved him as a father and a teacher, Wyck loved her as a daughter and a pupil. He had always known this, but he finally allowed himself to think the words and embrace their meaning. And, to his surprise, the answer from the Force was not the dark side, as he had always been taught. It was a surge of burning light that threatened to overwhelm him. And so it was that, sitting on a rock next to the thundering falls of Ifrane and in the presence of his former Padawan, that Wyck—who had for centuries taught future generations of Jedi—came to learn his final lesson as a Jedi.

A lesson that the other Jedi had not learned because the Order, in its hubris, had blinded itself to the truth. The truth about the light side. The truth about the dark side and how to stop it: The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins. But in the heart of its strength lies its weakness. One lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.

It was with this final lesson in mind that Wyck turned to Imani, thankful for the lesson she had helped to teach him, and smiled. "Given everything, have I?" He shook his goblinlike head. "No. Not everything. Not yet."

For the first time since she had arrived to speak with him, Wyck stood. It took some effort. His bones were centuries old and arthritis had long since set into them. But, with the aid of his cane, he was able to reach a standing position and hobble over to the nearby stream. There in the clear waters, he saw Imani's ship; but, more importantly, he saw the reflection of himself for what must have been the first time in years. He could not help but chuckle at how old he had become.

Grunting, he turned back towards Imani, cocked his head up at her, and said, "The future of nothing, I am. I am too old and rooted in the old way of things—things that gave rise to the dark cloud that has fallen over our galaxy. See that now, I do." Wyck knew what he had to do, and he knew what he had to give. Because Imani was wrong. There was still something he could give. The most precious thing he had. And he knew he would give it freely if it meant the Order lived on. If it meant she lived on.

"Into hiding, I am sending half of the Order. The Younglings and some who would teach them. But the Sith cannot learn of this. Distracted, they must be." He paused for a moment and picked at the ground with his cane. When the time came to tell her what he intended, he did so knowing full well the weight of the words he was speaking—knowing that she would understand their meaning. "Only one Jedi does this new 'Empress' hate the most. If into the open I go, personally she will come to meet me, and with all of her force. An opening that will provide for the others to escape."

A silence fell between them. There was more Wyck needed to say—more he needed to tell her. But she deserved to process and react to his plan. Because he knew the girl he had raised so well, she also knew that there was only one way that she would understand and listen to his final wishes for her. That would only come about if he first stopped and listened to her. And so he did, with pleading eyes begging her to understand.

In the distance, the storm brewing over the mountains grew closer; and, in the Force, midnight had almost fallen. @Deviant

 

[Imani Sage]

Truly, the sun was gone. Moons shined and stars glimmered in the darkness, but compared to day, they were dull. Imani thought herself hopeful. She believed the night would never last into an eternity. Night was darkest before the dawn, but how could she know? This moment was among the darkest moments in her life, and easily the darkest for the galaxy. The Jedi Order had collapsed, the Republic was destined to fall, and the thousands of worlds as she knew them would fall into years, decades or centuries of submission. How could she remain hopeful knowing what they had lost? How could she remain hopeful knowing what she was going to lose?

‘Wyck, you can’t do this,’ she wanted to say. She wanted to forget how enlightened she was and speak the truth in her mind. Still, Imani could not deny the truth outside it. Andraste would not be satisfied with the Order’s fall until her wiry fingers were wrapped around the Jedi who, to her, started it all. The Jedi could not truly survive without sacrifice. Wyck would be that sacrifice, and now, Imani understood. Dark thoughts and haunting questions loomed overhead: what would Imani be?

“Then go,” she murmured, her mind set on the edge of a knife. She recognized the need for Wyck to go where he must, but she could neither accept it. The Jedi within her was willing to let him go, but the girl she was and the woman she had grown to be couldn’t bear the thought. So, she compromised, but in the worst way. In her voice and mind, she forced herself to accept his choice and his coming actions. Meanwhile, her heart soured, and her lips fluttered, fighting the grimace that set upon her face. “Do what you have to do. For the Jedi, for the galaxy.” She could barely look at him.

Her fingers grasped at the coarse, cold stone at her side. Head straightforward, she rose up from her makeshift seat and nodded to the Grandmaster. “This is goodbye, then.” She wasn’t crying, but she wanted to. She wasn’t committed to see him go, but she would let him. So, Imani locked eyes with him one last time and whispered, full of reluctance and recognition. “Goodbye, Wyck.”

Surely, she had grown, but letting go was still the hardest part. Such was the burden between a Master and an Apprentice.

 

[Wyck]

Such was the burden indeed. Wyck found himself firmly rooted in his spot. He wanted to let go far less than she did. He wanted to find a way to keep her by his side. But that, he knew, was just selfishness; and selfishness had no place in the heart of a Jedi. However, he had not come here as a Jedi. He had come to tell Imani his last plans and then impart his last wishes to her. He could not leave. Not yet. Not until she heard him.

"Long ago, met a young girl, I did. A slave girl, destined for a life of pain and agony." Wyck allowed himself a moment to transport back to that time. His brow furrowed and wrinkled. The memory did not feel as far away as it actually was. "Hmmm, but strong was she with the Force. The potential to become a powerful Jedi, I saw in her. Hmmm. Yes. And a powerful Jedi she became, for train her, I did, and raised her as though she was my own, even though I knew that she was not." Wyck allowed his brown eyes to travel up to meet Imani's. "Thought I saw everything then, I did. But I was wrong. In her, the potential to become much more than a Jedi, there was—see that now, I do. For too long, I held her back. But I will do so no longer."

This was it. He sensed the moment building in the Force as the storm overhead continued to build. This moment was a shatterpoint in the Force. A life-altering choice; but Wyck knew the choice was not his to make. It was her's. And, ironically, he didn't even know what choice there was to make. That knowledge, too, seemed to belong to her and her alone. He made his peace with this and finished what he had to say. "Protect your family, you must. Protect the ones you love. Protect this planet, too, if you can. The Sith will come here soon and your people will need you." As the Jedi did on Tython. He wanted to say that, but he did not. The choice was hers, after all. It was not his place to say as much. "Of all of my students over the centuries, you have made me the proudest. Allowed no connections, a Jedi is—but thought of you as a daughter, I did."

And now, the moment had arrived. So, like his pupil before him, he deigned a smile. It was weak, but it said what it needed to say and left the ball firmly in her court. Turning back towards the direction of his pod, he wobbled a few steps away before turning his head back over his shoulder and saying, "Goodbye, Imani. And remember. The Force will be with you. Always." @Deviant

 

[Imani Sage]

A master and an apprentice, a father and a daughter, one friend to another. The relationship they shared was more than an alliance. It was an attachment. A bond beyond formalities or simple friendship. Imani and Wyck were, in a way, connected through the Force. Whether across the stars or out of view, she could feel him in every ripple of the light. The storm above had reared its ugly head, blotting out another shining night, but it meant nothing to her. Her thoughts were directed on Wyck even as he hobbled back to his pod, back to the Order where he would lay his life down.

Her chest ached. She closed her eyes in an effort to hold back the pain. What could she do? Her heart was with her people, but her spirit was with the light side of the Force and the Jedi who raised her. She was divided. In the end, when torn between a dozen different paths, she chose to stay. Her feet were fixed to the ground, unsure. Cold fingers moved to her lips and she sighed. When her mind was decided, Imani turned to find Wyck. Except, he was gone. The vessel he arrived in was now a speck of light disappearing into the storm. Regret consumed her.

So, she would remain on Ifrane and dedicate her life to her kin, even if the war was lost. But could she really do it? Bundled in her old robes, Imani glanced down to the water below and the ship under its surface. “I…” As uncertain as before, her voice trailed off. Then, a new one took its place.

@Malon

 

[The Storyteller]

Wyck was gone. His ship had long since vanished into the stormy night sky and his presence in the Force had gone along with it. But Imani was not alone.

Amina had shadowed her. At first, the royal attendant had followed Imani's instructions to wait with the ship. But as the storm had grown worse in the distance, she had decided to venture out and fetch the former Jedi. She had arrived in enough time to overhear the last moments of the conversation between Imani and her old Master. At first, she had thought to leave Imani to her thoughts—it wasn't her place to interfere in this moment. But, as she turned to go, she found herself unable to walk back towards the ship.

Instead, she turned back to where Imani stood and walked out of the shadows that had concealed her. Grass crunched beneath her feet as she approached the banks of the roaring falls. Thunder rumbled and boomed above her, and the wind swept up the robes she was wearing, causing them to flutter gracefully behind her as she moved. Over the years since Imani had first returned to Ifrane with Wyck in-search of her parents, the Jedi girl had become somewhat of a sister to Amina. The guardswoman took that role seriously, even now. Especially now.

"I do not need the Force to sense that you are not okay with what just happened," she said plainly, revealing her presence. "The Jedi may have their flaws, but that one raised you." She glanced out into the sky in the direction that Wyck's ship had vanished, half-expecting to see it returning. All she saw were storm clouds consuming what was left of the pristine skies, and she turned back to Imani. "The woman I met five years ago returned here in search of her family and found them. Would that same woman now allow another member of her family to go to his doom alone?"

Amina knew it wasn't her place. Imani did not owe her anything. If anything, it was she that owed Imani everything—for liberating their world, for coming to their aid and helping to protect their king. But it was the part of her that was Imani's friend that could not allow her to go through with this. If Wyck died out there, somewhere, in whatever battle the Jedi faced, Imani would never forgive herself. And Amina would never forgive herself for not intervening when the moment presented itself. @Deviant

 

[Imani Sage]

Imani said nothing. She was surprised to see Amina emerge into the clearing and sneak so close without her noticing. Maybe it was the other woman’s rigorous training, or maybe her own mind was too wrapped in her own thoughts to bother. She was divided, afraid, determined, willing. She was composed of hundred different words. Hesitant to trail after Wyck in spite of the threats that also faced her people. Determined to stay to protect them, or at least continue the legacy of her kin. Willing to sacrifice her life side by side with an Order that raised her and the closest friend she ever had. Even with Amina’s encouragement, she didn’t know.

“I know.” She answered, opposite of what she currently thought. What she needed is time to think, another moment consider all her options, before she came to a final decision. So, with a quiet nod, she glanced to older woman and managed a tiny smile. “Go back to the transport, Amina. I need to be alone, please.” Her eyes drifted back to the horizon, now all but consumed in darkness. “You will know when I have come to a decision.” Her last words were ominous, but should have been enough to convince the guardswoman to depart. She respected Imani enough to understand.

Silence returned. Deep, cold, a welcome but unwelcome quiet. Settled back on a rock, she closed her eyes tight. Then, she reached out into the Force, desperate to find answers. In her mind, Imani followed the currents, every ebb and flow of the light, until she felt a familiar shape in the Force. Curious, she pulled. The entity hardly budged, but she pulled again. And again. The Force wanted her to see what it was. But it wasn’t until she opened her eyes that Imani realized she had subconsciously pulled her old ship from the water. Now, it hovered before her, the cockpit window shining and the seat inside empty. Was this what the Force demanded? Or is this what she truly wanted?

Head held high, she rose. Her decision was made: she had to see Wyck one final time.

End Thread.​