Dark Side Switch 24
this is the end! it's very self indulgent! but it's MY fanfic and I can do what I want
Tryder ducked and weaved through the crowd, finally managing to dodge into an unoccupied back alley. He put his back to the grimy wall as his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness, his chest heaving to catch his breath. Slowly, as he relaxed back into the living Force around him, he realized he wasn’t alone in the darkness.
At that moment an Ithorian guard rounded the corner; though its Basic was garbled Tryder made out enough to know things were not going well for him. He lifted his hands, defeated…
Until whatever was lurking in the darkness pounced, making short work of the guard. Tryder’s eyes had finally adjusted enough to recognize the shape, blacker than the shadows around it. “Veraku?”
The beast looked up, twisting to face him. Tryder nervously brought his hand up, hand loosely curled in the manner he’d been taught by his Master so long ago, letting the increasingly-familiar animal greet him at its own pace. He felt more than heard the sniffs; waited for his arm to be wrested from its socket; breathed a sigh of relief when instead the massive head lowered and nudged his hand. Tryder scratched behind the narglatch’s ear absentmindedly.
“Well, I’ve found you. Now we just gotta get you out of here…”
((very soon after but idk how to get from there to here))((well i do vaguely but it’s sad sarah hours not actiony sarah hours))
The narglatch panted, laying down on the landing pad they had finally come to a halt at. The trio -- a Chiss, a Nautolan, and a Twi’lek -- dismounted one by one, the adrenaline high wearing off as they realized they were free of their pursuers. It was the Twi’lek who spoke up first.
“A transport should be here shortly. I’ve just let them know where we wound up.” She tapped a few last keys on her datapad((i don’t remember if star wars has the equivalent of smartphones but fuck it it does now)) before glancing up at her two companions. “So… what happens now?”
Tryder shrugged, glancing over at the Nautolan. “I assume you want to go home, Kytra?”
She glanced up from her examination of the narglatch, taking a moment to process what had been said. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” she replied as she turned back. She tried to not think about the fact that she and Tryder would be splitting ways soon. Nevertheless, it crept into her mind, and stung.
As promised, a transport ship soon arrived; though it looked like a scrap heap, it was large enough to safely carry both the Nautolan and her apex predator to the spaceport. The doors opened and Amalya bounded forward to greet the figure inside.
“Master Unagi, thank you so much for coming!” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around him as he stepped off the ship. Tryder, for his part, did his best to melt through the floor.
“Of course, my dear. A little adventure is always a good change of pace from life at the Temple, after all.” The Jedi Master chuckled heartily, glancing curiously at the Sith and her narglatch before turning his attention to his former student. “How have you been, Tryder?”
“I’ve been fine,” replied the Chiss, visibly uncomfortable. “Kytra, this is my former Master.”
The Nautolan glanced up, letting her hand fall to the hilt of one of her sabers. Veraku sensed her tension and rose to his feet behind her, the whoosh of his tail swinging side to side drowned out by the noise of the urban planet. Tryder stepped between the two parties quickly, reassuring “He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t going to help. Right, Master?”
The Quermian smiled. “Of course. Anything to help my former student.”
Kytra stood, obviously still wary, but she nodded politely at the Jedi. “I’m grateful for your help,” she started after a moment, each word chosen carefully. “Although I must admit I don’t understand why you’re giving it.”
Master Unagi smiled kindly at her. “A student of mine once told me that we must understand our enemy before we can defeat them.” Tryder glanced at the floor, a subtle movement in the corner of the Nautolan’s gaze. The Jedi continued on, “besides, I think you’d have made a good Jedi yourself, if your circumstances had been different.”
The two stared at each other for a moment; Jedi and Sith stood each other down, waiting for the moment to erupt, as it had so often before. But this once, neither rose to the challenge. Amalya eventually stepped forward to break the stalemate.
“I’ve got your ticket right here, Kytra. As long as you’ve got your narglatch under control, the pilot should be able to get you to the Outer Rim. Just… try not to make a scene.” The Nautolan blinked before she turned to the Twi’lek, nodding as her head cleared. “Thank you, Amalya. For everything.”
Chipper as ever came the response, “Oh, don’t act like we’ll never speak again. Ask Tryder, I won’t leave you alone now that I’ve made a new friend.” She smiled brightly, and Kytra let herself smile back.
The Chiss stepped forward next.
Navy blue eyes met bright red ones, a thousand questions passing between the gazes that all went unanswered. Finally Kytra spoke.
“I suppose this is goodbye.”
“I guess so.”
A beat passed, and then, “It’s been an honor, Tryder Flynn.”
Tryder inhaled as if to speak, and then thought better of it. Finally he replied, “It’s been an honor.”
She nodded slowly, turned, and trudged up the ramp of the shuttle, the narglatch padding along close behind her. Tryder watched quietly as they walked out of sight, and turned back to his companions. “So what happens now?”
“You could come back to the Temple with us,” Master Unagi offered. “The Council wouldn’t reinstate you, not fully, but I’m sure I could talk them into letting you join one of the Corps.”
Tryder mulled this over for a moment, staring at the durasteel landing platform between his feet. He didn’t relish the idea of joining the Corps; though the masters at the Jedi Temple had been quick to reassure the younglings that they were just as honorable and skilled as fully realized Jedi, everybody knew it was only for the washouts and the castaways, those who couldn’t live up to any strenuous expectations. Tryder felt -- no, he knew -- he was better than that. But what other options did he have?
“Or… you know, Kytra and I had a lot of conversations when we lost you at the Exchange, and it seemed to me like she was coming around to you-- to the Light Side, I mean.” Amayla glanced between the former Jedi and his former Master. “I bet if you stuck with her for a little longer, you could do her some real good. Maybe even get her to convert,” the Twi’lek trailed off for a moment. The Quermian stared at her curiously.
“I suppose that’s possible, yes. I don’t believe that to be the best course of action, though. Attachment only brings us further from being instruments of the Force.” The Jedi Master turned to his former apprentice. “However, your path forward is yours to decide alone.”
Tryder stared blankly at the floor, turning things over in his mind. Was it worth it to go back to the organization that had kicked him out, tail between his legs, begging for forgiveness? Could he forgive himself if he didn’t? Being a Jedi was his whole identity; or at least it had been…
A hand landed gently on his shoulder, startling the Chiss out of his thoughts. He looked up and found Amalya watching him from an arm’s length away, her hand coming back to her side.
“Tryder. Go with her.”
The Nautolan and her narglatch had curled up in the darkest corner of the little ship. Kytra sat with the cat’s head in her lap, stroking it absentmindedly, doing her best to will away thoughts of the Jedi. She knew what he was going to do -- he was going to go back to the Jedi Order, serve in whatever way they’d allow him to. He was, and would always be, a Jedi at heart. Still, it stung, the thought she’d never get to see him again.
“It’s okay, Veraku. It was nice to get to know him. But he’s better off here, and we’re better off only relying on each other. You’re the only dependable one, anyway”, she murmured, more for her sake than for the narglatch, whose ear flicked idly in response.
She didn’t glance up when the ramp to the little shuttle hissed closed. Even if the Jedi betrayed her, she had her sabers and her mount, and the pair wouldn’t go down without a fight. She was so focused on quieting the ache in her chest that she didn’t notice the presence behind her until the hand came to rest on her back. She turned --
To see red eyes in a blue face, creased ever so slightly with concern. “Tryder?”
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, sitting down next to her.
“I…” she started for a moment, before giving up on words and wrapping her arms around his neck. The Chiss sat in shock for a moment before wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her closer until he could barely tell where he ended and she began. They sat together for a while, until they’d both stopped shaking, when Kytra finally managed to respond “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“I was given a choice,” replied the Chiss, “and I chose you.”
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Dark Side Switch 23
A Twi’lek sat in the spaceport, legs crossed, her foot tapping soundlessly in the air. She scanned the crowds casually as they flowed past her, waiting for a familiar presence. She felt him before she saw him, and resisted the urge to bound up until the two hooded figures had sat next to her.
“Tryder?” she asked, still not daring to glance over.
“Amalya.” came the reply, unfeeling as ever.
“It is you!” She wrapped the figure next to her in a hug, and Tryder blinked, the embrace tighter than he’d expected. Awkwardly he patted her on the head. “How have you been??”
“I’ve been fine,” he replied, prying himself out of her grasp. “Amalya, this is Kytra.”
The hooded figure on the other side of Tryder nodded, and she offered a hand. “Nice to meet you, Amalya.” Kytra blinked when the Twilek shook her hand vigorously, and pulled it back into her cloak as soon as she was able.
“We should probably get moving.” Tryder glanced around and stood purposefully; both women saw the hurried impatience in his movement and followed suit. He strode off, the Twi’lek hurrying along beside him; after a moment he noticed that Kytra wasn’t beside him, and reached out with the Force, probing the existence of those around him, until he found her following a few meters back. She reached back in kind, giving the faintest ghost of her hand on his shoulder, and though internally he cursed her caution here he realized it was probably warranted. A Sith and a Jedi seen together would only bring about too many questions, and word spread fast here on Coruscant; somebody would notice. He let Amalya subtly take the lead back to the entrance of the enormous port.
“You like her, huh.”
The Chiss ignored her.
“Tryder, come on. I’ve known you for how long? I’ll needle it out of you eventually, you know that.”
“Of course I don’t like her, she’s a Sith Lord. How could I like somebody so opposed to everything I’ve ever known?”
The Twi’lek looked at him for a moment, evaluating his words. “The Jedi aren’t everything you’ve ever known, Tryder. Certainly not now.”
Bright red eyes shot her a glare before he looked back down at the holomap he’d managed to get out of an unsecured terminal. “Besides, I don’t need to like her to respect her.”
Kytra returned then, the borrowed cloak wrapped tightly around her. “Are you two done playing with technology yet?” she asked impatiently, instinctively flattening her back against the wall.
Tryder nodded, pointing to a large space that was marked simply ‘storage’ on the map. “If the black market trade is anywhere, it looks like it would be around here. There’s not enough space anywhere else.”
“Well what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
“Kytra, wait.” She snapped to attention at her name, focusing uncannily on the Chiss. Amalya found the intensity unsettling, but he seemed unaffected. “We can’t just barge in there and start taking heads off. We’d be overpowered instantly. We have to go about this more quietly than that.” The Nautolan blinked. “Okay?” Tryder asked, emphasizing himself.
After a moment, Kytra sighed. “Okay. We can play it your way.” She shifted uncomfortably for another moment before following up, “but if anybody hurt him…”
Amalya would swear she saw the tiniest grin flicker across his face, before he reined himself back in. “There’s no stopping you when you’re pissed. I know. Believe me, I won’t stand in your way.” The Sith nodded quietly, taking one last glance at the map before stepping into the crowd and seemingly melting away with the flow of traffic.
The cloaked pair walked casually through the marketplace.
“So…” started the red one, posture tense, “why… no, that’s a stupid question.”
The blue one glanced at her companion. “What’s up?”
“Why are you a Jedi?” Kytra exhaled the thought before she could think better of it.
The Twi’lek blinked at the Nautolan, still somewhat unsure of her trustworthiness, but her gregariousness overcame her. “Well, I was raised at the Temple, for a start. It’s hard to leave your home, no matter what that home is.”
“But there must be something more to it than that.” The pair slipped through the crowds surrounding the nerf pens. “Surely the Jedi are somewhat more compelling than ‘it’s easy’.”
“I… hm. Why are you asking? What are you after?”
“I just don’t understand why the Jedi are so aloof, is all. Genuinely,” Kytra added as an afterthought, “I don’t say that to be rude, I just really can’t wrap my head around it.”
“Aloof is maybe not the word I’d use, but I get your point. The Jedi try to be purely rational, and it doesn’t always do us favors.” Amayla paused to consider, stepping to the side of the thoroughfare. The Sith followed close behind her, leaning against the wall, although the casual-ness of the action was only surface level. “I suppose it’s because the Jedi Code has genuinely been helpful to me, as has been the support of my fellow Jedi. It’s good to have a reminder to take a step back and consider things logically.”
“But surely that must be stifling, sometimes. You obviously care a great deal about Tryder; isn’t that forbidden?”
“What, having friends? The Jedi disallow attachments that may cloud our judgement, but friends are a good thing to have; if nothing else it’s a system to ensure we do not follow lines of thought that are unproductive.” Amayla smiled. “Besides, you know Tryder. He needs someone to look out for him.”
Despite herself, Kytra smiled back, the expression vanishing as quickly as it came.
“May I ask the same question of you?”
“What, why I’m…” Kytra hesitated, remembering her surroundings. “... what I am?”
Amalya shrugged. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, of course.”
“Well, I… it’s interesting, I guess. I didn’t have a choice to start in it, same as you.”
“I thought they recruited adults?”
“The organization does, but my master was his own breakaway thing.” The Nautolan considered her words. “The reason I claim the title, I suppose, is that I believe in their Code, the same way you do yours. My passions give me strength, not weakness.”
“Which is why you’re here.”
Kytra glared at the Twi’lek. “Surely you’d defend your fellow Jedi from harm. Surely you’d rescue a captive from a slaver. I don’t see how this is different.”
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