#eight gets so damn lifeless after but he's...healing. living. what else is living but moving past your will to die

[eorzeashan]

Long time no swtor thinkpiece, but.

Thinking about Eight in the IA class story and then who he is post-Alliance; going from a bold, daring and casually ambitious wildcard to someone who feels as if he's lost most of his zeal to become rather...listless. Empty. Not to say that he isn't fulfilled by his work in the Alliance (who all make exceptions to have him do anything but murder all day) but he starts picking up more mundane activities like, peeling potatoes for the Alliance cantina, or doing minor tasks that don't involve much thought on his own volition-- a stark change from a man who only cared about his blade and who it fell on. It's like he's been soundly defeated by the circumstances surrounding him.

Then there's the issue of his companions, who only knew him as their cunning leader who stopped at nothing to achieve his goals, even using some of them in the process, who now appears to be an entirely different person. One who quietly fades into the background, instead of being in the thick of it. He's changed.

His skills haven't waned, but his voice is flat, his eyes without gleam, his all consuming desire that drove him to accomplish the impossible by the day naught but simmering ashes by the time they reunite with him in KOTXX. He even apologizes to some, without explanation. This distresses Vector, in particular, who witnessed the worst of his sides way back in the day. "It's not me you should apologize to, Agent." Vector can only quietly say, "I have never held you in ill regard for the choices you've made, anathema as they were to my principles." It's a conversation that peters off, but one that Eight never had, never had soon enough --his firm refusal to rectify or acknowledge that Vector could choose him over his own ideals is one that gnaws at him on the inside for years, on his own belief that people cannot change what they truly believe in, and so there is no point in trying to make amends for what bridges he burns in the pursuit of his own wishes. This, and many other denials, compound over the years into a rather hurtful self-made solitude that follows him long into the Alliance. (A mother will never give up her son. There is no other way. I cannot change my nature as a weapon. Their rejection of me is something I must accept.) A punishment, but for who?

Perhaps he still feels he's failed the last mission Keeper entrusted to him. The one that asked him to become a real, living person, and not just a sword dressed in imperial colors.

Eight spirals during the events of the Eternal Empire. He watches his downfall happen in real time. There's little he does about it. His home is gone, as are the people he fought for--Keeper, Watcher 2, Intelligence--and this new age is only filled with allies he cuts down faster than he can imprint their names into his memory. He's alone in this fight at the behest of others who do choose their ideals over him, who, in the end, turn away in fear and disgust when he bloodies his blade in their name. He makes no effort afterwards to right his image in their minds. He plays the villain, if others will not. For the first time, he tires of killing.

This leaves him alone, an outcast even among friends. Eventually, amongst the ruin their failed Alliance leaves in its wake, someone asks why things turned out this way; his lack of a will in the greater fight comes to light and sets several alarm bells off. Lana reduces his duties on the battlefield. Others, out of shared guilt and a fear of the bloodshed he wreaked on their orders, give him a wide berth to live normally for a while. It's not much and does little to his disillusionment and estrangement with his allies, but...it's a start.

Eight the Assassin turns into just Eight. And Eight the former agent, ex-Cipher, killer extraordinaire who never once dreamed of the stars, turns into someone who quietly watches the sun set on a world he barely recognizes,l but still stays up to see it, potato peeler in hand.

#swtor #oc: orradiz #ooc #kotxx #this is just. rambling thoughts. #eight gets so damn lifeless after but he's...healing. living. what else is living but moving past your will to die #eight's weird complex about the ideals of others and people being unable to treat him as anything but a stepping stone for that #and he used to treat others like that as well #and wuh OH keeper still haunting him like a decade later #he's just. he had so much energy back in the class story and it all faded away #he's a lot wiser now but also has so much shit to work through and he has no friends. i said it #the retired and mysterious life of ex agents #HELLO? IS ANYONE OUT THERE DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND THISSSS