#where are my girlies who have complicated parent/guardian relationships ayyyy

[imogenkol]

— WIP WEDNESDAY

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Just gonna casually drop a really pivotal character moment from the whumptober thing I am still working on that became way longer than I intended it to be (warning: mentions of torture and also this is very heartbreaking)

When the pain became too unbearable, Imogen attempted to go inwards. Her mind may be the only chance of salvation. If she could rebuild her barricades from the inside, then perhaps she could buy herself more time. Battle meditation proved useful for all manner of talented Force users. Her own Master even tried to impart her wisdom on the practice, though Imogen had been too impatient to successfully utilize it at the time. She may not be at the frontlines of war or in the middle of a duel, but this excruciating invasion of her mind was just as arduous as any other challenging fight. Only difference now… Imogen was on the losing side.

The pressure built up in her head as a thunderous cacophony until she was sure something had to give when suddenly everything went utterly silent and still. Imogen wondered if she had been tortured into unconsciousness or perhaps her interrogator had enough and put his lightsaber blade through her skull before she could realize her end.

“I am relieved that you have held on to some of my teachings.”

Imogen’s eyes snapped open to see the room now completely empty. She glanced around for the source of the voice – a voice she had not heard in many, many years – and found that even her bindings had disappeared. The bounty hunter cautiously rose from the interrogation chair, not trusting whatever vision had clearly been imposed upon her.

“Show yourself,” Imogen commanded, though her tone had a slight waver. 

“I have always been here, you simply refused to see.”

Imogen spun around and saw a figure that caused her heart to plummet with enough force to nearly bring her to her knees. Rejna Shúl appeared just as the former Padawan last saw her. Imogen recognized the light brown Jedi robes, the silver hilt at her belt, and that unyielding conviction in her sharp green eyes. A ghost come to haunt her like a painful memory.

“You are a trick,” she weakly accused. Imogen could not decide which would be worse – being right or being wrong. 

“I assure you, I am not,” Rejna insisted and placed her hands behind her back. “Listen to your instincts.”

Imogen did not want to, but a dreadful chill in her bones demanded to be felt. The image before her shook her down to her very soul and she knew for certain that not even Vader himself could conjure such a convincing specter of her former Master. Not like this. 

Imogen shook her head. The shock made her feel sick. “Why now, after all this time?”

“Because you were not ready to face me.”

“Why should I face you at all? I killed you for a reason,” Imogen snarled. A part of her hoped her rage would chase this spirit away. Had she not done enough unforgivable acts to completely sever whatever connection they had in life and death?

Rejna regarded her patiently, unflinching to the storm of hostility that brewed within her apprentice. “You killed me out of impulse.”

Imogen’s hands trembled and she clenched them into tight fists at her sides, as tight as she could make them. “I would have died if you lived.” 

“So here you stand now.” The Jedi Master moved around Imogen in a slow circle, studying her the same way she did the very day they met. Imogen had been so young, she didn’t fully understand her circumstances, but Rejna took stock of what she had to work with. It made Imogen feel like an item being appraised for auction. “A woman. And more powerful than I could have imagined, yet… you still carry the same hatred for me. How long has it been? Nearly twenty years since your blade pierced my heart? Two decades is a long time to hold on to such a burden, Imogen.”

“It is not only hatred I carry,” she responded quietly. Her resolve started to crumble. 

“No,” Rejna agreed and came to a stop in front of her former ward. Her eyes softened ever so slightly at the edges. “I sense your grief.”

The mask fell away. Imogen had never acknowledged how the murder committed by her own hands shattered her as much as it mended. How, when the weight lifted off her shoulders at her Master’s last breath, she had been consumed – not by remorse, but by the agony of loss. Imogen tried to ignore it, and when that failed, she used it. She fed it into the crystal that powered her new saber, and with that conduit of her pure hatred, she let it flow unrestrained unto her prey. Yet the grief remained just beneath her rage as steady as her own heartbeat. 

“You were all I had.” Uttering those words out loud caused her vision to blur. “That is why I needed to kill you.”

Rejna seemed equal parts pleased and heartbroken at the admission. “I only understood in my final moments that you were my greatest failure.”

It felt like the phantom of her plasma blade burst through Imogen’s chest. She knew the statement to be true, but it made her realize that as much as she resented Rejna, she still always hoped for her praise. Even now, in the face of her own doom, staring into the eyes of her long dead Master, did Imogen wish she could have been different for them both.

Imogen could no longer bear to hold her gaze, but as soon as her face fell with a few stray tears, she felt the gentle hand of her Master rest on her shoulder. It took a long moment, but she found the courage to look up at her once more.

“I failed you, Imogen. You were my greatest pride and I failed you,” she stated earnestly. 

Of all the confessions to grace her ears, this was one Imogen never expected. She needed to hear it after all this time, but a part of her will forever be empty. She accepted that fact even before Rejna fell. “It is far too late, Master.”

Rejna nodded solemnly. “Perhaps for me, but you know what you must do.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse. 

“You were always so strong, Imogen.” Her old mentor’s hand moved to caress her cheek, the motherly touch Imogen always longed for and never got to experience. It caused more tears to stream down her cheeks as she clenched her jaw hard enough to nearly crack her own teeth to stifle a sob. “I will always regret holding you back.”

#oc insp: imogen kol #me: yeah this'll just be a fun lil angsty thing ha ha #me late at night looking like that unhinged It's Always Sunny guy: so this is Imogen's devastating past finally catching up to her and - #anyway I played so many versions of this convo in my head over the course of like a year lmao #finally writing it down actually made me tear up ngl #where are my girlies who have complicated parent/guardian relationships ayyyy