The Exiles

This is a short story of my version of what happened after the end for KOTOR II. Excellent game. Starwars fan should play. If you can’t figure out from the conversation, it’s a story between Exile (Light side, Male) and Atton. I have found Atton irresistible during my course of game. He is simply cute! And I think he goes well with the Exile, especially when the Exile is Light Sided and Male. Don’t ask me. ;) As a side note, Dark-side Female Exile goes well with Visas, and I will write a story for them in the future. Once I finished the game again. :)

Disclaimer: Any recognizeable Characters mentioned in this story belonged to their respective owners.
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I was not surprised to find him there. The ‘Exile’, as he had begun to be known, seemed to have been exiled again. This time though, his prosecutor was none other than himself.

I once said that Nar Shaddaa was probably the best place to lose oneself in, but he knew he couldn’t have hidden from us there. At least, he couldn’t have hidden from me there. There was one place though, where none of us would think he would return: Telos, where our journey had begun, and where it had ended. However, perhaps I understood him more than he knew; I finally arrived at the entrance of this cramped, smoky and dingy Cantina to see his lonely figure across the room, sitting alone along the bar counter, facing away. His shoulders slumped as if carrying the weight of the whole Galaxy. Kreia once dubbed they way he walked as the “Jedi Walk”, and I had found that amusing. After he went missing from Malachor V though, I found myself thinking about it. It had been a familiar sight during our short journey together, the Jedi Walk. While we traveled, he had always walked in front and seldom looked back, yet I had always felt… protected. Perhaps after staring at it for such a long time, the silhouette of his back had grown on me without me realizing. I had always found it giving the impressions of both strength and vulnerability, and, after I was no longer able to set eye upon it, realized I had always been comforted by its sight.

Many of us carried the same walk after revisiting Malachor V. He had shown us the force, and had therefore made it possible for us to felt the weight of responsibility that came with it.

I stalked across the room and made my way towards him. I had stalked up to many Jedi in my life, but this time, I was not aiming for the kill. Or perhaps I was, metaphorically speaking, aiming for the kill, just in a different sense.

I sat down besides him, our elbows barely touching. He didn’t look up, but I had a feeling he knew it was me.

“It’s been a while, Captain.”

“I am not your Captain anymore, Atton. Why do you look for me?”

“To invite you on a journey of carnage involving destroying planets and killing people. Really, why can’t I simply want to buy you a beer and catch up on old times? I know we didn’t meet under the best of conditions and you weren’t really dressed for the occasion but…”

He turned and smiled at me. There it was again, the steely grey pupils, several shades darker than my own. Made me short of breath when they rested upon me. Always.

“Atton! It was never about you. You want to buy me beer? Great! I am just running out of credits.”

I drew my breath in mock horror, “What happened to the great Jedi knight who saved worlds and rescued innocences? Why, did the Exchange stop paying you to keep you off their back?”

“Atton, while you might never understand the meaning and importance of ‘keeping a low profile’, I hope at least my training had allow you to grasp simple facts such as ‘not bringing enough credits’.”

Good, now he is smiling with his eyes. He had the tendency to become too serious during our journey. That’s why I had always played the fool: I liked his smiles.

“I see Kreia’s teaching is rubbing off on you.” I countered lightly, basking in the warmth of his company. Despite what happened, the inherent lightness about his being that made people comfortable around him still existed.

He paused for a while and asked quietly, “How is everyone?”

“Fine, I guess. Last I heard, Brianna is rebuilding the Jedi council on Dantooine, and Visas agreed to help after one last visit to Katarr. Bao-Dur went back to Telos and is helping with the rehabilitation effort. Mira went back to Nar-Shaddaa with G0-T0, although I am not sure what they are up to. Mandalore, well, he is being Mandalore.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I am at a loose end, so I got the Ebon Hawk and the droids, and the job to inform everyone should I manage to bump into you on the street. Or a Cantina.”

“Did it never occur to you that I might be dead?”

“With the bonds we had, we would have felt something through the force, right?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Not anymore.”

“What happened on Malachor V? I mean, I know Mira got threw out of the ship while we crashed, and fought a wookie or two and got all bloodied, but we managed to pick her up after things started falling apart. But none of us knew what happened in the Temple. Did Kreia try to kill you?”

He shook his head forlornly. I felt a ripple in the force. Again, he had severed himself from the force. I could feel the force rushed into him, and then rushed out, leaving nothing but echoes behind.

“I… killed Darth Traya…”

“You mean, you killed Kreia.”

He had a pained expression on his face, and nodded slowly.

“I am sure she left you with no choice, that manipulative witch. Still, how did you survive?”

He didn’t reply. My sympathy for him was matched with anger with Kreia. How could she break him so, when every of us knew he had looked up to her, respected her? Granted, we had all done silly things in our past, especially me, yet, I would never had been able to do such things to him. Anyone but him.

“Atton, how do you forgive someone who had betrayed you?”

“The real question is, how do you forgive yourself for doing the inevitable. It’s Malachor V all over, isn’t it? You had no choice, the lesser of two evils…”

“It’s different. It’s something more sinister. The first time on Malachor V, it was a war fought in the material world. With Kreia, it’s different. It was a war fought against the force, and it was lost since the beginning.”

“More Jedi Talk? You know, that’s probably why I didn’t sign up with Brianna when she asked. I never could manage that.”

He smiled briefly and painfully. No doubt he was recalling how we had met not long ago, on Peragus mining station. I mentally kicked myself for being so insensitive.

“You see, it was never about Jedi or Sith. Kreia was waging war with the Force itself since the beginning. I was supposed to be her weapon that strike at the Force. Yet, when she led me back into the Force, we both immediately became the pawns of the Force again. There is no way to use the Force without being used by the Force. Remember my words, Atton.”

“Is that why you severed yourself from the Force again?”

“Perhaps I was never connected to the Force to begin with. Kreia told me about Raven in the last moment, you know. She had wanted me to follow Raven to wage war on the real threat. The real Sith. I couldn’t.”

“How so? I know Raven is a terrible woman, but she is not ugly.”

“I have lost faith in the Force, Atton. I once thought the Force was a means to an end, a tool to make the world a better place; save lives; right the wrong... I couldn’t be more wrong, Atton. The force is a sentient thing with no regards to the lives of you and me. It manipulates your intentions and works through you to achieve its end, while giving you the illusions of being in control. Even Kreia couldn’t escape the fate of being used by the Force.”

“That was very un-Jedi-ish, well, very un-Sith-is as well. Look, whatever Kreia told you in the Academy on Malachor V, it’s probably Huttspit.”

“Really? How you figure that?”

“Look, Force or not, we decides our own fate. Kreia ended up where she was because she was a manipulative and bitter old witch and because she loved you. She probably saw a lot of herself in you, both exiled, both cut from the Force that you depended so strongly upon. That you have done it willingly was probably what intrigued her. Your inherent goodness was probably a beacon of hope for her.”

“You are not talking about Kreia only, right?”

He was still insightful. Good, I had been worried that the self-imposed exile had dulled his senses.

“No, no, you are right. Many of us saw the inherent goodness in you as our hope and strength. For Visas, Brianna, Bao-dur, and even Mandalore, to a lesser extend.”

“And you?”

“And me.” I thought I blushed at that; luckily the Cantina wasn’t bright enough for either of us to take notice.

“And Kreia too, I guess. She had said during her last moment that she would destroy the Galaxy to protect me…”

“Me too.” I said softly, not expecting it to be heard, but hoping it would be heard nonetheless.

But he did. He always had a good ear.

“You too, what?” He was looking at me intently.

“I too would destroy the Galaxy to protect you.” I cleared my throat, and met his gaze. He turned away.

“Well, in a sense, I guess we were all Exile, one way or another. Maybe that’s why we looked out for each other. Maybe that’s why we chose to stick together.”

I screamed in my heart, “But this is different! When I found out that you were training with the Echani, I warned her to keep her paws off you… I bet you never knew…”

But I kept it to myself, instead, I smiled and said, “Hey, it’s good to have our ole Jedi Captain back! Now we’re talking!”

“So…” He hesitated, “What are you doing next?”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s up to you I guess. We could start with going back to the Ebon Hawk, T3 will be delighted to see you… maybe we could go around and visits, or start looking for Raven…”

“Hey, enough with the ‘we’ already…” and finally we burst out laughing. It’s a rare but familiar laughter, clear, light, free of worries of the Galaxy.

We started heading out of the Cantina and I couldn’t resist but to continue:
“So where are we going next? Can we go somewhere I will not end up in a Force Cage again? Not that I mind, seeing how that had led me to you, but I am not sure I’ll be so lucky next time…”

Sometimes, words are not important. Sometimes, what is important is having an audience whom you care. Who cares about you.

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