The Price

Author's Note: Written for the Writer's Anonymous End of Year Challenge. I’m not as fond of this as some of my other stuff, but there's also some parts I really like, mostly towards the beginning.

Disclaimer: Sion, Traya, and KotOR2 belong to LucasArts/Obsidian/Satan. Not Lady Tragic.

After Jaret hit the ground, it seemed to be an impossibly long time before things faded into darkness. This struck him as most unfair, because he found himself in a great deal of pain and a spot of oblivion would not go unappreciated. Permanent oblivion, however, was an option not even worth considering. He would not die, he told himself. He could not die.

His body informed him he might not have a say in the matter.

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It was almost like waking up, in that he felt very tired and he'd much rather be where he was before. Jaret wondered if he was dead. He was nearly certain he should be. But then, he was also fairly certain being dead wouldn't hurt so much. And his idea of heaven most definitely didn't involve the old woman who was looming over him.

"Rise." She commanded.

He couldn't. She and the masked man had torn him to pieces capable of nothing other than bleeding, He was broken, he was shattered, he was...

He stood up.

"You are stronger than the others."

Was he? He felt as though he was held together by wishfulness and spite. But then, the others were dead, and he, apparently, was not.

"Perhaps you, at least, will be worth my time."

He wondered what she meant by that. As an entertainment? More torture, then? He didn't see how it could be worse than what he'd already endured.

"Are you worthy of being my apprentice, then?"

Apprentice? That was why he'd come here. To Malachor V, to learn the ways of the Sith in this darkest of places.

"Yes..." he managed in a gravelly rasp, and he tasted blood when he said it.

The old woman smiled, joyless and cold. And suddenly, whatever force kept him upright vanished.

"Then survive, apprentice. Have you the will to live?"

The pain he'd felt before paled like a ghost in comparison to this. Jaret was no healer. He could not undo the damage she and her macabre partner had inflicted. The old woman loomed over him, cold and dispassionate. He'd never hated anyone more. He wanted to live, if only so he could have the satisfaction of being the one to tear out the old crone's throat. Sheer murderous rage forced his heart to keep beating and the blood flowing through his veins. He embraced the pain, let it fuel his hate. Jaret staggered upright.

"Well done, Darth Sion. You have passed your test." she sounded faintly surprised, but also pleased.

Jaret- Darth Sion- looked at her with utter loathing from his one good eye. He felt less than human. But somehow he knew that as long as he embraced the hatred, the anger, and the pain burning within him, she could not kill him. No one could. He could force life into this shattered shell through sheer willpower. He was broken. He was shattered. He was immortal.

"It will not be the last." said his Master.

More fuel for the fire.