Fire and Ice

Author’s Note: The final showdown between a DSF Revan (I think she may be the same one as from “Dead Letter”) and an M Exile.

“Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.”

-“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost

He picked his way over the still-warm body lying crumpled on the floor with a nonchalance that belied his responsibility for it. His sole spectator, a dark haired woman whose face was marked by pale scars, sat back in her command chair, an excessively grand and ornate affair of steel and black velvet, and smiled. 

“Such an awful waste.” murmured the Exile coolly.

“How uncharacteristically practical of you, love. Last time I checked you were still trying to save dear Bea’s soul.” she replied in her arrogantly humorous manner,not a quaver in her voice to indicate he had just slain her closest friend. “A humorous effort, coming from you.”

“She wouldn’t see the truth of you, Revan. You were too close. Force knows I’ve seen the power of such ties,” replied Talon Wrek to his oldest friend, onetime heroine and sometime ally- his enemy’s enemy, such as it was. And now their enemy, the True Sith was defeated.

“Perhaps. All the same, I expected you to try. Is it possible you have finally learned to recognize a lost cause?”

“Surprised, dearest? Doesn’t it fit into your grand and almighty plan then? I thought everything did.” The woman with drew a bit, and studied him with her unsettling eyes. That, he thought, was what sickened him. More than the red lightsabers, more than the black armor and white scars, it was that sickly, jaundiced yellow where there ought to have been spring green. She used to be so beautiful.

“Plans change, just like the rest of the universe,” she replied, pivoting her chair around to face the stars beyond the viewport that spanned an entire wall. Just like you and I.

“Tragic. Absolutely tragic.” He sighed once more over the body. The statement applied nearly as well to the Sith Lord as the corpse. “So blind.”

“It was quite the entertainment to watch the two of you, you know. For a little while, I was actually worried you might succeed.” Revan replied conversationally, resettling in her throne-like chair. “Bastila’s loyalties have been known to be… flexible.”

“Then why did you keep her all these years? And don’t say you cared for her, Revan. I think you’ve fallen beyond that.”

“Don’t assume, Talon,” she snapped, “Not everyone is as cold as you are.”

“Melodrama has never suited you, sweetheart- especially when it’s so obviously false.”

She actually smiled, bitter though it was. “It’s hardly melodrama, considering it’s necessity. Bastila did a lovely job of playing the heroine. She has… had a genuine quality to her, in spite of her arrogance. Something people can believe in.”

“Something you utterly lack.”

“Don’t be coy, Talon. You know full well I’m about as honest as a Hutt’s smile. And Force knows I’m a bit short on credibility these days.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop with the kriffing dance. There’s no audience, no grand arena. There’s you, and there’s me. Why bother with the theatrics?”

“Fine. No theatrics. No more stepping around the question. What do we do now, love? I’m guessing by Bastila’s corpse that we aren’t going to kiss goodbye and part as friends.”

“Damn straight.”

“Why not? We were close once,” she said in a honey-coated voice.

“Little problem with you wanting to conquer the galaxy, sweetheart.”

“Guilty as charged. What’s so terrible about that?”

“Want a list?”

“Don’t be naive, Talon. Would the galaxy be any worse off in my hands than that snake’s nest of bureaucrats you call the Republic’s?”

“You used to be believe in the Republic.”

“Of course I did!” she stood up suddenly, and he braced for an attack, igniting his gold double-blade. It didn’t come; she began to pace before her throne. “I still believe in what they stood for- hope, justice, civilization! But it’s not any of those things anymore. It’s a dying, corrupt, bureaucracy! And unless and until we let it die, more people will suffer!”

“It can be saved!” It was so wrong to see her this way. So unlike the Revan he’d once known.

“I used to think that, hon. I was willing to die for that! I saw so many others, dear friends die for it! I sent thousands of men to die, Talon! For the Republic! But I know when to stop. When it’s time to give up and start over. And that time has come, Talon. It’s past due.”

“And how many will die for your new order?”

“As many as need to.”

“I’m sorry, Revan, but at risk of sounding cliché, I can’t let you get away with that.”

“I suppose it’s come to this, then?” she said, lighting her twin sabers almost reluctantly.

“Always knew it would.”

“Then it was always doomed to be so.”

He moved first, self-confident- cocky, even- as he’d always been, with a straight forward downward chop of his orange double-saber. Revan didn’t even change her stance- almost casually, she brought up one red blade and brushed the blow off to one side. She settled into a Soresu defensive stance as the Exile circled her like a katarn stalking its prey. 

Expecting a physical attack, he caught her off guard with a wave of kinetic energy. She was knocked back off her feet, but tucked into a backward roll and came right back up; however, Talon used the opportunity to close on her. As soon as she was up, she was on the defensive. Her mask of careless amusement was gone; her mouth was set in a grim line. Good. She was taking him seriously now.

He came on fast and hard, but she didn’t miss a beat. And suddenly, he thought he saw an opening, and he brought one end of the yellow-orange blade to connect with her hip-

-But it flashed against an energy barrier- when had she activated it? Suddenly he realized he was overbalanced, that she’d given him that hit, and her knee connected with his gut. Talon cursed himself silently, the woman was a goddamn Soresu master, offense through defense, he knew that.

Then suddenly, she leapt up and over him, assisted by the Force. As he turned, he was knocked backward as blue lightning lanced from her fingers and his body was wracked with pain.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Talon. Join me, and together, we could make the galaxy strong again!”

“You’d kill millions for the sake of your galactic empire.” Talon spat.

“To save trillions! Hundreds of trillions!”

“You’re a monster, Revan!” Talon snapped, raising his voice for the first time. The bitch actually had the temerity to smile.

“At least I have the decency to be honest, love. You’re a monster with delusions of heroism.”

“I’m no such thing.” He told her, groping for his control.

“Tell that to your apprentices- the ones you killed. What were their names? Atton, was it, and Mira?”

“They fell! It was my responsibility to destroy them before they hurt someone.”

“They refused to conform to your narrow view of the world, and you murdered them. A little bird told me you killed the girl in her sleep.”

“They were corrupt!”

“They wanted to change the very things that made the Order fail. Your penance for the Wars has made you paranoid, Talon. So paranoid you murdered two of your own charges for fear of ghosts.”

“Less talking, more fighting.” He said, lunging at her with a careless blow that she easily deflected.

“Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

“Bitch.”

“Now that’s just not nice.”

He came at her in a flurry of motion, only to be met with a sequence of her perfectly choreographed blocks.

“Come now, you’re being sloppy,” she said with a smirk, her smug demeanor regained along with the upper hand.

He snapped. This monster never took him seriously, not now, not when he’d come to aid her against the true Sith, and not during the Mandolorian Wars all those years ago. Never again. She could tear him into a million pieces, but she’d never laugh at him ever again. He felt a sort of clarity, a focus as ice-cool as deep space. And when she turned her lightning on him once more, he felt nothing at all.

She kept trying, though, and by the time she thought to try something else he was too close. She let loose a Force-empowered scream of frustration, but it seemed to him to be a scream and nothing more.

  “How could a not have seen it?” she gasped, and her expression, which Talon would savor for the rest of his life, was one of perfect terror. With a single, elegant thrust, he embedded his saber in her chest. He deactivated the blade, and she staggered backwards, leaning against the grand transparasteel viewport. As she slumped down to the floor, he could see the bright red smear on the glass.

She touched a gloved hand to the partially cauterized wound, looking at the dark liquid with a sort of disbelief. And suddenly, she began to laugh, a sick, bubbling noise, as blood stained her lips.

  “Do you know what Mal said, Talon? When I killed him? He said… he said I was nothing. He was wrong, Talon… You’re nothing. I thought it was darkness, but it’s nothing… a black hole…” She chuckled horribly again. “I loved you… but you really are dead. I used to love you, you know?”

"Don’t lie.” he replied, and he turned and walked away.

“Hey sweetheart.” rasped a voice from behind him. Talon turned around. She couldn’t do anything; she was slumped on the floor, useless and broken. 

“The galaxy… may not be safe in my hands... but I don’t… trust you with it either.”

He realized what she was doing, felt the swell in the Force a split second before it happened- and heartbeats too late to stop it. Revan slammed her fist on the transparasteel viewport, but the strength behind it was not that of a dying body but of the mind. The world seemed to slow as the glass shattered into a thousand glimmering shards, and the occupants of Revan’s throne room rushed out into space.