agentquantum - // an infinite mastery, is the Force.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

It seized the nearest of the hoofed reptilians in powerful prehensile forepaws, its blade-tipped mouth-tentacles stabbing and clawing to swiftly slay and disjoint the captured animal, carving it into bite-sized hunks. As the rest of the herd bounded away, the predator settled down in the slating sunlight to devour its kill.

"That is why this place is so dangerous," Vergere said with a hint of a challenging smile. "It is filled with what you would call the dark side. I should say: the dark side is very, very powerful here, more powerful than anywhere else on this planet. As powerful, perhaps, as it is anywhere else in the galaxy."

Jacen lowered the electrobinoculars, blinking. "That's not the dark side," he said. "A predator hunts to feed itself and its family. That's just nature."

"And the dark side isn't? I thought the danger of the dark side was that it is natural: that's why it's easier than the light, yes?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Is what you have seen not the exemplar of the dark side? Is this not what you fear so much: aggression, violence, passion?"

"You want to know what the real dark side would look like? If that predator had slaughtered the entire herd, just for the fun of it. For the joy of killing."

"Do you think this predator takes no joy in its successful kill?"

Jacen looked again through the electrobinoculars, watching for a moment as the predator seemed to shiver with delight in its meal. He didn't answer.

"Kill one, it's nature, kill them all, it's the dark side?" Vergere went on. "Is the line between nature and dark side only one of degree? Is it the dark side if that predator kills only half the herd? A quarter?"

He lowered the electrobinoculars once more. "It's the dark side if it kills more than it needs to feed itself and its family," he said, heating up. "That's the line. Killing when you don't need to kill."

Vergere cocked her head. "And how do you define need? Are we talking about the line of starvation, or simple malnutrition? Is it the dark side if they only eat half the slain animal> Does a predator partake of the dark side if its family is a few kilos overweight?"

"It's not about that-"

"Then what is it about? Are we back to why? Does intention always trump action? It's not the dark side for the predator, say to slaughter the entire herd and leave them to rot, so long as it thinks it needs them for food?"

-

The dark side called to him: a shadow worm whispering promises of ecstasy as it ate into his heart. It murmured infinite release, humming a song of the eternity that lies beyong all shadows of doubt and remorse.

He shook himself violently and lurched to his feet. "I have to get out of here."

"Jacen..." She lifted a hand as though to stay him, as though to ask for his help.

"No, Vergere. No. I have to go- I have to go right now. I'm sorry I hurt you, I am-" Liar, the shadow worm snickered inside him. Just wait, and watch, and she'll give us an excuse to do it again.

Vergere's eyes seemed to clear then, and a hint of a smile curved her lips. "The dark side?..."

"It's- it's too strong for me here. I warned you. I warned you what could happen-"

She raised her hand once more. reaching for his leg; he took a hasty step back to avoid her touch, and she let her arm fall limp to the floor. "You see..." she whispered, "but you do not see. Jacen... why would the Jedi Council... build its Temple upon... a nexus of the dark side?"

"Vergere, I-" He shook his head helplessly. "I have to go. I have to go before- before I..." hurt you again, he finished silently. He couldn't say it out loud. Not here. "I don't have time for guessing games."

"No guessing..." she said. "The answer is... simple. They wouldn't."

He went very, very still. "What do you mean? I can feel the dark side here. I touched the dark side, and it, it touched me-"

"No. What you feel is the Force." Slowly, painfully, she lifted herself onto her elbows, and she met his blankly astonished stare. "This is the shameful secret of the Jedi: There is no dark side."

How could she lie here with smoke still rising from the shreds of her clothing, and expect him to believe this? "Vergere, I know better. What do you think just happened here?"

"The Force is one, Jacen Solo. The Force is everything, and everything is the Force. I've told you already: The Force does not take sides. The Force does not even have sides."

"That's not true! It isn't-" The red tide surged into his chest, reaching for his heart. He couldn't let himself think it. He shook his head hard enough to make his ears ring. "It's a lie-"

"No. Search your feelings. You know this to be true. The Force is one."

But he could feel the dark side: he was drowning in it.

"Light and dark are no more than nomenclature: words that describe how little we understand." She seemed to draw strength from his weakness, slowly managing to sit up. "What you call the dark side is the raw, unrestrained Force itself: you call the dark side what you find when you give yourself wholly to the Force. To be a Jedi is to control your passion... but Jedi control limits your power. Greatness- true greatness of any kind- requires the surrender of control. Passion that is guided, not walled away. Leave your limits behind."

"But- but the dark side-"

She rose, her smouldering garments wreathing her in coils of smoke. "If your surrender leads to slaughter, that is not because the Force has darkness in it. It is because you do."

"Me?" The red tide turned black, poisonous, strangling, burning through his ribs from the inside. "No- no, you don't understand, the dark side is, it's, it's, don't you see it? It's the dark side," he insisted desperately, hopelessly. There were no words for the truth inside him; nor were there words for the horror that rolled into him, because he could feel the Force again.

He could feel that she was right.

But that would make me- does make me... His knees buckled, and he staggered to maintain his balance, stumbling, reaching for the wall, something stone, anything solid, anything certain, anything that he could lean on that wouldn't become smoke and mist and let him fall forever. he whispered, "The dark side..."

She paced toward him, relentless, inexorable. "The only dark you need fear, Jacen Solo, is the one in your own heart."

---Star Wars The New Jedi Order: Traitor.

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