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Mist's father had told him that pain is something that a being should never be made to feel, that if a person is in pain then that pain must be soothed, and the source found and stopped. The stories that his father had told, those of the Jedi, spoke a lot about pain, and the Jedi's ways of helping it. All of these stories though had an easily identifiable source, and there was always a Jedi around to be able to soothe the pain.
But the Jedi no longer exist, and the pain comes from within.
It was not something physical, it was not something that could be wrapped up in a bandage and left to heal, or could be fixed by sliding into some bacta tank for a while. This pain left no visible marks, and it was something that, up until it was released, he had been entirely unaware of. Until he released it, until what he did.
He'd shown Mist many things, things that he at first thought were make believe, but that he had slowly come to realise were all taken from his own mind. That man had slipped into his head and pulled up images, scenarios, things that had frightened him. They were not frightening due to being monsterous though, they were frightening because of what they showed, what they said, how they responded. It was like the man had taken his deepest and darkest fears from his head, had given them form of people he knew and trusted, and made them never stop. The image of his father, telling him that even though he had power similar to the Jedi, he could only ever harm someone with it, never heal. The image of his mother, describing him as a worthless layabout who would never amount to anything. His childhood friends, one by one, pointing out his every failure, every time he had said something wrong, every error he had made, that every error would repeat as it always does, for only an idiot would think that the outcome of an action would change if the action were repeated. The error didn't even have needed to occur, for they also reminded him of those that came close, even if there were no contact made, or that the person believed something entuirely different. It was just the idea, the thought that it may have occured, even coming close. They brought it up, called him an idiot, a coward, a failure, unworthy, undeserving of love, of understanding, of being only worthy of jumping out of the nearest airlock, or plunging from the top of the tower, of finding a ditch in the rain to die in. And they laughed, they stared and pointed and laughed. And he said he'd do anything, whatever it took, whatever the man wanted, if it would only stop.
He agreed, but it never stopped. It was as if the gate had been opened and the flood would ensure that it would stay open. He could feel himself drowining in the tide, ltrying to lose himself in other things to try and make it stop.
It was not working. He was starting to give up.
