Chapter Text
4 BBY
Quinlan had gained a bit of weight back in the several months since the hasty escape from Ilum, still barely more than skin and bones but it was improvement.
It had annoyed him how often he’d had to stop when even going as slow as possible through the most basic katas of Form 1.
The Dark Side of the Force whispered about how much easier things would be if he reached for it again, at how he didn’t need to be as physically fit if he could manipulate the Force to cover his weakness.
The whispers had always been there in his memory, of one thing or another, trying to tempt him.
He’d slipped and stumbled during his long service as a Shadow of the Jedi Order, Fell in the early part of the Clone Wars during his undercover work into Darth Tyrannus. It wouldn’t be difficult at all to answer and reach.
Ventress would lean against the wall of his ship as they flew through hyperspace on Bly’s calculations, and just watch as he struggled with ignoring the whispers.
Most every Jedi he’d known had judged him for how by nature of what a Shadow did, he’d been Grey. His Fall wasn’t common knowledge, restricted to the Council, but most Jedi could sense the shadows twisting and curling and tainting his Force signature. At best, it unnerved them. At worst, it repulsed them.
Aayla had never judged him for it, had understood his Fall. She’d been the one to bring him back, to reach out into the Dark and bring him back into the Light.
She’d risked Falling herself to bring him back.
Obi-Wan had always seen his potential to Fall and had never judged, just stood steadfast like the Soresu he favored and defended him. He’d resisted Falling himself when exposed to his brother Padawan Xanatos, pulled his Master back from Falling, and witnessed his Padawan’s Fall. Never once had he’d judged someone for Falling, only for what they did after.
Quinlan could blame Anakin though, because he understood how the Dark Side could tempt. He’d always seen Anakin’s potential to Fall, and he’d watched him, done his best to help Obi-Wan from the shadows to keep his Padawan on the straight and narrow. Most would have assumed Anakin had died in Order 66 like so many others, but he’d spent fifteen years taunting and hunting Darth Vader just as much as being hunted by Darth Vader, and he could recognize Anakin’s Force signature still.
It had made his chest ache, to know that Obi-Wan was still out there, but there was no one with him. No one to comfort his old friend, his last surviving childhood friend, through the grief of Anakin’s Fall and the thousands of deaths that followed because of it. Because he knew Obi-Wan blamed himself for Anakin’s Fall and for every death Vader caused.
It had been why he had never gone into hiding like every other survivor of Order 66.
Obi-Wan may have hidden himself spectacularly well, Force signature masked and not a single word of a sighting since the year after, but he survived.
No matter how many times he clashed with Vader, fighting to a standstill until he was forced to retreat, he had no intention of stopping. Not until Vader was dead.
If he Fell again, stopping him, he would still return to the Force a satisfied man for it. He was aware enough of that an uninterrupted fight-to-the-death with Vader would kill him, but it would be worth it.
It would so be worth it not to force Obi-Wan to kill his former Padawan.
The Dark Side would just get louder in its whispers about all the ways he could not just defeat Vader, but kill him and walk away. Kill Vader and wreck his revenge on the Emperor and the Sith Lord pulling Vader’s strings.
Bly would come around and leave a ration or two when he mediated and found himself focusing on this. Sometimes he would manage to distract him and they would talk about Aayla.
Most of the time though, he would get caught in a spiral because he hated Vader not just for the pain he’d caused Obi-Wan, not just for the complete annihilation of all but a few members of the Jedi Order, but because he had been complicit in the death of his former Padawan.
The Jedi Order had preached all about the evils of attachment and claimed there was none, but they’d all known lineage had been one exception they’d ignored. The Master-Padawan bond was something soaked in emotion. Not one of them could have claimed that the death of their Master, of their Padawan, of even a close crèche mate, didn’t devastate. Not after Geonosis.
Dooku had Fallen after the death of his Padawan, even with decades of estrangement between them, and started the Clone Wars.
Vader had aided Order 66 willingly, would have killed Aayla with his own hands if she hadn’t died in the first wave.
Quinlan could hate him for that.
Ventress had never said anything in months of travel together, as they bounced from planet to planet, system to system, moving slowly and erratically, closer to Lothal, chasing bounties to keep them fed and armed. Not until his eyes had gleamed with a sickly yellow light.
“You Jedi Fall not because all anger leads to the Dark Side, but because you insist on releasing it out to the Force the moment you feel it.”
He’d looked at her, and she stepped forward with all the grace of a predator, lips curling up in a cruel smirk, “My Master told me anger was a natural thing. It reminds of the injustices in life and how to recognize them. Anger without purpose is dangerous. Using anger recklessly is dangerous. Anger from grief is the most dangerous.”
Her eyes had gleamed with yellow light, and with a flick of her wrist, he’d skidded back and into a wall, helpless to do more than struggle uselessly as he was pinned there.
“Jedi Fall because they grieve and rage but do not understand how to work through it, because you can’t ever release all of it without understanding it. Instead it will just fester in you and bloom when you least expect it.”
She’d stepped forward, ignoring how Bly had come rushing in with a blaster raised, “Sir!”.
Ventress had reached out one bare hand, catching his cheek and thumbing just below one yellow-tinted eye, “Master your anger, Jedi. Or you become no better than me, lured into the Dark with grief and no one to turn to.”
Then she’d dropped him and walked away.
Quinlan watched her walk away even as Bly rushed to him, blaster half-trained on Ventress but attention fully on him and making sure he was okay, wondering if he was finally seeing what Obi-Wan had told him about near the end of the Wars.
That the Jedi had failed so many of its members from not acknowledging how much anger fed into what they did. That passion was not the problem, it was shunning and not talking about it without condemning it when it was one of them. That their passion was why they did what they did, going and helping people, to want to aid the needy and the hurt, because without it, they very easily became killers with their skills.