Chapter Text
When he opened his eyes, the world was the same it had always been... yet it was also, somehow, new.
His vision briefly blurred before emerging with clarity. The dull glow that surrounded it began to fade.
He was lying face-up inside a large, dark room. The cloaked aliens surrounding him had not once moved, their eyes closed, hands folded. Glowing. The only difference was the absence of his mother’s soft singing; it had stopped long ago, but it was only then that he felt the weight of her silence.
The silence broke when one of the Mystics spoke in a whisper.
“He wakes.”
Arcann slowly sat up, his head light and dizzy, his shoulders heavy with an invisible weight. The imbalance nearly made him fall back onto the table’s surface, until he caught himself with his one hand, white-knuckled as it clutched the side. After a pause to collect himself, he sucked in a deep, shaking breath, lifting his gaze to find the impassive faces of the Mystics surrounding him. Something flared in him when one of them dared to meet his eyes with theirs.
His first instinct was knowing beyond certainty that they were his enemies. He made to reach for his weapon, but his fingers never moved beyond a twitch when a rare second thought came to him that maybe they were not his enemies after all.
No, Senya had brought him to them, adamant about her delusion that his mind was broken and that she finally found a way to fix it: a cleansing ritual on the planet Voss. Unable to do much else, Arcann eventually agreed to undergo this ritual after much convincing, figuring that if it truly “helped,” it helped—and if it didn’t, all that was suffered was wasted time.
Senya had neglected to tell him, of course, that he would suffer after. His mind was dazed, his body weak and exhausted and aching. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, only able to look around the room instead.
A fight had ensued while he had lain there like a fool, doing nothing. The bodies of what looked to be Zakuulan Knights—no, Vaylin’s Horizon Guards—were strewn on the floor, having perished in an unseen battle.
He glanced down to find another body resting against the table beside him. Dark hair pulled taut in a bun to reveal the occasional wisp of gray. Skin paler than usual. Blood spatters on her face and armor.
Senya.
“Mother.”
It took tremendous effort for him to move, so the best he could manage was sliding off the table to crouch beside her, putting her hand to his shoulder to shake her awake. She didn’t move, entirely limp. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached out to touch her cheek, lifting her head so it was level with his. Her face was calm, peaceful, as though reveling in a dream, but he sensed nothing there.
The wave of grief that hit him was foreign, but it was stronger than anything he had felt in a long time when he realized that her song had died along with her.
No.
This couldn’t be. She was just there, alive. She had just been pleading with the Voss, explaining his ‘pain’ and his actions and that there was good in him, she just knew it, please save him…
How did this happen? Was it during the battle he wasn’t a part of? Or was it...
His breath caught in his throat. Was it something he had done? Had he lashed out at her in another bout of blind rage? Had he done to his mother exactly what he had done to—
No.
He let go of her like she burned to the touch, trying to process this, but the wave of emotion that overcame him was far more powerful than any racing thought he could muster.
Soft but echoing footsteps came behind him. He didn’t move, tensing immediately. He could see a figure in the reflection on the side of the shining table: one of the Mystics, who was stepping closer to where he sat. She moved calmly, hands raised in front of her, as if dealing with a wounded animal.
“Please,” she said gently. “Let us explain.”
There was nothing to explain, at least nothing that he couldn’t understand. Somehow, people were dead around him, and he, against all reason, was left unscathed.
As it always was.
With a wave of adrenaline, he jumped to his feet and whirled around to face them, his chest heaving with uneven breaths. They stepped back, anticipating his wrath as he stumbled to gain his footing, then reached again for his lightsaber—only to remember that it wasn’t there, lost in the battle above Odessen.
He began to move, only to freeze when the braver Mystic stepped closer, lowering one palm but keeping the other out. The others cautiously trailed behind her.
“Please,” she repeated. “You cannot leave, Arcann. Not yet.”
“Let me go,” he hissed. It was hardly as threatening as he wanted it to sound, coming out as more of a whisper, hoarse from a lack of use.
“You are weak,” the Mystic continued. “Confused. We will help you recover.”
His confusion swiftly broke into an unfamiliar sort of panic the moment she, without any trace of fear or wariness, reached out to touch his arm.
Gritting his teeth, Arcann shoved her away and charged past her, past them all, not knowing where he was going but knowing he had to go somewhere, anywhere other than here.
It was only moments later, when he reached a nearby corridor, that he felt it. Something unseen was tugging at him, pulling his attention toward this familiar nuisance like gravity. Her presence was nearly as strong as her grasp of the Force itself. It was unmistakable.
The name came out of him not as an irritated hiss as it had before, but as a resigned sigh.
“Outlander.”
Of course the Outlander was here, he thought bitterly. Of course she was somehow involved in this.
But dissecting the reasons for her involvement wasn’t worth the effort, he decided, as he resumed his mission to find a way to flee. Now was not the time to confront his enemy. He did not care to admit it, but the Mystic was correct: He was too weak. He needed time... He needed—
His thoughts cut off when he recalled that he and his mother had arrived there in a shuttle, which, if he remembered correctly, was not far away. He hurried in its direction, his breathing labored, his mind racing. What had those Mystics done to him?
Just as he finally arrived at the shuttle, climbing with some strain onto its ledge, he heard footsteps running into the vicinity just behind him. Then, the Outlander called to him, her voice both familiar and unfamiliar in ways that he couldn’t pinpoint.
“Arcann!”
His typical flash of anger and frustration at having to deal with her faded just as quickly as it came, instead replaced by curiosity at why she was there in the first place. He hesitated—and then, despite himself, he turned around to face her.
The Outlander (always noticeably alien, with protruding horns that she wore like an ornate crown and yellow skin dotted with white markings) skidded to a halt when he did so, her golden eyes wide as they met his. Even from there, he could feel a sudden wave of emotion coming from her, an emotion that took him a few moments to decipher.
Strange. He had forgotten what hope, even in someone else, had felt like.
“Your mother survived the ritual,” the Outlander, whose real name escaped him, said at last. “She needs your help.”
Arcann's moment of confusion subsided when he realized her words.
Your mother survived.
She was not lying. He could see it, not merely in the truth of the Force that surrounded them both but in her eyes. The weight in his chest seemed to lift, briefly, as he took a step closer to her from his perch, considering his options. She had no reason to help him or even to tell him this, but she certainly had a reason if it meant helping her ally.
Perhaps, at least in this case, she could be trusted. Perhaps... he could—
Suddenly, a familiar figure appeared behind her. Arcann’s heart, lifted with a sort of anticipation just moments before, began to sink in his chest again when he recognized the cold smile and manipulative eyes.
Father.
The Outlander appeared not to notice him there. Did she even know he was there at all? Had she always been telling the truth about not being affiliated with him, despite his presence?
Perhaps she wasn’t Valkorion’s prideful puppet, Arcann realized. Perhaps, in fact, she was his unwitting pawn.
He shook his head, stepping back again. Whether she knew it or not, she could not be trusted. Not now. Not while his father was still at the helm.
“No,” he said intently. “You are not alone.”
With that, he tore away from her puzzled stare and hastened further into the shuttle.
As he stumbled toward the cockpit, Valkorion’s voice seemed to ring loudly in his head, even while his corporeal form stayed at the Outlander’s side.
“Why,” he asked, his voice echoing, “do you squander this chance to destroy the Outlander?”
No weapon. No power. No strength. No room to think. No will to fight her anyway, at least not now. There were many reasons he couldn’t destroy her at this moment, but he didn’t articulate any of them aloud, pointedly ignoring his father as he grabbed the controls and rose the shuttle into the sky, revealing the state of the environment around him more clearly.
Picturesque autumnal forests caught on fire. Buildings reduced to rubble. Civilians and fighters alike now dead, littering the streets. Voss, what he had gathered to be a peaceful and neutral planet, had been inexplicably launched into war and destruction.
He tried to remember when he had ordered this attack—until he realized, with dawning horror, that he had never ordered it at all. This was not his doing. It was not the Outlander’s doing.
It was Vaylin’s.
It had to be. There was no connection to the Eternal Empire here except for his and his mother’s presence. He did not doubt that Vaylin wanted him to fall with Mother now, after he denied her the chance to destroy her personally. She would not—did not—think twice about enacting revenge, even if it meant destroying entire worlds. He knew that well enough, with what Senya had described happening on Ord Mantell.
He continued past the planet’s atmosphere, deciding that any further thought on Vaylin’s actions would have to wait. The Eternal Fleet was here. The Gravestone the Outlander had claimed was here. Even an armada from what appeared to be the once-powerful Sith Empire was here.
And he, for now, could not be.
He used his remaining hand to charge the shuttle for hyperdrive, taking one last look at the planet below him, watching it burn. He knew that the Outlander and his mother would survive it, just as they seemed to survive everything else. So he parted with a promise to both of them.
“We will meet again.”