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“And where are you going?” Krakja asks. Bane whips around, growling. He’s never been good at masking his presence more than absolutely, nor was he good at detecting others, but Krakja’s a master of both.
It’s saved her more often than she could count.
“ Master Krakja,” he says, taunting and exaggerated. Their equal ranking had only served to make the older Sith hate her more. “Where I go is none of your business. What are you doing here?”
Krakja smirks.
“Where I go is none of yours,” she says. “I was just out for an evening walk, by the way. As you’ve trained many of our newest, youngest recruits, surely you can understand how nice it is to not need to watch out for a reckless youngling.”
Bane huffs.
“My Apprentices are ready to be indipendent by the time they’re a humanoid’s fourteen,” he says. “The old way of training wastes time.”
Krakja laughs.
“You know as well as I do that Vengé could kick any of your former Apprentice’s butts,” she says.
Just like I always used to kick your , she doesn’t say. When we were still young, still friends. Perhaps more than that, perhaps you were my brother, and Fians was both of our… but that was Before. Before we all did something stupid, and she took the fallout. Before I took the blame. Before you started a war, before you created this odd not-peace. Before you started reforming the Empire, the Sith, and even the Jedi into something terrible…
But she doesn’t say any of it because it doesn’t matter. She’d lost hope in Bane long ago.
Bane growls.
“I don’t have time for this, vidai ,” he says.
Jedi lover. As if. But the word means nothing to her because he’s used it so many times. She has no love of the slavery supporting, genocide causing, child indoctrinating, murdering Jedi Order, and that’s not even what he cares about. He’s just using it as the cruelest of insults, not as a word with meaning.
“Then go,” Krakja says. “I’m not stopping you, but I will follow you. I’m done simply waiting for you to reveal yourself. Force did I try, Heqen.”
Bane’s look is murderous.
“Don’t call me that,” he says. “I earned my name long ago, certainly long before you, Ajola .”
Krakja just laughs, coldly.
Unlike him, she hasn’t erased her old self. She’s as much Ajola Tien as she is Darth Krakja.
“Perhaps,” she says. “And I don’t regret taking the fall for our mistake, even if it did hold me back—”
“I’d call that weakness,” Bane snarks.
“I’d called call that the definition of strength,” Krakja says, smiling sadly. “It was my passion for our friendship that made me do it. And it was in my time recovering my body and the Order’s trust that I found my true strength. Because maybe I do love too selflessly, but I’ve still lived this long. And I was the one who kept going through twice the hurdles, after she died.”
And she’s survived regardless of Bane’s attempts to kill her. But he wants her to cry wolf on the truth, so she doesn’t say it.
“What you and your followers are doing to us disgusts me, though,” she finishes. “That’s not the Sith I believe in, using child soldiers in battle and putting child pawns in office. It’s not what she believed in, either. And I know it doesn’t end there.”
Bane just looks at her, some indistinguishable emotion behind his golden eyes. Perhaps she should stop bringing up their lost love, but Bane deserves a low blow or two.
“So why haven’t you chased me before?” He asks. Krakja sighs.
“Because Heqen, despite everything, was my friend,” she says, “…but you, Bane, are not. And know that tonight you sealed your fate.”
Bane laughs.
“So optimistic, so sure,” he says. “My fate has been sealed for a long time. It is yours that has been sealed tonight unless you stay out of my way .”
“You know I can’t do that,” Krakja says. “And when I do find what you’re doing, I will stop you. I’m not holding back on you, anymore. Because I loved her more than you ever could. And now I’m getting revenge for her death.”
“But that won’t be tonight,” Bane growls, more in defeat than victory.
Krakja just smirks.
“I do still know you,” she says. “You’re a coward, and I’m too close.”
“You still can’t prove anything,” Bane says. “I’m too respected to be brought down by heresy.”
“I won’t be using it,” Krakja says. “You will fall.”
Bane just laughs, still so certain.
“No, Darth Krakja,” he says. “I will rise.”
(Why does the Force seem to agree with him?)