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When Osha begins to stir the first thing that she becomes aware of is the rhythmic sound of dripping water. She feels warm and even in the clouded state, the sensation feels odd to her. The strangeness of it all sends flashes of memories of what happened when she was last awake. She thinks of Mae. She remembers getting pushed away by the force. She remembers Sol and what happened to the other Jedi and she gasps as sits up suddenly. Which sends the black cloth that was laid up on her down to her lap. She looks around and notices herself in the fire lit cave. She sees a figure sitting by the fire, all she can see is his back, so she stands up and prepares herself to discover who took her here. The sound of gravel shifting beneath her feet alerts the figure before she can do much else and that's when she sees it’s him. Fear strikes her body as he remembers the bright red saber and the ferocity of his attacks on all those Jedi.
“Osha!” The Stranger says with a smile on his face, which makes her feel even more unsettled. “It is Osha, right?” he asks, sounding more like the shopkeeper she met that day than that monster she encountered last night. “What a pretty name.”
“Where’s Sol?” she asks, ignoring his question. The innocent smile on his face turns into something more smug, something more true to who he really is.
“That’s the Jedi guy? Don’t know,” he answers with a shrug.
He then stands up and she notices the way his arms are still exposed. If the unassuming shopkeeper image of him still existed in her head, it’s completely erased now. He walks over to her slowly, she reaches for something, anything, and notices that her uniform is gone and she’s completely weaponless. Her heart races as his towering figure approaches her. When he stops, he looks off to the side and makes an expression as if he’s thinking deeply about something.
“I think he left you here,” he tells her and his voice mockingly apologetic. He continues to smirk down at her and it turns her fear into anger.
“He wouldn’t do that,” she defiantly corrects him. Sol’s a Jedi, he’s a good man, there had to be something wrong here.
“Sure about that?” he asks as he takes another step. She looks up to see his face bathed in the orange hues of the fire.
“I am,” she says sternly. “You—” she says as she tries to come up with something that makes sense. “You took me. This is all some sort of plan to draw Sol out isn’t it? He won’t come back alone. I hope you know that. The Jedi now know what kind of monster you are, they’ll destroy you,” she tells him.
She then notices the way he shoulder’s shake slightly and hears the faintest noise, something that can only be described as a laugh. Her eyebrows furrow as she stares up at him and if anything her Jedi training has taught, arrogance has always led to one’s downfall. He takes another step forward and she can feel the ghost of his touch.
She clenches her mouth shut as she tries not to think about it. It disgusts her, doesn’t it? It should disgust her. Him being so close. He’s a monster, but when she looks up at his face like this she doesn’t see a monster at all. She knows better to trust appearances though.
He leans his head down and remarks, “That’s what you think my plan is?”
The sound of his voice reminds her of the first time they met.
You look. . . exactly. . . like her, r eplays in her head. The gravel in his voice resonating something inside of her. Something that she doesn’t want to acknowledge is absolutely nothing like fear.
“Why else would you take me?” She asks, because it’s not as if she’s gifted in the force like her sister was.
“I’m telling you the truth, Osha,” he says. “I found you out here. Abandoned. . .” he says as he looks her up and down. “All alone. Wounded. Your wound,” he says as he puts his hand on her side. His touch is so warm and it leaves her tongue feeling dry. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?” he asks and if he hadn’t brought it up, she wouldn’t have remembered her injury at all. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but there'll be a sunny day in Hoth before she ever admits that.
“And I’m supposed to believe you helped me out of the goodness of your heart?” she asks, trying to keep her voice measured, but the truth is that her feelings are erupting inside of her.
“No,” he answers. “The reason I helped you is simple really,” he further explains. Before her mind can come up with what that could mean he provides the answer. “A life for a life.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” she tells him. “I did it for—” for Sol, is the part she doesn’t say, doesn’t want him to know. She knew if she allowed Sol to give into that hatred he’d never forgive himself.
“So much faith in a man who refuses to tell you the truth. So much faith in an Order that’s kept it hidden from you for so long,” he says as the hand he still has on her side caresses her bare skin with his thumb. The feel of his touch sends small bolts of lighting in her veins. “I can tell you what really happened that day.”
She thinks back to Mae. Remembers how she told her she was brainwashed. She is curious about what really happened that day, but she is not going to take this Stranger's word for it.
She removes his hand from her side and takes a step back. The coldness of the cave making itself known once again.
“Like you told Mae. I’m not my sister,” she reminds him.
“True,” he says and that smirk he’s had this whole time morphs into something almost genuine. “You may look alike, but you. . . are nothing like her,” he tells her as he looks directly into her eyes.
It’s nothing new. It’s something she’s felt for her whole life, but with those dark eyes of his. She feels like it’s more than words, like he can see it. She finds herself quite liking that feeling, of being seen for just herself. For who she truly is. She then quickly remembers who she’s speaking to and blinks as she reminds herself not to fall into whatever mind games he’s trying to play.
“You’re free to go, you know,” he tells her and that’s not what she had been expecting in the slightest. “Like I said, ‘a life for a life’,” he says.
“You’re letting me go?” She asks, in what she feels is a justified caution.
“I’m not here to hold you captive,” he answers.
“And if I lead the Jedi back here?”
“If I’m still here, I’ll just kill them all like I did the first time.”
She wants to refute his words, but she finds herself unable to speak as scenes of what he did last night replayed in her mind. Their are Jedi stronger than him though, there. . . has to be. She. . . she knows it.
What she also knows is that there’s no way she can win here. So she won’t let the opportunity escape her as she takes a step forward. When he doesn’t show any sign of betrayal, she doesn’t relax but it does spur her to make her way out of the cave.
Before she can pass him though he grabs her by her wrist and holds her in place. She tries to pull her arm away but it’s useless in his strong grip.
“Osha,” he says her name without a hint of malice in it.
She wants to hate the way he says her name, but the feeling inside of her when she says it isn’t hate at all. His grip softens and the pads of his fingertips go up her arm and make their way to her hand. He slips a piece of paper into her hands, but even after successfully doing so his hand remains where it is.
“If you ever want to know the real truth,” he says as he leans down. Bringing them face to face. “You’ll know where to find me,” he goes on to tell her. “Alone preferably. You can bring your Jedi friends if you want, but I can’t guarantee it’ll end well for them.”
“And if it’s just me?” she asks. He leans towards her once again and the heat she stepped away from earlier quickly makes it way back.
“I think you already know the answer to that, Osha,” he tells her and she ignores the urge to look at mouth as he says it.
There’s a part of her that wants him to be wrong. That she knows all of this is one his ways to get inside of her head. Yet. . . she can feel it, that connection. It terrifies her and not just because of the fact that it exists. There’s something inside of her that wants to reach out to it, but she can’t. There’s no way she ever could. She pulls her hand out of his and tries to ignore that she can feel the ghost of touch. She doesn't let go of the note he handed her either.
She. . . she needs to make her way back to Sol, is something she foggily remembers and once she does she continues her path out of the cave and out of the darkness that calls to her.