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I’m going to die. Kelnacca is going to kill me.
That is all Torbin can think as he scrambles away from Kelnacca’s lightsaber. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. He just wanted to go home. But then Sol killed Aniseya and the witches started attacking and now he can’t get far enough away from Kelnacca. Kelnacca, who just keeps swinging his saber. And Torbin can’t maintain his footing. He stumbles backwards, away from the wookiee, taking a shaky breath–
–and then he’s airborne. Soaring face first straight into Kelnacca’s grip that locks onto the left side of his face.
Torbin screams as claws dig into him, his skull rattling as they hit bone. There’s nothing else to do but brace himself, and beg the Force for forgiveness, as he’s slammed into the wall behind him. His head knocks against the wall making him see stars, wait no, that’s a lightsaber, and he brings his saber up just in time to stop Kelnacca from cutting him in half.
His strength fades fast as Kelnacca keeps him pinned against the wall, their sabers locked to his side. He can only focus on keeping his saber up, his arm strong as his vision starts to flicker. His ears ring and he thinks he must be screaming but he does everything he can to stay awake alive.
Even if he doesn’t deserve it. Not after this. He shouldn’t have sought out the coven. He should’ve continued studying the Force forsaken moss. But no. He was impatient. He–
–I just wanted to go home.
“Kelnacca! Kelnacca NO!” He distantly hears Sol yell. Oh yeah, Sol’s here.
But he is still screaming and his head feels like it will explode and Torbin knows he will never see the beauty of Coruscant at night again all because he wanted to go home and–
–the wall disappears from his back and he can’t quite tell which way is up anymore but he knows Kelnacca threw him because the pressure on his head is gone. Torbin gets milliseconds of reprieve to send a thank you to the Force before he hits the ground. Hard. His head snaps back against the ground and everything goes black.
~~~~~
Torbin wakes with a gasp, startling upright and immediately accosted by bright light. He dodges the bright green of Kelnacca’s saber, but is met with open air as he falls off of where he had been laying. Groaning, he spins to find the attacker, but instead finds an empty med bay.
Everything came back to him at once. The realization that the twins were the vergence they had been looking for. Him running off back to the coven. Aniseya’s death. The fight. Kelnacca attacking him and Sol. His head smacking the ground before he went unconscious.
His heart pounds as he relives the terrifying moments before he passed out. Realizing he’s still on the floor, he once again surveys his surroundings. He is in their ship's secondary med bay.
“Where is everyone?” He breathes. He made it back to the ship somehow, which means someone must have survived. He hopes they all made it. He hopes Kelnacca got that witch out of his mind. But that doesn’t change the fact he is alone.
They blame me. It’s all my fault. I’ll be kicked out of the Order. All I wanted was to go home.
Master Indara is going to be furious with me.
He groans as he pushes to his feet, using the bed he was lying on to stable himself. He’s sore everywhere and his head is pounding, but the worst of it is radiating from his face. This is when he realizes his vision out of his left eye is cloudy. It is also when he feels the bandages going from his chin, all the way up his cheek, and ending just below his hairline. The memory of Kelnacca’s claws digging into him comes at him so intensely that he stumbles as his hand goes up to cradle his face.
His eyes - well, eye - catch on a mirror above the small wash sink. Slowly, he makes his way towards it, his undamaged eye wide as his gaze settles on his reflection. His eyes are bloodshot with deep bags underneath. His hair and the portions of his face not covered by bandages still have dirt caked onto them. He looks horrible. But he needs to know how bad it really is. Torbin takes a deep breath to steady himself, then slowly starts to peel back the bandages.
He flinches as the adhesive sticks to his skin, and he works slowly, but he makes progress. Soon enough he’s pulling back the piece covering his eyebrow, the last piece. The last bit snaps away from his skin and his breath hitches as he sees the full extent of his mutilation.
His eye is practically swollen shut. A deep gash going from the eyelid all the way to his hairline. There’s a couple shallower cuts just to the side of his nose, and a vertical one along his cheekbone. The most painful one however –besides the one practically slicing his eye in half– is the puncture on his jawline. He vividly remembers it as the first claw to sink into him, which then was dragged upward as he was pushed back towards the wall.
It’s a lot worse than he imagined, and he’s lucky he's not dead on that force forsaken planet. But still, the wounds will take weeks to heal, and he’ll probably never see right out of his eye again.
“But i'm not dead.” He breathes. “That’s good, at least.”
Just as he’s about to turn away from the mirror, he catches a glimpse of Kelnacca walking past the doorway. Instantly he’s in fight or flight mode. He spins, heart racing, his back slamming against the sink, searching for any way to defend himself from the wookiee again. He’s found me. Those witches are still inside of him. He spies his lightsaber on a side table and calls it to his hand, igniting it and taking a defense position.
He tries to force himself calm so he can be prepared to fight but his heart won't stop racing. It feels as if its trying to rip itself out of his chest so the only thing he can do is wait and breathe and wait for Kelnacca to come back and breathe and–
–why can’t he breathe? He must be more injured than he thought because he can’t breathe but he still has to fight Kelnacca but he’s still waiting. Waiting to breathe and for his heart to stop pounding and for Kelnacca to come back but the wookiee still hasn’t found him.
Why isn’t Kelnacca finishing the job? Where is Indara and Sol and why aren’t they here to protect him? They are his Masters; they should be here protecting him.
His chest aches and his grip tightens on his saber and–
–and the logical part of him chimes in: they wouldn’t bandage your face if you weren’t safe. If they didn’t fix Kelnacca. If you were still in danger.
Oh. That makes sense.
And then Torbin is sinking to the floor, his back against the wall, his lightsaber disengaging as he drops it and it rolls away. He is shaking but he takes an uneven breath –he can breathe again– but his heart is still pounding and he hurts all over. His face is wet and his wounds are stinging and he realizes he’s crying. He can’t remember the last time he cried. “ There is no emotion, there is peace,” his mind screams at him. Torbin can’t see past the tears filling his eye, so he just sits and shakes and reminds himself that you’re okay. You’re safe. You’re going home. And he cries until there are no tears left to spill down his cheeks.
He stares detachedly at his saber sitting just a few feet away from him, admiring the worn leather on the grip, the way the pommel curves into a flat base. Something beautiful he created. So opposite from the destruction he caused just hours earlier. He wonders if he will ever create anything this beautiful again, or if he is destined to bring destruction as a jedi. Was Aniseya right? Will he help to cause the downfall of the Jedi? He doesn’t think he could live with himself if he did.
He reaches forward and picks up his saber, running his finger along the leather before hooking it onto his belt. Then he pulls himself to his feet, wincing as he goes. When he feels stable enough to move he turns back to the mirror, wiping away residual tears. He wets a rag and dabs at his face, going gently over the cuts to clean the blood that had begun to trickle down. Once he looks mostly back to normal –his eye is still bloodshot and swollen, and there is nothing he can do about the inflamed wounds right now– he begins to make his way out of the med bay.
He stops at the doorway, peering around the corner to see the little girl, Osha, probably, lying in the main bay, an oxygen mask over her face. Sol is at her side, gazing at her protectively, his hand on her shoulder. Kelnacca is pacing on the other side of the room, near the cockpit. And Master Indara…
His Master is leaning against the navigation console, staring pensively at the floor. Torbin pulls back around the corner, hiding himself from view. He knows logically they probably can sense him there, Master Indara at least, but he doesn’t care. He can’t figure out how to face her after ruining their mission so absolutely. But he has to show himself.
He takes a steady breath and centers himself. He is going to have to face this at some point. The longer it’s put off the more anxiety he will have about it.
There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.
He recites the code to calm himself, like he has done since he was a youngling. Just like he did before the testing to be claimed as Master Indara’s padawan. The ritual of it soothes him, and he relaxes, taking one last breath before stepping into the main bay to confront his reality.
No one looks at him but he can feel Sol’s calm sorrow in the Force. He can feel Kelnacca’s guilt heavy in the Force as he senses Torbin’s presence. And he can feel the disappointment, worry and resolve radiating from Master Indara’s Force signature as he approaches.
No one looks at him but he can feel how their precarious situation is about to be toppled by the next ten minutes.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
He steadies himself in the Force, trying to not flinch or flee every time Kelnacca turns towards him in his pacing. Trying to not break down in front of his companions. Trying to hold himself together as he admits to them, to himself , how wrong he was, how much of the blame lies on his shoulders.
He breathes in.
There is no emotion.
He breathes out.
There is peace.
“Master, I’m sorry.”