Shadows of Bankor

Daunt insisted to not speak with Juri about the intent of him taking her for a cruise until they'd be further at sea. His speed yacht, "The Hornblower" , a capture from the fallen empire of Tididol the Hutt, had carried them steadily away from the islands near the Sword, and now they were in the open seas.

He stopped it and sat on the deck, looking at her with a gaze that distinctly lacked confidence or belief in his perseverance. "I am ready to tell you something, Juri, but it's a big burden than will involve you in things above your ability to affect them. I have a dark, impossible choice to make and I desperately need guidance in how I should understand the situation I have put myself in. If you don't want to hear it, which is a sensible thing to do, I will not weigh it upon you or hold it against you. You seem to be having a new purpose which I don't want to steal from you. Just at this moment I see only darkness."

She was surprised by the sudden cruise. The Witch had remained at the bow of the craft. The foxtail had been let down, her long raven hair now midback. Her eyes closed as she felt the breeze along her face.

When Daunt approached, she turned, folding her arms across her chest. Listening as he spoke, watching his form. She was still conflicted. It had been weeks, but the behavior while she had been trying to work had hurt her, no matter how hard she had tried to bury it down. Yet her depth of affection for the Zabrak was deep.

"Daunt..." she spoke softly, stepping close. A hand reaching for his. "Despite everything, I care for you deeply. Speak. Lay down your burdens and I will help you as best I can." Her smile was soft, compassionate. She had been moving herself to the Light, a certain clarity on the cusp.

He had been moving in the other direction, and if she could sense it, he was not far away from the fall. He had done despicable things in the underworld war over the last weeks which had desensitised him, and something else must have occurred as well. When she took her hand, his was unnaturally cool.

He minced words for long, his eyes ever emptier and lips trembling as if he was living through one of his nightmares, eventually deciding to make the words clinically simple. "Lyla is a daughter of the Emperor. She defied him in refusing to assassinate a target on Bankor. Maul commanded me to kill her."

There was a moment of silence. A sharp pang deep within her. That petty jealousy of her flaring up within her, bringing that conflict to her mind. There was an instinct, a dark insidious thing to tell him to do it.

She hated it. Swallowing it down, she gently rubbed his hand with her thumb.

"Do you love her?"

OOC: 1 conflict for selfish thoughts

"I don't know what love is, Juri. I haven't learnt it since we spoke last." He clenched his jaw. "I am not bound to her like I have been to you. But she chose to defy her father because she assumed something better was there for her - because of me. She's given me her trust and her hopes. What is at hand is one of the ugliest, darkest betrayals I could imagine. The only way to save myself I see now is to challenge her, and die."

Her lips curled. "Then don't you dare betray her." The words were harsh, commanding with hidden threat, the small Witch seemingly standing taller, her overcost accentuating that edge. "That would be the darkest, foulest road you could take. She changed, she put herself in grave danger because of you." As if to accent it, she poked him hard in the chest.

"She made herself part of your family, and everything is given up for family!" Even one's own desires. Her lip quivered, her jaw clenched.

"What has the Dawn done for you? For us? Always a shadow over whatever we do, always a shoe waiting to drop. Run. Forsake the Dawn, for that allegiance to Maul. Be your own being. Stand up and live." The hurt beneath the skin showing on her face. "I don't want to see you become a man who falls to that darkness. I'd put you down before I let that happen."

"Then put me down because this is where I think I am going!" He spat out suddenly, something snapping in him. "Don't you understand? I have already been broken and made what I am, a killer! Self-loathing, but in the end - a killer, a disposable soldier of Maul! What else can I ever be?!" He pushed her back and bared his sharp teeth in desperate anger.

"Shut up!" The anger flared, her eyes aglow as she dropped his hand, feeling the Force flowing through her. "Stop being so selfish and thinking you're just a blunt instrument!" She stood on her toes as she screamed at him.

"You are a Son of Dathomir. Kriffing act like it! You aren't just some pawn to be manipulated and moved about a dejarik board!" There was a slight glint in her eyes, she could feel a tear forming.

"You aren't an animal, Daunt. You know strength, and power. You know how to care, even if you don't know how to show it." She turned away from him, looking back to the sun reflected in the sea.

"You have a choice. You can be the being I know you can be. You can feel it, feel me, feel her, through the Force. I lose part of us, but I know that you will be alright, and I'll be there as an ear." She looked back over her shoulder.

"Or you can walk the path of a mindless beast, and I cast you off to the Nexu. I will have nothing to do with you, because you decided you weren't the man I loved."

He fell to his knees and stayed there. What she had just said was too much for him to accept. He hated this choice and it filled him with unspeakable anger that had no release beyond senseless violence. Indecision was as horrible as the abhorrent dilemma she laid out clearly. She hated himself for making her lay their affection on the altar of doing the right thing. No matter what he did, Juri would suffer. He wanted to take it away and pay only himself for his actions that led to this. But his mind was too much in haze to give him a solution.

But she was right on that he had been selfish. So he chose to forego the self in all this. He closed his mind and sought answers in the Force. Was Juri right that he could feel it all through it...?

He couldn't find anything. The Force seemed mute about his anguish, and the shapes and faces didn't appear. All there was was an indeterminate miasma. Perhaps this was the shadowy frontier between Light and Dark, having the strength and clarity of none.

"...You are wrong, Juri, this is not the only alternative. I won't kill her, but what shall follow will not be what you think. Become a Daysister if you will, but I won't go there with you."

She gently touched his crown as he knelt. Her lower lip bitten hard, she said nothing. There was love, and sadness, in her caress. Juri withdrew her hand, and put her hood up. "And so it is..." she whispered, fighting back the tears. "I don't regret loving you, Daunt. I never will regret it." She turned on her heels, looking back over the ocean.

Finally allowing the tears to fall now that he couldn't see her face. Her head bowed slightly. "Take me home. Please." She spoke out while keeping her voice in check.

"Whatever happens next, Juri, I will always remember that I've only reached this far because you've been there for me. And I'll keep... loving you in my own faulty way." He rose and moved to her, placing his hands on her shoulders and kissing the hair atop her head. Then he moved the controls, letting her tears be private. "I'll take you to that place you now call home."

The one we shared lies in ruins.

The boat took up speed on the plotted course.

The wind billowed and whipped beneath her hood, as she felt herself shrink within the coat. It wasn't what she had wanted, or what she had imagined. She hadn't lost him, but they couldn't be what they were.

Not like this.

She never looked back as the boat traveled, keeping her eyes closed as she silently sobbed.

/scene