False Dichotomies

15. Alive

Being trapped between two rooms is no less unpleasant than being stuck in one. She's a walking databank, there's plenty of use for her. The cuff on her ankle stays on at all times, getting chained up to whichever room she's in; it keeps her a long way from the Force.

It's strange. These last two years, she's drawn on the Force far more than a person should, far more than she should be capable of— she had to fake the power of the Darkside somehow. Now, she keeps expecting to feel it over her shoulders, or to burn in the place where it's burned for so long. She can't decide if she wants the Force back or not.

There's so much emptiness in her now, without the Force. A space to fill. Nothing she can do about it though. She'll probably still be in this cuff when she dies.

Can a person still become one with the Force if they die disconnected from it? For all she was raised in her people's beliefs, there are some things nobody thinks to cover.

"We never realised you were this high up in the order of things," Quin remarks, looking over some of the information she's gathered.

"I wasn't, really." Dooku kept her close, it's true, but her command was never great. He kept her from amassing power. He was happy to use her for the occasional strategy, to throw her at a Jedi who was getting on his nerves— particularly after Ventress betrayed him— but he never risked sharing it all with her. "There's plenty of information in here-" In the notes themselves, in the layout of them, in the failings in her spelling and grammar- "he doesn't know I have."

"The Sith are known for backstabbing."

Estai doesn't flinch. But, kriff, she's had six hours of sleep amongst fifty-one working (time's running out, any moment now, any moment now), she's been absolutely cooperative, patient with Quin. She's been everything he could want in a defector, a loving databank with manners, a brain to pick. Without the Force, with her memories so finely combed and branded across page after page, she's cored out. Hollow.

When she dies, little will be wasted.

"Why are you having so much trouble believing I might not be-" Biting down on her tongue is the only way to stop herself quickly enough. "I'm sorry, that's unfair. Please pretend I never started that question."

She reads back over the last line of her notes, trying to find her train of thought. Quin's eyes are a physical feeling against her skin, and it isn't a frivolous use of the Force. "I was one of the last to hold out hope for you," he tells her. It's not surprising. In truth, she knew this, was certain of it, all their years together had made her faith in him unshakable— but he hadn't been the one undercover as a Sith. "Then you tried to kill me. Repeatedly."

Estai raises an eyebrow and it's cruel and it's unfair, but, "Quin, I've known you since you were an initiate, spent years sparring with you. I know I was never anywhere close to beating you, but I have now had training from one of the foremost duellists in the Order. Do you really think that if I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be?"

She does flinch when he pushes sharply back from the table, chair screeching complaint against the floor. All this time, she's been trying to get him to trust her again; hearing the door close behind him, she thinks she may well have kriffed that up. As important as it was to get six hours and six minutes of sleep, maybe she should've let him convince her to get eight. She could've got the importance of sixty-six across to him some other way. It would've been worth it not to alienate him now.