In the Path of Revan

Season 1 Episode 5.2 - Classified Information

Maris Brood had seen a lot of things in her time. She had travelled the galaxy with her master Azhaak Ti. She had served in war. She had even served in helping befriend a race that Azhaak Ti personally took under her wing.

The planet Felucia. Bizarre in design, diverse in variety, hostile in every possible way, covered in some of the most dangerous creatures she had ever laid eyes on... Half of them made the Rancor out to be loyal, lovable steeds in comparison. Ironically the natives rode Rancor as well.

The natives were just as bad. They had a predatory instinct that made them almost a brother to the Rancor and sarlaccs that filled the ground; but Azhaak Ti and her managed to befriend them.

It had taken more understanding of evil than Maris could grasp, more compromise, more... blood... before the Felucian's accepted them. Turns out a lot of their rights and rituals and laws were written in blood. No, literally, they wrote in blood.

The CIS had sought a stronghold on the world. While the natives were less than happy, they didn't truly get riled up until her master made them. It wasn't bloodlust they fed into the people. It was the prospect of freedom.

The planet was never ending competition. No laws beyond the few. Nothing to hold them back from their desires.

She expected them to be deranged and insane, but rather found they found that some things didn't matter. They had a strong sense of honor and law in the lack of it. Azhaak Ti had explained, "Most criminals cannot exist without a law to break. Nor can they find incentive. But take away the law, and there is no crime to commit. Everything becomes about strength."

An interesting prospect, but still. The planet was crucial not just for the sake of NOT being a CIS stronghold, but because of the Force. The life! The freedom! The never ending competition to survive and eat and consume! The never ending cycles of life and death! It was a place that radiated with the force, both Light and Dark, so vividly it was almost a sun! It was... breathtaking.

Maris Brood had always been... hostile... by nature. She always had difficulty controlling it. It was almost stupid in her opinion to bring her to a planet brimming with so much hostility, death, darkness, and death! Maris almost lost control the first day over herself... For the first year she was a basket-case, she recalled. She was useless.

But she struggled, she cried, she fought herself, and effectively she managed to eventually be able to control herself fully even with the raging emotions all around her begging her to unleash herself.

She was fully in control of herself and her emotions.

Then he came.

At first it was just a surprise flank of droids as they had sieged the enemy stronghold, but it quickly turned into a kidnapping of her master. The boy kidnapped Azhaak Ti and disappeared.

Maris personally lead her master's rescue into the temple while the forces outside continued to lay siege, but the boy was never found. If anything, he had destroyed hordes of droids himself, effectively creating a trail to him.

He wasn't in league with the confederacy? Then why kidnap her master? Maris had never bothered to think, only to act.

She had been knocked out at some point and found herself tied up against a root. She watched as the boy, who she had never met before this day, looked on her with such hate, distaste... Her master had freed herself of her bonds and fought the young man. Maris struggled to do the same. Now that they were united, they could deal with him easily. He was obviously skilled: Able to keep up with a Master easily.

Then he killed her. Azhaak Ti died to more lightning than Maris could have imagined possible to exist in any small space. It was almost like looking into a beam. The boy was an existence of pure, unadultured, raw power and hate. Then he beheaded her.

Her master had only just started to teach her lessons of detachment. That soon she would have a new master. Ti and her would always keep in touch and be close, but it was a lesson Maris understood the need of at the time.

Too late...

He left Maris there to scream and mourn, and for her beloved master to rot.

Maris loved her master. She didn't backlash at her like her parents had done, she didn't hurt her or yell or... she was always quiet. Always smiling. Always... understanding. Such gentle understanding... Forgiving of every mishap, every hostile word or curse, every mistake... She made Maris want to do things to please her rather than scorn her! And all Maris could do was beg and weep and look into dead eyes from where she was tied.

The natives had found her quickly. Unlike most races, they were almost all force sensitizes. They were very special in that way, Maris had never heard of a race of pure Force sensitizes, but regardless, her screams had radiated in waves through the Force itself and drew them to her. It had also drawn predators, lots of them, and a battle had started as the natives fought to protect her as her screams drew in the Dark Side and predators like a flame.

The predator got to the Jedi Master's corpse while the natives physically hauled a flailing girl away, only able to watch as the body was torn apart and eaten and bloody. Maris found out the hard way that the abdomen doesn't hold the stomach, it holds intestines. She can still see them being tossed about and chewed on like sausages.

The next thing she knew the natives had been pushed to act more furiously then she had ever imagined by the Jedi Master's death. They unleashed power and bloodlust in droves on the invaders and won overwhelmingly a battle they might have lost before.

Maris didn't notice. She didn't care. They had done what they came to do. To push the Felucians. Well, good, done, mission complete. Whatever. She had ghosts to tend to.

At some point she realized she needed to leave this place, as the ghosts only increased in her mind day by day, and it was a strong sign of the Dark Side.

Not that long ago she had come to the Temple... She had started to rest. Free of the nonstop bombardment of Dark Side emanating from the planet, she felt... a large burden lift.

She would make it. She would be her beloved master's proud legacy. She was still sad, let there be no doubt, but it only fed her determination to listen more, to be who her master had wanted her to be.

If only she had listened more, and been less flighty, less hostile, less... Maris. Would her master have been happier?

She thought this even as she ran into a guy. He fell, she tripped, he yelled, and then she saw. In his face she saw all of her ghosts return. She saw the blood of her master on her hands, on his face, and the power in his eyes...

She looked into the eyes of her Master's killer.