Darkening

A Knights of the Old Republic fanfic by Princess Artemis

Note: 18 Standard, OK? Revan’s early 30’s.

"You aren’t good enough yet, but you can learn," Revan said, standing over a furious Dustil Onasi, the tip of her lightsaber blade dancing so close to his throat that he felt its heat. Revan smiled, watching Dustil squirm, trying to back away from the blade. Listening to him breath, hissing through his teeth, feeling his anger and hate so clearly.

That was the best part. Her smile widened. So much passion in that boy. "You are a delicious little thing, you know that?" she said. "I could stand here all night basking in your anger."

Still hissing, Dustil stared at Revan. Then, swift as a snake’s strike, he called his fallen lightsaber to his hand, blocked Revan’s while sliding away and up to his feet. He moved with uncanny speed, striking at her in a blur. He said no words, letting his red ‘saber speak for him.

Ni’esla, the once and future Darth Revan, laughed low, finding it easy to block and parry. Dustil would be a good duelist someday; his skill at the Juyo form was not expert, but it was perhaps more than many Jedi could handle. Apparently, Dustil was on par with a Knight rather than a Padawan as Revan had originally guessed on Korriban. Must have been, to sneak into her hotel without being heard or seen or sensed. "No wonder Uthar fast tracked you, Sithling. Not many know how to use Light Side powers. And your ‘saber form is good, but it’s still not enough."

"I’m no Sithling, Revan! I am going to kill you for what you did!" Dustil spoke for the first time since sneaking into Revan’s hotel room on Manaan. She had disarmed him once, easily, but it seemed he wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.

Revan continued blocking Dustil’s lightsaber with her own green blade. Not a great difficulty, even with his Force-enhanced speed. "Not a Sithling? What are you then? You can’t have been off Korriban for more than a couple weeks. Oh, and Daddy’s going to be so upset...we saved you, remember?"

Sudden conflict rose in Dustil and he faltered, allowing Revan to disarm him a second time. This time she stepped on his lightsaber so he couldn’t snatch it back. She laughed again, enjoying the rush of feelings from Dustil. She wondered if Carth felt like this; she never had been able to taste his rage, and that irritated her. Perhaps one Onasi was like another—Dustil was old enough to be a man and his darker feelings, his true rage, had just as long to mature and ferment as Carth’s had, maybe more.

Dustil stood still, clenching and unclenching his fist, fury at Revan so wild that it had begun to bleed out his fingers as lightning. "You killed my mother," he spat.

Revan was all wounded innocence. "That wasn’t me, that was Malak and Karath. Your father murdered Karath and I’m going to destroy Malak, so you should thank me instead of trying to kill me."

Unmoved, Dustil returned, "You took my father from me."

"I brought him back."

At that, Dustil’s dark eyes flicked to the side, then back to Revan. "You ruined my life. It’s your fault all the same."

Revan darted forward and wrapped one arm around and up Dustil’s back and grabbed his left hand with the other. "Dance with me," she breathed, caught up in happy bliss, surrounded by the young man’s intense hatred. The sting of nascent Force Lightning did not deter her, not in the face of such passionate Dark, so thick and strong.

Startled, Dustil stammered, "Wh...what? Dance with you?"

"Yes, dance. Let us dance in the Dark. I killed your mother, I took your father, I ruined your life, and you are beautiful for it." Revan’s smile was full of predatory delight

With narrowed eyes, Dustil whispered, "Fine, then. Dance." He wrapped his free arm around Revan, his hand splayed on her back as hers was on his, and he poured Lightning into her. She jerked and spasmed, losing touch with the Force and barely suppressing a scream.

That had been a bad move, she thought through waves of agony. He would kill her if he kept up the Lightning for much longer. Fear flicked through her; Revan did not want to die because she had been distracted, caught up in Dustil’s lovely Darkness. She managed to pull her twitching head down enough to look in the eye her killer if that was to be her fate. Rage, fury, and intense joy lit his eyes and his smile was singularly disturbing.

It was enough. She latched onto those feelings, feeding on them, strengthening herself enough to call up the Force to just protect her from death, for a moment longer, at least. Her mind cleared somewhat, and a method presented itself to potentially escape her fate.

With difficulty, her hand snaked up to his neck, enough to pull Dustil’s head down and into a fierce kiss.

Lightning fried the walls for an instant—shocked out of his attack, the Lightning stopped. Then Dustil returned Revan’s kiss with equal ferocity.

After a moment, though, he pulled away and set his hands on her again to renew his attack; if possible, he was angrier than before. Revan could feel it coming, feel the build up of rage needed to command the lightning. She had to hold herself away from those tantalizing feelings, mentally step back and not drown herself in it if she wanted to live. But she sensed that she had shifted Dustil’s attention enough, conflicted him enough, that she might have a chance if she said the right things...exactly the right things...

"Think about this for a moment, Dustil. Are you sure you want to do this, throw away this chance?"

He glared at her. "I don’t see any chance being thrown away. We both know I will kill you, we’ll dance just like you asked."

"I meant something...a bit...different," she said, her voice low. "If you kill me right now, you won’t have a chance at the people who really hurt you."

"YOU hurt me!"

"I know, but so did Malak. So did the Sith. If you kill me now, they will be forever beyond your reach." Revan toyed with the hair at Dustil’s nape. "I have an offer to make you."

She felt Dustil considering her, saw it in his eyes. "What do you have to offer that is worth letting you live?"

Revan pressed herself closer to Dustil, moving so she could speak in his ear. "You have Darth Revan at your mercy. Such events do not occur, but you managed it. That traitor Malak could not even face me. You have power, you have potential, more than that brute Malak."

There was a surge of Darkness in the room, but not the killing kind. Revan curled her lips in a faint smile. It was the presence, the Force that seduced, the Dark Side that drew in. She could work with that.

Revan let fall one tiny kiss on Dustil’s neck. "If you let me live, I offer you a place at my right hand. If you let me live, we can destroy Malak—he hurt you, didn’t he? If you let me live, we will crush every Sith who ever hurt you, and no one will have the power to hurt you again. No one will dare. And if you take what I offer, after we destroy everything that hurt you, you will have a chance to destroy me. But we have to do this my way, or you will lose that chance."

Dustil swallowed once, and Revan could hear him sniffing her hair. Feel him fall farther than he had before, feel him take the Darkness he had never rejected and cloak himself in it. "Yes."

Having saved her own skin, Revan allowed herself to revel in the Dark. Even if she had no intention of keeping a single word, she thought she might keep Dustil around just because his presence felt so delightful. He would give her power just by his nearness, and she hadn’t lied to him, exactly, at least not about his abilities.

"Yes, master," Dustil said, letting go her hand and raising his to her cheek. There was still Lightning on his fingertips, but somehow he made it so it didn’t shock, but tease. Revan had tacitly promised more than an apprenticeship to him, and she had to admit to herself, she was very curious about what he was doing with Force Lightning that made her shiver, and just what might be done with that unorthodox talent. And then there was his Darkness, deep and twisted, black and red and chanting. She wanted it.

So she moved to face him, kissed him again, and said, "Yes."

He was not exactly experienced, not an expert by any means, but Revan, if she had ever known better or not, did not care. Dustil was creative with the Force, young, and so delectably Dark. Certainly she could have found a better lover on any technical scale, but she doubted she would have easily found one so overflowing with rage, hurt, loathing, and vicious passion that she couldn’t help but lose herself in him. And that is what she wanted the most, what delighted her the most. Nearness, no, that would not satisfy her now that she could have all of his Darkness.

Perhaps she would give her young Sith her right hand, after all.

* * *

"I’m fine, Carth. I just got in a minor altercation."

"Your hand and arm is charred, Ni’e. I don’t call that a minor altercation. What happened?" While Carth asked that, Jolee tutted and used the Force to heal the worst of the burns he sensed on her. There was a fairly large one on her back, as well.

They were standing outside the Ahto hotel; Mission, Carth, Canderous, Jolee, and Ni’esla. Zaalbar was off hunting up some food for the rest, while HK-47 and T3-M4 watched the Hawk. The group was trying to be quick about finding a way to the Star Map—Bastila had been captured more than a week and a half ago.

Revan waved her uninjured hand in the air as if to dismiss all concerns. "I said, it was minor. I got in a bit of a fight with someone, but it’s all right, the make-up sex was nice."

Carth raised his eyebrows at that. He chose to focus on the more immediate concerns of Revan’s health than her blasé discussion of her sex life. "Minor, right. Who were you fighting with that you managed to get third degree burns on your hand from it?"

When Jolee finished healing her as best he could through the Force, he said, "We’ll need to get you back to the ship to heal the rest, missy. That was not minor no matter what you claim."

Revan smiled broadly, and although she sounded as though she was addressing Jolee, she looked straight at Carth when she answered. "I suppose you’re right Jolee. Dustil is quite...good...."

It took a few moments for all the levels of that statement to connect in Carth’s mind. When the full meaning hit, he paled considerable and stood very still.

Satisfied, Revan followed Jolee to the Ebon Hawk. Mission, who had been standing nearby, went into a full-body overblown shudder. "Ewww! Ew ew ew ew!"

If Carth could have put two words together in his brain, he might have said something similar. As it stood, however, he was shocked beyond the capacity for speech.

Canderous just laughed. "Fracked two Onasis in one day. Busy woman. Got no taste, but I give her points for style." He walked off chuckling to himself.

Not long after Jolee had finished healing Revan’s burns, she put on a stealth belt and walked slowly around the Ebon Hawk. Revan thought it would probably be pretty easy to put what she had said about Dustil out of the minds of the few who had witnessed it. She wasn’t worried about Jolee—he knew who she was and was standing back, almost a spectator. Mission, though, might say something, and certainly she couldn’t continue entertaining herself with Carth if he knew what she had done—planned on continuing to do—with his son. Revan had had her fun, and while she still had not been able to feel anything from Carth, the look on his face alone would keep her amused for weeks. He didn’t have to remember for her to have that.

Mission she found in her usual spot, and with a quick wave of her hand, Revan erased just a few words from her mind. It would leave Mission feeling uneasy but uncertain as to why.

Carth sat in the pilot’s seat of the Ebon Hawk, blatantly trying to keep his mind occupied and just as obviously failing. He looked like he was going to be sick. As usual, it was difficult getting into Carth’s head to Force Persuade him, but in this particular instance, she could sense, faintly, that he badly wanted to forget, and that made it easier for her to accomplish her goal. She shuffled his memory around, what little she could get at, not quite able to erase anything, but enough to make the morning’s words difficult to recall.

As soon as she was certain neither Carth nor Mission would be bringing up what she had said about Dustil, Revan made her way to the cargo hold, where Canderous usually camped out. She disengaged her belt, and if it startled Canderous, he didn’t show it. He just grinned at her. "That was quite a feat you pulled Revan."

"About that—don’t say anything. I’ve made sure no one else will."

"Whatever you say, Revan. I just wish I’d had a holocam on me."

She grinned. "It was a beautiful thing, wasn’t it?"

"Yeah. I didn’t think anything could get Republic that green around the gills. But Revan, you really need to step up your taste in men...or boys, I should say."

Revan tapped her teeth. "Maybe so, but Dustil’s rather uniquely suited to my desires."

Canderous groaned. "I didn’t need to hear that."

"I’ll spare you the details, Force blind Mandalorian," she said with a laugh.

"Yeah, you do that."

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