Work Text:
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
One foot in front of the other, forward inch by inch. Just a little farther, she tells herself. Just a little farther. Her hands and fingers are cramping, clinging to their charge with the unyielding, unthinking way of those who simply don’t know what else to do. The weight on her back is growing colder, any warmth (still warm, despite everything still warm-) it had once possessed leaching into the chilled, sterile air.
The floor lurches under her feet, and- (Revan? Mara? Two names, two people, both and neither hers-) stumbles. Her burden shifts with a whisper of cracking tissue and a fresh wave of the smell of burnt flesh. This scent was once as familiar to her as home- it still is, even now, after everything. Even after her supposed "second chance". She is still the general, the protector, the hero, and every other pretty word people use when they don’t want to say executioner.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
The pain is distant now, not released or soothed by the Force as with so many times before. Instead it is wrapped in the marrow-deep throb of exhaustion, a worn-out emptiness unlike anything she has ever felt. She (Mara? Revan?) knows that if she stops walking she will not start again. So she doesn’t stop, because if there was anything she learned in her two lives it was how to keep going. So she continues. As the floors and walls shake and shudder, as she steadily loses feeling in her fingers and feet, as the form on her back goes well and truly cold, she continues.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Left. Right. Left. Ri-
Voices.
Raised, shouting. One call tinged with a shrill edge of panic, the other lower and more measured, its undercurrent of fear almost indiscernible. She knows those voices, opens her mouth to call out to them, but only a weak rasp of air comes out. The halls of the Star Forge are twisting and near-infinite, yet somehow still they find her. Carth and Canderous round the corner, and the sheer relief at the sight of them is almost enough to stop her in her tracks. They shout again, rush to her side, only to pull up short when they see what (who) she carries with her. Canderous recovers his composure first, but it is Carth who speaks.
“Mara,” he says (Mara- a clean slate, a new life, a contorted, empty puppet-) “the Star Forge is coming apart. We need to get to the Ebon Hawk.” Of course it is. Of course they do. Why is he telling her what is obvious?
“What Onasi means, Revan-” (Revan- a damned lord, a holy savior, a wild blessing and unforgivable curse-) “is that we need to get out quickly. No dead weight.”
Oh. She stops.
Without thinking her grip tightens and she mutely shakes her head. As if in response, the halls shudder again. Carth is arguing, pleading with her, but his words and her own cool, hard-won pragmatism are being drowned out by a rising tide of no no nonono, and Canderous reaches out as if to take him-
“I PROMISED!”
Her scream is strangled, cracking and broken, torn out of her throat with ragged desperation. “I promised, I promised, I promised I wouldn’t leave him I promised-”
I swear to you, with everything that I am. No matter what happens, I will never leave you behind.
It was an old promise, made an instant and a lifetime ago when she was bright and shining and still believed. She doesn’t remember, but she knows. The same way she knows the corpse on her back was once her dearest friend, her truest confidant, her brother in every way that mattered. She also knows that she has broken many, many promises since that long-ago day. But not this one. She cannot, will not break this final vow.
She owes Alek that much, at least.
“Okay.” Canderous’s voice is soft, and there is a strangely gentle understanding in his eyes. “Okay, kid. We won’t leave him.” He moves closer, reaches out as if to take Alek away, and she wants to run, but she stopped walking and now her legs can only tremble. Canderous is firm, but not harsh as he slides Alek from her back and suspends him between them. The weight is lifted, but she is still holding on. Still keeping her promise. Carth joins them, holding her up from the other side. Pins and needles sweep through her hands as the blood in her fingers begins to flow again, and her spine pops as it eases back upright.
She is tired. So, so tired. But there is still farther to go.
Right. Left. Right. Left.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Just a little farther.