Chapter 14: Someone’s Always Unhappy in the End

Vancil looked out over the courtyard, his gaze taking in the serene landscape before him. Groups of younglings stood before Jedi twice as tall and four times as old, their little faces twisted into stern looks of focus. It was somewhat amusing, seeing these children no older than ten trying to mimic their masters.

It reminded him of how he used to mimic his mother's mannerisms, viewing her as the ideal person. The smile that had formed on his face quickly faded however, as the recollections he attempted to bring forth failed. He supposed he shouldn't have been too surprised. After all, the training he had gone through as an Acolyte had been the most gruelling and by far memorable experience in his life. Even looking back, there was only the Sith, only his time with them.

Which made it hurt all the more now that everything he knew was gone. Yes, the Sith were evil. He had no qualms about admitting it, nor about anyone else saying so. Yes, he was evil. He had done horrendous things before to Jedi, and even sometimes his own Sith brothers and sisters. He did not, and would not deny the moral depravity behind his actions. He accepted them with open arms in fact. He had willingly followed his master, Darth Ominit into battle, had watched and even aided in his own cruelty.

He knew exactly what any Jedi would say to him. They had said it to him before.

"This isn't the real you, let go of your hate."

"The Sith teachings have twisted your mind."

"The Dark Side was not the way."

"If you let go of the Dark Side you can become your true self."

Fuck them.

This was who he was. The real him? His true self? He was those things. He was not captured, enslaved or conscripted into the Sith. He willingly sought them out of his own free will. Some may say that his own experiences and blooming hatred for the Jedi was the reason for that, and so if he didn't have those, he wouldn't have joined them.

Those arguments in particular angered him. People were who they were because of their experiences. Excusing your own actions because it came back to bite you in the ass wasn't a good argument, and was contradictory in nature.

Vancil crossed his arms, calming himself down before he spiralled into another philosophical rant fuelled by hatred. That was one of the teachings Darth Ominit had left him with, and while Vancil suspected it was more out of annoyance then for the purpose of bettering his pupil, he still took it to heart as one of the last things he had.

His head turned slightly to the right as he sensed someone approaching. Damn these hoods looked cool, but they definitely were not conducive to better peripheral vision.

"Sith." The man said as he stood beside Vancil, also watching out over the courtyard. Vancil recognised the voice as Anakin Skywalker's.

"Jedi." Vancil kept his head and eyes pointed forward, but his attention was solely on Anakin.

A silence brewed between them, Vancil waiting for Anakin to say whatever he had to say, and Anakin working his jaw as though the words were a battle to get out in of itself.

"…Did you find what you were looking for?" He finally managed, but Vancil could tell that wasn't what he really wanted to say.

"I did." The Sith replied, turning his head to face Anakin, "Just spit out whatever you have to say Jedi. Is this where you arrest me? Try to convince me to join your Order?" Venom came out into the last part of that sentence, causing Anakin to tense up slightly.

"…No. I came to give you this." Anakin said, holding out an outstretched palm to Vancil containing a small chip.

Vancil stayed quiet before taking the chip. He recognised it well enough. It was a ship key, something that would allow someone to start up a ship. He also recognised it as the one that had been left in the ship, he had stolen from the Mandalorians.

"…So, I'm free to go? Or do you plan to shoot me down the second I take off?" He asked, cautiousness still ever present as long as he was inside this accursed place.

Anakin remained reticent for a moment, his gaze following a pair of younglings running across the courtyard. He didn't break this gaze for a moment as he spoke, "We moved the ship into the hangar. You have the clearance to leave."

Vancil scowled at his avoiding answer, but understood Anakin's meaning. He turned to leave before halting, "Why?"

Anakin sighed in what appeared to be resignation, "It doesn't matter. Both Master Plo Koon and I agreed on this, so if you want an explanation, you'll have to talk to him. I get the feeling you're not interested in such a detour however."

That surprised Vancil. If he remembered correctly Plo Koon was the Kel Dor who had offered to bring him into the Jedi Order. Honestly, after his outburst shortly following that proposition, it was a miracle they didn't just send him to the executioner's block. Anakin was right though. There was no way in hell he was going to look for answers from a Jedi he still disliked marginally.

Without another word Vancil marched off, his gait filled with new determination and hope.

*****

Kandria struggled to keep her features calm as she slowly walked through the halls of the temple. It would not do to let many Jedi sharing the halls to sense or see her anger, after all.

Shortly after her departure from the council room, Anakin had excused himself, saying he had to meet with Plo Koon about some matters, and that Kandria could simply wander the temple. It was so dismissive. As though she was an afterthought. She knew she shouldn't be feeling like this, but…it was difficult. She wasn't being treated like a person. She was being treated like a tool, one that shouldn't be let out into the wild without 'training' but one that could also simply be left alone, confident that it wouldn't try anything.

For once, and to her own horror, she envied Vancil. They treated him like a weapon, yes, but treating someone like a weapon was better than a tool. A weapon both feared and respected on a fundamental level. A weapon would be escorted. A weapon's needs and wants would be more readily accepted than a tools. Such as his need to access the Archives. He had gotten that, because the Council feared him. But because they feared him, they treated him as a human.

Humans were something to fear after all. For if they weren't then they wouldn't have become one of the dominant species in the galaxy.

She continued her sulky walk, but made sure to keep up appearances. Back straight, head held high, nods of respect to bewildered Jedi. It was exhausting really. Her eyes suddenly lit up however, and a feeling she didn't bother to recognise bloomed within her as she saw a figure clad in black at the end of the hall.

Vancil.

She quickly increased her pace; however, he had already turned the corner, his pace quick and hurried. From what she saw this was different though. This was not an urgent walk, but an excited jaunt. Excited herself, she walked as fast as she could without breaking into a jog, drawing even stranger looks from her fellows.

Turning the same corner she had already lost him, his very identifiable form nowhere to be seen in the new corridor she stood in. What was this way? What would be good enough for Vancil to be walking quickly towards? The pieces clicked together in her mind.

The hangar bay.

Both excitement and concern were present as she made a beeline towards his destination. Excitement at the prospect that he had possibly been let free, but also concern that he in fact had not been let free and instead intended to steal a ship to flee the temple.

There was something else though. She wasn't quite sure. Setting limited brain power to investigate she discovered a few things. This something else was a feeling. And this feeling was what made her so frantic to reach him. It was concerning and worrying. Unfortunately for the rational part of her brain, this feeling had commandeered the main part, and was dead set on achieving its goals.

There was no way to explain it. It was simply this primal want.

She dismissed the worrying thoughts. She wasn't distressed, and she wasn't fearful. It was of no bother, and it got her closer to Vancil. Weaving through the different corridors with fluid movements she soon made it into the expansive hangar bay, several ships flying in and out.

No Vancil.

Her face fell for a second as the Sith was nowhere to be seen. Franticness slowly oozed into her as she looked around for some sign, any sign. It was then she saw it, something that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. The Mandalorian ship, its silver hull still gleaming with yellow stripes adorning it.

There was no doubt in her mind that Vancil was there as she continued her unstoppable march, pushing herself to the limits of speedwalking. She glanced over her shoulder nervously, afraid that a Jedi would be standing right there ready to bring her back and chastise her for her frankly un-Jedi-like behaviour. There were none.

She rounded the ship to the back. The hangar doors were open. She slowly walked forward into it, her footsteps echoing in the empty ship's cargo hold. Curiously there were now several new boxes on top of the munitions one that had been there when they had first discovered the ship, only these ones were labelled "Rations" and had Republic insignia decorating them.

Her heart felt caught in her chest as she climbed the ladder up into the cockpit, painfully aware of every groove along the cold metal, every shift in the air. She knew this was that strange feeling's fault again, however she was too far gone.

Pulling herself up into the cockpit her breath hitched in her throat as she spotted him, calmly typing away into the ship's navigation computer. She had no doubt that he had sensed and heard her approach. He was strong after all. Yet he did not say a word or even acknowledge her existence. Gulping, Kandria considered her options.

Calmly, she sat down in the co-pilots, her hands folded in her lap as she struggled to find out what to say next. Unfortunately, that feeling decided that now was the time to remain silent, and hadn't given her a bit of info to go off of.

"So..." She began before trailing off, unable to draw her gaze back onto Vancil.

"…So." Came his equally slow reply.

"…Are you leaving?" She tentatively asked the obvious, mentally slapping herself as she fully expected him to insult her intelligence.

"…Yeah." Came his surprisingly short, and insult-less reply.

Kandria worked her jaw and fiddled with her fingers, "…Where are you going?"

Vancil's typing stopped and he leaned back in his chair, his masked stare still on the console, "I have some final business I need to take care of. After that…I might go sightseeing. I never got to explore most of the galaxy after all, and this is basically an entirely new one."

Kandria's mind wandered to just that prospect. A new galaxy to explore. It must have felt amazing. And because of that she felt…sad. Because this was what Vancil was going to do. It was clear he had been given the go ahead to leave. Which meant that while she was stuck in the Order, he would be off adventuring. She felt no ill will to him because of that, though, with her negative feelings towards the Jedi of this time period simply being amplified. She looked down to her feet.

"…Wanna come with me?" He suddenly spoke, his words filling both the cockpit and her head.

Kandria mulled over the words in her head, the strange feeling growing deep in her heart at a rapidly increasing pace. Slowly she reached up, pulling her mask and hood down as she turned to face Vancil. Her brown hair flowed down, free of the confines of her purple hood. Her sapphire blue eyes shone brightly, and she licked her dry lips nervously. Nervous at the fact that this action, while justifiably meaning nothing, still felt the world to Kandria, as though she had just turned her back to him and could only pray, he didn't stab her. Kandria had no idea how good she looked in the grand scheme of things. She had largely been ignorant to that sort of stuff during her tenure as a Jedi. She didn't consider herself a Jedi anymore though, and that strange feeling apparently cared very much about how she looked right at that moment.

"Yes. There's nothing for me here."

Vancil's head shifted slightly in her direction as shock emanated from him. He stayed mute for but a moment longer before turning to face her as well. Extending an armoured gauntlet upwards he pulled down his own black hood, revealing his short cut and slightly wild coal black hair. Going for his mask next, it came off with a slight click, although whatever it was attached to, she could only guess. Coming off, revealed Vancil's face to her for the first time. He had a hawkish face, matching well with his aggressive personality. His crimson red eyes stared back into her blue ones, slightly confusing her. She knew that the Dark Side transformed Sith physically the more they used it, and that yellow eyes were often the first sign of this, but she had never seen anyone with red eyes. That didn't matter though. She felt…happy, seeing his real face. Happy at being closer to him, even if in reality it was nothing more than a meaningless gesture.

They both simply stared at each other, neither having found the words for anything. It was just them now. Nothing else. And neither were quite sure how to handle it. Vancil took a deep breath, his red eyed gaze impossible to determine as it kept locked on hers. A shit eating grin suddenly grew onto his face without warning.

"Well then. Let's get out of here.