Hoth: Blood and Ice

After speaking to the Jedi; and getting kidnapped for some of it; Layne felt the need to come out here again, to think.

It did not go as she'd expected it to go. She had gone in, expecting to burn all her bridges, and then be done with it. Just as Baesal had said. Burn it all away, experience all the pain at once, instead of letting it drag out and keep her from her task. Burn it all away, and be reborn. Free; ironically given the philosophy; of all those attachments to the other Jedi.

Instead, it had just been... painful. And in the end she hadn't managed to burn all those bridges. Yes, she was thankful for that; for the hope of redemption after all this to not have died just yet. But still, it was painful.

And that pain had her alternate between feeling sorry for herself, and being *angry* for feeling sorry for herself. Occasionally, to exercise that anger, she'd kick a rock through the snow; her natural brawn ensuring it did so with ample force. And then she went back to feeling sorry for herself.

The maelstrom of emotions must have reverberated across the Force, stained darkly. Or it was just pure coincidence, which in the end would amount to the same thing. Or Layne was just being followed. Because there was another presence passing the snowscape outside Echo, tucked tightly in a thermal cloak. Passing quietly and lightly, without stirring the white sheet, almost like a ghost. Though not hiding.

At first she'd expected it to be one of the jedi. Someone coming out to make one more plea to. She'd have liked that. And she'd have *hated* it too. Ugh. *That* was the part she had forgotten, and was so ill-prepared to deal with. The constant tug-of-war between sides. Though perhaps even in hating that tug of war, she was lying to herself.

After all, she had made the choice already, hadn't she? The dark side of the force flowed through her now. Ever since this morning. The Light was closed off to her. Or at least it was so distant that it would cause no small amount of effort to call on it.

Regardless of who it would turn out to be, and who they were with, a hand went to her darksaber. If Moyr had ever cared to take notice of it during the old days, she'd find it had been greatly altered. The hilt was now of exquisite and superior make. As was the *other* lightsaber she carried, and her armor itself. Clearly, Layne had taken very good care of her tools all these years.

"You'd better have good reason to disturb me," she said angrily as she turned to face the interloper.

"I've chosen to. A Sith needs no other reason." The hood of the cloak was partly cast off to show the face and lekku. The response was calm, maybe slightly ironic. "You've left a trail in the Force I could follow."

She looked at her for a moment, then looked away and sighed.

"Yes. I'm sure I have. Have you come to gloat at the traitor's predicament?"

"Why? And why would you consider betrayal a predicament? It is the utmost expression of freedom. I recall you doing it at least once already, with admirable audacity. My own apprentice has betrayed me, and while I am furious, I recognise it for what it is: embodiment of my teachings." She chuckled. "I wonder why a Jedi would have a problem with it. Isn't 'no attachments' their tenet?"

"The Jedi code is... remarkably open to interpretation as needed," she said, the feeling-sorry-for-herself Layne dominating again.

"Just as the Sith code is."

"Though the latter has a clear 'thereafter' option, which I have personally found very rewarding." Moyr shrugged. "But you're right that the Codes are all about how we use them. I wouldn't recognise any other use than my own."

"I see," she said, wondering why she was talking to Moyr of all people. They had no shared space between them. Other than Baesal perhaps, in some fashion. The one common point between them.

Maybe that was fitting then.

She gave a deep sigh as she stared out across the ice. It was only the third day, but already it felt like she'd been coming out here like this every day for decades.

"Why do you do it?" she asked after a moment. "Why do you do any of it?"

"I have my passionate drive to make a difference, and it keeps me going." Moyr replied honestly.

"I have the same thing," she said, "But.... I wonder if it's enough."

"It is and it isn't. It may be that you neither complete it nor survive. But if you have left strong enough a mark with your actions, there will come others who will strive to finish what you've started."

"That is the problem though, isn't it? Legacies."

Would-be Sith picking up the pieces left behind by has-been Sith. Padawans following in the footsteps of their masters, to stand against the dark. Children taking up the banner of their father and his empire.

"It's all just a circle, endlessly ending where it began. Over and over. But... that's too far into the future. Doesn't really affect me, I guess. What matters is now. And the nearer future. And like you said... whether we are strong enough."

"Dragon wants to freeze the universe into one, eternal, unchanging form. I want the exact opposite, a universe of novelty, unpredictability, and spontaneous renewal. Lingering petty rivalries of the kind we often see between the Sith and the Jedi are just a minor concern in this grand scheme of things."

Moyr of course noticed the inflection.

"When you hear that word, it usually means some form of personal hubris manifested, a form of immortality by other means. In my case, my agenda needn't carry my name. It's sufficient it continues after me."

"Does *everyone* know?" she asked with a deep sigh.

She was frustrated like hell, by how it seemed like everyone already knew what she and Sylvain had learned out in that cave. There had better be something worthwhile to explore further there, as was the plan. Or what else would even have been the point?

"Dragon. Vitiate. Same thing. I will not let him."

There it was; angry-Layne coming back to the foreground.

"I paid a heavy price on Ziost to learn of him, and that sacrifice helped connection in the Force linger enough for me to know of his plans before coming here." She paused, agreeing with Layne's dark resolve. "Nor will I let him have his way."

"I see," she said, kicking another rock through the snow, like an angry child taking it out on whatever was closest and most convenient.

"I learned of him on Nar Shaddaa. During the peace negotiations. And I've sought to stop him ever since. Even worked with Zash to do so..."

At the mention of that name, her angry eyes turned to Moyr and seemed to stare straight into her soul. Oh yes, she *knew* Moyr had been there for that ritual. She knew everything about it, and the consequences it wrought. Consequences that were so... reminiscent... of what ended up happening to the Emperor; though she was sure the Emperor at least, unlike Gerald, would overcome that state of madness to retain control of himself.

Everything felt so connected. A circle coming to a close.

Moyr seemed ready to accept the gaze. She had mostly replaced fear and loathing with other passions to fuel the Dark Side within her, and the steady current of that liberation in the Force was nothing to be ashamed of. Like Layne, she was angry. But her anger was at the inertia of all sentient beings in pursuing freedom through blood, sweat, and tears, and that source of anger would never effectively end. For the same reason, she wasn't angry at Layne at all. In her current ways, she seemed to embody the right kind of Sith for Moyr. Not the bickering kind, lost in their meaningless power struggles, but one with a purpose so strong that it could move the fate of the universe.

"Ah, Zash. She'd emulated him to a point where she realised where it led. In fact, I had had the revelation even before, in the dark lake on Nal Hutta, but he had induced amnesia on me. It took me time to break the veil."

"Zash is a pragmatist," she said, "She helped stand against him only because there is no sense in gaining power if it's all just going to be erased by a *greater* power anyway."

Layne did wonder, though... what happened to her after Ziost. Had she gone right back to seeking out that same power once she thought the threat was gone?

"Oh, I have every reason to hate her. But it would be a distraction so I have sequestered that hate for a time it needs to spring back. She tried to make amends to me on Ziost, and I let her believe those were accepted. Like you say, for pragmatic reasons, most likely. She didn't want to be distracted by me no more than I wanted to spend my precious time to deal with her."

That seemed to draw her interest a little, and she stopped looking for another rock to angrily kick.

"Amends? What did she tell you? Ask of you?"

"Something about violence foreclosing other paths to victory. She came to my establishment to offer a truce of this kind."

That did not sound like Zash, at all. Even when she had come back to Yavin again to meet with Zash and the others, Zash had still seemed like Zash. Perhaps there had been the seeds of something planted in her back then... or before even... but it had still seemed to Layne like the woman's ruthless ambition had only allowed itself to be tempered by ruthless *pragmatism* instead.

"Why would she need to offer a truce to you?"

"That's a good question I have never answered. She had humiliated me on Nar Shaddaa, had taken away a trophy. Perhaps she wanted it to stay that way rather than to deal with me striving to make it even." Moyr shrugged.

"And... you still seek the return of this trophy? And revenge?"

She did not imagine that Zash had anything to fear from any individual former classmate of hers. The differences in power were likely too great. Then again, the dark side did offer up power in ways the light did not. And some of her classmates had, by now, spent far more time in it than Layne had.