Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Layne Hoshin]

Things were getting a bit better with her eyes, though they probably weren't completely fine just yet. After the Chiss had departed, she'd gone back to resting as best as she could. Though the thoughts and feelings just kept coming anyway.

[Luth Khalan]

The form was likely blurry and dark, but the voice and the red section of the blur wasn't likely easy to mistake. Luth entered the room, heading over to the bed and dropping into the chair next to it with an audible 'thunk'. The anger was palpable. "So! How did it go? Find what you're looking for?" She asked with the most sunnily cheerful tone she could wrench out of her own throat.

[Layne Hoshin]

Luth. She'd survived too. That was something, at least, she supposed. Though with the anger she could no doubt sense in the woman, she wasn't sure if she should be glad for it. Luth in turn, would hardly be able to avoid sensing the aura of defeat that hung around Layne.

"...I suppose I did...," she said after a good long pause, "...In the last place I deigned to look."

[Luth Khalan]

"Deigned is the right word for it," she replied, dropping into a more normal annoyed tone of voice. "What happened?"

[Layne Hoshin]

She wasn't sure if Luth understood what she'd really meant by that, but then again maybe she couldn't. And maybe it didn't really matter anyhow.

"Like I said... I found what I was looking for, I guess. I'm guessing maybe you did as well."

[Luth Khalan]

"You mostly kept saying that going there was something you had to do and alluding to how you were the only one who could deal with this threat, etc," she replied with a shake of her head. "So I don't know exactly what you were after in there. I hope it was worth putting our cooperation with the Republic at risk."

"Me? No. I was hoping to improve my understanding of the Force, specifically the Dark Side. It being a Dark Side vergence and everything. It was nothing that useful."

[Layne Hoshin]

"...I'm sorry," she said after a long and awkward pause.

"...I should've just let you make your own choices instead of trying to fix you somehow. I'm sorry, because it wasn't even really for you. I just... tried to make you into nothing more than a vessel for my guilt. I was being selfish."

[Luth Khalan]

She was amused, a little bit. "I could tell that much. I was just a physical embodiment of your mistakes. Perhaps if I could be saved, then you could?" She shook her head. "That part I'd already let go of. Forgiven, I suppose."

"Sounds like things have changed." she let out a breath, shaking her head. "You got something like that, I got an inane power fantasy, and Shyyyo is still missing."

[Layne Hoshin]

She wasn't necessarily surprised that Sylvain was still missing, though she was sure he'd show up again, sooner or later.

"...I saw my future. As told by someone else, to people I think will be born long, long after we're dust... and I didn't like what I heard... I think..."

She frowned, struggling to put it into words.

".. I know... that I made a terrible mistake..."

[Luth Khalan]

Luth let out a long sigh, letting go of the anger as she looked down at Layne. "That's the first step."

"Unfortunately, the next step is getting you through a murder trial before the leaders on the Republic's end."

[Layne Hoshin]

"Good," she said.

Maybe the Chiss had mentioned it. Or one of the soldiers. But if they had, she'd have forgotten about the prospect of any trial. It didn't really seem to matter all that much. Unless it granted her a release from that terrible future she'd saw.

[Luth Khalan]

"As Darth Baras deemed that your use hasn't run out, I'm going to be helping with your defense," she added with a sigh. "So I need to know as much as possible about the first three days we were here."

[Layne Hoshin]

"...I'm not going to lie," she said, quite probably to the great annoyance of Luth.

Layne was after all probably the worst kind of client a criminal defense lawyer could want; the kind that wants to confess to everything and get the death penalty. Hard to win any cases with clients like that, one might imagine.

[Luth Khalan]

"That's great," she replied, taking out her data pad. "Because you already confessed in front of like four Jedi and me. We'd be idiots to pursue a complete drop to all charges. Our options are basically going to be a plea deal or trying to get an insanity verdict."

"You've been sounding pretty unhinged your entire time here, so I think the latter is a distinct possibility."

[Layne Hoshin]

She would've found that amusing, if she wasn't still feeling so sorry for herself and others. There might even have been a chuckle if that hadn't been the case.

"...Most of what force sensitives have to deal with would sound unhinged to others," she said, sounding tired, "I don't think you can convince people that it justifies anything. They won't understand... and they shouldn't have to."

[Luth Khalan]

"The goal of that particular verdict is reduction of sentence and putting you under direct supervision until you can get it. Preferably ours," she explained bluntly. "It's not about justification or understanding. Either way, it's not the only possibility. We'll find out what arguments and evidence the prosecution will be presenting and I'll need to talk to Baesal."

"Anyway, I need you to tell me exactly what happened out there on the date of the murder. What you witnessed and experienced."

[Layne Hoshin]

At this point, Layne had certainly figured out that being remanded into Imperial custody was likely to *greatly* complicate the pursuit of this feint hope she'd rekindled; the hope she'd learn to forgive herself and through such forgiveness, find the means to avoid that terrible future. The Jedi could help her with that, of course...

...but she did think it was rather unlikely they'd take her back in. And maybe that'd be too easy, anyway. She was still so uncertain about that part of the equation.

She considered all of that, and the question Luth asked, finally giving another sigh.

"...I doubt it'll help if we're just here to do Baras' bidding. I went to him in the morning. After everything that'd happened and that I'd done the day before, that he'd help with even... I'd resolved myself during the night to go to the vergence, thinking I would need to plunge myself into the darkness beforehand or it'd destroy me. That was... a lie of course... I can't really explain it very well yet, why it was... but it was."

"...He knew I would come. I recited the Sith code. We talked. Draahg was there, dragged the woman out. Said she'd been caught trying to spy or something. I don't know if that's true or not. Be convenient if it was, I guess. He needed... some way for me to cross the point of no return... proof I'd switched back over. And back then, I still believed the lie I'd told myself. That it was necessary."

She shooked her head.

"...so I did it. I told myself that if I'd say no, she'd end up dead anyway, and maybe that's true... but... I still did it. Not Draahg, not Baras. Me."

[Luth Khalan]

"Mm-hmm..." She noted it down on her data pad, extracting the hard evidence and noting the psychological aspects about her self-image separately. "So it was just you, Draahg, and Baras, then. Do you know if any physical evidence was left at the scene? It would be strange if they were diligent about keeping things under wraps."

[Layne Hoshin]

She knew; or suspected at least; that there was a reasonable chance that Luth was only asking as a way of making sure any such evidence was quietly disposed off before it could come up at the trial. But if that were the case, she wasn't sure she cared.

"Draahg may have left and forgotten the bag they'd kept over her head, or the binders I suppose. Or even the body. I don't know what they did with any of it. May have just left it to get covered by the snow."

[Luth Khalan]

"If he did, he's a worse liability than I ever previously considered. That would be insanely sloppy. The Republic may have a weak case to begin with in terms of burden of proof... For murder to stick, the proof has to be incontrovertible," she said, looking at the data pad. As always when she was in work mode, whether the task was murder of being an impromptu lawyer, she was focused and ice cold. "Right now we may only have your confession. Which, even if your mental state was merely clearly distressed as you were rather than fully disconnected from reality, isn't all that strong."

[Layne Hoshin]

"But I *did it*," she said, nothing of her old strength or anger in it, but clearly more than she'd been able to muster at any other point in the day so far.

[Luth Khalan]

Luth's eyes turned toward her without moving her head. Then she smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile. "First time experiencing the Republic justice system, hmm? You doing it has nothing to do with anything. Them being able to prove you did it beyond a shadow of a doubt has everything to do with it. The confession is out there, but they need to back it up with solid evidence or it's shaky at best."

[Layne Hoshin]

"That isn't fair," she said, like a pouting child in reverse; not upset that they got caught and are being punished, but that they might *avoid* punishment.

"...so, that's to be my defense then? I'm sad and they can't find the body?"

[Luth Khalan]

She scoffed. "Welcome to life. You might want to get used to that."

"Not sad, necessarily. Stressed out and controlled by fear and your own delusions of grandeur spawned by it," she replied simply. "Abetted by exposure to the elements. The Dark Side can be deceptive. Who knows what really happened out there? Without evidence, even your memory might legitimately be suspect."

[Layne Hoshin]

"It sounds as if you found what you were looking for out there after all," she said, "Or maybe you were this callous from the start, I don't know."

Her shoulders slumped a little. "You are right though. About those delusions of grandeur, at least."