suitably_heroic | The Ebon Hawk, Dantooine, Then Telos, Right After Last Post

Meetra	She tore through the Ebon Hawk's corridors at a dead run. Parsing the exact implications of everything she'd been told, that could wait; right now she had to figure out what was going on and how terrible it was. In her haste, she nearly tripped over a bundle of muscle and fabric curled up in the hallway leading into the cockpit. "Atton!"
Atton	Atton made a noise that was largely indecipherable. He pushed up off the floor with difficulty - everything hurt. There was a wound on his side that made him favor the other, one arm hanging almost limp from his shoulder.
Meetra	Meetra's hand slipped into her pocket to find a medkit without thinking about it twice. "Where's Kreia?!"
Atton	For once, he didn't have any snarky asides. "She's gone," Atton said. "The Handmaiden took her. She thinks Kreia killed you."
Meetra	"Where is she taking her?" Meetra asked. If anything happened to Kreia-- if anything happened at all-- it was on her. Somehow.
Atton	Damn it, Meetra. You knew. You just didn't want to believe it. "She'll take her to Telos," Atton said, wincing as his weight shifted a little too much. " That's why she wanted the Handmaiden on board, you know. So she could use her to reach the Telos Academy whenever she wished - without needing the access codes. And Atris will do what she'll do to anyone she thinks is a Sith."
Meetra	She blanched. "But Kreia and I are linked," she said. "If she dies..."
Atton	"Yeah," Atton breathed. He shut his eyes. "I know."
Meetra	And now, despite her wishes, it was all starting to fall into place. Meetra closed her eyes herself and took a deep breath. "The Sith are going to attack Telos," she said steadily. "It's all going to be decided there."
Atton	"That's what I was afraid you'd say," Atton said. It was a pitiful attempt at snark. He just didn't have anything else. "I'll plot the course," he added, taking the medkit from her - and then stumbling towards the pilot's seat. Space, everything hurt. And there was blood on his shirt. He'd have to get a new one.

Atris	Atris stood waiting in the holocron room. She had felt most of what had transpired... and it meant little. Justice, perhaps, served to cowardly men who had no rights to call themselves Jedi. Except now she felt... something else. Something closer. "Who is there?"
Kreia	"Who I am is not the question," Kreia said. She walked into the room as if she possessed it. And for all the Handmaidens had let her roam, she might as well have.
Atris	"I am Atris," Atris spoke, without turning around. She did not need to face the Sith to know who she was. Let her come to her. "Jedi Master. The last historian of the Jedi... the last of the Jedi."
Kreia	"Those are titles." Kreia's voice held no heat, no condemnation. She was simply stating the truth. "Words you cling to as the darkness falls around you." She stepped further into the room, casting it a glance. "It is not the first time we have met, Atris. I was here... before."
Atris	"With the Exile?" Atris hated the way her voice sounded in this moment.
Kreia	"Yes," Kreia acknowledged. "I was here both times the Exile was brought before you."
Atris	Atris fought the urge to turn and look. "Who are you?" she asked again.
Kreia	"I'm the one who asked for her to be exiled," Kreia replied.
Atris	Now... now the Force signature began to make sense... to show more than simple malevolence. "You... you seem familiar to me," Atris said. "But... you are that what has attacked the Jedi. You are Sith." The enemy, once and always.
Kreia	"'Sith' is a title, yes," Kreia said. She paced a languid circle through the room. "But like you, the title is not who I am. It is not what I believe. For you... it is different." She paused, again, and looked to Atris, even if she did not need to. "Know that there was once a Darth Traya," she said. "And that she cast aside that role, was exiled, and found new purpose." Nothing so simple as becoming a Jedi, of course. She and the fool were almost alike in this - almost. And not at all. "But there must always be a Darth Traya, one that holds the knowledge of betrayal. Who has been betrayed in her heart, and will betray in return." And who was a more perfect candidate but the righteous woman standing before her? "You have bathed in the knowledge of the Sith, but there is not enough truth in such teachings. It will be a step for you." She had resumed her pacing, and now she stood at Atris' side at last. The Jedi Master had not budged, but she did not need to. "You have gathered Sith holocrons, Sith teachings from across the galaxy. It is why you have chosen servants who cannot feel the Force." Kreia's mouth turned. Into a smile? Not quite. "More importantly, they cannot feel what you have become."
Atris	There was too much truth in these accusations; Atris felt the desperate need to repel them, to dispel them. Her voice shook. "I have sought to preserve the Jedi Order," she protested. "And I have gathered all that I know of the Sith to this place so that I might find them... and stop them."
Kreia	Kreia cast her Force sight forward, picking up on so many familiar and unfamiliar signatures around the room. "I had wondered if any of these holocrons survived Dantooine," she mused. "You have taken relics from one destroyed planet... to the devastation of another."
Atris	"It was always intended for the Jedi to retreat to Telos should Dantooine be attacked, taking all their lore with them," Atris said quietly. "We could not allow the tragedy at Ossus to happen again."
Kreia	"Such an act marked Telos for destruction," Kreia noted dispassionately. "It is why the Sith came here, though the fleet commanders did not know why. It is why Revan ordered its destruction to mark the beginning of the Jedi Civil War. It was a message that there would be no place for the Jedi to retreat, to hide." A message born of the Mandalorian Wars - and of the future. "I would not be surprised if Revan left other gifts beneath the surface of the planet. Much can be buried beneath graveyard that will never be found."
Atris	"When the Sith attacked..." Atris said slowly. "...I felt Telos die." It had been... disconcerting. "Turbolasers fell like lightning upon the landscape. As they did on Dantooine. And so many died... so many voices, screaming in pain."
Kreia	It was this pain from which the other Jedi Masters had hidden. It was this pain that had corrupted Revan's Jedi, and it was this pain that had sent Meetra Surik into exile, the one Jedi strong enough to hear and not fall... but a terrified Jedi none the less. "Yes, such acts leave their mark on the galaxy," Kreia said. "Their cries can travel far, though few can hear them." As for Atris... well.
Atris	Atris shut her eyes. "How did it happen?" she asked. She barely understood what she was asking. And she understood all too well.
Kreia	"Search your heart," Kreia said quietly. "It was never battle that called to you. Never battle that caused you to fall." She was the first to use that word here. And it was deliberate - intentional. Atris had to face what she had become. "Malachor V touched many things, and it casts it echoes still."
Atris	That made you fall. Fall. Fallen. "Why did she betray me?" Atris asked, voice shaking again.
Kreia	"You betrayed yourself," Kreia said simply. "Do not blame the Exile." Atris had been blaming others long enough. "And unlike you and I, there is still a chance one may be saved. The one you cast out."
Atris	Atris drew in a thick breath, willing it to help her recover her composure. "Where is the Exile?" she asked. "I had thought..."
Kreia	"Oh, she will come," Kreia said. She turned around, back towards the entrance. She should not be here for this next step. "But it will be too late to save either of us." She paused. She supposed she owed Atris... some level of understanding, for there was an experience here that they had shared, decades apart, but still the same. "It is... such a quiet thing, to fall," she said softly. "But far more terrible is to admit it."
Atris	Atris shook again on the next breath. She reached for her eyes but found no tears there. The terrible truth curled up in her stomach and lashed up at her jaw, nipping and biting with anger and sorrow both.
Kreia	Kreia strode out of the holocron chamber. She was met on her way down by two of the Handmaidens, who gave her glances that were both questioning and suspicious. Why was she still alive? "Your mistress awaits," she said lightly. "She has much to share with you."