Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [1]
A sense of calm settled over him, washing away the irrational terror of his dream. Yet he knew better than to merely dismiss it. The storm that haunted him each time he closed his eyes was more than just a nightmare. Conjured up from the deepest corners of his mind, the storm had meaning. But try as he might, Revan couldn’t figure out what his subconscious was trying to tell him.
Was it a warning? A long-forgotten memory? A vision of the future? All three?
Careful not to wake his wife, he rolled out of bed and went into the refresher to splash some cool water on his face. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he stopped to study his reflection.
Even now, two standard years after rediscovering his true identity, he still had trouble reconciling the face in the mirror with the man he had been before the Jedi Council had turned him back to the light.
Revan: Jedi; hero; traitor; conqueror; villain; savior. He was all these things and more. He was a living legend; the embodiment of myth and folklore; a figure that transcended history. Yet all he saw staring back at him was an ordinary man who hadn’t slept in three nights.
Fatigue was taking its toll. His angular features had become thin and drawn. His pale skin accentuated the dark circles under eyes that stared back at him from deep hollows.
Bracing a hand on either side of the sink, he slumped his head and let out a long, low sigh, his black, shoulder-length hair falling forward to cover his face like a dark curtain. After several seconds he stood up straight, using the fingers of both hands to sweep his hair back into place.
Moving quietly, he made his way from the refresher and across the small living room of his apartment. He proceeded out onto the balcony, where he stopped and stared out across Coruscant’s endless cityscape.
Traffic in the galactic capital never stopped, and he found the constant buzz and blur of shuttles speeding by soothing. He leaned out over the railing of the balcony as far as he could, his eyes unable to pierce the darkness to make out the planet’s surface hundreds of stories below.
“Don’t jump. I don’t want to have to clean up the mess.”
He turned his head at the sound of Bastila’s voice behind him.
She stood at the threshold of the balcony door, the bedsheet draped around her shoulders to ward off the night’s chill. Her long brown hair—normally pulled back up from her forehead into a bun on top and a short ponytail below—hung loose and sleep-tousled. Her face was only partially illuminated by the glow of the city below, yet he could see her lips pressed into a wry smile. Despite her joking words, he could see real concern etched on her features.
“Sorry,” he said, stepping away from the rail and turning toward her. “Didn’t mean to wake you. Just needed to clear my head.”
“Maybe you should speak to the Jedi Council,” Bastila suggested. “They might be able to help.”
“You want me to ask the Council for help?” he echoed. “You must have had too much of that Corellian wine at dinner.”
“They owe you,” Bastila insisted. “If it weren’t for you, Darth Malak would have destroyed the Republic, eliminated the Council, and all but wiped out the Jedi. They owe you everything!”
Revan didn’t answer right away. What she said was true—he had stopped Darth Malak and destroyed the Star Forge. But it wasn’t that simple. Malak had been Revan’s apprentice. Against the wishes of the Council, the two had led an army of Jedi and Republic soldiers against Mandalorian raiders threatening colonies in the Outer Rim … only to return not as heroes, but as conquerors.
Revan and Malak had both sought to destroy the Republic. But Malak had betrayed his Master, and Revan had been captured by the Jedi Council, barely alive, his body and mind shattered. The Council had saved his life, but they had also stripped his memories and rebuilt him as a weapon that could be unleashed against Darth Malak and his followers.
“The Council doesn’t owe me anything,” Revan whispered. “All the good I’ve done can’t balance out the evil that came before.”
Bastila