SWTOR Bedisa: Shame

Shame.

She bent her head over the prone form of the refugee, placing a hand on the man’s forehead. The droid nearby quietly and soothingly played out it’s soft beeps and other monitoring sounds. Leaving aside the sickness that was passing through this camp, the man Bedisa was seeing now had his hand crushed building a temporary building for one of the new families. She took a soft breath. 

Shame. Fool.

The feelings came back, every now and then. Whispers in the dark, little shadows that twisted and made her expression grow sad, her own heart ache. She focused on the patient, her hand still on his brow. His breathing grew more even, his quiet grunts of pain fading as he fell asleep. Focus, that was the key. She threw herself into a new work, a new path. Healing, not death. 

But the emotions still plagued her. She had opened herself up too far for too long for them not to. 

Coward.

Today was worse then others. So many ill with the passing fever, a few more injuries and accidents then usual. She was tired. Pressing on, but so tired. Mental walls carefully shored up were cracking a little, as they did during such times, leading back to memories she was trying so hard to lay to rest. Father, finding her on Corellia at mother’s direction. The days after, silent, lost, staring into nothing as her parents worried and whispered at a distance. 

They spoke of sending her back to Tython. The shame pierced Bedi’s heart again. She had almost refused, had almost heard a mocking voice in the back of her mind whipping the words of anger and disdain forward. But…no, no. There were debts to be repaid. Apologies. Justice. She had sinned, had fallen, and needed to repay her debts. 

So she went back.

Fool!

She stroked the man’s forehead a moment longer, then delicately placed her other hand on the ugly, bruised, broken limb before her. Peace, she thought. Tython had brought her a measure of peace. She could ignore the faint sense of self righteousness, the looks some of the masters had given her as she admitted “wrong doing”. But they were not cruel. They were quiet. Her handler was supportive, gentle.  He had a strength she needed, he understood. There some weeks, she felt restored. She talked. She wept.  There were a few others who also understood, who had walked a darker path in the days since Coruscant had fallen, or in battle with Zakuul. 

So many of them, though, still subscribed to the Jedi path. She could not. Not again. Slowly, trusting, speaking with her mentor, she spoke of her misgivings. She separated them from the past. No, she could not be true Jedi again. She saw too many flaws, too many mistakes. They children were too sheltered, the philosophy becoming too rigid. She would walk again in the Light, but not hand in hand with the Jedi. 

It helped her mentor understood. He knew of the walking wounded, of her heartache and the type of pain the soul could feel. He told the masters she was ready to leave, and needed time alone.

Coward! Coward!

She had fled. She was a coward. She still could not think back too far, focus too much on the most painful of memories. Her mother and father had helped, in their way, and she had realized, more then once, that one of them had some force sensitivity. How else they had found her on that wretched planet? But it wasn’t enough to get to the root of the problem.

She didn’t want to think of the others yet. She didn’t want to even approach thoughts of him. But she knew what she had done. She knew blood was on her hands. She had tasted the dark, and revelled in it. However little she had, she had still known it, and a debt was owed. So she fled, into space, with her datapads and her knowledge and her meditations. 

She could help those in need. 

She did not want to debate the nature of the Force anymore. It was as it was, different for each person. Philosophy made her weary in a way it hadn’t before. So she focused on healing. On skills that were non violent, promoted peace. She had left her lightsabers with the girl, and that was as it should be. 

She carried her shame, her fear, but kept it buried. There was more important work to do, more important people to help. She bent her head over the injured man and smiled gently, keeping her expression level. 

“This will not hurt, I promise.”