***THIS VERSION IS OUTDATED. SEE THE ADAPTED AND IMPROVED VERSION ON MY PROFILE***
There are few stories that are told among the Jedi Order long enough to become myth. Legend. It takes importance to stand the test of time that way. A lesson has to b...
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When Phaedris finally wakes up, he is alone. Again.
He sits up with a grunt, his back aching as he stands. A fog rests thickly over his mind; remnants of Circe's magic in his head. She's more powerful than he thought. Both of them are. The fact that the other boy, Anakin, was able to track her from such a distance means that their bond is strong. That's probably why Sidious wanted him to keep them apart.
He groans, resting against the wall and doubling over to put his head in his hands. He's going to be ruined. Sidious is going to kill him, surely, for failing. His heart plummets at the thought, dropping into his stomach like a stone in a tank of water. Fear gathers in the corners of his mind but he breathes out forcefully, raising his white head and shoving his emotions back down as though they were bile in his throat.
He's irreplaceable. There's nothing he could do that would change how important he is to his Master. He's destined to be his successor, to inherit the glory that Sidious is bringing to the galaxy. He's done everything he's asked, bled for his cause, suffered for his plans, and sacrificed everything in his name.
Phaedris has killed himself time and time again for the honor of being the next Sith lord. Just like his Master, the man who taught him, and fed him, and saved him from desolation and irrelevance in his old life.
From down the hall, a droid whirs through a door quietly to alert him that he is being called upon from the communications bay. Phaedris, like a dog trained to a whistle, pulls himself to his feet and makes his way through the hallways. He's been prepared and conditioned all his life by the Sith lord, primed like an animal for a circus. And so Phaedris pretends that he is loved, too blinded by his loyalty to question it. And Sidious throws him at every obstacle as though his life is expendable. To him, it is.
"My lord, I apologize for keeping you waiting," Phaedris bows, facing Sidious' holographic image in the middle of the room.
"The girl. She lives?" The old man asks quietly.
"Yes, my lord."
"And she has escaped you?"
"Yes," He does not look up, "My lord."
Darth Sidious is silent for a long time. Phaedris can feel his fury bubbling up in the old man's throat. When he speaks, his tone is laced with ice and venom, and it stings the boy all over.
"You pathetic, selfish child!" He spits, "I always knew you were incapable, but I have come to realize that you're self-centered! Putting your own ambitions ahead of my orders."
"I would never, Master! I did everything that I could."
The words are honest and true, but Sidious does not care.
"LIES!" He snarls.
Phaedris flinches, clasping his hands so hard his nails pierce his skin.
"You let the girl go on purpose! You are selfish, Pheadris! You've never appreciated anything I've done for you, all the sacrifices I've made. I should have left you to rot with your family. You'd have been more use to the galaxy festering in a grave."
"I did not let her go," Phaedris insists quietly, keeping his eyes down. "She and her Jedi friend escaped. He came to help her."
"Oh, and you couldn't handle a few Jedi?" He sneers. "Pathetic. You're an embarrassment to me."
"Master," The frost-haired boy says quietly, "Let me prove myself to you. Give me another chance to get to her. She has begun to trust me."
Sidious is silent for a few, furious, tense, unbearable moments. "You hesitated. You opened yourself to her."
"No!"
"You were caught off-guard because she resembles you so? Did her white hair give you hope, young Phaedris!?" His voice grows louder, that of a parent screaming at their defenseless child, relishing in the power of it all, "Did you think you might have a family after all?!"
The thought had crossed his mind for only a moment. But it takes only that for the thought to be tangible, and Sidious has reign over Phaedris's mind. What he thinks, what he wants, it all belongs to the Sith lord.
"You have no family, Phaedris. I made sure of it. That Circe bears any resemblance to you is a sick joke from fate itself. The universe is laughing at you, boy. Laughing at you for thinking that you could belong somewhere."
"I will do whatever you ask of me."
"You will sit in the White Castle, and you will think, and you will earn your next mission with your obedience. I have a group of traitors in transport to you. When they land, you will kill them before they set foot of their ship," Sidious instructs.
"Yes, my lord. I will do it gladly."
He thinks of blood. It's a taste on the back of his tongue. It burns like fire.
Sidious's presence vanishes after that, and Phaedris is left shaking with rage. He knew it was a foolish thought to have the moment it crossed his mind. He would have known if she were his blood. A Jedi that powerful, he would've known the instant that they came into contact.
But still, he cannot help the disappointment he feels. The embarrassment. To think that he believed she could be his kin, that he could have someone out there who knows him.
He looks down at his palm where his rings dug into his skin—the phoenix, the dragon, the serpent-leaving three red imprints behind. He belongs to no one. He is no one. And he is scorned for daring to forget that for just a moment.
