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Know this. I will love you for the rest of my days. There will never be another. No matter how much time or circumstance changes things; that will never change. The Force has a plan for us, I know it does. And if it’s the Will, I will see you again. You are in the depths of my soul and it is in my heart that I will keep you there, safe and guarded. I will never forget you…I will always love you.

- Myst…>>

--

-- Gardurrga the Hutt's Palace Arena - The Final Day...

Painstakingly, Gardurrga the Hutt had crafted this moment. Either way, he came out the winner. Odds that the Hutts, as a species, always liked to be in their favor. Rarely did a Hutt wager or enter a deal where the odds were NOT in their favor. Sheer arrogance more times than not were the smasher of many a Hutt dream. Especially when either a Jedi or a Sith was involved in the deal. The Force by its very nature added a chaotic variable that the Hutts just couldn't account for in assessing risk. It would have made sense that after so many a deal had been soured by users of the Force that the Hutts would cease dealing and wagering where Jedi or Sith were concerned. Arrogance led to vanity in the Hutt's case. Vanity was the downfall of many a Hutt who could not humble themselves to see the bigger picture.

As Gardurrga slithered into the viewing box, none of this crossed his mind. Why should it? In his estimation there was simply no way to lose. The Jedi elimination of Mrysti meant one less adversary in the galaxy and the elimination of a competitor in the Arena that threatened to sour the Hutt’s monopoly of the sport. If Mrysti prevailed, then Gardurrga gained another champion. A champion he looked forward to breaking in order to do his bidding. It didn't hurt that Mrysti was attractive to him, but that was simply a bonus.

--

Mrysti stood behind the bars of the portcullis, the light from the arena floor parting the bars in odd angles. It looked as if only parts of her were there, Caleb saw parts of green flesh and rustic looking cloth as he looked across. He pressed his body close to his own set of bars, a stern look on his face staring directly at her. Almost reaching across the arena floor to her; his blue eyes met the one red he could see of Mrysti's. She looked away gritting her teeth, murmuring under her breath.

"Hold it together Bitch…he's just a Jedi, just another Jedi….nothing there…."

Caleb closed his eyes keeping his forehead pressed to the bars sending Mrysti his thoughts, hoping she would hear, '….I will not fight you. I love you…and that love is unconditional…'

Mrysti shook her head to try and sling those thoughts out as Gardurrga began speaking through his translator droid.

Mrysti bristled slightly as the Hutt's translator spoke, finally getting her intensity. She focused on the rage, the desire to feel suffering; Caleb's suffering. Across from her, Caleb could feel that Mrysti had severed the connection. He could feel her anger at him for invading her thoughts and detracting her from her personal mission. The translator droned on as the bars blocking the huge entrance started moving upward slowly.

Mrysti chose steel against her Master's better judgment, the loud 'sheng' the blade made as it came out of the scabbard on her hip clearly audible to everyone in the Arena. Caleb stepped out past the bars still rising to look directly across at Mrysti. Brown robes flowing in the soft breeze, Caleb only turned briefly to look toward the darkened review box set high above. The shadowy image of the Hutt outlined in the low light emanating from behind.

It was a little surprising to Caleb that Mrysti was holding a blade instead of a saber and the blade was a normal broadsword length only slightly larger than a standard lightsaber. As Mrysti walked slowly toward him, closing the distance he could see her tightening her grip on the hilt, one handedly testing its weight as she moved it in time with her steps. It wasn't an expression of anger he felt from her, it was conflict despite her facial sneer. Before the bars rose, Caleb made a decision. He knew he could get to her. Had confidence the little bit of information he gained by watching her in the morning would not be needed. Caleb was going to try and ‘turn’ her with her own emotions. The conflict he felt as she approached increased, Mrysti even looking away from him once their eyes met. And Caleb felt his heart jump.

Getting closer the Hutt's translated words stopped Caleb cold, he didn't see Mrysti stop as well nearly dropping her sword in similar shock.

Her head snapped toward Caleb, who's mouth was still agape looking up toward the darkened review stand.

"What's the meaning of this Jedi?!?! Are you working with Gardurrga to try and distract me!!!" All thoughts of ‘turning’ her suddenly vanished. The rage and anger in Mrysti was real and instantaneous. Betrayal bled out of her. She screamed in rage swinging toward Caleb, a blow that would have cut him in half had he not quickly leapt backwards.

"Whoa. Wait a minute! This is just as much a shock to you as it is--" He activated his saber in time to block the next downward slash toward him, half expecting the sword to melt in half on his silver-blue plasma blade. The sparks showered as Mrysti pressed into the plasma.

"Stop lying!!! Die with some dignity, Jedi!" Caleb slid his foot back putting two hands on the saber and angled Mrysti into a kickback, hitting her with his shoulder to push her off before kicking out with a foot. She immediately rolled with the push and kick; spinning the rest of the way around. The sword leading the charge. It caught the front of Caleb's tunic slicing cleanly through and grazing the skin. Blood started to ebb onto Caleb's light brown undertunic. "It’s all been one big lie!!! All you've done is try to play on my sympathy, make me think we were in love!"

--

As the battle commenced, Darth Malvox moved in next to Gardurrga. Anger rolled off of her as the Hutt glanced down, "Pouting? That's not very Sith-like…." Malvox typically returned such a comment with a false smile and snarky comment, but not this time. She never took eyes off the two fighting for their lives down below as she spoke in a gravely tone.

"I had this completely under control. That is…until you decided to give her yet another reason to question our motives here. There is no reason to cloud her judgment any further…" The stare matched her words as the look cast Gardurrga into stone, "…and I'm fully aware you wish her to lose, for profits sake; you're not sure you can tame her should she win. Prudent."

Gardurrga gave a jiggly belly laugh as he stuffed one of the creatures from his nearby food tank into his mouth, licking his lips. "As I said before Darth Malvox, I always win. I'm not a gambling Hutt otherwise…"

--

Mrysti could hear the laughter echo from above instantly setting her further ablaze. The Hutt had been manipulating events from the start and Mrysti knew it. The way Caleb reacted. Elusive. He was as shocked as she was, but on a different level. As they continued to fight, Mrysti could feel the confusion in him from what the Hutt’s translator spoke. But the love…that was real. Perhaps not from a distant past that the droid spoke of, but from somewhere.

Caleb was still fighting defensively as Mrysti landed several slight glancing blows. Only one other strike other than the first one to Caleb's chest drawing blood. Purposefully, she drew back stepping on her rear leg and spinning to give Caleb some breathing room. Predicting correctly, Caleb threw out his offhand to push Mrysti back with the Force. For his part, Mrysti knew he didn't want to fight her. The need to create more space between them paramount.

Caleb overplayed the power of the shove from the Force. And Mrysti was counting on it. Sliding back on her feet as she was pushed, she grunted; angling herself toward the private reviewing box. Hurling her sword into the wave of invisible energy with all of her enhanced strength and power. Hand outstretched as she landed, sending the wave and her sword toward the darkness of the box Gardurrga occupied.

Sickening, the slicing of Hutt flesh echoed in the upper deck. The blast sending the sword straight to the heart of the darkness and straight into the upper chest area of the enormous slug. There was no time for Gardurrga to even scream out as the sword struck any vocal cords and breathing tubes located in that area. Only the spasmodic grabbing of the sword existed as Gardurrga's last moment was spent glaring at Malvox, who ran to the edge of the box to peer at her apprentice who was turning to face her opponent slowly, palms up and now completely unarmed.

"Wha-Mrysti…what are you doing?" Caleb still stood in a guard stance, his lightsaber held rigidly in two hands to his side. A strange wicked smile ebbed its way onto Mrysti's face as she stopped turning to stare at him.

"I simply hated him more in that moment than I hated you…" Mrysti didn't move and neither did Caleb, "…go ahead Jedi, strike me down. It’s the only way you will leave this Arena alive."

Busily Caleb's mind worked, considering all the factors at the surprising development. In the end it was the Jedi in him that prevailed. Not just the Jedi, Caleb could not and would not kill the only thing that had actually allowed him to experience ‘Love’. Emotions were alien to the Jedi, Caleb had been given a taste and now when faced with its end, desperately wanted to taste that again. Caleb dropped the guard stance slightly; deactivating the lightsaber and tossed it away.

"No….I won't do it. You may be evil, but you were once a Jedi, Mrysti. It is not my destiny or yours to end in this place. Who you once were should know this." Caleb slowly turned, he said most of what he wanted to say. He said what a Jedi would say; leaving out the part that a man desperately in Love, rediscovering that Love, should have said. As Caleb turned to walk away confident he had said most of his peace, Malvox screamed from the sky box.

"No!!! Do not let him live apprentice!! Kill him, kill him now!!!"

Mrysti was well past those words, her mind not even registering the order from her Master. She had already started to charge at Caleb, her right hand outstretched to call his lightsaber to her hand.

"You!!! Don't you turn your back on me!!!"

A part of her said ‘no’. Even as the saber landed in her palm and she felt the vibrating hilt sing to life with the snap-hiss of plasma. It was a distant cry. Deep inside. More simply, a statement. A simple ‘no’. This was Love. Not just hers, not just Caleb’s. But Love itself. Mrysti felt that cry and ignored it.

The Force screamed out to Caleb. And he turned in time to meet the lightsaber as it plunged into him. Reaching out to grasp Mrysti on both shoulders as she slid blade and herself toward him. They embraced. All at once she felt it leave. Caleb and the Force, a part of it hidden within her either due to not being able to remember or having forgotten due to her mistreatment over the years. Mrysti felt the cold chill of not only death, but the darkness creep in.

They locked eyes. Frozen in the moment. But Caleb’s were not sad. He actually smiled as they stood paused in that moment. All was sudenly revealed to him. Like a doorway had opened up due to his impending death. Seeing the letter she wrote, the message Karolin left; her hands on his face as she took the pain away. The real events of Korriban. All of it became real once again. And Caleb knew what had to be done.

Mrysti quickly withdrew the blade and caught him, tossing the lightsaber aside. Lowering him to the ground gently as she cradled him. He was still holding on to her. The last moments of life, clutching to say and look on that which he loved more than himself. A noble sacrifice. He could not kill her; giving himself over to the Force in order to spare her the pain of having to do it for him. But she did it anyway. Caleb finally understood. This was what had to happen. To make her see and have her remember what it felt like. What he and she, felt like.

“I may have been wr-wrong…ab-about tha-that destiny—” Caleb sputtered, blood ebbing from both sides of his mouth as he coughed and clutched at her hard.

Mrysti laid her hand on his chest, pulling him up to place her head on his. In her mind, she saw it. Fragments, bits of memory and information. He wasn’t lying. It was just as he said and felt. They had been together at some point. At the last and as Caleb breathed his last breath, he smiled and hissed.

“There is n-no death…” His eyes darted to hers. “…there is only….Lo-love….”

As Mrysti killed love and as that love died in her arms it subconsciously struck her to the very core of her soul. Though she couldn't feel the loss, not like the passing of someone she knew and had fond memories of, her Force Aura would not let it be. As if seeing something so frightening, so terrifying in that instant; Mrysti's hair began to bleed itself of its lustrous red color, turning slowly to a bright shade of white as Love bled out of it and out of her soul.

The grip on his neck loosened as she allowed him to begin to fall in her grasp, cradling him like a Mother would cradle her child. His head fell forward slightly and Mrysti had to shift her weight to continue to hold him. The flash of memory Caleb passed to her as he left the world they were in and passed into the Force hit her like a runaway speeder….

…..Karolin grasped Caleb's face gently entering his mind, the view of the recess could be seen from someone's point of view, as the image spun to show Caleb looking over the recess, Mrysti could tell she was watching it through Karolin's eyes. Karolin? She looks like me….but, smaller. Who?

Mrysti saw herself, it was early into her capture, before she knew enough to resist….or that she needed to. For years she was so dependent on that contact, any contact that she didn't know any better….

The scream of ecstasy that made Caleb flinch made her tighten her grip on him. She left her head on his for a moment before lowering him to the ground, he was gone; one with the Force…

….the image swelled into light. It was the last moment, Caleb knew what he had to do, but he didn't want to. He glanced over his shoulder, the brightest smile. The pull was more addictive than even his love for her, he had to obey it.

Mrysti looked on bewildered. She lost so much, so many memories. And now she wanted more. To remember everything. Caleb didn't lie. He did come for her and he thought--She sobered instantly, looking up fighting back pain even worse than anything physical that could be inflicted.

"You thought I betrayed you…you though I gave myself freely to…", Mrysti’s words trailed off at the image burning itself into her mind. The image of Caleb, standing on that recess, looking down at her being taken. The image of Caleb’s world ending in that moment. A pain worse than any for a man who was so very much in Love.

Caleb walked toward the light, still looking back.

"It’s ok, I Will see you again…" Caleb walked toward the Light in Mrysti’s mind, she saw him and standing in the Arena, lifted her hand slightly. She wanted to tell him not to go, but had no reason not to.

“No…” Mrysti murmured. Pieces of her former life with him, memory of what and who she was circled and coalesced in her mind.

‘YOU…are a Jedi.’ It was a voice. A very familiar voice, much like her own. “K-Karolin…” She murmured once again. Not truly knowing who that name was attached to.

‘That will never die…they can take it away, they can mold reshape and reforge you into something else. But you will always possess that power.’

Why was it familiar? Mrysti's hand hovered over the wound which she inflicted on Caleb. Without warning, the last of the color in her hair bled out as the light in her hand increased. A power she never knew she had and had long forgotten. Stolen from her, just like she had stolen Caleb from herself. The letter she wrote, words in the deepest recesses of her mind all came flooding back as she murmured once again.

“I will love you…for the rest of my days…”

In her mind, she saw him leave. It was too late. Even as her dormant power to heal saturated them both, sucking the last of her light from the shell of what remained of her former powers, Mrysti believed it was too late. Caleb was gone. And despite all of the power at her command, there was nothing she could do about it. What had been taken, could not be given back. And she crumbled.

There were so many pieces missing. Mrysti stood to her full height. There was no confusion, just a piece of something; a fragment to a larger puzzle that made no sense. She turned her back to Caleb's body walking toward the exit. At last, her bonds were gone. Reaching up, she took the shackle off her neck and tossed it aside. ‘…through victory, My Chains are Broken….and the Force shall set me free…’

In Caleb, she had met and paid the ultimate price. Learning the most important lesson of all….Freedom was never free. There was always…a cost.