Designed something elegant for Depa for @exlibrisastra! It’s been a while since I drew anything for her so I figured I’d do a little something extra~
I get the impression she would hold herself well in high social gatherings.
[ID: An illustration of Depa Billaba, a character from Star Wars, in elegant robes that drape downwards in yellows and blues. She has gold accessories in the bodice and cinched waist belt, earrings, necklace, and rings on her clasped hands. There is a dark teal solid background with drawings of leaves and bulbed flowers in yellow. End ID. ]
You must not grow too attached, too fond, too inlove with life as it is now. Those emotionsarevaluable and should not be suppressed but you must learntorule them…lest they rule you.
Allowing the thought to stay the trigger, the heart to register its trembling (Grey/Depa Billaba ft. Caleb Dume)
Summary:“I’m not worth it,” Grey hisses through their teeth. “Please. Depa, please—” Their general, their Jedi, only shakes her head, her grip on their shoulders a death sentence. “I will not leave you,” she says. “Fight the voice, Grey. Fight it.” They sob and some part of their brain burns with the knowledge that little brown eyes are watching from the corner of the room. They scream, pulling against their bonds and the twisting darkness in their head. “I can’t. I can’t—” Something that isn’t Grey crawls under their skin and it speaks, twisted, Dark. “Traitors.”
Warnings:Mind Control, Violent Thoughts, Serious Injuries, Blood and Violence, Eye Trauma (not graphic but described briefly), Vomiting (in like one sentence, emetophobia gang rise up), Angst Word Count: 2,275
Prompt:Angstpril Day 3 - “I can’t.”
Author’s Note: more suffering! Yay! I like to think this ended happily but this is Angstpril so I’m not writing it lol. Also, I discovered that Kanan’s eyes aren’t actually brown, at least according to Wookieepedia but frankly that’s stupid as fuck so. Brown-eyed Kanan. And nonbinary Grey because I am apparently not the only one who loves that concept! (Also, sorry for late posting! I was unable to finish this last night :/ hopefully I can finish day 4 today as well and catch up)
It’s an endless loop in the back of their mind, an itch they can’t quite scratch. At the Order, it breaks free and turns to a screech, a ringing thought that echoes in their head so loudly it hurts. They don’t even feel themselves pulling the trigger, shouting for their squad to follow.
But when they finally come to, underneath the monster that’s stolen their face, it’s because they’re standing over him.
Caleb.
Commander Caleb Dume. Jedi Padawan. Traitor.
Ad'ika, their heart cries as they lift their blaster. Their shaking hands have it levelled at the boy’s face, right between his big brown, tear-filled eyes.
“Grey—Grey, what are you doing? What—?” His pleading words are nearly unintelligible between his panting breaths. When the cold metal touches his face, he sobs. “Don’t! Buir, don’t—don’t—please—”
Their cheeks are wet. Caleb sees it and only sobs harder, afraid to move for fear that they’ll pull the trigger. With their trembling hands, the likelihood of a misfire is high.
Inside their mind, Grey screams. They claw at the walls of their mental prison, leaving their fingertips bloodied and their throat hoarse from their agonizing howls. The cell won’t budge. The chip won’t give. They can’t get out. They can’t save their son.
But someone else can.
A robed figure flies out of nowhere, tackling Grey to the ground and sending their blasters into the air with a flick of their hand.
“Caleb, the blasters!”
Depa.
General Depa Billaba. Jedi High General. Traitor.
Depa. She hates it when I call her General.
She pins them to the ground and presses the calloused pads of her fingers against their temple. Something like grief crosses her face. “Sleep, Grey. Sleep.”
The chip fights, but they don’t. They like to think it helps bring the darkness faster.
*
“Master?”
Caleb’s voice trembles when he asks, taking a hesitant step forward. Depa is still on top of Grey, catching her breath and making sure they’re passed out. She shuts her eyes tightly, centering her conflicted presence. Her Padawan needs her and so does Grey. This is no time to grieve for the rest of their battalion.
(She tried to incapacitate rather than kill, but they’re still gone. The light that she used to associate with them has been snuffed out by a strangling darkness that burns.)
“It’s alright, Caleb, they’re unconscious,” she says, mustering what little strength she has left.
At her word, he rushes over, clinging to the sleeve of her robe.
Any other day, he’d be indignantly distant, trying to prove himself on the battlefield and make Depa proud. But right now he reeks of terror and uncertainty. And she feels the same.
Execute Order 66, the Chancellor had said.
And then everything had gone to hell. The clones had disappeared, replaced by darkness, and the Master-Padawan pair had barely made it out with their lives. Depa hasn’t even been able to process the wave of lights being snuffed out in the Force and she knows her Padawan hasn’t either; his connection with the Force feels brittle and broken. The Jedi are dying at the hands of their closest companions, at the order of the Chancellor of the Republic, and the two of them stand in the center of it all.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” she admits quietly. She climbs off Grey and binds them with their own set of binders, something tight in her chest as she does. Then, she turns back to Caleb. “Are you alright? No injuries?”
He shakes his head and wipes at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. “Just scrapes.” He glances at Grey. “That—That wasn’t Buir, was it? It felt…wrong.”
“Very wrong,” she agrees. “I don’t know what it was, but the Chancellor triggered it. We need to get off the planet.”
“Are we…going back to the Temple?”
Depa visibly hesitates. His face falls and he knows in his heart that they aren’t. Even if they did, there would probably be nothing and no one left.
“It isn’t safe. We need to lay low for a while and figure out how to save Grey,” she tells him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Caleb, look at me.”
He does and she smiles a little.
Even now, in what must be the worst moment of his short life, he’s ready to listen. He’s ready to do what he needs to.
She kneels down to meet his height, holding his head in her capable hands. “You will survive this,” she says like it’s a promise. She can’t say the same of her or Grey or anyone else they know, but she can promise that Caleb will live. Because she will die to see it through. “You will. Do you understand?”
Despite the fear in his eyes, he nods.
“Good.”
Depa allows herself a moment to breathe, but no longer.
“Now, we need a way out of here.”
*
Grey wakes to the buzzing of a ship and panics. The last they remember, they were on the surface of the planet, with Depa and Caleb and- oh, Force. Oh, fuck.
Did they attack them? Did they hold a gun to Caleb’s head?
Their own is throbbing, something clearly wrong. Chills go down their spine as they sit up, finding their wrists held together by their own binders. They’re on the floor of a cargo bay, in an unfamiliar ship, but familiar voices echo from down the hall.
“Master, they’re awake!” calls Caleb after poking his head in.
He may not be showing it, or trying not to, but Grey can see the fear in his furrowed eyebrows.
He’s afraid of them.
They feel nauseous at the realisation.
“Caleb—” they try to say. Their voice is hoarse.
Depa appears from the hall, a glass of water in her hand. She crosses to Grey, motioning for her Padawan to stay by the door, which he does without question. Kneeling before her commander, her lover, she examines their face. They can feel her prodding at them gently in the Force. She’s trying to decide whether they’re friend or foe right now.
“Are you with us, Grey?”
They hesitate, but eventually nod. “I think so.”
With a small smile, Depa helps them drink the water, but pulls it away quickly when it’s finished. She’s cautious and rightfully so, Grey thinks when they feel something in their head tug.
They must visibly flinch, because so does Caleb.
“Tell me what’s happening,” their general murmurs, putting a hand on their knee.
Shutting their eyes fiercely, they take a long moment to answer. “It’s—It’s hard to fight. It wants me to…to kill the trai-traitors,” they gasp out, finding the unknown force stronger when they speak that word. They open their eyes, horrified. “Shit.”
“You’re alright.” She takes their hand and starts tracing patterns. “Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
“No, but…kark, my head hurts. My head. I think.”
“Stay still,” she warns.
She runs a hand up their temple, her eyes shut in concentration. The Force prods gently at their mind and, when it finds the offending area, something burns. Grey cries out and Depa stops in an instant, pulling back with a fearful look.
“There’s—” Glancing back at her Padawan, she takes a steadying breath. “I believe there’s something in your head that doesn’t belong, Grey. Something physical, but it’s very dark in the Force.”
“Can we get it out?” Caleb asks, his voice smaller than he is, which is saying something.
She stands, frowning. “I don’t know. I’ll set a course for—”
Grey’s face twists as the thing inside their head roars to life. “Don’t—” they manage to growl out.
There’s a lot they can’t explain to Depa in that moment. For one thing, they’d like to tell her that if the Chancellor activated the thing in their brain, he might very well be able to track them or hear their conversations through it. For another, it’s quite possible that if Dark Grey—yes, they’re calling the evil thing in their head by that now—overtakes Light Grey—Cody would be rolling on the floor now. Is Cody alive? Is his general alive?—they might just straight up contact the enemy.
Even though they can’t explain all that, their beloved Depa Billaba stops instantly, her eyes shining with understanding.
“—somewhere we can lay low and find a doctor,” she finishes instead.
Dark Grey shoves, pushes for more information. It stabs at Grey, a physical pain that makes them hiss. Out of their control, they speak.
“Good soldiers follow orders.”
It makes Depa frown. She examines their face, watching as it shifts into something so unlike them it’s sickening.
“Good soldiers follow orders,” they snap again, like a mantra.
Dark Grey does not appreciate their plan.
Grey finally gets a hold of themself, dragging themself into consciousness with a heavy breath. When they look up at Depa, their gaze is determined.
“You need to leave me.”
“No!” cries Caleb fiercely.
Depa holds up a hand. “Caleb,” she warns, a reminder to mind his emotions.
He falls silent, watching his Master and his buir with something akin to horrified bafflement. Force, Grey has never seen him so openly terrified. Ever since he joined their little family, he’s been nothing but brave.
“I’m a liability and a threat,” they say, turning their attention back to Depa. “It’ll be easier to go without me.”
“We won’t leave you behind.”
They frown at her, lowering their voice. “He can’t die because of me.”
She doesn’t dare glance at Caleb, doesn’t dare give their worries away to the boy, who already has the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders. “It won’t come down to that.”
“And neither can you,” they add firmly.
Depa’s expression tells them all they need to know. That’s one thing she can’t promise.
“Heneeds you.”
She huffs a rueful laugh. “So do you.”
If they could, they’d reach out to hold the back of her neck and keep her close.
Hold her neck and break it.
Grey flinches back. “No—”
“Tell me what it’s saying,” she encourages, reaching for them.
An agonizing pain rips through their skull, eliciting a scream. Despite the binders on their wrists, they claw at their scalp. The thought crosses Depa’s mind that she should stop them, but she doesn’t get the chance.
They drop their hands and gaze up at her with tearful eyes.
“I’m not worth it,” Grey hisses through their teeth. “Please. Depa, please—”
Their general, their Jedi, only shakes her head, her grip on their shoulders a death sentence. “I will not leave you,” she says. “Fight the voice, Grey. Fight it.”
They sob and some part of their brain burns with the knowledge that little brown eyes are watching from the corner of the room. They scream, pulling against their bonds and the twisting darkness in their head. “I can’t. I can’t—”
Something that isn’t Grey crawls under their skin and it speaks, twisted, Dark.
“Traitors.”
They lurch forward. Depa thinks they’re collapsing, but Dark Grey has other plans. They involve the vibroblade tucked into her boot, which is now in reach.
She never liked weapons that weren’t kyber-powered, lightsabers and lightsaber rifles in particular, but after a Separatist assassin nearly suffocated Grey right next to her, she became paranoid. Working through her fear was difficult, so her partner thought having a weapon under her pillow might put her at ease. For the most part, it worked. No one knew of its existence except Grey and she preferred it that way.
And now, CC-10/994 turns that trust against her.
With a fierce yell, he barrels into the Jedi traitor, ripping the vibroblade from its hiding place as she goes flying.
“Master!”
Before the other traitor can react, CC-10/994 flips the first over his shoulder, slamming her into the wall. Then, he flies at the smaller target, vibroblade tightly grasped.
The Jedi yelps and ducks his flurry of blows.
“Grey, snap out of it!” he says desperately.
CC-10/994 doesn’t flinch and leaps forward again.
“Buir! Buir, it’s me, Caleb!”
A single slash of the vibroblade has the traitor shrieking, falling back with an arm over his face. Before CC-10/994 can attack again, the Jedi Padawan throws out a hand, sending him soaring across the room. He slams into the wall with a vicious crack, all the air pushed from his lungs in an instant. For a split second, Grey rises again, ready to fight themself off, but it’s unnecessary.
Depa is there, shoving them into the cargo bay’s cell, ripping the vibroblade away, and locking the door behind them.
Grey collapses inside, gasping for breath and trembling as they stare at their own hands in horror. Blood stains their gloves. The sight makes them nauseous, so they tug the gloves off and throw them to the other side of the cell, desperate to get away.
It’s Caleb’s howl that makes them look up.
Depa is at his side in an instant but not fast enough. He pulls his sleeve away from his face and—
Grey throws up that time, into the corner of the cell.
Their blow struck true, slashing Caleb’s face from his right temple to the bridge of his nose. It’s a deep cut, one that goes into his right eye and bleeds profusely. The other eye, untouched, is blinded by tears.
“I can’t see,” he sobs, reaching for his Master, who reaches back. “I can’t—Master, I can’t—”
CC-10/994 lifts his head and smiles.
“Death to the traitors,” he spits. “Glory to the Empire.”
*
(Dark Grey uses he/him because Dark Grey follows orders, including gender assignments.)
