Revered and Reviled

Revan stood on the bridge, and watched the planet below boil away under the sustained fire of the Sith fleet. Her face was quiet and still. The mask lay on the floor, by her feet. She had cleared the entire bridge level of personnel through the simple expedient of having commanded her assassin droid to kill everyone else on this level. Now that everyone was dead, she commanded it to keep everyone out – except for Malak. Revan waited patiently.
The door to the bridge opened, and Malak stormed in. "Revan, what is this? I thought you were going to conquer Telos, not destroy it!"
"I changed my mind." Revan didn't turn to face him. The door closed, and she locked it from the terminal where she stood.
Malak looked around, carefully noting that the room had been rearranged recently. The center of the room was now open. Perfect for a fight.
"You seem to be forgetting your place, Malak."
Malak could see the fleet hammering the planet behind her, and the Misericordia's guns were focused on shooting down ships that were trying to flee. "You've gone too far, Revan. This is madness! We could have used Telos to bolster our support among Republic worlds, but instead – "
"Instead I let my jealousy get the better of me to destroy an entire world just to kill one little slave girl, is that what you were going to say? Save your breath, Malak. She isn't even on the planet anymore, their ship made it through the blockade before the bombardment started."
"What?" Malak roared. "Then why are you – "
"To punish you, Malak." Revan turned, pushed back her hood. Her face was set, her eyes cold. "Do you see them dying, student? Do you feel their screams, their suffering? Their unending waves of grief as everything they know is torn away?" She smiled, a terrifying and heartless smile. "Actually, Malak, I lied. I'm not doing it to punish you at all. I'm doing it because I can, and no one can stop me."
"I can," he snarled. Malak drew his lightsaber.
She laughed scornfully. "Pathetic." Revan pulled out her main lightsaber. "I'll handicap myself," she said sweetly. The unique violet beam of her saber shone against the view of the destruction of Telos in the background.
"Don't underestimate me," growled Malak. "I'm strong enough to defeat you, Revan."
"Strength, Malak?" She leapt, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat. "What does strength matter to the Force?" She blocked his attacks with lightning speed, shrugged off his attempts to hit her with bolts of Dark energy. "Or are you hoping that the Force will support you because your cause is just? Your goal noble and pure?" She kicked him in the side, forcing him back. "Idiot."
"Your jealousy has driven you mad, Revan!" He glanced at the planet below. "Stop this, Revan! You can't kill all these people just because you're hurt!"
"No?" asked Revan with a laugh. "Then stop me, Malak. It's a good strategy for our little war, regardless of the real reason. Fear drives submission faster than love, wouldn't you agree?"
Malak charged again, using every ounce of skill and strength he possessed in a desperate effort to break through her guard.
"You've been slacking in your practice. Blame that on your tart," she said as her lightsaber ripped open his upper arm. She drew back, and let him heal himself.
"Don't patronize me, Revan. Fight like you mean it!"
"You're forgetting your place again, Malak. You don't get to command me." She blocked his attack, then used the Force to effortlessly fling him across the room. "Are you forgetting what drives the Sith, Malak?" She crossed the room in a heartbeat, standing over him as he lay prone on the floor. She used the Force to pluck his lightsaber from his hand before he could react and tossed it back across the open area in the center of the room. "You never answered my first questions, Malak. Are you feeling their pain, their suffering?" Her lightsaber was poised at his throat, ready to kill.
"Yes, Revan, I can feel it. How could I not feel it? Their entire world is crying out in pain, begging for help!"
Rage lit up her eyes, ice-blue fire, a tempest of emotions behind her façade of stillness. "And yet, you cannot understand that it is nothing, nothing compared to what I feel. You are the wellspring of my power, Malak. I desire you more than anything else in the galaxy, even the power of the Star Forge." The blade in her hand trembled slightly, proving the truth of her words. "But you… do you even understand how badly you have hurt me? Do you even care?"
"Of course I care, Revan! I'm sorry, it was a mistake. Please, Revan, stop this!"
She hissed, the anguish in her soul almost unbearable. "You kissed me, while her taint was still on your lips. How dare you!"
"Revan," he said warningly.
"You lied! You're still lying! It hurts you when I scorn her, even though you know she left with another man! She's a whore, Malak!"
"I sent her away," he said tightly. "I wanted her to be safe and away from you."
Revan smiled cruelly. "Well, that worked well." She raised her blade and walked away from Malak, her robes swirling gracefully as she walked. "So she's safe, and millions of innocent lives have to pay for your transgressions." Revan waved a hand at the screen, and the shattered remains of Telos. "And that just leaves us, doesn't it?" She deactivated her lightsaber and stood, watching the planet, the smoke and ruins. "Where does that leave us, Malak?"
Malak stood, furious and ashamed. "You let her go, didn't you? Just so you could blame this on me?"
Revan didn't turn to face him. "I wouldn't soil my ship's guns by firing on such filth." Revan smiled to herself as she heard him grab his lightsaber, and rush to attack her one more time. She turned, her timing flawless and her aim impeccable, and neatly shaved off half his jaw with her off-hand lightsaber.
Malak dropped to the floor, twitching in agony.
"You kissed me with those lips," said Revan quietly, her rage cold and sharp. "Never again." She walked up to him, and stared, trying to forget how much he meant to her so that she could strike the final blow. "Malak! Why… how can I love you so much, and yet, you feel nothing for me?" Revan screamed in fury. "It means nothing to you! I mean nothing! If the memory of our love means so little, then I will take it back! Everything, all of it!"
Revan reached out through the bond between them, and began to rip out every memory that he had of their love. He was helpless to resist at first, blinded by the agonizing pain of his wound, but some part of him realized what she was doing and tried to fight it. In the end, Revan was stronger, and her skill greater. It seemed to take hours, but in reality it was only a few minutes that he lay bleeding while she ravaged his mind. Every single thought he'd ever had of her, every single moment that they had ever shared, was gone as if it had never been and yet, everything else was untouched. Revan destroyed the original Force bond between them, leaving only the simple bond of Master and student. She stared at him as he lay there, bleeding and still.
She could do nothing now. Revan replaced the mask. "It is a pity that you could not remember I am your Master," she said sadly, and walked away to get medical attention for him. "It is a pity I could not remember that you are just a man."
It was almost a month later before she saw him again. The prosthetic jaw, disfiguring and ugly. His voice, mutilated by the electronics. And she still loved him. But he felt nothing for her now, and never would again. She had reshaped the entire universe to make sure of that.
"Master," Malak knelt. "I hope you have forgiven me for whatever I did to make you angry when last we met."
"You don't remember our fight?" said Revan curiously.
Malak shook his head. "No, Master, my memory seems to have been affected. I have been having trouble remembering things. I don't remember our fight at all."
"Ah," said Revan quietly. She hadn't considered that possibility. Still, it didn't matter. He would think what she wanted him to think, fill in the missing gaps of his memory from the world she had left for him. "You challenged me for leadership of the Sith," she said harshly. "You killed my bridge crew. Thanks to your incompetent takeover attempt, I have to deal with half-trained nitwits." The lies rolled easily off her tongue.
"I'll do a better job next time, Master," he promised dryly.
"Well, you certainly couldn't do worse," Revan snapped. "Do you have Karath's reports?"
"Yes, Master." Malak rose, and handed Revan the Admiral's messages and status reports. "Master?"
"What?" Revan continued reading the reports and didn't look at him.
"Master, did you do something to my memories?" Malak asked uncertainly.
"If I did, I had a good reason, so I'm not going to undo it. If I didn't, then there's nothing you can do about it. Stop asking." Revan walked away, sat down at her desk and began entering numbers. "Bring up the galaxy map, Malak. We have work to do."
Malak noted that Revan hadn't answered the question, but knew better than to pursue it. Ever since he had woken up in the medical bay, the sense of wrongness, of something lost had gnawed at him, and it was driving him mad. He couldn't remember what was missing, he couldn't even think of what it could be, he just knew that something was gone. It was something small, something simple. No one had any idea what it was, no one knew if anything was different about him besides the obvious damage to his face. No one knew why he had suddenly ordered the destruction of Telos and then challenged Revan.
Malak returned to his own ship after meeting with Revan. This too, was unfamiliar. The Leviathan. A beautiful ship. Powerful, but nothing personal about it. A basic copy of the Misericordia, unchanged from the shipyard specifications, with none of Revan's ornate luxuries. He didn't remember having it made, or getting a loyal crew. His pride burned at Revan's contempt in letting him keep it even after he had failed to kill him – he stopped for a moment, confused suddenly.
Everyone spoke of Revan as a male, but that was wrong. There was a woman beneath that mask, a slight wisp of a thing. "No one wants to see a tiny blonde girl at the head of an army," he remembered that, and a vague outline of her face, but nothing more. It was unimportant, he knew, and she was right. The fleet respected Revan as a symbol of war and genius. The mask was an essential part of Revan. He hadn’t seen her without the mask in years, he suspected. He couldn't really remember.
Malak growled. He suspected Revan was trying to make him insane through this useless search for a forgotten memory that he couldn't let go. If only he had something to go on, some idea of what it was he couldn't remember. If he could only put a name to – a name. Someone's name. Why would Revan strip the memory of someone's name from him? Was the name important? He paced the room in frustration.
The door opened, and a slave entered, knelt submissively by the door. She was a very soft and beautiful slave, with long, dark hair. Malak had checked the records, and for some reason, he had stocked the Leviathan with lovely female slaves, every single one completely broken in spirit. He felt slightly disgusted with himself, and yet, they were there and he was a man. And a Sith.
"What do you want?" he snarled, impatient with himself and his weakness.
"We wish to know when you would like your meal, my Lord."
Malak sighed. Meal. A useless word for a miserable serving of nutrient paste. Still, it wasn't her fault he was missing his jaw. No, that was Revan's doing, and he would get his revenge for it someday. "Bring the meal in an hour," he commanded gruffly.
"Yes, my Lord." The slave rose to take the message.
"Wait."
"My Lord?" her voice trembled in fear.
"Bring the meal in an hour," he repeated. "You, come back in fifteen minutes."
She knelt in patient submission. "Yes, my Lord."
Malak woke later that evening, to find the slave girl riding him, her head thrown back in wanton pleasure, her dark brown hair unbound, falling in ripples to barely cover her well-shaped breasts. This one and the red-haired one often woke him this way. Malak placed his hands on her hips, steadying her so she could thrust harder. She braced herself on his chest, and her hips flashed back and forth, taking him deeper and harder. She whimpered slightly, and her hands dug into his skin as her orgasm built. He slammed her hips down, and held her in place, grinding his cock into her as he came, and she screamed in ecstasy, shuddering, slumped down to his chest.
Malak put one arm around the girl, and watched her as she rested. The lights were dim in the room, and he could only make out the basic features of her face.
"You are a Mandalorian?"
"Mandalore is no more, my Lord," she answered softly.
"True. You were all Mandalorian? All the slaves, I mean. You all look the same," he mused.
"We were chosen for that reason, my Lord," she smiled shyly.
"And you like it here?"
"Until there is a Mandalore again, my Lord, there is nowhere better."
Malak ran his hands over her body, idly tracing the outline of her curves and her muscles. He slid his fingers into her wetness, and she moaned in pleasure, burying her head in his chest, gripping his shoulders. He worked another finger into her, listened to her cries of pleasure. He moved his hand faster, and she dug her fingers into his muscles, tried to hold back animal screams of pleasure. She came on his hand, quivering, with choked little shrieks. He pulled his hand out of her, and rolled her off him.
"Get out," he said harshly.
"Forgive me, my Lord," she gasped, as humbly as she could with the aftershocks of orgasm still rippling through her body. "Did I displease you?"
"No," he said angrily. "I want to taste you, and I can't. Now get out, before I lose my temper."
She wrapped a cloth around her nudity, and fled with a choked sob.