fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, October 29, 1st period]

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Ethics [Thursday, October 29, 1st period]

Judging from what Raven had told him about Tuesday night and what several members of his class had seen, Anakin believed that this lecture probably couldn't have come at a better time.

"Today we talk about diligence, temperance, and forgiveness," he said quietly, "and we're going to use examples from the midterm exam to do so."

He flipped the hologram to life with a wave of his hand and it focused in on a shot of Palpatine's face. "The goal was to save this man, the democratically chosen leader of your galaxy, at the cost--if necessary--of your own lives. After the Sith Lord arrived, you certainly had the option of retreating and leaving the mission for someone else to complete. A Sith's job, after all, is to kill Jedi, and there were only two of you against him. When does diligence turn to foolhardiness?"

The holocam switched to footage of two Jedi, blue blades flashing, taking on an older man wielding a red lightsaber. The battle was moving at least three times as fast as the exercise had. The older Jedi went ricocheting into a wall, then the second one, fire in his eyes, closed in on their opponent. A few moments later the Sith dropped to his knees with two lightsabers held to his throat.

The Jedi wielding the lightsabers looked an awful lot like their teacher.

"Temperance," Anakin said softly. "Do you kill him now? He's dangerous. He held the head of a galaxy-wide government hostage. He injured your partner. He certainly tried to kill you first. Or do you capture him and leave him to the whims of the courts?"

He shook his head. "Finally, forgiveness. You save the chancellor, at great personal expense, only to discover he's not the kind of man you thought he was. Your act of heroism has managed to make the situation at home much, much worse. How do you forgive yourself for it? Can you forgive the others who put you into that position?"

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Anakin reached out with the Force to yank the box of tissues from his desk and over to within Karla's reach. Colds were such a bother. Really.

"I'm not angry," Anakin said. Well, he was, but it wasn't directed at Karla. "How is your friend?"

"She doesn't remember anything," Karla said softly, reaching for a tissue. Is she surreptitiously dabbed at her eyes while blowing her nose, who knew? "But she knows something isn't right, I think. After the--after she got hurt, she was in a coma for two years. She tried to sever the link between her Self and her body. Even now, she resents her body and abuses it for being the instrument used to hurt her. Something happened that triggered those memories and they came out as nightmares. She didn't eat, did her best not to sleep, punished herself for it. So--so I took her nightmares away. Unfortunately, they overwhelmed my defenses and became my own for awhile."

He nodded. "Will you tell her about what happened?" he asked.

Karla shook her head. "If she's not ready to face up to what happened, I'm not going to push," she stated with all the authority of a Black Widow. "There's a reason her mind is protecting her this way. If she needs to forget about it to heal completely then that's what has to happen. She's my Queen and I'll protect her with everything I have." She gave him a small, humorless smile. "If she were on the ship, there is nothing I would not sacrifice to finish the mission."

Anakin had expected something like that answer. "And what do you need to heal?"

Karla had not expected something like that question. "Me? They aren't my memories--"

Well, Briarwood wasn't.

"They're scarring you anyway," Anakin replied. "The initial dream wasn't Ben or Raven's, yet you are worried about their reactions."

"It hurts me, knowing that there is a place like that somewhere in my world," Karla admitted quietly. "Even more than knowing that my best friend was in and out of there for years, it hurts knowing that my people--even if they aren't exactly mine--could do that. It's a perversion of our entire culture. Males protect and serve, cherishing witches and preserving their strength. These males took pleasure in blighting and destroying that strength. They took their pleasure from children. And I hate how...how familiar that place felt," she added, voice almost a whisper.

"Familiar how?" Anakin asked, something very angry and very, very tightly controlled flashing in his eyes.

Karla was silent for a moment while something dark moved within her eyes. "On a much smaller and more concentrated scale," she finally said, voice hoarse, "Briarwood is much like what's happening in Glacia. Where females are stripped of their power, because they're 'unstable' or 'erratic.' Where sex is turning into a threat and a bid for dominance. I hadn't really stopped and thought about it before, but..."

It was almost like they were being orchestrated by the same person!

Anakin was going to go home and hug the crap out of his wife and daughter. And then look into giant bubbles for the both of them.

"Do you believe there may be a connection?" he replied softly.

Yeah, Rory would be thrilled. Karla would have to write her an apology and hold it up to the bubble.

Karla shook her head. "There can't be. Kaeleer and Terreille have been closed off for centuries. I mean, Jaenelle's family locked her away because they thought her stories about Kaeleer were delusions. Terreille thinks Kaeleer is a myth. And other than Little Terreille, Kaeleer doesn't really care. Although..."

And now Karla was looking a little green. "Hobart does have a lot of ties to Little Terreille. It's where most of his Ruling Council came from."

"Deep breaths," Anakin counseled. Not that it would be the first time he'd have cleaned up from someone booting all over the floor, but he'd rather avoid it. "Kaeleer and Terreille are different nations?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"Different Realms," Karla explained. "My world is broken into three Realms: Terreille, Kaeleer, and Hell. The Realm of Light, the Shadow Realm and the Dark Realm. They are stacked one on top of each other, with the Winds between them. The only way to get from one Realm to the next is to use Gates. Well, I guess that's true for normal people. The dead get to Hell without using a Gate and Jaenelle says something about jumping the Webs, but I don't knkow how to do either. For a long time, though, Kaeleer refused entry from Terreillan Gates, so long that most Terreillians forgot we existed."

"So...multidimensional?" Anakin checked. "And only a few even realize it, let alone that moving between the areas can be attempted."

"I guess so," Karla said nodding. "We all know the dead can do it, but Terreille forgot we existed and Kaeleer just never had a reason to go. I know Kaeleeran Priestesses still know how to work the Gates to travel between Realms and keep the candalabras clean and the candles to the right heights, but I don't know if Terreillian ones do."

"So no one in your homeworld would know about Briarwood, then?" Anakin replied quietly.

His tone indicated that he'd like for that to change.

Karla shook her head. "No one in Kaeleer could know. And I can't imagine anyone in Terreille knowing, either. I mean, as soon as word got out there'd be witches and males in a righteous rage, burning Briarwood down to ash. No one outside of the Briarwood uncles could possible have known."

Naivety, thy name is still sometimes Karla.

"Are there girls still trapped in Briarwood?" Anakin asked.

Karla shook her head. "I don't think so, no. I don't know for sure, since my memories stop with Jaenelle's, but...she wove a trap for them all that was triggered when her blood was spilled." So much blood. Pooling, running, falling, red everywhere...

She shook her head again, this time to clear her mind and continued. "'To each of them what they gave' was the only command she wove into it. Every bruise, every cruelty, every moment of terror was turned back onto each uncle, for him to experience. Not just actions at Briarwood, but any time he'd ever harmed another was given back to him to suffer. And once he'd taken back everything he'd ever done, the web would release him. I don't know how many will survive such a thing--mostly because I'm not sure how many girls actually survived Briarwood."

She looked up at Anakin, almost defiantly. "I'm not sorry she did that. I'm glad! I only wish that she'd made it so they experienced their crimes a hundred times before they were let go!"

Anakin held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I've inflicted harsh justice as well," he said.

"Oh." That brought Karla up short. She'd been expecting a lecture on being angry or maybe something about the proper authorities. "Umm. Good. On the chancellor guy, when you found out he was evil?"

It spoke a great deal about Karla's faith in Anakin that she would never believe Darth Vader of him without some serious and major proof. And possibly a confession from Anakin himself.

"When he tried to hurt my son," Anakin said, voice a little harsh.

Which had been eighteen years after he'd learned the chancellor was evil, but details.

Fortunately, trying to keep the details straight on the timelines required a degree in Advanced Mathematics when you were part of those timelines. For most outsiders, it was simply impossible.

"What is it with evil people and harming children?" Karla snapped. "If it really too much goodness and innocence for them to handle that they feel the need to go defile it?"

Anakin blinked. "Luke was older than Ben," he said, then shook his head. "Timeline confusion. Never mind."

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