fandomhigh | Morality of Action, Wednesday Afternoon

Kreia had not wished to be here. She had been whisked away from her chosen fate and deposited here like a package, moved around by the hands of fate, her own choices stripped away from her with the simple flex of a multiversal finger.

In other words, the disdain she radiated as she faced the class was nothing personal.

"I did not choose you as my students," she began. "You were forced upon me by powers far greater than any of us. I suppose that in and of itself is an object lesson: that to enact your will on one weaker than you is to strip them of their agency and their power. To take their destiny in your own hands and mold it as you see fit. It is the way of the galaxy that such things occur."

She folded her sleeves together; one clearly held a functioning hand, the other did not. "In this class, we will primarily speak of the considerations that come with wielding such power, but it will not weaken us to consider what it is to be the one against whom power is wielded. How we endure it placing us within conflicts we did not choose, or taking from us challenges that were rightly ours to face."

She considered the faces in her class. "Have you ever been stripped of such choices?" she said. "You all must have. Did it weaken you? Or did you find within it some conflict, some new choice of your own, that made you stronger, more capable?"

This one had certainly made her feel weaker. Intolerable.

"For however long I remain here, teaching in this abominable place, we will discuss what this means to you and your victim, to you and your victimizer. But you will also be tested. Many grand words and declarations are spun, only to perish in silence on battlefields and Senate floors. Be ready. I will not warn you in advance."

Which, by proxy, meant that this class, at least, would be free of tests. You were welcome.

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If Arden hadn't already been intimidated by World's Scariest Grandma, she might have snorted. Stripped of her ability to choose? That would suggest she'd ever had it to begin with. The only choices she'd ever had - at least for the ones that mattered - hadn't happened until she'd run away from Callista.

Which was a pretty good place to start, she guessed.

"Umm, well, when I was living with my legal guardian, she told me that when I turned eighteen, I'd become responsible for all the money she'd spent on my care and well-being since she'd adopted me at seven. She didn't want money, she had ideas about how I could be useful to her and that would be my life, for however long until she decided that I'd paid her back. Anything I'd wanted to do, any hopes for my future, any chance of me making my own choices as an adult...well, fuuu--erm." She coughed. "Ah, forget that. It was what she wanted that mattered. So, I, uh, chose to run away instead. I think that if she hadn't said that, I would have ended up doing it anyway? Because I hadn't given my future much thought, and I probably would have just drifted into it. But when she told me that my life and my future belonged to her, that's when I stopped drifting and started planning."

Did that count?

"Ah, an unforced error on her part," Kreia said, tilting her chin. From another, that statement may have had some sense of approval or disapproval. From Kreia, it sounded like a statement of a fact. "She made the conflict visible to your eyes. Tell me, did it cost you to make this choice? Did you struggle with the concept of having one at all?"

"Oh goddess yes," Arden said fervently. And then had to backtrack a little, choose her words carefully. "My world was very small. It had to be, to keep me safe. Or, um. So they said. And suddenly I was out in the big world and there was nothing to catch me if I fff--screwed up. No safety net. No one to rely on or ask for help from. There were a bunch of times when I thought it would be easier and safer to just go back. At least there I'd be safe. Safer. Because at least then Callista would have reason to protect me. I'd be an investment.

"Even now, things can be rough. The world is big and sometimes it's not even whether the thing I'm doing is right or wrong, good or bad, it's just trying to pick a thing at all. A lot of my friends know what they want to do with their life and, me? I still sometimes spin out just trying to figure out how to narrow it down."

"Why do you continue to choose to go forward?" Kreia asked. "It would not be difficult, to return to the servitude you once knew."

"Because I can't go back to being that small again," Arden said. There were all sorts of fancy ways she could put it - birds and eggs, clipped wings, even trying to put on clothes that were too small for you - but she didn't think Kreia would appreciate them. So she just stuck to the basics.

"It's easier that way? Like, having someone tell you what to do or where to go or what to think. Way easier than trying to figure out all this shit on your own. But it also squishes you down into whatever shape they want you to be. I might not know what shape I wanna be yet, but I'd rather figure it out than let her shape me into something she wants."

"Hm," Kreia said. "So I see."

And with that entirely cryptic statement, she moved on to Liliana.

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