painsembrace started following you [FLASHBACK]
“Don’t strike me again, sir.” Janus’ voice was crystallizing with ice as he said it. ”I may not know how artificial-organic relationships work in your galaxy, but where I come from, we are not ‘whipped’ into emotionless slaves. We are sentient beings with as much of a right to emotion as anyone. And as for the murderer…” He tilted his head downward slightly; when he looked up to meet the Zabrak’s eyes, his face was chiseled hardness, pale as ghosts and dark with the memories of ghosts.
“I was their murderer.”
His voice was monotone, hard-edged with the metallic ring of synthesized audio. ”My life support failed on our last mission together. By the time I was able to reach port, they were already dead. I watched from every camera lens, every monitor, every inch of every corner of this vessel as hundreds of people—my friends, my family—asphyxiated to death.”
He blinked once. Again, for good measure.
“I grieved for each and every one of them. I still grieve. So do not tell me that AIs are not capable of knowing loss. For I know loss, friendship, trust, anger, and above all, guilt.”
My apology for striking you, my temper can get the better of me, for you see, I am angry, always angry. It is a pity you cannot harness the Force, for the Dark Side would flow strong within you. But understand that you are not the reason your crew died. Blame not yourself, but those truly at fault, blame those that fired upon your ship, that destroyed your life support. Blame those that made you watch helplessly as your beloved familyasphyxiated and froze before your eyes. That too is my pain Janus, that too is what drives me, and gives me power to crush those that bring pain to the ones I loved.
-Crucius stops for a moment, a moment of gentleness crosses is eyes, the formation of a tear is blinked away and his eyes blaze once more with Sith fury-
Do you wish to hear exactly what the jedi did to me?
Janus had turned away as the Zabrak spoke, none of his emotions processing properly in his confusion.
He had considered that before, of course. He’d tried to push the blame onto the Insurrectionist ships that had crippled him. But the truth was hard-wired into him. The enemy ships had only shot him, it was his weakness that prevented him from holding the life support together until they had reached Methis-Ba safely. No matter which road his mind traveled down, they all ended with him being the culprit.
He remained silent. The Zabrak would speak anyway, he knew, and he couldn’t trust himself in his jumbled state to not say something foolish.
