The Old Republic

[Tifa Lockhart]

Aele felt something drop out of the bottom of her stomach as Kalen handed the lightsaber over to Satele. The woman's energy completely changed. There was the briefest flicker of sadness, but of a detached and distant sort, the kind of sadness one felt when they heard of someone else's misfortune. Then it solidified into her eerie calm once more.
"As advantageous as apprehending this assassin would have been... it might have been best he escaped."
She closed her hand around the blade hilt, glancing over at Kraross as he began to stir, she stifled a sigh.

"Master Shan?" Kraross mumbled as he senses came back to him and he blinked away the discombobulation. "The students, are they-?"

Satele raised a hand to silence Kraross, turning the hand slowly to point at Aele and Kalen.
"Your Padawans are fine, Alteyron," she assured, addressing her fellow councilman by his first name, an informality that was rare among the Jedi, who maintained title and surname as a sign of respect. "They were more than capable of defending themselves from their attacker... though they failed to apprehend him."
She looked down at the saber in her hand, before she offered it over to Kraross.

Aele couldn't stop a soft whimper from escaping her throat as she felt the sudden surge of emotion from her Master. It was familiar... bone chilling. She had felt this exact sorrow before, and it made her sick to her stomach.

"Nesiva..." she heard Kraross whisper as he took the saber from Satele.

"Why don't you step out for a moment, Aele?" Satele Shan suggested, eyes soft as sh turned to look at the two young Padawan. She could see where the girl had clutched her arm and was gouging the flesh with her fingernails. "Go and focus, recentre yourself, and push the emotions away. They are not yours, and so you should not let them affect you."

"Y-Yes Master Shan," Aele agreed with a nod, taking a deep breath before she turned to leave the room.

"Kalen, Aele said you engaged the assassin... what happened?" Satele asked, looking straight at the young man. Kraross was staring at the saber in his hands, his expression unreadable.

[Renegade]

Memories of that day back at the temple with Nevyn came flooding back, which caused a slight hesitation in Kalen's reply. "We fought the assassin, but he was too strong for even the two of us attacking at once. He was wielding two lightsabers, I managed to knock one of the lightsabers from his hand by-" he stopped a brief second, retracting what he was going to say, and thought quickly of a lie. "I knocked him over, and the weapons were knocked from his hands. I managed to pull one closer to me. I told Aele to check on our Master, and when I turned back to face the assassin, he was gone."
Any sympathy that he should have been feeling for his new master, he didn't. He was not sure if it was because he automatically ignored it, or if he truly did not care. What worried him most now, was his current train of thought, why did he care if he held sympathy or not? Was he slipping into weakness. Being around these Jedi was toxic.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Satele made a soft noise of thought, glancing back towards Kraross who had closed his eyes and appeared to be concentrating on clearing his head of the emotions that were wheeling about in his mind.
"That Assassin was involved in an incident on the planet Thule some months ago... a recovery mission gone sour. We lost one of our most promising Padawans... a Senator's daughter named Nesiva Artoolan."
Kraross opened his eyes again now, he seemed a lot calmer, but he still handled the lightsaber reverently.
"We don't know of this man's intentions, but his presence here - and so near to the academy - is a dangerous concern."

[Renegade]

Kalen tried not to think about how he was involved with what happened on Thule, so as to mask any emotion tied to it, he was good at concealing his thoughts, but not good enough for Satele Shan he feared. He needed to get back to Thule.
"Why where they on Thule? There is nothing there," Kalen knew that the Thule Academy was secret, and not even the Grand Master of the jedi would know about it. "Perhaps we should investigate there? Once Master Kraross is feeling up to it."
It was torture, to stay in Character, so behave so...Formally.

[Tifa Lockhart]

"Perhaps... though I am loathe to risk anyone on such a dangerous planet..." Satele replied, pinching her chin between thumb and forefinger. "We went there to retrieve an important holocron of ancient origin... one we felt might contain very sensitive information from times past..."

"But Nesiva and I were foiled by a group of Sith Apprentices..." Kraross spoke up now. "We had the Holocron... I was calling for backup while she watched it. I was careless..."

"Let the past go, Alteyron," the Grandmaster insisted. "What happened, happened. It is unwise to dwell on the 'what ifs'."
She turned back to Kalen then.
"You're dismissed for the evening... the Council and I have much to discuss about this development."

[Renegade]

Kalen was about to speak against her casual dismissal of his idea, but he checked himself. If they were Sith, he would have, but Jedi seemed to have stricter protocols. That's all they were, red taped bureaucratic fools.
"Yes, Master." He bowed his head and left as instructed. He went to go find Aele at her room.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Aele had run straight back to her room and locked herself inside. She'd tried briefly to meditate and calm herself as Master Shan had instructed, but she just couldn't get settled. The day in the Temple back on Thule played over and over again in her head. She could barely remember the person she was before Nevyn had mercilessly slaughtered that Jedi Padawan. Guilt burned a great hole in her heart.
She looked up from where she had laid curled tightly on her bed when she heard a knock on her door, and reluctantly she stood and moved to open it, praying it wasn't Master Shan or Kraross... she couldn't fact them for fear of blurting out the truth.

[Renegade]

Kalen let himself into the room as the door open. "You need to calm down. Those Jedi's senses are tuned well, they will find us out, and then we will have more to worry about than guilt." His voice was riddled with venom, uncharacteristic even for his standards.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Aele prickled slightly at Kalen's harsh tone, not caring for how callously he spoke to her.
"Maybe we should tell them!" she hissed, sounding almost hysterical. This had been eating her for a very long time. "Maybe we should just give them everything we know! What loyalty to we owe to those backstabbing murderers on Thule? Especially Nevyn!"
She turned around, pacing a rabid circle.
"I'd love to hand him over to Jedi Justice!"

[Renegade]

"Don't be so Naive! What loyalty do we owe these Jedi? Did they raise us, feed us, train us, turn us into the survivors we are now? No, the Emperor did that, and not so you could hand us over to the Jedi. If you tell them, we are the only ones who are going to be given to Jedi Justice." He took a deep breath. "And have you forgotten our defeat against Nevyn already? Our side in this war is Irrelevant to the fact that he is stronger than us, both!"

[Tifa Lockhart]

Aele snarled through her teeth, trying not to let herself get any more worked up.
"Master Shan has already done more for us than the Emperor or any of the Sith Lords ever did."
She seemed to calm abruptly then, looking at her feet. She realised that there could be no good end to this... not if Kalen's loyalties lay with the Empire... her heart called a different course...
"Don't you think it's nice to be VALUED for once? Not treated like expendable trash?"

[Renegade]

Something inside Kalen's head snapped at that, something buried deep. Sparks flickered from his finger tips, his eyes went red, and black veins in his face twisted and contorted, the trademarks of a sith truly embracing his anger, and hate, and his pain. He clenched his fists, to bring the lightning under control. "Don't talk to me about worth!"
It was all he could do not to unleash the darkside right there and then, but he forced himself to leave the room, his facial features returning to normal as he did.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Aele recoiled in terror as Kalen nearly lashed out at her, she shrunk down, arms folding over her head in a feeble attempt to shield herself. When the blow she had been expecting didn't come, she looked up in time to see him leaving. All her younger life she'd been beaten and threatened that if he didn't become a great Sith Lord then she would be killed... she'd cowered before them and submitted to their will just to stop the pain. She never thought that same fear would be triggered by the one being in the galaxy she'd come to consider her friend. It bit deep.
She staggered forward to the door, locking it with desperate fingertips before fleeing to her bed to curl up once more. She was a terrible Sith... and now she was making a terrible jedi was well.

[Renegade]

Kalen was in his room, passing back and forth - seething. He hated it here. He hated the Jedi. He hated the formalities. He hated acting. He hated himself. The fresh memories of his anger lashing out at Aele burned in his mind like coal, and it did nothing but fuel his hate for this place, it was turning him against his only friend. Aele and Kalen had faced many frightening opponents together, but he had never seen Aele's face like that. The shock of what he had done, what she was obviously convinced he was going to do. He can't even remember why he had snapped now, or why he was angry with her in the first place. He hated that too.
Why did things have to change? Living under the Sith was not perfect, but it was what he was good at, what he knew. Then there was a knock at his door - He tried to calm himself.
"Come in, Master." he sensed who it was, Master Shan.

[Tifa Lockhart]

The door slid open with a his as Satele opened the door. Her pale eyes were calm as ever, but they fixed firmly onto Kalen's face the moment she stepped over the threshold into his personal space. A gloved hand reached out to close the door behind her. She didn't move any further forward though, arms folding up behind her and stance loosening. This poise seemed common for the Jedi, casual and yet somewhat formal at the same time.
"So troubled, for one so young," she mused kindly, voice somehow relaying a true sense of sympathy and assurance, despite how still her mannerisms remained. "You should sit, calm yourself."
As she suggested he do so, she herself lowered her body down to the floor, folding her legs up into a meditative position. She seemed completely relaxed in his presence, despite how intently she kept his gaze.
"With a calm mind, you can better sort your thoughts, the confusion in your heart. New things seem harder to face with a storm filled soul."