ă YOURS WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE A CAUTIONARY TALE.
meatbag's [ non-canon ] darth revan of star wars: knights of the old republic. primarily plot + dynamic-driven and highly adaptable to aus + crossovers. very low activity. [ âą ] a study in how war destroys jedi ... featuring: duality as a curse, redemption as punishment, how to devour a narrative, conditional statements, the life cycle of stars, âyou are all these things, and yet nothing,â the divine revolutionary, and life in the trolley problem.
please read all rules before following + all pages before interacting. i operate on a âwhoever follows first reaches out firstâ basis. minors and non-rp blogs are blocked on sight. will contain mature and triggering content. ⸝⸝ affiliated with: ecsile, laesarus, shepcdr
internet is out in my whole building since monday and yesterday my phone decided to stop connecting to cell towers after a restart. so ya boi shall be offline for a bit !
revan in the force is like when you're driving at night and the incoming car has its highbeams on so you briefly flash yours to ask them to turn it off, and then they flash theirs and you're briefly blinded by the light of a thousand suns
tiny semi-haitus ish post due to some health stuff. mostly i'm in intermittent pain so being on here is hard and i don't have a clear picture of when it'll be resolved. yes this is right after getting over being sick for +3 weeks. yes im mad as hell.
settled on ' rylan surtala ' being their name in modern / earth-based settings. because ryllind'r just didnt work lmaoo. but it still sounds kind of star wars-y so it works ! also surtala is their firrerreo family name [ more on that at another time ] but firrerreo names aren't used in a traditional sense so in star wars they're still using ryllind'r / rye as a mononym. anyway i gotta update pages and stuff now. don't ask me how revan will fit in that's gonna be specific to each au because im pedantic as hell.
their uniform is held together by prayer at this point. the top had been the first to go, torn to scrap quite literally for impromptu first aid when medigel ran out and people needed to be stabilized before they could be moved. a sleeve turned into a tourniquet here, a panel of the back made into bandages there until all that was left was strips shoved into the hands of a shaking aide for further use. the dress shoes had been abandoned entirely, replaced by the slightly-too-small boots of a dead c-sec officer who was new to the presidium's rotation and revan hadn't met yet.
the systems alliance dress uniform was never meant to be battle-ready. endure some light arms fire, perhaps, but not an incursion. revan is stuck in an undershirt and dress pants with a tear running up one leg from rubble and boots stolen from the dead. forced to defend and flee from geth armed with only a sidearm and biotics and rage focused enough to slice through bulkheads. not alone, though; rasputin is quiet, immersed in his own battle against a system that was never made for him or his kin, but he is not silent. he knows where revan wants to go, who they're looking for, and is a steady hand that guides them there.
they've stopped finding survivors. which means they're on the right track. when revan rounds a corner towards an open, meandering walkway meant for idle conversation around the lake, they've already got a bead on the first thing that moves.
recognition activates reflexive trigger discipline, and for a moment, revan hesitates at the sight of a familiar silhouette carving through the presidium's emergency lighting. then, they shift their aim from saren's head to the exposed power coupling on the floor next to him, and fire.
the coupling explodes violently, sending arcs of lightning through the air and knocking several geth off their feet with the shockwave. saren's shields pop with a hiss and a crackle, and he twists behind his reinforcements who rise to meet revan like an enraged hive. revan takes out two and trains a shot on saren's exposed head before their own barrier fluctuates dangerously towards collapse from a juggernaut. the kill shot becomes a near miss as they duck behind a corner.
saren's recognition of them comes just as quickly; even as he moves to strike back, his mandibles flare and flatten in anger [ in despair ? ] as he hisses out at them, â you have no idea what youâre giving up. â ⸝ @laesarus
â i think i have the gist of it. â they raise their pistol and fire again. saren dodges with a sneer, and is once again lost under a rolling wave of synthetics. they have to shout to be heard across the walkway that comprises their small battlefield. â you've given up on your kind â just like your brother. â
there is no love lost â there is nothing between them that is not bitter to the point of nausea, corroded from years of caustic interaction. there is no pity for the pain and fear in his eyes or the unraveled edge of his voice or the thick, blue cords of malevolent tech that they can see winding through his chest. and there is nothing to be sorry for either for the spectre saren arterius was not sloppy, was not desperate, and they will pay their respects to him once theyâre killed his husk for the sake of professionalism alone. [ one of many things they always surpassed him in. ] and if there is anything left of him, he will know all that is unsaid and be grateful for it. just as his own kin should have been.
saren's furious cry comes with a cacophony of weapon's fire. rasputin flares a warning and revan runs from cover to dodge a proximity mine, tossing out their own in turn and tearing a geth hopper in two with a biotic warp. they vault over a bench, barrier once again rippling under fire, finishing off the juggernaut with a shot that splinters its eyestalk. then something â another power coupling, probably, just larger and connected to a more vital system, hit by one of saren's rockets â explodes and all revan knows is white and pain and a shrill ringing in the ears.
disorientation only lasts a couple of seconds; rasputin's integrations surge to compensate for the sensory overload and show revan which way is up and which way is down and which way the remaining geth are that are trying to kill them. it's only a couple of seconds, but it's long enough that when revan gains their vision back, saren is a distant, retreating figure.
it occurs to them suddenly [ and with a surprising degree of irritation ] that, with benezia gone, they would likely have to be the one to take care of all his matters once he was killed. his investment portfolio, equipment caches, funerary rites ... the list appears unprompted and unwanted, having no place amidst gunfire. it takes the same amount of time to rip two more geth to pieces that it does for revan to bury the thought and the lead time the former spectre has now means that there's no chance in hell that they'll reach him before he hits the council chamber elevators, much less if they take even more time to address the ten centimeter piece of shrapnel embedded in their side, but revan moves to follow regardless, forcing themself forward until the shape of their grief shifts back into anger.
also shoutout to bungie for justifying my lack of effort to develop anything for renegades expansion with them just sort've abruptly announcing that the next release in early june will be the last update. played zero hours of this game but man do i have emotions about it.
taken out the knees yesterday bc the design for the banner for work i spent two weeks on got rejected at the very last minute after it was done bc some higher-up with zero creative background wanted to do photos instead. boss did feel bad enough abt the situation to give me comp time off tho so not a total loss.
anyway i'm here in concept â i have zero motivation for creativity rn and might be like that for a couple days
[ new msg received @ private terminal â @iconaclysm. ]
THE MASS RELAY GLIMMERS FAR AHEAD, its light piercing through the windows of the sr-2. even amidst the constant humming, chirping, and beeping of machinery, the gravitas that envelopes the ship and the absence of chatter is the closest in recent months that the normandy's come to dead silence â one could almost hear the churning of the relay's massive rings as joker steers them closer. the crew that aren't preoccupied with navigation or data or urgent maintenance seem to all find themselves occasionally magnetised towards the viewports, hoping to be afforded enough peace to have a good long glance out their nearest frontward window. shepard can't blame them. after all, this might be their last chance to look at the relay that would take them home. then, once they're through and on the other side of the sol relay, it might be their final look at earth.
several times, he hears the hiss of the lounge doors sliding open, then a pause before they slide shut again. each time, no one's entered. maybe, intimidated by the sight of their commander grim and stony-faced by the windows, they've resigned themselves to find a viewport elsewhere.
shepard's eyes are cast downwards, his mouth twisting in mild frustration as he works at the wrapper in his hands. he's used to doing all sorts of sensitive work in these gloves and armour, but he's never quite gotten the hang of the packaging that revan throttles their handmade snack bars in. he's not sure how old this one is, but he found it earlier when he was rummaging through the last of his scarce belongings â clearing out his quarters, as a final personal preparation for the assault on london. the battlegrounds for the climax of this war, their final fight. (humanity's? the galaxy's? his?) whether it ended in the extinction of all life as they knew it, or whether they prevailed... whether or not shepard would have any part in that victory, he has little say in.
either way, this would be a landing after which the sr-2 might find itself in new hands, and it was best to leave things tidy for the next.
with one last yank, shepard succeeds at last in splitting the packaging right down the seam. partial success: crumbs flew out as it ripped open, scattering on the floor and some rocketing into the grooves between his armour. so much for leaving things tidy... still, he has to eat. (doesn't have to. he swallowed down a meal of nutrition-dense slop in the mess earlier; a soldier, more than that a biotic, is of no use to their unit if they're prone to starving themselves in times of turmoil. shepard's well-practised at stomaching rations in any form or condition for the sake of functionality and combat performance. he's not at all hungry, but he can't finds he can't shake the craving for something â familiar. something comforting.)
shepard grunts, flings his arm out to shake off the stray crumbs, and then picks at a couple of smaller chunks that have split off the otherwise intact bar inside. the smell of mejhoul dates, cocoa powder, and almond butter wafts out from his unwrapped mess, and it sweetens the air above his palm. he brings it closer to his face, wondering if he's imagining the hint of earthiness beneath the current of sweetness.
as though on cue, quiet footfall approaches him from behind, putting an end to his pondering. he recognises revan's before he hears them, though he probably wouldn't have heard them at all if not for the crackling beneath their last step. there's a brief pause. maybe they're eyeing the mess he's left on the floor, following the haphazard trail of crumbs strewn from the base of the viewport all the way to the nearby couch.
not in a terrible hurry to chat, then. that's fine â neither is he. there are too many topics of conversation left unturned and far, far too many ends left still loose. thinking about them would open a box he's unprepared to sort through. (memories. questions. feelings. the curious thing resembling hope that had been roused in him at hackett's message to their fleets; the sudden drop that had followed it as hackett had called to him after, and as optimism gave way to uncertainty with hackett's and anderson's briefing. the operation's far from perfect. the thought left him with a vast unease, one that can't be allowed to travel far beyond the comms room when their allies are pinning this so much of this battle on hope. so it falls on anderson, hackett, and shepard to shoulder the burden of the details and the utter desperation of this fight. to carve the path through, to weather the sheer hopelessness that threatens to rush back in and swallow them whole and, despite it all, to command with certainty and with resoluteness. [certainty and resoluteness that hackett and anderson think, for some reason, they share in shepard. that, and the immovability and unstoppable forward force that they and the galaxy have suddenly come to expect from him. when the hell did it come to that â the galaxy pinning their hopes on someone like him?] he tries not to think about it now.
(much like he doesn't think of the strange unease left in his stomach by the way that hackett had held his eyes for several moments too long before making a swift exit. this isn't exactly the sort of moment shepard would choose to be reminded that he and jane have a father. that they have a father... after decades of wondering and searching and hoping, perhaps, that a massacre on their hands and the smearing of jane's reputation might be enough to draw out parents that might have otherwise forgotten them; that the universe, sometimes, feels like a cruel joke played on him and jane. [what the hell was a father supposed to mean after all this time?]
(and if shepard thinks about that for a moment too long, then he's left wondering what other mockeries the universe might have left in store for them.)
he extends the bar silently towards revan instead, gripping tight enough for them to snap a piece off if they'd like. he takes a bite after, swirling chunks of the bar on his tongue and lets them sit for a minute longer than he would. sweet. had revan always made them so sweet? or maybe things like this, like a carefully-handled life, could sweeten with age. (right now, his feels bitter-sweet.)
he turns to the viewport, watching the relay edge closer. the mass of eezo swirls at its centre like a fiery blue star. they have some minutes before they enter its range â before they're slung back home towards sol and towards earth.
"i saw a picture of it on the extranet a while ago," he says, abruptly: an offhanded remark more than a real conversation starter. two ships and a remodelling and three crews later, and he's still not sure he's mastered this whole art of conversation. "earth. just a pale blue dot. that's what they called the photograph. some famous pic taken from a probe almost two hundred years ago, before all of this" â he gestures vaguely, with his free arm, around them â "made it a little obsolete."
he wouldn't bother with the details, ordinarily. revan would likely know better. this is the sort of thing that would be on their space nerd radar.
"the probe took the photograph from the edge of the system, even further away from earth than the sol relay. it made me think, though... i've never seen earth like that before." he pauses. "guess i didn't come and go that much, though."
it's a sight he's only had the misfortune of seeing a few times in his life: earth hovering before him, deep blues and greens twinkling bright in the dark of space. the first time had been shortly after n-school had carted him and a shipload of other recruits on their first journey off-world. it wasn't as unique a trip as it would have been a century ago, but the other n-school recruits had still crowded the few small windows lining the rear of the ship, and they had gaped and 'ooh'ed in awe at the sight of their home planet vanishing behind them. shepard, content with his seat across the crew quarters and with his back to the sight, had found himself irked by their amazement â enough to twist in his seat and spare a glance over his shoulder. he remembers the momentary glimpse of earth he'd caught over their shoulders, a large marble gleaming in space. just a moment... the ship moved so quickly that, in the very next, earth had vanished and been swallowed up by a cascade of stars. the other n-school students had let out a sigh they seemed to have had been collectively holding, and most lingered in the window for another minute or two to capture their first and most tremendous farewell to earth.
all shepard remembers is hoping then that he'd never have to see it again.
but of course â as these things usually go â he hadn't been so lucky. he'd been shuttled back and forth from earth a couple times in the next decade by the time he'd last returned and set down in vancouver, in the heart of the alliance headquarters.
though he hadn't bothered to catch the view on their way to vancouver, with their AKEN-turned-cerberus researcher in hand and with jane sedated and barely stabilised in the medbay. he had been in the captain's quarters until shortly before the normandy breached the atmosphere. even when he made his way down to the CIC, it was revan that his eyes were drawn to first â their back that his gaze latched onto as he watched them exchanged a few final words with joker in the cockpit. once they were off the ship, shepard had crossed the CIC and stepped up into the spot they had stood, and then he'd followed the sight of them as they slipped into the sea of alliance uniforms and vanished from view. he'd lingered there and watched the crowd from inside the cockpit, until alliance personnel finally boarded to herd him off the ship and into the quarters where he would be confined for the next few months.
"... not that it matters that much." he shakes his head, huffing a sigh through his nostrils. of everything that's gone on in the past decade, earth's been the least of his concerns until these past months. it was the furthest thing from his mind, until the very moment the reapers had come to take it, and until anderson had dug his feet in the ground and insisted on staying and fighting for it. until jane's growing presence had again reminded him that once, though he'd been content to leave far behind him, earth had been home.
he's starting to feel jealous of that goddamned probe, now, too, wherever it is now. even after the discovery of the relays and after first contact had been swept under the rug, the alliance had decided to let their old probes drift uninterrupted, to continue to feel their ways throughout the galaxy as they were. it (and its sibling? he thinks there was the one other) never had to come home. he wonders how far the two of them have gotten and if, however far they've gotten, they've somehow survived the reaper onslaught.
"there's a lot of other things i didn't do much of. lot of things i didn't do the way that i should have, as much as i should have." he crumples the wrapper in one hand, balling up the bits left inside, and shoves it in one of the emptier pouches on his belt. "if i'm honest, sometimes i don't think i was really cut out for all of this. this whole â commander shepard thing. this saving the galaxy thing."
and yet here he is. he could thank saren, that motherfucker, for that. he probably should, before it's too late.
â i daresay you were starting to get the hang of it there at the end. â
â revan says, and shepard turns from the viewport, eyes pausing on pale and grey-tinged skin before lifting to meet revan's gaze. the two of them match now, he thinks to himself with a half-sighed breath of laughter, green and green. he's never thought about that before. too concerned, probably, with the orange-gold scars that first carved their way across his face, then later on across the whole of his body. a change of eye colour was the least of his worries.
"ha. you think?" he cracks a small smile despite his body's every protest. it's a twitch of the lip more than a smile, but revan's worked with less. "well, you helped."
more than they can ever know. or maybe revan knows very well the magnitude of their own presence, and they simply choose not to acknowledge it.
but now that he's looking closer, he thinks he spots dark circles beneath their eyes. they're tired, too. of course they are. third eyelids, implants, bizarre gene alterations and all the strength it could grant a person â that can only do so much to erase reminders of one's own humanity.
... and either it's a trick of the lounge lights, or there are streaks of grey in revan's hair that shepard doesn't remember being there before. beneath the soft orange light, the greys almost shine gold. the light does little, however, to mask their pallid face. it's not as colourless as the first shocking shift he remembers after the miserable sparing of wyrick. and maybe it's the sleeplessness, or the never-lessening exhaustion that weighs heavy in his every muscle, or maybe it's the anticipation of the fight ahead that fogs his judgement. but shepard doesn't think as he raises a half-closed hand, reaching towards bare skin, or trimmed and soft hair. his trajectory is uncertain and slow enough that he has enough time to think better of them. a second more, and the backs of his fingers might have brushed the side of revan's jaw.
he draws back, and something heavy rises in his throat. whatever it is, it pulses with his quickened heartbeat. he swallows it down, but it doesn't help the treacherous thump, thump-ing echoing in his skull and filling his ears.
"sorry," he says, voice oddly hoarse. (though he's not sure what it is he's most sorry for... for the almost-touch? for lacking the courage to follow through with it? for only almost 'getting the hang of this' when they are so very near to the end? ... that it's him standing here as commander and not someone like shepard [like jane] or, perhaps, even revan themself? either might have done a much better job. he, however â he could never have been the pillars they have become to him.
(the thought of that other world drags him deeper into the gutters of melancholy. if only he could be for the two of them just a fraction of what they have been for them. if only. for revan, if only.)
he scours revan's face for some sign of offence, but it's difficult to look for the signs when he has to take so much care not to get lost in their eyes. he never had a chance, as it turns out, and shepard finds himself held fast in their locked gazes... for a minute, or a few, or maybe just seconds. he thinks of the time they've spent together: several collective months realistically, at best, from the first time they met on the citadel and from the moment that he failed to chase revan away with sharp demands and bitter glares.
... and somehow, within revan's eyes, he sees a lifetime reflected.
maybe more. it's a ridiculous thought. even shepard's not entirely sure what it means, only that he feels it. but he's certain he could find out, if the galaxy and the reapers could lay down their weapons and wait for just a while longer.
(revan had never turned back that day, shepard had thought to himself hours after disembarking in vancouver, a moment that now feels like yet another lifetime away. not once. at least, not that shepard knew. he had only seen the rippling of their dress blues from behind as they'd retreated. it was good that they had been angry beyond belief at him then â watching them go was a sight more gripping and a feeling more gut-wrenching than the sight of earth vanishing in the rear window had ever been. he could have never let them go if it had been their eyes he had caught. not for the end of the world. not for the ever-growing swirling of eezo looming large before them.)
"... i should get up there," shepard says at last, breaking his eyes away and making the ascent to the cockpit. he stays there with joker as they enter the relay and as the sr-2 is swept nearly halfway across the galaxy.
earth hovers before them, its seas rippling a deep black-blue and the trail of destruction and scorching land the reapers left in their wake burning fiery red and gold. like dress blues and bright hair.
the image lingers even as the normandy sr-2 dives into the atmosphere towards london. shepard's feet touch marred ground and debris of the home planet. he takes a breath, taking the scent of charred metal and smoke deep into his lungs â and he thinks of revan, of their retreating back and the gleam of their hair beneath the lounge's lamplight.
gun readied in his hands, shepard charges forward. he carves through flesh and synthetics, leaving in his wake blood, gunfire, and a trail of biotic force. above and around him is a presence he knows well, pinging in the back of his head where synthetics and machinery weld into his flesh: geth lives, like stars sprinkled across a black sky, pieces of LEGION glimmering within them.
another familiarity arrives soon after, seeming almost to pass him by yet somehow still enveloping him: RSPN, at war with the reapers above, its presence every so often wavering as its attention splits between what remains of earth's planetary defences and attempting to worm its way back into the citadel systems. along with rasputin's presence, comes another signal. it unfurls quietly in the back of his mind, quiet and barely there but still the brightest among all of them: revan, somewhere out there on the battlefield. maybe nearby, behind him or in above in the skies. or perhaps somewhere up ahead, paving the way forward.
shepard plunges deeper into the battle and makes his way towards the citadel, chasing after them. after blues and reds and threads of grey-gold.
(just maybe, when this is all over, he might get the hang of this enough to reach for them without fumbling.)
i still be sick. but mostly i've been preoccupied with a 20x12' banner design i've been doing for work that is Killing Me and also subnautica 2. disease is fading (all i have left is pesky bronchitis) and project is due tomorrow so ya'll shall see me after that. as consolation here is drawing of revan i did bc i think you should've gotten a racing outfit for the swoop bikes on taris
rotating revan in the proverbial microwave and i know i shape them around rage but i don't think i've really considered how being angry their whole life has shaped their complex about being the best jedi they can be.
revan never really tried racing of any kind before kotor ( they're a decent pilot by jedi standards, mostly because they've never had to be anything more ) but lyn genuinely falls in love with swoop racing on taris and that stays with them, even after they become revan again. it's probably the only space they'll genuinely become competitive in and engage in behavior like egging on opponents and general shit-talking, even if it's more for the love of the game than anything else.
in contrast they've never been popular or well-received in dueling rings. they did it for the money, but even as rye they were never competitive, seeing each duel as a learning experience. and later on, it was about survival, not victory. on taris they cut their way to the top and took out bendak starkiller, but they never contributed to the spectacle of a duel that made it appealing to onlookers.
