Contemplation

Qi’ra had returned to her quarters after the meeting to contemplate what she must do. She found herself feeling like she did all those years ago when she had been summoned to Dathomir to face Maul; afraid.

She wasn’t afraid of death or fearful of facing the rebels whose might had grown in the galaxy. She was afraid she was becoming like everyone she had despised for so many years. Of evolving into the very people rebels like Enfys Nest had been fighting for years.

She knew one day she would have to face Enfys again. She was a constant irritant who preyed off of the crime syndicates’ smuggling operations. But what she was doing was for the right cause. A cause whose opposition was Qi’ra’s stance in the galaxy.

She was the leader of the very syndicate who had ruined the lives of those on Savareen. She was a woman that years ago she would’ve herself despised. With each passing day, as she doled out orders to practically cause hardship, suffering, and even death to millions around the galaxy she kept asking herself who had she become?

“I’m not who you think I am,” she had said to Han when he had cornered her in the cape closet on Lando’s Millennium Falcon one more time before they set down on Kessel.

“And who do you think I think you are?” he had whispered, almost playfully. Everything was always a joke to him when clearly she was being very serious.

“The girl you fell in love with on Corellia,” she said before pushing past him, one of Lando’s capes in her hand.

No, she wasn’t the girl she was on Corellia. She was a woman now. A woman with a purpose. And that purpose was to survive.

She had promised herself she would survive on Corellia after her failed escape attempt. She had promised herself she would survive when she was sold to Dryden Vos to work for Crimson Dawn. She had promised herself she would survive when she reached Dathomir to an uncertain fate. And even now, at the height of her status, she promised herself once again that she would endure.

She wouldn’t let her guilt destroy her miraculous journey. She had become everything that she had aspired to be as a child on Corellia. She was now the one calling the shots, the one everyone looked up to or feared. She didn’t have to answer anyone.

And isn’t that everything she had ever wanted?

Her head bowed. Yes…it was.

But why did she feel so bad?

Because it’s hard to accept being the bad guy, she said to herself.

Her gaze rose to her reflection in the glass and as her eyes met her own her expression darkened with acceptance.

No more sadness. No more guilt.

With this mantra repeating in her head, she grabbed her sword–the same sword that had killed Dryden Vos, off of her bed, sheathing it in the scabbard on her back, slipped her blaster into the holster on her hip and left the room.

I will survive.