Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark
When the girl's fingers grazed the metal of her weapon Mar noted a glazed look in her eyes for the briefest of moments. It made him pause before he could pull the lightsaber away from her hand and he looked at her, curious as to what was going on in her head at that moment. But just as quickly as the look had appeared it vanished.
“ it seams I have not choice but to follow you” she said. Her eyes still watered and she trying to keep herself from crying. She was failing miserably. “ why should we not look for the dark side when it has the power to kill us” she asked. Realizing she had asked that question before. But she could not remember the answer. She followed Mar back to his ship quietly after that.
Mar frowned at the question. To him the dark side was all he'd lived. And he could tell that Serenity's was a life of constant fear of the dark side. Typical jedi teachings, everything that came natural to every living being in the galaxy was a path to the dark side. The dark side was to be avoided, denied it's day, repressed. And yet they never considered why so many of their enemies were former Jedi.
That hadn't been the case for Mar, however. He had been an Imperial pilot when the Inquisitors discovered his ability to channel The Force. He had been molded by The Dark Side from the very beginning. And yet the Sith teachings were just as backwards as the Jedi. It had taken him being saved by a Jedi to realize that feelings such as compassion weren't weaknesses. Where emotions like anger and love were forbidden to Jedi, the same was equally evident when it came to mercy and sentimentality to Sith.
And now Mar stood before this young Jedi, seeing the horrid effects such broken creeds could produce. The girl was strong in The Force, that much was evident, and her emotions were like a wild rancor, uncontrolled and destructive. She could fall to the dark side so easily, yet she feared that and it only brought more chaos to her already chaotic thoughts.
"The Force is The Force. Dark side, light side, it doesn't matter." He finally said. "You fear me because I was Sith. Yet here I am, trying to help you while you continue to refuse the help you clearly need. If I really wanted to kill you, I'd have ignored you when you were a speck on the horizon. Or I would've cut you down. I haven't. So how about you suck it up and accept when someone tries to help you instead of being scared because I am not the nicest person in the damn galaxy?"
When it became evident that Serenity wasn't going to flee Mar merely nodded and tucked her lightsaber into his belt for safe keeping. "Come on then."
When the two of them reached his ship he lowered the cargo ramp and gestured for her to go inside. The ship was much cooler than the desert air and when both were inside Mar handed Serenity his canteen. "There. Keep drinking. Have a seat. When you're better we'll head back to the settlement."
His ship was small, a stealth craft meant mainly for recon originally. It served its purpose as his ship during his time as an Inquisitor very well and he needed very little in the way of space. Just enough to get to and from worlds, a place to sleep, and someplace to keep a prisoner if the jedi he had hunted weren't so lucky. Those who had fallen to his blade had been fortunate, as those who had lived were sent to Darth Vader.
Just like her... His hand clutched the pendant again and guilt radiated from him. He threw up other memories to illicit emotions to block what he was really feeling at the current time. It was a mental trick to throw off Jedi. They were an intuitive lot to start, with some being able to predict the moves of their enemies well in advance. Such skills were taught to Inquisitors to better handle Jedi in combat. Here, it was to hide the fact he was still dealing with his greatest mistake.
"If you're hungry, I can prepare some food. It's not the best stuff, just dehydrated loafs and such. But you will need your strength." Then he frowned, realizing something. "Oh, I'm Mar, by the way. Mar Leto. What's your name, girl?"