Saga No Regrets (Jax Pavan/Laranth Tarak) 18 BBY

I just finished reading the Corsucant Nights Trilogy and the novel The Last Jedi. There were two characters that I liked and I wanted to write a missing moment. I only read the books so if these characters are in comics or video games then I won't know anything about that. Based on the books it could be considered canon compliant. Anyway, I am always disappointed that romance is not in the Star Wars novels.

This is the first time I wrote about this couple. Hopefully somebody knows who they are and reads this story.

~JL~

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Jax Pavan was roused out of a deep sleep by a terrifying nightmare. Or at least he hoped it was a nightmare and not a vision of the future. He dreamt he was cradling his friend Laranth Tarak in his arms. The green skinned female Twi’lek was severely injured, bleeding and close to death. He was unsure how she got hurt, but he assumed it had something to do with the hunt for Jedi. Laranth was a member of the Gray Paladins—an offshoot of the Jedi Order that limited their use of the Force and utilized weapons other than lightsabers—but they were on the Empire’s hit list just as much as any Jedi. He woke just as she looked up at him and tried to talk.

“Kriff,” he swore as he brought his hand up to his face and realized he had broken out in a cold sweat. He pushed the covers off and sat up in bed.

‘It had to be a dream. It must be a dream,’ he thought as he felt a growing feeling of unease well up within him. He had lost all of his Jedi brethren; he couldn’t bear to lose someone else. ‘I am the last Jedi,’ Jax thought forlornly…and Laranth was possibly the last Gray Paladin.

They were reunited in the lower levels of the Black Pit slums of Coruscant three months after Flame Night—the dreadful start of the Jedi purge. For the last eight months they worked with an anti-Imperial group called Whiplash. Their relationship strengthened as they fought the Empire and the darkside together. The two became closer and closer until something passed between them yesterday, a mental caress between two Force-users; it was a bond, a feeling strong, deep and… intimate.

There is no passion; there is serenity.

What happened? He knew her since they were padawans, but he never saw her as a possible lover or mate. The Jedi attachment rule precluded that thought anyway.

He looked at his wall chrono and realized it was close to the time that his group of Whiplash operatives usually woke for breakfast. He rose and got dressed. He needed to talk to Laranth.
.
.
.
He stood outside her door anxiously. He brought his hand up to knock but then hesitated. What was he going to say to her? 'Do you think we bonded through the Force?' Then what? If she said yes…what was he going to do? His Jedi training didn’t prepare him for this type of predicament. Attachment and passion were forbidden to the Jedi. It was something drilled into his head since he was a child, but here he was outside his friend’s room wanting to explore the possibility.

He turned to leave but Laranth’s door opened. She stood there in a long nightshirt, arms akimbo and looking bemused. Her right lekku gave a twitch of impatience; her left lekku was all but gone, having been shortened by a blaster strike. He could see the white crisscrossing of scar tissue over the green skin of her face and neck, but he never thought her battle injuries detracted from her beauty.

“Your churning emotions woke me up.”

“Sorry,” Jax blushed profusely as he tried to back away while babbling some excuse for showing up at her room in the early morning. She would have none of his backpedaling. She grabbed the front of his tunic and pulled him into her room, closing the door behind them.

“What is it?”

Jax sat down in a small chair near her desk. The only other place to sit was her bed and he didn’t want to go there. “I had a dream.”

One eyebrow cocked up. “A bad dream?”

Jax took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I dreamt that you were severely injured and dying.”

“Oh,” she said slowly as she sat down on the corner of her bed. “Was it a dream or a vision?”

He looked up at her confused and saddened. “I don’t know.” He thought about it for a moment. “It was probably a dream.”

She gave a slight smile. “Good. No problem then.”

Jax ran a hand through his dark brown hair. “Another thing bothered me about the dream. As I looked at your battered body I had such a feeling of despair. It was more than losing a comrade. It felt like I lost part of my heart. There was so much emotion in the dream that it got me thinking about what happened between us.”

She nodded. “You mean yesterday…the strong connection we felt?”

“Yes,” Jax said somewhat relieved that she said it instead of him. “What was that?”

She gave him a level look. “It was the Force. It allowed our minds to connect, to see each other…to know each other.”

Jax felt torn. “Why would the Force do that? Attachment is not permitted.”

She gave a delicate shrug. “For the Jedi. I’m a Gray Paladin. I left the Jedi Order years ago.”

He looked at her surprised. “Then you’re not upset?”

She gave him a strange look. “Should I be upset that I know you Jax Pavan? Are you troubled that you now know me intimately?”

His palms started to sweat. This conversation was becoming uncomfortable. “It could lead to things that are forbidden.”

She let out a contentious snort. “By who? We are the last of our kind. The Jedi philosophy and decrees didn’t save the Order from destruction.”

He gazed at her intently. “So…what are you suggesting?”

She shook her head. “Jax. I’m not suggesting anything. I don’t know why the Force wanted us…closer. All I’m saying is you shouldn’t be agonizing over ‘us’. I’m not planning on tossing you onto the bed and ravishing you.”

Jax had to laugh. To be honest he wasn’t sure what he would do if she tried. He was a man after all. He had desires…yearnings that he firmly stamped down on a daily bases.

“Thanks.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. “Don’t worry, what will be, will be.” She stood and put a hand on his shoulder. He knew it was only a friendly reassuring gesture, but her physical touch stirred something inside him. He brought his hand up to cover hers as he looked at her questioningly.

“Tell me something,” he hesitated slightly before continuing. “Did you have someone in your life. A romantic partner?”

Her eyes glazed over in thought. “Yes, once. He died shortly after Flame Night. He sacrificed himself for me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He dropped his hand away from hers, but she continued to rest her hand on his shoulder. “If you could go back in time would you have done the same thing? Or would you have eschewed attachment and avoided all the pain?”

“I would do things differently.” She pulled away from him and averted her eyes. “If I could go back in time I wouldn’t have held back my love for so long because of some archaic and misguided Jedi rule of no attachment taught to me as a child. I would have given him everything, all of me—heart, body and soul—so when the time came for him to join the Force—I would have no regrets. I wouldn’t have left things unsaid. I would have told him ‘I love you’ instead of assuming he knew.” She wiped an uncharacteristic tear from her eyes. “So, yeah…I would do things differently.”

The intensity of her words shocked him. In the last eight months she had maintained a somewhat cold and unemotional façade, but now he realized the depth of her emotions. Still, it was hard to break through a lifetime of Jedi conditioning. “I…I never had anyone,” he muttered as he looked down to the floor. He didn’t know why he felt embarrassed by this admission. Most Jedi lived a chaste and monastic lifestyle.

Laranth gave him a sad look as she walked up to him and clasped her hands around his and pulled him to a standing position. He looked into her dark green eyes feeling torn. “Was it really worth the pain?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion.

He leaned his head down until his forehead touched hers. “And would you risk your heart again?”

She looked up at him. “Yes.”

He gave a long pause. “I think it’s worth the risk also,” he whispered as he leaned down and kissed her softly, lovingly as their Force essences swirled together giving them both a heady rush of passion.

With Darth Vader, the Emperor and a legion of Sith Inquisitors searching for any surviving Jedi they both could die tomorrow. He faced that fact pragmatically and without fear. If he wasn’t scared to die, then he shouldn’t be afraid to live.

He wanted no regrets.

 

Very nice! I'm probably the worlds biggest Jax/Laranth fan. Nice to see somebody else cares.

 

Loved the story and now wanting to see and read more about the couple.

 

Ditto! This is terrific. I like Jax/Laranth already. I also agree with every word about archaic silly rules.

 

Thanks. I wish there was more romance in the novels. It may be different for guys who like the action, but I enjoyed the interaction between the characters the most. I was a little disappointed that, as a reader, we obviously missed a lot of romance between Corsucant Nights III and The Last Jedi.

But I guess it is expected. After Vision of the Future we didn't see much Luke/Mara romance. We did get the comic, Union, that covered a small part of their romance prior to the wedding, but it was really lacking. That is why you can probably find thousands of L/M fanfics dealing with that time frame. I looked up fanfiction for this couple and didn't find a thing. I thought they deserved a fanfic.

I wasn't as comfortable writing the two as I am L/M. I hope they didn't seem out of character. I also had no idea if Laranth or Jax had any prior romantic involvement with other people. All I know is Jax was able to fight off the advances of a female Zeltron that was very interested in him…so I assume he was following the Jedi tenets as best as he could. I should write a fanfic about what happened after the first romantic encounter between Laranth and Jax. What did Den and I-5YQ say about the situation? I am sure the droid would have some smart-mouth comment.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to review. I appreciate it.

You can read more about them in the profic novels Coruscant Nights (I,II, & III) and The Last Jedi by Michael Reaves. The novels pretty much have all original characters with the exception of Darth Vader that shows up to fight Jax occassionally until the Jedi gets some really great luck to bail him out. Don't get me wrong, I think it was good writing, but a few times I would think Vader would have taken the time to do a Force choke on Jax to kill him instead of fighting him man-to-man. It was almost like Vader didn't want to kill him. There are hints that Jax and Anakin were casual friends with each other while Padawans. I liked the books and I hope the author continues the adventures of Jax Pavan.

Thanks. They remind me of Luke and Mara a bit, but Jax was trained at the Temple so he has those stupid rules in his head. Luke had the problem of thinking he was cursed when it came to women. The authors need a way to keep the two away to create sexual tension. I was very disappointed that the start of the romance happened 'off screen' between two books.

Thanks everybody for reading!

 

If there was one thing that the Jedi of the Old Republic really should have realized... there just isn't any avoiding "attachment." Grief is grief whether you showed your love for another or not. Insert nearly everyone's rant here, but really. So much unnecessary suffering, and for what? Laranth may be saying it, but there must have been untold numbers of Jedi who had similar thoughts over the years. That seems like one of the worst tragedies of the Star Wars saga, that things might have been so much better if the Jedi had rejected this overwhelming fear of attachment.

I really liked seeing Jax and Laranth, since they rarely get any screen time in fanfiction. Most of the non-movie characters who aren't paired with a movie character or descended from one seem to meet this fate, and I wish that weren't the case. There are so many neat EU characters that don't seem to have many fan writers. Rogue Squadron is the main exception that I can think of, and even they seem to have a dwindling number of stories. Anyway, I thought those two characters were an interesting pair in the Coruscant Nights series, and would love to see them written more often.

They didn't seem out of character to me, though Laranth was more openly emotional than she is in the books. However, it seems pretty clear in canon that she has a tough public persona because she needs to (I mean, she's an enemy of the state and a member of a frequently-enslaved species living in a rough part of the biggest city in the galaxy, seriously) and a lot of hidden depths. It seems credible to me that she would be like this when having this conversation. I liked that Laranth had actually had a previous relationship. It kind of highlights the difference in her philosophy and Jax's; she's been outside of the standard Jedi restrictions for longer and has adapted to that, while Jax still tries to cling to his origins in a lot of ways.

Honestly, I can't remember about whether in-canon Jax mentioned his stance on romantic relationships, or whether he was okay with sex but not romance as some fans have theorized that the Jedi were. Sounds contradictory, but then it seems like contradictory beliefs are pretty common in the real world. Personally, I kind of assume that they were (or tried to be) celibate unless otherwise specified, like the ones who were married because they belonged to an endangered species. The version here, where he has doubts about engaging in a romantic relationship, seems plausible to me. Throughout the books, there seems to be a theme of Jax needing to let go of his old life -- and resisting every step of the way. So I have no problem believing that he'd be wary of breaking the attachment rule, given that he might see it as one of his last remaining ties to the Jedi way of life.

Spoiler: SPOILS!

Though I liked The Last Jedi on the whole, I was disappointed to see Laranth go, and I agree that they should have shown the relationship instead of just mentioning it in passing! On the other hand, I also really liked the new female characters, Sasha and Magash. I just wish they had shown up by a different road, you know?

If you decide to write more of these two, I would definitely like to see that! Especially if it had I-5. Independent and/or quirky droids are the best droids.

 

I may write some I-5 and Jax fanfics, but that may be later down the line. I am still working on my NaNo story and I have to think of my new Diary Challenge. A Jax Diary would be interesting but I don't know if I feel comfortable enough with him to write him correctly. I have read four books with him, whereas I have read probably 75 books with Luke. I am much more comfortable with L/M stories.

Spoiler: Spoils!

I hope we see some more of Jax in the future. I did like the two women introduced into the story and it gives me some hope that we might actually see romance in a Star Wars novel. Sacha obviously has some interest in Jax and I got the impression that Magash is intrigued with a Force-strong male. I can see Magash wanting to claim Jax as a mate and Sacha saying, "Oh no you don't!" That would be an interesting fight. Unfortunately, I don't think Jax will be ready for a new relationship any time soon after losing Laranth.

 

Thanks everybody who voted this fanfic Best Saga Short Story of 2014! I appreciate the nomination and those who voted for it! Thank you!

 

Lovely. I don't know these characters, but you've written them so well, I feel like I do.

Bravo!

 

I don't know the characters that well, but I could still feel the emotions you wrote and I thought this was a really great piece. And you're right, I wish we would get a little more romance in the movies and the pro novels.

 

Thanks you two. I really appreciate the kind words. I liked the Corsucant Night books and The Last Jedi novel. Unfortunately their entire romance was 'off screen' which is irritating when you want to see two people get together and they do, but sometime in between novel three and novel four.

One of the reasons I was a little disappointed about Disney's decision to kill the EU is I doubt I will ever see these characters written about again other than in fanfiction.

Thanks again for reading.

 

The above quote is from the StarWars.com site - the day they made the official annoucement --- so there's a small part of me that has not given up hope yet that we may still get some EU characters in the films --- just not complete story lines from the EU books. I will still cling to this hope until I see the films --- it's one of the few things I still have hope for.