#i like simulating Agency for atton and giving some weight to the fact that he has conflicting motivations

[thatwitchrevan]

kotor 2 snippet

-

"Uh, Meetra?" Atton flipped down the hood on one of the downed Sith. "This one's a kid. Just so you know."

Meetra turned, looking with horror at the small, baby-faced girl bleeding on the floor. She couldn't be more than eighteen, more like sixteen at a guess. "Fuck." She hurried over and knelt beside the kid, pressing her hand over the chest wound and pouring out Force healing.

Atton leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. "Could just finish her. I won't tell anyone. She's still a Sith, after all."

Meetra sighed. "Yeah, and Visas is a Sith, and you used to be a Sith, and this one is a child. Help me stabilize her."

Atton sighed. He stared at her, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed as he warred with himself for a few seconds before relunctantly standing up off the wall and kneeling down on the other side of the Sith. He checked her pulse and touched her forehead with the back of his hand. "I don't know if she's gonna make it, boss." His tone was dry, with a distinct lack of sympathy.

Meetra tore off the bottom of her undershirt to make a bandage. "I don't know if you're testing me or you just hate kids, but I don't appreciate it."

"I do not hate kids," he said hotly. He helped her lift the girl up and tie the bandage around her wound to keep pressure. "I just hate Jedi, and by the time they get to be 12 or 14 they're more Jedi than they are a kid."

Meetra grimaced. She had a mind to protest him talking about Jedi like they were less than people, but she could remember having several conversations like this, justifying the deaths of young soldiers in the Mandalorian War, how war stripped them of their right to innocence. "Elevate her wound," she said instead. "And keep pressure on it."

Atton hesitated another half second before shrugging off his jacket, folding it to make an improvised cushion and prop the Sith's torso off the ground. "You're washing that for me later." He pressed his hands down on the wound while Meetra resumed trying to close it with the Force.

"I think you can handle it," Meetra muttered. "More experience getting blood out of your clothes."

"You think she deserves to live more than the others? They all tried to kill us. You stabbed her, so you'd already decided to kill her before I pointed out she's young."

Meetra didn't answer for several minutes. Instead she concentrated as hard as she could on making the kid's guts and flesh knit back together the way they were supposed to be, bringing the wound as far along it's healing cycle as she could. It was slow, tense work, and once she'd reached the length of her energy there was still some surface damage and mild internal tearing, but at least the Sith wasn't torn open anymore. Now she just had to worry about the blood loss that couldn't be so easily undone.

Meetra took her hands back from the Sith and wiped her hands on her own pants, smearing off some of the blood. "The others were already dead. And I think I've killed enough children, okay? Can you respect what I need to do for my conscience?"

Atton frowned, mulling it over. "I don't know."

Meetra sighed and sat back on her ass. She wiped at her sweaty face with her forearm, managing to smear blood on her nose and cheek. "Why'd you tell me anyway?"

He shrugged. "You would've been upset if you noticed and I hadn't said something."

Meetra frowned in a thin line. "So you care more about my feelings than somebody's life. Good to know."

She sat up on her feet and hauled the wounded Sith into her arms, picking her up as she stood. "We're getting her back to the ship. You got my back?"

Atton scrambled to his feet as she started walking back. "Hey, hold up! I mean yeah, I do, but you better lock up the medbay if you're gonna bring her, cause I'm not playing around."

"Me or Visas will sit with her and we'll have HK on the door. We'll drop her off at Yavin and be gone."

"Great," he muttered, following. "Let her be someone else's problem. We're not a Sith rescue service."

"Aren't we, Atton?"

"Uh-uh. Sparing the cute ones doesn't count."

Meetra adjusted the Sith's weight in her arms. She wondered if Visas felt like that. An exception. A pet. Like Meetra had handed her her life rather than Visas earning it. She kept her feet as steady as she could on the rocky ground, unwilling to stumble. "Sparing isn't always a mercy anyway."