When was the last time you took a good look at yourself?

And that isn't directed as an introspective, hooked on a feeling, emotional discovery fashion.

Too many people leap to the conclusion that it is not what is outside, but what is inside, that counts. This is not correct.

Inside doesn't matter.

You are not who you are. As much as you may claim to be a good person, what you think, and what you feel, will never matter as much as what you enact. You are not who you are. You are what you do.

And there is no better way to judge what you have done then taking an inventory of your physical self.

Every wrinkle on your tired skin. Ever fold of flesh bent over a sealed scar. Every unkempt hair growing from a spot that you wish it weren't. Every crease, every dent. Every inch of your hunched head. Everything about you, analyzed, digested, translated, considered. A picture of your life in carbon--based sheets of organic matter.

Do you like what you see?

Does anyone?

For Andrew Micheal Rashanagok, the answer was clear. It was the reason he went months without looking. It was the reason that he stayed awake for days at a time, the reasons he did not talk to people about how he felt, the reasons that he always prefered fighting as opposed to thinking. Every scar Ahnk bore was won he wore of his own failure, of his own loss, of a mistake that he made where someone was hurt. The ones that hurt the least were the ones that hurt only him. Every wrinkle, every fold, every bend along his head served to remind him that he was dying, not all at once, but a little more every day and a little faster each time he woke. But for Ahnk, death would not serve to end his suffering. Ahnk was slated to die, and then wake up and die again, and then to wake up and die again.

It would happen. It had happened. It was happening, a little more each day and a little faster every time he woke.

It was the reason he stayed awake for days at a time. The reason he never looked, never asked, never thought.

Raising up his arm, he flicked his wrist, turning his hand enough to send the rock contained within airborn. It flew through the air for severl meters, landing with a wet thud against the surface of the water. It impacted momentarily, then popped up once again, to impact again, then into the air again, continuing until it's momentum was sapped entirely, and it sunk slowly down into the dark depths beyond the reach of his eyes. It was a fate he was envious of in every facet. To slowly dissapear... sinking into the black death of nothingness. Out of sight, out of mind.

There was something calming about this place. Something familar in the way the trees swayed, the way the pond rippled against a stone's throw. The way the wind spoke to him as he walked... the way the moon shone off the grass overhead, the way the land welcomed him as a neighbour, and even a friend. It invited a passivity inside of him... something that made him willing, and perhaps, even able, to lower his guard.

And then he saw the house.

It was impossible, in a pratically applicable sense of the word. The house had four corners, each rising a simple one bend arch of metal up amongst the stone facade. Behind the stone was wood, behind wood was the metal frame, and behind the metal frame stood the burnt remnants of the house in which he had let himself incinerate. He should probably have known that, if he was here, that it would be here, but that did not make it's current appearance more jarring. It's being there at all was quite the blow to his system, but not so much as what was inside.

As he walked up the stony path, a full spectrum of thought and feeling occured to him in waves. Though he had been here fairly recently, it had been years since he had been here. For having burnt to the ground completely the door was in fairly good shape, without so much as a scorched veneer. Andrew raises his hand to the knob... then up higher to the center of the door, internally debating whether to open the door or knock. Shrugging, he pulls back his hand and raps twice on the surface of the door.

Almost immediately, the door was pulled open, and the man inside stepped out.

The two men stood, face to face. He was a tall man, standing head to head with Andrew. His pale skin was worn and scarred, with an old wound stretching down across his face from top of his right eyebrow to just above his ear. He had numerous folds of scar tissue above his browline, in the forehead, below his mouth and across his jaw, and underneath his eyes. His eyes were worn, a shade or two lighter then they once might have been, and the white was shaded by tendrils of red bloody vein. Around, the flesh scrunched in, folded down, and cut back up in jagged creases, worn and broken from the years. His lips were worn and dark, broken and cracked, and the flesh around similarily bent in a signature of his passing. His breath smelt bad... like hot, warm death. One of his teeth was chipped.

"Well," he said, speaking in a deliberate, familar voice. "You look like shit."

Andrew shrugged. "I was about to say the exact same thing, believe it or not," he said, rolling his eyes in the general direction of the dark side of the moon.

"I can believe that," the man said, opening the door a little wider. "I never thought I'd see you here, but since you are, you might as well come inside."

Andrew raised his hands, defensively. "I don't want to cause any trouble," he said, sounding sincere.

The other man laughed. When Andrew frowned, he stopped laughing. "I'm sorry, it's just that it's a little late for that...."

The man headed inside, and Andrew, reluctant in his steps, followed behind. Closing the door behind him, he walked the familar halls, feeling both a stranger and a familar occupant in someone else's version of his own home. As he came to the living room, he found his steps slowing and then stopping altogether. Leaning against a wall across the way was a man abouit his height, but looking drastically different. His body was covered in horrid burns and scars, his arms, chest, and face bearing the brunt of it, but a large scar crossed his waist, looking deep and ugly, almost as if it dissected him at the middle of his form. A woman leaned against him, hand draped across his hip. Andrew knew her, but her name escaped him. When he looked at her, she dropped her eyes, avoiding his gaze. The scarred man met him in kind, offering him a deep nod. Andrew nodded back.

Sitting in a chair was a sight he had not seen for some time. The man sat, unmovingly. He looked out into nothing with eyes wide open, considering whatever it was that something of his kind saw fit to analyze. He was dark; dressed from head to toe in dark blue leather, looking almost black in the night's lack of light. His face was a mask of hatred and fury, scrawled in green symbols across a dark matte of painted flesh. His features, highlighted though they were by the surrounding green lines, were unreadable. His eyes seemed distant, but with a deadly focus, as if he were thinking of something beyond the comprehension of mortal men.

"He doesn't talk much," the man behind him said, and as he did, the eyes of the painted warrior found the pair of men and considered their existence for a fraction of a second before darting back to the nothing they were fixated on before. "He mostly just sits there. But, he stays out of our way, and we stay out of his."

"What shall we call you?" the man against the wall said, and the girl on his hip looked up but quickly back down before he could meet her eyes. "If you're going to be here, we might as well have a name for you. No reason we can't be civil, after all." He ran his hand through the woman's hair, and she leaned her head into his shoulder. Andrew noticed with terrified eyes that the man only had four digits on his hand.

Andrew, alarmed, shuddered, and then sighed, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. "Well, my name is Andrew Mi..."

"Taken," the scarred man said, and when Andrew seemed confused, gave a sigh. "Your name. You can't be Andrew because we already have an Andrew. He's right behind you."

Andrew turned around and found himself face to facer with Andrew. "Sorry. But I was here first."

The newcomer known temporarily as Andrew shrugged. "Well, make introductions. I can't well pick a name, if you guys have taken all the good ones."

The man leaning against the wall raised his hand. "Rashanagok, reporting as ordered."

"We call him Rash for short," Andrew told Andrew, who then mused over the silent one in the chair.

"Let me guess," the unnamed one said, apprising the room. "He's Andrew, and he's Rashanagok. I guess you'd just be Ahnk then."

"Actually," Andrew said, stepping in between the two, "we call him Verbal."

"...Verbal?"

"Because he talks too much," Rashanagok offered, and Andrew slowly nodded.

"I didn't want to say anything..." the newcomer clarified, before taking a second to stroke his goatee in thought. "Very well then. If you're Andrew, and you're Rashanagok, then I'll be Ahnk."

'Your arrival is troublesome,' Ahnk heard in his head... which was also troublesome. 'Your being in this place is a cause for concern.'

"Eh," Andrew said, brushing the silent one's words aside. "Nevermind him. He's just focusing the whole of himself on her."

That was the first time Ahnk saw fit to look outside. When he did, he couldn't help but offer a small, suprised gasp.

"He hasn't talked to her," Rash said, "but it's clear there's history. We haven't decided whether it's love or war that keeps them together and thus which one it is that keeps them apart."

A little of both, Ahnk thought. But he offered nothing to the conversation.

"I was wondering when you'd arrive," a voice greeted Ahnk from behind. He found a set of fingers curled around his skull and before he could turn, he found a pair of lips entwine with his in an unexpected blending of flesh. Shrugging, he decided to roll with it, opening his eyes to spot his prior imaginary lover, staring at him with reflective black eyes.

"You two should get a room," Andrew suggested as Montague broke away and began to slither across the room.

"Ain't love grand?" Rash said, running his four fingers through his anounymous ornament's hair. Montague, meanwhile, dropped herself across the lap of the painted warrior in the chair, whose eyes immediately flashed. "Uh oh."

'Remove yourself from my prescense, you unnatural abhorrence,' the silent one stated with serious backing to his words, eyes staring a hole through the unnatural woman in his lap.

"Oh," she said, pouting, "don't be grumpy."

With no further quarter, the tattooed force user flung Montague from his lap with an angry stare and the power of overwhelming hatred. Andrew and Ahnk both reached a hand out to soften her landing, but even so, she slammed head first into the far wall, slumping down against it and looking legitimately hurt. Ahnk stepped in to offer her hand up.

"God," she said, readjusting her head on her neck with both hands. "I know when I'm not wanted. No need to be so pushy."

"Don't take it personally," Andrew said, shaking his head in bemusement. "He's just preoccupied about her."

Montague, holding onto Ahnk to keep her balance, leant back and took a look out the glass door. "Oh. Well, okay. Never thought I'd see her here. Something must be wrong."

"You people," Rashasnagok said, shaking his head. "Everytime someone new shows up, it's the end of the world as we know it."

"I feel fine," Andrew said, thoiugh no one had asked.

'In this perticular instance, I agree with the mutated whore,' Verbal offered, tatooed lips pressed shut. 'It cannot be a coincidence that the pair of new arrivals be so close in chronology. The decay must be progressing faster then anticipated.'

Ahnk wasn't sure what was being discussed. What decay? What chronology? What was this? There were so many questions he wanted to ask, answeres he wanted to demand, but he merely stood silently, observing. It didn't take long to notice that everyone was observing him, even though they tried to do it discreetely. He decided to turn to Montague, since she was closest. "Was it something I didn't say?"

She smiled up at him. Nothing in that sweet and innocent gesture belied the fact that she had been known to eat people who displeased her. "They want you to talk to her," she said, softly, and grinned when Ahnk looked around and saw no one would meet his gaze as she said it.

"Why me?" he asked the obvious question, although he knew he didn't have to.

"Because they don't trust her," Montague told him, though he already knew that. She traced a finger down from the point where his neck leaped from his chest, and then down and around his sternum. "If she's here to talk, then they want someone to talk to her. And if she's here to be a problem, they'd rather have it fall on you then any of them," she said, playfully tapping a beat with her fingertips across his heart. Ahnk took the point. "Are you afraid?"

"There are not many things that can scare me," Ahnk said, managing to make himself sound convincing, before admitting "she's one of those things." He looked down at his hands. Each time the flesh bent over itself, each time it darkened over an old wound, each time it rippled above the jutting exterior of a jagged bone. Each line, each bump, was a story. A memory. A dark bit of history burnt into flesh and mind. For every inch of skin, a time, and a place. There were lines for her... memories, scars...

Fear. Fear is the demon underneath the sand; the phatom menace. Better the devil you know, that was the expression.

Perhaps not this time.

Ahnk had died more times then any man he knew. He would likely not live forever yet, and still, were he to live five more lives in the next five centuries, never would he conquer fear. Never would he bury the memories that which had plagued him like cancer of the brain. Never would he live down that which he had once lived for. The darkness would forever cloud his brain, and forever, he would know only pain.

Perhaps... better the pain you know.

Each step, each push of a foot through the air seemed labourous, done with more effort then should have been needed. It felt like the weight of the world has been affixed to his back, and he was being forced to march forward through the murky depths of history deep into the jaws of hell. He had begun to perspire; his body temperature climbing to the point he felt he may expire. Each trudging lift of a heel, step of a toe, bend of an ankle seemed a study in the art of perserverance. His mind kept screaming to him to stop walking, but he pressed forward, never one to listen to his conscience. It seemed to him that the fifteen feet from the door to the wall was the longest walk he had ever made; if he had counted accurately, it had taken approximately 3 and a half years. After all the time it had taken, all the effort, and all the doubt in his head, opening the door was almost too easy, done with a flick of the wrist and the intent to continue moving.

The air was cold, as he had remembered. The night was alive, such as it could be, that quiet vibrancy of the after dark birds and insects living after the sun went down. The moon was in full effect, bouncing from the black surface of the water and casting a white shine to the edges of her shoulders, as if she were an angel. Or, rather, an archangel. Her supersnatural glow served to obscure her; to a layman, someone who would only know her from the holonet, she would be unidentifiable. But for one who knew her, as he knew her, there was to be no mistake.

Now, in the biting cold of the open air, in the darkness of the night, everything came so much easier. Each lift of a heel, step of a toe, bend of an ankle, seemed natural, and welcoming to his body. The temperature inside of him had stablizied and the blood within his veins had run cold again. His eyes had narrowed and focused in the lack of light. He had always worked better in the dark... he had walked through the blackest of blacks, lived as a monster surrounded by the shadows and decptions of a culture of evil, had shunned the guiding light and all that it entailed, and even know, as reformed as he willed to be, the old habits insisted on dying hard.

In the darkness, there is strength.

When you look at yourself, do you like what you see?

"It's a beautiful night," Ahnk said, stepping past the woman to lean at the rail. The wooden rail was about seven feet from the water on an elevated patio... below, the wet rocks ceded only inches below the wooden patio began, as the house was, or had been, true waterfront property. Such was the perks that came with living on this world... at that time... as she had... "The water is lovely tonight; so dark, so calm," he said, still not looking at her. "When I was younger, I would come out the back here to swim. The water isn't very deep, but one of the connecting ponds actually empties into a river though a ground stream. That river leads all the way to one of the great lakes, which of course has ground caverns that lead all the way to the gungan settlements. Well, back when there were still gungans on this world, anyway."

He sighed, remembering better times. "As I got older I began to make forays to the river... it wasn't very swift, although in parts it got rapid enough the I stuck to the shore... and older still, into the lake. I used to be able to swim for hours, in that sweet green haze, getting lost under the rocks, without a sight in the world of man. Just me and frogs. Sometimes, other swimmers would join me. I'd race them, before such contests became pointless. Oftentimes, I'd avoid them. They'd try and draw my attention and I'd just swim deeper. On some days, the good days, I would swim all the way to the core. Just me and the rocks. "

He tried to remember what he was trying to say. Couldn't. Everything felt difficult again. So he kept rambling. "I have a house like this on Jaminere... had a house, I should say. The forest is a bit different.. it bears fruit, for the most part. Sweet fruit, the kind that you can mulkch down into pulpy juice. I don't tend to bother since I don't much like pulp, but many a day I'd just go out back, eat one of those glorious red spheres and then cast a line from a rock on the shore. The fish on Jaminere, man, they were incredible. The loachs got to be about 50 or 56 inches, they were just massive. One of those things was lunch and dinner. I used to steam them, bake them, batter steak them if I had somoene else coming over... my marenade..." he allowed himself to trail off. He shrugged. "My house is gone now... got blown up. But it was nice. I had a neighbour. Her name was Janine. I imagine her corpse was turned into the minerals they use for one of those Tion StarDestroyers. They do that, you know. They turn refuse into base elements, dissamble them, and then put them back together. She had a nice smile. I imagine it doesn't translate well as part of a raygun."

He shook his head. "There's something I've always liked about the water. It's honest, you know? You're a woman, so you've probably looked in a fair share of mirrors. But you know, even if you don't admit it, that glass lies. You look at it and offer up your pretty smile and you catch your good side and hide the flaws in the shine of the light but water, no, you can't do that with water. Water has a habit of showing you what you don't want to see, bending out your flaws across the rippling waves, turning your half inch of hatred into a pure foot of frustartion. There is no angling yourself to hide in the shimmer of an overhead light because the water shapes itself to the formation of the truth. It brings everything out, whether you want to admit it's a part of you or not, and shows it, not just to you, but to the entire surface of the surf. And when you look down, and from the broken darkness, see yourself bent against the surface of the sea, that's when we know who we really are. And not the people we want to think we are, but who we really are. I find something about that... refreshing. To cut through all the bullshit and facades you convince yourself are true, and present... reality."

He leaned back, catching his breath. His body was starting to warm up again, so he stopped talking and sucked in moutfuls of cold, refreshing air. Finally, it came to him, like a vision from on high. He rememvered what he had meant to say.

"Uh, I guess what I meant to say was... hello. It's been a long time."

The woman on the balcony wore white silken robes that seemed to glow in the moonlight as they billowed softly in the cool breeze. The night’s air was chilly, but not so much that it made her uncomfortable. It seemed as though she had been waiting for an hour, although in reality perhaps only 15 or 20 minutes had passed. Time had a nasty way of crawling by when one was eager to get on with things, and on top of that she had nobody to pass the time with.
<o></o>

When Leia had arrived at the crispy ruin that was Ahnk's former residence, everyone inside the house had been so visibly shaken by her presence that she had excused herself out to the deck outside to allow them time to sort out business amongst themselves. She was more comfortable out here anyways; being alone in a room full of tense, wary Ahnks who were all staring silently at her had been somewhat unsettling. Not to mention, none of them had been the Ahnk she was looking for. She felt dissappointment nipping at the edges of her conscious thought... what if he wasn't here?


She had come to see Ahnk... well, an Ahnk. She was looking for the real Ahnk, not one of his various mental personalities and not one of his various physical clones. However at this point, she was beginning to think that any Ahnk who was willing to confront her at all would do...


She wasn’t exactly sure why, but she had always had a special place in her heart for Ahnk. They had always been bitter enemies: he’d tried to kill her, she’d tried to kill him… yet she still felt a certain compassion for him. She had always suspected that there was much more to Ahnk than the sick heartless rage he allowed to dominate him, and it was this side of him that she had always hoped to uncover. Many years ago, she had often dreamed of it as she slept alone in her meager quarters in Otah Gunga long before the Jedi relocated to Theed. For a time, he had been her everything - the reason she ate, slept, breathed, and carried the fledgling Jedi Order on her back. Not because she was madly in love with him, but because she was madly in love with the idea of him not blowing the entire population of Naboo to oblivion... or so she liked to think. The Jedi would soon establish their own foothold on Naboo and with it Leia would gain many other friends and enemies, but for a short time it had just been Leia and Ahnk pitting themselves against each other in the swamps of Naboo.

<o></o>
A man stepped through the glass door and began to cross the deck to her. Leia knew at once that he was different than the others inside. Unsure, yet determined - he was the one she was looking for, she was sure of it. Ahnk seemed nervous and edgy, and in no time had launched into a story about a fond recollection of his past. Leia's demeanor was as calm as the lake below them if only because she had spent her entire life mastering it, and she was content to let Ahnk vent his nervous energy for the moment.


"Uh, I guess what I meant to say was... hello. It's been a long time."

<o></o>
Leia responded with a soft smile that went unnoticed by Ahnk, as he had yet to look straight at her. “Yes, it has. Do you know why I am here?”


She moved to join Ahnk at the rail, and as she did so she turned to study him. The moonlight sharply outlined his profile, while somehow still leaving his features swathed in shadow. Darkness clung to him even though he didn’t seem to embrace it, and she found that she couldn’t picture him without it. For as long as she had known Ahnk, darkness had been his only true mistress.
<o></o>

Was the man standing beside her now the real Ahnk, or just another clone?

Is this the real me, or is it just fantasy?

"I know what you're thinking," Ahnk told her, confidently. He turned to her, looking at her for the first time. Her white, smooth skin radiating perfectly in the soft moon glow, giving her an angelic qualitiy that made him involuntarily cringe. "Are you the real Ahnk? By what do you define reality, my dear? We are standing outside of a house that does not exist. We are standing over a lake that is but a fantasy. The ground beneath our feet is not ground, and for that matter, our feet are not our feet. Am I the real Ahnk? Are you the real you?"

He allowed her no time to ponder the question. "Do I know why you're here? Do you know why you're here? I don't even know why I'm here, how the fuck do you think that I would know why you're here? Why are anyone of us here? Why did we choose this path? Why did we allow our fate to be guided so? Why did we submit to this destiny, accept this litany of history, why did we choose this morality, this equality, this mortality to be that which we defend? Why do we live this way? Are you here because this is where you are meant to be, here by my side? Who is to say that you are not to be married with 2 and a half children and a wookie tied up in the backyard? Who is to say that we shouldn't both be dead right now?"

He scoffed. Tempted to laugh, but knew he would be wasting his breath since she wouldn't get the joke. "But then, I am dead. More then once, actually; in fact, I've lost count. I can't die, you know. When this body expires my conciousness will be put into a new one and I'll just keep going like it never happened. Only it did happen and it was final. And that me, that me is dead. That me that you used to know, the one that you set on fucking fire, the one you destroyed, he's dead, but he will never die. He's always going to be here and he's never going to forgot what you cost him, what you did to him, how you ruined him and made him into what it was that he became. Never to forget, never to forgive. never to die. But willing to die, over, and over, and over again, until he gets what it is that he wants..."

Ahnk realized he was breathing fairly hard. He stopped talking for a few seconds, catching his breath. "But none of that answers the question at hand. The question, if you've forgotten, is what it is that you want. And why, exactly, are you here?"

She could understand his bitterness, but she couldn't identify with it. Leia's gaze on Ahnk grew harsh.


"I cost you? What did I cost you, Ahnk? What... a life of hurting and killing others? A life of evil and darkness, of pain and suffering? I'm not sorry I tried to take that away from you. You already were that dark, bitter man before I came along, you just used me as your convenient little scapegoat."


"And as for reality..." she suddenly lashed out with one foot and kicked Ahnk hard in the shins, causing him to grunt in a mixture of suprise and pain.


"Real enough for me, who cares if I'm glowing."


She chose to ignore the comment about marriage, babies, and pet wookiees. It sent a chill up her spine.


A tense silence fell over them, and Leia turned to look at the house. Inside, a gathering of Ahnks awaited news of the outcome of their meeting. They greatly outnumbered her, and yet it seemed as though she was the one with all of the control. She was glowing and they weren't, after all. She remembered there had been an Ahnk in there that looked an awful lot like the one she had set on fire. He did have a cute butt...


Ahnk had mentioned death.


Had all of these Ahnks died in one fashion or another and been sent here?


What were they, different representations of his personality?


Maybe they were being imprisoned, or punished. They all seemed to share one thing in common... their feelings towards her.


Maybe that was why they were here, and why she had been drawn to them. Well no, that didn't account for the woman who looked like a cheap whore...


"I don't know why I am here, I was drawn to you... to Ahnk. I think you are the real Ahnk, for all it matters here. I think I am here to save you from yourself."


Leia pointed towards the house.


"From them. They are dead and they're trying to drag you with them. What have you done to yourself, Ahnk?"

His blood began to raise in temperature from the moment she kicked him; from the point of impact spreading lances of energy arched across his nerves, spooling in his brain as electric manifestation of his hatred. He found it intoxicating, as he always did, and his fingers curled and tightened on the railing in front. Tempted to turn... separate her spinal column at the point it met with the cerebrum animalia, discarding her lifeless head into the depths of the lake below...

Tempted...

Ultimately, though, Ahnk waited. His fingers uncurled and untensed. The veins moving up his jaw relaxed as he allowed his pulse to slow, and they no longer bulged from beneath his broken flesh. His eyes stopped flickering rapidly; he began to take slow, cold breaths again. His insides began to drop in temperature, his body resuming it's normal operating mediums. He even caught the general gist of what she was saying, as inane as it all was deemed to be.

"My dear, your version of history has either been obscured by oceans of your own confusion or buried beneath mountains of manufactured fallacies," Ahnk said, fingers curling on the rail again. "For whichever occurance it is that has caused you to forget the damage you have done to me, know that though you may no longer be able to draft a recollection of what it is, that I have not forgiven you. I still remember. And I will always remember."

He stepped back from the rail, turning his back to her. "But..." he said, running a hand down across his hip. "If we are to dance, then I feel that you know certain things about me."

He unclipped his saber from his belt, allowing the familiar weight to drop into his hand. It felt good. It felt very good indeed. A part of him, a compelling section of his conscious thought, wanted him to bring the saber around, unleash a powerful swing with all due hatred from inside of him, all of the strength that his hatred could summon, and bring it into her head. Lodge the saber, metal hook and all, into the back of her skull. Then, and only then, should it be turned on, to allow her final moments of life to be occupied with the sizzling hiss as her brain tissue was melted from the inside out...

Instead, he opted only to smile, a gesture that none could see as he stepped past her again. "If you are here to save me, then it is important that you know what it is you are saving, and what it is you are saving me from."

He rolled the saber in his hand, allowing it to line up in his palm in that old, familiar fashion. His thumb touched the ignition button, depressing it only slightly. It was, though, enough. The blade of the weapon came to being from nothing but a projected field of energy through amplification crystals, forming in the air with a familiar crack. The noise was the air; the heat of the blade instantly caused the molecules of water suspended in and amongst the air to heat from their cold state and burst into vapor, rising off the blade as two separate, but visually indivisible, streams of gas. The displaced air gave a shudder every time he moved the blade, and it traced trails through the night of red energy and white, vanishing mist...

"When I was nine years old, I dedicated myself to find the strength of character and will within me to reinvent my being. It took four years, but I found a will to live in you. You became my focus. The sun set and rose and each day when I looked at it I saw only your face. When I slept I imagined you, I imagined you when I was sweating, when I was grunting, when I collapsed in exhaustion and when I stood back up. I imagined you every time I killed someone. Every time I broke a bone I wanted it to be yours. Every time someone begged me for mercy I denied it them on your behalf. Every drop of blood I spilt I knew not to taste, for I waited. I saved myself, for you. You would be my first. There had been others but they had not counted, because they were always you. And when finally, you would be the true target of my rage, my life would be complete."

He rolled the blade over in his grip, turning his fist over and looking at the back of his hand. "But there was never you, was there? We shared a day and I was not strong enough. And though I tasted your blood I found it to be insufficient. I vowed not to submit to my failure, and though perhaps my task seemed impossible I never once wavered from my dedication to bring you a level of suffering you would have found incomprehensible. But we never came together again. By fate and circumstance began my long slide from the grip of darkness. And somewhere, on that slide, the sun became a blinding light, and I was able to sleep with just myself."

He turned to her. Kept his saber at his side. "You say you come here to save me from myself. You suppose that they," Ahnk said, gesturing to the manifestations inside, "you suppose that they are dead, that they will to drag me with them. Then I shall offer them no resistance. Have you ever died, my dear? Taken those sweet, deep breaths, knowing that they were to be your last? Felt your limbs grow tired and stop responding to commands, as if falling into a finite, concrete sleep? Felt the final shudders of your broken heart, beating futilely against your ultimate destiny, give a jerk, a wrench, and then finally nothing at all? I do not believe that you have, so do not suppose to presume that you are aware of what it is that I am resisting."

He turned again, offering her his back. He stretched his arms, gesturing to the world beyond. "I am Ahnk Rashanagok, and I fear not death," he offered into the wind. "What I fear... is the morning. Rolling out of bed. Showering. Drying what used to be my arm. Brushing my teeth. Shaving my head. Putting on a pair of socks, preferably something thin, as I do not like thick socks as they encourage perspiration and perspiration leads to an increase in odor. What I fear is life. The fact that I know that there will never come a time in which I will lay my head, in which my heart will give it's final beats, in which I will draw my last breaths... and have them truly be my last breaths."

He paused for a moment. "If you can save me from that..."

He thumbed off his lightsaber, and the night was quiet for an ominous moment.

"Do it."

He allowed his fingers to relax, casually discarding his lightsaber into the depths of the lake below.

Leia watched as the discarded saber hit the water below them with an audible splash and quickly sank out of sight. “You’re afraid of me” she stated matter-of-factly, without looking up at Ahnk. “I can feel it.”


There was no answer except the soft drone of the night time wildlife. Over the lake, fireflies flew lazy irregular loops in an intricate and beautiful light show. There was beauty to be found even in this place of darkness... It struck Leia as profound, and she glanced sidelong at the man standing beside her. Did Ahnk ever notice such things in the world around him? Probably not, he had been consumed by darkness for most of his life. Besides, he seemed to be far too preoccupied with her presence to notice such trivial background details.


Nothing here is real...


She pondered his words, wondering why her presence here seemed to be so important to the Ahnks. There was no real person to fear or hate, not here. He didn't just hate Leia Organa Solo, something about her hit on a very personal level... how could a single person be both a demon and a savior?


Struck by sudden inhibition Leia turned, and slowly began to close the distance between Ahnk and herself.
<o></o>

Three feet separated them. Clearly wary of her motives, Ahnk stood his ground as Leia began to infringe on his personal space.
<o></o>

“Have you ever let anyone get close to you, Ahnk? Really close - the kind of close that makes every morning bearable, something to look forward to?”
<o></o>

Two feet. Leia’s brown eyes evenly met Ahnk’s gaze, unwavering. She kept coming.
<o></o>

“In all of your pain and suffering, your anger and fear… has anyone in your life ever held a more intimate grasp on your thoughts than I?”
<o></o>

One foot. Leia did not stop until she was mere inches away from Ahnk, and she leaned towards him as if to tell a secret. Wispy flaps of her robes carried by the breeze brushed against him, he could feel her body heat radiating against him. Her soft breath gently teased the hair on his neck with each exhalation. When she spoke, her words were little more than a whisper in his ear.
<o></o>

“Do you face me here because you are too afraid to face me in reality? Can you not face your fears in reality until you accept them here? What are you going to do when you wake up, Ahnk... keep living some sort of lie?"


Her hand fell lightly on his chest.


"Why are you afraid of Leia Organa Solo?"

The space between had shrunk as she had moved forward, step by step pressing upon on his will, questioning him with her brazen disregard for separation. As she closed he began to question too.

What was it about this woman? What was it that held her transfixed in her position, never to be let go but never allowed to advance within his heart? Always to be kept close, but kept at a distance, a measurable distance, and always the same distance?

Why couldn't he let her in? Push her away? Why did he insist on keeping her where she was?

"Why are you afraid of Leia Organa Solo?"

He had chosen his words carefully. I am Ahnk Rashanagok, and I fear not death. That was what he had said.

Perhaps he had chosen his words too carefully.

He was suddenly aware that she was... touching... him. It was something that he was not used to; the casual placement of a human hand in a gesture of familiarity and comfort. It made him uncomfortable. He surpressed the desire to squirm, to pull away, and to retreat. Drew from within another, more buried desire...

The desire to smile.

"I was wondering why you came to me... why here, why you... and now, I believe I am beginning to understand..."

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. It was strong... she had done a lot of hard work in her life, but even so... it was fragile, in his grasp. If he wanted to, he could separate hand from arm, separate arm from shoulder... tear her to pieces. If he wanted to...

And he did... so... want to...

But he was submitting to different desires.

"There has always been something... between us. The space between filled with antagonism and hostility. Tension thicker then any other emotion we feel for each other, which heretofore I had assumed could only be anger and hatred... despite your Jedi philosophy."

Ahnk allowed one of his hands to find it's way to her shoulders. He gave it a squeeze... not designed to harm but a gesture to let her know that he was initiating contact... a friendly hello, with force.

"Had I known what you really wanted was... human contact... I would have been warmer to your propositions."

Ahnk raised his other hand, uncurling each of his damaged digits and laying them softly against her skin, one finger and then the next, the arch of each resting where her shoulder met her neck.

"I have wanted this... for us to be... close, like we were before..."

Ahnk said, his scarred face baring back into a soft imitation of a smile. He rose above her... taller then she was, it was a simple gesture... to look down into her eyes.

In the soft black depths he saw the curves and cracks of suffering and madness. In the iris hidden all those dark secrets; even the ones he kept from himself. There were no lies in the silence. No words to make untruths of the connection of the two.

The space between was filled with green; sharp lines of saw blades, the sun above, and the gears of war.

His smile becoming closer to genuine, drawing his face closer to hers.

"I have... so wanted to tell you... explain to you, how I really feel..."

So, he did. And then there was no space between.

Ahnk had closed his eyes as he pulled his face into hers. When it was over and they were apart again, he felt the warmth inside his skull and the wetness on his lips. He looked down at her again... his smile sinking back into the decades of pain that adorned the skull of Andrew Micheal Rashanagok.

"I am not afraid," Ahnk said, though he knew he had left her unable to answer.

He turned his back to her, no longer amused by her actions. The momentary contact the headbutt had brought them broken now, and her evasiveness and clouds of deception had become less interesting as time moved on. With the side of his human hand, he wiped the blood from his face before he turned back to her.

"Now... if this charade of play emotions is well and truly finished... then tell me why you are here."

Leia sighed and rolled her eyes as Ahnk smugly reveled in his deception. What was it with this man and pain...? She waited quietly, all he had to do was take a closer look: ah, there it was. Ahnk's eyes widened slightly as he noticed that she was not injured, and not bleeding. How could that be?


"You can't hurt what isn't real, dumbass" she admonished with a sneer, and then she pointed to the blood smeared on his face. "We already established that I'm not really here. But what about you - you are hurt, I wonder how that is possible? Perhaps.... this whole thing is your charade, not mine."


She arched her brow in skepticism and brushed past him, again completely ignoring the normal boundaries of personal space. It bothered him, and she knew it... she liked it. "Was that little stunt supposed to prove something?" She settled comfortably into a lounge chair. "I have a feeling we're going to be here a while. I don't remember you being quite so dense, Ahnk. Maybe you should cut back on the headbutting..."


"Now... if this charade of play emotions is well and truly finished... then tell me why you are here."


She grinned. "Why am I here? Since this seems more like your charade, I really think you should tell me." Given the setting, it was a debate that could go on forever.


There was a table of cocktails sitting nearby, and Leia had apparently snagged one on the way to the lounge chair because presently she was sipping from it. "You know they say it's bad to drink when you are pregnant... have you ever been pregnant Ahnk? No I suppose not, you are an inferior male specimen. But you did have a whole family of clones... there must be some sort of kinship."

For several minutes, he stared at her, contemplatively. Disdain clouding the edges of his features. The corner of his mouth, the edge around his eyes, the tip of his nose subtly shaking in disrespect. She was acting out of character, which shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. The more you know...

"You are hurt... I wonder how that could be..."

He looked down at his hand. It was covered in blood, presumably from somewhere on his head. That surprised him, but moreover was the color of the fluid. Thick and sticky ran the blood of the former Sith, but he could not remember his blood having been this pallor of green. He shook his hand, turning his palm, and saw the familiar maroon hues.

She brushed past him, which would normally have caused him to become upset. But there was something different now. The air had an unfamiliar taste to it, and it unsettled him. She grabbed a drink from a nearby table, and that too unsettled him. He had not remembered setting such a table.

He turned away from her, unable to discern what was bothering him. He looked out into the water for clarity... he found only darkness.

Theirs was a history of 26 years. It spanned from the beginnings of what he was to the end of what he was to become. She defined him in ways she did not even seem to remember. That disturbed him; to hate someone so much for something they were not even aware they had done. He found it hard to continue to hate her but he found it hard to do anything but. So much of his life he had been opposed to her openly and without stating a reason. She had shown no hesitation to meet him in such a capacity but now seemed to want to become... intimate... friends. It threw him off guard. He was a reflexive person when he met in combat but without a blade in hands, he wanted to be able to make six moves before his opposition made one. Now, in his own arena, he found himself unable to do so.

The decay must be progressing faster then anticipated.

That phrase came back into his head. Decay... of my my mind? Am I losing control of the contents of my skull? Neither questions he could answer. Neither questions that he wanted to answer.

He turned back to her. Sighed, and resigned himself to what needed to be done.

"For the better part of my life I have hated you for what you did to me, and what you allowed me to become. I find it hard to break away from that and yet your being here without hostile intentions must mean there is a part inside of me that wills that I do. I cannot change the history of the confrontations that we've had, our differences in ideology or philosophy, or use any of my powers to bring us any closer together without causing physical harm... I have never, honestly, been one to keep my enemies close."

He looked down at the table in front of him. The various mixed cocktails held little interest to him, nor did the bottles behind. But if he was to do what she wanted him to do, he would need to do it with all of his commitment. Walk the line, as it were. So, reluctantly, he took a bottle in his hand, gripping it tightly.

"Perhaps, it is time, after decades of building walls with animosity and hatred, we should instead construct a bridge."

Somewhere in the galaxy a woman known as Leia Organa Solo thrashed restlessly in her sleep, nearly kicking her poor spouse right out of the bed. As he gently tried to slip an arm around her in a futile effort to restrain her, she abruptly turned and blew out a forceful breath as if distressed. He frowned... her breath smelled oddly sweet, if not fruity. This he could dismiss, she had been drinking juice before bed. It was the slight whiff of a different substance that disturbed him...


Alcohol?



***



Meanwhile on the deck, Leia and Ahnk continued their chat...



"Perhaps, it is time, after decades of building walls with animosity and hatred, we should instead construct a bridge."



"Whatever you think is best." Leia smiled, and a cocktail rose from the table and floated over to replace her empty glass. She sipped gracefully from it, as one well versed in proper etiquette might.


Wisdom had tempered Leia's attitude considerably over the years. A younger Leia might never have gotten past hello before lightsabers were drawn and she found herself swinging for his head. Now however, she raised her glass in tribute to her host.


"You have done many terrible things, Andrew Micheal Rashanagok. But you are still a great man."


The second glass was empty just like that, and a third floated over.


"Whether you want it or not, you have my love and respect."


Not waiting for Ahnk to respond, she emptied the third glass as well. A fourth floated over to take it's place. She was really putting them away...


There were multicolored party lights strung along the rail of the deck now, adding a cheery glow to the atmosphere of the deck. Several plates of brownies had joined the assortment of cocktails on the table. Leia paid these new developments no attention, as if they had been there all along. Perhaps for her, they had been...


"I suppose it's my turn to level with you.


We were both young when we first met. I was as powerful as a Master and everyone recognized me as one, but I just didn't have that higher understanding yet. My training was rushed and incomplete... there were no other Masters in the galaxy to guide me, I had to forge my own trails. I fought you because you were evil and I had the power to protect others from you, but I never looked beyond that until much later. I should have seen you as something other than just another Darth Vader, because you weren't... yet.


I thought about it for a long time afterwards, I had done what I had to do with what I had been given. I wish I could have done more."