Infusions

[Fourth]

Simplistic patterns created a metronome paradigm within Melanie's abstract mind, they were the driving force behind her stained glass eyes and often disturbing clairvoyant lack of sanity. In tune with the world around her to an untold level, sharp heels, business shoes, clicking along a hallway behind closed doors jerked her attention from the speed bags and towards steel encased sliding portals that kept her world striated between gym and reality, peace and chaos. With the barest flick of her head she sent her myriad assistants and solitary trainer away. They, those who orbited this enigmatic sun's dark world, understood the need for extreme sensitivity to such a prismatic creature's wayward whims. As men scuttled away from the diminutive focus of so much polarity, Melanie turned slowly towards the quickly opening doors and folded deceptively slender arms across the pink and black camouflage pattern of a purposefully worn sports bra.

Though the man hid behind dark sunglasses and polished shoes, the suit was likely from another planet, she noted a hiccup in his steps and the slow motion that sent his chin out of line as his gaze panned across such elegance so readily on display. Flawless form lead to callous function as a lagging smile slid across the modern Calypso's angular features. After a moment's study she spoke softly, her voice seeming to crawl across the walls and latch onto the sole life form that wasn't her own. "I've seen you before, yeah? Don't follow me again, champ. Once is fine, I understand the view's nice. A second time's typically fatal unless I like you. Sit, you've got an appointment."

As the unknown man approached, coy smiles and slippery mannerisms, she appraised him with the innate superiority that her prowess and beauty typically granted her over the opposite sex. She, however, didn't set as he did. She stood tall, though she'd never be taller than many, and watched as he unfolded a neatly packed case and dropped a sealed envelope on a nearby table. "Malcolm's good enough for our purpose, Mrs. King. As for the following, I was just curious. I represent a private investigation firm and, truth be told, we're a little bit confused as to steps that need to be taken in regards to a certain situation that's been unfolding. We're, after all, human." She did not need to see the man's eyes to know that they hid a private smirk, perhaps slightly smug.

"You've been contracted by the Republic, Malcolm. I'd suggest transparency. While I can't read your thoughts, hiding something from a liar's never easy." At long last she bothered to unlatch her often painful attention from the man's shoulders and peer down at the still folded envelope. "I'll offer you a drink next time. Why me?"

Fingers that matched a man who worked behind shadowy desks steepled under his chin, eyes speculative as he slid the dark glasses on to the top of his head. For the shortest of seconds, he stared into Melanie's cryptic, diluted eyes, Only a second, however, could be withstood. His point was perhaps too true. To uninitiated eyes, her own seemed like swirling orbs filled with the essence of dying supernovas and galaxies still in the throes of long, cruel labor. "How do you feel about entirely artificial intelligence intent on a revolution that'd leave as many as they could find part of a cyborg legion styled after humanity's first real empire on Earth? Radically conservative quasi machina religion that's no use for humans, thought, love, emotions, pride, respect or compassion? There's a group here that's apparently interested in that and, well, given your particular mentality, we thought we'd come knocking."

Suddenly interested in the man's rambling, she leaned down and took the envelope between slender fingers, curious and drawn out of her boredom and lethargy. "Again, why me?" Still with the drawl, she murmured sibilant tones and stared down the length of her aristocratically inclined nose. "There's a hundred people in this town that'd have taken the job, maybe five that could do it and I'm sure they'd all come cheaper than I would."

One finger broke away from the other's clutches and was held up for momentary silence. "Ah, no. You see, it takes one of two things, sometimes two of two, to handle any sort of a machine mind, an overmind if you will. We suspect that the majority of these cyborgs are at least partially controlled by something else, something either hidden here or off world. You're right. There's a lot who could get to that, could find it, could probably kill it. But...." Malcolm cleared his throat and shrugged, hands now held akimbo. "How do you beat a computer? Two ways, Melanie. You're either more of a calculating, jaded, cynical bitch who's willing to take any means so long as the end's justified or you're a barely reformed terrorist who's so damned crazy that a logical, thinking brain can't possibly comprehend what you're willing and able to do. And you, my potential friend, are both of those things." Malcolm's smile was as wide as some of Melanie's, and though it wasn't quite as akin to a shark's, it was close to something that a sated wolf might offer a nearly dead sheep.

"Is that a compliment?" As if proving the man's point, her train of thought switched as she canted her head in an avian fashion, seeking literal answers to hypothetical suggestions.

Harsh laughter echoed, a barking noise, as Malcolm stood and started for the doors. "Would you care if it was? Probably not, don't answer that. Don't ruin my perception of how this meeting went. I won't lie, you'll be a vigilante, but you're already that. You've got more morals than you'll admit, Melanie. Do the right thing. Open that package and give us a call. I'll be waiting."

Kaleidoscope eyes danced behind the man's arrogant, loose steps as the doors slid to a close behind her, thoughts flooding her supertemporal mind.

[Fourth]

“She will come upon you like the midnight sun’s baleful gaze, like a riptide strung out under deceptively clear, still waters. You shall call her evil, you shall call her insane. The very personification of five thousand year old ideals, she will stand before you, glorious in her dark majesty, but say not a word. With worlds and fate itself hinging on the siren’s voice, she will stand before you, unseen, unfelt and unheard. Through that you shall know her, my friends. Quiet, like a supernova’s distant explosion. Quiet like a child’s nightmares. She alone is pure, she alone is transcendent. In a world filled with petty ambition and selfish arrogance, she alone can be the one to show you the error of your ways. She will be no hero, she will be no mythical being. Rather, she will be a Mandalorian, a reminder of the days gone by. Not the hero you deserve or want, surely not even one at all. Rather, she will be the martyr you need. Hate her, love her, respect her, idolize her. Ostracize her, crush her and kill her. When the sun falls for the last time, when dying grace is shed on an undeserving land, she will wait, ever patient, for the moment when you have forgotten that which you so desperately need. And there, alone and abandoned, she will make her stand. A life is not worth living unless something is worth dying for. You, friends, are her something. Each and every one of you. She will allow you to hate her, she will embrace your distrust, your scorn, you pity, your apathy and your disregard. She will drink it in, find strength it in. She will consume the fear you give her, absorb your doubt, devour your disgust and grow stronger on your hate. She is freedom, friends, freedom from a need for acceptance, freedom to make the right choice. She is strength, she is courage that you can not understand because you can not see. She is the ability, the willingness, to lose everything so that you may stand atop her ruined corpse."

“You’ve not changed much, have you? I can still see it in your eyes, really. I recall standing around you as a child. We used to play, we used to fight. And then they took you away. I cried, I was a child, you were my friend. Mandalore spoke those words to me and even though I didn’t understand, I knew that you were….that you were different. That we’d never be the same again.” Somewhere on a windswept plain dotted by thin, wasted trees, Melanie stood underneath a black cruiser’s hull and in front of a man in armor that matched her in cut, style and shape. He still, however, wore the stark, twin tusked skull burned onto his chest. Melanie, child of the night, prodigal daughter that could never come home, had already wiped herself clean of that particular stain.

Red rimmed eyes dotted with fresh tears caught Morde’s attention, they drew him in with the very same force that’d pushed her away from so many over the years. Tentative and hesitant, none had dared touch this shadow coated denizen in so many years, he reached for her angular, slender face and brushed a single tear away with the pad of his thumb. “You feel. You always did. I don’t know if I am jealous or should pity you. It must be….” He stopped and pulled back as Melanie stepped away, livid purple darting through the vacant solar systems of her eyes. “Hard would be an understatement. Lonely, I think?”

Caught unguarded by the man’s rant, Melanie tore her eyes from the ground and managed to draw them to the very center of his armor. So short, so inherently submissive looking. She couldn’t search any further without lifting her chin in a haughty, imperious manner. Those emotions were, at the moment, bitter ashes in the simmering furnace of her mind. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for him. I’m not sorry for leaving you. You knew what I was. He didn’t understand.” Words caught on the ball of dread that sunk in her throat. For a moment, Morde lowered his hand until it hovered over Melanie’s shoulder. Still and silent, they both seemed hung on the moment that weighed so heavily upon collected minds. She was, in this instance, the first to react. Her head shook, her feet shifted and she created a gulf between them.

Lessons learned years ago translated into Modre’s wariness when in close proximity to a woman he’d though he had known so well. Confused and curious, he matched her distance and folded armor plated arms over his broad, imposing chest. “Why’d you call me here?” Back to business, a flat monotone that sounded nothing like Melanie’s exotic, lilting tones.

She spoke in a songbirds simple drawl, a heady rush of words poured into the world in whimsical ways. Naïve, almost innocent, almost pretty. There was a touch of madness, a bird’s panicked flight from burning trees, silk drawn along hidden knives. “I need you. I need your weapons. Not you. I’ve a job, yeah?”

[Fourth]

Tall and broad compared to Melanie's slender, deceptively fragile frame, the man that'd loomed in so many of her past memories stood and stared at Melanie's hazy, blurred figure. Crowned in the sunrise's bleeding rays, she appeared graced with a halo, a crown. He'd seen this more times than he could count, the shedding of her second, metallic skin, but the simple sight of plates falling and transforming a silent, imperious assassin into something composed of weak flesh still turned his mind and caught a subtle note in his throat. He sighed, a drawl of rasping breath, as he forced himself to turn away from what he knew to be nothing more than a bewitching, haunting show.

She doesn't care. She's never tried. My fault was that I never accepted her for her. Was that the fault of our entire people? What would she have been had we allowed her to simply be herself, not what we made her?

He'd been silent for too long, she was far, far too empathetic for that. By the time he'd turned back and peered in her direction once more, Melanie had closed the gap and stood, though she could not match his stare, within inches of his features. Curious, she stared up, eyes wide and waiting for some statement, anything. An explanation? She did not speak, nor did she mind her state of relative undress. These were not uncommon things for a creature that could barely be called aware of her own implications, her own gravity.

She can not read your thoughts, man! Why does she still make you so nervous? What's changed? I thought nothing had. Damn her, she's always been so aloof. Does anyone really know what's going on in her mind other than her?

Mord'e exhaled in a rush, torn between so many questions he knew would never be answered. To ask her why was pointless. To ask how was a waste of time. To offer condolences would be taken as an insult. No matter how hard she tried, he knew she could not fully wipe the stain of their shared lineage from the walls of the insane asylum that housed her mind. None of the could.

I can see it now. It's in her chin, it's in the set of her shoulders, the way she holds herself. She's trying too hard. It's starting to weigh on her, something. She's breaking. She's breaking and I can't help.

Desperate for something to do with his hands, he ran thick, bulky fingers through short cut hair and forced himself to look away from dazzling murky black and purple eyes that'd been nothing but bottomless pits for so many long years. He cleared his throat, he began pacing the weapons room of Melanie's personal abode. "How many men have you let in here?" He sought to break the ice, he hoped to release some of the obvious tension that was felt to easily even to his Force dull mind.

He did not expect the blast of chilling fury that washed across his body with all the force of a rising blizzard screaming past forlorn peaks and into forgotten canyons. The walls themselves shook, twin suits of armor rattled, as a deafening wind ripped through the room's narrow confines and slammed the much larger man against a wall. Held in thrall and entirely at the whim of a primal, visceral monster's mind, he remained frozen. Unable to move, unable to think. All he could do was stare. Within seconds, it was over. Temperature returned to normal, the sound faded though would surely leave a massive headache. He slumped to his feet and stood on weak, wobbly knees.

He expected her tone of voice even less. Quiet, a ruined whisper. A threnody, a dirge sung as black oars dipped into blacker water and carried men who bore golden coins between their teeth. "I was married, Mord'e. Just one, and that was a long time ago."

Was? Again.

He could not, he did not, ask. He, of all people, knew better. This was far from the first time he'd drawn such a reaction from this particular maelstrom. It was, unfortunately for him, the first time it'd felt cold. She'd been a ball of fire when he knew her, walking magma pulsing in her mind and reaching for cracks in her flesh with no semblance of control. She'd been fury, a natural thing. This was sadness, this was internalized control flecked with a lunacy he'd not tasted before.

All he could do, poor man, was nod silently. What more could he say? Who was he to ask those questions? Another could joke, another could, by rights of the clan, offer hidden words of hope. Not he, not the first in that equation.

Distract her? She's hurt, I could taste that. I could hear, for once, the screams that she's kept locked inside for so long. I could see the blood on every wall, her broken body hung limp. I could see the ruined moons and the pointless battles that she knew she'd lose. I could sense the sacrifice, I could...I could never understand. I could see this city burning, I could see my ghost standing and conversing with her. So many others. How many?

"Why do you care if there's some rogue organization trying to form a cyborg revolution? You've always told us that you adored anarchy and chaos, hell, we know you do. We probably know best. This sows seeds of strife on this planet, and if you're right and it's closer to home, it might do the same there. Why not join? Surely you've not changed enough to allow a little ready money ruin your ideals?" A dangerous question, perhaps.

Like a flickering lamp's dying breath, her eyes flared, dimmed and close entirely. Hands held akimbo, she shrugged and settled into a lean against the metal door's hinges. "Have you forgotten what Vergere taught us? No matter how absurd, no matter how wrong she may have been in the end, her words ring true. You're speaking in terms of dualism, Morde, simplicity. Think of a world ruled by an overmind, think for a second. Think of the control it'd have, yeah? Do you honestly think I give a fuck about what's right or what's wrong here or back at home? Do you think I ever did? I couldn't care less the cost, that's been proven ten thousand times over." Breathless as she stumbled over the words, she shoved off of the lean and stood closer to the man, too close. Her proximity was an intoxicant, and not one that left someone with only a hangover.

Hand pressed to the thin cloth that covered her chest, she twisted her lips into a reminder of something that'd he'd once told himself he no longer loved. "Even to myself." She seemed, for a second, the careless, reckless leader who'd become an entire culture's darling, the apple of a warrior society's eye for simply this. Her volatility, her scorn for convention and norms. Her audacity.

"There's three sides to the blade, she told us. There's the light and the dark, the right and the wrong. And then there's the Mandalorian. People have been asking me that a lot, you know. Why do I do things, what do I want. What the hell do I want, Morde?"

She turned away quickly, her final look one of teasing derision and coy amusement at how simply she'd left this man, this particular one, at a loss for words and with mouth slightly agape. "I want, simply put, to fuck with any plan I see. That's anarchy. Do I need a reason why? Don't lie to yourself and don't hope that you'll find answers. Hell, Morde, I just want to break it. All of it. Everything. From death, growth, you know?"

At precisely that moment, a flicker of green light sparkled in the smooth web of, once more, impossibly black hair. It was almost as if the gem attached to a white bow tied in her single ponytail winked back at the baffled man.

Can this explosion be contained?

He, wisely, didn't ask that question. She'd already answered it.

[Fourth]

It can't be.

He could feel it roiling through the air with the force of ten thousand storms, ten thousand hurricanes stoppered up and kept in a single bottle. The winds tore, the rain blasted, the waves shook and battered all in their path. As of now, and for this he thanked and cursed his stars most equally, there was only one ship within those glass confines. It flew black flags, it was sleek and long, limber and painted stark red. In his mind's eye, she was the ship. She was the ship breaking against waves and water, bashed against high walls of her own self imposed isolation and manic drive for perfection.

Morde, one time husband, father of a child caught up in the machine's perfect blades. He stared, wide arms folded across his chest at a figure that had barely moved in the past few days. When she had left her perch, she'd made sure to return. Her body was cast in a ghostly glow, city lights washing along her as she sat on a railing that separated the top of her palatial home from a thousand foot drop onto busy city streets.

Should I touch her? Maybe lay a hand on her shoulder? How can she sit like that and never fall, though it's windy up here? What supernatural grace rests atop her shoulders? I know the weight of it, I can guess at it, but why does he keep her from falling while placing such a crushing burden?

The poor man was confused, dangerously so. He knew the perils of loosing one's grasp on reality near the confluence of this world and a dying plane inhabited by two dark figures. A place she struggled so desperately to keep far, far apart.

There are two storms within her, matching twins. Perfect reflections, each broken where the other was strong. It's no wonder they loved to hate her, hate to love her. It's not wonder I fell in love with her. She's enchanting, haunting. Stop, Morde, talk.

"I've often wanted to ask you a question, my friend. A small one, nothing large, nothing heavy but maybe, I hope at least, important. You've clearly got the time...."

She barely turned, though her chin graced her collarbone before she resumed her posture, her exile. "What's time to someone like me, Morde? I've got all the time in the world, but I wish I had more, some days I think I need less. Ask it, don't fester. Not on my account, at least."

Why won't she ever give anyone a straight answer? Why do I always feel like when she does answer, I jut have more questions for her? Why did they have to send me? At least she's not killed me. Yet. Cold comfort.

"Do you know why they treated you so differently on Coruscant? Do you know why your own people treated you so differently? Why everyone stared at you, why they wouldn't talk to you?"

"I don't ca----."

He, he of all people, dared to do what so few had ever even thought of. He cut her off, he stepped in her path.

"Yes, yes you clearly do care. You wear your burden like a burning brand on both shoulders, you wear it in the slant of your eyes, the exhaustion in your face and the arrogance of your posture. You do care. You probably won't listen, but I'm going to tell you. I do care if you listen, though. I really, really do. It hurts me to see the person that I loved, do still love, so gone, so broken, so defeated, so taken away. Let me speak."

Thin shoulders draped in black silk shrugged. It might have been the wind rustling loose cloth, it might have been a motion. It might have been nothing, so small was the shift in her positioning. It at least appeared to be a sign of consent.

"It's not what you are, it's not what you can do, it's not what you have done. We've seen worse than you, we've seen more dangerous than you, we've seen more powerful than you. We've seen Revan, after all. It's...."


How to put this? I'm no poet, I'm not eloquent enough to do this. I don't know, I probably sound like an idiot.

"It's what you didn't do, old friend. It's what you never did. At any point, Ap'sala, any point during your trial, during your exile, during your flight, during you run from everything, even now, you could have called upon our people's armies. You could have drawn on Revan's strength. Who, what empire, what army, what force could have imprisoned you? What could have even dared to contradict you, who could have even thought of sending you into exile and putting this on you? Who could have blamed you and made it stick? You could have obliterated the entire world of Coruscant with a command or a thought, and you didn't. You're not a freak, friend, you're....you're different. You didn't have to do any of this. You were given a set of choices, and trust me, we hoped that you would do this, but you never were forced into any of this. You did this all, you lived your life, by your own accord, to your own standards, of your own will, Ap'sala. After the most recent trial, when all was revealed to those involved, that's why they stared. You're not a criminal, not anymore. You don't need to be. I won't say that you're a hero, and you're alive so you're not a martyr, but....."


He shifted idly, nervous. She'd not spoken, she'd allowed him to speak. In fact, she'd turned and thrown the full weight of prismatic eyes, eyes that saw no joy, no happiness, on his frame. He flinched noticeably before he was able to shake the feeling that she was staring through him, not at him. Judging him. Dissecting him with cool, composed disdain.

"You're something that's hard to believe, Ap'sala. When we look at you, we ask ourselves could we suffer as you did for the sake of an entire race when an easier option was available? If we're honest, we place ourselves in the scales of your eyes and find ourselves wanting. You're not hated, you're just impossible to understand, princess. That's all. I just wanted you to know that, I did. I hope you find some solace."

Moments passed. Her stare did not shift. It did not move, it did not let him go. Like a fly pinned to some sadist's cardboard cutout, he stood entrapped and entirely at the behest of eyes that peered through time and past the end of all things, or so it seemed. Nothing was ever sure with this master of deception. He, when she looked down at long last, turned and made an attempt to leave. He took a few steps, not nearly enough to take him to the door that lead back down into her building. She finally spoke, she finally uttered something. Something to the point, something easy to understand no matter how cryptic the request was. At face value, it seemed simple.

"I like to paint, Morde. Can I paint you a picture?"

[Fourth]

He hadn't left. The two badly matched souls stepped on tiptoes as they existed within the sphere of mutually shared living space. Poor Morde, more Mandalorian than Melanie could ever be. Diametrically opposed, one might say, even though the same black standard wound twisted paths across one broad shoulder and another slender rendition.

He finally penned her, he'd spent days and days contemplating how to trap the dangerous siren in a place of his choosing; a battlefield set up to his liking.

After having spent countless hours during these short months and in years past watching Melanie toss, turn, writhe and sob in her troubled sleep, the man had come to realize that her only naturally vulnerable state was shortly after she was finally able to salvage semblances of sanity before lucidity trickled through grasping hands like endless grains of sand. She, in the moment of weakness, could have been mistaken Aphrodite leaving some hero's restless bed. The sun wafted in through open curtains and cast obsidian tresses splayed out around her in a golden hue; her lithe frame was twisted about a platonic-minded stolen tee shirt, his. As she forced herself up, postured on one elbow, and fluttered impossibly long lashes in his direction he found himself momentarily at a loss for breath and words. Careful planning, dashed against the deceptive shores of an unknown beach; he'd felt this way so many times before. Dark silk fell messily across her features and obscured his ability to watch prismatic eyes that'd haunted his thoughts for so very long. Gently, carefully he reached out and, with a lover's nervous trepidation, tucked errant strands behind Melanie's ear.

"I had a question."

Sleep came with a renewal of the burden's Melanie couldn't easily shake. She, her chin was tucked in the defiant posture that was her body's instant reaction to any interaction, peered at the man through foggy, clouded eyes. A thought streaked through her sentience, a memory buried in nostalgia's smoke ridden wastes. Like someone reaching through green tinted waves for anything that floated she jerked a hand free of the tousled sheets and latched on the collar of the man's shirt. Her twisting, teasing pull wasn't enough to generate any leverage; she lacked physical strength.

Somewhat shocked, he quickly withdrew only to find that she followed, pulled gently across the bed. Perception hadn't ever been the man's forte. Narrowed, confused eyes asked a simple question. They, though unable to understand each other, couldn't deny the chemistry that long familiarity had bred.

"Come 'ere." She, more within her own grasp with each passing second, spat devastation on the wings of a purring exhale.

Caught between this moment, the very tangible caution, and memories that stood out like bonfires in the darkness, he hesitated ever so slightly. Humanity, no matter how rigid the ethos under which it operated, was not meant to deny a halfhearted goddess' quixotic pull; much less when said pull lead to a bed he'd once begged never to leave. Like a leaf trapped in a hurricane's rising force, he placed both hands on the bed's edge and deftly slipped against her wraith like form. Warm, too hot. Strangely so; her body beat like a volcano's livid heart. She fell back into the soft surface before meandering her way against the man. It was an all too common position for the both of them, a shared memory. Her chin pressed against his bared chest, slow puffs of breath rattled against the angles of his chin like a rattlesnake's sibilant warning as she stared up at him, wide eyed and seemingly innocent. He, of all people, knew how far from the truth that was.

"What was it champ?"

"I uh....don't worry about it." Morde's hand rose of its own accord; calloused fingers twisted into her hair and pulled, with marginal force, her face into line with his own. So close; too close. Too close to back down now. His lips sought her own, she didn't offer resistance as sullen, pouted pillows ran against chapped, weathered granite for the first time in years. Moments passed, serenity was broken only by her almost shy, almost plaintive retreat.

"Tell me, please. I'm curious and, since you're asking like this, slightly worried."

His sigh, every breath tasted like her lips, felt like poison. Intoxicating, addictive poison. "Why'd you have to leave? Did you want to?"

She'd been waiting for this. It was the inevitable elephant that loomed in the room like dead weight dangling from the hangman's creaking rope. She, in her abrupt fashion, rolled over and reached for something that'd been propped against the wall. The back of a canvas filled both hands before she slowly returned to the bed and sat, legs crossed, in order to rest the painting against her chest in order to grant him vision.

A clifftop retreat offered a panoramic view of ten thousand acres adorned with hands of flame that reached into a smog choked skyline. The sun, already breaking, danced with a great black serpent's parted jaws while, in the foreground, two armored people stood atop the precipice. The male figure's wings drooped, feathers charred and burnt beyond use. The woman's, however, dipped towards Morde's body and seemed to be shielding him from the all consuming heat and fire.

He stared for a moment. Partial recognition didn't answer his question. "I don't know what you mean, Melanie." The pet name, the one he'd given her. How it stung to speak it after this gap had already been created.

"I gave you my wings so you could fly. I didn't want to walk through Hell with you." She, with a sparkling orb threatening to turn lashes into waterfalls, turned and place the painting against the wall once more. "I didn't need them; the rest of you did. Isn't that what you wanted?" She, with the patience of a caged animal staring at freedom, leaned over his still prostrate form and framed his broad shoulders with her hands. Hair the color of midnight framed his features and provided a moment of intimacy hidden from the outside world.

Mere seconds before she felt his hands throw her mind into confused delirium as they slid from her sides to the svelte curve of luxurious hips, she found herself wrapping her body over his own and leaning down, ever so closer, until she pressed her chest into his own; her lips against the strong column of his neck. "I wanted to walk through it for you."

What answer could a man, any man, offer such a broken image of quickly fading glory, resplendent when seen as so many shards of an ever changing picture? Waking up from this dream would be a nightmare; all he had left was an attempt to unravel the enigma and place the puzzle's pieces in order. He did so, at long last, with a quiet kiss and fingers on flesh quickly becoming bare under the day's voyeuristic eye.

[Fourth]

Months later-...


Melanie couldn't help but glance over her shoulder at the trio of brown robed Jedi that shadowed her from a distance as she paced and padded across a slightly raised platform that fronted a wide, rather short and almost compact room. A deep breath stilled raging nerves; this time would be different. She glanced back down at the floor beneath her as quiet stole across her legendarily volatile mind. This time, the last time, she'd learned to simply accept the presence of such a guard. They weren't an honor guard, nor were they here to keep her safe. They were here to keep those who sat before her safe and justifiably so.

She lingered and paused though not for dramatic effect. She simply needed a moment in which to rationalize and understand. Her dress was a modestly cut, though still snug and form fitting, coal grey ensemble that draped ever so slightly behind her and hid slippers from sight. She could feel myriad eyes peering up at her with abject, almost rapt curiosity. Here was a figure of legend, an outcast ally that'd fallen into such a spiral of the Dark side. Here was a Revanite; unwilling ally of convenience.

The children, young Padawan all, seemed to rustle and breathe as one. Two groups, neither dared make the first move. Youth was a reckless, brave thing. Foolhardy. A piping, delicate voice rose from the crowd and caused Melanie's eyes, orbs that lacked pupils, to snap towards the sound. "Ap'sala, how do you walk both paths? How do you know what to expect of yourself, or others? How they'll react to you?"

Her breath caught; she'd been permitted to teach as she saw fit but this, this most innocent of questions, demanded an answer that verged on base heresy. Nervous and almost fragile, she glanced over her shoulder at the men behind her. Empathetic beings, they nodded as one and gestured towards the room as a whole.

She, in her flowing, twisted accent that still brought such sibilant, dire threats and erratic actions to the mind of those that'd lived through the Deathwatch's purges and the Sa'has violent justice, warbled and trembled through the room's hallowed spaces. The children, on baited breath, stared up with eyes that blinked as rarely as her own.

"Expectations? The expectations that we place on ourselves and others, though more so ourselves, lead to serenity or the lack thereof, which is key to the use of any Force based ability. Expectations are a cloud; they demand we do the one thing that we who can control so much can't demand. We are all, well we all have emotions. We're not all human, of course. All the same, what's left over of me when not considering the Force expects certain things. Love, friendship, companionship, good results for me, positive ends that align with what I want." She paced and sliced a negative gesture when she spoke the last word.

"What we want is what we expect; what we need is often what we get. We trust in the Force, child, we accept and embrace that it knows more than I ever could. In my case, I trust in Revan, you in the Light Side. What can I possibly know that he does not? My expectations are things that I have created in the depths of my mind, you in your own. They are a cloud; they are an opaque wall that holds us from the living Force. Give up on them, allow things to happen as they will and react as best as you can. You have long considered me not the most powerful Force user, but surely the first to act in every event. That's simply because I've given myself entirely to my Force and have allowed him to guide my hands. I can't see the future, some of you think I can. I've just freed myself. I suggest you do the same, child."

The men behind her canted their heads in confusion, the children before her nodded in tentative acceptance. One did not argue with one's teacher, much less one as volatile and rare as this one. This was a legendary moment, a second that would resound through the annals of history if it went well, one that would shatter alliances if it went poorly.

"-...How?"

"What can I do through the Force that I can do alone? Almost nothing. I can fight, surely. I can likely fight this entire room, blades in hand, without ever touching the Force. You, if you've got it inside of you, can learn the same. I've my equals in these Halls. That's what Ap'sala can do; what anyone can do with enough skill. But what can you and I do that no one else can do? We can surrender ourselves to what we are and become what we should be."

"Surrender implies a loss, Ap'sala."

"Sometimes, child, to win you must lose first. Lose yourself in the Force and find the path, my friend. Think on this; on that. We'll discuss what you've gleaned through reflection in the morning."

With that, nothing more and nothing less, Melanie swayed away from the platform and paused near the door. One man spoke for three; all agreed. "An interesting point, Revanite. Please, by all means, come back when you wish. You are...." The confession was strange. It was still so new, still so abstract. "and only you, welcome in the Temple when it pleases you."

Stung by the simplicity of the words, Melanie caught her mind before it fluttered through the unseen paths and slipped into the spaces between. All that remained of such an important moment was a shifting, shimmering patch of air behind her.

"She will return. Go, students, about your other studies. We will learn more of her soon enough. They are the balance, we are the weights. We must accept this fact should we survive the coming darkness."

[Fourth]

"Where?!" Melanie's voice harbored a trace of concern as she hurriedly blew through the Temple's myriad hallways, always in the direction of the War Room that played host to her treasured suit of atavistic armor. The brown robed man who matched her step for step spoke through labored breaths. "Korlash IV, or so I'm told."

"We're unlikely to make it there on time, Ap'sala.." Celibate by his word, the Jedi watched with a different sort of fascination then most when they observed the transformation she underwent. Clothing was quickly traded for what turned a seemingly delicate woman into a monstrosity hidden by absolute anonymity. Her armor held no markings; her face was soon covered by a black veil that exposed nothing below her pitch tainted eyes. Muffled by the cloth, her voice seemed slow and quiet; it echoed faintly around the room's suddenly tight confines.

"We'll be there within seconds. Close your mind, Jedi." Her words trailed off into rapid darkness, a shadow world filled with the remnants of a past that'd been stolen. The only constant was Him, the overriding figure that loomed, even dominated, Melanie's waking mind and sleeping dreams. Worlds rushed past, stars blurred into a constant myriad of colors twisting into a single strand. Existence as its very core. This was the origin, the conduit that held space to time.

It was with a sickening wrench that the Mandalorian and her human counterpart were spat onto crunching snow. Sheer, ebullient chaos controlled their immediate environment. Blaster bolts screamed through the rising blizzard; snow and ice reflected glaring light and trembled under the massive weight of the Empire's favored warmachines. Giant walkers strode ponderously over the ever shifting battlefield, each step an inch closer to taking ground that the faltering soldiers sworn to defend an ignorant Republic couldn't hope to hold. It was into this weaving, dynamic scene that Mandalore's chosen threw herself headlong. Seconds felt like hours as the Force granted insight. Ten thousand potential paths were traces of what might be; intuitive instinct danced paths between massive legs and shrieking death cast from the snowy shadows. Twin blades grated against the projectiles and threw them into the ever changing dissonance.

Single moments were pointless, fleeting strokes of the macabre artist's bloodstained brush. She felt the battle more than saw it. Felt her blades tugging through armor, felt the searing hit of so many near misses. Concussive waves shoved against her mind even as explosions washed over armor that had stood impervious for so long. One moment, however, snatched her attention.

"Ap'sala!" Her head, the faceless mask, snapped towards a purple glow weaving between clouds of kicked up snow and dust. Panic, curiosity. Sight unseen parted the veil. Instantly in motion, she kicked off of the hard ground and latched, with a tendril of the Force itself, onto a walker's enormous torso. Time, frozen in her eyes, suspended itself as she discerned the cone of bright blue acid spraying from the robotic creature's uncaring muzzle. I can't hold it.

Control was already slipping through her fingers like sand falling from glass to glass. Helpless. Fuck. I can't....too much. Her head shook in silent defiance as she flew through the air. Both feet landed on the machine's plating. She kicked downward instantly, forcing herself underneath the monster's awkward belly. Still tethered, she threw both blades to the ground and expended the last ounce of temporal energy in order to grasp the massive, impervious beast with both metaphysical hands. Acidic vapors swirled around her, steam rose from the rapidly weakening armor that'd stood in the face of so many others before. A silent scream boiled in the Mandalorian's chest. Defiance, rage, a sudden burning. Before the fatal jaws parted, Melanie drew on the reserve strength, livid hatred, and jerked both hands down with undeniable power. The gargantuan's head snapped down; she found herself staring into the fero-glass eyes and the hose-like contraption that spewed certain death.

"Ap'sala!"

She heard the man's plaintive shout through the sizzling, burning of her once treasured, once pristine armor. I'm going to die. Armor melted; metal fused with living tissue. She'd seen the world's end ten thousand times. She'd never considered her own. Quiet at the final moment, she released the monstrous machine only after her armor's generators exploded into a burst of radiant flames.

Gone. She was, for a moment, baffled by the strand of light that seemed to burst forth from her eyes. The battlefield, when viewed from above and being pulled away, seemed so small. She rode the searing light upwards, ever upwards. Asteroid fields parted for the fleeing force of will, stars and planets bent and warped as she flew past them. It was a flailing retreat, spasmodic motions akin to an unbalanced reactor's collapse. She stopped, her momentum jerked her upright. Her eyes, even as they burned out, were drawn to a sun's impending demise. Maybe I'll become a constellation, she thought aimlessly. Feeling was thinking in this strange, transient position. The sun swung on a column of the living Force's creation. Upwards, down, a never ending pattern constantly in flux. Curiously, she reached across the vast distance and saw the pendulum begin to slow, slow and finally hang in apparent suspension. The column hardened into a pillar the color of obsidian, then gold, red, blue. A million colors; everything and nothing in juxtaposition.

"It was as it always should have been, Ap'sala. Tell me, what did you think would happen?" A mask made of black, callous steel formed itself out of the frozen, cracked pendulum. Revan's presence was a monolithic representation of what couldn't be erased from the minds that'd touched such a primal source of infinite, supertemporal reality. "You forgot a key component of your own prophecy, child o' mine. You needed to die; you must be broken before assembled in my image."

The infusion of sentience contorted Melanie's features into a writhing fury. She'd glimpsed sanity; she'd seen peace in the shadow of the pendulum's downward swing. She'd been teased by the very end, the death of struggle, the absence of war. "No!" Her voice filled space, it rebounded off of the expanding horizons, it leaked past event horizons and mingled with the imposing limits of human understanding. The pendulum remained, caught by unseen hands and cradled atop a throne of bones and ash. She, however, began falling through the sea of shadow from which she'd risen.

Revan's voice was a smooth, steady sound that originated from everywhere and nowhere; the voice of the ages themselves. It blanketed her, stole over her and swarmed into the crevices of her once ruptured mind. Faded, blood spattered cells, each holding a nightmare's memory, unfolded all at once created a shifting, living tapestry spread before her. "You are the pendulum Ap'sala, you the pendulum and I the wait. You had to die, daughter, in order for the pairing to be completed. There are things, Sa'ha, truths that can not be eradicated. You and I happen to be those."

An influx of imposing, impending fate chased her rapid descent towards the planet that was approaching her with inevitable conclusions attached. "I thought, I was sure it was...." Her voice seemed hollow; the transition from unreal to real distended her words; sound and sight faded into one single strand of lucid attachment she knew she'd never touch again. "over."

"You've always been me, Ap'sala. You are both sun and viper, girl. Swallow the sun, he said, in order to purge your own venom. Purified and made anew, go, go!"

His voice was the last thing she heard before slamming, face first, back into the snow. Sensation, a heightened thing, caused her to recoil from the bitter cold that was plastered to her chest. Hands frantically scrabbled along the straps attached to either shoulder, they sought to drag her to her knees. Her head cleared slowly, terribly slowly. The world was abuzz, she couldn't pick apart the words shouted into her ears. The ground swam before her; she was only barely aware of the heat that emanated from her back.

Finally able to stand, she swayed in place while the air cleared and the ground stilled below her. Both hands snapped to her face and felt smooth, unblemished metal. Her fingers, desperate to understand, pulled at the rounded edges frantically. Her eyes swept the assembled crowd with ominous conviction before she forced herself to glance down at the object she held with trembling hands.

A smoldering robe fluttered before her as the Jedi fell to a single knee and cast his eyes onto the smoking, rubble strewn field. Soldier and rebel alike followed suit, each unable to meet the eyes of she who'd cheated death and clung to the conduit of raw, unleavened Force that was the simple, unadorned mask. "Stand, please." Her voice was choked and raw, her throat still held the noxious fumes that'd burned and melted. Tattered remnants of her armor rattled in the wind, though her flesh was hole, marginally scarred on both hands and wrists.

"Empires rise, tribes unite an' Republics fall on bent knee yet only Mandalore stands. We wage war against disparity, champ. I hardly think it makes sense to do so with order, does it? Get up, we're far from done."