II

"Hoth?" Luke's bright blue eyes widened as he glanced about. The crystalline wall wasn't glass, but ice! He must have been blind to have missed it. Still, ice on Tatooine didn't seem as far-fetched as... "Another planet?"

She nodded, pausing to extract something from the heart of the fire. Immediately the flames hissed and died. In her silver hand a crystal, amber and multi-faceted, glimmered and pulsed as though alive. She pocketed it quickly with the words, "We will have need of this later," and only then did he notice the curious device which hung suspended from her braided belt. It looked like a sword without a blade.

"What is that?" he asked pointing to it.

She glanced down and then answered, deliberately misunderstanding him, "A way to bring heat where there is none. Now, finish dressing. We must go."

Luke spread his hands wide and shook his aching head. "Whoa, now. Wait a minute. I'm grateful you rescued me, but who said I was going anywhere with you? Just point me in the direction of the nearest settlement and I'll find my own-"

She pivoted sharply and fixed him with her dark stare. "Even if that was permitted, you would not make it one mile. It would be suicide." She gestured wide, encompassing the great ribboned wall and the dark tunnels beyond. "Beyond these walls there is nothing but ice and wind. The temperatures are extreme even for my kind. Your puny pink flesh would freeze before you knew it. If not for the gift of the Protector, you would be frozen even now." Her tone brooked no dissension, but that meant little to Luke. He was used to arguing with his uncle, as mule-headed a task-master as you could find.

"What Protector? Lady, you must think I'd make a deal with the Jawas without first inspecting the merchandise." He hastily fitted grey boots to his feet and threw a light-weight jacket over his sleeveless shirt. "Even if there is snow and ice out there ~if~ I can take care of my~"

The dark woman sighed and reached toward her belt. Her finely tapered fingers clutched the strange device at her side and found a recessed jewel near the top of the handle. She closed her eyes and muttered a few indecipherable words before concluding with, "I see you must be shown..."

Luke waited, not knowing what to expect. At first it seemed as though nothing had happened, but then he noticed his skin was no longer glistening, but was instead a dull greyish-blue the color of gun-metal. Seconds later he was seized by a bone-numbing cold that penetrated his body and gripped his heart, all but stopping it. Overcome, he collapsed to the floor with a whimper, "Pl-please..."

Moments later, a welcome tingling told him The Protector -whatever it was- had been reactivated. He found his knees and lifted his head and regarded the silvery woman with a new respect tinged with fear. Her stern gaze bid him remember the power she held over him. From where he rested on the floor, he asked uncertainly, "What do you want of me?"

She fingered the handgrip at her hip and answered matter-of-factly, "Only that which is my due. I must return to the settlement that until of late, I have called home. Someone is killing my people. I seek information which will help me free them from this curse. You will help me do this." She paused when she saw his startled look and then added soberly, "I have foreseen it."

Luke swallowed and then replied, tentatively, "And what if I refuse? Assuming, of course, that you won't simply turn off your 'Protector' and let me freeze like a piece of meat." He paused, aware that was quite an assumption. "What if I choose not to help you?"

She stepped closer to him and the sight, the scent, the very presence of her was intoxicating. "You have no choice, little one," she whispered seductively, "you are mine."

Blue eyes narrowed. "Yours?" he repeated incredulous, "and what does that mean?"

She inched forward to press her wine-drenched lips against his. He was startled by the way her being seemed to invade him, consuming his will. As her touch lingered, he felt his body temperature rise until sweat broke out on his exposed skin. Breaking away abruptly, she laughed. "It means 'you are mine'. When I chose to save you, you became bonded to me. While you lay dying, our souls passed through the Eye together. Moreover, you have taken my food and partaken of it. I am now responsible for you until such a time as you perform a like service." She stepped away from him and placed her finely chiseled hands on lusciously curved hips. "We are one."

"Wait a minute," he stammered, "L-last night? What do you mean? I ate your food, but last night?" As she continued to stare at him, he suddenly recalled the feel of her flesh against his, her lips on his neck, "I never~"

Narrow black brows arched. She smiled and her teeth were like polished black pearls. "Didn't you?"

A question at last.

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Several hours later Luke found himself in an unlikely position, bundled in furs and nestled protectively between the giant snow-white forequarters of a strange creature known as a Tauntaun and the enigmatic woman's muscular arms. Her warm breath blew evenly across his cheek and he could feel her heart beat as he was forced against her. The animal itself was vaguely familiar from his vision, but that one had been grey and not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as this snowy beast she commanded. Capable and sturdy, it bore the two of them without complaint or incident over the remote and forbidding landscape, past frozen canopies of ice and snow that concealed death-trap crevasses and fragile ice shelves. Periodically she would sing to it softly, running dark fingers through its coarse fur as if questioning its choice or offering an alternative route. Each time it would bleat in reply and hasten forward, as though pleasing her mattered as much ~if not more~ than life itself. As the light dimmed and cold wind began to howl like a maddened creature through the narrow valley they traversed, she elected to seek shelter in one of the many ice caves whittled into the crystallized tide. Explaining the beast could not survive the brutal cold of the Hothan nights, she drew it in after them and bedded it down near the door. In answer to Luke's query, she told him the planet's surface temperature never rose above freezing and often ~on night's such as this~ would plummet nearly one hundred degrees below zero, instantly petrifying anything that dared contest its absolute sovereignty.

Luke leaned against one of the cave's glossy walls and hugged the comforting animal skins about his narrow shoulders. He was comfortable ~thanks to the presence of the mysterious Protector and his captor's continued beneficence~ but uneasy. Earlier in the day the woman had given him a device similar to the one she wore at her hip. She said it had been his. Roughly twenty-four to thirty centimeters in length, it was made of metal and felt strangely familiar in his hand. Several unmarked switches dotted its side and a mirrorlike concave metal disk graced one end. When activated, invisible power cells emitted a cold beam of blue-white light that was nearly blinding. He had almost dropped it when first it had sprung to life with the raging sibilation of a hive of enraged insects. It terrified and enthralled him. He had tried to throw it away, but the woman had forbidden it. Glancing at her now where she sat deep in meditation near a small fire conjured from her pocketed crystal, he sighed. He didn't know if he was a prisoner or a pet... He only knew he no longer had any desire to leave her. Like the pulsating blade, she was both compelling and frightening at one and the same time.

As though sensing his thoughts, she rose and stretched, her supple flesh undulating in the firelight. She crossed to where he rested and then knelt to fix him with her intense eyes. Unexpectedly she said, "You have not asked my name."

"I..." He hesitated, uncertain. Somehow it had seemed...inappropriate? "Nor you mine," he countered quickly.

"And yet I know it," she whispered, "as you already know mine."

He began to protest, puzzled, but fell silent as a sound, harsh and yet as lovely as the world that had begat her, tickled the edge of his tongue. He grinned and then volunteered, "Khr'shaia?"

Fire lit her eyes. "Yes. I thought so. And you are Luke." She leaned forward and planted a possessive kiss on his forehead, "Now you should sleep."

He blinked and protested, "But I just... You..." And yet, even as he spoke, his eyelids were already beginning to close. "I don't-"

"Hush. It is time," she insisted, laying a cool hand upon the lingering kiss, "sleep. Remember who you are."

"But I'm not..." Dark blond bangs fell, veiling his eyes, "No...I won't... I don't..."

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He dreamed.

A dark shape towered above him breathing menace, the scarlet slash of light it wielded screaming like an open wound against a field of sterile grey. Stunned, Luke raised a hand to ward off the blow and watched helplessly as it flew off into the darkness, diminishing until it disappeared into the depths of Cloud City's central core. Tears stung his battered cheeks as he heard his own agonized cry. Still the ominous figure advanced, compelling him to retreat to an insecure purchase scarcely wide enough for a child.

Words. There were words. Words so vile they wounded his very soul. And lies. Lies he could not ~or would not~ recall. He remembered the suicidal plunge. Remembered hanging upside-down believing he would die. And once again he felt the seductive call of the dark side. The memory in his bones of another's life, another man's choices...

If he was not very careful ~or extremely fortunate~ the face behind the black visor would be his own. He awoke with a start to find Khr'shaia watching him, her obsidian eyes narrowed and her dark lips pursed. She searched his fevered eyes and then blew out a slow breath.

"You are the one."

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They traveled all of the next day and well into the night. There was no moon nor was one necessary. An electrical storm the likes of which Luke had never seen filled the upper atmosphere, illuminating the black night as though as second sun had mounted high above the frozen wastes. Like a ghostly veil it blanketed the sky with color, emerald-green near the darkly silhouetted hills, blood-red above where the stars danced. The snow at their feet glowed a ghostly amber where the two met and mixed, lighting the path they traveled. Khr'shaia called it the Ihr'elorthe Breath of the Inspirer. She held her hand up and when he stilled his own harsh breathing, he could hear the air crackle and hiss like drops of water on glowing embers.

Once again the Tauntaun carried them through a fantastic landscape peopled by tiny icebergs which had melted and frozen into shapes graceful as glass sculptures. The wind was ferocious. It whistled past the glacial figures, keening as though for the lost. Just short of a rise, the silvery woman reigned in the beast. It panted and shifted its webbed feet as though uneasy. Luke understood its restiveness. He could feel it too. Beyond the ghostly white dune that rose before them, blocking their view, something waited.

Something powerful.

Luke gasped and turned to face the dark-skinned beauty who rode silently behind him. He spoke softly, as though he feared to break the silence, "What is it? What's down there?"

The amber curtain in the sky painted her silver-grey skin a sickly green. She swallowed hard and answered, "My home. Ihr Kahrn't. The dwelling place of the Eye of the Inspirer."