Whoo, an update! Although, this one is a bit more of an interludey break. More of an...artsy-fartsy, flowery, introspecty...thing. :| Yes, I am totally sticking to those adjectives. Ahem. Presenting...

The Numbers In Between

When Theron had merely been born, the first utterances to be heard from his tiny, fresh being were the shrilling cries his small lungs projected with such zeal, sent echoing through the hollows of the cavern where his new life had been welcomed into the cradle of the universe.

In this first year of Theron's life, upon the first sounds he'd voiced to reserve his place within the symphony of the cosmos, Lana had only begun learning to count. Two had been the number most familiar to her. Her favorite. It was the number of years that marked her life thus far. The single, darling child of the prosperous Beniko family had only celebrated her own birthday months prior.

By seven, Lana had learned numerous things—always an astute and gifted child of sundry talents. Always eager to acquire new knowledge, eager to familiarize the unfamiliar, to understand and interpret the unusual in ways only the exuberance of her imagination would permit. By seven, Lana had first learned her brief life's newest, most difficult lesson. Happiness and beauty were all the colors she saw of the universe with her still-pristine eyes. Sadness and grief were new shades of the boundless whole that had marred them, blinding them in covers of stark black and tears. Standing beside her father, young Lana watched as the pall was marched by, lowered and lain within the earth for what would be the final leave Lady Beniko would take of her daughter.

Lana looked to Papa, taking his hand as he held a photograph in the other, his own attentions lost within the tiny, still world this portrait permitted him a glimpse of. In just a single day, Lana watched how her dear father aged, wizened by the grief she'd only then begun to learn of. If not for her small fingers grasping at his own, the man may well have forgotten this small girl, losing sight of her from the deep chasm now hewn through every perceivable layer of his very being. He drew his darling girl beside him and passed the photograph with such delicate care into her small hands.

Lana looked upon the radiance of this woman's image. Golden hair and shining blue eyes. Still youthful. Still beautiful. Still full of life. Unfamiliar to the memory she now held of her.

This was your mother, her papa had spoken to her in the faintest voice she'd ever heard of him, as though in denial of the truth that the very same woman now laid a memory's ghost in the cold, damp ground at their feet.

In the same year Lana laid the memory of her mother to rest, those of Theron's own would only begin to take their first breaths. In this year, Theron was five. Most boys of young Theron's age raved of blasterfights and daydreamed of starfighters, playing at lofty fantasies of facing down and vanquishing the Sith and their fiendish Empire. Most boys roamed the streets in adventurous bliss, unenlightened and unaware of the plights beyond their immediate sight, drawn and led only by the enticing notion of the strength to be found in their own envisioned might. Most boys were encouraged to dream as their unbridled hearts pleased. All while Theron had been strictly disciplined in piety and forbearance, urged to be conversant with the philosophic and transcendental quarrels of morality—things his still-pristine mind could hardly yet grasp—instructed to behold the mortally drawn lines of the universe that he'd been unable to understand why his eyes had never been able to glimpse. Things most boys his age need never worry of.

What young Theron could understand was the heroism. The valor. And while his innocent mind could not fully articulate its meaning, Theron had already learned what it meant to be strong in spirit. That among the Jedi, within their exhausting lessons and morals, the most indomitable symbols of fortitude and tenacity—of will and of spirit—were indeed found. Among such symbols had been one particular Jedi Knight of rare exception. One Theron had always found himself invariably drawn to. One he'd admired and revered with a sense of awe beyond words a mere boy could convey.

Amidst an unremitting sea of venerating crowds, young Theron pined to share in the glory and praise the Republic cried and awarded to its Jedi Knights in the wake of their triumphant return home. At five, Theron had been just too small to stand level among the flocks and herds. Only after he'd been drawn into his master's arms and onto his shoulders could Theron then see. He peered far above the heights of the crowds where his master directed his eyes to gaze. It was there that he looked upon her, at last—saw with his own eyes—the single Jedi Knight his tiny heart had always felt implicitly, inexplicably bound to.

Even presently then, decades since his master himself last stood as this knight's mentor, the pride and sentiment never faded from his weathered voice. That is your mother, the old man had whispered only to Theron's ears as he tightly held onto his dear boy.

When Lana turned ten, she'd been inducted into the Sith Academy on Korriban. An odd other among the acolytes since the very beginning. Among the orphaned younglings, she was slightly older than most, who had a home where a loving father awaited her eventual (yet no less uncertain) return—a luxury that many of the other children never knew the comforts of.

Submerged beneath the most unrelenting of trials, cast into the most punishing, abysmal depths of tribulation, acolytes were tested—to fail was to die. Surviving meant submission. Most acolytes succumbed, relinquishing their hearts to the drowning weight of resentment and bitterness in only one of either two ways. Within the hearth of Korriban, acolytes were forged into warriors smoldering with ambitions of glory and triumph in their tempered hearts, permitted the absolute fealty and love for only the Empire they served, in total absence of question and of doubt. Such were the doctrines by which all Sith were whetted and molded.

Merely at ten, Lana had proven to be a rare element, difficult to shape and hone into perfect symmetry. Thoughts of home anchored her spirit to her heart. Thoughts of Papa kept her heart gentle. Held open and always within her own two hands, Lana never relinquished it all completely to the wrights and overseers who demanded it. She'd given enough, and only enough, to surpass their crucibles. What remained had, ever since this momentous year, been kept safely to herself, soundly hidden and securely locked away, for fear of losing it. Ever only in the preciously rare moments would Lana allow her heart to resurface and, once again, glimpse upon the dawning light of the universe.

Now, at eight, Theron had only been cast out from the folds of the Order he'd known since his birth. When Lana had only first discovered her own talents in the Force, it'd been learned that Theron had none. He, too, had been an outcast, though one who had been entirely unwanted, who knew little warmth or tenderness. But also very much like Lana, he, too, had someone beloved waiting for him. Even if lacking in the luxury and the comfort that Lana knew, he, too, had a home. And while the other masters of the Jedi Order had given up on him, Master Ngani Zho never would.

As he'd been taught to do since his earliest memory could recall, Theron had kept his eyes wide open for the lines and the colors the masters painted before them, only to find that he could see none. His ears searched through the void for any signal, any call the voices of the universe may send his way, only to hear silence. He'd reached with his two hands as far as he could, let his pure, tactile senses guide his movements and direction, but all he'd ever felt was the barren, infertile ground beneath his weary and torn feet that never led to any place.

Had it not been for Master Zho's unconditional, uncompromising love, Theron may well have believed his own heart as inadequate and insignificant as even the most palpable of his senses. Tethering it to that of his master's, following in pace with the old man's every footfall, every step and turn, Theron's heart never sank too deep, never fell so far that he'd been unable to retrieve it.

Only eight and still very much a child, young Theron had become lost more times than not. He'd witnessed as his peers, one by one, grew consummately fluent, immersed to the core in their lessons and habits as they were taught. All while he'd been forgotten, far behind along some long-passed crossroad, left to take the alternate path the others had foregone. At only eight, Theron proceeded on alone by the only means he'd known how, with only his senses to guide him. With Master Zho's faith to safeguard him. With only his bare heart to preserve and keep him.

At sixteen, following the success of her final trial, Lana assumed the mantle of the Sith Lord. Following the Republic's capitulation under the Empire's treaty the previous year, the barren planet Hoth remained a brutal, unending battlefield. In the tow of her newly assigned master, she would bid her cherished father and home goodbye yet again. She would make the Empire proud. She would make her dear Papa proud.

My darling girl, he'd said to his daughter on the day she'd gone, how could you bestow unto me something that's already been had for an entire lifetime?

As she looked upon him, she willed away all trace of tears, even those of the love and joy she'd kept so faithfully in her heart for her dearest father. Tears were unbecoming, she reminded herself. It was improper of Sith to shed them. However, Lana had always been an irregular puzzle piece. An outlier. A contradiction. This, her Papa always knew. While young Lana may not have been aware of it, it had been the single, unquestionable certainty he'd held to that would ensure her life's successes.

And Theron, at fourteen, had grown to be a brilliant boy. He'd held a sharp mind, a quick wit, and an immaculate, unerring mischievous streak. His achievements had been his record of outrunning and outsmarting the circuit of speeder cops who'd given him chase almost daily. One day, it'd been for flagrant trespassing. Another, it'd been for a rough brawl he'd gotten mixed up in on the streets. His favorite and most esteemed—when he'd once sliced into the systems of a luxury speeder and had stolen it right from under the nose of a government agent. But this had been one cheeky misdemeanor too far that he didn't outrun for long.

The day he'd been caught was the day he'd met Marcus Trant. The flinty man had not been in the least bit amused by his antics, but he'd detected the doubtless potential and skill in the boy. At fourteen, Theron began his tenure with the Republic SIS as one of its youngest ever recruited.

Once Theron became twenty, Lana was twenty-two, both existing along planes amidst a divided space. The lines drawn between them were clear, and they'd stood at the opposite ends, opposite poles separated by the galaxy intricately mapped in between. No longer children, but still young, Theron and Lana had glimpsed the boundaries, witnessed the extremities within the constraints of their sight. What their eyes had beheld until then had become imprints, indelible marks that helped sculpt and shape their beings.

Always in the company of their youthful certainty, the inescapable questions never took leave of their hearts. Every turn cast a shade of doubtful wonder at its corner. Every climb presented an insurmountable solicitude of promise at the summit. It mattered not where they'd followed the drawn lines. The elusive intuition that never failed them always seemed advertent in revealing the seemingly esoteric parables and allegories of the universe—uncovered questions that always further challenged and reshaped their perceived understandings.

The fortitude of mind was often described like a muscle, meant to be tried and exercised in order to be strengthened. Likewise, such encounters provided experience that exhausted and exerted the heart. Not once had either Theron or Lana bent under the taxing strains of such trials. Undaunted, they continued forward, following what their eyes could see in search of the inarticulate traces toward something neither of them would yet find. Even in the face of the ethereally unknown, the perceptibly unseeable, they advanced, phantasmically guided toward opposing directions to a destination they would only realize upon its discovery.

By twenty-six and twenty-eight, the lines began to converge. Manaan had been the name of the location in this space. To this planet, Theron Shan and Lana Beniko followed their separate lines. Through the same doors of the planet's customs center they passed—first Theron, then Lana, each lead by distinct, but similar vestiges of intuition. Arriving in search of a certain particular thing, they'd inevitably been led to find quite another.

In this year, Theron's ears would hear Lana Beniko's voice for the very first time, an uncanny encounter over the waves upon which their comlinks coincided. The number of times his ears had heard the inconceivable in the whole of his life was immeasurable. This had been yet another of such absurdities—words of concord and assurance from the lips of a Sith. Such anomalous conundrums never failed to seize the most marked curiosities of his fascination.

Lana's eyes, which had grown so accustomed to peering into the phenomenal, the unimaginable, would then take their initial glimpse upon Theron Shan's visage. The face of her new ally, unassuming and unexceptional only in the most perfunctory sense, she'd known, would come to reveal so much more. Remarkable eyes easily distinguished the remarkable, after all.

Onward, they'd pressed and ventured through the successive days of this year, colluding and colliding. Against shared enemies. Against one another. With the passing encounters to be had, both Theron and Lana gradually witnessed as the lines were smeared, brushed away, and resketched by the whim and caprice of artless mortal hands. Permanence was never a thing of their world, only a mere concept, utterly disclaimed by the very purview of the universe.

Indeed, twenty-six and twenty-eight had become busy numbers.

And now, they had grown to twenty-seven and twenty-nine.

How the movements had shifted the paradigms. It'd been as though the universe had slowed, winding and revolving backwards, uprooted and loosened from the very fabric of space-time. Or, it may have been that the lanes had propelled Theron and Lana forward so, that all appeared to delay within their relative sights. It'd become difficult to quantify anymore. Reality was such a nebulous, convoluted perplexity. The supposed schematics that furnished any perceived order to the movements were hardly that—more so a draft, some vague abstract that would continue to compose itself, never quite within reach of completion.

However, among the string of notes, hidden in the brushstrokes and the gestures of the composition, one could glimpse a continuum of patterns underwritten beneath it all. Like the infinite equations within the grand matrix—numbers within numbers, numbers in between numbers—there'd been a design at the baton conducting the never-ending masterpiece. As with all complexities, all the pieces and the anecdotes, what had been pertinent was not the sum of the whole, not the final finish, but the balances and the equivalence extrapolated from the coalescing elements.

Between Theron and Lana—two entities, two separate whole numbers—such figures were only beginning to come together at the focal point. Until twenty-seven and twenty-nine, no matter how precisely the viewing lens had been tuned, all they'd witnessed and known had always felt ostensibly distorted. Scores and scores of numbers, with only a scant few that added up. A stageplay of profound ideas that lacked the quintessence of verisimilitude. An unwonted perspective held at a slant, never quite revealing of the true dimensions. It'd been walking along the drawn lines with only an impression of realism, of the substance that formed the framework and the contours of the very tangible and very animate world.

As their own faith in their physical senses withered, the numbers shifted to balance in accordance to the unquestioning sovereignty of the universe. Nearly forgotten to the ever-flowing cosmic tides, there'd been a resurfacing component that sustained where their nominal senses could not. A passing intuition. A flicker of inspiration. A mere quantum string, tethered tautly enough to their beings to compel their movements forward into the vast, encompassing space. Unwittingly, the strings that maneuvered both Theron and Lana had been drawn by their own hands, and they'd been the very same, identical, continuous strand—wound and woven throughout the geography of their shared space. With each advancing step, there came a consequent gesture that brought all things closer to convergence. Though now, all remained still too early, too far off for either of them to yet take notice.

Twenty-seven, Theron had gone, always circumspect as he'd held the string with only the barest touch, but never so wary as to discard it entirely.

Twenty-nine, Lana had passed, letting the string slacken between her fingers, consciously vigilant so as to never allow it fall from her grasp.

Even among the smallest numbers to be counted between them, never had the ties loosened from their beings. And as such, the strands remained, intact and unremittingly bound to the solitary element that would seem invulnerable to the eroding tides or the sweltering hearth from which the most divine forces of the universe surged forth. The living, breathing element inexplicably shared between them—the very entity that marked their existence, their purpose. So profound in its resilience, that neither Jedi nor Sith could rend it from their beings. A singular element consecrated by the Force itself, it would seem.

But just as the laws of the universe would ordain, there existed no promise of certainty. There'd been many more numbers to be counted. Many left to be weighed and balanced.

The numbers now still remained only twenty-seven and twenty-nine.

Author's Notes:

Ooo...gosh, I just love playing with themes and imagery of the cosmos, and I think that Star Wars has just been the most awesome material to really showcase those themes. Astronomy, space, the universe and all that fun junk...it's all just so very fascinating and even romantic in a sense, yeah? This chapter was pretty laden with that stuff, and I hope it hadn't gotten too redundant. It's kind of been an experiment with observations between the 'little' and the 'big' things. Seeing parallels between the self and the world—all that philosophical, artsy junk, haha. I know it probably got a bit...kinda 'in-the-air' towards the end, there. Since the 'thing' being described between Theron and Lana was itself such an airy, abstract thing, I decided to kind of venture into more abstract language too, when it got there—a little...conceptual and impression-y. Definitely a different sort of challenge trying to reconcile some of it in the writing so that it comes together in a good way...bleh. I dunno, anyone care to share any thoughts? :)

And apologies in advance—the next one might be a little long to come again. Gonna be bum-rushing a bit this month to wrap up some things in preparation for a big, local convention coming up (Lana Beniko cosplay—say whaaat? :D). It's been an...interesting sort of challenge, to say the least. Aside from fun lightsaber fiascos (but I've finally gotten it to LIGHT—win for spoomy!), it's like easily the most ridiculously hardest thing to make a blond wig work when you're Asian, lol. Oh, Lana...you're just about as blond as it gets.

I'll definitely try to keep as busy as I can with writing. And, wowie. Since the last update, I've been seeing a spike in reader views/visits! I'm totally blown away and very excited to see that people are peeking at and reading this stuff! As always, I hope everyone continues to enjoy upcoming chapters. Please feel free to leave any reviews, thoughts, or feelings!

Ah, and words to our awesome reviewers:

-To Anchev, The Walrus of Eden, and Lord Revan Flame: Thank you guys so much for your kind compliments! Lol, I tend to get so fluttery during revisions before posts, all worried about how the writing gets to be here and there... Always gotta remind myself not to overthink it too much sometimes, I guess. But thank you guys so much. It means a lot to hear little encouragements when they come around. It's a little nerve-wracking when you start getting worried and unsure of what people are thinking about the story and stuff, haha!

-To Chevalie: Yesss...I've just totally been enamored with Lana and Theron since they first showed up, too! (Probably wouldn't have guessed it, huh? lol) Got me nabbing the graphic novel and book that featured Theron, and I only wished there was more content about Lana as well. Ooh, your very nice words got me all a-blushin'. Thank you so much, and I'm absolutely looking forward to bringing more stuff, too! Let's hope some more Lana/Theron things will pop up in the future...we all need it! ^_^

4/30/15