Contrast: to distinguish meaning in the difference between two objects

The sixth shot went down as smoothly as the first had and he set the glass down gently, hardly making a sound. He surveyed the small group of empty glasses and smiled grimly.

It wasn't working. He'd known it wouldn't, but that had never stopped a fool from trying, and for a few hours he had conceded to being one.

Meditate, you should.

Yoda's words. Always Yoda's words. His old master hardly ever offered any other advice towards dealing with such circumstances. As if there was only one solution and it was a simple enough solution if only he would act upon it.

And he had. And it didn't work.

And so here he was, drinking the late hours away, alone in his quarters. Lights off, presence shielded. No one was home to the world outside.

Mace Windu stared at the glasses, glanced over at the few that were left waiting. The bottle sat empty on the small table to his left, the last of its contents poured into the few remaining shots. He sighed, long and low. Barely a tendril of energy was required to quell the slight buzz that had begun to sound in the back of his head. Barely a whisper needed to clear the hazy images up, to set his senses tingling once more with plasma-riddled air and the sounds of dozens of lightsabers working in desperate harmony.

He'd known it wouldn't work. The man still stared back at him, and he could almost see dark eyes behind the tinted helmet, a shock of dark hair to match. A smile darker than both of them.

The man had been rotten.

He closed his eyes, at once seeing another face. The one his memory always jumped to next, right after a brief glimpse of the man whose head he had sent rolling.

Just a child, this one. No helmet, long hair. Innocent face, though not so innocent as Mace would like to believe. But still just a boy.

He stood abruptly, watching as every glass shattered into a million pieces. He pulled the pieces back with an irritated twitch of his hand, unwilling to let them sound against the walls and bring Force-knew how many Jedi running to his aid.

The shattered pieces pooled at his feet and he regretfully toed the edge of them. Just fragments now, and he wished that his memories of the past were the same, but they never would be.

Two years of trying to forget had left little doubt.

~~OOO~~

The second shot went down with an even louder gag than the first and he slammed the glass down on the counter, barely restraining himself from shattering it against the far wall. He glared at those nearest to him even as his face was turning red and his throat was burning, seared by the heavy dose of who knew what.

No one met his gaze, proof of what a reputation could bring, but Boba only felt the loneliness that accompanied it. No one to talk to, no one to laugh with, no one to ask for help, no one to share stories with, no one to fight by his side... just himself and his shot glass. The glass was begging for a refill, but he stubbornly pushed it aside and instead glowered at the bar top. It's surface was marred by dozens of splinters and lines carved by thousands of drinks, knives, and dirty appendages, and it was far more welcoming than the image of his father's head bouncing and rolling across the gritty sands of Geonosis.

The drinks weren't working. Kriffin' barves. They had promised it would work. He eyed the glass again, guiltily noting that he hadn't had nearly enough refills for that promise to have a chance. His battered mind would gladly take a refill, but his adolescent body wasn't ready for that yet.

So, yet again, he wandered down the dreary paths of memory lane where violet light flashed in and out of existence and a certain tinted helmet just wouldn't stop tumbling through the dust.

Mace Windu would die. It was a simple objective that had no plan. As meticulous as he was about such things, this goal required no planning at all. Just a target.

He had tried once already and had failed miserably, but there would be more opportunities. It wasn't hard to track down Jedi these days. A guy only had to hop planets until a bloodied village or battlefield presented itself. Where carnage and desolation were present, Jedi were bound to be close. That's just the way it was these days.

But even though his heart screamed revenge and his mind gladly followed suit, he still wondered sometimes at the look of shock that had been thrown his way after the Jedi had slain his father. Had the man felt any regret in that moment? Any guilt?

Yes, you killed my father you sleemo. Yes, I was only a kid. And now, only two years later, Boba felt decades older than he was, driven into the solitary life of bounty hunting and only the heavy weight that months of war could bring.

Yes, the Jedi would die. But he knew without a doubt that he would still be fatherless, left with only the memory of a helmet rolling in the dust. Revenge wouldn't bring his father back.