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The ManHis letter to the nearest Monastic Observatory of the Order to quote leave me the fuck alone unquote was writ with quill pen on milky-soft parchement, encased in a silver envelope and sealed with candle's wax, and the proud initial J. Giving this description of the terms of their truce –for the monks, for all their sub-conscious games made for winning debates of whether the Astronomers were "witches", were not in the business of using violence to achieve their ends. But he would not tolerate their presence on Coruscant, he would not, no, not while the Sanctum stood. Sending Father Avrael was an insult of the lowest degree; that he got himself thrown out was why he was thrown out, for reasons that any idiot could have predicted from the very beginning. Or so Judas wrote, this and more, explaining clearly that he would send his results to them by chapter through the offices of the Senate Committee for Astronomic Sciences, and that that was the way it was going to be. His ultimatum prepared, Judas gave it to a droid who with incessant hydraulic buzzing promptly made his way out of the Sanctum.
Similarly, at the same time the second letter left the planet for its monastic destination, Master Windu received an externally identical sealed silver envelope: the first sent out by its origin. Slowly cracking the wax and slipping out the letter, he read, in letters fine and proud: "Purview your North Wall." There was no return address, nor signature, nor initial; but the Jedi had a damn good idea who this came from. Venturing into the Temple's parking lot, he read, in letters ten feet tall of glowing green paint (in an equally fine hand), "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. Signed, Master Judas Aries Ferreus, for all to see." Looking North, there was the spire of Judas' Apothecary Sanctum ten miles away: paintball for the Force-sensitive indeed. The arrogant bastard had used twice as much paint on his name as his message.
Today was a green day for Judas. His longsleeve silk shirt was of a dark forest-green flavor, while the three-button vest (not, by any stretch of the imagination, made of real gorilla chest) was a soft, suede emerald so dark as to be guessed as black, and was indeed black in dimmer lighting. Shining black leather belt was same as always, though with a jade clasp; black suede pants, iron-shod boots, all the same. And, seemingly reflecting this mood, Judas' ring shone like a piece of deep ocean on a gray day: a piece, a chip, of ancient abyssal emerald. Even that glossy clear-gray hair seemed to alter a bit in favor of the aquamarine for the occasion. Sipping his superbly freezing ice water, he made his way to what he had chosen for his auditoreum.
Every seat, empty. The aisles were clean of garbage, utterly abandoned by dirt and grime. There were no posters lining the walls, no advertisements to be aired on loudspeaker, no restaurant and mortuary services with their adds side-by-side in the evening's program. Elegantly absent of the rude, base, and vulgar: the stupid, the choking, yearning, screaming, wailing, howling masses of burgoise proletariat. Which was what the middle-class was, he reflected: but for maybe a generation, maybe a year, maybe an hour in the tide of an entire cycle of that vile sine curve of the rise and fall of civilization, but for that instant, the entire middle class was in effect a collection or proletariat that had money.
Judas walked up the stone steps to the gloriously polished wood surface of the Stage. Yes, he said, I may have been star of many plays, but I have not seen better days! After smiling at his reflection in the finished wood, and the sound of his shoes tap-taping across its surface, he sat down at the only seat available: center stage, a glistening and glossy full piano of the ancient mode. There are sloppy fools without money, he mused, tapping the lowest key; and there are sloppy fools WITH money… he continued, tapping the very middlemost C; then there are of course CLEAN fools with LOTS of money… a long, slender finger sounded the right-most key, sending its high pitch heavenward. And then, there's ME. And Judas began the moonlight sonata.
Soft and clear those notes sounded under the command of his elegant hands, patient and gentle, ruling the keys only as a true King. Those violet doe-eyes were at first locked, half-closed, on his instrument and its fine ivory keys: for so long had he been without this gift, this joy, that he had to give attention, not ear, to produce the flow of music and silences of the piece –his favorite, his signature. But given a moment the talent awoke, and his eyes closed; mouth so straight then bowed, dropping at the edges into a profound melancholy. Judas' mind was not on Father Avrael, or Master Windu, or the thousand cruel hurts and mindless injustices and ignorant malignancies committed upon him and his friends by the world. For now, he sung the music, he breathed it, and it consumed him. Every note became his blood, and food; not only would he not err, but could not. That he was a proud man, of high self-opinion, was a flaw he shared with Brutus; but Judas would have pointed out it was not honestly a flaw, and the hero had fallen by other reason in the play. That he was proud, what of it? Had he not reason to feel superior to inferior creatures? Do not men feel superior to animals? And if one chooses to be an animal, and you chose rather to be a man, then how high your vanity, knowing superiority? If that be vanity "…then I have never writ, and no man has ever loved."
But he was not ruffled, not now. For now, Judas was at peace in his heart and mind. He reverently played out those last soft chords to himself, with one corner of the mouth slightly upturned in a weak but honest smile –which is more than can be said of so many—just as his ten thousand gray tendrils detected the entry of a weary heart upon the confines of his Sanctum.
