Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 16

~

When Abhaia awakened with Darth Vader's last questions ringing in her skull, she looked first for the Jedi and had not found him.

Can your Jedi face you as I have? And where is he now? Vader's voice taunted her.

"Let's bloody find out, shall we?" she snarled back.

Rolling off the pad, her legs nearly went out from under her as she tried to stand. The mental battle with the Sith had drained her even more than she thought. It took some few minutes before she could cajole them into working at all.

Shadow-stalking down the empty stone hallways, flitting from room to room, she hunted the Jedi. A part of her trusted the Jedi, another part of her – a part that was coldly pragmatic – told her that trust could kill the last thing in this life that she cared about. Vader thought her child dead, while Naum Koghan and those he reported to knew nothing.

This was how it had to be.

One thing that Abhaia would not, could not permit was for Naum Koghan to interfere in the last thing that would insure Arien's safety. These men she was fleeing hated to loose, and Grandfather more than most. They were capable of slaughtering ever last Oathkin until they found Arien. What Abhaia had done to inhibit Arien's ability to use the Force was not something Perran that would be capable of understanding or controlling; he would therefore kill Arien for bearing it. Perran Jasc and his adherents must be destroyed.

It seemed unlikely that the Jedi would undertake to do that, or that he would stand still while she did it herself. He seemed to have no stomach for combat.

The sound of a man's voice rose momentarily over the echoes of the surf and Abhaia turned to follow it. Once she tracked him, she stayed in the shadows and listened. What she heard made her draw one of the vibroblades out of its sheath in her boot and consider her aim carefully.

The next sentence out of Naum's mouth made her replace it and brought tears to her eyes. He defied the other Jedi, apparently his master, and spoke of what a Jedi was meant to be, what his oaths meant to him.

Naum was a good man. She could not kill him for allowing himself to believe that his Council was just as honorable. In Abhaia's experience honorable, reasonable, decent people truly believe that others are the same way. They looked for the better nature in all, not realizing that a large portion of beings did not have a better nature.

Perhaps that is an indicator of my own evil, that I could never see that light, only the darker side of nature.

A presence touched her through the Force. Vader. Close by.

If she could not kill him, she could not let this honorable Jedi meet his end at the Sith Lord's hands, either.

The holoprojected being had been about to launch into what might have been a legendary dressing down as Abhaia stepped out of the shadows. Naum turned to look at her, shame and guilt written in his expression and posture.

"Abi" Naum's brown eyes were dark with an anguish that he likely could not name. He had so wanted her to believe in the benevolence and wisdom of his vaunted Council. He had so wanted to believe in it. It was hard to see him betrayed.

Raising her hand, she forestalled his explanations, to know too much of him would make doing what she had planned that much the harder. She knew what she needed to know in order to do what she needed to do.

"I heard enough, Jedi Koghan. You are a Jedi knight and an honorable man. You are all that I was told a Jedi could be." And he was. As she began to gather her power, she thought with regret that all that those stories told by Isabail and Keille were true, just not true of all Jedi.

"But"

This time she stopped his words more directly. She moved close enough that he had to tuck his chin to look at her and pressed her finger to his lips. A brief, pleasant pang reached her through her Healer's senses; astonishment mixed with pleasure that she had brought herself to touch him was topmost, but there was a muddy undercurrent of other emotions.

"Hush. I know what you were ordered to do. I know, now, that you omitted a great many things that you should have told me. But I also understand why you did it." Loyalty, honor, and dedication; between Naum Koghan and Darth Vader, there was enough to make up for the lack in all of Grandfather's men. Such similar men, and such vast differences.

"We all have secrets, Naum," she continued. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth; she was all but made of shadows and secrets now. "You are a good and loyal man, I bear you no ill-will for doing what you felt you must do, I will trust you after this to listen to your own conscience and not the dictates of another."

And I hope you will not hate my memory for what I must do. Forgive me, please. I cannot let my darkness destroy your light.

Her Healer's gift needed more contact, and she needed his full, undivided attention. The Jedi on the other end of the holoprojector was blabbering at top speed, ears flapping hard enough that he might well take off. Holding Naum's warm, gold-brown eyes with hers, she stepped even closer. Body to body, she ran her fingers through his hair and then lifted herself on her toes to kiss him.

If her initial touch had brought a shock, this more intimate touch elicited a veritable quake from the allegedly unemotional Jedi. The emotional slurry Abhaia had sensed moved to the surface and she reeled in surprise. Compassion, pity, care, the need to heal her spirit were as basic to Naum Koghan as her need to heal an ailing or injured body. This man was like Neve, but had become a warrior instead. Old scars rived through his spirit like veins of carbon through marble; a shadow-hunter, a shape-changer, an assassin.

When he responded to her kiss, Abhaia suddenly found it incredibly difficult to concentrate. Passion and desire swirled through her senses so that she was unsure what was coming from Naum and what was originating from within herself. Twining her arms around him, she gently broke the kiss.

Oh, yes, she had all of his attention now. Likely he would not notice if the entire Imperial Navy conducted a live-fire exercise in the next room.

Tuning her power, she struck.

"Sleep, Naum Koghan."

Surprise stole briefly over Naum's features before the anesthesia Abhaia invoked claimed him. Lowering him gently to the ground, Abhaia cradled the back of his head, shielding it from the rock of the floor. The creature Naum had been communicating with jabbered at her, but she simply ignored it for the time being.

Naum would be safe enough in one of the suite's inner rooms. The stonecutters were busy roughing out the floor plan and finish work could not be started until they were done. Sonic stonecutters had to be tuned very carefully, the slightest interference from another cutter on a different frequency could collapse an entire cliff.

Abhaia rifled through Naum's belt until she found a pocket lumen. Clipping it to her tunic, she turned it on, took hold of the unconscious Jedi and dragged him into a small antechamber. Propping him against the wall, she made sure he would have at least eight solid hours of sleep. This anesthetic was part of the Healer's repertoire; many Force users could not handle chemical anesthesia.

Gently, she ran her fingers through his hair. It might have been nice to get to know him. As she had done with Arien, she impressed her feelings on his unconscious mind. He would find them in the front of his thoughts when he awoke.

::: Thank you, Jedi, for all that you thought to do. May the Force be with you, and may you find your own path, rather than the one that others would have you take. Remember me; Abhaia the Healer, daughter of Keille, daughter of Isabail. :::

Standing, she brushed stone dust from her knees and walked back into the main chamber. The holoprojected creature watched her as one might a particularly dangerous predator. The thought amused her. In a way, she was a predator, but she was only dangerous to those who were a danger to her.

"What have you done with him?"

Abhaia raised an eyebrow. "He's still breathing, if that's what you want to know. I have not harmed him. Consider him neutralized, but not as you would have had him do to me." The words were bits of ice as they left her lips.

The creature said nothing.

"Know this, Jedi Master, I spared Naum Koghan because he is the Jedi that you will never be. Whatever the Jedi were, they now call Darksider anyone who disagrees with them. They should be shouting it at themselves." Abi ignited her saber, gratified to see the being flinch. "Send any more after me"

She let the words trail off as a cold smile bloomed on her face. With a flourish, she spun her saber into a two-handed grip over her head, point down and slammed in into the communications equipment. The image vanished in a squall of static and feedback and the room was dark once more.

She stood in the dark for a while, listening once more to the rush of the surf until wild flares of panic flashed through her Force-sense. Her grandfather's men had just noticed that the Sith Lord was all but standing on them. That presence reached out for her now, and she stilled every part of her mind as Vader's spirit touched her own.

::: I am here. :::

~