NOTE: Hi everyone and thanks, as always, for your wonderful comments. I'm
trying to write a little more often, so I hope to have another part up in
the next couple of days. Thanks again! This chapter is a bit short, but I
wanted to get something up so you wouldn't think I'd abandoned the fic. :)
Stars in the Darkness - Part Twenty-Four
----------------
Dalan paced through the empty apartment. Ben was on an excursion to the Holographic Zoo with Sinja-Bau. Keria was on a date with some boy. Dalan didn't know him, but apparently she'd met him at the ball at the Crystal Pavilion she had attended with Onara some months back.
Outside the apartment's wide windows the sky, crowded as it always was with lines of shuttling air traffic, darkened towards early evening. Stopping in front of one of the windows, Dalan stared out it. He didn't like this planet. Didn't like that it was entirely covered by buildings, without a hint of green anywhere. Didn't like the smells or the noise or the way the sun shone here. He longed so much to return to Ahjane with Ben. And Onara.
He tried to swallow in a tight throat. Onara. Where was she? After he had left her office near the Senate Rotunda, he had returned to the apartment. He had seen Ben off with Sinja-Bau and had watched, amused, as Keria had flitted around getting ready for her date. He had then watched her leave with the red-haired boy, her bright blue eyes shining with excitement. And he had waited. Alone. Waited for Onara to return.
Dalan turned away from the window and walked back into the common area. Only one lamp shone in the spacious room. The rest of the apartment was shadowed as the sun slowly set. He did not know what to do with himself. Except for Lursan, his family, Sinja-Bau and Keria, he didn't know anyone on Coruscant, and he hadn't wanted to know anyone because he didn't want to be here. He'd only come because Onara had insisted he bring Ben to her.
Dalan stopped, his hands clenching and unclenching. Where was she? He looked over at the chair next to the couch. Her black leather satchel lay where he had left it. He walked over and picked it up. He gripped it, taking in and releasing a deep breath. He had never looked through her things for he had always respected her privacy. He looked hard at the satchel. It was the one she took with her to her office. What did he think was in it?
He placed it back on the chair. Walking over to a small cabinet in the corner of the room, he opened it and took out a bottle of brandy. Lursan had sent it over earlier. Dalan had thought he was still angry with him after their conversation the other day so he had been quite surprised at the gift. However, since he had stopped drinking, he had stored it, unopened, in the cabinet.
Dalan slowly tilted the bottle. The light from the solitary lamp highlighted the dark auburn liquid inside. He imagined how the brandy would taste on his lips, sliding down his tongue and his throat, and how it would ease the ache that was beginning to throb inside him.
He closed the cabinet and took the bottle with him. In the kitchen he took a glass off a shelf and, opening the bottle, poured some brandy into it. Just one glass, he told himself. He raised the glass and quickly downed the brandy, grunting softly. It slid down his throat, smooth and warm, reminding him of Onara's skin. He frowned, seeing her face in his mind, her beautiful, dark eyes gazing up at him.
_I want to be a good wife to you, Dalan. I swear. I want our marriage to work._
Dalan gripped the empty glass, recalling her softly spoken words. Then he remembered something. Onara had not said she loved him. He had said it to her, over and over, the night they'd made up. But she had not said it. As a matter of fact, he suddenly realized, not once since they'd been married had she ever said 'I love you' to him.
Without even realizing he was doing so, he poured more brandy into the glass. He drank it quickly, spilling some of it on his shirt. Then, taking both the glass and the bottle with him, he returned to the common room. His gaze fell on the leather satchel. Placing the glass and the bottle on a table next to the chair, he picked it up again.
This is wrong, he told himself, even as he undid the clasp. A voice inside him implored him to put the satchel down, reseal the brandy bottle, take the glass into the kitchen, rinse it out and put it back on the shelf. It begged him to read a book instead or watch a holo-film. Do anything but open that satchel.
Dalan closed his eyes, the brandy moving through his body like a mist, his thoughts whirling like a out-of-control carousel. Where is she? he asked the voice inside his mind. Can you tell me where she is? Or who she is with? The voice did not answer.
Dalan quickly opened the satchel. He slipped his hand inside, pulling out some file folders, data disks and an unmarked envelope. He opened the file folders. They contained the financial reports of senators the Ethics Committee was investigating. He placed the folders on the table along with the datadisks. That left the envelope. He opened it and took out a single sheet of paper.
He read the note, then read it again. Read it until he could no longer see the words because his vision was blurred. A knot formed in his stomach, hot and hard as a burning coal. Then he heard a sound. It sounded like a whimper or perhaps a snarl. He didn't know which. Then he heard another voice inside his head. Onara's voice, soft and low, the way it was when he held her in his arms, her body warm against his.
_I love you_ she whispered, but it wasn't to him she said those words.
Dalan heard that strange sound again as, with shuddering fingers, his eyes tightly closed, he crushed the note between his hands. Crushed it until it was nothing but a wrinkled mass of paper. Crushed it the way he longed to crush the Jedi's throat. Then he released the balled up paper and let it fall to the floor near his feet. He glanced down. Raising his shoe, he ground the wrinkled paper into the carpet.
He turned slowly, the paper crackling as he lifted his foot from it. He looked at the bottle of brandy Lursan had sent him. Picking it up, he poured more of it into the glass. Then he slumped in the chair the satchel had been in, staring at the front entrance to the apartment with narrowed eyes. The entrance through which, eventually, she would have to walk. For she would come back. She had to. He was her husband, after all.
Dalan drank his brandy, his throat working, his eyes stinging. She would come back, he assured himself as he poured more brandy into the glass. And he would be waiting for her here in the darkness and the emptiness she had bequeathed him.
------------------
The statue flowed and undulated, its fluid contours changing shape with every shift of Onara's thoughts. After having sat before it for over an hour, the statute, where it lay upon its black dais, was now a shimmering blue-green ovoid, with only a hint of the sharp, red edges it had displayed when Onara had first focused her thoughts on it.
The statue had come from Cadarus, but it was not made of stone or marble. It was a non-sentient lifeform called the _khora_. The inhabitants of Cadarus harvested and cultivated the _khora_ and Cadarusian artisans, through the use of telepathy, trained the _khora_ to respond to the feelings and thoughts of those who looked upon it, compelling it to change its shape and colors to reflect the observer's state of mind.
Onara released a deep breath, her hands clasped in her lap as she gazed at the _khora_. For the past few hours, ever since she had parted from Obi-Wan earlier in the afternoon, she had been walking alone through the wide corridors of the Coruscant Museum of Intergalactic Art and Culture. For months she had longed to come here, but had not found the opportunity to do so. Today, however, had seemed a good time to visit it, especially as she had desperately needed to be alone to think.
Hearing approaching footsteps, Onara reluctantly turned her head from the _khora_. A trio of Mrlssi were walking towards her. The Mrlssi were small, bird-like beings native to the planet Mrlsst. With their large black eyes, blue-feathered skin and bright-colored plumes for hair, there was no question as to their avian heritage. The three approaching Onara were two adults, one taller than the other, who held a smaller Mrlssi in its arms.
Smiling as they drew closer, Onara inclined her head. The taller Mrlssi stopped and, head titled, looked over at her.
"Merry meeting," it trilled in its high-pitched Basic.
"Merry meeting," Onara responded.
"I see you have been partaking of the _khora_. You have transmitted upon it a most agreeable appearance."
Onara glanced back at the undulating statute. "I'm afraid it didn't appear quite so agreeable when I first looked upon it."
The taller Mrlssi ruffled its head plumes in what Onara took to be either a sign of agreement or dismissal.
"That is usually the case when most patrons first look upon the _khora_. Agitation and distress, it would appear, are the natural state of mind for all sentient beings in these unsettling times. Would you not agree?"
Onara nodded, but remained silent. She quite agreed with the Mrlssi's assessment, for there was no doubt she had been quite agitated and distressed when she'd entered the museum some hours ago.
"Do you come often to look upon the _khora_?" she asked politely.
The Mrlssi sniffed audibly, and the smaller Mrlissi, who was clutching his arm, joined him, with the offspring imitating its parents as it too sniffed at Onara, blinking its bright, black eyes.
"Yes. I, my mate and our eggling come every day to look upon the _khora_." The male Mrlssi looked disdainfully around at the other exhibits. "It is the only piece in this mausoleum of horrors worth spending one's time with."
He looked back at Onara, his black eyes bright and piercing. "Mrlssi art is the only true art," he went on in a smug voice. "You were aware of that, were you not?"
Onara wasn't aware of that, but she had heard that the Mrlssi, although highly appreciative of the art, literature and music of their own kind, considered the creations of other cultures utterly vulgar, if not downright horrendous.
"I'm afraid I've never see any example of Mrlssi art," Onara replied in what she hoped was a diplomatic tone, "so it would be difficult for me to make a judgment."
The male Mrlssi sniffed again, the thin nostrils of his flat, blue nose flaring.
"I'm not surprised you haven't. There are no pieces of Mrlssi art in this museum. A travesty I have brought to the curator's attention on more than one occasion."
The female Mrlssi tugged on her mate's arm. "Perhaps we should leave, Tian, and come back another day."
Onara quickly stood. "No, please. I was just about to leave. I've been here for hours. It's time I was on my way home."
"Are you certain?" Tian asked. "Your formation is actually quite remarkable for a non-Mrlssi. We would be honored to watch you create another."
"No, really, I must be going."
"Very well."
The three Mrlssi moved past Onara and, as she stepped aside, her gaze fell on the eggling as it clung to its father's chest. Although there was no resemblance between the Mrlssi youngster and Ben, like all children throughout the galaxy, the Mrlssi had the same wide eyed innocent look. Onara's throat tightened. She suddenly longed to see Ben, feeling almost a primal need to hold him in her arms and press his warm, small body close to hers.
The Mrlssi settled themselves in front of the _khora_. Then, as Onara watched, it began to change, morphing into shapes and colors she would never have imagined existed. She stood, entranced, unable to tear herself away. But when the male Mrlssi turned and blinked rapidly at her, its hair plumes ruffling in an agitated manner, Onara sensed she had probably worn out her welcome.
Giving him a small smile, she turned with a sharp swirl of her skirt, leaving the Mrlssi to their communion with the _khora_. It was time she was on her way home anyway, she told herself firmly. She had lingered in the museum long enough, cowardly putting off what she knew she had to do. The sooner she informed Dalan of her decision, the sooner it would be over. She could only hope he would understand and, thereby, make it easier for them both.
As Onara walked through the corridors towards the museum's entrance, she looked up through the large skylights of the ceiling and saw it was darkening towards early evening. She had been at the museum far longer than she'd planned. Moving quickly through the hallways, her thoughts returned to earlier that afternoon and what had happened after Obi-Wan had taken her into his arms and kissed her.
To be continued...
Stars in the Darkness - Part Twenty-Four
----------------
Dalan paced through the empty apartment. Ben was on an excursion to the Holographic Zoo with Sinja-Bau. Keria was on a date with some boy. Dalan didn't know him, but apparently she'd met him at the ball at the Crystal Pavilion she had attended with Onara some months back.
Outside the apartment's wide windows the sky, crowded as it always was with lines of shuttling air traffic, darkened towards early evening. Stopping in front of one of the windows, Dalan stared out it. He didn't like this planet. Didn't like that it was entirely covered by buildings, without a hint of green anywhere. Didn't like the smells or the noise or the way the sun shone here. He longed so much to return to Ahjane with Ben. And Onara.
He tried to swallow in a tight throat. Onara. Where was she? After he had left her office near the Senate Rotunda, he had returned to the apartment. He had seen Ben off with Sinja-Bau and had watched, amused, as Keria had flitted around getting ready for her date. He had then watched her leave with the red-haired boy, her bright blue eyes shining with excitement. And he had waited. Alone. Waited for Onara to return.
Dalan turned away from the window and walked back into the common area. Only one lamp shone in the spacious room. The rest of the apartment was shadowed as the sun slowly set. He did not know what to do with himself. Except for Lursan, his family, Sinja-Bau and Keria, he didn't know anyone on Coruscant, and he hadn't wanted to know anyone because he didn't want to be here. He'd only come because Onara had insisted he bring Ben to her.
Dalan stopped, his hands clenching and unclenching. Where was she? He looked over at the chair next to the couch. Her black leather satchel lay where he had left it. He walked over and picked it up. He gripped it, taking in and releasing a deep breath. He had never looked through her things for he had always respected her privacy. He looked hard at the satchel. It was the one she took with her to her office. What did he think was in it?
He placed it back on the chair. Walking over to a small cabinet in the corner of the room, he opened it and took out a bottle of brandy. Lursan had sent it over earlier. Dalan had thought he was still angry with him after their conversation the other day so he had been quite surprised at the gift. However, since he had stopped drinking, he had stored it, unopened, in the cabinet.
Dalan slowly tilted the bottle. The light from the solitary lamp highlighted the dark auburn liquid inside. He imagined how the brandy would taste on his lips, sliding down his tongue and his throat, and how it would ease the ache that was beginning to throb inside him.
He closed the cabinet and took the bottle with him. In the kitchen he took a glass off a shelf and, opening the bottle, poured some brandy into it. Just one glass, he told himself. He raised the glass and quickly downed the brandy, grunting softly. It slid down his throat, smooth and warm, reminding him of Onara's skin. He frowned, seeing her face in his mind, her beautiful, dark eyes gazing up at him.
_I want to be a good wife to you, Dalan. I swear. I want our marriage to work._
Dalan gripped the empty glass, recalling her softly spoken words. Then he remembered something. Onara had not said she loved him. He had said it to her, over and over, the night they'd made up. But she had not said it. As a matter of fact, he suddenly realized, not once since they'd been married had she ever said 'I love you' to him.
Without even realizing he was doing so, he poured more brandy into the glass. He drank it quickly, spilling some of it on his shirt. Then, taking both the glass and the bottle with him, he returned to the common room. His gaze fell on the leather satchel. Placing the glass and the bottle on a table next to the chair, he picked it up again.
This is wrong, he told himself, even as he undid the clasp. A voice inside him implored him to put the satchel down, reseal the brandy bottle, take the glass into the kitchen, rinse it out and put it back on the shelf. It begged him to read a book instead or watch a holo-film. Do anything but open that satchel.
Dalan closed his eyes, the brandy moving through his body like a mist, his thoughts whirling like a out-of-control carousel. Where is she? he asked the voice inside his mind. Can you tell me where she is? Or who she is with? The voice did not answer.
Dalan quickly opened the satchel. He slipped his hand inside, pulling out some file folders, data disks and an unmarked envelope. He opened the file folders. They contained the financial reports of senators the Ethics Committee was investigating. He placed the folders on the table along with the datadisks. That left the envelope. He opened it and took out a single sheet of paper.
He read the note, then read it again. Read it until he could no longer see the words because his vision was blurred. A knot formed in his stomach, hot and hard as a burning coal. Then he heard a sound. It sounded like a whimper or perhaps a snarl. He didn't know which. Then he heard another voice inside his head. Onara's voice, soft and low, the way it was when he held her in his arms, her body warm against his.
_I love you_ she whispered, but it wasn't to him she said those words.
Dalan heard that strange sound again as, with shuddering fingers, his eyes tightly closed, he crushed the note between his hands. Crushed it until it was nothing but a wrinkled mass of paper. Crushed it the way he longed to crush the Jedi's throat. Then he released the balled up paper and let it fall to the floor near his feet. He glanced down. Raising his shoe, he ground the wrinkled paper into the carpet.
He turned slowly, the paper crackling as he lifted his foot from it. He looked at the bottle of brandy Lursan had sent him. Picking it up, he poured more of it into the glass. Then he slumped in the chair the satchel had been in, staring at the front entrance to the apartment with narrowed eyes. The entrance through which, eventually, she would have to walk. For she would come back. She had to. He was her husband, after all.
Dalan drank his brandy, his throat working, his eyes stinging. She would come back, he assured himself as he poured more brandy into the glass. And he would be waiting for her here in the darkness and the emptiness she had bequeathed him.
------------------
The statue flowed and undulated, its fluid contours changing shape with every shift of Onara's thoughts. After having sat before it for over an hour, the statute, where it lay upon its black dais, was now a shimmering blue-green ovoid, with only a hint of the sharp, red edges it had displayed when Onara had first focused her thoughts on it.
The statue had come from Cadarus, but it was not made of stone or marble. It was a non-sentient lifeform called the _khora_. The inhabitants of Cadarus harvested and cultivated the _khora_ and Cadarusian artisans, through the use of telepathy, trained the _khora_ to respond to the feelings and thoughts of those who looked upon it, compelling it to change its shape and colors to reflect the observer's state of mind.
Onara released a deep breath, her hands clasped in her lap as she gazed at the _khora_. For the past few hours, ever since she had parted from Obi-Wan earlier in the afternoon, she had been walking alone through the wide corridors of the Coruscant Museum of Intergalactic Art and Culture. For months she had longed to come here, but had not found the opportunity to do so. Today, however, had seemed a good time to visit it, especially as she had desperately needed to be alone to think.
Hearing approaching footsteps, Onara reluctantly turned her head from the _khora_. A trio of Mrlssi were walking towards her. The Mrlssi were small, bird-like beings native to the planet Mrlsst. With their large black eyes, blue-feathered skin and bright-colored plumes for hair, there was no question as to their avian heritage. The three approaching Onara were two adults, one taller than the other, who held a smaller Mrlssi in its arms.
Smiling as they drew closer, Onara inclined her head. The taller Mrlssi stopped and, head titled, looked over at her.
"Merry meeting," it trilled in its high-pitched Basic.
"Merry meeting," Onara responded.
"I see you have been partaking of the _khora_. You have transmitted upon it a most agreeable appearance."
Onara glanced back at the undulating statute. "I'm afraid it didn't appear quite so agreeable when I first looked upon it."
The taller Mrlssi ruffled its head plumes in what Onara took to be either a sign of agreement or dismissal.
"That is usually the case when most patrons first look upon the _khora_. Agitation and distress, it would appear, are the natural state of mind for all sentient beings in these unsettling times. Would you not agree?"
Onara nodded, but remained silent. She quite agreed with the Mrlssi's assessment, for there was no doubt she had been quite agitated and distressed when she'd entered the museum some hours ago.
"Do you come often to look upon the _khora_?" she asked politely.
The Mrlssi sniffed audibly, and the smaller Mrlissi, who was clutching his arm, joined him, with the offspring imitating its parents as it too sniffed at Onara, blinking its bright, black eyes.
"Yes. I, my mate and our eggling come every day to look upon the _khora_." The male Mrlssi looked disdainfully around at the other exhibits. "It is the only piece in this mausoleum of horrors worth spending one's time with."
He looked back at Onara, his black eyes bright and piercing. "Mrlssi art is the only true art," he went on in a smug voice. "You were aware of that, were you not?"
Onara wasn't aware of that, but she had heard that the Mrlssi, although highly appreciative of the art, literature and music of their own kind, considered the creations of other cultures utterly vulgar, if not downright horrendous.
"I'm afraid I've never see any example of Mrlssi art," Onara replied in what she hoped was a diplomatic tone, "so it would be difficult for me to make a judgment."
The male Mrlssi sniffed again, the thin nostrils of his flat, blue nose flaring.
"I'm not surprised you haven't. There are no pieces of Mrlssi art in this museum. A travesty I have brought to the curator's attention on more than one occasion."
The female Mrlssi tugged on her mate's arm. "Perhaps we should leave, Tian, and come back another day."
Onara quickly stood. "No, please. I was just about to leave. I've been here for hours. It's time I was on my way home."
"Are you certain?" Tian asked. "Your formation is actually quite remarkable for a non-Mrlssi. We would be honored to watch you create another."
"No, really, I must be going."
"Very well."
The three Mrlssi moved past Onara and, as she stepped aside, her gaze fell on the eggling as it clung to its father's chest. Although there was no resemblance between the Mrlssi youngster and Ben, like all children throughout the galaxy, the Mrlssi had the same wide eyed innocent look. Onara's throat tightened. She suddenly longed to see Ben, feeling almost a primal need to hold him in her arms and press his warm, small body close to hers.
The Mrlssi settled themselves in front of the _khora_. Then, as Onara watched, it began to change, morphing into shapes and colors she would never have imagined existed. She stood, entranced, unable to tear herself away. But when the male Mrlssi turned and blinked rapidly at her, its hair plumes ruffling in an agitated manner, Onara sensed she had probably worn out her welcome.
Giving him a small smile, she turned with a sharp swirl of her skirt, leaving the Mrlssi to their communion with the _khora_. It was time she was on her way home anyway, she told herself firmly. She had lingered in the museum long enough, cowardly putting off what she knew she had to do. The sooner she informed Dalan of her decision, the sooner it would be over. She could only hope he would understand and, thereby, make it easier for them both.
As Onara walked through the corridors towards the museum's entrance, she looked up through the large skylights of the ceiling and saw it was darkening towards early evening. She had been at the museum far longer than she'd planned. Moving quickly through the hallways, her thoughts returned to earlier that afternoon and what had happened after Obi-Wan had taken her into his arms and kissed her.
To be continued...