Canderous had a sleepless night, feeling a forbidding shadow looming in his future.

He tried to shake off the gloom with some calisthenics, but they only served to give him sore muscles. As a hardened Mandalorian officer in the Wars and a soldier under Revan, Canderous was not generally susceptible to nervousness, but now he was jumping around like a Jawa on ryll. Which was not a natural phenomenon, he was sure.

"I need to stop thinking so hard," thought Canderous out loud. "I just need to calm down."

Canderous slept fitfully for a while, plagued by nightmares of creatures pulling at his flesh and carrying his limbs in their mouths. More nightmares followed, of being forced to kill or be killed by Revan.

He awoke. On the edge of his bed, he sat and experimented with new hyper-adrenal stimulants all night, concocting strangely colored formulae.

They would either kill him or keep him awake.

Revan tried to center herself.

She sat in her robes on the cold floor of the empty closet. The chill seeped even through the coarse fabric. Around her, even though she had cleaned out this space specifically for her meditation, she could feel pinpricks of life scattered around the room. Reaching out with her mind, she gently pushed the small bacterial life forms away, leaving the room devoid of any miscellaneous life.

Sitting cross-legged, Revan felt the Force deep within herself. She stared into nothing and erased her mind of every distracting thought.

Then, she heard her own voice, deep inside her.

Malachor.

Images flooded her mind, popping forth from deep recesses of her memory. Carnage, battlefields, the dead of the Mandalorians entwined with the corpses of Republic soldiers, finally at a truce in death.

Revan felt the heat in the stagnant air around her, remnants of the battle atmosphere causing beats of heat waves intermittently. On one side of her was her own soon-to-be apprentice, Malak. Across from him stood Mandalore himself, defending his wounded self with a pulsing vibroblade.

Still, Revan knew, Mandalore was powerful, and Malak was young and inexperienced in comparison, especially at this particular battle.

Trapped inside the vision-Revan, the rogue-Jedi-Revan, Revan wanted to scream. She knew what happened next.

Then she noticed a thing she had, oddly, not noticed last time: a giant, menacing being of shadows.

Why can't they see it? Wondered Revan as the beast hovered over vision-Revan, ready to strike at any moment.

Reaching to it through the Force, Revan tried to discern what this monstrous beast was. As she latched on to its deadly aura, it became dreadfully clear:

The beast was nothing but darkness. A servant of malevolence.

Revan watched from Vision-Revan's point of view as Malak, himself wounded, battled Mandalore. It was obvious that all he could do was go on the defensive, and how long could he keep that up? Mandalore's fortitude was unequaled throughout the galaxy.

Then Revan heard the beast speak in a serpentine voice that made her want to shiver but thrilled vision-Revan. It was a strange language, one Revan had never heard before. She knew that vision-Revan was not hearing it now, despite that she was reacting to it. Even so, Revan knew exactly what this tongue was and what it was saying. It was unadulterated darkness, some sort of initiation into the Dark Side, a call to vision-Revan's inevitable and horrible fate.

Vision-Revan subtly raised a hand and clenched it into a fist. Mandalore's weapon dropped to the ground as he gasped for breath.

Malak knocked off Mandalore's helmet with his fist, and brought his lightsaber spiraling into the warrior's face…

The beast descended.

Revan screamed as it's grisly claws approached her past self…

She opened her eyes as the door opened, letting in irritating amounts of artificial light.

"Are you okay?" asked Carth as Revan shielded her eyes from the glaring light.

"I… know where I have to go, Carth."

Carth folded his arms and looked at her quizzically.

"Never mind," she said, staggering onto her feet. "Wait. How late is it? Did you come home early?"

"Actually," said Carth, gesturing out the window at the moons, "you've been in there for hours."

Revan rubbed her temples. "Oh." She paused. It had seemed like only minutes. "How strange."

Carth threw his jacket onto the chair. For once, Revan was home and had not enclosed herself in a closet all day. After hearing her premonition, Carth had insisted that she stay cloistered inside for the day before she was to leave. She needed her strength, Carth reasoned. In a brief fit of paranoia after hearing that vision, Carth had considered ordering the house on lockdown, but Revan had quickly calmed him down and assured him that she would be fine.

As Carth sat in his meeting with Admiral Dodonna that day, he had been nervous almost to the point of twitching as he imagined worst-case scenario after worst-case scenario. Carth and the admiral had accomplished nothing all day, and then Carth realized that this was what his future would be like as soon as Revan left. And for how long? Carth couldn't really say.

Upon his return home, Carth found Revan pacing and restless. Hers was not a restlessness of nerves, however, but a want for movement. She had meditated, she had seen how far she could throw rocks outside the window, and she had endured countless attempts at humor by the droids guarding her. By the time Carth returned, her impatience was reaching a lethal level.

Now, she was going on and on about what she had seen in last night's vision, trying to interpret it while Carth, bewildered, desperately tried to comprehend anything she was saying. Carth sat down opposite her and took her tense hands in his. They were so flexed that he wondered what could keep them from popping.

"Hey," he said, remaining calm in spite of his own pent-up frustration. "Settle down, beautiful. I know you've been pretty bored sitting around here all day, but this… this isn't like you. You're not generally a stressed-out person."

She sighed and yawned, exhausted by the energy she had just expended.

"Yeah…" she said, "but it's so… terrible. There's a threat out there that I can't fight because I'm stuck here. I can't stand the waiting. The Sith under Malak usually just said that they wanted me dead and then tried to kill me. But this adversary… it's cunning."

Carth nodded, relieved he was able to understand everything she said.

"Well," he said, "it won't do you any good to go out there alone and get yourself killed."

He thought silently, his eyes piercing Revan's. She did not speak, as though she knew he was not done with this thought. This did not seem to reassure her.

"In fact," he continued slowly, "maybe you shouldn't be alone at any point out there."

He seemed to contemplate this as his thumbs absent-mindedly caressed her hands.

Revan shook her head. "Not a chance, Carth. No."

"Oh, yes," he said. She clenched his hands tightly.

"You can't, Carth. I can't let you."

"I wouldn't stay the whole time."

"What if something happened to you? You can't!"

"And what if something happened to you because I wasn't there?"

Carth shook his head. "I can't let that happen."

Revan's eyes pleaded with him furiously, and he stood his ground.

"Too much risk is involved if you go on your own, beautiful. It's you that these things know, not me. And the danger is always less with two."

"No."

"I'll just stay until you meet up with Canderous."

"No. I need the Lumens."

"I know."

"So how would you get off Nar Shaddaa? Walking?"

"You're going to have to stop at Dantooine after Nar Shaddaa, right? Can you drop me off there? Or I can find my own way off. I don't care. But I'm coming."

Revan glared at him. He flashed an amiable smile at her. Revan scowled at him: an unwilling concession to his logic.

"I'm coming with you to Nar Shaddaa tomorrow, he murmured firmly. "I'll leave as soon as you're with Canderous," he promised, "And no sooner."

"And no later," warned Revan. Carth nodded in accordance.

Revan looked down, and the panic, stress, and fire drained from her eyes, leaving only weariness and sorrow. Carth leaned forward and kissed her.

"I know it isn't going to be easy for you," he purred lovingly, "and I'm proud of you for staying so strong. Believe me, it's not going to be too easy for me, either."

He stood and helped her to her feet.

"I'll hang in there if you will," said Revan. Carth hugged her.

"All right, beautiful," he said. "We'd better get some sleep if we're leaving tomorrow."

Fatigued, Revan nodded as Carth walked her into bed.

You will betray him

Then you will betray the one who helped you

And so shall the twain remember you

Revan looked in the mirror at the circles beneath her eyes. Her sleep had been, as usual, fitful, and she hoped that setting off would relieve some of the worry.

Carth was lifting his equipment onto the Lumens, and Revan thought to herself about last night's dreams.

All she could remember were those three lines, and they played through her mind incessantly. Revan dreaded the thought that she might anyone again, much less have to go through a double betrayal. How could she, who had forsaken the Dark Side, fall to it once more?

"It will not happen," whispered Revan to herself, "not this time."

As Revan's Rodian pilots, Cyde and Kaas, prepared for departure, Carth made sure he had remembered everything.

"You know," said Revan, standing above him, "you aren't exactly going on a vacation or something. This is quite different than a scenic visit to Alderaan or something. So you can stop rifling through boxes like it's your birthday."

"Well, excuse me for putting a positive spin on things."

"Sorry."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm just trying to keep your mind off things so I can feel at least a little more reassured about letting the love of my life gallivant off to who-knows-where in the universe. Now, if you'll excuse me."

He continued to scour through the contents of the boxes.

So he was scared too? Well, thought Revan, walking to the galleys, she could understand that. Besides, they'd both been under a great deal of stress lately.

She'd just have to try and stay calm for both of their sakes.