Disclaimer: Knights of the Old Republic did not belong to me last month or this morning. It still doesn't now, more's the pity.

CARTH POV

Carth stood surreptitiously by the door of the training room, listening for anything about prestige he could hear. It was a long, low room, full of groups of students learning and teachers teaching of the Dark Side. Carth heard much about mercy being a weakness and superior power being the only acceptable means of gaining victory. Every now and then a student would jump up and attack a teacher, trying to prove their superiority, trying to climb the ranks. Of course, the teacher would slam the poor student down quickly enough, but would not go for the kill. Instead, the teacher would laugh, and instruct the student to let his humiliation fuel his hate; that his hate would be his ally.

The Sith seemed largely self-destructive to Carth. He honestly was finding it hard to process how they'd lasted in the galaxy so long without destroying themselves. He didn't understand how Dustil couldn't see the evil and stupidity so obviously there.

Carth's attention wandered. How would Dustil respond to the datapad Aithne carried? If Carth remembered one thing about his son, it was how he had hated deception. Carth had never had any trouble getting his son not to lie. His trouble had been keeping Dustil out of fist fights with liars.

They would confront Dustil with the datapad later this afternoon, when most of the Sith would be out seeking prestige. But for now, Aithne had staked him and Jolee out around the Academy listening for any information they could pick up. Meanwhile, she had said, she'd be doing her own looking about. Because there were three of them, they could be that much more effective. Carth frowned. He had had a passing thought that maybe Aithne had wanted to get them out of the way, but her reasoning did make sense. No, he thought, she was going all out for him and for Dustil. Perhaps he should stop being so suspicious.

Just then a young woman caught his attention. "How may I achieve prestige, Master?" she was asking.

"Must you prospectives be so irritating?" asked a weary Sith woman. "Ok. Listen up. I'm only going to say this once. Uthar's old master, the previous head of the Academy? He's not dead. He's hiding out in the tombs, leading the life of a hermit. He's made life difficult for students that pass that way, and the rumor is he's working on some sort of discovery. If you could kill him, this Jorak Uln, and bring back whatever it is he is working on, I think Master Uthar would reward you handsomely. Ok, now back to your lightsaber stroke…"

Carth made a note to tell Aithne about Jorak Uln. Yuthura hadn't mentioned him. Looking around, Carth's eyebrows shot up. He could tell Aithne now. She was speaking to a short man, a Sith teacher, in a low tone. From where Carth stood, he couldn't tell exactly what she was saying, but he saw her hand the man a datapad. The man read it, and his expression darkened. He bowed to Aithne, and left immediately.

Aithne didn't see Carth standing in the shadow of the doorway. She moved quickly towards the Academy exit, the one towards the tombs. Carth considered making himself known and going with her, but he remembered at the last minute that he was a slave, and there were many Sith around. Slaves did not approach their masters unless summoned. Anyone who saw him join Aithne just as if he had free and equal footing with her would almost certainly be inquisitive.

He turned away, and wondered just what she was doing alone on Korriban pretending to be a Sith. He recalled her tight expression that morning. He remembered her rage two days ago at the Sith murderer he'd killed for the mercy of what she was doing to him, and Carth suddenly felt slightly sick.

MISSION POV

It was around eleven in the morning, Dreshdae time. Mission rolled her shoulders. Seriously, she supposed people like Carth and Aithne and Bastila and Canderous were used to the constant time change, but it was giving her serious lag.

She and Zaalbar were hanging out in the cantina, trying to find someone to play Pazaak with that they hadn't cleaned out already.

Two big, brutal looking apprentices strode in, and Mission faded into the background without a sound. The Sith wouldn't pick on Zaalbar, but they were quite fond of torturing Twi'lek girls for their own amusement. She'd seen it herself. And whereas Zaalbar could, and would, protect her from the ordinary run-of-the-mill thug, she wasn't sure even the two of them together could handle two Force-wielders, and Juhani was ordering up at the counter.

"What do you think of the prospectives?" one of the Sith asked his buddy.

"It's the best competition I've seen in a while," replied the other. "Kel Algwinn left yesterday. Shaardan was killed by Master Uthar just this morning for, get this, bringing in an ancient sword and claiming it belonged to Ajunta Pall."

"It didn't?" replied the first.

"No. Master Uthar figured Shaardan lifted it off one of the other students without making sure it was genuine."

"Has anyone shown up with the real one?"

"Yeah, just before we left I saw that new one, Addison Bettler, giving Master Uthar the sword."

Mission was suddenly very interested. She perked up her ears and sat forward a bit in her chair. What was Aithne up to, anyway?

The two Sith were laughing. "Hah!" said one, "I bet that Addison got a couple of swords in Ajunta Pall's tomb, and when Shaardan tried to take the sword, she just handed him one of the others!"

"She's a slick one, right enough," agreed his friend. "Lashowe told me last night that she was the last person seen talking to Kel before he left."

"Where is Lashowe, anyway?"

"I was walking past her room this morning. She was talking to someone about that holocron she's been looking for. Said she could use some help. The other one said that together they'd be unstoppable."

The Sith speaking smiled, a little sadly, a little unpleasantly. His friend nodded, understanding.

"Either she's an idiot without a holocron then, or she's dead come evening."

"Who do you think her 'ally' was?"

"Well if it was Shaardan, she might dodge the bolt. But personally, he was a little too dim for that. Could be Mekel. He likes that sort of thing."

"I bet it was Addison, though. Mekel's kind of a loner, you know? Addison- I don't know her, but she seems to operate through trickery, doesn't she?"

"Mmm," agreed the other.

Mission shuddered. She didn't like this. Aithne, tricking people to death, just to impress some Sith Master? It wasn't right. It didn't sound like her. But, what if they were right? Mission knew Aithne was certainly capable of it. And Juhani and Bastila had both said how dark the planet was. Juhani strode up with the drinks. Mission downed it in one, feeling the juice slide down her throat. It tasted sour. "Let's go," she said quietly.

JOLEE POV

Jolee was walking out of the dueling room at about noon. He needed to use the necessary. Across the hall, though, he stopped. From the interrogation room he'd heard a shout. He heard the hiss of ignited lightsabers. Jolee reached out with his senses.

The spirit of a Mandalorian, once proud, now broken with torture, was in the very act of leaving his crumpled body and joining with the Force. A twisted, dark aura reached out malevolently to crush another. The second aura was brighter, more powerful, but threaded with the darkness of a recent murder. Jolee identified Aithne with some sadness. He'd thought she might do something like this when she'd sent him, and more particularly Carth, away this morning.

How far would she go? What all would she do? She would win this fight. Jolee could sense that much. She'd take the information she'd extracted by torture from the Mandalorian. She'd kill the Sith that wanted to use it. And she'd take it to the Sith that ran this Academy, just for the prestige of it. Jolee wondered if here on Korriban the Dark Side would prove too much for Aithne. He sighed sadly. Time would tell. And his bladder called.

AITHNE POV

Aithne met the others up for lunch at one, just as she had said she would. If her face looked a bit drawn and her eyes a bit shadowed, they were good enough not to comment on it. Jolee made a few attempts at conversation, but they all fell flat. Carth was too nervous, Aithne too tense to talk. Both of them picked at their food.

Finally, noticing the little that his companions had eaten, Jolee shoved aside his own tray. "Ah, let's just get it over and done with," he sighed. "There'll be no living with either of you until we do."

Aithne smiled at him, her first smile of the morning. The three of them rose, and side by side, they headed once again to the room of Dustil Onasi.

He was waiting for them, just as he had said he would be. He let them in when they knocked, quickly closing the door. Afterwards, he crossed his arms, staring mockingly at his father.

"Back already? So tell me, Father, just where is this proof you promised?" His words were harsh, but his eyes revealed a genuine hunger to hear what Carth had discovered. Aithne had given Carth the datapad outside the door. He extended it to his son now.

"I have a datapad I want you to look at," he said calmly. "You knew someone named Selene?"

Dustil took the datapad, surprised. "Selene?" he asked, off his guard for the first time since Aithne had met him. "She's the one who convinced me to come to the Academy with her. I'd been kept on Korriban, but pretty much allowed to do what I liked. I joined…where did you get this?"

"Look at it," Carth insisted. "It belongs to Master Uthar, doesn't it?"

Dustil examined the pad. "Yes, it's his…" As he read, Aithne observed first grief, then anger cross his features. He looked uncannily like Carth did when Carth discussed Telos. "But…he told me..he said that she'd been lost on a mission in the valley. This…this says that they…"

Carth interrupted. "Yes, Dustil. They killed her because she was hindering your progress. Superiority at any cost, Dustil," he reminded his son. "There's your evil. Or can you live with that?"

His voice contained both pity for what Dustil had endured and a challenge for the boy's future. Dustil rose to the challenge. He met Carth's eyes, jaw tight.

"No. No, I can't," he said firmly. "I…I had no idea…they lied to me."

Carth nodded in grim satisfaction. "Well there's the son I remember. Now will you leave here?"

Dustil seemed to consider. "I…no…You go do whatever you have to, Father," he said. "I…I have some other friends here. I have to warn them what's going on. And maybe I can, you know, look around here and find out some more information from the inside. Something that might help you."

Aithne regarded the boy. When Dustil made a turnaround, he wasn't shy about it. She respected that.

Carth smiled. "I don't suppose there's any way I could talk you out of that, is there?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "I mean, you're not going to do anything halfway. Sounds familiar."

Dustil looked expressively at Aithne and Jolee, no doubt thinking about how Carth had basically invaded an entire planet of people with a general order to kill him looking for his son. "I…guess it does."

"I'm proud of you, Dustil," Carth told his son. "You aren't hanging on to a lie after you see it for what it is. Not everyone could do that."

Dustil gave a little, a very little smile. "Maybe," he said awkwardly, "after all this is over, we can…talk. I'm still not sure about…us, but I'll listen. Maybe we can get back to where we should have been."

This was beyond Aithne's wildest hopes. She'd never dreamed that after everything, Dustil would be the first one to initiate a renewal of the relationship.

"I'd like that," was Carth's understated reply. Aithne's heart nearly burst from the pride and love she felt for both of them right then. Carth, obviously, but Dustil, too. He'd made quite an impression with the little he'd said.

"I'll go back to Telos when this is over," he promised his father. "You can find me there. Goodbye, Father."

"Goodbye, son," Carth replied. "Good luck."

"What's with all the goodbyes?" Aithne wanted to know very suddenly. "Look, Dustil, I know we can't jeopardize your new mission or anything, but we'll be here a few more days. Would you mind too terribly if we dropped in every once in a while, when there's no one around? To be ourselves here…it's a blessing."

Dustil considered her for a moment. "Yourselves," he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth. "You are Aithne Morrigan, aren't you?"

Aithne looked him straight in the face. "Yes. The old man is Jolee Bindo."

Dustil took in a breath. His eyes flicked to the door reflexively. "And Bastila Shan's around someplace, too, isn't she?"

"And what if she is?" Aithne demanded, arms crossed. Suddenly, Dustil grinned mischievously.

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing. Father? Aithne? Jolee? You can drop in whenever you want."

The words were said with a relish and a defiance. Aithne grinned back at him, deciding she thoroughly approved of Dustil Onasi. "Then I guess we'll see you later," she said.

"I guess so," Dustil shot back.

"See you, Dustil," said Carth. The three of them exited the former Sith student's room, quietly making their way to their own.

"There now, Carth," Aithne said wearily. "That was only a little nerve wracking. Not nightmarish in the least."

"Well," Carth smiled, "Dustil hates to be tricked. There's no way he'll let the Sith trick him again. As for whether or not he'll be my son again…I don't know. He's so full of anger and hate…I wasn't expecting him to be like this."

"Hey, the kid's trying," Aithne defended. "Give him a break! He was captured as a child, probably because of his Force Sensitivity. He grew up with Sith. Frankly," she mused, "I'm a bit surprised he wasn't discovered earlier. He might've grown up a Jedi." She shot a sidelong glance at Carth.

"You aren't too bad yourself, you know, when it comes to Force Sensitivity," she added."It's part of what makes you such a good pilot. You're just on the normal side of Force Sensitive. But Dustil…" Aithne let out a low whistle. "The boy's been through a lot. How old is he?"

"Sixteen," Carth replied. "Maybe we can still work it out. I hope so. I guess I'll have to wait and see."

He placed a hand on Aithne's arm, making her look at him. "Thanks," he said. "For everything."

Aithne looked away. "Anytime," she managed past a throat that had gone suddenly tight.

"Lass," Jolee cut in, "What all did you do this morning?"

Aithne stiffened. She didn't want to talk about that. "I was getting prestige," she said shortly. Checking her chrono, she said, "Actually, I have to go. I'm supposed to meet Lashowe out in the valley in an hour and a half. You two stay here."

"Why?" Jolee asked, squaring his stance and crossing his arms.

"Because Lashowe's not stupid," Aithne retorted. "She noticed that you two don't carry yourselves like slaves, and that you, Jolee, don't talk like one. She said she'd only work with me if I came alone."

"Aithne," said Jolee in a low tone. Aithne looked away stubbornly.

"I have to get into Naga Sadow," she said quietly. Jolee had been monitoring her. That much was clear.

"What do you know, Jolee?" Carth asked suddenly.

"If Aithne wants to tell you, she will," was the old man's only reply. "Go on, lass, before I change my mind."

Aithne looked at Jolee. "Thank you," she said simply. "I'll be fine," she told them both. Right before she left, she put down the double-bladed vibrosword she'd been carrying all day, and picked up a double-bladed lightsaber. Jolee raised an eyebrow at her, but Aithne didn't answer his silent question. Lashowe carried a lightsaber.

She made her way across the rocky wastelands of Korriban. The light was fading fast. Aithne smiled to herself. She was very close to victory over her competitors. Master Uthar had been very impressed by the sword of Ajunta Pall, and though the information she'd brought from the Mandalorian had not been useful to him, he'd still seen fit to reward her for it. Aithne was willing to bet that she'd be the winner by midday tomorrow.

Really, Aithne thought, it was no wonder the Sith she'd met so far had posed no real challenge. Becoming a Sith was far too easy. They'd pushed her harder in basic training for the Republic fleet! They're ones to talk of strength, she thought to herself.

She spied Lashowe now at the far end of the valley. It had been a piece of cake to flatter Lashowe into leading her right to that holocron. Knowing the vanity of the Sith woman and her reluctance to work alone had only made it easier.

Aithne jogged right up to Lashowe, smiling just as if she didn't intend to betray her. But it was just as well. The light behind Lashowe's eyes was just as false.

"You're here," Lashowe said. "Any later and we would have had to abandon this. I've been calling to the tuk'ata mother in their language…ah, here she comes now. Be careful, she's a tough beast."

Three tuk'ata had indeed loped up behind the two of them. Seeing no fellow tuk'ata about, they instantly were on their guard. Lashowe ignited her lightsaber, a single-handed red blade, and Aithne ignited her own, a double-bladed violet one she'd made at the workbench before arriving on Korriban particularly to disguise her identity should she need to. Lashowe blinked at the change in weapon, but Aithne was on the tuk'ata already.

She fought with single-minded fury, slicing and flipping through the air. She really didn't see what Lashowe had been so worried about. The tuk'ata were tough, true, but they were also slow and clumsy. Once you maneuvered past their horns there was really nothing to fear.

Scarcely forty-five seconds later, the three beasts lay dead at the two women's feet. Lashowe sliced the stomach of the largest open, and smiling in satisfaction, removed the holocron she had allowed Aithne to help her obtain.

"Wonderful," she purred. "We make a better team than I thought. And here is the holocron." She smiled brightly at Aithne. "I'll just take this back to Master Uthar. Don't worry, I'll be sure to mention you."

"Lashowe," Aithne said, tapping her foot impatiently, her lightsaber still unsheathed. "I'm no idiot. I'll be taking that back, not you."

Lashowe looked up into Aithne's cool, amused face. "The plan was to take it back together," she growled.

"Then why didn't you just say so?" asked Aithne, eyebrows arched. "Come now, Lashowe, that was never your plan. And never mine. So just be a dear and hand over that holocron."

Lashowe crouched. "Over my dead body," she said, igniting her own lightsaber.

Aithne smiled. "Okay, we can do that, too." She sprang at the younger woman.

The lightsabers hummed in the growing darkness. Lashowe was new to the Sith, and unprepared to face a lightsaber duelist of Aithne's caliber. This was no surprise, as Aithne had intended for no one to even know she could use one. Aithne was faster and more elegant than Lashowe.

She saw the young woman's narrow blue gaze begin to widen. She saw the fear creep into Lashowe's face. Lashowe knew she was going to die a second before the stroke fell. The last light of the Korriban sun fell on her betrayed blue stare, childlike and hurt. The blow caught her in the side, and she crumpled.

An amazed little laugh escaped her lips. "I trusted you," she said in a rattled whisper. "I was going to let you live, you know. Stupid of me." And then her eyes darkened, and Lashowe nevermore saw the sun.

Aithne stared at Lashowe's corpse. Yes. Stupid. She had never even considered letting Lashowe live. She blinked. Why was that? She was stupid. She was in the way.

But she hadn't been, Aithne thought. She'd been an insecure bully. No threat, really. Lashowe's accusing glassy eyes stared up at her. "Shut up!" Aithne whispered. She kicked Lashowe's corpse viciously. It had been so easy, killing her. Almost as if…Aithne gave a strangled cry. Leaving the holocron clutched in Lashowe's fist, she ran.

This wasn't her. The killing, the ruthlessness. This wasn't who she was. When had the lines become so blurred? It was only an act, right? It was an act yesterday, when you maneuvered to get that datapad for Dustil, Aithne thought. She could've just killed Shaardan this morning when he tried to take Ajunta Pall's sword from her, instead of delighting in sending him to death and dishonor at the hands of Master Uthar. Wasn't it just two days ago that she had vomited and wept for nearly torturing a murderer to death in Dreshdae? Yet today, she had done the same to a prisoner, and killed another man after, just to win some sort of sick popularity contest. Just now, she had murdered a complete nonentity when she hadn't had to at all, and hadn't even considered another option.

She hadn't expected it to be this easy, this insidious. She trembled with a cold that wasn't at all environmental. Korriban's sun had heated the rocky surface all day, and they were still radiating the heat back. She staggered into the Sith Academy, shaking her head.

The Sith Academy had begun to go to bed as Aithne paced the corridors. Everywhere she looked she saw lights flick out under doors. Everywhere except the room she made her way to. She stood in front of the door for a second, unsure whether or not she should enter.

Finally, the door swung open. "I sensed you coming," Dustil said. "You could've just come in, you know," he told her. Then he saw her face.

Aithne clenched the lightsaber in her fists, twisting it this way and that. Why was she here? Here of all places, with a kid she barely knew? Dustil, seeing her wide eyes, took her hand and pulled her inside.

"You're shaking," he said, unnerved. "Your hands are like ice. Sit down." He pushed her down into a tiny chair in the corner. Dustil sat on the bed opposite, and waited. Eventually, Aithne's eyes began tracking again, seeing the room around her, instead of Lashowe's blank, accusing dead face. She shuddered.

"Dustil?" she said.

"Yeah. What's wrong?"

Aithne looked down. "How many people have you killed, Dustil?" she asked. Her voice was very low. Dustil couldn't have been expecting it, but he answered immediately.

"One. Just the one at the test. I've never been able to just go out and kill like the others. It reminded me too much of Telos."

Aithne's laugh rang out harsh and bitter in Dustil's quiet room. Dustil's fists clenched reflexively, and he eyed the door with misgiving. "I've killed so many people, Dustil Onasi," she said hoarsely. "I've lost count. And today, I let myself go enough that I almost stopped caring. This morning I gave Shaardan that sword in the tombs. I knew what would happen to him. I could have knocked the guy out and left him there. But I didn't. I tortured a Mandalorian prisoner to death, too, and killed the interrogator who wanted to claim the information he gave. Just now? I killed Lashowe after helping her to get an artifact she was after. We had said we would present the artifact to Master Uthar together. Neither of us meant it. But she…she would have left me alive. I could've done the same. What kind of threat was she to me? But I killed her."

She said it so baldly Dustil couldn't suppress a shudder. "You're better at this than I ever was," he said, half admiringly, half condemningly.

Aithne looked down at her hands. "Dustil, I think I'm better at this than most anybody." She gave a shaky smile that was the clear prelude to a sob, but she bit her lip. "I was just pretending," she said, when she'd recovered herself. "I need to get to the tomb of Naga Sadow, so I was pretending. But it was all so easy, and somewhere along the way I got caught up in it all. I just kept seeing Taris, and the clear, bright line that led from here to Malak. And well, they got in my way."

"Wow." Dustil said. "No one knows exactly what you did to get on Malak's bad side, Aithne Morrigan. But I'm beginning to understand why he wants you dead."

Aithne gave Dustil a weary little smile. "Do you? He needn't be worried." She threw up her hands. "I can't do it anymore. Just now? Right before I killed Lashowe, she looked at me. She was just a kid, Dustil. Just a frightened kid. Someone's sister, someone's daughter. Just- I can't do it anymore."

Dustil shrugged. "So don't," he said. "I was lucky enough to be able to learn from someone else's mistake today. You learn from your own."

"But I still have to get to Naga Sadow," Aithne objected.

"You could try the tombs," Dustil suggested. "It's what I did."

"Thanks for the suggestion," Aithne said. She cracked a smile, but her guard came up. Dustil felt it. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Dustil, why am I telling you all this?" she asked him.

"Because I'm sitting here across from you in a Sith uniform, too," Dustil said levelly. "You needed someone to listen, is all." He chuckled darkly. "My saintly father's never been where you are now, I'll bet. And that old Jedi you have got up like a slave doesn't seem like the type that would say anything useful, somehow."

Aithne grinned a bit ruefully. "You're pretty smart, Dustil Onasi. You've got Jolee pegged, anyhow."

Dustil nodded. He was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. Finally, he said, "Aithne?"

"Yeah, Dustil?"

"From here on out, I'm going to struggle with the Dark Side every day, aren't I?"

Aithne closed her eyes. "Yes," she said, after a moment.

"Well. Better that I know now, then. Let me see if I can sum all this up. It's simple to get caught up in the Dark Side. Compassion can far too easily be twisted to anger. And my goals, however noble they might be, are no justification for me to go plowing through sentient life. Is that right?"

Aithne stared at him. Dustil smiled ironically at her. "It's what you just said, basically. But the Light Side also preaches redemption, doesn't it? Like my father's made mistakes, but got it right this time."

Aithne's smile broadened. "Life preaches redemption," she corrected. "Things that die renew themselves every year. A tree that grows crooked may yet grow straight. Thanks, Dustil."

"Hey, I'm here to help," Dustil said. "So. You and Father are on some sort of mission to stop Malak?"

Aithne nodded, feeling much better.

"And Father's under your command?"

Aithne winced. "Not exactly. We kind of fell in together, before I was even trained as a Jedi. He stuck around. He gives me advice and pilots the ship I'm borrowing from a Mandalorian friend of mine."

"Dad piloting a Mandalorian's ship?" Dustil laughed, incredulous.

"I know. But every word is true!"

"Sounds complicated."

Aithne grimaced. "You don't know the half of it."

Dustil observed her face. He was silent for a moment, casually studying a datapad on his desk.

"Uthar's? Or the death order?" Aithne asked.

Dustil shook his head. "I got rid of Uthar's datapad," he said. "I'm not stupid. It's the death order. I got issued it last week, along with a notice that I'm to prepare to leave for battle in a month."

Aithne looked at it. "We got here just in time," she said.

"It was insanely dangerous for you to come," Dustil said. "There's not much of a description of you, luckily, and probably nobody in this Academy besides me knows Father, but still. And you came here for me, didn't you?"

"Well, we do have to get to Naga Sadow," Aithne said.

"Dad could've landed the ship in the hills somewhere and you could've broken in," Dustil said. "You came for me."

Aithne looked down, and then she nodded.

"I know you had to have gone to some trouble to get me that datapad," he said. "Father wouldn't have the access at all, seeing as everyone thinks he's a slave. You must have done some serious flips. Why?" His eyes searched her face, and Aithne shifted.

"Dustil…"

"You love him," Dustil accused.

Aithne was silent.

"Does he love you?"

"I don't know," Aithne admitted quietly. "A few weeks ago I would have said no, but sometimes…"

Dustil swallowed. "It's been four years," he said roughly. "Not so long to me. I was twelve."

His eyes clouded briefly, and Aithne knew he was seeing the ships flying over Telos, and smelling the burning buildings, and hearing the anguished cries.

"My mother was the most wonderful woman in the galaxy," he said fiercely.

"So I've heard," Aithne said calmly.

Dustil was taken aback. "You have?"

"Yes. Ever since Carth figured he'd trust me enough to tell me about her, he's told me a lot. She was brave, funny, kind and generous. His biggest regret is leaving you and her to join the war against Revan and Malak after he'd said he'd leave the Fleet. Her death, and he thought, yours, tore him apart. He swore vengeance on the man responsible for the attack. It's the only thing that's kept him going."

Dustil snorted. "Yeah, well, better he stayed home in the first place," he said bitterly, but with no real heat.

"I'm not disagreeing with you," Aithne replied. Dustil blinked at her. He stared at her for a long time.

"It's okay," he said finally, with the air of someone who has just dropped a great weight off his shoulders.

"What's okay?"

"You and Father," he sighed. "After everything that's happened…" He smiled crookedly, looking eerily like his father in the lamplight. "Better that some good come out of all this. And you?" He looked her up and down, considering. "I think he could do worse."

Aithne smiled. She hadn't even known how much she wanted Dustil's approval until he'd given it. She felt twenty pounds lighter. She placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to convey her emotions.

He grinned. "You're pretty hot, too," he added wickedly. "If only you weren't so old."

Aithne laughed, and pushed him slightly. "Shut up, you runt of a Gamorrean."

Dustil snickered. "Seriously? 'Runt of a Gamorrean'?"

Aithne rose. "You are your father's son, Onasi," she told him. "And that's not a bad thing."

Aithne smiled all the way back to her own room. She knew explanations would have to be given to a very worried Carth and Jolee. But that was okay. Everything was okay. Life went on, and tomorrow was another day, with no mistakes in it.

A/N: Last line borrowed from Anne of Green Gables. I don't own that either. So. I'm not sure how this works. Does it pack the punch it needs to? Leave a review and let me know!

May the Force be With You,

LMSharp