He has an affinity for darkness. This baffles most people, including his fellow Jedi, because surely a man who can wield the Force's darkest currents with a dexterity not found among the Sith should not be called a servant of the Light. Should not be the Master of the Order. Should not be unfallen.

But he is, and it's terrifying. He is a being not easily understood, or perhaps not understood at all.

Haruun Kal's strongest alpha studies him and wonders why he doesn't bow, why he doesn't break, why he doesn't submit, and why he doesn't lose (they are brothers of a kind, after all, and he had thought that their shared heritage might imply other similarities, but he finds that the implication is nonexistent where this one is concerned). The Jedi may be Korun by birth, but Kar Vastor knows Korun people in a way that no one else does, and this man is no Korun. He is a Jedi (he never had any respect for Jedi before, thought them weak and fragile… he will never make that mistake again).

A native of the planet would look at this Mace of the Windu and see another native: dark skin, dark eyes glinting with danger, and a graceful step born from hunting and being hunted. Kar would never see any of that ever again. Not in the same way, at least. The Jedi's eyes do glint with something dangerous, almost feral in their intensity. The Windu does move with effortless, soundless grace. This man has hunted and he has been hunted (but not by other men).

Kar looks at Mace Windu and he blinks. He growls a few words at the Jedi, but inside he is both bewildered and, loathe though he is to admit it, just the tiniest bit afraid. It is a strange sensation, fear. Not one that he is very familiar with, but one that he recognizes nonetheless.

Come on, then: jungle rules, he murmurs. He can tell that the Jedi hears the words, bonded to pelekotan as he is. He also knows that he is all but invisible to this Windu, a living shadow among the dead sprawled at their feet. Even so, the Jedi's eyes twitch in his direction and the sigh he heaves seems directed at him too.

"On the contrary," the Korun Jedi says (and this man is somehow both Korun and Jedi now), "Jedi rules."

A Korun playing by Jedi rules. Kar studies pelekotan as it weaves its way around and through his native brother and wonders, truly curious now, what Jedi rules are. Because even though he has never left the jungles, Kar has heard of the Jedi and their light. He has seen this light, in this very man when they had fought just days earlier and Kar had beaten him senseless.

But now this Jedi blends with the shadows almost as much as Kar does. Pelekotan does not grow lighter (weaker) as it nears this Mace. It darkens instead, a stark contrast to its previous form around the Jedi. It moves around the man in a heavy cloud, thick with power, intoxicating in presence, and weighted with sorrow.

For a split second, Kar thinks that he understands this man.

So he dares to ask a question, to indulge his curiosity, even though he still hums with anticipation and burns with the itch to rend the challenger limb from pathetic limb.

What are Jedi rules?

The dark head tilts. "You don't need to know. You're not a Jedi."

True enough, but Kar is beginning to answer his own question. His vibroshields whine to life and the Windu's violet weapon springs free from its clip. Neither of them move. You fear to attack me.

But he doesn't. This man, this Korun, this Jedi has no fear. Not of Kar. Nor of this dark, suffocating planet. Kar knows this now.

"Jedi do not fear" (Correction, you do not fear me.) "And we do not attack." (With fists, no. With weapons, no. But with words, brother?) But Kar says nothing. "As long as you stand in peace, so do I. You have just learned two of the Jedi rules. For what little good they will do you. You haven't been paying very close attention, Kar. And it's too late to start now. It's over."

Kar feels his blood begin to boil. Nothing is over! NOTHING. Not while we both live. He growls these words and pelekotan rumbles menacingly. The Windu barely flinches.

"This is another Jedi rule." Kar watches him move to empty, body-free space, watches him shift weight, and he would have laughed, but he is too ticked off for that. This shifting of weight, this balancing of body, this coiling of pelekotan, this is all done in readiness to attack. Kar knows this because he's seen this Jedi fight.

"If you fight a Jedi, you've already lost."

(I would kill a normal Jedi, you fool.)

But again he keeps the words to himself. He engages this strange Jedi in the game of the jungle (because they are both scrabbling for purchase, both looking for weaknesses, both seeking dominance, both doing what Korun do), even as he grows angrier. Mace of the Windu is wrong. Kar has been paying attention, close attention.

This Windu tastes of fear as much as he tastes of power and sorrow. This Windu attacks more than he defends (though he is far too subtle about it for Kar's jungle-honed tastes). And this Windu is a very strange Jedi indeed.

Pelekotan thrums with dark, heated power through the both of them. Yet neither of them is consumed. Kar thinks that the Windu's fellow Jedi might find this strange.

Kar merely finds it familiar.

(Enough of this.)

He attacks and so does the Windu. But he does it a split second later, because he fancies himself a Jedi.

(Liar.)

Mace of the Windu is a Korun through and through: born of the jungle, born of the darkness, born with the passion of pelekotan boiling in his veins. No less dangerous, no less powerful. But…

(He is tame, this one.) A tame Korun. A Korun Jedi. Kar decides the man is the first of his kind…

And likely to be the last, if he has any say in it.

The spoken dialogue in this chapter is from Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover. I highly recommend reading it. :)