A/N: A somewhat late but very Happy New Year to you, my dears! May 2021 keep you in good health and offer you many moments of joy, of true sharing, of friendship and love, enough to fuel your resilience and creativity, and to keep you strong, bending but never breaking like the precious reeds you all are :).

I apologize so, so much for the hiatus in my posting - life has been a bit tumultuous. Both in friendly life and in work, there were some storms to tame and to learn from, and though this story has hardly ever left my mind, I couldn't find the time and peace to sit down and write. Now, however I am back, although I won't post each day - I still have a few Sparks for you to post, so I hope that, even as it is a bit ridiculous to finish an Advent Calendar in January, you will still bear with me and my antics.

I hope you will enjoy this one, because I have definitely loved crafting it :). Take care and see you below, Meysun.

Sparks of Hope (A Star-Wars Advent Calendar)

By Meysun

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18. Landmarks (Asajj Ventress)

20 BBY

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Asajj Ventress usually held men in boundless contempt. They were brutish, eager for power, sure of their own value, and she still enjoyed breaking them, because she was a Sister, a Witch and a woman.

There were a few, though, that Ventress could not sweep away so easily. Men that had broken her, thwarted her strength and confidence. Men she could not forget, men who had wormed their way into her very essence.

Her former Master Ky Narec – because he had died.

Dooku – because he had betrayed her, used her, and such deserved to die.

And Kenobi, who was quietly entering coordinates on the screen – who kept defying her, and who would have died but for her saving him.

Ventress still struggled to wrap her mind around it. To believe she had actually let him wield one of her sabers, had felt his back against hers, his signature wrapping itself around hers as he had helped her Force-jump back to the cockpit.

Crystal, body and signature – he had all touched it, and Ventress was shuddering with something she thought was hatred and revulsion but felt so fragile she was disgusted.

Kenobi turned towards her and looked up at her. She was still standing, feet firmly set apart – Kenobi however remained seated. The bruise around his right eye was darkening quickly, there was a thin crust of blood on his brow, and he had wrapped his left arm around his chest, fingers resting against his ribs.

"Is this the moment of sudden clarity where we both remember who we usually are for each other, my dear?"

That taunting, cultivated tone had always managed to kindle her ire – back then, when she had been Dooku's pawn and assassin. When she had fought him, sought to break him, hating him for the man and Jedi he was. Yet she had always thought he was the only one truly worth destroying.

Now, however, Ventress realised his voice was also familiar.

A landmark in her psyche, telling her how to be, behave and become – the very opposite of what he embodied. A woman for a man, a Sith for a Jedi, rage for righteousness. Fierce darkness for quiet light, revenge for forgiveness, hatred for compassion.

She had loathed every bit of him – her polar opposite in mind, body, essence and choices.

But seeing him there, in that ridiculously small cockpit, bruised, battered, fragile and so very breakable, Asajj Ventress realised that, should Kenobi be destroyed, there would be no compass left. No one defining her, no one knowing her so very wholly as she knew him – because opposites were a hairbreadth away from kin.

It was disturbing and made her want to bolt – but those grey eyes had always spurned her on, and so Ventress simply raised a cold eyebrow.

"Do not even consider droning about how much you need me, Kenobi."

He smiled, silent laughter turning into a muffled cough he silenced in his sleeve, eyes never leaving hers – there was no fear in that gaze, though. No threat either – just genuine curiosity. But then, Kenobi was a powerful shielder, and Ventress was very aware of the way he was currently wrapping the Force like a hood around his mind and body.

"I can hardly argue with that, can I? With you barging in and rescuing me – why in the Force would you do such a thing, dear? I thought we had agreed on fighting each other to the death?"

"It can still be arranged, sweetheart", Ventress drawled, taking slow, very deliberate steps towards him.

He did not budge, the Force still wrapped like a swirling column around his very being. Not even as she placed herself right between his legs, raking her left hand through his hair, bending above him – only to reach for a button on the cockpit, pushing several down, opening compartments until she found a medium-sized, cold metalling nut.

She could feel him tremble, arm still wrapped tightly around his chest, chin raised in one of those small, defying moves she used to despise. She could sense the sharp angles of his knees against her shins, the soft dampness of his dirty, sweaty hair under her fingers and the warm, swollen skin around his eye when she pressed the cool nut against it.

"We have to keep those pretty eyes open, don't we? We wouldn't want you to stop ogling me…"

He just huffed, hand raising to brush hers away, pressing the nut against his brow himself, left eye glowering with exasperation.

"You, my dear, are a nymphomaniac."

She was still standing right between his legs and he was still shivering, but arousal had nothing to do with it. And so, Ventress simply sat down, thighs pressing against his knees.

"And you, sweetheart, have turned unbecomingly skinny."

To Kenobi's credit, he did not even flinch at feeling her against him. Not even when she unwrapped his arm, freeing his chest and placing her palms against his ribs, feeling the cracks through the Force – the frailness and pain she hated and despised so much.

"What can I say?", Kenobi rasped, stifling another cough when she pressed down, slightly. "I'm a picky man, and one can only eat as many ration-bars."

"You are lying, sweetheart."

There was so much sadness. Behind those shields of iron. Such incredible, overwhelming sorrow – shock and horror fading into a grief so gentle it was still pure. Ventress could sense it, because she was his very counterpart in the Force. The Nightsister of this Lightbrother.

"You have lost your landmarks, Kenobi. And now you are reeling."

He was a fierce warrior, behind that façade of calm and gentleness – she had always known it. And she felt it in the way his hands grasped hers, prying them away from his body, nut falling to the ground with a metallic thud.

He was looking at her, bruised eye slowly turning purple, and the Force around him swirled, turned, swelled… before it surfed back like a fading wave, the feelings he was keeping behind his shields gently released without touching her. She watched his shoulders lose their rigid set, the grey in his eyes turn even clearer, and then Kenobi's hands released her.

"What has happened to you, Ventress?", he asked, softly. "Something changed. I can feel it. Around you and in the Force."

"Deflecting now, are we, sweetheart? Someone here is sca-ared…"

"I am not scared."

Those four words were as defiant as Kenobi could be, but he was not lying. She could see it, in those eyes that were still searching hers. Seeking to understand. Because, contrary as they were, they were one and the same in the Force – polar opposites of the same essence.

"I have been."

His voice was still low, and he was still trembling – shock gripping his body, unwilling to let go.

"When I was still a Padawan. Maul… he killed my Master. Exactly as he said. He gutted him, and I could only watch. And I… I gutted him in retaliation. I cut him in half. I broke his middle and his balance – and I lost mine, for a while. And now… it is time to face what I have unhinged."

He fell silent, and she studied him for a while, frowning slightly. She placed her palms on his shoulders, and he let her. She closed her eyes, reaching out for his signature – and there he was, so different in the Force yet so familiar. All softness where she was angles. All acceptance where she was rebellion. All self-reflective where she was unhinged.

She did not understand him. And yet, she still knew every trait that defined him – because she was lacking almost all of them.

"I hold no loyalties anymore", she told him. "I only hold grudges."

Sadness and compassion coloured his eyes, softening his features – he was already breathing in, ready to argue, comfort and help her, but Ventress just placed a hand against his lips.

And he let her.

"Dooku betrayed me. Left me there to die. He promised to train and raise me, but he only used me. You share your clever tongue with him, sweetheart – but unlike him, you are no real liar. You are so pure you disgust me, Kenobi – but not as much as he does. And that is why I am going to kill him, no matter how long it takes. But until then, I go my own way."

She lowered her hand, freeing his lips once more. And realised he had stopped trembling, her body-warmth bleeding into him. There was some colour on his cheeks, making him look less battered – somewhat more alive.

Their Force-signatures had been brushing against each other for a while – and Ventress realised it had started long before, with her hand slapping him back to consciousness. With him wielding her crystal, curbing its fierceness before handing it back to her. They had fought each other, danced around each other – not realising that they were the Dark and Light of the same essence.

Or perhaps he had.

Perhaps Kenobi, in that infuriating, calm, cool-headed and almost feminine way of his had sensed long ago that he was as much a landmark to her as she was to him.

Something beeped softly behind them, and Ventress realised that they were almost arriving – they were entering the nearest planet's atmosphere, almost ready to part ways. Until they would cross again.

"May the Force be with you", Kenobi murmured – and she was not as soft, not as gentle, not as good, shuddering at the mere thought of it.

So Ventress simply placed a hand against his chest, and pushed herself up from his lap, brushing dust from her thighs lazily.

"Remember, Kenobi. I like my boys a bit heavier."

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head, turning back towards the cockpit, ready to fly them thought their landing. They parted without a word, mere minutes after that – he somewhat warmer, and her somewhat softer.

Not friends. But not enemies anymore.

Opposites of the very same current.

Kindred landmarks in the Force.

A/N: Smiles a big, big, smile at you, because aaaaah I just loved musing about what it means to be man/woman, how irrelevant it is in the Force yet how defining it can still be for people and even characters... Asajj Ventress is a truly fascinating character that I have grown to love - and the more I thought about her, the more I realised that for me, she is one of Obi-Wan's opposites - but not in the way Maul or later Anakin is. I do not know if it is because she is a woman, or because Ventress is actually entering a redemption arc that is unfortunately left unfinished in the series (or so I think...), but I think this opposite is one that both Obi-Wan and Ventress learn to treasure. I also love to think that on the day they both join the Force, their essence is completing each other perfectly in the Cosmic Force, balancing each other out - the concepts of man/woman, Light/Dark, fierce/soft, angry/accepting melting into each other until there is both nothing and everything.

And no, I haven't smoked anything - I just love these concepts and what the Force allows us to craft as writers that I couldn't stop :).

Take care, dear ones, and see you very soon. Much love, Meysun.