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Chapter 2 - Assumptions

"Father, I..."

The young man stopped short. Sapphire eyes blackened with shock as he stared at the sprawled corpse. It seemed almost as if Xanatos were some beautiful, colorless statue, bled white, frozen in the trembling moment. Or was it the Padawan that was trembling? Only the chest rising and falling and the gentle sway of his black braid told of life in that pallid form.

His gaze moved upward, meeting those of his teacher. But there were no questions, no condemnation, only bewilderment - or horror.

Xan looked down again at the body. In the firelight, the tunic's embroidery was gilded flame, full of rich color; the flutters of lace drifted in the currents of heated air. One still hand had slumped close to the fire and began to heat slightly, the gems on his Monarch's ring glittering red. And everywhere was the greasy brown of spilled blood.

Xanatos moved as lightening would to ground, without thought. Shoving past Qui-Gon, he knelt down beside the cooling body. His hands gently skimmed the cauterized wound. Then a sharp sound of denial caught in his throat as he pulled the Force into his grasp and outward again, trying desperately to revive a dead man.

An ragged voice, hoarse and low, whispered, "Father?" But there was no answer.

It was too late.

When it became clear that he could do nothing else, the Padawan seemed to sink into himself, kneeling there as he gazed silently at the corpse. Qui-Gon let the young man have his moment of grief. It was only fitting that someone mourn the tyrant's passing, but when he put a sympathetic hand on Xan's shoulder in a show of support, it was quickly wrenched away.

"What have you done?" Rough, biting, Xan spat the question.

Qui-Gon was taken aback by the clear accusation in his Padawan's tone. Frowning at the disquiet now slithering under his skin, he explained gently, "It was an accident, Xani. He fell into the saber just as I was about to disengage it."

When the young man said nothing else, Qui-Gon continued, "I'm so sorry, Padawan. He died almost immediately. There was nothing I could do."

Almost choking in disbelief, Xanatos drew back, "An accident, you?! It's not possible."

"Believe me, Xani. Even Masters make mistakes." Qui-Gon was beginning to worry about his reaction; his apprentice should have understood his motivations well enough to know that it could have been nothing but an accident. After all, they had been a team for over a decade. Surely...

His Padawan looked up at that, his sapphire eyes so like his father's. "You never do. Make mistakes? The Perfect Master would never admit to ..."

"Xanatos!"

Rising, he stalked over to Qui-Gon, Xan's face pale with incomprehension and anger and pain. "He warned me.. he warned me about your jealousy. Said you were envious of him, of our connection as father and son." He stared unblinking at his father's body and then glared condemnation at his Master. "I told him he was wrong. I defended you."

Qui-Gon could feel his outrage in the Force, almost see the smoky chaotic currents beginning to sink into his flesh. But there was remorse, too. It was clawing at Xan like a ravenous gundark.

"Padawan, think about what you are saying. He has been planning this all along."

"Planning this?!?" Astonishment seized the air. Xan stepped back and began pacing, clenched hands restless at his side, bone and sinew white against the fair skin, stark anxiety. His whole body thrummed with shadow.

Refusing to look at his Master, Xan spat out, "He kept telling me that he was afraid of you. That you might go after him, accuse him of theft or murder, anything to keep him away from me. Maybe even hurt him in some way. But he kept reassuring me that he was willing to brave your anger."

Xan stopped then, his sapphire eyes unfocused as he stared off into some otherworldly place. For just a moment, he looked vulnerable and alone... and troubled about something still unspoken. But, then as his gaze fell upon his dead father, his face hardened into stone.

"For his son and heir, he said. He loved me enough to chance getting hurt. But I told him that you would never harm him. Damn it, I believed in you."

Qui-Gon began to be truly alarmed. He had never seen his apprentice so off-balance, so angry. He had always been stubborn and a bit arrogant to others but never like this, never so filled with hostility toward his own Master. And the Force was pulsing red and black as demon darkness hovered there, waiting to be called. Qui-Gon knew he needed to calm his Padawan and soon.

"Xani, he was lying. He was using you to fulfill his own ends."

But the remark only maddened Xanatos further. He frowned his denial and snarled out. "No. I would have known if he had. Or do you think so little of me then?" He turned his head sharply away, ignoring his Master, and half-muttered. "No, he wouldn't lie. Not to his own son."

"Padawan..."

The black braid of Xan's station swung free as he leaned into his hands, palms hard against his skin, trying to ease the pain there. There was a ragged breath echoing in the ornate space and then another as the Padawan attempted to pull in his anger. The unseen shadows retreated reluctantly.

But only for an instant. As he lifted his eyes toward Qui-Gon, his glance slid across his father's lifeless body, even now sprawled before the cheerful fire. There was curdled blood everywhere. The corpse lay in a pool of it, his glittering clothes soaked in gore. But as Xan looked up again, he could see that his own Master was spattered with fine droplets of slimy brown.

He let out a quick choking sound of fury and guilt. "Oh, Force help me. I kept reassuring him, telling him how wonderful you were as my Master. I never thought, I never dreamed that you would murder him."

"I didn't..."

But Xan kept on talking as if there had been no interruption. "Every day, he begged me to leave the Jedi. He thought I would be safer here. On Telos. I would have wealth, power, position. Said I deserved it. That I had the blood and heart and spirit of a king."

Qui-Gon hurried to remind Xanatos that the Order did not keep those unwilling. "You know that you could always leave if that is your wish. But I don't want you to go. You have a..."

Xanatos snarled back, "I told my father that I was a Jedi. That we were a team. That you did not hold me back from the things that mattered. That you cared about me. But I guess I was wrong."

Qui-Gon knew that he had to reassure the Padawan of his affection, Code be damned. The son of his heart must be made to see that he could be loved by more than just a tie of blood. Before it was too late.

"Xani, I do care. Believe me when I..."

The bitter laugh broke through all that. Caustic and corrosive, it ate at the link between the two as Xan snarled, "Believe you? How can I with my father's blood on your hands? You murdered him."

Qui-Gon realized that this must end soon before all was lost. Before Xan was lost to him. But his heart's fear instead drove him to snap back, "Until this moment, I never believed you could be such a fool. That lying hypocrite was using you."

If Xan was angry before with the shadows of the dark clawing at his skin, now it was pitch-black, oozing tar and burrowing into the very center of his spirit. He began to shout, the voice reaching a fever-pitch. And as he was speaking, he stalked closer, hands rising in fury.

"Using me? As you do every day? As the Order does with their demands and their rules and their missions? No love, no attachment, nothing but duty. Giving everything and getting nothing in return? Nothing but more pain, more duty, more death. Until you are sprawled out on the cold hard floor with your guts spilling out."

Qui-Gon stepped back, his shoulder hitting the fireplace mantle with a dull thud. He spoke softly, trying to pull back on the emotions of the moment. "Xan, you are distraught."

But Xanatos would not be placated. Instead, he hissed out, "No, I am finally seeing things clearly for the first time, Master."

With that, he gave a wild cry and swung his fist upward, putting all the anger and loss into the punch. A sharp crack as his hand connected with Qui-Gon's astonished face and suddenly there was a spray of red pouring down his tunic.

With incredible speed, Qui-Gon shoved his apprentice away. Xanatos flailed backwards, tripping over his father's cooling corpse, and toppled to the ground. Laying there, one hand slipping in gore, he blinked in astonishment - at his Master's broken nose even now swelling with pain and blood, at his father's body sprawled lifeless on the slick floor, at the slime on his hand.

Qui-Gon stood quietly, trying to staunch the flow of blood with one sleeve of his tunic, all the while watching Xanatos with studied care. He knew that he must be prepared for anything but what happened next was up to his young Learner and the choices he would make. There could be no going back, only forward. No matter how much he would wish it otherwise.

Speaking as if to a troubled child, Qui-Gon murmured, "Xani, you are confused about your father. When we return to the Temple, I will help you to understand what has happened here..."

And something broke in the Padawan. He began to wipe his fingers over and over again on his tunics, brown filth smearing across the fabric, trying to get them clean. And then he looked down again at the blood-covered body. "Father, you were right. Force help me, you were right about him. How could I have been so blind?"

"What do you mean?"

Xanatos ignored him, staring for a moment at the unmoving corpse and then looking down the line of arm to the hand. On one finger was a glowing Corusca Signet ring, the mark of a Telosian king. It was his now.

He reached out and tugged at the gold band, the cool flesh resisting. When it was obvious that it would not be removed easily, Xan finally let go. Staring at the ring, he nodded to himself and then, without a single glance to his vigilant and ever-more concerned Master, he pulled out his lightsaber and turned it on.

Murmuring quietly, he said, "I'm sorry, Father. I couldn't protect you in life. But I honor you in death."

One hasty flick of the searing light cut through the metal, a brief tug and the broken ring sprang free. But Xan wasn't fast enough and the jewelry rolled into the puddle of his father's blood. He tossed his saber aside, gingerly picking up the jeweled band. But, with bitter irony, the Signet ring was slick in Xan's shaking hand and it slid through his fingers into the blaze. Under the merry crackle of burning firesong, a soft chime sounded as the golden circle began to heat.

Xanatos quickly ripped the fine embroidery still fluttering about duCrion's wrist and grabbed at the scorching metal. The heat was intense. Xan feared the Signet ring would melt before he could rescue it but his determination won through and soon it was nestled in the ruined lace.

Staring down at the broken circle of heated metal, Xan began to smile, a half-crazed grin as he pulled it up close. A way to remember this day in his skin as well as his heart.

He glanced up at his Master, their gazes locked in misunderstanding and loss, as Xan deliberately brought the ring to his cheek and pressed in. Hard.

"No," Qui-Gon shouted but it was too late.

The smell of burning meat overpowered the quiet note of wood smoke and the iron tang of dried blood. Xan's agonized gasp spoke of pain and power and, most of all, retribution. But his continued press of heated metal to ever-charring flesh spoke of a deeper purpose - that a scar was nothing to the tortured enjoyment of watching his Master's eyes fill with horror; it was agony and it felt good.

And, finally, it was done. The skin was melting, liquid under the now-cooling ring, and the flesh wept. But the scar would take. Smiling painfully, Xanatos duCrion looked down at the brown-encrusted ring for a moment and then thrust it into some hidden fastness of his tunics.

He scrambled up, ragged skin tugging at the painful wound and stood before the older Jedi. Hoarse with trying to keep from shouting in agony as the broken circle had seared into his cheek, Xanatos rasped, "Now, Master, I am no longer confused. But we are finished, now and forever. I renounce the ..."

duCrion was not the only one who was hoarse from despair. Qui-Gon quickly interrupted, "Xan, please don't do this."

Reaching out with one hesitant hand, he hoped to make Xani understand that all was not lost, that there was more to this than the lies he had been told. But the young man jerked away, reacting as if he had been smeared with filth. Growling his bitter animosity, he snapped, "Don't touch me!"

"Padawan, you will listen to me." Qui-Gon's voice hardened in alarm. He could not lose the child of his heart, not this way.

"No, I won't. Not any more." Xanatos spat back, almost seething with anger. His eyes blackened to night, his glare intense, as he pushed him away. "You, you always demanding respect, going your own way without needing anyone, never listening to anyone, especially to a stupid apprentice that couldn't see what his Master really was. No wonder I was never quite good enough for the great Qui-Gon Jinn." He stopped for a moment, watching his Master flinch at the denunciation. "All you ever wanted was control."

The Padawan's bitter words were wielded with all the fine precision of an expert swordsman. Sweet memories of a shared life, twisted into ridicule and scorn. Xanatos almost seemed to enjoy hurting his old Master, watching with caustic satisfaction as each barb hit its mark.

And with every slander, the hope that Qui-Gon could somehow turn Xan around and make him see how wrong this was grew ever more bleak. He wanted to turn everything back somehow, make things right but there was no returning to the past. There was only living in the moment. "Padawan..."

Xan's voice turned to ice, more savage in the clipped sounds of flattened tone than ever in feverish fury. "No! No more. I am Xanatos duCrion, Prince of Telos and heir to the First House." With a look of utter contempt, he spat out, "And you... you are just a pathetic old man."