Disclaimer - People and places discovered by George Lucas and Lucasfilm belong to them.  The story and concept belongs to the author - Dark Lady.

~~  The Game - Episode 6  ~~

The story of the enduring love between the Sith warrior, Khameir Sarin, and the Jedi Knight, Hanshara Sinn-Tau continues.  This love transcends all boundaries, the rivers of time and space, even the abyss of death.

There is no such thing as coincidence

Where Jedi learns from Sith, and some divergent philosophies are revealed.

Lord Sidious discussed with Maul the legends of Iridonia, in particular, the legend of Nimith. "All legends and myths have a grain of truth hidden within, " he observed, "the point is finding that grain. The antipathy of the Zabrak to Jedi ways could perhaps be accounted for by this children's story, where the goddess Nimith killed her Jedi suitor, because he would force himself upon her. Would you like to visit your home world Lord Maul, and search for this grain of truth?"

Maul was silent, wondering about coincidence, which in his experience and from his teachings, did not exist.

"The faint promise of strange and wonderful devices" quoted Sidious, steepling his fingers and looking dreamily into the distance, "could lead to wealth, technological curiosities to ensnare the mind in intellectual enchantment." (For Sith were restless creatures, always seeking the new, the strange, and the different)

"A vast undertaking Master, there is little clue in the legends as to where these events might have taken place, if they ever did. There are more rumours about the southern continent, about things long buried, and the land is more radio-active than the north, but that could be accounted for by later insurgences."

"I will nurture the Caladon enterprise my Apprentice, while you re-acquaint yourself with your home world and investigate these things. Such devices are sources of power, and if they are found, will be ornaments to the Sith order, gifts fit for Korriban."

Maul bowed his head in acquiescence. Within himself, he considered the coincidences, and wondered about the legend of Nimith the warrior goddess that he had related to his consort.

Hanshara looked out of the forward window of the Infiltrator, speeding through hyperspace to Iridonia. The distorted light from distant stars streaked past them as the ship tunneled through space.

She had been here only moments, the long cloak still covered her, and she had not yet removed her hood. She was deep in thought, anticipating the coming days with joy, looking forward to what they might do together.

So she did not hear Khameir come behind her, but when he gently removed her hood to kiss the back of her neck, then eagerly put his arms around her, she leaned back into him, closing her eyes in pleasure and anticipation. He spun her round to face him.

"So you are here at last. These trappings of office are onerous," he said, gesturing at her Jedi cloak and sabre. "Let life be simpler now." He undid the clasp at her throat, rolled the cloak, and tossed it on top of the console. Then he unclipped her lightsabre, and placed it carefully with the cloak.

"And will you stay?" he asked, wrapping his hands in her hair, stroking his lips over hers, parting them gently with his tongue.

"My Master has been most generous, I am released for a time, so that I may accompany you, as you wished."

He continued to stroke her hair but said nothing, digesting this information, assessing how it might affect his coming mission.

"Is this not good news then?" she asked, wondering about his silence.

"Oh yes, it is the coincidence. Coincidence is but a veil for the subtle machinations of men….or gods. I gave you a story about my homeworld and out of many, I told you the one I told you. Then I ask you to stay with me longer, now my master sends me to my homeworld and here you are."

"Shall I go now, then?" She looked crestfallen, disappointed in him and his reaction to the news of her temporary release from the service of her master.

He decided. As if he had ever needed to make a decision about the matter!

"No!" and he hurriedly pulled her very close, put his head against hers. "You will see Iridonia if you come with me, perhaps even Korriban…"

She smiled and touched his cheek. "Then we will train together and…"

He sighed with pleasure. "Oh yes Tai Shan, especially 'and'…"

.Hanshara lay curled against his chest, head tucked underneath his chin, listening to his breathing, his steady heartbeat. As the rhythm of his three beats against her own two filled her with contentment, she realised she was also filled with serenity and peace, she was in harmony and in balance. The grace of the Force filled her soul to its brim, and she was reminded of that part of the Jedi code which said, 'There is no passion, there is serenity.'

A conundrum.

Here she was, a Jedi Knight lying with a Sith Lord, light lying with dark, serenity lying with anger. Closing her eyes, she cast her mind into the Force, looked for the threads of being, floated upon a wave of light, found her place in creation, found his, saw destruction and was not perturbed.

'An honourable warrior', she thought him. A heart of fire searching for a dark wisdom, , for secret knowledge not vouchsafed even to Jedi, yet a bringer of chaos and destruction.

'Before I embraced you,' she wondered dreamily, 'when was the last time I felt the comfort of another being, the warmth, the closeness, the intimacy? Another's breath against my hair, another's touch, another's heart? Was it truly the crèche mother in the Jedi nursery on Coruscant so long ago? Is this how we Jedi become stifled, and emotionless? Such richness we deprive ourselves of when we do this.'

She flexed her hand on his chest, feeling the beat, the vibrancy, the life in him.

How their bed was blessed. To the Force, and whichever goddess was responsible, Hanshara gave fervent thanks, for the violent passion and the still repose such as this, for the hunger and satiety, for the intense joy they shared. For Khameir was a passionate and ardent man with an adventurous spirit, and…

The ship hummed and ticked quietly as it sped to Iridonia at hyper-light speed. Dim blue lights from the slave systems made their presence known unobtrusively, the monitors flaring a discreet phosphorescent glow.

Khameir woke, instantly alert, a gift they both shared. There was no change in his breathing, he did not stir or move, his presence was just…. there.

Very gently he touched the side of her face, "My Lady does not sleep?" he asked quietly.

He felt the stillness in her, the balance, the power coiled tightly under the heavy veil of tranquility. He waited, not wanting to disturb her mood, placing his hand gently back on her waist. She would not have heard his voice or felt his touch if she had not been awake.

She smiled at this small courtesy - that he touched her and spoke rather than invade her mind with her unknowing.

He might have been asleep again, he was so still. But she felt the spark and fire of his mind, the power of his being, just the same.

'I know I do not see you as others see you,' thought Hanshara, looking into the dark, pressing her cheek to his chest, 'and I cannot. Why is this?'

'Neither do you see me as enemy, when Sith and Jedi have been locked in hatred for millennia. When I look at Palpatine, I see something dead and gone, dry dust, decay, evil clinging to a mass of corruption. When I look at you, I see a primal force, the chaos that underlies life, a power of destruction which causes life to come forth anew.'

She closed her eyes and drew her hand lightly down his rib cage, felt the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the smooth hairless skin moving over the bones.

'My eyes are not blind to the death you bring, I see the suffering you make. I hear the screams and cries of those you use and cast aside in your anger.'

'That I ignore and disregard. Why?'

There was no answer for her now, perhaps there would never be. But she was not discontented with that.

She stretched slowly, raising her arms above her head, as far as she could reach. He caught one arm with his hand and followed it, finally interlacing his fingers with hers. Then he rolled toward her, touching as much of her skin with his own as he could.

"…want you!" she murmured.

Khameir said nothing, but held her hand and pulled her head to his with the other.

In the dim blue glow she could just see him smile, catch a glint from his golden eyes, wide in the near-dark. 

"Two minds with but the same thought then…"

Putting his head to hers he kissed her, bringing her hand down to his stirring flesh.

"I have a fancy for your tender ministrations Tai Shan. Not too tender mind you…" and he pushed her hand firmly onto him.

"What would a rough warrior know of 'tender'?" she teased.

He still held her hand, guiding her actions, increasing the pressure she made.

"I will show you 'rough warrior'!" he said, and did.

Connections

"So we shall train together then?" Hanshara stirred the nutritious porridge and pushed it into heaps with her spoon. She looked at him mischievously, grinned at him over the little table in the cramped galley, then looked down at the unappetising porridge made from her duty rations. Khameir followed her eyes and studied the sticky brownish substance she was pretending to enjoy, then looked back at her.

"It seems that Jedi punish themselves in all manner of ways." He observed drily, and bit into a crisp fruit. The sharp fangs sheared the juicy flesh with ease, and a little of its liquid ran down his mouth. He wiped the trail of juice with a finger and quickly drew it along her lips.

"Is that not good?" he enquired. "Perhaps it will enliven this… this…" Lost for words he gestured impatiently at her bowl.

Licking her lips, she found the sharp-sweet taste very good. Poking at the porridge again, she nodded, and Khameir laughed, reached for a sharp knife and diced the rest of the fruit into her bowl.

"And yes, we will train together." He said, getting up to clean the knife and leaning over to kiss her while he did so. He stood with arms folded, leaning against the table, and watched her finish her food with greater relish.

They took the short lift to the cargo-hold, where they had made a space in which to practise. She stood in front of him, composing her mind for the task to come, and in the few short seconds he had, he slid his arm about her waist, pulled her closer, and quickly nuzzled the back of her neck.

He had turned the heating down in the hold, and he wondered fleetingly whether she would discard her under-tunic for this practise. Sometimes she did, and when she did, her small breasts bobbed most pleasingly in her exertions. The cold would add to the pleasing effect, and he could feast his eyes on her lean body as she moved around him. He looked sideways at her from hooded eyes.

Hanshara strode out of the lift first. She looked back, saw his look and caught his thoughts. "You are of a lascivious nature my Lord!" she asserted disdainfully.

"Indeed Madame, but does that not please you?" He grinned and started to shrug off his tunic in readiness.

She declined to answer, muttered about the cold, and pulled off her over-tunic.

"And the other tunic…" he murmured, as he lay his own on a nearby box at the edge of the practise square.

"Ha! And then I find this hard floor as my bed!"

"Aah. Now that does please you my Lady. The pleasure of my body on top of you and the pain of hard metal beneath you…" Khameir strutted to the edge of the empty square, struck a pose with his lightsabre, and said thoughtfully, almost to himself, "You Jedi would seem to have a contrary nature. You preach gentleness and love, yet you like this 'pain'. Do you also whip yourselves in your daily meditations?"

"Self-chastisement is an inefficient method of raising the mind," she asserted, removing the under-tunic, "discarded by our Masters many hundreds of years ago." She balled up the garment and threw it to land on top of the same box where his own resided. "Perhaps I would tempt you, and see whether the much vaunted Sith training and discipline will be stern enough to resist." She struck a pose of her own in profile to him, and in silence, worked through some simple stretches.

She saw him lick his lips. Perhaps he also wondered whether his discipline would be strong enough to resist such a temptation, and she ignored him as he started to work through his own stretches.

When she had finished, she relaxed into a meditative posture and watched her lover's body move gracefully and apparently effortlessly through increasingly strenuous exercises. Her eyes traveled over the black-upon-red patterns, followed one from his throat, to his chest, to where it disappeared into the waistband of his breeches. She knew where this particular pattern led, her fingers had traced its path many times, both in the light and in the dark. Always she delighted to find that which responded most vigorously to the touch of her hand, before she felt it moving even more vigorously inside her.

The patterns on him were hypnotic, and erotic, and drew her eyes over his lean and sinewy body. When they lay together, she would touch and trace the patterns with her fingers, following the path they led. Sometimes she would trace them with her mouth and tongue, making little bites and kisses as she followed the black on red. He had never experienced tracing such patterns over the body of a female of his own kind, and while he greatly enjoyed the differences between Zabrak and Human, sometimes she wondered - did he miss looking at such patterns on her own body?

He finished, and relaxed into a meditative posture with her, preparing his mind now for the coming work. She waited.

He followed the Teras Kasi school of swordplay, she knew. It was an ancient form of combat based on the methods of attack and defense used by many different animals throughout the galaxy. Among the Jedi, it was long since thought defunct, and perhaps the Jedi style of combat had changed so radically there were now no comparisons. Perhaps it was simply not fashionable now among the influential Sword Masters at the Jedi School on Coruscant. The Jedi were slow to change the hallowed traditions of hundreds of years standing, and were reluctant to change proven methods and techniques. But out of interest, and wondering whether she might learn some new tricks, she had studied the old philosophy, learned some movements, and thought perhaps to build some of them into her own repertoire of skills.

Before she knew it, he had somersaulted to his feet in front of her, and was offering her his hand. She took it, but jumped up in such a manner that no force was exerted between them. The courtesy she loved, but she would not take advantage of it.

She stood facing him, offering her weapon for inspection. She bowed.

Khameir touched it, frowned. "You think to practise with a standard sabre?"

"The time is not for the weapons of children and novices. Let it be real, that we both may learn."

"Indeed! So be it then." And he struck an on-guard position as he ignited one blade. "But one blade only. I do not wish to kill you just yet, for you still amuse me." He thoughtfully thrashed the air a time or two with his sabre.

Ignoring this taunt and igniting her own sabre, she crossed her blue blade with his red one, and the hold echoed for some time to the clash of the blades and the hum of the sabres. Having allowed him to fall into the expectation of a conventional method of battle from her, she executed a perfect 'spitting cobra' movement, and feinting to her right, she exploited a tiny gap in his defence, changing the angle of the blade fractionally from that defined by tradition. The end of her sabre pointed at the junction of his thighs, barely inches from the fabric of his breeches.

"So. You strike at the very heart of our relationship my Lady!" He jumped back quickly, and with equal speed, parried her blade and danced forward in a 'thrusting womprat' movement. Hanshara parried effectively. The stroke had been aimed at her heart.

"I trust there is more to it than that." she said, reverting to the style she had been taught since childhood. Her blade clashed with his again.

"Perhaps! Even so, it appears that Jedi can learn from Sith."

"I have heard it said by Qui Gon, 'Learn not, live not.'" 

"Who is this Qui Gon? A lover?" He caught her hair as she spun away, swept her blade out of his way with his own, and pulled her mouth to his, kissed her, pushed her backwards, making her angry.

"Qui Gon Jinn is one of our greatest Sword Masters." Taking the stance for 'stinging scorpion' and stilling her mind, she dropped into the well of the Force, became calm and focused, prepared to strike again as the clarity of her vision suddenly sharpened.

"And you are not!" he taunted. "I look forward to meeting with this Qui Gon, blade to blade. Perhaps he will be a useful adversary…"

A sudden flash of prescience invaded her mind, and she stood, motionless, eyes unfocussed.

"Perhaps you will…." And momentarily she smelled burning flesh, charring bone.

Of late, her experiences, of strange dreams and unexpected visions, had caused her to wonder whether she had the gift of the Oracle, but such a gift was rare and greatly prized. It was a great vanity to consider that she might have been vouchsafed such a talent, and her soul, as stern as his, resisted such thoughts. And she did not think she would like to possess such a rare and wonderful talent that she would be closeted away to protect her mind from chance thoughts and perceptions.

"Your thoughts do not attend your actions." He observed sharply, striking her raised and motionless blade with his. The strident clash pulled her back to reality. "Would you indulge yourself in such a manner in the heat of battle?" Her eyes focused on him again, she smiled hastily, clumsily struck back with her weapon.

The smell of charred flesh suddenly insinuated itself into her mind again. She imagined Khameir, burned and charred… Her sabre dropped to the floor with a 'clang' and rolled into the side of a box, as she put her hands over her face, shaking.

"Tai Shan?" he whispered urgently, his voice concerned, his expression worried. He de-activated his lightsabre and quickly clipped it to his belt with one hand as he pulled her to him with the other. He dipped into her mind, felt the chaos that had started in her centre of perception as her manner of seeing shifted to a new phase, leapt to a higher plane. This he had read of in his studies of Sith philosophy, this he knew of.

"I will finish for today. My mind is not upon this. Perhaps tomorrow…" Her body swayed.

Speed was of the essence, now. He must anchor her in reality, but he would not be hasty in what he must do.

"Training is just training, Tai Shan, and even I am not perfect in all that I do." Khameir tilted her face to his, and kissed her, then her neck. Then he touched her small breast delicately with the ends of his fingers, and bent to kiss there also.

"And I am fallen prey to temptation…" He drew his hand down her body as if he was following an invisible pattern on a woman of his own kind, and stopped at the waist band of her breeches.

"All roads lead here, to perfection." He whispered, as he drew his hand further down over the rough fabric of her clothing, caressed her with his fingertips then pulled at the ties. He undid the breeches, knelt on the hard floor, and gently pulled them down over her. His hands held her hips, the heavy cloth falling over his hands, as he kissed, first her flat stomach, then her thighs, then her womanly places.

Her mind turned again and the acrid smell of burning receded. All she could smell now was his male musk, sharpened by the swordplay in which they had engaged. It excited her and drew her mind away from the vision.

Hanshara closed her eyes. She opened her mind to the Force, as her nerve ends sparked with fire at his touch. Breathing heavily, he lay his forehead on her stomach as he fought for control of his own responses in order to attend to her needs. He pushed his frontal horn sharply into her flesh, grounding her in the physical reality of discomfort and her skin tore at the point and she bled a little. She put her hands on his head, started to stroke his ears, caressed the black hairless skull, wound her fingers around the horns and stroked the velvet.

Using his rough black tongue, he tasted the fresh salty sweat, used his fangs to teasingly bite her tender places, used his mouth to caress until she was in a realm of physical delight and pleasure beyond reality. But the scent of roasting flesh invaded her senses again, and in her delirium she mewed and cried unknowingly, until she shuddered against him, and fell like a weak and boneless thing onto the floor, calling his name, tears streaming down her face.

"The floor is hard." He said, rising, picking her up. He carried her to his bed; removed the rest of their clothes; kissing her while her hands grasped his body in a mindless orgy of touch. The visions receded, and greedy for him, she tried to reassure herself that he was there, with her. She was incoherent, and clung to him, trying to pull him within her, and when he did thrust himself into her, her body rose to meet his with a strength that made him wonder.

But the burning stench returned. The smell of charred bone filled her nostrils, blue lights flickered before her eyes, and the taste of ashes was in her mouth. The sound of sizzling flesh and charring blood, the buzz of a lightsabre, all assaulted her ears, until her senses were overwhelmed and her mind refused to take more. The possibility of his death could not be borne, and so she fainted under him.

She would not be woken. She lay unconscious for a day and a night as her mind changed, and adjusted to its new power of sense and prediction. New neuronal pathways were made, nerve connections established, and new electrical discharge patterns formed as part of the healing process. During this time, Khameir set the Infiltrator to automatic pilot, watched, and ministered to her needs as he had done before, in that time he preferred not to remember.

Her temperature raged from hot to cold, and back again. He sponged her body to cool her down, warmed her with his own body when she shivered uncontrollably. When she cried out in nightmare he used his power to soothe her mind, and stop her screaming, although all he could do was calm her, he could not see the visions and apparitions she saw. She was wrapped in a soft warm blanket, and lay against him on his chest while he reclined in the pilot's chair, holding her tightly to him as he had done before.

She was assaulted by visions. Sometimes she talked, describing things strange and wonderful to his ears. Sometimes she stared into the distance, and described things of such horror that even he shuddered and tried to forget them.

Sometimes her body shook, seemingly with an ague, and he forced a soothing draft between her lips to relieve her mind and body.

He watched her mind and knew what was happening to her. It was described in ancient books, and antique tomes, was the same experience for both Sith and Jedi when it occurred. But she had no Jedi master now to watch for her, to help her through the time of change as her mind adjusted. He wondered for a moment whether, without him, she would have become a raving Sith Witch, or a reclusive Jedi hermit closeted away from the rest of humanity in sensory deprivation.

Such was the way the Jedi kept their Oracles, when they found them. They said the sensory deprivation chamber enhanced their perception of the Force and protected their minds from sensory overload, the better to divine the future. He thought such treatment would lead very quickly to madness, was strangely cruel. She would escape such a fate, being lost to them.

Then came the time when she fell into a deep natural sleep, and lay curled on his lap, resting her head on his broad chest, breathing evenly and sweetly. He felt the difference the instant it occurred, and when she woke, was looking at her, smiling a little as he stroked her face.

"So. You are returned to me at last."

Still smiling at her he pushed his hand into her limp and damp hair. It was lank and greasy with sweat from her experience, but because it was her hair, and she was looking at him with bright eyes and a faint smile, it was the most desirable hair any man could want to touch. He bent to her neck, and tasted her skin, kissed her. The sour smell of sickness was almost gone, almost replaced by her own natural musk.

He unwrapped her, looked at her pale and limp appearance. She was thin and weak, her hand shook a little with the effort of touching his face, but she would soon recover. What he had done for her was better than any Sith or Jedi Master could have done. Their loving had rooted her in physical reality as the change started, and grounded both of them in each other. Her mind had changed quickly; in his studies of Sith and their philosophy, his books had spoken of 'many days' and mentioned death as a possible outcome. At the brief thought of this, he closed his eyes and held her close, heart thudding with relief at her obvious survival.

Carefully wrapping her up again, Khameir carried her to the fresher station, and the shower. Too weak to stand alone, she sat on the hard floor as he removed his own clothes and then the blanket. He left her with her head propped against the wall as he fetched her plain unscented soap, then sat on the floor with her between his knees. She rested her head against his chest and pretended to help.

The water was warm and cleansing. He rubbed her with her soap, cursed the coarseness of it, and threw it angrily out of the fresher, using his own instead. Her hair streamed down her back under the force of the water, and she closed her eyes as the sweat and dankness washed away and the last vestige of the sour smell of illness disappeared. When all the soap suds were gone, he just sat with her between his thighs, head resting on her shoulder, his arms crossed in front of her holding her upright, simply enjoying the warm water flowing over them.

Before he lay her in his bed, with him beside her, he dried her with a towel, not wanting to use the impersonal warm air dryer fitted into the ceiling. Besides, she could not stand just yet, and he felt the touch of his hands and the feel of the rough linen towel against her skin would anchor her mind more in physical reality. Her mind needed to recover as did her body. She needed to learn a way of controlling this new gift, or it would strike when she was unprepared, render her unconscious, and control her, rather than she control it.

He slept with her gathered close in his arms, her head rested on his shoulder and he had one leg under, another over, her thighs. Before he abandoned himself to unconsciousness, he resolved to teach her the Sith way of controlling this, give her access to the books he had on his computer. He hoped she learned quickly.

Quick Study

"You are most generous, to place these at my disposal..." She stared at the precious data cubes he had piled into her cupped hands, and left the sentence unfinished.

Khameir looked at Hanshara. Generous? How else would she learn to control her newly-bestowed Oracular power? The Jedi archives would not be accessible from this computer although he was prepared to try a hack, but he suspected that her identity had been erased from their system for many years, as she no longer existed for them.

"Perhaps Jedi will learn from Sith again." he suggested, leaving her to the books.

During the following days he brushed aside her protests, and after quickly reviewing human physiology, found the tasty nourishing foods they both could share. There were many, and now she looked healthy after her experience, almost back to normal. He was relieved. Sometimes, he had read, such a change in the mind brought about a diminution in the mental faculty, and had been known to cause idiocy. Even so, she must be a quick study lest the gift strike again and catch her unprepared. Idly he wondered why it was called a gift, and not a curse, for it was only a gift to those who listened and benefited, but certainly a curse to those who spoke while the fit was upon them.

As he performed routine maintenance on his ship, he watched for her, saw her struggle with her mental exercises, saw both frustration and triumph. Sometimes the philosophy was alien to her, and he must explain in detail things that he had long since learned and forgotten, committed to unconscious thought and behaviour. Some things she must unlearn, or place in a different context. He was vastly amused at the thought that she may become a worthy Sith Apprentice, imbibing certain aspects of the dark Force as she was.

As for Hanshara - she knew that, unprepared, each episode of visionary experience would destroy part of her mind, rob her of her senses and spirit until she became an empty shell babbling vacuous nonsense. So she must learn, and learn quickly, what she must know to hold on to her mind and sanity.

How the Sith trained themselves in this power was strange and alien to her. At first she was wary about opening the books and files for fear of contamination or corruption to the dark side of the Force, but when she did, she found nothing offensive. There were things strange and wonderful, thoughts new and different, philosophies and sorceries both fascinating and fearsome.

There was nothing to offend her heart, or cause her mind to shrink from the task of learning. The more she delved the more she could see the common roots the two orders shared, back in the mists of time, and she grew even more assured as she delved deeper into the books.

As her days were intense with study, her nights she filled with a raw passion that might consume her. He reveled in the delights she offered him and the sensations she gave him, to anchor her mind to materiality. Such was the Sith way, rather than the gradual divorcement of the spirit from the body by deep meditation and sometimes drugs, in the Jedi manner.

As with every new talent, there came the day she must try it for the first time, and she decided she was ready. Reminding her that he had no experience of such matters, he offered to watch for her. She accepted the offer with a small bow, was grateful. After making the bow, she suddenly walked up to him and placed her arms about his waist, pulling him close and resting her head on his chest. When she finally turned away, he thought perhaps her eyes were wet. And again, perhaps not.

She broke her fast with fruit, considered aloud how she should make her first venture into the craft of prediction.

"What shall I choose to predict? It must be truly random, or a bias will be introduced. Computer generated numbers?"

"But are they truly random, or are they based on some number within the molecular processor?" replied Khameir cautiously.

"Then the way a feather falls?"

"But a seasonal wind may blow…"

He was most careful, for this was her experience and he did not wish to steal it from her. Rising from the table he paced the floor.

"Do you know of Brownian motion?" He offered. "Whereby particles of dust are propelled along the surface of a liquid by the invisible movement of the molecules as they dance within that liquid. Surely, such movement is truly random?" He had sown the seed. She stared into the distance and thought, munched her fruit, delved into her memories for some basic physics long since forgotten. Rushing to the computer, she hastily wiped her hands on her tunic, made long computations, assigned parameters, checked results.

"Oh yes!" and she started a list of what she might need.

A wide bowl - they upturned the plastic cover of a freight container, cleaned it, and filled it with pure water.

Dust, or something light - he gave her a beautiful iridescent blue-green feather hidden in his baggage, told her to use the down from it.

'Was that all?' she wondered, looking at her small collection. 'Such power there was in simple things'.

She bathed in ritual manner, bade him join her, and solemnly washed him as she washed herself. She used different words and gestures to those that he would use, but achieved the same result of calm and quiet, a shifted reality and expanded perception. 

He had turned the lights of the control deck to bare minimum, turned the monitors to their lowest setting, and placed a meditation mat large enough for both of them on the bare floor. He placed the bowl of water in the centre of the mat, placed the wrapped blue feather beside it, and a lighted candle close by. 

He sat first, arranging his limbs in the posture he desired, and watched as she bowed to him, then sat before him.

Then they sat facing each other in the gloom, both naked to the elements and what might befall them.

Nothing was used to aid their passage into a meditative state. With the ease of long practice they both fell into the Force, one to Light and the other to Dark. His spirit found hers in the web, and he watched as she picked at threads, twisted, turned, then followed one thread of bright light, and vanished into infinity.

He waited for what seemed forever, and his heart started to race. He calmed it. Waited some more. Until he felt a faint echo of her voice in his mind.

"Scatter a piece of down for me." He thought he heard, so he pulled at the feather and placed a little down on the surface of the water.

"Now tell me where it will walk." He whispered back into the dark pressing on him, and he waited some more and watched the down float and move slowly on the surface, careful not to move or breathe upon it.

There was an answer, and it was true.

She called to him again, and again, and each time he threw a piece of down onto the water. Each time the answer to his question was true.

"Come back now." He said to her, fearing for her sanity if she stayed too long.

"Only once again!" she pleaded, enjoying this game and her new-found power.

Acceding to her wishes, he played this game again, and the answer was true, but her voice was fainter than it had been before. He scooped away the pieces of down floating on the water and refused her repeated request when next she asked.

She grew angry and her voice was stronger. 'Why do you deny me?' she cried, as he reached for her hands and gently stroked them to bring her back as he sent his mind into the Force again to look for her.

When he found her wandering in the dark, he did not recognize her such was her dismay and reluctance. She had almost become lost, wanting to continue her game in the web of the Force. She struggled, and he must subdue her, until he caught her hair and pulled her back with him. He woke, sprawled on the mat with Hanshara struggling in his arms and spitting fury. Both now back in the physical world, he clenched his teeth and hit her once, hard across her face. It gave him no pleasure, no pleasure at all. He hated himself for it, but it was necessary, and he would do what was necessary to keep her.

Unconsciousness claimed her.

And later, in his bed

"What do you see when you pull apart the web?" He asked softly, fingers moving in her hair as she rested on his chest.

"The tiniest of things and the greatest of things, and I know there are things beyond those, that I shall see in time. Perhaps I will show you." Sleep claimed her as she curled lovingly against him.

He looked unseeing into the dark and smiled. Was happy.

End of part 6

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© Dark Lady - 19 March  2001