Star Wars, its characters, and its images are © George Lucas and Disney.

A/N: Please note the rating; expect PG-13 fare in the form of non-graphic use and/or mentions of violence, drug use, sex, and Star Wars-style coarse language, plus some. Canon will be…played with. In other words, the 6 original films and TCW series will hold true from certain POVs. Postings will be every other week on Fridays.

While Rex and Ahsoka are paired for good reason in the tag, theirs is not quite the main thread of this story. This is most definitely a slow-burn romance.

Note the prologue references events of the Season 6 episode, The Lost One, and the events prior to The Phantom Menace.

Heaps of gratitude for the kind, gentle, and brilliant soul, impoeia, who has been the absolute most helpful and patient of betas, and thank you, dear readers, who chanced a peek!

Prologue

cau·sa·tum : noun \kau̇ˈzätəm, kȯˈzāt-\ : something that is caused : effect

Four months, fourteen days before the Blockade of Naboo

A bright flare bloomed in the black of space; for the ambassadorial shuttle cresting Oba-Diah's pale, sand-blurred moon, there was no chance: the spark spun too close—too fast—for sensors to lock onto, sub-light engines burning a sluggish evasion.

An electronic shriek warned Sifo-Dyas the moment before impact.

Nine years and eleven months before the Blockade of Naboo

"Mind yourself on Felucia," the other Jedi said.

Sifo nearly winced. His associate's voice had a guttural, stilted severity to it, as if he had somehow forgotten the mechanics of speech.

They walked together, cowled by the perennial twilight of an abandoned Coruscanti industrial park, leagues and leagues beneath even the transrails and narrow streets of the working class. Sifo-Dyas had hoped for a moment of solitude when he'd descended to this level, but the other Jedi had appeared at his side almost instantly, like a particularly long-limbed mynock dislodged from between the old husks of factories and fallen mills.

"Traveling soon?" Sifo asked. "I wasn't aware of a need for parley among the shamans."

His associate chuckled—an unnerving sound, too similar to a lightsaber sputtering beneath an inept hand.

"You are dead there."

Sifo-Dyas' jaw tightened. For a long moment, he let the silence speak, broken only by the distant, ceaseless thrum of machinery.

"A morbid bent for so early in the day," Sifo finally said; an irony for them both. It was always night at these levels, where they both had lived and worked and spilled blood, one way or another.

"I have seen it." The other hesitated. "Yet you will reek of spice."

A prickle of awareness touched the back of Sifo's neck, then ghosted away, light as a whisperfly. Sifo followed the Force, found it bright with fractured light, close to the other Jedi.

He spoke the truth.

But spice? Felucians preferred their own concoctions of hallucinogenics, not the mainline of the wider galaxy. A flicker of the Force urged Sifo to connect the strands—the intent—but there was no clarity; not here, deep in the shadows of the old city.

No—this would take patience. "One must accept the inevitable," Sifo said, "regardless of the journey."

Oh, but his associate didn't like that. Fists clenched and unclenched; from the corner of his eye, Sifo watched him carefully.

But the other settled and they walked together for some time.

Darkness dipped and wove between them; they passed silently under an arcade of crushed girders, then an ancient millinery. Sifo could see stubbed claws tapping a 'saber, a long face caught in ghostly profile.

The shadows shifted across the other Jedi's shoulders, melted against the bulky lines of his robes, just another misshapen tower of debris among all the others. How appropriate an image, Sifo thought, although he knew that little thread of resentment should have been released years ago.

Even now, Sifo refused to grant him a reaction.

But he wasn't against a little needling.

"Perhaps it will be quick," Sifo mused. He deliberately edged his voice with impatience, close to—but not quite—patronizing; he heard rather than saw the other's telling shuffle, the creak of leather. "A yerdua poison. Or a skullblade to the back."

A quick draw of breath, and—finally—Sifo saw the cracks. The other Jedi drew close, close enough that Sifo could smell the rank damp that seemed to cling to all his species.

"No." The Jedi's nostrils fluttered in distaste. "It was a strange vision, yes—but the smell..." He drew closer to Sifo, eyes flashing green-gold. "Distinct."

Without answering, Sifo continued on his way; for the moment, there was only the dry sound of old pods and sloughed metal snapping like bones beneath his boots.

But his associate wasn't giving up. "I only tell you so—"

"You have told me." Sifo stopped to face the other. "Your business is not at these levels. I suggest you leave to safer venues."

The Jedi stiffened, but after a long moment, simply bowed. "As you wish, Master Jedi."

Four months, fourteen days before the Blockade of Naboo

Of course. The Pykes. How had he not seen?

The shriek of metal deafened him as the shuttle's engines collapsed, imploding inward with a throbbing, choked whine.

Sifo-Dyas couldn't tear his eyes from the wildly spinning gimbal-read, even as the pressure tugged and pushed him down against the console.

A rush of the Force—he lurched—there was light and heat, and it all shattered against his mind.

Seconds—minutes—an eternity—Sifo thought he heard a shout; felt the swell of terror from the bloodied figure at his side.

Surely Silman was dead.

Nine years and eleven months before the Blockade of Naboo

Sifo left the other Jedi to the abandoned park and let that nagging thread of irritation slide away into the darkness.

A lifetime spent in the Underworld meant an intimate knowledge of the discarded innards of Coruscant's belly, the tracts and trails and haunts of those who always knew more than they should. But for this particular associate to have picked up on some sort of unknown, by Force or otherwise...

It was unacceptable.

Sifo-Dyas spent the next eight hours feeding his own contacts certain kernels of truth; the delicate web of the Underworld would strum and bring him back other seeds to sift through; rumors and words that he would use his particular skills to discard the miasma of garbage from those few, clear truths.

Ironic, perhaps, that the strands in his own mind remained quiet. It was as if the Force waited, watchful; all of it focused outward, far from Coruscant, far from the center of the galaxy.

And if the Force demanded patience, he would accede.

Hours later, Sifo surfaced to the smooth stone and clean light of the Temple and his small, bare quarters, content to let the eddies and ebb of the Force nudge against his senses, strong here in the Temple proper and as aged and familiar as the stone around him.

But when he sank to his knees on his old, threadbare meditation mat, it was to the rush of the Force—drenching, clutching, bleeding.

It pulled and cut—sharp and bright as his own blade—blinding with its faces and armored bodies and the flashing pain of fire. The Temple stone felt hot beneath his hands—molten as lava—seeping into his mind and flowing bright—and then a heaving, rising hunger.

Dark. Wild. Insatiable.

Sifo wheezed, desperate for air—reached for something, anything familiar to anchor him—but there was only his lightsaber, cool beneath his palm and pulsing with its own flicker of familiarity.

It wasn't until he lurched out of his quarters and stumbled forward—always forward, against stone and well-worn steps—that the Force released him.

And there, at the Spire of Tranquility's summit, Sifo managed to find his center again.

The gleaming lines of Coruscant's wealth zigzagged below, vivid and bright against the hazy surface night. From above, the ecumenopolis looked clean, luminous, benign.

It wasn't possible.

It couldn't be.

This time, Sifo-Dyas sank into the endless stream of thought and time and intent; let the light and dark mingle in crystalline focus; let that sharp-edged clarity guide him as it had through decades in the Underworld.

Perhaps...

Perhaps a shadow could exist in places where he could not.

Four months, fourteen days before the Blockade of Naboo

Around him, outside him, metal screamed against metal and blood pooled—hot, metallic, still living—in his mouth.

With a bone-shattering slam, the shuttle hit atmosphere and began to burn through.

But even through the heat and pain, he felt another presence, a familiar Force-spike needled with the ice of intent and a cold, long-held fury.

Surely not...here?

One year before the Blockade of Naboo

"Complacency. Deception."

Sifo-Dyas' old friend and fellow Master was seated in a deep, nerf-hide chair, deep in the shadows of the estate's old library. He'd lit only one lamp, and the shadows were cast in wide swaths across every piece of heavy furniture, all too ornate for Sifo's tastes.

The man had studied the swirl of a golden liqueur for almost five minutes, long fingers idly turning his goblet. From his seat beyond a low table, Sifo watched each carefully etched edge flash in the setla-lamplight.

"The Senate reeks of it," his old friend went on. There was an edge to his voice; a strain not normally there, breaking off the cultured roll and cutting short each consonant. Sifo watched him tip the goblet, watched him scrutinize the flow of liquid as it spilled out of the glass and into the cool air of the library. But instead of splashing down onto the wrodian carpet's thick weave, the liqueur beaded into a fine mist, then spun as a sluggish, airborne whorl, oddly mesmerizing, every drop as sharp and bright as the goblet's chiseled glass work.

The man across from Sifo had aged almost exponentially since the incident on Galidraan, far more than he should have. In the glow of the setla-lamp, the silver of the man's hair shone bright, gleaming like the tiny drops of liquid.

"Nothing—only these petty quarrels—will direct the Council, if we supplicate before the Senate any longer," his old friend went on. With a disgusted flick of a finger, the Master curled the liqueur back into the goblet, and after a moment of scrutiny, downed it in one swallow. "These recent conflicts have only proven as much." He hesitated, then reached for the glass bottle of Pantoran cognac to pour another three fingers-worth into the goblet. "It is simply a matter of time before they find themselves unable to break their gaze from this 'rising darkness' you speak so much of."

Sifo remained mute, his own thoughts far away, once again focused on Coruscant; back beneath the skylanes and shining towers, in the dark places where greater, naked truths always seemed to lurk. A name had been whispered, one that flickered along the razor-edged pulse of the Force; an anathema, but he couldn't trace its source.

Tyranus.

His seeds had found sustenance; and yet the roots went deeper than he could ever have expected.

"Shall your silence speak for you, Sifo-Dyas?"

Sifo pulled himself back to the library, to meet his old friend's weathered gaze, bright with something Sifo couldn't place.

"They?" Sifo asked carefully.

Dooku's eyes gleamed in the setla-light. His mouth curved in the barest of smiles. "We," he corrected himself.

Sifo allowed a sigh, as if in weary acceptance of the same old arguments. "An uncomfortable yet unavoidable truth," he said. "But we must press on. There is no other way."

"Ah." Dooku's intense gaze turned shrewd. "Is there not?"

There, the reality of the matter. The Force hummed, but all too briefly.

Sifo studied the elder Jedi, traced the deep lines around the man's eyes, the strain written there in tiny cracks, fractured as a shell-spider's web. In months past, Sifo had recognized the shudder of indecision within his friend's Force-signature—and below that, an unsettling pulse of anger.

They were both Masters, carved by decades of service to the Jedi Order, both still members of the High Council. Dooku was brilliant, adept; a force of sheer will and indomitable character. Together, they should've been able to observe the changing galaxy and air more than the same grievances from years past.

They should've been able to do more, rather than be swept along the endless tide of corruption and bloated dalliance that the Senate urged the Order into.

"We study and consider the mysteries of the Force for millennia," Dooku went on. He rose from his chair and stepped away into the smooth gray light of a diamond-paned window. As a silhouette, he seemed the very essence of the noble he'd been born as. "Will the Senate simply argue for us that the strong are able—and thus the weak shall be unable?"

Unspoken was the culmination of such a theory, hanging like a Force-bent mist between them.

The skin of Sifo's face suddenly felt taut and hot as he stared at that familiar profile.

"As Jedi," Sifo answered slowly, "we could never allow such things."

His old friend chuckled, a low and discordantly gentle sound. "No, we could not, Master Sifo-Dyas."

Sifo considered Dooku for a long moment. The light shifted across the deep, aquiline planes of the other man's face, washing the color of his skin to a flimsi-thin texture. He lifted the Vors-glass to his lips, tendons pulling and stretching across his hands.

The Force shivered, lines of dappled light and red.

"Tell me the truth, my friend," Sifo finally said.

Dooku stilled, profile sharp, goblet held to his lips, a flash of sunlight suddenly refracted against its crystalline edges.

Sifo-Dyas leaned forward, arms folded across his knees. "Do you think it possible that the Sith have returned?"

Four months, fourteen days before the Blockade of Naboo

The Chancellor would not be pleased.

Silman, personal aide to Valorum, fought the urge to step back, away from the indolent splay of the Pyke throne's occupant: Jorn, long-reigning Sec and unrivaled head of the Pyke families. The tall, grey-skinned Sec was robed and jeweled in typical Pyke fashion, although Silman noted with disgust the spice stains smeared across the Sec's sleeves.

"Surely the Pykes recognize an advantageous position within the Republic's borders would—" Silman began, for the third time.

"Advantageous?" Jorn interrupted. He stroked two jewel-ringed barbels below his carapaced skull, thin mouth drawn in a contemplative line. He lifted a carved spice-reed to his lips, drew deeply, and sent a stream of ruddy smoke in Silman's direction. "For the Pykes, perhaps. Or for the Pykes, perhaps not."

Before Silman could do more than open his mouth again, the Jedi Master at his side reached over and briefly touched his belled sleeve, silencing him.

The Sec of the Pykes unnerved him; the Jedi unnerved him more.

"Yes, advantageous for the Pykes," Master Sifo-Dyas said, his voice calm, oddly intimate. He linked his hands behind his back as he stepped forward, gaze never leaving the Sec's luminous eyes. "To bring the eyes of so many to your activities—would not the Pykes prefer to remain…unseen?"

The Jedi lifted a holorecorder. Above it, an image flickered to life, revealing a corpse: an unfortunate Twi'lek named Ferrik-Len, spread-eagle and pierced through by a decorative spire. Even as a hazy image, the incongruity of high, clean mercantile plazas and pampered citizenry clashed obscenely against the filthy, blood-stained figure.

A crime lord's murder was hardly newsworthy. But the Pyke's decision to display the man prominently across Monument Plaza and slice the image into various advertisement feeds to parade the fact…

That had been unexpected. The Black Sun's response had been swift and violent.

The Sec slipped the spice-reed into his mouth again, but the smoke merely curled there, drifting up to blur the bright purple of his eyes.

Minutes slid by.

Silman repressed a shudder when an addict crawled across the stone slabs to touch his robe's embroidered hem, but a Pyke guard moved forward to kick the rough-furred creature away. It gave a pained canine yelp and subsided into the spice-hazed shadows.

"The Pykes know the power of the Jedi, yes," Jorn finally replied. "But what power do the Jedi hold among the Pyke's chosen alliances?"

The Jedi Master remained still; the holorecorder's image continued to rotate in the waiting silence. Jorn turned the spice-reed between grey-plated fingers, vivid gaze fixed on Sifo-Dyas'.

"What greater power do the Pykes expect these alliances to offer?" Sifo-Dyas said, voice still mild, as if they were discussing the weather. "It would not be wise to rest heavily on presumptions, or even tales of...legends."

Silman noted the Jedi Master's careful nuance.

The Sec settled his reed across the lap of a spice-dazed Togruta slave girl and, for a moment, seemed to observe the Jedi with an appreciative nod. But then he leaned forward, one hand curled around the heavy stone of his throne. "The Pykes have found favor where the Pykes prefer. There is nothing for you here, Jedi."

A rub of unease, red-tinted like the spice-smoke, shot between Silman's shoulders. The haze seemed to deepen, burning his lungs and blurring the Pyke's court into nothing more than an odd, half-forgotten impression.

But why did it all seem only a memory?

There'd been a call—a discreet chirp of the Jedi's comm that had rattled through the stillness between the Sec and the Jedi Master.

No, this was all deception—he and the Jedi were no longer on Oba Diah. The Jedi had been called to Felucia by his Council.

Pain lanced through Silman's body, bright and hot.

But why would he go to Felucia? As the Supreme Chancellor's voice for the negotiations, Silman should've stayed, should've continued the dialogue with the Pyke Syndicate. There was too much at risk. Surely the Jedi knew that an all-out war in the Undercity was more important than a few painted reptiles rattling their spears?

But the Jedi insisted, had gripped his shoulder and muttered, like some madman, "Be careful. We are being hunted."

Perhaps the odd man had sniffed a bit too deeply in the Pyke's vaulted court; once aboard the ambassadorial shuttle, the Jedi had even turned his sharp gaze on Silman. "Remember this, Silman. All is deception."

Were all Jedi this mad? Silman had tucked away his complaints, but made a mental note to address the Chancellor on the effectiveness of Jedi in matters of negotiation.

Until the moment their shuttle was hit.

He tasted blood and heard screaming, but he couldn't distinguish his own raw voice from the ship's dying shriek.

He could still see, though.

The blurred sands of the moon, pale as his last woman's thighs, filled the viewport in front of him and without thinking, his fingers clenched desperately around the co-pilot's steering yolk.

Beside him hunched the useless shell of the Jedi, stained red—so they bleed and die just like the rest of us—

He yanked, felt the wetness of blood between his fingers—nose up nose UP—as the yolk slipped from his grasp.

A horizon appeared in the viewport, black as the Underworld. The sensors' shrieks ended with a rattling roar; sound exploded against his mind.

Surely he was dead.

Spice. Silman could still smell it; still reeked of it.

"Silman."

Something shook his body, then a crack like lightning shot through his veins, and he gasped for breath.

"Open your eyes."

The voice was familiar, but strangled by pain and something else.

"Now, Silman!"

It was an effort that cost him more pain than he'd ever thought to bear, but he followed the order; a discolored blur hovered over him, took shape, sharpened into the once-dead Jedi's face, all edged in bright blue and dark shadow. Silman wondered if he'd been wrong—maybe Jedi don't die.

But blood ran in clotted rivulets down the other man's face; his hair was streaked with it and his robes were damp and heavy. The Jedi's lightsaber, alight and humming, cast him in that vivid blue and painted his blood black against his pallid skin.

"They will come, Silman. The Jedi will come for you."

Time and space drifted, shifting like the pale sands he'd seen before, and he wondered whatever happened to that woman. He'd enjoyed her company.

"Silman!"

The Jedi shook him, and the pain that lanced through his body sent him heaving to his side. But the Jedi wouldn't leave him be, and in a crushing grip, he held Silman's jaw and forced him to meet his wild-eyed gaze. "Tell them!"

The Jedi shook him again, and hells, it hurt.

"Remember, Silman. All is deception."