Sacrifices

Chapter Seven

Cruel and Kind

"Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf."

Orson Scott Card

"So where are we?" Caz asked, walking up behind Canaan. The darker haired young man jumped and turned, his face twisted into a surprised expression worthy of a holonet meme and Caz had to suppress a chuckle. After all those years of Jedi training one would think Canaan would be a bit harder to sneak up on.

Then again Canaan should have expected something like this. Caz hadn't been joking when he said that he would not let him come alone and, well if Canaan was going to give him such a prime opportunity to make mischief...

"The Lake country."

"Thank you captain obvious." Caz droned, "I meant any idea what time or dimension?"

Canaan shrugged and looked around. "Well given how much it hasn't changed from the place we know, I'd say sometime within the last fifty years give or take."

"That's better. Are we in the hell dimension?"

Canaan walked over to an antique table nestled against the wall of the long hall. Almost comically he took a swipe at a vase resting on top.

"I guess that answers that question." He said, watching it wobble. Canaan had told him enough about the rules of the dark world to know that, had they of been in any other reality, his hand would have passed through it with no more effect then an insect's breath.

A darkness assaulted his lungs. Caz looked up and gave a racking shiver. "Did you feel that?"

It was a rhetorical questions. Sometimes there were places and people so evil, even non force sensitives would have been on edge around them. Most of the time places like that wound up as part of a morbid guided tour geared towards tourist. The beings usually found themselves as the scum of some underworld crime ring.

But the galaxy wasn't always so lucky.

"Oh yeah," Canaan said, following Caz's lead and drawing his lightsaber.

Canaan was not looking at him; his gaze was locked on a door about half way down the hall towards the door to the main entrance.

The Force was steeped in a quiet darkness that did not belong here amongst such a place of peace. It perforated everything with the stench of flesh rotting in a pool of fetid water, and underneath it was the violent strokes of someone fighting for their lives deep within, their struggles unable to break the calm surface. Caz knew the drowning man. He had sat on the Jedi council since Caz's mother was a child and had eventually become one of the most respected members of it.

Pity. Apparently Anakin Skywalker, in whatever world and whatever form, was unable to do anything half-assed. Within the Force Vader was the photo negative of Master Skywalker; just as chaotic, yet in every place Caz expected to see light there was only darkness, and where he expected to find strength, he only saw a sad, pathetic remnant of a man.

Caz glanced around, taking in the entirety of the situation. The dead bodies on the floor were crumpled at odd angles so it was difficult to get a read on who…oh by the gods. No wonder Padmé looked so horrified. It was hard to say at this angle and Caz had only seen Sola in some old holos that he really hadn't cared much about, but there was no denying who the freshest corps was.

"Oh fuck." Canaan whispered, drawing Caz's attention to the final piece to this morbid puzzle. There, in the shadow of the doorway was a single small figure.

Figures. Lori always did have a penchant for falling ass first into some of the most fucked up situations, particularly if she thought she had any chance of helping someone she cared about but it was a bit surprising to find out that she had started this early.

There was a silence a half dozen measured breaths long as Vader stared, emotions swarming in a torrent as he stared at the wife and child he had long thought dead. A kind of twisted part of Caz would have been interested to see how it all played out. It could be entertaining in a day-time holo drama kind of way.

But there was too much at stake here. If one of the kids were in trouble it was only a matter of time before the rest followed her. The situation was salvageable—maybe—but all chance of that went out the view port once Vader learned that he and his wife had accidentally hit the triple word score with their bedroom games.

Someone was going to have to do something and it couldn't be Canaan. His saber skills might not have been as bad as his piloting, but he wouldn't last long against Vader. That was part of the reason Caz had insisted on following him during his games of transdementional hopscotch: for all the time he hadn't spent in the temple growing up, he fought a good measure more then those his age who had spent all their lives under Jedi tutelage.

"Get them out of here!" He said to Canaan, not even bothering to keep his voice down. This brought Vader's attention out of whatever thoughts he had bouncing in that helmet of his and, for the first time, he realized the Jedi in the room. Good.

Vader's hesitation gave Canaan just enough time to rush forward and scoop Lori up, pulling Padmé with him back towards the ship. Vader rared, causing the child to hold on even tighter to Canaan. He reached out with the Force, intending to push Canaan against the wall, but Caz was quicker. Just as Canaan and the girls cleared the doorway, he used the Force to create an intangible barrier across the threshold.

Finding it, Vader screamed in rage and pressed harder, willing himself to push through it no matter what it cost. Caz subtly added a few layers to the barrier, making it clear that the dark lord would have to face him before he had a shot at his prize.

"Leaving the party so soon?" Caz teased in an attempt to buy some measure of time for Canaan to get them to safety.

"I will not let you take them from me!"

The pure bone chilling anger pouring off him in waves was enough to send Caz's stomach noting in true fear for the first time that night, but he would not let the emotion to penetrate any deeper then the shallowest corners of his mind. Fear leads to hate, hate leads to anger, and anger leads to a whole bunch of stupid ass mistakes he just couldn't afford right now.

"I think that ship has sailed." Caz said, his lips twitching into a morbid little smile as he motioned to Sola's dead body. "I kind of don't see Padmé wanting to renew her vowels after this."

With a wave his his hand, Vader tried to send Caz flying, little doubt so that he could chase after his panicking paramour. Castor, however, was faster. He threw up enough of a Force shield to protect himself from the worst of the damage as his back hit the Favki marble. Dark eyes blinked, momentarily stunned with the impact.

Before he could regain his composure, Vader reached out, grabbing him around the neck and lifting. Spots formed in front of his eyes but that was alright, as long as he could think...as long as he could remember...

How long ago had his mother explained it to him, the trick to breaking a Force choke? Long enough he could not remember the context at the very least. According to her it wasn't difficult. The grip was an extension of his hand, so it worked the same way. With the right pressure in the right place, he could manipulate the ligaments to let go and even if Vader's anatomy was more on the animatronic side, the principle still held. All he had to do was find the right switch and...

Sweet, sweet breath, oh how he had missed thee!

But there was no time for celebration. That cocky attitude perhaps wasn't the best tactic in this situation. Vader didn't fight like Master Skywalker, that was for sure. Anakin was more of a melee fighter. Hard attacks in rapid succession would overwhelm his opponents while Vader played a whole new ballgame.

Caz had assumed that, because of the suit, Vader would be much slower. Not quite. Apparently there were many disabilities the Force could compensate for. Vader's attacks were just as fast as his light side counter part's but infinitely more vicious and controlled. Each blow was measured to do the most damage with the shortest amount of effort as if he were trying to save energy.

He smiled, his dirty blond hair falling into his eyes. Vader had tipped his hand.

He may use the Force to assist his mobility but that still took more stamina then even he could maintain for too long. Besides, with half his body burned away, so wouldn't half his connection to the Force. If Caz could survive long enough to keep the fight going long enough then the crispy old bugger would tire and make mistakes.

But that was the trick, wasn't it? Surviving. Perhaps if Caz had been a master of Shimsho he would have had a chance, but that lightsaber form had never really came easy to him. He didn't have the patience for it and the point of this fight was not to fight. It was just a distraction...and one that had gone on long enough.

He couldn't beat Vader in a straight fight, not now, but that didn't mean he had to lose. Almost ten years spent amongst bounty hunters had taught him one thing: playing fair rarely got you paid and could often get you killed.

Caz adjusted his grip, letting his left hand reaching for the blaster at his hip and fired as he blocked Vader's saber with his own.

The stench of melted duraplast and singed wires burned his nose as he jumped backwards. The Dark Lord fell to his knees harder then a downed worshyr tree as his the rhythmic sound of his breathing took on a pathetic, laboring cadence.

Caz smiled, a full on twisted smile as he moved to walk away. "Would you excuse the pun if I told you that you're only half the challenge I was expecting?"

So maybe turning his back on a Sith was a bad idea...

It took a fraction of a second for Caz to realize that the sound had switched back to regular, measured, breath as the redundant systems in Vader's suit switched on. Before he could turn, a large stone column collided with his back, sending him flying face first through two stone walls.

He didn't have time to even acknowledge the pain radiating out from almost every inch of him or even wonder at the possible internal damage. Even Canaan should have the ship ready by now and they ALL needed to get the hell off this rock and soon.

"Okay, three-fourths. You and your fragile ego." Caz said, getting up. Through the Force he could feel the heat of Vader's saber and knew what was going to happen next. There were precious nanoseconds before Vader closed the distance between them and Caz was going to use every one of them to his advantage.

Reaching down, he pulled out a second saber. How long had he been trying to tell Canaan that being predictable was the kiss of death in a saber fight? Good thing for him, he prided him self on his impracticability.

Using two lightsabers had never been his favorite tactic. Of course, that was probably to be expect after accidentally giving himself second degree plasma burns while trying to prefect the reverse grip. Even if he was any good at it, he wouldn't have used it now. Ahsoka Tano used Djem So as her preferred style so there was no way her ex-master wouldn't be familiar with it.

What he wouldn't be quite so familiar with were the rarer forms of combat associated with a saberstaff. Caz slammed the heals of his lightsabers together and twisted, forcing a system of magnetic ridges to click into place. Between his Force shielding and the added length of the saberstaff, Caz had a slight advantage but not even he was arrogant enough to think it would last long. As Anakin or Vader, the man in front of him was notoriously good at finding the weakness in a opponent and the sad truth was that Caz wasn't quite a master at a weapon.

Time was running out. Quickly.

Caz took a deep breath, steadying himself as all the stories Canaan had told him over the years of this world and the monsters in it came pouring in his mind. Vader's life support wasn't his only weakness. There was another but Caz would only have one shot and chances were high that it would come with a price.

Then so be it

He reached into the Force and pushed. Vader slid back several meters but did not lose his footing. The distraction was enough though. In a single, fluid motion, he disconnected his sabers and used the Force to flip a small switch inside the hilt of each of them. Blue blades lengthened and fell slack into twin lightwhips.

Avoiding the new weapons should require more dexterity then Vader had. Lightwhips, however, were rare weapons, even amongst the more adventurous of the Jedi, and so it had fallen on Caz to teach himself which meant he had far from mastered their use.

Caz lashed out with his left whip and, as expected, Vader blocked it with a single twitch of his own red saber. At the same instant, the young Jedi lashed out with his right, the superheated plasma coil wrapped around the Dark Lord's prosthetic legs, slicing through durasteel alloy as if it were butter. Vader fell, hitting the ground with echoing thump.

The move was not without consequence, however. As the whip crippled the Dark Lord, the tip flung backwards, cutting a deep, cauterized gouge into space just under his ribs. Caz gasped and almost dropped his weapon in pain, instinctively wanting to cradle his wound but the fight wasn't over and he could not afford to let his guard down even for a second.

Vader laid on the ground, his arms reaching out like the undead creatures that were the subject of a few too many holoprogrames. Unfortunately there were two key differences between those monsters and the one in front of him. They were considerably more stupid and less dangerous then Vader and, the situation actually allowed their deaths. Things weren't so simple now.

Caz switched off one weapon and put the other back in standard lightsaber mode as he walked towards the dark lord, ignoring the maelstrom of debris Vader sent towards him. With a single swipe of his blade he severed Vader's remaining limbs and then slammed the heel of his saber against the back of his head. Even with the Force behind the blow it would not be enough to kill the Sith but it should be more then enough to knock him out for a while.

Caz paused for a moment, staring at the black figure at his feet. He supposed he should feel sorry for the creature, but he didn't. In another life Master Skywalker was a very respected Jedi, a paragon of good and all that Jazz...but now he was just pathetic. It was all of his own making of course, most things in one's life are. Vader could bitch about it and blame others all he wished but the truth was that his misery was of his own making. The worst part was that it wasn't just him he had damned with his choice.

Vader deserved all this hell and more but Caz couldn't be the one to deliver it. There was too much at stake for him to break script, as much joy as he would find in the act.

"You didn't kill him, did you?" Canaan asked as Caz ascended the ramp onto Padmé's ship.

Canaan was distracted and far too stressed for Caz's liking even if he understood the reason. The kids were bound to be freaked and Caz doubted Padmé was taking all this well. Putting empathetic Canaan on a ship with all that chaos wasn't an ideal solution.

Oh well. It had to be done.

"That would be counter productive," he smirked, trying to hide the pain in his side.

"How much time did you buy us?" Canaan asked, leading him down the hall way to the cockpit. The ship was idling yet Caz could tell something was not right.

"As long as it takes for a stormtrooper to find him, which could be any second."

"Great. we've got other problems."

What you can't find the ignition switch? Caz mentally chastised himself. That was unkind but the pain was making him irritable. "What else is new?"

"Preflight checks have the rear shields completely down and the hyperdrive is iffy at best...and that's with me patching it up the best I could."

"Which means?"

"We might make it into hyperspace, but after that it's anyone's guess."

Before Caz could as much as sigh in exasperation, the ship's sensor array went crazy.

"Looks like Vader's been found," Caz muttered, slamming himself into the pilot's seat and taking off. "Get back there and do what you can."

Canaan was gone before the words has finished falling from his lips. Good. They really didn't have time to waste.

Maybe leaving Vader unconscious was a bad idea in hindsight. At least if he were awake he could command the TIE fighters not to blast this bucket of bolts to bits; not until after he had boarded and grabbed Padmé and the kids.

Caz spun the ship in a barrel roll to avoid laser fire. The artificial gravity kept everyone in place, but it was obviously a cheep generator. The centripetal force pushed down heavily on him and he couldn't help but scream at the way it agitated his already throbbing side.

"Any luck?" Caz called over the intercom.

"One minute..."

The ship heaved as a laser bolt hit his side, taking out their communications array...at least it wasn't something they actually needed. This time.

"We may not have a minute."

"No good. Not even I could patch this shit together without a lot more tools and even more time."

Well this was quickly becoming the worst vacation ever.

"Take a seat and make sure everyone's strapped in tight."

"You got a way out of this?" Canaan sounded half surprised and half frightened, as if he had an idea what Caz was going to do and yet was terrified he would actually do it.

Too damn bad it was what needed to be done.

"I think I know a short cut." Caz sighed, unsure if the intercom was still on.

Taking a deep breath, he placed his hands on the dashboard, reaching into himself and grabing onto the power that had dominated his life; that had been born within him. If Canaan's ability allowed him to travel between tiles of time and space, Caz's was dominion was the gout between them; the ethereal real of dreams and death, between existence and non.

He felt for it, wrapping his Force signature around it and pulled hard, bringing the word to them. It was a dangerous move; the only practice he had was to cast his consciousness and that of others into that world. He had never brought it to him, let alone when he was already so wounded.

It was as if he were ripping the fabric of reality. The air shifted and tensed with all the pressure of a black whole until it became so suffocating, the vary idea of breathing became painful.

And then the ship landed, not quite gracefully as he would have liked, but at this point he would take what he would get.

"What. Did. You. Do?" Canaan hissed over his shoulder as Caz slumped into the pilot's chair.

"What I had to." Caz said in a mild tone. He licked his lips and tasted copper. Great. Nosebleeds were an early sign of Force exhaustion and that was far from fun.

Canaan had to have noticed but Caz's stare kept him from saying anything.

"I'm going to go see if we lost anything important during the crash," he muttered, exasperated. Caz didn't call after him. Truth was, he needed a few moments rest before he tried to send them back and he wouldn't get that with Canaan hovering, worrying about the toll this trip would take.

He took a quick trip to the fresher and wiped his face with a few splashes worth of cool water, figuring that if the worry wort didn't have to look at it, he would be less inclined to annoy Caz with his fretting.

On his way back he passed the open door to the main cabin. All three children were nestled in the bed lying quiet and Caz assumed they were asleep. Vaguely he wondered if Padmé had drugged them—not many children their age could sleep after that level of excitement—or if they were just pretending. With them you never really knew.

But the kids weren't what caught his attention. Padmé sat in the dark, her back slumped against the hull.

"Are you okay?" he asked, leaning against the door frame.

She looked up at him, her eyes dead and defeated in a way that seemed almost impossibly out of character for the strong fiery woman he knew her to be.

"Right. Dumb question."

Contrary to what some might think of him, he wasn't a completely heartless ass. He was as empathetic as the next Jedi, so he took no joy in her pain but he didn't really know what to say. The whole telling people what they wanted or needed to hear was more up Canaan's alley.

He fidgeted, trying not to jostle his side while deciding if he should at least try and say something or if it was better if he left her to her misery in silence. Before he could make up his mind, Padmé decided for him.

"How could Anakin... how could..." she whispered as she rubbed the Japor snippet hanging around her neck, still in shock. The normally strong woman was broken, shattered in ways Caz could only imagine, and yet she wasn't as utterly destroyed as he had feared. Some small measure of strength still remained.

Caz knelt down despite the pain until he was eye level with her. That should help right? The Force was whispering to him that this would not be an easy conversation and it would be even worse if the harsh truth he would have to say wound up sounding condescending.

"He's not Anakin any more," he said gently.

Padmé's face snapped to his and for a moment Caz was reminded of his mother on the rare occasion when she her world starts crashing around her: anger and fear and a medley of about a dozen other emotions all flashed at once. Underneath it all, however, was a base of recognition and acceptance just waiting to break the surface.

"He doesn't think of himself as Anakin," he continued, his tone never changing, "That's how the Sith work. He can't. The good person he was would never be able to face what he has done and so Vader commits more and more atrocities in order to bury Anakin...to bury his conscience. After all, the only way to silence a cricket is to step on the damn thing."

"Maybe if I..." she begin and Caz could feel the weight of her words without her saying them. Maybe she could help him. Maybe she could save him.

"Maybe," he agreed softly, "but would be ever be able to look at him again and not see what he just did? And not hate him for it? He would sense that and it would just be one more thing he could not face."

"I love Anakin," she said but it was almost like she was convincing herself in some desperate attempt not to see him for what he's become and what she now felt because of it.

"You can love someone and hate them at the same time. The real question is, are you willing to risk your children's lives because of it? Are you willing to expose them to that? Growing up as a Sith is no easy thing and in the end there can only be two. Eventually they would be pitted against each other and only would survive. Before that though, it would be hell. Maybe they would be strong enough to keep some measure of goodness hidden away or maybe they would cross paths with someone they loved enough to abandon the dark...but maybe not."

There was a beat of horrified silence as Padmé let his words sink in.

"He would never—" but she was unable to finish. There was no point lying anymore, even to herself.

"What do I do? What can I do?"

Even though the question was rhetorical, Caz took a deep breath. Now the Force was telling him, tell her now. This was the hard part. The part she would hate him for and that Canaan would never be able to do despite how important it was.

This is the part that would break her into a million tinny pieces...and save all of them.

"Padmé, you're going to have to separate the children."

"No," she snapped, "I—I can't. I just can't."

Her eyes were wide and sad, begging him to understand, to let her continue on in her ignorance. But he couldn't. Sometimes life asked impossible things but they still had to be done. Trying to change that only ever made things worse and that was something he knew Padmé really couldn't handle.

Caz didn't know what would happen if she refused, but it wasn't hard to guess and what would happen to the children after was even easier. Vader already had one extremely Force sensitive child under his care and the last thing this galaxy needed was three more. Simple probability dictates that at least one of them would fall (likely more) and it would be left to the others to clean up. Maybe Vader would see what happened to his child and try to stop it, or maybe not. Maybe he was too far gone for that kind of thing. Either way it would be too late.

"If there's one thing Vader and Anakin have in common, it's that they can't let go. He knows you're alive now, and he will not stop until he has you in his grasps. Do you want to expose them to that? To always running and hiding and fighting? You could run as far and fast as you can, but together they are like a beacon. their powers feed on each other, making them louder and stronger in the Force. All it would take is one slip up and Vader could sense them half a galaxy away. That's what happened today; how he found you."

It was something few Jedi knew, even in his world. In the Force, blood calls to blood and attachment creates pathways between family. With strong enough force wielders, connected in just the right way, they could combine their abilities and use those pathways in unimaginable ways. That's how he sliced into Canaan's power to follow him.

But doing that subtly in a world where there were thousands of Force userswere revered is a hell of a lot different form the antics of overexcited children in a world when they are all hunted and slaughtered if they were lucky.

"You don't know what you're asking of me."

"Yes i do. I'm asking you to shatter what is left of you small, broken family so that one day there may be enough of it left to put back together. It's not an easy thing. Trust me, I know better then anyone what it's like to both the one with the hammer and the piece set adrift, but it's the only way."

"The only way? What right do you have to demand this of me? Neither you nor Canaan have given me any reason to trust you beyond that one little glimpse of a world you won't explain. I don't even know who you are! Why should I listen to you?"

Caz leaned his head back, suddenly exhausted. It was more then a fair question; one he should probably answer, but he didn't know how. That was one of the difficult parts about already having lived this story—the one she's just on the first chapters of. If he gave her too many spoilers it would change the ending (and it may be selfish, but he was kind of partial to the way it all worked out) but she needed to trust them and that sure as hell wouldn't happen if he told her nothing.

"Canaan doesn't like to mix worlds. He tells the people in ours as little as possible about what is going on in yours and vice versa. In his mind it's cruel. There's no point for people in our world to feel guilty for things this world's counterpart has or hasn't done and it if you can't have that kind of life, why taunt you with it. But the thing is that sometimes being cruel is the kindest thing.

"I can't tell you how the worlds are connected because then you might do something by accident that stops it all and I've read enough science fiction novels to know how that turns out. If you stop it, our world doesn't exist and then you would have no place to see to keep you from giving up and, well, that would just be a big mess. As for who we are…"

Caz whispered the truth to her behind a cupped palm and moved back, watching her expression with a twisted form of curiosity. She stared at the kids for a long moment before looking at him, her eyes far older then anyone being under a million had any right to be.

"I'm not surprised."

"Eh," Caz said with a humorless little laugh, "I didn't figure you would be."

"Listen, we should have a few minutes before Canaan gets back and i have to hear him bitch about my big mouth. Do you want to hear a story or two from our world?"

Caz was glad she took a long moment to consider his offer because despite the conversational nature of the offer, it was still a big deal. Canaan was a moron to assume that she would be the same as his other friend in this world; they would say yes but hearing the good would just make everything worse. That didn't necessarily meant that the same held true for Padmé. A bit of escapism might be just what she needed to give her the strength for what came next.

"Please." She said, her voice painfully quiet.

"Alright, here's a good one. When the triplets were about nineteen, Leia wanted to go on a date without Anakin giving the guy the third degree before hand and she got Lori to stage a distraction so she could sneak out. Lori took a box of contraceptives and hid them in her room (don't worry, they weren't hers) where she knew Anakin would find them…"

There was nothing Canaan could do to fix the ship but he knew that before he even started. That was the thing about clunkers, once one thing goes, everything pretty much follows and not even Canaan could do much without heavy equipment and more time than they had.

Besides, with Caz's ability the ship only had to land.

What a mess. Canaan knew better then most what Force exhaustion looked like and Caz was in beginnings of a bad episode. The best thing for him now would be for Canaan to get him back home as quickly as possible so that the idiot could pass out for at least the next few days, as disconnected from the Force as possible.

He wasn't stupid though. As much as he wanted to protect Caz, he knew that to get off this world, Caz was going to have to use his ability again. He had known that the moment they got here but he knew better then to say anything. For someone who could be so secretive at times, Caz's mind was remarkably straight forward. If something needed to be done, then that's what he would do and hearing someone bitch about it would only irritate him.

All Canaan could do to help was take as much time as he could "fixing" the ship and so he walked, putting one foot in front of another in an effort to make his mind go blank. in an effort to forget just what was at stake for them all.

He tried to remember the stories he had heard of this place, long before he had stepped foot on Motris. Not so long ago there had been three beings of tremendous power who lived here, isolated from the temptations of the world. The thing about isolation is that it can make those desires so much more potent. The Son, the embodiment of the darkside slew his sister, his father, and in the process lost his own life in an attempt to leave.

This place was a conduit of the Force itself, and so those beings had influenced the world as much as it had influenced them. Canaan had always gotten the impression that it was a wild place now. that without anyone to control it, this strange little planet had lost all since of rules. The stories had spoken of how the sessions would change dependent on the time of day, of how order and peace followed the sister and sudden dangerous storms were left in the son's wake.

Now, however, it was different. Places weren't defined by order and chaos or darkness and ligh. Now the fabric of reality warped and changed, reacting to the thoughts and feelings of those who visit. Nothing was impossible but predicting the consequences of that truth.

The first time Caz brought him here, the boys had built a temple of stone as easy as if they had been playing with children's blocks. When they were done and the structure reached higher then the Jedi temple on Couriscaunt, they rested in the shade of a tall, strange tree, spent and satisfied in their construction.

It had been Canaan who let out that single satiated breath, more content in seeing his little brother whom he had thought dead for years then in the completion of his task. That gentile breath that would barely have moved a feather in the living world pealed away at the temple like it was no more then a sandcastle caught in a summer wind. stone fell into sand and sand danced into wind until there was nothing left, not even the bedrock on which they had built it.

That was where Canaan was going now. He didn't like the idea of exploring with out Caz, who seemed to know this place better then home, so that was where he was going now. The one place he was particularly familiar and it had the added bonus of being just close enough to the crash that he should still be able to see it.

The meadow was not what he had expected, strewn with the rubble from a large toppled structure—the Father's monastery he supposed—and over run with foliage. the sky was split in half, on the left the blue of a clear summer's day and the right a calm night complete with a breath taking view of moons and stars.

In the dividing line between night and day was a small spring. The stones guarding it off from the rest of the area were a bit too organized and neat to be random but there had been no one here for years.

He stared at the water, entranced in the way it seemed both clouded and clear; both thick and viscus like oil and lighter then air. Canaan almost found himself reaching in to touch it, to feel the texture, to taste the intoxicating fullness and the all consuming hunger he knew it would bring, despite how many times he had been warned against eating or drinking of this place.

A child's laugh snapped his attention back to the here and now. Canaan blinked several times and looked around, afraid that one of the children had sneaked off the ship and followed him, but there was no one there.

"...just me…."

"...our world…"

"...peace…"

"...no more voices, no more darkness…"

"...we've earned this…"

"...new life…"

Canaan cupped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the roar of the whispers carried on the still wind, but it only seemed to make them louder. The force of the words only pressed down harder until his legs buckled under the weight of the vertigo they imposed upon him. He sank down to his knees and rocked forward until his forehead rested against the cool ground, throbbing.

Although hazy and indistinct, Canaan knew those voices. But from where? He tried to put a face to them to distract himself from the massive headache being drilled into his skull, but it was impossible, like trying to name a holomovie you had only seen the advertisements for from just a few poor quality clips.

As suddenly as it began, the wind died and the voices quieted. Shaking, he got up and looked around, not really expecting anything to have changed but it had. The water from the spring had separated, clear from the murky, the dark from the light, and each carved their own little stream into the dirt. The streams joined where his forehead had been, pooling at his feet, the water forming a solid crystal structure.

He wanted to run screaming from this crazy place, but Caz had warned him enough times about the difference between listening to what the Force was telling him and only hearing it echoing his own desires back to him. One would always lead him to the best possible scenario for everyone and the other would only give him the justification for his own greed and cowardice. This was one of those times. If Mortis was an embodiment of the Force, then it was making it abundantly clear that whatever this thing was, it was for him.

Canaan swallowed back a generous amount of bile and picked the object up, examining it in the combined light of the sun and moon. It was a holocron, but not like one he had ever seen before. Jedi holocrons tended to be fashioned in geometric shapes and a light shade of blue, but not always. The Sith traditionally made theirs in red pyramids.

This one was a violet sphere, just small enough to fit in his hand. He could see the inner workings, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not open it; he could not give it the right energy to unleash whatever it wished to say.

It was well past time to get to the ship; Caz had had all the rest they could afford. Canaan shoved the holocron into his pocket and took off, more then ready to be out of this creepy, rule-less place.

When he got back, Caz was still sitting in the cockpit, his feet resting on the control panel, leaning back as far as the chair would allow, resting his eyes as if he hadn't a care in this galaxy or the next. Canaan gave a soundless little laugh at the sight and went to shake in on the shoulder to wake him form his dozing. Caz's only reply was to move his hand in an attempt to swat at him and It was then that he first noticed the large gash burnt across the younger man's side.

"Castor!"

He jerked awake and looked at Canaan before looking down. He just looked back at Canaan, a sad and cocky half-smile plastered across his face and raised an eyebrow, silently asking if Canaan was going to say anything.

After a moment Canaan just sighed. there was no point. Caz was physically unable to understand why this kind of crazy shit scared Canaan so much, particularly if there was nothing to be done about it at the moment. But still a little bit of empathy wouldn't hurt. The last thing Canaan wanted was to lose him again to some stupid, arrogent mistake.

"You find anything interesting on your walk?"

Canaan rolled his eyes. Nice attempt to change the subject. "Oh just a holocron I can't open."

Caz gave a little laugh, sitting up to reach the controls. Canaan chose to ignore the younger man's flinch of pain. Now was neither the time nor the place for a fight...besides, it's not like Caz would listen anyway.

"Ever think maybe it wasn't meant for you? Maybe you're just the message boy."

"What?"

Caz shrugged and adjusted a few knobs without looking at him. "You ready to go or do you want to look for more answers?"

"I'm good." He said, more then ready to get the hell out of here. "The real question is are you?"

"Hn...do I have a choice?"

Without waiting for an answer, he took a deep breath. It felt as if all the air in the ship constricted as he breathed in, the pressure filling the cabin and, in that single eternal second before he exhaled, it seemed as if the pressure would suffocate them all. And then he breathed out and the pressure abated both all at once and slower then one could imagine. With every molecule of air the escaped his lips, the ship shook and groaned responding to the way the very fabric of reality to scream in protest as they returned to the dark world, the place of hell and rules and pain.

When the moment passed, Canaan could see the dark green of a luscious forest planet beneath them. It was not Mortis so he could only assume that it was the same planet Padmé had run from. Caz would have done nothing less.

Caz stood still, head still bowed over the instruments. Canaan steeped forward, sensing deep within him that something was wrong. Before he could cross the cockpit, however, Caz looked up, his face confirming Canaan's fears and so much worse.

He smile the self satisfied smile of someone who had been far more unsure of the possibility of his actions then he had previously let on. But the faint tint of pink on his teeth tainted the victory and it wasn't the only thing to do so. Blood trickled from his eyes like tears and his upper lip was painted with the same substance. This was bad, so so very bad

The smile lasted for less then a second before Caz's eyes rolled back into his head and he lost consciousness, body falling to the floor as if every fiber of his being were made of neuranium.

"Caz!" he screamed, Force sprinting just enough to catch him.

Holding on tight to Caz's limp body, Canaan let his own power fill him and let go of this world. Padmé would have to be on her own from here but she was strong. it would be enough. it would have to be.

Sorry for the delay guys, I know I suck for leaving it as suck a cliff hanger. Without going into too many details, there was a death in the family that kind of put me off writing for a while. I promise you I have not abandoned this story. But I am back.

In the next chapter you'll find out what Caz told Padme and it will be the last you see of the "good" world and those from it for a while. I wanted to include the big reveal here but thematically this chapter got so far away from me. I know the end is a little psychedelic, but it's laying important ground work and is an anomaly.