#axhale

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London.  It's one of the few scenes where they're not fighting... yet.

Later that same scene:

Axhale, sweetie, I know your twin brother gets more attention and I'm sorry about that.  But this outfit is just...

It's just...  I think we need to have a serious conversation about how Prince Valiant this is and--

Axhale waited with a Jedi's patience.  He knew Achai had landed hours ago, and that he would arrive soon.  He couldn't help himself, drawn to his twin brother by a power greater than either of them.  

Sure enough, he spotted the speeder in the distance, winding along the Alderaanian roads.  He pulled up next to Axhale's small encampment and cut the engine, stepping off the machine before leaning against it.  

The contrast between them still boggled Axhale.   Achai wore the darkness he served on him like a shroud, all black and gray attire and the rebreather that turned his voice mechanical when finally he spoke.  

"I have business here, brother.  And I don't have a lot of time to bother with you."

Dusting his hands off, Axhale rose from where he'd been meditating.  "I came to warn you, Achai.  The Luka Sene--"

Achai laughed, cutting him off mid-sentence.  "You think I'm not aware they've sent seekers out to find me?  Don't be an idiot, Axhale.  Every Miraluka who turns to the dark side risks their dogged pursuit.  Do you know how many of us there are now serving the Empire?  Not even our people, so peaceful and gentle, can avoid the power of the dark side."

"Dammit, Achai this is serious. Would you stop posturing for one moment to actually listen to me?"  Axhale frowned deeply and took a deep breath to stem the tide of anger he felt rising.  

In return, he expected more taunting from Achai, more mockery.  Yet the Sith just stood there, staring at his twin brother in contemplation.  For a moment, Axhale swore he saw the old Achai. The brother he had known in their childhood.  It was only a split second, and then he sneered.  

"You have nothing to say that I wish to hear.  Why are you even bothering to warn me? Why should you even care? If they manage to subdue me, you win.  Because they will not capture me, Axhale. I'll die before I let them take me back to Alpheridies."

Axhale believed him, even if it were the darkness in him talking.  Through Force sight he could see the dark tendrils wafting off of him like so much black smoke.  For so long he'd been steeped in it that Axhale might have given up completely, were it not for the little things.  The way Achai hesitated sometimes, or felt a brief stab of remorse that he swiftly buried beneath bravado.

"Because there is still good in you, Achai," he sighed, "And I will never give up on you.  And you know as well as I that if you won't let them take you, they'll just as soon destroy you."

Achai snorted, the sound distorted through his rebreather mask.  Swinging a leg around the body of the speeder, he started the engine and revved it.  "Thank you for the warning, Axhale.  But I belong to Bogan.  The Luka Sene will find that out if they ever get close enough to me to try anything."

Axhale exhaled softly and nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself until Achai was long gone, disappearing over a ridge.   "May they bring you back to Ashla, brother. Someday."

SWTORWrites: Prompt #10, family.

You were always so far away I know that pain And I won't run away Like I used to do 'Brother' - Alice in Chains 

Nar Shaddaa.  It was always on Nar Shaddaa that the two of them inadvertently ran into each other.  

Axhale felt his brother's presence long before Achai joined him at the railing overlooking the lower promenade.  They leaned against it together, mirroring each other in posture.  Axhale noted the differences between them, now.  As children one could barely tell them apart.  Their mother liked dressing them alike back then, keeping their hair with the same cut and length.

Now the effects of the dark side riddled Achai's countenance, ashen veins and pallid complexion compared to the healthier, light tan on his twin brother.  Axhale bore the scar over the right side of his face, crossing over the vestigial eye socket.  No matter how their mother might dress them or cut their hair now, they'd never mirror one another as they had back then.  

"You let both of us go, brother. Vith told me what you did."

Axhale shrugged his shoulders, "I had my reasons."

"They were going to send me to Belsavis, weren't they."

Axhale stood in silence, a glove creaked as he clenched his hand, then flexed his fingers.  That was all Achai needed to know the truth.  He nodded solemnly.  

"Thank you for that, brother."  

Oddly, he sounded sincere.   Axhale turned his head toward him.  "This makes us even, Achai.  From now on, neither of us owes the other."

The Sith smirked, hands gripping the rail a little more tightly as his anger abruptly rose and coiled around him.  "So it does, Ax, so it does.  Yet I cannot help but think there is something you are about to ask me.  I can sense it on the tip of your tongue.  You're just trying to figure out how to ask it."

"Malkirth was my former padawan, Chai."

"Lord Aegnas killed him. On orders from my master, Darth Arannek."

Some things never changed.  Such as the ability to finish sentences, or simply know what the other was about to ask and answer before they could.  Axhale nodded.  He didn't have to say why he wanted the names.  Achai already knew he wanted to bring both of them to justice.  Even if Achai felt it was more motivated by the desire for revenge.

"There is darkness in you, Ax. I can sense it.  You can't bring me to the Light. But you could join me here. I have a new family, one that would adopt you.  My master respects the power of the Miraluk--"

Axhale shook his head, chuckling as if Achai were joking.  It took everything not to lash out there, to remember that nearby at least two Hutt enforcers watched them carefully.  Because trouble always erupted when a Sith and a Jedi were in such close proximity.  

"Chai, I've already accepted that you will be forever lost to me.  It's time you accepted that you can't bring me over, too."

Achai let go of his anger then, exhaling softly as he sank against the railing.  "Damn your Jedi ideals, Ax. We belong together."

"Seems fate has decided it's not meant to be," Axhale replied.  

He watches them on the monitor, Sith and bounty hunter together and fast asleep.  Achai's head against Vith's shoulder, Vith's temple resting atop Achai's head.  If one knew nothing about them, they might come to innocuous conclusions.   

But Axhale knew better.  Understood the rage and hatred that consumed his twin brother.  But this he had a hard time comprehending.  Who was this bounty hunter to him?  Why did his chest tighten the moment they brought the recordings up, it wasn't the Sith way to remain unattached necessarily.   That his brother had a lover shouldn't have surprised him.

"That's how they've been for hours now," the trooper said, "Not even tried to escape."

"They know there's nothing they can do right now," Axhale said.  Moving them would be tricky, even with the bindings that made it difficult, if not impossible, for Achai to use the Force.