#aydiin

I wrapped my arms around her midsection, spreading both hands across her stomach. I could feel the movement inside and I laughed delightedly. She was radiant in her condition. There was a glow to her perfect red skin. Her sleepy expression was endearing. I pressed my lips to the top of her head. “A girl,” I muttered into her hair, “can you imagine? I don’t think anyone even remembers the last time there was a girl in my family. Poor thing, she’ll never have a date. Five older brothers, all Sith.”

She laughed. “And an over protective father with an army at his back.”

I turned her to face me and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “Let’s get some rest. You look exhausted. Why don’t I take the boys with me tomorrow? You can have a day to relax, no children involved. AJ can spend the day training with the guys, he loves that. Tikh can look after the twins and I’ll keep an eye on Aydiin and Aldryc at my office.”

When she laid her head against my chest I melted. It had been ten years since I married her and every day I loved her more.   “You spoil me.” She accused.

“No! Spoiling you would be if food and flowers mysteriously appeared here tomorrow. Or if you were carried off to a spa for a massage, or if while you were being carried off for a massage a beautiful – way too big – bath with jets was installed in the refresher downstairs… which are not at all things I already have set up for you of course, not at all.” I grinned at her.

“You,” she pressed her lips to my chest, “have gone mad,” another kiss, “with power.”

I shrugged, “What is the use in being one of the most powerful men in the Empire if you can’t spoil your wonderful wife?”

I took her hand and we went to bed together, both exhausted.

I woke screaming with pain. My hands and lips burned and from them the burning spread through my veins. Instinctively, I reached out for Salomi but drew my hands back wet with blood. Panic overcame me, dulling the pain. I drew back our blankets to find our bed soaked in her blood, a hole through her round stomach. Choking back tears I gazed up at the figure standing over us. It was cloaked in shadow and wielded a lightsaber such a deep red it was nearly black. I snatched my own red saber from the bedside table and lunged, the pain in my body made even more vivid now by my anger and heartache.

I passed through the figure. When I looked back it was gone.

From down the hall came a cry. The children.

It was to A.J’s room I ran. It had been his voice I heard, I was sure of it. I reached the door but could not pass through it. Some invisible barrier kept me from my oldest son. I threw my body and my rage against it but could not pass. I watched in horror. Inside the room I saw him, his training saber in hand; all calculated fury and disciplined style. He was my young warrior. He would conquer worlds one day. He had all the strength I hadn’t had when I was young, the strength I hoped I showed now. His battle with the shadow figure was brutal. Had it been anything else I would have been so proud. But it was no training. My son faced death and I could not reach him. My body burned and my mind screamed. “Alyxss!” I cried out, “A.J!”

The figure carried a deadly weapon. My son fought him only with a training blade. Still he fought the figure nearly to a standstill. I watched him raise the blade to strike what I knew would be a damaging, if not fatal, blow. I nearly cheered. He had done it. Then I saw his eyes widen. His fingers loosened around the hilt of the blade and it tumbled to the floor. A burning hole, as if from a blaster, emerged in the center of his forehead. After a long silent moment he fell limp to the floor.

I screamed, tearing at the barrier with my hands, wild with fury and pain. But it was useless. He was dead and still I could not reach him. I could not save him. But maybe I could help the other children, before the shadow beast reached them.

I met another barrier at the room Arin and Aleksandr shared. They insisted on keeping their rooms together, their twin-bond in the force was so strong they rarely liked to be separated. My mischievous boys. They were naturally powerful and easy going. They were my wild children. There was no battle to see this time. The twins stood in the center of the room, their small hands grasping each other. Flames licked their bodies. Lightning flashed from them. I could hear them shouting. They did not look afraid or in pain. Anger was on their faces. Still, they burned. I beat at the barrier. I swung my lightsaber at it. I threw the force against it. Nothing broke through. Eventually I fell to my knees and cried, unable to tear my eyes away. Until all that was left of my twins were ashes.

I knew without knowing why that it was Aydiin who was next. It took all my will to drag my weakening body from the floor. The pain was nearly overwhelming now. My veins burned. My chest burned.

No barrier stood in the doorway to Aydiin’s room. I didn’t consider why that might be before I plunged into the room to find him. The shadowed figure was already there. He stood far from Aydiin. The boy stood calmly, wreathed in white light. He watched the dark figure without fear, but also without anger. His face was serene. When the figure tried to approaching him it was repelled. It could not touch the light that surrounded him without being thrown back. The shadow made no sound but I could see that it was howling with rage. I moved to grab Aydiin, to get him far from the beast that had killed his brothers and mother. But I could get no closer than the shadow had. As soon as I reached the light around him I was thrown back away. The boy turned his attention from the enemy to me and shook his head, his face still an emotionless mask. Then he was gone.

I knew that my family was lost. I knew they would all be taken from me. And still I moved towards Aldryc’s room. My youngest boy I knew was lost to me. But I had to try to do something. I had to try to stop the force destroying my family.

I had been prepared for death, as much as one could be. I was not prepared for what I saw. The black figure held Aldryc’s small form. The boy squirmed in its grasp. I raised my blade and went into the room. Then in a swirl of shadow they were both gone.

The screaming began as soon as they were out of my sight. Screaming such as I had never heard before. My child’s voice was shrill with absolute terror. Pain such as I could not imagine rang out around me. The room echoed with his cries. It wouldn’t stop. I heard his small voice sobbing, begging. I collapsed to the floor, pressing my hands over my ears.  I could not bear the screams. I could not hear that kind of pain. I was Sith. I had fought wars. I had killed countless men and watched many more die. And this pain, this sound, I could not bear.

I pressed my hands tighter over my ears. I could feel my mouth move, begging, “No more. Please, no more.”

“Alyxss?” Salomi’s voice broke through, “Alyxss! Wake up, Alyxss! Please.”

“Aydiin,” her voice was soft, “tell me that I’m misunderstanding something. Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

This was the first time I’d felt ashamed about what I’d been doing. My work with Kajam had made me feel good. It had made me feel like I was accomplishing something towards the greater good. Under the eyes of the woman I loved and could never have, I felt ashamed. I had never meant for her to find out.

“I’m doing the right thing,” I tried to defend myself, defend all that I’d done, “they are too dangerous to be left alive, Katerynna. You can’t redeem them or rehabilitate them. They’re monsters and leaving them alive leaves innocent people at risk.”

She lowered her head and shook it slowly, her white hair gently caressing her face. “Aydiin, we are Jedi. All life is precious, all people have a chance - if we care and we show them the way - to find the light. Who are we to judge the worthiness of a man or woman to live?”

I chewed my lower lip and the muscle under my right eye twitched, “How would you know? You aren’t out there fighting them.  You want to talk about judging the right people have to live? What do you think they are doing when they decide to murder people?”

She pursed her lips and there was hurt in her eyes, not for herself but for me. “If we behave as they do, why do we not call ourselves Sith?” she questioned, “And do you believe I see nothing? Do you believe I lock myself away in the medical tower teaching younglings? No doubt your eyes have been turned towards other things as of late. I walk battlefields, I hold the hands of dying men - soldiers both Republic and Imperial who did not ask to die for our beliefs. I heal Jedi and Sith alike because I will allow no being that I can help to suffer.”

She drew her top to the side, exposing an expanse of green skin that would, at another time, have entranced me. It was marred by a nasty lightsaber wound. It was obviously far along in its healing - more a scar now than a wound -, but I could tell that it was not her healing touch that had first been taken to it. “I have bled for this war, but I have never drawn blood for it.”

“Did a Sith do that to you?” I could feel anger rising in my chest, “You could have died, Katerynna! Would you die to help those animals?”

I knew then, better than I ever had, that what I did was just and right. I knew then that though I might lose even her friendship now, I had chosen the right path. The Sith had taken my family - were my family -, they had taken my Master, and now they had tried to take her.

She looked surprised by my anger, “Yes. Of course I would. You are asking me if I’d risk my life to help injured people on the battlefield of an unjust war. The answer is yes. I know they can be redeemed, the man who saved my life that day is a redeemed Sith. Aydiin, you are a good man. You have always been a good man. Conflicted, yes, and with your past who could fault you, but a good man. We grew up together. As younglings, when you were called an animal, I stood up for you. What sort of Jedi would I be if I did not stand up for all those who deserve a second chance?”  

The look on her face when she talked of being rescued made me pause. Its was too much like the look I wore when I spoke to others of her purity and grace. “This Sith that saved your life, is he the man I saw you with today?”

She’d been close to that man, touching his arm. I had thought she was counseling him as she so often had me. Many Jedi came to her when they had questions,  I had until Kajam came into my life. But now I realized her smile had been too sweet, not the smile of a woman giving comfort, and her touch too intimate.

“Yes,” she answered, confused, “Master Terryis Ventoren.”

“That Sith is your lover,” I accused her.

I don’t know where the accusation had come from, but there was a sour feeling in my stomach and a pain in my chest I couldn’t describe. Katerynna had no lovers, I knew that. She had denied me when we were students together and I’d never seen her turn her attentions to a man. She had few friends even in the Jedi order, though many admired her. But the way she spoke that man’s name was enough.

She sighed softly, “Yes, Aydiin. He is.”

My vision flashed red and the sourness I could not name turned to a hot fury I had come to know too well. I had been willing to leave the Order for her. I had been willing to give my life over to her when we were but teenagers. I’d lived my life knowing that my love for her could never be returned because of her purity. Now I knew my love for her could never be returned because it was me.

“Aydiin!” she squeaked.

My hand had closed into a fist and she put her hands to her throat. “You could not learn to love me because I had the enemy’s face but you could learn to love him? A man who was the enemy?”

She shook her head, hands still to her throat. Then a serenity fell over her panicked features and I was thrown back away from her, landing hard on my back on the concrete. She approached me slowly, cautiously. “No, Aydiin, I could not learn to love you because we do not learn to love. We simply love.”

She walked away from me, her step quicker than it would have usually been.

I got to my feet and stormed back to the ship I shared with Kajam. I slammed the door to the room she had assigned to me and let the anger take hold of me. I had no more reasons to hold it back. I knocked the books from the small desk and threw the chair against the wall. I let myself scream as hot tears filled my eyes and blurred my vision. I punched the metal walls until my knuckles bled.

"Monster! Monster! Monster!" They chanted. 

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The other children consisted of many different species, some he had never seen before and a few barely humanoid. The only things that marked him as different than the majority of them were his color and the ridges on his skin. Yet to them, he might as well have been a force sensitive rancor. 

When he opened his eyes he was completely calm. He took careful note of the faces that were not laughing: a green skinned girl with facial tattoos sat in the corner, her lips pursed in disapproval; a human boy leaned against the wall, shaking his head sadly; a young boy, younger than himself, with horns (was that a zabrak? He has such trouble with species names...) was quietly telling those closest to him to stop. 

He took strength from those faces and kept silent. 

An older girl, a padawan by the look of her, wandered by and silenced them all with a threat that she would go get a Master to lecture them all about what it meant to be a Jedi. 

****

That evening he sat on the floor, crosslegged, beside his Master's desk. He tried not to fidget, he was supposed to be learning self control. 

"I heard that some of the other younglings were teasing you today."

"Yes, Master."

"Do you want them to be punished, Aydiin?"

"No, Master."

The Master turned to look at the child on the floor, his expression was curious. "Why not?"

"They are children, Master. They don't understand."

"You are also a child, Aydiin." 

"I am, Master. But they haven't seen what I have seen. They know that the Sith are their enemies but they do not comprehend what that means. I am different from them. Even some adults in the temple have trouble seeing me as anything but their enemy. Their teasing hurts me, I want to be one of them, but we will grow and learn as Jedi together. And I am very careful not to be angry with them." 

"You aren't angry with them for teasing you?" 

"No, Master. And I don't want to be angry with them. I am stronger than they are, for whatever reason, and I know things, things my father taught me. I know that the dark side lives in me but I will learn to hold it back and follow the will of the true living Force." There was no arrogance in his statement, he was not proud of his strength, merely accepting of it.

"Very good, Aydiin. You understand much for a child of eight. But the dark side lives in all beings, all have the potential to fall. You no more than others. You started roughly but you've come far."

"Thank you, Master. I want to be a Jedi. I've seen what the dark side can do."