#kimageddon

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The lady Nienna sits alone in her gardens, on the edge of a shallow pond, beneath the branches of draping swaying trees. It is a fragrant dusk evening on Naboo, and the growing summer breeze licks at her skin, her lower arms exposed from her sweeping green gown. 

She is sketching privately in a little book, a habit from her youth that she was never able to forsake. Her drawings are much more profound than they were when she was a young woman, her skills and precision having improved over the years during her career as a portrait artist and art-critic. What has stayed the same however, is her muse. Her lover from her days as a young adult, and once again now, as a grown woman of thirty-five: the renegade Sith Lord Maul. Her reacquaintance with him did not go as smoothly as their first meeting all those years ago did, with petty squabbles and resentment and unspoken words muddying the waters of their reunion. But in the last year they have comfortably settled into a relaxed yet unusual dynamic. She cannot call it a relationship, no - he is much too damaged and maddened and chaotic for such a thing. However, whatever it is that they have now, it suits them well enough. 

Nienna assesses her work, the sketch is of her lover from their meeting a couple of days ago. He had paid her a surprise visit, handsomely stylish in new robes and a pendant around his neck, an emblem of a rising sun that signifies his underworld criminal venture, Crimson Dawn. She thinks that his new aesthetic suits him now that his frame has grown larger with age, power and wealth. The dark tunic and gold regalia fits the powerful vision of him impeccably. His durasteel legs gleam in the same way that his brushed chromium weapon does, the hilt of the thing bold and dangerous: he carries it constantly at his hip like another cybernetic limb. She hums softly as she looks over her rendition of this strange man that is inexplicably tangled up in her life, feelings of an even stranger love tugging at her heart. She thinks over all that they have been through together, all that they have faced alone. How they have found one another again. 

She notices a change in the air, then. A hazy sweeping density that plunges her into a soft weightlessness. She blinks rapidly, dropping her sketchpad to the plush grass as she stands. It is a unique dreaminess that she has felt before, in a life long ago, but cannot seem to place. She spins around, searching between the trees and exotic flower-beds as she senses that she is being observed. The forest before her morphs, the rich greens and browns of leaves and soil twisting into deep reds and hazy ochres of a rocky landscape. Before she can register the ominous curiousness of her current predicament, a silhouette emerges from the blur, the definition of the figure slowly morphing into full clarity. It is a vivid and feminine shape, tall and striding with purpose. 

A woman that is heavy with child.

She is wearing a black dress with silver detailing at the waist and the dark fabric flows around her exquisitely as she walks, her thin hand resting protectively on her large belly. Her pale shoulders are exposed, but the reddish light of the strange scene warms the tundra of her skin. A choker of gleaming metal adorns her throat, the necklace engraved with the emblem of a raven, bold and solid. She has dark inky hair that is swept neatly from her face, half is up, braided with a twisting delicacy at the back of her head, the rest of it straight and silky, falling shiny and rich down her back. 

Nienna becomes painfully aware of her own appearance, of her hair, which sits wild and bushy and curly around her head, her fingers stained with charcoal, her long dress, though custom-made, artisan and beautiful, has foliage and dirt littering the materials of her skirts from lounging in the grass all afternoon. Why must she always appear moonstruck and crazed, especially when facing strangers in the woods? It is a commonality of her whole life, her wild, earthy aesthetic always coinciding with strange meetings in the forest. She sighs, attempting to maintain her dignity and embrace her own rugged beauty in the face of the regal brilliance of the stranger's own. 

The woman stops when she is a few strides from Nienna, squints her eyes at her, as though trying to place her. Close up, she seems less ravishing and more…frightening. Ethereal wrath burns beneath her expression, the weight of experience roaring in her irises. Those eyes…

"It's you," says Nienna, recognition morphing her expression into awe, astonishment lacing her words. "Ayane. The friend from my dreams in girlhood." She tilts her head, takes in the image of the looming, elegant woman before her. "My, you've changed."

Her friend’s eyes are the same colour as she remembers, but where they were once the blue of open summer skies, they are now the iced rage of a stormy sea. Though she seems more mature and wise, there are no lines of age marking her skin. Those lines are around Nienna’s eyes though, the years of her life beginning to stain her complexion, the youth slowly being leached from her skin. Ayane looks frozen in time, yet vibrant with the wisdom of a lifetime. 

“Nienna,” greets Ayane, a soft smirk pulling at the corner of her lips. “It has been a while.”

“How are you here?” The shorter woman asks bluntly, her confusion overriding her politeness. She reaches forward into the red mist that has followed Ayane into her vergant gardens, wiggles her fingers in it. It's cold.

Ayane purses her lips, looks around her. “Curious, isn’t it?” Her palm circles her pregnant stomach as she wanders. A silence settles around them, both unsure of how to approach this odd reunion. A crater of years rests between them, a vast distance between universes, as well as the inherently perplexing nature of their meeting. Nienna has thirsted for knowledge since she was freed from her home planet, and has scoured the worlds in search of it. She is an intelligent and well read woman, the itch to learn and rid herself of that childish naivety she has always loathed in herself as necessary for her as breathing. She researched her dreams, her strange visions and the odd meeting she had with Ayane as a young woman, and has only discovered one potential connecting factor - The Force. It beguiles her, frightens her. Mystical and maddening, its clutches have haunted her for her entire life. Is it the cause of this meeting now, too?

Nienna watches Ayane closely, following her movement with wide, green eyes. Then the woman stops cold, and a wash of menace sluices down Nienna’s spine.

"What is this?" She asks sharply, danger rippling in her voice. Nienna follows her extended finger, which points to her sketchpad on the ground, its pages open to her newest sketch of Maul.

Nienna frowns, blinking. "My art," she answers defensively, not appreciating the sneering nature of Ayane's tone.

"Why are you drawing him?" There is confusion and accusation in her eyes as she glares at her. The grave shadow in her gaze starts to become literal, the whites of them darkening to black. Her anger burns her irises red, and her lips instinctively pull back, revealing sharp fangs. She all but hisses at her.

Nienna flinches. She is perplexed at her friend’s sudden wildness and grim transformation, at how she recognised her lover in the sketch. "You know him?"

“Know him?” spits Ayane violently, "He is my husband. The father of my children."

Husband? Nienna is dumbfounded, completely taken aback. “Impossible.”

Ayane looks down at her body, swollen with the very opposite of Nienna’s truth. “This babe will be our third.” When she looks back up again, her darkness has dissipated, her anger quelled by the reassurance of their unborn child. Her eyes are the familiar blue Nienna first recognised, her mouth and lips returned to normal. It is as though Nienna imagined it. 

Perhaps she did. 

Third. The word rings in her ears. Three children? How could he possibly reproduce? It is physically unfeasible. A fantasy. Nienna bends to the ground and picks up the book. 

“This sketch of him is an image from three days ago, Ayane. Look closer. At his lower half,” she insists, assuming this all to be some terrible mistake. 

The pregnant woman takes the sketchpad from Ni with gentle fingers. She straightens upright, then brings the drawing closer to her eyes. She looks over the subject of the drawing, making note of such a unique face, a face that definitely belongs to Maul. It is unmistakable, what with his casual expression of contempt, the imposing crown of horns, his handsome nose and jaw: her soulmate's features are as familiar to Ayane as her own body is. She sees the cybernetics of his legs, and her bewilderment grows. Why does he have those? Why is Nienna drawing him? 

“Who is he to you?” she demands coldly.

“I don’t have words for it,” Nienna replies truthfully, unable to make sense of what he is to her. Ayane stays silent for a moment, and Nienna tries to further explain, but the words do not come easily. “He is my liberator, my tormenter…my…” she tapers off. 

Ayane disappears from herself for a moment, her gaze vacant as she looks into the distance, as though she is searching for something. And she is, internally, reaching out to her bond with Maul, trying to pass the bridge that connects their minds in the Force. But there is nothing there. No bridge, no connection. No bond.

“I cannot feel him,” she whispers, fear and awe strangling the reality out of her. “Not here.”

Nienna’s sense returns to her at these words, and she recalls her previous experiences with Ayane. She is not from this world, this galaxy, this universe - that much is clear. Perhaps she and Maul exist together as husband and wife, as parents…somewhere else. A different set of circumstances, a separate path. 

Another Maul.

“Was he not bisected, where you are from?” she asked tentatively, her stomach twisting. Marriage. Children. How would he be capable of such things?

“Yes,” Ayane says sadly, to Nienna’s shock. “He was grievously injured in battle. But he was healed.” Her watery blue eyes meet the earthen green of Nienna’s. Nienna raises her hands to face, turning away from her friend. Healed?

“I don’t understand,” mutters Nienna, her heart pounding. “How does one heal from an injury of that magnitude?” She has never heard of such a thing, not once in her life. How does a man regain his legs, his reproductive organs, when they have been detached from his body? His survival itself was a miracle, and now this?

“We are from different planes,” assumes Ayane calmly. “My dimension is vastly dissimilar to this one.” She pauses, her lips pouting, her hand on her chin, her eyes glowering in thought. “It appears this…connection…that you and I have, Nienna, is somehow attached to our relationship with him.”

Nienna turns back to face her, and her expression is painted with disbelief. "We are connected…by him?"

“It is our commonality, is it not?” She asks, running her eyes over Nienna. “What is your relationship with Maul?” She spits, and she waits for that violent rage to erupt inside of her, the horrific rush of vengeance that rattles her bones when another woman is associated with him. Nienna doesn’t answer, and Ayane’s patience runs thin, unable to prevent herself from adding, "Do you love him?”

The air is sucked from Nienna’s lungs as she nods. “I do,” she admits breathily, in slight fear of Ayane, the image of her strange eyes and sharp teeth so recent in her mind. She braces herself.

But Ayane does nothing, says nothing, because she is taken aback by her absence of rage. Then she suddenly makes sense of it: it’s because the man Nienna loves is not her Maul. She is not connected with him in this realm, which is why she cannot reach him through their bond. It isn’t him, here, he isn’t hers. He is Nienna’s. Nienna has the same realisation, as she registers that she has not felt any resentment or animosity to Ayane since discovering their shared lover. That she has felt no need to lay claim to him at all.

“Oh,” Ayane murmurs, then smiles, the lack of fierce fury a soothing relief. She looks at Nienna, fondness in her eyes. A pause. “Nienna, this is ever so strange.”

This was not what Nienna expected to come from her friend’s lips. Compassion and empathy courses through Ayane, as she considers the Maul in this dimension, his disability and trauma. The toll this must have on her friend.

"I'm sorry," says Ayane softly. "That in this dimension you will not be able to bear him children."

Nienna snorts. "Don't be. I'd never have his children, even if he could give them to me." Ayane steps back, starting, her hands protective over her stomach.

Nienna’s eyes widen. "Forgive me. What I mean is that I never would have children. Not his, not anyone's."

Ayane seems confused by this. 

“I birth enough creation with my art,” Nienna explains. “This world, this galaxy, this universe. It's no place for a child.” She shakes her head. “Not here.”

“What about marriage?” she asks.

“No,” Nienna insists. “Absolutely not.”

“Are you…happy together?” asks the dark-haired woman curiously.

“That is a complicated question. Our…romance,” Nienna answers, “is not at all conventional.”

Ayane giggles, and it is a heartfelt melodic laugh that breaks the tension between them. “I suppose that’s an intrinsic element of loving him.”

Nienna nods, then pushes her hair from her face. Hesitates.

“Can I ask? Your eyes. They changed colour…”

“Ah yes,” Ayane says nonchalantly. “That happens. I’m not exactly human.”

Nienna does not need to know any more, doesn’t want to. She accepts Ayane’s answer, happy to move on. A hard lesson she has learned is that though truth is sweet and enticing to her, sometimes it is the best course of action to resist knowing more than you need to, more than you are entitled to. She has become rather skilled at treading that line.

“Tell me, Nienna,” requests Ayane, extending her pale hand towards her to give her back her artbook, “of your non-conventional relationship with my husband. I am curious.”

Nienna snorts a laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement, and Ayane begins to giggle in tandem with her. Nienna takes the sketchpad back from Ayane, then reaches out and takes her friend’s hand. “I shall enlighten you whilst I take you on a tour of my gardens.”

The two wander in the timeless dreamscape, and Nienna identifies and shows off her multitudes of flora as she weaves her life story into words. She tells her of the Moons, her youth as a surgeon’s daughter, Maul’s sudden imposition on her life and the harrowing changes he inflicted upon it. She leaves out the details of their physical relationship, because though integral to their story, it does not seem to have a place in this conversation. Nienna sensed the depth of Ayane’s jealousy that rages in her blood. It is less painful for them both this way.

The walk of the forest is hazy, littered with odd watery scenery that indicate they do not walk the physical realm of her world. It is perplexing, how they are together, why they are together and what relevancy it has to their relationships with the former Sith Lord. The two recall their time in the woods, all those years ago, how they both awoke with a physical remnant of the dream; their flower crowns. 

“I treasure that gift,” Ayane confesses. “I still have it, to this day.” 

“So do I,” says Nienna. The delicate blue crown made with flowers from Ayane’s world sits under lock and key, alongside her other most valuable and sentimental artefacts. It lies in the pages of her secret sketchpad that she treasured all those years ago.

After a pause, Nienna turns towards Ayane and asks, “What do you suppose is the meaning of our meeting tonight? Do you believe there is any rhyme or reason to these events? You are clearly much more knowledgeable and experienced in these matters than I am.”

Ayane sighs softly and shakes her head. “I have not the slightest idea. But I am glad that, for whatever reason, we were able to be reunited again.”

“Me too.”

The two women have now completed a lap of the entire gardens, and have returned to the spot where they were first reunited. They both perch on the edge of the pond, and Nienna retrieves her pouch of pencils that she placed between the rocks. 

She smiles softly, then places her sketchbook and tools on her lap. She has an idea, and is slightly nervous to ask Ayane about it. Eventually, she takes a deep breath, and flicks through to an empty page and looks at her friend. 

“Ayane, would you mind if I did a quick sketch of you? I am a portrait artist, I’ve spent my life perfecting my technique and collecting the faces of those from across the stars. It would mean an awful lot to me to put this beautiful evening to paper, to be able to draw…you.”

Ayane blinks slowly, her hand still resting on her pregnant belly protectively. She seems unsure, but after pondering it for a moment, she ultimately nods, and a tender smile forms on her lips. “Of course, my friend. I would be honoured.” She looks around herself, and reaches for her hair. “Do you want me to…should I…?”

Ni shakes her head. “No, you look great where you are. You’re perfect, Ayane.” 

And so she begins to sketch her muse, starting with an outline of the vampiress. Nienna’s wrists and fingers glide swiftly across the page, and she works fast but precisely, her expertise apparent in her quick fingers and the concentration painted on her face. 

Ayane feels awkward at first, and doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself. She shifts, and looks at the ground, her body rigid. She looks more and more uncomfortable as the time stretches on.

“Try and…relax,” advises Nienna kindly when she notices Ayane’s discomfort. “Just look at the stars, at the moon. Watch the sky. Think of your family. Think of…him.”

Ayane nods, and exhales softly. She shifts again, and then looks up into the sky, and smiles. “I’ve always loved the stars, the moon.”

Nienna smiles, sketching as she replies. “As do I. It is a joy to be able to walk beneath the light.”

After a while, Ayane inquires softly. “Do you know of Dathomir, Nienna?” 

“I do.” 

“Dathomir is where I reside,” she says, looking around her at the abundance of flora, the vibrant greens and earthy browns. Nienna’s gardens appear to be the very antithesis to Ayane’s home of rock and red mists. “It is rather…different from yours.”

“Stars,” Nienna exclaims, “you live there? How do you stand it?”

“What do you mean?” asks Ayane, somewhat shocked. 

“It’s not the…um…most comfortable of environments?” 

Ayane nods, and smiles knowingly. “I suppose it can seem that way to some. For me, it’s my ancestral home, the residence of my kin. It is where I was born to be.”

“I do not have the same attachment to it. I went once, at the request of…him. It was not the most pleasant of atmospheres, to put it lightly. I haven’t returned since.”

Ayane giggles. “I can only imagine what the humidity did to your hair.”

“Exactly! It was awful. He said I looked like some kind of wild woman.”

Their laughter fades, and then the peaceful silence returns until Ayane breaks it. “Tell me Nienna, have you watched the moons from the Dathomiri mountains?”

Nienna pauses, and exhales. “No, I haven’t. I have yet to accept another of my lover’s invitations to his native home.”

“The next time he requests your presence, oblige him,” Ayane suggests. “Allow him to walk you up to the mountains. Watch the skies at night. It is the most beautiful thing - I can hardly bring myself to describe it. If your Dathomir is the same as mine, that is.”

The artist pauses in her sketching, and looks into the ocean eyes of her friend. “I will, Ayane. Thank you, that is very thoughtful. And I shall think of you when I look upon the moons of Dathomir. I will give the place another try.”

The two women sit beneath the Naboo night sky as Nienna continues to sketch Ayane under the moonlight. The breeze remains gentle and floral, and it brushes against them in a soothing caress, the leaves around them rustling softly. The evening stretches into the timeless dreamscape, and then, it is almost finished.

Nienna completes her sketch, drops her pencil and flexes her fingers and wrists. “Ah,” she sighs in slight pain. “My hands aren’t what they used to be.” She then shuffles over to Ayane and presents her the portrait. “What do you think?”

Ayane sucks in a sharp breath as she appraises the image of herself on the paper. Lady Nienna is highly regarded as being in possession of a rare and unique talent: in laying bare truth. She is able to present to the world, in full clarity, the hearts and desires of her subjects through their eyes and expressions. 

The drawing of Ayane presents a softened reflection of the vampire, as though Nienna has delved deep into her mind and forced forth the girl from her younger years. Hope and loss and confusion gleam in Ayane's eyes, her hands clasped tightly in her lap as though in anticipation - as though that young girl she used to be is poised and ready to run from her life. 

It's raw and candid and real: exquisite. 

"Oh, Nienna…" Ayane says, her voice trembling with emotion. "I've not seen this version of myself for many years." 

Nienna smiles softly, her eyes glazing across her work. "That's the person I first met. The Ayane I know." She meets her gaze. "The Ayane you are, deep down. My friend."

A tight fist of sentiment twists in Ayane's chest. Then, a soft breeze flickers the pages, revealing a self portrait Nienna sketched a few moons ago. 

"This is you," Ayane says. The woman in the sketch has darkness in her eyes, yearning warping the clothes she is dressed in in a strange darkness. Her face, though neutral in expression, screams for purpose and liberation. Haunted. 

"It's who I was. Who I am."

A pause. The dreamscape warps and glitches, and Ayane becomes slightly…transparent.

"It's fading." Ayane looks around herself, hesitance and resistance paints her expression. "Our time is coming to an end."

"Take this." Nienna tears out the self portrait, crushing it into Ayane's palm. "Remember me. I'll remember you."

Ayane's eyes water. "I hope to see you again, one day."

"As do I." Ni swallows, holding her sketchpad to her chest. "Goodbye Ayane."

"Nienna," Ayane says as she begins to fade, reaching her hand towards the shorter woman. "Remember the Moons."

And then she disappears, the crimson dawn of her home, universes apart, evaporates into the dark swamp greens of Nienna's gardens.

Ni takes a breath, the weightless feeling dispersing. She is grounded again. With charcoal stained fingers, she flicks to the page in her book that held the drawing of Ayane. 

It's still there.