Archive of Our Own

Pain.

Painted in vivid strokes of neon and ozone, the wide, sandy rivers of cerulean agony and crimson despair overflowed their banks, rising, inexorably, to swallow the taut, pale canvas of doomed flesh.

"Kill him now."

A dream, staged behind the folds of a thick, velvet curtain, figures wavering, like a warbling holotransmission, the channels slightly misaligned. 

This couldn't be reality. 

"I shouldn't."

Liar. 

Pretty pictures, a youngling's artwork in scrawling, unpracticed hand. Words nothing more than a sweet, supple illusion.

The rivers rose again, twin tributaries bounding from the gritty earth, flames lapping at the banks of exposed flesh far past its expiration date.

"Do it."

The eyes. The eyes never lied, if one knew how to look.

Yan Dooku stared into the eyes of Anakin Skywalker.

And there, just beneath the swirling maelstrom of milky doubt and tarred guilt lay the sharp, yellowed teeth of anger, monstrous rage unhinging its jaw, snake-like, to expose the gaping maw of nothingness which would soon swallow him whole.

I have been a fool.

The rivers laughed, converging as one to claim their prize as sand rained to earth and darkness descended.

Dooku opened his eyes, and gasped.

The scene was as it had been moments ago. The dais to his right, boxy chair armed with electro-shackles, the balcony still half-destroyed, its remains a massive, craggy hulk of durasteel and wiring, an inelegant protuberance in the once-sleek room now vandalized by gnarled spacelanes of lightsaber scorch marks.

Nothing had changed. 

Except...

Absent was Sidious, gleaming from his throne, his place of false imprisonment, casting his invisible net, the pieces now in place, directing a deadly game of betrayal. Absent was Kenobi, trapped unconscious under the chaotic mountain of metal and scraps, blissful in his ignorance of his apprentice's imminent free-fall into an inky abyss. And absent was Skywalker, street rat elevated to a pauper's excuse for a Jedi, holding the instruments of Dooku's own doom to his throat as he kneeled in unwanted subservience at the vermin's feet.

Dooku looked down at the stumps that had once been his hands, chest tightening.

No, nothing had changed, at all.

The cuts were clean, at least, the lightsaber blade having cauterized both wounds nicely, right where the cuffs of his tunic ended. If he hunched his shoulders, the charcoal stumps were not even visible underneath the singed sleeves of his outfit.

Unfortunate. Not unconquerable, however, given the recent advancements in cybernetics. Dooku's lip curled. The thought of sullying his human body with machine parts was more than distasteful. 

Gingerly, he got to his feet, gut churning with the motion as the world spun. Listing to the side, Dooku stumbled, falling against the chair, half-draping himself over the angular back, breaths shallow and unsteady, acid and bile worming their way up his already-raw throat.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. Lengthen. An elementary meditation, the simplest exercise taught to Jedi Initiates. Dooku almost chuckled, despite his lingering nausea. Yoda - of course, it had been Yoda - had instructed him in that technique. 

So many years ago. Another lifetime.

Stomach settling, Dooku pushed himself to his elbows, casting a long gaze over the abandoned room.

Utter stillness.

No vibrations indicating movement through space, no purring engines sending the smallest tremors through the floors, no tell-tale whirr of overtaxed generators. No scent of stale, recycled air. No crinkling molecules passing between fingertips, a consequence of the constant effort to keep humidity levels far south of what most sentient creatures would deem comfortable.

No long shadows tracing darkened paths across the floor.

Slowly, he straightened, still resting one elbow on the ridge of the chair. So concerned had he been with the state of his body, of the room, he had wholly disregarded the large, floor-to-ceiling transparisteel windows serving as backdrop to the dais where Palpatine had sat, ordering his execution. 

It should have been the first thing he noticed - the incandescent conflict, the luminous war.

Dooku inched towards the edge of the room, where only a firm, thin layer of plasticene separated him from the chaos of battle, from rocketing space ships and ion cannon fire, from the silent screams of the clone army. From the war which he had perpetrated, had created from nothing but well-picked ingredients and proper timing, as one might bake a Dantooine wedding cake or broil a Sylestran figsteak.  

But now, as he gazed into the abyss of space...there was nothing.

Not a single starship, not one bolt of blaster fire, no cataclysmic explosions muddying the dark void just outside his reach. Dooku laid his right wrist stump on the window, resting his head on his forearm. 

It was almost a...a relief, this sudden lack of conflict, this temporary abdication of responsibility, of planning and conniving and constant betrayal.

Dread pooled in Dooku's gut.

No. This was wrong, far more wrong than the absence of Skywalker and the others, a deeper horror than the disappearance of a major battle.

Dooku gasped in realization, sharp, pointed air stabbing the back of his throat. 

"The stars," he whispered, aghast. 

Not a single star twinkled in the onyx backdrop, not one molecule of light, not one shred of energy indicated the existence of life beyond this very room.

"Hello, Master."

Dooku swung around, his vision swimming with the abrupt action. Once, twice, he blinked, bringing his hand up to rub at his eyes, arm halfway raised before he realized the futility of the action. Willing patience, Dooku forced himself to breathe evenly, milky impressions of light and color giving way to an impossible, clear-as-Mikkian-crystal scene.

The figure sat, no, lounged in the angular chair - the same chair Sidious had been perched in not a few moments ago. One leg hung over the side, dangling, stocky body reclined as if it were soaking in the sun at a Scarif beach resort. Dooku knew that toothy smile, the scruffy, ever-present five o'clock shadow worn with as much ease as the tattered Jedi robes fluttering to the floor.

Rael.

A thin stick of tabac smoldered between two pudgy fingers in one hand, the other holding a small shot glass of something Dooku knew would be as vile as it was potent. He looked the same as when they had last spoken, after the debacle on Pijal, wavy, messy dark hair streaked with grey, his face erring on the side of jowly. But this version of Rael was missing the dark shadows under his eyes, the haunted, ghostly look that had hung over the aging Jedi like an oncoming Kamino storm the night before he had...

Rael gave Dooku a small, jaunty wave.

Impossible. 

As quickly as his aching body would allow, Dooku's arms went to his belt. Pathetic stumps passed through empty air with the sickening realization he had neither weapon nor hands with which to wield it.

"That won't work," Rael drawled in his signature Ringo-Vindan accent, taking a long, satisfied inhale on his tabac stick before flitting the still-smoking butt to the ground.

Not to be deterred, Sith instinct spurred Dooku to raise his arms, phantom limbs outstretched as he attempted to pull from the dark, to send deathly electricity through his body to destroy this sick illusion, this vile trickery.

Nothing. No distinctive smell of ozone, no dark euphoria, no deep well of the Force from which to draw. 

Rael gave a deep chuckle, his words singsong. "Neither will that."

Resolving to remain uncowed, Dooku drew himself as upright as he could, pulling the tattered remains of his dignity around him as he would a Serennian silk cloak.

"What kind of Jedi devilry is this?" he hissed.

Slapping his thigh, this time Rael laughed openly, full-throated and hearty, the only way he ever knew how.

"Sith turned you real good, didn't they, Master?"

Dooku scowled.

Still smiling, Rael hopped from the chair in an easy movement, sauntering over to where the Sith stood, looking Dooku up and down before hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. 

"Ah, that," he nodded towards Dooku's face. "That face, I remember. 'Rael, what in the galaxy are you doing with your homework flimsis? Rael, have you been *gambling*? Rael, I swear by everything in the Force if you use that sloppy defensive maneuver one more time I am going to chop your feet off.' " Rael quirked his head. "Should've known you'd turn dark with that comment."

Dooku gaped. No. It couldn't be. But who else spoke this way, skulked in ill-fitting Jedi robes this way, decrepit as they were. Who else felt this way - not in the Force,  but something deeper, something more instinctual.

Something like family, Dooku's traitorous mind supplied.

"Rael?" Dooku asked, breathless.

The other man spread his hands. "One and the same, Master."

Rael Averross. Native of Ringo Vinda, brought to the Jedi Temple at age five, a small, squirmy thing as a child, all awkward limbs and oversized bravado, a perennial headache for the creche masters and teachers alike. Dooku's first encounter with his future student had occurred four years after Rael's arrival at the Temple, the small boy's jet-black hair sticking out in twenty directions as he stared at Dooku - freshly returned from a mission with Master Yoda - with a curious, incisive gaze.

"You don't look like them." The child's accent was rough, vowels residing somewhere halfway down his throat. 

"I daresay I do not, child," Dooku had responded. While not yet a full Jedi Knight, Dooku had already taken the liberty of adopting his homeworld's particular sense of fashion, forgoing the traditional Jedi robes which had ever hung off his tall frame like an oversized Kerrnelian poncho.

"You're different," the child regarded him with eyes too piercing, too knowing for one his age.

"As are you," Dooku countered, feeling the boy's bright, kinetic presence in the Force. 

"How?"

"Thought you'd ask why," Rael shrugged, sidling closer in that distinctive manner of his until they were shoulder-to-shoulder, arms grazing each other. Dooku had never been a physically demonstrative person, always keeping a respectable distance from others, even as a child. And yet somehow Rael had steamrolled over any and every wall Dooku had built and rebuilt over the years. 

Rael pointed at where Dooku's hands had been.

"Got yourself in a real jam this time, didn't you?"

Dooku didn't have the energy to argue, sighing deeply before giving a measured response. "I concede, this is perhaps not my best moment."

"Too bad I wasn't there. Might have been able to give you a hand," Rael smirked. "Or two."

In that moment, any doubt that this was truly Rael Averross was driven from Dooku's mind. No other man could exhibit such frustrating, audacious levels of wit and flippancy and still manage to wrap it in the bruised packaging of concern.

No other man could address Dooku in such a manner and live to speak about it. 

"Kind of like that one mission we had, remember, on Triftor? You, in trouble, me bailing you out. Again," Rael snorted. "I had fallen into that crevasse after you got yourself captured - "

"If I remember correctly, which I do," Dooku turned his head towards Rael, a small memory of a smile playing on his lips. "You were the one who ran off in the middle of the night to, and I quote, 'get intelligence the old-fashioned way.' Which happened to be a rather raucous game of sabacc. And if I also recall, you got yourself thrown into that crevasse for mowing over, at minimum, thirty Triftan cultural taboos."

Rael at least had the decency to blush.

"Yeah, well...you took care of those Triftans, didn't you? After you escaped captivity. Side by side, we fought 'em off, thirty to two, I think it was. Me, blocking blaster bolts from every angle, you, lopping off the leader's head. You, uh - " Rael let out an airy laugh, massaging the back of his neck. "You took down a lot more of them than me, that's for sure. Some of those folks - the ones that lived, at least - were probably in a healer's wing for months, maybe years."

Dooku paused. In truth, he hadn't thought of the mission in years, had forgotten the carnage of blood, organs, and body parts he had left behind on the snowy landscape. But the Triftans - fire rose in Dooku's chest - they got what deserved. Rael, left to die in some icy hole by a group of dimwitted barbarians - it was unacceptable. Even if it had been the consequences of Rael's own actions. 

"You were my Padawan, and you were in danger. No matter how stupid and reckless you had been."

"Yeah, and I saved your hide from getting blasted. Wouldn't have been able to cut up all those Triftans into neat little pieces with a hole in your back."

The words left a sour taste in Dooku's mouth. "Rael, if you are trying to - "

"Is that when it started, Master?"

Dooku jolted at the question, argument dying on his lips. A container overturning at the side of the room caught his eye, some bucket of dry grounding debris, judging from the short-lived cascade of static. When he turned back to Rael, Dooku did a double-take, head craning forward like a long-necked quor'sav angling for the fruit off a Tynerian cherry tree.

Rael - the adult Rael - had vanished.

In his place stood his nine-year-old iteration, just as he had been their first meeting.

"Come on, Master! Let's be Force-damned honest here!" the young boy squeaked, drawl just the same as Dooku had remembered it all those years ago, short hair askance, his robes ill-fitting as ever. The child held another stick of lit tabac and a shot of bottom-shelf Rodian whiskey in either outstretched hand.

Long-buried protective instinct rose in Dooku's chest, a strange creature emerging from decades of hibernation. He took a step forward, gesturing at the drink with concern. "Rael, I don't think you should be - "

But the child downed the contents of the shot glass before Dooku could protest further, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve with a satisfied grunt. He peered at Dooku with a penetrating, steely gaze.

"Was that when it started?"

Unblinking brown eyes - eyes not of the young, ebullient Padawan with a penchant for mischief but of a sorrow-filled man suffocated with regret and bitterness - those eyes, the ones Dooku had regarded cooly that last night over a sketchy holotransmission - now locked with his own. 

Dooku was too shocked not to answer. "I - " he stammered, shaking his head, phantom fingers twisting, pulling at one another. The older man sighed deeply and dropped his head. 

"No." 

Shame was not an emotion familiar to Dooku, at least not for many, many years. Shame had been left behind in the bright embers of his burnt Jedi cloak, thrown into the deep red cracks of his shattered kyber crystal, torn to shreds along with every bit of correspondence he had kept from his long years in the Temple. 

No, it hadn't started with the mission to Triftor. Triftor had been a single event, an anomaly piled upon other anomalies stretching back to his first encounters with his family on Serenno, reaching even beyond that with impossible, lengthy arms to his arrival at the Temple, the odd circumstances of his pitiful, short childhood on Serenno of which he had no memory, but somehow still bore the scars. 

It had started, Dooku surmised, when he had been born.

A meaty hand slapped Dooku's shoulder, shocking him out of his reverie.

Rael was now an adolescent, hair cut close in the traditional Padawan manner, black split ends sticking out from his braid, which hung wild and frayed behind his ear. The younger Jedi had once accused Dooku of rushing him to Knighthood just so he could avoid the eyesore that was Rael's half-hearted attempt to adhere to Jedi standards of appearance. "At least now I can be seen with you public," Dooku had once commented, years later, lip curling in amusement.

"C'mon now, Master. Don't get all sullen on me." The lanky teenager wrapped a conspiratorial arm around Dooku's broad shoulders, an awkward movement given their height difference. Rael had never quite caught up to Dooku, or Qui-gon, for that matter, exchanging height for broad muscle as he had matured to adulthood.

"I noticed, you know. Those moments when you'd be whooping me in dejarik or sipping whatever Force-awful leaf water you tried to shove down my uncultured throat. You'd...disappear, pull down this grey curtain around you in the Force."

Dooku had no reply.

"Eh," the teen waved his free hand, sending tabac smoke fluttering in every direction, a strange, almost beautiful pattern. "We had some good times, though, didn't we?" Rael's voice cracked. Had he ever been this young? Had Dooku?

"Remember when we won that Stygian city's freedom in a silent card game with the mayor and his husband? Couldn't say a damned word and those two goobers thought they'd have us beat easily. And going undercover as construction workers on Y'Conth?" Rael cackled, taking another long drag from the tabac stick. "Oh Master, you were a sight in those grimy coveralls, hair all mussed, toolbelt cinched around your waist, armed only with a hydrospanner older than Yoda himself."

"A hydrospanner I used to great efficacy against members of that particular crime syndicate, if remember correctly," Dooku retorted. Even more than fifty years later, he swore he was still washing the grime of Y'Conth from under his fingernails. "And I, at least, made a semi-convincing attempt at my role. You, on the other hand, never mastered the art of altering your accent, no matter how many marbles I forced you to keep in your cheeks as a youngling."

In fact, it had been one of the few reservations Dooku had had about taking Rael as his student. The boy was whipsmart, independent, gifted in the Force and a scrappy, but talented fighter. The accent however...

The accent was like droid parts scraped excruciatingly slowly over the hull of a starfighter.

At the time, Dooku had assumed he'd be able to train it out of the boy. In retrospect, it was one of the few massive miscalculations he had made as Rael's master. 

Rael shoved playfully at his former master. "Remember the container race on Gorax? You, me, and Qui-gon speeding down those grassy hills?"

Dooku groaned. "I still cannot believe you talked me into that. And that I allowed my very young and impressionable Padawan to not only witness, but partake in that particular bit of foolishness." Technically, it had been part of the mission, a way to circumvent Gorax's arcane and maddening transit system. But still, boxes on wheels - Dooku shook his head. What had he been thinking?

"Was worth it," Rael said, cocked his head with a lopsided smile. "And not only because we caught those smugglers. Qui-gon loosened up a bunch after that. Kid was always so serious, so idealistic. It was nice to see him smile, I mean a genuine large smile, the kind that should come easy to any kid worth his salt." Rael paused, meeting Dooku's gaze. "It had been nice to see you smile, too, Master. Never happened often enough for my tastes."

Dooku feigned offense. "Then I suppose the endeavor was worthwhile, in the end." Not that he'd ever admit he had enjoyed the somewhat frivolous detour.

The younger man fell silent, staring at some invisible point in the inky void stretching out beyond the large windows. Humming, he flicked the remainder of his tabac away, coming round to stand face-to-face with Dooku, placing one hand on his shoulder again. Had Rael always been so physically demonstrative? Or had Dooku been without human companionship so long he had forgotten the feel, the ease with which others exchanged these simple assurances?

Rael gestured around the empty room with his other hand, his voice turning contemplative.

"And this, Master - was this all worthwhile in the end?"

Dooku stiffened, all goodwill vanishing in an instant. "And what do you know of such things?" he growled. "You're dead." He shoved Rael's arm from his shoulders. "You removed yourself from the equation far before these events began, before the galaxy was torn asunder, before the Force demanded change. Didn't even deign to pick a side before you bowed out." 

"Yeah, well, I might be dead, but you're not looking too hot yourself right now." The young man, now just past the age of his Knighting, nodded pointedly at the stumps hovering by Dooku's midsection.

"Hhmmph," Dooku sniffed, turning away. Arguing with Rael when he was at his most vindictive had never ended well. Easier to let him work out all his fevered pitch, to flame and burn and sizzle until he had no more kindling, no more fuel from which to draw his ire.

Dooku held back the urge to rub his face with his wrists. Both his Padawans, dead before their time. His own sorry attempt at rebuilding that kind of relationship within the parameters of the Sith a foolish dream destined for failure.

He had no regret about his choices, had walked into the flame eyes wide open, had accepted what he was bound to become. Dooku had thrown away the only life he had known for sixty years previous, casting it off with barely a thought, a worn threadbare tunic beyond repair, his connection with the small handful of people he considered more than mere associates severed with the simplest snip of sewing scissors.

No regrets. He knew what he was, what he had needed to do.

And yet with that thought, pain prickled at the edges of his wrists, the memory of Skywalker's fiery eyes emblazoned in his brain as he knelt in front of his enemy, defeated and truly alone.

"Why are you here, Rael?" Dooku finally asked, breaking the stalemate, his back still turned to his former student. He supposed he could afford the concession, given the circumstances. "And where..." Dooku swallowed over the strange lump in his throat. "where is Qui-gon?" The question came out as less than a whisper. 

No answer came from the younger man, no hint of response, not even the smallest indication someone else was in the room - no footstep, no subtle strain of fabric, no faint undulations of a pulse. The empty silence stretched so long Dooku began to believe Rael had disappeared completely, that he had never been there, that this was all a figment of his imagination, a lifetime lived in the milliseconds before his heart stopped beating and his head finished rolling across the durasteel floor. In the far corner, the cooling system activated with a soft hush. The sound reminded Dooku of the spring showers on Serenno, small droplets padding on lush, green palms. 

"Qui-gon - " Dooku shuddered in surprise. Rael's words were hot on the back of his neck. "Is somewhere else. Don't you worry about him, Master, he's just fine."

Slowly, Dooku turned around. Rael had aged again, now in his late-thirties, sometime after Qui-gon's Knighting, when Rael had taken a Padawan of his own. He had started to grey early, much like Dooku, silvery streaks only adding to his carefully-cultivated reprobate appearance. Encroaching middle-age, with its metabolic inconveniences, had settled in the new wrinkles carved into Rael's forehead and around his nose. Less urchin and more barkeep, Dooku had thought at the time.

"Now, as for that Padawan of his..." Rael made a show of crossing his arms and holding his chin in thought, his eyes flitting to the remains of the fallen balcony. "Good kid. Only met him once, but he seemed to have more sense than you, me, and Qui-gon put together."

"Obi-wan Kenobi is a talented Jedi," Dooku replied evenly. In truth, Obi-wan Kenobi was the best the Order had to offer, a man who could have been so much more, if he had only allowed it, if he had just listened to Dooku on Geonosis. But his attempt at mending the broken chain of his lineage had failed, pitting the last living link to Dooku's past - to the two men he had raised and trained - in direct, deadly opposition to Dooku and Sidious's objectives. 

It had been...a disappointment, to be certain.

"And you, Master," Rael stabbed at the air in his direction, cocking an eyebrow, his voice rising in incredulity. "Brought a whole a balcony down on him? On a Council member, no less?"

Dooku spared a glance towards the wreckage piled on the floor. "As if you ever held the Council in great regard," he retorted. Dooku waved an arm. "I've seen Kenobi at his best. His attempt to defeat me was pitiful," he spat. "And for that, he suffered." Why Kenobi had always seemed to falter in their encounters when he shone so brightly everywhere else had been a perennial mystery for the Sith. 

"So he disappoints you and you try to kill him," Rael shook his head in disbelief. "Glad I had you as a Master before you turned. I wouldn't have lived to see my thirteenth birthday, otherwise."

Dooku rolled his eyes, even as something approaching regret squirmed near his neckline. "He was not my student, Rael, however much I would have welcomed that turn of events. And I..." The words tumbled from his mouth before Dooku could catch himself.

Rael raised his eyebrows in question, curious.  

Damn Rael's easygoing personality, Dooku winced. He had let his guard down. Just like the Devonarian wrenkorth, one was inclined to not take Rael Averross seriously until it was far too late. 

"I didn't try to kill him, if you must know," Dooku relented, knowing Rael would only sink his teeth in further if he remained silent. "I cushioned the blow. If I had truly wanted Kenobi dead, I could have done so easily." Should have done so. Sentiment might be the death of him yet. "It was...advantageous for me, for my situation, if Kenobi did not have to bear witness to his protege's demise." That, at least, had been the original plan. Neutralize Kenobi, kill Skywalker, and initiate Order 66, perhaps overtaking Sidious in the process.

That had been Dooku's plan, at least.

No parent should outlive their child. Wise words from his other Padawan, Qui-gon Jinn, as they had left a miserable mission on Lyncath, supplying what humanitarian aid they could to a planet ravaged by a disease that, in a strange turn of fate and genetic mutation, left the old to age and the young to die in their place. For nights after they had returned to Coruscant, Dooku saw the wide, tear-filled eyes of mothers and fathers in his dreams, heard their sobs ripped from their throats, smelled the decaying flesh of the young as they cried for their parents, Dooku and Qui-gon unable to do anything but provide support and diplomatic aid to the war-torn planet.

In his darkest moments, he had wondered if his own mother would have ever mourned him the same way.

"That went well, didn't it, Master?" 

The gentle, insouciant comment lifted Dooku from his moody reverie. 

"Quiet, Rael," he chided softly, too tired to argue, too lost in his own tangled thoughts, wandering aimlessly through the what-ifs and if onlys of a thousand abandoned footpaths. It was a familiar moment, the structure of this exchange, a fogged mirror of a distant memory - Dooku lost in his own dark thoughts, a young, impish Rael drawing back the curtains of that heavy miasma of an unknown, portentous destiny, a small beam of desert sun wrapped in the coarse leathers of an off-hand, twangy comment. It was almost as if Dooku had never left the Jedi Temple, Dooku buried behind some ancient documents, the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders, Rael bursting into their quarters with some half-believable story from his day, recounted with the fervor of Pannagian religious acolytes and the vivacious showmanship of a Terrelyian ringmaster. 

Had Dooku ever truly known that type of quiet, fleeting joy?

And could he somehow take the remains of what had been his previous life, take each grain of sand and painstakingly glue his former existence back together?

Rael - the phantom adult Rael - gave a familiar lopsided smile, sticking his hands in the deep pockets of his tattered cloak, pacing towards the chair in the middle of the room. He paused, raising one finger in the air as if he had collected a forgotten thought.

"The thing is - " 

Dooku's gut clenched, the room thrown into sudden shadow. Rael's words held a dangerous amiability. 

"The thing is - " Rael repeated, tapping a fist an open palm as he sauntered back in Dooku's direction, dark bags under his eyes, a soft paunch around the gut, yellowed, drawn skin - Just after Nim Pianna died, Dooku realized, eyes widening. He had never seen his student so worn as he had in that time, destroyed by grief, by guilt - by days-long binges on the worst levels of Coruscant. They had spoken only once after Rael had returned to the planet after Pianna's death, a perfunctory conversation, Rael too defensive, Dooku too distracted by his own troubles for it to mean anything beyond polite protocol and dictated concern.

Sand slipped through his fingers.

It was the last time Dooku would see Rael in person, in the flesh. The last time he would ever have the opportunity to hold out a supporting hand, to take him by the shoulder, to guide the young Jedi out of his grief.

He had done none of that.

Was this what regret felt like?

"The thing is, that's bullshit, Master." Rael's eyes glittered. "I didn't want him to witness his student's demise," he mocked in gross exaggeration of Dooku's Serennian accent. Rael threw out a hand. "And when you killed thousands of other sentients? When you cut down Jedi after Jedi on Geonosis? When you murdered your best friend? Is that what you thought - that they, too, should not have to witness another's demise? Your demise?"

Dooku stiffened as Rael's voice rose, blood dripping from the accusations, splatting, invisible to the durasteel floor at Dooku's feet.

"It was war, Rael," Dooku argued, growling. "The Jedi, the Republic killed just as many, more even! All through their corruption and incompetence. What I did was necessary."

"Even Sifo-Diyas?"

The sand was slipping fast through the webs of his fingers, coarse and itchy. Dooku grit his teeth. 

"I only gave an order. The Pykes murdered Sifo-Diyas."

"And are your hands any less bloody?"

Dooku stared, breathing hard, sand piling at his feet. And then he chuckled, taking a step back. He raised both his arms, revealing the ugly, charred stumps of his wrists. 

"Apparently not, seeing as I have been divested of those particular appendages."

Rael gaped, running a trembling hand over his mouth, pulling at his jaw. A smudged crystal glass materialized in the other, and Rael made short work of the amber liquid before disappearing the item with a small wave. 

"Force damn it, Master," he croaked, unable to say anything else. 

Dooku, senses honed by years of Sith training, could practically taste the opportunity in the moment of weakness, the smell of blood sweet as Rodian nyrstaf.  

"And am I more damned than any other Jedi?" Dooku stepped forward, teeth gleaming under the bright, overhead lights, a series of artificial suns, spotlights on a stage, illuminating a play performed for no audience but himself. "Think of the governments we have toppled or upheld, whole planets lost to profitable trade routes and contrived famine, think of the corporate regimes we have supported through the Senate's obsequious inaction. Think of those close to us we were forced to betray, to kill. Even - " he overenunciated the word, "if it was for their own benefit."

Rael paled under Dooku's steely gaze. "Tell me, Rael Averross, are my hands any more bloody than yours?"

Fists clenched, jaw set in duracrete, chest broadening - Rael heaved with every breath, his eyes smoldering. He was wound like the strings of a hallikset tuned too tight, taut, ready to whip its master in the face with a blinding, angry strike. 

And to think he turned down my offer to train on Serenno. Look at him now.

For a moment, Dooku thought his former student would do it, would succumb to his anger, punch Dooku clear in the face. And then, like a sorry, limp balloon, Rael slumped all at once - his bravado, his ire pierced by a simple, invisible pin, features crumbling as he trudged over to the shallow platform that held Sidious's chair, half-collapsing on the stairs - elbows on knees, head in hands, black-grey bangs falling in front of his face.

"No," he moaned, despondent. 

Guilt nipped at Dooku. He couldn't feel Rael in the Force - couldn't feel anything in the Force - but he didn't need it to know he had hit exactly the right nerve, a masterstroke, as only an adept, the adept of the Makashi form could do.

The victory brought little reward.

After a moment's hesitation, Dooku padded across the room, joining Rael on the steps, settling down an arm's reach away from the other man.

Rael glanced up at him through his fingers, face now pale and ghoulish, eyes shot red, skin sagging like melted plasticine from his face. A small trickle of blood ran from Rael's left nostril to the cleft of his lip. 

Just like the holos, Dooku observed, feeling ill. Except this Rael was still moving, still talking, still breathing. The other Rael...

They never spoke again, after that midnight conversation following the upheaval on Pijal - Rael rejecting Dooku's invitation to Serenno, rejecting the secondary, unspoken offer to turn away from the Light, from the Jedi Order. Dooku would be lying if he said he hadn't been disappointed - angry, even, the word betrayal hovering like a dark vulture over the interaction. Rael had been ripe for the picking, long-discontent with the Order and its stagnated practices, a master swordsman in his own right, a brilliant and intelligent mind which bent to no one.

No one, except a fourteen-year-old girl. 

It was only later that Dooku learned of the full events on Pijal, of Rael's regency, his devotion to the small princess, her utter betrayal. At that moment, all he could worry about was Rael's imminent return to Coruscant. The wrong words to the right people - it all depended on how much Rael was willing to reveal the Council, how far the Council would poke and prod at Rael, like a Klatooine paddy frog on a dissection tray.

He couldn't leave Serenno, not then, not when he had just settled into his role as Count, as absolute ruler. Not when he was only beginning to steer his planet and his people in the correct direction - his direction. And certainly not when he had only begun to truly understand the full potential of the Force, unbound by the chains of the Jedi Code. A few credits in the right hands, however, a series of whispered threats delivered at the barrel of a blaster rifle - Dooku knew he could retrieve whatever intelligence he needed from the appropriate channels. He would plan from there.

A week later, the full moon rising high over the snowy peaks of the Cardinnian mountains, a security report was waiting on his desk. Dooku slipped the holocard into his datareader, a knot forming in his stomach.

Victim: Unidentified male, early to mid-40s, human. Origin: unknown. Time of death: Appx. 1.01.00.34

Cause of death: Nasal administration of Malkite Themfar/Fex-M3 combination. Hypospray injector found in victim's hand. No signs of struggle or forced entry. 

Ruling: Suicide. Bioscans did not find sentient in Coruscant's central population database. Treat as JD and process at Level 1248 Crematorium, Block A.

Case: Closed.

The attached holos had left no question. It was Rael. Rael, splayed across a disgusting, molding sleeping pod, tunics ripped and begrimed, limbs askew, mouth gaping open. His glassy eyes stared at a kaf-stained, rusted ceiling. 

Rael Averross, Jedi Knight. Master to Nim Pianna, Regent of Pijal, and former Padawan of Yan Dooku.

Dead. 

Dead by his own hand. 

That Rael had succumbed to his own guilt - Dooku wished he had been more surprised. In truth, he had expected something...messier, something more spontaneous, more impulsive, more in line with the man Rael had seemingly become. 

This, however, was meticulous in its planning and execution, Rael somehow wiping his own records from the Republic's database, acquiring a potent and dangerous drug used only by the most dangerous sect of bounty hunters, sending the Jedi Temple a communication relaying his intention to travel to the Outer Rim and stay there, complete with a forwarding address, bank account, and comm number. For all anyone on the Council knew, Rael Averross had left the Jedi, exiling himself to a far star system near the Unknown Regions, trailed by a shadow of shame and doubt.

A brilliant plan, perhaps the culmination of all his years of training, of Dooku's hard insistence on analyzing every possible angle, every line of attack, every last situation. And in this final action, Rael Averross surpassed any and all of Dooku's expectations, with flying, spectacular colors. His student, his lineage, his responsibility - dead, alone in a fourth-rate scumpod on the lower levels of Coruscant.

All because of the Jedi.

All because of him.

"I'm sorry, Rael."

Surprisingly, Dooku meant it.

The other man sniffed, rubbing at his eyes, his nose, wiping away the blood with the edge of his tunic sleeve. A movement achingly familiar. For a moment Dooku saw not a broken man, but the little boy who had gotten into a scuffle outside the Temple's walls, bloody, scared, yet defiant.

Dooku's chest twinged.

Rael sniffled. "There was nothing you could have done, Master. It was my decision. Nim. Fanry. Me. All of it."

Dooku bit back a sigh, crossing his wrists, forearms propped on his knees. A bit of charred flesh fluttered to the ground, landing with the incongruous sound of static. It reminded Dooku of autumn on Serenno, when the leaves would turn a brilliant symphony of warm vermillion, goldenrod, and amber, all accentuated by a line of violent chartreuse emanating from the Turgan fruit trees populating the sandy lee side of the towering Cernnan mountain range.

From the corner of his eye, Dooku could almost see the dusty landmass, eroded from years of overfarming, grains tumbling down the side of the mountain - he blinked - tumbling down the side of the tangled mass of metal ripped from the side of the ship, one by one. 

Ping, ping, ping.

Dooku shook his head, clearing his throat. He turned to face Rael.

"Do you regret it?" 

A wet chuckle. "Yes." Rael bobbed his head back and forth, chuckle transforming to dry, mirthful laughter. Dooku wrenched his gaze in horror as Rael grinned broadly, his teeth gleaming in the light.

"Yes. And no." The younger man stood, robes swooshing with the movement, the sound of a rainstorm on a cool, spring day. Droplets, grains of water, falling in a discrete hush, grey sky splintering, disintegrating into nothing.

"The Rael you knew - he regretted everything. So much so he took his own life."

Rael looked up, the twisted, vile smile vanished from his face. He pursed his lips, his usually animated expression more enigmatic, more inscrutable than Dooku had ever seen. The Rael he had known, for better or worse, had always been an open book, forthright to the point of fault.

But this Rael...

"Another version, this version," Rael gestured at himself, shrugging. "Perhaps he regretted nothing. Perhaps he enjoyed the kill."

Acid broiled in Dooku's gut. He rose to his feet slowly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Wrists slipped off forearms without the stability and grip of his hands, and Dooku scowled at himself, at his disabled limbs, at his inability to get a hold on the truth.

"What," he intoned, "do you mean, this version?"

Rael flitted his eyes to the ceiling, Dooku's gaze following. And then, only out of his peripheral vision, he saw it. Gone were the dark shadows, the sepulchral mask that had been Rael's final expression in the living world. At this vantage, he almost shone, face bright and pink, fleshy with good health and better humor. His hair was as Dooku had only seen it on state occasions, well-trimmed, styled even, his dark brown robes hanging neatly off his body, pressed and clean.

Dooku backed away. "Who are you? What are you?"

But Rael only opened his arms and smiled. "Oh, Master," he chided fondly. "I'm Rael Averross. Native of Ringo Vinda. Jedi Knight. And your former student. That much hasn't changed from one reality to the next. But I am - " Rael paused, putting his finger to his lips in thought, "a composite. Of your past, present, future - and what might have been. And as I am all those versions of Rael, I feel both everything and nothing."

The room echoed with the shadows of the storm behind a mirror,  the quiet hush of static now a wall of sound, sand falling, heavier and heavier. 

Things fall apart.

"Come." Rael stood in the center of the dais, at the same chair from which Sidious had gleefully ordered his execution. On either side, the storm drew closer, thick curtains of granules, of atoms in freefall, waiting for the final note, for the cadence to indicate their close. 

Rael outstretched his hand. "Come," he repeated. 

Dooku had no choice but to follow.

It took a moment for Dooku's eyes to adjust. The light had been penetrating, brighter than the high twin suns of Tatooine, more piercing than a droid's laser. 

"Where are we?" Dooku asked. An undulating, beige canvas rose and fell before him, reaching up and beyond the horizon line, past the limits of his senses. An impossible feat of physics. 

An impossible world.

Rael nodded his head towards a small valley.

Dooku gasped. There, in the clearing, sitting in low-backed, white chairs gathered round at an ornate wooden table. Shining ceramic dishes of various sizes peppered the perimeter. Dooku recognized the fare immediately - silvery gulm fish drowned in red, firepepper sauce. Dorian wheat bread, bulbous as a cumulus cloud seeded with the eight grains of Rassatora. And towards the corner was a large bowl of Thotarian ocean salad, slick ribbons of multicolored seaweed twirled in a mound of attractive braids. 

A fine meal. A meal ripped straight from Dooku's long-buried hopes and dreams.

"What is this, Rael?" he asked, voice quivering. There, at the table, sat Dooku himself, his mirror image, resplendent in his Jedi robe and tunic, deep burnt umber traced by the most subtle, yet intricate silver weaving on his collar. A perfect marriage of Jedi tradition and high Serennian fashion. To his right was Obi-wan Kenobi, much like Dooku had seen him last on the Invisible Hand, auburn hair greying at the temples, bangs threatening to overtake his high forehead, sienna tunic trim-fit over his lean body. The man's blue eyes sparkled, his expression lighter than Dooku had ever seen, as if some great, invisible weight had been lifted from his shoulders. 

The two men exchanged words, laughing as Dooku's simulacrum placed a paternal hand on Obi-wan's shoulder. 

At the other end of the table sat Rael, looking as he had in life - all tatters and unkempt hair. He was leaning - leering, really - over a dejarik board, eyes narrowed, chin in hand. A pivotal moment, it must be, Dooku thought to himself, unconsciously parroting the strange cadence of another shadow from his past.

Across from Rael, sat the last figure, long leg bent, ankle perched on his knee. Amusement played at his features, crow's feet Dooku had never seen crinkling at the corners of his eyes as he ran a single finger over his mustache.

Dooku's heart leapt to his throat.

Qui-gon.

Trembling, Dooku wrenched his gaze away, regarding his own neutered arms in dismay. This was reality, carved into his cold, disgraced flesh. Kenobi had regarded him with contempt in life. There was no reason to believe Qui-gon wouldn't mirror him in death. Dooku crossed his wrists behind his back, clenching his jaw. 

"This never happened."

Rael - the one standing beside him - friend, phantom, tormentor -  

Whoever or whatever he was, the man put his hands to his hips, as if he were addressing an Initiate. Dooku suddenly wondered what Rael had been like as a Master, wondered just how much of Dooku's teachings had been passed down to Nim Pianna before her death.

"Not in your reality, Master. But here," the not-Rael gestured at the impossible, tall walls of sand, "where all things meet?" He grinned, wide and toothy. "This is only one of limitless possibilities."

Dooku stared, dumbfounded.

"In this reality..." not-Rael squinted, hunching slightly as he pointed towards small gathering below. "Ah, yes. This reality," not-Rael chuckled. "The one where Obi-wan Kenobi became the last, and some say, greatest Padawan of Yan Dooku. The one where - with Qui-gon Jinn having no student - well, after the unfortunate death of Nim Pianna, he went with Rael Averross to Pijal and..." 

Not-Rael paused, twisting his neck, directing his gaze at the limitless expanse above them. He blinked - once, twice - stretching his mouth in an exaggerated yawn before continuing, voice husky. "Let's just say things turned out a little different."

Dooku gave a shallow nod, not understanding at all. 

"And Skywalker?" he asked.

"Here?" Not-Rael brightened, his mood turning on an ingot. "Greatest podracer in recent history! I - well, that Rael," he pointed towards the other man, "won 15,000 Calamari flan betting on Skywalker in his early days, before he rocketed to the front page of every sports holo in the galaxy. Best wager I've made in my life."

Dooku snorted. If only he had been afforded that reality. Then Dooku would have never had to lay eyes on the wretched boy. He, unlike Rael, had never deigned to read the sports section of the holonet. 

"Yeah, it was a hell of a thing," not-Rael continued, seemingly ignorant of Dooku's dark thoughts. "All happened after the slave rebellion on Tatooine."

That caught Dooku's attention, his head twisting towards not-Rael. "The Jedi?" he guessed.

Not-Rael shook his head. "Nah, internal thing. Uprising by the Sandpeople, chased those Hutts right off the planet. Anyway, Skywalker made out real good here. And in a few other existences, as well. Mace Windu took him as his student, in one." Not-Rael snorted. "Poor man, but it was for the best. In another, he left the order and married that pretty Senator from Naboo. And in a few iterations, Qui-gon trained him, but usually at the cost of Obi-wan's premature death. Those realities," not-Rael sucked in air through gritted teeth, shaking his head. "Those realities never turned out well."

Dooku furrowed his brow. "But is he not the Chosen One in those realities, as well?" 

That did make not-Rael bellow with laughter, long and loud. "The Chosen One. Pah! The Chosen One, Master, is a matter of - " Not-Rael clicked his tongue. "Well, choice. You and Qui-gon always got too wrapped up in those prophecies. Why couldn't you have picked up a better hobby, like crocheting?" Not-Rael ran a hand through his hair, turning to face Dooku. "You know better than anyone prophecy is not destiny, but merely the existence of a nexus in the Force. There is a Chosen one, where past, present, and future meet - but as to who that is -  " He shrugged. "They're no one. And everyone. Choice, Master. Choice."

Dooku let the words wash over him, not quite comprehending, but knowing something in the message was of vital importance. He turned his attention back to the scene below, an ache forming in the cavity of his chest. He and Obi-wan, sharing a familiarity, a comfort he could only dream of. Rael, alive and well, his good-natured chaos finding a place to call home. And Qui-gon...

Dooku bit his lip. 

Qui-gon, his last student, murdered by that which he would become. The boy with a thousand questions, wise and impenetrable, forever seeming to exist on two planes of existence, even as a child. 

Sand began to fall from the horizon walls, a light drizzle emanating from nowhere at all. 

Tiny granules slid down Dooku's cheeks.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Me?" Not-Rael sounded almost offended. "Who's to say I'm calling the shots here? This is your funeral, Master."

The storm intensified, downpour increasing, blotting out the halcyon scene of the valley to mere memory.

"But how did you come here? What does this all mean?"

Not-Rael stepped back, sand falling onto him, through him, his body no longer a single entity but the visible accumulation of an infinite number of minuscule grains, each a different shade, a different size, containing a different meaning. 

"Me?" Not-Rael echoed, his body no longer visible in the wall of physical static. 

"I was never here."

The torrent unleashed its full potential, light no longer visible, a never-ending curtain of molecules, of grains, moving faster and faster. 

In reality, a demon smiles, a child loses their last innocence, and two lightsabers cross, deadly and final.

There is no more.

The desert stills.

In the desert, everything is temporary. 

Entire topographies built and buried, empires rising, then felled - all in a single day, all by the whims of the wind. Every hour, every minute takes new shape, heralds a new beginning. A new story to be told.

A single grain travels the eternal desert. Too long has it wandered, shifting from dune to dune - destruction, creation - the cycle repeating, endless.

It sits, unmoving, between two towering monoliths, belonging to neither, not yet, but married to the desert's body with every beat of its consciousness.

The wind shifts.

It knows where it has been, the paths it has traveled to get here, this lonely valley in the shadow of the moon.

Perhaps this time - perhaps something different.

The wind shifts again, the grain swallowed, buried in a single decision, in one small impulse.

Choice.

The path is set.

The dunes ever turn, the sandy river constant - dark and luminous, the heartbeat of creation.