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If there was one thing A'Sharad had learned, it was that Falling was a choice, and any Jedi who said otherwise were fools.
The Dark Side didn't just let you slide into it, no... it required a conscious, rational and repeated decision.
Falling was a matter of will, and A'Sharad had it.
It was not predestination, even if his life had prepared him for it: in the end it was all a matter of choice.
Every day of his life, for as long as he could remember, A'Sharad had felt the call of his emotions, burning in his blood, urging him to act, to react, sometimes even in a way that defies all logic.
Channelling, controlling his emotions, was a permanent thing for him, as it was for every member of his Tribe, but he was not like them, he had the Force, and his father had reminded him enough how essential self-control was for him in particular. It was what would ensure his survival.
Anakin, or Vader – it didn't matter what his name was, he was still the same stupid, naive, but powerful stooge of Palpatine – still the same stupid, incapable brat, who only found satisfaction in the suffering and death of others to reassure himself of his own survival.
A'Sharad offered his services to prove himself, as a good Tusken, because that's what he was, despite the blood of two Jedi running through his veins, he knew what he was, and he wasn't a Jedi: he was a child of the desert, he wanted no other life than this one.
He had grown up on a harsh, inhospitable planet, between deadly dunes and a scorching sun, but it was home. On Tatooine, mistakes never forgive... so not making mistakes was enough to get by. Be forward thinking, be adaptable, be smart, be controlled.
He had learned to fight and accept pain and hardship, racism and isolation, he had learned about the Force and the capabilities it offered, life and death, the energy of the world...
His life probably looked horrible to just about everyone in the Core and Middle Rim, and about half the Outer Rim, but he wasn't unhappy about it. He wasn't alone, and he wasn't helpless: what more could he ask for?
If he could have asked for anything, it would have been his mother. K'Sheek Hett was a tender mother and a caring wife, but if he remembered her well, she was always looking to the stars. She had returned to her Tribe and started a family, but she'd left to find her people, not because she really wanted to leave the Jedi. Unlike her husband, she would have liked to combine the two, unlike the former Jedi legend who had become a Tribal Chief and never looked back.
She was the one who had started teaching A'Sharad about the Force, his father had added things, of course, but he wasn't really a good Jedi teacher, his parents used to joke about it together and laugh at the clumsiness of the "Great Sharad Hett" who had failed to learn lessons about teaching from his Master, a certain Eeth Koth, who his father had described as an excellent teacher.
Except that his mother had left them, returning to Coruscant to help the Jedi after feeling her Jedi Master die. There was a war going on in Stark Hyperspace or something, and his father particularly regretted the death of a silver-furred Wookie from the Jedi High Council, a particularly high-ranking victim of the conflict.
He'd only seen her in person a dozen times in as many years, but he accepted, and endured, even though getting calls or text messages... it just wasn't the same.
Except that duty to the Tribe was something a Tusken always honoured, and if K'Sheek Hett felt as much like a Jedi as a Tusken, then she was doing exactly what she had to do, and A'Sharad was proud of her loyalty and honour.
He waited for her to return, not wasting many tears on her, it was not wise to lose such precious water so foolishly, but he was nostalgic for her presence. Sometimes he felt so lonely that he imagined she was in the desert, slaying a Krayt dragon as all Tusken Warriors did for their rites of passage even though Tusken women did not fight. As A'Sharad would one day do to prove his worth.
When he turned fourteen, despite all his rationality, tears fell from his eyes, wetting his cheeks, drying quickly from the heat. Something inside him had broken. He returned home to find his father in their tent, devastated.
He had not been wrong, his mother was dead. She was dead, and she would probably not be laid to rest in a desert, as they all wanted.
K'Sheek Hett had returned to the Force, and A'Sharad promised himself he would never cry again. Sometimes, when he meditated, he felt as if he could feel her presence. It helped a little.
A year later, while fighting was now his daily life because of those damned Hutts, A'Sharad had sadly grown accustomed to the permanence of death. Between poisonings, bombings, and colonist attacks, their Tribe never had the right to have a break.
When a Cerean Jedi arrived, his father recognized him and sent him to fight a Krayt dragon. The Jedi didn't know what that meant, but A'Sharad did. His father thought he was ready. He would not let him down.
He returned to their Tribe victorious and officially became a Tusken Warrior and was cheered by his comrades.
He could not remember ever feeling as alive as he did at that moment.
And yet, even this happiness could not be left alone for him to fully savour.
Just after he became a Tusken warrior, literally days later, his father was mortally wounded by a woman he could not stop and died in his arms.
Aurra Sing's face remained etched in his memory, though he gave up seeking revenge to respect his father's wishes. With his Tribe wiped out, as the only survivor, A'Sharad became a Jedi Padawan and followed his new teacher, Ki-Adi Mundi, away from the only life he had ever known. A life he had never wanted to leave.
It was his first, albeit unconscious, contact with the Dark Side. When his mother had died, all A'Sharad had felt was sadness, an all-consuming pain, but now... Now he felt hatred.
He was angry at the whole world, at the pathetic and invasive colonists, at the lazy and greedy Hutts, but also at the Jedi, who had only gotten involved to arrest his father because they didn't want a lightsaber-wielding Tusken disrupting their reputation as gentle pacifist negotiators. In the end, he was just angry at the Force itself.
Anger passed with time, he mourned, but the reasons for his anger, unfortunately, did not disappear.
Aurra Sing killed two Jedi, including her fellow Padawan Xiaan Amersu's Master, Jedi Knight J'Mikel.
They didn't care that she had killed his father for the Hutt, but they did care that she had killed Jedi and immediately decided to send a team to stop her. Indignation, jealousy and rage were not far from the surface of his soul. No death was appreciated by A'Sharad, but knowing that some deaths were more valuable to the Jedi than others had caused him great pain.
With other Masters in addition to his own, they went after her, and he got a little too close to the Darkness to continue ignoring it.
He hated her. He wanted her to die. He wanted her to suffer. He wanted her to writhe in pain and beg for mercy, all for him to refuse and inflict more pain on her. The others remained rational and collected despite their failure, and praised him for his apparent calm, but inwardly A'Sharad was not relaxed at all. He was burning.
Xiaan did not listen to his apology for failing to stop Sing and embraced him.
"You came back alive, I'm so glad, you survived."
He had come back alive, yes... but he didn't feel quite himself. He returned the hug, meditated quietly for the next few days, and came to a painful realization: he couldn't be a Jedi. He didn't feel the right emotions. He asked to leave, eventually changing his Master and becoming a Jedi Knight after she had finished his training.
She had tried to model him, but A'Sharad didn't care and decided on his own to remain a Jedi after thinking long and hard about his possibilities. She thought she had influenced him, but he had only learned as many useful skills as he could because it would be foolish not to, but at his core... he remained Tusken. He was not a servant of the Force.
Years passed, he met people who still made him doubt, but he managed to keep his commitment.
Then came the war, and again he was tested, and his faith wavered.
It wasn't immediate, of course, he was stable enough for it didn't happen, but how was he supposed to take receiving a declaration of genocide of an entire Tribe and hatred of his people from a young Jedi Knight? He remained silent on the matter, only because Skywalker had promised to confess his wrongdoing to the Council himself, but he came away from the encounter deeply troubled.
He had been introduced to a young Nikto man, Bhat Jul, and he became his Padawan. He had no choice, nor did the boy, but A'Sharad knew he would have to make a warrior of him. He had to lead him through his coming-of-age ceremony as his father had done for him, he just had to teach him Jedi things instead of Tusken things, things he had learned himself. He could make him a Jedi, he was one.
Except they weren't living Jedi lives, they were living a war of insane violence and madness.
Being a diligent student, a tough and courageous Padawan, and a cheerful and kind-hearted teenager was no match for a bomb, and he wasn't even there when Bhat took his last breath in Anakin's arms.
The only thing he could choose was how to honour him, and selfishly he chose to leave his body to the sand, to the desert.
Bhat lay with his father in the soul of the desert, for the soul of the desert was unique on all planets, and he sincerely thought it would please his Padawan that he wept frequently.
A child he had failed to save.
When the Council wanted to replace Bhat with another youngster, A'Sharad refused and threatened to go into exile if they insisted. With his father's precedent, they did not dare to go any further, and it was better that way.
Battles and military campaigns followed one another, and A'Sharad unconsciously looked after his troops as if they were his tribe, which he only noticed when others Jedi pointed out their different attitude from the other clones. They valued water, respected and loved the desert, and had used whatever fabric they could to make hoods and hide their faces.
He hadn't noticed that he was influencing them so much, but there were so many worse influences that he saw no point in stopping it. They were like him, they wanted to belong to a group, to a culture, to something that had meaning beyond themselves. Some found that in Mandalorian culture, his troops found it in Sand People culture.
And... despite the prohibitions against emotional attachment, A'Sharad could not help but cling to Xiaan when he saw her again. She had grown into a confident and determined young woman, strong and courageous. She didn't have much of a sense of humour, but neither did he, broken and tragic childhoods tended to take away unnecessary sarcasm.
She had none of the attitude or appearance that A'Sharad had been taught to value in a woman as a child, but... she was perfect. The most beautiful part of their secret love was of course that it was returned. In the midst of constant pain and danger, he had known the softness of her lips and arms, he had been loved, he had known love... just before he lost it.
Xiaan had sacrificed herself to defeat the Separatists on Saleucami. Except that the Separatists had died quickly so that an Empire could be born.
With nothing left to tie him to that low world, A'Sharad returned to Tatooine and resumed his life... as if those thirteen years as a Jedi were just a dream. He fought settlers and ensured the survival of the Tribe that had taken him in as a brother... until he ran into him. Kenobi.
Kenobi, defending settlers, and a blond child who A’Sharad would be foolish to mistake for anyone but Skywalker's child. He'd seen the footage of the Bonta Eve won by Skywalker when he was young, and this child was his carbon copy.
Kenobi... that damned hypocrite.
By now, a Sith spirit had been circling him for a while, but A'Sharad had ignored it like one would ignore an annoying child. XoXaan didn't even seem discouraged by this, she saw in him the potential of a "true" Sith, whatever that meant, especially for someone who claimed to have created the concept.
Except now... there was nothing and no one to calm his anger and hatred. No one to tell him that this path was not the right one, that there were better ways, or that he was better than the Sith.
Kenobi, the coward who had fled to the desert to protect a single child. Where were his Jedi Master commitments? Where was the common good? He dared to choose a single life over that of a community? A single child did not deserve so much attention, for a Jedi must be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.
Even isolated on this remote planet, A'Sharad had heard of rebel groups and a Rebel Alliance that was trying to organize itself, and he dared to claim to be a wise Jedi while doing nothing?
What was wrong with being selfish, when no one but yourself had your best interests in mind? What was wrong with being your own priority, when it came to survival?
He isolated himself to meditate in a cave. He felt he had something to think about here, something crucial.
The Dark Side was seductive, but was what it offered necessarily evil? The Jedi rejected attachment... was loving Xiaan wrong? A'Sharad didn't think so.
What was wrong with being powerful? What was wrong with imposing your will on others if the others were stupid, useless sheep crying out for a shepherd to lead them anyway?
Did he want to make that choice? Did he want to make the choice to become a supreme hunter, the strong one who crushes the weak, the one who conquers and fights to impose his law?
... Making the right choices had never helped his loved ones. His parents, dead for their ideals. His Padawan, who died without knowing what he was risking. His Jedi Masters, killed for defending a weak Republic unworthy of their devotion and the Force, which clearly didn't care about them. His love, dead in his arms, with only one last wish as her last words:
"Farewell, A'Sharad...turn my death...into a victory."
Had she realized this? Had she, for one breath, anticipated that he would be facing this choice?
Seeking victory was not an attribute of the Jedi. The Jedi did not seek victory, they pursued an ideal of peace.
A tear rolled down his face as he realized that he had nothing to hold on to anyway. His Tribe would not want him to return, showing his face was an unacceptable act, a proof of weakness...
He was alone in the world, and he wanted others to suffer as much as he did.
"For you, my love, for you, my family... and for me."
The next time A'Sharad opened his eyes, he already knew that his Sith Master XoXaan would find him changed.
His eyes burned, and when he checked their colour in the reflection of the metal parts of his lightsaber, he found them a bright orange… like flames.
Poetic.
His actions would be less so, and he didn't care. Morals didn't matter, only results, and he would impose his vision on the world or die trying.
He would be a desert dragon.
He would be Darth Krayt.