The Philosophy of Fate

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

There are few times these days when the two are allowed time alone; time to sit, each in silence and contemplation at the inner workings of the galaxy and its' whims. Or perhaps they ponder on each other, what one or the other is possibly thinking at any given point in time. There are no words during these quiet times, sequestered away in peaceful and many times dimly illuminated quarters. These are times when thought and inner contemplation rule, and verbal exchange is seen as below their status... a thing unnecessary. Who truly needed to speak to the one that they knew most intimately? There was no need. No purpose.

But. To speak, to hear that one person's voice weaving with her own in a tapestry spun from the most basic, primal, and overall comforting tones, is sometimes a need all its' own. It is what drives her. Gives her the conviction to seek more. To know all that she can. His is a voice that opens her to new heights and vistas, encourages her thirst for knowledge of times past, and tempers her enthusiasm with a patience that is all at once serene and cunning. So much she has learned from him, so much she is still learning. Many of his qualities she now lays claim to as well, having shown herself capable, strong, and determined.

There are delineations however. Perhaps a certain way of thinking is examined and rejected. Or perhaps it is transformed, evolved into a new perception by a fresh mind. In this case, it is not so much outright rejected as sorely questioned, found lacking, and subsequently doubted to be of any consequence. Any real worth.

Fate.

A word that might as well be a part of his daily lexicon.

A word that she cannot help but frown at, and though she has not voiced her opinions of the concept of 'fate', she feels no connection to it.

Alone, in their quarters, Loklorien s'Ilancy sat comfortably in a chair that faced a sofa from across a low, glass-topped table. She stared in silence at the one who stared back at her, he himself sitting on the sofa in apparent comfort. They'd not spoken for hours, instead simply staring at one another; speaking in that quiet, noiseless language of eyes.

Fate. Such a farcical thing.

Her voice finally penetrated the air between them.

"I have found," she began thoughtfully, if not a bit warmly. She could never help the adoration for him in her voice, despite whatever differing thoughts she may have.

"... that there is no such thing as fate."

[General Dan]

"Mm."

Dan gave the barest of nods at that. It wasn't a nod in agreement, but one of expectation. That it was only so natural that she rebelled against the notion.

"I'm interested, naturally. What brought you to this discovery?"

He could practically feel her pulling the line that held her fast tight, pacing around him, testing it for any give in it's resiliency.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"You."

Her brow furrowed in thought, and she studied him. Studied each minute movement he made.

"Fate is a convenient excuse when nothing comes together as it should. Used when the truth is something that none wish to admit to themselves, or any other."

[General Dan]

"Sounds like a consolation to me."

He steepled his fingers together, leaning towards her.

"The very concept of the force and of fate are intertwined, unless you mean to tell me that even there, you see in a different light?"

Her small rebellions from him had become an object of intrigue. She worked so hard to keep the scorn smoldering in her chest without it immolating her.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"The Force is a tangible thing. I feel it, you feel it. It is something that we can grasp and hold tight. The same cannot be said for fate."

His reaction and behavior so far was one that she'd come to expect in their years together. Their time spent so deeply entrenched with one another. He was watching her, and she him. It had almost become its' own game in a way.

She made a small gesture with her hand; in no way dismissive, but rather in illustration.

"Fate is a human creation... "

The Lupine's choice of words was deliberate, but not intended to insult.

"... an abstract notion that should have disappeared eons ago."

[General Dan]

"Then, you would say that the Force has no influence over bringing us together?"

The intrigue was apparent in Dan's voice.

"You believe that free will is the master at work in that arrangement?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

At that, she looked at him thoughtfully. Head angled to the side at ever-so-slight an angle, s'Il studied him. When she did answer, it was to pose another question.

"Free will," she spoke as if tasting the two words for the first time, mulling their implications over in her mind as she licked her lips.

"Is there truly any such thing? Any being that can boast of possessing it?"

[General Dan]

"You mean to tell me that you believe neither in fate nor free will?"

He leaned back in his seat a little, a look of curiosity on his face.

"Does that seem somewhat limiting to you? Where do you go if not to either/or?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

With a sly glint in her eye, the Lupine gave a smirk.

"I said that I find fate to be a hollow notion. I have merely questioned the concept of free will."

A single finger tapped at the armrest of her chair as she went on, waving her hand as if to dismiss her previous words.

"Of course, you may be right. I think that I have an easier time of subscribing to the thought of a strong will. Vices, whether good or bad, are what chain us, define us, send us forward or hold us back. Likewise, our wills are also chained by those very same things. They can be great or they can be small, but all have them.

"Even you."

[General Dan]

"You're suggesting that one's preferences or affinities in some way hamper their free will?"

Dan patiently sought clarification. He wanted to see how far out this length of yarn ran.

"You reject that there's enough will to break the pattern completely?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Slowly, s'Il leaned forward a small bit as a hint of a smile curled at the corners of her lips.

"Are you not a slave to your own desires for power? The passion to control all and everything around you is so strong in you that it has consumed you. To have a truly free will, do you not think that you would have to let go that desire? To cast it aside? Not to exist in peace, but in the true chaos and unpredictability of the Force?"

Fingers curled on the soft material of the chair. She inhaled slowly.

"It is not a bad thing, in fact it is wonderful; to be tied to the very needs and wants that bind our wills. It is what makes them strong."

[General Dan]

"Selfishness and free will are not mutually exclusive. I don't believe any act can truly be considered selfless."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"But that is immaterial. whether selfish or selfless, however much of each is connected to your actions matters little - if at all.

"I am simply questioning the definition of 'free will'. A 'strong will' seems to be better apt."

Standing then, the Lupine moved to a small wine rack that held a number of vintages; many from Schwartzweld, and others from Ithoria, Corellia, Bothawui, and Coruscant. She chose the Bothan - a full bodied red with a wide range of tastes. Two glass were taken from their resting place atop the wine rack, and s'Il returned to her seat.

"If you feel I am wrong in my line of thinking," she set the glasses and the bottle on the table between them.

"... certainly explain why."

[General Dan]

"We're diverging. You said you disbelieved fate. If free will cannot adequately explain our actions, what then would fill the vacuum you've suggested?"

Dan took one of the glasses, swirling it slightly as he held it beneath his nose.

"If not fate, and consequently the force, then what?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

A small smile as she too brought her glass up. It smelled wonderful, each scent weaving into one another to create such a wonderful olfactory beauty.

"I do not diverge," she answered softly.

"A strong will is what shapes us, shapes our actions, and by extension our futures."

She sipped her wine, savoring each taste it brought with it.

"I'm not here now, with you, because of fate. I'm here because of your will. You desired that I become yours; become like you, and that desire was stronger than my own to be left alone."

Another sip.

"And It is a good thing that is so."

[General Dan]

"To believe in the force is to understand destiny and to understand fate. One is not required to accept their fate, which is as convenient or inconvenient as it may be."

Dan smiled contentedly.

"Think of the potential and the work to be done. We're positioned to do great things."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

At his smile, the Lupine slowly rose to her feet, moving around the small table so that she could sit beside him.

"I may not put any weight in the concept of fate, but that does not mean that I don't understand it."

Her small frame lowered to sit once more.

"As for being here, now, on the cusp of such greatness, are you telling me that it is through no efforts of your own, but simply that you are here because of fate? That your will was not a factor in where you stand at this very moment?"

[General Dan]

"Effort alone will only do so much. It can be undone by happenstance, a stroke of poor events seemingly out of control. Think of so many times we have been close to being undone."

Dan spread his hands out wide.

"Our will is only an actor of many roles. The stage itself is fate."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

The Lupine took the opportunity of his outstretched hands to gently take hold of one, and pulling it down into her lap in one motion while leaning forward to place her glass on the table in the next, she proceeded to meticulously scrape at the invisible traces of dirt beneath each of his fingernails.

"You yourself have said that our futures are bent to our desires and will. Would that not make life our stage, and fate nothing more than a tool; a prop to be used for our convenience?"

[General Dan]

He shook his head, insistent on what he meant.

"Nothing is done outside of fate. Our lives are finite in an infinite scope of fate and the force. Our will may interact with our lives and steer the future, but nothing is done in a vacuum.

Eventually, our lives will end. While there are many things under our power to delay this, it is inevitable."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Pausing in her ministrations, s'Il gave him a look from over the top of her eye.

"I do not recall saying that we will live forever," she remarked with a tinge of playfulness before once more resuming her inspections. She went over each joint in his hand; each knuckle, each crease along his palm, and carefully beneath each fingernail.

"So then, you do not think that while we are alive, our wills do not define the paths that we take in life - and by extension, define our fates?"

Satisfied with the one hand, she released it with a silent beckon for his other.

[General Dan]

"Only within the boundaries of fate. We can't by nature exceed those. We would then be apart from the force, an anomaly of existence itself."

He smiled knowingly.

"And you are quick to accept that we will not live forever, knowing what you do, the arcane skills I have at my command, ever ready to teach to you when the time is right."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

She matched his expression, but it wasn't long before her eyes closed and she broke their locked gaze, her head dipping. Her smile remained however.

"What you choose to grant me, you know that I will gladly accept. I am patient."

Her hands folded in her lap, s'Il once more opened her eyes, lifting them up to stare at the far wall.

"And yes, I realize that though our years may be lengthened, they are not unending; you have told me so yourself."

The Lupine remembered vividly her drunken insubordination following Sanis Prent's initial recruitment into the Alliance, and her Master's following rebukes. As well, she remembered the morning after, and his words had been burned into her memory.

"But now I am curious... do you not see your children as a form of immortality?"

Children. Plural.

It was her quiet acknowledgment to him that her mourning had ended, and she was once more willing and able to bear him the heir that he so desired.

[General Dan]

"That is a possibility. A possibility also tempered with the notion in both popular myth and historical present that many a powerful man and woman have been ended and usurped by their own progeny."

He sighed.

"A vexing wrinkle, if any. One that all of my precognition cannot determine the outcome of."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"There is risk in all things. Would you truly deny yourself the chance to continue your legacy because of such an unknown?"

She plucked her glass from the table, bringing it to her lips.

"You have accomplished so much in your lifetime - do you balk at this now?"

[General Dan]

"I haven't before, and I don't now. I've had lifetimes to think of this. My decisions with you then are the decisions I still keep."

He smiled an assured smile.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"Is that so."

She gave him a cryptic smirk in return, looking away while lifting her glass to her lips to finish the dregs of her wine.

"Ever the consummate wordsmith... "

The Lupine replaced the glass on the table, settling herself more comfortably against the sofa's back cushion. Her head tilted upward and her eyes closed.

"We shall see."

[General Dan]

His eyes narrowed.

"Somehow I think your appraisal of my words is a backhanded indictment of my veracity behind them."

He shook his head slightly.

"I'm surprised I've made you so cynical."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"Are you now?"

His darkening demeanor she paid no attention to; rather her grin grew into a peaceful smile. She blindly reached over to give a gentle pat to his hand before gripping it tightly.

"Worry not. I am still yours, and will always be as such."

[General Dan]

"Through fate or free will?"

He asked with a small smile, knowing by now the question was certainly rhetorical.

"Tell me, your involvement with the Jedi fleet, how are you progressing among them?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

A low, rumbly hrmph sounded from the back of her throat as she briefly pondered his first question.

In the beginning he had kept her fast to his side with his own iron will, showing no quarter and no tolerance. Now though she was bound to him by her own desires and will. She wished to stand beside him and endure all that he had to offer.

And he knew that as well as she did; possibly moreso.

"Well enough. My duties are of such a nature as to be quiet yet carry weight."

Her hand still held his, and she tilted her head forward to finally open her eyes, her gaze falling to the bottle of wine. A half-teasing tone colored her next question.

"And you? I was not aware that picking fights was on your agenda of consolidation, as oddly sweet a gesture as it was."

[General Dan]

"Nevermind Prent," he said coolly, "it's convenient that even in the charade we don't get along."

He shrugged.

"He's chosen to cast in his lot with those fools. I can't tell whether I should respect that, or simply add it to his condemnation. The Wheel is low hanging fruit that should be plucked soon."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

With a slow movement s'Il leaned forward, taking up the bottle and refilling both of their glasses.

"Before you do that, I would ask that you wait until Teagan is safe. With us."

Replacing the bottle, the Lupine used her forward momentum to swing her leg up and over, straddling him as he sat, and settling herself in his lap. Wine in hand, s'Il met his gaze unflinchingly.

"Your will is my resolve, and my strength is yours. If it has been my 'fate' to stand at your side as you say, I am compelled to ask - when did you find me... ?"

[General Dan]

He nodded agreeably.

"It can wait, but we should consider it soon."

The topic again changed, Dan considered her words.

"In the anarchy of the Clone Wars, it was easy to sift information from the Jedi. I found you nearly as soon as you were considered to be anyone worth finding. Master Windu's wild-streaked padawan."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

An eyebrow rose at that and s'Il paused, her glass at her lips as she looked at him.

"'Wild-streaked' is not exactly the description I'd choose for myself in those days."

With a bemused look, she recalled those years at the Temple, her sombre and often solitary ways meant that her time had been spent mostly in training, meditation, and with Master Windu. She'd had few, if any friends, but that fact never seemed to bother her. In some ways, to be a Jedi had been more of a convenient happenstance, having been taken up in the wake of her own personal tragedy while still so young.

She rubbed an absent finger along the lower half of her scar.

"Isolationist would be a better term."

The Lupine gave a half-hearted inner laugh at the memories.

"I was a very dull Padawan."

[General Dan]

"To the outward eye, perhaps. The advantage of my position is the ability to sense the potential."

He smiled knowingly.

"Having Windu for a master was certainly a sign of things to come."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

From her perch over him, s'Il made a face.

"Flattery will only get you so far."

She studied him then, watching him with quiet intent.

"Though it's nice to know that my doubting of fate doesn't diminish your patience. I freely admit that I once attributed all that happened to fate; to some grand act playing out with precise and predetermined motions. Perhaps that is true, and perhaps it is not."

She exhaled a long, thoughtful breath.

"But I believe with all of my being that I am here now by the strength of your will. You gave me life."

[General Dan]

"You were always meant to find life with me."

Dan corrected with a slight nod.

"Together, we will experience power of the like that has only been imagined by others. Perhaps then, fate and will themselves will intersect completely."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"I've not seen so much of the galaxy as you, so I hope that you will forgive me when I say that I find 'life' to be far more intriguing than 'power', and that I would crave it with more of a passion."

s'Il gave a wistful smile, staring over his head as she thought.

"Perhaps when I am older I will gain a new perspective," her eye went back to him.

"... but that is for time to tell. Still though, I find it increasingly more difficult as the years pass to think of fate as anything more than an outdated moniker. It is spoken of with great reverence in all of my books, but the more I read the more I scoff at it - "

Her chest swelled, and she leaned forward a small bit, hands going to each side of his face. There was a glint of the old madness come back to her eye, of now being capable of watching future generations of Lupines take hold of the stars.

" - for out of all my people, if I am to believe in such a notion, I am the one to overcome it. If my lot in life was to die alone, the last of my House, then I have cast aside the 'fate' of extinction. Where the old generations went no further than Figaro Favoura, the new - your generations - will fling themselves skyward with reckless abandon and no quarter for any who stand in their way."

The Lupine spoke her last words in a whisper.

"And they will do so, because you will it to be done."

[General Dan]

Dan smiled at her words.

"At last, we are understanding each other. We see the nexus, that distant intermingling between what is beyond us and what is in our grasp."

He placed a hand at her shoulder.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Leaning back only a small bit, s'Il returned his smile. There was a tempered, malevolent happiness that seemed to convey itself however; one that she had seen in him so many times before and had adopted in herself. She stared down at him, studying his features and raking her eye over every facet of his face - the deepened lines at the edges of his eyes and lips, the pronunciation of his cheekbones, the way his hair fell to his shoulders in a thin, silky curtain of grey.

In a way had he come to be hers? Certainly she knew not in the way that she belonged to him, but something else. Something entirely intangible yet present all the same. It was a thought that had begun slowly within the far depths of her mind some time ago, and had only grown from then. Mostly it took on a particularly eccentric taste, something to ponder in solitude when the fancy struck. The Lupine blinked slowly, breathing in deeply through her nose as she reached up to grip his hand for a short moment.

It was a strange thing that she did, touching his hand as she did, as she used this singular contact as a conduit between them. It was just as easy to simply touch his mind, but s'Il wanted his body to feel the power she now gave to him. Like a tidal force she let her strength pass to him, seeping into every pore of his own essence and being. And with that strength she gave devotion, loyalty, undying fealty.

She could feel his body tense ever so slightly, and her grip on his hand tightened as she poured more of herself into him. He would feel every ounce of her power, see the heights that her own awareness had scaled, and the endless breadth of what she was willing to do for him. All of this he would see and feel, and know that he was the one responsible.

And then it was gone; drawn back once more.

She released his hand, letting out a long breath, all the while keeping her eye locked with his.

"I did not receive that from fate," she finally spoke, her voice low as she seemed to bask in the afterglow of her release.

[General Dan]

Dan leaned back in his seat after the intimate display she'd shown him. A slight smile crossed his face and he gave a slight nod.

"On that we agree. Fate does not give and take like we can."

He lingered on the shared moment they'd had, and his smile grew.

"I've never questioned any of the boundless devotion you've given to me. I think we both know you better than that."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

From her straddled position over him as he sat, s'Il matched his expression.

Her hands reached out again to frame his face, and holding for a moment, the Lupine locked her eye with his. Fingers trailed down then, and she felt the collar of the silk shirt he wore, spreading the neckline so that she could rest her palms gently on each of his collarbones.

"What can give and take, that does not exist?"

Her tone was partially teasing as she leaned in, letting him know that she still clung to the notion that fate was nothing but a creation of human imagination.

"Man's will is all that can do such a thing."

And again she stretched out with her thoughts, probing into his own while inviting his mind into hers.

[General Dan]

"Faithful, yes. But stubborn too."

Dan shook his head with a smirk.

"That's more than my week's ration of philosophy, I think. Careful you don't get too caught up in the hobby."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"I doubt that will happen."

Her expression matched his own as she closed the already small distance between them.

"You do well enough to make sure that my thoughts are occupied with other tasks, be they official or otherwise."

[General Dan]

He gave the barest of nods.

"Idle hands, my dear."

Lacing his fingers together, his voice turned somewhat serious.

"Soon, the tasks will be less menial and trivial. I intend to instill purpose for both of us."