Like Spinning Plates

[Vega Van-Derveld]

The people of Mos Espa were no strangers to death. A regular haunt for thieves and vagrants of all kinds, it was a rare thing for a day to go by without a fire fight exploding in a cantina over something as trivial as a hand of cards. If the citizens weren’t vaporizing one another over credit chits, they were boldly braving the Dune Sea, searching for the deadly krayt dragon and often finding out just why it was so deadly. Others simply wandered a little too far from the markers that allowed them to navigate the shifting sands, and found themselves falling prey to a slower, torturous demise at the hands of the planets sweltering twin suns.

For one Ugnaught hunting party, another grim fate had been waiting. At first, it had been little more than a speck on the horizon. One had scoffed that it was nothing but a mirage, that the heat was playing tricks on their mind – but curiosity got the better of them. As they drew nearer, grunting and sweating under the weight of their bulky armour, they remained confidently unaware of what lay ahead. Within minutes, they all lay dead.

Why? Destiny giveth…and destiny taketh away. Destiny. There had been no destiny in their deaths – but they had died for a purpose. While they had killed for sport and prestige, they had been killed for something more important. Now, just like the markers that ran the dunes, they were beacons. Their deaths would call out through the Force like Sirens. A man in black stood surrounded by their bloated corpses festering in the sun, their blood staining the golden sands red.

He waited.

Soon, he thought. Soon, the whirlwind would come.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

He'd taken solace on Tattooine for a reason he refused to name. A reason he'd refused to acknowledge. The leylines of the force weaved the destinies of untold creatures together, into the tapestry of the universe.

The thinnest of these leylines ran between souls who passed like ships in the night. These connections grew and multiplied around other beings, intertwining their destinies. One who listened to their feelings could trace these, as if they were highways of pure light, to their source.

It was such that bound Anbira Hicchoru, Master of the Jedi Order, to that of Vega Van Derveld, servant of darkness. The leylines between these were ancient and indestructable. They had existed long before Anbira's own fall to darkness and his redemption, and they sang with unnatural melody now.

Anbira had sequestered himself in an abandoned hamlet at the periphery of the Dune Sea. It was here that the leylines would intersect. Here that his path and Vega's would meet. In a knot of destiny that expanded around this entire planet.

The threads that bound the two sang out of key. They shrieked, breaking Anbira's meditation in his adobe shelter. Vega had plucked these threads, severing weaker ties to those he had never met, and would never meet again. The discord of destroyed life rang through the tapestry. Anbira traced the tear to its source.

No more than an hour later, he had found him. The trek across the dunes was an unforgiving one, and the Jedi Master drew his brown cloak tightly around him as the wind blew with a sandy bite. Flush against the unforgiving twin suns, he could see a silhouette waiting for him.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

Already the sands had shifted, so much so that the bodies of the slain Ugnaughts lay only half-visible. At nightfall, creatures of the desert would come and feed on the dead flesh while it was still warm, and leave the bones with the legions of others that peppered the landscape.

Stepping over and away from the cadavers, the Lupine moved down the dune upon which he’d waited, the heat shimmered around his body.

To the common eye, it would have seemed odd that Vega remained so pale in such a temperature, but Anbira would have known better. Years under the weight of the Dark Side had taken its toll on Lord Van-Derveld, much it once had Hicchoru. His complexion was ghastly and his scars all the more prominent. The face that he wore now was not of the young man who had journeyed to Munto Codru in search of glory.

Little more than fifteen feet from the Jedi Master, Vega stopped. The wind subsided and silence swept across the Dune Sea.

A frown furrowed the Sith Lord’s brow. “Anbira Hicchoru. Today we end this.”

[Anbira Hicchoru]

There was so much he could say to that. The history between the two of them was deep, and the Force spoke earnestly of it. His destiny, and that of Vega's were intertwined. This was but one of many knots in the weave. Perhaps the last.

There was only one thing he could say to that.

"Indeed."

The sun was setting beyond the dune the lupine perched on. Anbira's blade sang to life, blue against orange sand, beneath blue sky.

He staggered his stance, and held the hilt with both hands above his head. Blue blade against blue sky.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

As tradition dictated, Vega was the first to attack. With a flick of his wrist, the Sith’s yellow blade crackled to life with a hungry snarl. He drew the hilt above his head, as Anbira had done, and then as though the sand below his feet were a springboard, vaulted through the air towards his opponent. The lightsaber beam came cleaving downwards, a heavy-handed blow that would have thrown the balance of a lesser man all to hell – the Lupine’s full body weight behind the swing.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Were Anbira as brash as he had once been, he would have met strength with strength. Yet, the Sith held the upper ground. Even with his own power, he would be in no position to effect the fight.

The heavy blow came overhead, and Anbira held his own blade over his head, slanting down and away from his center of gravity. Vega's strike connected at the blade's center, and the force of his momentum continued largely unopposed, sliding the Lupine's lightsaber down and away from the Jedi in turn.

A quick pivot in the sand, and Anbira whipped about, his blade now inside of Vega's guard, with a backhanded swipe intended to behead his opponent.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

Body jerking backwards, Vega snapped his saber upwards. His grip shifting in the process, he brought the beam flush against Anbira’s – side stepping as sparks crackled and leapt off of the two shafts of light. With a twist and upward swing, the Sith forced the blade of his opponent upwards, following quickly with a firm kick to the Jedi’s gut. Again, the intention of the attack was to send Anbira to the ground, whereupon Vega would drive his saber right through the old mans ribcage.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

Anbira collapsed against Vega's bootheel, falling away from the Sith and tumbling backwards on the dune's slope. A hand stretched out, providing enough purchase so that his feet flipped back onto solid ground, though he had given up more of the high ground to Vega.

"You fight well, my friend."

The Jedi Master paced parallel to the dune slope.

"Your skills have improved since last we met."

[Vega Van-Derveld]

For a moment, Vega was silent. In times gone by, Anbira had little in the way of respect for the Lupine. In some ways, his disregard was warranted. A chaotic, uninhibited fighter, Vega was most often drive by impulse and aggression rather than logic. Whether he was loosing and lashing out desperately, or winning and striking out arrogantly, it was rare that he fought with anything less than a seemingly limitlessly ferocity.

Today, however, this did not seem to be the case. His strikes were well placed, his every step calculated. He had learned, at last, from his encounters with the Jedi Master. It was better that he move slow and steady – after all, the brightest flame burnt out the quickest. Of course, the fight had only begun. In possession of a notorious temper, the slightest provocation was likely to unhinge the Sith Lord’s demeanor. Whether Vega would be able to maintain his cool was yet to be seen.

“It would seem so,” he said at last, and then said nothing more. Drawing his saber upwards into a guard with one hand, he beckoned Hicchoru forwards with the other.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"If you insist."

Digging in, Anbira torqued up the dune, legs pumping but moving slowly. It was what Vega wanted. Before he reached striking distance, Anbira cut a deep swath in the sand in front of him, sending a spray of dust and liquid glass upward to greet the Sith. Through the haze, Anbira leaped skyward, over Vega's head, to find purchase on the crest of the dune itself.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

Vega brought one forearm up to shield his eyes, pushing the other free hand outwards – sending a weak wave of energy towards the spray, dispersing it somewhat. The attack was little more than an irritant. The Sith Lord could feel that his opponent now stood behind him, and turned quickly to face Anbira. Brushing the sand from his skin, Vega narrowed his one good eye against the light.

“You’re holding back,” he frowned, moving slowly up the dune.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

"I sense your own hesitation."

Anbira flipped his blade's edge upwards as Vega approached the high ground.

"Your heart hasn't fully hardened. You will not cast your lot with destruction, and neither shall I destroy you.

That alone is why I face you. Why you must in turn face yourself."

[Vega Van-Derveld]

“Won’t cast my lot in with destruction?”

Vega scoffed, bringing his own saber sharply up into a two-handed guard.

A self-righteous indignation bubbled beneath his skin at Anbira’s words.

“Then what have I been doing in the last five years of my life?”

Quickly, he moved forwards and swung the yellow blade in a downwards, diagonal strike.

[Anbira Hicchoru]

He met the Sith's low strike, pivoting his blade upwards for an opposing swing that was also rebuffed. A rapid succession of swipes resulted in a stalemate, with both fighters pressing forward against the other's blades.

"You've been living a lie. Search your feelings, I am not your enemy! The Sith have turned you into a spiteful attack dog, whose only purpose is to exist contrary to everything that I represent."