For Auld Lang Syne

[Salem Ave]

There was no fanfare to Salem Ave's arrival on Ossus.

The shuttle had chartered was not marked as a diplomatic vessel, nor did it carry the usual entourage of assistant's, aides and attendants that were apparently essential to the Minister of State. The Minister had not traveled alone – that was almost unheard of – but he was not on Ossus to be the Minister, so concessions had been made. He would have protection near at hand, but also the freedom to walk wherever and talk to whoever he pleased.

If the Jedi and Alliance workers who he walked among had any idea who the man in the dark suit was, they didn't show it. Their minds and bodies were focused elsewhere: on improving the still growing Jedi settlement, on building and mending, on planting and feeding, and in some cases on their training.

Pausing at the centre of a cluster of newly erected living quarters, Salem watched as in the distance a pair of Jedi practised their sparring technique with a pair of wooden swords. The days work flowed around them, as if the sight of two dueling figures in robes was common place.

[Ndonsa]

The fight was going well, but Ndonsa was finding it difficult to master the new style she was being taught. When she wanted to jump back and create distance for her spear, she had to close with her opponent to get inside his guard. Lightsabers were not coming easily for her - not that anyone trusted the Kufu with an actual saber. Wooden swords were it for now.

She stomped her footpaw and pivoted around it, slashing low and then continuing, sweeping the sword high and hopefully into her opponent's shoulder. Blocked. She leapt to the side, avoiding a retaliation strike, and rolled through the dust, coming to her feet too far away to reach with the sword, but stabbing it anyway, forgetting for a moment it was not her spear.

Ndonsa cried out in frustration, flinging the sword at her sparring partner with an extra push behind it, her necklaces tinkling against each other as the male she fought awkwardly parried the airborne wooden sword, the hilt coming about and smacking him in the face. She clenched her fists a few times, grinding her teeth, and then forced herself to take a deep breath. Do not be a child. Be a Jedi.

She calmly recalled the wooden sword to her paw, and looked for her partner, an practiced apology on her lips. He was holding his bleeding nose, and waving a hand in her direction. "I need a break," he said, words muffled.

Ndonsa nodded, the apology forgotten as he walked away toward the main medical tent. She spun the sword in the air and slammed it point first into the dirt, before walking to the shade and retrieving her water bottle and her spear where it leaned against a tree.

[Salem Ave]

There were no sparks as the wooden blades met, as there would have been with real lightsabers, but Salem felt flashes of emotion with each swing and thrust. Particularly strong was the feeling of frustration and determination radiating from the... non-human Jedi.

He approached the tree where she stood, taking stock of her performance.

“You fought well.”

[Ndonsa]

Ndonsa took another swig from her water bottle, and offered it to the man. It was a hot day. "I did not. The sword is strange to me." She closed her mouth in a firm line, staring at where she'd left the wooden sword in the dirt.

[Salem Ave]

He held up a hand to politely decline the bottle. The heat would have bothered him once, coming from a world as frigid as Arkania, but the sun was impossible to avoid on Hapes.

As with so many aspects of life, Salem had adjusted.

He glanced at the sword. “Practise will change that. If not... there's more to becoming a Jedi than sword-play, isn't there?”

[Ndonsa]

"Control," she said. "I practice control." Ndonsa capped the bottle and let it fall to the ground. The spear moved, smacking into her paw, and she thumped the butt of it in the dust. "Are you a Jedi?"

She regarded him without guile, simply an honest question as she had yet to meet all the beings who populated Ossus.

[Salem Ave]

Her question gave him pause. “No, not any more,” he said, after some careful thought. “Though I had hoped that I might find some of my... former... colleagues here,” he said, turning just enough to look over his shoulder.

[Ndonsa]

Ndonsa narrowed her eyes. A call-league was an unfamiliar term, but she did not let her face betray any confusion. "You wish to go." She paused. "Do you...require aid in finding your leagues?" She was treading in unfamiliar territory, but did not want to appear unaccommodating. Loki was probably lurking behind a bush to catch her in some un-Jedi-like action.

[Salem Ave]

“Ah,” he smiled, head bowed in a moment of self-awareness. He was talking as if he was still in the Senate. It was a difficult habit to shake.

“My apologies. What I mean to say is... I think there are Jedi here who I knew when I was a boy. We haven't spoken in many years.”

[Ndonsa]

"Old friends," Ndonsa nodded, filing the definition away under call-leagues. "There are many Jedi here, good hunting." She spun her spear as he continued on his way, the weapon levitating a bit as it left her paw for a moment.

[Serena Laran]

Serena Laran washed her hands in the exam room, and turned to the five year old girl sitting on the table. "Can you lift your shirt for me, Dorcas?" The girl did so, and revealed a pattern of reddish spots on her tummy. "Mmmhmm, and do the bumps itch?" Serena checked the back of the girl and saw the rash was climbing her back and descended over her buttocks.

"Yes," Dorcas said mournfully. "Master Loki told me to stop wiggling and meditate but I couldn't and then he saw these and sent me here." She hung her little head, mouth pressed in a sad line. "Am I in trouble?"

"No child, you aren't." Serena put her hand on the youngling's forehead and closed her eyes. Slightly elevated temperature but rising. The pattern of the rash, sworls over the skin... "Have you handled any bugs lately?"

The girl nodded, "There was a crate of them by the kitchens. I just grabbed one when it got out."

"Knytix pox (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Knytix_Pox) most likely," Serena said, opening her eyes. "There is a medicine to take to ease the itching. Meditation will also help, if you can calm your mind enough, Youngling." She helped the girl readjust her clothing and hop down from the examination table. "You will need to rest in your room for a few days, I'm afraid, but the pox will clear up on it's own."

After she passed the youngling off to her minder, Serena washed her hands again, and rubbed disinfectant on them. She would have to talk to the kitchens. Importing knytix insects from Thyferra was no doubt good for variation in the diet, but if they got loose on Ossus it could be an ecological disaster. Not to mention the highly contagious pox, if the creatures were carrying it, which it appeared these were. The Jedi Master walked out into the main pavillion to find who was next.

[Salem Ave]

The pavilion was quiet. A young man in what looked like an engineers uniform hobbled on crutches towards an examination room, with the help of another medic. Once they had disappeared through a makeshift doorway, the waiting room for Ossus's main medical facility was empty.

Empty but for a man in a dark suit.

“Hello, Master Laran.”

[Serena Laran]

She looked at the younger man expectantly, waiting for him to detail why he was visiting the medical tent, and then her expression changed. Curiousity, and then wonderment as the Force confirmed the familiarity she felt. "Salemescro?"

Serena crossed the distance between them, a hand out as if to touch him. She let it fall without encroaching in the former youngling's personal space. "It has been years... I thought you were dead - you and... A'na." A hundred questions leapt to mind in a flush of excitement. Was A'na still alive as well? Were they both returning from some far off exile in Wild Space?

[Salem Ave]

Salemescro... It was a name that few knew him by. He'd left it behind on Coruscant the day they had all fled the Jedi temple. That was the last time he had set eyes on Serena Laran, yet there was no mistaking her. After all, she had almost been his teacher.

“It's just Salem now.” A small smile tugged at his lips. “It's a relief to find you alive and well.”

[Serena Laran]

"And you," she agreed, her mind suddenly connecting breadcrumbs from memos from the Alliance Senate. "Salem. Ave. The Minister of State."

Serena smiled. "You have done well for yourself." She quested with the Force, searching for signs of the potential he had been fulfilling before Order 66 and the end of everything. There was still a bit there, but he was not actively doing anything. It was strange to look him in the eye, when every memory of the boy had been much... shorter.

He did not mention A'na Eldhil, his Jedi master. Most likely a sad memory, as they all had so many. And wasn't there another, a girl youngling? It was all so long ago.

[Salem Ave]

It was hard to imagine the young Salemescro Avesca looking at his adult self and agreeing with Serena's judgement, that he had made something important of himself – but Salem nodded his thanks regardless.

“And you... still with the Jedi, after all this time. I can only imagine how.. difficult it must have been.”

[Serena Laran]

"Avoiding death was the easy part," she agreed mildly. "Remaining alive..." Her voice trailed off and she had a far away look in her eyes.

Serena blinked and smiled. "I don't think any of us got through the fall of the Order without some scars. I was alone for many years; it is only in the last few that I have had the company of other Jedi." She paused, and then forged ahead. "I assume... A'na...?"

[Salem Ave]

“We traveled together for a while, but we.. parted ways when I was still a boy.”

It was a rare occasion when Salem thought about his time with A'na Eldhil, yet there had been a time when she was his whole world. Along with Lilaena, they had been a family of sorts. He had believed in A'na, but even his young eyes could see that she was losing grip on reality.

Salem shook his head.

“She lost her way. The weight of what had happened to us all, it became too much for her.”

[Serena Laran]

"I see." Serena leaned against the reception counter behind her, her eyes sad. "I'm sorry, I know it's been water under the bridge for you, but... so you don't know if she's still alive or not?"

Salem shook his head sympathetically, and she sighed. "Perhaps we will never know what became of her. If she was on a dark path..." She let her voice trail off, unable to bring herself to continue. Too much pain in the conjecture.

[Salem Ave]

Salem knew all too well what had become of A'na (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?21826-Out-of-the-Shadows-8-326), but that was not a story to share with a Jedi Master.

“I wish I'd had the strength to stay with her. Maybe it all would have.. turned out differently for us.”

The entrance to the pavilion flapped open behind them and a medic stomped in, muttering to herself. When she caught sight of the pair standing by the reception, her grumbling abruptly came to a halt and she ducked away into one of the examination rooms.

Salem frowned in thought.

“I never did find out what happened to her other apprentice.. Lilaena.”

[Akasha Khan]

In the examination bay immediately adjacent to the medical pavilion's reception area, a pair of fuzzy, rounded ears stood up and swiveled like articulated sensor dishes. Their owner, a black-furred Orryxian girl, slid off the edge of the exam table and stared wide-eyed at the padded partition that separated her from the two reminiscing elders, scarcely daring to breathe.

Up until now, the conversation between Master Laran and Salem Ave had just been background chatter for Akasha Khan, interesting only in that it revealed something of Jedi life before they became a hunted species. Most of the names meant nothing to her, and it idly occurred to her that she must have heard the man's voice somewhere before. But then Salem spoke a name that she did know, one that bridged the gap between her life with the Jedi and the other life she led, and suddenly she was back in a dark, chilly catacomb under the streets of Iziz with a gathering of shadowy figures, speaking of ambition, power, and secret knowledge. And at the center of that Circle stood a towering man in a cloak and a bone-white mask of death, and from the mask came...

That voice.

It spoke differently now, of course. More softly. Genially, even. But it was the same velvet baritone, the same self-assured cadence, the same power that she had felt as well as heard. There could be no mistaking it. Darth Callidus was here.

Her heart pounding, Akasha ventured as close as she dared to the edge of the exam room, all but forgetting that she was still waiting for her routine physical, and furtively leaned her fuzzy black head out from behind the corner to catch a glimpse of the fiery-haired Jedi and her tall, well-composed counterpart.

[Serena Laran]

Serena felt like someone was striking her in her gut, but her face and body language were carefully schooled in Jedi calm. So many people had been lost, and yet as she remembered specific names it was like losing them again. "The youngling. Yes. I remember her now. Such a little thing, but with great potential."

So was it possible that A'na had fallen to emotion and passion and the Dark side, and that she had an impressionable mind to take down with her? Serena looked at Salemescr - Salem, and considered it for a moment. She did not like the implications. "I will speak to the rest of the Council about this. We cannot be too careful, and others have connections into the Galaxy that I do not."

[Salem Ave]

“Of course.”

Salem lowered his eyes. The lie had been easily spoken, but the consequences would not be so easily endured. Lilaena was resourceful, though. If she deserved to survive, she would. If not...

Looking up, he saw the narrowest hint of a head peeping around a doorway.

“I fear I'm keeping your attention from one of your patients, Master Laran.”

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha couldn't detect even a hint of the dark power that had been rolling off Callidus in immense, cloying waves back on Onderon - which was to be expected. He couldn't very well go traipsing around Jedi headquarters without a suitable disguise. But she could still sense whenever a being's attention turned toward her, which was the only way she could tell when those strange, blank eyes had turned her way. She quickly ducked back behind the partition and hopped back up onto the edge of the exam table.

She had an appointment to keep in the hydroponics greenhouse after her physical, but she was already planning on being a few minutes late. She only hoped she could track down Minister Ave before he got too far.

[Serena Laran]

"Ah," said Serena, "You are indeed. Excuse me, Minister Ave. I hope I will see you again before you leave Ossus." She smiled warmly, and took her leave, heading toward the exam room and the curious padawan within.

"Akasha Khan, I apologize for keeping you waiting." Serena looked at her datapad, pulling up the Orryxian's medical history. "This is just a routine exam, nothing intrusive or strenuous, I promise." She smiled. "Do you have any questions or concerns before I begin?"

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha sat at the edge of the table with her feet dangling and her tail draped behind her, wondering for umpteenth time why examination tables had to be manufactured out of industrial-grade plastics that were harder than durasteel. At least she was in her own clothes this time - a set of tan breeches bound at her ankles that left her padded feet bare, and a burgundy vest trimmed in gold thread. Her acid-green eyes flickered to the datapad in the Jedi Master's hand. It contained a mostly unremarkable record of immunizations, routine check-ups, and occasional training injuries, punctuated by one very nearly fatal encounter with an orbalisk on the junk planet Lethe. There was still a puckered, ring-shaped scar over her heart where the cancerous thing's jaws had been attached to her, where the fur had come back in thin and dusty gray. The episode had earned her a week's stay in the Challenger's medical bays and a few follow-up visits with Dr. Coventina, but this would be the first time since her convalescence that Master Laran had examined her.

The Orryxian scratched it idly beneath her vest and said, "No, just looking forward to getting this over with," she said.

Her ears twisted toward the reception as Salem Ave's booted footsteps faded away. "Who was that you were talking to?"

[Serena Laran]

"Minister of State Salem Ave," Serena replied, setting aside the datapad and stepping in front of Akasha. "I knew him when he was a boy and I an older padawan. A very long, long time ago," she added. "Sit still and try to empty your mind."

Serena placed her hands on either side of the padawan's cranium, her hands sinking into the girl's soft fur as she made contact. She closed her eyes, delving through Akasha's body looking for the usual suspects, but she was clear of viruses and harmful bacterium. "I understand you are nine years old?"

[Akasha Khan]

Minister of State? Maiur's Breath, but he worked fast. Akasha thought back to her brief but eventful visit to the Hapan Cluster - she'd been fuzzy on the details at the time, but even then her compatriots in the Circle had designs on the successions of entire civilizations. And then she filled her head with saber velocities, because a Jedi Master was about to go poking around in her brain.

"That's right," she said. "That's eighteen in human years, you know."

She was reasonably sure Serena knew that, but after that one ordeal with a baby-talking nurse who'd offered her a lolly for being such a good girl, she felt she couldn't be too careful.

[Serena Laran]

Serena smiled, her eyes still closed. "Yes, I know." She probed by the scar the orbalisk had left on the young one, and felt a breath of darkness left behind by the creature. It was hard to define, but it was there. She opened her eyes and stepped back, releasing Akasha.

"Your wound from the orbalisk is healed, and there are no physical problems associated with it. Do you feel anything there, perhaps during meditation?" She took a seat and pulled the datapad to her hand with the Force.

[Akasha Khan]

"It itches once in a while," Akasha replied. "I don't really like to think about it otherwise."

Idesca no longer haunted her dreams, but the Orryxian knew there was a seed of darkness left behind. Whether it came from the outside or the inside, she couldn't say. It wasn't really something she could probe with Jedi all around her.

[Serena Laran]

Serena made a note, and looked up. "Any allergies since moving to Ossus? We've had several cases among other felinoids. Going from filtered ship air to a new planet and new plant life can be hard on anyone." She had a sense that the young Orryxian was holding something back, but it could have been just about anything.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha took a big, steady breath of the Ossian atmosphere through her nose and let it out just as freely. "Not unless you count working in hydroponics until my paws turn into soggy prunes. I can't even eat most of the stuff we're growing in there, anyway."

Her tail swished back and forth as she watched Serena fuss with her datapad, and finally the young Orryxian's curiosity bubbled over like a forgotten pot left on boil.

"Minister Ave mentioned something about a Jedi apprentice named Lilaena. Was that Lilaena De'Ville?"

[Serena Laran]

Excellent hearing, marked down Serena, and she looked up at Akasha. "I believe so, yes. How do you know that name?"

[Akasha Khan]

"She's the one who brought me to the Alliance," Akasha answered. "A soldier of some sort. She said she trained with the Jedi as a little girl, but she didn't talk much about it. What was she like?"

It all came out very naturally, not a hint of hesitation. Of course, it helped that it was all true - just not the whole truth - and Akasha's curiosity was very real.

[Serena Laran]

The datapad was set aside, and Serena studied the padawan. Yes, she had been brought to the Wheel convoy by the Alliance, not one of the young ones brought in by Sol. "She was young, about five or six years? Human years," she smiled. "She belonged to a different youngling clan in the temple than the one I taught, so I didn't really know her. But she was apprenticed to my best friend, Knight Eldhil. Because of the great loss of knights after the battle of Geonosis, the temple pushed all eligible younglings into padawan/master pairings. I myself was knighted, but before I was paired with a padawan Order 66 happened."

She grew wistful, thinking of what might have been. "Things you have learned in your history lessons here, no doubt. Back to your question, Lilaena was energetic, enthusiastic... happy." Serena's smile twisted with sadness, and her eyes shone with water. She took a moment to pat away the unshed tears.

"I apologize, it has been a long time since I thought back on these things. A'na Eldhil was very dear to me. And all the younglings..." her voice trailed off, and she took a deep breath, composing her emotion.

[Akasha Khan]

It was difficult for Akasha to feel any sort of connection to events that happened nearly forty years ago - a time when her own great-grandmother was her age. Come to think of it, if her great-grandmother were still alive, she'd still be well younger than Serena. Humans were so strange, not the least for their insistence on mourning the distant past. Akasha was merely disappointed that the Jedi didn't have any more insight to offer into her enigmatic Master.

"Well, at least Lilaena is still alive," the Orryxian observed. "I suppose your friend must have taught her something useful."

Master De'Ville had never spoken more than a few words to Akasha of her own Jedi master, and then only in terms of contempt. But apparently this A'na Eldhil had helped to shape not only Darth Malleus, but Lord Callidus as well. This woman must have been a powerful practitioner of the Dark Side.

"Pity I never got the chance to meet her," Akasha said distantly.

[Serena Laran]

"She was a great Jedi," Serena said. "At least, she could have been." Salemescro was alive. Lilaena was alive, or had been a year ago. Yet, where was A'na? The girl probably had the answer, though apparently she had no wish to be a Jedi, delivering an adept to the Alliance rather than joining the Wheel herself. Much like Salem. Serena wasn't sure what conclusion to draw from that, except the obvious that their training had been cut short and neither had wished to continue.

[Akasha Khan]

Oh, she really wasn't. Akasha wondered how Serena might react if she told the Jedi Master what she knew. Maybe it would give her some idea of how Kala would take it if she ever found out--

Akasha slammed the brakes on that train of thought. She wasn't ready to consider it yet, especially not with a member of the Jedi Council staring her in the face. No one here but us Padawans, ma'am.

"So... do I pass?" She glanced down to the datapad and then over toward the door, out in the direction that Minister Ave had disappeared.

[Serena Laran]

"Yes, you are free to go and enjoy hydroponics," Serena smiled. "Do check in again in six months, unless you have an injury before then." She remained in the room for a few minutes after the Orryxian padawan had scampered off, lost in her thoughts.

[Akasha Khan]

It wouldn't do to appear too eager to leave - it was well known throughout the compound that Akasha and Arlan Solborne got on like a greenhouse on fire. More than once the crotchety old botanist had chased her out of the hydroponics lab and told her to go hunt some gokobs. Which she had. They really weren't bad if you could get past the stink glands.

But she had another quarry in mind. He couldn't really have gotten far for the simple reason that there wasn't anywhere to go - the Jedi compound was a village of only a few hundred, counting all the workers still building their permanent facilities, bordered by the beached bulk of the Whaladon and a few support craft to the South and a big, craggy hill to the North, with a thick, pearl-green forest creeping around the edges. Akasha made her way to the old, wizened kingwood tree near the center of camp that no one had the heart to cut down yet, considered the hoary trunk, and then sped up the side of it in a few powerful bounds, digging her claws into the soft wood like lumber hooks. From her high perch among the swaying branches, she scanned the traffic below her until she spotted a tall figure in a long, black suitcoat strolling idly at the edges of the camp.

The Orryxian slid down from the treetop and padded his way. She waited until Minister Ave had crossed behind a row of supply crates, blocking most of the compound from view, and until her senses told her that no one was watching her. Then she stepped into his line of view, paws folded demurely behind her back.

"Excuse me, Minister Ave?" she said. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything. Padawan Akasha Khan. It's a pleasure to meet you."

[Salem Ave]

“Padawan.”

Salem dipped his head in greeting and as a mark of respect to the Orryxian, though his eyes remained fixed on the young Jedi all the while.

“I thought I'd take a walk around the camp and the surrounding lands. Would you care to join me? ”

[Akasha Khan]

Triumph swelled in Akasha's chest, but she kept it buried - who knew those morning meditation classes would actually come in handy one day? She returned the Minister's courtly nod by bowing her head and shoulders, a deeper gesture to show her deference. "I would be delighted, Minister."

The Orryxian fell into step alongside him, her tail swaying gently at her heels. She would let him direct the conversation; he would know better than she when to drop the charade.

[Salem Ave]

Rather than ambling through the centre of the camp, Salem turned their stroll towards the outskirts of the Jedi settlement.

“So, what do you think of your new home?”

[Akasha Khan]

"I certainly find it preferable to skulking about in a fleet of second-hand freighters," Akasha replied. "It's more peaceful here. Our numbers have grown, especially the younglings. And we don't feel so watchful as we used to."

She chanced a look at his face, but his blank, white eyes told her nothing.

[Salem Ave]

“I'm glad that the Jedi have finally found somewhere.. safe to call their own.”

They walked past an open tent, where a group of younglings were kneeling around an older Jedi in silent, if not entirely studious, meditation. One of them cracked open one eye and peeked at Salem and Akasha as they passed by.

“How are your studies progressing?”

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha did not even spare a glance at the meditation class. The inquisitive Iktotchi boy registered as a blip of curiosity on her surveillance senses, then winked out again when the instructor rebuked him.

"Quite well, sir," she said. "My master is a Jedi Investigator, and I've learned much from her about the arts of surveillance and stealth. I've also completed my first lightsaber. I'm top in my class in Ataru, the Aggression Form."

She waited until they had put a few more paces between themselves and the meditating Jedi before she added, "I hope to see more action in the field soon. With my master, or otherwise."

[Salem Ave]

“Impressive.”

The clusters of tents began to thin around them. The edges of the camp were not defined clearly yet, as with the continuing expansion of the settlement building boundary walls would be difficult. Ahead and to the left of where they walked, another pair of Jedi worked through saber velocities, making use of the open space to practice the more acrobatic elements of lightsaber combat.

“Do you see much of your master? I imagine she must be a busy woman, when there are so many young learners here.”

[Akasha Khan]

Now, that question gave Akasha pause. Was he asking about her master or about her master master? And then she realized the same answer could be given for both.

"Not as much as I'd like. I suppose that's unavoidable when there are so many other demands on her time."

But being cryptic could only get one so far. Akasha needed to prove herself useful to this man, and she didn't want him to think she was complaining.

"Knight Thanewulf gives me a great deal of freedom. She's something of a rebel among the Jedi, more willing to bend the rules than the other knights. Which suits me just fine. At times I think she's in the wrong profession."

[Salem Ave]

The padawan's assessment of her master earned her a chuckle from Salem.

“I hope you aren't picking up too many bad habits from her.”

Not too far ahead, the land dipped downward into a narrow river that skirted the edge of the camp before winding on out into the wilderness. Where the ground sloped, Salem came to a halt pausing to take in the view of the wide expanse before them.

“When I was a padawan, my master was a lot like yours. Strong, independent, driven.. but she lacked discipline. After the Purge, she lost her way, lost sight of who and what she was.”

[Akasha Khan]

"A'na Eldhil?" Akasha said before she could stop herself. Her ears splayed back at her own impetuousness.

"Sorry - I overheard when you were speaking with Master Laran."

[Salem Ave]

Salem gave a nod, though didn't look away from his study of the land.

“Speak your mind.”

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha paused and opened up her senses. Only the tiniest sparks of consciousness floated around them, insect-minds that could do little more than distinguish among food, threat, mate, and other - they'd left the Jedi far behind, and the only attention she sensed that was worth mentioning was -

Piercing, penetrating, like shards of ice splitting bone and marrow, cool intelligence without compassion or remorse pinning her to the spot like a butterfly on a card --

Yes, Darth Callidus was here. She fixed her eyes on the distant horizon and fought to quell the fear crouching in her heart.

"I have served faithfully," she said. "I have made regular reports to my master, at least once every two weeks, but I have heard nothing more from her since our mission to Nubia (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?22768-Nubian-Princess-9). Am I to do nothing more than keep watch?"

[Salem Ave]

“Nothing more,” Salem echoed the girls words in a slow, thoughtful tone.

“Do you think your work here... unimportant?”

[Akasha Khan]

"Of course not," Akasha said, carefully monitoring her tone. "But I feel I could do more if I properly understood our goals."

We do still have those, right? her treacherous tongue threatened to say, but she clamped down on it.

"Where do the Jedi fit into your plans?"

[Salem Ave]

Now that was the question. Salem took a moment to glance back at the Jedi camp. There was potential there. Whether or not that potential would benefit the Sith remained to be seen.

“Where you fit... is with your master. She is,” Salem drew in a slow breath, considering his next words as carefully as Akasha had her own.

“Troubled. I need you to stay with her, to watch her and if necessary.. to kill her.”

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha tried not to stand slack-jawed like a Gamorrean blowfrog collecting flies. She did not, however, do a particularly good job of it.

"Okay," she said at last, and she swallowed. "Is this one of those, 'I'll know it when I see it things,' or should I wait for an order from you?"

It wasn't the idea of killing Master De'ville so much as the logistics, considering she didn't have a ship of her own and had no idea where her master was anyway... or maybe it was the idea, too. A little. It seemed like just the sort of test of her loyalty a dark lord would employ, but it also seemed rather at odds with her current assignment.

[Salem Ave]

“You will report to me on her actions, her behaviour, and I will advise you accordingly.”

It was a gamble, entrusting a responsibility like this to a girl who he knew only a little about. He could not follow Malleus or send the likes of Anxia or Creas after her; it simply wasn't practical. If he had known that she was an imminent threat to his plans, Salem would have dispatched a more trusted servant to see to her demise or perhaps even dealt the final blow himself.

That was the problem. Lilaena De'Ville had not outlasted her potential usefulness. He did not.. need to kill her. Perhaps he did not want to.

Salem frowned and turned a baleful gaze onto Akasha. The angular lines of his features seemed for a moment sharper, the shadows beneath his eyes growing a shade darker. The Minister of States mask had slipped, revealing the deaths head of Darth Callidus.

“You will be well rewarded if you serve me loyally.. as my apprentice.”

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha tried to chase out the contingencies. Tried to weigh the rewards of staying loyal to De'ville versus the apprenticeship Minister Ave was offering her. Wondered how much value he placed on her loyalty, considering it was contingent upon her betraying another master's trust. This was elementary power politics, the sort of garden variety treachery that scarcely raised an eyebrow in the royal courts of Orryxia, and yet her mind was frozen the moment he revealed his true face to her, that mask of death she'd seen in the catacombs of Onderon. Her tongue dried up in her mouth, and she had to fight off that familiar instinct to run and hide like a frightened forest animal.

Instead, she drew herself tall and proud, her face set like an onyx statue, eyes like narrow slits of jade. She bowed her head slowly, not as groveling slave, but as a royal retainer accepting her lord's decree. "And serve you I shall... Master."

In her mind she was back in the jungles of Onderon, shrouding herself in the Dark Side to rescue Lanai from the zakkeg's nest. Then she had relied on the Force to conceal herself from an armored predator that even the Mando'ade feared. Now she needed it to hide her inner thoughts from a far more dangerous foe.

Because she still didn't know where her loyalties lay.