Aeris held out her hand. Kai didn’t need to touch her, but he returned the gesture anyway, clasping her hand.
<
I want to show you a memory.>
***
Kai sat on the ground in Bamarre, his body curled up against a chunk of Chaldean marble—the substance that had given him life. In his hand he clutched a sliver of the iridescent quartz that had broken off the larger rock. It sparkled in the sunlight. All around him the stones seemed to almost sing, a song which only he could hear.
The sound of a speeder approaching through the painted desert drew his attention. A few feet away, Professor Nimdok stood. He was the one who had brought Kai to Chaldea on board his ship. Behind the professor, the speeder came to a stop in the parking lot and turned off its engines.
A man with sandy blond hair stepped out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the back, retrieving a body wrapped in a blanket. He carried the bundle across the sands, his pace steady and far too slow for Kai’s liking. Impatiently Kai rose to his feet and closed the distance in one swift sprint, seizing the body from his arms.
“Be careful,” the man said, his tone awkward and more than a little wary. “She’s, uh… she refuses to wear clothes, and if anyone comes around and sees us...”
“It’s quite alright, Jorn,” Nimdok spoke to the man with the distant familiarity of old acquaintances. “Just leave them be.”
Kai barely listened to the rest of their hushed conversation. He unwrapped the blanket, revealing a naked young woman with red hair. She looked pale and emaciated. Blood had leaked in a thin trickle from the inner corner of her left eye, smearing in the crease between her nostril and cheek.
The Bamarri spirit locked within the mortal shell of the woman reached for Kai. In the Force, they embraced, and the two exchanged information at a rate that would put the fastest of computers to shame. Kai shared his entire brief lifetime in a matter of seconds, explaining everything without words. She did the same, just as she had the day he was born. This was his first friend, mother and father, brother and sister, anima to his animus. His
guardian, as Nimdok called her.
Then, the torrent of sensations abruptly stopped. She pulled away from him. Still in that space where language proved too limiting a form of communication, Kai grasped her hand and asked her what was wrong.
She told him he was tainted.
A chill ran through him. There was a sour note in the symphony, a crack in the crystal. The reunion with his guardian had been spoiled by his Sithspawn nature.
<
Are you really dying?> he asked, retreating back into himself in shame.
Yes, she was. She was much older than him, and while Bamarri were as eternal as any other lifeform, they couldn’t exist on this plane forever. Her time was coming to an end.
Kai ached at the confirmation of his worst fears. After contacting Jorn to arrange their reunion, Nimdok had warned him that she was fading fast—but he had still held out hope that he could do something about it. <
I could try sharing my energies with you—>
She refused. He was tainted.
<
Then what are we going to do?> Tears began to pool in his eyes. <
I don’t want you to die. Not when I finally found you again.>
There was nothing to be done for her. But there was still something to be done about him.
<
What do you mean?>
Come with me. We’ll go together, and you’ll be free!<
With telepathy, nothing is left up to interpretation. He knew at once that she meant for both of them to die together. His blood ran cold.
<
But I just got here. I'm newly born.>
>It’s only your host body that’s tainted. Leave it behind.< She raised a hand and pressed it to his chest.
Kai shook his head, tears frozen on his face. <
I don’t want to die. Not yet. Not—>
All his senses went totally dark. He was left with a vague impression of toppling backwards, but it was just a ghost of physicality, the last feeling he’d had before leaving his Doppelganger body. Before being
pushed out.
He’d been here before, in this twilight between life and death.
“It will only take a moment. You want to live, you will live.”
Messala had crushed his original body between his claws, and his world was plunged into soundless, weightless darkness. Just like before, he scrambled to find a body to occupy, like a crab searching for a shell. Or a parasite searching for a host.
The other Bamarri, his guardian, held him back. All around him the song of the stones was louder than ever, with no Dark Side corruption or crude matter to keep him from hearing it fully. It was beautiful and terrible and he was afraid.
<
No! I want to live!>
Deprived of a body, Kai felt himself not so much departing as melting back into the Force. He thrashed against his guardian’s grasp, his terrified struggle bleeding into his surroundings. Vaguely he was aware of Nimdok trying to help him, but he was powerless to prevent such forces of nature as two Bamarri.
Kai was on his own in the fight against his guardian. She was much weaker than him, he could feel it. Could feel her dying. But he didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want her to die…
At last, with his spirit half-crushed, he struck her with enough force to free himself from her grasp and flung himself back into his body. He felt her become one with the Force without him.
“Kai? Kai!” Nimdok was calling to him, his hands on the fallen Sithspawn’s shoulders.
Kai’s body gave a sudden jerk, his entire nervous system alight, muscles tensing under the stresses of repossession. His mouth opened and he made an inhuman noise so loud and strange it startled the professor and Jorn, who both backed away from him. Kai rolled over on his side, grasping at shifting sands, the sharp edges of the sliver of Chaldean marble he still held biting into his palm. It was hot and dry and musty and he was alive.
He lay there and wept.
***
In the present, Kai let go of Aeris’ hand, slowly retreating from her mind. He waited for her to adjust, unsure of her reaction. Maybe it was too much. Maybe he shouldn’t have shown her this. But he felt like he needed to tell someone, and if anyone was going to understand, it was Aeris.
