Ahnk did not honestly know what was best. He had seemed to have lost control of what he had assumed to be his own head. He could not fight her... had no will or desire to harm her at the moment, nor did he seem to have the ability. With frustration mounting, he watched her as she spoke... and as she drank.
"You have done many terrible things, Andrew Micheal Rashanagok. But you are still a great man," she said, raising her glass in a toast, and emptying it before Ahnk was able to begin resolving thoughts.
The words were truly shocking to Ahnk. A great man? On what basis was that conclusion reached? All those around him whose hand had been laid upon were tainted by his dark heart. He had hidden behind warships like a coward and hiding from what he really feared. Was this conversation, this moment of truth, even imagined truth, amongst the tapestry of lies that had made up his existence, enough to redeem him of his crimes? In her eyes? In any eyes but hers?
"Whether you want it or not, you have my love and respect," Organa told him, fetching herself another glass.
Ahnk found himself surprised again. It had been decades of derision they had shared. She... loved him? Even respect was to be held as unattainable, given their recent transactions of violence and numerous years on the polar opposite of ideological positions. To say that Ahnk was caught off guard would be an understatement... he had been left with mouth slightly agape at the impossibility of it. He looked down at her... was she drunk? She'd been drinking fairly heavily, but she did not seem to be visibly inebriated. Her face was starting to flush but that could be a reaction to the cold as well. Her eyes did not seem to be unfocused, and she regarded him with a likeminded stare.
"I suppose it's my turn to level with you," she said, placing her glass on the table. Ahnk nodded, appreciative.
"We were both young when we first met," she began, and again, Ahnk found himself nodding. "I was as powerful as a Master and everyone recognized me as one, but I just didn't have that higher understanding yet. My training was rushed and incomplete... there were no other Masters in the galaxy to guide me, I had to forge my own trails."
Ahnk nodded. He, as well, had been abandoned during his training by the only Sith Master fit to tutor him. When learning from Exar Kun the prospect of lowering himself to learn with a Recon Klain seemed a step in the wrong direction. Rather then follow this antithetical path to defeat, Ahnk took it upon himself to complete his training... something that had left notable weaknesses in what should have been an unbreakable wall. He imagined for a Jedi, with the ethical responsibilities so intrinsically tied to their position
"I fought you because you were evil and I had the power to protect others from you, but I never looked beyond that until much later. I should have seen you as something other than just another Darth Vader, because you weren't... yet."
Ahnk's eyes widened as she said that. Then... she didn't know? She didn't know who he was. Why he hated her. Or why he'd fought her that day in the forest. She only thought of him as the painted warrior who had hunted her down that day... and she did not know why.
Maybe that was why she was here.
"I thought about it for a long time afterwards, I had done what I had to do with what I had been given. I wish I could have done more."
Ahnk turned his back on her. He stepped to the rail of the deck, looking out onto the water. The dark surface of the lake rippled in the evening wind, edges shaded green of varying hues. He knew from experience that water did not end; it became vapor and then it became clouds and then it became rain and then it became lakes, but it was never anything but water in all of it's various forms. Cold and dark, warm and totally translucent, the appearance of water did not change the fact that even a handful could mean certain death.
She may appear to be a mentor, a tutor, a mother, an alcoholic, but she was still a Skywalker. Inside her veins ran ready blood always prepared to circulate through the weapon she referred to as a body. Even now, with her having aged and him having become younger, there was no guarantee she could not kill him. He felt it an unacceptable risk.
There were too many questions. Too much he needed to know.
"Do not feel sorry for what you could not offer me, for I could offer more then I did and gave you nothing but my hatred," Ahnk said, snarling at himself. He turned back to her, bowing his head. "If one of us owes the other an apology, then it is I, to you. I offer my apologies freely... almost unconditionally."
He bowed his head even lower, dropping to one knee in order to offer her complete fealty.
"There is... only one condition."
Ahnk rose, and locked his eyes with her. "I need you to tell me about that first day we met... on Naboo."
OS: In a world of bon-bons, you are a twinkie.
Ahnk: God damn you, I am Count Chocula and you know it.
I'm not spending my anniversary night thumping my head against the wall. - Damalis, on Moderating TRF
Then tell him you want it harder, damnit! - Ahnk, on Damalis
