Lost...Adrift within a soothing, warm, bright place...floating...floating endlessly... He was following the thread within himself that led he knew not where... But it was the warmest part of his being...the place within him that did not smell of blood, did not pulsate with hate...

He followed that inner warmth, that ancient thread that was. At the end of that thread was a vision...a vision of a crimson locked woman with endless eyes of violet...

"she's....my..."

what was the word? what word was he searching for? there was a word...a word he had never been assosiated with before this time...

"mother..."

the word held great meaning...as though it suddenly defined a whole new purpose in his existence.

He awoke, to find his fists clenched so tightly, that blood dripped from his hands. His mind refused to grasp quite why, the meaning escaped him, but he was afraid, afraid of the looming shadow within him... Afraid to of the voices tauntings.
You dreamt of a mother that is not... She cares not for you... She abandoned you, give into the hate and revil in its beauty.

his head shook, he held tightly to the inner warmth he knew was also a part of him...Held tight to the love he felt was somehow tied to his mother...

He would find a way to find his place in the universe...find a way to overcome both the light and the dark within him...and find a way simply to be...without the constant pressure...

After a time of it he took a break and sat down to enter a state of meditation. This would be his pattern. Meditation seemed astoundingly usefull for him. It focused him. It helped him discover himself. Within the folds of meditation he had come to truely understand the two seperate entities that seemed to exist as part of him, though every moment those two forces seemed to assimilate further into his own natural conciousness. He was vaguely aware of the fact that these forces within him were governed by a very simple rule...equal and opposite...When one pushed, the other pulled just as hard. leaving his mind somewhere in the middle. He would most likely forever he incapable of truely understanding love, but to would he most likely truely feel what most regard as hate. Though at the same time, he himself understood and felt both emotions more strongly and completely then anyone else... If such a thing made any sense...

Within him he felt the swirling of the two emotions...at first he had only heard the one voice...the voice that begged him to spill blood... But as his mind began to unravel its own mystery, he had begun to actauly understand that, though it had influenced him always, the other side had a voice as well. Both were speaking less and less.. Though he had needed to hear them less and less as well...They were becoming an instinctive part of his being.

His breathing was steady as he continued to examin his inner self...
It is not to late...You can still kill them all...Still drink in there blood, and revel in the pleasure of hate
No...he can not. He is a kind soulWorthless!

With another breath the voices faded into the background and then vanished. His eyes opened and he stood before returning to his place at the table, and resuming his studies...

As Shayla stepped through the portal the final traces of pain chewing at her senses faded, yet dark thoughts and potentially even darker plans continued to form in her mind as she truly considered just where they were headed.

Out of one demension and into another, one of mortals and of time.

She pursed her lips as she completed her step into the universe, and opened her eyes, unaware that she had ever closed them. Her booted foot hit a solid, tiled floor, and she began to look about herself although she was already on the alert and on the defensive for whatever might be waiting on this side.

Oddly, there was nothing. Save for a small, confined room surrounded by bookshelves full of books...

...a peculiar novelty. Despite this fact, Shayla expected as much, for that is what she had seen in her vision. She continued to take in her new surroundings. In the center of the room sat a wooden table piled with books, one yet open in the middle of the table, its pages ruffled as though someone had been looking through it feverishly for answers.

Even so, one final thing was also abundantly clear. Whoever had been studying so eagerly, so desperately, was not present in the room as she had seen in her vision, for the wooden chair at the table was pulled out and vacant...

...and on the tile from the table to the doorway of the room was a trail of blood, smeared and dried...

...leaving damning evidence of a struggle potentially long since past. Shayla's eyes darkenend, and she streched out with her senses, seeking, searching.

What she found was not quite what she expected. Yet at the same time it certainly was.

Darkness tinged with conflict slammed into the core of her being. Instead of pulling away from these senses, Shayla instead accepted those feelings, and continued to strech out to them, identifying with them as her lids closed once more.

“He is indeed,” he said. His eyes opened and a smile stretched across his face.

“But there are others here as well,” he continued. His queen should have senses this as well. She was new, perhaps not yet as honed to her own senses. “There are things, beings, those who have perpetuated this atrocity upon the child. He was meant to be born, naturally, not like a slug born from test tube slime. Come, my love, and we shall deal retribution to these perversions, and see if we may yet salvage any worth from our youngster.”

He turned his attention to the trail of blood on the floor, his tongue instinctively flicking against his tongue. He stepped towards the center of the room, his own blood lust beginning a slow steady build and thumping in his chest. He put his hand out and turned to beckon his queen to join. She reached out, shakily, and stepped forward. But her footing gave and she fell forward. Kieran stepped towards her and caught her in his arms, taking her gently to the floor.

A brief, small spatter of concern flashed in his eyes, which was quickly replaced with disdain.

“I should have seen this,” he said, disgusted with himself. “You are queen of the Darker Realms, your power is drawn from there. You are no longer of this realm, and to keep you corporeal you must draw your force from me. But even my power has limits here, so we must move quickly.”

And to what had been done to him. Something, something becoming more and more familiar to Shayla, rose up in hot anger. Her eyes darkened. She turned them to look upon Kieran even as he stood with her.

"The cloners will do what they have always done," she hissed. "We must show them the error of their ways," she continued, practically cooing, ignoring for the moment the probability that they had little time in this demension.

And that, without Kieran, she would have even less.

It did not open.

He pressed it again, then again, his finger dealing more and more pressure to the hapless button. His frustration rose, for what was supposed to be an easy retrieval was turning into something more and more complicated.

Then the door hissed open, and a very tall, thin, pale, and surprised creature stood before Kieran. "Lord Pha--" it began, but the Lord of the Darker Realms flicked his arm up in an instant and caught the creature by the throat and lifted. Beyond, he caught a glimpse of another of these creatures standing before a large glass tank, bubbles of air flowing upwards in a clear liquid. Inside, with tubes running every which way, was a small human-looking boy, perhaps age ten.

But it was the bubbles that caught Kieran’s attention and his focus gave way to a strange stir of an image in his mind.

Bubbles. Always the bubbles, the liquid, the mask over his nose and tube running down his throat. He had awoken and was looking at everything through a hazy shimmer of bubbles. They were staring back at him, these tall thin frail things, nodding, looking to the side in anticipation – something else there stirred, a large, hooded shape of someone, something, stepping into view. But he can’t see a face, only… horns…

That did not, however, mean she was not aware of him and his movements or lack thereof. She instead focused her senses on the seemingly human boy in the tank, realizing that he was not entirely human. Or at least that he at some point was not, for there was something entirely disturbing about his appearance. His skin was a pale red, and on either side of his head he had small, almost non-existent, horns.

Shayla stretched out with her senses towards the being, connecting with him. As she did his eyes snapped open, revealing bright violet irises. That, however, was the only portion of him that was bright; all else in his being seemed lack-luster and dulled, almost as if...

"They've domesticated him," Shayla snarled, keenly aware that the Kaminoans had ways of making a being more docile. "But that's not all they've done."

"I-- I--" he stammered a bit helplessly as his free hand waved about in a similar manner. His other hand was taken up by a type of medical scanning device, for being but a lowly lab assistant it was his duty to make certain all the various and sundry devices ferreted away in one lab or another worked flawlessly. Heaven forbid that one of a growth-tube's occupants wither and die at his hand, be it by accident or not. That was the last thing he wanted in life; happy to remain in his lowly station, he hated the snide remarks his occasional blunders brought down upon his head.

Especially when they came from the lips of his cousin.

The thought of Rhua Ki heartened him tremendously. He drew in a thankful breath, and ventured to speak.

"This experiment was under the direction of one of our best geneticists, Dr. Rhua Ki," he said to the floor, but in a loud enough voice that Shayla would clearly hear him. "He has been off on sabbatical, but you are in luck. He has returned home but just three cycles ago; perhaps you would rather speak with him about this one?

It did not take him long to find the one he sought, to whom in a rather breathless outburst he tried to explain all that had happened so unexpectedly to him, ending with the fact that the good Doctor was now being requested to join the strange visitors.

How they had come to be where they were, he hadn't a clue. He didn't want to know, in fact. So finishing his little spiel he didn't wait for any reply but fled the scientist's presence, heading off to continue his chores in one of the labs as far away from this part of the great Stilt City as possible...

He didn't like quandaries, truth be told. They bothered him, for they disturbed the smooth, effortless functioning of his sterile, scientific world. But they did have a place of sorts in the grand scheme of things, this he had to admit even to himself.

They made one sit up and think, made one expand one's paradigms, made one look at the situation from another side, another view. They kept one from becoming jaded and pedantic. Nothing destroys good science more than that.

So he went on, now turning his thoughts to something his excitable cousin had blurted out before hastily departing. Something about the fact that the being of note was too human--?

But... wasn't that what the red-skinned, horned being had wanted? Quandary indeed...

He shrugged inwardly, putting this aside for the moment. Customers were allowed to change their minds about their orders after all; it wasn't his place to question. Only to do what was required to the best of his ability...

And charge them even more so.

He came to the room, and laying one long-fingered hand upon the door palmed it open. It was a small room, with only one growth-tube inside. Being one of the smaller labs, it was used for private experiment and others of singular inquiry. It was the larger wards that were used for mass cloning, not a small lab such as this.

He entered, and bowed his head to the human female who was standing with very much haughty demeanor within. Behind her was the growth tube, which was apparently being scrutinized by a familiar looking red-skinned being... well, familiar as to species, not the individual. He could only see the entity's back, after all. After quickly taking in the scene he opened his mouth to offer words, then wisely thought better of it.

"I am Dr. Rhua Ki," he finally said by way of introduction. "I understand there is some sort of problem with my work?"

...but there was something odd about it all. And that was when it hit Shayla.

The Kaminoans hadn't taken it upon themselves to experiment on the child as she originally thought. Someone had instructed them to do it...

...but who? Hadn't that first Kaminoan who opened the door started to call Kieran Lord somebody-or-other?

"Please, my apologies," he began politely enough. "While much information can be gleaned from the genome of an individual, when it comes to an interspecies admixture there are sometimes gray areas that we find ourselves having to... ahhh... extrapolate in order to fill. Is this young one ill? I am not entirely familiar with the human species; are you a purebred human, Lady? Perhaps you would be so kind as to allow me to take some samples from which I might--"

A lethal look from Shayla steered him quickly back on course.

"Ahh; very well. As to the procedures that have been implemented, why it was as Lord Phalomir requested: the child was to have the Sith portion of his genetic map eliminated, and replaced by that of his human one. Eventually he will be a purebred human; oh, might I add that his regression is coming along quite nicely. He is approximately halfway to the endpoint from which we first aged him.

"I think that, other than the few understandable issues I am having to deal with, considering I do not have an entire human gene map at my disposal, this one is coming along grandly.

"Aren't you pleased with him?"

It. Has. Been. Done.

But that was all that was allowed before darkness overtook once more, stamping the thught into angry submission. Shayla glared coolly at Rhua Ki, her hands balling into fists. "He is useless if he is ill. Put the Sith DNA back in him."

"I'm afraid that is not an optimal route to take," he announced, albeit a bit pedantically. "I was instructed to ascertain that should this possible future request occur, it not be acceptable, no matter who was requesting it. His genetic make-up has been influxed with markers as such that to add the Sith gene back into his make-up would make him nonviable."

He paused a moment, looking Shayla straight in the eye, nonplussed by her growing anger.

"He would die."

He took it upon himself then to approach the growth-tube, where he took up a stance next to the yet-silent Sith.

"It has been mentioned that the race must remain pure," he said in a low voice. "That it should not be sullied. I have made certain that at least in the case of this one, this is most certainly so."

He paused for a fraction of another moment, then continued.

"This I can replicate, should the need ever arise to do so."

He turned back to the growth-tube, cocking his head a bit to one side as he stared at the young boy within it.

"It should not take too long before his regression is finished," he announced in somewhat non sequiteur to his former statements. He turned his back to the growth-tube, fixing his gaze upon the human female while being very much aware that the Sith beside him had turned slightly in his direction.

He waved a hand towards Shayla.

"Is this to be the surrogate?" he inquired, all innocence. "Or do you wish to maintain him in this state, here, within my lab.

"This would be very expensive..."

For the moment.

But things were not entirely beyond repair. And this tall, horrible worthless being would be the unwitting savior to the Realms.

Kieran turned his head to the Kaminoan, his face dark and cold. His eyes flashed red and a slight grin dared to cross his lip.

“Change nothing,” he said coldly. “Proceed with the regression.”

Kieran turned fully towards the tall being, then stepped forward to position himself behind his queen.

...and not only that. "He will never be able to take his place as such."

...and desire for Power.

Power. Not Love. And Balance.

Again, a whisper. But something more than a whisper: "I can make you Whole."

In the few moments it took for these thoughts to fly through Shayla's mind, she didn't so much as bat an eye as she continued to regard Kieran. There was one thing she was curious about, and she wanted to know.

"Without his Sith DNA, he will not have certain Sith abilities which may prove..."

She trailed. "... Useful."

The voice deep within, which formerly whispered, howled then in open despair.

Perhaps it would regress back to the actual pairing of the gametes that had come to form him? Now, that was an interesting thought...

--his inquisitive but logical mind had leapt yet one step further in the chain of events that were unfolding. Somewhat abashed that his science was proving itself unworthy to the Lady, he brightened as this new idea struck him.

"Lady," he said with a formal bow of his head. "You are human; your companion is of the Sith race. While this male can no longer retain Sith DNA, no matter what I would strive to do, I could create a replica of him.

"Using gametes from the pair of you, of course. It would be entirely clinical, unless you would wish it to be, ahh--"

He paused a moment, seeking the proper way to state matters.

"Otherwise," he finished with a delicate cough.

But a thought interrupted his impulse. His lip twitched and his smile turned into a contemptuous sneer. He forced his eyes away from Shayla and regarded the tall thin creature who had spoken.

“No,” he said flatly. “You were told to regress this… child. Sith blood runs through it already, it is the chosen one. “

He turned back to Shayla, his expression now lighter.

“ Its life was made from a Sith Lord, and a human of great power,” he said. “And he was made complete by the spirit of our own dark lord, a noble sacrifice that shall mean the survival of our Realm. But we must add our own flavor to this recipe, it is clear to me now.”

He stepped back and looked at the bubbling tube. The future, indeed, rested within.

Does he view you as an equal? Or as a means to an end? came an errant thought.

She pushed that thought aside. For he could do with her what he wanted...

...and she, in turn, could respond how she wanted as well. "What then, My Lord?" she asked Keran simply, her eyes yet like ice.

At length, however the look in her eyes changed from ice to something almost softer, and almost seductive.

"And until then, my Lord?"

"Sir," he began, giving Keiran a respectful bow of his head.

"This can easily be accomplished; in fact, this human is quickly approaching the embryonic point in which it existed when first brought to us. But--"

He paused a moment, a brief moment of inquisitiveness passing through him as he wondered if the red-skinned being in front of him, or the human lady, would be offended by his next words. But if offense they would bring, he could do nothing to prevent that. For they were nothing but truth.

"He is not he," he said as he waved one slender-fingered hand toward the incubating tube. A smile at his own prowess then crept across his face, and those fingers caressed the duraglass in an almost loving manner.

"With the Sith DNA gone, there is nothing to work with but the human component. This being is now a female, and is in fact a clone of its mother."

He couldn't help but smile in self-satisfaction, for if there was one area of expertise that he, a Kaminoan scientist, was most adept, it was in the manufacture of clones.

“A clone?” he asked steadily. “A hateful, degenerate unnatural clone… Of its mother?”

All hope of understanding the grand plan, and of accomplishing that which he had set out to do, vanished like a puff of smoke. Actions set in motion countless years ago, a careful design leading to the moment when the chosen child, composed of living flesh but avatar to the Dark Spirit, first of a new race, would be born of a woman of the Dark.

But now that dream was shattered, smashed against the cold sterile walls of a laboratory, destroyed by the simple curiosity of a creature of science.

In his mind he was already striding to the tall thin creature and wrapping his hand around its throat. He was lifting it high into the air and twisting the body until the satisfying crack of bone was drowned out by the even more satisfying screams of agony. He was throwing the crippled form into the glass tank, shattering it. The creature’s body was being cut in two by the impact and sharp shards of glass, and bubbling liquid was spilling across the floor, mingling with the blood already spread there. And then he was upon his queen, taking her amidst that death and gore…

“But wait,” he said aloud, staying the execution. “Perhaps not all is lost. These things you say, of making an heir, with my queen and with me… this can be done, with certainty?”

"But of course," he replied with the easy grace inherent to his race. "This is a simple procedure that in fact any child could easily accomplish."

“We may yet find a use for this thing,” he said. “If you are willing.”

He then turned to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. The dark cold glare that had bore into the Kaminoan now turned soft, almost caring.

A vision, one of Graysith stepping off a cliff with a babe, the look in her eyes dead and despairing, briefly flashed in Shayla's mind.

Shayla wondered, for the barest of moments, why she would be reminded of this. It might have been obvious to some, but for the moment, it wasn't to her. All that rested in her mind were thoughts of Power, of Balance. And of the Greater Good. Or at least, this was what she thought. For while she could help Kieran create an heir for the Darker Realms, a new and potentially powerful race...

...there was something that she could not recreate that was true of the destroyed child before them. Or at least, maybe not...

"Yes," she replied plainly as the room fell into an eerie and damning silence.

“Then we have work to do,” he said. He reached his hand to her face and ran his palm over her smooth cheek, lifting her head to the right. He gazed upon her beauty and smiled wider, his eyes widening with almost maniacal expression. Then he snapped his head to the Kaminoan, who started at the unnatural speed with which the dark one’s attention came.

“You will make this happen,” he said. “And it shall be a male – strong and healthy, Sith and human, dark and powerful.”

"Oh, not much, really," he began as he took out a padd from his belt pouch and activated it. His slender fingers fairly flew across the keyboard as he brought up page after page of what would undoubtedly appear as nothing more than sheer gobbledegook to the Sith and the human. But to him it was sheer magick, soothing and real. The very foundation of reality, so easily at his fingertips...

He shut off the padd with a defining click.

"Not much," he repeated. "Just gametes. I need to collect the germ cells from both of you, that their individual DNA patterns might be augmented to create the strongest alleles, those that you desire. While I can do this with samples from the both of you, it is, of course, best to have a viable embryo to work with, one as young as possible.

"While the initial fusion of the germ cell pair is not difficult, the trickiest part of this procedure is creating a new, genetically augmented entity. While I can do this clinically, the success rate using our standard procedures of augmenting the haploid DNA and then fusing the pair together is only 93%.

"But augmenting the DNA of a viable embryo, produced in the natural womb?"

He paused a moment, then blinked his limpid black eyes.

"One hundred percent effective," he finished with a graceful nod of his head.

“If you mean to impregnate my queen with your alien flesh, then I shall kill you where you stand.” Kieran felt a tremor rise up from the base of his spine. It shot slowly up his arching back, making his shoulders push upward. He caught himself, though, before it went further. What was this strange feeling?

He looked back to Shayla. Her eyes were splendid, even in the artificial light of this cold barren room. He suddenly longed for the dark light of the Darker Realms, to see Shayla’s full splendor under the shadowed black sun.

Then it was gone as soon as it appeared.

Are you being viewed as one who is special, or even as an equal, Shayla Stargazer? Or are you merely a means to an end? an annoying voice repeated in her head. Shayla chose to ignore it. At least, mostly.

"It was merely a suggestion," Shayla then said to Kieran, the look in her eyes darkening. "It is not worth your time to worry about, my Dear." She paused, her eyes darkening further to the hue of the sea before a storm. "After all, we have work to do."

"Oh, NO Sir! You misunderstand--" he had started when Shayla turned to the red-skinned being and interjected. Though not meant to be on his behalf -- he was quite certain of that-- he grasped at her words as a lifeline extended out to him.

"W-work?" he stammered, then paused to gather up his wits once more. Mere seconds later, and he was back to his former self.

He clasped his slender fingers afront himself, and bowed his head.

"If you would be so kind as to detail again exactly what it is you wish, Madam and Sir, I will make certain the results you crave are achieved.

"To the best of our ability," he hastily amended before silencing himself altogether to wait and see exactly what work would lie ahead of him...

...but she didn't know if she necessariy knew all the details. He remained obstinately silent, as though he was waffling over something...

...or perhaps just to keep the Kaminoan on edge. Shayla decided to pay this no mind for the moment, and instead turned back to the awaiting Rhua Ki.

"You said you could augment the DNA of a viable embryo produced by the natural womb," she said, restating Rhua's earlier explanation. She fell silent a moment, something only perhaps a mother who had lost a child could relate to passing over her features for a brief moment before it disappeared and her look became mostly unreadable once more.

"I'm assuming this means that were the Lord and I to have a child together, you could augment the DNA?"

She paused a moment, her greeny-blue eyes now resting intently upon the Kaminoan, her attentions for the moment mostly off Kieran.

But not entirely.

"Why, we can augment whatever natural traits that are carried in the chromosomes donated by the mating pair," he said smoothly, now letting a small smile of satisfaction cross his delicate features at the prospect ahead of him. If there was anything he loved more than cloning, it was augmenting. There weren't all that many Kaminoan scientists who had mastered this artform; he took great pride in his past achievements in the field.

Indeed, art form it is, he thought briefly before continuing.

"Genes dictating body strength, visual acuity, hearing, stress resistance... the range is wide and varied. But these abilities and traits exist within every living entity, how they express themselves in the phenotype is determined by everything from the strength of the initial allele to intra-uterine factors.

"I can make certain such traits would develop to their highest degree in the child, who would of course be a Sith-human hybrid. While I have some expertise with human traits, I am a bit naive as to those inherent to the Sith race.

"If there are certain traits exclusive to your people that you wish augmented, you will have to specify these."

He nodded toward Keiran as he spoke the last words, then turned back to Shayla.

The coolness of it, the reliability...

He drew himself up until he seemed taller than he actually was, and allowed himself to give voice to that inward sniff of derision.

"Of course," he droned, falling into lecture mode. "If that is all you need, than it shall be done quickly, and with a good promise of success. Of course the best results come from the manipulation of the genetic code of a viable embryo; if this is manner through which your ends are to be reached, I can perform this in vitro..."

He paused, his large eyes seeming to gleam in the bright white of the laboratory surrounding them.

"Or you may do so in vivo. If the latter, may I direct you to a more, ahhh... private room..."

Unacceptable.

"What of my human strengths, of my Force abilities and healing capabilities? Or do you think so little of these natural proclivities that you would dismiss them as being nothing than merely human?" she asked darkly, her eyes pinned on Kieran as she became extremely emboldened.

But he stayed his hand. Something she had said in her backtalk, it suddenly interested him.

"It's an energy field that surrounds all life in my universe," she then stated. "Only certain people are able to act upon it and use it; I and my brother are both Force senstive."

She paused, leaving out the fact that she and her brother were twins entirely. "It is an asset in many ways; in my case I am a healer and have attuned telekenetic abilities. I can also use the Force to amplify my senses."

"The methodology is not difficult," he offered at length.

"I can take the gametes from the two of you, and combine them in vitro. Or, if you wish a more reliable effect, you may create the young one naturally. I will then take a speciman of this beings genetic makeup, and enhance whatever it is that it carries, to whatever end you desire.

“You do not need to add abilities,” he said. “My queen is strong, she was chosen by the Realms itself. I now see why, not only is she beautiful and strong, she carries with her the knowledge that has eluded our kind. I should have known.”

He brought his hand to her face, now gently.

It couldn't be. How could she have missed it? Maybe after all that Kieran believed her to be, they had failed.

She had, after all, never carried an infant to term. In fact, she had lost him early, at the hands of Dark Lord Roan. And what that perhaps had done to her...

Shayla closed her eyes, sensing down deep, something hidden within her quaking in fear of failure..and at the same time, in fear of success. Little of her was what she once was, but even so...

...there was still something there, buried deep within, something of deep and despairing pain of loss...

...and of what focusing upon the needs of the one instead of the needs of the many could in turn cause as well. For the moment, however, Shayla didn't have time to anayze this, however. All she could search for was that small speck of something in her iinner being, something that was part her, and part something else. At first she found nothing...

...but at length one small, very small life, hiddenly safely in her womb, caught her attentions. And perhaps another...

...but no. One. She was certain.

Shayla's eyes snapped open and met Kieran's awaiting pair. "Yes. I can feel..."

"If this is factual -- which I can quite easily verify -- then all that needs be done to the embryo is to augment it's natural tendencies. I can take a small tissue sample and examine it to determine what genetic markers it carries, which in turn would indicate it's normal physical development. You may then decide which physical traits you wish enhanced, and which ones to be left alone."

He paused a heartbeat.

"Of course this does come at a price."

Bowing his head briefly, he named a rather hefty sum. Then he clasped his hands afront himself and quietly waited for permission to continue. But inside, he was beginning to quiver a little with unease.

You will do as you are told! There will be no price negotations!" she snarled, her eyes the only thing pinning Rhua Ki in place.

But in his head, memories surfaced.

There was another time, he well remembered. That other red-skinned, horned, and highly dangerous being. The one who had come to them, twice as he recalled, commanding services somewhat similar to what was being demanded of him here.

The first commission had been the trickiest one, for that youngling had some of the strangest DNA he had ever seen, even when the towering Sith had deigned to give him a sample of his own by which to compare its structure. But the second, later task was much less intricate, that being to artificially age a simple human being...

That one had not paid so much as a single credit either. But that was all right, as far as the scientist was concerned. There was much sweeter payment to be had than mere credits, although most of his peers would think him crazy for allowing this.

Pushing himself from the wall, he regained his balance and assumed his natural demeanor of cool aplomb: standing tall, hands clasped in front of him, his feet spaced slightly less than shoulder width apart.

"As you wish, Lady," he said smoothly with a slight bow of his head in Shayla's direction. He flicked his gaze in Keiran's direction, waiting to see if that worthy would agree with his fiery mate. But that one only seemed to curl his lip, sneering in what could either be seen as satisfaction with how Shayla had handled things, or in readiness to strike.

The scientist could only wait to see in which direction the suddenly stormy winds about him were about to blow.

His son, the finest specimen of physical beauty and strength, adept at everything… Ruling the night, the day, all that stood before him... His voice alone would command the Realms. His power would be unimaginable.

His power would be greater than Kieran’s own.

That gave him pause.

“There shall be no enhancements,” he said.

He paid no attention to the reaction of the Kaminoan, and turned to Shayla.

“You are strong, we need no aid from this one and his artificial craft. However, we still have a question to ask of it.”

"Did I not already state who this was?" he queried simply, "It was Lord Phalomir who came and ordered this being's genome be experimented with, at least as far as I can recall. Here, let me check our records."

Not waiting for permission, for indeed wasn't this his laboratory? -- he moved gracefully away to access the nearest computer terminal. His long fingers played a silent staccato upon the virtual keyboard that popped into thin air at his command; soon columns of data were scrolling in a rainbow of light that seemed to originate somewhere in the shadows of the ceiling that arced over their heads only to spill out upon the antiseptic white floor upon which they stood.

Rhua Ki let those data waterfall for a few moments longer before his hand stabbed out, quenching the light. Clasping his hands in front of himself, he returned to face the odd pair who were impatiently waiting behind him.

"Yes," he said, as by that one word he reaffirmed his earlier statement. "It appears this being appeared from nowhere in an embryonic state. In fact, it literally fell into existence at the very feet of one of our top geneticists, who hastened to place it within one of our incubators. It was then aged, so we could begin to ascertain who it was, and so understand the curious circumstances under which it came into our hands.

"It wasn't until some time later that another of your race, one who called himself Dark Lord Phalomir, came along and requested we begin, ahh... playing with it's genes, and I was placed in charge of his development.

"Why do you wish to know this?"

Kieran’s hand instinctively went upward, blue light tracing across his fingers. But before he let loose with the blast that would have sent the scientist flying into the wall, he hesitated.

He watched the eyes of the tall creature. They were alive with a mix of confusion and certainty, showing the confidence of one who trusted his information totally yet struggled with the slightest doubt that it could be wrong.

What if the creature was telling the truth? Surely by now it would know the consequence of lying, it had tasted the power of his queen and had already seen the terrible retribution bestowed to its kin crumpled on the floor.

What if this Phalomir existed? How would have known of the child? Why would he want it reverted to a human? If it were true, then this Phalomir would suffer more than any living creature had ever suffered.

“My queen,” he said inquisitively. “You have spent time with these Sith. Have you ever heard of or seen this Phalomir? Does he truly exist?”

She smiled sweetly. Entirely too sweetly. "And there are others like you." With this statement, she tilted her head towards the Kaminoan in an unspoken suggestion.

With an arched eyebrow she fell silent, awaited Kieran's response.

Kieran turned and walked a few steps, his thoughts racing. He stopped abruptly, then spun on a heel.

“But if Phalomir exists, “ he said, “And if what you say is true, then the Master may have been trying to deceive the Powers of the Realm. A foolish man indeed, this one. So he somehow made copies of me, and placed the best one into this Dark Lord position and called him ‘son’. And the others are inferior copies, tests along way. All of this was done obtain the power for himself, but I managed to free myself from the prison where he was holding me, and gained the power myself! Yes, that was what happened!”

He strode quickly to Rhua Ki and pressed his face close.

“And only one race knows all there is to making copies,” he said. “Correct?”

Then she stepped in mere milimeters away from Kieran, a dark and grim smile falling upon her features as Keiran eyes remained pinned on Rhua Ki. "And as to how you gained your current position, I know quite a bit about it. After all, the foolish Master was not the one who put you in it."

She paused, her look darkening even further, her voice lowering til it was almost inaudible. Almost.

"I did."

A slender hand waved, seeming of its own accord, as if to capture the attention of the ominous pair and remove it from his slight frame.

"You did?" He asked. "The Master lied, even in his death. It makes no difference, I am the chosen son of the dark, and you are my queen. The heir here is lost, what matters now is what grows within you. But to keep you safe we must eliminate the others who would be a danger to us. We shall begin with Phalomir, and learn where these copies of me came from. If it was not him then there are others we must face."

"Actually, cloning encompasses our primary efforts here on Kamino," he opened with, striving to obtain his former detached coolness once again.

"We have many, many cloning facilities in each of our stilt cities. All of our equipment is relatively similar; I would not be able to reveal who ordered what simply by studying our equipment."

He paused a moment, pondering if to reveal any further information would cross the line of client confidentiality. Then common sense pushed through logic; it would be better to offer this horrendous creature as much as he could, the better to rid himself of him.

"Here, let me show you," he said somewhat cryptically, as if Keiran had been able to read his mind. For that matter, he just may have been able to do just that...

He moved back to the computer console, and soon columns of virtual data were scrolling from ceiling to floor. He let the words and numbers roll downward, then paused the monitor.

"Aelomir," she half-whispered, her eyes darkening once more.

He had always denied this. But deep inside Shayla had always known it was a lie...

She pinned Kieran with a look. "That is the..."

“That name,” he said, lowly. “That name – The Master, his very name is a joke. He is the master of nothing, a pretender.”

He paused, letting the images and characters scroll further. They shone brightly in the dimly lit section of the room. He had left the Master for dead, shoving him into oblivion, a bloody pulp. So surely he must be dead. He had to be dead.

Was he dead?

If he were dead, his spirit would be subject to the Darker Realms.

Staring at the numbers and characters, Kieran reached outward. His eyes pierced through the blanket of electrons, and sought further, deeper, until they breached the curtain that hid the Darker Realms from this one. And there he reached out, seeking, searching…

“He has survived,” he said. “He lives, after all I did to him, he lives. This mysterious beast that would deal with powers he cannot fathom. And now you tell me he used your equipment to make copies of the one he claims to be his son. To put one in place within the Sith, and another to charge over the Darker Realms. I underestimated him.”

He finally pried his eyes away from the numbers and letters, and turned them to Shayla.

...and I wouldn't be surprised if even he does not know any more. One thing I do know however; Phalomir has a golden tatoo of entitlement to the Armorer's clan..."

She trailed, eyeing those on Kieran's body. "...and yours all remain black...

...but even that does not make one of you the original and one not; it just means that one of you has earned entitlement."

Shayla paused then, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully, "Still, there may be one other who may have the answers you seek; a being named Thoran who was at least once the Master's puppet if he is not even now. He is able to use the power of the Realms and has been there on more than one ocassion...

...and he tends to side with whoever can serve him best."

Shayla quieted one more moment, finally turning her attentions to Rhua Ki, who was possibly hoping that he could fade into the background while she and Kieran conversed regarding this new bit of information. She pinned him with a look for a moment, then turned her face to Kieran. "There is much yet to do. Are we to wait for this pregnancy to proceed in the usual manner...

...or take advantage of our current location and company?"

Did he love her?

That was irrelevant. The clones were irrelevant. The Master was irrelevant. For now, at least. All that mattered was the heir. It was all that ever mattered. And if the Sith had stolen this one, he would spit on them all and deliver another.

But this one had to be perfect. Special.

Pure.

...as well as the dark ones clearly radiating from Kieran. Any attempt he might have made to cover them were really rather useless, for not only was she Force sensitive...

...but she, like him, was part of the Realms. Oddly enough, however, she relished this darkness, wanting to take part in it, even as a very far, very, very deeply buried portion of herself shuddered in horror.

Shayla nodded, turning a sickeningly sweet smile Rhua Ki's way. "Yeees," she purred, suddenly longing to tear into the Kamminoan...

...or at least, into someone or something, and soon. Whether this sudden craving was of her own violition or of something else entirely, Shayla couldn't be certain.

Kieran turned and looked at the tall Kaminoan. Tall and slender, and of slight build, he was suddenly dwarfed by the presence of the Dark Sith.

“Won’t you?”

He smiled broadly, suddenly once again very sure of himself. A spark flew across his teeth as he smiled.

"As you wish," he stated simply as with a wave of his hand he indicated that Shayla should enter a nearby door. Through that door lay a pristine examination room; once he got the young lady there he would examine her.

Of course all will be well now, wouldn't it?

...and then spared a moment to eye Kieran, her look somehow dark.

She was no fool. He wanted to be certain that what she said was true was, in fact, true.

"Very well."

Then she turned towards the door to the examination room, heading inside...

Once she had done so, he turned to a nearby console. Playing a rapid tune upon the variety of buttons and dials there, he brought down from the lofty ceiling a strange, glassine device with looked rather like a sausage bisected along it's length. This was lowered to cover Shayla from neck to her feet.

"Do not fear," he pre-empted what words she might have spoken, judging from the widening of her eyes. "Generally all of our work is done within cloning tubes; it is not often that we have a surrogate mother with which to work. But we do have the equipment to perform examinations upon such; this is what I am now going to use to assess your current condition."

Saying nothing further, her turned back to the console and played yet another noteless tune upon it. The glassine half-tube turned smoky, then adamantine, and finally a deep, olivine green. Through this was shot lines and speckles of pure silver, as if the light of a distant moon was trying to shine within. At length the strange light faded; Rhua Ki pressed a certain button and the tube turned transparent once again, lifting itself back into the heights above.

Shayla immediately sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the table.

He pinned her with his large, soulless eyes.

"You are healthy, and your embryos are so as well," he said. He began to turn away, but something about her aspect gave him pause, and he turned back to see the question in her tempestuous eyes.

Twins? A boy and a girl? This was certainly not what Kieran was hoping for.

On the heels of that thought, another, far deeper and self-preserving one burst forth.

To Hell with what he was hoping for. This was her body, and her children. And they would be born, both male and female.

She turned her eyes towards the Kaminoan, recalling something she had once been told, perhaps not so long ago...

...and using it to its fullest. She allowed a hint of something approximating soul-encompassing fear fall on her features. "Please, please tell him only that I am healthy, and that the baby boy is as well," she said, the look in her eyes pleading...

...and surprisingly not at all contrived...

Who are you, lady?

He jerked back to his normal aplomb, standing coolly upright and folding his long-fingered hand together afront him.

"How powerful are you, then?" he queried. For although every atom of his being was for some strange reason yearning to assist her--

It could very well be some leftover remnant from the time he had assisted that other human female, the one with deep shadowed eyes and hair the color of a Tatooine sunset...

--well he knew that her companion, red of skin and armed with fang and claw and horn, was the one to truly fear.

He was a scientist. Logic lead the way, showing him what he should indeed do to keep his own pale skin alive and well.

...but at the same time, she was still, somehow, who she was...

...wasn't she?

At any rate, both of these children were hers. Both of them. And she didn't necessarily truwst Kieran to see that. He only seemed interested in one, a male, "strong and handsome."

What was it with the need for the child to be male? Pfft!

Shayla finally snapped from her thoughts, turning back to the awaiting Rhua Ki.

"I..I am a Force user, but I am a part of the Darker Realms."

She paused. "He has stated he wants a son, she then said succintly, her eyes darkening then. "I am not sure how he would receive the notion that I am having twins, especially not considering one of the two is a girl."

"No, how powerful are you?" he repeated before, holding up his hand to stay her comment, he went on to elaborate.

"Your companion is most powerful, this I can sense," he offered, albeit a bit tentatively. For indeed had he once before dealt with one of the same race, perhaps even of these so called Dark Realms of which this lady spoke. He was well aware of the potential dangers lurking upon the road ahead; now was he at a crossroad, only determining for his own well-being which direction would be the safest one to take.

"If you cannot supercede him, then if he asks I must indeed divulge the truth to him," he finished, still staring into her eyes. And what he saw there didn't instill much confidence in him.

...or was she? Without her, after all, there would be no heir. And she was already dead, and had already lost a child.

What else could he really do to her?

She stood up now, her eyes hardening and darkening. "Nevermind," she growled blackly. "I have Force powers...

...and other powers that he does not even know the half of."

"Very well then," he replied smoothly, as helping her from the table he turned about-face to return to the room they were in before. There he found the strange Sith growling darkly about to himself.

"They are both well, and vigorous," he announced in a clear voice as coming up before Keiran he folded his hands afront himself and bowed slightly, if not entirely respectfully, before him.

He walked to Shayla, smiling. “And you are well,” he added. “And vigorous, too. That is good, we shall need your power and strength in the days ahead, to remove our enemies and make the future safe for our son.”

He paused, looking into Shayla’s eyes. She seemed worried, just ever so slightly. Why would she show any sign of trepidation? Unless…

“A daughter?” he asked. “What do you mean, a daughter? He can’t be both… can he?”

No, that was absurd. She was speaking in riddles, perhaps. A son, and a daughter. He would be strong, yes, and… like a daughter as well? How would he be like a daughter?

A son…

And a daughter.

A son and a daughter.

“Twins?” he exclaimed. “You are carrying twins?”

He paused as the realization hit him. Two heirs – no, one heir, and one other. One to keep, to teach. To train, and to hide.

He leaned in and kissed Shayla on the forehead, then pulled her close. His expression became dark, and his voice deep.

“You must speak of this to no-one,” he said. “You shall bring us a son, and that is all anyone need ever know.”

He looked over to the Kaminoan, his eyes bearing the same message.

...but she would never let him know that. She cursed herself for having a moment of weakness herself, of doubt...

...and she would not allow it to happen again.

She turned wide, tumultuous eyes to Kieran, giving him her undivided attention.

"Yes, my Lord," she purred, "We are having a son, a strong son."

She paused. And an equally as strong daughter.

Here she looked briefly at Rhua Ki, her look unscrutable yet somehow meaningful at the same time. But then she immediately directed her eyes back to Kieran.

He released Shayla and stepped back, and then turned to the Kaminoan.

Then she turned back to Kieran. "Precious time is slipping by. We should go."

Saying nothing further then, Shayla allowed Kieran to take her by the hand as he opened a portal back into te Darker Realms, leaving Rhua Ki behind and unharmed in their wake.

(((OCC: Follow Shayla and Kieran back to The Hands that Rock the Cradle in the Jedi Praxeum and Sith Temple forums.)))

For although he had had past dealings with beings of power, he hadn't really allowed himself to accept the possibility that the magic they had alluded they carried...

was real.

For a long moment he merely stood, gawking at the place where the odd yet extremely dangerous pair had vanished into thin air. At length he managed to reach out a hand which trembled just the slightest, and closed the program he had opened for their inspection.

Turning, he looked at the tiny being who floated in the great, upright vat, blissfully unaware of the events that had just transpired outside the realm of its tiny existence.

Her tiny existence.

He turned to go, moved toward the exit into the hall from this, one of his private augmentation labs, and flipped off the light. The door to the outer hallway whooshed open in response to the room's darkening, and in exiting he couldn't help but pause to cast one final, reflective glance at the work he was leaving for the night.

Something caught his eye in the darkness of the lab. His scientific curiosity piqued, he retraced his steps to the augmentation vat, squinted in the dark, only now seeing the palest of glows which seemed to be emanating from within it.

A soft, beautiful, yet somehow sinister violet glow...

It reflected through the nutrient rich broth in which the fetus floated, tingeing the liquid with the slightest bit of color, reflecting off of the backside of the glassine tube.

A frown of consternation crossed Rhua's features, for this was entirely unexpected. Had those two somehow managed to affect his work with their strange magicks - magicks around which he was still striving to wrap his coolly logical mind - perhaps doing so while distracting him with their back and forth arguments? Was this, one of his greatest achievements, ruined?

He quickly rounded to the back side of the vat, peering more closely, striving to make certain that the pale glow did indeed exist and wasn't just a figment of his imagination, brought on by his understandably unnerved reaction to seeing two beings disappear in the manner in which they had. But as he came round, the little embryo bobbed, and turned toward him, presenting him that upper portion which had been, and which would once again become, it's face.

Centered mid-way between the large, bulbous black nodules which would become its eyes - no, her eyes - a tiny spark of violet was shining fiercely.

The scientist actually let out a brief gasp of shock. This was certainly a surprise to him, for nothing he had done in all his manipulations would have produced a phenotype of this sort. This was a first, and for a scientist of his stature, was therefore both disconcerting...

And exhilarating.

Quickly he moved to the light switch, flipped the lighting back to normal. The glow instantly vanished. Was it due to being washed out, his scientific mind wondered, or something other? Easily determined; slowly he lowered the lighting in the lab. The soft glow remained stubbornly absent until it was gone. Only then did it spring into tiny, fiercely vibrant life.

What could this mean?

Rhua Ki's heart raced, fueled with the excitement of the unknown. He knew he had to study this little embryo; he couldn't let it proceed to its natural origins of which he had only speculated a mere hour earlier. He had to stop it's regression, no matter what this Lord Phalomir had stated. After all, what if this was something wrong?

He couldn't bear to let an error of any magnitude mar his stellar record.

Making note to himself, he turned and exited his lab. Closing the door, he locked it carefully, coding it to only his genetic input.

Then he hurried off, to find food and rest.

And to think.