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Author	Topic: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Completed 11/23
sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/16/05 10:11pm Subject: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Completed 11/23 - Date Edited: 7/8/06 9:19pm (5 edits total) Edited By: sabarte
	Title: The Way the World Ends Author: sabarte Category: Philosophy? Semi AUish Rating: PG Summary: There are no choices in the end for Darth Tyranus. Or at least that's what he thinks... Notes: Constructive criticism is always welcome. There were black currents in the dark water, and Darth Tyranus was trapped in them. Every thought was a possible betrayal, every word a dangerous gamble, every move watched and judged. The bond between a Sith master and his chosen apprentice was more powerful than the heart of a star, more intoxicating than Kessel spice. With the length of the galaxy between them, he might dare to think his own thoughts, even consider might have beens. But here, in the presence of his master, his thoughts were naked, and he was utterly alone. It didn't matter that Sidious was bound in the chair, didn't manner that he was wearing his more harmless face. Dooku let himself be subsumed by his master's will, answering as appropriate, echoing his master's thoughts and feelings. With the eyes of the Dark Side he saw the strands of shadow obscuring the battle outside, the black threads of influence being grasped and woven. Subtler than speech or thought. This battle belonged to his Master - this battle and this war. "They are coming." Sidious said, and the fierce gold in his eyes faded as they eased open. They were half-lidded as he looked on his apprentice, and Tyranus wondered if he was pleased. He bowed wordlessly, and withdrew. Dooku could not - could never - stand against his Master, so he played his part. He made his entrance, tasting the presence of his enemies, their strengths and weaknesses. He hardly gave thought to what he said in casual sarcasm. Between the four of them, words were not important. Nothing truly needed to be said. But the formalities proceeded regardless. Age fell back, and time as well. He was swifter than the beat of an insect's wing, as young as the day's sunrise and as old as night. In the Force, he became a maelstrom, letting his contempt for the world fuel him as he drew in on himself. His knowledge became power, and that power was contained by his force of will, so that the creature that was named Dooku contracted and was completely subsumed by the creature that was named Tyranus. And even that was mercilessly flayed away, so in the end all that was left was the timeless will to power. His roots were in the true depths of the Force, past the perception of mere Jedi. Everything else -the power he displayed, and the shadows of emotion he projected - they were the merely the aura around the event horizon. And with the eyes of the dark side he looked on Sidious again. The surface emotions he projected for the benefit of the Jedi were simple lies - Tyranus ignored them. The power that was his master was quiescent for now, but Sidious's roots were darker yet, and even Tyranus did not know how deep they reached. Sidious's power was the sum of all the Sith, and the bond between them was cruel and inescapable. As the apprentice learned, he became ever more vulnerable. He was never taught all the secrets, of course. Those would come if he proved his strength and cunning were greater than his teacher. For even slain, a Sith Master was immortal. Bane's curse, and his promise to his line. The weight of the past hung parasitically on every Master of the Sith. Even the extermination of both Master and Apprentice could not destroy them, for the spirits of the ancient Masters would devour the slayer and the remnants would become a Sith Lord in turn. The studies of a young Master Dooku had indicated that that may have happened once already. For now, Sidious was the Master, and Tyranus was in his orbit. In time, they would collide, and the stronger would subsume the weaker. Sidious asked a show. Very well. Tyranus would dance to his tune, as ever. Blades crossed, and the dance began. Movement without thought, anticipating and choosing. Tyranus saw the choices set before him, choosing his path with perfect intuition. In their own way, his opponents were doing the same. The battle was not won by decisions and bladestrikes, but through the Force. Each strike had a parry, each move a countermove, and even the two of them would not be enough. The knowledge of Tyranus was greater than their knowledge, and his understanding subtler. Skywalker was better than he had been, as was Kenobi. But in the weave of the fight, he could choose eventualities, make them react instead of acting. He would divide and destroy them because he knew the deep currents of Force, and could trap them there... Wait. No Something was wrong. In fighting Jedi, Dooku was used to being the center. The inexorable gravity of his dark presence controlled the fight, and Makashi drew it out as long as he desired, and ended it as he chose. With Yoda, it had been different. There every move was conscious, every parry directed by his mind as he became the Living Force, instead of merely harnessing it. He had matched Yoda...fairly well. He was not in trouble - yet -. But now Skywalker was slipping out of his orbit. Not consciously - he hadn't the skill - but through his raw power. And Tyranus, even, was being forced to parry, retreating as much as he attacked. Forced to put his mind to the task. An interesting test. The boy was not Yoda, though. For one thing, he was much easier to hit. A swift strike trapped Skywalker's saber long enough for a boot to the chest to force him away. Tyranus was given a few moments to think as he effortlessly parried Kenobi. Kenobi's defenses were beautiful, but Tyranus did not need to mark him to take him out of the fight. Permanently. But something was very strange about Kenobi too. Tyranus blinked. That was unexpected. Sidious's influence was like a pall over the room. Tyranus did not resist its pull, and Skywalker followed it unknowingly. But Kenobi...Kenobi was acting like it wasn't even there. He should not be able to do that. He hadn't the power, or the skill, or the intuition. But he was doing it anyway. The Sith Lord's eyes narrowed as he revised his plans again, pouring more of himself into the fight. The moment was coming where he could take one of them out, as the strands of the future branched and branched again. The choice was soon. Kenobi's presence in the Force was clear and beautiful, and not even Sidious could touch it. He was a glorious sun in the Force, burning bright and unshadowed. Skywalker was brighter, a roiling massive blue star. Hugely powerful...and hugely unstable. Yet all stars die. Only the night is eternal. Reason and intuition warred in Tyranus briefly, and cold reason won. Let the Force take Kenobi as he was now, the culmination of all he was born to be. True to his convictions, firm in his devotion to what he thought was Truth. Kenobi was wrong, of course. And that was why he would have to die. Destiny was not kind to her children. And neither was the Force, though it hid its true form and malice in the black depths where none but Sith Lords delved. The play was still on. The taunts were having their effect. Skywalker was fighting at the edge of rage, a fury Tyranus himelf could barely match. But it was Kenobi who still distracted Tyranus. The General's blue eyes promised blazing judgment. Without hate, but pitiless. We are what we are, childling. You should know this. The choice was now. They came at him together, and he spun, lashing out with a both his foot and the Force. Skywalker got a kick that propelled him across the room, but Kenobi was smashed aside by the full fury of a Sith Lord's power. Tyranus dropped the balcony on him for good measure, and whirled to face Skywalker again with a cruel smile. And realized he had made a mistake that could cost him his life. Without Kenobi's stabilizing influence, Skywalker stood unleashed, his power exploding outwards as he sought to avenge - to kill. It would not be hard to lose this fight. But could even Sidious control Skywalker now? Blows hammered into his guard furiously, and Dooku was forced again to react to Skywalker. He reached to his intuition, seeking the choices again. There were fewer now. Tyranus was reminded unpleasantly of a time once before, a quiet conversation between a Jedi Master and a Senator in which all the possibilities had slowly collapsed into one. There were still ten thousand futures in this moment, but Tyranus sought in vain for one that did not promise oblivion. The one talent he had never possessed was true foresight - his intuition was wholly of the Living Force, and the wider patterns of the Unifying Force fascinated but eluded him. Those patterns were also going to kill him if he didn't do something. Ten. Six. Two. One. And the Sith Lord was thrown back into the present, fighting an inevitability he could not stop. All the possibilities were gone, and destiny had seized the fight. Forced over the railing, he glanced at his Master - and went very, very cold. In the deep force, Sidious moved, ripping away illusions, snaring Skywalker deeper and deeper. Their eyes met - and Tyranus saw the treachery in them. It was not rational. It was not fair - but the Sith Lord had long ago stopped believing in fairness. Dooku had known Sidious's obsession, his utterly personal desire for the betrayal and annihilation of every Jedi. But he hadn't thought it was also directed at him. As Skywalker bound Tyranus's destruction into his destiny, Sidious bound that destiny to his own. The Sith Master's eyes burned in hatred both unreasoning and unreasonable. Blades crackled together - his was forced back again - And then Skywalker was inside his guard! Pain blossomed, and he instinctively suppressed it, knowing it was pointless, knowing this was the end. His eyes flicked shut at he collapsed....and opened again cautiously as he realized he wasn't dead yet. The experience of being a Sith Apprentice had done wonders for his pain tolerance, Dooku thought morbidly. Even so a green spectre danced at the edge of his vision, and it seemed all he could see in the true world was the blue and red blades crossed in front of him. He knew rationally his hands were gone, but he could still feel them, almost. His consciousness was blurring, and he reached again for the Living Force to steady himself. The Force had gone strange and fey as destinies unfolded and wrapped around his Master and his Master's new Chosen. Sidious spoke intently, drawing Anakin into his fatal web of void and shadow. Dooku didn't hear what he said. It didn't matter now. Tyranus knew he was going to die. All the possibilities of the moment had collapsed into one, and nothing he could say would change anything. Time to let the last dream take him, time for him to return the bitterness and despair he had drawn his strength from and drown in the black night of the Dark Side. Dooku's eyes cleared, and he came back to the present - the moment of now. He felt the first burn of the blades, closer now, and saw all he needed to know in Skywalker's eyes. "Kill him." Sidious hissed. The blades cut.
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sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/16/05 10:19pm Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) - Date Edited: 1/13/06 10:42pm (1 edits total) Edited By: sabarte
	Fearless and beautiful, the Jedi at the heart of worlds unfolded into light and dived into the deep night. The everflowing streams of the dead joining the Force swirled. There was one he sought, though, and one alone. There. He perceived his master as a dark crystal of frozen calm fury. Slowly dissolving, the devouring darkness eating at him now and forever. The wave of thought and power that was Qui-Gon Jinn bore Dooku up. The still point formed around them, and the darkness fell back. Perception was not reality. Jinn wove an illusion in the still point, a dream-sharing of thought and memory. Qui-Gon decided to appear much as he had when last they had met, thirteen years prior. Greying, leonine, piercing-eyed. With a mere thought he manifested a world around them. A tree stood on a hill in a wide field of grass that stretched until it swirled into night. There was no sun and no stars above, but a deep green glow seemed to spring from the form of the Jedi as he lay on the grass, his wide broad hands folded behind his head. The shadow of the tree seemed to grow and change, and Dooku was there. The green reflected from his eyes oddly, but his body seemed for a moment to be made of darkness, black and cold. Jinn gestured absently, and changed his former master into the man he remembered. Clean-shaven, less scarred by age and shadow. How he had appeared at their last meeting - grave, solemn...even then, strangely broken. Master Dooku stood straight and unbowed, tension apparent in his muscles. His eyes were dark, and Qui-Gon wondered then - what was left of the man he remembered? How had it come to this? "Master Jinn." Dooku said, the picture of detachment. Gazing past Qui-Gon, into the place where illusion dissolved in the mystery of the Force. He was silent, then and utterly still. "We should talk." the younger man said, the welcoming smile on his face fading as he knotted his brows in thought. The memory of a body came easily to him - Dooku was not even pretending to breathe, reverting to a deathlike stillness. The elder finally moved, holding up one hand as he examined his body. His eyes lingered on a scar on his left hand - the legacy of a vibroblade accident in training so many years ago. The only time Qui-Gon Jinn had ever been able to mark his Master. He looked up, meeting his apprentice's gaze evenly and without apparent emotion. "No." And with that, he turned and walked away. "....Master?" Qui-Gon asked, at a sudden loss for words. Dooku stopped, at the edge of things, and glanced back. The light in his eyes was strange. "You presume." he said, and his voice was iron. "You presume on bonds made and broken. You cannot keep me here, to salve your conscience at what you have done. I deny you. Neither love nor reason will hold me your will here." He smiled harshly. "Would you compel me?" And with growing horror, Qui-Gon saw him turn back, reach out, grasp the Force. Dooku's eyes flickering shut as he prepared to leave the still sanctuary, slip Qui-Gon's grasp and lose himself wholly in the Force. Illusion unraveled around him into roiling night. Jinn was moving before he even thought, sprinting across the grass and quelling the disturbance. The world grew around him as he brought new order. Dooku's power roared forth like a whirlwind in defiance. Qui-Gon sprang to tackle him. Dooku's dream-body reached for his saber out of instinct - though here he had none. He immediately realized that, and instead flung his arm out to guard himself from Qui-Gon. Pain is an illusion Qui-Gon thought. Control. Control. Control. This wasn't a physical confrontation, truly. It was Qui-Gon's mind versus the power of his former master, a battle he had never been able to win. Dooku's guard was like knives shredding into him. But this was Qui-Gon's world, the place of his final mastery. And so, it ended with him smashing through knives and fire and glass to the core of things, finding and suppressing Dooku's connection to the Force and pinning his shadow-body roughly to the ground.
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wolf4492000 Registered: Jun '05	Date Posted: 11/16/05 10:30pm Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin)
	[/vader] impressive. Most impressive [/vader]. This is interesting. I always wondered what jinn and dooku would talk about, and it looks like you will answer that question. -----signature----- 'There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope G'Ka
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Kynstar Registered: Mar '04	Date Posted: 11/17/05 6:11am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin)
	Oh wow! Well done there getting into the 'mindset' of Dooku! Can't wait to see what Qui does next! Loved this: The elder finally moved, holding up one hand as he examined his body. His eyes lingered on a scar on his left hand - the legacy of a vibroblade accident in training so many years ago. The only time Qui-Gon Jinn had ever been able to mark his Master. He looked up, meeting his apprentice's gaze evenly and without apparent emotion. "No." And with that, he turned and walked away. "....Master?" Qui-Gon asked, at a sudden loss for words. Dooku stopped, at the edge of things, and glanced back. The light in his eyes was strange. "You presume." he said, and his voice was iron. "You presume on bonds made and broken. You cannot keep me here, to salve your conscience at what you have done. I deny you. Neither love nor reason will hold me your will here." He smiled harshly. "Would you compel me?" How sad his old apprentice juz wishes to help him... Excellent work! -----signature----- Paddy sis to t_s & SarkaVrae/Master to hyperspace_police Member of Rebel Legion and Jedi Assembly (Kynstar Lans) Only thru fear, hatred, and pain will the true power of the Force be revealed. See stories/viggies in bio
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sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/17/05 1:57pm Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) - Date Edited: 1/13/06 10:39pm (2 edits total) Edited By: sabarte
	Their minds met - Dooku's was a swiftly changing thing, hard to grasp and harder to understand. His master's power was blunted, but his thoughts were still fluid and obscured. There had only been a brief flash of emotion when Qui-Gon had finally broken through, a taste of terrible fury. Most of it directed at one Qui-Gon Jinn. There was nothing human in his master's dark eyes now, only a green reflection. Dooku's thoughts were now still, a meditative emptiness worthy of a Jedi Master. Though perhaps they ran so deep his once-apprentice could not perceive them. Warily, Qui-Gon released him. Something rekindled in the Count's eyes then, and Dooku picked himself off the ground silently. When he spoke, it was with a terrible weariness. "This isn't who I am, Qui-Gon." "Who are you, then?" Qui-Gon asked, troubled. Sitting on the grass, he drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. "I'm not who you want me to be." There was a visible strangeness in the air as Dooku brought the Force to himself again. He looked up, and the weight of years seemed to fall on him in the space of a few moments. The stain of age spots spread across his features and up his arms, and his skin wrinkled and sagged around muscles still hard as steel. The grey overcast to his hair frosted to a pure and thinning white, matched by a growing beard. His eyebrows alone remained dark, and under them his eyes opened, the same deep brown. "I'm not some sentimental memory of a man you merely imagined to exist. I'm not some damn redemption for the sake of all the people you've lost, You've always given your heart too easily - and you have never been able to let go. I will not be made a slave to your emotional needs. Look into yourself and acknowledge the truth. You would make me one." He raised his chin, and gestured to his withered body. "I am become this. Your inability to accept that will not change matters" Qui-Gon willed himself not to flinch at the cold-voiced dissection, a Master's voice from long ago. Perhaps there was some truth to it, even - did he have the right to try and save Dooku from himself? "What you say you are is a man I never knew." "And you do not desire to." Dooku's eyebrows shivered. "I am a man you never chose to know. Not truly, not even when you came back to me, before your fall. You love your illusions, Master Jinn. About the nature of men - about the nature of reality." "You were a Jedi." Qui-Gon said softly. "You can't pretend you never were. You can be again." "And in that, feign I never was a Lord of the Sith? But yes. I am a Jedi also." His eyes narrowed. "In some ways, a better Jedi than you. You are too drawn to the world. Still." "Compassion is a Jedi virtue." his apprentice replied, too sharply. "Not the way you practice it." Dooku said with a thin smile. "I know you well. Know the way you seek out attachment, courting the heartbreak of betrayal with every space rat and slave child you come across. Every apprentice..." Qui-Gon flinched. "...Even your Master, it seems. I warned you off this path. You had the right to seek it out, but it was unwisdom." "And I will say what I said then - how is rediscovering the ancient ways of the Jedi an evil or wrong thing? The ability to live forever in the Force, to transcend death....this is a terrible thing to have lost. This is the final mastery, and I have achieved it. And I have given it to you." "There is no death." Dooku's voice was low and intense, the voice of a long-ago Master correcting an often wayward student. "Not here." "Not anywhere. Not even for the least creature. Our ultimate destiny is to become the Force, surrender ego and self and all that we are to become more than a memory. This is the way, and this is the only way. The pursuit of immortality, in this world or out of it, is an abomination." Dooku's eyes gleamed. "After all, anything Lord Sidious is that keen on can't be a good idea." "There's a difference between pursuing immortality for selfish reasons, and for selfless ones." Qui-Gon said. "It's not pursuing in his case." Dooku said grimly. "Not anymore. And selfless? You?" He laughed quietly, and when he stopped there was a mocking tone to his voice. "You are a man who was, and you made the very Force bend to your will rather than lose who that man was. Is that admirable? You cling uselessly to your attachments. There no selfless reason why you stay, only your determination to watch the descent of the cruel universe into madness. To endure to the last loss, the last betrayal, the final despair." "There is hope." the Jedi Master said. "For the universe...and even for you, I think." "Hope is the refuge of the ignorant. I know how this will end."
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sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/19/05 10:01pm Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) - Date Edited: 1/13/06 10:37pm (2 edits total) Edited By: sabarte
	"Do you?" Qui-Gon smiled. "You've never seen the wide patterns of the future in the Force, Master. The one gift you were never given. I remember." "My knowledge," Dooku said sharply, "comes from reason. Which incidentally led to my discovery of Master Sidious not two months after your death. The Jedi Council's faith in the weave of destiny has not led them even that far. Even the Jedi prophecies said the dark times were coming, yet they still do not comprehend yet that the Force is not benevolant, that its inexorable will cares nothing for anger or compassion or the small emotions that make up small beings. It cares nothing for the death of worlds - for those deaths only add to its power. The dark times are upon us. And it is by the will of the Force that this is so." "The prophecies," Qui-Gon said quietly, "offer a solution." "Oh yes." Dooku said, and the slight thaw in the conversation died in ice right there. "Skywalker again." His smile was unpleasant. "In all your inquiries into Jedi and Sith lore, the ways of the ancients and the Whills, you never asked me about the prophecy of the Chosen One. You should have." Qui-Gon watched him, brow furrowing slightly. "Do you hate him?" he asked gently. Dooku closed his eyes. "No. The younger man smiled. "But neither do I pity him." Dooku added with serene satisfaction. His eyes flicked open. "Skywalker's destiny, I think, is exactly what he deserves." Silence followed that comment. Dooku looked off into the distance, to the edge of their little world. Qui-Gon stared at the grass, trying to find the words he needed. After some time, Dooku spoke again "I must say, I am surprised at your sudden interest in my welfare. After all, you spent most of the years since you left me actively avoiding me." "I resented you." Qui-Gon admitted. "For a long time. You were harder with me than I thought necessary." "Oh, I knew it was emotional." Dooku said. "Always your failing. Like the time you refused to speak with me for a decade over that Xanatos debacle." When Qui-Gon spoke again, it was with an edge of remembered anger. "Offering to kill my apprentice was not appropriate. At all." "It was absolutely appropriate," Dooku objected, "it's the policy of the Jedi Order, and one of their more intelligent ones at that. A responsibility you took on with the mentoring of a Padawan. Failure brings cost, and your training philosophy invited failure. The only reason Kenobi turned out half as well as he did is because he had to take on some true responsibility after you died, instead of having you encourage his weaknesses through indulgence. I knew you did not have the strength in yourself to kill Xanatos - but it needed to be done." "And how many Jedi have you corrupted yourself, Lord Tyranus? You are swift to condemn, and you do not forgive." "Their failures are their masters' responsibilities, and their own." "And Komari Vosa?" Qui-Gon's voice was not kind. Dooku was silent. "Was that her failure, or yours?" Dooku lifted his chin. "As you well know, I took apprentices that nobody else wanted - talented but strange ones. Like you. Some, like Vosa, had had another Master before me. She came to me too old, and saw not a Master, but a man she desired. And at Galidraan, where she saw me assailed with the bodies of my comrades fallen around me, and she shattered utterly. As I had been expecting. It's rather....disturbing...to discern your apprentice is fantasizing about you. And even if you had the bad taste to have indecent dreams about my mother, your shielding was better" If Dooku was expecting to shake Qui-Gon's composure, he was sorely disappointed. The Jedi's eyes lit up with the wicked glee of a man who was past all embarrassment. "Oh yes, the Contessa. I remember her very well from our trip to Serenno. She made quite the impression on me as a young man." "I noticed." Dooku said, his voice very dry. "She was rather old for you, I thought." "She could flay you with a word. I was impressed at how often she took you to the edge of losing your calm. The way she owned the conversation - made you admit to being human. A formidable woman. Passionate. You could tell she enjoyed life, and living it." "Mmmm." Dooku's mouth twisted. "Admiring her ability to master my reason, disrupt my control. Wishing you could do the same. I can see that. I was not an easy master." "You were not." Qui-gon said. "But it wasn't merely that. She was...like you, but more accessible. Because I didn't have to guard my thoughts at every moment. She allowed herself to care, and care deeply. Something I wanted from you, as a child. It seemed terrible, to have a loveless bond." The younger Jedi looked peculiarly vulnerable for a moment. "Did you ever care for me? I was never quite certain." Something had been building in Dooku as his former apprentice spoke, and it lashed out suddenly. "She was nothing like me." "No?" Qui-Gon smiled. "She was a good deal prettier than you, certainly, but that hardly matters. She was compelling to speak to...incredibly cunning, perceptive and eloquent. And if she was also nasty, vindictive, and spiteful, those are qualities you must admit to sharing in some measure." Dooku scowled at him. Qui-Gon's smile faded slightly, and his voice took on a more serious tone. "And in any case, you haven't answered my question."
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Knight_DLockens Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/21/05 6:23am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin)
	Ahhh the question has finally arisen! Did the ole ex Jedi ever care for his apprentice? Can't wait to find out!! Loved the comparisons there! Great job! Loving this! -----signature----- I've feared. I've experienced anger and even hate. And yes…I've suffered and still do…Where does that leave me? It leaves me no where…no where to turn to except to a Padawan and a Senator. If only dreams could come true...
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sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/21/05 9:26pm Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) - Date Edited: 1/13/06 10:31pm (1 edits total) Edited By: sabarte
	"A Jedi shall not know anger," Dooku said, his eyes distant. "Or hatred. Or love." "Answer me." Jinn snapped, restraint fraying. He gestured harshly. Dooku's eyes clouded. "I...." the Sith started, before with a great effort he shrugged off the compulsion. His eyes cleared and narrowed. "You dare?!" "Yes." Qui-Gon said. "Because it's important." The apparition of Dooku's body prowled around his former student. He took one measured step after another, his presence tense with a controlled...something. "It's irrelevant. After all, you still don't want to have a conversation with me. Not truly. You want to remake me into something that I'm not. You want me to confess to real and imagined crimes, beg your forgiveness for being the knife that carved some semblance of a Jedi out of your mere potential." "Once upon a time," Qui-Gon said softly, "you were a man worthy of love. Strict, terrifying at times, intense, unwavering. A leader and a Master, a scholar, an orator, a philosopher, a teacher. Everything you did you did well. You feared nothing, and in your communion with the Living Force understood the lives and minds of those around you. I wish...I wish you could tell me what happened to that man. How could that man fall?" Dooku's mouth twisted. "What emotionally laden terminology. As far as -that- goes, I would characterize it more as a casual slide into cynicism and despair." "I want to understand." "Careful, child." Dooku said. "Some say that if you have perfect knowledge of a man, understanding him utterly and completely, you cannot help but love them. That has not been my experience. I have found such familiarity leads inevitably to contempt." "From your words I sense it is the love you fear. Not any hatred of mine." "But do you hate me, child?" Dooku asked softly. "Sometimes," Qui-Gon said, "I would very much like to. But I can't. It's too easy. In my darkest moments I have always had those who have stepped in for me, helped me through. You were once one of them, Master. But you have had nobody." "Neither have you." Dooku said. "It is a terrible thing to be alone. So terrible that we delude ourselves. Yet we are, and forgetting that is a failure in ourselves. There can be no true trust. Perhaps your attachments saved you. But they were what led to your emotional collapses in the first place." The Jedi looked up, and he seemed to glow brighter in that instant. He spoke confidently with sudden insight. "Yet I am not so brittle as you, Master. You never allowed yourself attachment, nor love....never, I think, but once. And when the heartbreak and the anguish came upon you, you could not deal with it - you had no one left to turn to. Only the despair and the dark places in your heart, and they swallowed you - for you could not bring yourself to care again." Qui-Gon's knowing eyes met his Master's - and Dooku looked away. Dooku stood in silence and the moment seemed to stretch forever. Then his face cracked into a small, bitter smile. "Wise child." he breathed. "I have missed you."
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Healer_Leona Title: Manager Emeritus Registered: Jul '00	Date Posted: 11/22/05 3:13am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Updated 11/22
	Fascinating insight into these characters. Some lines that really just grab my attention... "Not the way you practice it." Dooku said with a thin smile. "I know you well. Know the way you seek out attachment, courting the heartbreak of betrayal with every space rat and slave child you come across. Every apprentice..." Skywalker's destiny, I think, is exactly what he deserves." Love that last line! -----signature----- Feel so good, but I'm old 2000 years of chasing's taking it's toll
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Kynstar Registered: Mar '04	Date Posted: 11/22/05 5:43am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Updated 11/22
	Ohhh wow!! Another excellent post!! This was my fave. How it literally screams of the poor man... "Neither have you." Dooku said. "It is a terrible thing to be alone. So terrible that we delude ourselves. Yet we are, and forgetting that is a failure in ourselves. There can be no true trust. Perhaps your attachments saved you. But they were what led to your emotional collapses in the first place." Poor Dooku -----signature----- Paddy sis to t_s & SarkaVrae/Master to hyperspace_police Member of Rebel Legion and Jedi Assembly (Kynstar Lans) Only thru fear, hatred, and pain will the true power of the Force be revealed. See stories/viggies in bio
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sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/22/05 2:52pm Subject: replies - Date Edited: 11/22/05 2:52pm (1 edits total) Edited By: sabarte
	Healer Leona: The process of Force-Ghostery always seemed to me to imply an attachment to the world. I'm trying to demonstrate Qui-Gon's universal compassion, but also the attachment that keeps him tied to the world. My Dooku, on the other hand, is an incredibly cynical depressed nihilist/failed idealist who in some ways finds death rather a relief. He's never had problems with attachment (except maybe with Qui-Gon), but he lost attachment to what principles he did have. They also, obviously, have residual Issues with each other. Dooku knows what hell a Sith Apprentice's life is. I'm sure he takes a certain amount of schaedenfreude in Anakin's fate - and he knows Sidious dug his hooks deep in Skywalker with his own death. I believe he considers himself amply revenged there. Kynstar: Dooku was a vicious and frankly rather evil man, and he knows that, and he can't understand why Qui-Gon is being so bloody stubborn about him being nice deep down. Because I'm fairly sure he's not. He has his moments, but he's not...nice. He was a successful Jedi because he was in near-total control of himself.
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sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 11/23/05 7:27am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Updated 11/22 - Date Edited: 1/13/06 10:28pm (4 edits total) Edited By: sabarte
	Qui-Gon smiled back tentatively, unwilling or unable to trust to words. Dooku walked closer, to where Qui-Gon sat, tangling a hand in his apprentice's greying hair. "I never trained you to come back to me." he said. "I had no desire to turn you into just a Jedi Knight, bound in unthinking servitude to the ignorance of the Council. You had to learn to think for yourself. Yet I knew you loved too strongly - that I risked making you merely a pale shadow of myself if I indulged you. And while other Masters might have been content with that, I was not." "You never trained me to, but I did..." Qui-Gon murmured. "Even if I took nearly half a century to think it over. You were wise when you were young, in your own way." "Also you wanted something from me, which was more to the point." Dooku smiled tightly. "You still do." "I wonder what would have happened," Qui-Gon said, "if you had been honest enough with yourself to admit I mattered to you, back then. A honest bond, a true apprenticeship." Dooku laughed. "Is that what you desired?" His stare intensified, until Qui-Gon felt rooted to the ground by it. Flashes of hard to read emotion flickered behind his master's eyes, and the hand in Qui-Gon's hair tightened its grip painfully as Dooku pulled the Jedi to his feet. "For me to have remade you in my own image? To have destroyed all that you are and all that you had the potential to be to forge you into merely a Jedi? And not even that. You would have been my creature, your reason overthrown, your emotions enslaved. You would have been able to play at being a Jedi, but only my will would have ruled you. And when the time came for me to step into the dark waters, you would have followed me." Qui-Gon closed his eyes. "You see it now, don't you." Dooku sighed. "You wished to please me very much. And you found the best way to impress me was to think for yourself, to make up your own mind, and wisely. But yes. It could have been otherwise." "I find it hard to believe." Qui-Gon said. "Even now." "You were young, then," Dooku murmured, so close their noses nearly touched, "but you were never impressionable. I would not have chosen you, else. I would not have been able to awe you, or decieve you - so I would have had to break you. You were strong, but I was stronger. Know this." He stepped away. "Your problem, Qui-Gon, is that you are that rarest of things, an inherently good person. And I am....not." "I could only reach you," Qui-Gon said slowly, "through what bond we did have. And because of that bond, because you trained me, because of the years we spent together...I consider you my responsibility. If I have failed in my responsibilities elsewhere - I will not do so here." "Another pet monster for your menagerie." Dooku said in weary disgust. "Is that truly what you would make me?" "Obi-Wan would call you the ultimate pathetic lifeform, I think." Qui-Gon smiled. "I don't want your pity!" the Sith Lord snarled. "I know." Dooku brought himself back under control with a visible effort. "Qui-Gon. Child. What are you trying to accomplish here? What I am now - this is not a man. This is a shadow of a memory, caged and confined . I am not Sidious, who rejoices in the corruption of the universe. He has cut me free, and while he may not have seen it as mercy, I do now. He has, but you have not." "Your master betrayed you." Qui-Gon said. "But I never will." "Never?" Dooku's eyes were bleak. "And if I had set the choice before you in life of the Order, your apprentice, your principles - or to follow me into the night, would you have yielded to my will?" Qui-Gon swallowed. "....yes." Dooku reached out - cautiously touched his apprentice in the Force with a seeking mental caress. "Truth." he murmured, surprised. He closed his eyes tightly. "You are a fool, child." "Always have been." "Sidious would have asked me to kill you." "Would you have?" Qui-Gon asked. "...yes." Dooku lied. Qui-Gon smiled. "I thought not." "Let me go, child. Please. This isn't where I belong." "Yes." Qui-Gon said. "It is. With me." "Qui-Gon...listen to me." Dooku's face was serious. "You are here in this place and you are alone, though you know there are those who walked this path before in the abandoned past. Where have they gone? Did the despair of the world finally overcome them before they took the final step into the night? Or did they find something else....something more? This is not forever, child, this ghostly watching. And it's not the way. At the least...it's not my way." "What would you do then?" "Let go." Dooku sighed. "Of all my faults, and all my virtues, all my pride, and all my despair, all my hate and all my love. Yoda once said that the last road is one we all must walk together, villains and heroes, wise men and fools. Take this as a last lesson, child, and learn to let me go." The Jedi's eyes looked steadily on him. "I don't have the right," Qui-Gon finally admitted, "to stop you. " "No. You don't." Dooku's eyes were distant. "I'm old, child, old at heart. If there is truth, if there is a reason, I cannot see it anymore here, in this dark world. I know the depths men can sink to, and the depths to which the universe is sinking. I don't have the will to fight it any longer - my struggles never amounted to anything. The unknown beckons. Perhaps there's an answer there." Dooku sighed. "Or if not an answer, at least an end." Qui-Gon closed his eyes. This approach wasn't working. Perhaps another? He reached out with the Force, enveloping his Master's mind in his. The knives of Dooku's mental shields unsheathed again, warily. Yet Qui-Gon stopped, and brushing a hand across Dooku's face, whispered to him in thought. Against that end, then, may I remember you? His tentative, unsure emotions were surely betrayed, but he had to ask. All that you were. There was silence, too long. You may. his master's reply drifted back, in quiet resignation. Judge as you will, then. Dooku's shielding flickered and went out. Knives sheathed and fires were quenched and glass shattered until all that was left was a maze of thoughts and memories that Qui-Gon stepped carefully through, feeling the bare emotion and the control, knowing every lie, every murder, every treason. Nothing was closed to him, but it felt like he was walking through the rooms of an empty home in which even with permission he was a trespasser. His Master never spoke, but Qui-Gon could feel him watching. Qui-Gon's mind was also open, but Dooku did not venture within. He knows me well enough. the Jedi thought, and felt the Sith's silent assent. Time was an illusion here, but even so it took an eternity before Qui-Gon withdrew to himself at last in thought. Dooku stood stone-faced, waiting. "You were wrong," Qui-Gon said softly, "about knowledge." Dooku nodded slowly. "I've been wrong about a lot of things, child." Qui-Gon's eyes were wintry, but at last he placed his hands on Dooku's shoulders, rising to his toes to place a kiss on the other man's forehead. "May you find what you seek then." Dooku inclined his head, and turned away. He walked once more to the edge of the world, watching it unfold into something more. With shining eyes, he looked out into life itself. A quiet smile, a last surrender, and he was gone. Perhaps the Force was brighter for it. But beneath a tree rooted in thought and memory. Qui-Gon Jinn sat, alone and still.
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Kynstar Registered: Mar '04	Date Posted: 11/23/05 7:54am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Completed 11/23
	You were young, then," Dooku murmured, so close their noses nearly touched, "but you were never impressionable. I would not have chosen you, else. I would not have been able to awe you, or decieve you - so I would have had to break you. You were strong, but I was stronger. Know this." He stepped away. "Your problem, Qui-Gon, is that you are that rarest of things, an inherently good person. And I am....not." "I could only reach you," Qui-Gon said slowly, "through what bond we did have. And because of that bond, because you trained me, because of the years we spent together...I consider you my responsibility. If I have failed in my responsibilities elsewhere - I will not do so here." "Another pet monster for your menagerie." Dooku said in weary disgust. "Is that truly what you would make me?" "Obi-wan would call you the ultimate pathetic lifeform, I think." Qui-Gon smiled. Yep Obi would have called him that probably. But he is right...about Qui that is. He went beyond the 'norm' of the Jedi. "Your master betrayed you." Qui-Gon said. "But I never will." "Never?" Dooku's eyes were bleak. "And if I had set the choice before you in life of the Order, your apprentice, your principles - or to follow me into the night, would you have yielded to my will?" Qui-Gon swallowed. "....yes." Dooku reached out - cautiously touched his apprentice in the Force with a seeking mental caress. "Truth." he murmured, surprised. He closed his eyes tightly. "You are a fool, child." "Always have been." "Sidious would have asked me to kill you." "Would you have?" Qui-Gon asked. "...yes." Dooku lied. Qui-Gon smiled. "I thought not." Awww how sweet that Qui would have. LOL! I liked that last part 'I thought not'! Excellent ending! Loved it! Poor Qui all alone...at least he got to see what his old Master truly was. Liked that he opened himself for Qui to see. Wonderful job! -----signature----- Paddy sis to t_s & SarkaVrae/Master to hyperspace_police Member of Rebel Legion and Jedi Assembly (Kynstar Lans) Only thru fear, hatred, and pain will the true power of the Force be revealed. See stories/viggies in bio
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Healer_Leona Title: Manager Emeritus Registered: Jul '00	Date Posted: 11/23/05 9:03am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Completed 11/23
	I love how Dooku continues to call Qui-Gon child. That in itself says much more than the master is willing to admit. Another stellar post. -----signature----- Feel so good, but I'm old 2000 years of chasing's taking it's toll
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sabarte Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 1/13/06 10:13pm Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Completed 11/23
	For anyone curious about the Thing with Dooku's Mom they're talking about, I've finished Deep Sky, set more than fifty years before this and expanding a little on that.
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leia_naberrie Registered: Sep '02	Date Posted: 1/14/06 2:41am Subject: RE: The Way the World Ends (Dooku, Qui-Gon, also Sidious, Anakin) Completed 11/23
	takes in long, whistling breath.... speechless. -----signature----- http://io9.com/5111680/avatar-casting-makes-fans-see-white Upset about the casting for the Last Airbender movies? Write to Paramount about it. http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/1007.html
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