SWTORWrites: Prompt #10, family.
You were always so far away
I know that pain
And I won't run away
Like I used to do
'Brother' - Alice in Chains
Nar Shaddaa. It was always on Nar Shaddaa that the two of them inadvertently ran into each other.
Axhale felt his brother's presence long before Achai joined him at the railing overlooking the lower promenade. They leaned against it together, mirroring each other in posture. Axhale noted the differences between them, now. As children one could barely tell them apart. Their mother liked dressing them alike back then, keeping their hair with the same cut and length.
Now the effects of the dark side riddled Achai's countenance, ashen veins and pallid complexion compared to the healthier, light tan on his twin brother. Axhale bore the scar over the right side of his face, crossing over the vestigial eye socket. No matter how their mother might dress them or cut their hair now, they'd never mirror one another as they had back then.
"You let both of us go, brother. Vith told me what you did."
Axhale shrugged his shoulders, "I had my reasons."
"They were going to send me to Belsavis, weren't they."
Axhale stood in silence, a glove creaked as he clenched his hand, then flexed his fingers. That was all Achai needed to know the truth. He nodded solemnly.
"Thank you for that, brother."
Oddly, he sounded sincere. Axhale turned his head toward him. "This makes us even, Achai. From now on, neither of us owes the other."
The Sith smirked, hands gripping the rail a little more tightly as his anger abruptly rose and coiled around him. "So it does, Ax, so it does. Yet I cannot help but think there is something you are about to ask me. I can sense it on the tip of your tongue. You're just trying to figure out how to ask it."
"Malkirth was my former padawan, Chai."
"Lord Aegnas killed him. On orders from my master, Darth Arannek."
Some things never changed. Such as the ability to finish sentences, or simply know what the other was about to ask and answer before they could. Axhale nodded. He didn't have to say why he wanted the names. Achai already knew he wanted to bring both of them to justice. Even if Achai felt it was more motivated by the desire for revenge.
"There is darkness in you, Ax. I can sense it. You can't bring me to the Light. But you could join me here. I have a new family, one that would adopt you. My master respects the power of the Miraluk--"
Axhale shook his head, chuckling as if Achai were joking. It took everything not to lash out there, to remember that nearby at least two Hutt enforcers watched them carefully. Because trouble always erupted when a Sith and a Jedi were in such close proximity.
"Chai, I've already accepted that you will be forever lost to me. It's time you accepted that you can't bring me over, too."
Achai let go of his anger then, exhaling softly as he sank against the railing. "Damn your Jedi ideals, Ax. We belong together."
"Seems fate has decided it's not meant to be," Axhale replied.
And with that, he pushed away from the railing and walked away, leaving his twin brother to stand there for awhile longer and absorb the meaning of their conversation.