"Are you really here?"

"I'm always here, Ani."

"Here"was some perpetual midnight world of blue and silver with touches of purple along the fringes. It wasn't Anakin's ideal dreamscape; his conscious self still craved the brilliant sunlight and green fields of those forever-gone days on Naboo. He sat with Padme on a small marbled globe in the middle of black water (of course it wasn't really his beloved, but the Mistress assuming her form to provide him some comfort). The sky was gloomy, striped with white, feathery clouds. A horned moon watched over the landscape of muted light and suspended hope.

"Nothing is bad when I'm here. I can remember who I am."

"This is a dream. You can always retreat here." Padme's simulacrum kissed Anakin's forehead. "But you cannot rest here."

"Because I'm split in half." Anakin sighed. "It feels impossible."

"Everything is impossible but must be endured before you succeed."

"Are you channeling Master Yoda?"

"That isn't possible. He isn't here."

"He would be in the center of the universe with all the other dead Jedi."

"That isn't possible either. He isn't dead yet. You always forget the passage of years. Nearly twenty years have passed in the Living World, Your dark counterpart is among those who walk in the lowest realm."

"Vader. How can he still exist?"

"Because you were displaced from your body during the transformation."

"Transformation?"

"From the good man into a bad man."

Anakin, the good man, was destroyed, split into a conscious being that remembered his identity, and an unconscious half who remembered nothing. The one who called himself Anakin drifted between the place of torture called The White Heart Abyss (where all dislocated beings were purified) and this space where he could retreat into the arms of a creature who assumed the form of his beloved. The shade who impersonated his wife was yet another manifestation of the Overseer who called herself "The Mistress". This version of the Mistress was a guide, companion, and source of comfort.

Sometimes he remembered Mustafar, the place of ending and beginning. But that vision felt unreal..."Did I kill her?"

"Are you prepared to remember?"

Anakin closed his eyes. Visions of those years before he turned into the dark creature flashed in his hidden vision. Another man lived in those memories, another man who danced upon the edge of good and evil.

Anakin Skywalker, the communion of midichlorians from an unknown source and flesh from an anonymous human woman, became a monster. Two roads then existed for him: the path of a Jedi uneasily coexisted with a possible journey into the Sith choice became a push toward Light or Dark. The balance of futures was intertwined with the balance of good and evil within the galaxy. For so long he fought temptation, resisted the pull away from peace and harmony represented by the Jedi and Padme. But darkness came for him when the dreams of her death began.

"Is she alive?"

"Her soul exists."

So much time was lost beyond this waiting place. How much longer could he remain in the Netherworld? Would the poor shadow condemned to wander the Ash Valley remain forever separated from his conscious twin? If both halves of the man called Anakin Skywalker could be reunited, then Vader might be overcome.

"Victory and transformation only comes when you integrate with the dark creature. Vader remains connected to you because you are him and he is you."

"But I wouldn't even know how to enter that monster's psyche."

TheMistress-as-Padme smile was gentle. "You are part of him, and he is part of you. There is darkness within both, yet there is also light. Both emotions are portals into each other."

"But I don't know where to find him."

"Of course you do. Two separate individuals who are really halves of one man must come together if that man wishes to leave this intermediary space and ascend."

"You speak as if I'm climbing a mountain."

"Escaping from the Netherworld is the upward struggle from limbo into the higher planes. But in the end you are returning to yourself."