#because at her core she’s better at being a Jedi than anakin when it comes to the whole Jedi code and principles

[tennessoui]

Time and Tide is about to be even sadder now with Ahsoka being abandoned and unloved😔 I don’t know if I have the mental strength to read this (but I totally will)

omg “””abandoned and unloved”””” ‘s a bit harsh isn’t it 😭😭 she still got obi-wan💀

[cosmic-walkers]

There is something so interesting and rather, hypocritical about Star Wars (mostly the clone wars TV) wherein the Jedi and Senate talk about liberation and freedom (you have Anakin, a former slave who vehemently hates slavers, and Padme who is revered as freedom fighter herself), yet they operate with a slave army wrt to the clones. Regardless of if some of the Jedi are kind to the clones, the clones are still canonically slaves and the Jedi and Senate just...brush over it. No policies to help the clones, nothing, nothing of the sort. They are seen as objects. When there is talk about them in the Senate, it is usually because they are too expensive for the Senate (i.e the episode where Padme discussed how they needed to stop cloning because of their budget). There is, some after thought of them like, 'oh yes they are dying for our cause that too' but overall they are seen as objects and second class citizens and even in the show they face discrimination. We tend to have 'good' jedi again like Ahsoka, Anakin and Obi-Wan who are often times hailed up as good jedi but at their core, they still are slave masters. And even a lot of clone development, narratives, etc., is tied to them and how they feel and not really the clones themselves. I'll never forget watching the six unreleased episodes or whatever and at the end we see Ahsoka looking at the clones graves but the reality is that, the clones tragedies and deaths maybe shouldn't have been tied to her since she was complicit in their oppression. Maybe Rex should have been standing there, looking at all of his fallen brothers, because Ahsoka simply didn't have that relationship with them that they were pushing.

IDK i've been on twitter a lot and following Stars Wars blogs and every so often this thought pops into my mind regarding the clone wars.

And then of course there is the bad batch but the bad batch humanizes clones who are 'different' clones who are seen better than the rest so therefore, they are allowed to be humanized and viewed through a likable lense.

And on one hand, i understand the point of the jedi is to be viewed through an extremely critical gaze, we're supposed to see their hypocrites. But the franchise has had years to call out the jedi for being complicit in slavery and never...and i mean never really has when it comes to the clones. at least not in a way that makes a difference.

and we still, have jedi being the main focus on clone narratives - outside of the bad batch.

[chena-h]

As someone who remembers the flak the Star Wars prequels got and, in particular, the complaints from certain fans about how those movies ruined Darth Vader retroactively

I find the fandom's initial reaction to Dark!D@any (aka D@ny for folks who aren't swimming in that river called The Nile) to be kind of amusing. In part because I think Lucas wanted to do something similar with Anakin in the prequels - basically, examine how power can sometimes corrupt a young, vulnerable person, putting them on a path of self destruction, especially when that person has been brought up to believe they're destined for something greater.

I wonder, sometimes, if Lucas had decided to tell the story of Anakin instead of Luke and Leia first, would the fans have reacted the same way they did to the prequels. Or, would there be a large contingent of Star Wars fans who defend or sometimes outright deny Anakin's villainous choices, like all the way up to the moment he literally chooses to serve the Sith instead of the Jedi (and in some cases after)? Would people still argue that Vader's legacy as an iconic villain was hampered by the prequels if we'd gotten to know his full story first?

I think I have to remember that there's a difference between how Vader/Anakin's story is told vs how readers see D@ny's story in ASOIAF. for the most part, D@enerys is the POV from which her story is most often told. We're in her head for a lot of it, and if we're not, then we're in the pov of someone like Barristan, who's little more than a sycophant. And I think what I'm getting at is that there's an interest in presenting D@enerys' actions as justified, maybe even noble or heroic. For D@enerys, it's self-interest, of course. People, in general, want to believe they're often acting in the right, so they'll look for ways to rationalize things to make themselves look better, even if the facts say otherwise. For Barry, well, he's an old knight who remains heavily invested in the customs and beliefs that lie at the core of Westerosi society. To admit that he has and continues to serve a dynasty that was responsible for years of violent conquest (among other things) is probably too much cognitive dissonance than the old man can take, or so I would suspect.

With Anakin, though, his story is told from a third person omniscient perspective. So, not only do we know more about the world of Star Wars than Anakin might be privy to, we also know (thanks to the non chronological storytelling) how these events are going to play out, and more importantly, how he will be perceived by the narrative (if that makes sense). We know where he's going to wind up is what im saying. We're getting his story, but not solely from his perspective. Thus, we're less tempted to fall into the trap of taking everything at face value and thinking that his reading of events is 100% accurate.

So, now I'm wondering - if seeing Anakin when he was more vulnerable after knowing him as a villain was received poorly, how will it look if and when D@ny's questionable decisions all come to a head and she goes full tyrant, as in she does terrible things while dropping all pretense of believing or caring whether her actions are seen as morally just? How will her descent be received when her actions aren't being filtered exclusively through the perspectives of her and her staunchest supporters? I'd argue that she's pretty close if not already at that point in her story, but it's a matter of seeing how she moves now that she's gone full tilt.

I know Show!D@ny got a lot of negative criticism, but I think grrm could still make her fall just as interesting (and especially tragic) should twow and ados get published. (Also, I attribute the flaws w that arc more to D&D and their rapidly waning interest in the show.)

[dameronalone]

please elaborate on the jedi and mandalorians

I am SO glad you asked I've been thinking about this a lot for awhile

basically, the mandalorians and the jedi have wayyyyy more in common than either they think or would like to believe. the venn diagram with the overlap of mandos and jedi is nearly a circle. obviously their biggest difference is that the mandalorian's first instinct is to hit back, while the jedi would prefer hitting back as a LAST resort

readmore for everyone else's sake

but they really do have so much in common. both are a highly specific cultures with imo closed communities (it's not that they don't like "outsiders" but not just anyone can be part of the group) and despite being such a small percentage of the population of the galaxy, they are both nearly instantly recognizable. they both have core principles that they cling to. they are both misunderstood by outsiders because of their closed practices and they were both massacred by the empire. they both value family. maybe the jedi wouldn't phrase it that way exactly, and the mandalorian would say something about blood bonds, but the point is that the strongest relationship were familial.

just look at any of the main mandalorian characters or the jedi. anakin and obi-wan. bo-katan and satine. din and grogu. leia and rey. familial. I'm trying to think - I believe the only romantic relationship focused on with a mandalorian was satine and obi-wan (which is fascinating for entirely different reasons I don't have time to get into)

again, they do have very different philosophies: the mandalorians are a militaristic society and the jedi value peace above all else. we all know how satine's pacifistic efforts turned out (you can't change an entire society's philosophy of the society is not willing to change).

the jedi and mandalorians are both highly skilled fighters when it comes to it and though historically tend to clash because of their opposing ideals, when they DO work together their shared outcome almost always ends in success. I like the little "a jedi and a mandalorian? they'll never see it coming" because it still hinges on the fact that the rest of society still misunderstand both cultures and take them at face value. of course the fighter and the peacekeeper will never get alone, must less fight together. but the jedi tempers the mandalorian and the mandalorian encourages the particular breed of boldness in the jedi

(off topic: my slight beef with making sabine force sensitive in the ahsoka show is because I feel like it takes away from her arc in the cartoon. she became balanced as a fighter and strategist because of kanan's influence while still being a proud mandalorian. you don't have to be force sensitive to hold jedi principles. I just feel like it takes from kanans legacy idk)

the point is that the mandalorians and the jedi have so much in common, if it weren't for the conflicting philosophies of combat / peacekeeping, they would be feared allies. they ARE feared allies, the times they've teamed up. some of the strongest fighters have been the ones that truly embodied both jedi and mandalorian principles. I can't imagine how powerful tarre vizla must have been, I don't even mean from like a strength perspective, i mean the combination of both philosophies is buckwild. and I'm not saying one philosophy is better or worse than the other. the mandalorians survived so long against the empire because of their relentless refusal to submit. palpatine knew he had to ambush the jedi and wipe them out if he wanted a chance for the empire to succeed. peacekeepers first. that doesn't necessarily mean they don't fight, because we know they do. when you're already at war, you fight against tyranny. the only way he beat the mandalorians and the jedi is by just. wiping them out with an onslaught neither could escape or prevent.

anyway it makes you wonder how many mandalorians are/were force sensitive and just did not go to the temple (take THAT babysnatchers jedi theorists) because you can't tell me there were NO other force sensitive mandalorians before or after tarre vizla. my beef with f-s sabine regardless its fun to see one of those late bloomer jedi stories in canon star wars the way we used to have in legends and I would like it if we got more of that.

[physically restraining myself from going off on that topic]

anyway. mandalorians. jedi. I love them both so so much. they mean so much to me. I don't know if this made any sense but it makes sense to me

[inquisitor-apologist]

Star wars: 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 ♥️

3. which character are you actually most like?

Probably Sabine Wren—I’m a punk teenager who loves to die my hair, and I have a lot of combat experience. (7 years of karate) I love painting, and I’m trying to be more active in fighting against the empire I live in (usa). Perhaps one day I will be able to blow up fascists with homemade bombs…

5. what planet would you most like to visit? 

Considering I literally named myself after it, I kind of have to go with Korriban, don’t I? Cool, ancient planet full of giant statues, evil holocrons, and malevolent ghosts, what’s not to love? Honestly tlt it’d be worth it just to see the giant statues.

7. who do you hope you never meet?

Grogu. Little dude is exactly football-sized and I don’t think I could resist the urge to drop-kick him. I would feel terrible about it afterwards, but I don’t think I would be strong enough to stop myself.

10. do you think the jedi were right or wrong?

This one’s pretty obvious if you look at my blog, and, well, imo, if you look at the movies. The Jedi are, as presented by Lucas, unequivocally the good guys. The core dichotomy of Star Wars is the Dark side and the Light, (or, in the OT, the Dark side and the Force) compassion versus selfishness, and the Jedi were the compassionate guys, the ones who used the force to better themselves and help others. Their philosophy on non attachment is heavily based on Buddhism—George Lucas actually converted to Buddhism and described himself as a Methodist-Buddhist—so I think it’s fair to say that it was intended to be a positive, healthy way to live. (Please, Star Wars fandom, I am begging you to look up what attachment means in Star Wars, it’s different than what attachment means to USAmericans) Also, the ‘no romantic relationships’ thing makes a lot of sense when you realize the Jedi are monks first and foremost, and monks that have super dangerous government jobs. I know it’s annoying for shipping, but it does make sense with the worldbuilding.

The tragedy of the prequels was that Anakin, in his selfishness and greed, betrayed the Jedi and allowed the rise of the Empire. That doesn’t work if the Jedi are the bad guys, then it’s a completely different story. So, yeah, the Jedi were absolutely right.

12. do you care who rey’s parents are?

Ok, so since this ask game was posted when the sequels were still coming out and my opinion has changed a lot since 2019, I’ll answer this two different ways: how I felt then, and how I feel now.

When the sequels were coming out: No. I was pretty young back then, and not fully into Star Wars yet, and I basically took what the movies said at face value. Oh, they abandoned her? That’s sad, guess we won’t see them. Oh, they were junk traders that sold her? That sucks, I bet Rey feels really bad about that. Oh, she’s a Palpatine? That’s cool, I wasn’t expecting that. I watched a lot of those theory videos talking about how she could totally be a Skywalker or a Kenobi or a Solo, but I never really had a strong opinion on it. My reaction to her being Palpatine’s granddaughter was mostly ‘huh, how would that work? I don’t think he had a wife?’ I get now that it was a big question that everyone wanted the answer to, but I was too young to care.

Now: Yeah, actually, and I really like the idea of her being a Palpatine. I think it was a really good idea, and had they actually planned the story around it, it would’ve worked really well. Like, if she was established as a Palpatine in tfa, it would’ve added a lot to her character. Why is she so desperate to stay on Jakku? Because she’s hiding from the First Order. It would have also explained Snoke and Kylo Ren’s interest in her—as Palpatine’s heir, they would’ve really wanted to get her on their side. I really like the idea of her being a Palpatine, but the execution was so awful, just like most of the sequels.

Thanks for the ask! These were really fun to do

[gch1995]

Hot Take: Leia wasn't adopted. She was abducted even if Bail and Breha loved her to pieces, they had no moral or ethical authority to take her. Padme didn't give any permission to take her babies. Anakin was BBQ, but the next in line to take the twins were their extended family. The Larses got Luke but weren't told about Leia. The Naberries got the body of their daughter/sister/aunt back but not her kids???

| Strongly Agree | Agree | Strongly Disagree | Disagree |

On the one hand, I can completely understand that Palpatine was a monster who would stop at nothing to capture the twins, harm them, and try to turn them to the dark side.

As for Anakin, I know he wouldn’t feel content or happy harming or murdering his own kids if he knew who they were, even on the high of the dark side in that suit. We see that as much in his interactions with Luke in the OT movies after he finds out he is his son. However, he also was a dangerous and unfit parent at that point too because he was high on the power of the dark side, he had a hair trigger temper that he was now regularly using as a weapon when pushed by others getting in his or the Emperor’s way on this new power, and he’d become very emotionally/mentally unstable after being groomed and manipulated to be an obedient weapon and tool in slavery and two space soldier cults for the ends of corrupt authority figures involved in both of them from the time he was a child. He’d need to get out of battle and the Sith altogether, and put in to intense rehab therapy before getting trusted with children again. Thus, I can completely understand why Bail Organa, Obi-Wan, and Yoda would keep the truth of the twins existence away from Anakin after realizing he was still alive.

The ways in which Bail Organa, Obi-Wan, and Yoda went about dealing with the twins after they were born and Padme died, were selfish, unethical, and unfair, though. They deliberately decide to keep Padme’s remaining family entirely out of the loop, and Obi-Wan and Yoda deliberately keep Anakin’s remaining step-relatives half out of the loop. Bail Organa, Obi-Wan, and Yoda all would know the Naberrie family, and they still decides to keep her remaining family completely out of the loop in regards to their grandchildren, niece, and nephew. Bail Organa takes on Leia without telling Padme’s remaining family the truth because his wife has fertility issues, and they “always wanted a little girl.” Obi-Wan and Yoda only hand over Luke and Leia to the Larses and Organas under the condition that they be trained as Jedi “when the time comes.”

It’s not like Obi-Wan and Yoda are really doing this for Luke and Leia completely out of the kindness of their hearts. They’re also doing it because the Jedi are considered criminals under the law of Palpatine with the Empire now and can’t be discovered. Trying to hide powerful force-sensitive infants would make them more vulnerable to discovery as Jedi themselves without a temple to hide in or a galactic government to back them up with support.

While I don’t think that Bail ever meant for any harm to come to Leia, nor do I think he was wrong to come up with the Rebellion, I also do think he was rather arrogant, naive, and selfish, even if not consciously. He takes on a baby of his old friend after she dies and her husband has fallen from grace and lost his mind. He brings the baby to raise on the core planet of Alderaan that’s right next door to Palpatine and the Empire, bans weapons on Alderaan, let’s her speak alone with Vader and Palpatine, raises Leia on stories of how “great” the old Republic was just because it was somewhat better than the Empire that he benefitted from as an elite at the expense of those in the outer rims and working class, and deliberately decides to never tell Leia the truth about her biological family.

For what it’s worth, I really don’t think Bail Organa was intentionally malicious or manipulative in regards to Leia or those below him. I just think he was one of those blindly arrogant, ignorant, and self-centered elites from the broken Republic who was too afraid to lose his power in it to actually push to make a difference for those under him until it was abruptly taken away in a way that was far worse than anyone deserved. I think he was blinded by his privilege and hung out with people who were blinded by their own in the Republic. Padme started to get it because of Anakin, but even she struggled.

He became determined to rebuild the Republic system by creating the Rebellion to take down the Empire, which to be fair, was objectively worse, but he lacks the empathy and self-awareness to fully acknowledge why so many people came to hate the old Republic in the first place. He’s convinced himself it’s all on Sidious and the Empire, but never really understand why the working class and outer rims came to resent the old Republic because he came from a place of privilege within it that only ever benefitted him and those he was closest too. Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, he passed on a similar mindset to Leia in regards to the old Republic as a result.

[moonstrider9904]

War's End

Chapter 6 of Moonwalker: The Batch

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Crosshair x Fem!OC, Hunter x Fem!OC

Chapter summary: The end of the war is imminent. Sarah's feelings for Crosshair are blooming. But the end of the Clone War will threaten to tear them away from another as the entire galaxy falls to the shadow of the Dark Side.

Warnings/tags: Mature (minors still not allowed). Mentions of death. A lot of O66 angst and I mean a lot, SOME ANGSTY ROMANCE MUAHAHA.

A/N: Here it is. Prepare for the O66 angst you weren't going to escape. Prepare for Crosshair angst. Prepare for Hunter angst. ANGST EVERYWHERE.

Also there's no cover this time because my internet insists on not uploading the image correctly, but this gif is kind of fitting either way. Enjoy!

Word count: 4.8k

Things concerning the war had done nothing but escalate. The tensions between the Republic and the Separatists had become greater, and it seemed like there was always something going on. Every mission was a priority. The batchers admitted even they had never been as busy going up and down the galaxy, mission after mission, and everyone in the Marauder could feel it in their bones that something big was coming.

Eventually, the squadron was led to the snowy forest planet of Kaller. Sarah and Echo were only just getting used to not having many details in their briefings, and such was the case for this particular mission, in which they had only been instructed to land the ship at a certain set of coordinates for them to be met by a Jedi commander named Caleb Dume. New to Clone Force 99, Sarah and Echo were still experienced soldiers. They knew better than to question their superiors’ methods in the middle of such a pivotal moment in the war, when Coruscant itself was under attack by Separatists.

Sarah couldn’t help but feel her bones vibrate with uncertainty. She thought of Anakin and Obi-Wan, called back from the Outer Rim sieges. She thought of Ahsoka, whom she’d heard had returned to assist Mandalore. Sarah couldn’t help but feel a core group in the GAR had been divided, and she didn’t feel great about it. But a clicking caught her attention–the light, delicate sound of a rifle being disassembled and cleaned brought Sarah’s gaze back up, and she found her thoughts calming down. Her cheeks heated, but her heart sank the longer she looked at him.

Crosshair and Sarah hadn’t had a moment alone since Kashyyyk. He was distant as ever; although Sarah was happy his demeanor hadn’t changed with her after the obvious romantic tension they’d had on Kashyyyk, she longed to feel his proximity. Her lips tingled every time she thought of how close she’d been to kissing him, her very heart quivered when his gaze fell on her. Even her marks had settled into the bond. They no longer burned with fervor, but rather felt at ease when he was around.

But that wasn’t everything. Sarah prided herself in how observative and intuitive she was, and one thing that didn’t escape her or anyone else was how close Hunter had grown to her too. She’d noticed him and Crosshair glaring at one another more times than one, mostly when Crosshair tutored Sarah to better use her rifle, or when they had to remain in the back lines of their formation as marksmen. Sarah knew Hunter made the efforts to approach her too, but before any relationships were consummated, Sarah remained with the instinct to not act upon whatever tension Crosshair and Hunter had going on.

What Sarah did know was that she couldn’t feel better working alongside Crosshair. Their synchronicity in battle was exceptional. Granted, a big part of their dynamic was the result of mutually having saved the other’s life. The fact that Crosshair was teaching her to improve with her rifle was also a pure gesture on his behalf that Sarah appreciated, although they usually had an audience, mostly Wrecker betting on how long it would take them to kiss, an activity he did much to Hunter’s distaste. It was so obvious that Echo had approached Sarah and teased her about having a little triangle multiple times.

But the best detail was the diamond. After seeing Crosshair’s diamond on a chain when she woke up on Kashyyyk, Sarah donned her own diamond the same way on a small chain around her neck that she could safely keep beneath her blouse’s neckline at all times. Crosshair didn’t don his chain all the time, especially not in battle, for which he either hid within a compartment in his rifle or gave it to Sarah for safekeeping.

Indeed, being around Crosshair, alone or not, was good for Sarah. But that day, in the ship, as Tech was just beginning the descent on Kaller’s atmosphere, Sarah got a different feeling, like a lightheaded episode of vertigo that resonated down to her chest and burned in her marks. It felt off, like a premonition.

“Sarah?”

Hunter’s voice tore Sarah’s attention from the odd feeling she’d gotten and she looked up to see him and Crosshair looking intensely at her. By that point, everybody on the Marauder recognized when Sarah got one of her feelings.

“What is it?” Crosshair asked her.

Not even she knew. All she knew was her intuition was telling her to beware, but she didn’t know what. She knew it had to do with Crosshair, and she thought of telling him, yet at the same time, she didn’t want to. Would it put him in danger? Was he in danger?

“Nothing,” she said. “Or not–nothing,” she began to stutter. “I don’t know yet.”

“We’ll be on alert,” Hunter rested his hand on her shoulder. “We always are, anyway. It’ll be fine.”

Normally, Sarah would take Hunter’s word for it. In the time she’d spent with Clone Force 99, she’d learned to trust those men more than anyone else, but the odd sensation turned into a bitter, cold wave the moment the Marauder touched down on firm soil. Sarah tried to relax, but the sensation only worsened when she and her comrades descended from the ship, when she saw the young Padawan waiting for them.

The Force was moving strangely around him, as it did around living beings whose fates were about to change, particularly those who would be staring in the face of coldblooded fate sooner than they would want to.

The first detail that stood out to Sarah about him was the immense blue of his eyes. They were wide, the distinctive eyes of an outgoing, curious soul. He wore brown robes, those of a Jedi, and had brown hair styled with the traditional Padawan braid. He had full lips and a hooked nose, and his skin had a warm tone to it, one that felt even warmed amidst the cold snow on Kaller.

As he looked upon the clones and force user leaving the ship, he seemed dismayed, no doubt having expected a legion of soldiers rather than a mere squad.

“You are Caleb Dume, are you not?” Tech confirmed and broke the silent.

“That’s right,” said the boy, still examining the clones, jumping a bit when he saw Sarah. He hadn’t been told that reinforcements would be accompanied by a Jedi general, and now that he thought about it, he’d never seen this woman at the temple. He also noticed she wasn’t carrying a lightsaber on her belt, but instead, a rifle on her back.

“I’ve, uh…” the kid began. “I’ve never seen a squad like you.”

“Are we a disappointment?” Hunter asked him with a little smile, catching Sarah’s attention. She’d never seen him around children, or any of her squadmates, for that matter.

The boy chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. You look tough, it’s just what we need. But there are only six of you, and that might be a problem.”

“Don’t be discouraged, we count as an army,” Echo said kindly, and then gestured to Sarah. “She counts as two Jedi and one sniper.”

Sarah winked over at Echo and noticed as Caleb looked at her. “So you really aren’t a Jedi.”

“No, I’m adopted,” Sarah smiled. “But I am force-sensitive like you.”

Caleb hadn’t yet had the chance to meet Force users who weren’t necessarily Jedi, but he had heard of them vaguely at the temple, and finally meeting someone like that made him smile. The kindness of Caleb’s features made Sarah forget the odd ways in which the Force was moving around, so much that the next wave of cold felt as natural as the fallen snow.

“Well,” Caleb looked more secure now. “I’d love to talk more, but we’re in a tight spot down there.”

“No time to waste then,” Hunter said as he and his brothers donned their helmets. “Echo, Tech, with me. Wrecker, you know what to do.” He turned to Sarah. “You and Crosshair are sniping.”

Sarah and Crosshair stayed behind while the rest of the squad, including the young Padawan, disappeared into the forest. As she ran with him, she felt a rush through her body, knowing they were racing without even saying it. Details like those made Sarah feel like he’d accepted her completely.

They found a little cliff that overlooked the battle, and the kid hadn’t been exaggerating. The droid army was closing in on General Billaba’s squadron, pushed way back into their trenches. As she picked droids off from the cliff, alongside Crosshair, she watched as her boys did their thing, and she couldn’t help but feel that little spark of pride for them. It almost made her want to drop the rifle and cheer for them. But every time she appeared to be focusing on her teammates, she’d notice Crosshair taking a few of her targets on purpose in his own little way of teasing her, or as she’d suspected, getting her attention back on him.

If anything, Sarah thought it was cute.

When the battle was finished, Sarah didn’t quite put her rifle away yet. She waited as Crosshair stood up from laying in the ground, and she smiled with mischief when she saw his visor turning on her.

“Nice work,” she told him.

“As always,” his cockiness shone through the vocoder of his helmet.

“You’re welcome,” she raised a brow. “Aren’t you going to compliment me in return?”

“You already know what I think.”

Sarah felt her cheeks redden. “I actually don’t. Care to tell me?”

He slowly paced over to her, his gaze heavy on her despite the dark barrier of his helmet. He inched closer, much closer than he’d ever been to her, expressionless in front of Sarah’s lack of ability to hide her blush and the way her eyes widened. Crosshair didn’t talk, he didn’t need to. His gloved hand nearly brushed her fingers; his figure towered over her.

All that stood in their way was his helmet.

Sarah remained as frozen as the ice on the planet’s surface, her mind and heart racing at the thought of Crosshair finally kissing her, until she heard him snicker and saw him jogging away to slide down the hill.

Sarah remained watching after for a few seconds, well aware of the way he made her brain short-circuit. When she finally regained her composure, she slid down the same hill and followed Crosshair, who had walked slowly so as to not leave her completely behind. The two caught up to their squad as they talked to the general of the battalion, alongside her captain and the already acquainted Padawan.

The bundle of gray-armored clones parted as Sarah approached, leaving her to stand in the middle and openly in front of Depa Billaba. Sarah stopped, unable to keep the smile from illuminating her features, even in spite of what had just happened with Crosshair. She’d met many Jedi before, and she’d only seen Depa Billaba in passing, and Sarah knew she was incredibly strong, compassionate, powerful. Sarah admired this woman from far away, never failing to realize how regal her presence was.

In short, Sarah was nothing but honored when the general finally looked upon her and smiled.

“So it is you whom I have heard so much about, besides your unnatural squad,” Depa Billaba said.

Sarah nodded. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“As am I,” Depa Billaba said before turning to Hunter and expressed the hope of having more soldiers come to their aid.

As Hunter explained they were the only ones who had been sent here in light of the attack on Coruscant, Sarah noticed from the corner of her eye that Tech very suddenly took out his holopad and appeared to listen very closely to his comm. Focusing on him, Sarah noticed the subtle changes that flashed through his eyes, and she didn’t need a Force-given talent to know Tech wasn’t listening to something ordinary.

She reached out and gently nudged his arm. “What is it?”

Tech seemed phased for a few short moments before it dawned on him that Sarah’s wasn’t the only attention he’d caught. He lifted his visor and addressed the clones and Jedi before him, lowering the volume on his comm to better process what he’d just heard.

“Comm chatter is saying that General Kenobi has encountered General Grievous. He has reportedly engaged him in combat, and if he were to win, the Clone War would be over,” Tech explained.

With the sound of distant explosions, all conversation fell silent. Looks were exchanged as everyone processed what it could mean for the war to be over, no doubt a bittersweet feeling for the clones. The war’s end was something that had seemed so distant, so huge, yet it had seemed so close when Tech had put it to words.

The same bittersweetness settled upon Sarah as she thought back to Umbara, when she and Fives had talked about the end of the war. They’d talked about what would happen to them after that, about wanting to live a quiet life, maybe even having a family. And though Fives wasn’t there and she’d moved on, Sarah began to long for that quiet life again. Without thinking, Sarah looked over at Crosshair, but as she did, Sarah couldn’t help but notice Hunter was looking at her.

“That’s…” Echo broke the silence, and a bewildered scoff left him. “That’s amazing. The war is going to end.”

“It could end,” Tech corrected.

“It will,” Sarah got their attention. “That must be what I felt back at the ship; it’s huge. No wonder the Force is moving strangely.”

But as she said it, it didn’t make sense. She felt as if there was still a missing piece in the puzzle, otherwise, she’d have recognized the Force’s movement as positive even before.

Captain Grey, general Billaba’s second in command, cleared his throat and intervened. “I hate to break this up, but until we get an official cease-fire, we still have to take care of the Separatist army heading our way.”

“Of course,” Sarah snapped out of her thinking and addressed him and General Billaba. “What would you like us to do?”

General Billaba crossed her arms and smiled with trust at Sarah and her squad. “I believe you can figure out your plan for yourselves. You certainly seem capable.” She then turned to her Padawan. “Would you like to go with them, Caleb?”

The boy’s features lit up like stars. “You know I would.”

“You better keep up, little man,” Wrecker said as he put his helmet on, approaching Caleb with the aura of an older brother. “If you fall short and need me to carry you, just ask.”

“I’m the one who’s going to set the pace, big guy,” Caleb replied with spunk.

The boys set off running. Sarah directed one final bow at General Billaba before running after her squadron, readying her rifle as her feet carried her towards them.

But then, Sarah’s feet began to feel heavy, and already not fully conscious, she came to a stop. Her vision faltered right before an overwhelming wave of pain took over her, causing her to inhale sharply as fear and uncertainty invaded her in an instant. All over, Sarah felt pain, sadness, desperation. Betrayal. She fell to her knees, unaware of her squad’s presence around her, all of them watching in worry at what was happening to her. She didn’t even hear them calling out her name. The pain she felt numbed the rest of her senses, and with the screams and cries echoing in her ears, Sarah hadn’t much more room to listen to anything else.

Multiple visions frightened her as they flashed before her eyes. She saw Obi-Wan falling into a lagoon at a great height after an explosion had knocked him off the trail he was climbing. She saw Ahsoka, her dear friend, deflecting multiple blasts, mercilessly aimed at her. She saw ships exploding mid air, Jedi falling helplessly, all of them with the common question being cried out from their hearts wreaking heartbreak through Sarah’s body: Why are they doing this?. With every passing second, the fear worsened, the pain became more unbearable, and the fading of the cries and screams in her mind didn’t help, as in reality, Sarah now heard Master Billaba’s own cries of pain.

When she could finally return to reality, Sarah’s first instinct was to crawl away from Hunter and the others. She then got up and pulled out her hand blaster and aimed it at him, making him take off his helmet and stare at her with wide, worried eyes.

“Sarah,” he spoke.

“Get back!” She yelled, only half understanding why she was saying it. Reality continued to gradually set in, and struck with bitter cold horror, Sarah began to shed tears as the blaster shook in her hands. “Master Billaba…” she panted, not daring to look in the distance at the sight. “She’s dead.”

“Sarah–”

“Where’s Caleb?!” Sarah’s eyes hardened, loading the blaster. “Tell me he’s not hurt!”

The remainder of the squad took their helmets off and looked at Sarah with kindness and concern, except for Crosshair. He remained distant, but Sarah’s state of fear barely let her acknowledge it. Hunter motioned the clones to remain in place as he slowly walked towards Sarah, his hands up in precaution.

“He reacted not differently from you,” Hunter said. “He just disappeared into the forest.”

Sarah’s eyes quickly scanned him, not picking up a trace of falsehood in his claim, but she still didn’t lower her blaster. Tears continued to roll down her face as Hunter was now in front of her, and he gently reached out to take the blaster from her and tossing it into the snow.

“Sarah,” he spoke softly. Slowly, he took his hands up to cup Sarah’s cheeks. “Whatever’s happening, I’m going to protect you, I promise.”

As Sarah felt his touch on her skin, she felt herself calm down. What was currently happening still wasn’t clear to her, but she did fully trust that Hunter didn’t want to hurt her, nor did any of the others. She looked deep into Hunter’s eyes as another stream of tears left her own, now a cry of vulnerability instead of defense, and as she broke down, Hunter wrapped her in an embrace as the word guardian vaguely made its presence within her mind.

“You’re safe,” Hunter said as he gave her hair a couple of strokes and then turned to Tech. “What do you know?”

“Only the most recent directive in comm chatter, and it’s the only thing that’s been said since Sarah reacted this way,” Tech began. “It says ‘Execute Order 66.’”

As he said it, Sarah felt another wave of cold rush through her body. Hunter was only loosening his grip on her when she clung tighter to him, and she was thankful that Echo approached her and rested his hand gently on her shoulder. It helped her to feel his presence there too.

“What does that mean?” Hunter asked Tech.

“I don’t know exactly what it means,” Tech admitted with a sigh. “But it cannot be good if it made Sarah react the way she did and the Padawan ran away from us.”

“Talk to captain Grey and see if you can find anything,” Hunter told them, gently letting Sarah off his grip. “Echo, go with him. Be discreet.”

Echo nodded at Hunter, noticing Sarah’s apprehension at his absence. The former ARC trooper walked up to her and softly rested his forehead on hers, allowing her to feel the subtle warmth of their friendship.

“You’ll be okay,” Echo told her, and he walked off with Tech.

“Wrecker,” Hunter began. “I need you to stay here and stall whoever tries to follow us, but don’t be too insistent. We can’t take many risks right now.”

“You got it, boss,” Wrecker said.

“Sarah,” Hunter looked at her again. “You’re coming with me and Crosshair. The kid needs to see you, you’re the only one he’ll trust.”

She didn’t have much energy in her, but she knew Hunter was right. She followed him and Crosshair into the forest as Hunter tracked Caleb with his senses, and eventually they reached a point where they could find the young, frightened Padawan hiding high up among the trees. Slowly, Sarah stepped forward and held her hands up.

“Caleb!” She called. “Caleb, I don’t know what’s happening!”

“Ask them!” Caleb spat out, glaring at the two troopers.

“They’re not going to hurt you!” Sarah told him. “I’ve seen it. Jedi are dying–”

“--They’re being killed!”

“--But I don’t know why!” Sarah continued. “I was afraid for a moment too, but these men are not going to hurt you. Come down here. We can help you.”

It was hard not to shatter at the way Sarah’s voice broke, or at how it was evident that Caleb wanted to trust her.

Just as Sarah was about to repeat to Caleb that he could trust in the troopers who were with her, she heard the sound of Crosshair’s rifle being fired, its blast aimed at the Padawan up in the trees who deflected it with his saber.

“Liar!”

The word stung Sarah and she tried to keep track of where Caleb had headed to as he jumped from tree to tree, but she felt her heart wanting to tear from her chest as she processed.

Crosshair had fired.

She and Hunter both turned to look at him, distant, quiet, still donning his helmet.

“Crosshair,” Hunter’s voice sounded wary, angry in an effort to conceal the heartbreak. “Why did you do that?”

Crosshair took a delay in responding, but he began to pace forward as if he were on autopilot. “I’m following orders.”

“What orders?” Hunter met Crosshair and lightly shoved him back to make him come to a stop. “You haven’t been given any orders, now stand down. You listen to my orders, you hear me?”

Hunter rushed away from his brother and looked out into the forest while Sarah continued to stand, speechless. Her gaze was lost among the sparkles of the snow reflecting sunlight, her mind begging her to wake up only for her to find time and awake she wasn’t trapped in a nightmare. The silence was suffocating; she had to do something. Just as she resolved to approach Crosshair in hopes of getting something out of him, he spoke.

“Good soldiers follow orders.”

She froze.

That phrase. That damned phrase. She recognized it, heard it in Tup’s voice over and over after he’d killed Master Tiplar. The cold returned to Sarah, stronger than ever; she recognized it now as the shadow of the dark side. The icy cold, the astounding horror, it was the only thing keeping the tears from falling.

“Crosshair,” her voice broke.

He began to walk forward, and she was unable to move. In her comms, she heard Hunter and Tech discussing: the clones had been ordered to kill the Jedi. They had all been accused of treason. They were all to be executed.

Hunter went ahead to look for the boy, and he’d told Sarah to remain with Crosshair. Crosshair, the man who was usually cold but who always held a note of warmth in his eyes when he looked at her, was now a statue in front of her.

It gave her hope. He wasn’t rushing to find Caleb and kill him. He was standing there, unable to do anything, but Sarah felt it was a pain in his mind. She walked closer to him and noticed as he brought a hand up to the right side of his head as if he were in pain. It sent Sarah’s mind into overdrive as she tried to piece the puzzle together, but she once again was left regretting having left Fives on Kamino. She never figured out what he’d discovered, but from what she remembered with Tup’s situation, she could know in her heart that it wasn’t Crosshair’s fault, it wasn’t the doing of any of the clones. Something was doing that to them, it was making them act against their will.

Crosshair was about to walk forward again, but Sarah quickly stopped him, placing her hands on his chest.

“Don’t go,” she said. “Stay with me, Crosshair. I’ll find a way to help you.”

He didn’t answer; his silence was as excruciating as it could ever be. Sarah could feel him wanting to move again, and she only held him stronger.

“Hey, hey!” She called out, her voice betraying her. She took off his helmet and looked up at him, appreciating their height difference. They were standing in front of each other, not unlike they were up on that cliff less than an hour before, on the verge of kissing. She hadn’t then, and she resolved not to make that mistake again.

Sarah gently caressed the side of his face. It was warm and his skin was soft except for the darkened area of his beard’s shadow about to come in, already coarse.

“What in the name of the gods is happening to you?” She whispered.

“I’m doing what I always do,” he said.

“No, you’re not.”

Crosshair said nothing. He was about to walk past her again, but Sarah refused to let him go. Her pulse rose and she suddenly felt fear of losing him, and she only felt worse when she remembered Tup. Kind Tup, who had become a best friend to Fives, who had been so brave on Umbara. She shook the memories away, focusing on Crosshair as her priority. She knew that Crosshair was still in there; the other clones had immediately turned against the Jedi whereas Crosshair had been in Caleb’s presence and not attacked him for a long time. That had to mean something. It could only mean he was battling it, but it seemed like he was losing that battle.

Sarah’s heart broke. She could not even begin to think of losing Crosshair to that too. She cupped his face with both of her hands and, unsure if it was whether to save him or to cling to him before it was all lost, or merely to let him know she loved him, Sarah kissed Crosshair’s lips and let her arms travel around his neck. She hated herself for not having done that before, but she also felt hope when he dropped his rifle and wrapped an arm around her waist while his free hand held the back of her head. They kissed with more strength, and for a moment it felt like nothing else was happening. Crosshair breathed heavily and, very softly, moaned into the kiss, making Sarah’s knees crumble as she moaned into it too.

Crosshair broke the kiss, his chest heaving up and down beneath his armor. He didn’t back away immediately, and in that time, Sarah hugged him and rested her head on his chest, crying silently.

“Fight it,” she whispered in an effort to not let her voice break. “Please, Crosshair… you have to fight it.”

Silence came from him as her tears fell onto the snow beneath her.

“I can’t lose you,” she finally admitted to him, to the Force, to the forest. It was the purest whisper, and utterly, the most painful as well.

But then, Crosshair broke the embrace and said nothing more. He put his helmet back on, grabbed his rifle from off the ground, and continued walking in the direction Hunter had gone. Sarah was unable to follow him, as if her feet had been fused to the ground. She barely had the will to move. She’d wanted her first kiss with Crosshair to be something sweet, something spicy and lustful and happy like it should have been, not like this.

In little time, she heard the chatter of more troopers headed their way. She suddenly feared they’d want to attack her too, but they didn’t. They merely walked past her, as if she wasn’t even there.

After a long time, Hunter returned to where Sarah was. Caleb wasn’t with him, and he looked sad. If Caleb was dead, Sarah knew he hadn’t been the one to kill him. Hunter looked at Sarah with uncertainty, even with sadness, as his eyes fell on Sarah’s lips noticing the way they had subtly swollen from the kiss.

Sarah could almost hear Hunter’s heart shatter, and it finally drew another stream of tears from her eyes. Hunter approached her, this time not touching her, but his support was extended just the same.

“We have to meet the others,” he said quietly.

“Where’s Crosshair?” She had to ask.

At that moment, Crosshair appeared too, walking slowly, quietly.

Still in silence, he caught up to her and Hunter and stopped, looking at them, and they looked at him too. Sarah could pick up on the note of resentment Hunter was feeling, but she didn’t know if it was because of the kiss or the order, or both.

Still in silence, they regrouped with their squad.

Taglist: @photowizard17 @zoeykallus @sageislostinspring @misogirl828 @dangerousstrawberrypie

[padawanlost]

Hi! Do you have any favorite/really good quotes from either Padme and or Anakin's perspective about each other and their love for one another?

This is Padmé Amidala: She is an astonishingly accomplished young woman, who in her short life has been already the youngest-ever elected Queen of her planet, a daring partisan guerrilla, and a measured, articulate, and persuasive voice of reason in the Republic Senate. But she is, at this moment, none of these things.

She can still play at them—she pretends to be a Senator, she still wields the moral authority of a former Queen, and she is not shy about using her reputation for fierce physical courage to her advantage in political debate—but her inmost reality, the most fundamental, unbreakable core of her being, is something entirely different. She is Anakin Skywalker’s wife.

Yet wife is a word too weak to carry the truth of her; wife is such a small word, such a common word, a word that can come from a downturned mouth with so many petty, unpleasant echoes. For Padmé Amidala, saying I am Anakin Skywalker’s wife is saying neither more nor less than I am alive. Her life before Anakin belonged to someone else, some lesser being to be pitied, some poor impoverished spirit who could never suspect how profoundly life should be lived. Her real life began the first time she looked into Anakin Skywalker’s eyes and found in there not the uncritical worship of little Annie from Tatooine, but the direct, unashamed, smoldering passion of a powerful Jedi: a young man, to be sure, but every centimeter a man—a man whose legend was already growing within the Jedi Order and beyond. A man who knew exactly what he wanted and was honest enough to simply ask for it; a man strong enough to unroll his deepest feelings before her without fear and without shame. A man who had loved her for a decade, with faithful and patient heart, while he waited for the act of destiny he was sure would someday open her own heart to the fire in his.

But though she loves her husband without reservation, love does not blind her to his faults. She is older than he, and wise enough to understand him better than he does himself. He is not a perfect man: he is prideful, and moody, and quick to anger—but these faults only make her love him the more, for his every flaw is more than balanced by the greatness within him, his capacity for joy and cleansing laughter, his extraordinary generosity of spirit, his passionate devotion not only to her but also in the service of every living being. He is a wild creature who has come gently to her hand, a vine tiger purring against her cheek.

Every softness of his touch, every kind glance or loving word is a small miracle in itself. How can she not be grateful for such gifts? This is why she will not allow their marriage to become public knowledge. Her husband needs to be a Jedi. Saving people is what he was born for; to take that away from him would cripple every good thing in his troubled heart.

Now she holds him in their infinite kiss with both arms tight around his neck, because there is a cold dread in the center of her heart that whispers this kiss is not infinite at all, that it’s only a pause in the headlong rush of the universe, and when it ends, she will have to face the future. And she is terrified. Because while he has been away, everything has changed. T

oday, here in the hallway of the Senate Office Building, she brings him news of a gift they have given each other—a gift of joy, and of terror. This gift is the edge of a knife that has already cut their past from their future.

For these long years they have held each other only in secret, only in moments stolen from the business of the Republic and the war; their love has been the perfect refuge, a long quiet afternoon, warm and sunny, sealed away from fear and doubt, from duty and from danger. But now she carries within her a planetary terminator that will end their warm afternoon forever and leave them blind in the oncoming night.

She is more, now, than Anakin Skywalker’s wife.

She is the mother of Anakin Skywalker’s unborn child. - Matthew Stover. Revenge of the Sith

Padmé may be uber-romantic about it but she does understand exactly who she married and why.

[jabean-fanfiction]

As someone who constantly keeps re-reading 'Falling Into Light' and patiently awaits for 'A Light in the Dark' updates, I have so many questions AKXJEJJSNXNDMEKSKKHHFBRHDJ so, here are some of them (because I forgot the rest)

Do you believe in the Darth Jar Jar theory?

Do you think Sidious truly used Padmé's lifeforce to ensure Vader lived?

Will Rogue One survive in ALITD? 🥹

Do you ever see Anakin and Rey actually marrying and having kids? Like, I don't know, seems like a dream, but what do you think?

That's all from me! Seriously, from the core of my heart, thank you for writing your stories, I absolutely love all of them, even the HP ones. Your ideas are marvellous and mind-blowing <33 (and also that you might have inspired a fic from my end and it's currently in the drafting stage akxbejsjjsjsndnjds full credits to you <33)

Again, thank you so so much. Have a wonderful day/night ahead <33

Thanks so much for the ask. I rarely get asks, so I’m just completely tickled pink right now. And your words are so very kind. Thank you 💜

So, onto your questions… I do not believe in the Darth Jar Jar theory. I figured that because the Emperor was human (albeit an extremely wrinkly one) in the original trilogy, that there was no way Jar Jar was the Sith Lord. For me it was and has always been Palpatine. The fact that Jar Jar has yellow eyes, well… so do plenty of other beings in Star Wars. Doesn’t mean anything.

I’m still humming and hawing over the Padme life force thing. It could work, and I think that it does work a lot better than George Lucas’ ‘she died of a broken heart’ excuse. It would totally be something that Palpatine would do, too. His whole thing with Anakin was to get him alone. Whether that was in the chancellors office for their meetings, social visits, etc. or splitting Anakin from all of his supports — Obi-Wan, the Jedi Order (not that they were super supportive of Anakin personally), Ahsoka (I have to watch the Clone Wars still, but I’ve a feeling Palpatine was the one who orchestrated Ahsoka being framed for the terrorist attack(??) against the Order. He shook her belief in the Order and at the very least indirectly caused her to walk away from it), and finally Padme. He kept coming between her and Anakin throughout their “secret” relationship. I feel, at the very least, Anakin knows that Palpatine had something to do with her death.

I’m not sure with Rogue One surviving ALITD. They won’t die on Scarif, I can say that at least. But, I don’t know if they will survive everything. I kind of ignored them in Falling Into Light, and I know that I don’t want to do that in ALITD. But whether they survive to the epilogue, I don’t know. The same thing with Boba Fett. I know how I want to introduce him into ALITD, but beyond that I’m not entirely sure what to do with him. (Not that you asked about Boba, but he was on my mind)

I can definitely see Rey and Anakin in a committed relationship, whether that’s marriage or not 🤷‍♀️ I’m not big on marriage myself, having grown up in a home that looked perfect from the outside, but had parents that complained to their kids (me) about one another. It’s left me quite jaded and cynical in regards to marriage being a dream/fairytale, etc. but who knows? Perhaps. If it feels natural in ALITD, it might happen. The same thing with kids. Although, I’m not sure either Rey or Anakin would consider themselves fit to have kids. They definitely aren’t at present in the story, but…we’ll see.

You’ll have to send me a link to your story when you post it! I totally want to read it 💜

[elionwriter]

MY FAV STAR WARS COUPLE DYNAMICS:

(for the sake of this post let's all just pretend no one dies, ok?)

Anakin - Padme: their relationship started with pure drama and really bad, corny pick up lines and it just goes on that way. Even when they are happily exiled on Naboo with their children and everyone knows about them, whenever they talk about their love or tell the story to Luke and Leia it's always with the tones of a 'larger than life situation'. Obviously Anakin is the drama queen who really pushes it (and is still salty he had to give up his title as Jedi Master) but Padme fell for him when he did the whole whiny speech about sand and married him, she secretly supports this s***t! 😝

Han - Leia: bickering is their love language. Screaming to impose supremacy is their flirting. The thing is, they never bicker for serious stuff, because they actually agree on what matters and get along as a couple, it's the principle of things! Sometimes a friend of Ben overhears them and goes 😱 "I'm really sorry for intruding on this, pal. Will your parents be alright?" And Ben with the calmest expression will answer "They literally do this all the time". It's the silence that's worriesome. When Leia is just too tired to keep fighting after hours of doing so with politicians, when Han doesn't bother to stay to face the argument and just hops on the Falcon again, THAT'S when they realise they are falling out. So they push duty and lust for adventure aside to go back spending quality time together and patching things up. Sure enough, the bickering starts again and Ben is like "😌 aaah everything is fine again".

Din - Luke: they are the picture perfect couple. They literally never argue, at best they poke eachother when one of the two does something the other doesn't entirely agree on. They have each other's back in any instance, support every choice and are there for backup when others want a fight or have something to say either on Din's leadership or Luke's approach to the Jedi code and teachings. It took them forever to actually get together because they acted like shy teenagers on their first crush and Leia, Han and Cara had to practically push them into each other's arms, but once they got there they were solid a couple as a rock. Others look at them and think they are either disgustingly mushy or still in a 'honeymoon face', because NO ONE has such a stress-free marriage. Din and Luke truly don't get what the fuss and all the drama's about. So even though they end up practically parenting the space version of the kids from 'Cheaper by the dozen' they act like parental figures to their friends as well. Life as Manda'lor and the Reviver of the Jedi order can be hell, but together they are just balanced like that and can face everything! They even create a new co-op fighting style for Jedi/Mandalorians that becomes the terror and amazement of the Galaxy for centuries to come!😌😏💪

Kannan - Hera: very similar to Dinluke except they do at times have some small moments of tension because Hera is a fighter to the core and Kannan can't help but wonder if the battle will ever truly end. But his queen's passion and resolve is so bright and steeled that he can't help but fall in love a little more every time and follow, knowing it's the right thing to do. They have an example to set for their son, after all. Kannan will absolutely love Jacen and will introduce Ezra to his son (once Sabine and Ashoka bring him back) as his older brother. Much like when he trained Ezra or faced Sabine, Kannan will sometimes doubt himself and wonder if he's acting like a good parent to Jacen. Hera will smile and reassure him, describing to him the bright and happy smile on their son's face or how Jecen's nose scrunches and his long, greenish ears wiggle in delight whenever Kannan plays with him or cuddles him. As Hera says so, Kannan holds her and feels like he can actually see it too.

Sabine - Ezra: After Ezra is brought back to his family from wherever or whatever happened to him after facing Thrawn, both of them will just indulge in sudden hugs or touches to make sure the other is actually there. Of course, they first think of their bond as a solid friendship and camaraderie, because that's what it was when they left off. The extra touching is just the response to being apart for so long and being worried for each other. But then Sabine notices that Ezra actually looks really good with long hair and the scruffy beard he grew out. She catches herself thinking of how warm and safe if feels in his arms and mentally kicks herself because she's a Mandalorian, all she should need is a loaded blaster to feel safe. Ezra, on the other hand, starts playing with Sabine's hair when complimenting her new dye and suddenly finds himself cupping her face like it's the most natural thing in the world. Long story short, they fall for eachother hard and become the prototype of the couple "my boyfriend/girlfriend is my best friend". When they are comfortable with their new status, Ezra goes back flirting dorkishly with her like he did all those years back when they first met and Sabine will tease him by shooting his advances down.

Ashoka - Bo Katan: joke's on Bo-katan for cringing back in the day at her sister's relationship with a Jedi. She thought destiny or the force or whatever was really messing with her when she realized that her rival and pupil, Din Djarin, the new leader of Mandalorians was also falling helplessly in love with a Jedi (Obi-Wan's student nonetheless). When she hears Sabine Wren and her Jedi boy also got together she stops questioning it. The thing is that she herself has been inexplicably, undeniably charmed and hooked to a Jedi for years now. The very same Jedi she had teased didn't have enough booty, what felt like a lifetime prior. But she's Bo-Katan, she can be in angry denial about anything. Ashoka, on the other hand, has seen and has been conditioned too much on what attachment does to a Jedi, even if she doesn't consider herself one anymore. So, even if the chemistry between them and the long lingering stares are real, their love is always kept a quiet, unspoken thing. Whenever they call eachother "my old friend" they know they actually mean more, but leave it at that. Everyone around them can't help wondering 'are they a thing or...?!' but they never feed the theories and gossip. They know what they are and mean for each other when they are alone in the same room, talking about the past or what must be done in the future and Ashoka's mere presence is enough to cool down the ever-present burning rage inside of Bo. Meanwhile, the other can't help but admire how single minded and devoted to her people and culture the Mandalorian princess is, how she never gave up on them, despite everything. They smile softly at each other, then one of them breaks the spell by leaving. They go back to their own business and life untill destiny or the force or whatever brings them back into eachother's orbit.

Revan - Carth: normally they act very much like Leia and Han with the bickering and teasing bit but then Revan has one of her memories returning or is haunted by how she basically condemned her lifelong best friend Malak to a terrible death and Carth instantly does a 180° shift becoming the most caring, comforting and tender partner. She'll hide into his chest until the crisis in over. Sometimes it can go on for days and Revan is oh, so grateful of how patient and good Carth is to her. Then, at times, Carth is the one burying his head in her chest and she's the one doing the tender, hair strokes. Carth needs a lot of reassuring and might get upset and fret over even what appears to be a trivial thing. He's trying to heal and get better but the long, long years of solitude, hurt and paranoia are hard to iron down. Expecially when Carth seems to have an instinct that puts a Jedi to shame, foreseeing a crisis neither she nor Bastila had picked up. But he is making an effort to improve and she's proud of him, even as he tries very clumsily to patch things up with his son Dustil. She doesn't really step in that matter more than she has to, since Dustil is clearly not happy nor comfortable with the idea of them being together yet. Carth will sometimes open his heart to her and say something deeply meaningful on how he wants her to stay ( when she looks particularly haunted and about to leave without a work of warning) and be happy but does so with such awkward word choices that Revan just cannot refrain from laughing at his face and making puns. It's at this point that the back and forth teasing resumes. There is no denying they are still deeply wounded individuals and they are at their best when their friends are there to lighten the mood and show love to the both of them. Because they could easily go down the path of drama like Anakin and Padme but they choose the Ebon Hawk crew shenanigans instead.

Obi Wan - Satine: their love is stored in the memory of that glorious time they spent together in their youth. A moment in which no responsibility or sense of honor could keep them from giving in to that feeling of want and need for each other. It's a love that never truly went away, never left space for anyone else, but it never fully grew and bloomed either. So years down the line, that's what it is for Obi-Wan, a pleasant memory. He would never change how things went afterwards, but he wouldn't give up those memories and feelings for anything in the world. Satine feels the same, mostly. There are nights that she falls asleep wondering what could have been if only she had talked up at the decisive moment and dreams of a life spent together with Obi-Wan. But when she wakes up, she sobers up and goes back to her things. It's when she looks at her Korkie smile and notices how resembling to his secret father he is that she is truly at peace. She managed to keep a peace of Obi-Wan in her life.

Cal - Merrin: I have no idea for this one, but just stop and consider the possible 'nightsisters babies' though! Wouldn't they be the cutest things ever?! 😀

Sorry Cara Dune, you just haven't met the woman of your life yet. 😔

Also, I kinda like Zeb and Callus too but I don't really ship them enough to add them here, you know? Anyway I'm sure they make a lovely couple.

[mahizli]

Reckless (There Is No Chaos, There Is Harmony)

Beautiful art that can be found here, and that shows what happens *after* and not *during* this story, that is also Part 3 of Threading The Way.

26 BBY.

“Why don’t you ever say something nice to me?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Anakin…”

“See what I mean? It’s never enough for you, is it?”

“Now don’t pull that card on me, Padawan–”

“No, you don’t get to Padawan me!”

Anakin paused, out of breath, cheeks flushed with rage, facing Obi-Wan whose eyes had started to brighten as well but still stayed infuriatingly calm. He had crossed his arms, though, fingers twisting the fabric of his tunic, meaning even perfect-and-tidy-Master-Obi-Wan could get upset. And Anakin wanted his Master to get upset. He wanted him to feel just as angry and betrayed and hurt as he was.

“You don’t get to tell the Council my actions were a bit rash. I saved your kriffing life, Master, I prevented a whole building from collapsing on you, and just because you’re too weak to do the same, you don’t get to be jealous of me and belittle me and call my actions rash in front of stupid Master Windu!”

He was as tall as his Master now. And he would get taller than Obi-Wan, that much was obvious, because he had already outgrown him in matters of boot-size. Meaning he was on eye-level with his Master. Meaning he had a full view of the whirlwind of emotions blossoming in Obi-Wan’s stormy eyes, and the way every bit of colour left his Master’s cheeks.

Obi-Wan’s fingers tightened around his arms, and for a few seconds, even the Force felt still around them, leaving Anakin quivering with rage and something uncomfortable feeling a lot like shame.

“Master Windu is not responsible for the way you feel about me”, Obi-Wan finally managed to push out, in a somewhat breathy voice.

And the angry beast deep within Anakin raised its tail again, clawing its talons deep into his chest and belly.

“No, because you are”, he spat out, and of all the things he could have done, his Master blinked.

It made Anakin even more angry. He wanted Obi-Wan to roar, to stand up against him, to yell at him, to call him names, to fight. Not to stand there looking like a small, breakable thing that could be crushed in an eyeblink, if Anakin wasn’t watching – and Obi-Wan had not a clue, Obi-Wan never had a clue…

“Anakin, my intention never was to belittle you.”

“Well I don’t believe you.”

Something in Obi-Wan’s face closed then, and Anakin felt his Master’s shields slam shut, leaving their bond blank, like the aftermath of an explosion. Obi-Wan’s hands left his arms, and then his Master simply walked past him, leaving their sitting room for the kitchen.

It was always the same, whenever Obi-Wan felt overwhelmed. He would simply stop talking, leaving the argument like he would leave a room, and it drew Anakin nuts.

“What are you doing?”, he asked, angrily, watching his Master open a cupboard, fetching a sponge and an old cleaning rag, without even using the Force – sometimes Obi-Wan seemed to forget it even existed.

“I’m clearing the dust”, Obi-Wan rasped, in that strangled tone of voice he had whenever Anakin had pushed every possible button to draw him ballistic. “It’s been weeks since we’ve been here, and I’m not sleeping in a dirty room.”

“Have you listened to a word I said?”

“Have you?”

Strange, how Obi-Wan’s fierceness could sound so much like sadness. Strange, also, how luminous his eyes could look whenever he finally chose to stand up, to fight back – and he didn’t even use his lightsaber, just some ratty sponge and rag, wiping the table with enough strength to wipe out every possible stain.

“I’m clearing the dust. I suggest you do the same, literally or metaphorically.”

“Typical.”

And with that last insult, hissed like a fire-breath from whatever nasty beast was feasting on sadness and hurt behind his chest, Anakin left their quarters, slamming their door shut, heading straight for the hangers where droids and speeders were waiting for him, and could do nothing but agreeing with him.

It had been six years. Six kriffing years, since Anakin had arrived at the Temple, had heard Master Windu tell him he would never become a Jedi, and yet there he was. There he was, going on missions with his Master, flying their ship, fighting alongside Obi-Wan and saving the day whenever his Master’s disturbing habit of talking them out of trouble backfired on them.

And yet, Anakin could not shake the nagging feeling that no one really wanted him there, that they were all watching him with narrowed eyes, waiting for him to slip up, to prove them they had all been right, no matter how hard he tried.

And Obi-Wan did not help. Not anymore. He was trying to reign Anakin in, instead of letting his power grow, instead of letting him prove himself, talking about balance and reason and mindfulness, when all was just a piece of rubbish.

“How is mindfulness going to keep you from getting crushed?”, Anakin muttered, teeth gritted around a nut he was determined to screw deep within the speeder’s core.

His hair was soon matted with dust and oil, and his skin salty with sweat. He was about as far he could get from Obi-Wan’s notions of cleanliness, and it felt so deeply satisfying that the beast behind Anakin’s chest finally quietened.

He spent enough hours under that speeder to get hungry, but it was out of the question to go back to their quarters and to Obi-Wan – because going back was almost like apologizing, and Anakin did not want to.

So he did what he always did, whenever he fought his Master and wanted to vent about him. Master Quinlan was useless in such cases, getting all stern and serious to the point even Aayla was beginning to look worried – but then, Master Quinlan was always a bit overprotective of his friends, so…

No, the best person whenever he wanted to talk, and explain just how betrayed and misunderstood he felt was Master Luminara, who somehow always managed to calm him down, and to silence the beast within him.

“Hello, Padawan Skywalker”, she greeted him, night-like eyes sparkling with unspoken fondness. “I see you have made it back from your mission.”

“Hello, Master Luminara. There is no need to Padawan me, you know.”

“Oh, I know. But I, too, do enjoy a tease every now and then. Do come in.”

“Thank you. Oh.”

Master Luminara’s usually impeccably tidy rooms were crowded with two empty shelves, what looked to be parts of a desk and two mechanic droids adding to the mess and bustle.

“Don’t tell me you are dusting as well”, Anakin muttered, dejectedly.

“Because Obi-Wan is?”, Luminara asked, cheerily, moving to the kitchen to brow themselves a cup of caff.

“Mhm”, Anakin let out, allowing his long, gangly limbs to cram themselves between the bench and the table, and to let out a dramatic sigh.

“Oh. Sponge or rag?”

“Both.”

“That bad, then…”

She was not laughing at him, though. Master Luminara never was. She always listened to him, and she never judged, unlike Master Quinlan who didn’t hesitate to yell and occasionally even shake him – not that Anakin minded, because it was always somewhat amusing to watch him loose his cool.

“He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how I feel. He thinks I’m acting rashly, that I only follow my instinct and my whims instead of thinking things through, that I rely too much on my emotions, and not enough on the Force. But it’s not true! I’m the one who saved him from being crushed, last mission, and he keeps pulling stunts like that, getting into trouble and then lecturing me because I got him out!”

“What happened, Anakin? DUM, NIK, would you please put those shelves in the spare room – and the desk as well, opposite the bed…?”

“Why are you refurnishing that room, Master Luminara?”

“Never mind now, Anakin. Please tell me, how did you prevent Obi-Wan from getting crushed, exactly?”

And so, Anakin finally got to tell someone about how that building exploded, how his Master was standing just below, having been talking to officials, and how Anakin prevented the building from collapsing, holding it up with the Force for almost twenty minutes.

“He just lectured me. In the med-centre. Of all the things he could have done, he lectured me.”

“In the med-centre?”

“Yeah. I… sort of collapsed, after that. But it was okay. The medics said I just had some Jedi-Force-exhaustion, and I slept it off, and that was it.”

“I see… And how long, exactly, were you unconscious, Anakin?”

Anakin watched the caff swirl in his cup, as he moved it around in small circles, until he finally let out two pitiful words, refusing to look up.

“Two days.”

Luminara let the words sink in, and gently placed a soft, cool hand on his. But she didn’t say a word, just waited for him to rise his eyes and let out a small, undignified breath sounding a lot like a sob.

“I just wanted to make him proud”, he whispered, and Luminara drew him against her, allowing him to hide his burning face against his neck. “I know I should have thought of something else, I even know that he probably would have jumped away, but I… I knew I could do it, and I wanted to save him. And instead…”

“You saved him, Anakin. And I do not think Obi-Wan denies it. I think he was as scared of losing you than you were of losing him. I think that, whenever Obi-Wan calls you reckless, he is chiding himself for not protecting you better. For exposing you. He knows just how many eyes are on both of you. And I think your Master is trying to shield you – to make it appear like he is the one failing to hold you back, whenever you get passionate, so that you can continue to be who you are deep inside.”

Anakin frowned at that, and then he shook his head.

“I’m too chaotic for him. Sometimes I think he’d be better off without me.”

“Nonsense, Anakin. Obi-Wan thrives in chaos, believe me. Quinlan, Master Qui-Gon, and now you – he needs someone reckless enough to draw him out of his shell.”

That made Anakin smile, and unfold from Luminara’s embrace.

“So. Why are you putting those shelves and desk into the spare-room?”, he asked, and he watched Luminara’s face soften in quiet joy.

“Because tomorrow, Padawan Skywalker, I will welcome my very own Padawan into those quarters. I have waited for her to become of age, and tomorrow, we will finally start our apprenticeship together.”

“Your apprenticeship, Master Luminara? You are no apprentice anymore…”

“But I am, Padawan Skywalker. I am going to begin to learn what it means to be a Padawan’s Master and companion – it is not something we are born with, you know… And the Master learns just as much as the Padawan, on their journey together.”

It was late already when Anakin finally left Master Luminara’s quarters. He had helped her move the furniture where she wanted them, and had even managed to empower the droids so as to allow them to fix some of the shelves to the wall, standing one on top of the other. The room was clean and tidy, just like his had been when Obi-Wan had open his door to him – and Anakin remembered, with a sinking heart, just how different things had been for both of them, and just how much time it had taken for Obi-Wan to claim his own room and find the courage to clear it from Master Jinn’s things with him.

He opened their door with a slow, controlled Force-brush, and closed it noiselessly behind him, tiptoeing inside. The sitting room was clean, without a speck of dust, the plants were watered and even the holobooks and holovids had been dusted and put lovingly back into place. The kitchen was spotless as well, spoons and cupboards neatly stored in the cupboards, and even the ground was shiny and smelt of cleanliness. Anakin’s room was untouched though – Obi-Wan having learned very early that Anakin was very peculiar about boundaries, storing treasures and droid-parts – save for the bed that had been made with fresh sheets.

He found his Master in his own room, not even needing to open the door. Obi-Wan had dusted and cleaned his own room, and Valentine was letting out small, regular puffs on the windowsill – her very own way to snore.

Obi-Wan himself was stretched on his bed, feet still brushing the ground and arms circling his face, like someone who had sat down, then let himself fall backwards, without moving ever since. He was still holding the infamous rag in a loose grip, but he was fast asleep, hair still a bit sweaty from exertion, features lax behind the stubble he kept growing to hide just how young he looked.

Anakin shook his head, and took the rag from Obi-Wan’s hand, wrinkling his nose.

“Gross, Master. And ridiculous”, he whispered, careful not to wake him up.

He managed to shower and change without Obi-Wan even stirring – and Anakin realised then just how tired his Master must have been. He had not really noticed, but in hindsight it was obvious. Because his Master never slept whenever he was ill or injured, always hovering anxiously at his side, even pretending not to be.

He came back to Obi-Wan’s room with a data-pad, and had managed to reach level 72 of his newest game, when he finally heard a deep sigh leaving his Master’s chest, and realised Obi-Wan was waking up.

“Hello there”, Anakin whispered – and his own chest felt oddly tight, remembering the dreadful words he had thrown at his Master.

His Master whose first reaction was to smile at him and reach out for his hand, placing warm, loose fingers around his wrist, in an instinctive gesture of love or care that made the knot in Anakin’s chest even tighter.

Obi-Wan sat up, and then only seemed to remember that they had fought and were supposed to be at odds, his face getting all tight and apprehensive once more. But his hand was still around Anakin’s wrist, and Anakin did not let him speak – he just embraced him fiercely with everything he had, hiding his face deep into Obi-Wan’s chest.

“I am so, so sorry, Master. I never meant any of it. I promise. I promise.”

Obi-Wan just breathed out and hugged him back. They stayed like that for some time, and their bond was no longer silent and cold, but simply there, like it had been for six years – tying Anakin to the Force and to his Master.

“Have you eaten?”, Obi-Wan finally asked, ever practical, and Anakin shook his head.

“Shall we, then?”, his Master asked. “There’s pie in the cantina tonight.”

“Wizard”, Anakin muttered, but he didn’t let go.

Not before he managed to ask that very important question, the one that had fuelled the beast’s anger deep within him.

“Master, do you think I’m… too chaotic? Do you think… Do you sometimes think about… how different life would have been… without having to take me in?”

This time Obi-Wan straightened. And this time his Master’s voice was as fierce and powerful as it could get – just like it was whenever he put a stop to all the nonsense the Galaxy allowed to happen during their missions, just like it was whenever he did something so great Anakin could just stand there and gape and think about just how awesome his Master was.

“I don’t even want to begin considering it.”

Anakin’s throat tightened, and he closed his eyes, feeling his Master’s hands on his back, gently tapping him.

“I’d die of boredom”, Obi-Wan whispered, grazing Anakin’s hair with his stubble, laughing silently at his indignant squawk. “Besides, Padawan mine…”

He let go of Anakin, just enough to be able to look at him, and to place Anakin’s braid back behind his ear.

“There is harmony to be found, even within chaos.”

He placed something into Anakin’s palm, smiling softly at him, and watched him discover a small black bead harbouring a beautiful golden streak.

“What is this one for, Master? I… I just yelled at you. I called you… I told you some horrible things.”

“But you also saved my life. And you taught me that sometimes… sometimes I still put things the wrong way, whenever I try to talk to you, and about you.”

“I do so as well, Master”, Anakin whispered, fingers closing shyly around the bead.

“Well then, Padawan… I think we still make quite the pair.”

And we can both become better Jedi together.

His Master’s voice was warm and loving in Anakin’s mind. And so Anakin smiled, and pulled his Master up, determined to pull him towards the cantina as fast as he could.

Because, tonight, there was pie, and after all, Anakin was starving.

[kyberconfessions]

No Matter Where You Go, I Will Find You. part 3

Hi everyone! We have made it to Part 3! Thank you for coming on this wonderful journey with me. I have at least 6 chapters already written and the story will be longer than that. I appreciate all of your love and reblogs and everything you say about it. Seriously, I love you all. Also, I am toying with the idea of a Bad Batch x reader story AU. Let me know if there is any want for that. Thanks!!!

As always:

This will eventually be a 18+ older fic and will deal with anxiety, death, sex,  PTSD, murder, loss, found family, Order 66, and coming to terms. This is not just a fluff fic. It will very much be dealing with very dark and hard themes, so please, if that is something that can be too hard for you, don’t read.

Pairings: Rex x Reader x Cody (polyamory) I should say this is NOT a Rex x Cody fic. There will be ZERO Clonecest on this blog or story. Reader is a consensual relationship with Rex and with Cody. Yes they share, yes they will eventually have sex together, but Cody and Rex are NOT in a relationship nor will they be intimate.

Rating: 18+

TW: Death, Murder, infanticide, death of the Jedi, PTSD, Loss, Anxiety, eating disorders, sleep disorders, Order 66. I will add other things as I think about them

Part 3: Again

It had taken you longer to get to Hondo than you would have liked. But, of course he had to be by some out of the way planet, forgotten by most. You pride yourself on your extensive knowledge of the planetary systems, knowing obscure things that even had Master Yoda chuckling with delight. But this place? You had no idea where it was. It never showed up on any star chart and quite frankly you were fairly certain he gave you incorrect coordinates. But, still, you went there to meet him. You had to laugh to yourself when you saw his ship waiting for you, floating in the dead of space. Hondo was telling the truth. 

"Kriffing pirates," you mumbled to no one, chuckling as you started preparing your ship to dock with his. No matter how many star charts you studied, how many space lanes you memorized, he would always know more obscure things than you.

As you finished the docking sequence and began to enter his ship, you mulled over what he would want to show you. Something he was either desperate to have or knew you would want immediately. Something he wouldn’t risk saying over a commed link, even if it was secure.   Honestly if this was another wild goose chase he put you on for something he could find at any market stall on any of the core planets...well you wouldn’t do anything except grumble while you went and got it. You should hate the power Hondo had over you, but you didn’t. He never did anything to you out of ill will or because he could. Hondo was just eccentric. 

‘But…,’you couldn’t help think. But what if? What if? What if he finally found something you truly needed? 

     Could it finally be Cody’s helm? Or could it be a piece of Rex? You knew in your heart it wasn’t either of those, it never was, but still you hoped. Still you held on and asked the Force to give you just this one win. Just this once, let you have something of Rex. Anything would do. A pauldron, his Kama, a piece off of his belt, something, anything. You just wanted some piece of him to hold onto. You missed him so much. You missed them both, but where Cody could be hard and demanding and strict, Rex was soft and loving. He would hold your fingers in secret where Cody would just stand. Rex would let his hand linger on your shoulder a few seconds longer than need be, while Cody would just grunt in acknowledgement. Rex would praise you after training; Cody would demand perfection, pushing you harder than Obi-Wan ever would.  But when he would show you his love, Cody would love with the brilliance of a burning sun.

Hondo waved at you from the otherside of his door, giving you a flourished bow before opening the airlock. But as you walked in, your mind wandered, thinking to your lovers. 

You missed them both so much and you could use a few of their pep-talks, especially now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obi-Wan and Anakin stood on the Training Observation Deck of the Negotiator, watching their Padawans work through a strenuous series of obstacles and training droids.

Cody and Rex stood on the sides of their respective Generals, watching as well.

Ashoka did well, flipping, moving, and swinging her saber with ease. Each of her targets went down with raw power, showing how strong she was getting. You, on the other hand, were tired and sore and not moving as quickly as you usually do. But, that was because Ashoka just came back off a week's leave from Coruscant and you had recently gotten shipside from a long and drawn out campaign with Foxtrot Group. You were exhausted when she was refreshed. But that didn't mean you could slack off in your training. You had to be stronger, you had to be better. You were Jedi, you would not fail.

Ashoka finished the trial a few seconds before you did, landing at the finish line on one foot. Just as you were about to execute your final flip, the training block shifted underneath you, causing your foot to slip. Before you could right yourself, a stun bolt hit you square in the back, knocking you down. You landed on the ground with a hard and loud thud, ending the exercise.

Obi-Wan watched as Ashoka went to help you up, feeling guilty for having you train. He knew you were tired and drained, but you had insisted on working with the other Padawan. He should have put his foot down and told you to get some sleep. But he didn't and here you all were. 

Anakin walked forward to the console and stopped the exercise, reseting it.

"Good job Snips, finally getting that barrel flip down.” He called over the comm. “Thank you, Master.” 

You were standing behind Ashoka as she spoke to her Master, dusting off your robes and massaging your neck, disappointed in yourself. You should have sensed that bolt coming, you should have been able to right yourself and finish the test. You stood there, mentally berating yourself so much that you didn't realize Obi-Wan had started to address you.

"It's alright Young One, you did excellent, but I fear your exhaustion has hindered your training for today. Why don't you go and eat and get some much needed rest and we can revisit this at a later time."

Obi-Wan, ever the loving caretaker, cursed himself for even allowing you to work in your state. You could have gotten seriously injured and where would that have put you? He knew in all honesty you should be in the medbay getting checked out and possibly doing a little time in a bacta tank.

But, Marshal Commander Cody thought differently. Ever the perfectionist, he would not accept this as the end of your session. With his bucket under his left arm, he walked up to the console and pressed the comm, calling you.

"No Jed'ika. Start over."

You looked up into the window of the viewing deck and saw him staring at you, eyes hard. The others looked on in mild concern and irritation. Obi-Wan was about to chastise his second, when he noticed you move to the beginning and prepare for another assault. You knew he was right, he always was. You could do better, you should be doing better, but you let your exhaustion lie to you. You weren’t so tired that you couldn’t finish this level. You’ve done this countless times, late in the evening, with Cody at your side. There was absolutely no reason you couldn’t finish it now.

Cody looked back to his General for a split second, as if looking for permission, before restarting the training exercise. This time, as you went though the course, you only made it halfway before failing again. There was a trick shot the training droids took that you weren’t prepared for and you took another bolt to your upper thigh. You were going to have an ugly bruise in a few hours.

Gingerly you stood, favoring your leg for a few seconds before shaking it off. Just another color added to your already mottled and scarred skin. 

As you went to stand, you saw the course reset once more and heard Cody’s voice over the comms, “Again.”

Rex didn’t like this, but he knew what Cody was doing. He knew if you were just pushed harder, if you were taken to your limit, you would not fail. He also knew that if you left the course without succeeding you would beat yourself up for days, feeling weak and useless. Rex didn’t like it, but he agreed. Obi-Wan watched on, focusing on your resilience and strength in the Force, humbled by his young Padawan. Anakin, on the other hand, didn’t like what was happening and felt that the Commander of the 212th was being too careless with your safety. This went on for some time, Cody would call for you to restart, you would fail, you would get up, and he would call again. Over and over and over. 

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Anakin had enough. “This is absurd! She’s clearly tired and needs rest. Hells, she needs time in the Medbay!” He walked up to the console and used his shoulder to push Cody out of the way, calling to you, “Padawan, you’re done now. Go straight to the Medbay. I want Kix to look you over.” He turned to Rex, “See she gets there, I don’t trust the Commander at the moment.”

Ashoka looked visibly uncomfortable from where she stood on the viewing deck and gazed up at Obi-Wan for any kind of reaction. He said nothing, just watching his Padawan try to get up off of the mat while pulling at the hairs in his beard. Before he could give the order for Cody to help take you to the medbay, Cody unceremoniously stomped over to the lift door and went down into the training room. They watched as he approached you and pulled you up, speaking harshly in a hushed tone to you.

You watched as Cody barreled towards you and crouched down at your eyelevel to look at you sternly. “Get up, Jed’ika. Get up. You don’t have time to wallow in your self pity. You don’t have time to lay here. You don’t have time to fail! Get up!” You listened to his words and tried to stand, but your knee where you had just taken a bolt gave out and you fell. Cody wrapped his hand around your bicep firmly and pulled you up.

“Each time you fail, another one of your men dies! You get up and you do it again! Each failure is another soldiers life gone! The men you swore to protect! Get up!” You nodded and stood on your own feet, albeit wearily. He was right. “You are a Jedi. You are not some clanker who falls over with the slightest push. You are better than this! You are better than your failure. You are Jedi. Do better. What is it that you’re always quoting from General Yoda? There is no try. You either do it, or you fail. And I do not accept failure! AGAIN.” Once he knew you were on stable legs, he stalked off to the sideline and prepared to yell at you more as you went through the program.

“Master, this is ridiculous! Cody has lost his mind! She’s too tired and needs medical attention.” Anakin was almost shaking; he was so upset. Who did Cody think he was? You were going to get seriously injured if you continued on. You needed rest and bacta, not constant berating and training. This wasn’t the way one taught a Padawan. This wasn’t the way Obi-Wan taught him.

 Obi-Wan quirked an eyebrow at Anakin and breathed loudly out his nose, removing his hand from his beard. “Yes, I do believe you are right, Anakin. It seems I have let this get out of hand.” He stood closer to the control panel, hand hovering over the comms, but instead of turning off the program, he restarted it and turned it to a higher level of intensity. Anakin balked.

 “Master! She’s going to get killed!” Ashoka cried out, looked to her Master and back to Obi-Wan, a strange feeling of anxiety sitting in her throat. It seemed through all the arguing and annoyances the Jedi were currently engaged in, they forgot about the Captain standing there, bucket under his arm, watching his brother and his Jed’ika. In his mind he kept a chant of ‘Come on, come on, you can do this.’ Over and over he thought, urging you to finish it. He wanted nothing more than in that moment to run down there and do as Cody was doing. He wanted to push you further, to push you to where he knew you could go. But he couldn’t, he was made to stand at ease and watch everything from the viewing deck. But, everything in him was down there on the mat with you, his most beloved, urging you to be better. The only thing on his mind was watching you finish this training exercise, going to your quarters to help you bathe, wrap your wounds, and finally making sure you ate a good meal. If he knew his brother, which he did, Cody was thinking the same thing.

You stood at the beginning once more and took a deep breath, hearing the mechanical beep signaling the beginning of the exercise. ‘Do better,’ you thought, before starting. You moved quickly through, dodging each blast, flipping and jumping higher and higher onto different ledges, using your saber to volley away bolts you could not dodge on your own, until you got to the point where you kept failing. Through the course, you could hear Cody yelling at you to keep going, keep moving, to not stop. You could hear him demanding excellence from you, he wanted more than what you thought you could give. He wanted perfection. It pushed you to go further, to work harder, to be better. You wouldn't fail your men and you wouldn't fail Cody. You dug deep into yourself and thought back to the training your former Master gave you, to that harsh and dangerous form. You could do it, you just had to concentrate. If you could find your center, you could toe that line made of shadows while still holding onto the light. You breathed deep, ‘allow your emotions to guide your strikes...feel that bubbling of anger and frustration, grab onto it to push you further. But do not give in. Just use it to fuel your power.’ Your old Master’s voice rang in your head, their training at the forefront of your mind. Multiple bolts fired at once, but instead of one landing a hit, you switched into Form VII, into Juyo. The most difficult saber form, Juyo was dark and dangerous, only used by those skillful Masters equipped with the knowledge of what it means to touch the Darkside and still stand in the Light. Used by your old Master.. taught to you by them in the shadows of Malachor… You shook your muscles out before jumping up against a wall structure, running its length with ease as more bolts were blocked. As you reached its end, you bounced over to the other wall and repeated the pattern, running and blocking, before twisting up onto its ledge. You stood, saber drawn across your body, balancing on the balls of your left foot as your right sat crossed on your thigh. You waited, breathing in and feeling the pulse of the machines across the Force. 

THERE. 

You flipped up, saber swinging around you in a figure eight, blocking each bolt back, volleying them towards the mechanical guns that sprang from the walls.

You landed once more in your previous spot before swan diving to the ground, landing with practiced grace and ease at the end, having finally completed the exercise. “Kark yeah!” Cody grunted, quickly walking to you. You had a tired smile on your face when he reached you.  He reached out to grab your shoulder, squeezing it gently, before letting his hand fall away just as quickly. You looked up at him with adoration. 

“I knew you could do it, Cyare,” he whispered, praising you, before taking a respectful stance, remembering that you were a superior and that you both were not alone. You nodded your thanks and tried to give him a look that said, "I love you". Hopefully he understood. He did.

Cody went to get you a towel to wipe your face as the others joined you on the mat. There were praises and excitement from the other Padawan, but both Obi-Wan and Anakin shared a look; they knew those moves. Knew that stance. A dangerous form like Juyo left unchecked could cause irreparable damage. It might be time for you to study a little under Master Windu if you are to continue in that form. Either way, Obi-Wan could feel the relief and happiness rolling off you, it could wait for another day. He also noticed a few feelings not very Jedi-like, aimed at the Marshall Commander and the Jaig-eyed Captain of the 501st. He quirked an eyebrow, but still he smiled his dazzling smile at you.

Obi-Wan was so proud of you, you felt giddy.  It was all you ever wanted, and you knew you had it. He was proud of you.You proved to yourself and your Master that you weren’t some weak kid playing at being a Jedi. You truly were one and no matter how tired or weary you were, you could finish what you started. 

Later that evening, after getting off duty, Rex made his way to your quarters, a tray of food in hand and a few bandages in the other. He hadn't even stopped at his bunk to change out of his armor. He went straight to the mess hall and then to you, wanting to check in.

When he approached your door, he knocked once before punching in your code, knowing he'd always be welcomed in. When the door slid open, he couldn't help but smile under his helmet at the sight. 

You were sitting on the edge of your desk, freshly showered, robes put away, wearing loose, grey, linen pants and a black smallshirt. Cody was also freshly showered and in clean blacks, his armor stacked neatly by your bed. He sat in your chair, positioned between your legs, wrapping scrapes and cuts from the campaign and the training from earlier in fresh bandages, rubbing bacta on your bruises, and whispering words of praise and love to you.

Beside you both were 3 trays of untouched food, waiting to be consumed; one for you, one for Cody, and one for Rex. 

Rex entered, letting the door slide closed behind him, a soft smile on his lips. He placed the extra tray of food next to the others, took off his bucket, and dropped a kiss to the top of your head before heading to your small refresher. When he exited, loose towel around his waist, Cody’s head was already buried between your naked thighs.

That night you all had the best sleep in ages, you sandwiched between the two men, tangled in sheets and their limbs, finally able to be together after so long apart. None of you would trade it for the world. 

[shatouto]

@obiwanobi allowed me to write a sequel to this lovely raised-as-sith!anakin and jedi!obi-wan fic!! pls enjoy this tiny little 1.3k of hurt/comfort

content warning: description of injuries

capable de deux

The standard clock strikes half past midnight.

Obi-Wan sets the basin on the floor. The man who is no longer Vader sits against the wall like a broken doll, one arm bent in a sickening angle, hands lying palm-up and unclenched between half-crossed legs. He’s not uncooperative, just limp, when Obi-Wan lifts his hands or turns his shoulder to remove the broken armor pieces. He’s not unresponsive, just lackluster, when Obi-Wan decides that the clothes are too mangled to salvage anyway and announces it to him in a murmur. He’s not unfeeling, just very, very quiet. Worryingly quiet.

In the shadow of Anakin’s silence, the only light that comes through is his eyes. Obi-Wan feels Anakin’s gaze like a physical thing, following his every movement in weary wariness as the scissors slowly snips their way along the seams. It’s borderline suffocating, how the air is so thoroughly silent that Obi-Wan can hear exactly how shallow Anakin’s breathing is. He sets all of the blood-soaked scrap fabric aside and dips a cloth in lukewarm water. He meets Anakin’s eyes, before wiping a streak down his front.

Anakin’s body is littered with scars; if there is a patch of unmarred skin left amidst the glossy criss-crossing, it would be dark with bruises. So many scars for someone so young, Obi-Wan catches himself thinking, frowning deeply - because Anakin is young, younger now than any other time Obi-Wan has glimpsed him outside of his distinct helmet. Young enough to be a Padawan, even, had the Jedi found him before the Sith. Obi-Wan sighs.

A deep cauterized gash runs from the tip of Anakin’s shoulder to the middle of his chest, and a fresh burn spreads from his heart to diaphragm, all of which Obi-Wan quickly covers with bacta patches before cleaning the rest. The blaster shot wounds are a more pressing concern, as they are still bleeding. He bites his lip in commiseration, nearly holding his breath as he cleans the too-tender flesh as gently as he can. His lineage does not have a gift for the art of healing, and Anakin’s shields are still rammed up high and tight, so Obi-Wan opts to monitor Anakin’s reactions for any sign of sudden pain.

Anakin doesn’t make a single sound. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. If it isn’t for his breathing sometimes hitching, Obi-Wan would have thought that Anakin is entirely numb - which would have been worrying. Whenever he glances up to Anakin’s face, their gazes touch; Anakin’s eyes train on his face rather on his moving hands, not alert, but not aimless either.

Water darkens in the basin. Obi-Wan has changed it for a third time, and is on his second washcloth. There is so much blood it’s a miracle that Anakin has made it this far, has dragged himself into the Jedi Temple without getting caught. Obi-Wan works his way down to the slippery patch on Anakin’s thigh, which turns out to be a wound that he can’t - and doesn’t want to - even begin to guess the cause: Raw burnt flesh just ripe for infection on the edge of a gaping cavity still oozing blood.

He whispers an apology as he has done for every touch, dabbing the cloth at the least damaged edge of the wound. This is by far the nastiest wound he’s seen, and Obi-Wan raises his gaze, worried that this might be where Anakin breaks.

Anakin doesn’t.

And somehow it’s even more disquieting.

“You can’t feel it?” Obi-Wan breaks the silence.

Anakin finally blinks at him. Even the confusion is better than the utterly blank look he has been sporting.

Obi-Wan breathes a sigh of relief, short-lived though it is. “Your injuries?” He specifies.

Anakin cocks his head a bit - almost cute, Obi-Wan thinks in passing - but then says in a voice devoid of emotions whatsoever. “It’s not that bad.”

Obi-Wan scoffs. “Anakin, there is blood and bruises everywhere on you and I think your arm is badly broken. Can you even feel it?”

Anakin shrugs with his unhurt shoulder. “No.”

“You can’t—” Cold dread bursts in Obi-Wan’s chest like a sheet of ice shattering. He places a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “Anakin, you need to see a healer! Why did you let me—”

“No, I mean”—Anakin straightens up minutely—“I can’t feel it because it’s not there anymore. It’s just a mechno-arm. Dooku cut my real arm years ago.”

“…Dooku.” Obi-Wan stares at him, voice flat. “Dooku, the other Sith, who’s supposed to be your ally. He cut your arm.”

Anakin makes a vague sound of affirmation, and falls silent, letting Obi-Wan struggle to form a reply to that. Now it’s his turn to look at Anakin in the face, while those now-blue eyes turn towards the ground, lashes so long they cast shadows of their own.

“Don’t call a healer,” Anakin finally mumbles, not looking at him. “I don’t want healers. I don’t want… people. I don’t like anyone touching me.”

“Oh.” Obi-Wan’s eyes widen, realizing that he still has his left hand on Anakin’s shoulder, while his right rests just over Anakin’s knee, still clutching the washcloth. He makes to pull away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Anakin’s hand flashes up in sudden, unexpected liveliness, immediately squeezing Obi-Wan’s hand on his shoulder. His eyelashes quivers.

“You’re not ‘anyone’.”

—

The entire living room smells like bacta with a hint of blood by the time Obi-Wan is done. He locks Vader’s lightsaber with its buzzing red crystal in a drawer, and wraps away the broken prosthetic and ruined armor and shreds of clothing; it’s not safe enough to discard them conventionally, and he will have to burn them later, ideally somewhere unfrequented. Right now, there is no way Obi-Wan can leave his quarters. Not with Anakin limping out of bed at the sound of a fresher door sliding open or shut.

By all rights Anakin should have passed out from lightheaded exhaustion by now, yet he seems even more awake now than even when Obi-Wan first found him on his knees in the hallway. Anakin pauses at the sight of him and sits back down on the edge of the bed. He fixes Obi-Wan with the gaze of a Loth-wolf.

Obi-Wan lets out a sigh, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He takes a seat beside the former Sith. “Anakin,” he enunciates each syllable in a lingering rhythm, “could you please stop watching me like this?”

Anakin blinks at him; so far, Anakin seems capable of two states of being: desperate, and confused. “What do you mean?” He looks deceivingly innocent, covered in bandages and wrapped in Obi-Wan’s colors - a thought that Obi-Wan, startled, quickly shuts down. “I’ve always looked at you like this.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth hangs open, his mind running the sentence through. Always? Since before? And then it occurs to him that Vader wore the helmet along with his full suit of armor every time they clashed in battle. The few rare times they crossed paths outside of combat were all hair-thin ceasefires, too tense, too charged with fragile hope for him to notice. It dawns on Obi-Wan that Anakin has no concept of what is an appropriate amount of looking, of staring at someone.

“...Should I not?” Anakin ducks his head a little, and reaches for Obi-Wan’s hand.

By Force, this is a man who demanded surrender from Jedi only to open fire on them, who killed hundreds with just his hands and a lightsaber, who led operations that burn cities of civilians, who scorched the earth of whole planets and poisoned whole systems. This is a man who has done enough evil to make the core of a kyber mountain shudder. He has no rights looking like this, lamb-like in both colors and manners.

But could a child weaned on blood and brought up on broken bones know any better?

“Go to bed, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, in a tone distinctly reminiscent of that which he used with a younger Ahsoka in her rebellious day. (Not that she has gotten any less rebellious; she only moved on to matters more significant than bedtime.) He squeezes Anakin’s hand, and eases him down onto the pillow, and watches Anakin until Anakin can’t watch him back anymore.

And like all infants who fall asleep with a hand in their own, Anakin holds on tight.

[writerbuddha]

What do you think of Padme talking Anakin down after the Tusken Massacre with "to be angry is to be human" but then choosing to marry him instead of exposing his crimes after Geonosis? Do you have any thoughts on her role as one of Anakin's enablers vs her role in trying to save the Republic?

Hello and thank you for the question, it’s a very good one!

But I have to write a very long answer.

Padmé never enabled Anakin. Nor she condoned his actions or talked him down. I believe that scene, her motivations and lines are fundamentally misinterpreted, because they don’t understand (or accept) what George Lucas tells us about good and evil.

Evil, the dark side is not an external force, seducing, infecting, conquering you, nor an intrinsic characteristic, something what you are. Evil is what you do and the effects created by what you do. And your evil actions are manifestations of anger and hate, all rooted in fear of loss. Just like in Buddhism, in Star Wars, this is what “in your existence some call evil, otherwise known as fear.” What we call evil is really just the result of fear. Fear of not having, fear of losing what we have: power, privilege, wealth, or fear of not being the people who has the right to claim the world of their own. And this fear births anger, what gives rise to hate. And thus, evil is suffering: it can never bring real, lasting happiness. Only genuine love, what conquers fear, and gives you peace.

And this is also the reason why you should separate sin from sinner. Beings are not evil - their actions are. But the core of these actions are nothing but being afraid, being angry, being hateful. Labeling beings themselves as evil is a trap. It makes you believe that doing them harm, and other acts of evil are justified. This view led Anakin to butcher the Tuskens. Whereas this is delusion, creating evil. No one who does evil, believes or knows they are evil. They believe their actions are justified, they are good, they are righteous. You can find this in the Holy Bible, too: "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." You must protect yourself and others from them, of course. But never act out of fear of losing, out anger and hate. It leads to the dark side.

This is the foundation of the redemption story of Darth Vader. He cannot be redeemed from all the terrible things, all the suffering he caused, no one can make them disappear. But he become an entirely different person, someone who brought balance to the Force within: his selfless side, compassion, genuine love, conquered his selfish, fearful side. He never become evil, but his fear resulted his evil actions. He broke that fear down with love - and he stopped making evil. This was the good side, the good in him what Luke saw and wake in him in Return of the Jedi, the light, buried, but not fully destroyed, and the same good what Padmé knew to be there in Revenge of the Sith.

Padmé and Luke’s approached Anakin in one and the same way. Just like his son, Padmé knows that Anakin is not what he had done and his evil actions were the result of fear, anger and hate – and he regrets them. In the garage scene, he is tormented by terrible guilt, and he admits in The Clone Wars that he wasn’t able to put it behind him.

In Attack of the Clones, Anakin is no longer the person – inside – who butchered the Tuskens. That man was driven by his anger and hate, and the man who confesses his crime to Padmé, that man is full of regret, shame and pain. Still, he cannot forgive them (which, if we want to be truly honest with ourselves, is not that hard to believe). Padmé, being aware of this, despite she is horrified from what he had done, mirrors her son’s actions: offering absolution, comfort and love to the remorseful. “Being angry is being human” she indicates. However, Anakin, holding on to his anger, unable to get rid of his guilt, and he does not accept forgiveness: “I am a Jedi. I know I am better than this.”

Even in Revenge of the Sith, just like Luke in Return of the Jedi, Padmé tries to reach out to him: "You are a good person, don't do this" and even when she fails, she declares "there is good in him. I know there is still." Luke, following exactly his mother's footsteps, comes to the same conclusion: "There is still good in him" and he prevails.

[grumpyhedgehogs]

and the world tilts upon its axis

Summary: “You never told us.” Anakin’s words pierce directly into Ahsoka’s heart; she can’t imagine what they do to his master. That stricken feeling flits through the Force again before Obi-Wan can wrangle it again. At least it gets Anakin to look up. He looks torn, agonized, pained, but repeats, unsteady, “You never told us.”

“The past is not an easy thing for me to speak of.”

Notes: (Obligatory ‘everyone finds out about Obi-Wan’s shitty childhood’ fic.) Past Abuse/Violence, Slavery. 

“It really isn’t a problem anymore,” Obi-Wan tells them all very reasonably. “I haven’t had a vision in years--not a clear one, anyway. Feelings, things like that, but nothing so concrete as they used to be. Master Qui-Gon taught me how to see past the feelings years ago.”

“You used to get Force visions,” Ahsoka says, tone rather shrill, “and you never told us?”

Anakin makes a loud choking noise deep in his throat. Cody, sitting on a crate of supplies near where Ahsoka and her master collapsed half an hour after their latest battle, shakes his head. Ahsoka pulls herself up to sit beside him, feeling rather as if something very important has been ripped away from her before she even knew it existed. He looks up at Obi-Wan, the only one standing out of all of them, and says, “I don’t understand what the big deal is.”

“There isn’t one,” Rex supplies. Skyguy tries to swat at him without taking his arm from over his eyes, but Rex moves out of the way and leans back against a wall of the Resolute. He shrugs. “Jedi are just dramatic like that.”

“Much as I dislike the generalization,” Obi-Wan interjects, “I have to agree in this case. Force visions can be upsetting and helpful in equal measure, and they faded from my mind a long time ago. I’m surprised my medical files even contain a record of those after all these years."

“What if they come back!” Anakin sits up, glaring. “You never even said anything. I’ve heard Master Windu talking about how forceful they can be--you cold pass out if a vision comes at the wrong time! I’ve heard some younglings are prone to seizures!”

The thought makes Ahsoka shudder. She wraps her arms around herself surreptitiously. Cody sends her a sympathetic look.

The next words out of Master Kenobi’s mouth make her blood go cold. “Well, yes, I know that, Anakin. I was the youngling Mace was speaking of.”

“What.”

Obi-Wan waves his commander off, though, and shakes his head. “Honestly, it’s fine now. We wouldn’t even need to have this useless conversation if you hadn’t sliced into my medical files, Anakin--”

Rex is already across the room and peering over Anakin’s shoulder as her master rifles through his datapad, so Ahsoka chalks Obi-Wan’s efforts up as a lost cause. She pulls her own datapad out and shuffles closer to Cody instead; Skyguy sent her a copy of her grandmaster's file as soon as he could manage. Something about not being able to trust Obi-Wan when he said he didn’t need to go to medical.

Ahsoka thinks that is the pot calling the kettle black, but--

“You have nerve damage?”

At Rex’s incredulous exclamation, Obi-Wan closes his eyes for a long, long moment. Then he opens them, runs a hand over his beard, and looks around for a place to sit. “This is going to be a long conversation, I see. Is everyone sure they wouldn’t like to move to, I don’t know, anywhere but the cargo hold, before we begin?”

“Shinies are everywhere else,” Rex points out briskly, “but the cargo hold is too cold for most of us. We run too warm to be comfortable here.”

“That isn’t good. You should’ve told us sooner--I’ll have to talk to Master Shaak Ti about what we can do for you.”

“Deflecting.” Anakin intones. In any other setting, his stern tone would make her laugh. Obi-Wan sighs again, and settles down into a meditation pose across from his former padawan, fixing them all with a half-exasperated, half-doting look.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says. “I have nerve damage. I’m sure you’ve all seen how many layers I wear? It’s to help my blood circulation. I can’t keep myself warm enough otherwise, because I can’t feel how cold my surface skin is until it’s too late. So, extra clothing all the time, just in case. I can deal with a little sweat if the outcome is less chance of frostbite.”

“ Why do you have nerve damage?”

“Have you seen how many times I’ve been electrocuted?” Obi-Wan answers. He’s too serene for Ahsoka’s liking.

“I’ve been electrocuted twice as much as you have,” Anakin points out. At his shoulder, Rex nods, but stops when Anakin snaps his gaze to his captain. He turns back to his former master. “And I don’t have nerve damage.”

“You’ve been electrocuted twice as much as I have been recently.” Her grandmaster normally looks a little tired, but this conversation seems to be getting to him more than most; he rubs at his face again, and, with his hand still over his eyes, says, “Electro-whips and prods were the weapon of choice in the mines.”

The words are quiet, like Obi-Wan really meant for them to be under his breath, but it makes every spine in the room go rigid.

Very slowly, Anakin sits forward on his knees. His datapad slips from his lap. Rex only just catches it before it clatters to the floor. Ahsoka has never seen her master’s eyes look as sharp as they are now. “Which mines, Master? And what were you doing there?”

Obi-Wan’s lips thin. “You do realize I’ve had an entire life without you? Twenty years or so, in fact. Things did happen to me before you came along.”

It’s always been a fact that Obi-Wan is older than herself and her master. It’s never bothered Ahsoka before--until now. To know he’s been alone--without them, at least--for so long? The clones are all artificially aged to be around Obi-Wan’s age, maybe a little younger. It’s easy for Ahsoka to forget they haven’t been around forever, that Cody hasn’t been one step behind his general every day of both their lives. It turns her stomach.

“Answer the question!” Anakin all but demands.

Obi-Wan’s hand falls from his face and for a second Ahsoka can detect something stricken in the Force before his expression smooths over into an artificial calm. “It’s really not--”

“No.” Cody says. It’s all he can seem to get out. Ahsoka tries not to flinch at the darkening mood in the Force and reaches out to loosely grip Cody’s wrist. After a moment, he turns his hand over and offers her his palm as Obi-Wan begins, reluctantly, to speak. Ahsoka takes it.

Obi-Wan bites his lip when he tells them about being sent away from the temple.

It rocks Ahsoka to her core when he speaks about the situation on Bandomeer, even more so with the revelation that he nearly wasn’t a Jedi. A Jedi Order without Obi-Wan Kenobi? A Council without his guidance? A GAR without the Negotiator?

Her lineage without his support?

“You had to fight a Hutt without anyone to help you.” Anakin sounds more choked than he did before. Ahsoka wishes she could reach out and soothe him in the Force, but she’s doing her best to keep her shields up. The Force knows how Master Obi-Wan is feeling right now.

“Master Qui-Gon helped me when he could,” Obi-Wan assures. His voice isn't as steady as she’s used to, but he carries on admirably. It makes Ahsoka wonder how long it took him to perfect his sabacc face. Her heart twists in her chest. “He’s also the reason I only spent a few weeks in the mines--I was fitted with a Force-inhibiting collar, you see, so I had to have help navigating my way out with the rest of the--” He cuts himself off. It takes a minute for the gears to turn in her head, for Ahsoka to realize he doesn’t intend to continue.

“The?” Rex prompts, face and tone bleak. “The miners?”

Obi-Wan actually does wince now. “The slaves.”

“It was a bomb collar,” Anakin says. "You were fitted with a bomb collar." His face is blank until Obi-Wan nods, at which point his expression seems to crumple in on itself. Anakin puts his head between his knees and breathes loudly through his mouth. Obi-Wan pauses and refuses to go on until Anakin raises his head and glares her grandmaster into submission. In the back of her mind, in the only small corner not screaming in horror, Ahsoka hopes one day she’ll be able to cow her own master like that.

She regrets the thought as soon as Obi-Wan speaks, quiet and too soft into the dead silence of the air around them, about Melida/Daan. “They were just children,” Obi-Wan whispers. His hands clench and unclench on his thighs and it is all Ahsoka can do not to let go of Cody’s fingers and throw her arms around him. “I couldn’t leave them behind, even if it cost me my place among the Jedi. They had no one else to turn to. You must understand?”

It explains so much of his file--parts of it are redacted, too early in his apprenticeship to signal anything but disaster, and he’s reported too many times to the Halls of Healing--too many times he’s had to be carried in. If Ahsoka had the same medical record her grandmaster does, she’d have to get herself grievously injured on every other mission, and she’s grown up in a Force forsaken warzone.

She’s positive she doesn’t want to hear the rest.

Ahsoka isn’t sure how long it has been when Obi-Wan’s voice peters out soon after his explanation of Cerasi’s sacrifice on his behalf (and Force, did everyone Obi-Wan ever loved have to keep dying in his arms, it’s so disgusting, it’s awful, how could this happen so much to just one person, to someone she loves--). After a long moment of quiet, Ahsoka finds the strength, herculean as it is, to lift her gaze from where it has been fixed on her knees. Her grandmaster stares into middle space just the same as her, and his face is as she has never seen it before--stone cold, closed off and unwelcoming. It’s sort of like when Skyguy gets into one of his moods.

Speaking of Skyguy, he doesn’t seem to be faring much better; his head is between his knees again but his hands, like Rex’s beside him, are clenched into fists. He’s shaking so hard she can see it from across the room. Ahsoka realizes that at some point Cody let go of her own hand, and glances around to see him clenching his bucket on his knees fit to crush it between his very human palms.

Then her grandmaster draws himself up into a proper sitting position and sighs, a light puff of air that Ahsoka has come to learn is his way of reorienting himself. “It worked out in the end. Qui-Gon came back for me when I called and was able to help bring balance to the planet--something I couldn’t have done alone. I was admitted back into the Order as his apprentice and then--” Obi-Wan’s lips twitch into a sardonic smile. “Well, nothing much happened until we went to Mandalore, but you know just about as much as I am willing to tell you about that experience.”

The attempt at humor falls a little too flat.

“You never told us.” Anakin’s words pierce directly into Ahsoka’s heart; she can’t imagine what they do to his master. That stricken feeling flits through the Force again before Obi-Wan can wrangle it again. At least it gets Anakin to look up. He looks torn, agonized, pained, but repeats, unsteady, “You never told us.”

“The past is not an easy thing for me to speak of.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

Anakin’s eyes spark with heat. She can’t see much of Obi-Wan’s face from here when he turns his head, just enough to know they’re having one of their silent conversations. Those have become few and far between, of late. It’s almost a comfort to see.

“You were my padawan.” Obi-Wan says slowly, like he’s formulating his words as he thinks of them. Ahsoka herself feels drained, empty, a husk--she can’t imagine how he must feel right now. “Ahsoka is my grandpadawan. Rex and Cody are my subordinates. It’s incredibly inappropriate, not to mention irresponsible and near abusive, to unload such traumatic, personal stories upon those who cannot legally or knowingly consent--”

“Sir, permission to speak freely?” Cody doesn’t wait for more than a surprised, dry laugh, before he says, “That is absolutely the biggest crock of bantha fodder I’ve ever heard.”

“Perhaps. That does not mean it is not true. I should not have even told you now--I just don’t want you to find out from some clinical diagnosis instead. You all deserve better.”

“Oh, I have no doubt you believe everything you just said, even that kark you just spewed. It’s just horrifying to know you think it.” Cody’s grip relaxes on his helmet with no little effort. He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth once, and then opens his eyes and nods decisively first to Rex, who nods back, and then to Obi-Wan, who looks puzzled. “But we’re here to help, Sir. No matter what.”

Obi-Wan’s smile pulls a little wider. “Even if I don’t want it, hm?”

“Especially then,” Rex agrees. “Right, General? Commander?”

“Of course.” Ahsoka says, the words struggling so much to stampede out of her mouth that they trip over themselves.

“Always.” Anakin croaks. He’s the first to scramble to his feet as his master rises. He’s the first to throw himself at Obi-Wan. He’s the first to wrap him in an embrace that lasts maybe a bit longer than Master Kenobi’s sense of decorum would prefer. (Not that she sees her grandmaster complaining, of course.)

Anakin is not the last.

Rex settles for a nod and a clap on the shoulder. It’s only his position closer to Skyguy and Obi-Wan that gets her captain there before his commander; Ahsoka shoves him bodily out of the way and wraps her arms as tight as she can around Obi-Wan’s middle. Her skin itches and her muscles flex with the need to squeeze the sadness, the pain, the terrible past right out of him, even if she knows that’s silly. She tries anyway. Subtly, of course. Obi-Wan holds her back, just as he held Anakin before her, warm and all-encompassing and so safe. (Now she knows why. Now she knows he needs to feel that she and her master before her and every youngling after them is safe, that they are protected against a world that threatened to swallow him up and spit out his bones.)

Cody is last, stepping up to his general as Ahsoka pulls away reluctantly. He holds out a hand and Obi-Wan, without missing a beat (although his eyes are a little misty, but so are Ahsoka’s, and Anakin's, and Rex’s), grips his commander’s forearm. He goes very still when Cody pulls him into a keldabe. Ahsoka turns her eyes away when he lets out a trembling breath. Cody speaks, but his rumbling tone is too low for Ahsoka to pick out words. It’s alright, though; they aren’t for her.

“Mishuk gotal'u meshuroke, pako kyore.” Cody murmurs, slightly louder. Obi-Wan scoffs quietly and Ahsoka turns her head just in time to see Cody smirk back, pull away, and shake Obi-Wan’s arm, just a little, friendly, familiar. It makes the clawing, cloying thing in her chest that has grown throughout the evening finally ease. Skyguy wraps an arm around her, guiding them both out of the cargo hold and back to their quarters. He’s got the right idea--she’s very tired now.

Before the door closes behind Rex as they step outside, she hears Cody’s last words to Obi-Wan and wonders what they mean.

“ Aliit ori'shya tal'din.”

The Force is noticeably lighter when Ahsoka wakes in the morning.

[maulusque]

WHAT IF MAUL KIDNAPPED ANAKIN RIGHT OFF OF TATOOINE

(I started writing this and then it got out of hand and now it’s 3:30 in the morning, rest of it’s under the break so i don’t monopolize your dash)

So for whatever combination of reasons, Maul spits out the kool-aid and gets really disenchanted with Sidious a lot earlier than in canon. He starts wondering things like “why is he not telling me his master plan if i’m so important to it?” and “why do i get nothing more than vague promises of power sometime in the future, when i should be guaranteed a position as his second-in-command, after all I’ve done for this guy?” and “why does he treat me like i’m disposable, and then constantly tell me i’m crucial for his plans?”

and he starts thinking things like “hey wait a minute, none of that childhood torture made me better at anything sith-related, it just gave me crippling trauma that actually impairs my capacity for self-control and incredible violence” and (possibly due to his experiences at Orsis Academy) “oh whack looks like kids learn a lot better and faster when they’re, like, having fun? Whatever ‘fun’ is?”

and anyway by the time he gets to tatooine with orders to “find that stoner jedi and kick his ass”, Maul is pretty annoyed at his master. And when he senses not one, not two, but THREE powerful force-presences on Tatooine, one of which vastly eclipses any other force presence he’s ever felt, and belongs to a nine-year-old slave boy, Maul gets an idea. You know, (he thinks), his master sure would love to get his hands on a force-baby like that. Master Sidious sure would be evilly thrilled to have an extremely powerful nine-year-old delivered directly to his doorstep on coruscant, with the jedi having to do all the heavy lifting of training the kid. Master Sidious would probably want nothing more than to have this kid be taken in by the Jedi, so he can start grooming a new apprentice. 

And Maul, full of spite and an as-yet-undiscovered need to adopt every force-sensitive in sight, decides to deprive Sidious of a potential apprentice. He follows Anakin to Naboo (in this universe, Anakin still wins the podrace, still wins his own freedom), and, after the fighting is over, sees a prime window of opportunity, and kidnaps Anakin right out from under the Jedi’s nose. 

(In this universe, Obi-Wan does not cut Darth Maul in half and dump him down the garbage chute- Maul, unwilling to do his master’s bidding any longer, doesn’t go full out against Qui-Gon, doesn’t kill him, and Obi-Wan doesn’t get that grief-and-rage filled boost that helped him dismember Maul last time. The fight ends, the Jedi are convinced that Maul is dead, and Naboo is freed).

Once Maul has the kid, since he’s a pragmatic guy, he also returns to Tatooine and takes the kid’s mom. Maul doesn’t know how to cook, do laundry, tie shoes, or any of that shit. He doesn’t want to have to PARENT the kid, he just wants to train him. 

Maul has zero money, and also zero subtlety, so he stomps into Watto’s shop, grabs him by the neck, and says “The boy's mother is coming with me. You will disable her slave chip and let her leave unharmed, or I will squeeze your head off.” Watto complies. For Anakin, this is his first real impression of Maul- storming the junk shop and threatening his former master for the freedom of Anakin’s mother.

Maul is determined to do a better job training Anakin than Sidious did training Maul. Because FUCK Sidious. Maul can be a WAY better Sith than Sidious ever allowed him to be. And since Maul is slowly realizing how... unhelpful... the way he was raised was, he’s determined to figure out how to do it better.

So he reads. He reads training manuals, child psychology books, teaching books, studies on motivation and performance, anything he can get his nerdy little hands on. He learns that frightened children don’t perform well. He learns about “trauma”, and how “trauma” makes it hard to control your emotions sometimes. Well, you can’t have THAT in your ultimate sith apprentice. Okay, so no scaring Anakin and no traumatizing him. Maul quickly realizes that literally everything he does frightens Anakin or his mom, and frightening Anakin’s mom also frightens Anakin (cut him some slack, he’s literally never been in a positive relationship, Maul has no model for any behavior other than “evil abuser” and “subservient slave”).

Maul is not an idiot. He knows he’s not doing it right. He’s reluctant to start teaching Anakin ANYTHING until he knows he won’t accidentally damage his precious spite-apprentice. So he mostly ignores the kid while he reads and learns.

He also observes. Specifically, he observes Shmi Skywalker. Somehow, she seems to be able to interact with Anakin without scaring him. She can even tell him what to do without scaring him. She can teach and correct him without scaring him. And she never physically hurts him at all. Maul is kind of blown away- he didn’t even know it was possible to interact with people like that? HOW does she DO it???

So Maul watches and learns. He practices. Shmi helps, guides him, tells him when he messes up and tells him how to do it better. Maul gets a lot better at restraining his murderous urges. Turns out, if you immediately kill everyone who annoys you, it’s hard to ask them for advice after. The other person Maul gets pointers from is C3PO, the protocol droid the kid dragged along. Maul understands 3PO better than he understands Shmi and Anakin. 3PO is a droid. Maul was raised by a droid. Maul knows how to talk with 3PO, whereas talking with Shmi or Anakin feels like wandering around in a fog full of landmines.

So anyway, Maul and 3PO become unlikely friends, and, as Maul, determined to out-parent Sidious in every conceivable way, learns more and more social skills, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal skills, he truly comprehends how fucked up his own childhood was. There’s rage. There’s grief. There’s murderous desire for vengeance. But there’s also Anakin. Who would be scared if Maul smashed the ship or killed random people to vent his anger. Anakin, who needs something called a “positive role model”, who needs to be taught how to use the Force, and who needs the adults around him to have their shit together. There’s also Shmi, who makes him soup and hot chocolate when he’s feeling bad, and tells him off for breaking things, and who helps him get better at being a real person, and who doesn’t seem to want anything from him other than a general expectation of not hurting her or her son. So Maul deals. He grows. He heals, slowly. There’s setbacks, and gains. And somewhere in there, he starts teaching Anakin how to use the Force.

The problem is, Maul learned to access the Force first through fear and anger. Turns out, it’s really hard to teach someone fundamentals of force usage via fear and anger without first having to traumatize them. So right away, Maul hits a barrier. He doesn’t have any clue how to teach Anakin a different way though. He needs help.

But also, FUCK the jedi. NO WAY is Maul asking the Jedi for help, he hates the Jedi. Maul is still a Sith, he’s just a new, better kind of Sith, the kind that trains apprentices who are gonna kick WAY MORE ASS and be HEALTHY WELL-ADJUSTED PEOPLE while doing it (let him dream, ok?). So Maul starts hauling Shmi and Anakin around the galaxy, seeking out any non-Jedi Force-users they can, to learn Force techniques that the Sith didn’t teach Maul.

They spend time with the Guardians on Jedha, with those weird duck-people from that one episode with Jar-Jar’s girlfriend, with some wacky monks on a tiny island in the ass-end of nowhere, and even some time with a long-lost sith cult in a box system in the middle of the Unknown Regions. Maul learns. Anakin learns. Maul uses what he learns from the other force-users, combines it with what he knows, and teaches Anakin even more. The Jedi and the Sith are really the only two groups who really use the force for Big Impressive Things, like telekinesis and lightning and whatnot, so while the other force groups would have a lot to teach them both, they wouldn’t really be able to teach Anakin how to levitate something. And you can’t be the kick-assiest, bestest Sith Apprentice Ever if you can’t levitate shit. So Maul takes takes all these new techniques, like “being calm and chill when you meditate instead of super pissed off” and “using the Force while not being filled with incredible rage” and “mindfulness techniques” and “who knew you could do cool stuff like floating rocks without having to exhaust yourself by hating everything in existence, including yourself” and applies them to the skills and methods he already has. He and Anakin have to do a lot of fumbling and exploring and mistake-making, but they figure it out. And Anakin learns. And he kicks ass.

When Anakin is 11, Maul hauls him off to Ach-To to dig a crystal out of the roots of an ancient tree. He tells Anakin to hold it and meditate, to let his emotions rise around him, to feed them, to pull them through the crystal, let it resonate, let it take on the shape of his strongest feelings. After all, that is how Maul was trained to bleed his crystals. Maul’s pain and fear and anger yielded him red crystals.

Anakin comes out with yellow. Determination, fierce protectiveness, drive, hunger for justice, righteous fury. That is Anakin’s lightsaber.

Anakin grows up, planet-hopping with his Mom and Uncle Maul in a beat-up freighter with under-the-hood enhancements out the ass (Maul ditched the Scimitar right after Tatooine so his master couldn’t instantly track him down, and Maul and Anakin are both huge mechanics nerds and bond over things like “but what if you put ANOTHER PLASMA CORE IN THE ENGINE”, so this ship is, uh, certainly some sort of thing). Anakin grows up learning a hundred different Force traditions- just about every major Force tradition in the Galaxy (except for Jedi), and more than a few obscure ones. He grows up, tinkering with his droid, learning Juyo from Maul and how to sew a button from his mom. He grows up, beholden to two destinies only: “Help me take down Sidious, because he’s an asshole and a shitty Sith Lord” and “do whatever the fuck you want, because you are a Sith and no one gets to tell you what to do” (”except me.” Shmi interrupts. “Sith Lords still have a bedtime.” “Sith Lords still have a bedtime,” Maul amends, having no desire to repeat what happened when he encouraged a ten-year-old Anakin to ignore all the rules on purpose).

And what Anakin wants to do is what he’s always wanted to do- go back to Tatooine and free the slaves. Maul thinks that a big project like that would be an excellent learning opportunity for Anakin. He also wants Anakin to succeed, so he sits him down and talks logistics. How do you free the slaves without hundreds of slave owners detonating their chips when they hear what is happening? How do you keep them free once you do that? How do you get them jobs, clothes, food, houses? What about the ones who want to leave Tatooine? What about the ones who want to stay? And what about the economic upheaval that will happen when you deprive a whole planet of its cheapest source of labor? When Anakin is fourteen, they start planning.

When Anakin is eighteen, they make their move. Anakin, coordinating with Shmi, who returned to Tatooine three years earlier to organize things on the ground (living with a woman named Beru Whitesun, who is a gateway to the Freedom Path network), activates several massive orbital EMP devices, frying every electrical device on the planet, including slave chips. (The EMPs came from a pirate friend of his mom’s, who seems to do whatever she wants as long as she makes him hot chocolate). All over the planet, lights go out, slave chips fry, and radios go silent. And Shmi’s agents get to work. Ordinary citizens all over tatooine grab their rifles and head out. They meet up with others in their settlement, and the teams sweep the area, following a plan devised by Skywalker and Whitesun. They systematically visit every house in every settlement, city, spaceport, and town that is known to house slaves, and tell the slaves to grab their families and most treasured possessions and follow them.

(Tatooine is a sparsely populated planet- you can count the major settlements on two hands. If it weren’t, this would never have worked.)

Not many slaveowners put up much of a resistance- fifty angry masked people pointing guns in your face tend to make you compliant. The only slaveowner who puts up more than a token resistance is Jabba the Hutt. His resistance, however, lasts about thirty seconds, before Anakin cuts off his head.

Maul meets Anakin at Jabba’s palace, where he’s rounding up the last of Jabba’s cronies. 

“No trouble?” Maul asks.

“Nope,” Anakin replies. “You?”

“None.” Maul said. Turns out, it’s like, super easy to take down an entire criminal organization when you can turn up to a meeting of the Hutt family heads, kill them all, and waltz out past all their security forces without breaking a sweat. (Seriously, it’s kind of hilarious how Maul is literally just that good). 

“The slaves here are freed?”

“Yep,” says Anakin. Then frowns. “Hold on...” He senses a presence. Big, hulking, simple, and starving. He can sense that, whatever it is, it hasn’t seen the sunlight or been able to move freely in years. 

So anyway, that’s how Anakin turns up at Mos Espa at first sunrise, riding on the back of Jabba the Hutt’s pet rancor. “Who’s a good girl,” Anakin says, scratching behind her ear nubs. “You are!” And she is a good girl. Padme (”I just think it sounds like a nice name, you know?”) is very good at dispersing angry slaveowners who look like they might start rioting. 

The slaves freed overnight have been gathered together at pre-designated safe zones-mostly warehouses or large buildings that Shmi has been buying up over the years for exactly this purpose.

(The slaves living in remote settlements, at moisture farms and homesteads, didn’t get a visit from the freedom teams. However, Shmi had a plan for them too. She has made overtures to the Tusken tribes. Once she managed to negotiate her way into speaking to one of the leaders without getting killed, she sold them a story, a dream. A revolution. Free the slaves. Transform Tatooine. She doesn’t promise the Tuskens to expel humans from the planet entirely. She promises them equal rights under the law (she also promises the existence of laws in the first place). She promises them the right to raise Banthas, the right to traverse their ancestral lands and the return of sacred sites taken from them, the right to trade, the right to control who passes over their lands. She promises them the right to water and shade. And, she promises them half the seats on the ruling council she plans to set up. And so, on the night the EMPs blow, Tusken raiders visit every homestead on Tatooine (again, there’s only a few hundred, a thousand at most), and kidnap the slaves. Perhaps not the most reassuring experience for enslaved peoples who have been taught their entire lives to fear the Tuskens, and not without reason, but, nevertheless, it is freedom).

As the new day dawns- Tatooine’s first dawn as a free planet- Anakin, Maul, and Shmi know that the easy part is over. Now, they have to house tens of thousands of people currently cooped up in warehouses with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They have to establish and keep iron-tight control over the planet and its settlements, and quash any violent reprisals before they gain momentum. They also have to completely rebuild an economy completely upended by the overnight emancipation. 

However, Shmi’s not the only one who’s been busy for the past few years. While Shmi was on Tatooine, planning a revolution, Anakin and Maul were traversing the galaxy, gathering resources, using the Patented Maul Method (TM)- breaking into the headquarters of powerful organizations and threatening to kill everybody in charge unless they did what they said.

As the second sun rises, ships begin arriving in Tatooine’s orbit. Pop-up housing is dropped onto the outskirts of Tattooine’s settlements, the kind that mining companies use to set up new bases on mineral-rich asteroids. The accommodations are small and sparse, but each family has a kitchen, bathroom, beds, and private space. Huge generators are hooked up to cool the new housing. Anakin knows that the already-existing slave quarters, made of stone with no windows and mostly underground- are already built to keep the occupants cool, but he refuses to make the former slave population live in slave quarters. Some of the freed people are moved into Jabba’s old palace, some into buildings abandoned by rich business owners who fled the planet when they saw what was happening. Food, water, medicine, clothes, books, toys, tools, and shoes are deposited. (the Republic’s equivalent of the FBI had been utterly baffled when Galaxy’s three biggest criminal organizations started moving cargo that looked less like a drug trade and more like a disaster relief mission). 

Anakin walks among the newly freed slaves, reassuring them- yes, you are free. Yes, you will be fed and housed and clothed as long as you need it. Yes, we will try to find your child/husband/wife/mother who was sold years ago. Yes, you can go home, you can do whatever you want.

He also asks for volunteers. And he gets them. Hardly anyone would say no to the chance to work with the Skywalker, who once was a slave like them, but freed himself and returned, who freed the slaves in one night of glory, and appeared at sunrise riding a rancor.

Anakin sends out messengers, all across the planet. “Tatooine is a free world,” they say. “All slaves are hereby freed, by order of the He who Walks in the Sky. Any slaveowners who, by their own free will, turn over their detonators will not be harmed. Any who resist, will be.” Not many resist.

At the end of that first day, as the suns are setting, once the freed peoples of Tatooine are fed, and given water, and sheltered, Maul comes to Anakin.

“I am proud of you.” He says. “You have come into your power, you have mastered yourself, and so have mastered the Force. You have the freedom and the power to do anything you choose. You are no longer my apprentice. Lord Skywalker, you are a true Sith Master.” Anakin pulls him into a hug. He maybe cries a little bit. Maul maybe cries a little bit. Maul maybe also feels mildly annoyed that Anakin is a full head taller than him now.

(Sidious would be truly, utterly offended at Maul’s criteria for Sith-Lord-ness. “THAT’S NOT SITH” he would have said. “THAT’S BARELY EVEN DARK SIDE ADJACENT, YOU ARE DILUTING OUR THOUSAND YEAR HERITAGE-” but Maul wouldn’t care about Sidious’ stupid opinions, anyway).

And Anakin and Shmi get to work. They employ the newly freed people of Tatooine, constructing permanent houses, tearing down slave markets, building critical infrastructure. Anakin pays them more than a living wage, thanks to the extremely deep pockets of Crimson Dawn. He brings in doctors and teachers, and guarantees healthcare and education for all who want it (whenever one of Crimson Dawn’s higher-ups says “wait, why are we dumping massive amounts of money into this one random-ass planet?” Darth Maul just casually sidles up behind them with his lightsaber until they remember that he can literally just show up anywhere, at anytime, and kill them unless they do what he says. If Maul’s busy, he sends 3PO instead- 3PO’s been outfitted with about ten times as much weaponry as is legal, and can be very convincing when he wants to be).

While Anakin works on infrastructure and supporting the freed peoples of Tatooine, and unfucking the economic trainwreck they caused, Shmi and Beru work on the government. They write down a few, very basic rules-Tatooine is to be ruled by a council of people, half of whom will come from the Tusken tribes, all of which shall be selected by fair and free election. All citizens of Tatooine shall have the right to vote in these elections, and the right to vote shall be guaranteed to all- except for those who have ever owned or sold a sentient being. (it was a huge debate in the Lars-Whitesun-Skywalker household, this matter of restricting voting rights. In the end, it was decided that slaveowners, and ONLY slaveowners, were to be the sole exception for universal suffrage). Every citizen of Tatooine is guaranteed access to food, medicine, and water, and has the right to have their grievances addressed by the council.

Shmi works quickly to gather her council- she knows she has to do it fast, to prove to the Tuskens that she is as good as her word. The first elections are chaotic, and perhaps not completely non-violent, but in the end, there is a council of twenty representatives, with Shmi Skywalker representing Mos Espa.

The Council proceeds to have raging- and occasionally violent- debates about the structure of their future government. What rights to guarantee citizens. Should they have a court system? What about a financial system? How are they to guarantee water, food, and medicine to everyone? What even are taxes?

The Rebuilding of Tatooine is long, and hard, and contentious. There are arguments and rage and fighting- the repatriation of traditional Tusken lands is especially fraught. But Shmi promised, and so she makes it happen (Anakin and Padme may have helped too). Maul, for his part, keeps training Anakin, and keeps managing the criminal underworld with a careful balance of death threats and actual death, but mostly stays out of the way of Anakin’s Senior Project. 

Soon, Anakin is able to re-purpose the pop-up housing, since most people have moved into traditional Tatooine-built homes, suited to the environment. The newly restructured economy is tentatively taking its first steps, and Tatooine’s baby government is becoming less and less dependent on intergalactic criminal funding (partially thanks to Anakin confiscating the entirety of Jabba’s personal fortune). He spends a lot of time in Council meetings, trying not to scream at people while also trying to stop Padme from eating them. The Council debates what is next for Tatooine, and eventually, they vote to petition the Republic for membership. Tatooinians, as a people, including the Tuskens, are fiercely independant, but, as Shmi points out, joining the Republic would guarantee them to certain things like humanitarian aid, a voice in decisions affecting interplanetary trade routes and taxation, legal legitimacy and the right to call on the Republic for aid should their sovereignty ever be threatened. Most importantly, slavery is illegal on all Republic planets, which means that if any slave-owning organizations ever pushed in on Tatooine, there would be another (much better funded) organization to call on to help quash it. 

The Republic requires that a petitioning planet’s head of state visit the Senate on Coruscant to ask the Senate for entry into the Republic. The Council, grumbling, re-jiggers their constitution to allow for a “chief councilor”, and promptly elect Anakin to the position (”Fuck me,”) Anakin says. Maul laughs at him, then sobers and tells him to be careful on Coruscant (”My former master lives there.” he says. “Mind your shields, and do not let him know your true nature. You are not yet ready to take him on, and you have your planet and your people to think of.” “Yes, Uncle Maul.” Anakin says. “I will be careful.”).

Anakin shows up in the Galactic Senate, sandy robes, uncombed hair, and half smirk on his face. “I am Anakin Skywalker, free person of Tatooine,” he says. He presents the case for Tatooine’s admittance to the Republic in a booming, confident voice, drawing on his inner strength- his righteous anger and determination to ensure his people’s future- to keep his voice from wavering.

There are grumbles. Muttering. No Senator wants to be the one to blatantly say “no”- it’s a sort of miracle story, Tatooine, the little planet that rose up and threw of the shackles of slavery and now wants to join the Republic- the exact sort of mythos that the Republic itself is built on. It’s bad PR to vote against that little planet. But at the same time, Tatooine is a sandy, useless dustball that’ll need fiscal support from the Senate, with nothing to offer in terms of economic value. Many Senators are debating with themselves, not whether or not to say “no”, but how to vote “no” without losing ten points in approval ratings.

Until the Senator from Naboo, a diminutive woman who somehow reminds Anakin of his rancor, stands up. She gives an impassioned, off-the-cuff speech, reminding the Senate of how her own planet had thrown off the shackles of oppression not ten years ago, how the Republic was founded by planets like Tatooine, and how, most importantly, they had no legal basis to deny them entry, and if the Senate voted no, Naboo’s lawyers would litigate the issue six ways from taungsday- which, due to a clause in the Senate’s constitution that forbade them from passing legislation while the issue of a planet’s admittance to the Republic was on the floor, would effectively paralyze the Senate until the courts made a ruling. And, as Padme made sure to emphasize, if the court’s decision was not favorable, she would appeal. She could feasibly stop the Senate from doing anything for years, if necessary.

Tatooine is admitted to the Republic.

“Two Senators,” Anakin demands. “In order for my people to be fairly represented, my planet requires two Senators.” When complaints are made, Jar-Jar Binks threatens to explain the complicated dynamics of a planet attempting to grapple with a colonial past. He doesn’t have to. Tatooine gets its two Senators.

Anakin meets with Senator Amidala in her office, to thank her.

“Of course,” she said. “I remember a little boy who helped free my planet- how could I not help you when you needed it?”

“Uhh, thanks, yeah, that’s, really nice of you. Like your hair. Which is nice. In an objective sort of way,” Anakin says, because there is no universe in which Anakin is not a complete idiot in front of Padme. “I named my rancor after you,” he blurts.

Before Anakin is scheduled to leave Coruscant, the Jedi send a knight to scope out the new planetary leader. Obi-Wan Kenobi shows up at Anakin’s hotel room, and goes “Oh. It’s.... you.” 

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin grins. He only knew him for about two days when he was nine, but he still greets him like an old friend, like a brother. They fall into easy, teasing conversation. “I thought you were dead, I confess, after you disappeared from Naboo,” Obi-Wan admits. “I am truly sorry that I was unable to fulfill Qui-Gon’s promise to train you as a Jedi Knight.”

“That’s ok,” Anakin waves his hand dismissively. “I got trained as a Sith instead.” Then he freezes. Oops. He was not supposed to say that. Maul would be so disappointed in him.

“Beg pardon?” Obi-Wan says.

“I, uhh, got trained, as a, uh, sift...er? Instead? A sand sifter? I sift sand for a living?”

“You said Sith.”

“No I didn’t, I definitely said sift.”

“No, you said Sith.”

“I definitely did not.”

Anakin changes the subject, and Obi-Wan lets it drop. He’ll tell the Council, of course, but he honestly cannot fathom the concept of this kid being a Sith. He senses nothing Dark about him- well, at least no more dark than is present in any sentient. Besides, it’s not like there are any Sith Lords around anymore, ever since he killed Maul (luckily, Obi-Wan doesn’t see the picture in Anakin’s wallet, a candid shot 3PO took in the cockpit of their family’s ship. Fifteen-year-old Anakin, at the controls, hyperbrake still on with his hands on the hyperdrive lever, Maul, standing behind him, hands gripping Anakin’s seat and face distorted half-way through a panic-induced rant about flight safety, and Shmi, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, laughter on her face and knitting needles in her hands).

Anakin contacts his mother, tells her the good news. The Council, moving with alacrity, elects Tatooine’s first Senators. And four days later, one year after the Dawn of Freedom, Senator Shmi Skywalker and Senator Ooutrigh (a Tusken warrior) of Tatooine arrive on Coruscant and address the Senate for the first time. 

Of course, while Anakin has been growing up, planning for Tatooine’s future, and annoying the shit out of Maul, Palpatine’s own plans have continued apace. Barely four months after Tatooine is admitted to the Republic, Obi-Wan finds himself in an arena on Geonosis. The battle goes much differently this time, partially due to the fact that Anakin has retrofitted the cargo bay of his family’s ship to house Padme (the rancor, not the Senator), and descends onto the Arena sands just as Yoda and the Clone Troops arrive, and deposits both Padme’s (the rancor, and the Senator) into the melee. 

“Hi, Obi-Wan!” Anakin calls, whipping out his lightsaber to deflect the hail of blaster bolts (Maul would disapprove, but Maul isn’t here, he’s ten clicks away, chasing down the Jedi dropout Sidious replaced him with). 

“Anakin, what the FUCK” Obi-Wan says, staring at Chief Councilor Anakin Skywalker of Tatooine, riding a rancor and swinging an honest-to-Force yellow lightsaber. 

“Master Yoda, what the FUCK” Anakin says, later, after the battle is over, when he finally gets Yoda to answer his questions about the clone troopers. “You found out about an entire-ass army of slave child soldiers commissioned AND PAID FOR by one of your own council members, and your reaction is ‘oh thank goodness, now we have an army?’ What the FUCK is WRONG with you?!” Yoda tries to explain to Councilor Skywalker that the situation was dire, they’d had no choice, but Councilor Skywalker just keeps repeating “AN ARMY OF SLAVE CHILD SOLDIERS” at him. “No choice, we had,” Yoda says yet again.

“BULLSHIT, you had no choice!” Anakin yells. “You could have chosen to not use the entire army of slave child soldiers that you legally own!”

“Let Kenobi and the others die, you would have? Hmm?”

“PROBABLY, YEAH!” Anakin hollers (”Thanks,” mutters Obi-Wan). “Sometimes the choices you have all really suck, but you still have to make them! You can’t just pretend you didn’t have any options, you HAD OPTIONS, and you chose the one that involved using a SLAVE ARMY OF CHILD SOLDIERS.” He gestures behind him to the battlefield, where clone troopers and medics are moving amongst the bodies, white and red stark against the sand, tallying their dead brothers.

Yoda shakes his head. “emotional, you are, young Skywalker.” he said. “Cloud your judgement, your feelings do.” 

“Yeah, I’m fucking emotional!” Anakin practically screams. “I have personal beef with slavery, so excuse me if I feel emotions about it. Your problem is that you’re able to use an ARMY OF SLAVE CHILD SOLDIERS and not feel bad about it! Your lack of emotions is clouding YOUR judgement!” He stomps off. Yoda shakes his head. Skywalker is young, and too close to the issue of slavery to really have perspective on it. He does not understand. It was a great loss to the Jedi Order when the Council rejected him, all those years ago- if he had been trained as a Jedi, he would have learned to put aside his emotions about slavery, and he would have understood why it was necessary now. If Anakin could have heard what Yoda was thinking, he would have turned right back around, picked Yoda up, and punted him like a limmie ball.

Anakin and Maul return to Tatooine. Maul offers to assassinate the entire Jedi Council, but Anakin says no. He’s still fuming about his conversation with Yoda. He knows he gets emotional. He knows that Yoda isn’t entirely wrong- he knows he lets his emotions cloud his judgement sometimes. It’s something he’s worked hard on, over the years, him and Maul. How to take a step back from the emotions howling in your head, and how to view the situation without them getting in the way. And what kinds of situations you should let your emotions guide you. Anakin thinks he’s damn well entitled to strong emotions about slavery. 

Short of declaring war on the entire Jedi Order, Anakin doesn’t know what to do about the Republic’s slave army. The Tatooine Council releases a public condemnation of it, explicitly calling it slavery and calling for the clones to be freed. The Council seriously debates joining the Separatists, until Padme (the Senator, not the Rancor) and Shmi look in-depth at the Separatist Council, which is buried deep in the pockets of corporate interests. Shmi files a lawsuit, under the Republic’s anti-slavery legislation, suing for the freedom of the clones. It’s a battle of miserable inches, and meanwhile, the war rages.

With Dooku gone, Sidious’s only means of controlling the Separatists is through Grievous and Ventress, both of whom are loose cannons whose loyalty (and competence) he seriously doubts. It’s frustrating for him, and not necessarily better for the Jedi and their army (of slave child soldiers). Sidious needs to keep the war in careful balance, neither side gaining too much ground, to draw it out and grind the Jedi down and manipulate their public image until he can heap all the blame on them. Without Dooku to pass down his orders, he has no way of keeping a firm check on the Separatist Council, and the Seps are in serious danger of completely overrunning the Republic. The droid army is fifty times as many as the clones, and the Separatists have the Trade Federation, the Banking Clans, and all of the major military tech corporations on their side. Honestly, it’s a testament to the Jedi and the Clone Army that they haven’t lost the war in the first month.

Speaking of that first month, Anakin doesn’t spend long on uninvolved in the war. Scant weeks after Geonosis, the Separatist Army threatens to roll right over Tatooine on their way to gaining control of the Outer Rim Hyperlanes. Tatooine has no army, doesn’t even have a police force. It has no fleet, no orbital defenses, and the droid army headed their way has ten times more droids than there are guns on the planet. The Council faces a choice. Ask the Republic to send in the GAR to defend them- ask for an army of slaves to be sent to die on Tatooine, to stain the sand with enslaved blood so soon after Tatooine clawed her way to freedom, or do nothing, and almost certainly ensure the annihilation of Tatooine and her people. To die, or to live by the blood of slaves who died for you. It’s not a pretty choice.

In the end, the choice is taken away from them (and perhaps it’s a kindness, that they weren’t forced to choose, perhaps it’s the coward’s way out, but it is what it is). A GAR cruiser shows up in orbit, and the Council is hailed by a man identifying himself as Captain Rex, commanding officer of the 501st legion of the GAR.

“The Republic sent you here?” Anakin asks, incredulously. 

“Well, not exactly.” Captain Rex hedges. “The 501st is due for leave on Kamino, but the hyperdrive was making funny noises, so we decided to stop off in the nearest Republic system to check it out.” Rex shrugs. “If a bunch of tinnies just so happen to show up, it’s not like we’ll just sit back and watch.”

“Why are you doing this?” Anakin asks the clone captain, once they’ve got him on planet and in the council room. He’s got a lump in his throat, and his eyes are stinging. The 501st has no Jedi on board, no natborn officers, and no orders to go to Tatooine. Rex and the 501st showed up here of their own free will. Because they wanted to. To defend Tatooine.

“Geonosis.” Rex says. “On Geonosis, you saved the lives of over two hundred of us. Including me. We couldn’t stand by and let your planet fall to the Separatists, Councilor Skywalker.”

After the battle, during the cleanup, when Tatooinians are passing through the rows of injured, giving out water- giving out life- Rex tells Anakin the other reason.

“We all know about Tatooine, sir.” He says, quietly. “A bunch of slaves who stood up and said “no,” and took their freedom.” He shrugs. “Stories like that, it gives us hope. For the future.” He fixes Anakin with a stare. “If we let that hope die, we die too. Tatooine cannot fall.”

That is the first time Anakin and Rex fight together. Somehow, when the 501st leaves Tatooine, Anakin goes with them- officially, as a consultant/observer, appointed at the request of Senator Skywalker to observe the GAR and monitor the health and wellbeing of the troopers. Unofficially, Anakin and Rex become a lethal team, making the 501st one of the most effective legions in the Galaxy. Anakin isn’t dumb. He knows he’s being a massive hypocrite, running around with an army of slave child soldiers. Rex, however, insists that it’s different.

“First of all, we asked you to come with us.” he says. “Second of all, it’s not like you staying behind would have made any difference in our situation. And besides, scrapping clankers isn’t the only reason I asked you to come with us.” Anakin raises an eyebrow.

And Rex introduces Anakin to his older brother, Cody, commander of the 212th (Anakin is happy to see Obi-Wan again, but appalled to meet Obi-Wan’s fourteen-year-old togruta padawan, because why would you put a CHILD in a warzone, in a COMMAND POSITION). And Cody brings Anakin in on The Plan. The clones will not remain slaves forever, and they will not wait for some elusive promise of gratitude after the war is over. They will take their freedom, and they will defend their own, and they’re asking Anakin, who freed the slaves of Tatooine, to help them do it. 

“So basically, you want me on as a consultant.”

“Basically, yeah.” Cody says. “And also as a guy with a lightsaber who can leap fifty feet into the air and dodge blaster bolts. Those are always handy to have around.”

So Anakin and Rex and Cody, and Cody’s small circle of commanders, lay their plans. And in the meantime, there’s a war to fight. Shmi’s still on Tatooine, but Maul comes with Anakin and the 501st. He and Rex get along like a house on fire, but you wouldn’t know it from watching them- they do nothing but argue and needle each other. Rex sarcastically calls Maul “Commander Maul” because it pisses him off so much, and it catches on with the whole legion. Maul constantly mutters about murdering and/or poisoning Rex.

But after Ventress almost chokes Rex to death, and breaks into his mind to make him do her bidding, Maul doesn’t leave Rex alone for a week, and clutches his hand tightly in the medbay. Rex doesn’t mention it, so neither does Anakin. 

Padme, on the other hand, makes no secret of how much she loves Rex (the Rancor, not the Senator, though she likes him too). Padme seems to have concluded that Rex is some sort of long-lost hatchling, and can be seen chasing Rex down the hangar bay, trying to corral him into the nest she’s constructed in the corner reserved for her. Rex gets used to surprise cuddles from a massive predator.

The Jedi Council are at their wit’s end with Skywalker, but their hands are full and honestly, he’s a benefit to the war effort, so they assign Obi-Wan to “supervise” the legion, and leave them to it. Obi-Wan and Anakin strike up a deep friendship, unfettered by the baggage that comes with being master and padawan. Obi-Wan finds himself having serious questions about the Jedi’s role in the war, since Anakin is not at all shy about challenging him on the whole “slave army of child soldiers” thing. Obi-Wan is also, quite frankly, too busy to effectively teach a padawan, and by this point, he knows that Anakin’s had some sort of Force training. He’s fought beside him enough to be confident in his skills, and often sends Ahsoka on extended missions with the 501st, and explicitly begs Anakin to help him fill in the gaps in her training. Anakin obliges enthusiastically. 

Of course, Maul helps train her too. Obi-Wan shows up on the Resolute one day to pick her up, and asks how her training’s going. 

“Great!” She says. “Skyguy’s weird uncle is teaching me jar’kai-”

“Anakin has an uncle?” Obi-Wan asks, surprised. “Who knows jar’kai?”

And so Obi-Wan and Maul meet once again. And Obi-Wan is just absolutely pole-axed. 

“Darth Maul?” He splutters. “Is your uncle?” 

“Not biologically,” Anakin shrugs. “He practically raised me, along with my mom. He taught me everything I know about lightsabers and the Force.”

“...”

“...you did say Sith, Anakin, you bastard, sand-sifting MY ASS-”

“Oh, it’s you.” Maul says. “I won’t kill you, but only because Anakin likes you.” Obi-Wan throws up his hands.

Somehow, Obi-Wan and Maul come to an understanding. Somehow, Obi-Wan doesn’t turn him over to the council. 

At one point, a giant of a zabrak, easily eight feet tall, with skin a poisonous yellow, shows up, claiming that Maul is his brother, and that he’s here to bring him home to Dathomir. Maul takes one look at Savage and goes “Fuck that”. “I will train you in the ways of the Force,” he says. “I can show you power like you’ve never wielded before.” he says. “You shall be a great and feared Sith Lord,” he says. “Have some hot chocolate, you look cold,” he says. “Put on a sweater.” Savage, slightly bemused, comes to terms with the fact that he’s just been adopted.

It’s Maul who figures it out, of course. How could he not? He was raised by Sidious. He knows how devious he is, how his plans have layers upon layers, backups upon backups, contingencies stacked from here to the Outer Rim. Once Sidious moves, you can be sure that any reasonable outcome will be in his favor, because he has completely engineered the situation before you were even aware it existed.

The Sith caused the war and are playing both sides. The Sith caused the clones to be commissioned (these things are trivially easy to figure out, if you’re paying attention). The Sith want the Jedi dead.

“Contingencies,” Maul mutters. “It’s always a trap, and there’s always contingencies.”

When he finds the chip in Rex’s head, he shakes with rage and refuses to talk to anyone, fearing, for the first time in years, that he will lose control and hurt someone he loves. It is Rex who talks him down, who manages to get close to him, who embraces him and lets him cry on his shoulder, then scream and rage and punch the walls. When Maul is able to explain, Rex has to choke back his own terrified, horrified sobs. He holds them back, and calmly looks at Maul and says “What are you going to do about it?”

The surgery, they discover, is simple enough. An astromech can do it in two minutes (C2PO can do it in seventy seconds, and Artoo can’t stand it). When Anakin is told, he goes quiet for a minute, and when he looks back up, it is not Anakin, Rex’s friend, Maul’s kid, who is sitting at the table in the briefing room. It is He Who Walks in the Sky, Huttslayer, Breaker of Chains, who looks back at them. Anakin Skywalker has always wanted nothing more than to free all the slaves. And Anakin Skywalker’s destiny has always been to do what he wanted.

They tell Cody. They modify their plans. They quietly contact medics throughout the GAR, and Artoo quietly sends the details to every military astromech he trusts. When the army is safe from Sidious’ control, Anakin, Rex, and Maul conspire to lure him off of Coruscant. Maul takes over Mandalore, exiling the duchess and announcing a New Sith Empire. Sidious shows up, declaring that Maul has become a rival, disowning his former apprentice and attacking him, with intent to kill. Savage loses an arm. Maul almost loses his life. But as he lies on the ground at Sidious’s feet, arms trembling with the effort of holding the parry keeping Sidious’ saber from his throat, he hears “We’ve got the face shot! Go, go go!” in his earpiece. Gunfire, real slugthrowers, difficult to block with a saber, erupts around him. C3PO and his arsenal, along with Fives, Jesse, and Echo, the 501st’s best ARC troopers, open fire on Sidious. The Sith is forced to back away, raising a hand to stop the bullets in midair. Maul leaps to his feet, and Anakin joins him, lightsaber drawn. 

The fight is quick, but brutal. Maul’s hands threaten to tremble with terror, facing down the horror of his childhood, the monster whose treatment of him is woven fundamentally into his psyche, whose shadow has haunted Maul all his life, and still invades his dreams. But he reaches out to his family, to Rex, beside him, steady, full of faith in him, to Anakin, a blazing sun of love and anger, a shield of raw power, and to Shmi, all the way in her Senate offices on Coruscant, cool and calm and soothing like a desert spring as ever-present as the stars. His hands do not tremble. He raises his lightsaber against his master, beside the blade of his son. Together, they beat the Sith Lord back. Anakin binds the Sith’s blade, knees him in the ribs, and while Sidious is thus occupied, Maul cuts his head off.

“You were a terrible parent,” he pants, and spits on the corpse. Then, he collapses, and Rex is there to catch him, and Maul clings to him and shakes, and cries. Anakin reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder, and Rex pulls him in with a look, and together, they surround Maul, a bulwark against the rest of the world, a safe circle for him to fall apart for a little bit. At some point, one of them unstraps the small camera that Maul had been wearing on his chest. Ahsoka has, at that point, already sent the footage to every major news office on Coruscant.

That evening, plastered all over the galactic news, is a video of the Chancellor himself, showing up on a neutral world and attacking its sovereign leader, wielding red lightsabers of all things. And it’s obviously the Chancellor; there’s a clear shot of his face when he knocks Mandalore’s ruler to the ground and the camera gets a good view right up into his hood.

It’s a massive scandal. One tabloid shows the footage with a little counter in the corner, counting up every treaty and galactic law that Palpatine violates onscreen. The only thing that saves Palpatine from impeachment and arrest is the fact that he’s already dead. Inquiries are launched, investigators are sanctioned, documents and hard drives and testimony are subpoena’ed. Padme (the Senator, not the Rancor), spearheads the investigative committee, and within a month, they’ve uncovered decades worth of bribes, backroom deals, contracts with droid manufacturers, clear evidence of Palpatine authorizing Republic funds for weaponry that went straight to the Separatists, and even communication records between the Chancellor and the two military leaders of the Separatists. Grievous and Ventress go into hiding (the Tales of Grievous and Ventress, unlikely buddies forced on an intergalactic road trip on the run from the cops, is a story for a different absurdly long post at 3am). The Separatists break down in chaos, and the war grinds to a halt. In the middle of all the political hurricane, Cody enacts his plan, and the entire GAR simultaneously deserts, and fucks directly off to Tatooine. This ignites another scandal, with Senators calling for Tatooine’s expulsion from the Republic. Shmi stands in her Senate Pod, hands tucked into her roughspun sleeves, listening attentively while Senator Burtoni of Kamino accuses her of theft.

“If Tatooine does not return the stolen military assets, the Senate may sanction the use of force!” the Senator from Ryloth threatens.

“Pardon me,” Shmi says, “May I ask what army the Senate is planning sending to invade Tatooine? I was under the impression that the only Republic army was already there.” There’s a bit of an awkward silence.

In the middle of the shitstorm, before Shmi is arrested and Anakin declared an enemy of the state, Shmi’s lawsuit finally receives a ruling. And just like that, the clones are legally free. And the judge orders the Senate to pay reparations. Anakin cackles with glee when he hears. 

Rex and Cody, with the full support of the people of Tatooine, begin the long, hard, work of resettling their brothers and building a life for the vod’e. Shmi files a lawsuit against the Zygerrian Empire. Savage receives a new arm, courtesy of Anakin, who may or may not have added a few extra utilities to it. Ahsoka is knighted, and controversially invites Anakin to be present at the ceremony, along with Obi-Wan. Maul admits, very quietly and where only Rex can hear, that he doesn’t actually want to poison him. “I know,” Rex says, smiling at him. Anakin, meanwhile, finally marries Padme, the love of his life (the Senator, not the Rancor).

And in Mos Eisly, there is a stone slab, pulled from a crumbled wall and stuck upright in the ground in the middle of the square. No one knows who put it there, but someone carved fifty-seven names into the stone. The fifty-seven names of the clone troopers who died defending Tatooine from the Separatist army, at the beginning of the war. The last slaves to spill their blood on the sands of Tatooine.