#i LOVE BERU man don’t get me wrong but he did one of the most diabolical shits in the story fr 💀💀💀 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

siennahrobek · 4 years ago

Text

Future Past

“Your father was my best friend.”

Hearing about his father was something Luke always wanted to know, no matter what it was or what time of day it occurred. Ben always had the best stories about the young Jedi knight; a phenomenal pilot who fought fiercely for those he loved. There was the longest time where all Luke wanted was the chance to meet him, to know him like Ben had.

Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru didn’t talk about Anakin Skywalker, aside from the brief he was a space freighter pilot, and he was dead. They were always so cautious when he asked about him and got even more worried when Luke showed signs of wanting to be a pilot. It had made the hand carved wooden gifts of ships that were left on his grandmother’s grave even more special. Like there was silent support from them but not wanting to make it clear because of their feelings when it came to his father. It had taken quite some time before Luke had realized that neither Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru were the ones making and giving them. It had taken even longer for him to realize it had been Ben.

When Ben had taken him in, it had not been long for him to confess that he knew Luke’s father. Not just knew him, was friends with him. Luke learned so much from Ben’s stories and more often than not, Ben was absolutely calm and willing to share them. His father hadn’t been a simple space freighter pilot but actually a General in the Clone Wars and a crazy good pilot.

Luke wasn’t too bad himself, if he was being honest.

He craved more and more, and Ben had never run out of stories to share. It was like he and Luke’s father had spent a lifetime on adventures and soon, Luke even asked about any adventures he had that didn’t include Anakin Skywalker, ones stretching as far back as to Ben’s childhood, when he was Luke’s age and more. Because it wasn’t long before he loved Ben too. He felt connected to him immediately, drawn by some unnamed feeling that made him feel safe and warm and right. They just clicked together.

Ben told Luke about the Jedi Order, an entire culture like him – with the Force, as Luke learned the named feeling was – that defended and helped people the best they could. Always happy to talk about it, Luke never had a lack of questions to ask or Ben a lack of stories to tell. It made Luke dream about it, not just his father, but the Jedi and the Order as well. Thousands of people with lightsabers and abilities like his, connecting with one another and others, striving to make the galaxy a better place. A huge, beautiful Temple where they all lived and played and worked. Boundless knowledge and a thousand waterfalls. Luke would dream about it so hard, as if he did it enough, he would get that chance.

And Ben could get that back.

It didn’t work but that didn’t stop Luke from trying.

Their longest conversation about Ben’s past, with the Jedi and with his father, had been on a ship they had gotten a hold of while in hyperspace. It was one of the real small ones where there was little room to do anything but read and talk. Luke, young and eager, had curled up into Ben’s side with the older man’s cloak wrapped around his form and asked question after question. Ben nearly always had answers.

“And then I told him, good job,” Ben continued, his hand waving for emphasis. Luke giggled. Even being as young as he was, had quickly learned a lot of Ben’s wits. He knew his tones and expressions and he loved learning about them. Ben was the constant in his life. No matter where they were or what was happening, Ben was there to keep Luke safe and warm and happy as he could. And Luke learned him in return.

“You didn’t mean it,” he cackled, finding that hilarious. “You were sarcastic.”

Ben just smiled warmly down at him. “Ah yes, a bit of a flaw of mine, I suppose. As I have been told. His care and determination may have been commendable, but he also nearly got his charge and himself killed. We were chained to the poles when the Geonosians – they are a bit like giant insects –,” Luke squealed in delight as Ben continued, describing the physical attributes of his former captors. “They had released these three large beasts, starving and angry, to kill us.”

“They were hungry?”

“Yes Luke. It wasn’t their fault. The Geonosians had not given them any food and they were desperate. They wanted to survive,” Ben explained gently.

“Did they?”

“Sadly, no, beacon,” Ben murmured. Luke tucked in closer.

“That’s sad,” he murmured. “Did they hurt a lot?”

“They were taken care of, quickly, youngling. They felt little pain,” Ben assured. Whether it was true or not, it was to spare Luke pain. “The young Senator had freed herself and soon after, so did Anakin and I. There was a brief battle with the animals, your father had even calmed one enough to assist us. And then, Master Windu came with two hundred other jedi.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “Two hundred?” he questioned, disbelievingly.

“Two hundred,” he repeated. “They were all very brave.”

“Two hundred,” Luke echoed. “That is so many! I wish I could have seen them.” He wished he could have met them. Talked with them. Bonded with them. Ben’s eyes softened, as he ran a hand through Luke’s blonde hair, his voice lowering and his grief, although muted with shields, palpable within the force.

“I wish that too, dear one. More than you know.”

Present Past

Anakin couldn't stop staring at the teenager who wouldn't leave Obi-Wan's body and the growing irritation in the pit of his stomach just got worse. He was just ready to tackle this person and get to his former master’s side. What right did this child have, taking him away? Anakin was his padawan, former or not, and that would never change.

They had all gotten to the gunship without any setbacks. The troopers hadn't been able to salvage anything more than Obi-Wan's droid, R4, from the crashed ship, although were a little surprised with the extra addition of the boy. There was nothing in the desert to suggest where he had come from. No one had any real idea how this had happened or who this person really was. The name Luke meant little to nothing to Anakin or any of the others in their little entourage.

The boy was still tense around them, although Luke seemed vaguely calm around Rex - but only Rex - and they had all gotten into the gunship Anakin and the others had come in on. He had settled into the corner of the ship, carefully keeping Obi-Wan next to him. The older man had yet to make a move or give any indication that he would awake but Luke just adjusted the robes and brushed the light bangs from his face, giving frequent glances, eyes furrowed as he appeared as if he was studying Obi-Wan’s face.

Luke wasn't much younger than Anakin, perhaps a few years. Still a teenager but an older one. His hair was a sandy blonde, sweeping like bangs across his forehead. He was dressed in simple robes similar to most of those in the galaxy, although his were a little lighter, including the Jedi, with sand-covered boots. He didn’t even seem to mind the sand that much, not even bothering to wipe some of it off. Anakin did, however, constantly trying to work through the grains out of his mechanical hand and dusting off his clothes.

As they got settled into the ship, another trooper, who had previously stayed behind, tried to approach but Luke just glared fiercely, clutching Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. The trooper backed a step, out of the way of the blade that would surely pop up if Luke pressed just a tad more on the ignition.

"He's a medic, Luke," Rex murmured, assuring. It did little to dissuade the boy, but he didn’t ignite the blade so perhaps it could be counted as a win.

"What is your name?" Luke asked, eyeing the trooper.

"Lakeside, sir," the trooper responded.

Luke paused but it seemed to be the wrong answer. "My apologies, Lakeside, but I think it would be best to wait."

"Wait?" Anakin hissed, stepping forth. Everyone eyed him warily. They knew one wrong move could prove fatal for any one of them, including Obi-Wan. “He is bleeding, he can’t wait!”

Luke just ignored him and turned towards the two men at the front which just made Anakin bristle even further with anger. Ahsoka put a hand on his arm in attempt to calm him. It didn’t work very well. "Pilot, where are we heading?"

"General Skywalker's star ship, the Resolute," the co-pilot answered.

Luke’s mouth twitched. "Is the ship Negotiator, here?"

"No, sir."

The boy hummed and looked away, back towards Obi-Wan. He thought about this for a moment. "Fine. Is Medic Kix on the ship?"

Anakin blinked at him, blankly. How did this boy know all of this? How did he know Kix? How did he know Obi-Wan? Where did he come from? What did he want? A million questions were screaming and running around in Anakin’s head, making everything hurt.

The co-pilot answered for him. "Yes sir."

"We would appreciate his assistance then when we board," Luke nodded with his request. He didn't seem too pleased with the lack of Obi-Wan's ship, but Anakin was more concerned that he knew about specific ships and specific soldiers.

"Who are you?" Anakin demanded, stepping forward again. Luke's response was to get in front of Obi-Wan, protectively covering him with his own, a bit smaller, body. "How do you know my trooper's name? How do you know Obi-Wan?" he demanded. His hands had curled into fists, and he gripped them so hard his mech hand had actually creaked. The ship was into the air now, with the outer doors locking. The area became dark before the dim lights flickered on overhead.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Luke snorted but he sounded rather amused. That just infuriated Anakin more.

“On what?”

“Anything.”

Anakin’s lip curled and he nearly drew blood. “Look, kid. I don’t have a lot of patience right now. You are holding my master hostage, you came out of nowhere acting like you knowhim, and I really, really need some answers if you want to stick around.”

Luke stared at him, as if sizing him up for a challenge. “I warned that you wouldn’t believe me, but I will tell you some things anyways,” he sighed. “I suppose the Jedi are still around, the clones are still serving with them, and the Republic isn’t yet in shambles?”

There was a moment of silence as everyone looked at him, confused and surprised. “What do you mean? The Jedi and clones are fighting in a war together for the Republic,” it was Ahsoka who answered this time. She had been able to get a little closer to Luke, but he didn’t let even her get too close to Obi-Wan.

“Unless this is a really, really crazy hallucination, which actually might be possible considering where Ben and I were not a moment ago,” Luke started. “The only other option is that we have somehow went back in time. Me, physically, because if this is still the Clone Wars, then I haven’t been born yet and Ben…Ben must have gone back to his body of this time since he looks…younger now,” Luke explained with a shrug.

“Time travel?” Captain Rex asked, skeptically.

Luke nodded. “Yeup. It kinda happened to Ben’s colleague, Fulcrum, although I think that was different. She had been plucked from a moment in time forward from a Temple by someone else. Ben and I were in a warm, glowing cave. I blinked and then I saw you all,” he added with a shrug. “But like I said, it could also very possibly be a hallucination too. I had been in the middle of a sandstorm beforehand.”

“This is ridiculous,” Anakin replied, flatly, shaking his head. Grains of sand had fallen from his hair. “There is no such thing as time travel. You are playing us, and I don’t know what you want but you aren’t getting it. So, you are going to give me back Obi-Wan and-.”

“You really think I am playing you?” Luke asked, interrupting with a lip curled in incredulity. “I literally agreed to go to your star destroyer ship, which, I imagine, would be filled with troops. I wouldn’t have stood a chance if I were playing you,” he snorted and rolled his eyes. “Ugh, Ben’s stories were always so good, he never made it seem like you were dense.”

“His stories?” Ahsoka asked, curiously. “Who is Ben?”

“Ben,” Luke gestured to Obi-Wan. “He had to change his name when we went into hiding because well, he’s kinda famous. But he would tell me tons of stories about the Jedi, before and during the war.”

“Did we win?” Rex asked although hesitantly. He was taking this a lot better than other probably would have.

Luke looked up to him, uncertainly. “I suppose that largely depends on one’s point of view.”

Anakin narrowed his eyes. That sounded more like something Obi-Wan would say. He had always tried to explain things from different points of view. The knight had rarely thought it mattered. “Are you going to tell us? Or just keep playing these games?”

The boy shrugged and took a breath. “I think Ben would be able to explain it better. I don’t know a whole ton about the end of the war, as I was just a baby when it was over.”

“We are about to dock, sirs,” the co-pilot called back. Luke clutched Obi-Wan tighter as the rest of them took hold of the varying hand holds within the ship. The landing was a bit clunky, nearly knocking a few of them off balance, but the doors opened and artificial light from the docking bay on Anakin’s ship shone through brightly.

“Tell Kix he has a patient and to get the medical bay ready,” Anakin ordered a nearby trooper. The clone nodded and ran off quickly. Rex slowly approached Luke and helped him up, taking a lot of Obi-Wan’s weight, making sure to telegraph his movements. The less jumpy the teenager was, the better. “Let’s get to the medical bay,” Anakin told them, obviously peeved, which made the soldiers around him scatter as best they could. No one liked being around an angry or irritated Skywalker. “The sooner we get Obi-Wan some help, the sooner he wakes up and the sooner I can get answers on you,” he pointed at Luke, deliberately. “You better hope he knows who you are.”

Luke hoped that too. He didn’t want to be alone.

#oops i did it again #the order 66 writing in wabs #really got to me #cause ugh #anyways #have more obi-wan kenobi raises luke skywalker #open for prompts and suggestions #i'm just kinda chillin with this #obi-wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi #luke skywalker #star wars #star wars au #time travel #protective luke #revolving suns #revolving suns au

8 notes · View notes

capricornus-rex · 4 years ago

Text

A Shadow of What You Used to Be (5)

Chapter 5: Lingering Grief | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Requested by Anon

Summary: There is another! Years after young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a second child—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3 | Previous: Part 4 | Next: Part 6 | Masterlist

6 of ?

“I love… Love…” Shmi choked before she succumbed to death, never able to complete the simplest yet most important of phrases.

Anakin’s shaky fingers closed his mother’s eyes. The pang of grief was quickly overtaken by an unquenchable vengeance.

A heavy, ominous darkness blankets the Tusken encampment. The guards outside Shmi’s tent barely had a reaction time to the ignition of Anakin’s lightsaber; when they had turned around after the flaps of the tent hit their sleeve, they were cut down without the hesitation of a moment.

Alarmed by the attack, the Tuskens untied their massiffs—their reptilian guard dogs—and unleashed those hounds on Anakin, before advancing to attack the intruding Jedi themselves. The rage and grief seething within him was weaponized, it had amplified his swordsmanship; however, it made his movements raggedy, uncalculated, and unbecoming of his practiced lightsaber form. He planted his feet on the ground while he kept his eyes straight on the enemy. Or were they at all?

One after another, the Tuskens came at him—cycler rifles and staves brandished in the air—and were instantaneously felled, not even allowed to have a swing of their own weapons. One of them alerted the snipers who were in the perimeter of the encampment, supposedly on patrol; many of them went for the encampment, attempting to give support in the skirmish, but they were quickly losing—despite outnumbering the Jedi to fifty or so.

When push comes to shove, a number of the females braved and took up arm to fight off this murderous trespasser—who’s cutting them by the numbers. In their native tongue, they urged one another to join the ranks and charge. The women joined the fray, amongst the males, while some other females—particularly mothers—scurried with their young into their tents for safety. Now, the latter caught Anakin’s attention.

Anakin cut through the Tuskens’ defenses, man and woman alike, and sliced down the mothers first then their children next, sometimes the other way around. The wounded but living mothers howled in the night, carrying their children—grown and newborn—sorrowfully wailing, praying to their deities to deliver them mercy from this agony. And that exact deliverance came in the form of a blinding blue beam of light. However, their granted prayers were not of mercy, but of an unquenchable hatred, more like a punishment—from a certain point of view.

But then again, does the way of death matter?

He proceeded to finish off the stragglers, many of them fatally injured and are just scrambling on the sand with one hand extended in a pleading gesture. In their eyes, Anakin appeared to them like an executioner—with the campfire at his back, tracing his unhooded silhouette, and a cyan beam illuminating his distorted features. That was the final thing they ever saw before their bodies met the lightsaber, a noble weapon now used for an atrocious annihilation.

That night, Anakin never discriminated. He killed not only the men, but the women, and the children, too. He left nothing in his wake but death and destruction.

–

In the middle of it all, a chill wraps around Irele over her shoulders. She thought it strange, it’s only the first few hours of nightfall—where it’s usually warm at that time of the day and the cold gradually creeps in. The cold was dramatically different from the desert breeze at dusk. It crawled along her arms, then snaked over her spine and the small of her back, forcing her to pause from her pastime of creating beaded and woven crafts—a hobby she picked up from Shmi.

“What’s wrong, Irele?” asked Beru, mending a scarf in the common room.

“Is it just me or has it gotten unusually colder?”

Beru’s eyes flicked to the side, paused to feel a draft, and then shrugged. She was wearing a short-sleeved tunic paired with her long skirt. She would have felt the same as Irele, but she didn’t. When the older girl noted the uneasiness in Irele’s expression, she stood up and patted her forehead.

“Are you alright, Irele? You don’t seem to have a fever.”

“No, but I guess it was just a funny feeling. Maybe heatstroke.”

“Irele, we’re all too used to the heat here to get a heatstroke,” Beru chuckled. “If any, we’d get one if we were in a volcanic planet!”

The girls shared a chuckle with the lighthearted joke, which may have distracted Irele for a bit until she eventually dismissed it as indeed a funny feeling, but only for a second.

She had been waiting for Anakin—along with their mother—to come home, but given that they lack the whereabouts of this Tusken band, she though perhaps he had asked the locals along the way, like Jawas and vagabonds. When the hours have passed, the night had grown darker, Irele had no choice but to sleep on it.

In her bed, the cold persisted. She pulled up her blanket—her favorite one for it was handmade by her mother—until it covered her up to her nose, exposing her only from the eyes up. She tried closing her eyes, but her lids twitched, begging to be opened. Lying flat on her back, facing the ceiling, staring at the stone ceiling, she wondered and imagined where Anakin and Shmi would be.

“Mom… I hope he brings you home safely.”

More thoughts coaxed into Irele’s mind. They’re hopeful thoughts. Behind her eyes, she’d visualize Shmi in the kitchen, whipping up a favorite meal of hers, and she’d insist on helping. Both of them would sew together, making whatever garment they choose. All that wishful thinking lulled the girl to sleep, blissfully unaware of the chaos that her own brother had wrought.

The next morning, the sound of the speeder made Irele drop everything and run to the porch.

Her hopes from last night were shattered when she saw Anakin riding the speeder alone and all he brought with him was a fully swaddled body. Her felt her heart drop her stomach, and she watched in silence as Anakin carried the corpse and glowered at the Lars family and then to Padmé. He brushed past them, and then in the corner of his eye, he caught his little sister staring. Irele standing there stopped him in his tracks, then his glower softened into a look of shame—one that says he didn’t fulfill his promise to her. Just one day of meeting her, he lets go of a promise, and fails it.

He didn’t know what to say to her. She let him know that he didn’t need to, for she turned tail and ran back inside.

Irele helped in the preparation of the grave, but for the rest of the activity, she did not speak. She did not maintain eye contact with anyone. The only interaction she’s ever had was with C3PO when she needed help on something, but not even he received a gaze from his young mistress.

She dusted her hands together, and dismissed herself.

“I’m going inside. I want a drink.” she told to no one in particular, but her father and brothers acknowledged it.

She was in the kitchen, just through the small doorway past the dining table, helping herself to a glass of juice. She sat in the seat nearest the door and just stared at the glass filled with a clear, apricot-colored liquid, tracing the rim of the glass with her finger, occasionally sipping it—for once, the sweet fruit juice tasted watery and bland, she finished the glass nonetheless, though reluctantly.

During her drinking, she had sensed Anakin walking into the workshop as she heard even the more careful of clinking of metal hitting the table. She remained silent, though he could sense her there, he just chose not to disturb her and rather make himself busy with fixing things. Next, she heard Padmé’s soft and kindly voice, a stark contrast to Anakin’s steely tone.

“Are you hungry?”

“The shifter broke,” he completely avoided her question.

Their conversation went on, with Anakin struggling to keep away from the grief that lingered in him.

“But I couldn’t…” he trailed. “Why’d she have to die? Why couldn’t I save her? I know I could have!”

Then he tasted something sour, not realizing that he had bitten the inside of his cheek and it bled. The walls listened and told everything to Irele, who’s still drawing invisible lines on her glass. Much later, she jolted when Anakin responded to Padmé’s fact with a loud frustration.

“Well, I should be!”

“I will be the most powerful Jedi ever!”

Irele continued to listen in, though Anakin’s behavior frightened her, and she had already come out of the dining room and hid behind the wall before the workshop’s archway.

“And I promise you: I will even learn to stop people from dying!”

Taken aback by the bold claim, she thought it impossible and dismissed it as wishful thinking clouded by unrealistic ambitiousness. Again, Irele heard more of Anakin’s roaring, this time blaming someone by the name of Obi-Wan of holding him back. She just continued to listen, hoping to find a way to empathize with her brother, but she found it difficult when he’s so flooded primarily of hatred and anger than sorrow and grief.

“Ani, what’s wrong?” Padmé cooed, attempting to break through his walls.

Anakin looked down on his hands, the very hands that held and swung the sword as he passed on his sentence to the Tuskens. They’re still red from the overly-tightened grip of his saber from last night. There were bruises too, little nicks that he didn’t notice during the genocide. The tears have dried, leaving glossy streaks on his defined cheekbones. His nostrils flared as he gasped for air, when the realization was slowly creeping up to him. He choked as he sighed.

“I killed them… I killed them all…” he repeated. Then swung to face Padmé. “They’re dead. Every single one of them…”

Padmé stared at him, dead frozen on where she stood. Her fingers unfeeling. Irele heard those very words from her own brother’s mouth and she could have sworn she felt her heart pause from beating. Her stomach tightened after every following word.

“And not just the men. But the women… and the children too!”

Irele’s knees nearly failed her as they lost their strength. Her heart felt heavy like an anchor. She silenced a gasp when she brought her hand to her mouth.

“They’re like animals. And I slaughtered them like animals! I hate them!”

Horrified of the unimaginable, completely unnecessary carnage her brother had wrought, she ran away from the workshop; the sound of her boots lightly scraping against the sand and metal as her heels sprang Anakin’s ears pricked up, but he was too preoccupied with his grief that he dismissed it as nothing. Irele sprints to her bedroom. For a moment, it didn’t sound like her brother was the one talking—she heard the words of a monster in the guise of a man.

Her hands trembled uncontrollably that she cannot even hold something with two fingers. She finally allowed herself to melt to the floor, and she cannot fathom how much violence and damage that Anakin left in his wake upon retrieving their mother. That night, Irele could not sleep; she waited for everyone to have fallen asleep and attempted to sneak out of the house to visit Shmi’s headstone again. They had buried Shmi already, Irele helped too, but Cliegg was too cautious of the nightfall that he insisted on setting the funeral tomorrow morning where it’s safer; of course, his son and stepdaughter agreed to it, Anakin didn’t have much of a choice. He stole a glimpse of Irele, who kept her vision forward; when she would turn to an angle where she’d have to face Anakin she kept her eyes on the ground, and would look in front when she’s gained distance from everyone else.

She and her own biological brother lack the comfort and warmth as siblings would share—especially in such a harrowing experience like losing a parent.

She’d rather prefer the comfort of a stone.

Settling herself on the sand, her handwoven scarf—made by her mother, no less—wrapping her little body from her desert chill, she spoke to Shmi’s headstone.

“Hi, Mom…” she sadly started. Unable to find the next, proper words, she had a silent moment in front of the grave, and rocked back and forth for a bit. “He’s quite taller than I expected. Though, I should’ve seen it coming. He is my big brother, after all.” She huffed out an awkward chuckle.

She scribbled on the sand and then would start over by brushing it with a single sweep of her hand. This would repeat as she spoke openly to the gravestone. For every passing moment, the tone of her voice would grow more somber and quieter, lacking the strength to let out another word than simply letting it go and cry.

“You know, he told me that he’d bring you home—but I never expected it to be in this way.”

There was a bitter taste in her mouth, she clicked her tongue, “He promised.”

No answer, of course. Nevertheless, the girl continued. Already yearning for her mother’s embrace.

“Had I known… I already had that feeling…! I should’ve come with you. I may be little but… You never doubted me. Thanks to that, I knew—I really knew—that I could fight them off, even for just a bit. If I did, I would have protected you. Then they never would have taken you away from me. I would have bought us time to escape… I would have called Dad and Owen—or anyone—for help.”

She hiccuped, picking up what’s left of her failing confidence, “I would have saved you.”

That wishful thinking then led her to finally releasing the tears she had been holding back all day.

“I miss you so much already, Mommy…”

Not even the warmth of her woven scarf blanketing her would be enough of a stand-in for Shmi’s hugs. It will never be. Being the only memory of her mother, it’s only a fragment of what Irele will remember of her.

She went to sleep quite late, understandably so.

–

The morning of the funeral, as promised, occurred. Cliegg gave his eulogy first, Irele had her turn on her eulogy next—she had not much to say, for she had already said everything in private last night—though she cannot be moved from where she knelt, then Anakin got on his knees right next to her.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you, Mom, and I hope you can forgive me too, for breaking my promise to my sister.”

Irele craned her head to her side but quickly withdrew it, facing the grave again.

The funeral was interrupted when the white and blue astromech droid R2D2 came to bear news. Padmé and Anakin prepared to retreat to the silver starship meters away from the homestead.

“Come with me,” Anakin whispered, he sounded demanding even in a low voice.

Irele attempted to harden her voice, to convey the conviction of her decision, “My place is here, Anakin. Like it or not, they’re my family. I can’t leave them.”

Anakin’s head bobbed downwards, and then the unexpected happened—in an attempt to comfort one another, both Irele and Anakin planted their hands on each other’s shoulders; he gave her small shoulder a tight squeeze, hers was gentle and somewhat faltering as if the toll of Shmi’s death has only begun to sink into her.

“May the Force be with you.” bid Anakin.

She didn’t know what to say back and simply watched her brother sprint towards the ship.

The Cliegg family watched the starship blow a plume of smoke underneath its landing gear, hovered, and then darted through the sky before vanishing like star come morning light.

For Irele, it’s back to her regular life here in Tatooine. Where she belongs.

Or so she thinks.

20 notes · View notes

ariainstars · 5 years ago

Text

Did Princess Leia Love Her Son?

Warning: long post. (And possible unpopular opinions ahead.)

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

This entry is slightly more personal than my others; I might be kicking up some dust but I will try to approach a subject that to most people is unthinkable. I went through psychical abuse for decades, so I believe I know what I’m talking about.

Some mothers don’t love their children.

I am aware that most people on this planet are convinced that a mother, any mother, will love her child no matter what. Unfortunately, the idea is seen through very rose-tinted glasses.

Some mothers don’t love their children because they can’t.

The reasons can vary - honestly, I don’t see many parallels between Leia and my own mother. But I know the signs. And the more I think about it the more I get the distinct impression that Leia did not love for her son, if we define “love” as the faith in someone’s goodness. Padmé knew that there still was good in her husband until her last breath, and Luke believed the same of Vader, even though his father had done nothing but hunting and terrorizing him and his friends. Leia, on the contrary, feared her son since before he was born, and her conviction of his evil nature never abated although he never hurt anyone for many years. The fact that her fear runs so deep says volumes; even more so when we consider that she is the only one who did not directly get hurt by him. Han was stabbed through by his son, before Chewie’s eyes; and Luke was left by his nephew for dead, even if the tragedy at the temple had not been intentional on Ben’s side (see The Rise of Kylo Ren by Charles Soule, the story therein is officially part of the canon).

I anticipate, again, that I think one of the sequel’s worst faults was to explain so little and leave so much to the audience to deduce from things unsaid, hints, and parallel situations throughout the saga. (One of the reasons being, I guess, the release of The Last Jedi: we saw from the general audience’s reactions on social media what can happen when unpopular though realistic things are said.)

Leia - A Princess Without a Realm

Let us recapitulate what we know about Leia. She grew up serene and protected on a beautiful planet with adoptive parents who loved her and gave her a good education. She is an intelligent, confident woman, strong in her ideals and beliefs. She never shows fear or sorrow, not even when her home planet is blown up before her eyes, when she is held prisoner and tortured, when she has to watch the man she loves being frozen in carbonite before her eyes, when she finds her brother crippled, when she is held by a disgusting lecher like Jabba, or when she learns that Vader is her own father.

Being raised a princess, Leia was probably taught very strong self-control: no matter what she had to endure, she never buckled down or lost her countenance. It cannot be denied however that much of her adult life was traumatic. What we euphemistically see as “adventures” and “all’s well that ends well” in the classic films would leave any person with a huge post-traumatic stress disorder; and Star Wars is, as far as I can judge, a psychologically well-studied story.

From the novels we learn that Han and Leia got married shortly after the battle of Endor, and that their son was born about a year later. One year is not much to recover after a war that cost so many lives and made all of them suffer so much. Han was probably more resilient than the twins due to the life he led before he met them; but he had been through a lot, too. Even if they loved their son with parental instinct, they both were not ready for the task of parenthood. And Ben was not an easy child: from his adult self we can deduce that he was always oversensitive and very intelligent. His family, like many well-meaning families, chose his future (his profession, we might say) and never explained his family’s past to him. But like any child with an emotional nature, Ben sensed that something was wrong about him; he did not know what it was since nobody told him about his grandfather; and wanting desperately to be loved, he began to blame himself, accepting the connotation “I am a monster” since he was still a child.

Leia had felt both her son’s power in the Force and Snoke’s influence on his mind since he was still in her womb. Let us only try to imagine the horror she must have felt, knowing that a new Darth Vader might come from her! It is difficult to say for whom she feared most - her son, herself or the galaxy at large. Leia was adamant that he had to become a Jedi, hence her quarrels with her husband, which their son sometimes overheard. But since he was ultimately sent to training with his uncle, he also understood that his father had not managed to prevent his being sent away, like a defective item that needed to be fixed.

Kylo told Rey that “Han would have disappointed her” and later said to her and Finn “Han Solo can’t protect you”: so, he obviously felt Han had come short of a father’s primary duty, i.e. keeping his child safe. Let us remember for a moment how crucially important this message always was through the saga: Shmi let her son, the only thing that had made her happy, join the Jedi so he could be free. Owen and Beru sacrificed themselves to prevent the Imperial stormtroopers from finding Luke together with the droid. Anakin betrayed the Jedi order in his despair to keep his family (wife and unborn children) safe. And Ben fell to the dark not due to Snoke’s influence, he resisted him for over twenty years; he only rebelled and left his uncle’s temple after an attempt on his safety.

We do not learn (to my knowledge) whether Ben was in contact with his parents during his years at Luke’s temple. It is not mentioned however, so I assume that even if he was, nothing noticeable happened. Han sees his son again when he is a grown man… and I find it interesting that the scene has a sexual connotation. Ben does not notice his old man at all, although he can sense him in the Force (later on Starkiller Base he does), he only cares about securing Rey. And Han sees him carrying her away like a bride, probably wondering how his little boy grew to be this unknown, dark, hooded figure, who wreaks terror on Takodana yet is surprisingly gentle with a girl.

From The Rise of Kylo Ren we learn that Ben had not intentionally caused the fire at his uncle’s temple; but he had been blamed for it by his surviving fellow students and chased by them off the planet. In TFA, we learn Leia did not doubt for one moment that Luke’s narration of the night at the temple was true. She blamed Snoke, but it never occurred to her that Ben might be innocent - her own son. She did not try to communicate once in all the years he was Kylo Ren but left him alone while he damned his soul committing crime after crime. Luke never told her the truth, even when he met her again one last time, and she did not question it. Leia did send her estranged husband to “get their son back”, but obviously she did not consider actively participating in this task. We only see mother and son “interact” emotionally from time to time; they never meet and never talk. Ben sees his father, has a conversation with him, Han even touches him; Luke does not touch him and they don’t exactly have a dialogue, but at least they meet. To me, that is significant.

When mother and son sense one another on two different ships at the beginning of The Last Jedi, Leia’s mind is perfectly silent. We merely see that Ben feels his mother is aboard, which makes him pull his finger from the trigger. But his expression changes: from belligerent and angry, he becomes vulnerable, shy. He even looks more boyish. Ben is aware that his mother disapproves of his choices, but he has no chance to explain to her how things could come this far.

„You can’t go back to her now. Just like I can’t.” Kylo (intending Leia) to Rey in The Rise of Skywalker

Leia does not know her son. She wants him back “home”, but to her, that means fighting by her side; it does not occur to her that her son is fighting for his life, that he became a war criminal without having wanted it, and that he can’t simply go back and put himself to trial: he is aware that nobody would believe him. Fatalism caught up with him and his family the way it already had with Anakin. His mother and uncle always felt that he was doomed; and since they believed it, the galaxy at large believes it, too. Snoke knew that by pushing Ben to patricide he would shut all remaining doors for his apprentice - nothing but self-hatred left for him, no way to go back even if he had found the courage. What was he supposed to do, go back and say, “Hi mom, sorry I killed dad (your husband)”? It baffles me to this day how many fans believe that he that he “chose the Dark Side” and that he could just as easily switch sides, like nothing had happened.

Leia never trusted anyone who was not on her side. In ANH she immediately hit it off with Luke, who not surprisingly turns out to be her twin brother; and as we learn in TFA, she and Han fought all through their marriage, though that didn’t prevent them from loving one another. Leia either expects someone to think the way she does, or to be only just so different that she can keep him in check.

“Han - don’t do it.” “Do what?” “Whatever you have in mind - just don’t do it!” Han and Leia in The Force Awakens

This reaches a sad and somehow grotesque turn when Leia takes Rey as her apprentice. With her brother dead, Leia is the only one left to do it; and though it is understandable that someone must carry on the Jedi knowledge, I myself would be extremely wary of training a girl who is none other than the flesh and blood of the man I fought against for years and who caused so much death and terror throughout the entire galaxy.

Leia had not met Palpatine though; her horror of the Dark Side was embodied by Vader, who had imprisoned and tortured her, forced her to watch while her home planet was blown up before her eyes, frozen her boyfriend in carbonite and maimed her brother. Leia never forgave Vader, and even if unconsciously, she probably blamed him for having somehow come back in the son she was carrying. I doubt whether Luke ever talked to his sister about Vader and told her about the broken, sad old man he found behind the mask. There is nothing suggesting that they did, and besides Luke and Leia both do not seem to me like two people very prone to introspection, they always look to the future. (Which is of course a good thing, but then again denying traumata always backfires.)

„Skywalker, still looking to the horizon. Never here… The need in front of your nose.” Yoda in The Last Jedi

Leia did not want to repeat with Rey the mistakes she had made with Ben and that’s good and well; however, she feared her son but was not in the least afraid of Rey. Maybe she “always knew who Rey was”, but she obviously never knew who her own son was. As Count Dooku once said to Obi-Wan, the Dark Side clouded her judgement - preventing her from seeing the human in Ben, and from seeing the monster in Rey. This is not due to their respective bloodlines, but because Rey’s uncompromising attitude is familiar to Leia, while her son’s stormy, questioning mind is unfamiliar and frightening to her.

Though Leia did not actively order Rey to kill Kylo, they were on opposite sides of the war; and Rey practically kills him with his own mother’s help and thanks to her training. Both women know what they are doing and they are acting on their own initiative. Obi-Wan and Yoda also had wanted to groom Luke into killing Anakin, but this one was not aware of his connection to him; and Obi-Wan in particular was not plotting against his own flesh and blood, even though he did raise Anakin like a younger brother.

Comparing Leia with the other Star Wars mothers makes her failure even more evident. Shmi was an ordinary slave, probably not even learned, but she raised her son to be a good boy and always believed in him; giving him away was a sacrifice for her. Her son was everything she had, which is why she gave him so much in return. Leia has her background as a princess, her military and political career, her husband, her brother, her friends: so, of course her son wasn’t everything for her. Leia gave Ben away hoping that Luke would form him into a powerful ally for her Cause. The mistake both women made was thinking that growing up as Jedi would be good for their sons. When Anakin left his mother, he had everything to gain: freedom, a place in life, and (he hoped) the chance to come back and free his mother as well. When Ben left home, he had everything to lose: his family to which he most probably had no contact, his wish of becoming a pilot, the chance of a family of his own since a Jedi is not supposed to get married. The ways of the Jedi let each of them down, although their backgrounds couldn’t differ more.

Many fans criticize that in RotS Padmé, the brilliant strategist and brave fighter of the first two prequel films, is ostensibly reduced to “barefoot and pregnant”. It is true that Padmé has laid down her mandate and of course she wants to protect her unborn, but that does not make her passive: shortly after having witnessed a political putsch and with it the end of all her political aims, she walks into the lion’s den on Mustafar, vulnerable and alone, to get her husband out of there, although she was told that he committed a carnage at the Jedi Temple and knew that he was capable of that (years prior, he had told her about the Tusken village himself). But she still believed in him.

There is an obscure flashback scene in The Rise of Skywalker, where during their training Leia says to Luke that she will become a Jedi only on the death of her son. This makes perfect sense: a Jedi always must face his own darkness to finish his training. Being in a way the reincarnation of her father, her son is her Dark Side, the one she refuses to face. Leia already knows or senses that she and her son will be on opposite sides, and that in order to become a Jedi and become one with the Force, she will have to confront her own child. The act is physically carried out by Rey’s hand: Rey was her pupil, she was like an adopted daughter in her son’s stead to her, Leia had sent her on the mission to retrieve the wayfinder, she was the one who called Ben when they were dueling, so in a way, it actually is Leia who kills Ben. It is her incapacity to love her son for being himself, as a person and not as a projection of her own darkness, that causes his tragic fate.

Leia is oddly distanced from her son; she expects him to deliver, i.e. become a good Jedi, or at least submit himself to her mercy. She never understood his dilemma in the slightest - that he never wished to be a Jedi, and that he also had not wanted to become an evil warlord but was pushed into it when there was nothing left for him to do. He had to become a Jedi or nothing; she would not have accepted him simply for being himself (the way his father did).

Ben - Child and Grandchild Of War

Leia and Luke fail to rebuild the “better world” of the Old Republic because they both don’t acknowledge that this world does no longer exist and that it can’t be restored. Leia is a princess, but Alderaan is gone; Luke is the last Jedi, and the Jedi are extinct. It is their refusal to accept that the past is over that ultimately leads both of them to disaster. And in a way, Ben understands that the way Luke does, eventually.

“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. It’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.” Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi

Ben is a child and grandchild of war; both generations before him had to watch people they cared or were responsible for suffer and die. He grows up in a period of peace, but like any child whose parents have not overcome war traumata, their pain is handed down to him like a cursed heritage. His family keeps him warm and fed, clothed and instructed, but they fail capitally when it comes to his emotional needs; as for any questions he may have, they choose to simply ignore them. They fail him long before the disaster at Luke’s temple: it is only the last drop. Like Anakin before him, he feels betrayed, abandoned and left behind by the ones whom he chiefly ought to be able to put his trust into.

We are confronted over and over with the strength of the Light in Ben: even when he commits the patricide he hates what he is doing, and afterwards he is traumatized, his self-hatred deeper than ever. While Anakin projected his anger and frustration to the outside, Ben will rather hate himself. But their emotional reaction to their mothers are the same - both could not be by their mothers’ side in her dying moment, and both feel like they let her down, taking the blame on themselves.

Remember how Ben turns around immediately, on the Death Star ruin, right in the middle of a fight with the girl he loves, who is in the throes of the Dark Side, who he wants to protect from herself at all costs - all because his mother calls him? It looks like she is trying to prevent him from doing evil; but if that is the case, it only proves how little she understands him. Her son was not doing anything bad, on the contrary, he had found the girl whom she herself had trained under the influence of her own malignant self, and was trying to make her reason and accept herself instead of projecting her fears and her anger onto him.

“The Dark Side is in our nature. Surrender to it.“ Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker

In TFA, Han faced his son personally; on that fatal bridge on Starkiller base Ben at first walked away from him although he sensed him, when Han called him he did not turn around, and he resisted Snoke’s order to kill him as long as he could; he would not have managed to do it had Han not understood what was going on and allowed his son to kill him so he could save his soul with his forgiveness and unconditional love.

On the bridge of the ruins of the second Death Star, Ben does not struggle at all when his mother calls him. Maybe because he feels that she’s dying; but I also believe that it was what he had waited for all along - his mother finally reaching out to him. In that moment his fate is sealed: Rey stabs him through, annihilating his Kylo Ren persona. From now on, he’s Ben, the name his mother called him by. This is the moment of his redemption and also the beginning of his end.

Ben did need Kylo. Kylo Ren was his Dark Side, and like his grandfather Anakin, Ben Solo was meant to be the Balance. We could already have guessed, in this moment, that he was not meant to survive; in order to live he ought to have learned to reconcile both parts of himself, Light and Dark, not to shed one of them. His moments of heroism on Exegol, thought few, show us how powerful he can be when he is in balance. But neither Rey nor Leia (or Han, for that matter) ever acknowledged Kylo’s right to exist, or understood the importance of Balance for lasting peace.

This scene just proves how desperate Ben was for his mother’s approval. All it needed was one gesture, one word. He did not want to be a Jedi; my guess is that he accepted to be his uncle’s apprentice in hopes that this would teach him to become more the kind of man his mother wanted him to be. Luke was an unreachable role model before his eyes; no matter what he did, Ben was always aware that he could not come up to his standard. Luke was a galactic legend, a savior, a saint-like figure ever since Ben was a child, and Ben neither was that way nor did he want to: in his heart, Ben is a normal boy who wants to be seen as a person. Anakin and Luke were affectionate and searching for emotional connection, too, but both also wanted to prove themselves. Ben does not strike me at all as being ambitious. He is neither truly hero nor villain but, in the first place, someone who wants to love and be loved. He wants to live his own life, make his own choices, have control over his own fate, protect his dignity as a human being and as a man. This is often misinterpreted as being “power-hungry”, but to me, these are very natural desires. And he has to carve his own way; he can’t simply embrace the path of the follower, because he is by nature both blessed and cursed with an extraordinary power which sets him apart from others. This is nobody’s fault. And it is much more frustrating for him than for the world around him, where, each in his way, everybody seems to think “If only he would behave!”

Ben is aware of the fact that he never was first for anyone in his life. His parents and uncle were much more attached to one another than to him. Ben is someone who tries so hard to change, only to realize over and over that it’s not enough. And this reaches a sad and terrible peak that night at the Jedi temple, when he has to learn that despite all his efforts, Luke thinks he would be better off dead. No wonder all of his anger and frustration come to the surface when he sees his uncle again on Crait, this is obviously a rage born from a conflict of long standing. From his point of view, Luke destroyed his life. And although Luke had not wanted that, it cannot be denied that in a way he did, and worse, that he ran from his guilt instead of trying to repair the damage.

The alternative, Ben has to find out, is not better though: the Knights of Ren and Snoke make him give up all the rest of what he is, and Snoke keeps demanding more - the ultimate sacrifice of his father, the person who was closest to him, by his own hand.

I am aware that many fans find Kylo / Ben “embarrassing” due to his emotional tantrums. His mother, his father or uncle, or his grandfather would never have behaved like this! When they killed someone, it always had style, so it was justified… even if Kylo’s tantrums are directed towards machinery and not taken on people. Few seem to consider that he is not “immature and childish”: he is a man who was pushed to the limits of emotional endurance throughout his life. (This is also a bit personal for me - I know situations like that from own experience, smashing household articles simply because I couldn’t take it anymore. Lifelong abuse is no laughing matter.)

Ben is in a vicious circle: his strong emotionality makes him vulnerable, the abuse makes him even more emotionally unsteady, and so it goes on and on. He has no way out, except for the faint hope to find someone who will see him as a person at last.

“I have no choice and I never did... Whether it’s Luke Skywalker or Snoke, neither one sees me as a person. I’m just a legacy, a set of expectations.” Ben Solo in The Rise of Kylo Ren, 4

That Ben loves both his mother and Rey despite the fact that one took the other as her apprentice and the other uses this training to kill him only proves the depth of his dedication. At no time we see him being jealous towards Rey, or angry at his mother because of her double standard. Ben’s love for his mother is unconditional. And his love is also unconditional for Rey, whose soul and body he saves giving up his own although she took everything from him, including his life the moment he lowered his defense.

Rey and Leia represent the general audience’s point of view: how could anyone not wish to be someone as cool as a Jedi, and getting the chance to fight against the bad guys? Ben is the other point of view, someone who indeed does not want it at all. It takes him a long time to find out what he actually wants to do with his powers: “Give a new order to the galaxy”, together with Rey. When she refuses and leaves him, he feels not only betrayed but humiliated. All he is left with is the maddening desire to burn the house down for good, the ultimate sin his uncle saves him from by sacrificing himself on Crait.

Conclusions

One of the troubles with a weak, absent, violent or otherwise dysfunctional father figure is their repercussion on the mother figures: Padmé can’t be a mother because she is physically absent, and Leia can’t because she is emotionally absent. Much as Ben may love Leia, he knows her. He knows that to her he always was more a burden than someone she loved having around; he is aware of her fear of him, which is why he rightly assumes, after the tragedy at the temple, that she will never believe it was not his doing.

And this is what brings me to my first point: a mother may not be capable of loving her child. She may nourish fond memories of the sweet baby and cute toddler she used to take care of, but the more the child grows, the more a traumatized mother will be terrified by the emerging personality of an intelligent child which might see through her carefully built-up walls, and even more scared of the child’s emotional development into a person she can no longer keep in control, who might doubt her, and want to make his own choices. Of course, being born with the Force is a huge responsibility. However, it cannot be denied that the Jedi Order failed, and that both Leia and her brother did not question their ways; instead, they did everything to prevent Ben from questioning them.

The actual tragedy of a dysfunctional mother-child relationship is that a mother may not really love her child, but a child instinctively loves the mother because its psychological balance roots in its faith in the mother’s love.

If unavoidable, in extreme cases the child can of course learn to let go, accept that its own mother could not love it, and that this was neither her nor the child’s fault in the first place; but that takes time and effort and needs a lot of support from other sources. Things Ben never had, because he had to fight for his life while his own mother was the general of the Resistance, each and every member of which would have killed him in cold blood had they had the chance. (Remember how Poe tried to shoot him in the back in TFA, and Rey shot at him in TLJ when he was in sickbay, wounded and unarmed? And these are the good guys.) He’s the Bad Guy, remember? Not Leia’s son. Just like Rey is the Good Heroine, not Palpatine’s heir. Nobody questions what the Good Guys do.

Leia may have loved Ben to a certain extent, but of one thing I am fairly sure: unconditional is not what her love for him was. Leia knew that there was still light in her son, but she did not realize that he was desperately searching for Balance between both sides. Leia did want him back, but only if he was willing to embrace only the Light Side and to shed the darkness in him, like that was even possible. Luke and Leia, like almost all the Jedi before them, pretended that there was no darkness in them… which made the darkness all the more powerful in someone who was closely connected to with them.

Ben, like his grandfather, is more honest and authentic with his feelings than the people he knows. That he so often errs results from lack of judgement; Ben reminds me of someone who keeps stumbling because he’s left in the dark. His grandfather’s is also the story of a human tragedy, precisely because Anakin, too, did not know what was going on behind stage. Luke’s story is eventually a success because Vader tells him the truth, which first shocks him but then makes him develop a strong and mature personality.

Star Wars is about a family made unhappy by a distorted idea of masculinity; an idea mostly brought up and propagated by the Jedi. Both the detached type like Mace Windu, Obi-Wan or Yoda and the cruel and sardonic Vader are a product of this attitude. We have until now never seen a happy family during the course of the whole saga, with a united couple of parents growing and protecting their children together. Anakin became a villain simultaneously with being a father; I find it interesting that his son Luke seems to have escaped this fate partly because he never was confronted with fatherhood.

Leia wants her son back as her child; she does not expect him to become a grown man who makes his own choices. One of the things that make the final trilogy of the saga so dissatisfying is, to me, that a Skywalker man again was denied the dignity to be on his own, to develop a healthy masculinity and to make his own choices instead of being expected to simply do what he was told.

Not surprisingly, Ben is saved by his father, the most human of the bunch. Smuggler, adventurer, “nobody”, cheater, thief, war general… Han Solo was always first and foremost himself, which is why he understands his son’s human side best. As Luke is a Jedi, Leia is a princess. She never is a mother above everything else, the way Shmi was. Unconsciously or not, she places power above family. Ben calls his father “Dad” in TRoS (in TFA he referred to him by his name); he never calls Leia “mother”.

Of course, like Luke, Obi-Wan and all the Jedi before them, Leia has no truly bad intentions. She does want her son to be safe and happy - on her conditions. She cannot understand his desire to reconcile with the darkness inside of him, respectively to take Vader’s skeleton from the family closet; she accepts only a part of him. When Ben finally “comes home”, in death, it is as Han’s and Leia’s child. And this also, unbeknownst to her, causes Rey’s lonely fate since her mate, her other half in the dyad, is gone.

The heroes of old have proved incapable of giving their son and heir the support he would have needed; when they faced their guilt it was too late; and still after death, none of them accepted the Dark Side’s right to exist. Ben “comes home” purged from his sins, without having integrated the two parts of himself, and leaving the greatest power in the galaxy in the hands of a young woman who is very far from understanding Balance in the Force, or only the necessity and importance of it.

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

What does all of this mean for us, as the audience? Maybe that it’s time to grow up. Becoming an adult has much to do with seeing the limitations of the people (heroes) you used to trust blindly when you were a child. Many people never accept that, or feel let down for life. I think the wisest course is to learn how to grow and mature together with your people you used to admire, to learn from one another precisely because none of us is perfect, but we all can grow and mature the ones through the others.

The Rise of Skywalker told us, among other things (though not saying so openly) that even a positive and universally liked character like Princess Leia is not immune to the Dark Side of the Force, and that she may support it fully convinced of doing the right thing. It does not make the good she did undone, and does not deny her positive sides. And it does not say that we can’t love her any more. Anyone is entitled to be annoyed by these revelations. Leia is not a bad person, she’s human. But waking up from our ideals of heroism and happy endings may be more to the point for our own growth.

Our parents, our heroes, anyone can err for many reasons. To see their mistakes does not mean giving up on their or our ideals; the good things they stand for are still valid. Yet seeing their weaknesses and finding our own way to honor those ideals is perhaps a better way to get on with our lives than thinking that there is someone, anyone in the world we can look up to because they are, and always will be, perfect.

Side Note: Speculations

Although many affronted fans claim so, the heroes of the OT were not dismantled by the ST: Luke, Han and Leia each in his own way show their heroism again in their respective situations. But it is also made abundantly clear that where they failed was their duty towards the next generation. The thought is of course disturbing because a mother is supposed to give affection to a child, a father to offer it protection and advice, a mentor to foster its capacities. In Ben’s case, all three of them failed blatantly. That they managed to do so with Rey, a perfect stranger to their family, would be acceptable if she were not the offspring of Palpatine of all people. As it is, her “inheritance” of the Skywalker legacy feels as unearned as Ben’s failure and death feel undeserved.

Parents in Star Wars always have failed their children because they were in some way absent. Anakin, Luke and Ben, all three generations of Skywalkers, suffer from a father trauma. Anakin was always a father, never a son; Luke always a son, never a father. Which brings me back to the point I can’t give up on: a healthy father figure, someone who was a son and becomes a father, who went to the Dark Side but came back, who was not only redeemed but also rehabilitated, and finds an equally strong mother figure by his side, is essential if the galaxy is ever to find lasting Balance. I am not giving up hope. 😉

#star wars #leia organa #ben solo #kylo ren #han solo #luke skywalker #anakin skywalker #darth vader #palpatine #the force awakens #the last jedi #the rise of skywalker #padme amidala #shmi skywalker #dysfunctional family #read more #princess leia #motherhood

17 notes · View notes

fangirling97 · 5 years ago

Text

TROS SPOILERS

I just want to know WHO? Who made the decisions for this movie. Was it J.J.? Chris Terrio? Kathleen Kennedy? Bob Iger? Who had the power here and who decided to take the most hopeful, beautiful story arc in the history of redemption arcs and end it with a very unsatisfying and disrespectful death?

It truly never seriously crossed my mind that Ben Solo would die in this film. I had faith in the creators to know that it would be the worst idea ever. Clearly I was wrong.

I’ve been doing my utmost to seek positivity. The fact is this movie has some of my favorite moments in the history of Star Wars. I genuinely fall in love with Ben Solo and the brilliant mannerisms and attitude he exudes every time I think about him. I thought I loved Kylo Ren...it’s nothing compared to Ben Solo.

The kiss is beautiful. Their faces kill me every time. I’ve never seen such pure joy and love like that.

The scene with Han and Ben genuinely makes me tear up every time I think about it and I full-on sobbed in the theater when I saw it. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed from this relationship and it only cements my love for these two characters deeper in my heart.

So much of this movie is even better than how I saw it in my head...so why do I feel physically ill when I think about it?

Ultimately I could forgive a whole lot. I can forgive the messy pacing. The lack of meaningful dialogue and the fact that we still have no idea how Palpatine is alive and that no one seems as concerned as they really should be...seriously, why is NO ONE like deeply shocked and concerned??

What I can’t forgive is the lack of respect to the characters and the previous movies.

Rey Palpatine: (I’ll get to Ben Solo, believe me) I remember hearing this theory ages ago and thinking well that’s never going to happen. Don’t I feel stupid? Well....no I don’t, cause really it never should have. Everyone has said it and I whole-heartedly agree that Rey Nobody is what we needed for this trilogy. Frankly, it makes me like her more that way. This story could have gone exactly the same way without her being related to the grossest and most evil man in the galaxy (please go listen to What the Force-Dark Union). There is literally no reason to make these characters related at all except to give Rey a family she has NO connection to at all. I’ve loved the way that each main character (Rey, Kylo/Ben, and Finn) have had to grapple with their personal histories and find a way to accept and move past them in this trilogy. Yet Rey doesn’t...at all. We are repeatedly told throughout this movie that you make your own family and that it doesn’t matter where you come from you are your own person...so WHY relate her (clumsily and without ANY foreshadowing or reasoning at all) to a truly despicable being that has no real effect on the person she is. It’s not unbelievable that every person has a fight between light and dark inside. They don’t have to be related to a villain to make sure we all get that.

Finn: I really don’t understand this character at all in this movie. Firstly, is there even an arc. I’ve seen it twice now and I really can’t see one. The only semi-interesting aspect is that he’s force-sensitive which I didn’t really want. Not because I don’t like Finn but he’s already an interesting and dynamic character without it. Finn being Force sensitive does not make him better in any meaningful way. If that’s really the direction you wanted to take him in then it should have at least been hinted at in TFA. And really? Really? We had to have the weird little secret through the whole movie? I honestly didn’t even notice that his force sensitivity may have been the thing he wanted to tell Rey through the movie (mostly because the movie is too busy for this tiny little piece). I don’t understand where the weird tension between Finn and Poe cane from and while I don’t mind the idea it felt like it came and went way too quickly and all the sudden it’s all grand cause the end battle is coming? And everyone has said it but I agree, I really think Rose made Finn a better character and apparently she’s just gone in this movie with NO addressing of their chemistry and romantic plot in TLJ...at all. It’s just weird and uncomfortable.

Luke: I have never been the biggest Luke fan but I was genuinely excited to see him in this movie. Though the Han scene is spectacular, I really wanted a little more from Luke and Ben. I really wanted Luke’s words in the first trailer to be to both Rey and Ben if not just to Ben himself. It felt important to have Ben face his uncle once again and be able to forgive (somewhat) and move on from that pain and betrayal. Instead, all Luke was used for was to call out Rian Johnson and deliver some very strange exposition that tbh I don’t even remember. The fact that our beloved hero’s scene in the final Skywalker movie is utterly unremarkable is a shame and I have to keep reminding myself it’s even in the movie. It doesn’t make sense for Luke and Leia to know Rey’s lineage and literally never say a word. Luke nearly killed Ben Solo for having darkness inside of him but Rey is the descendent of the most evil man in the galaxy (and a personal tormenter of the Skywalker family) and he just is totally cool with it...no.

Ben: This is really what hurts the most. I could forgive a lot (even Rey Palpatine though it will always be stupid) if Ben Solo had been able to live. The truth is I was enjoying the movie for the whole time until the moment when my favorite character of all time, the epitome of all that is Star Wars to me, died. Without any moment to mourn him. Stepping back, I can see the tragic beauty in this moment. He sacrificed himself to save the light and love of his life. And he’s happy to do it. He knows he can’t live without her. The problem is, Ben Solo has faced his tragedy already. Isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why he’s humanized so early in TFA. I have always loved Vader’s story and I do believe it was the right move to have him sacrifice himself for his son. But Vader was a monster and nothing more until the end of the RotJ. Kylo is nearly immediately humanized in making him the son of Leia and Han. In showing his face to the scavenger girl so quickly. Then pretty much the entirety of TLJ. It’s all showing his humanity. We should have all known (and many did) that redemption and the pull to the light is inevitable for Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren was never going to make it out of this trilogy but I sure believed Ben Solo would. I am in awe with the performance of Adam Driver in the third act of this movie (well actually all of it, but you know what I mean). Ben is completely different from Kylo Ren in almost every aspect. So many people have complained that Ben never actually has dialogue outside of the very endearing “ow”. I’ll be honest it makes me so sad and I definitely wanted to see some from him but I didn’t actually notice the lack of words the first time because of how much Adam is able to convey with every movement and facial expression. I knew exactly who this character was and I have never loved a character so much in my life. In these moments you can see every pain, betrayal, and weight is lifted from him. Ben is finally free of his pain. And now he can be the man he was always meant to be and it is staggeringly beautiful. And then he is thrown into a pit. Not allowed to fight the being that has tortured his family for the entirety of the saga. And is killed without a moment to grieve for us or for the love of his life. And I can’t get over it. I can’t see the logic in it. What’s the point? What’s the message here? Life sucks and then you die? THATS NOT STAR WARS!!!! Star Wars has always been tragic but there is always hope! Look at RotS. That is the saddest movie in Star Wars (till now) and it ends with the twins carrying the hope of the galaxy and their mother. Uncle Lars and Aunt Beru look into the sunset with hope as Obi Wan looks on knowing that if anyone can save the galaxy it’s going to be Luke Skywalker. Even if Obi Wan doesn’t believe that Anakin can be saved Luke is still worth everything to keep safe. In ESB Han Solo is frozen in carbonate, Luke is the son of the monstrous Vader, and the Empire is winning. Yet in the end Luke and Leia stand side-by-side, determined to make it all better. There is always hope in Star Wars yet I am left utterly hopeless by this movie. The only thing keeping me afloat is the idea that Ben Solo May live on due to the fact that we don’t see him at all in the end of HIS FAMILYS SAGA! (More on that in a moment). For the last four years Kylo Ren/Ben Solo has represented potential and hope. And now he’s dead. I can’t get over that. I hope Lucasfilm and Disney understand what he means to us and finds a way to bring him back. I don’t know what Adam Diver believed he was going to be completing but I can’t imagine this was the way it was supposed to be. Not when he loves this character as much as we do.

The Skywalkers: this is mostly a continuation but I had some specific things I wanted to address here. This is the Skywalker saga. I can say without a doubt this is my favorite fictional family ever. I love the drama and the angst and the importance they hold. I have never doubted that the sequel trilogy would hold up to that because Ben Solo (Skywalker) existed. Yet they are completely sidelined in this movie. I love Rey so so much but to introduce the idea of a Force Dyad with ultimate power in the Force and the to throw the Skywalker half off a cliff so that the two Palpatines can duke it out for the fate of the Skywalker Saga is just awful. I truly believe that Ben should have killed Palpatine (to stop Rey from being possessed by her creepy grandpa) and to be able to complete Anakins story. We even learn that Palpatine has haunted Ben in the same way he’s haunted Anakin (which is totally glossed over by the way, cause why is that important, right?) and yet Ben does nothing against Palpatine in the final fight. How does this make sense? I said all along I wanted an Anakin cameo in this movie and I was truly happy to hear Hayden’s voice in this movie but if Ben and Rey are dyads and representations of balance in the Force then why is she the Jedi that needs to rise? Shouldn’t they BOTH be that? The fact that this movie ends with no living Skywalkers is just bad and it hurts. I cannot understand the need for the Skywalker line to end just cause the saga is ending. Let Ben Solo and Rey have babies for goodness sake! And to be honest I don’t feel any emotion except disappointment and frustration at the whole Rey Skywalker line. She’s not a Skywalker, or if she is then she shouldn’t be alone. Loneliness has never been good in Star Wars. And yeah Luke and Leia show up as Force ghosts but that’s not real companionship and neither is BB-8. Rey is not meant to be alone and neither is Ben. Or do the most touching lines in TLJ mean absolutely nothing at this point. Now I can only hold on to Luke’s line, “no one is ever really gone.”

This ended up way longer than I meant it to but turns out I needed to get some of my feelings out. I’m frustrated at my inability to feel satisfied by all of the truly wonderful moments in this movie (Reylo is real and Ben is here once again). There are so many other things I thought too. Why does Rey decide to go into exile on Ach-To when she spent the whole last movie explaining why it doesn’t work to Luke? (Well it’s cause obviously TLJ isn’t important, that’s why everything was retconned,right? Except JJ said he didn’t do that...weird.) Why is it that Rey showed the Resistance how to get to Exegol when I personally think it would have been cooler and more meaningful to have the signal coming from a rogue tie fighter flown by Ben Solo? (Think about it. Han tells Ben to help the thing his mother lived for, the Resistance, he knows how to get there and it would have been a far more interesting moment then just having Finn tell us all what Rey means when we kinda figured it out for ourselves, thanks). Why didn’t Ben fly the Falcon at all in total acceptance of his true identity?

But ultimately these are the most important things I felt coming out of TROS. I fully expected this movie to be my favorite of the trilogy if not my favorite of them all. I’ve always like the Star Wars finales the most. RotS is my favorite of all of the SW movies with RotJ close behind. Really though, this isn’t a Star Wars finale it’s just dressed up as one. I hope there will be more things to come and I look forward to the future of Star Wars (with binary sunsets in the middle distance, of course). And I hope this isn’t really the end of Ben Solo, my hero.

Now to catch up on Clone Wars because Star Wars is where I go when I’m feeling down. Even if I’m feeling down about Star Wars.

#tros spoilers #reylo #bendemption #ben solo #ben and rey #star wars tros

27 notes · View notes

shadowsong26fic · 6 years ago

Text

Precipice Deleted Scene

This comes from the most recent chapter (Part 7, Chapter 6/Chapter 72 overall). It’s an alternate version of what Leia saw in the Temple, one of three or four that I considered. This is the most complete.

I ended up using the other scene because I thought it flowed a little better/got the point across a little more clearly, and the focus is narrower/more effective for this point in her journey. The alternate scene here focuses a little more heavily on the Anakin and Leia parallels, and while I do love how alike those two are and their relationship (which is why it gets so much focus in the fic proper), I felt like this scene was the wrong place to focus on it.

Anyway, all that being said, the scene itself is behind the cut. It’s fairly rough/unedited/unfinished, but I did make sure it’s a complete scene with all transitions in. Some of them are fairly clunky/would be worked on a bit more before posting if this had made it into the fic proper.

Enjoy!

She’d finally found something that felt new--a steep, narrow staircase; almost more like a ladder--and was trying to decide whether to go up or down, when she caught sight of a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye.

Leia’s heartbeat sped up again, and she paused, listening carefully for footsteps or any sounds that the machinery had changed, but she was still safe. Undiscovered.

A vision, maybe? she thought. Is that how this is supposed to work?

She stayed where she was for a moment, practically holding her breath and waiting for another sign.

And there it was again--at the far end of the corridor, a hint of what might be a tattered cloak shifting as someone walked across the dusty stone.

No footsteps, though.

Definitely a vision. Finally! ...oops.

She turned away from the stairs but took another moment to close her eyes and take a breath, to settle herself before she took her next step.

There is no passion, there is serenity. I can do this. But not if I jump at shadows. Even good, exciting ones.

When her heartrate had mostly gone back to normal, Leia opened her eyes again and started walking, forcing herself to keep a steady, even pace.

Once again, it took forever.

Patience, she reminded herself. That’s probably the test here. That’s what I have most trouble with, right? And if I pass it, I get a crystal, and then I can start really helping Dad and everyone.

The corridor ended, leaving her in a small, circular room with no exits other than the one behind her. Unlike the pathway here, though, the room had its own light. Leia held for a second, letting her eyes readjust--

There was someone there.

A man, tall and solidly built and bald all over, with patchwork white scars running all over his face--one particularly bad one just visible at the top of his head--and something strangely familiar about his eyes.

“Hello?” she tried.

He smiled at her. “Hello. ...huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just...you’re taller than I expected.”

Leia glowered at him, drawing herself up as much as she could, and he bit back another smile.

“I’m sorry, that was rude. Please, join me.”

“Who are you?” she asked, settling across from him with her hands at rest in her lap, just like Aunt Beru said she should if they were idle. To be polite.

“Not important,” he said.

“Are you a ghost?”

He grimaced. “Not...exactly,” he said. “But the Temple has been--damaged. Corrupted. The veil is thin here. Besides, I’ve never been all that good at following the rules I didn’t like.” He winked at her.

She stared at him, but, despite herself, she felt herself relaxing a little. He sounds almost like Dad.

“You’re a lot like your father, you know,” he said, after a moment. Almost as if he’d heard her thoughts.

Well, Force-vision, right? He probably can, even if actual mind-reading doesn’t work like that.

“Yes, I am,” she said, not bothering to hide her pride at that.

He studied her for a moment. “You...you know that’s not entirely a good thing, right?”

“What are you trying to say?” she asked. “My father is a good man.”

Something she couldn’t quite read flashed across his eyes.

Patience, she reminded herself, and took a deep breath. This is a Test, remember? Whoever the Force has chosen to manifest as here--this is not the way.

“I mean,” she said. “I mean, I know he isn’t perfect. No sentient being is. But he’s my dad, and he’s a good person, and I love him. And there are way worse people I could be like.”

“I’m not gonna argue with that,” he said.

“Good.”

“But you are like him,” he said. “Both the good and the bad.”

“If that’s what this test is--”

“This isn’t a test,” he interrupted. “It’s a lesson.”

“Meaning what?”

“You could burn it all down, if you wanted to,” he said quietly. “I mean, if you really wanted to.”

She chewed that over for a moment. “You mean the Empire?”

“I mean all of it.”

She frowned. “I’m not sure I understand,” she said. “The Empire is--” She thought of Mom and Luke and the constant tension on Coruscant. She thought of Dad and Aunt ‘Soka and Uncle Obi-Wan and everything they’d lost. She thought of Uncle Rex and the bad dreams he pretended not to have.

The Empire had done all of that.

“Are you saying it doesn’t need to go?”

He shrugged. “That’s not my question to answer. Not here and now.”

“Then what are you saying?” she asked.

“I’m saying,” he said, “that you need to be careful.” He held up a hand to stop her interrupting. “Careful when and where you set that fire. That you’re sure it’s the right one, and that you can live with the collateral when you lose control.”

“If I lose control.”

“When.”

She stared at him.

“The kind of fire I’m talking about, it’s definitely when,” he said. “Because when you burn it all down, you burn it all down.”

Leia thought about that for a minute. She thought about all the times she’d been--angry. Been tempted to hurt people, because they’d hurt the people she loved. If she really got going, on a scale like the entire galaxy, like the Empire…

Okay. He--might have a point there.

But this was still the Empire they were talking about. Control and patience were important, yes, but so was doing the right thing. So was justice.

“It might still be worth it,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I said to be sure it’s worth it. Trust me.”

“Who are you?” she asked again.

This time, to her surprise, he actually answered. “In another life,” he said, “I’m the man who destroyed your father.”

She was on her feet before she realized it. “You--”

“Another life,” he interrupted her. He smiled, wryly. “I’m not saying that someone like me might not get to him, someday, under the right circumstances. But my time has passed. Long ago. Before you were born.”

She took a moment, and then another, and another, and when she was pretty sure her voice would be steady, she asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because there was a time when I thought burning everything down was the answer,” he said, then gestured at the scars on his face. “Look where it got me.”

She studied him for a moment, then sat back down. “And that’s when you killed--killed my dad?”

“That’s when I destroyed him,” he said. “And that was the least of what I did. I’m--like you. Born of fire. I don’t want to see you become what I did.”

“In another life.”

“Yes.”

There was a moment of silence, while she studied his scars in the uncertain light, and thought about--about that unimaginable thing, that Dad was gone.

And that was the least of it. Or so her vision said.

“But you’re talking to me here and now,” she said. And he didn’t--feel evil. Not like the kind of monster he was describing should.

“I got better,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “After. Eventually. It took a while, and a lot of help, and some very, very special circumstances. But I would give anything to have another chance. To do things right.”

“Right,” she said.

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t’ve still decided that--that at least some of what I destroyed needed to come down,” he said. “It’s...hard, even now. There were...external factors. And--well, like I said. I burn things--it’s what I’m good at. Always was, even before...well.” He shook his head. “But maybe I wouldn’t have. If I thought things through, I like to think that I would’ve...would’ve managed the collateral better. At the very least.”

She thought about that for a long, long time. Long enough that she started to feel--not quite in a trance-state, exactly, but...not quite here, either.

“Sometimes, I guess that’s all you can really do,” she said, eventually, and the weight of that sank down on her.

“Yes,” he said, simply.

“Oh.”

“I’m not trying to tell you you’re bound to be a monster, or to make you afraid to act,” he said. “That’s not the lesson here. The lesson is to think before you act. And if you really do end up burning it all down--well, that’s your choice. And maybe it will be the right one. But be sure it’s worth it.”

She nodded, slowly. “I...think I understand,” she said. Patience. Just like Uncle Obi-Wan and everyone keeps telling me.

He smiled at her one last time, and glanced up at the ceiling. “You should probably get going,” he said. “Your father and Baze Malbus made a little more noise than they should have. You’ll want to be on your way as soon as possible, after curfew ends.”

She blinked, and for another half a moment felt all floating and detached, before the hard stone under her felt real again. “Right,” she said, and stood up again, more smoothly than before. Despite the fact that her legs were half-asleep and all tingly.

He rose as well, and offered her his hand.

She accepted, and felt something small and hard and warm rest in it, which helpfully anchored her, chasing away the last echoes of disorientation. “So, I passed the test?” she asked, hopefully.

“Not a test,” he said again, smiling almost sadly. “A lesson. One you’ll probably have to keep learning and relearning for the rest of your life. You are a child of fire, Leia. Like your father. And me.”

She nodded, and closed her hand around the crystal. “I’ll remember,” she promised.

“Good,” he said, and bowed. “May the Force be with you. Princess.”

#shadowsong26fic #shadowsong writes star wars #precipice verse #deleted scene

4 notes · View notes

yeomangamer · 7 years ago

Text

After My Father’s Funeral Chapter 1

Summary: Funerals can be stressful, but so can weddings--especially with a family as effed up as theirs. Unfortunately for Leia, she has both to attend in one go. So much for repression. Modern AU

Pairings: Leia/Han, Mara/Luke, Jyn/Cassian, Leia&Han&Luke&Mara&Cassian&Jyn, Uncle Owen/Aunt Beru

Chapter summary: Let the past die, bury it if you have to.

Chapter pairings: Mara/Luke, Jyn/Cassian, Past!Leia/Cassian, Luke&Leia&Mara

A/N: Based on the idea that it would be really traumatizing to be a Skywalker in the modern day. See Ao3 and FFN versions for full authors notes.

If Leia had learned anything from her albeit limited experience traveling, it was that bureaucracy was a bitch. “Bureaucracy is a lawyer’s best friend, Miss Organa,” her boss, Akbar, had told her. “These people, they try so hard to cover every little crack and crevice, but it’s our job to find where they were wrong.” Today, in-line at the airport, Leia was fairly certain it was the whole idea that was wrong with bureaucracy. After her ticket failed to work, she had to wait in-line to speak with a representative, having already spoken with two other employees and a supervisor. It was as if the universe was preventing her from going home, which she desperately wanted to take as a sign to switch her flight to someplace with tropical beaches. She was even considering Canto Bight, when it was her turn in line.

“Thank you for flying Rebel Air. How can I help you, ma’am?” The smiling woman said.

“Yes, hello, I have a last-minute booking to Naboo, and my tick-“

“We have a policy on exchanging flights for last-minute bookings, ma’am. I’m sorry.” The response was tired, rehearsed, as if countless people had tried to weasel out of the policy of the company.

She sighed inwardly, bidding the dream of the casino goodbye. “I don’t want to exchange, I want to get on my plane, my ticket won’t check me in.”

“How odd, may I see your ticket and some ID, please.” Leia handed both over, and the woman scanned it. “Naboo, huh?”

Leia was not in the mood for smalltalk. “Yep.” The airport had to be the worst place for small talk.

“What brings you there? Big racing down there, I hear.”

“Yeah, yeah, I grew up there. I’m going for family stuff, you know. A funeral and then a wedding.” The representative nodded and smiled knowingly. How ironic, there’s no way she could’ve known.

The computer made a noise, not a good one either, and the rep made a face, and tried again. “Hmmm,” she said. “Odd, let me get my supervisor.”

Leia groaned and laid her face on the counter. She hated to leave her fate in the hands of strangers, without any agency as to getting anywhere. After a few moments, she huffed, trying not to lose her temper. She wasn’t in a hurry per se, but also wasn’t in the mood to spend any more time than she had to with airport employees.

The rep appeared with another employee. “I’m sorry about that Ms. Organa, here’s a new ticket for you, should work now,” the (presumed) supervisor told her, scanning the ticket. There was a happy sounding beep, and she took her ticket with a thanks.

She checked her bags, and sat down at her gate. The tv above the gate was on; she immediately regretted glancing at it.

“…the noted activist, and so-called ‘Champion of Free Speech’ Anakin Skywalker has died. The 65-year old had been battling lung cancer for nearly a decade before passing away at his home in Naboo on Friday. Skywalker first rose to fame as a leader of the Imperialists under the name ‘Vader.’ But Skywalker had moved away from the group in recent years—even calling it a ‘cult’ in one noted interview—to support pro-environmentalist groups. His family asks to make any donations to…”

“Quite the enigma, that man.” The voice made Leia jump, and she looked over to see a man sitting next to her looking at the TV. He saw that she had looked over and continued. “I read his book ‘Anti-anti-‘, and let me say—“ She immediately got up, took her carry-on bag, and moved to sit on the opposite side of the seating area with her back to the stranger. If the man was at all offended by her behavior, she neither knew nor cared.Skywalker certainly had a way of ruining everything, even the flight to his funeral.

The Naboo airport held one of her most treasured memories: when she had parted with her brother, Luke, for the first time since what she had dubbed the Ruling. They who had spent a majority of their formative years apart, only to be reunited at 16 through the worst of all circumstances, left each other for the first time since then in a tearful goodbye at the airport four years ago. At the time, she knew she wouldn’t miss the city, her old college, or even her (recently) ex-boyfriend, but she hated leaving her twin after trying so hard to stay together.

So today it was only fitting that it be Luke’s face to greet her at the gate. Their embrace was tight and full of longing, she hadn’t seen her brother since before they had turned 25. Leia turned and greeted the woman beside Luke with her own tender embrace and a kiss on the cheek.

“Mara, you look so well,” Leia said, gripping her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s forearms.

“Thank you, as do you as always. Thank you for coming sooner than we’d originally talked about, I’m sorry if it spoiled any of your plans.” She blew her red hair out of her face, smiling broadly.

“Well, if they were spoiled it’s how ol’ dad would’ve wanted it,” Leia released Mara and heading towards baggage claim.

“Now, Leia-“ Luke’s voice was a warning, one that she wasn’t about to heed.

“‘Now, Leia’” Leia mockingly repeated. “I promise to keep my comments to myself during the wake and the funeral, but I make no such guarantees about anywhere else.”

She couldn’t hear Luke’s sigh, but she knew it was there. They picked up her bag, and hopped into Luke’s old truck.

“When’re you going to get a new car?” Leia asked. “The windows still roll down.”

“Luke had said something about the end of days, but that is in contention,” Mara joked from the backseat.

Luke only smiled. Leia knew that he wasn’t bothered at all at Mara’s comment, or even at her’s towards Skywalker. Her brother had the most positive temperament of anyone she’d ever met; she resented him just a little for that.

“I hope you don’t mind staying with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru,” Luke said as they crossed over Amidala bridge. The bridge connected the inner city and the boroughs of Naboo, a passion project of their late mother’s. They had named it after her, a symbol of how much she had been universally loved in her local community.

“Of course not,” Leia stated, only lying a little bit. It was difficult to pin blame on anyone for the unpleasantness that had framed the last ten years of her life. Luke was definitely not a candidate, and therefore should not have to suffer her contention. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were contenders as well as her own dear parents. The only person who Leia could surely, 100%, be blamed was Anakin Skywalker. And blame him she did.

They pulled into the drive-way of the Lars’ Farm, and all three each rolled out of the hot car—Luke’s air conditioning had quit sometime in college. Her Uncle and Aunt greeted her warmly, showing her to the guest room, which had, at one time, been Luke’s room. After the Ruling, Leia had sat with Luke in this very room and imagined their lives together growing up as they might have been. The faces of those who would raise them were blurry, but so many of the memories she’d constructed had felt so real, it was bittersweet to think of her childhood without him. Now the walls were bare of Luke’s Ahch-To and X-wing posters and the room certainly smelled better.

She was debating between living out of her suitcase or unpacking when Luke came in with his hands in his pockets and a peculiar smile on his face. Leia knew that look, as she knew every look--every movement even--of her brother’s. Choice words were about to be said, and she was sure she wasn’t going to like them.

“A bit different from when we were 18,” Luke commented.

“Certainly smells better.” That got a chuckle, but it didn’t really reach his eyes.

“Leia…” She sighed, and crossed her arms. “I’ve never been able to tell you what to do-

“Nor will you ever.”

“-but could you at least keep your comments about dad, our dad, to a minimum? Or at least confine them to just between us?”

“Mara knows perfectly well what I think about your father, no sense in hiding from her.” She tried not to be exclamatory, only firm, in her distinction of “your.”

Luke was not having said distinction. “He was your father too.” His tone was matter-of-fact, not loud.

“No, he wasn’t. A father is there for you, a father teaches you how to ride a bike and playfully threatens your prom date. Anakin Skywalker was not my father.”

Luke sighed, exasperated. “What more could he have done to redeem himself to you?”

Leia rolled her eyes. “Well, there’s no use asking that question now as there isn’t anything more he could do. He’s dead.”

“I know that, but what could he have done?”

“Not be a racist? Not inspire god-knows how many to kill? Not left our mother to die? Taken care of us after she died? Oh, and when he didn’t do all those things, how about not putting the fact that we are related to him in the goddamn public record? You know how many opportunities I’ve lost because of him? All a potential connection need do is google my name and right there is ‘daughter of noted activist Anakin Skywalker.’” She stood from the bed, ready to defend her viewpoint in the impending argument.

“You think I haven’t had doors closed in my face too? You really think you’re the only one to suffer?” They weren’t yelling, Luke never yelled. But his voice was firm and contentious.

“No, but you still defend him, he ruined our lives!” Leia didn’t understand how Luke could see the events of the past and come to any other conclusion.

“What would you have done, Leia? If you were in his shoes, what would you have done?” He had always seen the world through their results: Skywalker had brought them back together as brother and sister so ergo Skywalker was good.

“How can you continue to defend him? He’s ruined your wedding!” There were tears in her eyes now, threatening to fall.

“By dying? It’s not like he could choose when-“

“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Luke sighed, and she felt the tension drop. Their argument would not escalate further. “Mara and I already live together, and we have the rest of our lives, the wedding is just a day.”

“One of the only days in your life where you have all of your loved ones together in one room.”

Luke shrugged. “Maybe you’re right, maybe he was comforted by the idea that everyone was going to be here anyway.”

Leia bit back her comment, knowing it was no use to argue with him. She sat back down, her temper deflated. Luke kneeled on the bed beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“You have every right to be angry, and I hope one day you decide to let it go. Either way, I’m glad you’re here.” Leia bit back the tears until Luke embraced her and she let them fall, silently crying into his arms.

“Luke, Aunt Beru wants to know-“ Mara said, poking her head into the room. “Oh, sorry. Is everything alright?”

Leia nodded and wiped her face as Luke rubbed her back. “Yeah, it's just a lot, you know, to be back here, in this room. We tried weed in here, one time, did Luke tell you?” Luke was right, there was no use dragging Mara into her trauma.

Luke didn’t seem phased that she had lied about what was going on, and groaned. “Never again, I will never understand the appeal.” The three of them laughed and Leia fingered the duvet cover. She tried to tell herself it was only the jet-lag and airport that had made her so upset.

The Wake was the next day, and flew by before Leia even noticed. Both the funeral and visitation were closed events, invitation only, with enforcers hired to keep any unwanted company out. There was a slight mix-up that involved a Senator from Scarif but was soon sorted out without much hassle. Overall, the night was full of people wishing both her brother and her well. Though the stream of mourners was steady, there couldn’t have been more than a few dozen. Mara had mentioned something about the event conflicting with the races, and Leia laughed to herself that not even her father’s funeral could compete with this town’s obsession with racing. Most of the guests were also wedding guests, and promised to be there in a little over two weeks under much lighter circumstances.

“I hope they all RSPV’d, otherwise it's going to be terribly awkward to turn them away,” Luke said to Mara and Leia during a small break between mourners.

“‘Sorry great-aunt Myla, I know you said you’d be here two weeks ago, but that was then and this was now,’” Mara mimed Luke turning away elderly potential wedding guests. The three all cracked a smile and greeted another couple, Anakin’s former editor and his wife.

They had chosen a closed casket for both events. Still, Leia couldn’t help but glance at the casket every so often with a sick desire to set her eyes on Skywalker one more time. To see if he was really dead? Would she find joy in knowing he’d finally gotten what he’d deserved: a slow death, probably most of it in pain? She snapped her head away and shook her head. Pretty soon, she’d turn out like him: evil.

The funeral was the Friday after. In front of the mirror, Leia was hoping no one would notice that she’d worn the same black dress to both the wake and the funeral. She only had maybe two black dresses to begin with—white was more her color. And, even then, she’d had to pack for nearly a month and could only take so much with her. Besides, she was grieving, right? Who expected someone to be en vogue while in mourning? To finish the outfit, she wore big, dark glasses so that—hopefully—no one saw her rolling her eyes during the ceremony.

The temple was surrounded by natural beauty, flowering trees and even a waterfall. She was sure Luke had picked out this place. Another receiving line, more mourners. After a dozen or so, she was stifling a yawn and excused herself to get some water.

It was on her way down the hall that she ran into someone she had not expected to, and, from the look on his face, he had not expected her either.

“Cassian?” She said, removing her glasses.

“Leia, its good to see you again.” They awkwardly stood in the hallway. Cassian was with a very pretty woman their age, with big blue eyes and somewhat of a European face. If the rumors from Luke were true, then this must be...

“Leia, this is my fiancé, Jyn Erso. Jyn, this is…an old friend, Leia Organa. We went to school together.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Leia said, smiling and extending her hand.

“Ditto.” So she was English. “Sorry about your loss.” She shook Leia’s hand. It shouldn’t feel weird, should it? To meet your ex’s fiancé. She tried to smile and push it out of her mind.

“Thank you both for coming, but, in truth, I had not expected you to be here.”

“It was more for your brother and Mara-“

“And you, of course,” Jyn interjected.

“Of course. You and Luke and Mara, we came to support you. How are you doing?” She couldn’t make out his tone, and therefore if he was referring to her life in general, the funeral, or the wedding. She said as much. Cassian chuckled and Jyn even cracked a smile. “All three, I guess.”

She addressed each in sequence. “Fine, ehh, and fine.”

“We should get together and catch up, the fo- five of us,” Cassian said.

“We’re having a party tomorrow night to celebrate the wedding,” Jyn said. “You’re invited, of course.”

“Well then, of course I’ll come,” Leia assured. The three of them started back towards the entrance where her brother and Mara were waiting.

“And we’ll have to meet, and catch up,” Cassian reminded.

“Yes, catching up, let’s. It was nice seeing you both, I’ll see you in there, and maybe after. Definitely tomorrow.” Leia talked as they walked. She took her place next to Luke as Mara kissed the cheek of some tall scruffy-looking guy. Leia figured he was probably one of her family as she had never seen him before, but thoughts of the man were quickly put out of her mind.

“Cassian! Jyn!” Luke said, shaking the hand of the two, Mara embraced them both.

“It’s great that you’re both here, we’ll see you tomorrow.” Mara told them and Leia nodded, already turning to the next person in line.

The funeral went by also without a hitch, though Leia had her fair share of eye-rolling and snorts—the latter of which she masked as sobs with the help of an acquired tissue. The speaker carefully skidded over Skywalker’s debatable crimes against humanity by simply referring to them as “dark times.” Leia had to pretend to blow her nose to contain the scoff from that one.

Soon enough they were wheeling the casket up the aisle and headed to the cemetery. Only close friends and family were attending, no more than ten or so people. Luke and Mara rode in Leia’s rental rather than Luke’s truck. They were right in the front behind the hearse.

“I don’t think I ever thanked you for coming early, Leia,” Luke said, and Mara rubbed his arm.

“No need, I wish I could’ve come sooner and helped out with any affairs that needed to be tended to.”

Luke shrugged. “There wasn’t much to sort, he knew it was the end and had already planned with money set aside. He was in the hospital for the last year, didn’t even have a house or many personal items. No, all he-“ Luke must’ve known that she wouldn’t’ve cared if Skywalker had wanted her at his funeral or not, and amended his statement. “All I wanted was for you to be here.”

“Then I’d do it again, one-hundred times over. Anything for my baby brother.”

Luke smiled. “I’m the oldest.”

“Are not.”

“Are to.”

“I can dig up the pictures of the birth certificates again, if you insist.”

Luke seemed to shrug. “Pictures can be doctored, unlike your attitude.”

That made Leia laugh out loud as they pulled into the cemetery, the loud bell proclaiming their purpose for visiting.

There was a small ceremony at the tomb-site, the speaker inviting anyone to come and say something. Luke gave a small speech, as did a few others, but Leia hardly noticed. She was looking over the rise to the group of men wearing all black who seemed to be staring at them. They had shaved heads. One raised a sign over his head that read: “Long-live the Emperor.” That was enough for Leia.

“Excuse me,” she said quite suddenly as she got up and to the enforcer who’d come with them, directing his attention to the intruders. He quickly spoke on a walkie-talkie, making his way in the direction Leia had pointed.

The group noticed the man heading towards them, and some started to run away. Most stayed put.

“Hold fast, brothers!” one yelled so that even the dead could hear. “They can’t stop our free speech!”

“We aren’t the government, you fucking dickhead! It's a private ceremony, and you’re intruding! Go be a waste of oxygen somewhere else, you ignorant, servile scum!” Leia shouted back.

“It’s you who are the scum! Not giving this great man a proper burial as he outlined in his 1986 manifesto!”

“Tell that to executor of his fucking estate with a will from circa 2014! Leave us to mourn in peace, and let the past die before I kill it myself!” Leia’s throat was hoarse, but she would gladly out-shout a symphony to keep skinheads away from Skywalker’s burial. Not for the sanctity of Skywalker’s grave or anything like that, instead for the sake of peace for those she loved.

“You hear that, she’s threatening me!”

By now the enforcer had caught up to them, and most of the group had fled. But the person conversing with her across the cemetery had to be restrained and escorted out. Leia sat down and with a nod, the speaker continued as if not missing a beat. No one seemed too surprised something like this would happen. All Leia could think was it figured that Skywalker could even ruin his own burial.

They lowered the casket and began burying it. As they did this, Leia made her way over to a different plot, placing the bouquet she had brought with her on the tombstone: “Here lies ORGANA Bail and Breha, loving wife, husband, parents, and friends. May the force be with us all.”

“Hi,” Leia whispered. “It’s been a minute.”

The wind whispered over the peaceful place.

“Wish you were both here, I think about you every day.”

She laid on her back, head on the flat stone as though it were a pillow, and imagined herself there, forever.

“Practicing?” A voice said and she cracked her eye open to see her brother, his tie untied, and dirt on his pants.

She nodded and closed her eyes. She heard the grass rustling as he lay next to her.

“Do you wanna be buried here?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, it’s so peaceful. You’ll be next to me, right?”

“Of course. I’ll even do you one better and split a coffin with you. Save us a lot of money.” With the private ceremony and unlisted grave, there was hardly any money left for the two of them. Leia had felt bad for Luke what with the wedding three weeks away, and had refused what small amount was left for her, insisting he take it.

Leia laughed. “Go out of this life the way we came in?”

Luke also laughed. “I didn’t even think of it that way.”

“Hey, at least we’ll be together. I never wanna not be together, in one way or another.”

Luke sighed in agreement, and took her hand. They stared at the sky together, watching the clouds.

“You two should move to Coruscant, there’s a ton of writing jobs there. And it's not too far from Ahch-To, which I know you love.”

“We’ve talked about it.”

“You should do it.”

“We’ll see.” Luke was silent for another moment. “We should be getting back.”

Leia sighed and got up. “Any more appearances until the wedding?”

Luke looked pensive for a moment as he got up. “Well there’s Cassian and Jyn’s party tomorrow, and our party that we’re throwing and-“

“Ok, ok, I guess I’ll have to always be on my best behavior.” They started walking towards the cars.

“Thanks for getting after those guys,” Luke said after a moment of walking.

“It was my pleasure, I assure you.”

“Never thought you’d defend dad’s right to have some peace.”

“I was thinking mostly about how much I didn’t want to see you try to have a calm discussion with the skin-head before he reset your clock.”

“I could’ve taken them.”

“Sure.”

They reached the cars where most everyone had left, Mara was waiting by the car.

“There you two are, I was beginning to wonder if you’d fallen into an open grave or something,” she said.

“At least then we’d leave this life the way we came in,” Luke joked.

“Gross, you know, there is such a thing as too close, you two.”

“It was Leia’s joke!” Luke said as he claimed the front seat.

They started driving back Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s, stopping to get a late lunch.

“You met Jyn, right?” Mara asked from the backseat. Leia nodded.

“Yeah, she and Cassian seem cute together.”

“He’s great. She’s my maid of honor.” Leia nodded. “She seems really nice, kinda quiet. But nice.” “Well, we’ve been through a lot, the two of us. I’d like if you two got along. I know there’s some history between you and Cassian, but-” Leia shook her head emphatically. “There won’t be a problem, I swear.” “You’ll have to meet my best man,” Luke piped up.

“Speaking of someone she might have a problem with,” Mara muttered.

Luke looked over his shoulder at her, but Leia didn’t catch it. He ignored Mara’s comment otherwise. “He’ll be at the party tomorrow.” Leia hummed in agreement. “Try not to kill him, will you? Or at least wait to kill him until after the wedding.”

“I make no such guarantees,” Leia quipped, getting a small laugh. “But I promise to at least try to leave him in one piece for the pictures.” She racked her brain and trying to remember if Luke had said something previously about this guy. Did Luke even mention him at all? He kept up with such a strange crowd since dating Mara, who knew a lot of people in the racing scene. Leia groaned internally, praying to god he wasn’t one of those stuck-up racing types.

6 notes · View notes

siennahrobek · 4 years ago

Text

Future Past

4/5 BBY

Luke is fourteen when he really understands the meaning of suspicion and trust. They had been on a planet that wasn’t particularly densely populated, at least outside of the medium sized dome cities with bustling people and tall buildings. Luke got to follow Ben around and Ben told him not to trust anyone. Luke was much too excited to really comprehend and remember that.

He wished he had.

Ben had been a tad jittery the entire morning. No one else would know it by looking at him, as he portrayed perfect calm, but Luke knew Ben. He was concerned about something.

It was difficult to focus on.

The city was beautiful, and Luke wanted to run around and see everything. They were constantly stuck on their tiny ship. Luke couldn’t stand the way that people kept chasing after them; usually bounty hunters after force sensitives or stormtroopers for the Empire. It made going to places difficult and they were always on the move. The planet they were on was not inhabited by the Empire or stormtroopers yet, but they knew it was probably only a matter of time.

Luke practically skipped next to Ben with his smooth strides, looking around and trying to take in everything he could as long as he could. Ben had even promised they would find a little secluded place to practice saber work. He did plenty of katas on their ship but being able to actually hold an ignited saber or spar or anything to do that wasn’t their most common occurrences.

“I should not be long, Luke,” Ben said, quietly, as they came up to a building. “I just need to check in with a contact of mine. Unfortunately, you are not old enough to enter this establishment and I loathe to leave you here alone but-.”

“I’ll be fine, Ben!” Luke assured with the wave of his hand. “I’ll just chill out in that park if that’s okay.”

Warily, Ben looked up at to where the boy had gestured. He nodded. “Alright, You maygo to the park. Keep the saber on you but hidden at all times. Not only is it very dangerous because of the Empire but they are also very, very valuable. Do not talk with anyone, do not go anywhere with anyone, do not accept anything offered to you,” he listed off. “Understand?”

“Yes sir!”

He was still hesitant, as Ben entered the establishment and Luke barely waited a moment before he charged down to the grassy park. It was beautiful! Even more so than all of the buildings. There was free running water in the form of a large stream and a bridge that went over it. He had stood at the arch of that bridge, staring down at the water for several minutes before continuing through the trees and plants.

There was a well-maintained garden, with more plants and flowers Luke had seen in his lifetime combined. There were so many types too!

He kneeled in the dirt to get a better look. Ben had told him about the Gardens at the old Jedi Temple and how many plants were there, some of which Ben himself had planted after his master passed away. The way Ben spoke about it, how magnificent it must have been, Luke always wished he could see it.

It must have been a great place to meditate, much better than on a tiny ship in the middle of hyperspace.

Luke found himself in between a little patch of plants and flowers and kneeled, taking a deep breath and started an attempt to meditate. He was still learning, he knew, ever since he had finally convinced Ben – through much begging – to teach him the jedi ways and therefore he knew it might not be perfect. He would do his best to do it well anyways, if only to impress Ben with his loyalty and dedication. He wanted this.

Time passed and Luke wasn’t sure how much as he got a little distracted by some children shouting and running nearby in the dirt. Taking a break, he opened his eyes and watched them curiously. There were several of them, tumbling around the grass and leaves, laughing, and playing together. They weren’t the same species, many of which he didn’t quite realize but it was fairly evident they were all very familiar with one another but not just that, with the way they moved, they knew each other, well and intimately.

Luke never really had a father. Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru loved him, for that he was completely certain, but he was not quite their son. Perhaps they tried, Luke thought, although he couldn’t be certain, he had been fairly young. He thought about what Ben said about how jedi children were raised, adopted, and brought up in clans, surrounded by friends and family and siblings that weren’t blood related, all together.

Luke would have loved that, he thinks.

To his embarrassment, Luke didn’t notice a person sitting next to him, cross legged and casual. “Hello,” the young rodian greeted, large dark eyes shining like a galaxy full of stars. Rodian eyes were something to behold, Luke always thought, dark and dotted with a congregation of stars.

Luke nearly jumped. “Oh! Hi,” he greeted, sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s alright,” the rodian smiled. “My name is Dema, may I have yours?” When Luke hesitated, Dema tried to backtrack. “It is okay if you can’t. I understand it is hard to trust people out here.”

The teenager’s shoulders rolled as the tension fell off of him. “Luke,” he admitted. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Dema’s smile made Luke so happy. Perhaps, finally, a friend.

***

Luke spoke with Dema for the rest of the time Ben was gone. They talked about so much and Luke felt fantastic. They shared a case of delicious drinks Dema had on hand, laughed, and talked about things they liked and didn’t. This must have been what having a friend was like.

He did actually sense Ben coming up and quickly turned from his seated position to smile, brightly at his guardian. Unfortunately, he did not see or sense the same from his guardian, who let out a deep frown. “Hi, Ben!”

Ben just shuttered, surprised at his blatant use of his name but he kept his voice flat and calm. “Hello there, young one. Who is your…friend here?”

“This is Dema,” Luke said, gesturing to the rodian. “We have been talking; it has been amazing. We have so much in common! Did you know a J-Type Skiff can go faster than any other ship in its class? Dema said it is a dream to pilot.”

Ben shifted. “That is quite the information. You should say goodbye to your friend, youngling. We have to leave.”

Luke lowered himself in disappointment. “Uh Ben…do we…we have time for dinner right? Dema invited me to eat.”

“You’re invited too, Master Ben,” Dema let out what could be seen as a smile.

This did not help anything. “I do not think we will be able to attend but thank you for the invitation, Dema.”

“But Ben!” Luke whined, he needed this. He just needed a little more time with his friend. If Ben just knew how fun and interesting, he was perhaps… perhaps…. “I know we were supposed to practice outside but maybe we can, I don’t know, use that time to have dinner instead?” he suggested, hopefully.

“I do not believe we can do that at this time,” Ben tried again.

“Come on Ben!” Luke nearly exploded, his voice rising. He needed this. “We are traveling all the time, I never get to meet new people, much less make any friends. I finally made a friend, and you won’t even let me have dinner with one, just…just once?! It’s not so easy being up in hyperspace with just you all the time!”

To Ben’s credit, he barely reacted. In fact, Luke reacted more than his guardian did, flinching at the words and trying to backtrack.

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Dema tried.

“Ben, I didn’t…” Luke started.

The older man looked quite conflicted, and his gaze raked over Dema, as if sizing the rodian up. “I…. okay,” he conceded, hesitantly. “Alright, we can have dinner with your friend.”

Everything else washed away. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It must be a quick one,” Ben warned. “We have to get on the move.”

“Of course, that’s okay, right Dema?” Luke chattered, excitedly, looking over at his friend.

There was a nod. “Sure, no problem. I know this fantastic little pub just a few minutes’ walk from here.”

The three of them walked down the streets, Luke and Dema chatting away excitedly as Ben followed, close and vigilant. The food ended up being pretty good, as the rodian had claimed and Luke felt he was having the time of his life. Ben was suspicious and at times, appeared a little bit rude but Dema didn’t seem to take it to heart, and rather took it in stride without pause or judgment.

This was fantastic.

They were playing a quick game of darts, with Dema jokingly swearing up and down that Luke was cheating when the Force just kind of blared at him. He turned around just in time to see Ben collapse off of his seat upon taking a sip of his drink.

Everything went silent.

From the voices of the pub, to the loud music in the background, to Dema trying to ask him what was wrong, Luke’s ears were closed and everything was fuzzy except for the zero in on Ben’s body.

Luke wasn’t sure how it happened or when he started moving but the next time he blinked, he found himself pinning his new so-called friend to the wall with strength that should have not been applicable for a boy his age.

“Luke! Luke!” Dema’s voice finally broke through, a little choked.

Probably because his arm was barred against the rodian’s blue throat.

“What did you do?” Luke hissed lowly.

“Nothing, Luke, I swear!” Dema cried.

The blue light of his father’s saber lit up Dema’s face as he held it in his free hand, ready to strike. Dema saw it and Luke saw fear. He felt fear; he could practically taste it on his tongue. He barely noticed the residents of the pub fleeing out of the door, a few of the employees hiding behind the counter. A light saber was quite the call.

“Oh…” Dema whispered.

“You will talk now,” Luke growled. “What did you do!?” his demand turned into a cry and Dema shook wildly.

“It’s just a drug, he’ll be fine, I swear, I swear,” Dema tried to placate him and was failing miserably. “I was paid 2,000 credits to do it. I don’t know by who. Please, please, don’t kill me.”

Luke shoved him to the side. Dema took this as an opportunity to leave. Instead of giving in to chase, Luke got to Ben’s side and checked his pulse. It was steady. Perhaps Dema had been telling the truth. Luke’s heart stormed around his ribcage in fear.

Perhaps it was poison, a treacherous part of his mind whispered. It felt oily.

“Your friend doesn’t look so good, boyo,” a new voice noted. Luke’s hand was shaking but he turned and caught sight of a weequay with another right behind him. They were the only one’s left.

“Who are you?”

“Someone who can help,” the being promised with a small smile.

Luke looked back at Ben. He didn’t know what to do. Dema said it was a drug but what kind of side effects could it have? Ben couldn’t just die because Luke was stupid.

“Why would you want to help? Who are you?” Luke snapped, pointing his father’s saber at the weequay. “What do you want?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, little spitfire,” the weequay chuckled lowly. “Careful where you point that thing, you could take off someone’s head!” he sounded much to amused for someone with a burning hot lightsaber in his face.

“That is kind of the point.”

“Do not worry so much, the jedi here is my friend!”

“He’s not a jedi,” Luke tried.

The weequay laughed and winked. “Of course, of course not. But I do know him! Obi-Wan Kenobi, former General of the Grand Republic Army!” He sounded very sure of himself, but anyone could find that information out on the holonet. He seemed to note Luke’s suspicion.

“I helped him many times! Got him ammunitions for a battle on Onderon! We fought one of those beasts with the red-light swords, together! I am completely reliable with my information,” he insisted.

Luke turned towards his guardian, worried. “Can you help him?”

The weequay grinned. “Of course, of course, my boy, of course. Anything for General Kenobi. My name is Hondo Ohnaka, at your service.”

***

Luke didn’t realize things were so wrong until it was mighty too late.

Looking back on it, he should have known Hondo was a pirate and that he had some controlling interest in the business on the world they were on. He had treated them kindly at first, putting Ben in a room that looked up to par with other medical facilities Luke imagined they would appear like. The room was even staffed with what had appeared to be a doctor. He was wrong.

Hondo had offered him a drink and Luke thought little of it. He had been relieved. They had found friends on this planet that would help them, help Ben, that they could rely on, at least for the moment.

When he woke up, he was in a jail cell. It was pretty obvious.

The string of curse words Luke let out would have had Ben yelling at him until he was blue in the face. He wished he could see it now, anything for Ben to be awake and able to fix the mess Luke had gotten them into. “You traitor!” Luke howled and got as close to the energy bars separating him from the pirates as he dared. The weequays snickered but held their ground. “I thought you were his friend!”

“I am!” Hondo cheered with a sly grin. “I am just a closer friend with profit! And the price on his head is something else! I could by a whole moon with that!”

“Who?” Luke demanded, his rage boiling. “Which tyrant did you sell us out to?”

“Ah, ah, ah. Not both of you. Just Kenobi. The buyer said he doesn’t need anything with a useless child. But I’m sure we can find a use for you,” Hondo replied with another smile and a shrug. “I’m sure we can find a way for you to be of profit for me; I hear you jedi younglings are good with tricks.”

“Who did you sell Ben out to?!” Luke yelled, gritting his teeth.

“Goodness, you have a temper,” Hondo huffed. “Calm down. You’ll spook my client’s rancors,” he added, gesturing to some of the other cells, filled with varying creatures and animals, including rancors. “It was some asthmatic cybernetic wack job in a cape…uh…Darth something,” he explained, waving his hand around, carelessly.

Luke’s heart dropped in his chest. “Darth Vader?”

“Ah!” Hondo snapped, happily. “That’s it! Do you know him?”

“Darth Vader?!” Luke screeched. “He’s a genocidal maniac! He murders people practically on a daily basis. You cannot trust him; he will kill you.”

“Ah, but we have something he wants,” Hondo pointed out. “Something he is willing to pay handsomely for.”

Luke doubted it. Darth Vader, at least from the stories of what he had been told, was more likely to kill someone rather than pay money at all. “You are crazy if you think you will get out of this alive,” he hissed.

“He is crazy if he thinks he can double cross me!” Hondo announced. “But, however, you will say anything to try and save your skin, something I greatly admire. But that also means, you could very well be lying!”

“I’m not,” Luke replied, deadpan.

“But you could be!” Hondo shot back. “Perhaps this Vader is quite the gentleman instead.”

“You are insane.”

“So, I’ve been told. Do not worry, my boy. The Vader man will come and collect his prize, I will have my money and well, we will figure something out for you,” he added with a shrug before sauntering off down the hall.

Luke was pretty sure that was the last he would see of him. He looked back at Ben’s form laying across the bench, he walked over and sat next to him, wiping a few tears that had burst forth. “I’m sorry, Ben,” he murmured. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I shouldn’t have trusted that either of them…I…I panicked I guess, I couldn’t just let you die. I know you said not to trust anyone but…I couldn’t just let you die,” he sighed. “I would do anything to make this right.”

***

Vader appeared with Ben’s saber on his belt.

It was hours later and suddenly Luke couldn’t breathe. He had never seen the beast this close before and he wanted to hide. Fear trilled down his spine in droves. “You stay away from him!” he managed to try and threaten and attempted to cover Ben’s body, another layer to keep that thing away from his guardian.

He was huge, Luke noticed, numbly. Amor that plastered in thick layers over what Luke assumed was his flesh and body. A whole circuit of buttons and switches on his chest, boots that nearly shook the ground and made a horrible thump that forced one’s mind to realize the end was coming. His cape was moving, fluttering around his legs and feet, even though there was no wind in the area. Dramatic, Luke’s perfidious brain mused.

“Are you Kenobi’s new padawan?” the wheezing sound made Vader’s voice both more terrifying and hilarious. But mostly terrifying and his chest stuttered.

“What?”

“Are you his padawan?”

“I don’t know what that is!” Luke cried. Of course, he does know what that meant but it was in the moment, and he didn’t really understand why Vader wants to know, why that was his first question and Luke just wanted him to leave them alone. “Leave us alone!”

Vader just hummed and something in his suit whirred. “I do not have time for you, little welp,” he grunted as he brought out his hand and suddenly Luke really couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even try. He was lifted in the air, his throat screaming for oxygen.

Luke was sure he was going to die.

“Darth,” Ben’s voice murmured.

He had vaguely awoken from his drugged state and although not quite lucid, it was just enough for him to sit up and speak.

Vader paused but let Luke’s throat go. He crumpled to the ground and Ben didn’t even spare him a glance. “It is time,” Vader ordered.

“Alright,” was Ben’s only reply, soft and defeated. “I am unsure whether I am able to walk, much less stand, at the moment. I am fairly inebriated.”

The Vader made a movement with his hand and a few stormtroopers came to help drag Ben away. “You can deal with what is left.”

Luke wasn’t entirely sure what Vader was talking about but with a swish of his cape, Luke was left alone.

And fear forced him into place.

It is near a half hour later before Luke could force himself to move. He had felt paralyzed, the only thing being able to be felt was his heart pounding out of his chest. Eventually, he learned to breath again and then, after, he worked on getting himself to move.

Ben, he needed to help Ben.

Luke finally figured out how to move again and move he did. Things almost felt too fast now as he rushed through the pirate’s compound. Everything was eerily quiet. He got to the main room; he caught sight of Anakin Skywalker’s light saber on the bar next to a pirate passed out. It was only until he got closer that he saw the pirate was dead.

He looked around, briefly. There are a lot of dead.

Luke made a mad dash to the entrance and threw himself out, vomiting nearby. That was…that was awful. He knew, on some level, Vader and his men would probably kill the pirates but seeing it…it was different.

Doing his best to regain himself, he ran out further, only to be too late. Vader’s ship was already quite high in the sky, disappearing into the atmosphere.

He was too late.

“What happened?”

It was a female voice, from behind him that had asked, lowly. Luke didn’t have the time or the inclination, but he spun around, drawing his father’s saber and ignited it to defend himself.

It was a Togruta before him, well into her late twenties at least, dressed in simple garb and she had two sabers at her waist. Her face was a bit orange, with white markings and her montrals and lekku were stripped with blue. She seemed rather unbothered by the fact she had a light saber blade near her face but narrowed her eyes at him. What was with people that were unbothered by lightsabers nearly taking off their heads?

“Who are you?” Luke demanded.

“What hap-,” the female started again but she caught sight of the hilt of the saber he was holding and froze. Her eyes flicked up to his and then back at the hilt.

Confusionfuryhowdare

“Where did you get that?” she hissed, sudden and low, stepping forward. Luke stepped back.

“Who are you?!” he shot back again.

“Those are not yours,” she growled and reached out with her hand with the Force, pulling the saber hilt towards her. Luke pushed back but it was no use. She was too fast. She had his father’s saber. Reignited it and pointed it back at him, she rolled her shoulders, furious. “Now where did you get this?”

Luke quivered; he shouldn’t really answer her questions, he had already been burned twice, but he had little choice. He needed to go help Ben. “My guardian,” he answered, hoarsely. “He lets me use it sometimes to defend myself or practice. It’s his brother’s.”

He didn’t tell her who Ben’s brother was to Luke.

“Who is your guardian?” she snapped, impatient. “And where did he get it?”

“He’s had it since his brother died.”

“Who is he?”

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone our names.”

“You will if you want to keep your hand,” she threatened, waving the saber a little, near his wrist. Luke swallowed.

“He goes by Ben…” Luke admitted, slowly. Something felt familiar about her, something he felt he could trust. It hadn’t happened with the other two he had tried to trust so perhaps this was different. He doubted things could get much – if any – worse. “Ben Kenobi, when he can.”

That seemed to shock the Togruta. She lowered her arm and with it, the saber and blade as well and away from his body. Luke breathed out, shakily. Her gaze tore away, staring up at the sky in some sort of awe and disbelief. “Master Obi-Wan?” she murmured.

“You know him,” Luke realized.

The Togruta looked at him as if she had just noticed his presence, jolting back to life. She turned off the saber and looked down at it briefly. “Uh…yes. I…I yes. I knew him. Quite well, once upon a time.”

“Look lady-,” he started.

“Ahsoka.”

“Bless you,” he muttered, sarcastically.

She didn’t get it. Her face scrunched “What? My name is Ahsoka.”

Luke’s brain screeched to a halt. Because…because he knew that name. “Wait. Ahsoka Tano?” he paused and shook it off. As excited that prospect was, the presence of Ahsoka Tano but he really needed to think about that later. “You know what, no. I can’t do this right now. I have to go after Ben.”

“Where is he?” She looked worried for his answer.

“Vader has him.”

She scoffed but it looked and sounded more mournful than anything else. “Then he is dead. I’m sorry but-,” she began to apologize, pained.

“He’s not,” Luke replied, stubborn and sharp. He met her gaze and his own just hardened, even more determined. “Vader wanted him alive and two, I can still feel him.”

Her eyes widened a bit. “You’re Obi-Wan’s padawan?”

“No,” Luke replied, a bit bitterly. Perhaps he shouldn’t be, with all the foolishness he had caught himself up in. Clearly Ben couldn’t rely on him to be an actual padawan. “But it doesn’t matter. I am going to go after him. I would appreciate the saber back.”

“It’s not yours.”

“I never said it was.”

Ahsoka seemed to consider this and hesitantly complied, spinning the hilt back towards him. “I’m coming with you,” she announced, loudly. Her smirk wasn’t so much amused of the situation as it was something else. “Or, rather, you are coming with me.”

“Why?”

“Master Kenobi is…a dear friend of mine.”

“The last guy who said that sold him to Vader.”

“I swear,” and with the look in her eye, Luke almost believed her. “Come on, my ship is small and fast so we can catch up.” She didn’t wait for an answer as she started walking quickly away towards a nearby ship.

“We can?” He followed her, steadily, hooking the saber to his belt.

“I had disabled their hyperdrive on my way in, it was part of my initial mission,” Ahsoka started to explain. “And then I got a message from one of my contacts, directing me too here. I didn’t know the particulars on why. Guess I do now. They will have to travel slowly in sub light to the nearest other planet that can help them and get their drive repaired. It will probably take days but only hours for us to catch up.”

She got onto the ship, and he followed steadily. She was an expert when it came to this ship and they got up in the air, more quickly than he had seen anyone do it. They both stayed silent as she worked, putting in coordinates, pressing buttons and flipping switches – Luke wasn’t particularly understanding of this specific model – and it is not long until they are in the inky black of space and things pause. She sat back. Her voice was a bit subdued. “Since it will be a while, we have time for questions.”

“I have a lot,” he acknowledged.

“Not more than I do.”

“I doubt that,” Luke muttered under his breath. If she heard him, she had ignored him. She just started asking. At least the first was kind of simple.

“What is your name?”

“Luke.”

“Luke…” she prodded.

“I don’t give out my last name. It’s dangerous,” he replied, stubbornly.

She snorted and rolled her eyes, part annoyed, and part amused. “Alright. You said you weren’t Obi-Wan’s padawan…”

“Ben.”

“What?”

“He goes by Ben,” Luke insisted.

Ahsoka just sighed. “Okay, Ben then. What is he doing with you?”

Luke scowled. “Doing? He is raising me, if anything.”

“He’s on the run,” Ahsoka replied, rather flatly. She did not look impressed. Probably with Ben if he had to guess. Luke felt himself bristle at the thought. Ben was doing the best he could, it wasn’t his fault people hated what he could do. He had been born with it. This was not the Ahsoka Tano Luke had grown up listening to stories about. Or at least, not how he had imagined her to be. “Not exactly conducive environment for raising a child.”

“Not that it is any of your business, but he took me in after my aunt and uncle were killed,” he snapped.

“Parents?”

“Dead. Never knew them.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized and looked rather genuine. “It doesn’t really answer my question why you though.”

“I don’t think I should be telling you too much,” he replied, warily. “Ben’s reasons are his own.”

Ahsoka paused. “Fine then. You recognize my name.”

“That’s a question?” he shot back, a little surprised himself. “Of course, I know who you are. Ben tells stories.”

“I can’t believe he is alive,” she murmured.

“You are? Ben has told me a lot of stories, I’m not.”

She rolled her eyes again. Luke thought perhaps he would have gotten along with her better when she was younger. They would have been trouble. “Do you know whose lightsaber this is?” She pointed to the saber on his belt.

“It belonged to Ben’s brother…Anakin Skywalker,” he said, deliberately.

“Did Ben tell you what happened to him?”

“No.”

“You’re lying,” she grumbled, irritated.

“You can ask him when we rescue him,” Luke insisted, stubbornly. If Ben wanted her to know, he would tell her. Luke knew it was a cause of quite the grief, so perhaps it would be better if she didn’t know the details. He didn’t. “Speaking of which, what is the plan?”

Ahsoka sighed, quite obviously bothered by the lack of information he was willing to part. “I have a cloak on my ship and a few codes we can use that aren’t dead yet. Boarding shouldn’t be much of a problem. The problem is Vader is very powerful and if we are not extremely careful, he will sense us.”

“I’m sure between the two of us, we can disappear well enough,” he suggested with a shrug. Ben had always told him that Ahsoka was quite talented, no doubt growing in her skills as she grew older and survived longer.

“You know how to do that?”

He didn’t particularly care for the way she sounded so stunned. “You don’t?”

“No, I do. I just…your force sensitive.”

“Yes. I’m surprised you didn’t notice. Ben says I’m rather bright.”

Ahsoka reached to him in the Force and Luke let her, he could feel it. She opened her eyes, and her expression was alarmed. “I wasn’t looking,” she whispered, her voice a bit far away, as if she was thinking of something else. Louder, she continued. “We will have to create a distraction so to keep Vader away from Ob-Ben,” she corrected herself.

“We could really cripple their ship,” he tried, weakly. He wasn’t sure.

“Hmmm…” Ahsoka hummed. “Probably best if I’m the distraction. I can sneak around easier and evade better. I’m a bit more of a target and slightly more likely to survive an encounter with Vader than you.”

“Okay. We will need to figure out where Ben is,” he added.

“I have schematics for the general star destroyers,” she said, pulling up a holo on the dashboard. “I imagine they all have the same set up. We should dock there. It has a hatch to get through and an easier place to clamp. It is a bit of a maze to the prisoner’s ward but if we are careful, we can make it. Once we get a bit closer, I will peel off to create your distraction, drawing Vader away. Think you can handle the guards?”

Luke snorted. “Yes,” he replied, determined.

“We need to do this as quickly as possible otherwise we have no chance of escape,” she added, frowning at the map, bringing her hand up to her chin.

“I get it.”

She looked at him seriously. “I mean it, Luke.”

“I know!” he snapped.

There was some silence but the expression on her face didn’t change. “You said you had some questions of your own.”

“Now isn’t the time.”

“We have a couple of hours-.”

Luke just got up from the copilot seat and stormed out of the cockpit.

It was almost an hour before Ahsoka approached him, huddled in the kitchenette area, holding a cup of what she assumed was caf. “You don’t carry any tea,” he murmured.

“Caf helps keep me awake during long nights and tea has…memories,” she replied, a bit slowly.

Luke spun the cup around the table, nearly empty now. “Yeah, I guess.”

“He gives you tea?”

“Yes,” Luke affirmed. “I just want him back. I wish Vader would leave us alone.”

“Does he chase you a lot?”

“Yes. But this is the furthest he has gotten. He’s never caught Ben before. Not even close. I’ve never been…so close to him before. The hate and fury that he was radiating, the pain, it was like nothing I had ever felt before.”

“Sith tend to be like that,” Ahsoka admitted. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Are you we close?”

“We are going to be there soon. We should get ready.”

Luke didn’t respond verbally and just nodded, following her as she gave him a suit to wear that would help him sneak around. Like Ahsoka had mentioned, the actual infiltration of the ship itself wasn’t so difficult. Her expert flying got their little ship clamped to the star destroyer, next to the hatch that would lead them inside. Flicking a key card, she gave him a copy and they started off.

He had never been in a star destroyer before. It was stark and bold and boring. Trying not to think about it, Luke followed Ahsoka through the halls, avoiding troopers. The vast majority of them were in ugly and plain white armor, but there were a few in plain clothes and even a few in black armor with large red pauldrons. Ahsoka didn’t tell her what they were, but she did take even more care to avoid them. He took that as a sign to note that he should avoid them too when they were to split up.

Their luck was stretching too far, Luke should have known that it would not have lasted. On the brighter side, there was only two of them. They didn’t even get a word out. Ahsoka cut down one of them with ease while Luke threw out his hand, pushing back at the other with the Force. The trooper slammed into the wall, hitting his head fairly hard. He was getting better at that.

Something exploded in his mind and Luke could feel it.

Looklooklook.

“Luke,” Ahsoka warned as he stepped forward, kneeling in front of the trooper. He took off his helmet. Darker skin, his head bleeding on the side from where he had knocked his head against the wall. His curly hair was plastered pretty close, and he had a pretty distinct mustache with a bit of scruff coming in around the edges of his face and chin. “A clone,” Ahsoka supplied. “Luke, we have to go. I said we don’t have time if we want to get out of this alive.”

The trooper stirred and Ahsoka put her hand on her saber. As his brown eyes flickered open, he shook his head a little, as if that would clear it. He stared at Luke straight forward, confused. “Who?” he murmured as his gaze turned up towards Ahsoka. “C-Commander Tano?”

Ahsoka stiffened.

“What is going on?”

Speakspeakspeak.

“We are going to save my guardian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, from the Sith.”

The trooper’s eyes widened as he forced himself upright. Luke tried to help him, but his gaze studied the teenager like he was some kind of familiar mystery. “General Kenobi?”

“He’s my guardian. What is your name?” Luke urged, softly. “I’m Luke.”

“Boil, sir,” he confessed. “And I’m not entirely sure what has happened, but if you are here to rescue General Kenobi, I want to help.”

Rightrightright.

Luke just smiled. “Yes.”

***

Ben had gained lucidity long before he was brought upon the cell on Vader’s ship. He hadn’t said a word on the ride over. Neither had Vader. The air was electrified.

Finally in his cell, Ben was pushed in.

“I do believe I will enjoy watching you burn, old master.”

Ben didn’t respond.

Someone started to speak over the loudspeaker in the cell. “Lord Vader, I regret to inform you that an intruder has been located on the premise. It seems to be a Togruta, young, female, and she is causing destruction and structural damage to the ship, as well as taking out some of the troops.”

Vader scowled under his mask but even Ben could feel the rage seething under his shields. “I will be back,” he promised Ben. “But for now…” he gestured outside of the cell to one of the Purge Troopers he used for the guard. “Trooper, you will remain here to guard this man. Do not kill him but you may inflict punishment when necessary.”

The trooper was in the typical Purge Trooper black with a large, red pauldron. But Ben could tell that both his legs and his left arm was replaced with shiny but cruel cybernetics. These were the same limbs Ben had relieved Anakin of during their duel on Mustafar over a decade ago. Surely…no.

“Remove your helmet trooper,” Vader ordered as he left with a near chuckle and glee leaking from him.

He was gone by the time the trooper had removed it completely.

Ben’s gasp was strangled and horrified, his whisper hoarse. He knew that scar anywhere.

“Cody?”

Past Present

R4-P17 hadn’t sustained a lot of damage during and after the crash, but she had been in need of some repairs, but they were just minor things. So minor that apparently [proud of you knight] didn’t even do it himself and let other technicians do the touch ups. Afterwards, when Arfour had been repaired and a bit cleaned up, she rolled down the halls for [pathetic lifeform], continuously scanning for her partner lifeform.

It was over an hour in that she stopped abruptly.

She nearly shocked herself at the realization of where her partner obviously be after a crash of that magnitude. She certainly needed a tune-up and some repairs, so would he. Swirling around, she promptly headed toward the medical bay.

And sure enough, her pathetic lifeform was laying on the cot in the medical bay on the far side. He was probably going through a forced reboot, she knew that humans did when they were hurt. Not completely atypical. What was not usual was that there was an unfamiliar young pathetic life form that sat next to her partner, quietly. She had never scanned him before. The life form wasn’t one of the numerous soldiers that were on the ship or [proud of you knight] or even the other youngling Arfour knew, [Our padawan]? [snips]? (Arfour didn’t have a designation for the tagalong quite yet), who all were the regulars that usually were by his side during times like this.

Arfour let out a series of bold beeps as a warning as she approached, wheeling into the room. The pathetic lifeform perked up and looked over at her, curiously.

“Oh. Hello. Are…are you Ben’s droid?”

That designation was unfamiliar. <<Ben?>>

“Sorry, my binary is a tad rusty,” the new, smaller pathetic lifeform smiled but approached her and then crouched down to her height. “But uhm...I mean Obi-Wan?”

<<Should I change designation to Ben?>> She hadn’t known he had changed his designation. Most humans didn’t, as far as she knew.

“I’m not sure,” the new pathetic life form rubbed the back of his neck, sheepishly. “Maybe just leave it for now. If he wants to, he can.”

<<You?>>

“Me?” the pathetic lifeform asked, a little surprised by the question. As he realized what she meant he continued. “Oh, me. My name is Luke. Ben is my guardian.”

<<padawan?>>

She had gone through several mind wipes through her missions, to keep intelligence safe, but she was fairly certain at one point after [proud of you knight] had been promoted from [my young padawan] to [proud of you knight], Kenobi had been talking about a new one. He mentioned it to her sometimes during their longer flights. It was rather a point of great debate with himself.

“No, uh, no,” Luke repeated, a little embarrassed as he took a little longer than usual to understand what the droid was conveying. He glanced around her dome, running a hand over some of the cosmetic scratches the crew and technicians hadn’t bothered to fill in or fix. Not that it mattered much, as long as she could work and investigate properly. “Are you okay? I heard the ship was unsalvageable.”

<<I am functional>>

Luke smiled but there was an expression to it that Arfour could not identify. This irked her; she would have to go through some data banks to find out what it was. “Sure. Ben never said he owned a droid.”

Arfour beeped indignantly. Nothing to be really translated, but the meaning was clear. She continued <<He does not, we are partners for on solo missions, usually. Do not tell [proud of you knight] that. He is jealous pathetic lifeform>>

The new little pathetic lifeform laughed but he looked a little uncertain as to her meaning. She was technically the property of the Jedi, but she was consistently partnered up with [pathetic lifeform]. At first it was to investigate the bounty hunter on [not subtle friend] back before the war started. Eventually, she had become a steady presence in [pathetic lifeform] ship, as his [my young padawan] had done some specialty work on her circuits and her dome for [pathetic lifeform].

“Sure, no problem. What’s your name?”

<<Designation: R4-P17>>

“Does Ben uhm…Obi-Wan call you Arfour?”

<<Affirmative.>>

“Nice to meet you Arfour,” Luke grinned, warmly. At least, she was sure it was warm; her data banks explained what warm was and he seemed to be the best example of it. Arfour beeped with little meaning, the sound swaying a little as she scanned over to [pathetic lifeform].

<<Designation?>>

“Oh me? My name is Luke,” he repeated.

<<What does [pathetic lifeform] call you?>>

“Like a nickname?” the little pathetic lifeform asked, his eyebrows crunching up and creating a crease. Arfour beeped an affirmative. He didn’t look very certain. “He has called me a lot of things over the years but uh…he called me his Beacon of hope a lot.”

<<Designation: beacon of hope. Data banks: Updated>>

The boy laughed a little. “Okay, I get it. Nicknames instead of real names. I got it,” he paused and gave her what she scanned as a smile. “Is it because B-er Obi-Wan wants you to or…why?”

<<Security>> Arfour beeped simply but after a pause, a low groan of beeps followed it up. <<And [pathetic lifeform] is sentimental>>

[beacon of hope] laughed out loud. Humor, she suspected. His eyes sparkled with an unknown substance, looking mischievous. He got close closer to her dome and scanners. “Look, Ben…I mean…pathetic lifeform and I are from the future and I’m not sure who exactly to trust with information.”

<<Investigator, trust of worth. Secrets>> she buzzed back.

The boy beamed and she could have sworn he had momentarily turned into a ray of light even though she knew that was not possible. “Would you like to help me?”

<<Charge under [pathetic lifeform] under supervision of designation>>

With another brilliant smile, [beacon of hope] nodded. “Alright then. I don’t have a huge plan, but I have some information. If something happens, you take this directly to Master Mace Windu. Can you do that?”

<<Affirmative>>

“We are pretty smart, between the two of us, I’m sure we can figure this out and fix everything.”

***

Unlike Ahsoka, Anakin made his presence immediately known when he walked into the medical bay. He didn’t even try to sneak up on their guest, but he had rather caught him in…a meditation? It looked like it. “Uh…Luke?” he called out, knocking on the wall next to the doorway. The boy sat on the floor next to Obi-Wan’s bed, kneeling with his eyes closed, taking a deep breath before speaking.

“Yes?”

“It’s Anakin Skywalker,” he greeted, a bit awkwardly. He wasn’t entirely sure how to talk to this boy. This whole situation was rather insane when he thought about it too much. “I think we started on the wrong foot, earlier. Might we try again?”

Luke smirked faintly, as if he found this all rather amusing, but he didn’t open his eyes. He took another deep-rooted breath. “I don’t know, first impressions can be quite compelling.”

Anakin didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept silent.

Thankfully, Luke continued, “But then again, Ben always said second changes are paramount and slightly less likely to fail,” the boy finished and opened his eyes, pulling them up to meet Anakin’s. They were a piercing blue, a bit lighter than his and brighter than Obi-Wan’s, who had more of a grey tone to them. His blonde hair was a bit dirty, but it laid over his forehand in chunky bangs that didn’t look completely awful.

He still wasn’t sure what that the boy meant and didn’t have an answer.

The blonde just gestured towards the area in front of him. “Go ahead.”

There was a bit of hesitation on Anakin’s part. If this boy was right about the time travel and knowing Obi-Wan and everything else, Anakin was sure he would be a part of their lives, either until they could fix this or if they couldn’t, perhaps forever. There had been a brief moment where Obi-Wan had talked about getting another padawan but then Ahsoka was assigned to him, and he never brought it up again. Anakin had figured it had been a ploy for him. Even though he loved Ahsoka now. If Luke was wrong and he was playing him, Anakin couldn’t help but think he would get rather upset over this. Enough people had messed with Obi-Wan’s head over the years. Anakin wouldn’t let this teenager be one of them if he could help it.

“This whole situation is rather bizarre, even you have to admit,” Anakin pointed out. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was going with this but at least it was a start.

“I do. But also, Ben’s life had been already always fairly bizarre,” Luke countered.

“Granted,” Anakin agreed, although a bit tentatively. “Look, Obi-Wan has a lot of enemies and he has gotten into some pretty terrible situations,” he explained. “It is not hard to believe I would be skeptical or wary of you, this random person I have never met that claims to be from the future and close with him. I mean, I’ve been with him since I was nine.”

“Understandable,” Luke replied as he thought about this for a moment. “Same could be said for me. I’ve never met you and I have been with him since I was a kid. Neither of us really have any right to be trusting of one another, I suppose.”

“Time travel is hard to swallow.”

“I’m guess you didn’t read much as a kid, huh?”

Anakin had no idea what that was supposed to mean. This boy, for certain areas being blunt and honest, he also knew how to twist words and say things in riddles. He supposed that was what happened when you spent a lot of time with Obi-Wan and no one else. “I…what? No, I guess not.” He still had no idea what lack of reading was supposed to do with their conversation. “Too busy actually doing things and training, I suppose.”

Luke hummed and nodded, like this was apparent. Anakin didn’t know what to feel.

“Can I ask some questions?” he tried instead.

There was an unimpressed look on Luke’s face. “I told Medic Kix I think it would be best for Ben to explain the future. My knowledge is rather limited.”

“Uh no,” Anakin tried to backtrack. “I wanted to ask about me, really. Kix said…he made it sound like I was dead.”

Luke looked straight at him, sympathetically. “I’m quite sorry.”

So, it was true. Anakin slumped, his shoulders thumping against the cart he was leaning against. That was…hard to swallow. “I guess that answers why I’m not around,” he shook his head. “Do you know how it happened?” He couldn’t imagine leaving Obi-Wan or Ahsoka or Padme. Goodness, he left his wife alone.

Luke mirrored his movement. “No. Ben doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Does he talk about me at all?”

Anakin didn’t really know what would have happened if he had died, or how Obi-Wan would react. On one hand, he thought that he would probably move on and be okay, as he usually was when someone died. The Jedi traditions and beliefs on death were a little odd to Anakin specifically, as they didn’t often show their grief like others did. He had always struggled with that.

“Constantly,” Luke replied, evenly. Anakin’s brain nearly short circuited. Obi-Wan did not really have a habit of talking a lot about those who had died before. He often practically had to beg and drag stories about Qui-Gon out of him. “Nearly all his stories from age twenty-five through the Clone Wars are about you.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised. Why wouldn’t they be? I mean, you spent a lot of time together and you were practically his brother. Well, to him you were,” Luke talked about this like it was obvious and normal; apparent.

Anakin blinked blankly.

“And now you look surprised,” Luke noted, looking a bit rather confused. “Did you not know how much he loved you?”

How did one really respond to that? Should he even respond to that? It was a bit personal, even for him. “I mean, I know he cares about me,” he started slowly. “But you know, he’s a jedi. You don’t hear him say stuff like that.”

This just seemed to bewilder Luke even more. “Like what?”

“I love you.” The knight looked away, almost pouting. He and Padme always said it so freely with one another, but he couldn’t with Obi-Wan. He didn’t want to make things more awkward than the situations often could be.

Luke’s confused expression turned into that of a lopsided grin as he nearly let out a chuckle, finding this whole conversation rather amusing. “He doesn’t say that specifically much but that’s because he shows his love in other ways. He just doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.”

“But if he doesn’t say it like that, how do you know?”

Luke blinked. “Really? I guess it was always apparent for me. Obi-Wan shows his love through more of acts of service.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know…” Luke drifted off. “He lets me keep parts in his room for my projects because mine is full and we don’t have a lot of room. He complains about it sometimes, but he never makes me get rid of it. He asks me if I’m doing okay but doesn’t push me when I don’t want to talk about it. He keeps my favorite drink stocked even though we don’t have a lot of money and he doesn’t actually care for it. He lets me ask questions and as long as they aren’t too personal, he will answer them. He always has some advice on hand and even though I don’t always get it at first, he will elaborate if I ask. Even though he taught me to stitch, he usually does it himself because I always take forever, and it frustrates me to no end. I don’t know, little things,” Luke explained, a bit with some motions with his arms. “He knows me very well, he always lets me come to him when I have a secret, as long as it doesn’t put me in immediate danger, and he is always awake until I fall asleep, just in case.”

It…Anakin supposed that made some sense, sort of. He always thought that saying I love you was the only way to know if someone actually loved you or not. It was straightforward and honest. But Luke, Luke was so certain, so sure that Obi-Wan loved him, without him even telling him that straight up. Could it possibly be that he was right; that, like many things, how Obi-Wan showed his love was a bit underhanded and subtle? Or did Obi-Wan just learn from his mistakes with Anakin himself and do things differently with Luke?

Luke laughed, out of the blue, nearly falling over, surprising Anakin. “I can’t believe we are getting into an actual philosophical debate about how Ben loves,” he cackled.

Anakin cracked a smile and tried to push the train of thoughts away for another day. He had to think more about that. “Okay. Okay. How about…what do you like to do?” Anakin asked, changing the subject. He couldn’t get information on the future out of him right now, he was fairly sure, but he could get to know Luke, know what he liked, how he ticked. Whether or not the outcome of this whole thing was good or bad. “Kix mentioned you were on the run a lot. Got any hobbies?”

Luke thought about this for a long moment. “Ben tries to get me books, I’ve learned to like to read. And learn. I like doing katas, he lets me use his lightsaber most of the time,” he noted. Then he perked up in some excitement. “Oh! And pilot. I like ships and I really like to pilot. “Ben lets me pilot our ship a lot now. I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. Gotten out of more than a few scrapes. Ben is too, as you probably know, but he doesn’t like it. He is always like-.”

“Flying is for droids.”

Both Luke and Anakin laugh at his impersonation. It wasn’t great and the accent was off to quite the degree but they both found it rather hilarious. Luke continued, “And then I ask why we don’t have one, a droid, if they are for flying and he always just looked over at me, flat expression and real deadpan and said, ‘you are my droid’.”

Anakin let out a snort. “He never got you a droid?”

“We talked about it.” Luke shrugged. “I didn’t want anything big. Maybe just a little BD unit. They’re super cute and easy to keep around.”

“But you didn’t get one,” Anakin confirmed.

Luke shook his head, looking pretty disappointed. “We were on the run. We didn’t really have a lot…time or money.”

“Who were you running from?”

Luke looked at him, suddenly warily. Anakin wanted to backtrack. He had made progress with this kid, he couldn’t lose it all now. “The Sith,” he replied, carefully.

“So, I didn’t defeat them then,” Anakin murmured to himself as his heart sunk. He never really admitted whether or not he thought he was the Chosen One but the fact that he died so soon and with the Sith still after Obi-Wan, it was a little disappointing. Maybe he wanted to be that person.

“Huh?”

“Oh,” Anakin flinched as he remembered his company. “The man that found me, Master Qui-Gon Jinn believed I was something called the Chosen One. It’s a prophecy. That I was destined to bring balance to the Force,” he explained. He apparently had said it with some cynicism and doubt because Luke didn’t look convinced.

“You didn’t believe it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Anakin tried with a one shouldered shrug. “I think Obi-Wan does. Or did. But then again, he also said he was destined for infinite sadness so I dunno what he believes,” Anakin scoffed.

Luke just stared at him.

Anakin got confused again and looked back. “What?”

The boy looked a little uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. He didn’t realize that Luke had some thoughts about this…specific thing. Had Obi-Wan told him the same thing? He shouldn’t have, Anakin thought. Luke broke his concentration and line of thinking. “Oh…nothing…I just didn’t realize there was a phrase for it.”

“For what?”

“His grief. Ben is practically stepped in grief and sadness,” Luke explained, quietly. “He has lost so much, and he carries that with him all the time. It…it’s kind of a lot, I guess. It almost makes sense, as horrifying as that is. If you really quiet your mind and reach, you can feel it,” Luke said, momentarily closing his eyes as if he was doing exactly what he was saying. “It’s kind of hard because he doesn’t like to show it, so it takes a lot of time and patience. But we spend so much time traveling and in hyperspace, I’ve learned,” he shrugged. “Took a really long time.”

Anakin stared at him blankly. This…this was new. “Is that what he’s like now? Just…sad?” he choked, looking a bit rather aghast. Because he lost Anakin? That was the reason this boy could feel such a sheer magnitude of grief from his old master? Anakin turned his head towards the unconscious man he called his friend. Perhaps…perhaps…

“He’s not just sad,” Luke dove in quickly, as if trying to take something back. But nothing could take back what he had said, what he had uncovered. “But he does have a lot of grief. But he is also brave and strong and so kind. Even with that grief, he is so kind. Even when people hurt him, he keeps helping and forgiving. It’s something I’d like to emulate.”

Luke didn’t stop to let Anakin reply.

“Ben teaches me all sorts of things,” Luke said, leaning against the cot. He had put up some pillows between his torso and the back so his body would be a little more comfortable. Anakin sat next to him, messing with his mechanical hand, tweaking some of the wires and let him talk for the moment, just going with the flow of the conversation, although a bit dictated by Luke.

“He’s a total nerd,” Anakin snickered.

“Yes!” Luke laughed, laying his hand over his chest. “He tries to minimize it because of the space we have but he’s always studying something!”

“That’s gotta be so annoying!”

“A little,” Luke shrugged, his laugh dying a bit, but his smile was still there and still genuine. “But I like learning and sometimes it can come in handy.”

Anakin scoffed. The only thing Anakin had really seen that came in handy was his affinity for languages and obscure cultural references.

“It does sometimes!” Luke insisted, like he knew Anakin didn’t believe him. “You would be surprised on how many times we got out of some trouble because Ben knew some obscure fact, or he taught me something and I found a way to use it to my advantage. Besides, it always makes him so happy to have someone listen when he talks about it, so I don’t mind that much.”

“If you say so.”

“I have a bit of a soft spot for the J-1 type skiffs,” Luke admitted, changing the subject again. He glanced at Anakin, as if he knew this would suit his interest. “We stole one a few years back and Ben let me pilot, ugh, it was a dream. He told me a story when he and his friend took on out on a joy ride once as teenagers and it was amazing.”

“No way!” Anakin laughed but his mind reeled, rather disbelieving. He had never heard that. This was a welcome change of pace.

Luke grinned. “I had to beg him for stories like that when he was younger.”

“He and I have matching star ships,” Anakin replied and hearing himself, it nearly sounded like he was bragging. “I modified them and his droid, there are some definite perks with customization. It’s pretty great.”

“What kind of ship is it?” Luke asked eagerly.

“The Jedi typically use the Delta-7 Aesthersprite-class light interceptor although they usually call it a Delta-7 Jedi starfighter because it was built with the Jedi in mind, to keep up with our control and abilities,” Anakin explained, messing with his mechanical hand, taking parts out and cleaning them from the sand of the planet they had previously been on. Luke just watched but his voice hadn’t gotten any less eager. “They also have a new type, which is only slightly different they call the Delta-7B, a bit of a bigger hull and a better place for an astromech. But now they are coming off the line with a completely new one of the Jedi.”

“A new one?” Luke echoed.

“The Eta-2 Actis-class light interceptor,” Anakin replied proudly. “I’ve been trying to nag Obi-Wan to get us some. It’s even smaller than the Delta-7’s but has superior firepower and is even faster,” Anakin grinned with excitement and Luke’s eyes glimmered. “Laser cannons, ions cannons and a max speed of 1,500 kph.”

“Whoa,” Luke whispered.

“I’ve seen some of the models,” Anakin sighed, dreamily. “I want one so bad. Obi-Wan’s friend, Garen Muln, he got one nearly right away. He’s a pretty good pilot,” Anakin grinned at him, slyly. “But I’m better. We don’t have them yet but the Delta-7’s still does a pretty good job. Got us through some rough scraps. Like I said, I upgraded mine and Obi-Wan’s with numerous perks, including shifting the weapons and communications.”

Luke chatters excitedly but he was going so fast, even Anakin couldn’t quite keep up with his phrases and words.

“Obi-Wan’s is on the Negotiator. He didn’t have time to get it which I suppose ended up being a good thing because they he would have destroyed it,” the older man chuckled. “But mine is here, I can show you,” he offered.

“I would like that,” Luke nodded but he glanced back at the cot. “But I think it would be best to wait for Ben to wake up. I’d prefer not to leave him.”

“What is this hang up of not leaving the room?”

Luke hesitated. “I left him alone once with someone I thought I could trust when he was out of commission,” the boy brought his knees to his chest in a comforting gesture and hugged them. “I almost lost him, needlessly. It’s not so much you or your crew or your medic – heck, I like Kix – it’s just…it’s a thing for me right now.”

Anakin nodded. He could…understand that. “Okay. Okay.”

It was only moments later when their conversation was forced to an end. But, perhaps, it was a good place to stop. “General Skywalker,” a voice started, coming from Anakin’s vambrace. Both boys looked down at it. “We are approaching the rendezvous point. Dropping out of hyperspace,” the voice added, calmly.

“Acknowledged, Admiral,” Anakin replied.

As they dropped out of hyperspace, Luke nearly tripped over in his mad scramble to get to the viewing port in the medical bay. At first glance, Anakin nearly thought that he may have not have a good set of space legs but as the boy continued to go, Anakin could see him quickly shift his weight very well. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Obi-Wan’s flag ship, the Negotiator came up alongside them and the two ships slowed down. Luke’s hand rose up to the window over the open circle symbol that was painted on the side of the other venator, and he started traced it, gawking contemplatively and softly, as though he knew what it meant.

Maybe he did, Anakin thought. Obi-Wan seemed to tell him many things.

“Can you call Kix?”

Luke’s voice broke through the abrupt silence, but the words made Anakin do a bit of a panic. “Why? Is something wrong? Is he waking up?” his voice continued to rise, glancing back at the body of his former master.

With an odd glance, Luke shook his head, rapidly. “No,” he assured. “I would just like him to prepare Ben’s transfer to his own ship.”

“He doesn’t need to be transferred,” Anakin defended, his shoulders rolling back. “He can stay here, under Kix.”

“He’s going to want to wake up on his own ship, I’m sure,” Luke replied, voice even and calm, which reminded Anakin of Obi-Wan when he was trying to placate a child. Anakin felt his lip curl subtly. “It’s not you or anything, I just think it might be better.”

“The ships all look the same,” he said, flatly.

“But they don’t feel the same,” the boy insisted, as truth. “And they are full of troops he knows better than the 501st. And you have to lead an entire legion, you can’t stay with him constantly until he wakes up. You have a job and he’s going to need something familiar to help him wake up.”

Anakin hummed, thinking about this. He didn’t like it, not at all. He wanted Obi-Wan with him; he didn’t want to let him go. But, as much as he absolutely hated to admit it, Luke did serve some vaguely valid points. He couldn’t be there all the time, as much as he wanted to. And it probably would be better if he was around, at least, people he knew. Perhaps he could get Ahsoka to supervise. He found himself caved. Make no problems, Master Windu had said. “Fine,” he grumbled but he obviously wasn’t happy about it. He brought up his vambrace again. “Can we get Kix sent back down here to transfer General Kenobi to the Negotiator, please?”

“I have to talk with Obi-Wan’s Admiral and commander,” Anakin told Luke, grudgingly as the bridge crew acknowledged him and told him Kix would be down shortly. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay? Listen to the troopers, I’ll be over three as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry,” Luke winked. “I will be fine and so will Ben.”

In all reality, Anakin didn’t particularly like the sound of that, but he didn’t have a lot of choice. Whatever happened next, Anakin would do what he could to get there.

***

Anakin was right about one thing, Luke mused as they finally docked in the other ship, Ben’s ship. The venators looked the same inside. There were the same bright walls and large spaces. The same kinds of droids and set up. The layout was rather the same as well. Even though Anakin’s ship was full of soldiers painted in a medium blue and Ben’s was full of those painted in bright gold, they all kept the same formations.

But Luke was right too. They felt different. Vastly.

The Resolute felt determined and unwavering, full of bustle and energy, much like it’s general. They were ready for everything, resolved and single-minded with a goal. There was a desire to go and be on the move constantly.

The Negotiator felt warm, a steadfast calm that no matter the storm, they will stand and survive. There was a sense of loyalty, like they would never be anywhere but here, despite everything that had been gone through, they would have their backs.

Walking through the halls and passing soldiers, all Luke could think is he wanted a pauldron. He wanted vambraces and greaves with the beautiful 212th gold. He knew he had to earn it, but he would, if they would allow him. He knew belonged here, with these men, for certain. These were some of Ben’s people, those he would fight and die for.

Luke couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to see the Temple and the other Jedi. He knew he had to belong there too.

The soldiers they passed were curious but friendly, even towards him, a person they didn’t particularly know. They didn’t project as much as the 501st often did, being more precise and controlled, Luke could still feel bits and pieces leaking through the Force, concern for Ben, mostly. And something….something that felt like…confidence?

He wasn’t entirely sure why.

The medical bay on the Negotiator looked the same as that on the Resolute with white walls and floor, light streaming down in large panels. The team that brought him and Ben in rolled them in started talking immediately but the 212th medic they had brought Ben to had done the same tests and checks as Kix on the other ship.

Luke wondered which one from Ben’s stories he was.

He thought about this as the 501st that transferred and escorted them talked to the gold emblazoned medic, no doubt telling him all they could about what was happening and Ben’s condition. There were so many from Ben’s stories, but he didn’t always paint the clearest picture of who exactly was who. He racked his brain, trying to figure it out and possibly the identity of this particular medic. He hoped it was someone he knew. Or at least, someone Ben knew.

The two of them were left alone and Luke was lost in thought when the medic spoke to him. He must have said his name a couple of times because he walked over right in front of him. “Luke, right?” the medic asked, a bit concerned, probably with Luke’s lack of answer.

He felt heat flush in his cheeks, embarrassed. “Yes sir!”

The medic smiled, faintly and stood up, a bit reassured. “Helix.”

Relief flooded in his chest. He knew this one. “Oh! You’re Helix.”

“You know of me?”

“Of course,” Luke nodded, enthusiastically, leaning forward. Helix leaned back to give them a little more space. “Ben’s told me stories about a lot of the 212th.”

“Right,” Helix smirked, faintly. “They mentioned something of time travel,” Helix shook his head with a smile, nearly melancholy but partially irritated and exasperated. “Only General Kenobi,” he sighed.

Luke really didn’t know what that meant.

“So, time travel huh?”

“You don’t sound really that surprised,” Luke noted, curiously.

“You’ve been around General Kenobi long?” he asked.

“Since I was about eight,” he paused and then realized what he intended. “Oh. Yeah. I get what you mean.”

Helix just chuckled. “Yes. General Kenobi gets into all the weird things. As difficult as it is for me to wrap my head around time travel, if anyone would be in the middle of something like that, it’s Kenobi. My only surprised is that General Skywalker isn’t involved with him.”

Luke wanted to laugh so bad. If he only knew. It might not have been General Skywalker but there was a Skywalker involved.

The medic and the teenager chatted for several minutes. Luke relayed information he knew, including any other older injuries that may have been inside. Luke didn’t think so, since they were in the past and Ben may be in his younger body, but Helix wanted to make sure. He had even insisted on looking Luke over too, slapping a cute twi’lek band aid over the small cut on his forehead that reminded Luke of the ones he and Ben used to have on their little ship.

It was rather easy to like Helix, at least for Luke. He was no nonsense in a way that Luke knew medics often could be. He had never gotten the opportunity to meet Helix in the future, but he was glad to now. In fact, he would like to meet all the medics…really everyone actually. Luke wondered when Ben woke up, he would be allowed to go around the ship and meet the soldiers. There were hundreds, at least, in a battalion, but Luke couldn’t help but wish he could meet them all.

He was very excited.

Luke perked at upcoming footsteps and recognized Anakin’s presence as he walked into the doorway. A bit had time had passed since Luke and Ben had gotten to the medical bay in the Negotiator, but Luke was a little surprised Anakin was already here. He didn’t enter, but was accompanied by a soldier with two antennae on his armor, one on his helmet and the other on his shoulder, which was painted with 212th gold sun bursts. He was talking and gestured inside the medical bay before turning quickly to leave. The soldier stood in the doorway and caught sight of Luke. The teenager couldn’t see his expression through the helmet, but he felt confusionshockexcuseme leaking into the force, quite strongly. He snapped it up in shields just as quickly. The soldier’s head kept moving back and forth from looking at Luke to looking at the retreating figure of General Skywalker in the hallway.

As he finally walked in, he took off the helmet and Luke’s eyes widened, and he let out a bit of strangled gasp. He knew that scar anywhere.

“Cody?!”

7 notes · View notes