#leadstosuffering

[violencewasmeditation]

@leadstosuffering asked:

“ enough. ”

the weight of his master’s voice ruptured the silence, filling up his head---calm, unfaltering----commanding every inch of the chamber they occupied. 

one word banished any delusions that he might’ve entertained about fixing the jedi’s lightsaber---that he’d failed to properly recover.

he’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor---trying to reassemble it, but the broken hilt was in more pieces now than it had been when he’d started. 

his efforts to clear his mind and connect with the weapon had been useless. it was as though he could feel the components resisting him at every turn. 

which he supposed they were. he wasn’t used to that, and gradually---that sense of futility had made everything worse. 

he’d been aware of his master’s approach---of course he’d been aware. they were bound together. he could feel him every moment---waking or dormant. 

he shouldn’t have waited this long to check himself. he should have accepted the situation for what it was.

instead, he’d only tried harder---to enforce his will upon the saber---only to lose the pathetic amount of progress that he’d made. 

his master would perceive that. he would perceive everything. 

the fractured pieces fell out of his hands and clattered pointlessly to the floor---his ears rang almost numbly with the sound. 

he turned, rising---pivoting to face the older man. his movements were not quite rushed, but---they were very prompt. 

he could feel that his control was imperfect---and he resented that. 

he wasn’t used to making mistakes. 

“ ---i apologize, master. ”

he dropped immediately to one knee and lowered his eyes---distantly aware of the fact that his hands wanted to shake, though he could not quantify the feeling. 

there was no reason for it. 

he had failed, yes---and if punishment awaited him, then so be it---but, the jedi was dead. the weapon was inconsequential by comparison. 

his master was rarely even concerned with such details. 

this manner of reaction---this dread, of coming up short---was disproportionate. he could not make sense of it. 

cold anxiety poured through his veins. he ignored it. what was the matter with him---?

“ i have not done as you requested. ”

his voice was low and steady---detached from himself. but his master would know. it would not make any difference.

the fact that he had somehow become this consumed by the incident was inarguably worse than the failing itself. 

silently, he clenched his teeth. 

“ it will not happen again. ”

[inacoldembrace]

@leadstosuffering asked:

|     he laid his head in the other man’s lap.

they were lying there, together.

it was late in the day, and the light was low.

hazy.

he had his hands in the other man’s hair.

they swept over him, starting there.

touched his eyes.

lingered, on his lips.

traced those outlines.

“ are there sessions of the senate which are sometimes attended by members of your order? ”

he had said it, it seemed, almost offhandedly.

“ if so, it occurs to me that i should like to accompany you to one. ”

it would be dark, soon.

well——in a sense of the thing, anyway.

it was never truly dark, here.

the inhabitants of this world had discovered ways of offsetting that.

still——it seemed to him that it was mostly a matter of acclimating oneself.

he did not dislike the activity, here.

on the contrary.

there was something almost stimulating about it.

like a silence heralding a storm, only, without the silence.

it made him aware of himself, and of his surroundings.

it made him aware that he was alive.

“ i understand so little of the ways these things work. ”

one of his eyebrows had lifted.

meanwhile, his hands moved over the other man almost lazily.

“ i should like to learn more. ”

[violencewasmeditation]

@leadstosuffering asked:

“ if you wish him to accompany us, then you will be responsible for him. ”

“ yes, master. ”

there was no hesitation or disquiet in his voice. only acknowledgment, brought forth with steady, innate deference.

it wasn’t an unexpected stipulation. it didn’t bother him either. it would have bothered ezra, but he wasn’t going to hear it put that way.

unless it happened to be repeated later. in which case he would simply have to stomach it. 

his eyes were lowered beneath the darkened confinement of his visor. nothing more would be said on the matter. that was evident.

if his master had any further thoughts on the matter, he couldn’t discern them. 

but---in all likelihood, he just didn’t care. 

they had paused briefly to speak in the hallway. now his master turned without a secondary glance, resuming their previous pace toward the bridge.

he did not lift his head. he simply fell---methodically, into step behind the older man. the drapes of his tabard stirred in his wake. 

“ there will not be an issue. ” his tone had not changed from before. 

the weight of their footsteps echoed down the corridor. they were given a wide berth. everything was normal. he drew one hand behind his back as they walked. 

ezra wanted to partake in more things of importance. he would be happy about this. provided that he didn’t manage to perceive it as some kind of charitable gesture.

but he didn’t intend to present it that way. 

not that it should have mattered. if his master had been inclined to disagree, there was nothing that he could have said to change his mind. 

and he wouldn’t have tried. 

[inacoldembrace]

@leadstosuffering asked:

|     with indifference, he indicated the artifact that had drawn the other man’s attention. “ it is a mask possessed by its creator, the sith lord darth momin. ”

the shift was subtle, but——unmistakable.

loose muscles, to taut ones.

admiration, to analysis.

his eyes had widened.

then, after a moment, they shrunk again.

“ another sith lord, you say? ”

admittedly, the statement had taken him aback somewhat.

that said, his voice was smooth.

largely unaffected.

still——he made no move to approach, after that.

however the statement had been intended, or——however one interpreted it, it seemed to him, to say the least, unwise.

“ interesting. ”

of course, had the assertation been made by someone, or, indeed, almost anyone other than lord vader——well.

he would have in all likelihood assumed that they were mistaken, or lying.

lord vader, on the other hand, was almost never mistaken.

likewise, in this instance, as he understood it——he would have had no motivation to lie.

“ of course, the ways of the sith are——largely a mystery, to me. ”

his eyes shifted to the mask again.

“ that said, i have heard stories, as i would suspect most have. ”

they worked themselves slowly over the lines of it.

lines which he now saw, as they were.

as they had been made——by a lightsaber.

“ some of which seemed to imply that they had attained some mastery, over death. ”

he stopped, then tilted his head one side, after a moment.

“ admittedly, i had always interpreted those implications as——overstated. ”

of course, he was aware that lord vader might have been overstating this, also.

still——he thought not.

he turned his attention to the artifact, again.

it unsettled something in him.

that much was true.

not because he saw any hint of what the other man had intimated——on the contrary.

he saw nothing whatsoever to imply it.

that was what unsettled him.

he was aware, of course, that it might have been beyond his ability.

to see what vader saw, that was.

nevertheless, he would attempt to learn to see it.

if not in the same way, then in others.

there were always signs.

“ you have witnessed this, i take it? ”

his eyes shifted to vader again.

“ may i ask how? ”

[violencewasmeditation]

@leadstosuffering asked:

“ we shall wait. ”

he barely recognized the sound of his master’s voice. no---it wasn’t that simple. he could recognize it. 

despite all of the distortion---the interference, the damage that had been done---the irregular lapsing between his processed voice, and what remained of his real voice.

he could still recognize it---and that recognition chilled him to the bone. 

“ yes, master. ”

the response came numbly from his tongue---instinctive, and yet detached from himself---like a reflex that he couldn’t feel anymore, but hadn’t lost either.

words that he’d spoken hundreds of times---reduced to seeming empty and meaningless in the scorched air between them. 

perhaps it was his own voice that he could no longer recognize. 

there was a dull ache pounding through his limbs. his hands hurt. he could feel a deep burn on his arm where maul’s lightsaber must have made contact. 

but he wasn’t paying attention to any of that. 

he shifted---stiffly, as though someone else were moving his body, and sat down across from the older man. 

since he’d found him, he’d been standing close---but there was nothing left to guard him from now. 

he tried not to look at him. out of respect---and because he didn’t want to look at him. 

he’d known of his master’s disfigurement---of course. he’d seen glimpses of his face. but this was different. 

part of his mask had cracked open. his armor was broken in places. he was in pain. a great deal of pain---more than usual. 

he could feel it---emanating from him. 

a strange, unnerving sensation had overtaken him at some point---one that made him feel as though he wasn’t quite awake. he didn’t know why. 

but he was vaguely aware of it. 

they were waiting for assistance. that made sense. what else could they do? the rebels were gone. he couldn’t detect them anymore. 

the fifth brother and the seventh sister were dead. the eighth brother was probably dead too. he swallowed with some difficulty.  

he thought that he’d felt ezra, somewhere---but he’d never seen him. 

not that any of that mattered. his master had said they were going to wait, so that was what they would do. what he would do. the emperor would send help. 

that made sense. 

but---was there nothing else that he could do? that he should have been doing? 

there was always silence after destruction, wasn’t there? 

the labored intake of his master’s respiratory system was the only thing that he could hear.

and it was a terrible sound.

he could tell that his master was calm---despite what had happened to him, and despite what surely amounted to a loss. that should have been good enough.

but, the straining---the constriction---the erratic struggle of that sound filled his ears until it was nearly deafening. 

he’d never seen his master in this state before. 

until this moment, he wasn’t sure that he had even realized it was possible. and that made him feel something that he could not explain.

something cold. 

could his master die this way? was he dying right now? 

another part of his mind countered that he was being ridiculous. 

his master had overturned the full power of the detonation. he had stabilized himself despite the malfunctions of his armor. 

it would have taken far more than this to destroy him.  

he was distantly conscious of the fact that he might have been shaken. 

from seeing this, from the deaths of his associates---and from his own encounter with maul.

he’d never faced someone of maul’s ability in a real fight before. it had taken all of his focus to keep pace---and even that hadn’t been enough.

had things gone differently, he might have been killed. 

he hadn’t been thinking about that then. he’d engaged his opponent confidently. he’d done everything within his power to keep him away from his master.

absently, he squeezed his hands shut---and found there was a faint tremor in his fingers. 

barely perceptible, and yet---utterly foreign to him. he wasn’t even sure when it had started. he stared emptily down at them. 

and waited---as his master had said. 

[inacoldembrace]

@leadstosuffering asked:

|     he tipped a glance in r2’s direction. “ he’s my friend. ”

“ your astromech? ”

he had turned to survey the unit.

the statement had struck something in him.

it had also struck him as somewhat unusual, in that it had been sincerely meant.

he had very little basis by which to compare, of course.

still, he had seen something of the way that machines like this one were treated since his arrival here.

it was not the approach taken by most, and yet——he wondered now if any other approach would truly have been acceptable, at all.

intelligence and loyalty were not inherently indicative of sentience.

this droid had shown more than that, though.

it had displayed individual opinions, and, unless he was mistaken, it had displayed emotion.

if those aspects were inauthentic, then it simulated them very convincingly.

of course, one might have argued that it was simply manufactured that way.

yet, when did one thing turn into the other?

there were many organic lifeforms which displayed those traits less so than this astromech.

that it had been assembled of inorganic matter did not alter that.

of course, that did, he supposed, highlight what some might have looked upon as a moral quandary.

which, he imagined, meant that the issue on a whole was all the more likely to be ignored.

in any case——if this droid did indeed have so much as a modicum of its own mind, it warranted his courtesy.

as it was, he suspected it had more than that.

whatever the case, it was apparent that anakin trusted it with his life.

not as one might have trusted in some technological marvel, or advanced artificial intelligence, but——as a comrade, and a companion.

if there was time, he thought that he might like to ask the other man more of the view he took on the matter.

meanwhile, in this instance, he saw no sense in adopting any outlook other than the one which anakin himself took.

“ then i am honored to make his acquaintance. ”

he looked at anakin, then turned his attention to the astromech again.

“ i greet you. ”

he lowered his head.

he had smiled mildly.

“ r2-d2, was it? ”

[inacoldembrace]

@leadstosuffering asked:

|     “ it’s not waiting that i mind. ” he was sitting with his back against a tree, making an adjustment to one of the screws on his lightsaber. his eyes were lowered. there was nothing wrong with it, really---but he needed to do something. “ it’s waiting when i don’t know what that might cost me. ”

“ that is understandable, i think. ”

he said it, then tilted his head to one side, afterwards.

he was surveying anakin where he sat opposite him.

the other man’s eyes were lowered, apparently set upon the task that he had set himself to.

an attempt to mask his anxieties——to onlookers, as well as himself.

it was a vain attempt, of course, as they were many, and apparent.

his movements betrayed as much——the strain in his voice did, also.

the way that he now attempted to occupy himself, alone, spoke to that.

which was not to say that he supposed anakin was set on disguising his unease with the situation, at hand.

on the contrary, he spoke of it openly.

the intimate investment that he had in this, however——he had attempted to disguise that, since the start.

as to the whys of the thing, well——he had surmised most of them, by now.

“ however, what we must also understand in this instance is that not waiting may well cost us more. ”

there were many occasions when inaction was, in truth, the wisest action that one was able to take——to him, that much seemed obvious.

yet, there were always those who struggled with the idea.

it wasn’t that he was incapable of understanding why that was——yet, in some ways, it seemed strange to him, anyway.

he considered, momentarily.

then, after a moment, he spoke again.

“ your lightsaber. ”

he tipped his head to indicate the sword.

“ it is the type of weapon that is wielded by all those in your order? ”

he truly was interested.

however, he was also aware that it would be mutually beneficial to offer the other man some manner of distraction, at this time.

mutually beneficial, and also, he imagined, a sort of a mercy.

it was not coincidence that he had made up his mind to utilize the subject of diversion that anakin himself had arrived at.

if he had arrived at it on his own, then the odds were improved that it would satisfy.

“ i will admit, it is something of a mystery to me. ”

that was half true.

he had already worked out many of the weapon’s intricacies on his own in the time they had spent together, but——still.

“ how is it that it works? ”