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The air itself was a mirage, thick and tangible and uncertain. There was no escape from the heat of the lava fields, even this far away from the floes – the heat rippled the air, and sulfur stung at his skin.But those were physical discomforts, and Jedi could easily ignore those.“You came here to kill me!” Anakin screams in rage, Padme a crumpled heap of white fabric and pale skin behind him.How could you, Anakin! How could you – His own anger snarls, but even through the sheer madness in Anakins voice, the unhinged, dark energy that lashed out at Obi-Wan in the Force, shrieking betrayalbetrayerbetrayed! He could hear his padawans heartbreak, could see it like an open wound – how could he not?Two things happened then, in a moment of aching clarity:Obi-Wan tossed his lightsaber away-And Anakin ran him through.Shock cut through the Force like lightning through a storm.“Wh-what did you-“ Anakin gasps, looking at the saber lying harmlessly on black sand. Obi-Wan chokes on a hopeless laugh, his grip on Anakin’s tunic the only thing holding him up as Anakin’s saber stutters out. He reaches up with shaking fingers to trace the side of his padawans face with no small measure of grief.“Oh my foolish padawan…did you really think…that I?” Obi-Wan coughs, a bloody froth of bile climbing up his throat. “I could never….I loved you too much.”“M-Master I – I-“ Anakin looks lost, and panicked, and it is too horribly familiar an expression. His emotions roil in the Force, and batter Obi-Wans soul in the storm. It hurts.Obi-Wan slumps into the younger man, and his eyes land on Padme.“Anakin, she needs help…” He whispers, the searing heat in his belly fading into something cold…He shakes, but he can’t really feel much, now…His padawan drags him over to where she lay, and Anakin starts sobbing. Obi-Wan winces, feeling feargriefguilthate claw at him.Please, Anakin – stop! His mind begs, but he doesn’t have the strength for words. He needs it for something else right now. He reaches for Padme, beautiful, brave Padme, who should have been everything his padawan ever needed – who was – and yet…He can heal the injury to her throat well enough, but something else is wrong, leeching at her life-“Padawan, she needs help-“ Obi-Wan turns sharply, and retches, blood and bile spattering over himself just before he blacks out from the pain.~*~*~Bail Organa, Anakin will think later, when he’s properly capable of thinking, is a man of more courage than the Jedi Knight ever once gave him credit for. He flinches only once, when Anakin storms into the medical center with Padme in his arms, and then rushes them into a trauma suite.The droids take over from there, and Bail shoves Anakin from the room to let them do their work.“She is my wife!” Anakin shouts, his rage a miasma in the air. In the room behind him, Padme’s heartbeat skyrockets, and she gasps in pain. The droids hook her up to a painkiller.“And look what you’ve done to her!” Bail shouts back, the gentile man showing a spine of steel. Anakin starts, a little, his black temper pushed back by the shock of actually seeing the mild-mannered man in a true temper – against him, no less.He’s a good man, Anakin. Padme had once told him of her dear friend. He is kind, and he compromises that kindness for nothing and no one.Padme. It hurts it hurts it hurts. He’s losing her. He’s losing all of them!He shoves past Bail and runs back into the ship, where Obi-Wan lies in a stasis chamber, Anakin too afraid to see whether or not he was actually still alive when he shoved him in there. He lifts the pod with the Force, and pushes it ahead of him back into the medical center. The droids exclaim much, and Obi-Wan joins Anakin’s wife in the trauma suit.“Destroy even those that love you, you do.”Anakins fury becomes everything that he is, at the sound of that voice, and he turns it on the old green troll, standing there looking at him with disgust.“THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” Anakin rages. “It’s always been you! You never thought I was good enough! I was a child, and you thought I was too old! Too afraid! Too angry! You never gave me a chance! Look at me!” His anger was so powerful, the force made it real, sparks and fire in the air, flickering around him like a storm. But Yoda was not looking at him.“Mattered so much, did my opinion?” Yoda mutters. “More than his? More than hers?”“It was never enough! Every time I was happy – every time I thought I could make them proud of me – every time I excelled and thought, this is it, this is who I can be – you disapproved! You told my master I was too greedy! Too proud! You poisoned him against me at every turn! You made him hold me back! You’re a monster! All I wanted was to be loved, and you took it away from me! You told me I was wrong to even want it! How could you? How dare you?”Yoda’s face was impassive, unrepentant, and hatred choked Anakin, stole darkness over his vision, and he just wanted to reach out and rip Yoda apart, and he could – he was strong, he was powerful, he had every right-!“Skywalker, stop!” Organa shouted.He could hear Padme screaming.Anakin whipped around, staring through the transparisteel window to see the only two people in the universe who still loved him in pain – Padme, back arched and crying – Obi-Wan, seizing on the table as the droids tried to save his life.The roaring in his ears died down, and his fear rose up, acrid and sharp and bitter and pervasive, and both of them flinched.“Why- why?” Anakin stuttered, shivering with the cold inside of him.“Dark, you are. Light, and vulnerable, are they. Strong, your emotions can be, powerful, yes, but you lash out indiscriminately, and hurt them, you do. Your children, too.” Yoda said, voice grim and punishing.
I’m hurting them.
I’m killing them.Anakin turned and fled.
I’ll get better. I’ll learn. I swear it.
~*~*~“Kill him, you should have.”Obi-wan struggles to the surface, and those are the first words he hears. They echo in his head, and pierce his heart, and rouse his ire.“As you did, when given the chance?” Obi-Wan snarls, too tired, too hurt, to be what Yoda expected him to be. Too heartbroken.“Killed him, I could not have.” Yoda sighs. “In too much danger, your lives were.”“Lay a hand on my Padawan, Master Yoda, and I will never forgive you for it. Not in this life, nor any other. I would shun your voice and forsake your memory if you even tried.” Obi-Wan vows, struggling to sit up even though his abdomen screeched that it was so very much a bad idea.“I would hate you.” Padme says levelly, from across the room, every inch the Queen who reigned in war. “That man is my husband. That man is their father. You will not take him from us. There is still good in him.”“Fallen, he is. Fallen, the Republic has. Fallen, the Jedi Order…” Yoda’s ears drooped, and there was anger, and there was grief. “No more, we are. No more, we are.” He cried.Bail Organa enters the room, takes one glance around, and looks extremely uncomfortable.“Padme, how are you feeling?’ He inquires, drifting towards his friend.“Terribly weak, I’m afraid.” She sighs, holding her children close. Obi-Wan tries to get a look at them, but he only gets peeks at pink toes and tufty hair, wrapped in white blankets.“Are they?” He inquires weakly. Bail and Padme glance across at him. Padme smiles, soft as the first blossom in spring.“Luke and Leia. One each. Guess Anakin and I – Anakin and I were both right.” She says, voice wavering with tears and exhaustion.“You should come to Alderaan.” Bail tells her quietly. “To heal. We can protect you while we wait to see – wait to see what’s to become of us, in this new Empire.” He looks to Obi-Wan. “You could…”“Bail.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, haggard and humble, “Thank you, but I cannot. I fear my padawan has once more done something foolish, has he not?”Bail nods, looking grim and unhappy.“Then as his Master I must go and make sure I can properly lecture him for it.” His attempt at humor falls flat, and he shakes his head. “I cannot leave him to the Sith. I will not.”“The Emperor will kill you.” Bail says. He’s been a good friend, these many years, and Obi-Wan wishes he could accept his offer, could ease his heartache, but he simply can’t.“If the Emperor had wanted me dead, he’d have done me in a long time ago.” The Jedi murmured.“Foolish, that is!” Yoda said sharply. “Another tool for his terror, he would make of you!”“He would try.” Obi-Wan agrees. “Perhaps he would succeed, but I am not Anakin. I know who I am. I know where I stand. I know what I will not do.”“Obi-Wan!” Padme looks at him fiercely, sorrow in her eyes, and defiance. Obi-Wan shakes his head.“I’ll bring him home to you Padme – though why he left?” Obi-Wan looks to Bail, hoping for an answer.“Master Yoda said he was hurting you – that his anger and his fear where….I’m not sure.” Bail mutters. “But I am no Jedi, and I’m fairly certain his power was hurting me.”“So he sought to learn to control it.” Obi-Wan murmurs. “By going to the only person he thinks could know how. How did I raise such a fool?”Padme’s startled laugh shocks him, but she just covers her mouth and shakes her head.“Die for him, willing you are, he knows. But choose darkness? Never would he guess.” Yoda says bitterly. “Never, would I.”“I will save him, Master Yoda.” Obi-Wan says. “My conviction is that simple. No matter what it takes.”Yoda turned away, and Obi-Wan hoped he might one day forget how much that moment hurt.~*~*~Obi-Wan is somewhat unnerved, to find himself unaccosted as he enters The Emperors domain, every statue-like, painfully familiar clone soldier standing by without so much as a twitch, white armor adorned with red braces – red for blood, red for fire, red for the Empire.The nerves pass: he has come here with a purpose, and it has cost him dearly to do so, but he had made a promise.
The boy was crying. A tiny, curled up ball of misery tucked away between the wall and the bed, trying to hide his tears behind shaky arms and little knees. His grief and fear, however, could have swallowed the planet whole, so strong was it in the Force.
He’s gone! He’s gone! Alone, I’m alone, and it’s so cold…
“Anakin?” Obi-Wan tried, quietly, his own loss a sharp edge in his chest that seemed to cut deeper every time he tried to breathe.
A hiccup, and a moment to stifle tears; the boy looked up, azure eyes a bright gleam against his grimy face.
He has made a promise to Qui-Gon, and he would never dare to dishonor it, but he has also learned his lesson in grief long ago: the living matter more than those untouchable dead.
“Do you want…to be a Jedi?” Obi-Wan asks.
“M-Master Qui-Gon told me I would be a great Jedi!” Anakin stutters out, a sharp, defensive edge to his tone.
“He did.” Obi-Wan nods, folding his hands into his sleeves to hide their fidgeting. “But I’m not sure he ever actually asked. Do you want to be a Jedi?”
“Yes.” The boy whispers, his answer full of fear. Obi-Wan does not sigh, he does not have the will, at the moment, to muster even that much. Instead, tiring of towering over the child, he sinks to the floor, to his knees. He has made a promise, he will keep it, no matter what.
“Then I shall see to it.” Obi-Wan says. Azure eyes blink, untrusting. Obi-Wan bows his head.
“I’m afraid I’ve not been very kind to you, and I am truly sorry, Anakin. But I will care for you, I promise.” The Jedi swears.
“S’a real promise?” Anakin whispers, words raw from tears.
Obi-Wan tilts his head, not quite understanding. “What other kind of promise would it be?”
“Mom says – she says that some promises are just pretty lies people tell. But other promises – they’re real, they’re no matter what. She promised she loved me, no matter what.”
Obi-Wan tries to smile, but it is as faint as the silver edge of an overcast dawn. “No matter what.” He vows.
Darkness is not….what he had imagine it to be. The storm, the violent fury, the uncontrollable hunger so often and so terribly described in texts…and seen on his own Padawans face, was not he felt, not what he found, when he had gone searching.His own deliberate Fall had rather been…anticlimactic. A pooling of shadows in the core of himself, a river of darkness, cloaking a center of bright, undimmable light.Oh, the feared passions were there, of course – cold, roiling rage, pressed and tempered and hammered pure in the Clone Wars, and the terrible truth behind their every atrocity, that it had all been a lie…Slick, persistent, oil-like grief, heavy and deep and carrying a litany of names so long he feared he might one day forget how they all sounded, what they all meant…Fast, strong currents of passion, sly at their edges and all-too-swift to pull him under should he delve into their embrace…cool, swelling tides, love, all-consuming and deep enough to drown in, and he had not lied – he loved too much, he always had, but love was not only the tide, it was the shore, bridging darkness to light…and hot, bitter, seeping hatred, for how could he not hate? One man had taken everything else he had ever loved and known, and now he dared to try and take his Padawan from him as well? His student, his brother, his wayward ward?Obi-Wan was careful of that hate. It was only useful so long as it kept him from becoming an image of that which he hated, which means, that for all his Darkness, he could not be Sith, he could not invite cruelty, would not beget pain, dare not seek power, not to subjugate, not to control, not for something so petty as greed nor fear.His goals were simple: he must save his padawan, and they must defeat the sith.Walking through that door was easy.Walking back out with himself intact and his brother in tow?~*~*~“Citizens of the galaxy.” He spoke without inflection, sans charm, sans compassion. “Today we begin a new age.” His skin was translucently pale, wan and fragile looking, against the rich black silk of his uniform, and the gleaming copper of his hair. A strip of red ringed his throat like a collar, and ran across his shoulders like blood pouring out.Perhaps it was a trick of the harsh lights, the uneven contrast of lights to darks in the filming studio, but eyes once as vibrant and shifting as an ocean were nothing more than a flat grey which reflected sharply.“In this new day… we have given birth to a new Empire.” He says flatly. “Which shall encompass every man, woman, and child in the galaxy.”There is a pause.“Let this be a message. Loyalist. Separatist. Neutral systems and…. dissident cells. The Emperor will allow no more divisions. In this new age, all shall fall under the banner of the empire.” Another pause. “All will.”“Further dissention among these stars shall not be tolerated. Set down your weapons. Set aside your grievances. The Empire promises order. One rule, one peace, one emperor.”“As the Jedi were shown the error of our ways, so too shall you be.”“Submit, or else.”He hasn’t blinked, those cold, flat eyes haven’t wavered, not once, and perhaps it is that phenomena that is so chilling, so captivating, that up until he says the words, it can’t be true, this fear, this dread, this disbelief.“This is Obi-wan Kenobi, signing out.”But it is.~“This is Padme Amidala, calling to you now as the Speaker for the Council of Queens and the Monarch Authority of the Sovereign System of Naboo. Hear me.”She is a splendor in soft blue and warm white, her dark eyes somber, her countenance regal, her every nuance as different from that of Obi-wan Kenobi’s as is possible.“To the former chancellor Sheev Palpatine, know this. Your homeworld does not support your actions. Your people reject you. We do not recognize your authority, nor the authority of your self-proclaimed Empire. We will not submit.” She declares.“To the peoples of the galaxy, know this. We have suffered. We have wounded each other. We have fought and lost. We waged a war for which there could be no victor.”She takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes to pay respect to the fallen. When she opens them again, her gaze is fierce in her passion, and her voice steady and strong.“But now is not the time to set down your weapons. Now is not the time to simply submit. The empire does not offer you peace, it offers you only subjugation. Now is the time to fight, not for a system of government, not for resources or territory or trade routes, but for your very freedom. For your homes and your rights and yourselves. Now is the time to be brave.”“The Republic was flawed. The system was broken. Our democracy was not what I wished it could be, and for that, I am truly sorry.” She pauses, breathes, and continues. “But this Empire is not the answer. It will not save you. That which takes power by force, which threatens to keep it by force, which has no right to tell you how to conduct your lives and yet forces you to accept its rule will not protect you. It cannot.”She takes a breath.“But neither can I. When you listen to this, when you consider my words, know this: I may not be able to save you. I am not here to tell you that I can. I am here to tell you to save yourselves. To be brave. To, in the face of great injustice, be true.”She smiles, soft and bittersweet and lovely.“Very simply, I am here to tell you that when the Empire comes to demand that you fall in line - do not.”“I stand here today and implore you to do one thing, just one thing:” Her eyes flash. “Rebel.”The word echoes, and she lets it, she looks aside, and then back up, lifting her chin.“To my husband, we love you. To the dead, we honor you. To all others, be brave – we are with you.”“This is Padme Amidala, signing off.”~