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distortionbobble · 2 years

Text

supernova //final

one | two | three

pairing: anakin skywalker x f!poc!reader

summary: you face the consequences of loving anakin.

warnings: minors dni. death of a child, order 66 in general, kinda suicidal thoughts, mentions of pregnancy, elements of masochism/sadism?, choking, angst, biting, the whole smut shebang, canon levels of violence, anakin is very much the way he is at the end of revenge of the sith but maybe exaggerated for my own twisted desires lmao

word count: 9.5k

a/n: i went a little off the rails with this one heehee but also i would totally love to talk about this fic more so i might post a separate more fleshed out a/n for funzies

Sixty nights without Anakin Skywalker.

And not a single one has felt right. From the moment you were exiled from the Jedi Order, you’ve felt more and more that you’re only a bystander as the events of your life occur to someone else. You’re trapped on the outside, watching through walls of glass, suffocating silently with no one to hear, and no one to help.

Each look of disappointment from those who once believed in you is burned into your mind. You never thought you’d live to see that, really. They’re all you see now when you go to sleep, like ghosts that chain you to the mistake that upended your life.

Mistake. It feels wrong to think of Anakin as that. Some nights, the thought of him is the only thing that gives you the strength to keep breathing. You always find yourself reaching out to him, your heart trying desperately to fill the void of his body in a bed that he’s never been in. For so long, sleep just meant that— you and Anakin, together, safe, comfortable. Long before the forbidden tainted your feelings for him, back when he’d crawl into your bed because he had another nightmare and it was only with you that his mind went silent.

Master Windu has assigned you to an agriplanet, one far from what you were familiar with. Lothal imposes its dull monotony on you every day now, from its bleak sunrises to its equally lifeless sunsets. You work along a few of the Jedi who have chosen to work on the agriplanet as a means of escaping the war, exhausted and drained by combat. They’re just as tired as you are, but this place means something different to each of you. To them, it’s a place for recovery. To you, it’s a prison. A place where you’re forced to abandon your hopes and dreams.

Each day is the same: wake up, wash yourself from head-to-toe, eat the bland food they serve at the eating halls before going to the farm. In any other circumstance, you wouldn’t mind it; in fact, maybe you’d find the repetition harmless. But now, the repetition only forces you to dwell on Anakin. What he’s doing, where he is. You wonder if he’s moved on to Padme now that he knows he’ll never see you again. You wouldn’t blame him if he did, but it’s the only thing you can think about, and it consumes you. Day and night. Jealousy and obsession burn at the edges of you because when you fell, you fell hard.

The worst part of all of it is that you don’t feel like yourself anymore. You can’t recognize the person you’ve become. You stare at a ghost every morning in the mirror. If you’re not a Jedi, what are you?

This morning is like every other— you’re woken by the gray light of sunrise as it creeps through your room, hoping the swell of nausea subdues itself before you get out of bed. The nausea made itself known to you only recently, only about a month ago. You pay it no mind.

And then you sit, staring, trying hard to forget the mornings that you woke up next to Anakin. Trying to forget that you’re never gonna get that again. Trying not to think about what he’s doing, if he misses you as much as you miss him.

The silence screams at you. You carry it with you, even as you leave your hut, surrounded by the chatter of Jedi who actually got to live their dreams. You wish that was you, that you’d gotten the chance to be the Knight you were raised to be.

You’re jealous of them. So jealous. But you swallow down the anger and begin your work for the day, trying to ignore the sting of tears as you sink into your despair. More than once, you find your hands wandering to your belt, instinctively reaching for your lightsaber. You can’t remember a single day since you got it where it wasn’t clipped to your belt by the moment you woke up. Your lightsaber was like an extension of yourself, and you felt its absence after having taken it for granted for so long. Being a Jedi was more than just fighting. You missed that part of training, sure, but your mind was always hungry to learn, to fulfill that never-ending urge to know and do things better. Learning battle strategies, learning diplomatic tactics, working with others and learning how to make them bend. Now? You’re cut off and while your hands are busy, your mind is forced to wander.

Anakin is your favorite distraction. What would he do if he was with you right now? He’d loathe this place, that’s for sure. He’s always lived so fast, driven by his impulses. You can almost hear him groaning about his boredom in your head, hear his laughter, feel the warmth of his smile. You’re sure he’d make the dreary work a competition, bringing his own life and light to the task because that’s what he always did when he was with you.

You almost wish you’d forget him. Erase his love from your mind. Maybe then, this separation wouldn’t be so painful. But what would you be without him? You loved, and you knew love, felt love. Love had taken careful hands and it had sculpted you, from the clay and the dust and the dirt, and it had sculpted you so grand before the fall. Oh, but how lovely was the fall? Misery is sweet on your tongue when you think of Anakin Skywalker. You can’t forget him, because he is your everything; to forget him would be to forget yourself.

You’ve just sat down for dinner, body fatigued from the day, when a shadow is cast upon you, and you look up to see the smiling face of a woman you’ve only seen in passing. “Congratulations,” she says to you. “The baby will be as strong as its parents.”

The spoon you’d been raising to your mouth falls from your hand and clatters to the ground. “What- what baby?” you stammer out. You’re sure the woman must be talking about someone else, because you’re sure you’re not pregnant. Maker, being pregnant would be a nightmare that you’re not prepared for. You’ve never even dreamed of having a child, too busy adhering to the Jedi Code. You can’t be pregnant, you just can’t be.

The woman’s smile is unfazed as she reaches out to you, just lightly grasping your hand, and you can feel what she feels, what you hid from yourself for the past two months— a flickering presence, just barely there, deep within you. No. Your head swims and you gasp for air that just doesn’t seem sufficient. Panic floods your body at the realization that there is a living thing growing within you. A baby. Yours’ and Anakin’s baby.

“Master Kenobi, I need Master Kenobi,” you mumble, shoving yourself away from the table and stumbling back to your hut. Your feet catch on the roots and rocks in the ground and your body slams into the walls of your hut as you shake in fear. You don’t know what to do. Can you do this? You’ve never been weaker, alone and afraid, without your best friend by your side. You need Obi-Wan, you need his guidance.

You’re frantic as you turn on your hologram, hands trembling as you try to get a hold of your former Master. You bite your knuckles nervously as the signal pings out, almost crying in relief when the hologram of Obi-Wan’s familiar figure lights up in blue.

“Y/n,” he says, with calm surprise. “I take it you’re—”

“I’m pregnant,” you blurt out, tears spilling from the corners of your eyes and splashing against your clothes. Then the dam bursts and you begin to sob, chest heaving as your breath escapes you. Soft wails of panic escape you because now you’ve said it, now it’s real, and more than anything, you need support right now. Obi-Wan watches you silently, a look of pain on his face as he takes you in. He looks up, trying to rein in his own tears as you call his name between sobs.

“Padaw— Y/n,” he corrects himself, lips twitching downwards as he reigns in his own sadness. It’s not easy for him to watch the girl he’s almost raised for so long suffer, with nothing he can do to help. “Y/n,” he says again, softer this time. “It’ll be alright.”

“I’m so alone, Master,” you cry out, tears still falling from your eyes. Your tongue slipped in calling that. He’s no longer your Master, and remembering that slices open wounds that have barely begun to heal. Obi-Wan is kind enough to ignore your mistake.

“You’re not alone,” he reassures you, still watching you as you calm down, rubbing the bone behind your ear anxiously.

“What am I gonna do, Obi-Wan? She’s never gonna know her father. She can’t ever meet him, and if she does, he certainly cannot know that she’s his.” You sniffle and wipe your face with the back of your hand, sighing as you think about her future. “What if she feels abandoned? Am I gonna mess her up and be a terrible mother?” Your voice breaks.

“Should you choose to keep the child, which no one will force you to do, you will be an amazing mother. While Anakin cannot know of his child, I will be there as much as I can to ensure your and your child’s well-being. And when it is time, she will be taken in by the Order, where she will be safe.” You laugh bitterly at his words.

“Safe, safe like I was?” Obi-Wan just lowers his head in shame. You’ve never been good at controlling your temper, and seeing your words wound him hurts deep down. You look down at your clenched fists as you slow your breathing, trying to reign in your anger. And you try again. “Thank you, Obi-Wan,” you say. He nods quietly at your words, and you find yourself with your hand atop your belly protectively.

“Y/n, if you do not wish to keep the child, you do not have to. There are many options to—”

“I want to,” you interrupt. You hadn’t realized it before, but you did. And if she turns out anything like her father, you’ll never be bored. “When she’s taken in by the Order… could- could you please make sure she meets her father? She doesn’t need to know it’s him, but that’s what I want for her.”

“I cannot promise anything, but if it’s possible, I’ll try and have them meet.” Obi-Wan evading your request is no surprise. Words mean everything to him, and he doesn’t make promises lightly. But it comforts you to know that he’ll try, to know that he’s on your team even when you feel so alone.

There’s nothing left to say now. Your situation has left you with a cold distance between your former Master, your interaction saturated by a cold silence. You muster a soft smile— one which he returns— and the call is cut, leaving you in your solitude again.

In another life, Anakin would’ve been by your side. It wouldn’t have been fear you felt, but excitement. You can just picture it in your mind— he’d be so happy with the news that he would throw open the windows and scream to the world that he, Anakin Skywalker, was going to be a father. But here, in this desolate life of yours, the only sound is silence.

It burns, deep down, this loneliness. You want nothing more than to cross the galaxy and be swept up in his loving embrace again, safe and supported and loved, both you and your child. He’d love you so much, even now, but that’s exactly the problem. Allowing him to love you would be reckless, dangerous, and you love him too much to allow him to love you. Besides, you’ve lost everything, all for him. There’s no point in dragging him down to the depths of hell just for him to burn at your side.

You cross your room to the mirror, standing in front of it and shedding each article of clothing until you’re left bare, studying your skin in the dim firelight of your room. Is this what Anakin would see? You picture him standing behind you, his rough hands on your smooth skin, tracing every inch of you as he shows you over and over again what it’s like to be loved. You close your eyes and mimic the path his hands would take down your body, consuming your being with the fire that his love is. Grief wraps its hands around you instead and you feel choked, tears spilling down your skin as you weep openly.

Nobody can hear you. Nobody will wipe your tears and hold you til it passes.

And it’s then, when you feel loneliest, that you hear it— your name falling from Anakin’s lips. You’re sure you imagined it.

“Y/n,” he whispers again, and you whirl around to see him. He’s drenched, and you can see fresh droplets of water landing on his bare skin, collecting and building until they’re running all the way down his bare skin. You force yourself to swallow hard as your eyes follow the maps made by each trail, running down the strong panes of his abs before they swoop down to the hard bones that make his v-line and down further still. For a brief second, the familiar swell of lust rises within you. After all, who could resist the sight of Anakin Skywalker in the shower?

But that building lust is accompanied by that bitter longing you carry. You need Anakin Skywalker to breathe, and here he is, like a gift from the Force itself. And he is beautiful and he is connected to you, and it feels like it’s just you and him in the universe all over again. Then you breathe and remember that he’s not yours, he never was. Anakin Skywalker was sculpted by the universe to become the Chosen One, not to waste his life as your beloved. You need him, and love him, and you never will have him.

Still, your mouth betrays you when you cry out his name, reaching out to meet his hand and swallowing that sharp disappointment when your hand just passes through his. You know he’s not truly here, but it hurts nonetheless.

“My love,” he sighs, reaching out to touch your face. It doesn’t matter that it’s not real, it doesn't matter that he’s lightyears away from you. You can almost feel it as you hover your cheek above the apparition’s hand and you have to look up to stop the tears in your eyes from falling. I miss you, you want to say. Come to me. Find me. I love you, I miss you. But you say nothing.

“Have I wronged you so much that you cannot bear to speak to me?” Anakin asks, pained. You shake your head, unwilling to say anything because if you did, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from crying.

“Let me find you,” he urges. His voice is as gentle and loving as you remember, and you find yourself placing a kiss on the apparition’s hand. The false intimacy stings. “Just tell me where you are. I’ll fix all of this, I promise. I’ll save you.”

Your shoulders begin to shake as you step back, sobbing quietly and shaking your head because you don’t have the strength in your voice to tell him no. You hate hurting him. Seeing his face like this, contorted with that agony that you know too well, hurts you more than it should.

“Please,” he begs, dropping to his knees as you continue to back away from him. His tears are falling freely now, collecting on his lashes before they bend and break away to kiss his cheeks. And you’re tempted, again, to tell him everything— to say that you’re pregnant, that it’s his, that you’re on Lothal and you’d follow him wherever he goes. You want to say it all, but it feels like your jaw is wired shut and all you can do is shake your head. Your ambition, your hopes and dreams, were so cruelly dashed by the Order. You see no reason for him to experience the same thing. And even if it hurts him, it’s for the better. It’s what you’d want in his position, to be encouraged to follow your destiny, not turn away from it. Besides, love is a fleeting thing. He’ll forget you someday and the pain will only be a fading scar.

It dawns on you when you look at his broken form that you resent him, to some degree. Because he got to keep everything, while you lost everything, and yet he has the audacity to break in front of you. You want to scream at him, scream that it isn’t fair, that you’re in far greater pain than he will ever know. But you know that you’d feel the same in his place, because you’re so close to shattering. He is your everything.

I hate you. I adore you. I need you. Why couldn’t it be you? Save me. Stay away from me. You want to say all of it, you want to say none at all. You’re at war within yourself, and Anakin on his knees with your name dripping off his tongue only makes your head pound.

“Leave,” you say, finally finding the strength to use your voice. “Leave and never think of me again.” Your voice is steady, a facade you struggle to maintain. Anakin’s bottom lip trembles as you shut him out, his hands falling limp to his body as the image begins to fade.

As soon as the last remnants of light fade from your vision of him, it feels like a cord has been cut and you collapse into yourself, so exhausted from it all that you can’t sob, you can’t cry. You’ve been denied your happiness one too many times but this?

This is what breaks you.

~~~

Two-thousand one-hundred and three days without Anakin Skywalker.

You’ve killed the woman you once were. And, like a phoenix, you were reborn from the ashes of her. Long gone are the days where you were so connected to the Force that it was part of you— now, even something as small as lifting a rock makes your hand tremble and your head throb. Your connection to the Force was lost with the person you were, and it took a long time to fill the void you were left with.

You gave birth to your daughter, Maya, whose spirit matches her father’s. Obi-Wan visits you every month, bringing gifts for your daughter and support for you. He isn’t here every day, but he’s here when it counts— every one of Maya’s injuries has been kissed and sent away by Obi-Wan well after they’ve healed. She’s quite attached to him, and you can’t stop that growing fear that it mimics her father’s all too well. But she is still a child, rosy-cheeked and so full of promise that you banish the thoughts immediately.

Maya Skywalker is five years old now. You’re certain Obi-Wan will assign her a different last name, or erase it entirely, when she’s adopted into the Jedi Order. She doesn’t even know her own last name, which you and Obi-Wan decided to do in order to prepare her for her future in the Jedi Order.

If she’s adopted into the Jedi Order. She hasn’t shown any signs of Force-sensitivity, but it only makes sense, given her lineage. You’re sure the child of the Chosen One and another almost-Jedi would bring forth a child blessed by a high midichlorian count.

Of course, as her mother, there is a part of you that wants her to not be force sensitive. For her to stay with you, safe for as long as you can ensure it. That way, she’ll have more choice, instead of her destiny being written by the Jedi Council based on how many midichlorians are in her blood.

You’re braiding Maya’s hair as you prepare for Obi-Wan’s visit to celebrate Maya’s birthday. Five years old, the time that the Jedi begins to identify which children are best suited for protecting the Force. You’re slower and more deliberate than usual today, because you don’t know how long you’ll have her with you before she’s taken by the Order and you never see her again. The threat of losing her too sits heavy on your shoulders.

“Mama, why are you being so slow?” Your daughter complains, tugging your skirt. You blink and brush off your fears, shooting your daughter a teasing smile as you work your hands faster and finish her hair.

“Sorry, little lothcat. I was just busy thinking about how big you’re getting.”

“How big, mama?”

“Almost as big as me,” A deep voice rumbles from the doorway.

“Obi-Wan!” your daughter shrieks, beelining straight to his shins and making him let out a resounding oof when she collides with him.

“I’m five now,” Maya says, but her words are muffled by the fabric of Obi-Wan’s clothes. He pulls her upwards quickly, flipping her upside-down quickly and making her giggle gleefully before setting her gently on his hip as he holds her. It makes you smile, seeing your former master being such an important part of her life.

“Hey, Obi.”

“Hello,” He responds, smiling at you gently as Maya pulls on his beard. “Now, what does the birthday girl want to do today?”

“I wanna save a Senator, just like you and Anakin did,” Maya says, determined.

“Oh, your mother told you about that, huh?” He asks, smiling. Maya nods, pushing herself out of Obi-Wan’s hold to get her feet on the ground.

“Anakin is my most favorite Jedi,” she says, spinning around the room. You can’t do anything but laugh, because of course he is. You haven’t shied away from telling her the stories of Anakin’s bravery and everything he did. It was your way of letting her grow up with her father, even if she didn’t know that Anakin was her father.

“Not even me?” Obi-Wan asks, a pout on his lips. He’s always had a soft spot for Maya.

“Not even you, Uncle Obi. My favorite is Anakin. I wanna be as strong as him,” Maya shouts, jumping up onto your cot. She raises her little hands to the sky, imitating what she’s seen you do as you act out as Anakin, her chubby cheeks puffed out as she stares in concentration.

Obi-Wan looks to you in mild amusement when the wooden comb that lays on your dresser suddenly goes flying, straight past Maya. Your head snaps towards her, hands still outstretched as her bottom lip begins to wobble in fear and now, stronger than ever, you can feel her Force signature. Perhaps it’s because you’re her mother you’re able to sense her despite your disconnect from the Force. But you know what this means— that she’s Force sensitive, that she’s destined for great things, that there’s power in her blood.

You know it means that you’ll have to give her up to the Order.

Maya begins to cry, afraid, and both you and Obi-Wan move towards her to console her.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay, baby,” you say, bringing her to your chest and placing a kiss to her hair. “It’s okay. Mommy can do it too, see?” She looks up, sniffling, wiping away her tear tracks as you raise your hand in concentration and pray that it works. It’s been so long since you’ve even attempted to use the Force, but for your baby you’d do anything.

It’s hard, at first. You feel like you’re underwater, searching for just a glimmer of light and you feel so cold. You reach out for it, only to be slammed into the barriers you’ve spent years building up. Memories you wish you could forget swirl around you, diluted but sharp against your skin. You can feel it, just barely out of reach, that familiar pulse that’s as much a part of you as it is the rest of the universe and you latch onto it with all the effort you can muster.

The comb rises a few inches, wavering, before it finally clatters to the ground again. Your eyes meet Obi-Wan’s and you can see the disappointment in his eyes. A long time ago, you could’ve lifted that comb up without having to blink. It’s a cruel reminder of all that you’ve lost, of all that you once were. But it’s enough to satiate Maya, who gets up from your lap excitedly to go inspect the comb.

“You knew this day was coming,” Obi-Wan murmurs to you, eyes trained on your daughter. He can read you like a damn book, always has been able to, and you know he can feel your apprehension at having to let her go.

“I know,” you whisper, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“If we don’t separate her from you now, it’ll be extremely difficult later on, and it might hinder her in the future,” he warns. “There’s no point in delaying the inevitable.” Then he turns to you, taking your hands in his own. They feel softer than your own, your hands calloused and rough from the accumulating years of difficult agricultural work. It’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it serves to remind you of how much things have changed. How much you’ve changed.

“I know.” You don’t dare to look away from Maya, watching her because you know all too well that you will never see her again. You’re afraid to even blink, because you don’t want to risk missing even a millisecond of her. She’ll be gone by nightfall, but all you want is to hold her in your arms and, selfishly, keep her here with you. You should be glad that she has this opportunity. That she’ll accomplish everything that you never could. The part of you that was raised as a Jedi beams with pride, excited for her to thrive, even if it’s away from you. The part of you that’s her mother wants to burn the Order to the ground just to get one more year with your baby.

Instead, you take a deep breath and accept that you have to let her go. “She’ll be safe, right, Master?”

“I promise she’ll be safe,” he assures you. “I’ll leave you two to say your goodbyes.” Obi-Wan squeezes your hand and gets up, walking out the door. You notice that it’s unusually overcast today, instead of the usual sun that you expect from Lothal. An unusual day in its entirety.

“Maya,” you call out softly. You do your best to hold your tears at bay, because you don’t want your last memory with her fragmented by sadness. Even when she forgets what you look like, you want her to remember that you loved her, that you were happy with her.

Your daughter, your sunshine, sports a toothy grin when she looks up at you. “Yes, mama?”

“Isn’t it so incredible that you can do something this amazing?” You ask her, trying to seem as excited as possible. You want her to be excited about being a Jedi, and you know that means you’ll have to fake your own excitement. She nods, confused but excited. “Well, because of that, you get to go with Uncle Obi-Wan to the Jedi Temple. And you’re gonna learn how to do so many things, Maya, and you’re gonna get so strong.”

“Strong like Anakin Skywalker?” She asks you, hopeful. You laugh and nod, looking up so that the tears that prick at your bottom eyelid won’t fall. “And mama, you’re coming with me?”

You sigh and bite your lip, struggling to maintain your enthusiasm because you’re gonna miss your sweet girl so much. You hold her little face in your hands, kissing her forehead before leaning back to look at her. “No, baby. Your mama isn’t as strong as you are. And I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but just remember that mama’s always gonna love you, okay, baby?”

Maya nods, but you know she doesn’t understand what’s going on. She’s calm because you’re calm, but the pain of separating from Maya is the most difficult thing in the world. How much will life cruelly rip away from you?

You hold her tightly in your arms as you continue to fight back your tears, holding her for the last time. “If you’re ever scared, know that you can always go to Uncle Obi-Wan, and if you can’t find him, you can always trust Anakin Skywalker.” She nods, and you separate from her, managing a weak smile before getting up and walking with her outside. Obi-Wan waits outside of his jet, smiling kindly at your daughter and you with that deep understanding in his eyes.

“It’s time,” he says, and you watch her board the jet, waving them goodbye and watching until the jet becomes a distant pinprick in the sky. Then you turn and walk away, feeling hollow inside all over again.

~~~

It’s been three months since Maya left home.

Despite the fact that she’s alive and well, there is still a shadow of grief cast upon you. You feel as though she’s been ripped from you too soon. However, it isn’t as painful as what you felt when you were exiled to Lothal six years ago. Your solace comes from the connection you feel with Maya. Despite the distance, it’s strong and unwavering. You can breathe easier as soon as you feel her, and know she’s okay. That’s all you need now.

Since her departure, you’ve found yourself trying to find that connection to the Force all over again. It’s not something you find yourself doing intentionally, but rather while you’re in the fields, you realize your focus is trained on the pebbles in the field, trying desperately to make them rise. But you just… can’t. You don’t know if it’s the mental blocks, or if you’ve genuinely lost the ability to harness the Force. Your life is tearing at the seams, but you’re desperately trying to keep it all together.

You’ve noticed that the air around you has felt almost jagged, and you know something’s wrong but as long as it isn’t Maya, you can’t be bothered to care. You’ve long left the universe to its devices, and you know by now that you can’t meddle with what fate has planned. It’s been a slow build of toxicity, forcing you to breathe a little faster, a little shallower. But right now, sitting in the hut you call home, it’s borderline unbearable, and you find yourself seeking out that connection with Maya.

You expect her to feel calm, as she has every day for the past three months. But what you feel from her is fear. You’ve never felt anything like it from her, and it makes you panic even more.

Maya? You think, hoping that she’ll hear you somehow. You’re not skilled in the Force anymore, not by any means, but you need her to hear you. You need her to hear your voice, to know that she’ll be okay. Besides, Obi-Wan and Anakin were most likely close by. Maya knows to trust them, and if they’re there, she’s safe. Maya, you urge again, despite your attempts to subdue the panic that rises in you when her fear won’t go away. Her fear breaks your heart and you’re beginning to get scared now, because she shouldn’t be afraid. The Jedi Temple is safe. So if she’s unsafe, has she wandered away from the Temple? She could be kidnapped, and your heart begins to race as you focus on trying to connect to her. You need her to talk to you, to tell you what’s going on. It may be detrimental to her training as a Jedi to reinforce attachment, but you’re her mother, not a Jedi. So, rules be damned, you reach out to your daughter to make sure she’s safe.

Your voice in your head is so loud as you call out for Maya that you can’t make sense of much else. And you can connect to her, just briefly, before you feel a stabbing pain in your chest and the connection is severed.

“Maya?” You whisper aloud, standing up as adrenaline overtakes you. You close your eyes and try desperately to reestablish your channel with Maya, but you cannot feel her. Your anchor to her is gone, and you can hear your heart beating as you desperately try over and over again, searching in the darkness, to find her. “Maya!” You scream. Your knees buckle from beneath you and your fists meet the floor, dragging against the dirt as you draw them closer to your body.

You pound your fists against the floor until they bleed, screaming her name until your voice goes hoarse. You don’t want to believe it, you refuse to. You convince yourself that it’s just because you’re losing your touch, you lost the signal because you’ve lost your skill, and collect yourself up off the ground to crawl to your transponder. Surely if something was wrong, Obi-Wan would’ve sent you a message. The transponder is blank, and you sigh in relief.

But when you reach out for Obi-Wan, you can feel him. If you can reach out to him, why can’t you reach out to Maya? And why does Obi-Wan feel afraid? In your entire life, you’ve never felt him afraid like this. And that grief, that riptide of grief that’s threatening to swallow him whole, you’ve never felt anything like it. And it only confirms what you wanted to deny.

Maya is dead. And you sent her to her death.

“No,” you murmur, standing up. The action is dizzying and you sway as you walk towards the door and out of your home. “No, take me instead. No, no, it can’t be her, she’s just a child. Take me instead,” You plead. You don’t know who you’re begging. The Force? The Maker? There is no Maker to listen to you. If there was, this wouldn’t have happened. But still you beg.

You wander into the forest, the Lothal sun burning every inch of skin you have exposed. You trip over the branches but it doesn’t stop you, crawling on the forest floor until the energy is lost from your body and all you can do is stare at the sky. It taunts you, cruel and bright as you continue to beg and pray that the Force take you instead of Maya. You’d be willing to suffer every moment of your life so long as she was okay because there is no greater pain than this. If you hadn’t deluded yourself into thinking that she’d be safer away from you, she’d be alive right now. Her being a Jedi didn’t matter to you, it never did. You’d sent her to the Temple because you thought she’d be better off there than with you. If you hadn’t pushed her there, if you’d just kept her by your side…

It’s all your fault.

Your nails dig into your skin but you can’t feel it, so detached from your body that you don’t feel the branches and jagged rocks pressed into your back as you scream. Who will remember Maya when you and Obi-Wan are gone? She should’ve outlived you. To start a legacy of her own. She still had so much to live for, and dammit, it isn’t fair that you got to live while she didn’t.

~~~

You don’t know how much time elapses while you’re on the forest floor, wishing the roots and vines would swallow you whole and take you into the Earth. The only company you find is your grief, that ugly monster that has followed you wherever you go. Your mind alternates quickly between denying it, convincing yourself that it was all a bad dream, to the empty awareness that it was all real.

You pull yourself up, feeling your skin crawl at the stillness of your body, and you walk aimlessly. You’ve walked through these woods with Maya so many times before. The memories are like ghosts, haunting you. You just wish you could forget everything, because this pain is unbearable.

That’s when you hear your name, just like how you heard it years before. Anakin’s voice. You turn and you see him emerging through the darkness of the night, but you’re frozen. He calls your name out again, walking closer to you still. He looks different now, but he feels different too.

“Are you real?” You whisper. The sight of him is almost cruel to you. He doesn’t say a word, just nods and comes closer to you and runs his thumb over your jaw. It’s intimate and heart wrenching and you can feel it. He’s here, he’s really here. You don’t know how he always finds you when you’re at your weakest, but it feels so easy to melt into his arms.

“Prove it,” you sigh. Anakin sweeps you closer to him and kisses you. His lips are consuming, familiar, and he kisses you with a dizzying aggression. Anakin kisses you until you’re lightheaded, suffocating you. His tongue dances with yours and his teeth clash against yours as he kisses you in a frenzy. You feel your back hit a tree and you feel him cage you with his arms against the tree.

Anakin’s hands find their way to your hair and he tugs, sharp enough to make you gasp in pain. It makes him smile, lips curving upwards as they’re pressed against your open mouth. His hands explore your body like he’s forgotten everything, thumb pressed into every dip in your body and nails dragging against whatever skin is exposed. He’s rougher with you than he’s ever been before, but you don’t complain because the pain runs alongside your self-hatred.

Anakin makes light work of your clothes, stripping you of the simple tunic that you wear for work and leaving you topless as he works to remove his own clothes. He moves fast enough that you’re not allowed a moment of thought, and for that, you are grateful. His teeth sink into the muscle of your shoulders and down to your breasts, painful and possessive but you relish in it. You absorb his neediness, his demands as he marks your body. You cry out at the pain and he clamps a firm hand over your mouth, rising up to look you in the eyes.

And, Maker, those eyes. How could you have forgotten their intensity? His eyes are burning fires, brows drawn together as he drinks in the sight of you. There’s no love lost between the two of you as you use one another selfishly. He doesn’t care for you anymore, but the same can be said of you. It’s been too long, and you’ve left one another with wounds too deep to be healed with a kiss. But you can’t deny that you’re his, your souls tied to one another in a way far too significant to overlook.

Anakin’s hand moves from your mouth to brush your hair back, and it’s a form of intimacy that you know is wrong.

“I hate you,” you whisper, trembling. You can feel him pause, absorbing your words and you know they hurt him. You can see it in his eyes, too, the walls slamming in place as you force yourself to push him away. You don’t mean it, really. You just want somewhere to shunt your anger. You wish he had known about Maya, you wish he had been there to save Maya. The guilt inside of you is consuming you, and you want him to carry that burden too, to burn like you are right now.

You don’t realize you’re crying until Anakin’s tongue trails against your cheeks, lapping each teardrop up. He grinds his hips into yours, bulge pressing against your clit through layers of clothing and you groan as your pussy flutters. He pulls back and laughs at you sharply, before craning his neck down to kiss you fiercely again.

“Look at us,” he says, tauntingly. He pinches your nipples, lips continuing to fuse against yours as you dig your nails into the flesh of his back. “Do you ever wonder,” he pants against your mouth as you palm his bulge, “what would’ve happened if you hadn’t abandoned me?”

You scoff and sink your teeth into the muscles above his collarbones, making him groan in pain. Your hands rest at his belt, toying with the lightsaber at his belt and you miss having your own. You want him to hurt like you did. You don’t want to think at all.

“Less talking, more fucking,” you groan, tugging his trousers off and slipping your own off until you’re both left bare. His cock rests against your thigh, hard and warm, and when you grasp it in your hand Anakin whines loudly. “You’re pathetic,” you laugh, sinking your nails into his thighs and leaving little crescents in his skin. Maker, you missed him. Being this close to him elicits all kinds of emotions— all that anger, all that lust, all that longing that you buried deep down for so long bubbles up to the surface and spreads across your skin and you feel hot, hot and dizzy and you want him inside you already, dammit.

You slide his length across your wet slit, teasing yourself with the right balance of pressure as the head of his cock sits at your entrance. That’s when Anakin grasps your chin with two fingers, firmly but gently, and forces you to look him in the eyes. His eyes mirror the same carnal lust that you’re feeling right now, but deeper still there is that bond that the two of you have. It remains steadfast and unbroken and you can feel his love for you, despite the unkindness that life has shown that bond.

I love you, he mouths to you. Silently, as if using his vocal cords would give you too much power. It’s a weak and flimsy promise, but you can’t help mouthing it back to you silently. You allow the wave that is Anakin Skywalker to swallow you whole and forget yourself for a little bit.

He pushes into you without warning, sliding his entire length into you and holding it when the base of his cock is brushing against your folds. He feels warm and thick inside of you, and it’s addicting. Anakin allows you to just barely catch your breath before he withdraws and slams it into you again, fucking you roughly with the tree bark against your back and the friction of his chest against yours on your front. He fucks you carnally, intensely, like he knows what he wants from you and he won’t stop until he gets it.

Anakin’s fingers dig into the flesh of your love handles as he hammers into you relentlessly, almost bruisingly in their hold. It feels like he’s holding you tighter for every moment you’ve been apart and you look down to watch him slide in and out of you over and over again.

He holds you up with one hand and the other begins to wander downwards, pressing against the soft curve of your tummy where you can feel it bulge when he fucks you.

“You feel that?” Anakin asks, making you look at him through heavy lids as you try to maintain that facade of composure despite the way that you’re losing your mind with each stroke. “You feel how good we fit, baby? And you wanted to take this sweet cunt away from me. You’re mine, you know that? Mine. And I’m never letting go of you again.” The latter half is a growled promise full of desperation that’s accumulated over years. You can’t manage a response, too distracted by his hips meeting yours and the lewd sound of your bodies, hearts, souls entangling.

Anakin moves his warm hand from your belly to your neck, decorating your throat before he just barely squeezes. It’s just enough pressure for you to slip into that woozy space where every sensation is heightened and you feel like you’re floating.

You allow yourself to get lost in him as he fucks you.

You’ve forgotten how impossibly full he makes you feel, stretching you out and forcing the breath out of your lungs. It feels like he’s going deeper with every stroke and every time his hips meet yours, your core tightens and you can feel the lightning bolts of pleasure jolt up your spine.

“Say my name,” Anakin pleads.

“Anakin.”

“Again.”

“A-Anakin,” you moan. You can feel yourself getting closer, each driving force connecting you to him and pushing you more to the edge. Your walls tighten around his length and he continues to use the pads of his fingers to circle your clit, providing just the right amount of stimulation as he lays his claim on you. He moans your name as he finishes but continues to thrust into you, determined to please you.

You can feel the tears pricking your eyes and you close your eyelids, allowing them to escape as your body processes everything. You sob his name, broken, as you reach your climax, but he does not taunt you this time— no, he holds you close as you cry and shares your grief as much as he can without knowing what your tears are for.

He slides out of you and begins to dress you. It reminds you of the way you dressed him so many years ago at the Lake Palace, before everything went wrong. You want to tell him about Maya. He was her father, after all. But you know that he’s also the Chosen One, and it’s also your responsibility to make sure he doesn’t have the kind of attachment that pushes one into the Dark Side. The kind of attachment and love that a parent would have for their child.

“You’re so different now.” You manage a weak smile at Anakin, and he kisses the palm of your hand. You trace the scar over his eyelid with your thumb and run your fingers through his long waves. There is love hidden in your touches, love that he cannot afford to keep but love that you’ll give him regardless.

He turns away from you and begins to slip on his clothes, and that’s when you fish out the comlink from your pockets. There’s a message from Obi-Wan and you play it quietly next to your ear.

“Anakin killed Maya.” That’s all he says before the message ends, and you have to replay it because you just don’t understand what he means. Anakin. Your Anakin, the one who would never hurt someone, much less a defenseless child. He killed Maya? Not just any child, but his own daughter? Was the Chosen One unable to feel that he was her daughter? It simply didn’t make sense. You don’t want to believe it, either, but you realize that this whole time that Anakin’s Force signature has been muted, more than you’re used to.

With Anakin’s back still turned to you, you stalk over to his lightsaber, holding it in your hands. There’s no going back if you turn it on. If you turned it on and it was red, it would be undeniable proof that Anakin Skywalker is a murderer, that the Chosen One had fallen to the Dark Side. It would be proof that he had single-handedly made your life devoid of any purpose.

You turn it on.

You can see Anakin’s back stiffen as the lightsaber hums and before it can fully light up, you’ve already moved it next to Anakin’s neck.

His form is bathed in the red glow of his lightsaber, and you feel sick to your fucking stomach.

“It was you?” You whisper in disbelief. Obi-Wan might have told you who killed Maya, but you didn’t want to believe it. You can feel Anakin deshielding himself and now, you can feel it in his Force signature— there is an undeniable darkness within him.

The saber radiates pain from your fingers to your elbow, slowly creeping upwards, but you ignore it. Your anger makes your heart pump pure poison and power, and as Anakin turns towards you, you raise the blade and swing it down. He jumps out of the way.

“You have to listen to me, the Jedi Order is evil! They’re the real evil! They tried to kill me—”

“What, did they make you kill the younglings too?” You scoff, swinging the saber wildly as he backs away from you. The saber is heavy and the blade, corrupted by its master, only causes you more pain to wield it.

“That wasn’t me!” He shouts, and all you can see is red. You scream at him, a noise full of pain and sorrow because his lies only add to your suffering.

“Don’t you dare lie to me. You, you killed my fucking daughter,” you scream, and you’re close enough this time that the swing of the lightsaber burns cleanly thru his robes.

“You have a daughter?” Anakin asks, shocked, as he harnesses the Force and pushes you a few feet away.

“She trusted you,” you sob, voice breaking as you stumble towards him again and swing blindly. “I told her she could trust you. I told her she was safe with you.”

You can feel the fury rising within Anakin before he even speaks. “Perhaps it’s for the best. After all, what future would she have as the daughter of some weak, worthless bastard?” His words cut through you like glass and his fury leaves you reeling.

“Maya was your daughter. Yours! Your flesh and blood!”

“Liar!” Anakin screams, sweeping his hand and sending you flying into a tree.

“You know I’m not lying to you. I’m sure you felt it in her, too. Did she come running to you for safety?” You sob, getting up and ignoring the pain that shoots up your back at the movement. “I told her she was safe with you.”

“You should’ve told me,” Anakin shouts. “That was my daughter, too, you didn’t think I had the right to know about her? Maker, were you ever going to tell me about her?”

“I was protecting you! I gave up everything to keep you safe. Everything! You took away the one thing that gave me life after I had to leave everything behind! And for what?” You laugh bitterly. Anakin’s lightsaber is heavy and painful to wield and it feels like it’s burning your arm, but your fury fuels you and you drag the saber on the ground as you stumble towards him. Little embers burst into flames as the glowing red touches it, spreading behind you till the trees are ablaze with your anguish.

Anakin lifts you up with a single movement of his hand, choking you in the air as you struggle and you’re reminded of just how strong he is. You fight back, and both of you collapse in exhaustion as the power that the other exerts over you wins. You’re quicker to recover, feet dragging behind you as you make your way to Anakin, who kneels on the forest floor and looks up at you with emotions that you can’t quite decipher.

“I loved you,” you sob, hovering the lightsaber right next to his neck and trying to summon the strength to kill the love of your life. “All I wanted for you was to become the man you were always meant to be, to use that power for good.” You gasp, tears rolling down your face. The smoke from the fires burning around you singes your nostrils and eyes, but it’s nothing compared to the pain that Anakin is putting you through.

“That’s why I left. I didn’t want you to have any distractions, any temptations in your path. I refused to be your downfall. You think I abandoned you? I had nothing when I came here, nothing! Maya saved my life. And you took her away from me. You took everything from me.” You can barely see him anymore, tears blurring the image of the man before you and you don’t have the strength to wipe them away, both hands still grasping the handle of the lightsaber as you shake.

“Her blood is just as much on your hands as it is on mine,” Anakin refutes. He holds you in his gaze and the amount of rage in his gaze makes you uneasy, but you laugh bitterly at his words.

“You think I don’t know that? All I can think about is how if I hadn’t sent her there, she’d be alive, Anakin.” He’s crying too now, tears carving their way down the ash residue left on his face from the fire. You blame him, you blame yourself, you blame everything. You just want Maya back.

You lose your grip for just a second, weakened by the heavy toll that grief exerts on you, but a second is all that Anakin needs. He quickly disarms you and twirls the lightsaber to face you, rising and pushing you down with his feet.

“Kill me,” you whisper, closing your eyes. You don’t want to keep fighting anymore. The universe would take revenge on Anakin for you, but you’re just too weak to carry on. Not without Maya.

Anakin laughs darkly at your request and you can hear the hum of the lightsaber fade. The only thing you can hear is the fire as it spreads and the sound of his breathing as he stands above you.

“You kept my daughter away from me, and she’s dead because of that. I won’t kill you, my love. No, that would be a kindness to you. You’re going to live, and you’re going to wake up every day with her death on our hands. If I am to carry this burden, I won’t do it alone. Live, and suffer.”

Anakin walks away from you as you open your eyes. Your last glimpse of Anakin is with his back turned to you, flames licking at the bottom of his robes as he leaves you in the fire, a fire so bright you could mistake it for a supernova. You want to stay here, let the inferno swallow you whole, but you drag yourself to the hut where the remaining settlers are frantically rushing into the forest to put out the fire.

Your Anakin Skywalker, the man you loved for so long, has been dead for a long time. Now, you have to learn to live in his aftermath.

~~~

Twenty-three years since Maya’s death.

It still feels like part of you was cut away that day, but you’ve learned to live without that part. It still hurts, every morning, but time has been kind to your memories of Maya. You don’t think about her suffering or her death, but the brightness of her smile when she was with you. And you live your life, as best as you can. The Empire has ravaged Lothal far too many times to count but the little sparks of rebellion bring you hope.

Anakin doesn’t cross your mind much anymore. In the earlier years, when he did, the memory of him was associated with rage. But you’ve grown and you understand now that the man who killed Maya was not the same man who you grew to love in your childhood.

You’re washing your hands when you can feel something shift. It’s slight, and so far away you barely register it. You can feel Anakin, the way he was so many years ago when he was still uninfluenced by the Dark Side. Your Anakin.

And just as quickly as the feeling came, it was gone. After his death, Anakin Skywalker had returned only to die again. Something about that gave you a certain peace, to know that he died as himself.

You don’t know why you find yourself turning around but you do anyway, and before you is the glowing blue Force ghost of Anakin Skywalker. There’s kindness in his gaze, one that you didn’t see when you were last with him. You don’t dare to look away from him because you know when you do you’ll have to let everything go all over again. He looks innocent, the way you think he would’ve looked if the Dark Side hadn’t influenced him.

By the time you blink, he’s gone, with no evidence that he was ever really there.

When the sun is set and the world goes quiet, you go outside to look at the stars. There’s one that’s brighter than all the others tonight.

For some reason, it reminds you of Anakin.

#star wars fanfic #star wars #amongst the stars #my writing #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker x you #smut #fanfic #angst

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writingwife-83 · 4 months

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Hello! 🙂

How would you describe Ben and Rey's dating phase in canon?

Maybe not a popular opinion, but I think it might be a bit unconventional. I just feel like those two would need practice with the whole relationship thing lol. I don’t think either of them has done it before, and they’re also so used to being actual enemies. Even with them being a dyad, I don’t think you go from literal enemies to lovers instantly and with no bumps in the road. I can almost imagine them giving it a go to just be friends, but of course that doesn’t last long lol.

And hypothetically, in canon there would be a lot of other things going on after TROS. Maybe tracking down and ridding the galaxy of the last of the Sith? Maybe rebuilding what’s been ruined by war for so long? I can imagine both of them wanting to work hard for some of those things. It might actually be hard for them to make time for each other at first. But I can picture them working side by side, making the most of time spent together even if it isn’t all about romance. But the UST would probably get so intense that eventually someone like Rose would be like, please just go spend some time alone together. 😆 so yeah Idk if I see them dating in the way that we think of dating. I feel like they’d just become closer and closer and spend more and more time together. But not necessarily special occasions and going out together, y’know? They just kinda… start living life at each other’s side. 🥹

#reylo #wifey answers things

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david-talks-sw · 2 years

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Final thought on Tales of the Jedi (I hope):

When it comes to the retcons or the content overall... I think there's one more thing to keep in mind:

The description on Disney Plus defines these episodes as "parables".

youtube

And during the announcement of Tales of the Jedi, when Dave Filoni talked, about these episodes he apparently referred to them as "a series of tone poems".

Months ago, a member of the editorial staff tweeted that these are simplified versions of bigger stories, just like the story in junior novelizations "focus on small, more easily digestible moments rather than the whole story". He also added that:

The episode The Sith Lord is "not meant to be the entirety of that story" but rather a "brief glimpse at a couple of moments".

The last Ahsoka episode is also just a "simplified" 15-minute adaptation of the novel Ahsoka. It's not meant to be the FINAL and ONLY version of that story.

Like, these weren't made with the words "canon" or "BBY" in mind, beyond Matt Martin making sure that the chronology lined up, in Dooku's case (although now we gotta accept that Mace was a Master at, like, 24).

They're stories Dave Filoni came up with on a whim because he saw how awesome the Bad Batch looked, visually, and was like "I want me some of that!"

"I saw what Brad Dunn and Athena [Portillo] were doing in Bad Batch, and how good the show looked… I’m like “well, I wanted that in Clone Wars!” Why does it look like now—- NOW? Mine look like Atari 2600, when it started. Now, you got snow and trees and I’m like “so I’m gonna write something so I can play with those toys.” That’s how it happened!"

During the panel, he also added they're stories he wrote while he was in lockdown during COVID or flying back and forth while filming The Mandalorian.

These aren't meant to be replacements or retcons. They're not meant to be "the ultimate definitive version of how events transpired".

They're art.

They're the streaming equivalent of short films you'd see in a film festival. And they are fucking beautiful. The visuals, the colors, the fights, the emotions, the performances, the RHYMES... all of it. Just marvelous!

The only things that stopped me from giving the show a 10/10 is out-of-universe pet peeves that messed with my suspension of disbelief (like Filoni essentially cramming Ahsoka into everything he's involved in, or his blatantly biased stance on the Prequel Jedi, and his consequentially 2-dimensional depiction of them).

So, really, nothing to do with the quality of the actual episodes, themselves.

Hopefully in the next season, my boy Quinlan Vos gets some time in the spotlight with Asajj Ventress! Maybe Mace gets his own episodes, maybe Luminara and Luke & Ben Solo too?

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tarisilmarwen · 9 months

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Rebels Rewatch: "A Fool's Hope"/"Family Reunion And Farewell"

*singing*

~I'm glad that you were here with me/Here at the end of all things.~

Live reaction version.

Yeah be prepared for a lot of Lord of the Rings quotes and song lyrics in this one, lol.

Hey, don't blame me, the writers were the ones who made it clear they were hopeless Tolkien nerds.

And yes I am packaging both (all three?) episodes together. This is how it was aired, this is how it was experienced, you're gonna get the full treatment.

This does mean though that I will be very stingy with the pictures. Apologies. Blame Tumblr, not me.

Anyway, we start off the finale by gathering all the disparate parties that we completed the Friendship Fetch Quests for. Rex, Kallus, Gregor, Wolffe, Hondo, Melch, and Ketsu are all Back For The Finale. Which is a trope that I absolutely love in all shapes and forms, and it's even more appropriate for this show given that Ezra's main character "superpower" is literally making friends.

The connections and bridges he built all come back to aide him, not for any selfish motives of their own or because "the enemy of my enemy", but simply because Ezra has asked them to come.

"It's for Ezra," is all Hera has to say, and Hondo is immediately, genuinely pledging, "For that boy, there is nothing I would not do."

It is... incredibly heartwarming.

And I told y'all Hondo was a romantic at heart, and genuinely misses the days when the Jedi were around. And also that in the Rebellion Era, the Jedi still represent the nobility and goodness of the past.

After the titlecard, which still has no fanfare, we get this scene:

Come, you all knew I was going to cap it. Sabine's concern is so soft, the hand she places on Ezra's shoulder and the way she asks if he's okay so gentle.

The visual similarity in this scene and two scenes prior to this are interesting. This scene is firstly visually reminiscent of the Kanan-Hera scene in the beginning of "Kindred" (inviting comparison to the main canon ship of the show), and also the Kanan-Ezra scene at the beginning of "Jedi Night" (which emphasizes again that Kanan and Sabine are the two Most Important People in Ezra's life).

Ezra sits in the exact same pose, in the exact same place, that we saw Kanan meditating at, suggesting that he is also hearing the echoes of things to come, having similar visions of the future. This is certainly supported by his dialogue, where he mentions, "Something's changed... Something's happening." and that he's had a vision of Palpatine sending Thrawn back to Lothal.

Honestly I'm surprised it took Palpatine so long, lol. Thrawn: Treason supposedly takes place over the course of... a week? And the events of "Rebel Assault" to "A World Between Worlds" can't have been more than three or four days.

(This is why I reject the official canon timeline for Rebels, Season Four's events are crammed into the space of a month or two AT BEST.)

But anyway, Palpatine is pretty pissed off about the whole Temple thing so yeah, he's sending Thrawn back to retrieve Ezra personally. This seems to be a big ol' sticking point for our favorite blue bastard because he is NOT HAPPY when he turns back up.

You can't blame him really. He'd barely left Lothal and his TIE Defender project got literally blown up, so he had to spend the budget meeting arguing for what was essentially a smoking crater, and the wager he made with Krennic et. all. ultimately went nowhere because he lost on a technicality, and then the Emperor starts questioning his loyalty because his old Ascendancy friends showed up during the shenanigans, and then Palpatine dismissed him to go clean up the mess on Lothal and fetch him back a teenager for Sith sorcery bullshit.

...He'd had a very bad week, is what I'm saying.

I got off topic there, where was I?

Oh yes, Ezra's risky gamble. Fun fact, that was the original title of the episode, "Ezra's Gamble". I assume they axed it because it would give too much away. And like I've said before, if they could have avoided showing Ryder in footage taking the Dome for the finale previews, they could have really sold his false betrayal.

Pryce does not look like she's having a good week either lol.

Ezra continues to be cryptic about things, yet another hint to us that he's gotten "insider information" from the Force, as it were, and has made plans according to multiple possible outcomes. This is just one of the reasons why he outmaneuvered Thrawn, the other major one being that there was no possible way for Thrawn to predict Ezra throwing space whales at him lol.

This interference by the Force could have been a bit of a Deus Ex Machina but I think it's pretty clear that the Force only shared what might happen and left Ezra to figure out a solution on his own.

And his solution was space whales. XD

That comes later though, after this very risky gambit with letting Ryder broadcast their location to Pryce. A lot of things could have gone wrong. Hera might not have made it back in time. Ryder could have decided to genuinely betray them. Rukh could have gotten in a lucky strike and incapacitated him.

We are apparently putting a LOT of trust in the Force today.

This action setpiece is a great one so I'll just cover a few of my favorite highlights:

All the shots that track Sabine as she jetpacks around the battlefield.

Ezra versus Rukh.

Zeb going full feral with the minigun.

And of course on the other side of things Hondo trying to count the number of times he'd been collided with pulling off this exact maneuver they're using lol. The blockade seems to have thinned from "Rebel Assault", not as many capital ships?, so maybe I was right in that Thrawn called for reinforcements to repel the attack. Still gives Ezra the highest kill count by proxy at the end of things.

Oh and once again there's a moment where someone threatens Sabine in order to force Ezra to surrender. <3 Love that.

Pryce is awfully smug until the Ghost shows up, lol. (To heroic Main Theme fanfare into the Rebel Alliance theme of course.) Someone on the writing team understood the power of a good Eucatastophe. (Tolkien term, it means "the sudden happy turn to good".)

The clones also get a leitmotif fanfare as they debark the Ghost.

And we get a lovely Force Theme as Ezra gets his most badass shot.

Hell yeah.

The wolves sequence is amazing. The dramatic chorus, the chaos, the wolves skirting the veeeeeeeeeeery boundary of what's allowed on a Y7 show lol.

You know some of the troopers got ate.

One last shoutout to Hera using the Ghost to straight up smack a gunship out of the air and now we've come to the end of the setpiece. It can be hard sometimes to fill a full episode with one action sequence but this episode pulls if off perfectly. It never feels stale or boring, there are multiple bits and moments that just work. (I've always loved the moment where Ezra lunges for Ruhk's energy staff and uses the momentum of Rukh lunging for the same to straight up yeet him off the platform.)

Ezra's completely nonphased at Hondo's slung arm shoulder hug now aww.

Moving right along into the next segment...

This soft intro with Ezra talking to his parents' picture, telling them they are the inspiration behind his actions, how he wishes they could meet his new family, how he knows what he needs to do, but he's afraid. T_T Hgn he's precious and so mature and I love him so so much.

He knows what he might have to do, guys. He knows he might never actually see Lothal again and he's still prepared to make that sacrifice if he has to.

He's SUCH a good Jedi you guys I can't.

Kallus gets a token line here about his defection which is... okay. But again, really needed more from this arc for it to have a full impact.

"We come to it at last; the great battle of our time."

One casual wolf threat later, Pryce has agreed to transmit the victory codes and our heros fly off to the capitol to pull off their boldest venture yet.

I will never ever get over this moment. Sabine so attuned to Ezra even without the Force that she can tell just by looking at him how distracted and sad and scared he is.

How Ezra so clearly wants to tell her but holds back, and substitutes instead a declaration of absolute faith and trust.

And how she sees right through that and knows Something Weird Be Up With The Boy, Yo.

But like so many other conversations between the two, things are left unfinished, the mission and circumstances taking precedence.

Love the two quipping back to Pryce tho. <3

Still a crapton of air pollution over the city. This would clear up dramatically in the climax, for a bit of a symbolic moment.

There are SO many callbacks to previous moments in the show in this sequence, I noted a couple of them in my original liveblog but I'm certain there's a few I missed.

The music cue is great too, as is the effective silence once they've taken the bridge. A little bit of musical breathing space before things get hairy again, courtesy of Rukh ambushing the others back at base and stealing a gunship.

You know? I'm not quite sure what the plan was for if they managed to destroy the Dome before Thrawn got back. Seems a little shortsighted to blow up all the fighters and equipment and your city shields. A single Star Destroyer is more than capable of leveling cities and there are several in orbit around Lothal.

This honestly lends even more credence to the idea that, Force visions aside, Ezra was largely making this up as he went and had NO idea what he was doing lol.

Indy Ploy versus Xanatos Gambit. Indy Ploy wins by virtue of there was no way the Xanatos Gambit could predict the level of crazy Ezra's ideas were.

Amazing how empty the streets are when they've been emptied of Imperials.

Thrawn arrives, per schedule, and parks right over the Dome so that can't launch, lest they create catastrophic collateral damage. Important to note, for the people who want to nitpick No Endor Holocaust scenarios, the show specifically details that the city shields put out by the Dome deflected the Star Destroyer wreckage when the purrgil came, and that the Rebels directed the Dome to explode over the bay, not the city. The Cadet Academy is also a completely different building.

I mean, sure the debris from the Dome probably isn't great for the bay's ecosystem but honestly the water was probably already super polluted from the factories, they had to clean it up anyway.

Where was I? Right, Thrawn getting to be really awesomely creepy. The placid, "Are you quite finished?" gives me chills every time. Once again let me praise the expression work on this show because Ezra's soft Oh Crap look is amazing.

The dawning horror on Sabine's face too.

And then this music cue! The tension is drawn out just long enough for us to fully appreciate the horror.

:((((((

They even give us a nice wide-shot to appreciate just how much damage just those few seconds of bombardment did.

I had a rant here originally about the dumbass headcanon that Thrawn targeted empty buildings in this sequence (that may or may not have originated from Timothy Zahn himself) but if you've been following me you already know how I feel about it. It's asinine and I won't entertain it. Moving on.

Backed into a corner, Ezra knows he has no choice but to give himself up to Thrawn. This track in the score, "Sabine Sees Ezra" perfectly captures the sorrow and drama. It starts with a strained version of Ezra's theme, that doesn't resolve, fading instead into mournful original strings. Hera's entreaties for him to stay are painful, we can't help but think of what must be in her head--she just lost Kanan, she's afraid to lose him too. But Ezra is a Jedi. He is the guardian of Lothal. So he must make the sacrifice no one else can. He can't choose to be selfish.

So while Hera and the others try to figure out a way around the problem of Thawn, Ezra goes to confront it head on, secretly signaling to Chopper, who has been entrusted with so much of this plan.

And Sabine sees him.

It's a consistent theme throughout their relationship. She sees him. She notices him. She's attuned to when he's upset. She perceives him in a way that's unique from everyone else.

And he trusts her so implicitly that he silently asks for her help here, and after a moment of agony she does it, because she trusts him too.

These two just break my heart. :(

Sabine keeps looking back at the empty spot where he had been. T_T

There's a theme here about attachment and loss again, and it comes from Sabine. Like a Jedi, she's able to let go of her fear of loss and trust Ezra, whatever happens, and is able to encourage Hera to do the same. Her theme plays out here, strongly, before giving way to an excerpt of the Main Titles theme, uniting the Rebels in their heroism.

Ezra's theme playing again here, skittish and frightened. Once again the expression work is heartbreaking. Ezra looks like he's steeling himself, holding back his fear. He's resigned to his purpose, but that doesn't mean he's enjoying it.

AND NOW WE GET MY FAVORITE HANNIBAL LECTURE/SHUT UP HANNIBAL EXCHANGE! :D

The dialogue between Thrawn and Ezra here is so good.

"You could have chosen to let your people die. However... you chose to be a Jedi." Jedi cannot help what they are, the Jedi Code is like an itch he cannot help it *sobs in Kenobi feelings*.

Thrawn pontificating about how petty things like ethics get in the way of being efficient. He picks at Ezra from several different angles in this conversation, first by deriding the moral code of the Jedi, then by pointing out that their righteousness did not save the Jedi in the end, all that's left are frightened poorly trained children--a clear dig at Ezra himself. He laments what a shame it is that the Jedi didn't apply their powers in a way he deems would have been effective, implicitly suggesting that the Jedi should have used their power to dominate and conquer--Might Makes Right, after all, if you have the means to achieve a certain end you should use it.

Ezra tanks that calmly, pointing out that the Force isn't a weapon.

So Thrawn switches tactics, now lamenting that he must destroy Lothal (no you don't you asshole you can literally just disobey orders and defect, the total genocide of Lothal is entirely within your power to prevent) and oh, isn't it such a shame about Sabine.

And that hits Ezra's berserk trigger lol.

He snaps back at Thrawn. You're a tyrant, a bully, you didn't make or earn any of this, you just took it because you could, because you think your strength makes you right.

Thrawn essentially confirms that, "Yeah, having power does make me right." before leading him down to where the Temple doors have been set up for his meeting with the Emperor. Which kind of makes me think Thrawn wanted the opportunity to dress Ezra down and soften him up for Palpatine's manipulations because he could have just had the troopers shove him into the hanger first thing.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra keeps looking around in astonishment, wide-eyed, at the sight of the Temple doors.

Palpatine cloaks himself in white like an angel of light for this final temptation, wearing the guise of a friend or kindly old grandpa. It's every bit as unsettling as it seems.

Meanwhile with the B-Squad, Mart reveals that--like Chopper--he has also been entrusted with a crucial part of Ezra's "Just in case" plan. (Theirs is an underrated friendship, fanficcers you have let me down, again, why do I have to write all the things I wanna see more of?)

That shot of the wolves running alongside and under the Ghost. *chef kiss*

I have no idea when Ezra found time to figure out a signal the purrgil would respond to but I very much want to see that scene.

Sabine: "He [Ezra] knows what he's doing." Lol are you sure about that, 'bine? I think he had no clue the whole purrgil thing would work.

Palpatine is so slimy here, ugh. Acting like he did Ezra a favor by desecrating the Jedi Temple. Ezra's all ready to fling back anything ol Sheev throws at him here until Palpatine takes aim right at the heart of his greatest weakness.

Because after all this time, Ezra has never quite fully gotten over and accepted the loss of his parents. He's still at heart a lost little boy who misses his mom and dad.

The score goes almost Stravinsky-esque here, suggesting the Faustian nature of the deal Sidious is offering.

Meanwhile down in the gullet of the Dome, the Rebels are working feverishly to regain control of the the shield generator. There's some great coordination here between the teams and the control, Sabine really shines as a leader.

Word of God behind the scenes confirms Ezra is seeing THE day his parents were taken, his seventh birthday, when he could hear his mom and dad calling for him but didn't come because he was goofing off.

Hey uh, can this boy's life stop being ENDLESSLY SAD please? That'd be nice.

Love how Gregor calls for "something drastic" and Zeb immediately thinks, "Right, yeeting myself at the enemy." lol.

Gotta respect a man whose strategy is to fling himself full force at the enemy.

And the obligatory Make TCW Fans Cry Moment with Gregor here.

Palpatine keeps digging. This is your heart's desire isn't it? Don't you deserve this? All you have to do is open this one little door. He tries to keep Ezra's attention and focus on himself, even when Ezra asks what will happen to his friends if he makes this choice.

You can undo their deaths, Palpatine promises, about Ezra's parents. You can save them. I can help. It's the exact temptation he offered Anakin all those years ago.

"I have the power to give you what you want. You won't have to face this loss."

Like a devil, what he offers is a two-edged sword. What he is offering can't actually exist. Because if Ezra goes to be with his parents on the day they were arrested, how will he be able to make it here to open the door for Palpatine? Will Palpatine have to trap him in a closed loop, retrieve him from wherever he will end up in the alternate timeline, to ensure he can't fix this one fatal mistake?

See Palpatine doesn't care about breaking the timeline, he will gladly do it and rule over the ruins. But if Ezra reaches for this vision, he dooms his friends. He allows Palpatine to gain power beyond his wildest imaginings, turn himself into lord and master of time itself, a physical god.

So Ezra must deny himself, accept the loss, and let go.

And he does.

The Emperor's hologlamour flickering and failing as his rage ascends is really effectively creepy. Also HOW ABOUT THEM RETURN OF THE JEDI PARALLELS?

Years down the line, yet another pure-hearted Jedi boy will stand before the Emperor, throw his offer in his face, and tell him where to shove it. Even the dialogue mirrors Luke's.

"You're wrong. I have a family. I don't need anything from you."/"Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

"Unfortunate. Destroy him!"/"So be it, Jedi. If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed!"

Poetry. Pure poetry. <3

Ezra gets a nice little face off against the Royal Guards, with some lovely whump in the form of whatever those pikes are doing to him, but manages to weasel himself out of the situation. And then somehow fights his way all the way up to the bridge. So proud of him.

The Rebels get the shield up just in time to prevent Thrawn's full scale bombardment, Rukh frying rather dramatically in the process. Lol and ouch with how irreverent Zeb is over the comm.

So now all that's left to do is break the stalemate and remove Thrawn from the chessboard.

HELL YES.

Oh hoooo man this twist isn't even really a twist it just makes too much sense for Ezra, for his character, for the themes of the show, for how to take Thrawn out as a threat while respecting his acumen as a strategist. (Gotta throw something at him he would never suspect lol.)

The musical build-up is amazing. Dooming low bass notes, drolling percussion. The strings build up, crescendo-ing.

AND THEN THE "WRATH OF NATURE" CUE FROM "THE CALL" COMES IN WITH GLORIOUS FULL ORCHESTRA.

The Hyperspace theme comes in as well, and the purrgil proceed to utterly decimate Thrawn's fleet. By proxy this gives Ezra probably the highest kill count on the show, as the purrgil must have taken out the orbital construction stations, a good chunk of the Star Destroyers up there, and all three of the ones above the city. (Somehow Palleon survives to join the Council of Evil in Mando Season 3 lol.)

Sabine looks SO confused, ha ha.

What a great shot.

Thrawn tries to get in a final, Taking You With me speech only for Ezra to be like, "Joke's on you that was the plan all along. You're not taking me with you, I'm taking you with me."

I do love Thrawn's increasingly panicky WTF expressions as things progress.

THIS ADORABLE #MARRIED BANTER BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AND THEN HOW THEIR THEMES ARE TONALLY INTERMINGLED IN THIS CUE.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra's left arm hangs limp after Thrawn shoots his shoulder and the pained grimace he gives when he turns around to seal the door behind them.

He looks exhausted.

Pained grimace number two as Ezra raises his injured arm to wind up IN AN EXACT TABLEAU OF THE POSE KANAN HAD AT HIS OWN HEROIC SACRIFICE.

HELLO YES, ALSO ANOTHER ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOMENTS BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AS SHE BEGS HIM TO GET OFF THE CHIMAERA.

ALSO IT BEARS EMPHASIS BUT LOOK HOW THE GLASS SHARDS STILL WHEN EZRA RAISES HIS OTHER ARM.

EZRA IS LITERALLY HOLDING THE OXYGEN INSIDE THE BRIDGE WITH THE FORCE, WHILE HOLDING THRAWN AND THE DOOR IN PLACE, WITH AN INJURED ARM.

Ezra Bridger is the greatest shut up.

The purrgil charge up. Everything goes white. His theme bellows at full heroic volume and then...

Quiet.

Utter awed quiet.

Right, so you wanna know the other of the two times I cried at this show? Ezra's sacrifice right here. Waterworks.

"We set out to save the Shire, and it has been saved. But not for me. I have been too badly hurt. The last pages are for you, Sam."

Sabine is handed Ezra's lightsaber by Chopper, and takes up his mantle, finishing his mission and leading all the rest of them to safety as the launch the Dome and blow it. (Her journey to becoming co-protagonist is complete.)

Chopper gives us a final goodbye message from Ezra (that makes me sad again), and they soar over a triumphant freed populace.

Fade out and then...

*SOBS ABOUT THE BOOKENDS FOREVER*

Shot for shot. Shot. For. Shot. And I am UNDONE.

Lothal is free. The Empire never had a chance to retake it. Likely couldn't spare the manpower from the rest of the galaxy, first off, also replacing all those ships they had in orbit has gotta be expensive, and I suspect Palpatine just put glassing Lothal on hold until the Death Star was completed. And well... we know how that turned out lol.

The Fellowship broke, but they seem to all keep in touch, if Sabine's voiceover is any indication. Kanan's legacy lives on. Our crew found peace.

And last...

A sworn promise to find a precious friend and bring him back home.

The finale of Rebels is near perfection. With a very few quibbles here and there (the purrgil could have been just a smidgen more set up, Kallus's arc still needs to have some decent onscreen content for his redemption happy ending to be earned) it is the best Rebels has to offer.

The callbacks and bookends undo me. The music is full of wonderful dramatic cues. The animation is gorgeous. Everything comes to full completion and it is a very satisfying end.

Overall Season Thoughts:

Season Four is almost a bit nostalgic, returning to the tightly written narrative of the first season, but even more tightly tied together. None of the episodes feel wasted or superfluous. The major character death midway through is given plenty of narrative weight and time for the characters to adjust and grieve. Objectively it's probably the best season overall, none of the episodes are misses.

Even with the unanswered mysteries, the season feels solid, and a fitting conclusion to the overall Rebels saga.

---

And that was Star Wars: Rebels, the little show about a Found Family that could. It is my favorite new Star Wars content and what actually dragged me back into fandom after years away. It is heartwarming and exciting, poignant and hopeful and I'm so so glad I was taken on this journey.

Here's hoping the lost son of Lothal can make his way home soon.

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #grand admiral thrawn #sabezra #rebels rewatch #liveblog #dunking on the blue bastard

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lanabenikosdoormat · 8 months

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OC MASTERPOST (REGULARLY UPDATED)

—

My SWTOR characters!

These are the four I’m the most invested in, and I do have other toons but their stories haven’t quite come to me yet. :)

I’ve also attached their respective toyhouse’s with the complete lore to their names, some are more complete than others haha.

Jed Solaris

You all know him, the man, the myth, the legend. He’s my main oc, not just for swtor and star wars, but as a whole. He is the crown jewel and flagship character of the sodapopsalesguy cinematic universe. He’s also my favorite punching bag (as any good oc should be).

In my gameplay, Jed is the canon cipher nine, as well as the Outlander/Alliance Commander. He started off pushing neutral DS alignment but eventually has gradually been pushing towards light III. His LI is Theron Shan and he’s best friends with Lana, as she’s one of the only people who can actually keep him in line.

He’s not proud of what he did as a Cipher Agent, which is why he’s trying to do better as Alliance Commander. He’s a man of the people, a boy who was shaped by war, and yet he’s just trying to do better. He’s the chosen one, but only by happenstance. Practically force blind, and often resentful of force users as a whole.

He constantly swings back and forth from being a serious character, whom I treasure - and the galaxy’s most cringefail guy. I love him.

Fallon Navaro

Fallon Navaro is my terrible no good very bad Jedi Consular. She’s also my other main character, but for Pubside. She is not the canon Consilar though, that’s just the gameplay path I chose for her. She also has premonitions of the future, including of my other SWTOR characters and their lives.

She’s a descendent of the Jedi Exile, and people just won’t stop reminding her of that. Fallon’s spent so much of her life in the footsteps of what she should be, that eventually she gives up and jsut starts doing her own thing. Usually something highly manipulative or immoral. She’s not the most evil Dark V™️ character around, she’s just sort of trying to break the expectations people have been shoveling ontop of her for her entire life.

She is romancing Lana Beniko, and they’re so cute together. All of my characters are queer because straight people scare me.

Verity Danthe

Miss Verity is the anti Fallon. She’s my canon sith warrior and she is the love of my life. Verity is kind, she’s cautious, she’s empathetic, and she’s pushing light V. Because of her beauty and grace she is coined “The Emperors Delight” just as often as she is the Emperors Wrath.

Born and raised in sith nobility, Verity should in theory be a perfect sith. But she isn’t. Her heart is on her sleeve and she uses her passion and love as the main fuel for her dark sided power and antics. She’s not a total pushover though, if something happens to her loved ones — she can easily snap and show you who’s boss.

Despite being a bit of a socialite and party animal she is very perceptive and aware of how to use this to her advantage. She can use the force to read other peoples emotions and feelings, so rather than direct thoughts its all abstract concepts.

She’s married to Quinn, and they’re both bisexual disasters.

OTHER OCS..

TBA

#first jed image is courtesy of my friend - pixelplanetig #whom i adore #jed solaris #oc: jed solaris #fallon navaro #verity danthe #swtor #imperial agent #jedi consular #sith warrior #sith inquisitor

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blackkatmagic · 7 months

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Sith!Fay is a fascinating idea that is also the most terrifying thing in the galaxy.

Did writing "to the gates of Babylon" give you any inspiration to write more sith!Fay? Maybe a one-shot from Jon's point of view as he tries to bring her back to the light?

IDK I just think sith!Fay is terrifying and it's something I never thought about before because she's always so LIGHT in everything you write.

Potentially I might write more? The dynamics of various clones/Jedi makes me want to, tbh, even more than just the Jon parts, which would be fun too.

I do generally write Fay as a force of light, but canon for her is also kind of interesting. The whole 'verse is basically built off a one-off comment Fay makes as she's dying in Obi-Wan's arms (because she's pretty and female and therefore required by SW law to die in his arms, ig) about how she's tired of living anyway so he shouldn't be sad etc. Just - the idea of her not being able to die, but being tired of existing, and that meeting the corrupting influence of a place like Dromund Kaas to turn her into a force of entropy that wants to infect the whole galaxy...it's like. understandable? vaguely? Not good or sane or anything close, but there's a core of reason to it, and I think that makes for the most interesting villains.

Also I was considering Hevy/Fay in terms of an eventual fix-it-of-sorts and made myself ship it, so.

#kat answers

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sinisterexaggerator · 7 months

Text

Sriluurian, the language of the Weequay "was formed by guttural mumbles and subdued whispers." It also used hieroglyphs as a written form. It is a language used to communicate with people from other tribes, as Weequay from the same clan/tribe could communicate via their pheromones and did not need to use spoken language.

"As a result, speech was only a secondary form of communication for Weequay, and they seldom spoke a whole sentence, resulting in Humans mistakenly believing the species to be unintelligent."

There are only two known Sriluurian words in canon/legends that I can find.

Uurutche'zediev - The name of Temptation Canyon on Sriluur ( a place on their home planet ).

Raquor'daan - Dark wolf ( an animal that lived on Sriluur ).

It sort of reminds me of Huttese.

Now, imagine if you will...

Hondo never shuts up. He's always talking, telling stories, flattering himself, or giving commands. He knows at least four languages, if not more: Sriluurian, Basic, Shyriiwook, and probably Huttese.

Considering his species, this is not natural. Pair this with the fact that Hondo "has a large disconnect with Sriluur culture and religion," and what we get is a black sheep of the family.

This is verrrrrry interesting, because another part of Weequay culture dictates that "as long as the clan survives, a single Weequay is expendable." We know from canon that Hondo was sold to priests of the god Quay by his parents, which means they were most likely hard up for money and needed to support the clan in some way; stealing and swindling people wasn't cutting it.

That, and/or Hondo was considered to be one who is expendable in this scenario, and maybe there was a reason for that.

To me, ( and @allsystemsblue xD ), Hondo is a well-spoken, well-educated man with street smarts on top of book smarts. He may not be Count Dooku, but he is not a dummy by any means. The fact that he can speak that many languages should be proof enough, but he was also an advisor to a Hutt who trusted him with his business dealings, not to mention his successful pirate's horde, and the fact he kidnapped a Sith lord with ease.

Now, imagine him being surrounded by other Weequay whom he cannot identify with. Imagine he often simply speaks his mind instead of talking with his pheromones. Imagine how shunned or ridiculed he must be by the others, them using their guttural, grunting language or not talking at all verbally, and for Hondo to have so much to say, with so many ways in which to say it.

Not only did his mother teach him things, but we can assume he also read a lot of books, and was literate, unlike his brethren. Just look at this letter he wrote himself, for Pete's sake!

I've decided to headcanon that Hondo grew up in Dnalvec. It was "the main port city of Sriluur, which housed three of the four main spaceports on the planet. It was a chaotic frontier environment of drifting star pilots, information merchants, and mercenaries."

By doing this, I imagine Hondo's youth was filled with all sorts of colorful characters, world travelers, and the well-to-do. Teeth says he was a charming young man who people fell in love with left and right. I tend to agree with this.

Maybe this is why he can't shut up now for the life of him; he always has so much to say when no one wanted to listen to him before. Maybe his mother warned him time and time again. Maybe this was one of the reasons she kicked him out of the house on numerous occasions to spend time on the streets before she finally let him back home again.

And even though he loved his mother, deep down he only wanted her to love him back. He holds her in esteem, refusing to think poorly of her, convincing himself she did her best, that she would never truly mean to hurt her child...

But that is where the disconnect comes in. If Weequay's truly are as they are described in canon/legends as "mean-spirited, suspicious, xenophobic, devious, and deceitful," and Hondo is none of those things, or only learns to be so from a necessity to survive, then that means he must have had a very disappointing and frustrating childhood, not to mention the heartbreak he must have felt when he was sold.

Just a thought.

If he ever told me a story, I would be sure to listen.

#Weequay #Hondo Ohnaka #Headcanons #Sriluur #Sriluurian #Star Wars #Star Wars Languages #Clone Wars #fanfiction #backstory #wip #wookieepedia #character analysis

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maulfucker · 3 months

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If you were given the opportunity to make your own Star Wars show, what would it be about?

[looks at my blog name and icon] .....

As repetitive as it might be, I would love something *actually* focused on the Jedi, especially a historical view. Every new star wars thing wants to be about the next Skywalker, but what about everything that came before? Before the Sith resurgence, before the Chosen One, before the Jedi became pretty much just soldiers of the republic. Give me some actual fucking Jedi philosophy and traditions. Something not focused on war or the characters we already know. Explore a whole line of irrelevant Jedi instead. Just some really normal people. Enough Chosen Ones. Enough big historic events. Give me a show about the normal lives of the Jedi a couple of centuries before. Something more Star Trek style, like a team of Jedi on small missions all over the galaxy. Younger Yoda with more hair, perhaps.

Perhaps even a historical drama, something that actually explores the different cultures and traditions of the galaxy at their peak, not just the war time low we see in the movies and shows. There are so many cultures in Star Wars that are so one-dimensional (mandalorians and tuskens come to mind immediately), why not something that takes the time to really explore them as living cultures and how they relate to the Force (and by extension the Jedi) and the rest of the galaxy.

... Or yeah, something about Maul. But not the boring flat version of him from the canon cinematic universe. I want a Maul show that explores how he was forcibly separated from his people and his culture from a young age and forced to assimilate to the ways of (mainly human) high society, to be whatever Sidious wanted him to be, denied his own identity, denied his own agency, only to then be thrown away as soon as he served his purpose. Something about how he is an excellent metaphor for people of color (and especially indigenous people) in a colonial/imperialist society. Yes I want cool Maul fighting scenes, but I also want everyone else to see this aspect of him that is largely ignored.

#hm i should make an ask tag #hm i should make an original post tag #thank you for asking!!#you WILL hear me ramble about how Maul should not be white #he is a perfect metaphor for indigenous people forcibly assimilated. and i NEVER see anyone else talk about this.#so i will talk about it. every chance i get.#the short version of this whole thing is I want a show that gives actual depth to the universe and not just cool action scenes #and i want something NOT focused on the skywalker plot. enough the destiny of the galaxy give me some inconsequential guys #i think if you want important plots and force destiny stuff you should make a movie. leave the series for the fleshing out of the universe #i am starving for some proper worldbuilding

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gffa · 1 year

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How would have the Jedi Order in the PT-era treated a Force dyad? There's this fanfic I read where the OC slowly developed a dyad with Ahsoka as they grew up, and while there are admittedly anti-Jedi/pro-attachment themes in the fic, I am genuinely curious how the Jedi Order's beliefs on attachment, romance, etc would influence their perception and treatment of it, especially since two individuals being one in the Force is extremely rare and unprecedented

Like everything else with the prequels Jedi, it would likely depend on the context of their actions and mindset! How do the individuals in the dyad behave and are they balanced within themselves and in control of themselves? Are they still willing to not give in to fear and greed? Those are the questions that would be asked (just as they’re asked of any Force user in the Star Wars narrative.) The Jedi of the prequels are perfectly find with bonds between Jedi, for example--Mace has a bond with Depa, Yoda says the bond between a Master and apprentice is sacred, there's an entire field of study devoted to Force-bonds with animals, Yoda still has enough of a bond with Dooku in TCW to be used in a Sith ritual, etc. I have a longer post about Force bonds in Lucas canon + Disney canon here, but the basic gist is that they don’t work like they do in a lot of fic--they’re not something that seems to be able to be broken, it’s about knowing someone and you can’t just “break” knowing someone, as well as many of the most respected Jedi maintain bonds with the people close to them. A dyad in the Force is basically just a super-bond and the Jedi don’t object to that--because bonds are not attachment. Attachment is specifically the greed to hold onto someone/something so tightly that you fear living without them, your actions become driven by your fear and anger rather than your love, and the Force is entirely dependent on your mindset. If you connect to the Force while feeling fear then you’re sliding towards the dark side, that’s how Lucas explicitly explains how the Force works. It’s also how the Jedi use it in Lucas canon, where every time they talk about it, it’s directly in the context of possessive relationships and greed, the willingness to let a thousand people die because you can’t live without that one person. “[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them. “ --George Lucas Attachment cannot be good in the world of Star Wars, because the dark side cannot be good. That is what the Jedi caution against, they do not loving people or caring about them or having bonds with them. A dyad does not automatically mean the people within it will be attached to each other--if they’re disciplined and selfless, then the Jedi would be fine with it, just as they’re fine with having bonds and connections with people. It’s much more dependent on how the people within the dyad behave and the mindset they’re acting from and if they have mastery over themselves, if they rule their emotions or if their emotions rule them. That’s how Star Wars worldbuilding works within canon, though, fic isn’t beholden to those things, fic can do whatever it wants! And fanon is pretty common, when you read something often enough in fic (like the idea of the Jedi Council saying two characters need to break their bond), it’s easy to assume that it must be sourced in canon, when a lot of the times it’s really not how it works there. It doesn’t mean the fic is bad or anything, god knows I’m not sticking to only canon when I write fic, either! The whole point is transformation! But the Jedi of the canon source material would be just fine with a dyad if one presented itself, everything they’ve demonstrated evidences that they all have bonds that they balance within themselves!

#jedi order #meta

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marvelstars · 26 days

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Personally I love Star Wars as one movie from EPI to EPVI as the Skywalker family saga.

Anakin is the chosen one of the force to bring balance to the force and end the sith grand plan of ruling for 10,000 years, he gets groomed by his "father" the sith master, to fall to the darkside by twisting everything in which Anakin believed, he becomes a monster whose main objective after losing every loved one is to "keep order in the galaxy" Vader believes he is doing the right thing, he believes the empire is less corrupt than the republic and while it´s means may be harsh those are better than what happened in the past, the chaos of the clone wars and the greed of the different ruling powers. Maybe there is no place for justice or freedom but there is order and that was enough for Vader.

Luke as his Son gets to save him from the darkside by making him remember that there was a time he wasn´t just Vader, there was a time where he wanted to free all the slaves in the galaxy, where he believed in justice and unconditional love, Luke made him remember that in a way he could not deny that his acomplishments as Vader, his end justify the means pov paled in comparision to what he once wanted to do and the person he used to be "I am a Jedi like my father before me" when he could not deny anymore this truth, Vader decided to punish himself as well as his father/master, bringing down their empire built on violence and darkness, to save his Son´s life and give the side Luke fought for an opportunity to tell their own story. So Vader stops the horror and gives way for something else to grow out of it.

I love this story as it´s but I would be lying if I didn´t think there was a place for Vader to tell his own story because his mere survival post ROTJ brings a lot of opportunities but also conflict. We have Vader who knows intimately Jedi and Sith teachings and a different take to what the Rebels and Imperials believe the Old Republic or the Empire was.

Sucedenly a portion of the imperial army loyal to Vader would want to stay at his side and join the New Republic while another portion loyal to Palpatine would try to stop that and the Empire itself would get divided between those who believed enough is enough and those who wanted to keep bussines as usual and grand admirals like Thrawn who would wish to fix the Empire in their own image. The result is that this would give an opportunity for the empire to truly merge with the new republic and not just for appareances sake as it happened in canon.

To tell this story it would be needed another trilogy at least and I can´t blame Lucas for being burnout after the original trilogy, a whole and awesome story on it´s own and I am quite happy for what we got but that story would be nice to know as a what if. The story of how Vader got his humanity back.

#anakin skywalker #star wars #darth vader #Post ROTJ au

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sunsetgloom · 2 months

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yesterday i said i was trying to work out how Mace Windu's legends padawans fit in a timeline today, i bring you the fruits of my labour :)

Behold:

And if you want to take my word for it? Go right ahead. You don't need to keep reading this post. If you want explanations and detailed workings out? Keep reading, for in this essay I will tell you exactly how Mace Windu's four legends padawans fit into the canon Star Wars timeline :) Here are the rules I worked with and the assumptions I made while working on this accursed thing: Rules 1. Canon takes priority (Movies first, shows second, Wookiepedia third. This is stated FOR A REASON, see: Depa and Anakin fighting over who is the youngest on the Council) 2. Legends is to be included as best as possible (the whole point of this is fitting all four of Mace Windu's padawans from legends on a timeline) 3. Fanon? Only in small doses (see: me trying to place Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's Mandalore mission several paragraphs down). This also includes any headcanons of my own, which I will try to use only as last resorts to narrow down specifics. Assumptions 1. 13 is a limit during Obi-Wan's time at least (see: that book series he's in, Ahsoka being 14 during the first year of the Clone Wars) 2. Padawans can be taken earlier than 13 (see: Anakin, Bant Eerin, Quinlan Vos, Mace Windu) 3. There is a one padawan at a time policy with rare exceptions (see: TPM - Qui-Gon asking to train Anakin and basically being told Obi-Wan needs to be knighted first) 4. Jedi training is on average 10+ years but can be shorter or longer depending on the Master-Padawan pairing (see: Obi-Wan Kenobi's padawanship lasting 12 years, Ahsoka being offered promotion after barely two years, and Vernestra Rwoh the youngest Knight ever at age 15. That's two peacetime examples and one wartime example) Cool? Cool. Here's where I dove into timeline hell.

Some of it was easy to figure out; Mace Windu is canonically born 72 BBY, Obi-Wan Kenobi canonically born 57 BBY, etc. We also know for a fact (a.k.a. Google Told Me So) that Mace Windu was made a Councilor at the age of 28. 72-28=44 BBY. Tales of the Jedi allows us to fact check by giving us a rough time estimate for when he took over for the deceased Master Katri, whose canon Wookiepedia page states she died sometime between 68 and 42 BBY. Perfect, it all lines up!

Now, there's a reason I've included Obi-Wan Kenobi's birthdate on the timeline. According to his canon Wookiepedia page, "[Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi]'s continuing training issues were discussed with Jedi Councilors Depa Billaba and Mace Windu in an attempt to find a remedy[.]" This can be found under the 'Early travels and visit to Kashyyyk' subsection of OWK's canon page. Notably, the subsection right after is labelled 'Protecting Satine Kryze'. This means that Depa Billaba is already a Councilor before the mission to Mandalore, which according to canon Wookiepedia places it to be about 41-39 BBY. The timeline ran out of room to give it a definitive placement, but we'll assume it's sometime during 40 or 39 BBY as most fics I've seen place Obi-Wan at about 17 years old (57-40=17). Additionally, Depa Billaba's Legends Wookiepedia page states, "After serving as a Knight for a few years, Billaba was appointed to the High Council; the youngest Master to ever sit upon the august body." Typically 'a few' references to about three years, so we'll assume she was a Knight for only three years.

However: here's where my 'canon take priority rule' threw in a bit of a wrinkle. Depa's legends page places her as the youngest to sit upon the Council, but Revenge of the Sith says Anakin Skywalker is the youngest to ever sit on the Council. Here's where I let my inner Obi-Wan out to play. From a certain point of view both are correct. Depa is the youngest Master. Anakin is the youngest Knight (and might possibly be the only Knight as typically, as you do need to be a Master to be on the Council. See: the whole 'we do not grant you the rank of Master' scene from RotS). This distinction is not a vital thing in the long run as will soon be seen in regard to age logistics for Mace and Depa but I thought it important to be pointed out here.

There is still a little wrinkle but it is why I stated the movies take first priority in terms of canon. Wookiepedia says Anakin is born 41 BBY, which is physically impossible if he is only 9 years old in The Phantom Menace, which it is explicitly stated he is. TPM takes place entirely in 32 BBY, meaning Anakin is born at most in 42 BBY and he is turning 10 during that year according to the movies. Movies take priority, so that's how old he is. He's not on the timeline because I didn't realize how important his age was until I started writing this :( Anyways, as far as I've seen when it comes to how old Anakin is by the end of the Clone Wars, he has an age discrepancy of about a year - I'm solving this by combining it. He is turning 10 in TPM, and turning 23 in RotS. Thus, Depa Billaba is probably at least already 23 and at most 27 turning 28 when she is made a High Council member. Looking at Tales of the Jedi, Mace Windu goes on a mission with Dooku and together they investigate the death of council member Master Katri. At the end of the episode it is revealed Mace Windu is being considered for Katri's replacement. Depa Billaba is nowhere to be seen on this mission. As Depa is a fully canon character, we can probably assume she's been Knighted at this point. And if she's only a Knight for 'a few years' and then on the Council by 41 BBY and Mace Windu joins the Council in 44 BBY... The best logical conclusion is that Depa Billaba was knighted prior to the mission in 44 BBY. Reminder: Mace Windu is 28 in 44 BBY. His canon Wookiepedia page reveals he was a padawan by at least 60 BBY as this is when he goes on a mission with his Master, Cyslin Myr. This means he is taken on at about age 12 or perhaps before that. If Depa joins the Council in 41 BBY, the oldest she can be to be the youngest is 27 and the youngest we know prior to her is her own Master who joined at 28. 3 years prior to her. Huh??? (I called it timeline HELL for a reason folks). So, she's not 27 as that would make her Master only four years older than her and I doubt things would work like that in peacetime. 26? 5 years older. 25? 6 years older. 24? 7 years older. 23...? 8 years older. This is the absolute lowest we can push Depa's age because if Anakin were any better adjusted and any less forced to take on the role by Skeevy Sheev he likely would have been the youngest Master on the Council. Some quick math can now reveal Depa's birth year: 41+23=64 BBY. If Depa is 23 when she joins the Council, she is 20 when she is knighted. If 10 years is roughly the average of a padawanship, she'd need to be taken on at 10 years old, when Mace is 18. He is a prodigy in the Order, sure, but either way, taking on a padawan immediately is seemingly discouraged in the Order (see: TPM, Yoda's reluctance to allow Obi-Wan to take on Anakin. Without rewatching the movie/reading the novelization I won't know for sure the context unfortunately, but it does fit my headcanon that Knights are encouraged to take some time to find their own before teaching the next generation). Let's say, because of Windu's prodigal nature, he is able to train his own padawan in 7-8 years. 8 for a nice round number that won't give me a headache when trying to put it on the timeline. We now have Depa's padawanship covered!

And now, we must finally turn to Mace Windu's legends padawans. He has three others: one unnamed failed padawan, Devan For'deschel, and Echuu Shen-Jon. We know very little about these padawans other than Devan is born circa 53 BBY and dies circa 19 BBY, and Echuu was able to take on two padawans of his own who were siblings. Echuu's first padawan, Stam Reath, died 22 BBY during the first battle on Geonosis, and that same year he was assigned Stam's sister Naat Reath. It is also known that the unnamed padawan failed sometime before the Clone Wars. Let's deal with Devan since we know their rough year of birth. If Devan is placed at 53 BBY and we assume the 'must be taken as a padawan before 13' rule is still in effect as they're born only four years after Obi-Wan Kenobi, Devan must become a padawan at 40 BBY. This fits well, as Devan's padawanship was during Mace Windu's tenure on the High Council (which started 44 BBY) and stated to be 'nonstandard' due to this (I found this on a wayback machine page I can link if you want to read it for yourself. The extent I went to confirm some of these things :/). This also makes Devan Mace Windu's second (fully trained) padawan. We also need to make sure there is enough room for Echuu, who would have to be Mace's third (fully trained) padawan to have roughly the same amount of training as Devan and to be given breathing room as a Knight before taking on a padawan of his own. For simplicity's sake, I propose giving them both roughly 8 years of training as anything more than 10 would be too much and not give the failed padawan any room to breathe either. Plus, it's the same length as Depa's own padawanship.

Let's talk about the failed padawan. We'll call him Bron from here on out. All we know about Bron is that he was deemed to have failed as a Jedi sometime before the Clone Wars began. This could either occur right after Depa, between Devan and Echuu, or after Echuu. If we put Bron between Devan and Echuu or after Echuu, that gives him only two years of being a Padawan. Assuming he's taken on at 13, he'd only be 15. However, if we put him after Depa and before Devan, he'd be 17 at the time of his failure. There are a couple of issues I have with both of these options. The first is that Bron is either 15 or 17 - still young and a male human. Two words: Puberty and hormones. Additionally, if Bron is after Depa, Mace has just been added to the Council when the padawanship between him and Bron begins to give them the longer time period together. It has already been said that Devan's training was 'nonstandard' because of Mace being on the Council at the time of her own padawanship. I counter myself with these thoughts: if Bron was taken on in 44 BBY, that places him in the same generation as Obi-Wan and Bruck Chun, an initiate who died after being tempted by the Dark. Alternatively, if Bron was taken on in 24 BBY and fails only two years later, the galaxy is tipping closer and closer to war before it erupts. The Dark side of the Force is a real concern in this generation and is what causes Bron to fail - his failure to recognize the darkness in his own actions and reactions (wrath, pride, and fear as the Wookiepedia page says). Even if he is still in Obi-Wan and Bruck's generation, the Dark side is still a concern due to Bruck and Xanatos' own actions less than four years prior (for Xanatos at least). We also don't know what exactly Bron's behaviour prior to being taken on as a padawan is like nor what his fate after failing was. Perhaps there were already concerns about wrath and pride. Perhaps he chose to join one of the Service Corps, as he did offer to Mace that he could still learn. Either way, we now know the timeline of Mace Windu's padawans and now I AM DONE AND I CAN PUT THIS BEHIND ME.

Fun fact: Have a look at 44 BBY. Windu was made a Jedi Councilor either before, during, or after all of that and I feel sorry for him and the amount of shatterpoints he must've seen that year. . . . (Do you want me to solve other timelines? Because I will definitively solve them for you. I actually had a lot of fun doing this despite all the head banging it made me want to commit)

#star wars #star wars canon #star wars legends #they can co-exist and let me tell you why #mace windu #jedi padawans #depa billaba #devan for'deschel #echuu shen-jon #jedi lineages #timeline HELL #curse you star wars authors!#also wtf is up with 44 BBY

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mandos-mind-trick · 11 months

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Corruption - Part 1

Summary: Mari's always had darkness in her, threatening to take over in the back of her mind. No matter how much the Jedi tried to train her, the darkness was always there. After the death of her first master, she finds herself under the tutelage of Master Kenobi due to the council's growing concerns about her well being. The sudden return of a certain enemy, however, has some things coming to light. Maybe the darkness was never hers to begin with.

Pairing: Maul x OC (only named, no physical descriptions given)

Warnings: Maul being Maul, bit of an age difference but OC is of legal age in the last section, nightmares, self doubt, some canon-typical violence, mentioned death, sort of forced soulmate link initiation, manipulation, stalking, kinda dark at the end but nothing's given in detail.

A/N: All right, here it is, the original soulmate story that started the whole clone series. This takes a bit of a different look at soulmate bonds from a different perspective. Lots of just setting up the story in this part, the next one will go a lot more into detail about things, and also have a bit more action and also Maul.

Maul and Mari share the soulmate link where it's impossible to harm your soulmate cause I thought it would be not only perfect but kinda funny.

Next > | MASTERLIST

34 BBY

Master Cartia was not one to panic. Like most Jedi, she prided herself in her ability to stay calm even in the most dire situations. Her level-headedness and nurturing nature led her to join the caretakers in the creche, looking after the younglings. Her group were between the human ages 3-4 (or the equivalent in other species) when social and mental skills begin to strengthen and develop, as do Force abilities. Placating tantrums and dodging floating objects (and occasionally floating toddlers) were normal in her day to day life.

Frantically searching for missing children, though, that was entirely unheard of.

The creche is in the center of the temple. To escape unseen is nearly impossible. There are always Jedi moving about at all hours in the temple, not to mention the guards that were stationed at every entrance. Younglings sneaking around the temple was not unusual, and they were often returned by other creche masters or other Jedi who happened upon them in passing.

But four year old Marianni Grarus is not in the temple.

They had gone over every inch twice, looking in every space she could have gotten into, every place she could hide, but she was nowhere to be found.

It’s not that surprising to Master Cartia that Mari is the one that managed to elude the entire Jedi temple and its guards.

One could say Mari had a reputation from the beginning.

She had been left on the front steps of the temple on Coruscant. It wasn’t common practice, but it had happened before. Her parents likely lived on Coruscant in the underworld and had brought her up to give her a better life. Or, something along those lines.

Master Billaba had brought the child in near third meal, having noticed the toddler upon her return from a mission. The girl had been so upset, especially once she realized her parents were not returning for her, she had begun to cry and let out a shriek laced with the force so loud it shattered a window in the creche, disturbing the other children and triggering them all to cry.

It hadn’t taken long to realize why her parents may have delivered her to the temple themselves.

Mari was uniquely strong in the force for her age. She was also prone to horrible tantrums. Tantrums in young children were not unheard of, even from those in the care of the Jedi. Mari’s tantrums were exceptionally bad. Her emotions were strong, the most prevalent being anger. It burned red hot in her, overwhelming even the most level-headed Jedi if they were not prepared for it.

She had the perfect makings of a Sith. Perhaps it was best her parents delivered her to the Jedi, and did so young enough they could calm the raging fire inside of her before it was too late.

Master Cartia had not been surprised when she went to check on her group in the early morning and found Mari missing. She was only surprised how she had managed it.

An alert was promptly sent out about the missing youngling to all Jedi in the temple, and those outside it as well. She couldn’t have gotten far, not on foot. Of course, Coruscant was a big planet with lots of people. Many things could have happened in the time she was missing.

***

Obi-Wan was not thrilled about being woken early. He and his master had just returned from a mission and he had been looking forward to a day of rest. Of course, when the alert came in about the missing youngling, his master had roused him and they had set off to search.

“How does a youngling escape the temple?” He asks as they make their way down one of the market streets. His master thinks they may be close.

“They shouldn’t be able to.” Qui-Gon answers. “Though I have heard much about this youngling. She is strong in the force, but her emotions are stronger.”

“You think she left on purpose?”

“I cannot say.” He says. “Not until she is found.” He pauses at an intersection, looking left then right.

“How are we supposed to find her?” Obi-Wan asks. There were trillions of people on Coruscant and they were looking for a four year old.

“Clear your mind.” Qui-Gon says. “Focus on the force.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, clearing his mind as his master said to. He reaches out, scanning the area when something pricks the edges of his mind. It’s hardly more than a needle prick or the sting of a bug, but it’s there. “That way.” He says, opening his eyes, finding himself staring to the right.

“Yes.” Qui-Gon says. “We are close.”

They begin walking down the street, Obi-Wan focusing on the feeling as it gets stronger. “There,” He says, pointing down an alley.

Sure enough, near the end of the alley is Mari. She’s standing in the middle of the alley staring straight ahead. She doesn’t acknowledge them, nor does she seem to even notice them as they approach. Qui-Gon holds a hand out, slowly kneeling next to the girl. He puts a hand on her shoulder, the girl seeming to jolt like she had been drawn from a trance.

“Easy, young one.” Qui-Gon says, steadying her.

She blinks, her eyes clearing a bit. She looks up at Qui-Gon before turning her gaze to Obi-Wan. She’s wide-eyed, and looks frightened. Obi-Wan can’t blame her.

“You had us worried.” He picks up the girl, holding her on his hip. “Sneaking off like that.”

The girl looks around like she has no idea where she is, like she had no idea what had happened. She looks like she’s about to cry, and Obi-Wan can’t help but feel for her. If he had woken up in a strange place with no idea where he was, even now, he would be upset. He can only imagine what it must be like for someone so young, with so little understanding to be in that position.

“What were you doing down here?” Qui-Gon asks, starting to walk back towards the temple after alerting them they had found the missing youngling.

“I dunno.” She says quietly, wiping at her eyes. “I was sleeping.”

“Sleepwalking?” Obi-Wan suggests.

“Possibly.” Qui-Gon answers. He turns his attention back to the girl. “Were you dreaming?”

“Uh-huh.” She nods.

“What were you dreaming of?”

“A face.” She says. “A scary face. With yellow eyes.”

Qui-Gon is quiet for a moment, Obi-Wan trying to make sense of the girl’s words. “What did the face make you feel? Did it feel dangerous? Cold?”

She shakes her head, leaning it against Qui-Gon’s shoulder. “No. It no hurt me.”

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan share a look as they make their way back to the temple. Mari is asleep again before they get back.

*****

32 BBY

Mari is a good student, despite what others may think of her. Her emotions are still strong, but she’s learning. Good Jedi don’t let their emotions rule them. She wants to be a good Jedi. She wants to be a great Jedi.

Nothing’s ever easy. Not for her.

It begins in the night, coming out of nowhere. She had been asleep, dreaming of a lightsaber battle. Flashes of red, blue, and green. The fight looks strange to her, almost like she’s the one in it. She can feel anger, feel the burning rage. She can feel it grasping at her, trying to sink its claws into her. She’s scared, desperately trying to keep it away. She’s going to be a good Jedi. She won’t give in to the emotions clawing at her very being.

They’re stronger than she is.

Suddenly she’s falling.

She wakes screaming.

The creche is in shambles, all of them waking at once. The creche masters swarm in, her own group’s master, Master Inek, is at her side, trying to calm her. She’s afraid, the cold seeping into her very being. She feels like she can’t breathe, like her very life is going to be sucked away by the oppressive cold.

She wakes again in the infirmary.

“Worrying, this development is.” She recognizes the voice of Master Yoda.

“You think they all may be related?” Master Windu.

A sharp pain jabs through her head, making her gasp. A warm hand presses against her forehead, a moment of warmth flooding through her before it’s chased away by the seeping cold once more.

“Hello, young one.” Master Allie says. “How do you feel?”

“Cold.” She answers. She’s shivering under her blankets. “Head hurts.”

“Can you remember anything before you woke here?” She asks, putting a gentle hand on Mari’s shoulder.

She relays the dream to them, and the feeling after she woke, like something was trying to take over her. Possess her.

Master Yoda hums, leaning on his cane. “Correct in our fears, we may be.” He takes a couple slow steps towards the cot. “Protect your mind, we must.”

“Until you can learn to protect yourself, we will help build a barrier to keep whatever is doing this at bay.” Master Windu says.

“Don’t worry.” Master Allie squeezes her shoulder, putting her hand back on her forehead. Warmth begins to flood through Mari again, making her sleepy. “This will all be over before you know it.”

*****

21 BBY

“No, I’m not leaving you!”

The ship rocks once more with a blast.

“These plans need to get to the Republic.” His hand gently squeezes her shoulder. “I’m not going to sacrifice you or this mission.”

Alarms are blaring. It’s already too late. They’ve boarded the ship and more are coming. It’s over for them, she already knows.

“I can’t leave you.” She says, tears forming in her eyes.

“You’ve been a good student.” He says, opening the escape pod door. R3 wheels himself in, beeping at them. “You’re going to make a great Jedi. I am sorry I won’t be there to see it.”

He uses the force to push her back into the escape pod, closing the door before she can recover. She calls out, staring out the viewport as he launches the escape pod. R3 uses the scomp link, taking control of the escape pod to get them as far away as they can get. Tears slide down Mari’s cheeks as she watches the cruiser get further and further away.

Her eyes are closed when it happens, the bright flash still visible behind her eyelids. She sinks to the floor, reaching out in the force but she knows there’s no use. He’s gone. They all are.

She pulls herself off the floor, trying to gather her mind. She’d been with her master for almost seven years. He had been the only one willing to take a chance on her. She had progressed quickly in her lessons as she grew. She well out-paced those in her own age group, and the council had agreed despite the hesitance of the creche teachers to move her along at a faster pace.

It wasn’t easy for her. She was picked on, and often found herself having to work twice as hard to prove she was, in fact, worthy of being there. The stress had been tough on her, but she had proven herself time and time again.

Until it came time for her to take her Initiate Trials.

Many had spoken out in disagreement about allowing her to progress, but the council had allowed it, and she had passed them all easily. They thought she was too young, too inexperienced. They all knew her, they all knew her reputation. Her abilities in the force were strong, but so were her emotions. She had thought there was no one willing to take a risk on her.

Until Master Mandphi had stepped forward. He had been there at the trials. He knew of her, but he was willing to overlook the strange happenings in her childhood. It wasn’t that unusual for younglings to have strange experiences as they developed in the force. She knows others tried to convince him otherwise, but he was determined to help her. He saw the potential in her where no one else seemed to.

He was patient and kind in his lessons, helping her learn to protect her mind from the darkness that always seemed to swirl on the edge. He taught her how to be stronger than the darkness, how to overcome it. He taught her how to use her lightsaber, how to use the force.

Then the war started.

Her master had been assigned to the 141st Battalion and spent more time off world than at the temple. In the beginning he had left her behind, as many padawans were left behind, until he was confident she could handle the battlefield. It was different than what they were trained for, but Mari learned quickly and soon became a staple on the cruiser and amongst the clones.

Until their last mission.

It had been a risky one. They had been sent to retrieve vital plans from a Separatist base. It had been too easy, and they had been overtaken by waiting Separatist forces. Their forces had been depleted taking the base, and there was no time for reinforcements.

Mari sinks into the pilot’s seat, taking over the controls. “Relay a distress signal.” She tells R3. “Someone has to find us eventually.”

She’s not sure where the nearest battalions might be, or if any even knew what had happened. They could be floating for a while. A long while.

***

Obi-Wan pauses outside the meditation chamber for a moment relaying the past few hours over in his head. He had received orders to return to Coruscant after his last mission. He was glad for the break, but he also knew a summons by the council likely didn’t mean he’d get much time to relax.

He had been correct.

He had heard briefly about what had happened with the 141st battalion. They had succeeded in retrieving vital information about Separatist plans, but at the cost of the battalion. The entire battalion had been destroyed, including Master Mandphi. The only survivors had been Master Mandphi’s padawan and the droid carrying the plans. They had been picked up in an escape pod by the 104th two standard rotations later.

Obi-Wan had planned on taking another padawan after Anakin passed his trials. Of course, the war had changed things. With the dangerous missions he often found himself on, he was glad not to have to worry about a padawan.

It seemed like that might be changing.

He knocks on the door, taking a breath to steady his mind. He remembers Marianni, though he doubts she would remember him. It had been almost fifteen years since he and his master had found her on the streets after her great escape from the temple.

He opens the door at the call to enter, stepping into the small chamber. It’s bright inside, the shades open to let the Coruscanti sun in. Mari is seated furthest from the door, legs crossed in the center of the cushion.

“Master Kenobi.” She moves to stand, but he holds up a hand, motioning for her to stay where she is.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” He says, taking a step in. “But I was hoping we could speak.”

“You’re not interrupting anything.” She says, giving him a grim smile. “Master Taa kicked me out of class, told me to meditate until I could gain control over my emotions again.” She scoffs. “At this rate I’ll be here until next week.”

He takes a seat on the cushion across from her, leaning his elbows on his knees. “It’s never easy, losing a master so tragically.”

“They want you to help me,” She says, jumping to the chase. “Because you know what it’s like.”

She’s blunt, just as Master Mandphi had been. He knew Master Mandphi well. He had never been one to ease into things. Tact wasn’t his specialty, and it seemed that had rubbed off on his padawan as well.

“They’re worried about me and my strong emotions.” She continues. “I know they are. I know they’re paying close attention to me.”

“Controlling one's emotions is the hardest part of being a Jedi.” He says carefully, prodding gently with the force to try and ease her obvious agitation a bit. “Even the most experienced Jedi struggles with it. I know your path hasn’t been an easy one. I promise I will not hide anything from you. The council does wish for me to help you. I cannot know exactly how you are feeling, but I do know what it’s like to lose a master.” He falls quiet for a moment, letting her process. He hates having to throw all of this on her at once, but he knows with the war they didn’t have much of a choice. “They also wish for me to take you on as my padawan.” He says carefully, not sure how she’s going to react.

Taking on a padawan who had already trained, and bonded, with another master was not an easy task. The bond between padawan and master is a sacred, strong bond. To have it severed so easily, then turn around to try and create another one was difficult not just for the padawan, but also for the new master.

“I don’t want you to answer now.” He says before she can say anything. “Think about it. Sleep on it. I would be happy to continue to train you, if that is what you decide.”

She watches him leave, conflicted by the thoughts running through her head.

****

She wakes suddenly, barely able to hold in her scream. She slaps her hands over her mouth, holding her breath until her ears ring and the pulsing in her head is almost too much. She lets out a long, shaky breath, her trembling fingers closing around the blanket.

She hasn’t been sleeping well. Not since her master’s death.

She rises from bed, pulling on her boots. She slips from the room, heading to the fresher. She locks the door, rinsing her face with cool water to try and steady her nerves. She can feel it, the cold darkness at the edges of her mind again. She can picture it, the swirling void of anger and chaos threatening to burst through the walls she had so carefully built over the years.

No one’s ever been able to explain it completely. No matter how hard she tried, she could never get it to go away. Years and years of practice, learning how to calm her mind, hours and hours of meditation in the force and yet, the darkness still lingered. She’s not trying to keep it there, she doesn’t want it there.

Her previous master had speculated that perhaps it’s not her at all.

He had been the first to test it, to try and figure out what it might be instead of just shoving it further and further down as it grew. He had tried reaching out to it in the Force, prodding at it to see what, or who, it could be.

It had nearly sent her to the healers.

Whatever it was, it didn’t like him trying to reach it, and it had lashed out. She had felt it, the rage burning hot in her, the edges of her mind beginning to unravel as a sense of madness washed over her.

Master Mandphi had held her as she shivered from a cold only she could feel, gently easing the barricade in her mind back into place to stave off the swirling madness that threatened her. He had told her later, after she’d recovered, he didn’t think that darkness was her at all.

Jedi are forbidden from initiating their soulmate links. It’s been that way for thousands and thousands of years. Soulmate links made it impossible to distance oneself from emotion, from connection with others. It led far too many down a path to the dark side, and so Jedi were expected to reject their soulmate when they met. It seemed cruel for fate to give someone destined to be a Jedi a soulmate.

It was impossible to know all of the ways soulmate links would appear. With the thousands of species sharing such a unique and personal phenomena, no one had ever completely made a comprehensive list. For those sensitive in the Force, soulmate links could develop in strange ways. Dream links were not uncommon, nor were telepathic links. Some shared more common links such as marks or color blindness. Links between two force-sensitives were even rarer and harder to document. They could be connected in many ways aside from just the soulmate link.

He had thought the darkness may be her soulmate.

That doesn’t make this any easier.

Her only hope is to find them and reject them. Then she may be free of the darkness that’s plagued her since she can remember.

Her worst fear is that it’s not her soulmate at all. That darkness may be entirely her after all.

She splashes more water on her face before leaving the fresher. She debates going back to bed, but she knows she’s not going to get any more sleep. So instead she chooses to walk around the temple, something she often did even when her master was still alive. She’s never usually alone, especially now. With the war it seemed everyone struggled to sleep at some point. Most left her alone, as they too were also wandering to calm their minds.

Mari wanders the temple, stopping to look out one of the windows at the city. It’s alive even at the late hour, Coruscant constantly moving. It feels a bit like a mirror of her mind, her thoughts constantly racing, constantly moving. She hasn’t been able to meditate since her master’s death, and even before then she had struggled.

“Trying to escape the temple again?”

Mari spins, finding none other than Anakin Skywalker approaching her. “M-Master Skywalker.” She says, trying to calm her racing heart. He hadn’t been here when she’d made her grand escape, but of course he’d heard about it. Everyone had heard about it.

“Can’t sleep?” He asks, coming to a stop next to her.

She shakes her head. “Haven’t been able to recently.”

“You’re not alone.” He says. “The war’s taking its toll on all of us.” He stares down at her for a moment. “I’m sorry about your master. I didn’t know him well, but I heard good things about him. It’s an unfortunate loss.”

She nods. “It hasn’t been easy. He was the only one who believed in me. The only one who took a chance on me.”

“I know what that’s like.” There’s an edge to his voice, something buried deep, but Mari notices. She notices because she’d heard it in her own voice before.

They weren’t so different, the two of them. He was brought to the temple later than most, and many thought him too old to begin his training. If Master Kenobi hadn’t been willing to train him, it was unlikely any other master would have.

He had been too old, and she had been too young.

He puts a hand on her back, turning her to begin walking again. “I heard the council is assigning Obi-Wan as your new master.”

She nods. “They think he can help me.”

“He’s a strict teacher. He can be tough, but he’s loyal to the Jedi code and to his padawan.” He grins at her. “He managed to turn me into a Jedi.” He stops, and she realizes they’ve walked back to the dormitories. “Give him a chance. He may be hard on you, but he won’t let you fail.”

He puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently before moving to walk away from her.

“Master Skywalker?” She calls out. He turns back to face her. “Thank you.”

He nods, offering her a small smile before he continues down the hallway. She slips back into the dorm, making for her bed. She probably won’t sleep, but at least now she had something to distract her mind with.

****

It doesn’t take him long to find her. Despite it being almost fifteen years since the incident, her force signature is still almost the same.

Master Yoda had approached him not long after first meal, alerting him that she had made her decision. She had been up early, and had already spoken with the council.

She was not in her lessons, not that he thought she’d be, and instead he found himself making for the creche. He walks slowly, focusing on her force signature. He remembers how it had felt all those years ago. Most younglings had a soft, round force signature. Young and inexperienced, their force signatures had yet to take true shape, though most Jedi never lost the soft edges and roundness of the force.

Hers had been sharp, like a shard of glass.

Though it had been softened a bit by her training, he can feel the sharp edges hidden beneath. It feels dangerous, like it could slice right through him. He’s beginning to understand why the council was intent on watching her, why they were so worried about how the loss of her master could affect her. They couldn’t lose another Jedi to the dark side.

Even if this one was only a padawan.

He takes his time, making his way to the creche. It’s a bit odd to find her here, but he had found Anakin in stranger places during his training. He had spent the morning thinking about how to approach this, how to approach her. She’s not like Anakin. He can’t treat them the same. He’d have to start over, while she was already well into her training.

He waits at the end of the hall, sending one of the creche assistants after her. He didn’t want to impose himself on her space completely, yet. He knows she’s in a delicate place.

He waits for a while, leaning against the wall while he waits. He considers going in, until one of the doors opens, Mari stepping out. She hurries down the hall, looking flustered.

“Sorry, Master Kenobi. I hope you weren’t waiting too long. You know how the little ones get, you hold them too long, they scream when you let them go.” She rambles, adjusting her robes.

He can’t help but smile. She seems so natural in this moment, none of the tenseness or guarded words she’d had the day before. “Interesting choice for a meditation spot.” He says as they begin walking away from the creche.

“It may sound backwards, but I find it relaxing.” She says. “There’s just something about younglings that’s so...calming. Maybe there’s also a part of me that feels like I need to apologize for all the chaos I caused as a youngling.”

“I hardly think anyone blames you for that.” He says. “It takes a special temperament to care for younglings. I was never very successful when I was tasked with creche duties. The younger ones spit up on me, and the older ones liked to kick me.”

Mari laughs, something she hasn’t done in a long time. It’s the first time he’s seen her smile, but even now it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

It’s quiet between them for a few moments as they walk.

“Master Yoda spoke with you.” She finally says, breaking the silence.

He nods. “Yes. I am glad that you’ve agreed to continue your training with me.”

“I ran into Master Skywalker last night.” She says. “We had an...enlightening talk.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “Oh I’m sure Anakin has plenty he could say about me.”

“Only good things.” She smiles.

“Hopefully it stays that way.” He motions for her to follow. “Come. I was hoping to get a jump start on your training. I don’t know how long the council will give me before they send me back out to the field.”

She makes a face. “Just as long as we’re not going to meditate.”

He grins. “No, I thought we’d do something more productive today.”

****

20BBY

She coughs a bit as the cruiser comes to a stop. The front is smoking, warning alarms going off. She needs to get out before it catches fire, or worse. She pops the top open, looking down. It wasn’t that far of a drop, but as she moves, the cruiser shifts in the tree. She stills, holding her breath. She’ll have to be quick about this. She carefully moves herself until she’s squatting in the seat, the ship sliding forward with every movement. It’s teetering precariously. Just a quick jump and it’ll be over.

She pushes herself upwards, using the force to propel herself away from the ship as it takes a nose dive to the ground. She lands in a roll, springing back to her feet as her cruiser crashes to the ground. Well, she’s not getting back that way. She looks up at the sky, looking for any trails that could lead her to the other members of her squad. Had they survived the landing?

She catches a small plume of smoke off to her left, rising slowly into the sky. She sets off in that direction, keeping her senses alert in case there was anything unfriendly on this planet. She’s not even sure what planet this is.

It had just been the three of them, sent on a quick recon mission. Her master had been hesitant to let her leave the temple with the sudden reappearance of Darth Maul. She had heard the story, even before she became his padawan. The Jedi that killed a Sith. In a time when Sith were supposed to be extinct, that was quite the title to have.

Since his miraculous reappearance, her master had been keeping her at the temple out of fear that Maul might try and take revenge. That was what he wanted, after all. Her master was worried she might get caught in the crossfire if Maul ever found out about her. He didn’t doubt her abilities, but Maul was not one to underestimate.

It had been quiet, though, since her master had last seen Maul and he had decided to send her on a small, safe mission. At least, that’s what it was supposed to be.

Things had not gone according to plan.

They were supposed to be on a simple recon mission, but the Separatists had been waiting for them. It had all been a trap, and they had been forced to jump to the next sector. They had been followed, and the ensuing fight had left them crippled and forced to land on this planet. She hoped her transmission had reached her Master before they’d crashed into the thick forest.

She stumbles across the ship quickly. It’s mostly intact, but abandoned. She closes her eyes, reaching out in the force, but she can’t feel anyone nearby. She tries not to think about all the reasons that may be. She climbs into the pilot’s seat, powering up the transmitter. It flickers before going dark. She curses, slamming her fist on the control panel. She’d have to look for the other. Hopefully that ship could still transmit.

She looks to the sky, hoping to see another trail of smoke, or anything, but there’s nothing. She sighs, looking in all directions, reaching out with the force. Nothing. They couldn’t have landed that far apart. She had been in front, with the others behind her. If they fell straight in the formation they’d been in, there should be one just southwest of here. But which way was south?

Mari glances around her again before deciding to follow the direction they’d fallen in. Maybe the others were looking for her as well. She’d be safer sticking to her ruined cruiser. If no one heard from them soon, then maybe someone would come looking. The squad of cruisers crashing too had to draw some sort of attention if there was any life on this planet.

Though, as she looks at the dense trees around her, she’s not sure she wants to meet whoever lives here. Something cold runs down her spine, fear starting to edge in her mind. She’s alone on an unknown planet. She puts a hand on her hip, letting out a long breath to steady herself.

At least she still has her lightsaber.

All she can do is try to survive on her own long enough for help to come. She could reach out in the force, try to project it far enough someone would notice, but she’s not sure she wants to risk the wrong someone answering. Not to mention it would sap most of her energy to do so. To reach out that far, to cause enough of a disturbance it could be felt possibly lightyears away would take an immense amount of strength. Not that she doubted her ability, she just doesn’t want to put herself in that vulnerable position.

Not yet.

She makes it back to her ruined cruiser, feeling more tired than she had before. It’s warm on the planet, sweat starting to soak into her robes. Despite the warmth, she can still feel a chill settling in. It’s not a physical one, it’s something pressing in the back of her mind.

Something’s wrong. Why had the other cruiser been empty with no signs of life nearby?

She scans the trees, reaching out with the force once more. Her body shudders as her mind reaches something. Something’s wrong. Something's off.

There’s something out there.

She can feel it now. It’s an oppressive feeling, making her feel chilled to the bone. She pulls her lightsaber from her belt, holding it in her hand. The feeling probes at her, pressing against her defenses. She takes a breath, calming herself. She’s going to have to fight, and not just physically.

She grips her lightsaber tighter as the figure finally reveals itself. Her blood turns to ice in her veins.

“The Force does work in strange ways.” The figure muses, eyeing her with near-glowing eyes. His voice is silky smooth, “I had no idea you would go on to become Kenobi’s little Padawan.” He’s imposing in the fading sunlight.

She ignites her lightsaber, taking a defensive stance. “My Master told me about you.” She says, holding the weapon between them. He makes no move to grab his own, eyeing her as he steps closer.

“I would assume he would tell you.” He says. She can feel him pressing forward, trying to find a weak spot in her barrier. “I’ve been watching you.”

So he was the presence she had felt all day. It unnerved her, the thought that he was that close and she’d had no idea. He could have struck at any moment. She only hopes at least one of the troopers survived and managed to send out a transmission. She knows she can’t fight him alone.

She grips her lightsaber tighter as he ignites his own double blade. Her Master had made sure she was a competent dualist. With him constantly running into figures like Grievous, or even Dooku, he wanted to be sure she could hold her own against such formidable opponents. She was always better with a lightsaber anyways. Fighting was one thing. Meditation was another.

He strikes first, Mari blocking his rapid hits. He continues his assault, and a slow realization begins to dawn on Mari. She’s exhausted. The planet is hot and humid, and she had gone all day without any food or water despite spending most of the day on the move looking for any survivors. She was already in no shape to be fighting at such an intensity. That, and his aura had been draining her slowly. The darkness had been feeding off her, draining her energy.

She stumbles as he swings at her, his blade just grazing her arm. Her sleeve is singed, but he hadn’t met any skin. It should have. He should have at least singed her skin with her blade, or at the most taken a chunk of her arm.

It hadn’t touched her.

He bares his teeth at her, a low growl rumbling in his chest. She tightens her grip on her lightsaber, steeling herself as he comes at her twice as hard.

She can feel her resolve slipping, forcing her into the defensive. It was taking everything just to block his hits. Forget trying to beat him, she’s no match for him. Not after he’d been draining her all day.

She accepts it’s over when she trips. Her lightsaber drops from her, just out of reach, but he’s already on her. The ominous red of his saber glows just inches from her face. She can feel the heat of it. Any second now she’d be dead. Just like that he’d beaten her. She really was weak. Maybe everyone had been right all along.

He tightens his grip on the saber, disengaging one end to hold it with two hands. He looks like he’s fighting, struggling against something. She’s waiting, staring up at him, waiting for the end. He’d get his revenge, taking her life to make her master suffer for attempting to take his.

To her surprise the blade disappears. He reaches out a hand, and she can feel the force pressing down on her, holding her in place. “Fascinating,” He muses, dropping to a knee beside her. “This certainly changes things.”

She’s breathing hard, struggling against the force pushing against her, but she’s too tired. He wraps a hand around her throat, pulling her up into a seated position. She grips at his wrist, expecting his hand to close around her throat and choke her, but it simply rests there, his grip tight enough to hold her still but not tight enough to hurt her.

“Let me in,” He hisses, his grip tightening just slightly, but it still doesn’t hurt. Still doesn’t cut the air from entering her lungs.

She feels pressure against her mind, pressure against the barricade she had spent years building up. A familiar cold chill fills her body, taking her back twelve years ago when she had woken in the night screaming. She gasps quietly, the wall in her mind slipping as he forces his way in.

“Yes,” He says, leaning in close to her. “You remember.”

Memories flash through her mind as he looks through them. When she’d woken screaming, waking in the infirmary, then even further back. The time when she’d sleepwalked her way right out of the temple.

“You were such a strong little thing back then.” He murmurs, leaning in closer. “I had no idea until you were right in front of me.”

She watches the memory play out in her mind. She had been following instinct, her dreams reaching out, finding him. She’d left the temple so easily, making her way to him. She remembers his face, barely visible beneath the hood as he’d knelt in front of her. Her eyes are awake and aware, like she knew. She had known. It had never been a dream.

Maul chuckles, shifting his grip to the back of her neck as he forces his way completely into her mind. “I’ve been watching you.” He chuckles as her eyes widen. “Yes, it was always me. My anger kept me alive, but your life force allowed me to live.”

“No,” She whispers, going lax in his hold. She remembers the draining feeling, like someone had been sucking the life from her. It had been him. It must have been the day her master had tried to kill him. He had drawn from her lifeforce to keep himself alive.

He leans closer, licking at the tears sliding down her cheeks. “You had no idea did you, little one.” She shivers, the chill of his presence starting to settle into her bones. “The darkness in you, all that anger and hatred the Jedi tried so hard to remove was never yours.” Her eyes widen, lips parting in a gasp. “It was always me.”

Her former master had been right.

She begins to feel something bubbling inside her. All those times she’d felt the uncontrollable emotions, all the struggles she’d had trying to calm them, trying to be a good Jedi and not lose herself to them...it had never been her. It was the part of him that resided in her, the part of him that they shared. Tears slide down her cheeks, a quiet sob leaving her lips. It had never been her fault. It had never been her own weakness. No one had bothered to notice. No one had bothered to care.

He shushes her, smoothing over her skin with his bare hand. His touch is like electricity flowing through her. She feels hot despite the chill that’s settled itself into her bones. She can feel him stronger now. He’s working his way through her defenses, forcing himself into her mind by toying with her emotions, the emotions he understood. Pain, fear, anger. He’s using the bond between them against her, weakening her.

He forces her down on her back in the grass, hovering over her. His hand moves back to her throat, settling there to hold her still. She’s beginning to feel the fear bubbling up in her, her pulse thrumming against his fingers.

“You would have made a perfect Sith,” He says, shifting so he’s straddling her. “But the Jedi got to you first. Perhaps it was better this way. We were fated to meet, after all.”

She lets out a choked sound as he licks along her cheek once more, tracing the trail of her tears. Her former master had been right, the darkness hadn’t been her at all. It had been him. The Sith her current master had tried to kill. He’d survived because of her. Protecting her from him had been useless because he’d already known about her. They’d already met.

He chuckles, nosing along her jaw. “Oh yes, this is much better. I would have killed you, you know.” His lips brush her skin as he speaks. “Made Kenobi feel helpless once more, helpless to watch as I destroyed his little padawan while he could do nothing to save you. But this,” He slides his hand to the back of her neck, forcing her gaze on him. “This is so much better. You belong to me.” He growls, licking at her throat. “You can never forget my touch. Not now. Your mind is mine, your body is mine. Soon I will have you completely.”

He’s not lying. A soulmate’s touch is like a drug. Once you had felt your soulmate’s touch, there was no one else in the galaxy that could make you feel the same. No touch would feel as good, and she would constantly be feeling the need to seek him out. The desire to feel his touch once more could never be taken away. He’s ruining her in more ways than one.

She should reject him. Right now, say the words before it gets worse, before he does something else. It would stun him enough that she may be able to escape and run. She can find somewhere to hide and hope her master will find her soon. It would solve all of her problems. The darkness would be gone, and she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life yearning after a Sith.

So why can’t she say it?

He leans over her, bringing his face close to hers once more. She keeps her eyes closed, not wanting to look at him. “Your Master is close.” He nips at her bottom lip, dragging his sharp teeth against it. “I will be seeing you soon.” He kisses her before disappearing almost like he hadn’t been there at all.

She can still feel the ghost of him, the ghost of his presence, the ghost of his touch. She can feel the pulse through her body, already missing his hands on her. Shame burns through her as she feels the dampness in her underwear, the fabric sticking to her. She rolls over onto her side, tears sliding down her cheeks. Her mind is wide open, like a locked crate that had been pried open from the outside.

Her body burns, but still the chill has settled into her bones. She can feel him in the back of her mind, the edge that always seemed to settle there. She’s exhausted. Drained. She had thought she’d never meet her soulmate, but she already had. She’d shared a deep connection with him her entire life and hadn't known.

No one could know. No one could ever now. Not now.

She hears the roar of a gunship, but she can’t bring herself to move. He hadn’t been lying about her master being close. She can’t move. She’s tired. Too tired.

“Commander?”

She knows it's him. She knows it's him without even having to look. They may look the same, but they’re all individuals in the Force. She can’t look at him. Not even when he kneels in front of her, his touch soft against her arm. She’s shaking.

He’s gone, the calming aura of her Master replacing him. He places a gentle hand on her head, the warmth of his presence flooding through her. He probes gently at the broken pieces of the barrier, the crumbled ruins of her mind.

She lets out a sob, uncaring that her mind is open to him. It hadn’t felt so painful when Maul had burst his way through. It hadn’t been painful at all.

“Maul.” He whispers, digging just far enough to see who was responsible for putting her in this state.

He had trained her to hold her own in a physical fight against a swordsman as capable as Maul. She had told him how her skills with a lightsaber were her weakest point. How her former master had spent years drilling her to catch up with her other skills. He had been wrong in assuming her strength in the Force would protect her if her combat skills failed. But her true weakness was her emotions. He should have known a Sith would use them against her.

He uses the Force to ease her into sleep. Her mind was fractured enough. She didn’t need to know what the troopers had found. “Get everyone back to the ships.” He tells Cody. “Don’t linger here.”

Taglist: (I know I'm forgetting people that asked to be tagged in everything so if I'm missing you please let me know)

@bobaprint, @star-trekker-0013, @rosechi

#star wars #star wars fic #clone wars #darth maul #darth maul x oc #darth maul x jedi oc

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