Notes: This little ficcy is my first original Trilogy fic, so be nice! It's set soon after Episode V, after Luke's fateful duel with his father. Lightsabers are wonderful implements, are they not? They're so perfect for writing fanfictions… Speaking of, if it looks like I ripped the title off anyone else's fic, I didn't. It just happens to be a common title O.o
Title: Lightsaber
Rating: PG for angst and darkness
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, Luke Skywalker or lightsabers. I do own three of the little lightsaber pens from that cereal promo, along with a billion action figure lightsabers and my Obi-Wan doll's lightsaber, but that's about it.
It must be perfect, it must be perfect… The dim light of a glowlamp barely illuminated the tiny, cubicle-like room, but he liked it better that way. The rest of the ship was too bright. Everything was white. Everything glared at him like a burning sun. How could he construct anything in that sort of environment? No, the darkness was good, if only because he knew it was outside of his body. He could compare, and make certain that the darkness wasn't creeping into his own soul.
Circuits and wires spilled out of the open cylinder in front of him, reminiscent of the innards of a Tauntaun – except these innards didn't stink. He attached the wires to each other with precise movements, sometimes lifting bits of metal up and out of the way using only his mind. The wires were packed tightly together once they had been correctly attached, filling up the empty spaces inside the silver cylinder – like the knowledge filling the empty spaces in his heart.
Why hadn't he been told? The shock of the revelation had almost been worse than the revelation itself. If he had only known, it wouldn't have been so bad… he would have been prepared… for days afterwards, all he had wanted to do was curl up and die. The agony in the stump of his arm was nothing compared to the agony of knowing who had sired him. Even that wasn't as terrible as knowing that he had been lied to… that the single person he had trusted more than anyone else had deliberately hidden this truth from him.
"Ben," he muttered, lifting a tiny blue gem from the table. "Ben, if you had told me… if you had… if only I knew…" The tiny blue gem reminded him of his mentor's piercing eyes, and of the way Obi-Wan could correct his mistakes with a single look. Where Yoda had given no reasoning for the things he taught, Ben would always provide an answer… In some ways the old Jedi was like the father Luke had never known: the father he knew now, the father who had tried to kill him.
The tiny blue gem fit perfectly into the metal cylinder, reflecting the light of the glowlamp up onto Luke's pale, tried face. He had aged so much in the past few days, from an immature boy fighting a war he didn't understand to a young man, ready to die for his beliefs; but what were those beliefs? He had felt the first shards of anger lancing at his heart in that duel with his father – anger that burned within him, consumed him, and yet made him feel infinitely more powerful… he knew if he used that power, he could single-handedly defeat his father and the Empire…
But he also realized, with a maturity born of desperate circumstances, that the anger and hatred would also corrupt. If he wielded those feelings like his father and the Emperor did, he would soon become nothing but the rage-filled shell of his former self, programmed only to kill. It was less the teachings of his former mentors and more his own insights that brought these thoughts – Ben and Yoda had provided the basic instincts, and Luke's father had supplied the rest. No, Luke would not become his father. He knew that now.
With a deft movement Luke Skywalker lifted the completed cylinder from the table. He examined its facets, admiring the cold, cruel glint of durasteed and the deadly weight of it in his palm. This would be a tool for freedom… he would wield it only for the good of others; and he would never strike at his father. The lancing emerald blade reflected the determination and endless sorrow in Luke Skywalker's azure eyes.