The clearing seemed to hold every unspoken burden that had grown larger ever day the war progressed. It felt as if I was standing among a thousand particles hanging in the air waiting for something. Waiting.
The embers that lied several feet away from me seemed to be beckoning me to come join—to come join the hopeless department of their life force as their light died with the empire.
When had my life become so morbid?
The slightly hysterical laughter that escaped my lips shocked me. It was as if it had come from the lips of another. I looked over my shoulder in panic, believing that someone had intruded on the peace of this clearing. Only then did I realize how comforted I was at that thought of being alone with my thoughts for once.
Though such a victory that occurred today warranted a grand celebration, I was exhausted from the constant battling; the constant battling with my feelings, with the Empire, with my loss, and now, with the identity of my father.
Father.
Never did I think that that word would bring a quivering to my stomach.
The father that I knew and loved with all of my being was—is—the only father that needs recognition in my life.
And Luke. It all is so easy for Luke to accept.
Oftentimes, when I am lying awake in my bed at night I ask the force to provide me with the compassion and understanding that my newly found brother has. Perhaps it would make this whole predicament easier to handle. Perhaps it would make it easier to handle a murder as a father: a murderer who took my real father from me, a murderer who took my life from me.
A machine, a murderer, a monster.
That is all he will ever be to me.
But as I stood there in the moonlight of Endor, in a field of heavy burdens and dying ashes, I silently added to the cluster:
The thing I resent the most is that I never really knew that machine, that murderer, that monster, at all.
The embers flared a final time.