"For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it."—Jesus, Mark 8:35

/Night rises, encroaching on

the day. Many fall, are swallowed, consumed

by the worlds, voice all but echoes. The

shadow of echoes, the faintest hints—

this is what they are, may forever

be./

Silent under the long, spreading shadows of the Jedi temple, I watch. I search, drink in light with my eyes, and I see. See it, the space where she should be where, where her headtails and twisting, tapered montrals should be set against a horizon bloodied. Bruised.

Ahsoka is gone, lost to me. Lost to my grip. Separated, wrenched and torn and wrestled from my very hands, leaving my fingers raw and screaming. She…she has not only left, hasn't simply wafted away to joined to the breeze: she has left me. Left me behind, stumbling in numb haze.

If I tried, maybe I'd pick out her shape from among the thousands—millions—billions—of Coruscanti ambling across this world. Togrutas aren't all that rare on this wild, conglomerate planet, true, but the streets aren't swelling with them, either. It'd be simple, childishly easy to catch sight of her ruddy skin, to meet those large, glossy blue eyes for one last time; and yet I don't try. Don't, won't seek her out like twilight for candles brimming, because seeing her—that might end me. Might kill me, dissolve what's left of my famine-heart.

Facing her one last time will remind me that she is—at least I my world—no more.

But there are other left to face, to hold in hand and clutch tight. They haven't left, these corporeal ghosts who won't go down, will not be extinguished. Haven't left me, left me behind in wakes unending. Are here to touch, to meet eyes, to take in with senses and what lies beyond.

Because someone is striding toward, boots thump-scuffing in that familiar melody. I turn, swivel my head around to watch, to imbibe with the pupils, and he stops. Notices my gaze taking him in, then turns his own toward the gory hues of the sunset.

/The survivors gawk, frozen in skeleton

cages. They wish to rise, to soar above The

Expected like stars burning, burning, growing,

but they remain as stone. Here they will stay,

body-tents hovering in between The

Lost and the Forever, The Darkened and

The Seeing. Here they will be, eyes

straining for a glimpse of The

Promised.

And onward, onward

marches none./

For a moment, we are caught up in silence, struggling under its sheer weight. We don't want to say what needs to be said, to rip open that which has been privately festering. We don't want words, voices, gazes. And for what seems like an eternity, our eyes are merely fixed on the Coruscant skyline, waiting for the clouds to break and for the all blood-hues to trickle away.

Then I break gazes with the shrouded heavens, plaster Obi-Wan with a look. He pretends, feigns that he doesn't see it, hasn't caught my steel-blue irises burning him through. But he can't hide forever. Can't close forever the windows of the soul, can't keep back the rain of cornea and sclera and the unknown, and he meets my gaze.

"Anakin…" he tries to say, but the sentence fizzles out. It, like the skyscrapers pushing brazening above Coruscant's terra firma, can't go on forever. Won't endure infinitely, go on indefinitely. Like everything else in this wild, alluring realm of time, it will end. "Anakin…she left, didn't she?"

My head drops, sags sullenly against my chest. The leaving isn't why I can't take this, why I feel as though I'm gulping down grit. This isn't why I feel as though I have become intertwined with the void between the stars, as if its very essence has permeated my veins—but I don't tell him that. Don't let him know that I have been left behind, flattened in a maelstrom of tail-wind. "Yeah. Yeah, she did."

Obi-Wan turns, shows his back to the ever-lingering clouds. "You tried to stop her, didn't you?"

I shoot him a colorful side-long glance. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yes. Well…what did she say? Has she been—has this been on her mind for a while, or was it a split decision?"

"What's the difference? Gone is gone, right?"

"Yes," he says again, slowly, deliberately, "but I've often found that knowing the 'why' behind things brings closure. Especially when it comes to things like this."

/Fingers grasping tightly, knuckles

painted white, I cling. I try to hold,

hold on. Try to embrace, clutch

against raw skin, but it—

this, that, all—slips. Will

sink, spiral to ocean's twilight./

Head snapping up, I stare. There is need here, behind the skin and bone and lies. There is want, the kicking, biting, stabbing desire to haunt with a glare. To make him see that he's said something wrong, bathed a skinless man in salted coals. "Like you would know."

Under my glare, Obi-Wan only blinks. He doesn't wince, doesn't recoil or remain frozen under blows heavy. He just closes his eyes, ushers in darkness and cold…and opens them once more. "When I was younger, Anakin, I frequently faced the reality of whether or not remaining with the Jedi was where my path laid. I had reasons—have reasons—for wanting to leave them behind." He turns again, shows bearded face and fair skin to the skies beyond. "And I'm ashamed to say that I did leave. When I was fourteen, in fact."

It's my turn to blink, to temporarily raise barriers against sight. Fourteen, he'd said. So that would've made him…I bite my lip, taste metallic warmth as I grasp at numbers. If he was twenty-five-ish when I became his apprentice, then that would've been eleven years before we even met…and two years before I was born. A year and three months before my mother swelled, brimmed with my knitted body in her spreading womb. "I…I didn't know that."

His turned head nods. "A lot of beings don't, actually. Qui-Gon tried to keep it under wraps, seeing as it was private." He sighs. "Funny thing is, I almost wished I had left. That way, I would've avoided the harder decisions, when it became more difficult to see which path to take."

/The losing, the letting go, is

unbearable. The slipping stings, clamps down

hard with shards of broken teeth. But

the release, the moment I watch joy's

embers rise and flit away…in that

instance I am dead. Lost, hidden

from the burning giants. From

skins and eyes intertwining,

mingling./

Vague. That's what he's being, is the panorama he paints with his words. Is abstract, shadowy, and so irritatingly obscure. "You tried leaving other times, didn't you?"

Back going stiff, he shakes his head. "Not tried to leave. Not quite. But I thought about it quite often, to the point where the only thing holding me back was circumstance."

"Circumstances meaning…?"

His head cants, swiveling just enough that I can make out half his face. It's not anguished, not drawn in all the harsh angles and lines I had expected; actually, he just looks distant. Like he's not all the way here, in this place where metal tries to kiss firmament. "There was…someone…I would have left the Order for, back when I was your age. Only—" Face turns away, back to bathing in sky. "That person—they never asked. So either that person didn't care nearly enough about me as I thought they did, or they cared enough to let me go; and if I'd stayed, either way I would've been forcing, prolonging something that wasn't to be."

Rubbing at my temples, I sidle up to Obi-Wan, join him under the carmine hues. There's a reason, I believe, this view holds so much appeal. It's rich, bursting with colors a mortal could never hope to reproduce; but it also soars, and soars high and on and on and on. It's beauty, is awe-inspiring grandeur itself—but it's never to be touched. Never to be attained. Is unreachable perfection, creating the yearning to be one with the impossible.

After allowing the ever-lingering wind to be my word for a few moments, I ask, "That person—she was Satine, wasn't she?"

No answer. No movement. No breath—just air rushing past us both, playing with our hair and cloaks.

I exhale, sharp. "You were going to start a life with her too, I bet. You were prepared to leave the Order behind, forget all you'd ever known for her—but she never asked you stay. And that broke your heart."

Wind breathes on.

/We are bold monsters, unabashed

and flying toward caverns deep. Flames

lick at our writhing tails, singeing them

ebony, but we can't see the glow.

Death rattles before us, looming

empty, and yet…

And yet we don't feel the bite. Don't

hear the songs of ghosts, pleading our

feet to switch paths./

"So you regret ever feeling that way about anyone," I go on, folding my arms across my chest. Over the part that in Obi-Wan, must be aching, screaming for me to stop. Relent. Fall silent, words carried off into the ravenous black. "You wish you'd never put trust in her, in someone who wound up letting you down."

The older Jedi's gaze drops to terra, to the ground beneath our boots. "I didn't come here to dredge up the past, Anakin."

Cocking a brow, I shoot him a side-long glance. There's an edge in his voice, a warning begging me to take heed. But there's also thickness, an opaque sea that drowns all else—and that's asking me to probe. To push further, strip away layers. "What happened to her—after that whole Death Watch thing, I mean. She's still the Duchess of Mandalore, right?"

The half of his face I see hardens, its lines and curves etched in shadow. "What happened to her hardly matters. Anakin, my point is this: I loved her, and I believe she loved me. But the two of us, we both loved other things, things which prevented us from being together, so nothing became of it. We moved on, let go. Cuy'Val Dar."

I frown. "And what's that?"

"Cuy'Val Dar?" The face turns away more fully, only showing slopes of ear and auburn hair. "It's Mandalorian—something I picked up while I was there. If I'm not mistaken, it means something like 'those who no longer exist.'"

My frown deepens, and I again ask, "What happened to her, Obi-Wan?"

Wind inhales deep, sighs longs and hard. Waits, stilling the world. And it holds it breath, holds it long and deep while shadows dance over the horizon.

Then: "Cuy'Val Dar happened."

/But why? What is there in this

world, this gem bloated with cold? Is

there life, tingling with melodies we

could embrace? Is there light, warmth in

the bald face of winter? Or is this

all that will be, the dying and decaying and dirge?/

/The ghosts, they tell

me yes. Yes to life, to the banishing of

frost unholy. Whispering gentle, smooth,

they speak of eyes seeing flames. They

show me, make me see skin

tasting other's deaths, watch

it feel the bite and understand. And

they embrace me, warm gossamer soft,

with the voices of fallen ones,

the fallen trees./

Suddenly, I'm wishing I could lift off and away from the place. I would soar, rise on thermals like a falcon reeling over a spreading sea, glide through air. Skim over building forever reaching, grasping for the stars, and somehow land there. Next to her, gossamer lips touched to mine.

Because I could lose her, I realize. She could leave. Leave me behind, voice dissolving as I watch the ground rise to swallow her.

And I won't be able to stop it.

"Oh," I manage to say, because it's all I can. "Oh."

/The forest, silent, could not

see. Could not feel bite. Could not—would

not—let their itching ears ring

with dirges' warning, pleading. So

they fell. Spinning, dropping, plummeting

like lightning, they sank low, leaving

only us.

Us, the still-clings stumps./

So here we are, crumbling statues facing an empty sky. We try to see stars, make out there brilliance behind the encroaching, pregnant clouds, but we can't. Not tonight. All is grey, anemic tones banishing the vibrant hues of sunset, shrouding shadows themselves.

Obi-Wan inhales deep, takes a few measured steps back. "Well, I suppose I should be heading inside now. Looks as though a storm may be on its way."

I follow his gaze, eyes sizing up the wan skyline. And seeing it, I realize that this might be life, that our existence is doomed to be chords of melodies anodyne. That I might be here one day, pinned between escape and endless skies—and I have to ask. "You knew you were going to lose her, didn't you?"

He hesitates for a moment, then nods. "Of course. Such things are inevitable, Anakin—no matter how hard we fight to believe otherwise. From the moment I met her, I knew the risk: that one day, whether it was the code or another man or death itself, we would be ripped apart. And we were. Twice."

"But you loved her despite that."

"Yes. I suppose I did." Obi-Wan faces me, drills me with flaming, sky-blue irises. "You realize you're doing the same thing, I hope. You've chosen to be my friend, yet you understand that you'll one day lose me…or I'll lose you."

"If you lose me first, I wouldn't have to face losing you," I point out, looking away. "I wouldn't realize it, after all; I'd be dead."

"Anakin, I wouldn't have to die for you to lose me. You learned that today, with Ahsoka."

As he turns away, striding back toward the Jedi Temple, I get it. Get what he's trying to say. Has been trying to tell me since I became his apprentice, when the separation from mother loomed incessant over my tiny shoulders: living means losing. And to live, to breath and love and lose, you'll have to die.

But I can't just accept the losing, the releasing of fingers wound tight. Because this—this is what defines me, makes me stand stark against Obi-Wan's ashen sky. Lets beings see that he's the consummate Jedi, allowing all to slide through his grip, and that I'm everything he's not. That I don't—won't—let go, be left behind with only memory as shelter.

And if I do let all things slip, fall through my outstretched hands, I will cease to exist.

/For the sake of the fallen, I

will see. And I will feel bite, deep

and smarting and glorious, and I'll

hear, too. I will embrace the haunting

notes, will drink them in till

I understand.

Because when we understand, when we

grasp with fingers pining, we

will turn, and we'll be healed.

Whole./

And if God Himself whispers in your ear for you to turn, to believe that His Son was skewered bloody on a cross for your sins, listen. Listen, rapt. Believe, have faith, ask for His forgiveness. And be changed, transformed into a creature new.

Those who put their faith and hope in Jesus Christ—The Son of God everlasting-are never lost, will never be of Cuy'Val Dar.