Peace. It is such a happy word. With it I see white, the purest white one can imagine, blinding purity. Darkness of every sort had been done away with, leaving a world devoid of anything but brightness.
I yearn to see this brightness in my people and in my world.
I am a pacifist. I will keep my country's neutrality no matter what cost. Thousands of Systems are depending on our success.
War. The sound of it chokes me, filling my lungs and brain as a poisonous gas, seeking to destroy. I see red sweeping through the air, a cloud of darkness swirling in on its wake. It seeks to destroy me and everything I fight for.
This what I see daily, my vision stained in blood, the blinding white I love rare in the storm. Then he came. His hands were stained red with blood and yet he had the audacity to wear white. A deadly paradox. He would get in my way, blur my path, attract the darkness's attention.
I thought I should hate him. Indeed, I tried to do so. For my people's sake.
But something stopped me from carrying out my resolution. A strange color filled my eyes and my brain at the mention of his name. In that color, red and white had mixed, creating a beautiful scene that I had never thought possible.
War and peace can not mix. It never did with the other Jedi I encountered. Their colors stayed in their designed boxes, content with their jobs. His colors fought each other in my presence, his name on my lips or just thinking his name evoking them. And so I fought them in return, demanding them to return to their boxes, to return my black and white idealisms to me.
Fearing a disease, I took the matter up with the elder of my protectors, the master. I explained my problem to him, taking care to mention no names. Back then I thought I was clever, disguising our identities in such a way. Now I wince at how foolish I was. For who else could it be? The master took it as Jedi should, offering theories, advising remedies, telling me that in time, this will all pass.
He explained nothing.
Angry, still confused, and having accomplished nothing I left him, my dignity barely intact. Walking down the steps, I felt discouragement nipping at my legs, begging for me for an entrance. A vision of red and white stopped me from opening the door, it's hand curling around my wrist.
The Jedi's apprentice.
He was still young, a padawan. His master often talked about how this boy would do great things for the galaxy. I had paid no attention to his words. But now, looking into the young man's blue eyes, I believed him. He carried himself like a leader, a man with power, but his eyes were kind. The padawan had a commanding voice, emulating his master's voice. I'd always loved his voice. It reminded me of my father, of his courage and protectiveness.
He said, "I'll give you a word for it." "A word for what?" I queried, raising an eyebrow at his hand. He relaxed his grip, his neck flushed at the implication. "For your, um, problem. It's called love."
His voice trailed off, the rest of his face flushing as he looked at me, and my face heated up. STUPID! My head screamed, alarms blaring in my head. I should have known that the colors mixing was the feeble result of my mind trying to justify an attraction. I met his eyes, and mumbled, "Thank you, Obi Wan." Then I turned to leave, ignoring the gaze of the Padawan and his master who stood silently watching us. The boy watched me go, a curious depth in his eyes, that if I had looked back, would have revealed deep feeling that would have rocked my world. Not that it wasn't already rocking.
And from that day on, a new word stood next to War and Peace.
Love.