The Ties That Bind Us All

Summary: The past and the present; fear and hope; love and hate – all are bound by the ties of one thing . . . the Force. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering – but through the Force, the fear, anger, hate, and suffering of Carissa of Silima can all also lead to the greatest Jedi ever to live – Anakin Skywalker.

Rating: K (nothing really bad; just perhaps a little confusing)

Genre: mystery ; angst

Canon Character(s): Jedi Padawan Thame Cerulian ; Jedi Master Unskette ; Shmi Skywalker ; Anakin Skywalker

OC Character(s): Carissa of Silima ; Garen Toki (former Jedi Initiate) ; Ewan Skywalker

Note: This fic will trace simultaneous lines between the descent that led to Anakin Skywalker, like who he was and what he did. On one side, I will trace the bloodline that led to Anakin; on the other, I will trace the Padawan-Master relationships that led to Anakin. But that's really all I will say before I give the entire plot away. . .

Prologue

The famed Jedi saying that the Jedi Order drills into every single Jedi that passes through the Jedi Temple on Coruscant on their journey on the Jedi path says: Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. In other words, the Jedi are taught to hold back fear, throw away hate, and always suppress love, for love is the worst bane of the Jedi.

It can spur a Jedi to fear, to anger, to hate, and then to suffering. It can cause destruction of the likes no one can imagine. It can lead to unspeakable agony, for all involved, and yet in the end accomplish . . . nothing.

But love can also be the Jedi's greatest hope.

For love can easily cause one to sacrifice everything for another as much as it can cause one to destroy everything.

Anakin Skywalker never, perhaps, understood how to control his emotions. He didn't understand why he had to suppress his emotions, to rein them in, to control them to the highest degree of rigidity.

But perhaps that is also understandable.

For I too never knew how to control my emotions. I couldn't understand how those Jedi could just stand there calmly and take everything in and do . . . well . . . nothing.

I hated them.

I hated the Jedi.

I hated them with everything I had in me – everything they were, everything they stood for, everything they became.

And I swore that one day, they would feel the burning anguish I had felt because of them. Perhaps not by my own hand, but by the hand of one of my descendants, I swore that the Jedi would one day fall. The attack would be swift, lethal, and all consuming, as a predator of the skies that descends upon an animal of prey on the ground. My line would own the skies, and the Jedi could crumble like dust beneath their feet.

Why, you ask? Why did I hate them so much?

Well, here is my answer: Because they took everything that meant anything to me from me.

For my name was Carissa of Silima, and I was the great-great-great grandmother of the worst enemy and greatest savior of the Jedi Order ever, perhaps, to exist in the entire universe – Anakin Skywalker. And it was through my existence and my hatred for the Jedi Order that the Skywalker line began.

This is my story.