Disclaimer: Star Wars is the property of Lucasfilm and Disney. This fanfic is for my own enjoyment, not for profit, and all that jazz. Contains spoilers for The Last Jedi.
O0o
"There is no emotion; there is peace."
It was the opposite for Luke Skywalker as he closed the old Jedi tome on the supposed words of wisdom.
Guilt, sorrow, regret, hatred for himself, for his nephew, for the galaxy…
The Force was providing no guidance and certainly no peace, although it did unhelpfully provide him with a vision of a Jedi temple on a distant planet, years ago during the reign of the Empire.
It wasn't a Jedi temple like the one run on Coruscant. Three-fourths of the individuals inside would never have been accepted for training by Yoda, Mace Windu, or any of the old Jedi masters: some too old, some with midi-chlorian counts too low, some too emotional, some too engaged in following the Living Force to succumb to all the strict rules of the Jedi order.
And yet, as he watched them train, they worked in harmony with each other and in tune with the Force. They worked with the certainty that the threads of the Force ran through each of them and throughout the galaxy. With the certainty that they were flawed, and that was okay: there was forgiveness, and the next morning the sun would rise on a fresh day. It was raw and really quite beautiful…
And then, a swarm of clone troopers swarmed on the temple.
As if the galaxy mourned, too, rain started to pour down from the grey sky.
The stained-glass window above the door of the temple lit up, flickering red with the blaster fire that ricocheted around the walls inside. The next moment, pieces of glass were flying, shattering into even more shards as they smashed against the pavement.
In the open window pane stood a clone trooper, lowering his blaster. Behind him, Luke could see the bodies lying on the floor. Fingers wrinkled with age still twitching, the body playing out its final functions even after the spirit had fled. The form of a young girl lying half flung over an even younger boy, a desperate attempt to shield him with her body from the blaster fire that had killed them both. The faces of the killed frozen for eternity with their mouths either hanging open in shock or narrowed with determination. Some eyes wide with shock, with fear, with pain; others filled with helplessness and grim acceptance.
The clone troopers finished their work, then left. Their heavy tread ground the glass into the softened dirt.
Then, silence.
The shards of glass were all that was left. Like him. Ben Solo wasn't the only one who had been lost; Luke Skywalker had vanished the moment his nephew had been swallowed up by Kylo Ren.
Luke was broken pieces now, all sharp edges, the shattered remnant of a bright dream for a hopeful future. Tarnished, ground into the dirt, useless.
Had he, Han, Leia, Lando, Chewie thought on the forest moon of Endor that it would be happily-ever-after? That piece by piece they could build a better galaxy when republics, orders, and empires built by leaders stronger and wiser than they had crumbled?
What fools. What cocky, naïve fools.
Ben's turning had shattered all their pride. Their hope. Their dreams.
History had repeated itself. And it was his fault because in their victory, Luke Skywalker had thought he was immune, that the Dark Side was an enemy to be fought and defeated once. In reality, it was a battle that had to be fought every day. It was a battle he had lost when fear had leeched into his thoughts like poison, like an all-consuming darkness, whispering to him to raise his lightsaber. It had hissed that there was no other way, blinding him to any other choice but to end it all before Ben could slaughter the hundreds of lives and commit the atrocities Luke had watched in Force visions. And for a split second, he had listened.
Immediately, he had repented of it.
But the split second of hesitation had been enough. He had created Kylo Ren, spurred all the tragedies he had hoped to prevent.
He had failed. He had failed Ben. He had failed Han and Leia. He had failed his Jedi students and the republic.
This was just a Force vision, a vision of events that had happened years ago after the fall of the Old Republic. He couldn't feel rain that had fallen, soaked into the earth, and evaporated back into the clouds decades ago.
And yet, Luke's cheek was wet.
He wiped away the tear, breathing in so sharply he felt a physical pain in his chest.
No more.
The rain stopped falling.
The Force was holding him there, gripped in the vision.
Silence.
Lifeless eyes staring.
A grey sky.
Broken glass.
No more! Luke shouted, but his voice was swallowed up by the silence. He curled his trembling fingers into a fist.
Who are you? whispered his mind.
A failure, it whispered back. Broken glass.
Luke fumbled for his connections to the Force. He found them, thick ropes that he grabbed with the fingers of his mind. He heaved on them with all his might, every muscle of his being in the Force straining. Groans hissed out from behind his clenched teeth, evaporating into the silence.
The rope was slowly beginning to unwind. Frayed ends, touching each other as weakly as two brushing fingertips… then, pop!
Luke staggered backward, hitting his bed with a thump. The voice of the Force was gone. He closed his eyes, breathing hard, and sighed in relief.
But the unwelcome image of the glass shards still lingered behind his eyelids.
o0o
The past few years on Ahch-to had been the same. An endless, miserable cycle of sleeping, fishing, eating, thinking, remembering.
The past few days had been…a change in schedule, to say the least. So much had happened between Rey's arrival and her departure. And to top it off, he had just been visited by…Yoda?
When the Jedi Master's Force Ghost vanished, leaving smoke tinged with the scent of burning wood in his wake, Luke reached out to the Force.
Immediately, a vision wrapped itself around him. The Jedi temple with the gaping mouth of the broken window was in front of him.
It must have been at a different time than his last vision because the bodies had been taken away. He steeled himself for the silence—empty, waiting to be filled by memories, self-reflection, and guilt—that had just about driven him mad the last time.
That was when he heard soft footsteps.
A small cloaked figure came around the corner of the old temple, a basket resting in its arms. It stopped and crouched, tiny brown fingers digging in the dirt.
The broken glass. The child was picking up the pieces.
The vision shattered into small flashes of color, light, and sound. The patter of the child's footsteps as she hurried away. The small brown hands dunking handfuls of glass into water, the shards sparkling and turning the drops of water clinging to them into tiny crystal balls swirling with sapphire, ruby, and jade. Splinters of glass being carefully fit together, piece by piece, onto a salvaged board. A bag of odds and ends, made into art—ragtag, rustic, yet somehow charming—at a dusty marketplace stall. The clink of coins as they passed from one hand to another.
The vision faded.
Luke stared at the blue sky of Ahch-to and felt the cool, salty breeze whisper against his cheeks.
Broken glass, he thought. Gathered scraps of the old, sharp edges and all, made into something new, to serve a new purpose.
He pushed himself to his feet and went to prepare himself a meal. The Jedi Master would need all his energy for what he was about to attempt.
It was time to pick up the pieces.