A/N-I've never been wholly satisfied with some of the events in the EU canon. I thought this would be a good way for me to fix it. On to the story, and remember to review afterward.


Prologue

Anakin Solo is dead. He knows this. When matched against the span of his life, he has been dead for a long time. About as long as he'd been alive, in fact. He has spent long years in the Lake of Apparitions, learning...ever learning.

What have you learned, Anakin Solo?

He has learned that he was a fool in life. He has learned much of the Force, and much not of the Force. He has learned to be nothing, and everything. They are, after all, the same thing. All things are one, in the Force.

Why have you learned these things, Anakin Solo?

How should he know? Death opens new vistas of reality; it does not lay bare all the secrets of existence.

You misunderstand, Anakin Solo. What is your purpose now?

Death is its own purpose. His time has passed. He wants only to be. Is that not enough? Has he not earned this rest? Let him remain one with the Force. The Force is sufficient.

For the dead. What of the living?

Now, Anakin is rising. The uncountable dead turn to watch, an endless tide moving as one. They pull at him, but Anakin has passed beyond the power of death. Out of the Lake of Apparitions he soars, his spirit quaking at the dark power that interpenetrates the very fabric of that world. A shadow manifests from the midst of that power, tendrils sprouting from it, reaching out serpent-quick to snatch him from whatever power now holds him. Anakin raises his hands to defend himself as he reaches for the Force. Its power seeps into him, a trickle that becomes a flood. He casts it forth, a torrent of power to banish the shadow.

The shadow laughs at Anakin. He can hear it, a grinding as of metal on metal. It opens itself to the dark power of the world, and it weathers the assault as the light tears at it.

Anakin's power can only last so long. The light sputters and dies. The shadow waits for him, letting him feel its savor. The tendrils reach for him again, slowly unfolding to grasp and pull him, ever so subtly, into itself.

Light flashes below. A white sphere, glowing with the strength of the light side, interposes itself between Anakin and the shadow. The dark tendrils shrink back for a bare moment, but then they quest outward again, playing against the light of the sphere as though seeking a weak point in a deflector shield. All the while, Anakin continues to rise. The fog that has overtaken his mind begins to lift, and he notices that the glowing orb rises with him, as does the shadow.

A mind touches his. He braces himself, readying his will to cast it against the shadow. But it does not come. Instead, a voice soft as a whisper distantly heard speaks to him. Help, it says. In the voice is a quiet tone of desperation. Once more, Anakin calls to the light as he opens his heart to the voice that calls to him...and finds that he knows it. He has touched this mind before, heard this voice...where? In life?

No time to think of such things. The light burns him now, its strength too much for his spirit to hold. Anakin does not care. He does not know whose the voice is, but he knows that it is trying to defend him. He pours his power into the glowing sphere. It darts toward the shadow. The shadow recoils, calling back its tendrils to swat at the stinging glob of light. it begins to fall behind as the power pulling Anakin tugs harder. In moments, he passes beyond the atmosphere of the dark world, past the enveloping cloud of dark side power. The universe vanishes in white as the power rips him through space, past black holes and stars into an infinite void.


"She almost had him."

"Yes. Thank you for protecting him."

"It was the reason I was born."

"Nonetheless, I would have failed if not for you."

"That world... How could they have left her alive?"

"The Skywalkers? Or the first ones?

"The first ones. To leave such a creature alive..."

"Perhaps even they could not kill her."

"If they could not, how can you?"

"I must try. If I do not, we are all lost."


Anakin woke amidst the Force. Its current wove through him, a tapestry of life with a weave finer than atoms. To pick at a thread would rustle the leaves of a tree, or set an insect to buzzing. The Force was life; to wield it was to change life. Only the dead did not change.

"Are you so sure, Anakin Solo?"

He opened his eyes. Above him, violet and turquoise dotted a viridian canopy. The tips of tree limbs gleamed as with metal. The Force flowed through this place, stronger than Anakin had ever felt it. He'd been where the Force gathered like water in a well, there to tap and increase his own powers. Here, though...this was a place where the Force was born, a place so full of life that the Force wafted up from it like scent from a flower. He looked over where the voice had come from, and he beheld Power.

For a moment, Anakin's Force senses overrode what his eyes told him. This thing, a being of light so pure and strong that it would have burned him to ash had he looked at it with the naked eye, existed in the Force, its power spreading over the world and around him, a gentle hand that could caress or crush as it wished. Fear rose up then, terror so profound it set his teeth to shivering and his skin to quaking. He trembled before this...this...

"God?" said the Power; its voice held a faint trace of mockery.

The Power reached out to touch him, and Anakin thought to strike out against it, but he cast aside the idea; only a fool would try to fight that.

"You are not ready, little spirit. Close the eyes the Force has given you, and look upon me with your first sight."

The hand of the Power reached out and clamped onto Anakin's Force senses. The vision of unmatched Force strength vanished, and in its place stood a boy, younger than he, perhaps eleven or twelve. He had yellow hair, bordering on gold, and his eyes were blue as the sea, but, when Anakin looked into them, he felt a sense of age, of sadness beyond anything a child could know, no matter his experiences in life. Save for the look in his eyes, the boy looked somewhat like Anakin had at that age.

"Who are you?" said Anakin.

"Have you not guessed, Anakin Solo?" The boy's voice was in that stage between childhood and manhood, timbre and pitch changing with every word. "Your family knows me, and I know them. Better than they might guess, as well." The boy walked to a flower, a mottled red and purple thing whose petals gathered close about themselves, and he laid his hand on it. The petals opened, revealing a bulb in the center. "It holds a nectar sweet as any sugar," said the boy. "The children who live here make dares regarding how many they can eat. You see, Anakin," said the boy, turning to face him now, "in larger quantities, the nectar acts as a hallucinogen. A rather addictive one, too. It is one of the qualities that allows it to spread itself over this world. A beautiful thing to see and smell and taste, but a danger nevertheless."

Anakin remained silent. He knew when he was being taught, or tested.

"Are they not the same thing? If so, or if not, how could you tell?" The boy was smiling at Anakin. It was the kind of smile Anakin hated, the one that said that the speaker thought he knew more than Anakin.

The smile faded. "I...," he sighed, "I am sorry. I do know more than you, but that is a function of my being more than an effort to learn."

"What are you talking about?" said Anakin.

The boy's smile returned, more wistful now. "You've seen me with the eyes of the Force. Do you think the same strictures bind my knowledge as bind yours?"

"Am I allowed to ask questions, too? It's only fair."

The boy chuckled. "As you wish. Three questions, three answers."

"Okay," said Anakin. "Who are you, where am I, and why am I here?"

"You're very predictable, you know."

"It hasn't been a good day."

"I suppose not." The boy sighed again. "The answers to the first and second question are the same."

Anakin knew the answer then. So simple, really. "Zonama Sekot," he said.

The boy bowed his head. "Correct."

"I don't get why, though."

"That," said Sekot, "is a more difficult question altogether."