Chapter Six: Anakin's Story
Anakin walked into the gymnasium to find his children sparring. They had picked up the bladework with surprising ease, and he was very proud of them.
"Wrong," he said, a movement of Luke's catching his eye. He walked forward.
The twins froze. "What?" Leia asked.
"Not you, him." Anakin took the practice blade from his daughter and smacked Luke's leg with it. The boy yelped. "You'll lose a leg of you keep lunging like that. Throwing your weight behind a swing or block is fine, but what you're doing is an open invitation to your enemy to take your leg off."
Luke nodded, brow furrowed. "I see what you mean."
"Good." Anakin replaced the blades in their cabinet. "Ready to meditate?"
They groaned, but obediently followed him outside to a quiet grove of trees, where they settled on the grass.
Despite her recent success at levitation, Leia still had a difficult time with straight meditation. After struggling for a quarter of an hour, Anakin, roused by her frustration, sighed and moved to kneel behind her. He began to manipulate her pressure points, and she found herself relaxing, the Force flowing easily through her. She felt boneless when he finally sat back.
"She looks so calm and serene," she heard Luke say.
Anakin's voice was mild and curious, yet somehow also quite stern. "Are you saying you are not calm and serene when you meditate?"
He shouldn't be talking, Leia, thought. She had a suspicion that she had gotten her meditation problems from him.
She winced mentally at the reminder that he was more than her instructor, and delved deeper into herself in an attempt to get away from it. She found a channel and followed it, only to find a strong, solid wall at the end. She placed a mental hand against it, and it fell away.
Hello, Leia, Anakin said into her mind.
Ah . . . hi, she replied, slightly stunned. What is this?
The Force bond?
Yes . . . I think. I mean, why is it here?
Anakin went quiet. Luke, whom she just noticed had been listening in, gave a mental sigh of exasperation.
It's your blood bond, her brother told her. Your father-daughter bond.
Leia shied away from their minds, coming back to full awareness with a jolt. Anakin's shields went back up, and he and Luke also came back to themselves. Tense once again, Leia made to get up, but Anakin stopped her.
"Wait."
She sat back down and looked at him, her gaze guarded.
"I want to tell you a story."
Luke leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees. Leia just waited.
Anakin was silent for several seconds, then began.
"This story happened a long time ago, on a planet far from this one. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.
"It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst.
"It is the story of the end of an age.
"This is how twenty-five millennia came to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself.
"This is the twilight of the Jedi.
"The end starts now."
Anakin bowed his head. Luke and Leia sat with bated breath as the minutes ticked by.
Finally, Luke couldn't take it anymore. "Father?" he asked softly.
"That's all for now," Anakin managed to reply. The twins stood and left their father to brood in peace.
"Do you think he'll tell us how he fell?" Leia asked Luke over dinner that evening. "I mean, Threepio told us what he could, but, well . . . he's a droid."
"He doesn't understand emotions and reasons," Luke agreed. ""And he wasn't around Father all that much during that time. To answer your question – no. I don't think he's ready. Not to tell it fully, anyway. He may give us a very abstract version, but . . ." He trailed off.
Leia stabbed moodily at her meal, her thoughts a thousand parsecs away.
Pooja Naberrie glared at the man pacing restlessly around the living room of her family's home. "Will you sit down?" she snapped irritably. Normally she was fairly even-tempered, but Han Solo's cabin fever – or rather, planet fever – was severely trying her patience.
Han let himself drop into an overstuffed chair. "I just --" he began.
"-- need to save Leia from the formally-evil clutches of Darth Vader, yes, I know," Pooja finished tiredly. "But please, Captain, stop obsessing. It won't make your parts arrive any quicker."
He sighed gustily. "Sorry, Senator. And call me Han."
She smiled slightly. "Then I'm Pooja. Why don't you go find Ryoo and Chewbacca and have a look around the rest of Theed?" her sister and the Wookiee had hit it off instantly, and they went for day trips around the city all the time.
Han smiled back. "Chewie's been saying I don't know what I'm missing. I think I'll do that."
Anakin took a deep breath and began the second part of his story as Luke and Leia listened intently.
"The dark is generous.
"Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from us the truths of others.
"The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
"Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in day's harsh light. But the greatest of its comfort is the illusion that the dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it is day that is temporary.
"Day is the illusion.
"Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self.
"With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins."
Anakin lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. With the full effect of his attack on the Juran ambassador having sunk in, his dream a few weeks ago about Padmé, and, more recently, Leia's rejection of him and their bond, he doubted that he would be sleeping peacefully anytime in the near future.
Anakin sighed and rolled over. Despite the pardon and concealment of his alter ego the leaders of the Alliance had given him and the support of Luke, Jix and Piett, this whole redemption thing was a lot harder than he had imagined it would be.
Finally, Anakin gave up on sleep and headed for the gymnasium. Maybe dismantling a couple of droids would help. It usually did.
Anakin hadn't expected his story to go over so well with his children. He was just trying to give them the benefit of his experience with the Dark Side. As a blunt, straightforward man, he wasn't even sure his descriptions and explanations even made sense.
Yet here they were, begging for more and hanging on to his every word.
But hey, guess what, Padmé, he thought. I finally know what a metaphor is.
"The dark is generous, and it is patient.
"It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt.
"The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout.
"The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light.
"The dark's patience is infinite.
"Eventually, even stars burn out."
Han and Chewie left the dealer's shop, their arms full of parts that had finally come in. Pooja and Ryoo smiled as they exited. Han's delighted grin was infectious.
"We're back in business, sister!" Han crowed to Pooja as they headed for the docking bay. "Pack your bags – I'll have us out of here by the end of the week!"
"The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
"It always wins because it is everywhere.
"It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
"The brightest light casts the darkest shadow."
"We need control of Coruscant," General Rieekan commented.
Mon Mothma sighed. "We've been saying that for years."
"But now we have an informant who very likely knows the security codes . . ." Rieekan trailed off suggestively.
Mon Mothma's eyes lit up. "Of course!" she breathed, an reached for her comlink. "Master Jedi," she said into it, "will you come to my office, please? We have another mission for you."
When Anakin left Mon Mothma's office after his briefing, he found Leia waiting for him.
"I have a question," she said, obviously upset but trying valiantly not to show it. "It's about your story."
Leading her outside, he nodded, signaling her to continue and ask her question.
"Why?" she demanded simply, almost desperately. "Why do we fight, if the Dark Side is so generous and patient and victorious and strong and tempting? What's left for the light?"
Anakin looked at her. "What does the Alliance fight for?"
She frowned at him. "The Alliance wants to give to the poor, to be patient and just with citizens. It tempts people to join so we can be strong and defeat the Empire!"
"You're reading too much into it, Leia. Yes, the dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins – but in the heart of it's strength lies weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
"Love is more than a candle.
"Love can ignite the stars."
Leia stared at him. "Love? That's it?"
Anakin arched a brow. "Is love not enough?"
"Maybe . . . to a person. But it's just one thing, one emotion. It can't possibly be enough for a galaxy to rise or fall by!"
"What is love, Leia?" Anakin questioned.
She blinked. "It's . . . love. An emotion that causes us to follow our hearts, not our heads."
Rolling his eyes, Anakin steered her toward the pilots' lounge, where Rogue Squadron was relaxing. Once inside, he headed for the sabacc table, where Luke, Wedge, Wes and five other pilots were crowded.
"Anakin!" Wedge yelled in greeting. "Deal you in?"
"So I can win all your money? Much as I would enjoy that, I must decline. Give me a definition of love."
They all stared at him.
"Come on, anyone," Anakin urged. "I haven't got all day."
"An acceptance of flaws," Luke said.
"Respect," Wes added, and all the others began to chime in.
"Kindness."
"Compassion."
"Protectiveness."
"Loyalty."
"Ability to forgive."
"Excellent, thank you," Anakin said. "Enjoy your gambling."
"We will!" they chorused at his retreating back.
"You see?" Anakin asked Leia as they left the lounge. "The core of love, the essence of it, is so very complicated that no one word can describe it, and no one person interprets it the same as anyone else. Love is one word, not one thing. It can hurt something vicious and it can soothe just as gently because it is so complex. Everything the pilots said and more, that is what the Alliance fights for, Leia. You've just been fighting for far too long to see it clearly anymore. As someone coming from the Empire to the Alliance, though, I can tell you that it is beautiful. Just . . . beautiful."
Leia gave him a brilliant smile, moved almost to tears and finally understanding. "I see now," she replied. "Thank you."
Anything for you, Leia," Anakin answered, completely serious. "Anything for you. Hey," he said suddenly, trying to lighten the mood. "Go get Luke. We'll have a lightsaber match; the two of you against me."
Leia brightened, and dashed off to retrieve her brother.
Anakin beat them soundly.