A/N: you know when you go to the eye doctor and they have to dilate your eyes to properly examine them and you can't see shit? that's me right now. any typos shall be strictly blamed on the author's shitty vision and not on the author herself.
"Back when I was a scholar here," Ahsoka began, the three of them settled on the floor of one of the several meditation chambers scattered across the Jedi Temple. It had always been Ahsoka's preferred one, although Jedi weren't supposed to hold attachments to anything, not even a meditation chamber, but she had always loved how the sunlight broke through the windows and offered the most amazing view of the sunset. It was peaceful and it was comforting; if she needed to find balance, this was where she would go.
So, after they all had been disrupted by the imbalance brought by the place where Vader had slaughtered the innocent children of the temple, Ahsoka knew — this was where they needed to go.
In front of her, the twins sat. Leia had her back arched, making her look several inches taller than she was; Luke made himself small, so he looked several inches smaller than he was. In front of her, they were almost at the same height, and she felt an extreme endearment to them, even though she hadn't known them for long.
But they were the offspring of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala; therefore, Ahsoka knew them forever.
She wondered if this fondness would come to her if she ever had had the chance of guiding a Padawan of her own. She knew, however, that Anakin shared this affection for her, perhaps something even greater.
Sitting there with them, she remembered fondly all the times Anakin and she had sat together at that same chamber, for reasons not all that distant from what the three of them were facing at that instant.
If she dared to think of an alternate reality, she could see Anakin's proudful smirk as she passed on what she had learned from him to his very children.
Unfortunately, that timeline only existed in her dreams.
She chose to focus on the timeline tangible to her, and her eyes flickered between Leia and Luke.
"We used to study the theory of the Force," she continued, speaking very seriously, but a smile broke through the corner of her lips when she noticed the devious looks that the twins were now giving her. "I know it sounds impractical, but I promise, it's not. When we come to the Temple, we start practicing in the ways of the Force, but it's also crucial that you understand how much power you're wielding with your bare hands, just how much you can do — and, granted, what you're also not supposed to do."
"I can get behind that second part," Leia grunted, having Luke nudge her leg with his elbow. "What?! Maybe, if someone had only told Vader what he wasn't supposed to do—"
Luke rolled his eyes.
"Would you mind? I'm trying to learn something I'm not supposed to be doing here," Luke groaned, "Some of us didn't get the chance to be a scholar in our lives. Like, ever."
Leia offered him a look, "So you're more interested in the experience than in the learning? You're going to become a terrible professional if you keep it like this, Luke," she patronized him.
And they would have continued their bickering if Ahsoka hadn't loudly cleared her throat to gain their attention again.
Maybe the Jedi had had a rule against twins, hence why she had never seen any in the temple — they were impossible to deal with.
"As I was saying," Ahsoka imposed, "We would study the ways that the Force could manifest itself, from the most common means to the rarest ones — stuff that hadn't been seen in hundreds of years, you know? We still learned it, because what if we were one of the lucky children of the Force that just knew how to do something that hadn't been seen in ages."
Leia corked up an eyebrow, "And you think Luke and I are… that. Whatever that is."
Luke gazed at them with fascination.
"I do, yes," she replied without eloquence. "Anakin possessed some sort of power that had never seen before. It would make sense that his children would inherit some of his greatness, especially when said children shared a womb."
"You think we're special?" Luke asked, heartfelt. Probably a result of never been told how special he was simply by being him while he grew up. Leia placed her hand on his knees.
"Yes," Ahsoka repeated, not minding the repetition of the question.
"How?"
"I remember reading about this Force phenomenon that made two Force sensitive beings one in the Force, making them as powerful as life itself. They were called — a dyad."
Luke stared at her with his lips agape, like he had just been told the most precious piece of information in the whole galaxy. Leia kept her distance and her doubts about said concept.
"Individuals who formed a dyad shared a connection that spanned across time and space," Ahsoka elaborated, "Their connection covered a range of light-years, allowing them to interact with each other across the galaxy. Tell me, I know that the two of you can communicate telepathically, as I've seen you do it in front of me time and time again, but have you ever tried to communicate like that when you were far from each other?"
"Yes…!" Luke responded eagerly. "That's — That's how we first established our bond, before we were even aware that we were twins or that Leia was Force sensitive, too."
Ahsoka focused on him, intrigued by how his happy expression had now suddenly dropped.
"It was immediately after Vader had told me he was my father and I decided to jump into the abyss rather than face what that meant," he looked down, "I was lucky enough to fall through a vent tube, but then I was hanging over yet another abyss, and this time I knew that, if I jumped, or fell, I wouldn't make it out alive. Back then, I had a little over a month of training with Yoda, I didn't know what else I could use my powers for. But, on a whim, I decided to call for Leia — Leia, out of all people. I could have tried to call for any person, but Leia was the only one in my mind. I don't know why, I can't explain that instinct of reaching out to her. Maybe she was calling for me too? Even if she didn't know? Well, I don't know either. But I called for her and she answered. After that, every time I called for her, she came."
He didn't even notice that Leia was now holding his hand.
"I can't rationally explain that either," Ahsoka said simply. "Empirically, though, I have my suspicions."
He didn't even notice how tightly he had begun to hold Leia's hand.
"So, it happened more times, yeah?" Ahsoka probed, maybe just as fascinated as Luke was. The Force never ceased to amaze her.
However, she was not expecting Leia to be the one to talk next.
"During the battle of Endor, Luke had left to face Vader and Palpatine while we remained on the ground to deactivate the energy shield around the second Death Star," she reminisced hoarsely. "We had just learned we were siblings, and after we defeated the Imperials down there, we witnessed the Death Star exploding in the sky. The Death Star that my brother was at. Han noticed how tense I had become and told me, very Han-alike, that he was sure Luke was fine. So, on a whim, I decided to reach out to Luke. To try to feel his presence, to feel his life — and it was there, as strong as ever. I knew that Luke was alive and that he was coming back to me, and I wouldn't have to worry."
Luke looked at her fondly. "You never told me about that."
Leia merely shrugged.
Ahsoka was smiling at them brightly; her soul somehow touched that they had found their way back to each other.
"Dyads are very attuned to each other's senses, including what the other sees and hears and feels," Ahsoka continued, "I don't need to ask you if this happens to you. You've already shown it to me left and right and — the dream you shared is just another confirmation of that."
"It had never happened before," Luke said, referring to their night terror. "I'm not exactly sure why we pulled ourselves into the same nightmare, or what the nightmare was even about. I don't even know how it was possible. But it was like feeling everything twice, I assume because I was dealing with Leia's struggles just as much as mine. It was — It wasn't pleasant."
Leia turned around to face him completely, blocking Ahsoka out of her view.
"Luke, you're fooling yourself," she spoke tenderly, "You know exactly what the dream was about."
Luke's eyes glowed. "Leia—"
"Okay. I'll tell you about my nightmare first, okay?" she prompted, going out of her comfort zone on behalf of her brother, as she wouldn't usually talk about her inner demons in public. "Ahsoka had asked me about what happened on Tatooine. Remembering what happened put me on edge, it made my skin crawl, and I knew, I knew that the moment I would manage to fall asleep the bad dreams would come to me. And they did alright. Luke, I was chained in the dream, I was being stolen of my liberty and my will. We can trace that fear of mine back to all the oppression that the galaxy endured under Palpatine's rule but, ultimately, the root of the bonds in the dream was what I had to personally endure at Jabba's palace."
Luke didn't know whether she had deliberately lowered down her mind's shield or if they were innately grasping to the recently discovered depth of their Force bond, but he felt it all coming from her.
He turned his body around, too, and it was just them.
"Earlier yesterday, I was reminiscing how I chose to fall onto the abyss rather than face my heritage to Vader," Luke offered a story for a story. He took in a deep breath, "Thinking about it, the abyss represented my one way out, but… It also depicted my fear of falling in battle and failing to free the galaxy from the Empire. That's what I saw in the dream, anyway. My failure to save you."
Leia smiled sadly, and at how she was the personification of the galaxy under his eyes.
"You were placed under too much burden at too young an age," she inferred, "And nobody ever even bothered to ask you if that was what you wanted. They simply saw your powers and made an instant warrior out of you when you barely knew how the galaxy worked. It's natural that your insecurities would follow you. It makes sense that you would see the abyss as a means of escaping the terrible weight you were carrying, both as Vader's son and a Jedi."
"Whether I asked for it or not, it still became my responsibility," he chuckled anxiously. "Besides, you were also placed under the same responsibility."
She shook her head. "It's different, Luke. I was raised for that, I was trained to become a political warrior ever since I was a child. It was always my destiny. You, on the other hand…"
"Was groomed to be a farmer?" he shot up one of his brows, addressing the plain words that she felt insensitive to say. He laughed. "Yeah. Life as a farmer does sound incredibly dull now compared to everything that we've seen."
She rolled her eyes at him obviously trying to evade her point.
"We're fucked up in the head, you know," Leia communicated with him telepathically. "I don't know if it was Vader or the war as a whole that left us like this, but we are."
"You're exaggerating," Luke argued. "We are troubled kids, at our worst."
"You know that's not true," Leia rebuked, "Last nightwas enough proof that that isn't true."
"And what are you suggesting that we are?"
"Traumatized kids," she laid it out for him mentally. "And it's okay, we're not at fault for that. We just have a lot to work through before we can be okay with — everything that our dream represented."
"Vader?" he asked.
"Vader," she sighed. "It always comes back to that, doesn't it? The — The devil."
"That's a harsh word," he huffed.
"It might be," she shot her shoulders up and down, "That's how he came to us in our dream, though."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Why are you defending him?"
"I'm not!" he nearly yelled. "Leia — that dream has left just as disturbed as it did you. What he did to us — it was like being left for dead. Leia, he has already left me for dead more times than I can count," his voice softened, and then disappeared altogether, "All I ever wanted in my life was a father figure to look up to you, and this is what I get."
Leia felt sorry for him; that was about the one thing she couldn't share with him.
"You could… Look up to Han?" she suggested, making a face to herself.
"That's the most cursed thing you ever said to me," Luke said, scandalized, "Please don't ever say that again."
"Well—"
"I don't want to hear it!" he placed his hands against his ears and started singing to fade out her voice, "La la la la la la la."
"You know you can still hear me through here, right?"
"Fuck."
"Have I mentioned how much the two of you would have driven everybody insane if you had grown up together?" Ahsoka finally spoke again, arms crossed against her chest. "Because you would. Honestly, would it kill to have a conversation that everybody in the room can engage with?!"
Luke scratched the back of his head. "Honestly, I think it would kill you to hear what Leia just suggested."
Leia smacked him in the arm.
"Not my fault you have the dirty mind of a twelve-year-old."
"Did you hear what you suggested?"
"I just meant that he's ten years your senior!"
"I know that we're twins and we're a dyad, but what you like in the privacy of your bedroom is your business only. We don't share that much."
Leia shot him fuming eyes. "I will hurt you. I will hurt you so badly you'll be left wounded for days."
Ahsoka cleared her throat loudly once again, stopping their bantering for the time being.
"Funny you should mention that, there's something else," the Togruta said, "It just came to me, actually. I remember reading that Force Dyads possessed this very unique power: the ability to heal."
The twins became serious again. They grew so still that they barely appeared to be breathing.
"This power allows you to heal wounds of the flesh. It takes a lot to heal someone, so you might become temporarily weak if you try to do so," Ahsoka continued, soberly. She spoke the next part with a dead expression, "You can even resurrect the deceased if you come across them immediately after battle. But, bringing back to life the dead requires the transference of your own Force energy. It is lethal for you. I needed to tell you this because the last thing I would want is for either of you to try to experiment with your powers out there and pay the ultimate price by saving someone worthless from death."
"Everybody is worthy in the eyes of the Force," Luke whispered, wrapping his arms around himself.
"You know what I meant, Luke," Ahsoka tenderly lectured him. "There's no point giving up your life for someone you never met. That sacrifice only makes sense when you do it for someone you love."
Luke swallowed hard. "I thought the Jedi creed was to be always selfless. To always give and expect for nothing in return. Why should that be any different if I have the chance to save an innocent life?"
"Because, Luke, the Jedi don't exist anymore. Only you do," she said, "It would be selfish of you to give your life for one individual when one entire galaxy is counting on you."
"Okay. Why isn't it selfish of me to save the life of a person I love at the expanse of the galaxy?"
Ahsoka laughed comfortably at that. "We do crazy things for the people we love and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Obviously, I'm not talking about how obsessive Anakin became to save what he hadn't lost yet, but that genuine love that would lead somebody to trade their life for the life of their loved one… That's beautiful. That's the foundation of the universe. So long as there are love and beauty in the galaxy, I believe that life will thrive."
He seemed to accept the answer, so Ahsoka turned to face the quiet twin.
"Leia, stop that."
Leia raised a brow, but her eyes remained lost in the scenery. "I'm not doing anything."
"Leia, thinking of all the lives you could have saved before if you'd only known about this power before won't do anything," Ahsoka reproached. "You wouldn't have been able to save all of Alderaan."
She closed her eyes. "You can't say that for sure."
"Yes, I can," Ahsoka spoke harshly. "Nobody is that powerful. Not even you."
Leia dropped her head and whispered, "I know," because she did — wishing she could be that powerful went everything she believed in, as she dreaded so much power on the hands of one person only; wishing she could be that powerful made her like Anakin, and she would never betray her morals like that.
"Ahsoka," Luke called for her, and her attention was back on him. "Why did you leave the Jedi order?"
The question caught her off guard, and she couldn't help the face she made.
"I'm sorry to ask, er, if it makes you uncomfortable," Luke stuttered awkwardly. "I ask because you always speak with so much fondness about the Jedi, but every now and then you'll say something that contradicts your blinded faith in the Jedi Order. So, I was wondering, if I'm meant to build the Jedi Order again, what should I avoid? What mistakes of theirs do I have to pay close attention to? What caused you to leave, so I won't mess up again?"
"I left the Jedi Order because I lost my faith in it," Ahsoka confessed painfully, and she noticed how sad his eyes became at the notion that the creed he revered wasn't as perfect as he thought. "I was framed for crimes I didn't commit. I was wrongly accused of bombing the Jedi Temple alongside several other homicides. Eventually, my name was cleared, and the real perpetrator was found, so the Jedi offered me my place on the Order again. But I couldn't come back. How could I? The Jedi showed me how easy it was for them to turn on me, to ignore all the hard work I had done in the name of the Jedi, while just a Padawan myself. If they hadn't trusted me despite all my commitment, there was nothing to stop them from turning on me again. So, I lost my trust in them as well, and I chose to walk away from the Order that I no longer believed in."
Luke swallowed uncomfortably; he had assumed Ahsoka's reasons would have been valid, but he hadn't expected them to be so arduous.
"Luke, I loved the Jedi. The Jedi were my family, but… The organization as a whole didn't hold me to the same esteem, so how could I remain in a place that would so easily turn a blind eye on me and discard me as if I didn't matter at all?" she continued, her voice on edge. "The Jedi always prided themselves on how good they were at grasping things, yet, when it came to it, they couldn't even handle the investigation of one of their own. Despite my dedication to the code, I was immediately stripped of my rank and cast aside, barely being given the benefit of the doubt. If it hadn't been for Anakin, the one person who believed me no matter what, it was very likely that my name would have never been cleared. And it hurt to see that the Jedi didn't truly concern for their own. I know it broke Anakin's heart to watch me leave, but I didn't have a choice. Lowering my head to the Jedi after what they had done to me — I refused to undergo that sort of humiliation."
"I see," Luke concurred hoarsely, and somewhere during her story, he pulled out a pendant from under his shirt and started to anxiously fidget with it. Trying to find comfort on physical materials, although that wasn't the Jedi way — but then again, wasn't he just hearing that the Jedi hadn't been right about everything?
"Where did you get that?" Ahsoka asked, intrigued, and she as well decided to focus on the little pendant rather than on her memories of the event that led her to leave the Jedi. She remembered seeing that design before, but her memory failed her and she couldn't reminisce from where.
"Hm? What?" he was momentarily lost, before turning to the pendant on the palm of his hand. "Oh. Anakin made it for Padmé, I believe. Padmé then gave it to Leia, and Leia gave it to me. I'm supposed to give it back to Padmé when I have no comfort left to obtain from it, but I haven't reached that serenity yet."
Ahsoka smiled discreetly, images of all the times she had seen Padmé wearing that in public coming to her mind. It was sweet, though, that she had passed it down to her children.
"She wouldn't mind if you kept it," Ahsoka inferred.
"I'm certain she wouldn't," Luke sighed, "But she gave it to Leia when Leia needed it the most, and Leia gave it to me when I needed it the most. I'm supposed to follow tradition and give it back to Padmé. She suffers a lot in quiet, you know, I might never know when she's in need of it, but I must still do the right thing and give it back to her."
Ahsoka chuckled at how he saw something that had only recently started to happen as tradition.
"Well, what do you think you're supposed to gain from it?" she asked, "What are you trying to attain?"
"Well," he seemed to think for a while, and the pendant fell from his hand and was now hanging over his neck. "Ahsoka, how do you feel about my father returning to the light?"
Ahsoka frowned, hearing Leia's deep sigh despite her eyes being fixated on Luke. Still, she did her best to answer him.
"I think it's poetic that even the most troubled and the most lost of souls still managed to find a way back home," she said softly, choosing her words carefully. Aiming to please one twin without setting off the other. "The galaxy doesn't owe Anakin their forgiveness. We don't owe Anakin our forgiveness. Still, it's a weight less off my chest, knowing that the man I knew wasn't completely erased. The man that fought for my absolution in the eyes of the Jedi Council came back to save his son from the Emperor, that's the Anakin I knew and loved. Yes, sometimes it makes me very sad to know that I wasn't enough to bring Anakin back to the light, even though I had once been the person he cared for the most, like his own daughter — safe from your mother, of course. But you saved him from the darkness, Luke. His own flesh and blood eventually reminded him of all the dreams he had dreamed for you and for himself. If that was what was needed to restore the light within him, all my resentment vanishes. In all honesty, I just want Anakin back. Wanted."
"Have you ever tried to contact him?" Luke asked, not diminishing everything else that Ahsoka had told him, but storing it safely on the back of his mind so he could ponder over it in the quietude of his meditations later on.
"Considering that Anakin is dead," Ahsoka pointed out with mockery, "No, it has not crossed my mind."
Luke gently chuckled. "Yes, Anakin is dead, but his print amidst the Force was very strong, so he lives for the rest of eternity within the light. If you call for him, if you really wish for him, his Force Ghost might just come to you."
Ahsoka was looking at him gravely, unlike the easy expression she had on before. "What are you talking about."
"I'm saying that even though Anakin is physically dead, he will always live in the reign of the Force," he said once again, dismissing the hostility in Ahsoka's tone. "If you don't believe me, just ask Leia. She's seen him too."
Ahsoka's glare quickly shifted to Leia, who sat there with a crossed face and crossed arms against her chest. Ahsoka ignored her behavior towards their conversation.
"Is it true, Leia? You saw Anakin too?"
"Yes, I saw Vader," Leia replied simply.
"How?" Ahsoka begged, "How is that possible?"
"I don't know," Luke said, "It just is. Anakin has made himself strong with the light again, and that's where he'll spend the rest of eternity."
Ahsoka's eyes were glowing. She did not know how to react from the knowledge that she could speak to her former master again, to see the man behind the mask once more. She hadn't heard before of that power that Luke told her about, but she believed him, and she would try it once she had found the peace of spirit to talk to Anakin.
"Anakin truly lives in the light again," Ahsoka commented to herself, lost in thoughts.
Luke's lips turned up. "Yeah. Funnily enough, that was Anakin's last words before he died. His acceptance of the light again."
Snapping herself out of her trance, Ahsoka focused on him again. She would like to know more about Anakin's return to the light, as brief as it was.
"His last words — they were a wish, actually. A request," Luke uttered, lowering his head, "I never got to fulfill his wish, though. I never wanted to hurt the person to whom it was addressed."
Leia's neck snapped towards him, as she knew he was talking about her.
So, she stared at him, until he grew restless from her gaze on him.
"He wanted me to tell my sister that I was right," he said, "That I was right about there still being good on him."
While her lips formed a thin line, her eyes burned.
"Why did you never tell me about it before?"
Luke laughed uncomfortably and ironically. "Honestly, Leia. Do you really think you've ever reacted well to this? To know that you were the last thought on his mind before he died in my arms? I didn't want to place this burden on you."
"You've chosen to place it now, though."
"Yeah, and see how well it's going."
"Did he know who I was back then?" Leia inquired, "When he pledged that I knew there was still good on him."
"I can't tell for sure," Luke admitted, "He learned about you when he invaded my mind to find my weakness, and he saw that you, my twin sister, were my weakness. I'd assume that, if he could find my twin there, he could have found your identity too."
Leia gazed away again. "That's nice, then. To know that the man who tortured me until I was writhing on the floor unable to breathe wanted me to know that my suffering was all in vain because he came back."
"But it wouldn't have been in vain if Anakin had died as Vader?!"
"Perhaps it wouldn't!"
"You're aware that I would have died if Anakin hadn't come back, right?"
Leia breathed out angrily, not replying to that.
"This is why I never told you before," Luke said, looking away as well. "I didn't want it to strain you any further."
Leia's arms went from crossed to wrapped around her belly; and just like that, her hostility was gone. "It's not your fault, Luke."
Luke shivered.
"You said that you've talked to Vader after his death," Ahsoka broke their discord, making sure to use Vader's name over Anakin's as she was addressing Leia. "How did that go?"
"Do you really think this is a good topic for the moment, Ahsoka?" Leia snapped.
"I do," Ahsoka conceded. "I think that you won't ever truly accept your identity to Vader until you talk to him. I assume that the last time you met him it didn't go well because if you shiver today at the mere mention of his, I don't expect it to have been any better any time in the past," she proposed. "Still, I do think you need to talk to him and address all the wrongs he did to you and to the galaxy. That's how you're going to finally achieve peace for yourself."
Leia became quiet again.
"She's right," Luke's voice was tender on her mind. Physically, they were facing each other again. "You need to put an ending to this pain you carry inside."
"What makes you think that talking to him will ease my pain?" she asked, vulnerably.
"Because, Leia, accepting the man that came before Vader eased mine," Luke poured it all, praying that it would make a difference even if they shared different minds.
Leia dove into his eyes, then she turned back to Ahsoka.
"I'm terrified of Vader."
Ahsoka smiled sadly, and, in an act of courage, she leaned forward to touch Leia's leg. "You have every right to be. And maybe addressing Anakin won't do anything to ease your fright towards Vader, but you'll learn how to live with it. You need to see for yourself that Vader is dead and that he can't hurt you anymore."
Her eyes were bright from her emotions.
"If I'm going to face — Anakin," she hesitated, "I need it to be on my own terms."
"Of course, Leia," Luke reassured her. "We're not pressuring you. You'll do it when you're ready, and — if you'd like, I can be there with you."
Looking down on her lap, Leia grabbed and held his hand tightly.
"Ahsoka, I need to bother you with something else," Luke broke abruptly, although he still held his sister's hand. "You told Leia that it's okay for her to be afraid, but the Jedi code predetermined that fear was a path to the Dark Side. If I'm going to restore the Jedi Order, I need to know of their flaws. I need to be better."
"You don't bother me, Luke," Ahsoka said. "Well. Looking back, now, at the way the Jedi acted and the way the Jedi fell, I can pinpoint a few flaws of theirs."
"Can you tell me?" Luke asked, "I feel like — I need to know how not to mess up again."
"The Jedi were against emotional attachments," Ahsoka blurted out. "They believed that forbidding love would be the means to stop their knights from being selfish and making choices in the battlefield to save those they loved over those in need. Granted, there's a thin line between passion and obsession, but love can't ever be a bad thing. In reality, love is the purest emotion that emerges from the light side, and it exists to counterfeit hatred. Because of Anakin's love for me, I was redeemed from the false accusations made against me. Because of your love for him, you saved Anakin. Love is a positive force in the universe; it's the reason why, in the end, good triumphed against evil."
"I don't believe in banishing attachment," Luke concurred. "I can't imagine my life without Leia, or Padmé, or even Han. My personal attachments are what made me who I am today, they've inspired me to move forward and be better. I can't forsake them."
"You shouldn't have to," Ahsoka agreed. "Then — the Jedi claimed they weren't afraid. That was the greatest lie of them all. The Jedi were terrified of the Dark Side. They used to say that there was no fear, there was only knowledge — well, maybe then they should have tried to actually understand the Dark Side, even if they would never use it. But their fear was so great that they completely avoided it, so they knew very little about the Dark Side, therefore making them very vulnerable to the Dark Side itself. If they had at least recognized their fears, they might have not willingly blinded themselves to the Sith that had been rising in power right in front of them."
"So you're saying… I should be afraid, but I should use my fear to guide me towards knowledge?"
"In a way," she concurred. "There's nothing wrong about not knowing things, so long as you don't settle back in ignorance, for whatever reasons. And the greatest thing about knowledge is — it moves forward too fast. There's no point in relying on a stock of knowledge when there's so much to see and to learn and to understand out there in the universe. You can never settle in your comfort zone, which brings me to another flaw of the Jedi — their arrogance."
Luke stared at her with a blank expression.
"With the Sith having been gone for over thousands of years, the Jedi grew too comfortable. This by itself is stupid, because the Sith isn't an entity, it's an idea; you can't stop an idea from living on and falling onto the wrong hands. The Jedi became too full of themselves, choosing to focus on their traditions and on their past when life is always in motion. I strongly believe that the Jedi's strict code was one of the many reasons that Anakin fell. Maybe, if the Jedi had only offered some of the guidance that Anakin so desperately needed, he wouldn't have been so easily manipulated by Palpatine."
"Power and comfort on traditions lead to arrogance," Luke inferred, and then sighed. "Ahsoka, do you think I will do good?"
Ahsoka's heart was filled with warmth from his simple question.
"I think you'll do great, Luke," she promised him. "I'm not saying you won't make mistakes, because you will, but you'll also learn from those mistakes. But I have faith in your perspective, just as I have faith that Leia will come in if she ever sees you doing anything that she doesn't agree with. Like I said, you two are one in the Force, but you're also complete opposites, in a sense that one completes the other. Your views, together, may hers be in politics while yours remain with the Jedi, will complement one another and the galaxy will thrive again. I believe it will."
Luke looked over at his sister, and he dared to smile at her.
"Now, there's a reason why I brought you to the Jedi Temple," Ahsoka changed the subject. "After everything that's happened in the past day, I would like you to meditate with me."
Luke was eager to accept, but he was utterly surprised when Leia agreed immediately.
"Yes."
Ahsoka smiled. "Thank you."
That day, in their meditation, the twins understood for the first time what it was like to be one with the Force.
A/N: watch me steal the concept of a dyad straight from kylo and rey, yes.
honestly, ever since tros came out, I've been somehow bitten that they wasted that concept on two strangers when the TWINS are right there. so I get to fix it and treat the twins right here on my universe :D
also, if I can find the time to write a 6k words long chapter during my finals week, you can take the time to leave me a comment ;)