Learning more about where you come from can sometimes jumpstart a badly needed healing process. Takes place sometime after The Last Battle but before Visions and Voices


"All the armor was back in its place the next morning and until the day they transferred out no one could ever look at Arch or Lightfoot without fighting back a laugh."

Laughing was just what Kanan's current companions did.

"And no one ever knew you were responsible?" Wolffe asked once he had his breath back.

Kanan shrugged. "My master could have guessed but she never said anything. No one else even had a clue."

Rex shook his head. "Nah, I can't believe that."

"Hey now, I can be very sneaky when I want to be. Besides there were plenty of other troublemakers in the unit who were a lot louder than I was. Quiet ones can lay low easier."

Ezra snorted and tossed another stick on their campfire. "Guess that explains why Sabine gets away with everything."

"She doesn't," Kanan informed him. "Trust me, she gets in trouble just as much as you do."

"Uh huh sure."

"Ezra just because you don't see it happen-"

"Everyone sees it when it happens to me!"

"So anyway," the clone captain broke in, "if you were such a quiet child - which I don't believe for a second by the way - how'd you end up catching a Jedi Master's attention in the middle of a war?"

"Not in the way you might think. It started the day of my Initiate trials. Only me and two other students passed, but in the process..."


"Hey."

Kanan lifted his head at the sound of his padawan's voice. "It's late Ezra. You have watch in a few hours."

"I know, I'm going to go rest. I just wanted to say thank you."

"What for?" He could hear the boy's feet shuffling hesitantly in the dirt and slowly uncurled from his meditative position, gesturing to the ground next to him. "Talk to me," He ordered softly.

"I know it's still hard for you to talk about your master, or about what happened to the two of you during the war. But it's nice when you do, makes things more...real. Not that they weren't before but-"

"I understand. There's so much I wish you could have experienced. People I wish you could have met. Our lineage, Master Yoda, even Anakin Skywalker, although I know the two of you together would've been one massive headache to deal with. Instead you get me." He said it lightly but Ezra elbowed him anyway.

"You're more than enough." Ezra tapped his knee for a minute or two, thinking. "You said our lineage. I know about Master Billaba of course, but you've never really said anything about the others. Who were they?"

"Well she trained under a Jedi master named Mace Windu."

Ezra made a noise of recognition. "I remember seeing him in one of the training modules. Looked like he was really something. How well did you know him?"

"Not as well as I wish I could have. He was second in command so to speak on the Jedi Council, and they had a lot to deal with even before the Clone Wars started so Initiates and younger children never saw much of him. And by the time I became a Padawan he was fully involved in the war. He was...unique from what I hear. Scared the you-know-what out of most people who met him but I don't think that was always intentional. My master remembered her time with him fondly. He was part of the fight to liberate Ryloth early in the war so Hera's father has nothing but good things to say about him too. Hera was a little too young to really remember that time but she once said she remembers thinking he was a hero."

His padawan absorbed this with barely a pause before moving on to his next question. "Who was his master?"

Kanan tilted his head thoughtfully. "It's difficult to say. If I remember my lineage studies right, Masters T'ra Saa and Cyslin Myr were the two who he spent the majority of time training with."

"Wait, he got two?"

"More than that actually. It had pretty much gone out of style by the time he took on my master, probably out of necessity, but Padawan training used to be supervised by a few different masters, with one taking sole responsibility only in the last couple of years before knighthood was granted."

"Huh. That must have been difficult."

"Why do you say so?"

"Well suppose all those masters didn't view the Force the same way? Or if one favored negotiation over fighting, and another one thought the opposite? What if the one that took charge of you for the last part of training wasn't the one you connected with the most? For that matter how would the Master-Padawan bond work? Being pulled five different directions does not sound enjoyable!" Ezra shuddered. "It's hard enough having you sometimes, the last thing I'd want is a whole bunch of people prying around in my head."

The run of questions would have sent Kanan into an amused reminiscing if the last sentence hadn't brought him up short.

"Ezra," he spoke up firmly, "I have never once 'pried around' inside your head." He couldn't see the side-eyed look his kid sent him but the impression of it was there all the same. Before he could find a way to assure him he was speaking the truth, Ezra changed the subject.

"Do you know if any of those masters survived order 66?"

Kanan took a minute to process the question then shook his head. "Rumor has it Master Windu was killed fighting Sidious just before the order went out. Master Myr died long before I was born." He paused, a frown just showing over the edge of his mask. "Master Saa though…"

"What?" Ezra finally asked.

The Jedi rubbed his bearded chin. "I might be wrong, but there's a possibility her and a couple of others could have been far enough out of sight to have escaped."

"How?"

"During our second to last mission, I remember waking up in the middle of the night and hearing my master speaking to our unit commander. He was asking something about whether any Jedi had ever fallen in love. She mentioned Master Saa and said that her and another Jedi had recently gone off together. Supposedly it was to find the other master's former padawan who'd been undercover trying to track down a Separatist leader. It turned out during that time that knight had also fallen in love, and was trying to find a safe place for his lover and child to live out the rest of the war. Saa and…Tholme, I think his name was, had had a connection for years, and my master suspected they wouldn't be returning when the mission was over. If they'd truly left to go into hiding then they had a better chance of surviving the purge than anyone else. And Saa was a Neti as well. Members of her species live for centuries, so she could easily be alive even now. "

Ezra was quiet for a much longer period, eventually asking, "Did a lot of Jedi fall in love back then?"

"If they did they kept it to themselves. Very few were brave enough to risk what would have happened if the council found out."

"What business was it of theirs?"

Kanan sighed. "One of the fundamental teachings of the Order was that getting attached to someone put a Jedi at risk of doing whatever it took to keep that person safe. That love led to fear of loss which ultimately could lead to the dark side."

Ezra's signature clouded and Kanan immediately kicked himself. His padawan was still nervous and withdrawn when it came to certain topics, and anything to do with the Sith or the dark side topped that list. Reacting fast he managed to get an arm around the boy, pulling him close. Every line of Ezra's body screamed with tension at the contact but he allowed Kanan to tuck him against his side.

"Hey, listen to me. There's one very important thing you need to know about our lineage."

"What's that?"

"One and all, we've all touched the darkness." He felt Ezra's gaze lift to his face and nodded firmly in response to the silent question. A few moments passed before he continued, quietly but with a tone full of conviction. "It's not a sign of a bad heart. I don't have any references to back this up but I'm willing to believe more Jedi fell due to a well intentioned desire to help and protect others than for any other reason."

"Like I did."

"Like you almost did. I would have sensed it if you had gone all the way."

"Would you have?" Amazingly, Ezra's question didn't carry any derision or bitterness. Not that Kanan would have blamed him if it had. Instead it was artless, almost desperate, and he couldn't help but wrap both his arms tightly around his padawan, kissing his hairline gently.

"Being exposed to what Vader and the inquisitors feel like is not something easily forgotten. You never got that far. And even if you had, I refuse to believe you couldn't have come back from it. There were some stories I heard about my grandmaster, I don't know if they were true, but if they were, then I'm led to believe the dark side might not be impossible to manage. But it's an infinitesimally fine line between managing something and being managed by it. I'd rather neither of us make the attempt."

Ezra sniffed and pulled away, keeping his hands on the elder's arm. "Don't worry about me, I've no desire to try that again."

Kanan smiled and bumped his shoulder. "I'm always going to worry about you. That's my job."

The younger man hesitated, then reached for his master's signature in the Force. Recently he hadn't been able to stand touching that connection for long, too worried Kanan would sense the remnants of the coldness that still clung to him. If being alone was the price he had to pay for that…

You're not alone. Their bond flared with concern and compassion as he felt Kanan give him a nudge, not pushing, just waiting patiently for him to make the next move. I'm here, however long it takes. One day it'll be alright again.

It wasn't much of a promise, but for this night, Master and Padawan found it was enough.


Masters Myr, Saa, Tholme and the general outline of the story(ies) Kanan tells (minus the very, very opening bit - I made that up) are the property of whoever wrote the comics they appear in. I put it all together using Wookieepedia info.

This isn't my favorite chapter but I thought "Lineage Bedtime Stories" was a cute idea (anyone wants to run with that, be my guest, just let me know so I can read) and this lineage in particular is pretty interesting. Also - and maybe this was more of the point? - I don't imagine Ezra just "got over" his experience with the Sith Holocron and his separation from Kanan as quickly as the show depicted. He probably carried guilt for a long time, and there's several ups and downs between them in season 3 especially with Maul refusing to leave him alone. Next chapter goes into that more.