All your years writhing in the darkness, waiting for the light and you never knew that you were the candle...that you were the lone flickering flame beating back against the shadows. You hoped, yearned for it but it never came. And you raged...mourned for that shattered hope.
It had been a small simple hope for a better life...a better path. It was a mere ember waiting for a breath of oxygen to fan it back to life once more. Until you finally gave into to that rage...that utter hate and allowed it to suffocate your spark.
You doubted yourself...you doubted others...you doubted your path.
Your arrogance lifted you to the very peak and with a single exhale it crumbled from beneath you...and you fell.
Down and down into the deepest pit you fell and still you flickered.
Still you hoped.
Even when agony and madness ruled your torn and mangled flesh...you hoped.
Then a small rush of light returned when you were wrenched from that pit but still that hatred choked at you...at your spark.
It created an inferno...a blaze within you but it was not what you had hoped for...this consumed you. Controlled you.
You hated it.
You tore at the light of others, shredding it from them, hoping to ply it to your own twisted...mismatched flesh...to smother that blaze. You extinguished their light...trying to make it yours.
You ruled an entire planet of people with bitter understanding, with a harsh but sometimes merciful hand. You were a source of inspiration for them.
Even that was taken from you and you fell once more.
You never saw the light yourself...you only saw the product of it.
You only saw the darkness.
Then at the very end...when you had felt like there was nothing left in you but the darkness...the hate and fear...in the barren wasteland you faced it...faced him.
You were fighting for revenge...but for who? The one that was ripped in half by him or for the little boy forced to hate rather than love? Forced to extinguish rather than enlighten?
And again with a single exhale, you fell but this time you were not alone.
In the arms of an enemy you finally see it...you finally see the truth.
You are freed from hate.
"Is the boy the chosen one?"
You hear yourself question.
"I believe he is."
He answers quickly...assuredly.
You are freed from fear.
"Good, he can avenge what has been done to us by Sidious then."
And as you gazed into the eyes of your enemy...you saw only pain and pity.
You saw sadness and respect where once there had been anger and disgust.
It was comforting and you felt a small flicker of hope again.
And with one last exhale...
You are finally freed from the darkness.
The warm flickering ember of crimson within shifted...
Becoming the fierce, steady cobalt flame you had searched for for so long.
Finally realizing that you were the light all along.
That you had only seen the shadows because only light can see the darkness it creates.
It can never see itself.
