"Kanan!" Ezra cried, suddenly waking up from the trance that the wolves put him under. For a moment he thought he was still trapped in that dream but the sky was it's unfortunately usual grey and he recognised the landscape around him once again. The only thing that was out of place was the shimmering figure standing a few feet away from him. The figure's hair had been haphazardly cut and his eyes were glazed white but this time through the pale aura surrounding him as opposed to blindness.

"Ez-" Kanan didn't even have time to finish his first word before his padawan had enveloped him in a deep hug. Ezra's arms were wrapped around him so tightly they blurred through the edges of the figure and the weight of his tears dissolved through his transparent mass.

"I'm so...so sorry!" Ezra sobbed. "If I had just been quicker or-"

"It wasn't your fault." Kanan said soothingly holding his padawan as close as the force would allow him. His own voice raw from emotion. "All is as the force wills it. It was my time and my decision."

"But why? Why did you have to die!" Ezra cried into his masters shoulder.

"To save you. So that you could fulfil your destiny

"What destiny?" Ezra asked in confused bitterness. In his mind he was still nothing but a loth-rat.

"You'll find out soon enough."

Not for the first time Ezra felt a surge of anger directed at the force. It wasn't fair. He never asked for any of this. If everything was as the force willed it then why did it have his parents die? Why was the force determined to give him a life of misery?

"You know, there were times when I wished I'd never met you on Lothal. So that you never had to experience the danger and loss that clung to me like death." Kanan sighed. He was only just tall enough to rest his chin on top of Ezra's head. "But then I remember all the good times we had and family we formed. And all the people that we couldn't have saved without your help and I realised that I was being selfish. As your master it isn't my job to shield you but to prepare you for what's to come."

The pair stayed there for a long moment. Each savouring the feeling of their arms around the other for what they knew would be the last time.

"Don't go." Ezra begged. "I need you. Hera needs you. The galaxy needs you. We all need you."

"I don't want to either" Kanan told him. "I wish I could be there to see you and Sabine grow up, to be there when Zeb and Kallus finally admit their feeling for each other, to see the empire fall, to meet my-"

He cut himself off with a strangled cry. Somehow the arms around Ezra got even tighter. If Ezra had ever wondered if Force ghosts could cry he now had his answer. Ezra held him as his master had done for him many times before. Eventually the sobs that ricocheted through his body started to quieten down. Kanan wipes his turquoise eyes and pulled out of the hug so that he could into his padawan's eyes for the first time in years.

"But remember as long as you believe in the force I will be there beside you."

Ezra looked deep into his eyes and new that he was telling the truth. He'd never doubted his master before and he wasn't about to stop now.

"Hand me your lightsaber." Kanan said. Slightly confused Ezra handed it over.

"Kneel."

Although he was still unsure of what was happening Ezra listened to his master.

"By the right of the council. By the will of the force. Ezra Bridger, my padawan, I now anoint you as a knight of the Jedi order."

Kanan announced. Ezra had never heard him sound so proud. In a blink Kanan had sliced his lightsaber with impossible precision breathes from Ezras head. Ezra let out the breathe he didn't know he'd been holding as he watched his padawan braid along with what remained of his childhood fall to the floor.

As he looked up he noticed Kanan's figure begin to flicker like a long distance hologram.

"Wait!" Ezra said, quickly getting up. "I can't watch you go again."

Kanan nodded in understanding placing a hand shoulder, a comfort both of Ezra's fathers used.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Ezra turned around. The last image of master's sad yet proud smile kept safely in his mind. He started walking off into the desert in the direction of his remaining family when he heard his masters voice all out one last time.

"And Ezra."

The young Jedi stopped but didn't turn around.

"Tell Hera I've always liked the name Jacen."

Ezra nodded although he wasn't sure what that had to do with anything. Why would Kanan be suggesting name-

oh.

Oh.

"I'll tell her." He promised.

He left the ghost of Kanan behind and moved forward with his life.