My bad. Cere and Tanalorr and our new recruit wait one more chapter. As usual, I wrote too much.

Thank you for all your remarks 17! I won't address them all for brevity's sake, but I also think Leia and our new Princess Organa will be great friends. Am working Han into a chapter in the not-too-distant future for you. And these boys break my heart too. Adolescence is a rough time.

The latest musical inspiration for Korkie's messy self: The Last Man on Earth by Wolf Alice. Bridge hits hard.

Chapter 30: An Undying Ember

Korkie had meant to leave Yaga Minor and embark for Tatooine without having any more arguments with anyone. He had self-awareness enough to know that he was in what his mother had once called her caustic moods, during which she had deliberately exiled herself to her study and written thousands of words of scathing speeches and radical policy that she would later dampen down to a more palatable version when her temper had quietened later in the week. But Mahdi had volunteered to come around on the morning that Korkie was planning to leave and Korkie hardly had the internal fortitude to say no to a chance at maybe feeling a little less miserable for an hour or two while they lay in each other's company and enjoyed each other's bodies instead of talking.

But Korkie had been on a losing streak since Arkanis and they never even made it to the bunk.

"What's all this?" Mahdi asked.

He had eyed Korkie's rucksack, propped up against the wall by the doorway, packed until its seams strained.

"Oh. That?"

Korkie fought back a grimace and tried at casualness.

"Nothing. I'm heading off for a while."

"Off?"

Mahdi folded his arms.

"Again, already? Where?"

"Off-planet."

"Obviously."

Mahdi cast his gaze around the apartment and seemed to sense just as keenly as Korkie that the place was no longer a home. That it had not been Korkie's home for many weeks now.

"Another job, I guess?"

Korkie nodded. But Mahdi was not fooled for a moment.

"Do you usually pack all of your belongings?"

Korkie shrugged.

"It's a big job."

Mahdi threw up his hands.

"Why are you bantha-shitting me? I can see that you're not planning on coming back any time soon. Which you used to have the decency to tell me."

It seemed so long ago, that morning in tenth sector's winding alleyways, when they had held each other. Korkie had been so afraid of never making it back from Arkanis that he had been unable to fathom that he could come back and still ruin everything.

"I didn't think you'd care," Korkie muttered.

"Really?"

Korkie snorted.

"You're talking like you don't pretend not to know me in public."

"Did it ever occur to you," Mahdi challenged, "that there's a strong correlation between people who hate those who are different to them and people who are willing to jump inside a stupid white suit of armour for a free blaster and the license to shoot whoever they want?"

And Korkie could see it so clearly: the barefoot woman being shot down in the street beneath that old apartment building. Mahdi's grief was pouring out of him into the Force, filling that tiny room.

"Which is why I thought you'd find it convenient if I left," Korkie muttered, in his own half-hearted defence.

"Right."

Mahdi didn't believe a word he was saying. Korkie couldn't understand how a man who didn't even know his name could know him so well.

"And look," he confessed. "Fine, Mahdi. I didn't know what to say. Because I'm going to be travelling all the time from now on, doing things by myself, and this mightn't be my home anymore, but I didn't want to say-"

He fumbled for his words.

"I wasn't brave enough to say-"

A gentle crinkle between his brows, Mahdi softened.

"Ben, you don't have to say goodbye," he murmured. "You could make it back here and then, right? Between jobs? We could still see each other another time?"

Korkie grimaced.

"But that's not fair to you, Mahdi. And I don't want to have to think about you being with other people. That's just going to-"

Mahdi gave something between a groan and a beat of laughter.

"Ben, you're being stupid. I really like you. I'm not going to be with anyone else."

"You say that now-"

"Are you crazy?" Mahdi appealed. "I never wanted to be with anyone at all. You are an exception I never planned on making, Ben, and I'm really, really not planning on doing this again with anyone else."

Korkie wasn't sure whether this was an insult or a deranged compliment. His voice cracked as he searched for words.

"I really like you too, Mahdi."

There was something that they were not saying. Something that Korkie could hear crying through the Force.

"Mahdi, I'll be honest-"

"About bloody time."

"I might sound a bit intense or crazy when I say it."

Mahdi barked out a laugh.

"You already do."

"Well, the thing is…" Korkie floundered. "When I first met you, Mahdi, I told you that I loved you, right?"

Mahdi snorted.

"You were drunk."

"Exactly," Korkie agreed. "But I haven't been drunk in a long time now. And I think I'm realising that I'm dangerously close to, uh…"

For once, Mahdi had no snarky reply to offer. He looked at Korkie, bewildered, mouth slightly ajar.

"Right."

"And that's just not a good thing, Mahdi," Korkie went on. "You don't want that. And I don't want that either. Because love is bantha-shit, right?"

He'd sworn it to himself in those years of conflicted childhood, watching his parents love and hate each other from afar. The words were pouring from the burning in his chest and he must have sounded crazy but he couldn't stop them.

"Love is miserable," he declared. "It's all about lying to each other and making promises you can't keep and making each other wait for this elusive happiness you sometimes get to share together but I frankly doubt it's kriffing worth it, Mahdi. It's lie after lie after lie and someone always ends up hurt and I don't want to be the person who-"

"I thought you didn't believe in trauma-dumping on each other," Mahdi accused.

"And I thought you did!"

They both stepped in at the same moment and their lips collided. There was no joy to this kiss. No victory. They were desperately lost even in each other's arms. Korkie tangled his fingers in Mahdi's hair and wished that the whole galaxy could just stop. But as they broke apart the weight of it all came crashing in.

"As I said, Mahdi," he muttered. "I have to go. I have a lot of shit to do. I can't stay."

Mahdi looked at him, stunned and then stoic.

"Well," he managed. "I hope you find some sort of therapist on your travels."

And Korkie could have laughed or he could have cried. As it happened, his chest spasmed with something in between. Mahdi gave him a wave and a brave sort of half-smile and disappeared, cursing beneath his breath, into the anonymity of the street.

The arrival of the ship was heralded by a few peculiar moments of silence between Luke and Leia that turned quickly into an ecstatic flurry of announcements.

"Korkie!"

"Nanna Shmi did you know-"

"Korkie-Korkie-Korkie-"

"We're not even tricking, Nanna-"

"Korkie-Korkie-Korkie-"

"Korkie's coming visiting, Nanna!"

"I hear you, young ones."

The boy who emerged from the ship was a man now, at least a head taller than he had been at fifteen-standard, the scar upon his nose faded from pink to white. His smile was weary but genuine as he greeted the barrelling twins, who kicked up clouds of burning sand in their race to embrace him.

"Korkie-Korkie-Korkie-"

"But you haven't come for so long-"

"You even got a new ship!"

"And when we saw you before we were only little-"

"-but now we are so big and tall!"

Korkie appraised these two small whirlwinds before him, crouching down despite the radiant heat of the sand. He beheld them and Shmi knew that he was seeing the sheer miracle of them, the brightness of them, everything that the Empire wanted to crush. He looked at them, smile broad but eyes glazed and distant.

"Children, let him breathe, please. Come out of the sun, Korkie."

Korkie let out the quiet groan of a soldier hiding injuries as he rose to stand again and embraced Shmi over the heads of the children.

"It's good to see you, Shmi. I'm sorry it's been so long. And I'm sorry for coming unannounced again. I just needed to swing past and collect something…"

He cast his eyes down to the children who were now embracing his legs.

"But I suppose I could stay a short while."

"One night minimum," Shmi declared, leading them back in towards the shade. "No one can swing past Tatooine. It's too far from anything."

Korkie gave a grudging smile.

"Yeah. I know."

"The three fit young ones are on an expedition to Mochot Steep. Owen is convinced they'll find cheaper vaporator parts there," Shmi informed him, as they walked. "They won't return until this evening. And Anakin would be furious if I let you leave without seeing him."

"I'll stay."

The trooped back into the shelter of the house where the twins embarked on a mad quest to present to Korkie all of the items they had acquired and demonstrate of all the new skills they had learned in the time since they had last seen him. Shmi knew that the tight cocoon that Anakin had woven about his son and daughter was loving and that it kept them safe but it was beginning, already, to cut into their skin like a set of clothes they had long outgrown.

"And watch! Watch how I can jump!"

Leia leapt from a chair, onto the dinner table, and down once more, with all the solemn focus that one might muster to jump a desert canyon.

"And even I can jump from this chair onto that chair or also from this chair onto the floor."

"That's easy," Luke declared. "I even can jump like this and do a spin-"

"My goodness. Such acrobatics!"

Korkie collapsed into the only chair that the children had not yet stomped their sandy boots all over.

"You two could join the circus."

"What's a circus?" Leia asked.

Korkie looked at her with faint pity. The childhood of a Mandalorian prince, perhaps, was filled with circuses.

"A troupe of travelling performers," he explained. "They wear beautiful costumes and put on a show with all sorts of tricks."

"Tricks like somersaults?" Luke asked.

"Yes. Exactly. Or cartwheels."

Leia's eyes filled with joy.

"Circus! Luke, let's go practice circus! Tonight we can make a circus!"

Leia took her twin by the wrist and dragged him in the direction of their bedroom. Shmi gave Korkie a knowing smile, offering him a cup of blue milk and coming to sit at the table herself.

"They're growing magnificently, as you can see."

"It's wonderful," Korkie managed.

But Shmi did not miss the lingering sadness in the young man's gaze that even this cacophony of joy had been unable to erase.

"The galaxy is not so full of laughter beyond this farm," she ventured.

Korkie gave the gracious half-smile of being caught out.

"I've certainly not been to any circuses," he conceded.

He took a sip of the proffered milk, rubbed a hand over his forehead.

"I messed up, Shmi," he sighed. "On a recent mission. Mace died and I think it's probably all my-"

"No," Shmi interrupted, her voice quiet but firm. "Certainly not."

Korkie looked at her, half-irritated, half-relieved.

"I haven't even told you the first thing about what happened."

"You don't need to," Shmi told him.

Korkie shrugged miserably.

"It's not that easy for me. To be so sure. To say it wasn't my fault."

"I know."

Shmi laid a hand upon his.

"But I'll keep telling you until you can begin to believe it."

For that was what a mother was for, wasn't it? And the man before her was not yet truly grown to adulthood and he needed a mother. There were lines in his cheeks with his effortful smile.

"Thanks, Shmi."

In the next room, the children were shrieking with delight – no doubt some new acrobatic feat they had invented, or the debut of an outrageous costume.

"What have you come to collect?" Shmi asked.

Korkie's shoulders sagged.

"My armour."

"You've been injured?"

"Nothing serious. But I'm realising it's only a matter of time."

There was a bumping sound and the rapid deterioration of joy into tears.

"I believe that's the sound of Leia's prodigious head hitting the floor," Shmi mused, rising to stand. "Don't get up, Korkie. If it were serious, Luke would be here already. He knows these things."

Korkie, who'd been briefly panic-stricken by the unfamiliar cry, relaxed in his chair.

"You're very wise, Shmi."

Shmi snorted.

"You're only saying that because my hair's gone grey."

Finally, Korkie smiled earnestly.

"I'm saying it because it's true."

Anakin, Owen and Beru returned to the farm with three enormous bags filled with not only mechanical parts but a swathe of new leather and linens and several packets of non-perishables.

"But did you get us any presents?" Leia asked, tugging at her father's shirt.

"You said you would get us a present," Luke insisted.

Anakin smiled, unpacking the last of the sealed bags with great ceremony.

"Eat your dinner, then you can have your present."

The twins gasped in unison as they beheld their gift: a small bag of dried fruit. Anakin had coveted these treats himself at marketplace stalls so many years ago. In a world of yellow and brown and grey, the pieces of red and purple fruit caught the light like tiny jewels. This was one of a thousand reasons Anakin had felt an idiot in those first days in the Jedi Temple; he had never imagined in his wildest dreams that he might eat food of such brilliant, varying colour every day. He'd thought his first meal in the Temple was some sort of celebratory feast and had been unable to understand why no one else was excited.

And his children would grow just as ignorant. Anakin tried to fend off the familiar twinge of guilt. Their safety was worth any cost.

"You can have some after dinner," Cliegg advised.

Shmi watched the children's renewed efforts with caution.

"Please don't choke, dear ones."

But no one choked and Luke and Leia enjoyed their dessert with the blissful ignorance of children who had never once seen a flower, let alone a fruit tree. They performed their circus, wearing their father's spare undershirts as turbans and capes, and a bruise on Luke's knee was added to the one that had already bloomed a few hours prior on Leia's forehead. The suns sank below the Tatooine horizon and the heat fled to space and the land became quiet and still in the way it always did. The children's laughter turned into quiet murmurs and then to sleep. The calls of the Raiders were distant. The stone walls of the home were solid and unchanging. Anakin extricated himself from the compelling chorus of his own doubts – Shmi had warned him that parenting was like this, that there was always some new failure to fear – and opened himself properly to the presence of his younger brother, chin rested in his hands across the table from him.

"You've been better," Anakin observed.

Korkie, whose mind had been cast far away, blinked and straightened and attempted something of a laugh.

"You can tell?"

He sat back in his chair, took a deep breath, and spat it all out as though afraid he mightn't manage it otherwise.

"Mace died. Saving us and fourteen children from the Inquisitors. Then my least favourite Inquisitor nearly killed me for the third time the other week. And she injured Cody, which was my fault. Not to mention I'm in love."

All of the grief that had burst into the night air between them seemed to have deflated Korkie; he looked smaller now, sitting in that chair. And Anakin felt as though the great weight of it was settling on his own chest now, crushing him, turning him heavy as lead.

Mace had died. Mace Windu, who had loomed as all but invincible when he had first looked down upon Anakin in the Council chambers, had died while Anakin, the hell-damned kriffing Chosen One, lived in safety on Tatooine.

"Don't you go looking so guilty," Korkie grumbled. "It's my fault, not yours."

This, at least, snapped Anakin from his own anxious spiral. He fixed his younger brother with stern gaze.

"I'm sure that's not true."

"Why does everyone here think they know what happened?"

But Korkie's protest was half-hearted and he slumped forward to rest his head upon his forearms.

"Anyway, really, I didn't mean to burden you with all of this. I know that you're not interested in fighting the Empire. I just came by to collect by armour so that the Second Sister doesn't eviscerate me in our next fight."

"Eviscerate you?"

Korkie lifted his shirt to display his newest scar.

"She tried."

"That's horrible."

Korkie shrugged it off. It seemed impossible then, that he was the beloved only son of the galaxy's most tragic pacifist. Anakin saw Satine with Almec's burn around her neck, saw her standing before a hostile Senate while assassins plotted outside. All the things she'd done for peace. And Anakin had the horrible sinking feeling of having failed her.

"You could stay here, you know. As long as you needed."

Korkie didn't need to voice his dissent. His sombre gaze was enough.

"Now, what's this about being in love?"

"Just that I am," Korkie answered. "And that it's miserable."

Anakin gave a gentle smile.

"I'm sorry. I wish I could give you advice but-"

"-you were already in love with your future wife at nine-standard, I know."

Anakin snickered.

"You're a much more normal teenager than I was," he offered. "By all accounts, your parents couldn't stand each in their adolescence."

At this, Korkie snorted, a wry smile working its way upon his face.

"They would never have been anything more than the galaxy's most chaotic, toxic fling if it hadn't been for me."

"Perhaps not."

Anakin did not want to even begin to consider what his life might have been like if not for Korkie. If Obi Wan had not been forced to learn how to love. Korkie was sitting upright again, frowning in effortful reminiscence.

"They were so young," he professed, eventually. "I wish I could remember what they were like. Now that I'm nearly…"

He looked to Anakin.

"Were they different back then?"

"Well…"

Anakin remembered it with sparkling clarity. The blue skirt that the Duchess had worn when she had greeted them for breakfast in the palace. The startling pallor of her face. Her unfailing posture.

"Your mother wasn't so different," he mused. "I remember being amazed from the first time I ever saw her by how resolute she was. With this planetary system to govern and this secret baby hidden in her wardrobe."

He shook his head in wonderment.

"She knew exactly who she was, Korkie. She knew exactly the person she wanted to be and what she wanted to make of her life."

Korkie's Force-signature panged with faint envy.

"But your dad…" Anakin went on. "He didn't know. He was full of anxiety and guilt and…"

The collar of his hastily-acquired Padawan's robes that Obi Wan had tried to fix a hundred times.

"And such a kriffing snob, also," Anakin chuckled, before sobering. "You and Satine changed him, Korkie. When he first met me, he had all of these different ideas of the person he was supposed to be: the Council's idea, Qui Gon's idea, Satine's idea. The person he wanted to be for me. The person he wanted to be for you."

Anakin found a faint smile at the memory.

"It wasn't easy, Korkie, by any means. But I think that in the year or two after you were born he learned what sort of person he wanted to be: someone who took care of his son and his riduur and his Padawan. Someone who protected those who needed it. And I think he was happier once he learned that about himself."

Korkie considered this with glazed eyes, before snapping to smirking attention.

"So your great advice is that I should solve my identity crisis by having a baby?"

Anakin rolled his eyes.

"As I said, I'm not the right person to give you any advice."

Korkie regarded him with cautious challenge.

"You've not found all your answers, raising the kids on this farm?"

A thud in Anakin's chest. The lurch of fear no Jedi should know.

"Not all of my answers, Korkie," he managed, voice tight. "But enough. Enough for now."

Korkie softened.

"I know. It would just make me feel better to know that one day, maybe…"

He shrugged.

"Sorry. Forget it."

And Anakin wanted to be able to tell him what he wanted to hear. That one day he would be strong enough to fight those battles. To fulfil the prophecy that had crippled him all his life. But he could not bring the words to his lips.

"You're growing so fast, Korkie," he professed, instead. "I'm sorry I'm not beside you."

Korkie gave an easy but perhaps not entirely convincing smile.

"Don't worry about it. Luke and Leia are growing faster. They need you more."

And that was certainly true. There were frightening glimpses of adulthood in his young children already. His daughter's burning will and his son's gaze trained with such fixation upon the night sky. He could teach them to blunt their emotions and contains their powers but he could not stop them dreaming of a life beyond this farm.

"Speaking of growing fast," Anakin mused. "It'll be your eighteenth lifeday soon. Promise me you'll find a nice way to celebrate?"

Korkie chuckled.

"I celebrated my eighteenth lifeday already, actually. Last year."

Anakin frowned.

"Last year?"

"I decided to skip seventeen-standard," Korkie explained.

Anakin gave a laugh of disbelief.

"And how did that work out for you?"

"Very well, at first."

Korkie rubbed at his weary brow. There were flashes of visions and feelings that his shields could no longer hold back. The swooping fluorescent lights of a cheap club. The surging adrenaline of skin on skin. Anakin saw the young man and knew that he could, at least, put one fear to bed: there would be no accidental pregnancy.

"But I suppose, upon reflection…"

Korkie gave a self-deprecating smile.

"Not my best year, perhaps."

Korkie would transport the armour in its case; he had several hours of fiddling with the expanders ahead of him to make it fit him again and that job would be better done in transit than on the floor of Owen and Anakin's workshop. He wasn't sure where he was going next, exactly. He had not yet heard any whispers of the Second Sister's resurfacing but had no doubt that the damage he and Cody had inflicted upon her ship had not killed her. He might be able to lure her over, he thought, by flitting around Jabiim again.

But the trouble with taking the case was that it also contained the Family Book, wedged in between his helmet and shoulder guards as though to stop the former rolling around. And what was he supposed to do with that? He couldn't carry it with him. There would be no time for reminiscence and it would hardly do to have it burned or smashed to pieces as most of his ships seemed to end up.

He placed it on the shelf between Anakin's Almanac of Protocol Droid Models: 3619 ATC and Cliegg's presumably long-memorised edition of GX8 Moisture Vaporator Series: Trouble-shooting for Common Problems. There was nothing to be gained by revisiting those pages today. His family could wait for him here.

There would be a time, one day, to sit down and trace his finger over those faces again. When his battles had been won. When he could finally allow those wounds to gape and bleed again.

Today, he lifted his armour and strode out to his waiting ship.

Kenobi's kid had always been a karking headache and in the armour of his mother's lineage he was ten times worse, turning up like some sort of bounty hunter on her tail and picking fights like no Jedi was trained to do. Trilla had done a lot worse in her life as the Second Sister than cut off some clone's arm but in doing so she had apparently crossed a line and made a personal enemy of the Prince of Mandalore. Sidious would be pleased with her, Trilla thought vaguely, if she weren't currently banished from his court. She had brought out an anger in him that would make him a good Inquisitor. He wrestled with it, repressed it, but from Jabiim to Yarma to Kubindi in all their battles he carried it with him, an undying ember in his chest.

"What would your mother think of her son the vindictive soldier?" Trilla taunted, leaping out of the path of his sweeping Darksaber.

Korkie's face, usually so expressive even in the heat of battle, was hidden now behind a beskar helmet. Regardless, Trilla could almost see him rolling his eyes.

"That's old news in the self-loathing department, Trilla. I've been failing my mother's legacy for years. Try again."

"You think I'm convinced by your attempts to hide your anger?"

"Anger? You merely get on my nerves, Second Sister. As siblings do."

Trilla tutted as their blades clashed.

"We're not siblings. Unless you hope to join the Inquisitorius, of course."

Korkie laughed.

"I couldn't surrender my beskar'gam for that unflattering shiny plastic. Besides, Trilla, I didn't think you even were an Inquisitor anymore. Weren't you banished after losing all the children and burning down your own Academy?"

And so on and so forth. She couldn't kriffing avoid him. They seemed doomed to meet every time Trilla thought she might finally be back on the path to Cere Junda, holding her up until one of them dealt a wounding blow and the other, with the wind knocked from their chest, made a hasty escape lest their opponent capitalise on a moment of vulnerability. He was in the habit of talking to her between blows like he truly did believe himself to be her annoying brother. He was, in any case, the only sentient she'd really spoken to in her time in exile from the Emperor's tutelage.

It was only in moments of solitude, of silence, that Trilla reconnected once more with the agony of her master's betrayal and found her anger again.

The boy was trying to blunt her, to soften her. But Trilla was a weapon as solid as his beskar and she would not be stopped. She would finally defeat him in the next battle – or the next battle, she kept telling herself, or the next one – and fight her way to her true prize.

On what would have been Korkie's eighteenth lifeday – Anakin had no doubt that he was neglecting the celebrations, wearing beskar and causing trouble – the children were portioned out the next serving of imported dried fruit to celebrate in his stead. Anakin did not label the occasion aloud. His children were restless enough as it was and reminder of their travelling uncle would spark all sorts of questions and probably a meltdown or two by the evening's end.

"Are there planets that are this colour?"

Standing in bare feet on the cooling sand, Luke held up a pink cube of fruit against the night sky and squinted to give himself the illusion of some distant planet.

"Zeltros," Anakin supplied. "In the Inner Rim."

Luke tossed his tiny Zeltros into his mouth.

"And is the sand pink there?" he asked, as he chewed.

"No, the atmosphere. Clouds in the sky make it appear pink from space."

"Clouds?" Luke asked. "Like what rain comes from?"

"Yes."

Luke gave a contented sigh.

"When I build my ship," he pledged, "I will go to Zeltros."

Anakin said nothing. It was the easiest way.

"When I build my ship," Leia proposed instead, "I will go to a planet with trees. Big, big, big trees with branches that stretch-"

She waved her own arms illustratively.

"-and make shade from the sun. And they will be so green."

"What colour is Uncle Korkie's planet?" Luke asked.

Anakin set his jaw.

"Grey, now."

His children stopped in their circuitous paths through the sand, sensing his sobriety.

"What happened to Uncle Korkie's planet?" Leia asked.

"War," Anakin answered. "And then the Empire. They destroyed Korkie's planet because-"

Because the Duchess and her son tried to save your mother. Because the Duchess saved the two of you.

"-because they didn't behave like the Emperor wanted them to."

Even in the faint moonlight, Anakin could see that the colour had drained from his children's faces.

"No one can destroy a whole planet," Luke challenged, voice wobbling.

"The planet still exists," he clarified. "But not many lifeforms live there anymore."

Luke's lip began to tremble. Anakin knelt down with a rush of guilt.

"Lukey, I'm sorry. I-"

He welcomed his tearful son into the metallic embrace his children had always known him by. Leia stood back, arms folded, fighting tears of her own.

"You're being mean," she accused.

"The Empire is dangerous," Anakin repeated, voice hushed now. "I wish it weren't true, Leia, but I need you both to understand…"

He reached out a clinking arm for her. She stood, still, out of reach.

"It's important that you know how lucky we are to live here, far away from the Core where the Empire cannot so easily reach us."

There were new footsteps across the sand then. Leia ran to greet Beru, throwing herself into her aunty's arms.

"Dad is being mean," she sobbed. "About the galaxy."

"It's alright, Leia."

At four-years-standard and taller every day, Leia really was too big to be held on her hip like a toddler. But Beru held her anyway, stroking the dark hair that she so loved to brush and braid as Leia nestled her damp face into her shoulder.

"Shall we get you to bed?"

Anakin rose to his feet, scooping Luke up with him.

"I think so."

The children, in their tearfulness, surrendered to bed on the proviso that Nanna Shmi would tell them a story.

"A happy story," Leia demanded. "About the beautiful planets."

Shmi obliged with a murmured tale of oceans and corals and silver fish. Anakin, beyond the bedroom door, wished he could shrink down the whole galaxy to this farm. Wished that his children could be happy in this place.

"Your mum told me once about the day she sent you away with Master Qui Gon," Beru ventured, joining him outside the twins' bedroom, leaning against the whitewashed wall. "About how scared she was to set you free."

Anakin dropped his gaze to the boots encasing his prosthetic feet.

"She was right to be scared," he murmured.

Beru nodded.

"But she was also right to let you go."

Anakin looked at her and wanted to argue but could not find the strength in his aching chest. To speak the names of all those he had failed. Of all those he had lost. To tell her of how close he had come to falling.

"In your freedom you became a great warrior," Beru mused. "You saved lives all over the Republic. You fell in love. You gave life to these children."

She reached out a hand and gave him shoulder a comforting squeeze. Her thumb grazed back and forth, from living flesh to metal and back again.

"You'll have to do that for them, you know. One day. Give them their freedom."

"Not for a long time," Anakin mumbled, dropping his gaze again.

It was his only consolation against the heavy truth of Beru's words. She acknowledged him with a small smile.

"But as they grow, Anakin, you must too."

Anakin nodded but could say nothing. He looked down at his mismatched prosthetic hands.

How could he keep growing?

He was twenty-six-standard and he'd lost enough for a whole lifetime. He'd found steadiness, now, finally, beneath his feet.

How could they ask him to lose any more?

Well, Lord Aries, things are a bit happier on Tatooine? I bet Luke and Leia performed a splendid circus.

Next chapter we will actually go to Tanalorr, as promised. Months pass. The Hidden Path finds a new member. And Korkie finds himself drawn back to Yaga Minor sooner than expected.

xx - S.