milliways_bar | A one-time special preview...

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A one-time special preview...

The cantina has been in full swing for some hours by the time the Door ripples a little. It doesn’t so much as open as give a phantom, somewhat glowing image of opening, and there is a flicker of blue on the other side ever so briefly. A moment later, a man more or less materializes out of thin air with a visible flinch, dressed in what are a very obvious darker variant on Jedi robes, cloak and all. (At least they aren’t black.) His face would look surprisingly young, but for the scarring of healed wounds and streaks of grey in his brown hair; as it is, he could be in his late forties. He’s frowning down at his hands as he flexes the right one experimentally.

Actual, real, flesh-and-bones limbs inside Milliways are still disconcerting, for so many reasons.

The sound of the band makes him look up, startled, and promptly glare at his surroundings. As he sighs explosively and begins to stalk past them towards the Bar, the music shifts into a different tune. He turns his bright blue eyes on them in absolute bewilderment and incredulity. As he raises his eyebrows at them, knowing only that this has something to do with him, the band goes very briefly silent—and then breaks into an even jauntier playing of the theme.

Anakin Skywalker just shakes his head and continues his stalk towards the Bar to get himself a drink, taking in the sight of the mock-weapons and the games as he moves. His eyes linger on the banners in obvious confusion. "You," he tells the Bar, "have absolutely no taste. This place? Really?" In response, the Bar just pops up a Rebellion napkin with a little smiley face drawn on it, making him snort.

The band eventually returns to its usual fare. As for the man himself, Anakin can be found throughout the day, sometimes at the Bar or in a booth in a corner, poking at the food and piece of cake waitrats have helpfully provided him with. Sometimes he might be found near the flight pad, peering around the ships with a critical eye, sometimes with expressions of fond reminiscence. Sometimes he's even lingering around the race track, eyeing the vehicles thoughtfully and with an expression of longing, like he's not entirely sure he's allowed to play.

And for a while--maybe even a very long while--he is out at the sparring grounds, cloak tossed carelessly on a bench to the side, a bright blue blade tracing abstract patterns in the air as he steps through lightsaber kata with deadly grace. He might be just a little bit dead, but hey, there’s no point in getting out of shape, right?

[OOC: Just be glad it isn't Vader, y'all. I was tempted.]

[ooc edit: oh yeah probably all the spoilers for tfa on that first thread whoops]

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At some point, Ahsoka returns from seeing what people are up to outside to feel Anakin's presence. She makes a quick stop at Bar to get two mugs of some of the not so regulation alcohol the clones would make, and heads over. (She may have used that time to gauge the balance of her old Master within the Force.)

"You got old, Skyguy," she says with a smirk as she takes a seat and passes over a mug.

No fears, Ahsoka--that particular balance (and it is true balance) of his indicates pretty well this is the Anakin who taught her about Force Ghosts because after everything hell if he was going to lose her a second time. He pulls the mug closer and raises an eyebrow at her.

"I got old?" he says rather pointedly. He's not the one who lived well past four decades. (He really does have such babyface, he would not look even as old as he does if not for two and a half decades of torture.)

Edited 2017-05-25 15:11 (UTC)

"I've earned every single one of these wrinkles," she replies, proud of each of them. She takes a sip of the hooch and winces as always. "I don't get why Mos Eisley, but it's nice to see a bit of home."

Anakin glowers around the Bar. "I believe she thinks it's funny." It doesn't really help that any such joke is on him almost entirely--although this time, maybe not. "I think it might have something to do with Luke. Intel is that he met Solo in Mos Eisley."

That slightly sour note in his voice? Yeah, he has problems with Han. Han always annoyed him, then married Leia (she deserves so much better), and then had to go and die heroically so Anakin can't even gripe about him anymore. Corellian nuisance.

"I met Solo once. Quite a charmer and crafty, in his way. I can see why he was so valuable to the Rebellion."

When a surviver reaches beyond themselves to fight for others, amazing things happen. And, okay, maybe she's baiting her old friend a little. "Leia seemed happy with him, for a time."

Yeah, just a little.

Anakin just gives Ahsoka a long and level look about the word "charmer." And, for that matter, "crafty." Solo was stupid enough to take a shot at him. Also, he's not charming, he's annoying, and he will never understand what Leia saw in him.

... Except, he now concedes, that the man really does love her. And Ben. Dammit. "Before he left her." Slight growl? Yes. He beyond poorly by his daughter, he knows, but... well. He can still be overprotective in retrospect, right?

(He's always been a hypocrite, why stop now?)

Smugglers have a charm Ahsoka knows Anakin will never see. She's had her own brush with one once long ago.

"Unfortunately, yes," Ahsoka says with regret. So much pain after Ben's fall out. "It is hard to watch the lives people chose for themselves when we can't even talk to them to give, at the least, advice."

Anakin gives her a side-long glance. That comment feels... rather pointed, somehow, considering his own history--but then, he has a history of taking things personally. Besides...

He sighs and looks down into his mug. "I have tried to reach him," he notes softly. "But it's harder, the longer it's been," he's supposed to be dead, holding onto interaction with the living is not entirely what the Force wants and gets harder and harder, "and he..." Beat. "He's only listening for what he wants to hear."

She reaches across the table to grasp one of his hands, or at least lay hers on his if that's not possible.

"I didn't mean it that way. I'm sorry. I was thinking of the people I visit, most of whom don't even know I'm there."

"It's good that you tried, but you are not responsible for his actions. Only he is."

Anakin huffs slightly, although he does smile slightly at the touch. Ahsoka was always way more contact-prone than most of the Jedi. "Tell that to his parents."

Or if he's being honest, to him. It's hard not to feel as though it's his fault when he watches his grandson talk to the mask of his torture suit.

Still, he sighs. "I do know. And I know how little can be done when someone isn't inclined to hear reason."

"I am quite familiar with the damage he's done," she says with a wry twitch of her lips. "And I failed in noticing his fall, yet I was there."

She pulls her arm back to give herself a little hug. "I don't know how I missed it."

Anakin definitely hates how every time he works through this, or has these conversations, it sounds so much like him. And yet, Ben is in some ways nothing like him at all--enough that he doesn't really know how to get through.

"We all did," Anakin says with regret. "If anything, I should have seen something. I'm... not certain, but I think Snoke wanted him since--"

Beat.

"Probably since before he was born. The first Skywalker he could corrupt."

Ahsoka sighs again and takes a drink of the jet juice.

"Why does there always seem to be someone after your family?"

With an explosive sigh of his own, Anakin takes a drink himself.

"For whatever reason--though I believe due to Sidious' rise--the Force decided I needed to be born with..." ~~therearenomidichlorians~~ "rather more strength than they had seen before. It's why Palpatine wanted me. Since then--"

He shrugs, a rolling, weary movement. "The Force is strong in my family ever since. Who would pass up the chance to subvert someone with our power?"

By this point Kanan is used to the presence of Force users in Milliways, including Force sensitives. It's not so surprising to feel another one, even one with as much power as Anakin has.

What he's not used to is the fizzing sound of a lightsaber being wielded in the midst of katas, particularly not some of the ones Ezra trains with most often.

There was a time when hearing them wouldn't have been enough to identify them, but those days are long past now.

"Hera. Come this way for a minute, I want to see . . . all right, not see . . . but someone's doing practice katas over this way. I want to know if it's -- "

If it's someone he knew, or someone who knew someone he knew, even if he's already painfully aware that it's not Master Depa nor any of Caleb's creche-mates.

"I'm coming," Hera says, lightly.

She emphasizes this by brushing against his shoulder as they walk.

Edited 2017-05-25 23:53 (UTC)

The hair is different, and there are scars that definitely weren't therr in that recording on Kanan's holocron--but at some point the practice falls into a highly recognizable pattern.

In general, if Caleb ever saw Anakin Skywalker fight... well, he's switched out some of the lightness and agility for power and strength--but much less than in the last years of his life, now that he isn't encumbered.

Definitely Form IV, albeit with some... changes. Anakin is a meddler.

He also feels that presence. He remembers the survivor, little Caleb, who took a different name and an apprentice all his own.

He remembers how that ended.

After finishing a kata, he stops with a long sigh and turns the practice saber off. His head tilts slightly towards Kanan--an acknowledgement and invitation. Also, for all his sheer power, Anakin definitely feels rather more one with the Force than anyone still breathing can be.

Kanan, after his interactions with Darth Maul and the Emperor's Force users, can't see the scars, or the different haircut. He can't even really see the kata.

He can feel the difference in the Force, though, and reaches out to stop Hera from moving forward, though he leaves his own lightsaber where it is, clipped to his belt.

"I don't think I've met you here before, Master . . . Skywalker?"

It's not that he means to sound surprised, but it does hit a little close to the home Caleb can never go back to.

Hera does stop, blinking between Kanan, and the man he calls Skywalker.

She nods in his direction, but for the moment, she doesn't speak.

Anakin turns towards Kanan more fully. Inside the privacy of his own mind, he thinks, Ah. After Malachor, then. He feels another pang. Ahsoka did not deserve what he did to her--though, he has to admit, it was at least the most interesting fight he had until Obi-wan and Luke.

"Time works strangely here," he says lightly. "Our first meeting here in the Bar for me might come in your future." Will, he knows. During the years of the Empire. It will be... interesting, no doubt.

Tone still light, he adds, "I never did make Master--for good reason, really. Besides, it was a lifetime ago and more. Just Anakin." Just Anakin, he reminds himself. Not Jedi Knight, not Sith Lord Darth Vader, just... Anakin Skywalker, incredibly terrible father who wishes he made better choices.

"Right. Anakin."

He takes a deep breath, for one moment letting all the memories wash over him again. Then he puts them away.

"I'm Kanan. This is Hera, my partner."

He turns his face toward Hera, then, out of old instinct, even though he can't see her the way he used to.

"Hera, this is Anakin, the lightsaber training master from the holocron."

Hera has only really seen the occasional fragments from the holocron. Still, her eyes widen slightly at this. "Oh, um -"

She looks over Anakin again, searching her mind for a point of recognition. But she glances back to Kanan as she says, "It's - good to meet you."

Seeing her expression, and knowing he doesn't really look nearly like the clean, fresh-faced, slightly deluded barely-more-than-a-boy he was in some of those recordings, he says dryly, "Most of them were variants on Form IV, for use against battle droids, if you ever saw those."

Partners. Anakin glances between them--he knows that dynamic, and in a lot of ways, he actually feels a rather strong, palpable flash of envy. Kanan may have been hiding he was a Jedi, but not anymore--and they don't have to hide their feelings.

Padme. If I hadn't been afraid, what would have changed?

Then, mildly, "I don't believe I remember a Kanan during the wars, but Ahsoka always had more to do with the younglings or new padawans than I did." And obviously he knows Kanan has to be that young because a) no full Jedi of the time would be acting like this, except maybe Quinlan and he was rather a loose cannon--with terrible taste in women, too--and b) he wouldn't have been paying attention to those training videos if he weren't young.

Not at all for other reasons. Ahsoka is a distracting name, right?

"Well, I never did stand out much from my creche-mates."

(It's not entirely untrue.)

Kanan scrubs his hand over his beard, trying to find his place in this conversation that he very much did not expect. The flash of envy through the Force doesn't actually make anything come together better.

"But I -"

She stops herself, her eyes falling as she corrects herself, "We knew Ahsoka, after ..."

Hera lets the trail off.

Anakin gives Hera a sidelong look. "Ahsoka left the Order some time before the Clone Wars ended," he says evenly. "Despite her activity, it kept her... out of the worst of certain things." Like Palpatine's attention. He thought she was neutralized.

He can totally come up with some excuses for knowing stuff, really he can. Obi-wan taught him to lie surprisingly well. All he has to do is emulate how Obi-wan ever told Luke about the past and it'll be utterly opaque.

Anakin tilts an eyebrow at Kanan, knowing he won't see it. "Stood out enough to get taken on as someone's padawan," he notes. There's a slight note of inquiry as to who. (He knows, but he's not supposed to, after all.)

Kept her away from the clones and Order 66, maybe. Maybe she was already running and didn't have to learn it under sudden and unexpected duress. A different story, if not an easier one.

"You know it got pretty dicey there at the end. A lot of desperation."

That's not why Depa picked him, not at all. But there are a lot of things Kanan doesn't want to get into the habit of talking about, and this is one of them.

"Guess things really do move in cycles."

Hera looks to Kanan. There's nothing obvious in her expression, but someone perceptive would likely notice her spike of concern.

Edited 2017-05-26 02:47 (UTC)

"I've rarely seen so much desperation," Anakin agrees quietly. "Ryloth, maybe." In both wars. And yes, he notices that spike of concern, and he might be needling at it slightly. He remembers Cham Syndulla. "A few of the other firefights I flew in. Christophsis, certainly."

And Lothal--and Yavin, and Endor.

"Those were... different, though." Nothing was quite like Order 66, not until the First Order.

Anakin snorts a little. Cycles. "To be rather less philosophical about it--people forget, or where there's a vacuum, someone steps in. Not always power, sometimes it's just about there being no one to stop it." He sounds rather disgusted, honestly.

Kanan's own emotions escape him a little at the mention of Ryloth, though he stops himself from looking at Hera by sheer force of will. She's got this, he knows. But he's also not a padawan anymore, or even really a Jedi, so there's no sense in keeping himself silent.

"Yeah, somehow I don't think it's different to the people who live through it."

The causes, sure. But the feelings, and what happens in the aftermath? Some things really are universal.

"They tend to look the same from the inside," Hera agrees, her voice even.

In many ways, the Clone Wars were harsher on her. But she knows very well this wasn't true for everyone.

"Hardly," Anakin disagrees, There's a faint edge to his tone as he looks away. "Annihilation and subjugation are worlds apart."

Strategically and in the emotion they're meant to induce. Then again, his perspective on this may be slightly skewed.

After a moment he shakes himself out of those rather darker memories. "But as I said--more than a lifetime ago, now. You've done rather well for yourself, all things considered. I know Ahsoka must have been... very glad to find you," he adds, voice rather wistful. Even Vader didn't want to have to fight her, once.

The edge in Anakin's tone (and in the Force) leads Kanan to step back a little. "At best it's a short skip through hyperspace between them."

One leads to the other in a constantly-spinning roundabout. He's seen it. He's lived it. He's watched so many people go through it and not been able to help them nearly enough. (Not been willing, sometimes, too, but these days Kanan's different.)

"But yeah, Ahsoka. She saved our butts a couple of times."

Hera, however, doesn't feel any edge in the Force, and another's tone has never made her step back.

"It's not a lifetime ago for us."

And in her case, her people's subjugation isn't something she'll ever outrun or outlive.

Anakin opens his mouth--and then actually stops, considering. As he does, that edge in him eases off noticeably, and after a moment he closes his mouth again. He could, after all, go on for quite some time about the strategy and intent, about the big picture results of different weapons, about how it affects the Force itself, even (and now, watching the First Order from this new perspective, he is even more deeply aware of that)--but. "I suppose," he says slowly, "that I forget, after so many years--and so much distance--that it's a rather academic question to the survivors."

It's a concession that he doesn't always have to be right, not anymore. And that maybe other people do have different priorities than he's ever had.

He smiles a little, wryly. "She's very, very good," he notes proudly. "Even if I was tricked into it, I couldn't have asked for anyone more talented to watch my back, or a better student." Literally, as he never asked for one, thanks so much Obi-wan and Yoda, but... he has to admit, she was good for him. Until they all got separated and Palpatine got inside his head.

Kanan, too, relaxes again.

(But only a little.)

"Not much is academic when you're really living in the world."

Maybe that's something else the Jedi forgot, once upon a time. Not anymore, though. None of the ones that are left can afford it.

Edited 2017-05-26 13:42 (UTC)

Hera folds her arms, but just answers, with a note of sadness in her voice, "We were lucky to know her."

"Something the Jedi were singularly bad at," Anakin observes in echo of Kanan's thought. "It was almost literally one of the precepts, given the rules attachment."

Anakin was a complete hypocrite every time he lectured Ahsoka about attachments--even more so because he actively disagreed with them at the time.

Anakin knows he can't say anything that jeopardizes his children, but he's so proud of Ahsoka, and he does feel slightly bad about what they're going through. It's not entirely his fault, but... a lot of it is. Besides, their Rebellion is all about irrational hope in the face of impossible odds, right? Or so the twins' attitudes would indicate.

So he just smiles, ever so slightly, bright blue eyes amused. "Ahsoka was still my padawan when she could hold her own against Dooku's apprentice," he says lightly. "I have learned never to count her out completely."

Behind his mask, Kanan's expression shifts. Just what do the dead know?

"Is that a hint?"

Because if it isn't, it seems kind of cruel.

Hera hesitates, her hands clenched at her sides for a moment, until she says, slowly, "I think we'll just have to deal in what we know."

It's somewhere near the race track that Ysalwen and Liranan run into him. Well, not literally run, but they do cross his path.

Ysalwen stills for a moment, brow furrowing as she looks at him. Then --

"Oh sweet Maker, please tell me you didn't die in the Labyrinth."

(She hasn't seen him since then, so.)

Anakin has been contemplating if he actually wants to take out one of those pods. Yes, it was one of the worse times in his life--no longer the worst, thanks ever so much, Sidious--but racing was always like flying. It was freedom, or the illusion of it.

But that comment makes him look up, oh, it's her--

And then he processes what she said, and literally bursts out laughing. He looks... well, several decades older than last she saw him, but that might not alleviate her concerns.

"I promise, it takes a much more than that to kill me," he informs her, still laughing. "Although thank you for informing me how this place's illogical time flows."

"Oh, good."

She manages a smile as relief sweeps through her. Ysa is older, too, but it shows less on elves than on humans, for one. (And also it's been maybe five years. At most.)

"I mean, not good that you're dead, I suppose. But good that it's not mine and Yamato's and Quentin's fault that you are. I'm not sure the guilt would do either of them any good."

Five years is definitely not decades of constant torture!

Anakin smiles a little dryly. There are many arguments to be made that it is, in fact, a very good thing that he's dead. Leia would probably make many of them. But that's neither here nor there, really. "Feel free to mention I'm fine to them, then," he tells her. "And-- I'm sorry about that, by the way. I was singularly thick-skulled at that age, and reacted poorly to surprises."

At least this is something easy to fix. Anakin gets so few of those in his existence.

When you sell your soul, you pay the price.

Ysalwen snorts.

"Do you find yourself less thick-skulled now? Most people tend toward the exact opposite."

They calcify, honestly. It gets frustrating.

Anakin learned that one a little late.

His voice is even dryer than his smile was.

"It was a less than optimal learning process. I do not recommend it."

See? He learns! Eventually. Dying. That... that counts, right?

Ysalwen beams at him, cheerful and bright.

"I wouldn't try it even if you did recommend it, so that works out."

Then she sobers a fraction.

"But really, have you been here long like this?"

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