ezra_of_lothal | Deer Country Inbox

I know she's your twin.

I just want to make sure what I think I know lines up with your experiences. There may be dominant timelines, but Time can ABSOLUTELY split, for lack of a better word.

Leia Organa, princess of Alderaan, right? Neither of you knew the other existed, most of your life?

Yes, that’s it. And well. The fact that we were separated and then reunited led to some problems.

I think part of me knew that she was my sister, through the Force. But I misinterpreted the feeling of being reunited as something else.

[It takes him a second, but it clicks.]

Affinities in the Force can be confusing like that. I instantly felt like I had a crush on Sabine.

She's not my genetic sister. Informal foster sister, since Kanan and Hera took us both in as teenagers. But she's still my sister. It just took me a while to get that was the right shape for the connection I felt.

So you can understand why I hesitate when it comes to this relationship. I saw my sister and thought I was in love, when really it was familial love. Is something similar happening here? Am I just reacting to Airy’s physical appearance, rather than the fact she’s a very different person?

I’ve had way too much time to think on this.

I get it. I haven't really tried to date, at all, so there may only be so much helpful that I can say here.

I'm sure you've gotten variations of the 'be mindful of your feelings' talk from Ben and Yoda. I do think this sort of thing is part of why we, as Force sensitives, have to be extra careful. We feel a connection. It's easy to rush ahead on that feeling.

But at some point, we do have to do the slower, harder work of relationship building, too. Whatever sort of relationship.

Edited (Some c/p on tablet fail there) 2022-03-31 18:09 (UTC)

Yes, I know, though I can’t tell you how strange it was to hear it boiled down to just “no attachment”. No wonder people have trouble understanding how the Jedi are. We celebrate the existence of a thing, and honor it’s passing, but then let go, because all things are united in the Force, even that which has passed on.

Taking it slower, though. That might be a good idea. It would help me make certain my feelings are genuine, and not a reaction to the Force trying to make a connection to a past I can’t remember.

Sounds like the beginning of a plan, then.

On 'no attachment'. Honestly? I think the position of the Jedi Order of political neutrality under the Republic, that the Order was traditionally communal in nature, and the Force/philosophy stuff got muddied, at some point. Maybe even for some Jedi.

Here, the politics of our home galaxy matter only in the abstract and as much as we let it, and traditions have to be adapted, at best. That mostly leaves being in balance with your own emotions, and that's going to look different, for each person.

[ Luke let out a sigh before he responded. ]

I can’t even begin to guess where things went wrong with the Jedi Order, politically or philosophy or something else. All we can do from here is learn from what remains.

But you’re right; we’re not going to find the same issues here as we do back home. There is a different sort of balance here, not just with our emotions, but to settle that which we hold onto. I’ve seen that with my father, who clings to the guilt of the man he will become, and Maul with the guilt of the man he was raised to be.

That's a pretty apt summary of why I find talking to both of them pretty frustrating.

I also find myself wierdly more worried about Obi-wan here and now then I was the older version I spent a lot of the last year with. I get the impression a lot of his time and energy here has been eaten up with damage control.

Don't tell them, but I feel the same. Sometimes I just want to grab my father and dump all the memories I have of Vader into his head and hope that would be enough to turn him around, but I know that would be the worst thing to do.

And I really need to talk with Ben. He's taking on way too much, and I need to make sure he knows he's not the only one here to DEAL with everything.

Yeah, I try not to let many details about my own memories or what I know second hand about either of them slip. The bad stuff, at least. Laying it all out for Maul the last time he went on a revenge rant on the network was tempting.

Since Anakin has kind of disappeared to wherever he is around Trench, I've moved in with Obi-wan. He offered to let me move in when I got here, but I didn't think Anakin would take it well. Sort of moot, now.

So I'm doing my best not let Obi-wan be physically alone. And I don't think he's intentionally shutting me out, otherwise, so that's something.

But you talking to him might be a big help, too.

I didn’t know my father wandered off. That’s worrying.

[ Understatement of the century; he was going to have to go looking for him at some point. The last time they talked… well, it had been a lot. Being Vader, even briefly, had taken a lot out of him. ]

I’ll reach for him later. I’ll make sure he knows there are people here that love and care for him. I’ll make sure Ben knows that too.

Good. Thank you.

I'm worried about Anakin, too, but I'm 100% sure he'd take a check in from you better than he would from me.

Well, sometimes. Our relationship here is a work in progress, to put it mildly.

[ Dealing with a younger version of his father was... so much to deal with. Mostly because he just didn't know how to deal with him, and just how different he was from the version of his father he already knew. ]

I'll try my best to get through to him, regardless.

But he accepts that you're his son, right? You're family to him. Hopefully that counts for something.

Pretty sure he sees me as an interloper with questionable motives.

Well, if it helps, he nearly left me to die because he didn't believe I was who I said I was.

[ His father was just like that at this point, and it probably wasn't that surprising, considering everything the had happened to him so far, not to mention how much of the future had been dropped on him. ]

Considering the amount of people that have told him his father figure was evil all along, it's amazing he trusts anyone.

I guess that's a fair point.

I spent a long time not trusting anybody, and I'm lucky the people I threw in with were worth trusting. Sometimes I have literal nightmares about what if Maul had found me before Kanan did.

I often wonder the same if my father had come and found me, like I always wished he would when I was a child.

[ He couldn't even imagine how bad that would have gone. Amazing how much things wished for out of ignorance were terrifying after the fact. ]

[Wow, yeah, that's fresh nightmare fuel, right there.]

Awkward fact checking question - what did you know about him, growing up, if you don't mind my asking?

I don't mind answering questions, so no need to feel awkward.

I didn't really know that much. My uncle never really wanted to talk about him, but eventually he told me he was a navigator on a spice freighter and died on a run -- I think he thought it would dissuade me for wanting to know more. He was very wrong; it just made me hope that he wasn't really dead, and would someday come and sweep me away from Tatooine.

It wasn't until I met Obi-Wan that I even found out he was a Jedi, though I didn't know he was still alive until Vader told me himself.

That all tracks. Thanks.

I'm sorry you had to wade through all that to get to the truth. But at the same time, I don't know what a good answer is to how to broach that sort of thing.

How I fumbled things telling you about your mom was about the mildest way I've screwed that sort of thing up.

Part of me wishes they had been honest. I can understand Owen not wanting to, because how can you tell the child you're raising something like that? I can understand where Ben was coming from too, but I still wonder if anything would have changed, or if I would have tried to help my father sooner.

[ And, just maybe, his father would have lived. ]

I'm not trying to excuse Ben, at all, but the version I met who was from maybe a few months into the Empire? I never cornered him on exactly how long, but it couldn't have more than a year.

Ben was already talking sometimes like Anakin was dead, when there were other people around who remembered him and knew the truth. Like it was the only way he knew how to live with it all. I tried to, I guess you could say - gently puncture that thought process because I don't think it was actually good for him, either.

I definitely see how, more alone, he could pretty much convince himself that was close enough to true.

[ Luke's response is long in coming, but... ]

When I got R2, he told me he was the property of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I asked my uncle about him, and he told me that he "died around the same time as my father."

Comparing the Ben that I knew and the Obi-Wan that's here, I can't help but feel like that's true.

I usually say 'Ben' to distinguish the version here from the older ones. But mostly I've actually always called him Obi-wan.

That said, knowing the things I know, I can see how it would easy for him to convince himself that Obi-wan Kenobi died the last time he'd seen Anakin. Again, especially if there wasn't anyone to talk to about this stuff.

It's all complicated. But I like to think wrestling with this stuff together is better than the alternative.

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