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[psychometries]

@ scraprat

"Hey, it's Cal. Leave a message."

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[psychometries]

No, she's a good person. Just...

During the war, all of the Nightsisters were wiped out except for her. She had to watch her whole family die, thinking that it was the Jedi who did it.

And unlike me, there was nobody around to help her. She was alone.

In spite of all that, she still gave me a chance. We found out we have a lot in common, and that we didn't have to be enemies.

I'm glad she was able to trust me.

[unrepentant]

You see yourself in her.

[It's so small a thing to type, but the longer Anakin looks at it the more he begins to wonder. At when this became a marvel for him. When did he- when did all of the Jedi have to stop seeing these things in order to win a war?

He thinks of Ahsoka's back as she walks away. Of the way she'd sounded after he told her the truth about his own doubts. About his own yearnings to leave.
I know.

Anakin closes his eyes. His heart aches.]

I think that's a very admirable quality.

[psychometries]

[ He does. They'd both lost their families, watched the people they love die, lived through the destruction of their entire ways of life. That's what their bond was built on: loss, grief, trauma.

He's wondered before, if they still would've been able to eke out a friendship if the Jedi Order and the Nightsisters still stood, but...

Maybe it's pointless to think about what could've been. ]

The war changed everything. And the Empire. A lot of people in the galaxy are hurting, but it's also brought them together.

As survivors, we've had to adapt.

[unrepentant]

[He can't stop thinking that it's an optimistic view. That it gives the future a benevolence Anakin can't find in himself anymore. When was the last time he looked at what's happened and found the same? When was the last time he really believed that it meant something, that it wouldn't be like this forever, that people could be safe- that he could be happy?

He looks at Cal's reply for a long moment, eyes moving back and forth across every sentence. It's easy to recognize this feeling, he's known it all his life.

Hungry.]


I get it.

So what happens next?

[psychometries]

[ The worst thing that could've possibly happened to him—the death of his Master, the fall of the Order, the rise of the Empire—has already happened, and he survived it. There were times, in the aftermath, when... he hadn't wanted to. When he questioned why he survived.

But he'd made a choice, not too long ago, to move forward. To have hope. Maybe he's too optimistic now, but he's felt despair before and he doesn't want to go back to it. ]

What do you mean?

[unrepentant]

[Its perhaps one of many differences between them. Cal has hope because he sees it as a choice between that and despair. Facing a war with no end and a vision he doesn't know how to stop, having met two ghosts from a future he could never bring himself to imagine- Anakin doesn't think there are any choices left to him.]

Where will you go?

What are you going to do?

[psychometries]

[ As long as you're alive, you always have a choice, Anakin. Cere taught him that.

But ah. That's a question—a hard question—that he doesn't really have the answer to yet. Not long ago, his only purpose had been to find that holocron and restore the Order—but with one swing of his lightsaber, that purpose ended. Then he stepped onto this train, and... ]

I don't really know yet. I had [ ........ ] something I was trying to do before, but not anymore.

All I know is I'm probably high on the Empire's most wanted list now.

[ He sure pissed off that random Sith Lord!! Oops. There's a short pause—thoughtful. ]

Maybe I can try to find other survivors. Or help fight against the Empire. Make a difference.

[unrepentant]

[Where was his choice in Hutt Space on the Outer Rim? Where was his choice in slavery? Should they have run and let the chips inside their bodies explode? Kept waiting for the Jedi to realize that being a peacekeeper for the Republic isn't the same as being a peacekeeper for the galaxy?

No- Anakin knows that choices don't exist for everyone.
They aren't given out equally.

That's part of what makes Cal's position such a revelation. Without the Order... where would he go? What would he do? Would he still be a Jedi?]

My padawan

[It feels like his heart has stopped.]


former padawan


She's still out there

[psychometries]

Really? She made it?

[ It... it feels so nice to hear that another Jedi, former though she may be, managed to survive the Purge. Before meeting Cere (and then Obi-Wan, here) he'd truly thought he was all alone in the galaxy. ]

What's her name? Maybe I can find her.

[unrepentant]

[He has to believe that she's still alive. Maybe because she left the Order, maybe because she'd been on Mandalore-

His eyes burn.]

Ahsoka Tano. She's a Togruta

I don't know where she might have gone. But I know she'll still be out there.

[psychometries]

I'll find her.

[ Maybe that's an empty promise to make, since any Jedi who managed to survive the Purge must have gone deep to ground to avoid the Inquisitors. But Cere managed to find him, so they might be able to find Ahsoka. ]

Who knows? Maybe the Force will help us find each other.

[unrepentant]

Maybe it will.

[How does he articulate what those words do to him? Anakin remembers feeling her leave Corusant, knowing that there wasn't a goodbye and knowing that he had a chance to stop her- but didn't.

He wants to believe that they'll see each other again.
In the silence Anakin rereads the words, and finds himself leaning towards the place where their training bond once existed. Ahsoka.]

When you do, will you tell her something for me?

Tell her I'm proud of her.
And that she did the right thing.

[psychometries]

I will.

[ This is text, but there's a solemn weight to his promise. Now that Anakin mentioned Ahsoka by name, it seems to spark some recognition in him—some hazy memory about a Padawan bombing the Temple and being put on trial.

There's a short gap of time before his new message comes—he almost wasn't going to ask, but he won't be offended if Anakin doesn't answer. ]

You don't think you'll be able to tell her yourself?

[unrepentant]

[No. The truth is so horribly simple.
Besides, he thinks, If Obi-Wan doesn't know where I am, then I probably don't make it.]

She

left the Order.
I haven't seen her in a long time.

[psychometries]

[ Left the Order. Cal didn't even think that such a thing was possible—no, it's possible, just... it almost never happens. ]

Why did she leave?

[unrepentant]

[There was a time that he woul've turned away from it. That he would've said it's complicated and nothing more. But he remembers the way he felt watching her walk away, the way that her parting words have haunted him ever since.]

We didn't give her any other choice.

The Council betrayed her trust.

They didn't even apologize after casting her out and realizing their mistake. They told her she'd passed her great trial and was a true Jedi all along. They asked her back, as if they hadn't abandoned her in the first place.

boo

[psychometries]

[ He was so young when the Order fell. Innocent. He only ever saw an idealized version of the Order, through the eyes of a child, its successes and strengths—not its weaknesses and mistakes.

So he's... not shocked, exactly, but surprised by this account. ]

The Council did that?

[unrepentant]

It broke her heart

[And mine.]

[psychometries]

Why would they do that, though?

It was their mistake.

[ oh sweet summer child ]

[unrepentant]

They thought they were making it right maybe.


When she declined they were so quick to say it was her emotions getting the better of her. As if she wasn't allowed to feel hurt. As if some things don't leave a scar.

[psychometries]

I'm sorry.

About what happened.

[unrepentant]

[It's strange how seeing those words makes the whole of him seize up, locks him up in ice.]

No

No

I'm sorry, you don't have anything to apologize for. I shouldn't have said all of that. It isn't appropriate for a Jedi Knight.


My sincerest apologies, Master Kestis.

[psychometries]

[ Now he feels like he said something terribly wrong. Master Kestis? Who's that? ]

Wait, what are you apologizing for?

What's wrong?

[unrepentant]

Its wrong of me to speak this way about the Order. Airing grievances like this makes it clear that I have much to meditate on, and that I've been negligent in releasing such emotions into the Force.

I'm very sorry to have burdened you with my irresponsibility.

[psychometries]

I don't think it's wrong.

[ He types and retypes this next part a couple times, so it takes a moment. ]

If we want to rebuild the Order, then we have to talk about the things it did wrong.

So we can fix them.