Closed to morally_cryptic

[talentedscavenger]

Rey had experienced a whirlwind of events from locating Luke Skywalker's lightsaber to being pulled through time to meet the person who started it all; Anakin. The man was her grandfather, someone who was the 'chosen one' to bring balance to the Force. If that wasn't enough, she learned of her own powers and had to be trained to use them. It was an interesting time, spending weeks learning about the man and studying under him. They developed a friendship, a strange bond between two adults who happened to be generations apart. As much as she enjoyed her time with him, she was thrust back to her present time.

Anakin was right, it was like she never left. Everyone was still at the Cantina, looking for her. The First Order arrived...it was chaos.

But that was then, and this was now. She found out about Kylo Ren and the man he idolized so much. It pained her, no, angered her to know the same person she met had turned to the Dark Side. Rey kept her mouth shut to her cousin, managing to use the Force to keep him out of her mind and push him back. Now, she had a target on her back. The events didn't go well from there, losing her friend and semi-father figure, Han.

Now she was on a quest to find Luke. The man who could or could not be father. She didn't know how many children Anakin had, though she still remembered those strong Force visions of two children. Chewie and her managed to land the Falcon on the right planet, now she had to make the journey to find the Jedi. At least the time to herself would let her deal with her emotions. She was conflicted, angry, and hurt. From losing a friend to learning some of the truth about her grandfather...it was disheartening.

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[morally_cryptic]

Well, he's been expecting something like this for, oh...about thirty years. Okay, maybe he'd been hoping she wasn't going to find out like she had but at least now, maybe, he can do something about it. He's tried to reach his grandson but...there's something in the way. With Rey though, now that she knows, now he should be able to reach her.

"You should slow down," he advises, appearing about as substantial as a hologram just off the side of the path. "The rocks are slippery."

Starting out a conversation with 'hi, how are you, sorry about turning evil' is for chumps.

[talentedscavenger]

Starting out a conversation of 'Hi' would have been too much to ask, not that Rey would respond to that either. She briefly pauses in her next step, but doesn't acknowledge the presence in front of her. No use in talking to ghosts. The woman would not start to cling to the coattails of someone she knew--at least thought she knew.

The sooner she got to Luke, the sooner she could try to get back to a normal life. Maybe she should go back to Jakku and forget everything that's happened.

She's only mulling it over, not fully intending on going through with it. However, considering her emotions are clouding her judgement, it's tempting to follow through with her thoughts.

[morally_cryptic]

"You're not going to do it," he says. And he doesn't even have to know her mind to say that, he can see it in her face. "And if you keep ignoring me, I'll just keep talking."

It's so rare he gets to talk to anyone these days. Or at them. Rey's the lucky winner, apparently.

[talentedscavenger]

Rey clenches her hands, continuing to ignore the ghost who was trying to speak to her. No, he could talk all day long for all she cared. As lucky as she might be, she wasn't about to acknowledge it.

So yes, keep talking Anakin. She won't say anything. Her emotions are easy enough to read, she's not bothering to keep them hidden from him.

[morally_cryptic]

He probably would have had an easier time talking to Leia and he'd actually tortured her, once.

But stubbornness runs in the Skywalker family just as much as the Force does so he merely follows her, not actually needing to worry overmuch about the path he takes. Perks of being non-corporeal.

"You know what happened now," he says, "and so do I. That's something we didn't have before, at least. And nice job with the lightsaber, by the way. Glad to see the training stuck. He doesn't need it though. He's got one of his own and this one is yours."

She might try not to say anything, but he's pretty sure he knows what buttons to press.

Maybe that was Darth Vader, though. He'd had a lot of experience in making people talk, after all.

[talentedscavenger]

He would have an easier time talking to someone he tortured. Not someone who had her trust, someone she had faith in. The last time she let someone in that close to her....well, they ended up leaving her on Jakku. Those scars were healed a long time ago, but the one he inflicted on her when he turned to the Dark Side....that one was still fresh.

He manages to hit the right buttons though, finally getting her to talk.

"Doesn't belong to me," she muttered under her breath. There's a reason why she's keeping the weapon inside her pouch and opting to have her staff ready.

[morally_cryptic]

Maybe he should've let Obi-Wan talk to her.

"You think it was a coincidence you found the damn thing? That it came to you instead of the other grandchild?" He rolls his eyes. "It's yours, Rey."

[talentedscavenger]

And that got her to snap. Rey whirled on Anakin, glaring at his non-corporeal form. One hand moved to her staff, almost ready to take it off her shoulder and fight him with it, while the other curls into a fist. There was no point in fighting a ghost.

"No it doesn't!" she yelled again, her hazel eyes lit up with anger. It didn't belong to her, belonged to Anakin, and now it belonged to Luke. She didn't want any part of a family legacy that was built upon abandoning family or killing innocent people.

"That grandchild is Kylo Ren. The grandchild that wants to be so much like you." Who worshiped Vader so much it was scary.

[morally_cryptic]

"A part of me," he agrees, because there's no use in denying it. "And I would help him see differently if I could."

She could try to fight him if it'd make her feel better but it really, really won't and she wouldn't get anywhere anyway.

"But you can. You can help all of them."

[talentedscavenger]

"Then go talk to him. He would be more than thrilled to meet you." Unlike her. Really, what she's doing is throwing a temper tantrum or hissy fit. She's upset, clearly, but the fact she's talking to him...it's a step in the right direction.

"All I'm doing is bringing Luke back to the Resistance to Leia and be done with this."

No more lies, no more stories or half-truths. Rey was done.

[morally_cryptic]

He lets out a huff. "I said I would do it if I could." But he can't so he's not.

And then he tilts his had, "right. And then you're going to go back to Jakku to await a family you've already found?"

[talentedscavenger]

As badly as Rey wanted to deny that she found her family, she bit her tongue. To deny that would be denying a part of herself.

"Why should you care about what I do? I'm not your pupil anymore. " she told him, moving forward, trying to continue her mission.

[morally_cryptic]

"No, you're not." She's Luke's. Or she's going to be. Probably. If he has anything to say about it.

"But you're family and that's more important." He'd consider her family by now even if they weren't tied together by blood.

[talentedscavenger]

Anakin wouldn't have to convince Luke. If anything He would have to convince Rey. She had been abandoned by the man, assuming Luke was her father. Doubtful Leia would have been unfaithful or that Han was her father.

"You're one to talk about family," came her snappy reply.

[morally_cryptic]

"I am in fact," he says, eyes narrowing.

"You know what happened, but you have no idea of why." Luke couldn't tell her that. Kylo Ren most definitely couldn't.

[talentedscavenger]

"I don't want to know," she told him. No more learning more about the truth. No more stories or what was perceived to be the 'truth'. The man already disappointed her once. He didn't to keep digging his grave.

Rey continued her truck, coming across steps that lead to the top of a mountain. She was being stubborn about it but underneath that stubbornness was hurt. He wasn't her idol by any means, but he meant something to her.

[morally_cryptic]

Doggedly, he pursues her, talking at her back. "Before the Jedi found me, I was a slave on Tatooine. When they took me with them, we had to leave my mother behind. Years later I went back to find her only for her to die in my arms. She'd been tortured by Tusken Raiders for weeks. I'd been having dreams--visions about it but I took too long, I got there too late." She might remember they'd had talks about visions, once.

"Padme and I got married, secretly, just as the war started. It was one of the last few truly happy moments I remember in my life. After that, it was one long sequence of battle after battle. I didn't get to see her often though we did our best." Obviously, because she'd managed to conceive his children.

"The Council assigned me a padawan...I really didn't want one at first, I thought she'd just slow me down. But Ahsoka became like family too. Someone framed her for a terrorist attack at the Jedi Temple, she was expelled from the Order and nearly sentenced to death before I found the real culprit. The Jedi Council told her she could come back but she...walked away. I failed her, too." And it looks like he'd failed Rey as well but that couldn't be helped now.

"That's just...backstory for what comes next." And really, Rey had almost been a part of it. She had returned to now not so very long before the battle of Coruscant and the fall of the Republic.

[talentedscavenger]

Stubbornness truly did run in the family. He couldn't respect her wishes, he couldn't let everything that happen between them stay in the past. He had to talk, to explain his background further, making her recall the times they talked about visions--or what she felt when she saw visions of his past. He was setting the scene, getting all the dressings done so he could explain to her what happened. Why he went to the Dark Side.

"When everything fell and you went to the Dark Side," she told him, anger and hurt still lingering in her voice. She continued to move on, not bothering to look back at him.

If she were in a more rationale, more calm state of mind, she would have realized this was how things were supposed to work out. Otherwise, she would not have met him. She would have become the self-reliant girl she was. She wouldn't have found BB-8, met Finn, Han and Chewie.

[morally_cryptic]

He ignores her retort and carries on, "the Separatists made a surprise attack on Coruscant and took the Chancellor as a hostage. He was my friend. He'd been a mentor to me ever since I first came to Coruscant, almost. When we found him, we first had to fight Count Dooku. Obi-Wan was knocked out of the fight and I was the one who ended up defeating the Count. I took his lightsaber and held his and mine to his throat. Jedi don't kill in cold blood, particularly not someone who's been defeated and no longer poses a threat. But he'd been the source of so much bloodshed and we'd already fought so many times--it was he who took my arm in our first duel." She'd probably remember the cybernetic prosthetic he wore when she'd first met him.

"It didn't take much urging from Palpatine for me to execute him then and there," Anakin's voice has gone dispassionate for that part. "After that, it was merely a matter of carrying Obi-Wan until he woke up, escort the Chancellor up to the bridge, fight off the droids stationed there, and then somehow land a ship that had been so destroyed by turbolaser fire that we were really only left with the front half." At least that he could be proud of.

"But yes, things fell apart after that. The Jedi didn't trust the Chancellor and of course the Chancellor definitely didn't trust the Jedi though I didn't realize just how much then. They both tried to play me against the other and increasingly I began to see the Council as the hypocrites they were." Great leaders, maybe, but even now he believes they spouted hypocrisy. "And I started having visions again. I couldn't sleep without seeing Padme dying in childbirth." Knowing that there had been children, knowing because he'd met Rey, hadn't actually helped. It didn't tell him what he should do to ensure that happened. He'd still been terrified of choosing wrongly and losing her and their children.

"Palpatine revealed to me that he was the Sith lord who had been manipulating things from the very beginning. I wanted to kill him then and there but...I didn't. He didn't raise a hand against me. He told me he could help me save Padme. And I believed him when he said that. We were taught the Sith lie but Palpatine had always helped me before." He shakes his head. "I went and told the Council anyway and basically they told me they were going to deal with him themselves and left me behind. I tried to do the right thing. I thought they'd take him to trial, I thought he might still help me." Obviously, he'd thought wrong.

"But no, they went there to kill him," remember what he said about Jedi and execution and hypocrisy? "I couldn't stay behind. I couldn't let them kill my only hope to save Padme. Master Windu died because of me," even if he hadn't actually landed the killing blow. "And I realized in that moment I had turned against the Order. It felt like I only had once choice left and I chose to kneel before Palpatine."

He'd spare her the gory details of how what Palpatine had him do next only cemented his place in the Dark Side. "In the end, I didn't save Padme. She still died, even if the children lived. In the end, I nearly died myself when Obi-Wan defeated me. If he'd had the mercy to kill me outright instead of leave me on a lava bank to die, the shape of the galaxy might be different now." And no, Anakin doesn't think he's overstating his importance here. "I stepped into the Dark Side for love, Rey. I stayed there because of despair."

Until Luke.

[talentedscavenger]

When he started to explain what happened, the events that followed her departure, Rey stopped. He wanted her to understand, why he did what he did. Why he became the man that had terrified the galaxy, why he committed one murder after another. Though she was proof that his legacy would continue on, his visions made him doubt. He didn't want to lose his wife, willing to give up everything he had to protect the one thing that mattered in the universe. She lowered her head, taking in his story and the emotions he had to have felt in those moments.

The Council of Jedi fell because of its own hypocrisies. A group of people who followed the code of 'do as I say, not as I do.' Neither side was right, and if they were still around, the galaxy would be different and perhaps, she would not have been born. If Council found out about Padame, or his children...if they trained to train Luke and Leia...they wouldn't be who they were now. Yet, the pain of losing her friend and learning the truth...it weighed heavy on her heart. He wanted to be there for his wife, for his children and grandchildren.

He wouldn't have left her there on Jakku... That was the source of her pain. He knew she had been left behind, forced to live on her own, wondering if tomorrow her family would come back for her. Tears were starting to prick at the corners of her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. There was no point in getting upset. She steeled her feelings, but slowly turned to look at him. Her hazel eyes locking onto his, silently telling him she understood.

She hated what happened...but she can understand why he gave into the Dark Side.

[morally_cryptic]

He smiles at her, a little grateful, a little relieved. Grateful because of course he'd hoped for her forgiveness. Relieved because he really, really hadn't wanted her carrying around that anger. It wouldn't have done any of them any good.

"Feel free to tell me I talk too much now," he says lightly. Gentle teasing in place of the hug he can't actually give her.

[talentedscavenger]

Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Luke told her the wise words of Master Yoda, trying to explain in further detail of the Dark Side. The temptations and how they could mark a Jedi's heart. It was rather nostalgic and bitter-sweet for her to hear the explanation, recalling the time when Anakin explained the same thing to her.

This moment was bitter-sweet for her too. Finally able to see the man she had grown fond of in a short time, but unable to touch him. A hug would have been fine, even necessary for what she learned about him. The first time she hugged him had been awkward and weird. When they shared another one, it was tight and comforting...and the last one before she was thrown back to her correct timeline.

"Yeah, you do. Think you might enjoy the sound of your voice a little too much," she told him, a weak smile dancing across her life. Rey averted her gaze to take a deep breath, composing herself further. Finally she turned to fully face him and took a seat on the steps.

"Does Luke know?" About his past? About meeting her?

[morally_cryptic]

So he doesn't tower over her in all his ghostly magnificence (hah), Anakin settles into something of a crouch instead when she sits. "Not...really. He knows about Darth Vader of course." A smile tugged at his lips. It was Luke after all that had kept faith in him. Luke was the reason he could be here at all.

"But no, we haven't spoken quite like this. I told him about his mother because no one else had. I told him how very proud of him I am. I told him things like that." Because Luke didn't need the whole story, there were other things Luke had needed from him.

And he'd only ever appeared to Leia once.

[talentedscavenger]

If Anakin had continued to stand and tower over her, she wouldn't have cared. It wasn't that she was physically tired, but emotionally. She pushed back a few wisps of her hair and drew one knee to her to lean on. So she was the only one he told his story to, his past--the events that lead up to him being Vader. He spoke to Luke like a father, telling him things he naturally had questions about. Who knows if he was able to the same with Leia...

And if he could speak to Ren...he wouldn't try to be a Sith Lord.

Part of her wanted to ask if he knew why she was left behind. If he tried to tell Luke or Leia, but he probably couldn't. Certain events had to happen...but hopefully, she would get the answers she wanted.

"You know how to make someone feel special, then," she gently teased.

[morally_cryptic]

"I have my moments. Few and far between, but they happen." He smiles over at her before looking up toward the top of the island. "He's good you know, Luke. He's a far better man than I ever was. But that was probably thanks to his mother."