revivalproject | Network Post: Video

Luke doesn't sit. Luke waits back a bit more, not intruding, letting Obi-Wan sort out if he wants to tell him or wants Ezra to tell him or neither.

"There's at least one future," Ezra points out, as gently as he can, "Where it looks like you'll never be the kind of ready you want to be. Or Luke would know these things already. Do you know what you need?"

“I may never be ready,” Obi-Wan admits. He will be truthful with that much. Talking about that moment was infinitely more difficult than facing his own clone troopers who wanted to execute him.

“No, I don’t know what I need. Otherwise I would have found it by now. If it hadn’t been for what happened on Coruscant you still wouldn’t know. I haven’t even told Padme all the details. About what happened to Anakin.”

"No, that one- I didn't agree at the time, but I get why Ben and Master Yoda didn't tell me before our run in. They were worried that I would go to Vader for answers, or be scared away from learning about the Force. It didn't matter if they were ready or not. I wasn't." He hadn't been when he found out either, but the horror and shock of the moment had arguably shielded him from possible anger or rage. He'd been too burned out for it.

Well, if Luke says he wasn't ready, Ezra won't argue with that. Maybe, even after Luke had been knighted, that hadn't been the right time for that topic, either, although that part Ezra is more skeptical about.

"Ok." Ezra looks back towards Obi-wan. "I meant that I said. I know it's not my responsibility, but I'd rather help you with this burden, if I can, than not. So..I can tell him what I saw."

He offers out a hand toward Obi-wan. "Or just be here with you, if you want."

“You’re not leaving me much option here,” Obi-Wan points out. Ezra was driving a hard bargain and he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a bit cornered by the two of them.

But Obi-Wan had never been one to really run away. Avoid and deflect yes, but he didn’t run away. It seemed he had to face this one way or another, though not entirely on his own terms. At least if Luke decided to hate him for the rest of his days, there was still two babies that loved him.

Deciding not to answer Ezra just yet, Obi-Wan turns his attention to Luke. “You truly believe you are ready for this?” If he was a true Skywalker he knew that Luke would rush head in, insisting he was ready, though likely to find out he wasn’t after all.

Luke isn't his father, though. He's learned a few hard lessons about rushing in thoughtlessly. He hums and comes slightly closer, still standing, still with his hands clasped and somewhat closed off.

"Honestly? I don't know. I don't know what it is I don't know, so I can't say if I'm 'ready' or not." He can't say he's ready for something that could be anything. "I came through the other side of losing my hand and Vader's revelation. And my anger at you and Master Yoda. I came through Vader threatening to go after Leia and hand her to the Emperor. I don't know, but I think I can handle it."

Ezra shrugs, still holding his hand out.

"You can tell me to go away and not talk about stuff that's not really mine to talk about, too, and I'll do that. Or - whatever other options you think would actually help."

Going quiet for a few moments, Obi-Wan looks between Ezra and Luke before sighing. He knew Ezra was trying to help him, and he couldn’t fault him for that. So with some reluctance he took his hand.

“Come and sit. Both of you.”

He motions at the other cushions surrounding the crystals. The Jedi not wanting to leave that slot as he found this place soothing. If he was going to have an easier time, it would be here.

“I can’t promise that I will be able to tell you all of it. But I will make my best effort.”

Luke hesitates and then comes over, sitting down and folding his legs under him. "I didn't mean to hurt you before. I'm sorry."

Ezra stays quiet, having nothing to add, verbally, at least.

He's just there, holding himself open to the other two Jedi, trying to be as a present, steady, and calm as he can, given that at the end of the day he is a teenaged padawan in a tense situation, without falling fully into meditation.

“It’s not your fault, Luke.” He says this earnestly as both of them now join him. “I’m just not as stable as I used to be. As a Jedi master should be.”

He sighs quietly, figuring he needs an explanation just for that if anything. “It’s hard to explain. It can be simple things that bring something to mind or just a conversation and the emotion is… overwhelming. There are times I have nightmares as well.”

Edited 2021-09-22 02:41 (UTC)

"Mon Mothma says we don't just heal from trauma overnight because we will it so." She's been talking to Leia, who promptly ignored her, but it seemed fairly solid advice.

He then manages to undermine that with a show of maturity. He snorts. "Who doesn't? I don't sleep outside most of the time for fun. Those babies have a connection to me and I won't traumatise them with my nightmares. I once put Han into a bulkhead because he tried to wake me up. Nightmares are just your mind trying to cope. If you didn't get overwhelmed by the emotion sometimes, you wouldn't be a person. Something really karking terrible happened. Lots of things. I don't know how anyone just... gets better from that. Especially after losing their entire support network, family and most of their friends."

There was a flicker of mostly pleased recognition from Ezra at Mon Mothma's name. He hadn't always agreed with the former senator's priorities for the Rebel Alliance, but Luke talking about her in the present tense seems like a good thing.

"Letting new people in. Not hiding quite as much. Time," he puts in quietly. "None of it heals or fixes everything, but those are things that have helped me."

“Wise words, for a Senator,” Obi-Wan says with a hint of humor. He knew of he but they had never really personally met.

But he turns solemn again at the fact that he has indeed lost his entire support network. His family and friends. It sounded like Luke understood and his examples of nightmares made him wince. He at least didn't usually react so violently. But there’s a touch of a smile again as Ezra chimes in.

“Well, I have let new people in haven’t I? I suppose the less hiding and time is what I need.”

Luke's fight instincts are fairly high and easily set off after this long. That has sadly translated through to his Force powers to some degree.

"You think I'm going to be... angry? Disgusted? Appalled at something you did? I've killed over half a million people. Maybe closer to three quarters? I managed to forgive Father for what he'd done to me, after he handed me over to the Emperor. Whatever you did? You feel it more keenly and find it harder to forgive yourself for than I ever will." Because... that's the price of caring.

Ezra visibly jolts at Luke rattling off such a high number, his gaze snapping from Jedi Master to Knight; he manages, barely, to rein the feeling of shock in, so that it's not quite as loud in the Force as the calm and determination he'd been more actively projectiving.

He stays quiet, verbally, thinking it through. He's never really kept any kind count. For one thing, he's not entirely sure how old he was the first time he shoved a stormtrooper off a roof top and ran, too scared to think very hard about whether that person had survived the fall or not. And then, he doesn't know how to count the operations that took out big ships and garrisons that he's been involved in.

It would all add up pretty quickly, if he tried to include those numbers, wouldn't it?

And, well, he'd known that the Empire was working on...something very big. Whatever they wanted the huge kybers for. However that might have played out could have been come to terribly high cost, one way or another. Honestly, he doesn't want to know, and not right now, when it would distract from the point of the conversation.

So Ezra just frowns a little, as he moves past his suprise, and squeezes Obi-wan's hand lightly.

Obi-Wan is not as shocked as Ezra is. There's simply a solemn nod at Luke's admissions. "A Jedi always has to be prepared to take life. I don't know what those circumstances were, but I have little doubt it was for good reason." That's how war was. He fought in one for 3 years. Even if the Separatist army was mostly droids, there were still people involved when ships were destroyed and so forth. Many clones also lost their lives while fighting for the Republic. It was a terrible thing, of course, but they had believed the cause a righteous one. It only sickened him now that he knew the intent behind it. All those lives wasted for nothing.

"However, when it comes to someone you hold dear. It's a bit more... personal."

He didn't believe that the examples Luke gave quite equaled what happened between him and Anakin. There were key differences. And of course, Vader would have never done as much damage as he had if Obi-Wan had been successful one way or another.

Luke stays quiet. Personal is different, but the fact is, Obi-Wan's stalling now and Luke can recognise it. So he nods and he waits quietly for Obi-Wan to actually tell him rather than talk around it.

Obi-wan was definitely stalling. Ezra considers joining Luke in waiting it out silently, but after a moment, closes his eyes and suggests softly, "Pick a place to start."

Obi-Wan sighs softly. It’s not hard to get the vibes from either of them. “You mean, get on with it,” he says with a hint of snark.

Running a hand over his face, he takes a few moments of silence to determine where it was he wanted to start. Deciding to lead into it rather than blurt everything out.

“The last time I saw Anakin as I knew him, it was just before I left for Utapau. To find and engage with General Grievous. He apologized for an earlier disagreement and expressed his frustration with the council.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes go a bit distant as he envisions that moment in his mind. His lips twitching a bit with a mixture of emotion. “I reassured him and told how… proud I was of him. That he was a far greater Jedi that I could ever hope to be.”

Luke doesn't watch Obi-Wan. He knows how hard it can be with people watching to lay something personal bare. He keeps his head bowed, watching his hands in his lap instead and just listening.

There was a reason Ezra has closed his eyes and kept them closed - although he still pretty present in the Force.

These are details he hadn't known already, that as far as Obi-wan understood it, he and Anakin had parted on good terms, which just made everything that come later more bewildering.

Again there’s a few moments of silence as Obi-Wan considers his next words. The two young men being equally silent allowing him to continue. Though it isn’t without an increasing sense of dread.

“I encountered and fought Grievous. Together my troopers and I defeated his forces and I slew the general. Effectively the war should have been over at that point. However, my clone troops then turned on me without warning. I was riding Boga along a clifface when they shot at us, causing us to fall in a sinkhole. Where I would have surely perished if it hadn’t been for the water. I managed to barely escape by taking a fighter. I called for help and was intercepted by Senator Organa, as was Master Yoda. It was then I discovered that my experience was happening everywhere. Despite the risks, we felt it was best to return to Coruscant and the temple, to turn off the beacon that said the war was over and that all Jedi should return. Obviously it was a trap for any stragglers unaware of what was happening.”

This is where it would really start to get hard.

“With the senate being in session as our cover, we fought our way into the temple. There were bodies everywhere, of masters, knights, even padawans and younglings. No one had been spared. That’s when I made the recording that you saw, Ezra.”

No idea who Grevious is, doesn't matter. The clone troopers attacking is a surprise, another thing he didn't really know anything about.

He stays quiet and listens, but he's feeling cold and he already knows who was responsible for the slaughter. He knew those stories, of Vader cutting down any and all who stood in his way. He knew that. But hearing about the feeling the grief of finding those dead children, murdered by someone they undoubtedly trusted...

He waits.

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