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[Luke looks a little annoyed at something off screen before looking up to the camera.]

Prosthetic limbs. I'm sure I've seen an arm, and I know we've got some cybernetic residents. Do we have something set up for those of us with them, like, repairs, maintenance, charging if need be? Mine was damaged before I got here and I didn't get a chance to get the synth skin repaired, which is just vaguely awkward, because it means crap can get in and it's harder to clean out.

[He huffs and blows his fringe from his eyes.]

Yeah. Just looking for connect with the others who have a similar situation. Talk solutions.

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Ezra can only assume that Grevious had been a Separatist general, some kind of hold out, but no, he doesn't recognize the name either. Imperial propaganda was light on those sorts of details.

"Kanan never said exactly, but changing the message probably saved his life," Ezra notes, before going quiet again, too.

“I’m glad,” Obi-Wan says with a faint smile. “That had been the intention, the hope, that it would save at least some of my fellow Jedi.” To hear that it had been received and had given others a chance to survive. Ezra wouldn’t be who he was if it hadn’t been for his message and that alone was worth it.

“Master Yoda and I had planned to leave after that, but I wanted to know who was responsible for the massacre. It was evident that some had been killed by lightsaber rather than blaster fire. So I looked into the security recordings. I was warned that I would only find pain there, and perhaps I should have listened, but I didn’t.”

Taking a deep breath he then lets it out. His soul quivering in the Force as the memories came to mind. Seeing those holograms in his mind as if it had only been yesterday.

“I saw… Anakin. I saw him killing younglings. Then kneeling before a Sith Lord who turned out to be the chancellor we had all fought for. The leader of our republic who was right then declaring himself emperor.”

Luke feels Obi-Wan's pain, echoes it back without really realising he is. He knows the shock horror of correlating Vader's acts with Anakin Skywalker. Not the same, and yet close enough to echo between them.

Like Obi-Wan, he also doesn't understand. How do they go from a few hours earlier, when Anakin was... normal? Normalish. To this.

But he's still quiet.

Ezra certainly doesn't have any insight to offer. So he focuses on doing what he'd intended to do, by staying here - focusing on being calm and supportive, providing a sort of emotional counterweight to what he intuits could become a nasty negative empathic feedback loop between Anakin's brother and son.

This conversation isn't really for or about him.

The silence is heavy, but again it was needed as the Jedi struggled to keep his composure. The memories were still so fresh after months. The wounds still so raw despite being buried.

“The Sith had to be destroyed. That’s what Master Yoda told me. I would have agreed except Anakin was not just a Sith. He was like a brother to me. I had trained him, watched him grow up, fought by his side. He was the best friend I ever had.”

He swallowed, his mouth having become a bit dry.

“I couldn’t kill him. I begged Master Yoda to send me after the emperor instead. However, he told me I wasn’t strong enough. He was right, of course. So I had little choice. I had to find him, and there was only one person who might know where he was. So I went to Padme.”

Obi-Wam ducked his head then in a bit of shame. It hadn’t been something he wanted to do but there were no other options.

“When I told her about Anakin she refused to believe me, and I could hardly blame her. It wasn’t difficult for her to figure out my intentions, but I could tell she knew where he was. Yet she refused to tell me.”

He sighed, his face solemn and sad and tired. His facade fading and making him look weary and even old as he continued on. It all was such a heavy burden.

“So when she predictably decided to go off-world to find him, I stowed away in her ship.”

Master Yoda made a terrible, terrible decision. He should never have split them up. He doesn't get how Yoda couldn't see that as a problematic call.

But it happened and it wasn't Obi-Wan's fault. He trusted Master Yoda's judgement.

And Luke could see this going bad very, very quickly.

Consumed by fear, I was, though see it I did not.

Ezra lets the snippet of memory of Master Yoda's voice quietly drift out of his thoughts, because based on what Luke has said, he suspect it's the closest the ancient master ever came to apologizing to their generation for his mistakes in judgement.

Even though he's still not sure what Master Yoda believes would have been the right choice, in regard to the war, or dealing with the Sith.

Maybe that's still the wrong question.

A glance is spared to Ezra but nothing more. He hasn’t ever blamed Yoda for any of it. They were all in a terrible position and did the best they could at the time with what was before them. It might have been the wrong call, but there was no guarantee it would have gone any better for them either.

“When we arrived on Mustafar, Padme went out to meet Anakin on the landing platform. I hung back but listened to everything they said.”

Padme’s heartbroken pleas were still etched in his mind. It made him said as well as baffled as to how he could put someone he seemed to love through so much.

“She realized he had changed and begged him to go away with her. But he wouldn’t, insisting everything he had done was for her. When he saw me his demeanor changed and he accused Padme of turning on him, and then proceeded to choke her.”

Obi-Wan paused to take another steadying breath and then continued. “I demanded that he let her go, and finally he did. Though she collapsed and was unconscious while I faced Anakin. I made sure she was still breathing and then tried to reason with him. With him blaming me for turning Padme against him, and claiming he had brought peace and security to his new empire. Declaring that I was either with him or against him. It was then I realized that words alone would not swag him. So we fought.”

Luke doesn't hear the thought. Telepathy is not his strong suit. At all. Receptive telepathy less so.

They are clearly starting to get to what really haunts Obi-Wan. How Anakin came to be the more machine than man that Luke knew as Vader.

Remembering what he saw of Anakin hurting Padme was bad enough.

Even as determined as Ezra is to stay calm, it's hard for him to stay physically still, much less keep from mentally flinching away, knowing what's coming. He puts a little more effort into keeping his breathing even, and his emotions as serene as he can.

Obi-Wan was doing his best to ignore Ezra’s rising tension. Something he was easily able to pick up on. The Padawan’s efforts to keep himself reigned in was admirable but not perfect. Though as the master among them he had to fall back in his own training to keep going. Filtering through his own thoughts and emotions to keep steady.

“It was… a long fight,” he admitted. “Anakin and I had sparred together many many times.” Those good memories clashing with the bad ones. Who knew that their playful spats in practice would lead to one of them trying to kill the other. “He knew all my moves, and I knew all of his. His raw power was greater than my own and I spent most of it on the defensive. Trying to wear him out and lead the battle into a position where I had hoped to gain an advantage. Though he almost killed me a time or two.”

He shook his head, still able to see the rage in Anakin’s eyes. That clear intent to kill. Metal fingers even closing around his throat at one point with a lightsaber blade mere centimeters from his face.

“Despite it all, I still tried to reach him. But it was futile. Until I found the point where I did have an advantage.” Obi-Wan paused again and swallowed hard, a lump rising in his throat as he tried to keep his voice from breaking. “I told him to stop. Yet again he wouldn’t listen. I knew what he was going to do and I warned him…”

Luke knows that raw power. Vader's strength wasn't just a physical thing, it was a fury at the world for daring to deny him whatever it was he thought he had been denied.

He can feel the sheer tension. Distress. Upset. Grief. He stays still and quiet. It's gone and passed.

Luke's lack of reaction helps Ezra let go of some of his own tension.

No matter how much Obi-wan may or may bring himself to spell out the rest, the broad strokes are clear enough for Luke to make deductions from here - or so Ezra thinks, anyway.

He had to close his eyes for a moment. Brow creased as memories flooded his mind and he could see it all even as he tried to block it out. The Jedi then began to tremble and let out a shuddering breath. He didn’t faint this time, but instead choked out the words.

“I did what no master should ever have to do. Cut down my own student. And who was supposed to be the hope of the galaxy. But I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t. Instead I used a forbidden form to sever his limbs.”

Edited 2021-09-28 04:44 (UTC)

It's the first time that Luke's really moved, but all he does is reach out and put his hand, the gloved, artificial one, on Obi-Wan's knee and squeeze gently.

Is it horrifying? He supposes so, but in a detached way, where he's hearing about it but he has little actual connection to what happened. What's more effecting is Obi-Wan's grief and distress and it's that he's reacting to.

Good. Ezra thinks Luke being moved enough to literally reach out of Obi-wan is good anyway.

He's not sure Luke is fully registering what Obi-wan is actually saying, and hopefully there won't be some kind of delayed bad reaction.

Obi-Wan flinches slightly at the touch, tense, but not objecting to it. He’s trying to keep his emotions under control but he’s cheating struggling. This is why he avoided talking about it. He knew that he would fall apart like he was now.

But he hasn’t even gotten to the worst if it yet. He had gone this far so he might as well keep going.

“When he fell, everything came out at once. I yelled about how he had been the chosen one. That he was supposed to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force. He then screamed that he hated me. And I… I told him that I had loved him.”

It stung to think about. But his voice threatens to break again as he continued.

“Ultimately he had fallen too close to the lava. Suddenly his clothes ignited and he… he began to burn before my eyes. I had to look away…”

But the screams still haunted his dreams to this day.

“I should have ended it for him there. But I didn’t. I left him to die. Or at least I thought I had.”

It's pretty horrifying.

But Luke isn't going to judge. He wasn't there. It wasn't him.

"I don't hate you. I'm not... disgusted or anything else. I'm just... sad it went that way. For everyone." What else could he say?

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