darkforcerising | (no subject)

Who: Canon Anakin, AU Earth Anakin
What: Cross universe shenanigans continue - the two Anakins work on fixing a starfighter
When: now
Where: aboard the Resolute
Rating/Warnings: Probably low

Well it seemed as if Anakin was stuck back in this universe for the time being and he might as well use it to the fullest advantage. Being allowed to remain free, he set out wandering and quickly found the hangar bay. Listening to his music, he walked the perimeter a while, just looking at all the ships that were both so familiar and distant in memory for him. It was the weirdest form of nostalgia.

He stopped next to a currently-decommissioned fighter and rested his left hand on the metal hull. There was something about just feeling the cold metal against the palm of his hand. After a brief pause he started tracing a finger along the seam of a panel. It was so strange how a machine could feel so alive to him. And having twenty-four years of recent experience with the absence of that connection only made the feeling now so strong in contrast.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he noticed another familiar form working on another ship in disrepair. Without invitation, Anakin walked over.

“These were fun,” he said when he was close enough to be heard. He was referring to the Delta-7B Aethersprite-class light interceptor in front of him. “I remember them.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's for the best his twin didn't tell him to calm down - for all his temper, for the krayt dragon that wrapped itself around his heart and snarled heat and flame, Anakin didn't actually get angry for no reason, even if he didn't always understand why. And telling him to calm down, telling him to act more Jedi-like only reinforced the idea that no one really was interested in what he thought and felt.

"But they didn't trust him. Not really. Why did they let him take me out of the Temple if they didn't trust him." Anakin had started collecting the bolts that held the panel in place, sticking them to a magnetic strip on his mecharm, but he stopped and looked at his twin, "How did you get a lightsaber?"

Anakin tapped the spanner against another panel, stood it up, let go, and motioned it back and forth, and then turned it in a circle, so that it spun like a top. Looking back away from his twin, when he spoke, his voice sounded much younger than he was. "Was I just bait to them?"

“Arrogance. There are different kinds of trust. You’re the Chosen One. They think the Chosen One is meant for them, that whatever it is you’re destined to do is for them - and that you will do it for them. So obviously your well-being is immaterial. As long as your ability to complete what the Chosen One is supposed to do, it didn’t matter what Palpatine did.”

Anakin didn’t mind working while his twin fiddled around with the panel.

“Earth is... weird, hard to explain. There’s a nexus of intersecting universes one place on Earth. People grow up never knowing about this other life they’ve already lived. But when they come in contact with that nexus, they remember your past life. And sometimes it churns out things from your past life.” Like his arm or his lightsabers.

"Oh I've known that for a while. People need to have their well-being looked after. I don't count." He should count, but it was feeling like he didn't that made him so very protective of the Clones he commanded.

He was going to work on his ship, really. Anakin was just feeling very alone and in need of something simple to do - and wiring was not, it need attention or he'd never hear the end of it from Artoo. And he wasn't it the mood for it.

"So...are you really alive there? Or is it just. Something between?" Some cultured did believe in reincarnation, but he didn't know much about them.

"That's the flaws of the Light Side - inaction, indifference, and apathy. The Jedi have stopped caring." This whole time, Anakin had been critical of the Jedi, this was the first time he was critical of the Light Side of the Force.

"That's very existentially forward to ask." But he didn't mind answering. "I know what being dead feels like, so yes, I'm definitely alive there. And here... right now here."

"That sounds a great deal like things I heard from Palpatine." There's a caution there, but no accusation. He doesn't disagree but he feels like he should.

That feeling feels like Yoda staring at him.

"Had to ask. What does being dead feel like?" After everything, of course he was going to ask.

He shrugged. Not that he liked being compared to Palpatine, but there was a prophecy about the Jedi’s downfall and their roll in it for a reason.

“There’s this saying on Earth- The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing... I like to think about the two sides of the Force as potential energy and kinetic energy. Neither inherently good or evil, they just are. Sometimes you have to stop, sometimes you have to move. But if you get stuck at one extreme, that’s bad. Find the middle, you know? The Jedi need to find that middle, move more - do more.”

But how did he explain death? He thought about it and then some more.

“You know the seeming paradox of black holes expanding by increasing in complexity inwardly? That’s death. From over here, it looks like a collapse of life, but over there? The universe is bigger than this one will ever be. It’s ... existence, but very different.”