❝ REX, ❞ ANAKIN IS grateful his concern for Ahsoka’s wellbeing doesn’t translate to a tremor in his voice. ❝ Any word from the ground on the location of Ahsoka’s squadron? The atmosphere is still too thick for our sensors to pick anything up. ❞ Obi-Wan hovers behind them, a stalwart shield against the wild-eyed panic that threatens the edges of Anakin’s mind. She’s fine, she’s going to be fine—
Are monsters born, or made?
Let me tell you the story that's been scored into the stars. The family that turned the galaxy upside down. There was a man, with the weight of a prophecy lining his shoulders, and a thermonuclear furnace in his heart. He loved a woman, a proud, strong, kind woman who loved him equally, despite the anger, and the Darkness that grew in him. And the man watched her die every night in his dreams.
That man told himself if he can carry a prophecy, he can prevent a dream from becoming reality. Whatever it takes.
Whoever it takes.
The man exchanged his loyalty for her life, and killed the people who raised him. He ended a war in one night, the fire of the gods burning behind him on a metal moutaintop.
The woman he loved was no fool, she could sight a fire started in her name. A queen knows when someone is bowing.
She meets him on a molten planet, begs him to stray from the Darkness. But there is a shadow in the place of the man she loved, a monster.
He takes her breath to silence her, doomed to paranoia on the arrival of his brother, who is too, in some ways, a shadow. Forced to kill the man meant to save them all.
So the man dies, and is reborn. Baptized by fire. The woman he loved dies too. And eventually, even the brother dies.
