#IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

its-a-ittle-bit-cold · 10 months

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Down to the place we used to lay when we were kids

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summary: On the way to your home planet, you and Anakin put the past at rest.

A/n: I KNOW i said i would post like 3 weeks ago but this chapter was a journey to write!!! enjoy <3

The Legacy always felt like home for you. When your Master got and named the cruiser, he always told you that the Legacy and the men who cared for it were the best of the best. You stand on the bridge, combat armor fully equipped, cloak thrown over your shoulders. You always get cold upon takeoff.

Your Clone Commander and right-hand-man, Jex, stands with his helmet under his arm, speaking quietly with Admiral Jakobsen while you observe takeoff, waiting for your mission partner.

The newest distress signal came from your home planet - Onapesca. Unlike other Jedi, you actually remember your family, your parents and your cousins. Sometimes the memories blur, but others, it’s like you’re six years old again. The Council had disagreed and had had to vote on who they would send… until the next call came in, requesting you by name. Onapesca has a very specific force signature, and only those who know how to access that ‘frequency’ can enter the atmosphere without being battered and killed by force storms and the like.

And so, the Council sent you - and the Jedi with the most similar Force signature to you, General Skywalker.

“So, I hear this is the party ship,” Anakin’s voice sounds behind you. You turn, brushing the sides of your cloak back as you turn. He’s there with Rex, who approaches his brother and best friend with a complicated handshake. “What’s she called, again?”

“Anakin, Rex. Welcome to the Legacy.”

“General, we’re ready for takeoff,” Jakobson tells you. You nod, turning back to the big windows that let you look out over the cruiser.

“Whenever you’re ready, Admiral.”

Jex and Rex inform both you and Skywalker that they��ll go to speak with the troops before reporting back for the briefing for today. The journey to Onapesca from Coruscant is quite a long one - three day’s worth of space travel to reach the outer ring of storms. You’ve already debriefed the 500th, but the small force of 501st troopers brought with Anakin and Rex are none the wiser, so you schedule a full debrief in othree hours - enough time to get everything settled for the journey.

There’s inner turmoil poorly masked inside your soon to be partner (maybe it’s just poorly masked to you).

“Is something wrong, Skywalker?”

Anakin glances at you. You keep your gaze firmly locked on the receding planet of Coruscant, lights flickering, lighting the whole planet up.

“I can feel your anxiety, you forget. Is something bothering you?”

The blockade he’s built flickers. You try not to peek in, but you catch a glimpse of orange and blue and white. Wide blue eyes.

That can only be one person.

“Ahsoka? Where is she, by the way?”

Anakin bumps your shoulder.

“You know, you’re not supposed to do that.”

You wait silently.

He sighs.

“She’s back at the temple. Training.”

“Is she not your Padawan?”

“She didn’t want to come.”

That’s unlikely. You stay quiet, making sure your disbelief radiates toward him.

“She’s still having problems from the latest. I didn’t want to overwhelm her with another mission so soon.”

Finally, you turn to study him. He’s tired, eyes dark, heavy with a sort of exhaustion that comes and doesn’t go.

If he’s this tired, how is Ahsoka?

“She’s fourteen, Anakin. I wonder sometimes if she should be here.”

By here, you mean in the war.

“We were younger.”

“Look how that turned out.”

You turn away from him, walking down the path out of the bridge.

Look how that turned out.

You’re nine.

This is a clear memory - one you revisit often.

Anakin is a year older than you, ten when you meet, although you’ve been in training a lot longer, first as a youngling for a brief stint and then a Padawan learner, when you turned eight you were given a Master.

He’s kind, one of the Masters who would visit the Crèche often in search of a Padawan. He sensed your Force presence and the ability you’ve already developed, requesting you to be his Padawan.

As a young, advanced Padawan who’d beat some of your seniors already, you stuck out like a sore thumb.

Until Anakin.

Until he found you hiding away in the gardens, wiping tears with the backs of grubby, mud stained hands, after a particularly humiliating win.

He comes over and unravels the fortress of vines and flowers you’ve grown over yourself like a wall. The plants like him. They know that he’s just as different as you.

“I heard you crying,” He says.

Your tears dry immediately at the sight of him. He can’t see you cry, you have to prove that you’re just like the other Padawans.

“I cry too,” he tells you, skipping right over the gap in conversation. You sniff shyly.

“… you do?”

How could he, the Chosen One, cry? He’s already made a name for himself!

“Yeah,” He’s suddenly bashful. “I miss my mom sometimes.”

“Oh.”

You miss your family, too.

“That’s okay. I miss my family, too.”

It’s his turn to be surprised.

“You do?”

He’s perked up, and so have you. This is strange - another Jedi who even remembers their birth family.

So you talk, and talk, and giggle at his bad jokes.

It’s strange. You both need someone, someone who’s not your teacher or a friend, someone who understands the hurt of remembering.

And your Masters find you teaching him

how to manipulate the plants with only your hands, giggling when the flower he’s growing spits a wad of pollen in his face.

They share a look, and know this is the start.

Fourrteen, and blood runs hot.

You’re still getting bullied, but now Anakin is bigger than the bullies now.

He sprouted like a weed the past year and a half, growing what seems like five feet in the shortest span of time possible. He towers heads over your steadily growing self, now, all corded muscle and catlike movements.

The next time you’re made fun of, pushed around in the height of insecurity, he’s there to throw a well-timed punch to the face of a nineteen-year-old Nautolan who’s shorter and stockier than him.

“Anakin!” your voice has climbed octaves as the two brawl. Full-on, no sabers, no Force, brawl. Over one stupid comment and one poorly thought out shove. “Stop it! get off him!”

He doesn’t stop.

The other spectators are both screaming the the two Padawans to stop, and egging them on. Your throat catches on a sob, emotion building up, the feeling of helplessness is not one you’ve ever enjoyed.

You don’t know what else to do.

So you crack the force like a whip, sending them flying in opposite directions. Spreading your fingers and hands out separating the two Padawans, suspending them in the air just in time to stop them from hurtling into the marble walls. Everyone in the training hall goes silent at the sight of your huge feat of The Force, probably feeling the repercussions through the veil as Master Bosque, Master Kenobi, Master Secura, and Master Yoda crash into the room, seeing the two males floating, suspended in the air while you dig yourself dents into the marble floor, crackling under the weight of The Force.

Anakin paddles his arms, trying to get free of your hold.

At the sight of your Master, you let them down, setting them gently on the floor of the training arena.

Anakin’s eyes are on you.

His eye’s swelling already, but he’s otherwise fine. The other… well, his robes are torn, he’s bleeding from one eye, and one of his tentacles is displaced. Definitely worse off than your best friend.

Anakin winks at you as Obi reprimands him, and you bite back a smile as you leave with your own Master.

After this, Yoda offers you specialized training to harness your capabilities over The Force, but that’s another story completely.

Sixteen, and Anakin is distant.

He doesn’t seem to know how to act around you since you’ve filled out a bit, gotten prettier, learned how to dress for undercover missions you go on together, posing as clueless teenagers roaming the streets of Coruscant.

Recently, you’re not friends, out roaming. You’re hopeless romantics, ducking into alleyways to pretend to break the code.

You’ve dressed up in a nice little dress , hidden your sabers under the skirt and thrown on a bit of makeup.

Of course, this is all provided by the Order, for a mission investigating an emerging Coruscant Spice ring. Dangerous spice, that is, not the stuff you can snort and get a little woozy.

Anakin’s wearing a relatively nice-looking local suit, hair gelled back and braid tucked into a high collar. You can easily hide yours under your hair, but he’s got his shaved head to deal with as well. (and that little rat-tail on the back of his head).

He puts his hand on the small of your back - more like hovering it there- and you skirt the streets.

You slip into an alleyway, one where you’ve been informed of a deal going down.

Anakin presses you against the wall and waits for the signs of life. Footsteps, a scuffle. Something.

You try to meet his eyes. He avoids it.

Your Masters are in your ears, just like your heartbeat thinking for itself.

There it is. The deal. Someone’s coming into the alleyway.

Everything’s blurry with the scent of the cologne he’s spritzed on, something gross and insufferable.

His lips are clammy on yours, you can’t really focus on the kiss: your first, and probably only. You’re listening in, and when the dealers leave, he’s looking at you.

Looking at you.

“Don’t even think about it, Skywalker.” You click your comm on, wiping your lips. “Masters, come in. We have the location for the next deal.”

Anakin drags behind, quiet for the rest of the night.

After that, you go away for a while. Try to complete your Sentinel courses. Get everything ready. You go off world and try to give Anakin space.

Turns out, all the space in the galaxy isn’t far enough.

Age 20, newly knighted and reunited, you join forces again to combat a string of terrorist attacks.

As a Sentinel, you’ve always felt connected with the general population, maybe more so than the rest of your Jedi peers. So, on your first mission after the Knighting ceremony , yourself and Anakin investigating a string of explosions and bomb threats, it was up to you dealing with the informants.

The latest is a near-human around your age, witness to the bombing attempt of a sector of civilian shops. He’s bigger than you, charming, and a total flirt, and you can tell that Anakin absolutely hates him.

You can trust him, you think, with being civil. He’s not been overly emotional since that brutal day on Tatooine when you were eighteen.

Anakin, newly Knighted and full of pride and the sort of accidental prejudice that you’ve found lately in the Order, is certainly a sight to behold. In comparison to Aster, the informant, he’s wider, taller. More severe, more lithe, all corded muscle.

He can be intimidating.

Not to you.

Never to you.

But he stands behind you so menacingly during your interview with Aster that you have to tell him to leave in your head.

Aster smiles charmingly at you, pearly whites gleaming.

When he leaves the first day, Anakin tells you that he has a bad feeling about him.

“You have a bad feeling about everyone.”

Now, it seems like so much could have been prevented if you had only followed his advice.

You sense his presence entering the room, even with your eyes closed.

“You’re thinking about it, too.”

The briefing went well, no complications. Both groups of troopers fully briefed and in training together.

“The last mission we were on together.”

He sits down cross from you, your knees touching, the force flowing like it used to.

Like before the blowup, before the fall.

“Why are you so mad?” He’s waving his hands around, face red, twisted. You have this roiling boiling pot of overflowing rage in the pit of your stomach, tears huling up in your chest as you try to verbalize how you’re feeling.

Because of Anakin, Aster is dead. Because of Aster, Anakin could be.

And because of you…

Because of you, and your misjudgement, this is the first mission you’ve been on, and the first you’ve failed.

“Because, Anakin! You… You disrespected my orders, and you gave me your word.” You have tears threatening to spill. He’s never seen you mad, not like this. You take a. deep breath. “You promised me that you would go with the plan. You told me that you wouldn’t - that you-“

You breathe slow and heavy.

“You put yourself in danger. You disregarded me, my orders, and my authority. And because of you…”

Anakin isn’t even shameful. There’s no regret in his eyes. The tears spill over.

“He’s dead. You helped kill a man, Anakin. He’s dead and you have no remorse for what you’ve done.”

Anakin gets this look in his eye, the one he gets after you’ve bested him in training. Like has angry and disappointed in himself but he’ll never admit it.

You can’t be around him anymore for fear of saying something that ruins your relationship.

You get one, two, three, four steps in before…

The angry monster rears its head.

“It’s cause you’re fucking him, right? That’s why you’re mad.”

His voice grates on you like he knew it would.

How dare he.

“I let you cry to me, I held you in my arms and I put up with your bullshit. Get over it. I’m sorry your mother died. I’m sorry you think the world is against you, but that gives you no right to treat me like shit. I’m done with your bullshit. Get over your fucking attachment issues. I’m done.”

You spit out all the pent up anger like lava over your best friend. He’s so angry he’s seething, torn by your unusually biting words, words from someone he thought he could trust. You can’t stop the last words of your tirade from slipping out.

“Fuck. You.”

“You wouldn’t, I’m not rich enough.”

You close your eyes, laughing darkly.

“You’re pathetic. You don’t deserve that title you carry, that saber you wield. You wonder why everyone in your life leaves, well, mystery solved. They’d rather die than suffer through what I have.”

You ignore the guilt building in your stomach, tears streaming down your face. You want to throw up. Anakin’s gone sheet-white, and instead of apologizing for letting your emotions take over, you turn tail and run.

You open your eyes, biting back the same jumping feeling in your stomach, like you want to puke up all your intestines and hide away in a hole for the rest of your life. Anakin won’t meet your eyes. maybe you won’t meet his.

“That was… hard to watch,” He drags out eventually. “I’d forgotten…”

“All the awful things I said?” You laugh, hollow. He nods. “You’re lucky.” Tears prick at your eyes at the memory of the pure hatred running through your veins.

“When I got home that night my sabers turned red. That’s the most hatred I’ve felt ever, for myself, not just you. I purified them, but the color never came back.”

Anakin’s eyes widen.

“I didn’t know that could happen. They did use to be blue, didn’t they.”

“Matching set,” You say. Your hands are shaking. “Anakin, I’m-“

“I’m sorry,” He darts out at the same time. He barrels on. “For doing what I did. For letting my emotions cloud my judgment. For attacking you when you were down.”

It sounds like he’s been rehearsing this apology, just like you.

“I’m sorry, too,” You say. “Anger is never an excuse to say all those awful things, even if we weren’t in the Order.”

You fiddle with the hem of your robes.

“You changed my life.” Anakin breaks the silence. “I don’t know if it was for better or worse, but you changed me.”

“We changed each other, Anakin.”

You sit, knee-to-knee, like that, studying one another, finally at rest with what happened what feels like so long ago.

Arrival on Onapesca is a risky maneuver. The Force storms that surround the planet hide it away from your searching, and it takes almost half a day to fully breach all three barricades. You don’t know what awaits you, there’s no way to see through The Force the happenings on the planet.

You stand on deck in the small transport cruiser, Anakin at your side. You’ve cleared the cockpit, save Jex and Rex who will pilot the cruiser through the tunnel you create. The rest of your clone force is in the hill, the safest from the storm. Anakin is here for two reasons: He’s always been adept at lending you strength through The Force, and the second is a secret from him: he can take over if the strain weakens you to the point of not being able to support yourself and the ship.

Rex and Jex sit in commander’s chairs, operating the ship’s shields.

“On my count, lower the shields, Jex.”

Jex clicks a switch, salutes at you.

“Three,” You begin. You close your eyes, holding your hands out in front of you, The shield begins to bloom from your fingertips. Anakin stands behind you, ready to grant you his strength.

“Two.”

You picture an invisible barrier between the ship and the swirling, volatile mess in front of you. You bring your arms out wide, willing your force signature to become you.

“Now! Anakin!”

Your eyes snap open as his power overcomes you, and you plunge into the storm.

The tricky thing with the entry to force-planets like Onapesca is that, along with the shield, you must also fend off attacks and phantoms, using an immense amount of control and drawing on The Force with the ability of a Jedi Grand Master.

Luckily, you have Anakin to aid you.

You’re sure Jex and Rex think you look positively insane, but it’s working.

You lash your hands out all around you, feeling the waves of energy cascading upon you, harnessing it, adding to the shield. The ship begins to pick up speed, torpedoing straight through the second storm barrier, and with it, your movements faster.

Anakin and you, a sole being in The Force, Waves crashing over you but you don’t move, you press the water away, swimming to shore.

The high-speed noise and drag stops suddenly, bringing dead silence. You open your eyes, just to see the shield of multicolored light fade away, into a bright blue, cloudless sky.

You look down into your home planet, all greens and shining cities, made of marble, metals and jewels, supported in the sky by the force, and the home world below, waterfalls from the islands cascading down into more of the same beautiful, mountainous landscape, refracting light, dancing like a hundred rainbows over the lakes and seas.

The sun is going down as you approach the main capital city of Onapesca, Ostero.

Ostero is a wonder in itself, buildings crammed together around green spaces, carved marble and gold architecture, all the forces of nature working together to build the connection to every building, a metaphor for the constant connectedness that the force brings to the world.

The people in the streets are a wide diversity of travelers and locals lucky enough to find themselves in this haven of a city, or they would be, if there were any.

The streets of the Capital are barren of any trace of life as the transport flies over them, bound for the castle.

“That’s very unusual,” You point out to your companions: “What’s going on?”

The ship hovers over the castle. You’re jolted into Anakin, and you both fall to the floor, you on top of him. He grunts softly, and you roll off him.

“I’ve lost control of the cruiser!” Jex calls out. Rex is clicking furiously at the buttons.

Then it hits you.

“Oh!” You facepalm. “The hanger uses a Force pulley to bring in ships! I completely forgot about that!”

“You remember that from when you were seven?” Anakin asks, incredulously.

“No, I read it in the mission brief.”

Sure enough, the cruiser is being reeled downwards. You rush over and shut off the engine entirely, completely trusting the Force pulley to not send you crashing down.

“Things work different here on Onapesca, boys.” Your lips curve into the smile as the familiar hangar comes into view. “It’s almost like magic.”

It starts with fanfare, and you think, okay, this is normal. Trumpets and horns and big leaves and colorful sparks heralding your return.

Then comes the weeping. Lines of citizens weeping happily, to which all of your companions seem very awkward about.. Truth is, this is a little out of the ordinary.

After the weeping, when you step into the first courtyard that the hanger precedes, it gets really weird. Banners with your face on them in the Onapescan script that you can only haltingly understand. Statues of you and your family facing the sky.

“Is this normal?” Anakin whispers. Jex and your crew are having an absolute field day with one of the particularly racy statues of you - a statue with a physique so drastically different from yours it’s, admittedly, funny.

“Absolutely not. Skipp, I’ll skin you alive if you send that holo to anyone.”

The aisle set out for you leads to a set of double doors entering the first lift, but they don’t open when you try them with a wave of your hand.

“What-“

“Your Majesty!”

it seems almost directed at you, so you turn your head, to see a disheveled looking old man in long robes - robes of a priest, the King’s right hand man- running towards you from one of the floating stone lifts off the path.

“…Pieth?”

Pieth is older, frailer and thinner than he was when you last saw him, but he’s almost the same otherwise. Your Uncle’s best friend and companion, Pieth had tried to mentor you before realizing you were Jedi.

“You’ve arrived! Ha ha ha!” he does a strange little dance. He was always a little eccentric, that Pieth.

“Pieth, I’m here to respond to the distress call? I’ve brought a small clone battalion and a fellow Jedi Knight to assist you-“

“My dear friends!” Pieth rushes into an embrace with Anakin, who eyes you, paralyzed. “Thank you for accompanying our Queen and assisting us!”

Wait.

“Pieth… did you say…”

This is the first time Pieth falls silent.

“Pieth, my uncle? It was he who sent the distress call?”

Pieth glances at your companions, eyes hovering on Anakin, whose whole body is tense. Like you, he and the clones have made the same connection as you.

“The late King Karthik died the last week. Our people have been in mourning and in hiding for fear of the virus that killed him.”

Your mouth drops open. Queen of Onapesca?

The death of your uncle, while tragic, was not unexpected. He had always been sickly, and that had been many cycles ago. You’re actually surprised he even lasted this long.

“The throne… Is mine?”

“Traditionally, the throne falls to the heir with the strongest pull to the Force. In this instance, this is you, and with your companions, you will be the most capable Queen of Onapescan history.”

You share a look with Anakin.

“Pieth, I think you’ve drastically misunderstood my purpose here.” You glance around the courtyard, the statues all making sense now. “I’m here to respond to a distress call, Not to become Queen of Onapesca. Also, my only force-sensitive companion is Master Skywalker, these men are some of the finest soldiers in the Republic, yes, but they are no Force-users.”

Pieth smiles knowingly, waving a hand. You turn to see some shrubbery between two statues of you doing increasingly raunchy poses part, leaving…

“Ahsoka!” Anakin barks. Ahsoka at least has the sense to look sheepish. You tilt your head. Being back on Onapesca has really messed with your ability to sense presences.

Anakin practically drags Ahsoka over to you. She’s a mess of scrawny elbows and knees, orange skin blushing slightly as she glances at you, undoubtedly checking if you’re mad. You could never be, of course. You grin and wink at her, much to Anakin’s disdain.

“Come, your majesty. Honored soldiers. High Priest and Priestess.”

Ahsoka and Anakin both stare at you behind Piethz Ahsoka mouths, What the Fuck! and Anakin hisses at her, Ahsoka! We don’t say the fuck word!, ensuing a hushed argument behind you, and all you can do is let Pieth tell you of the happenings on Onapesca, in revelry of your new title.

What does this mean, becoming Queen of Onapesca?

Will you be able to give the throne away?

Or will you have to leave the Jedi Order entirely?

oooooook so…

I sort of have a plan for the rest of this series (like 5 more parts), so those are gonna come around eventually.

On a separate note, i’ve been busy with end of school stuff for the past month or so, so sorry for the weird update timings.

thanks for reading!!