I'd lived nearly thirty-one years before being reborn in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Add to that the sure and certain knowledge of just how much worse the tire-fire which was this era could be made if I ended up drinking the Dark Side Kool-Aid. It truly didn't bear thinking about.
Except that's exactly what this was all about.
...
We walked across the huge flat plate of ice in silence for more than a minute. Finally coming around a bend in the gently curving corridor to face another wall of ice soaring up into the darkness beyond the reach of our wrist-lights.
There was the largest of cave openings directly in front of us, but I could see at least three smaller and slightly more irregular openings off to our right and left.
Turning at the sound of clothes rustling beside me, I saw my Master now seated indian-style on the cold floor. Her eyes were just closing, as she quietly prompted me "Tick, Tock, Anakin."
I took the warning for what it was. Sooner begun, sooner done, and all that jazz. Again, I drew on Vinrae's trick to cope with my rising fears and self-doubt. Listening to my sped-up heartbeat and focusing on my shallow rapid inhalations and exhalations as I moved determinedly forward into the tunnel mouth.
The tunnel proceeded almost perfectly straight for perhaps a hundred paces, before turning first sharply to the left, then back to the right after another thirty-five steps or so. I'd turned the wrist-lamp up to maximum before entering the tunnels, but the walls seemed to devour much of the light.
Confining me to perhaps ten feet where I could see clearly, and another twenty feet where things were dim and more indistinct beyond that. Confinement and an inability to see in an unrestricted manner seemed to be repeating themes of the Crystal Caves.
Causing me to wonder if the claustrophobic design was an intentional attempt to bring the fears of Initiates and Padawans as close to the surface as possible, so that the Force which imbued the area could create the manifestations that tested us.
"Always so quick to define and delineate! I've done my very best to teach you how to really see, Anakin, but you insist on remaining bogged down in the material and the most simplistic of thought-forms.
How do you expect to become a Jedi Knight, when you can't even internalize a lesson as simple as this?" Dark Woman said from behind me. Causing me to spin in surprise, because I knew tradition demanded she remain in meditation beside the Gate until I returned.
Seeing my surprise at her presence here, she explained in a chiding tone "I already deviated from tradition by making it just the two of us here. You've never known me to cling to form at the cost of function.
Why would you expect me to do so on a day as important as this? I sensed you were struggling, as you always do once we begin drawing away from physical applications, so I came to offer my guidance again. All you have to do is stop, meditate on my words, and you'll see where you've already begun to go wrong."
That didn't sound like Master Dark Woman. She always advocated rolling up one's sleeves and learning by doing. I literally couldn't recall one time she'd ever told me to stop an assigned task or lesson to navel-gaze in search of answers.
My doubts must have been visible on my face, because she suddenly snapped.
"I gave you an order, Apprentice. Join me in meditation upon your failings, then you may continue!"
I bowed out of respect for what the image represented, but shook my head. "My Master would never tell me to stop doing what's necessary to contemplate how I might do it better.
That's exactly the kind of second-guessing she's always onto me about. You'll have to do better than that, Cave."
"Do you truly believe I can't, young Skywalker?" The image was still Dark Woman's, but it was Sheev Palpatine's silky-smooth voice coming from the Cave-projection's lips. It was that calm, urbane, cultured voice he used. Right before the hissing devolution of tone that ordered his latest atrocity.
I swallowed, hard, but that voice wasn't something I respected and it wasn't something that could hurt me unless I let it. Giving the Voice of Absolute Evil the finger, I wheeled suddenly and marched on my way.
I made it perhaps twenty paces, when Wilhuff Tarkin stepped right out of the wall to my left. The old-money aristocrat from Eriadu sneered down at me as he said.
"You had precisely one advantage which might by the narrowest of margins have seen you through to victory, but you squandered it saving one aging Jedi Master the Order doesn't even have a use for.
Now, your foreknowledge is all but worthless, yet Palpatine is still Supreme Chancellor. How do you intend to stop the march of history now? With a lightsaber? Pffagh!"
I refused to rise to any bait laid out by the Champion of World-Murder. "The fact that Qui-Gon Jinn is a wise enough Jedi to heed even the warning of a small child proves your master is right to fear him, murderer.
I regret I could not be completely honest with Master Jinn, and had to play I've had the same recurring dream again and again, sir, but there are days the ends do indeed justify the means.
Lest you think me nothing but a sentimental idealist, Oh Butcher of Biomes, how's Darth Tyranus these days? Oh! That's right, THERE ISN'T ANY SUCH SITH LORD! Meaning no dead Master Sifo-Dyas, and a gaping hole in the whole Send in the Clones gambit.
Plagueis might have conned a good man into building your damned army, but there's still the problem of getting inhibitor chips into all those skulls, and keeping them there long enough to use them. Good luck with that, Mr. There Have Been Unavoidable Delays."
Enraged, Tarkin snarled at me in wordless fury, then fractured into thousands of slithering shadow-fragments and disappeared.
Far from being jubilant due to my "victory", my stomach was in knots. A real twelve year-old bordering on thirteen might not have recognized the old "Set 'em up, then knock 'em down" ploy, but I did.
The Grand Skinhead of Mass Murder had played right into my hands by bringing up Qui-Gon. I was meant to feel like I'd outmaneuvered someone I considered as cunning as he was dangerous, so I'd take the next hit like a hook to a gut soft with surprise.
Still, the conflict had bought me another hundred steps of peace. Then a completely unexpected voice threw me for a loop.
Adam Driver in his rare calm and wry voice commented "I'm supposed to delay, or better yet; seduce and corrupt you to the Dark Side, but I'm not sure I should bother trying. The real Anakin? He at least had fire and conviction.
Say what you want about him, but whatever side he was on he made things happen! Great things, terrible things, they were all feats indicative of the fact he had that one-in-a-million quality upon which the levers of history always rest.
I don't think you could even manage a half-assed me, so what's the point of turning you? I mean, I suppose the Emperor could freeze you in Corbomite and use you as a sperm-donor in the hopes of acquiring a Luke and Leia pair he could work on from birth, but that's the upper limit of your value to the forces of darkness.
Sorry to disappoint you, interloper, but you're no great villain in the making. Great? You'll struggle to attain mediocrity."
I couldn't deny there were things he touched on that touched on some of my deepest fears, but a facsimile of Kylo Ren once again playing up Darth Vader as the pinnacle of all that's righteous and badass rather weakened his message.
In retrospect, I should have realized the Cave knew what it was doing with Tarkin and Kylo Ren. I wouldn't recognize the feint-within-a-feint until it was all over.
Catching a glimpse of some diamond-like glints up ahead, I quickened my pace as the Kylo Ren projection dissipated like smoke once it elicited no reaction at all from me. I turned the corner thinking I saw where those crystalline glints were coming from.
Only to end up nearly nose to nose with a red-eyed, blotchy cheeked Shmi Skywalker. She'd obviously been crying a great deal, and the bags beneath her eyes denoted many sleepless nights. I reflexively moved to help her, so utterly convincing was her presence, but the absolute desolation in her voice stopped me.
There wasn't any anger or bitterness. It was the sound of someone who'd passed through the gamut of heart-rending emotion and landed somewhere that left them feeling as dead inside as their voice sounded.
"It wasn't enough to steal my little boy's life. You couldn't even be bothered to truly try and give me anything in exchange for what you took from me! I tried so hard, but all I ever got for my trouble were a few tiny crumbs when you could spare a moment from your constant scheming to get to the Jedi as soon as humanly possible.
Tell me, imposter, did you give me even one thought once you'd packed me off to Birren with a case full of sops for your conscience?"
The words, the question was delivered in the tone of someone who was slightly curious only because they had absolutely nothing else and simply wanted to tie up a final loose end.
The sight of her like that, and the things Shmi said. It hit me like a K-bar run up my middle like a trout in need of being filleted.
Had I killed an innocent little boy when my consciousness arrived here? What did I owe Shmi? How could I have just moved in like a tenant taking over a lease?
The questions tore the scabs off wounds at the bottom of my mind I'd carefully avoided looking at too closely, and the sight of Shmi bereft of, well, everything dropped acid in those wounds.
I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to do. I was just, frozen there.
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