moved to @infinitesorrow

               ANAKIN SNATCHES THE staff from the air, rolling the smooth grain of the wood between his palm. Tension threads through his spine, pulling him so taut he could be carved from resenting marble. Unwholesome youth etched into aged stone. His face cracks with a sneer. The rosy scar bisecting his right eye crinkles, a memento of his incarceration. ❝ Do you? ❞

               He circles the other man, a natural soldier’s prowl, every step a way to size him up. Only a certain kind of person stands the same way on a sparring mat as they do on the battlefield. The kind that learned early that reality doesn’t pull its punches for the sake of sportsmanship. Reality uses a knife. 

     ❝ What’s the point of this? You don’t even pilot anymore. ❞ Kenobi’s medical leave after the attack extended into an unspoken grace period for his friend && partner’s funeral. Rumors cropped up around his disappearance, many initiates liked to whisper the trauma left him drift incompatible. 

               Anakin worries the same of himself.

               OBI-WAN FIGHTS THE SCOFF  that jumps up his throat at the young man’s question. Does he know how to use this? Believe it or not, I could best Qui-Gon every time on the training floor,  he bites back the comment, though it’s evident in the way his shoulders tighten & his gait lengths, how his hips sink into the hint of a predatory crawl. 

     True, at the beginning, he hadn’t been able to throw his mentor to the floor, but in the last few years of their partnership, they were more than anything equals. 

     That’s gone, now. That companionship. That partnership. All he has are memories & the attitude of a prospective partner who is practically a child. 

     He circles Anakin in turn, stepping lightly & purposefully. He twists the staff in a flourish that is more habit than a necessity. It creates a figure eight in the air, & as he times his steps he watches very carefully, waiting for the perfect moment to -----

     Whack!  He lunges, his staff connecting with Anakin’s for a moment -- then he pulls back & returns to circling.

  She lifts her chin knowingly, as if to say, Ah, mechanical trouble, isn’t that always the way of things. It’s not an uncommon story. But if you have to be stranded for awhile, you could do a lot worse than Takodana.

     “I’m not offended,”   she says, smiling.   “Maybe you just have one of those faces. Although I don’t s’pose that’s a comfort…”

     The stylus taps lightly and rhythmically against the countertop.   “Got someone helping you with that? The repairs, I mean.”   Not his face.   “What is it, the engine?”

             HE EASILY DIVINES WHAT  she means, no need for the clarification -- but he supposes a slower sort might need  another word on the matter, a more easily offended sort. He wonders offhand about this stranger’s story, & how she had come to work for a person like Maz. That’s a feat in of itself. 

     ‘Yes, I believe it’s something like that,’   he answers, hands folding in front of him & hiding within the folds of his robes as he leans heavily against the counter. He presents a picture of someone off-balance, someone fatigued & out of sorts; he is anything but. However, it suits him to appear harmless. 

❝     YOU  FIND  THIS  UNLIKELY  ?     ❞                   a  mockery  of  pride      !            YOU  SEE   ,      i  have  reached  into  the  cradle  /  placed  to  the  grave   .                          children  perish  first   .                ❝      and  yet  ,     i  would  kill  anakin  skywalker  one  thousand  times  over  .     ❞                     

CANON ... 

ANAKIN SKYWALKER ( @astramessiah & @oletherian ) AHSOKA TANO ( @kybersung ) LEIA ORGANA ( @highnis ) SATINE KRYZE ( @rutalonidir ) REY ( @carricn )  MARA JADE ( @didntkill )

CROSSOVER ...

THE DOCTOR ( @impcssiblehero ) RIZA HAWKEYE ( @finesoldier ) DIANA PRINCE ( @themysciraen )

SHE LOOKED LIKE HER MOTHER ; the same face , the same sharp eyes   ━━━   it was as though someone had copied her , and changed the colors .   Given her russet hair , rather than white , and eyes just brown enough to have their reddish tone appear to be a trick of the light .   Her mother had said it was a gift from her father , but she had never known the man   ━━━   and wouldn’t have wanted to thank him even if she had .

Fingers pluck lightly at the frayed hem of her scarf , tugging it back into place over her hair as she weaves her way down the dusty street .   The town is their last stop in the east before the circus heads back towards Central , and the desert air seemed to be getting to her .   Unfocused , concerned more for the end of her journey than the journey itself , she doesn’t notice the man’s stare even as she brushes past him , slight frown upon her lips .

                    HE REACHES OUT TO  catch hold of her, then stops. His fingers retract, like a withering blossom, as he thinks again & decides the action would be taken poorly, especially when done by a stranger. He can’t grab her & tell her she looks like a woman he had loved once. He can’t do that. 

     He thinks it might be better to just let it go, let her fade, let the stinging memory disappear into oblivion where it most assuredly belongs. That would be easy. But he had never picked the easy thing, had he? 

     His fingers draw together, into a fist, & he turns his head over his shoulder to track her progress as she walks away from him. He has halted in the middle of the busy street, & is jostled to & fro by the flow of foot traffic. Dust springs up into his eyes, coats his tongue, so he draws his ragged scarf high, pulling it past his nose, & turns to follow her.