( visionhaunted ) ╲ JACEN SOLO :
→ @ofsquadrons said: “ everything’s gonna be okay, i promise. just tell me where you are, okay? and i’ll come and get you right this second. “ ( luke )
He had told Ben to go back without him, fed him some lies about needing to do further research and take care of paperwork regarding what had happened with Nelani — it wasn’t entirely a lie. He did have to take care of what had happened in the caves but his work had consisted more of COVERING his tracks than genuinely dealing with the aftermath of losing a jedi on his watch. The more he had dealt with erasing any trace of Lumiya and what had really happened to Nelani the worse he felt about it. It was on his way home, finally getting away from Lorrd, when his conscience and the weight of what he had done fully dawned upon him all at once. Yes, he had murdered Nelani, a woman who had TRUSTED him out of fear of the future, out of love to his uncle Luke who he hoped to spare by preventing a future in which they had to be enemies. But he knew his uncle would tell him this wasn’t a price worth paying, it wasn’t the right thing to do even if it felt like the force was guiding him to accept it. Was he being deceived? Was Lumiya creating these situations to lure him into trusting her? He had seen the future, several futures, all leading to certain doom as long as Nelani lived. Did that justify him striking her down? A woman, a girl, whose worst crime was existing at the wrong moment at the wrong place?
He was closing in on Coruscant now but unable to land when his fear overtook him — in almost childish motion he had reached out to his uncle only for a SECOND before forcing his shields up again and his emotions back into the corner of his mind where he could lock them up and ignore them but it had been enough for Luke to sense something was horribly wrong and contact him through his comm. Luke knew he was close now, there would have been no way to ignore him without raising more suspicions and the moment he had seen his uncle’s face appear in the holographic projection of his comm, his worried expression … it had all come crumbling down. The calm facade he had worked on for YEARS — gone in an instant. “ I can’t … I can’t come home after what I’ve done. Akanah warned me I shouldn’t have left, I wasn’t ready — now my ignorance has caused a Jedi’s death. ” It was as if all the things he had fought to keep at bay over the last decade suddenly came spilling out without any chance of holding anything in. “ You wouldn’t understand it, you weren’t there when — ” He couldn’t say it, couldn’t admit to how Nelani had died, how he had trusted the words of a sith over that of his fellow Jedi. His uncle wouldn’t see what he had seen.
for months, there had been a worry burrowing itself deep into his consciousness, unavoidable and even more disturbing. the worry was for his remaining nephew, the hints of change within the man hardly bestowing him with much confidence that the shifts of the other’s being were entirely beneficial. certainly, after thirty cycles in life, anyone would be due to morph however slightly as they gained maturity, but none of this called to him as something so benign. watching jacen with a careful eye, often from afar, he began to doubt his choices, doubt his trust, yet nothing screamed into the force with enough volume to shove him into action. though certainty slowly crept onwards, he wanted to believe it was somehow a misjudgment, wanted to release this fear into the force to be utterly forgotten.
if it had for a moment left the forefront of his mind, the brush of pure, barely contained terror ripped it forward once more.
luke’s fingers gripped the chair before him, not out of any weakness brought on by some mental violence, but rather how the edge of certainty now shook him to his core. something was wrong. perhaps it wasn’t the pall of darkness unknowingly lowering over the man, but rather something much more present and acknowledged. without a second thought, the jedi master keyed in his nephew’s comm code, nearly wishing he could order the other to pick up through the force as his forehead creased with each heartbeat. as it was, it felt as if minutes passed in the handful of seconds which passed before the man answered. before he could even take a full breath, the stoic mask he was first presented with disintegrated before his very eyes, only increasing the steadily more apparent thrum of panic within his veins. his offer tumbled out without much thought, the tight hold he held his remaining calm within remaining intact.
yet, he abhorred where his first inclination led him with the sum of the little information he had before him: that jacen’s admittance to a part in nelani’s death was far greater than mere ignorance… with a vicious slap, he pushed the thought down, far from useful to him in this present moment. lids slipped shut over grey-blue eyes, half a breath taken before he repeated himself, attempting to ground the knight in the now, not whatever past actions tore at his heart. ❝ no, i don’t, but i’m sure i will once you explain, jacen. just tell me where you are. ❞ he sincerely meant his words with every fiber of his being. ❝ whatever has happened, you’ll be okay. ❞