deercountry | (no subject)

He shifts to face her more fully, giving her a small smile.

"Tell me some of your favorites?"

"Oh, the people. Definitely the people."

She practically had it out before he finished the word 'favorites.' But only because she was deeply passionate about that. People made everything better.

Slightly abashed, she laughed, turning to look back at Ezra. "We've all gone through such strange things together. It makes us like a family. A very large, very confusing family."

His smile gets a little bigger.

"That's how I feel about a lot of the people in Temba. And of course the Specters."

"Exactly! You understand."

At least, she thought she did. The way he'd spoken to her about the Specters gave the impression that Ezra was good at finding family. Which was a skill. She really thought she could learn from him.

She'd never done it before. She'd never allowed herself to want it.

"I know this may sound horrible, and I don't mean it to, but I'm not sure how else to say this...I like being separated from my life as I knew it."

"No. It doesn't sound horrible. I miss the parts of my family that are back in home galaxy. I always will. But honestly."

He hesitates. "I'd....already chosen to do something that was taking me far away from them. That was probably going to get me killed. I did it to protect them and Lothal, and I'd do it again, given the choice. But being here is better than dead, or stranded halfway across the galaxy on a ship filled with Imperial soldiers."

Edited (a missing word) 2022-03-22 01:20 (UTC)

"Being anywhere is better than being dead," she said. "At least, I think so."

Not that death was a bad thing. It was just...limiting. That was her perception of it, anyway. It meant an end to new experiences and opportunities. And while it might reunite one with loved ones...

...it was a closed door.

"Anyway," she said, "back home, I never would have had the chance to meet a Jedi. Or the son of a muse. Or any of the amazing people here."

"There might be fates worse than death." He remembers one of the Inquisitors that served the Empire claiming that was so, before choosing to let go and plunge to death, while Kanan seemed to be considering a hand in mercy. "But this isn't it."

He looks over at Airy. "Did you...hear anything about the big battle off the shore?"

She shook her head. Which was a bit of a hard confession for her. Back home, she knew everything about everything, including the things she wasn't supposed to know.

Especially the things she wasn't supposed to know.

Just one more way her path was diverging.

It was all so strange.

"What happened?" she asked. "And why do I get the sense that you were there?"

He shoots her a wry smile - because she's not wrong - then sighs.

"There was a giant beast. Some of us who have visions knew it was coming, that it would attack everyone in its path, and gathered together a small army to face it. I reached out to it, before it got here, through the Force. Tried to convince it to go away or to soothe it."

He shakes it head. "There were at least...seven deaths in the battle? I couldn't stay focused enough to sense them, after a certain point." Much less keep enough of a grip on the Force to pull people away from fatal blows. "Before we killed it."

Her lips pulled down, just slightly. Not quite a grimace or a frown. But a look of deep sympathy. "That sounds awful," she said softly, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder, for just the briefest of moments, before she took it back. Some Humans were sensitive about personal space, others weren't. It was best not to assume either way. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

And sorry, of course, that the battle--any battle--had to end in so much death. Both the seven, and the creature.

She didn't much care for the word 'beast.' But only because she'd been called it herself, more often than she liked.

Ezra's using the local terminology as he understands it. He doesn't know what else to use. On the other hand, he's talked to Varian about being in that state and coming back, so clearly somewhere under the corruption is still...a person, even if they don't look at all person-shaped, and might be nearly impossible to reason with. It's all a continuum that he's still trying to figure out.

He looks over at her. "Thanks. And - for the recond, I'm usually ok with being touched."

He clears his throat awkwardly. "I cried all over Obi-wan."

She immediately put her hand back on Ezra's shoulder.

And, for all of her differences with Obi-Wan, she said, "You picked the right person to go to. He's always a calming presence." Sometimes infuriatingly so. And he gave the best hugs out of anyone she'd ever met.

Still. Ezra didn't exactly seem all that comforted.

"What happened?"

"I did pick the right person, but I was telling myself at the time that it was stupid and selfish," he admits.

"I said something about him having a brother to look after-" He rolls his eyes at himself. "While having a pity party in my head. And he just...looked concerned and stopped me and told me we're family. And that's when I started crying." He smiles, rueful, but grateful, too.

"And then we talked, it wasn't...bad, exactly. But I dropped some things I know about the war he came from."

Obi-Wan continued to confuse her, even in absentia.

How could you have a family and no attachments?

Well, that was a puzzle for another time. In the meanwhile, Ariadne bumped her shoulder up against Ezra's, giving him a bit of a sideways hug. Not as good as an Obi-Wan Kenobi hug, but still pretty good.

Which was for the best, because she was reasonably certain she didn't have much to offer besides hugs. Certainly not advice. "You mean...things about the future? His future?"

Ezra bumps back, grinning briefly, before his expression sobers.

"Yeah. We were talking about separating out solider from Jedi. Because, well, even though carrying a weapon is traditional, there's a maxim I've come across in some older Jedi writings that say variations of, if you have to draw your lightsaber, you've already failed. But in his time the Jedi joined the war, because they thought they had to, to protect civilian and end it quickly. But the truth is...the whole thing was a trap."

"War always is," she said. Not an idiom because she was useless with them. It was something she believed. "The trick is walking into it and knowing that it's a trap."

Fighting the Red Dragon was a trap. Everyone knew it. It meant sacrificing peace and harmony and everything that Princess Amanda had fought so hard for. But what was their alternative? To stand by and let him destroy everything?

Unacceptable.

Ultimately, Amanda and Lysia snuck into the war quietly. Hoping that their secret resistance would be enough. And maybe it would be. Who knew? But at least they'd gone in knowing what they had to do.

"Well." Ezra was quiet a beat, thinking about it.

"Yeah. Kanan said similar things, when Hera wanted to join with other Rebel cells to start really trying to cause bigger problems for the Imperial forces. He wanted to stick with mercy missions and sabotage we'd been doing. That sort of thing. He fought with the Rebel Alliance, but he refused to accept an official rank."

He shakes his head. "But that's not...quite what I meant."

There was something entirely complicated about rebels having 'rank.' But Ariadne decided that was probably more about his universe than anything else.

"What did you mean, then?" she asked.

Ezra needed to talk. She needed to listen.

He takes a deep breath.

"The Jedi accepting command of the army of the Republic led to the death of the Order. Which is...I'm not saying that as a moral judgment. That it was what was deserved, or something like that. Because, for one thing, it wasn't just the generals who were killed." He shakes his head, again.

"I mean, the entire war was designed by the Sith, to lead to that point. While giving a convenient narrative for why genocide was 'necessary', I think. Obi-wan knew enough already to see the results of the trap, but I told him...how. I told him that the troopers that he knows and trusts, probably even loves, have something in their heads that will take away their free will, the moment Palpatine commands it."

Very quietly, he adds, "If one of the troopers were to come here, if that was...active, or could be activated - anyone with magic could read as a Jedi to them."

Given everything that Ariadne had heard about Palpatine, it wasn't much of a surprise. It was fascinating. And far more clever than anything the Red Dragon could ever have schemed--although his lieutenant might. Almost elegant, if any sort of war and killing could be elegant.

It also made her want to hate him.

She sighed, shaking her head. Trying to let the thought go.

"I suppose it's possible," she said. "Deerington and Trench seemed to play favorites with people from your world. But I'm sure we could find a way to control it. Deactivate it, or whatever the right term is."

"I might be able to...break through the mind control, at least briefly. Maybe. I wonder if Ahsoka did that for Rex."

He's always intuited that they saved each other when the Purge started, somehow. But he never asked.

"And I know it's done through the physical thing in the brain. That can be removed with careful surgery."

"We have healers and doctors," she pointed out. True, any loss of blood had the potential for disaster. But she'd much rather risk potential than a rampaging soldier, mistaking people for Jedi and slaughtering them. Especially if it wasn't even their fault.

Of course, Ariadne didn't really understand how someone could operate on the brain. But she'd trust that to those with proper training.

The point was it was manageable.

He nods slowly, after a moment. "Yeah. If it's comes up, we'll figure it out. It was just...a tough conversation. I know Ben blamed himself for so much." He looks out across Trench, from their perch.

"I worry about Obi-wan here and now spiraling along those lines, too. Anakin's...moved out, basically. I think he thinks he's limiting the amount of harm he can do, but it's also pretty stupid, in my opinion. I'm staying with Obi-wan, at least for right now."

She tensed, as always, at the mention of Anakin. But then did her best to just...let it go. There was a possible future in which she managed to forgive and forget, but Anakin wasn't on the path toward it. So the best she could do was try to move past the way he'd treated Dean. Her family.

"You're very kind, Ezra," she said. "And I think, sometimes, with all of the busy and important people swirling around the universe, people forget how valuable kindness is. But Obi-Wan, for all of his faults, is probably wise enough to recognize it. He may not say so. But he knows."

A deep breath.

"As for Anakin...I think the only way to save him right now may be his mate. Not that I would wish this place on her, on anyone. But I don't know who else can get him to come to his senses."

He watches that shift in her body language come and go, as his own brow furrows.

"I mean, I try to be. Because kindness is one of the most important things in the universe." Maybe the most important. "Obi-wan's one of the people I learned that from."

It honestly baffles him that Ariadne believes Obi-wan might ever forget that. Be distracted from that fact, maybe. Forget to be kind to himself, yes.

He shivers hard, second-hand memories of Obi-wan yelling at Anakin (Vader) to let Padme go while she choked, flashing through his mind.

"I asked Padme to be careful. I'm not - I don't think she really understood. I can't tell her-" he says, getting increasingly agitated. He shuts himself up, abruptly.