Explosions: anakin skywalker

chapter 4

We've all got both light and dark in us.

"Miss Margosa!"

She opens her eyes. Light leaks in through the windows, drenching the room in shimmery reflections as the light bounces off each shiny, metal surface. Elara squints her eyes to look out the window. She is no longer surrounded by stars and planets and darkness. They have landed.

Elara looks to where her name had come from that shocked her out of her sleep once and for all.  Obi Wan and three guards stand in her doorway. A rush of disappointment floats through her mind as she wonders where Anakin is, but she shakes her head slightly and convinces herself that the feeling is gone.

"Finally, a change of scenery will serve me well," Elara states as she gets to her feet.

Not even a moment has passed before guards take her arm on either side. She cannot help but growl at these two men. How dare they try to contain her further? She is already their prisoner. She did not need to be so harshly restrained, especially by the grips of aggressive, rough hands.

"I am not some sort of animal," Elara grumbles loudly.

"You cannot be trusted," retorts one of the guards, tightening his grasp on her right arm. Elara easily shakes his hands off of her right arm and glares at him, "You don't even know me." The guard reaches to his holster for a shocking device but Obi Wan waves his hand.

"There is no need for that. I'll take Elara the rest of the way."

"But sir-"

"Not another word. She may be a prisoner, but she is still a lady."

Elara scans Obi Wan Kenobi, searching for a flicker of his eyes, a joking smirk. She is startled by his hospitable nature, but is silently thankful for it. Not because she had been fearing being tased, but because she had been afraid of what more trouble she could put herself in by beating up a guard, however much she wanted to.

The guards begrudgingly unhand her, and Elara raises an eyebrow at Obi Wan. As the troopers walk away, Obi Wan gestures to the space beside him.

"Shall we?"

Cautiously, Elara nods and takes to his side, matching his pace as they walk.

"I trust you were well taken care of last night," Obi Wan strikes up a conversation after many seconds of silence. Elara nods again.

"I instructed Anakin to be as gentle as possible with you," Obi Wan continues, "It seems you have seen enough pain; you do not need any more inflicted upon you." Elara senses something in his tone, a twinge of guilt, a smidgen of sympathy. She refuses to acknowledge anything aloud.

Obi Wan seems to finally understand that Elara does not wish to converse with him and he gives up. Elara is shocked by this. She had been expecting interrogations the minute the guards slipped out of earshot, but he is not trying to get any information out of her. Elara looks over at him for a small moment, and she sees a flash of her padawan days within him. She sees fast paced smiles, she hears the familiar whir of a lightsaber within her grasp, she tastes sweat on her lips.

Elara feels a tug in her heart. Those times were locked away now, set in stone. They cannot be retrieved or returned to, not for her. She is a criminal; they do not get welcomed back into a world of justice. Even if they did...she tells herself she would not accept the invitation.