Star Wars: Galen's Run

Blood In The Water

The figure raised, becoming not much taller than it had been while sitting, and turned towards Galen, "Ah, Young Skywalker. Beginning to wonder when you would arrive, I was."

Galen looked to the small figure, creased his forehead, and proceeded to shake his head, "And how do you know my name?"

The small figured laughed a bit and smiled at the young man, "Have your father's will, you do. And your mother's ambition, yes." The figure laughed some more, "Once my pupil and student, they were, young Anakin Skywalker, and Ahsoka Tano. Follow the ways of the Jedi, they did, but not before disobeying the code, falling in love. Had you, the two young Jedi did." The figure moved towards Galen, slowly, and with a little cane. Once it reached a distance, at about the same as it's height, away from him, it looked to him and smiled, "Very much like your father, you are. Yes, have your mother's eyes, you do."

Galen then realized who he was speaking to, "Jedi Master Yoda," he smiled back to him, "it's nice to finally meet you," he bowed slightly, "I've heard a lot about you, Master."

Yoda placed both of his hands on his cane he used to walk, "All good things, I hope." Galen reciprocated a laugh, "Come, Young Skywalker, discuss your father, and future, we must."

"Where is it exactly we are going to?" He asked.

"Know the way, the force does. Guide us, it will," Yoda turned away from him, "Walk, we shall."

Galen followed Yoda, who seemed to be walking aimlessly. The tap of his cane against the ground was almost rhythmic, step-step-tap, step-step-tap, and it was the nice kind of tapping noise too. The tapping that sounds like a nice wood against a flat and incredibly smooth surface that gives you a nice cold chill when you hear it- or maybe that was just Galen.

Yoda led Galen to an even larger room, one that was far larger than the previous room that they had finally acquainted in, and the young Skywalker immediately noticed the smell. It wasn't a bad smell, as a matter of fact, it almost smelled like the sweet meiloorun fruit. The smell brought him back home, his mother standing before him. Ahsoka did always send Anakin out on meiloorun missions, even though where they lived they seemed to be impossible to get ahold of.

Ahsoka was slicing the orange and red rinded fruit, eating little bits of it here and there, while a rare purple variant sat waiting for its turn. Galen closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nostrils, "Can I have a piece?"

Ahsoka turned towards him, held out a piece of the meiloorun and smiled, "Of course you can my son." Galen took the piece and inserted it into his mouth, he had been craving the fruit for a long while up until this point, and it was just as juicy, sweet and tangy as he had remembered it being. "Don't forget to thank your father for going on the wild chase for these, you know how determined he gets to do something or get another thing done, he was gone for hours just searching for one of them, let alone four and a rare purple one." Ahsoka turned her smile towards the empty doorway, her smile fading slightly, "I miss him."

Galen lowered his head and nodded, finishing chewing his fruit before speaking, "I know you do mom, I miss him too. But that's why I'm looking for him," Galen swallowed fully now and moved his gaze towards his mother, "I will bring him home. Whatever it takes."

Whatever it takes... Ahsoka thought about what that meant truly. She would go through anything and everything to have her Anakin Skywalker back, but she knew that somehow, someway, this wasn't supposed to happen. "Galen," Ahsoka said slowly, "I need you to come home."

He looked to his mother and raised and eyebrow while cocking his head in confusion, "But mom, I'm so close, I can feel it, I know I'm almost to him, I can bring him home. I'll be alright."

Ahsoka quickly grabbed her son by his shoulders, the look in her eye more frantic than he'd ever seen it. It was only a moment before she spoke, and yet, it took less than that for Galen to see it all. He saw it through his mother. Once she grabbed his shoulders he saw all of the possibilities. The hate, the anger, the rage and suffering. A black clothed figure, from head to toe, a menacing helmet or face mask of some sort, and the fire. Just for the briefest moment of time, no longer than a second in itself he saw. He saw the death and destruction. The children, all gone. And his mother, as well as uncle Obi-Wan, all murdered. Murdered by his father's hand. Galen saw it all. He shouted, but no noise came from his mouth, he reached out for his mother but nothing was there, just the cold empty blackness. Mom! He screamed as hard as he could through his force bond with his own mother, but only the echoes of his own voice reverberated in his head.

What he saw, he was sure was real. What had happened? Was his father actually planning on all of this? Was he even capable? No, my father could never harm anyone the way I've seen, let alone hurt his wife or uncle Obi-Wan. The events constantly replayed in his mind, over and over and over again. Anakin grabbed children who attempted to fight back, helpless against the power of the chosen one, and he slashed away at them as if he was cutting away at a overripe meiloorun fruit. He witnessed him grabbing his mother by the throat and swiftly dispatching her with an effortless stroke of his lightsaber across her throat and another diagonally across her chest. Her heart had already stopped after the first stroke.

Why would he do this? This wasn't the father he knew, and it certainly could not have happened, his mother would contact him immediately if his father had returned, no matter the situation. So, what was he seeing over and over? And that smell, the meiloorun, it started to overwhelm him and his head started to pound. That's it, he thought, the meiloorun. And his eyes shot open.

No longer at home, he sat amongst the stars, floating in never ending space, with Master Yoda directly across from him. "What was all of that, Master? What did my father do? Where is he?!"

Yoda's eyes were still closed, and he looked peaceful, not in the least bit disturbed by anyone or anything, "Visions, not of the present, or the future, the past even, no. Visions of what could have been, they are. Resisted the dark side, your father did. Temptations, those were not, yet temptations the dark lord of the sith, offered he did. Dealing with these visions and his journey, your father is. Lead him back into the light, you must."

Galen nodded his head, sweat dripping down his brow, "Yes, Master."