The Loyalty of the Dark

Chapter 33

When the twins were born—yes, Zilla had been right, though by that point Anakin had managed to bring himself to suspect as much—the Jedi did his best to put Zilla and the other Luke and Leia in the past. Honestly, it worked rather well, especially now that the two newborns took up a fair share of their parent's time and usually prevented a good night's sleep.

Anakin had left the Order after the war had ended, though he was still far more involved with the Jedi than most others who had done the same—namely because Obi-Wan did his best to visit at least once a month now that the family had permanently moved to Naboo and Padmé had given up her life as a senator. The once Jedi now worked as a mechanic, but his friend had an excellent habit of convincing him to help the Jedi Master tackle a mission because apparently he needed a pilot who knew how to handle trouble.

As if he couldn't fly himself and didn't curse the decision the moment they got into trouble.

Anakin never minded. It was fun going back to play the Negotiator and Hero With No Fear game every so often—the once Jedi Knight still had his lightsaber after all and he wouldn't lie about the fact he sometimes missed the action and being a Jedi.

Sometimes Anakin would have strange dreams where he was in a suit and the world was red. They were always disturbing and brought his mind back to what happened in the days leading up to Sidious's defeat. He always ended up staring at Zilla's lightsaber, wondering if there was a connection of some sort—some part of him felt like there was, like he was missing something, big, something important. Regardless of the odd dream, his life was busy, but he was happy.

When Luke and Leia reached nine years of age, Anakin started training them in the ways of the Force. Luke took to the lessons excitedly, all too happy to be trained by his father considering he was always begging to join him and Uncle Obi-Wan when they went off on Jedi business while Leia was a tad more mellow being she had the full intentions of following in her mother's footsteps and becoming a politician—much to her mother's joy and father's dismay.

All in all, life was perfect.

But as anyone would tell you, perfect never lasts.