[ The reply comes about a month later. He's back on a Republic cruiser and they've finished their mission, yet another, the war hobbling along at this point, the Separatists clinging to what territories they have left. They're closing in on Count Dooku, too. It won't be long, now.
Apologies for how long this has taken me - I've thought about you, though, more than once. If you haven't already, you should hire someone to tend to your house, actually hire them. See what difference it makes when good people are driven by something they want, rather than something they fear.
My friend, the one I've mentioned more than once - well, he's been a friend to me since I came to Coruscant, back when I was a kid. He used to take me with him to secret places, show me aspects of the world that I'd never seen or known about. Dark places. Some time ago, I asked the Jedi Council whether he'd done this with others, ever, knowing full well the answer beforehand. I don't know why I needed to ask. Their explanations certainly didn't do anything for me but that's nothing new. In any case, there's something about my friend, about myself in relation to him, that makes me... It confuses me.
I'm telling you this because you asked me what I could bring to your state of emptiness and honestly, Sarica, I can only say that I'd bring myself. What little I own isn't worth much to anyone else. I don't know why my friend wanted it, even back when I was so little that I couldn't speak his language fluently and right now, I can't tell whether you'd find any use in it, either. They say I'm overconfident in my own abilities because they don't understand the extent of them - I'm not, obviously. I just know what I can do.
It's not confidence, it's fact.
And it's fact, too, that I don't know whether you'd be more or less empty if I were to visit you. Are you going to ask, though?
For me to return?
The war is dragging its feet a little but if you ask me, we're definitely reaching the end. The enemy is tired. Exhausted.
[ A small pause and an audible exhalation. ]
You sound tired too.
There's no need for you to think of yourself as limbless, Sarica. You aren't. You have your body, your mind. And if you refuse to own slaves again, then you'll most definitely have a better chance at finding what you need from me.
[ Sarica is a man of action, even in an empty house, even being an empty house. He acts. He arranges and he plans and he executes. Three days after Anakin's message reached him, he sends out his own. This time there's noise in the background, women's voices chatting while things move, scrape over floorboards, clinking of metal and glass. He has emptied his villa. Discarded everything that was from another life, no longer relevant. New items, new furniture, new atmosphere, new residents, too. He's drinking a herbal brew his (new) cook has made for him. She's old and fat, but she likes to make the delicacies he likes and leave them out before leaving in the early night hours. He pays her a little extra for it.
The comlink lies in front of him on the table. His voice is steadier than the past couple of calls. It's got more edge and less hesitancies. He commands once more, he doesn't only chase and charge and lose. Others do all of those things down in Reece, of course, but what has it got to do with him? ]
You want me to tell you to return. Here, to me. But I'm not going to ask, Anakin. Call it what you want, but when your war is over and while mine still rages on, you will come back and live in my house with me, for a little while or a long while or whatever exists in between or beyond those two denominators. I have had the villa emptied for your sake. I've rebuilt it from its very foundation. I've hired people. Know, I'm not appeasing you, I'm being accommodating, it's an offer - and an order, there's room here, fill it, Anakin Skywalker.
[ Foreign as it may sound, there's a smile in his voice, it's warm, almost burning hot, and there's a cut corner and hard edges to it, too. If Timachus matters anymore, it's from a historical perspective. He was here, now he's gone. The bitterness to change. The many, many opportunities as well.
Then, after a long moment of just women laughing, such a foreign sound in his villa, Sarica continues, his tone darkening and deepening. ]
Your friend has no doubt seen the same in you that I see. Challenge. Competence. Conflict. Confusion. Things that can either be harvested naturally or taken advantage of, when the person in question can't properly exploit it themselves. You were a child, my friend, how should you know. Don't Jedi teach each other? If anything they should've taught you to recognise what was fair use, who was to properly utilize what you carry within you, if they were not willing to make more invasive decisions on your behalf. If you're asking them now where they were, in your special, singular case, it's because you already know they weren't where they should've been.
Someone should be there for you, Anakin. Not because your confidence in your own abilities is wrong, but because confidence is not a protector, only an enhancer.
People who fly very high deserve a softer landing, I'd think. It's only logic.
Speaking of people doing what they want. If your friend doesn't feel like your friend any longer, you always have a choice. You always have a choice.
[ It's audible that he's leaning closer, as if feigning proximity, intimacy. Except it isn't faked, it isn't faked when you feel it. ]
Except for returning to me. I'm not giving you a choice there.
He's listened to Sarica's message more than once since he got it, weeks back. You always have a choice, he'd said. If your friend doesn't feel like your friend any longer.
Anakin's hand doesn't waver as he pushes the button. ]
Hello, Sarica.
[ There's a smile in his voice along with a touch of warmth. ]
You haven't asked me to return, I suppose, just as you haven't appeased me by changing your home. Your ways of life. I get it, I think. Takes me a while, maybe, but eventually I get there. It's about the words, isn't it, about what they mean and what they don't and how the slightest semantic difference can protect you. I have my lightsaber for that. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good weapon when I see it.
Hey, by this logic, we've been sparring since the first time we met! I like that idea.
[ A pause as he shifts, his clothes rustling. A bird walks by, close enough to distract him for another second. Then, it flies off, the sound of its wings loud in the stillness. ]
Off it goes. Anyway, I've decided that you're right. About all you said. I've uh... [ Trailing off in embarrassment here, but whatever, soldier on, Anakin! ] I've memorized some of it so take that as it is. Earlier in the day, I finished a mission with my old Master, rescuing my friend from a tough situation and dealing with a dangerous foe in one swoop. I've fought him before and lost my hand to him - but that was years ago and this time, I won.
And as I stood there with my swords - his and mine - crossed against his throat, Sarica - I heard my friend whisper that I ought to kill him and I would have, I think, I would have, except for some reason, your voice carried over louder in my head and drowned him out. You have a choice, you said and I agree. I know that I do.
But sometimes, I forget.
The foe in question ended up dead anyway but not by my hand and for some reason, I feel like I dodged a blaster bolt when I think about it. Kill him, my friend said. But I'd already disarmed him so surely, I shouldn't have! Surely.
Surely, he shouldn't have goaded me. To... to kill someone. [ A huff, self-deprecating. ] Not like I need that anyway.
Why would he do that, do you think? I'm asking myself that question now, as I have all day. And other things have happened - things that make me feel pulled about and tugged at in many different directions, people asking me to do things that I can't --
[ Sarica is in a meeting when his comlink buzzes, it's an urgent meeting, too, about strategies and resources at the Reecian border, but he still excuses himself and goes listening to Anakin. Anakin who sounds equal parts a child and a soldier, a slave and a free man, caught up in thoughts about whom he owes himself to, pointing to everyone but the obvious choice.
Don't Jedi have mirrors, he wonders, smirking, but darkly, unamused.
Checking that the hallway is clear and that no one will hear him, he presses the button and holds the comlink close to his face, intimately, the distance between confidantes, not between strangers. Although they're by all accounts three days apart. ]
Take only the truth from this, Anakin, because I'm not a devout person, but I'll tell you have faith even so. What I mean is, have faith in yourself. I'm getting the feeling that where you are, there is no one else you can truly trust. Your own sword and my words will only protect you insofar that you put that confidence to good use and add all the hope your age should have entitled you to. If tomorrow will be a strange day, hope beyond tomorrow. Trust in your abilities. Believe in yourself. I would say this to no one else, because I care little about most people, but you have earned my words.
Like I have earned your sword.
[ A slight smile-slash-smirk at that. He isn't talking about his lightsaber. Or swords in general. He's talking about grabbing someone by the dick and leading them from there. ]
If your friend asked you to kill someone you had no mandate, and more importantly, no desire to kill in that situation, he is no longer your friend. If you're doubting yourself now, make sure that's the right place to direct those questions. Should you be asking yourself? Or should you be asking him? Doesn't he owe you the answers? Have faith in your own instincts, Anakin. If he wants things from you that you're not prepared to give, that you do not want him to have, he is only one more slaver.
Haven't you known enough of our kind, do you think? Be free. I will you to be.
[ Footsteps down a hallway. A pause in which he waits, holds his breath, then - ]
If it helps, keep memorizing what I'm telling you. If it doesn't, do it anyway. It pleases me.
[ He's mid-meditation - because he ought to, apparently, because he's got a mess to clean up, the extent of which he isn't even fully aware of yet - when his comlink buzzes. There's no around here to disturb at the moment; with the Galactic Republic still reeling from Palpatine's death and the armada scrambling to close up dead ends all over the galaxy, no one truly has the time. No one but him and a few younglings and they give him a wide berth still, seeing as gossip goes around, particularly in the temple.
That he'd almost...
Well, but he didn't, did he.
He listens to Sarica's message, a smile spreading slowly on his lips. He still gets winded easily and his chest and ribs, in particular, feel like someone parked an RT-AT on him but regardless...it feels right. Listening to his words and knowing what he chose to do. How it turned out.
In other news, the comment about swords go straight to his groin so that's nice and awkward, out here in the meditation gardens. He groans and shifts a little before hitting the button to reply. ]
Oh, definitely - it helps. Even now, though everything has changed, it helps more than I think you realize.
[ He straightens up a little to take the pressure of bending forward off his lungs, his clothes rustling. In the background, there's the faint noises of Coruscanti traffic chugging along as always, like the world didn't just end last week, like it didn't just... He breathes in slowly before he continues: ]
It won't really feel like much to you guys, what with your planet being at the absolute butt-end of the galaxy but regardless, here's your macro-political update of the day. The Chancellor of the Republic is dead. [ Pause. A heavy swallow here, still. He can't help it. ] I - well, my men killed him because they had to. To save me.
[ He looks away, up, towards the sky. A brief pause as he centers himself. ]
He was evil, Sarica. Evil to the bone and deeper yet. [ Thinly: ] And he'd been my close friend for so long. Or, I thought he had. I'm still pretty confused about this.
Anyway, it took me a little while to heal up but I'm up and about again, right as rain. [ Well, close to. Whatever. ] Though I should be focusing on my own mental balance, I bet you already know what I'm thinking about. Your comment about what you've earned. What we've earned and what it implies. I keep thinking about you getting paid help and changing up your entire home, about how it would suit us now if I came on my own volition, freely, with nothing to barter with except whatever you'd like to have of me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
comlink
Anakin sits by himself again, once more in the shared sleeping quarters, once more watched over by Rex who at this point has managed to ask precisely one question regarding Padmé and nothing more. All the same, he keeps watch now, not knowing for what or why. It's Anakin and apparently, to him, that does it.
He turns it on. ]
Apologies for how long this has taken me - I've thought about you, though, more than once. If you haven't already, you should hire someone to tend to your house, actually hire them. See what difference it makes when good people are driven by something they want, rather than something they fear.
My friend, the one I've mentioned more than once - well, he's been a friend to me since I came to Coruscant, back when I was a kid. He used to take me with him to secret places, show me aspects of the world that I'd never seen or known about. Dark places. Some time ago, I asked the Jedi Council whether he'd done this with others, ever, knowing full well the answer beforehand. I don't know why I needed to ask. Their explanations certainly didn't do anything for me but that's nothing new. In any case, there's something about my friend, about myself in relation to him, that makes me... It confuses me.
I'm telling you this because you asked me what I could bring to your state of emptiness and honestly, Sarica, I can only say that I'd bring myself. What little I own isn't worth much to anyone else. I don't know why my friend wanted it, even back when I was so little that I couldn't speak his language fluently and right now, I can't tell whether you'd find any use in it, either. They say I'm overconfident in my own abilities because they don't understand the extent of them - I'm not, obviously. I just know what I can do.
It's not confidence, it's fact.
And it's fact, too, that I don't know whether you'd be more or less empty if I were to visit you. Are you going to ask, though?
For me to return?
The war is dragging its feet a little but if you ask me, we're definitely reaching the end. The enemy is tired. Exhausted.
[ A small pause and an audible exhalation. ]
You sound tired too.
There's no need for you to think of yourself as limbless, Sarica. You aren't. You have your body, your mind. And if you refuse to own slaves again, then you'll most definitely have a better chance at finding what you need from me.
Consider that.
[ Off. ]
comlink
The comlink lies in front of him on the table. His voice is steadier than the past couple of calls. It's got more edge and less hesitancies. He commands once more, he doesn't only chase and charge and lose. Others do all of those things down in Reece, of course, but what has it got to do with him? ]
You want me to tell you to return. Here, to me. But I'm not going to ask, Anakin. Call it what you want, but when your war is over and while mine still rages on, you will come back and live in my house with me, for a little while or a long while or whatever exists in between or beyond those two denominators. I have had the villa emptied for your sake. I've rebuilt it from its very foundation. I've hired people. Know, I'm not appeasing you, I'm being accommodating, it's an offer - and an order, there's room here, fill it, Anakin Skywalker.
[ Foreign as it may sound, there's a smile in his voice, it's warm, almost burning hot, and there's a cut corner and hard edges to it, too. If Timachus matters anymore, it's from a historical perspective. He was here, now he's gone. The bitterness to change. The many, many opportunities as well.
Then, after a long moment of just women laughing, such a foreign sound in his villa, Sarica continues, his tone darkening and deepening. ]
Your friend has no doubt seen the same in you that I see. Challenge. Competence. Conflict. Confusion. Things that can either be harvested naturally or taken advantage of, when the person in question can't properly exploit it themselves. You were a child, my friend, how should you know. Don't Jedi teach each other? If anything they should've taught you to recognise what was fair use, who was to properly utilize what you carry within you, if they were not willing to make more invasive decisions on your behalf. If you're asking them now where they were, in your special, singular case, it's because you already know they weren't where they should've been.
Someone should be there for you, Anakin. Not because your confidence in your own abilities is wrong, but because confidence is not a protector, only an enhancer.
People who fly very high deserve a softer landing, I'd think. It's only logic.
Speaking of people doing what they want. If your friend doesn't feel like your friend any longer, you always have a choice. You always have a choice.
[ It's audible that he's leaning closer, as if feigning proximity, intimacy. Except it isn't faked, it isn't faked when you feel it. ]
Except for returning to me. I'm not giving you a choice there.
[ Off. ]
comlink
He's listened to Sarica's message more than once since he got it, weeks back. You always have a choice, he'd said. If your friend doesn't feel like your friend any longer.
Anakin's hand doesn't waver as he pushes the button. ]
Hello, Sarica.
[ There's a smile in his voice along with a touch of warmth. ]
You haven't asked me to return, I suppose, just as you haven't appeased me by changing your home. Your ways of life. I get it, I think. Takes me a while, maybe, but eventually I get there. It's about the words, isn't it, about what they mean and what they don't and how the slightest semantic difference can protect you. I have my lightsaber for that. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good weapon when I see it.
Hey, by this logic, we've been sparring since the first time we met! I like that idea.
[ A pause as he shifts, his clothes rustling. A bird walks by, close enough to distract him for another second. Then, it flies off, the sound of its wings loud in the stillness. ]
Off it goes. Anyway, I've decided that you're right. About all you said. I've uh... [ Trailing off in embarrassment here, but whatever, soldier on, Anakin! ] I've memorized some of it so take that as it is. Earlier in the day, I finished a mission with my old Master, rescuing my friend from a tough situation and dealing with a dangerous foe in one swoop. I've fought him before and lost my hand to him - but that was years ago and this time, I won.
And as I stood there with my swords - his and mine - crossed against his throat, Sarica - I heard my friend whisper that I ought to kill him and I would have, I think, I would have, except for some reason, your voice carried over louder in my head and drowned him out. You have a choice, you said and I agree. I know that I do.
But sometimes, I forget.
The foe in question ended up dead anyway but not by my hand and for some reason, I feel like I dodged a blaster bolt when I think about it. Kill him, my friend said. But I'd already disarmed him so surely, I shouldn't have! Surely.
Surely, he shouldn't have goaded me. To... to kill someone. [ A huff, self-deprecating. ] Not like I need that anyway.
Why would he do that, do you think? I'm asking myself that question now, as I have all day. And other things have happened - things that make me feel pulled about and tugged at in many different directions, people asking me to do things that I can't --
[ Pause. Breathe. Breeeeathe. ]
I keep your words in mind, my friend.
It'll be a strange day tomorrow.
[ Off. ]
comlink
Don't Jedi have mirrors, he wonders, smirking, but darkly, unamused.
Checking that the hallway is clear and that no one will hear him, he presses the button and holds the comlink close to his face, intimately, the distance between confidantes, not between strangers. Although they're by all accounts three days apart. ]
Take only the truth from this, Anakin, because I'm not a devout person, but I'll tell you have faith even so. What I mean is, have faith in yourself. I'm getting the feeling that where you are, there is no one else you can truly trust. Your own sword and my words will only protect you insofar that you put that confidence to good use and add all the hope your age should have entitled you to. If tomorrow will be a strange day, hope beyond tomorrow. Trust in your abilities. Believe in yourself. I would say this to no one else, because I care little about most people, but you have earned my words.
Like I have earned your sword.
[ A slight smile-slash-smirk at that. He isn't talking about his lightsaber. Or swords in general. He's talking about grabbing someone by the dick and leading them from there. ]
If your friend asked you to kill someone you had no mandate, and more importantly, no desire to kill in that situation, he is no longer your friend. If you're doubting yourself now, make sure that's the right place to direct those questions. Should you be asking yourself? Or should you be asking him? Doesn't he owe you the answers? Have faith in your own instincts, Anakin. If he wants things from you that you're not prepared to give, that you do not want him to have, he is only one more slaver.
Haven't you known enough of our kind, do you think? Be free. I will you to be.
[ Footsteps down a hallway. A pause in which he waits, holds his breath, then - ]
If it helps, keep memorizing what I'm telling you. If it doesn't, do it anyway. It pleases me.
And it helps, I'm sure.
[ Off. ]
comlink
That he'd almost...
Well, but he didn't, did he.
He listens to Sarica's message, a smile spreading slowly on his lips. He still gets winded easily and his chest and ribs, in particular, feel like someone parked an RT-AT on him but regardless...it feels right. Listening to his words and knowing what he chose to do. How it turned out.
In other news, the comment about swords go straight to his groin so that's nice and awkward, out here in the meditation gardens. He groans and shifts a little before hitting the button to reply. ]
Oh, definitely - it helps. Even now, though everything has changed, it helps more than I think you realize.
[ He straightens up a little to take the pressure of bending forward off his lungs, his clothes rustling. In the background, there's the faint noises of Coruscanti traffic chugging along as always, like the world didn't just end last week, like it didn't just... He breathes in slowly before he continues: ]
It won't really feel like much to you guys, what with your planet being at the absolute butt-end of the galaxy but regardless, here's your macro-political update of the day. The Chancellor of the Republic is dead. [ Pause. A heavy swallow here, still. He can't help it. ] I - well, my men killed him because they had to. To save me.
[ He looks away, up, towards the sky. A brief pause as he centers himself. ]
He was evil, Sarica. Evil to the bone and deeper yet. [ Thinly: ] And he'd been my close friend for so long. Or, I thought he had. I'm still pretty confused about this.
Anyway, it took me a little while to heal up but I'm up and about again, right as rain. [ Well, close to. Whatever. ] Though I should be focusing on my own mental balance, I bet you already know what I'm thinking about. Your comment about what you've earned. What we've earned and what it implies. I keep thinking about you getting paid help and changing up your entire home, about how it would suit us now if I came on my own volition, freely, with nothing to barter with except whatever you'd like to have of me.
I'll give that to you, if you like. If you want.
[ Pause. Then, with complete certainty: ]
I want to give that to you.
It won't be long now, Sarica. It won't be long.
[ Off. ]