through the broken glass and the morning light
Characters: Jacen Solo [open to responses through the Force, prose or action]
Location: The Bacta Tanks
Planet: Coruscant
When: Today.
What: Jacen returns.
Rating: PG.
He remembers nothing
and everything all at once.
Like any dream, time doesn't flow like a river in one direction. It's an Escher painting, falling up and down at the same time, laughing in the face of physics and reality. He hangs in the center of nothing, while everything rages around him.
Malak's footsteps, approaching, the burn of sabers through the air. The calm certainty of death, knowing it means the others will live, knowing it's his choice, not his fate.
He's still there, in that moment, even as he's standing on the tumultuous surface of Zonoma Sekot as the planet suffers around them. But it isn't just the planet that suffers, it's the entire galaxy, collapsing into storms and torrents and quakes, and he stands on top of it all as Shimrra snaps that familiar purple blade to life.
His brother's blade.
The amphistaff in Shimrra's hand cuts deep into his uncle's chest, and he hears his screams, feels the pain of it, even as he once again feels his own death, at Malak's hands. Does he know that's what he's remembering?
It doesn't matter. It moves too quickly, the lightsaber suddenly in Luke's hands, using two blades to slice Shimrra's head clean off. But it isn't finished, there's still..
"Jaina," his uncle says, his voice fading, and with a motion of his hand, the saber arches through the air, towards Jacen. He climbs to his feet, recognizing the moment, reliving the vision.
The universe tilts on its side. The saber clatters to the floor.
Stand firm.
Jacen slips into darkness and emerges into the light.
He was never meant to catch the weapon.
He's meant to become it.
The bonds of reality break free in one moment of pure understanding, and the universe tears through him, spilling out to fill his vision with white. To change the galaxy.
To let the Force shape it all, through him.
Beneath him, equilibrium returns, and the galaxy slides into balance. He stands in the center of it as a ballast.
And then it passes, and he wakes, knowing there was more, knowing there was everything, and finding nothing around him but the strange emptiness of reality.
His eyes open to stare out through the fog of bacta.
He's alive, but he's not certain that word will ever quite mean the same thing.
Location: The Bacta Tanks
Planet: Coruscant
When: Today.
What: Jacen returns.
Rating: PG.
He remembers nothing
and everything all at once.
Like any dream, time doesn't flow like a river in one direction. It's an Escher painting, falling up and down at the same time, laughing in the face of physics and reality. He hangs in the center of nothing, while everything rages around him.
Malak's footsteps, approaching, the burn of sabers through the air. The calm certainty of death, knowing it means the others will live, knowing it's his choice, not his fate.
He's still there, in that moment, even as he's standing on the tumultuous surface of Zonoma Sekot as the planet suffers around them. But it isn't just the planet that suffers, it's the entire galaxy, collapsing into storms and torrents and quakes, and he stands on top of it all as Shimrra snaps that familiar purple blade to life.
His brother's blade.
The amphistaff in Shimrra's hand cuts deep into his uncle's chest, and he hears his screams, feels the pain of it, even as he once again feels his own death, at Malak's hands. Does he know that's what he's remembering?
It doesn't matter. It moves too quickly, the lightsaber suddenly in Luke's hands, using two blades to slice Shimrra's head clean off. But it isn't finished, there's still..
"Jaina," his uncle says, his voice fading, and with a motion of his hand, the saber arches through the air, towards Jacen. He climbs to his feet, recognizing the moment, reliving the vision.
The universe tilts on its side. The saber clatters to the floor.
Stand firm.
Jacen slips into darkness and emerges into the light.
He was never meant to catch the weapon.
He's meant to become it.
The bonds of reality break free in one moment of pure understanding, and the universe tears through him, spilling out to fill his vision with white. To change the galaxy.
To let the Force shape it all, through him.
Beneath him, equilibrium returns, and the galaxy slides into balance. He stands in the center of it as a ballast.
And then it passes, and he wakes, knowing there was more, knowing there was everything, and finding nothing around him but the strange emptiness of reality.
His eyes open to stare out through the fog of bacta.
He's alive, but he's not certain that word will ever quite mean the same thing.