(Untitled)

[notyourlight]

Characters: Anakin Solo, OPEN
Location: The New Jedi Order Headquarters aka the former HQ of the Crimson Terror
Planet: Coruscant
When: uh... now?
What: Anakin's offering lessons in lightsaber combat to any and all.
Rating: PG for now

Comments

[sand_wormie]

Luke's hands tightened, bunching up the cloth near his pockets. Of course it hadn't worked, not on Anakin; when Luke looked out of the corner of his eye in just the right way there was a kind of cord between them, jagged and interrupted but very there, and the metaphor pretty much fell apart because it had nothing to do with sight, nothing at all. He let the defenses fade or collapse, so his scarcely-trained presence rushed back into a level of bright obviousness.

He could hear his heartbeat, faster now, and a more abstracted part of Luke wondered if this just always happened when he was... he knew the real reason, even if he'd covered it with anger last time. When he was horrified, and afraid - afraid the way he never was usually. Like the first time, when he and Biggs found that Tusken camp with the bones and that awful feeling rose up.

He'd told Anakin about that, Luke remembered. And Anakin had greeted him with Master, taunting him even then. Why had he even come here? But he'd felt like he should trust him, there; did that mean anything now?

There was the sudden wretched interrupting thought that yes, Anakin would make good on that bit about following Luke outside, so Luke licked his lips and coughed and put a hand to his throat to steady it. The end result, he was kind of proud that his voice was at all normal.

"Do I get a choice?"

[notyourlight]

"Of course you do," he sad matter-of-fact. "You'll always have a choice."

Luke's emotions rushing back were almost unbearable in just how powerful they were but Anakin had learned long ago how to process and even block another's emotions with the Force. "You don't have to worry. Sensing your presence isn't how I knew you were there."

He walked over to the door and motioned outside before stepping out onto the busy sidewalk anyway. He stopped in the center of the moving crowd and sat cross-legged on the ground before gesturing to a spot in front of him. All the while he ignored the irritated pedestrians that now had to make their way around him. "Sit. I want to show you something."

[sand_wormie]

He did come outside. Luke tried to mask his dismay and faced him. The Force reflected his unshielded indecision - go, go, go beat like small wings against solid stay as tiny don't want me want who I'm supposed to become lingered.

In the end - after a long moment - stay won out, and ignoring passersby he went before Anakin and sat, knees defensively to his chest. "How did you know, then?" he said warily, half a challenge.

[notyourlight]

"Tatooine has a certain smell to it. And before you get all defensive no that does not mean you stink," he said with a grin as he cracked one eye open briefly. He pats his own knees, trying to convey how he wanted Luke to sit. "Like me. You need to relax in order to do this."

[sand_wormie]

"I was not getting defensive," Luke protested. It was a poor lie, as these went. "Besides, I've been here like two months. And I thought you were human."

He was stalling, a little, and realized it. A flash of guilt weighed on his mind as he thought of Windy, crying and shaking in half-frozen terror when the two of them had gotten cornered by a small krayt dragon in the Jundland Wastes. Luke hadn't understood that kind of fear, then, and had just been frustrated by his friend. He understood a little better now.

Not that he was going t o freeze, or break, or cry for anyone. He was apprehensive all right, but could control himself. Luke settled with the boneless grace of youth into a similar pose and laced his fingers together in his lap.