NOTES: Well, here's another little something -- not much of a story, it just cropped up... No rating, only implications of a pairing, no spoilers. Just Luke's thoughts about the Force and temptation, years after the battle of Endor. Let me know what you think.
I could do anything.
The thought alone sets off a tremor I've never felt before. Vast enough to enclose a whole universe and shape it to my purpose, my whim, my fulfillment of the moment. This is what Yoda tried to show me, and I never understood until now. There is no limit within the Force, once the limits of our own minds have been overcome.
Space, proportion, time,need, reason.
The Force is indifferent to all of it.
And it scares me.
All my life, I've longed for liberation. Liberation from dreary routines that sheltered our lives from the harshness of Tatooine. Liberation of wild and beautiful dreams into reality, even though it traps them beneath the weight of earthbound necessities. Liberation from the restrictions imposed on our minds, from the tyranny of a heartless regime, in the name of justice. I couldn't have achieved this much alone, and I understand now why my teachers hesitated to let me explore my own potential at will. I would have liberated the galaxy without a thought for the consequences. I would have made up new patterns of justice on the spur of the moment. I would have failed in a worse way than my father.
Liberty must have been his goal once, until power replaced it, and power is never self-sufficient. It thrives on awe, acclaim, and resistance. It feeds on every resonance it exacts, and the greater the impact, the more solid its reality grows. Is that why it leads to violation so easily? Power creates a division between those who scream and those who laugh at the spectacle. Power is glamorous, because it dares everything.
I can still hear my father's words to me, after he'd cut off my hand. *We can bring order to the galaxy.*
Was he desperate then, because the power he'd seized had outgrown meaning and purpose? Did he think he could make me listen by making me scream? But the pain of that moment brought just another division, instead of enabling us to share... what?
Loss, loneliness, the longing for more.
At the time, I had no conception of the emptiness in his life. There's more than wanting to be a shooting star, more than the thrill of unlimited possibilities and the heated gaze of a crowd. There has to be more than liberation.
I could be anybody.
Now that I'm the only one left, I could be whatever I want to be, but when I turn to the mirror, I see too much and too little.
I've been made into a fantasy before I had a chance to grow. All too often, my name has been used as a cheap coin for personal profit and arrogant campaigns. The crowd's eyes are on me, conjuring one mask after the next.
Innocent savior, son of a demon, blank slate.
Hero, victim, tool.
I've been the raw material for the dreams of others too long. I've been used and shaped by the hands of those who saw my destiny long before I could form a first thought, name a first desire. They had their sound and honorable reasons, but they never asked what I wanted.
I would always forgive them. Ben -- whose plans for me were set, his mind narrowed by the past, his vision of me clouded by Anakin’s shadow. Yoda -- who lived so entirely by the rigors and the boundlessness of the Force that my ties to mortal time seemed like shackles to him. Maybe I just wanted them to look at me and listen.
But was I any better?
I wanted a father allied to the right side -- *my* side -- and I wonder... to this day, I wonder if I truly left him a choice. Whatever his hopes were for me, he *had* hope. Perhaps for the first time in many years. Yet I made no effort to learn more and, without knowing what I did, turned that hope against him. I professed my belief in him and mere moments later proclaimed my father dead. What else could he do but die for me, to prove that my father lived?
Accepting him afterwards was cheap, but I could not love what had become of him. Perhaps because I feared that the same would become of me.
I'll never know what he saw when he looked at me, during his dying moments.
I stand alone, under an empty sky. Never before have I felt the Force so strongly, the pulse of the universe running through me, the way it whispers to my dreams. I could claim it all, because no one would dare to contest my choices.
Safe behind the many masks that I wear, I have the power to invent the story of my life and rewrite it as I please. And each word would make real what others have dreamed of or feared in private. A word once spoken can never be undone. All I have to do is name my desires.
This is the temptation. And if I resist, will anyone know? Will my resistance be noticed or count as lack of courage? Perhaps it's the nature of every honest sacrifice that it must go unnoticed, unnamed. I don't mind that. It's just that I feel responsible.
That's what I never realized when I dreamed myself off Tatooine -- that liberty creates the greatest responsibility. For myself first, before I can presume to be responsible for anyone else.
That's why I've come here to contemplate my choices alone, as long as it takes, even if it takes a lifetime.
Alone... ...and yet, I could have anybody.
Sounds carry far in the transparent air of this world. The jet blaze of a lonely ship glitters fast and fierce, like a splinter broken out of the sun. I make no move as it lands, though I feel the blast of sand and gravel like hot needles, and the waiting within me expands to the limits of my skin.
From stony soils that lie inert under the sun grows the silhouette of a man, a shadow against flat horizons and wind-washed skies. The man I've loved in so many different ways, over the years. No one else would dare to come here and disturb the meditations of a Jedi Master.
He walks towards me, and I've never seen so much soul expressed in body and motion. The rhythm of his long, easy strides, the reckless, casual grace, the cynical twist and the revealing gentleness of his mouth. All the vivid contradictions that define him. Maybe I'll never truly understand him.
Who does he see when he looks at me with such calm, piercing directness?
There have been times when I found myself trapped by the gaze of the crowd, hunted down by empty desires and wanton speculation that turns every gesture into a treacherous confession. Yet they never knew me the way he does. And I've waited so long...
Now that he's free to choose again, I could reach into his mind and alter his feelings. He would never even notice. A minor shift could tilt friendship towards desire, or lust towards love. Perhaps all it takes is the slightest prodding, such as mere chance could have brought about. Not a violation, only a rearrangement of cause and effect.
I can do anything. If I dare.
And why not?
Some would admire my courage, or shiver in delight at my recklessness. In changing all the rules to my own designs, I could prove my mastership. I can claim him for my needs, use him for my fantasies, reduce him to whatever fuels my pleasure. And I could command him to act out my dreams with a single word.
Empty thrills that take my breath away.
I want to listen to him. I want to take pleasure from his kept secrets and respect his silence. I want to see myself reflected in his eyes, hear him speak my name with a private meaning of his own.
Sometimes I ache with loneliness. Sometimes I rage at the faltering pace of change. Sometimes I'm as rash in joy as I am in anger. But all of this is mine. Even the need for things I can never have, the dream I keep to myself.
His presence gives me hope.
Sometimes I think that enough power, enough pleasure, enough purpose could come from a single man's trust. Passionate, proud, and free, this man's love could give me a life among the many possible futures.
Perhaps he's ready now, but I won't ask it of him.
His liberty is precious to me.
Daring alone is not enough.