The Student Becomes the Master

It was just another day at Chopper Base. Things were going slow as Hera and Sabine had gone on a supply run and Zeb was out doing who knows what. Ezra was laying in bed tossing his lightsaber up and down for lack of anything better to do when Kannen walked into the room.

“Hey Kannen”, he said

“Um, Ezra”, he replied looking uncomfortable, “I need your help with something.”

“Sure!”, Ezra said, perking up, “what do you need?”

“I want you to help me train…to fly The Ghost”

Ezra just stared blankly at him for a minute.

Kannen scowled and said “what?”, when Ezra didn’t respond.

“Umm kannen, are you sure that’s a good idea?”, Ezra said finally.

Kannen sighed. “We spend a lot of time in space. Most of our battles are fought on The Ghost. I need to be able to help. And I know I can.”

“Is that even legal? Flying…um, blind?”

Kannen smirked at that. “Kid, everything we do is illegal. Besides, Jedi train to trust the force more than our eyes. There are many ways to see.”

“Alright. If you’re sure. Just don’t blame me when Hera comes after you for wrecking her ship.”

Kannen chuckled, “You got a deal.”

They decided it’d be safer to try with the phantom because if anything happened to The Ghost they’d be dead men. Kannen had a trouble with all the buttons, but he could steer just as well as ever. Then he accidentally jumped into hyperspace, cursing the damn buttons, and Ezra decided the lesson was over.

“Let’s try shooting”, Ezra suggested, “It’s not like Hera’s letting any of us fly her ship anyway.”

“Alright”, Kannen agreed, sounding glum.

They flew the ghost a bit away from Chopper Base so that they wouldn’t blow it up and when they found a good spot Ezra got outside with some empty crates while Kannen climbed up to the turret gun.

“Ready?”, Ezra asked through the comm

“Ready”, Kannen replied with conviction.

“Ok, here goes.”

Ezra levitated the crates using the force and steadied them in front of the ship. He started with fairly fixed targets and then started moving them around. Kannen didn’t miss a single one. Ezra quickly realised it was too easy for him and decided to try multiple targets at once. Kannen shot them down so fast Ezra almost got crushed by one as it was falling to the ground.

Ezra whooped through the comm, making Kannen smile.

“Thanks kid”

“Anytime master” 🙂

Riffing on Star Wars: #33 – Reflections on Rebels Season 3 at the Halfway Point | Brown's Review

Photo Credits: Star Wars Rebels

“My Older Brother Taught Me”

“My older brother taught me.” The words came easier to Ahsoka’s lips every time.

The first time someone had asked her how she knew so much about the galaxy or where she learned to fight, she’d been caught off guard and had mumbled something about having a good teacher before slipping away. After that she’d spent some time thinking about what to call Anakin now that she was “undercover”, so to speak, and this was the best thing she had come up with. After running through all the options: Master, Teacher, Father(ew), the best friend she’d ever had, she’d landed on ‘Older brother’. In every way besides the biological sense, he truly was that. He was family.

And even though she was no longer his student, even through she had walked away, she would always be bound to him. Through love, respect, trust, and, of course, the Force. Whenever she needed to calm herself down or remind herself that she was on the right path, she meditated, and reached out to him through the force. His familiar presence was soothing and comforting, when everything else in her life was not.

Although she missed him, the knowledge that he was always there for her was enough to make her feel better.

Until one day, that presence was gone, leaving behind a void of pain and anger and violence that she couldn’t understand. When she learned about The Emperor’s ‘Order 66’, she’d attributed her feelings to that and assumed the worst: Anakin, her mentor, friend, her partner in everything, her brother, was dead. And she would have been inconsolable if she hadn’t convinced herself that Anakin would no doubt have gone down fighting, and that even in his last moments, he would have been protecting all that was light in the galaxy.

Still, the force was both living and cosmic. If he had left the living force and moved on, she would have sensed it. Perhaps in all the chaos that had ensued she had been unfocussed and therefore sensed something else.

She knew Anakin, but that uneasy feeling was always there in the back of her mind, her worst fear, waiting to be realised.

Anakin and Ahsoka's Last Interaction Is a Gift - Nerdist

Photo Credits: Star Wars The Clone Wars

Luke Meets Ahsoka- Never Underestimate a Droid

Luka and Ahsoka were cooking themselves dinner after a long day of training when Luke had a sudden thought.

“Ahsoaka?”, he said tentatively

“Yes?”

“Could I ask for a favour?”

“Sure”. Ahsoka was getting curious now.

“A friend of mine was captured by a gangster called Jabba the Hutt about a week before you found me, and I’ve been thinking about how to get him out of there ever since but…I just don’t know what to do.”

Luke looked puzzled at Ahsoka’s smiling face. “I’m sorry,” she said, “Jut thinking about how the droids used to say: ‘The Jedi rescue is a scenario that occurs 73% of the time beep boop beep’”, she finished, in a sorry imitation of a droid voice.

“So…are you gonna help me?,” Luke asked.

“Of course.” she said smiling, “We’re Jedi, how could I not?”

Luke smiled back, and they got to work.

Ahsoka told Luke everything she knew about Jabba, leaving Luke shocked that he was so old, and Luke briefed her on his odd vendetta with the smuggler. Crime lords like him usually didn’t hold such a grudge so whatever Han had done must have been really something.

“Do you have any Star Charts we can refer to or any schematics of his palace on Tattooine?”, Ahsoka asked.

“Maybe, let’s go see if R2 has some specs.”

Luke walked them to his ship, where the droid was waiting. Ahsoka hadn’t through much of it before, there were a lot of R2 units, but when she saw the droid there was no mistaking him. Incredulously, she asked, “Is that droids number R2…D2 by any chance?”

“Yeah”, Luke replied, “How’d you know?”

“Holy Banthas”, Ahsoka breathed, right before R2 came hurtling towards her.

Beeb Beeb Screeech

“Artooee! I missed you too buddy!”, she exclaimed with jubilation.

Beep Bop Boop

“I’ve been busy little guy, and I see you have too. Have you been taking good care of little Luke here?”

Beep Screeech, he said, spinning his head indignantly.

“Hey! I’m not little!”, Luke said, getting over his shock for a moment.

“This droid and I have been through a lot”, Ahsoka told Luke. “He belonged to your mother before your father even met him, he accompanied Anakin and I throughout the clone wars, and the last I saw him he belonged to Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan. How in the galaxy did he land up with you?”

Luke was so shocked he could barely formulate words but he managed to spill out the story of how R2 came into his possession. Ahsoka laughed as he finished, unsurprised. This droid had lived an incredibly wild life. He was probably the only droid in the galaxy who had never had his mind wiped.

Ahsoka knew exactly what that droid held in his memory banks, so she asked him to pull up a start chart of tattooine and its binary sun system along with everything he had on Jabbas palace. He’d been there a few times and he had the records from the Jedi Temple too.

Luke was barely keeping up with Ahsoka and R2’s strategising, and had to remind them more than once that this was his mission to rescue his friend, before they slowed down.

R2’s presence equally delighted and saddened Ahsoka. He reminded her of Anakin. All the adventured they’d been on, all the challenges they’d overcome. It was only fitting the R2 would be the one to guide Anakin’s son through his own adventures. Ahsoka marvelled out loud at the strangeness of the Force. ‘Nothing happens by accident’, she remembered, one of the first things Anakin had taught her.

It was the will of the force that she had been at Anakin’s side then, and that Luke was at hers now, and, of course, that R2 had been there all the way.

43 Mandalorian and The Child ideas in 2021 | mandalorian, star wars, star wars fans

Photo Credits: Star Wars The Clone Wars

View from the Moon

For as long as Rey could remember, she’d wondered what her dusty old planet looked like from its moon. Was it as bright as the moon looked like from Jakku? It must be bigger, she thought…it’s definitely bigger…but by how much? Did Jakku have phases like the moon or can you always see all of it? Did it just look like an orangish orb?

She longed to fly away, just to see it and come right back…but would she come back? When she’d learned how to fly a ship, all she could think about was flying away from that desolate place, but then she’d realised that the day she left could be the exact day that her parents returned. And so she trapped herself. Buried herself in her work. She learned to scavenge, and to fix things, and she made herself useful with her feet on the ground.

And every day as she worked, as she roamed the sandy wastelands of her home world, she looked up at the moon and the stars and wondered what her life would be like if she’d made a different choice.

*****

Years later she met a man who claimed to have travelled the stars and lived all her wildest dreams, and before she knew it she was flying away with him. And even though she was escaping certain death, she couldn’t help stealing a glance at Jakku, to finally see what it looked like from the moon.

And as she hurtled through the stars, feeling freer than she ever thought she would, she still feared that she might never find her family. Except she had found her family, just not in the way she’d expected. She had found her family on that ship, and she was never going back.

Happy Star Wars Day!!!! May the 4th be with you 🙂

6 Life Hacks You Can Learn from Rey | StarWars.com

Photo Credits: Star Wars The Force Awakens

Together Again

A few days after she met Luke, Ahsoka saw a force ghost. She wasn’t sure what it was at first, but then the apparition spoke, and her heart filled with warmth, which quickly turned to a raging fire. She turned to face him. Her jaw set and eyes boring into his. “Ahsoka”, he said, as he hung his head. “I don’t deserve to be here. I don’t deserve your time, or your forgiveness. But you must know that I am truly sorry…for everything…”

Ahsoka could barely manage to get the words out. “You…”, she choked, pain pouring through her voice. “You were my brother, Anakin. Where have you been!?”. Her voice was slowly rising to a growl as she continued, “I spent years beating myself up for your decisions. I’ve had sleepless nights, refusing to believe what you’d become. What do you want me to say to you now!”

She breathed deeply, trying to steady herself. She felt like a 14 year old girl again…lost in emotion, and confused. “You’re right”, he said softly. “You always were. And your hope is the only thing that ever kept me going. Thank you for that…I’ve never been able to hope like you, and I’ve never been as strong as you…and I know I hurt you, so I ask you for nothing. You don’t have to say anything…Just know that if you ever need me, look through the force, and you will always find me. I will never leave you alone again. I promise.”

He disappeared, and Ahsoka let go of the sobs she was holding back, and smiled.

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Photo Credits: Star Wars Rebels

One With The Cosmic Force

Hera was broken. After all this time, all her trials and struggles, this was too much. Her strength had finally given way. From the first day she’d met him, she’d realised how special he was. She had always been strong, but when she couldn’t be, he was always there to be strong for her. He was the only person who’d been with her from the dawn if it all…and the only person she thought would have been there until the end…

Kannen Jarrus…that was how she knew him. But since the beginning, Caleb Dume hd always been in there, and he always stood out to her. But it didn’t matter what he called himself. She loved all of him, and she couldn’t believe she’d waited so long to tell him…Somewhere in her heart she knew he knew, but she still regretted every moment of the last several years. She had dragged him into tis fight. He’d never wanted war, and now he was gone because of it…

What had he told her once? “Death is not the end. It’s just movement into another realm. The realm of the stars…” She sighed to herself and walked up to the turret gun on The Ghost. His favourite place, because he could see all around him, all the stars and the skies…and now she was supposed to believe that he was a part of them…? “Rejoice for those around you, who transform into the force”, he’d said. But how could she believe that when it was so mystical, so unreal, and so out of reach?

She was just wallowing in her own misery…gah, she chided herself for feeling that way, she needed to be strong. But how could she be strong without him? She didn’t even remember what that was like any more…fighting the universe on her own. Gods, she was being ridiculous…she was ignoring everyone else…she knew they all cared about Kannen as much as she did, and must have been feeling just like she was. Especially Ezra…oh Ezra…he was so young, he didn’t deserve this. He needed her more than anything right now. And it made her even sadder to think how much Kannen must have resented having to leave him like this, just the way his master had to leave him.

She started to cry…again. But this time she didn’t even try to stop it. She let go, and le the tears roll forth, and years of pain, loss, and grief seemed to wash over her. But then they also washed away. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered what the crew would think if they heard her sobbing over there like a baby, but then she realised she didn’t really care.

Her emotions were settling…if only for the moment. Her head was beginning to clear and she was sure that this was as close as she was ever going to come to “rejoicing” Kannen’s death. She dried her eyes, lowered herself down from the turret, and then walked back to the turret. To her safe place. She announced into the comm system that she was taking them for a spin and when she met no apparent objections she took off. She remarked that Chopper was nowhere to be found. He’d been spending a lot of time in Kannen’s cabin lately but apparently thought no one had noticed. That made her smile.

She sighed. Flying always made her feel good. It made her feel weightless, elated, like a child on a trampoline. Utterly free. Apparently Ezra had noticed this because he emerged from his nose gun hideout a few minutes later and pointed this out.

He sat in the seat across behind her, not wanting to be in Kannen’s seat…They flew in silence for a few minutes before Ezra said dejectedly, “I miss him too…I…just feel so lost…I don’t know what to do, and I don’t want to make you have to take charge that’s not fair I just don’t thi-“
“I know,” she cut him off. “It’s alright Ezra…I understand this has been hard for you…and I’m so sorry…but I believe Kannen would say something like ‘Rejoice for those around you who transform into the force’”

They smiled.

The Guardians of The Whills

~from Lyra Erso

Tear tracks glistened on her face, shining through the layer of soot and grime that had settled on it over the past few days. The Temple…she couldn’t leave it behind. She’d hidden in the caverns below for days trying to protect what lay within as best she could while protecting herself. This was her duty, no matter what.

The Jedi were gone, but she never thought that any being with its soul still intact would ever dare to mount a siege on a scared place such as this. Her people hat protected the Kyber for generations. She’d heard all the stories of plunderers and thieves who attacked every so often. She’s faced several herself years ago during the Clone War, and many more after. While the Jedi were off fighting for who knows what and then disappearing from the galaxy altogether, the outlaws and criminals of the galaxy gained confidence, but most often lost it upon entering the Temples. But this time it was different…

The Guardians of the Whills were no lame group of monks. They were warriors and protectors. True believers of the Force…but now…nothing more than a memory.

These men who’d arrived mere days ago had already taken all they could but still refused to leave. They could not see the crystals so they had scooped up the very ground to collect them.

Rage burned inside her. She wanted shout out and attack them. The rock-lion within her could not stand by and watch as these monsters with no honour or shame took the lives of her people and destroyed their homes out of greed. And with those crystals, they would surely only inflict more destruction. They would reign across the galaxy brandishing their new prize and walk right over those who stood in their way.

These men did not deserve what they had just stolen from her. She cursed the force for ever creating beings such as these…but then she remembered…the first lesson her mother had taught her…“Patrona”, she had said, “There will always be two kinds of people in the galaxy. Those who preserve and those who raze. That balance must remain, and you, your job is to protect that balance…defend it at all costs, or we are left with nothing.”

Gasping for breath as she ran up the endless flights of stairs from the vaults, these words rang in her ears. She clutched the crystal to her heart. She had to leave this planet, leave her name, and start a new life. One day, a new hope would emerge. She was…Lyra now…and instrument, no longer a guardian. Nobody could know her secret, but she would pass on what she had learned. That was the way. The will of the Force. These men, the destroyers, she promised herself that they would never win.

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Photo Credits: Rogue One A Star Wars Story

The Will of the Force

Death. What is it? What does it mean?

Master Yoda says it’s merely a change in form. A transformation from the living to the cosmic force. So why does everyone always look so grief stricken and sorrowful when they hear the news, if no one’s every really gone?

You can’t stop change, any more than you can stop the suns from setting. So why is it so hard to deal with? Nothing lasts forever…but, doesn’t it? If not in one form then another?

Why do we mourn those who transform into the force when they’re simply moving on? We must rejoice for them, not be so selfish. Their movement into a new world means they are at peace. It is the natural order of things, it can’t be stopped. So why do we even try?

Why is our fear of death always so much stronger than our will to live? So many questions…who’s answers are unknown. And that is our greatest fear of all. Everything we are afraid of seems to stem from what we do not know.

It amazes me that our minds always see a blank space as the end and not a new beginning.

An abyss and not an open door.

Darkness and not light.

Leaving everything behind, and not something to find.

…but Why?

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Photo Credits: Star Wars The Clone Wars

He Was My Master

~From Ahsoka Tano

He was my master, my brother, my best friend.No matter what, he always protected me, always supported me, and always trusted me.I had never known a feeling like that before I met him.It’s the purest form of love there is. The ability to put someone elses needs before yours and always look out for them.To be there to lift them up when they fall and and stand strong by their side through all life’s challenges.That was Anakin to me.Even when all the jedi doubted me, he believed in me.Even when everyone thought I was guilty, he trusted me, and went out of his way, and against the council to help me.He was the best friend you could ever have.He was so good, too good, Obi-Wan sometimes said…but that was Anakin Skywalker.Even as a boy, Padmé says he knew nothing of greed, and all he wanted to do was help people.He always gave without any thought of reward.He cared deeply about his friends, and looked out for them until the end.

****

Recently, I encountered a Sith lord, I had never encountered him before but still I sensed something familier in him.A presence I hadn’t felt since the Clone Wars…since I last saw Anakin.And so I meditated, and what I discovered, I refused to believe.All the pain,all the hate, all the anger I had ever felt or sensed poured into me.That horribly cold presnce you can sense only from someone consumed by evil.And it pierced through my heart like a dagger.I was just beginning to believe I knew who he was behind that mask, but it was impossible.Whoever this person was, he had attacked my master, slaughtered him, and burried him somewhere no one would ever be able to hear him.Somewhere so deep that even the slightest feeling of his love, warmth and kindness would never be sensed.This man had betrayed and murdered Anakin Skywalker.My master could never be this vile.This sick transformation of body and mind was NOT him. Even the thought of it was unthinkable…

#savestarwars

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Photo Credits:Smasher (on YouTube)

Another Mountain

~From Ezra Bridger

Sometimes you commit to things impulsively, even though you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.I thought training to be a Jedi would be pretty fun, and besides, who doesn’t want to be a Jedi?But the thing is, it takes patience, and discipline and everything I’m really not good at…and Kannen makes it look so easy…

Sometimes I wonder if I should just quit.Give up and go back to my old life, but then I look around and I realise that I’ve got a family now, and I don’t ever wanna lose them.I’ve learned so much from them, all of them, even Zeb…surprisingly…They’ve reminded me what it is to be a good person, to help those who cant help themselves, and to always be myself.

I’ve come this far, so I guess theres no turning back now.This is…uhh…the will…of the force!This is a mountain I have to climb all the way till the end, because I know somewhere in my heart that this is an experience that I’ll remember forever, and this is what I was always meant to do.

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Photo Credits:Star Wars Rebels