"I could fit a hyperdrive to my transport. Borrow the ship's star maps. There has to be something habitable out here."
He gives each response knowing full-well how ridiculous it sounds, and how wholly unprepared any of them would be for such an excursion. But the exhaustion has wrapped itself around his insides--nothing to do with lingering pain from the Outpost--and he aches from the inside-out to find some kind of tenable answer. They live on a ship the size of a Republic Cruiser, and it might as well be no bigger than a humble cargo freighter for all the uncomfortable and unavoidable intimacy it affords.
Despite the desperation in the answer, he knows none of it would be enough. After the Moira's unfortunate pitstops, it has become increasingly apparent how little they know about this galaxy--the details never divulged in (dubiously legal) maps--and how even "habitable" might just mean anything but. There's also still the question of home, and whether it can even be changed. Could he honestly ask Padmé to give up her entire family--one that isn't shattered like his own--to settle among these foreign stars by choice? Could he ask Obi-Wan or Ahsoka to do the same, despite their (dubiously) lingering ties to the Temple? His own?
The loss of the Temple is still a heartache, one that pings deeper than he expects, the echo of a stab wound that stings every time he thinks back on watching the ancient building smoulder. He screws his eyes shut for a moment and forces the images of the dead inside--his fault, there's no question left--away.
"It wasn't enough," he says finally, after a considerable pause. Padmé may always forgive him in ways he cannot possibly deserve, but those three words repeat in tandem, like a mantra, wrapping around his heart and squeezing, feeding into the heart of the fire constantly licking at it. It's just one more thing to add to the mountain of guilt already seeking to bury him past the shoulders. "I didn't stay long enough, I wasn't fast enough, I didn't--"
Making it his own fault is easier. It gives him something to blame, and it's similar enough to the grief over Shmi that the pain is something familiar. It feels better than to face the grim reality that the galaxy is simply meant to be this harsh, and always has been. There's no Chosen One for that.
no subject
He gives each response knowing full-well how ridiculous it sounds, and how wholly unprepared any of them would be for such an excursion. But the exhaustion has wrapped itself around his insides--nothing to do with lingering pain from the Outpost--and he aches from the inside-out to find some kind of tenable answer. They live on a ship the size of a Republic Cruiser, and it might as well be no bigger than a humble cargo freighter for all the uncomfortable and unavoidable intimacy it affords.
Despite the desperation in the answer, he knows none of it would be enough. After the Moira's unfortunate pitstops, it has become increasingly apparent how little they know about this galaxy--the details never divulged in (dubiously legal) maps--and how even "habitable" might just mean anything but. There's also still the question of home, and whether it can even be changed. Could he honestly ask Padmé to give up her entire family--one that isn't shattered like his own--to settle among these foreign stars by choice? Could he ask Obi-Wan or Ahsoka to do the same, despite their (dubiously) lingering ties to the Temple? His own?
The loss of the Temple is still a heartache, one that pings deeper than he expects, the echo of a stab wound that stings every time he thinks back on watching the ancient building smoulder. He screws his eyes shut for a moment and forces the images of the dead inside--his fault, there's no question left--away.
"It wasn't enough," he says finally, after a considerable pause. Padmé may always forgive him in ways he cannot possibly deserve, but those three words repeat in tandem, like a mantra, wrapping around his heart and squeezing, feeding into the heart of the fire constantly licking at it. It's just one more thing to add to the mountain of guilt already seeking to bury him past the shoulders. "I didn't stay long enough, I wasn't fast enough, I didn't--"
Making it his own fault is easier. It gives him something to blame, and it's similar enough to the grief over Shmi that the pain is something familiar. It feels better than to face the grim reality that the galaxy is simply meant to be this harsh, and always has been. There's no Chosen One for that.