December, 4012 ABYTatooine – Outer Dune Sea
It was about time I returned home.
The heat was exactly as I remembered, dry, relentless, alive. Sand swirled around my boots like ghosts returning to their graves. The twin suns still hung above, unblinking, unmerciful.
But somehow… I missed it. The way the desert breathes. The sharp scent of scorched air. The silence that speaks louder than memory.
I stepped away from the ship.
Removed my armor, piece by piece, letting it fall into the sand. The plates hit the ground slowly, swallowed by wind and time.
I didn't need it anymore.
The blood. The power.
All it ever offered was the false promise that I might live to see another day.
I had buried enough of myself in other worlds. It was time to bury what was left here.
The wind carried the last grains across the dunes. I walked out of the ship.
I stood there, watching the suns sink below the horizon, their dying light glaring across my face.
In my hand, the saberstaff. Its weight was familiar. Cold.
A fallen man. A false prophet.
I was meant to be something beautiful, a symbol of hope, not built upon lightsabers or magic, but through the choices I made.
But that man has been dead for years. I've changed.
I chose to become a weapon of death, a tool of power, silenced by destruction.
I lost who I was, forgot what I once stood for.
But at what cost? Who have I become?
Silenced by the very people I served, destroyed by the choices I made.
I am nothing more than a mindless puppet, restricted, threatened, choked by my path.
But now...
I'm free. At peace. At last.
Amongst the glaring suns, I spotted it.
As sand drifted across the surface, it revealed what remained of my home.
For the first time in a long time, I saw my parents' faces.
Not in fire, but standing there.
I had forgotten the feeling it brought...
The warmth. The life. The love.
Then I heard her voice.
"My son... Look at what they've done to you."
My mother stood at the edge of the ruin, watching as I walked through the bones of what once was home.
"They've manipulated you, tortured you… And yet, you choose to come home."
I dropped to my knees.
"I have done wrong, Mother. I've failed you."
"The choices I made only led to more death. Everyone I've ever loved is gone."
"No, son. You chose the path you walk. You could have said no, always, but you didn't."
"And yet you ask for forgiveness. My son, even beyond my grave, forgiveness is not easily earned."
"But not all is lost in you, son. There's still a flicker of light, the memory of those you love, the hope you still hold. The choice is yours: return to that ship, trapped in endless hell, or make things right. Destroy who you were. Stay here with me. Stay home."
I closed my eyes, breathing in the air.
My mother's voice echoed in the wind as she became dust.
Not voices. Not ghosts.
I only listen.
To thoughts,
as the wind gently flows past my ears.
Nightfall.
And the warmth I once held
has long since faded.
Into the truth.
I rose to my feet, reborn, a new man who is no longer bound to the chains I once forged.
I lifted the saberstaff high above my head, its weight no longer a burden, but a memory.
And with all of my strength, I tore it apart.
The wind howled around me, dancing through, as pieces trickled down onto the sand.
I was no longer a weapon,
but reborn.
In the distance, a man approached through the twilight haze. Desert rags clung to his frame. A long staff dragged behind him, leaving a shallow trail in the sand. His goggles flashed in the dying light.
I froze.
The man stopped a few meters away, letting the silence speak first.
It was him,the leader of the Manchins' crew,the one who'd pulled me from the wreckage when I was a boy,before Dathomir, before all this darkness took root.
"The last time I saw you, you were barely taller than my belt," he said, his voice dry and cracked with age, like sun-split wood.
He stepped closer, cautiously.
"I saw what you did, son."
"I saw what they did here, too. To your blood. To your soul."
I stared at him. His face was older, his beard streaked white. But the voice? The voice was the same.
"Fancy seeing you here," my voice was low but firm. "I would've thought you'd still be smuggling illegal goods out near Coruscant."
He chuckled a short, bitter sound.
"Still? No, no. I'm too old for that nonsense."He glanced up at the three moons overhead."Now I live here. On Tatooine."
He offered a weathered hand.
"Come with me. I've got a place not far from here."He nodded at the horizon, where the dunes curled like waves."You stay out here all night, you'll freeze. The desert doesn't care what you've done."