ten_fwd | Backdated to the haunting event

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Backdated to the haunting event

Yoda has spent some time meditating and come in greater tune with the Force on this ship now. Enough to realize something very strange is going on. Though not enough that walking around the length of the ship on little legs is entirely simple.

But he's attempting just that when he hears the voices. Young voices. Children. "Hello Master Yoda." "What are you teaching us today, Master Yoda?" "You'll always be here for us, right Master Yoda?"

He almost thinks he sees them, when he turns corners. But when he looks with his eyes or seeks them in the Force, they're never there.

Until they are there. Not as they were when they said those things. But covered in blood and silent, like the last time he saw them. Just staring at him, saying nothing.

They don't need to.

He grimaces and tries to keep walking. But it's hard, when he knows how much he failed them. "Learn this you could not have." So few Jedi knew that secret. Only he was just learning. And yet here they were.

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The first time she had heard Anakin's voice, it had stopped Padmé in her tracks. Fortunately for her, there had been no one else in the hallway for her to inconvenience. She had brushed it off though, thinking it was only her mind playing tricks on her. The second time? It had drawn shivers down her spine. And the third? Padmé had spent the better half of an 'afternoon' attempting to track the voice down.

Nothing had been found, mind, although it really didn't do anything to ease her mind. Combined with the flickering lights that arose and the movement from the corner of her eyes that she could have sworn were handmaidens that she had lost, that vanished when she looked its way... She wasn't one to easily spook, but it was becoming a bit unnerving. It is why she is headed toward Ten Forward, to get herself a cup of tea she doesn't need to drink, and to surround herself with others, and perhaps see if she can't find out a thing or two.

"Stranger and stranger, this place becomes." At least this one, he could be sure was real. He couldn't explain it, and she was as much a reminder of what was loss as any of the other ghosts. But she was here before.

He carefully pulls himself up into a chair. "Seen them as well, have you?"

"It does, yes." There was that softness to her voice, drawn back to the here and now. Although strange seemed to be a word that fit to everything quite well in this place, starting with their initial appearance aboard the ship. Arriving alive was one thing, but to have those that had passed as well?

There was a stillness, before a small nod of her head. "I- I think so, or something out of the corner of my eye. I've heard them more often though. A voice- voices- that are familiar."

"The younglings." That should say it all. He had so many regrets. But none quite so much as them. The others at least stood a chance. But the children. He'd always promised them he would catch them when they fell. And he didn't.

"Calling for me they are." Which is almost better than the silence.

It did say it. Padmé knew exactly what it was that Yoda was talking about when he said that. She might not have been there, but she knew about it, had been told about it, had seen the truth in her husband's eyes on Mustafar.

"I am sorry." Sorry that he had to go through that. Sorry that things had turned out the way they had.

"Told them, I did. Catch them, I would." And when they'd needed him most, he hadn't been there. When they'd all needed him... he couldn't be everywhere. He wasn't anywhere.

Jedi might pass beyond fear. But they were children. They must have been so frightened. The older ones must have striven so much not to be.

Although Padmé couldn't speak for everyone, and couldn't know the minds of any Jedi, she did doubt that any of them would hold him responsible. She knew that it wouldn't change the weight that he bore on his shoulders. She had carried that weight herself over the years at various times, although never of that magnitude. "No one could ever have known the full extent of Palpatine's manipulation, until it was too late."

But that was just it, wasn't it? He was Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. Wise in the ways of the Force. "Seen it, I should have. Right under our noses, the Sith were." He'd worried about Anakin spending so much time with Palpatine. But he should have worried more. If he'd known who Anakin was truly spending time with, he would have done more.

"He was a man I much admired, one I strove to be like ever since I was a young girl." Not that she would ever think that her senses would be akin to those of a Jedi, but Padmé did tend to be a good judge of character. It was one of her strengths, but she had been as much fooled as anyone.

"For the best, it was, that manage it you did not." They needed fewer Palpatines, that was for certain.

He shakes his head. "Playing both sides, he was. And dance to his tune we did."

"In that regard, the public man versus the private... one," as Padmé wasn't even certain he deserved the title of human. Yet, no, no matter what else he was, he was still human. "Were quite juxtaposed. I worked with him for many years, and looking back, a part of me cannot help but wonder just how much I did. Yet, I also know I cannot dwell on that."

"Worry I did by times, about the choices I made. Allowing the Jedi to be used as they were. But convince me he did, every time, that needed the change was." He was so persuasive. That wasn't even the Force at work. Even as clouded as his perceptions were at the time, he would have noticed if Palpatine were using the Force directly to cloud his mind.

"He was very eloquent with his words and had a knack for making it seem like the decision was all your own," Padmé confirmed. No doubt he could have talked a Hutt out of his fortune, had he the mind to. Perhaps he would now that he was on his way to getting what it was he wanted. "But there is hope. I've always believed that, even if things do not go as we plan them to."

Yoda nods. "Always hope there is. Wounded, the light side is, but heal it can." And he was sure something was wrong with the Force itself. "Realize in time the galaxy will that too high a cost is Palpatine's Empire."

It will take time, yes. The children will be grown by then, he's sure. And then there will be Jedi again.

Empire. Even now it still makes her lips purse in dislike. She has always been a strong advocator of diplomacy, and she wonders... Wonders what would have happened had she survived. No doubt he would continue to move against those who spoke out against him and Padmé tried once already to restore the Republic.

"We can only give our best."

"Enough, it will have to be." Will it? He doesn't know. He misses the time that he had answers for anyone. There were fewer people looking to him now. But only because they were mostly dead. "Remain yet, does hope."

Is there an irony there, that it is a forbidden relationship that will be the basis for this? It had never felt wrong though, Anakin and her. No, it might have been something that she had denied in the beginning, and while there are some regrets, she had never regretted marrying him. "One spark can ignite the stars."

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