(no subject)

[ezra_of_lothal]

Getting away from Thrawn and the remnant of the Seventh Fleet had taken more time and effort than Ezra liked.

But they didn't outright kill him, which was a pleasant surprise.

Strangely, it doesn't take nearly as much time with his 'borrowed' shuttle, to find some ruins that remind him a little of the temple on Lothal. He's not entirely convinced this place was originally built by Jedi, but it doesn't quite feel like the Sith temple on Malachor, either. Still the Force is...heavy, here.

His foot slips in a stone corridor lit by the light from his small kit, and he falls.

He's not sure how long he falls.

But eventually he's picking himself up off dusty ground, squinting at a lot more light. And a person. A woman?

"Hi," he croaks.

Comments

[jedied]

Rey had come to the ruins of the Jedi temple hoping they would lead her further along the path she'd undertaken -- one that she'd hoped would help her set right the imbalance that had been created when the dyad of herself and Ben Solo had broken.

She hadn't been sure what to expect, but random men falling out of thin air definitely was not on the list.

She startles as he lands almost directly at her feet, jumping back a step or two before her eyes override her instincts. He's just a person, and he looks as confused as she does.

"... Hi. Are you all right? Where did you come from?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

He climbs to his feed with a groan. "I think I'm ok. As for where I came from - I wish I could tell you."

He looks around. "I'd say the level of these ruins above you, but-" He peers up. Yeah no, there's not really a logical place he could have fallen from. And then there's just how strange falling felt.

[jedied]

She glances up dubiously, coming to the same conclusion he has. If he'd come from up there, there would have been a lot more dust and a lot more broken things, probably including some of his bones.

"Where were you before?"

She hasn't really known the Force to physically transport entire people from one place to another in body, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. She knows by now not to rule anything out when it comes to the Force.

[ezra_of_lothal]

He rubs the back of his neck, a little sheepish. "I'll be honest here - I don't really know. You could say it's been a weird week. But - hi. I'm Ezra-"

He's trying to figure out how to explain, well, anything really. He doesn't mind lying exactly, but he can't tell if he even needs to, for safety's sake. It's possible he's so far out on the edge of the galaxy no one knows much about the Empire. He surreptitiously gives her a once over to pick up any clues about what sort of person she is -

And quickly does a double take in surprise. "Is that a lightsaber?"

[jedied]

"I'm Rey, and it sure is."

She unclips it from its home at her waist and twists the mechanism to ignite it, the yellow blade flaring to light and providing just a bit more illumination in this dusty ruin. She smiles at him a touch sheepishly.

"Old Jedi temples are not the strangest place to encounter a new Jedi, are they?"

As far as she knows she's still the last one, though she's working on fixing that, too.

[ezra_of_lothal]

"Well. When you put it that way. It's just - there's so few of us," he explains, in a rush. "Is it just you out here? Or is there a group of survivors hiding away? Sorry."

He takes a breath and mentally backs up a step. "It's been two blind hyperspace jumps and whatever that fall was since I knew where I was. Where is here?"

[jedied]

She shakes her head, face falling into a more sober expression at the reminder.

"It's just me. And you, I suppose, though I can't imagine Master Skywalker not mentioning your existence if he knew of you. We're on Vrogas Vas, which I take it wasn't your actual destination."

She has the restraint not to ask where he's been all this time if he's a Jedi, but only barely. He does feel like a strong Force-user to her senses, but it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't have helped one side or the other if he'd been here all along. He doesn't look like a Force Ghost, but... well. She's reserving judgment until they know more.

[ezra_of_lothal]

His eyes go even wider. "Master Skywalker? Anakin Skywalker?" That can't be right. Ahsoka knew her own master. In retrospect, he's pretty sure she'd known Vader was one and the same as Anakin for a while, but hadn't wanted to believe it.

He can't really blame her for that. "Are there other Jedi with the last name Skywalker?"

[jedied]

"... Anakin? I was talking about Luke. You knew Anakin Skywalker? Before he was Vader?"

Now they're getting somewhere, though if what this other Jedi was saying is true, he's a lot older than he appeared at first glance. She knew there were rumors of Jedi being extra long-lived -- if they were allowed to die of natural causes, of course -- but she'd thought that only applied to inhuman species.

Whatever this other Jedi was, he's been out of the loop for quite some time, it seems.

[ezra_of_lothal]

"Uh. No, not exactly. I know his former padawan. Ahsoka Tano. Although, she didn't even know he's Vader for a long time - how do you know that?" His face scrunches up in continuing confusion.

[jedied]

"It's... not really a secret anymore. Hasn't been for decades now."

She knew from reading Luke's additions to Jedi history that it hadn't been widely known just after everything had happened, but by the time she was born, certainly, it was common knowledge. Where exactly had this guy been in hiding?

An awful idea occurs to her all of a sudden.

"You haven't spent the last few decades frozen in carbonite, have you?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

Decades, Ezra mouths.

What?

"N-No?" More thoughtfully he adds, "But stepping through time is possible - who is Luke Skywalker again?"

[jedied]

Time travel. Of course. Of all the things she hadn't fathomed in her quest to somehow defy the hand she had been dealt and pull Ben back from wherever he drifted, unreachable but still somehow present in the Force as she'd known he must be, she'd never contemplated that the answer lay in stepping through time itself instead.

The possibility implanted itself somewhere in her consciousness, to be dealt with later, once she's done blinking stupidly at Ezra in mild disbelief.

"He's Anakin's son. He was an older man by the time I met him, but if you don't even know of him -- he must've been a baby, or a young child."

[ezra_of_lothal]

He's...just not dealing with the implication of the possible time travel for the moment, but he is struck by another thought.

"Do...you know if he happened to grow up on Tatooine?"

[jedied]

Rey nods; it's one of the early things that had drawn her to the legends. Luke Skywalker, Jedi hero, had been a nobody from a desert planet for his entire childhood too.

"He did. He was raised by an aunt and uncle. He joined the Rebellion at age nineteen and destroyed the first Death Star soon after. He helped defeat Palpatine... twice, I suppose, considering that he did help me in the end."

[ezra_of_lothal]

He blinks a couple of times. The Emperor is dead? The Death what?

"That...just brings up lots more questions, but I'm pretty sure it does answer what Master Kenobi was doing lying low on Tatooine. He was the answer to defeating the Sith. Just not directly."

[jedied]

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, yes! He helped train Luke. I've read some of his notes on the Jedi texts. He died before I was born, though, fighting Vader."

She didn't know the entire depth of history there; it was all just notes in a long history that concluded before her birth. If this Ezra had come from the time when there were still Jedi -- she can hardly contain the excitement that this realization sparks.

[ezra_of_lothal]

"Oh." He feels unexpectedly gut punched at that news. "Vader found him and killed him?" he mumurs, a little numbly. "Vader tried to kill Ahsoka. He cared about her, once. I guess I shouldn't be surprised he killed his former master."