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[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

[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."