The young Lord Skywalker was seething. Obi Wan merely glanced at the irate boy as he finished clearing the morning dishes.

“Yes, that’s obvious.”

“I hate white! Why can’t I wear my clothes?”

“Stop complaining, you sound like a child. Excluding the fact that you are one.”

“I am not a child!” Luke protested with an angry stamp of his foot, glaring at Kenobi. “I’m eighteen years old.”

“Then stop behaving like you’re only eight years old.”

The Lord of the Sith did a very un-Sith-ly thing: He pouted.

“Look,” explained the Jedi as though to a very young child, “your other clothes were torn, dirty, thick, black, and hot. These are clean, in good condition, white, light, and much better suited for life on Tatooine. Now, be a good boy and help an old man with the dishes.”

Grudgingly, the Sith Lord grabbed a dish towel and began to dry the now clean plates. Finally, he mumbled “Thanks again.”

The old man smiled, and said nothing.

“What do you see?”

“It looks like….a transport of some sort….I can’t really tell. It’s…on fire! Or it was. Now it’s just sort of smoldering.”

Obi Wan stroked at his thin, white beard, humming softly before taking the distance viewer and looking for himself. “A Jawa Transport, for certain. Ambushed, and slaughtered.”

“It looks like Sandpeople did this, all right. Look, here are Gaffi sticks, Bantha tracks. It's just...I never heard of them hitting anything this big before!”

Lord Skywalker’s hands gripped at his knees as he began to bend down, feeling at any moment he was going to be relieved of his breakfast. Worriedly, Kenobi put a hand on his back. “Are you alright?”

The young Lord of the Sith gave his head a little shake, straightening up again. “Fine.” Not true. Very un-fine. But he was of strong stock, he’d be alright. Catching his breath, he turned his icy blue eyes to the Jedi. “Who’d want to slaughter Jawas?”

The old man grimaced. “Can you take a guess?”

The Sith Lord clenched his fists, undirected rage boiling within him. “But why? I gave no order, and they wouldn’t….unless…..”

Luke spun on his heels, snatching the distance viewer back. Some trace, some sign, it had to be there. They had to have found the droids, had to have traced them to those Jawas somehow. This was far too fresh for them to have done it in the night and then sneak off. There was evidence near by. They’d either be hunting down the droids’ final resting spot, or would be carrying them off to camp as of that moment.

Smoke, and not that distant.

“If they traced the robots here, they may have learned who they sold them to. And that would lead them home!”

Lord Skywalker literally retched, clutching at his stomach with one arm. Stumbling backwards, he fell against the old Jedi, who caught him, stopping him from falling to the ground.

“Are you alright?”

“Something’s very, very wrong! We’ve got to go, now!”

“You sense something!”

“I…I don’t know,” he fumbled, shoving the distance viewer back into Obi Wan’s hands. “I just know that we need to get out of here.”

Kenobi nodded, and did not protest.

The young Lord of the Sith cut the Storm Trooper off with a wave of his hand, staring at the still burning wreckage of the farm house. His eyes very quickly caught the sight of the two burning human corpses, now scorched black skeletons, baking in the suns. His heart leapt into his throat before beginning to break into a million pieces. He knew them, he just had to! A desperate cry was struggling to pass through his throat and to his lips, and he could not make it come. Swift and fleeting childhood memories of two kind and weathered faces swept past and through him, and the Sith Lord could not breathe. Sweet comforting words in times of night and darkest fear, happy memories of a life of ignorant bliss. A far away longing…..

He did know them. At least, his heart did.

“Who were these people? Did you do this?” he finally chocked out, his hand unconsciously wrapping around the hilt of his lightsaber at his belt.

The second soldier stepped up. “The owners of the two droids, sir. They put up resistance, and so we-”

“You murdered them?”

The Storm Trooper hesitated. “We thought it necessary to take action in order to procure the plans to the-”

“You just burned them alive?”

“Sir, we thought-”

Flash, hiss!

In one angry swipe, Luke had ripped the weapon from his belt and thrust the pulsing red point into the second soldier’s chest. He could feel the eyes blink in stupid surprise as he drew it out, and the dying body slowly collapsed to his knees, to the ground. With another movement, Lord Skywalker had decapitated the third Storm Trooper, and had to chase down the first, which was running in terror. Tears flowing freely, the young Lord of the Sith let all of his anger loose, saw the true terrible beauty that was the Dark Side as he butchered the soldier like a Bantha.

The Sith Lord’s hands were speckled with blood, and he stumbled to the side of one of the burning corpses. Slowly, he fell to his knees, shaking as he cried for the first time in at least twelve years. Sobbing, he glared at his hand, switching the pulsing red lightsaber off, tossing it away distastefully. Carefully, he cradled one of the black skulls, his tears creating dark spots.

“Uncle Owen! Aunt Beru?”

He didn’t need to understand consciously to have the meaning of the moment sink in. Reverently, he kissed the burned bone, found that he loved it, in spite of himself. He did know those people. He just wasn’t sure how, or why, or even when he knew them. He just knew that something very dear had been ripped from him.

“I am so, so sorry…..”

The wind picked up a little, pushing the blond hair from his eyes, drying the tears on his hot cheeks. All of his murders, all of his secret sins came flooding back to him, causing him to cry all the harder. And with the tears they were washed away, melting into the desert, becoming nothing, never having really been.

And within him, the questions that would start his long, terrible, wonderful journey started. The first questions. The strongest of all: Who am I? What is my purpose? What am I doing here? What’s real anymore?

The old man laid a careful hand on the boy’s shoulder, and he stopped shaking, carefully laying the skeleton back down. “I….I don’t want to do this anymore,” he managed between sobs. “I don’t want to be a Lord of the Sith!” Turning his head, icy blue eyes focused on the old Jedi, he took his hand, holding it tightly. The only one who could keep him from drowning within himself. Only him. Obi Wan Kenobi. His enemy. His savior.

Reverently, Luke said “I want to be a Jedi, Master Obi Wan.”

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