When the Sun Sets

Chapter 5 - Visions

Aniya Skywalker

The Force has been tinged with wrongness ever since we came back to Coruscant, and I don't understand why – I wouldn't have either, if not for this. I can see a very, very vivid image, so much like when I was young, when I saw Qui-Gon's near death.

The surroundings are blurred, but I can see the figure in the center, with vivid clarity, of a red lightsaber stabbing my master. Qui-Gon. My father. Force, no. Please.

And then it shudders, shifting. Anakin is standing on a platform floating in a lava river, right near the bank. Obi-Wan standing across from him on the bank, their lightsabers ignited. "It's over, Anakin," Obi-Wan yells, "I have the high ground."

I feel like I'm stuck, trapped, watching, even if I struggle to intervene and do something.

"You underestimate my power," Anakin shoots back, warningly. He's angry, too, and that itself is enough to make my blood turn to ice – Anakin Skywalker is rarely angry. If he is, you know you've screwed up beyond all human achievable levels of screwed-up-ness. You are also probably dead.

"Don't try it," Obi-Wan shoots back – the same level of warning and anger there. I want to scream at the horror and wrongness of it because what? Why – why are they...?

I can't see Anakin's face, I can't clearly see either of them, but I can still feel the moment Anakin's decision settles. The moment he makes up his mind – the moment he makes the jump across the river and over Obi-Wan, which is the only safe ground on the slope.

I can only scream in silence when I see it, knowing already what's about to happen. Obi-Wan warned him and for all the idiocy my oldest brother possesses, he intends to carry it through. And he does. It's fast, fluid, smooth, the same way he always cuts up droids into way too many pieces when destroying them. He severs Anakin's legs and left arm – the only remaining organic limbs Anakin has, and all I can do is scream an inaudible "that's our brother, what are you doing?", except even if Obi-Wan could hear me, he would never listen, because he never does.

I see Anakin falling towards the ground, towards the steep, sandy slope, and instantly, finally jolt awake.

It feels like I can't breathe. Fear is strangling me, almost literally, and my tears are flowing freely.

"Aniya. Aniya!" Jaufre is calling me, and I glance at him through the darkened room, but all I can hear is Anakin's scream and all I can see is Obi-Wan hurting him.

And I have no idea if Anakin survived or where he landed. For all I know, he could've fallen into the lava right down there below, and I can't...

No. Not Anakin. Please.

He is everything to me. We're everything to each other. We exist in symphony. We are one. Light or dark, fire or ice, nothing will take us apart any more than something could shatter the Force.

And Obi-Wan. Why? Why? I want to think it was just a nightmare and that he would never do anything like that, but I know better. He would. He will. And –

I can't breathe, and I'm gasping, trying to find air. It feels like I'm drowning.

"Why did you leave me?" It's like an echo, a whisper of another time, and I squeeze my eyes closed against it, except all I can see is Obi-Wan's lightsaber slashing and fire and –

This wasn't the first time I saw it. I saw it on Mortis, too, didn't I? Except it wasn't the same because the Anakin I saw in my vision on Mortis was twisted and dark, but there's some connection. Perhaps a... focal point in which the timeline split. I don't know. I don't care to. I just want to scream and scream and scream as if that would give relief to the pain crushing me, strangling me – that was Obi-Wan, and why in all the galaxy would he be willing to hurt Anakin?