EAST OF EDEN ( anakin s. ) ✔️

023 | No Time To Die..

━━━━━━ ༻ 🌄 ༺ ━━━━━━
" no time to die "
...
━━━ ༻ CHAPTER TWENTY THREE ༺ ━━━

          TIME PASSES FASTER IN POLITICS than it does to the a day to day perception drenched in ignorance to these thin strings choking the galactic order into a compliant democracy. Mace Windu detested the political games the Order had involved themselves with and no one was unfamiliar of his clear admittance towards the distasteful ways of politicians. But he was not blind to the virulent interdependency between the Order's affairs and the Senate: one needed funding in a world that it didn't quite yet trust the goodwill of to provide, while the other needed fearmongering, war lords in coats of clean justice.

It was not for the lack of patience that he frowned upon these meetings, but rather the illusion of a good choice being elected in what he could only describe as a desperate mass attempt at playing with the divine and spurring the concept of free will where there is none, by design. Having advocated himself for so long on a schism between the Order and the Senate, Emissary Eden's arrival with reforms advising a return to the old ways was quite literally the closest Mace Windu's ever gotten to believing the fantasy of a Chosen One ever being possible. 

Though a cynical man at heart, he believed those two months to be everything he's prayed for in seclusion with the Force alone. 

He's felt slithers of the Dark Side snipping at the light of the Order, but not since they've gone out of their way to adapt to the advice from someone closer than most of them have ever been to the Force, albeit age seemed to have created a faint irony out of it too. Eden's capturing without any calls for ransom by not only the Separatist force, but also a suspected Dark Side user, was outrageous and a downright threatening. Much like, he unfortunately had to admit, the deceitful test that the High Council had voted for in a staggering six to four ratio, the situation was death-dealing. 

This set back, he observed, had hammered them right back into the open arms of tumultuous Senate business, unfortunately looking forward to sticking their nose even further up Jedi matters. It came as no surprise, as soon as the battle in the Homi System was heard of, that the uproar of protest turned the Senate chamber to a zoo whose stink he could sniff already. 

It was in the heart of that democracy that Mace Windu was tasked to venture to deflect and delay the consequences of the commotion. But with his mind burdened in what they have agreed to condone, his own faith was flickering.

"What a grim look to carry yourself with in there," a voice he did not expect to hear caught him in the act of catching his composure and preparing his predefined speech behind one of the many pillars leading to the gracious entrance to the Senate chamber, where the meeting was already in session. Mace Windu lifted his eyes and saw Obi-Wan Kenboi walking, though much slower than usual, towards him. His recovery took a miraculous turn a day past and Master Kenobi had been unsurprisingly adamant in making haste to Coruscant to contest the decision that his battalion not interfere with the large scale battle which frankly took no expert in strategy to call instead quite a 'massacre'. 

The same old faint smile graced the sandy features of a delicately masculine warmth that Obi-Wan carried around himself. "A sulk in front of politicians is as close to flinging raw meat in front of carnivorous famished beasts as anything could get."

"I appreciate that analogy only a little less than I appreciate the interruption from an audience with myself," Mace Windu maintained his cold demeanor, his dark eyes piercing right through Obi-Wan in a clash of natural radiance between day and night. "It's good to see you alive and well."