Battles Leave Scars

Prologue

                          Secrets are not just knowledge; they are the key to knowing your enemy. The presence had told Ezra this, and though he wasn't proud of the time when he had been in communion with the Sith Holocron, some things had stuck with him. The Ghost seemed to be crawling with spider-like secrets; some harmless and other poison filled. The Phantom always shadowed someone's secrets, and Kanan, well, to Ezra, it seemed like his master never told him anything. There had been instances, when Ezra had first joined the Empire-smiting Specters, when Kanan's balance in the Force would dramatically diminish, he would stand frozen, or he would disappear altogether. Having no ability to predict or affect these bizarre occurrences, it had made Ezra go practically insane. So, he started a private quest for answers. For worse or for better, it didn't take long for Sabine Wren, the Ghost Crew's resident demolitions expert and banished Mandalorian, to discover Ezra's mission, and, for some reason, one she didn't share, decided to join in on his search. Their efforts all proved, over and over again, to be futile.

                     After the indescribably harrowing events of Malacore, and Ezra's turn to and from the Darkside of the Force, Kanan seemed to shake off an invisible burden of gargantuan proportions. He never again talked about his dispassion for the former Republic's clones, or even appeared bothered when Captain Rex described vivid tales about the Order of the Jedi. Kanan suddenly, and somewhat offputtingly, centered himself in a perfectly unnatural peace that he had never been welcomed into before. When Ezra stopped, a rather rare thing for the boy, to think about it, Kanan no longer disappeared either. For a time, a short time, Ezra was satisfied just to have Kanan and himself back from their own reflected darkness. But, soon enough, his thirst for the truth began to burn in his throat and all his plague-like worries came flooding back.