There's a Mirror On the Wall

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on tumblr

( Cut for length )

This scene is getting longer than I expected. *sighs, and pokes some more* I’m still only just on Mustafar, and Vader and Obi-Wan have gone off on their epic fight through the facility while Anakin and Mace argue about what the hell is going on, and Zett quietly does his best to get Padmé back on the ship despite her being unconscious. I think there may be some levitating involved.

Also, need to figure out how to get Anakin from the facility to where Obi-Wan is leaving Vader to burn while they’re fighting all over the place, because he’s got to arrive at the right time. While trying to keep seeing what’s currently in front of him, and not repeated flashes of a vision that he would really like not see played out in reality.

I think I’m going to put a small scene break in shortly, and skip the (mostly) boring part where he finds his way down to where he needs to be. Because there has to be a way, otherwise Obi-Wan wouldn’t have gotten back too well, hiking over the landscape rather than floating along on a platform or droid.

(Expect another large chunk of Ashes and Hope shortly. More of the Vaderkin AU with not-dead younglings will happen tomorrow at some point, since this is taking more words than expected.)

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On tumblr.

Shall be going back through everything and adding navigation links for these segments, since until I get through the entire first story, I'm not going back to edit, which means it's not getting posted to AO3 yet.

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Zett nods again, and shifts a little closer, though he doesn't let go of Anakin's hand yet. Practicing, and keeping the thread of bond open so his efforts are visible to Anakin. For any corrections that he might give, Anakin suspects, though he notices nothing that needs correction, just refining, and that takes practice more than instruction.

"What else did you learn from the Sith?" Master Windu is watching Anakin now, his own shielding still keeping all but a tenuous wisp of something hidden in the Force.

"What sort of things do you want to know about?" Anakin doesn't know where to start without knowing what Master Windu is looking for. Certainly not when he has a good idea what the Jedi would think of some of those techniques.

"Why were you learning from the Sith in the first place. You said Kenobi was there, as well. Why wasn't he your Master alone?"

Anakin lets out a huff of laughter, shaking his head. "You'd have to ask them why. They never liked each other, so I don't know why Obi-Wan bothered to break Maul out of the Temple in the first place." He knows what they had told him, but that's not something that he wants to share with Master Windu, not now.

"He was captured, rather than killed?" Master Windu frowns, as if he's wondering how that happened. It's hard to be certain without a Force-presence to listen to.

"Obi-Wan cut his saber-staff in half, and it's hard to defend against two Jedi, one of which is the best duelist of his generation, with only one blade." Anakin shrugs. "Maul is good, but he can't work miracles. Even with the choice of ground to fight on."

He'd only seen the flashes of red and green and blue as the fighter he'd been in had continued its auto-piloted exit from the hanger to join the rest of the ships in battle above Naboo, but he'd heard the story more than once since. The only thing he'd wondered since is why Maul hadn't betrayed Sidious when Sidious had abandoned him to whatever fate the Jedi decreed for him. Perhaps he'd seen the alliance with Obi-Wan and training of Anakin as betrayal enough.

"And Kenobi later released him from custody." Master Windu shakes his head. "I can't see him doing that."

Anakin shrugs, not wanting to touch that. Perhaps Obi-Wan here, grieving the loss of Qui-Gon, might have chosen to kill Maul, but he has as hard a time envisioning that as Master Windu apparently has at seeing Obi-Wan being willing to work with Maul.

Master Windu doesn't ask another question right away, and when he does speak, it's only to tell Anakin that perhaps he ought to see where they're going while he and Zett continue to practice the shielding technique he's demonstrated.

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This is parts 6-10 on tumblr, which I did not crosspost originally. Because this is backdated, this is also not crossposted to livejournal in the same manner.

On tumblr: six | seven | eight | nine | ten
Livejournal post

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( Under the cut for length )