***THIS VERSION IS OUTDATED. SEE THE ADAPTED AND IMPROVED VERSION ON MY PROFILE***
There are few stories that are told among the Jedi Order long enough to become myth. Legend. It takes importance to stand the test of time that way. A lesson has to b...
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This story is out of date and currently being reuploaded under the same title on my profile. Please read the new version! April 17, 2024
Anakin sits in the chamber after Circe leaves, kept company by the bodies in the room down the hallway. It feels as though time has slowed, moving around him instead of with him, and when the Jedi come for him, he can barely stand.
They pull him to his feet, clasp his hands behind his back, confiscate his lightsaber, and drag him out of the Skydome.
It feels unreal. Like being pulled through caramel, or mud, or something sick, and slow, and endless. Anakin moves in slow motion. He does not hear Obi-Wan's voice when he's brought into the Temple, does not see the walls of the prison cell he is put into, does not feel the stone beneath his feet.
Circe is gone.
He can't feel her presence anymore. Before, it was like a wind all around him, or the sticky sweet sap of trees in the summertime, a feeling that stuck to him no matter where he went. Across the universe, he would feel her. But it has fallen away from his senses, like a memory fading with time.
Circe is gone.
It is a few days before Obi-Wan can visit Anakin. It takes time to persuade the Council to see him, as they shudder at the new loss of their two prized students.
"How could we have misjudged the situation so badly?" They ask. Wail. "You said you had it under control, Obi-Wan! They were under your charge!"
He argues back, "You thought that pushing them both away was going to help? You left me alone to clean up the mess this Order has made!"
"You can't possibly put the blame on us. You have damned them. They were your students to look after—"
"And I have raised them as my own! I love them as my children, how dare you pretend as if I have done anything other than try to be a guide for them."
It feels as though everywhere, the Force is cracking apart. Obi-Wan returns to the Council Chamber day after day, asking to be allowed to see his Padawan. His Padawan. The looming threat Circe poses for them all becomes a bigger burden than the Jedi they're keeping in the lower prison chambers. Rumors of a witch in the sea, prowling a cliffside somewhere out there (no one gives a solid answer of where they saw this pale creature) and keeping visitors away with her rage begin to take hold in the more populated areas of the universe. The island is of the dead, people say. A ghost roams there, pale and glowing, hiding from the day.
Eventually, they let him go. He descends the stone stairs into the cool, underground cell where Anakin is being kept. His old student is in the same spot he was when they first brought him in: seated on the floor with his back to the wall, his head hanging down. It pulls at his heart to see the once bright, burning boy dim this way.
