Test of Time Book 1: A Father's Son

Chapter 12: Slip Up Or the Force's Will?

Luke found his father the next morning already set to head back to the temple, gazing out over Coruscant in deep thought. Luke quietly approached Anakin, coming to stand beside his father with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Luke asked him.

"Yes, I did, Luke; you can ask Padmé."

"I'll take your word for it. So, are we, ah, going in to train today?"

Anakin nodded. "We're going to start working on your lightsaber technique today. I figured that's the one with the most room for improvement, from what Obi-Wan told me and what I've seen."

"All right then; when do we leave?"

Anakin glanced back at him and smiled. "Right now."

A little startled, Luke followed after Anakin, a little eager as well as nervous to start training with his father.

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"Luke, what in the name of the Core are you doing with your stance?"

Anakin eyeballed the other Jedi as he shook his head, deactivating his lightsaber and straightening up. "I understand that you're lunging, but don't spread your feet so far apart; do you know how easy it would be for me to put you off balance?"

Luke straightened up as well. "I've always fought like this; it's just what feels natural."

Anakin sighed. "Well it's a habit you're going to have to break, because it's going to get you killed one of these days. It's like you're pausing in the middle of an unnaturally large step. Here, I'll show you some forms I want you to run through and memorize. You don't want your feet any farther apart than this, and you're going to have to learn to be a little faster on your feet...we'll work on that too."

Luke nodded mutely, watching closely as Anakin slowly walked him through the forms, being very specific on where he needed to put his feet and how he needed to hold himself. After Anakin finished, he fixed Luke with an analytical stare. "Do you think you've got it now?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

"I'll stop you if you make a mistake and show you what you did wrong. When that happens I want you to restart at the very beginning of the form."

"Yes, sir."

Luke started the form without Anakin's guidance, and as he slowly went through the movements Anakin gradually circled him, keeping a sharp eye on his every move. Luke was an impressively fast learner, he'd give him that; in fact, Anakin had noticed Luke learning as they'd sparred, mirroring and quickly adapting some of Anakin's movements to himself. Anakin was confident that it wouldn't take Luke long to learn everything that Anakin had to offer him.

Anakin stopped his train of thought and cut in, pausing Luke halfway through one of the motions. As he spoke, he corrected Luke's position. "You keep going back to that wide stance of yours and you're arms are too rigid. If you want to learn the Djem So form you have to learn to relax and keep your movements fluid."

Luke let out a long sigh but nodded, seemed to mentally berate himself for a few seconds, and then started again from the top. Anakin continued his observational circle with a slight frown on his face. Unwillingly, he found his mind wandering back to a topic he hadn't thought over for a while, and it seemed he was once again trying to connect the dots. However, this time his mind had so much more material to work with and Anakin was confident he'd be able to put something together. While he studied Luke's movements, he let his mind wander to carefully examine the crumbs he'd been able to gather from Luke so far.