Perfectly imperfect

"It was time to move on.

He’d been in motion since that dark day, years earlier. The darkest of days. [] Depa Billaba fought to protect him—and he fought to protect her. She died. He fled. She died so he could flee, but to what end? [] The young Caleb hadn’t known. He’d known only that, in the end, the Force hadn’t helped her. []

The Force was a death mark.

The early months had been a blur of terror for young Caleb. [] But weeks turned to months, and months to years, and no one came to his home—or cot, or tent, or patch of spacecraft floor—to wake him and drag him away. And the young man now known as Kanan Jarrus discovered that carousing eliminated those worries entirely.

So he’d done more of the same. He’d drunk to forget. He’d brawled to let off steam. He’d taken the dangerous jobs to fund his lifestyle—and then began it all again. He wasn’t some chivalrous nomad, skulking from planet to planet doing good deeds and leaving when things got too hot.

No, he left when things got dull. When the drinking money ran out, or when the bar-owner’s daughter suddenly wanted to marry him. []

And he also left whenever he got too comfortable. That was when the Force, tired of being suppressed, would sneak back like an ignored pet.

He didn’t want it complicating his world, making him feel like somebody’s prey again. And he didn’t like being reminded about what had happened in that other life."

~

"I see... fear."

"In the spiders?"

"Ezra!"

"Ah, your thoughts dwell on your apprentice."

"He's in danger."

"No! No. It's not Ezra or the spiders. It's... It's me. Fear, grief, anger, that's how they see me. That's how I see myself."

"Ah, your sight returns."

"I distanced myself from everyone. From the Force too."

"Your connection to the Force allows you to see in ways others cannot. If you can see yourself, you will never be truly blind, Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight."

"I understand."

"Where are you going?"

"Ezra needs me. They all do."

~

My head is just empty, my heart is full.

Magnificent.

Cocky yet insecure.

Rigorous yet kind.

So human. So divine.

So perfectly imperfect.

[Photo: stunning figure by @gentlegiantltd, finally in my grabby hands. Background by @cherriielle ]