A/N: Thanks to Second-Last Herald-Mage and the story "Truth" for inspiration.

A battlefield. The only fitting word to describe that terrible place. A place where Light and Dark clash, both warring for supremacy over each other. As on every battlefield, there are the temporary victories, the quick defenses, the hasty retreats, and, worst of all, the brief lulls in action, when both sides are too tired and too hurting to carry on. The lulls are terrible in their pain, as the armies try to regroup, as the outnumbered and overmatched forces of the Light try to find the strength to continue a loosing fight. But they cannot give up. They cannot surrender the day. Not now. Not after so much has been lost, how much yet may be lost.

The casualties are immense, the plains littered with the forms of the fallen. A child, here, was caught in a war beyond his limited comprehension, cut down far too early. A beautiful woman, there, watched her husband fall before her death met her, despairing and weeping. Friends and brothers from both sides lie united, if only in their defeat and the stillness of death. An entire way of life was lost on this field, scattered before the power of the fray, as leaves are swept away on the gale.

The days grow darker, the deaths and destruction mount higher and higher. The fighting has been whipped into a new frenzy with news from the outside: the one with the power to turn the tide for good or ill is near, or coming soon, may be here at long last. The Dark redoubles its furious strength: how dare that one come here, to stir the Light to action! The Light, heartened, renews its long struggle: at last, a new hope has dawned, an old hope rekindled! The battle rages with renewed fervor, though neither side proves able to gain a true advantage, deadlocked in a fight neither can win. For now. The forces rest briefly once more, waiting in readiness for the catalytic factor to come and ignite the final, deadly conflict. The very air hums in expectation of that glorious day.

Where is this battlefield? one might ask in breathless wonder. What place could contain such bitter strife?

The fact is this: there is no tangible battlefield. This field of combat does not exist in the physical realm, save as an abstraction. One can not reach out and touch this place any more than one might cradle a star in the palm of a hand.

With the eyes of the Force, however, much that is hidden can be seen, even when the one whose heart is this abstracted battlefield would be blind to the conflict within. For the battered armies of the Light and the oft-prevailing forces of the Dark are the good and evil within this war-torn heart and soul: the casualties are those dear to him who have fallen into the final sleep along the way, sent to the Force by his hand or another's.

The time is at hand for the final conflict. The heart of a darkened father is the battlefield on whose grounds the fate of the galaxy will be decided for now and eternity. The catalyst is nothing more and nothing less than the most powerful force of all: a father's abiding love for his child. That son is here now and the armies stand ready once more.

Now is the time: the place is here.

Let the final battle begin.