Epilogue

7 years ABY

By the Force! I knew the postal system of this New Republic was bad but this is beyond believable. The letter has taken 30? years to reach me. Thirty years in which is was stuck in the system, hidden under stacks of other mail or stuck between the wheels of shipping. This seems so long gone by now. Everything that happened is so far away, even the Empire, even Order 66, everything.

I have adapted, made my way and found happiness. I have a wife, I have children, and maybe, depending on how he does it, I might let them learn from Skywalker one day. I know at least one of them is sensitive to the Force. I had almost forgotten, and now this. I don't know what to say.

After all these years, I didn't think your death would be so hard on me. We were best friends thirty years ago. I never knew you tried to contact me, I never knew you was so desperate. Right now, I miss you, Kanshi. Loads. Swear!

Your entries brought back to me a time that was good, even with the blackness towering over me. You say I was distracted, unreliable, but I was standing on the threshold of blackness in those days, and it was about to swallow me. When I seemed to be daydreaming, I was dreading the day, fearing it had already come, that I must die in cold darkness, suffocated by the approaching shadow.

The Masters might have thought me crazy, seeing ghosts, since they obviously did not see the looming blackness. I should like to blame them for your death. You certainly did not deserve it. You was a good boy, and yes, it was me that often got you into trouble. Wish they had sent you off with me. Wish they had sent away all children.

But only I was shipped off and by the time I had managed to run away it was too late. I never made it back to Coruscant in the confusion of the war. The only good thing that had, was that I was considered dead by those wiping out all Force-sensitives I was not there when they wiped out the detachment of the AgriCorps I should have been in.

Back then I had been planning to come back and save you, too. You didn't realise it, did you? That it was all about saving you, really, because you didn't know what was coming. I did, and I saw everybody I knew dead. Maybe, if I hadn't worked so hard on saving you, I had been there on that fateful day. Maybe I could have made a difference. Maybe I would just have died at your side.

By now, almost everybody has forgotten the Jedi children. They were lost children from the day they crossed the temple doors. They belonged to the Jedi, and to them alone. The outside world, did not know about us. And when Vader killed all the children in the temple, the Jedi who could have mourned them were dead with them already.

They are forgotten children.

But I will not forget you, Kanshi. We were best friends. We will always be friends.

I don't have to wish the Force be with you, because now you are a part of it. And, though it might be blasphemy, I know it is a better place because of you.