7 Post-RotS ficlets!
And last, but not least, Post-RotS ficlets!
Here are humor/fluff/other ficlets
Here are Anakin & Obi-Wan, as well as general h/c and angst.
Here are War-related ficlets
Here are Anakin & Ahsoka
Title: break with the ones you've followed
Challenge: SWMININANO
Prompt: perdition
Word Count: 697
Characters: Anakin, Obi-Wan
Rating: R
Summary: post-RotS AU, snapshots of banishment
Author's Notes: This is actually based on my fic without granting innocence. Kind of... the other side of the coin. Title from "How to Save a Life" by the Fray
Warning(s): Very bleak material ahead, might be triggering for SI, depression, PTSD, suicide, character death, etc.
-----
The silence is maddening. Obi-Wan has not spoken since their ship departed for exile. He has plenty to say, plenty he wants to scream at his companion, plenty of blame and hurt and confusion thrown together in a toxic whorl in his gut. Anakin, though, does not seem responsive to much of anything, so Obi-Wan knows his cries will go unheeded. He tries to release his misery into the Force; it helps, but not enough.
-----
They had told Anakin he was free to find employment, but Anakin can barely get out of bed. Obi-Wan, always so frugal, always so careful, has the savings from his Jedi stipend, enough to keep them comfortable, so Anakin sinks deeper into the blankets and screams in the dark.
-----
Obi-Wan takes care of both of them. He feels like they are Master and Padawan again, but he knows the feeling is a lie. Anakin has chosen another Master, and even if he has denounced his allegiance with the Sith after mere hours as their servant, Obi-Wan still feels like he is living with a stranger. There is nothing to say, so they both keep their silence, punctuated by Anakin's breathy sobs in the middle of the night.
-----
The HoloNet is a blessing and a curse. Each day the death toll grows higher, each day they read of the names of Jedi who have been newly lost. Obi-Wan can't watch, though Anakin spends hours with the projections, curled in on himself. Obi-Wan isn't sure if he is ashamed, or proud, of the destruction he's wrought.
-----
He gets his answer. The 'fresher door is unlocked, but Obi-Wan supposes in hindsight he should have knocked. Anakin crouches beside the toilet, blood is everywhere. He looks up at Obi-Wan with fear and unfathomable pain in his bright blue eyes, razor blade poised over his flesh arm. Obi-Wan's barked-out disbelief (What are you DOING?) are the first words he has spoken in ages.
-----
He doesn't know what to do with the new-found knowledge of Anakin's coping mechanism. And worse, part of him wants Anakin to hurt, to suffer the way he had made the Younglings suffer, Padme, and Ahsoka, and the babies and so many Jedi on so many worlds. His guilt at those angry feelings gnaws at him, he tries to make it better by initiating conversation, but it does not help.
-----
The days smear together. They rarely leave their small house; Obi-Wan gets supplies every other week, but Anakin accompanies him very infrequently. Obi-Wan realizes with a start one morning that he has no idea how long they have been here, and how much longer they will have to endure.
-----
He's not sure where Anakin gets the alcohol, but it seems to take the place of the injury, off and on. Obi-Wan is past the point of wanting to see Anakin in pain, past the point of anger or grief. He has become numb to his own feelings, and instead feels through Anakin. Anakin's feelings are terrifying.
-----
Anakin's whiskey-numbed hands slip in the 'fresher, cut too deeply, the blade skipping across the bone of his wrist. The Force healing Obi-Wan employs brings them closer together than they have been in ages, an intimacy Obi-Wan barely remembers that they once shared. He can't stop himself, kisses away Anakin's humiliated, frustrated tears. When Anakin returns the attention, clutching at Obi-Wan's tunics, entwining their limbs, Obi-Wan realizes this will complicate things entirely too much; they are here because he allowed his attachment to Anakin to blind him. He will not let it happen again. He pushes away and leaves Anakin alone.
-----
Obi-Wan can see Anakin is dying. Little by little, he is withdrawing into himself, disappearing from the galaxy as he fades into the background. Obi-Wan knows this was never what Anakin wanted, that neither of them ever wanted to have the end dictated by forces outside of their control. Obi-Wan considers, and makes his choice.
-----
Anakin seems relieved by the plan, and swallows the poison like a shot of namana, no questions, no protestations. Just glad to be going out on his own terms - on their terms - nestled comfortably in Obi-Wan's arms.
-----
Title: the good man scorns the wicked
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Icon Challenge
Word Count: 381
Characters: Anakin, Obi-Wan
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Goodness knows, the wicked's lives are lonely.
Author's Notes: An off-shoot, once again, of without granting innocence and break with the ones you've followed. Icon text from "Defying Gravity", title, and cut-text from "No One Mourns the Wicked" from Wicked. Dark, same warnings as the others (though not AS dark)
-----
"Well. Get up. Anakin."
Anakin opens his eyes, groggy, disoriented. Obi-Wan is standing over him; he's on the floor in the 'fresher, and he's not sure why. He looks down, sees new bacta patches on his arm, feels the sticky throbbing ache of hangover combined with blood loss. "Sorry," he says. He can't think of anything else to say, and he is sorry, for everything. He's said it so many times, it has lost all meaning. But he does mean it. He is sorry.
"You're always sorry," Obi-Wan responds. It is not cold, or meant to be hurtful, Anakin thinks, though it is distant. He's felt the distance between them since he broke down on Mustafar and while he can't blame his former Master, he still feels hurt. So long on this planet, in exile, so long proving his guilt, and Obi-Wan can still barely look at him.
"I know," Anakin responds softly. Once, right after Mustafar, right before his trial, Obi-Wan had asked him if he was happy with his decision, with what he'd thrown away for his own selfish ends.
Anakin hadn't known how to respond, and he still doesn't. He still is aching with the knowledge that at the time, he'd done the right thing. For himself, for Padme, for the galaxy. Then, in his usual fashion, he'd overextended, gotten overconfident, gotten arrogant and nearly mad. He still feels like he is mad, the nightmares and the fugue states and the injury and the drink and everything else and he knows he is losing his mind.
"Get up," Obi-Wan prompts again, gently, holding out a hand. Anakin takes it, allows Obi-Wan to pull him to his feet. "Come to town with me," Obi-Wan suggests.
Anakin shakes his head. He hates going into town, hates being stared at, hates knowing that Obi-Wan is only bringing him because he's afraid if he doesn't, he'll come home to a corpse. Anakin's not sure why he even cares; he's made his scorn known, his disappointment, his sense of betrayal. And Anakin knows he deserves all of it and more.
He knows he deserves to feel alone, to live in his own head, full of its demons, to die alone and forgotten, the Hero With No Fear nothing but a story book memory.
-----
Title: Facing the Executioner
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Order 66
Word Count: 202
Characters: Ahsoka, Rex, Fives, Anakin (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Ahsoka and Rex and Order 66
-----
Ahsoka feels it in her montrals before she knows exactly what has happened. She drops to her knees, retching into the dirt, her lightsaber rolling out of her hand. Her head is spinning, pinpoint explosions going off behind her eyes. She reaches out, desperately, trying to sense her Master through their bond. All she can feel in that direction is exhaustion, fear, and rage. He must feel it too, then, this wrongness, this sense of other Jedi dying. She can only assume he's fighting, protecting the others, from whatever this unknown threat might be. She is tempted to comm him, but feels the muzzle of a blaster pressed against the back of her neck. "Rex, don't," she says softly.
"It's orders," Rex replies, but his voice is shaking.
"We can't." And that's Fives, at Rex's side. They're not all the same, not to her, not to Anakin. She can tell who has come to kill her without even looking at them.
"I know," Rex sighs, and Ahsoka feels the blaster lower. She stands, calling her lightsaber to her hand. "We'll be executed for this, you know," Rex tells Fives.
"Everybody's gotta go sometime."
Rex turns to her. "Run," he says.
She does.
-----
Title: Just Dance
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Outlander Club
Word Count: 301
Characters: Ahsoka, Anakin
Rating: PG
Summary: Anakin and Ahsoka share a dance on the eve of her Knighting.
-----
Ahsoka has never been to the Outlander Club before. She's heard of it, of course, from other Padawans and in passing in conversations between her own Master and Obi-Wan. But this is her Knighting, the youngest in the Order - even younger than her own Master had been (and since he is not that much older, and was not Knighted that long ago, she considers it a considerable accomplishment), and her Master has agreed to take her.
Her senses are immediately overwhelmed by the pounding music, the sights and smells of hundreds of creatures all dancing, drinking, sweating. She suddenly isn't sure she wants to be there, but Anakin's eyes have lit up and he looks happier than she's seen him in months, and she can't really think to leave.
She tugs on his sleeve. "Do you want to dance?" she asks, feeling in turns shy and bold.
Anakin looks confused for an instant, but nods, smiling, and they move out to the dance floor. She wraps her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest. It is not the Jedi norm, certainly, and while she had once had an almost crippling crush on the Hero With No Fear, this is not sexual. She does not expect anything to happen between them, tonight or ever, but she feels safe in his arms. She closes her eyes, lets the music wash over her, and lets the moment happen.
Four months later, the Outlander has been closed down. She is there, in the ruins, hiding from her own soldiers, from her own Master. She stands in the middle of the empty dance floor, closes her eyes, and brings forward the memory of that night. She feels Anakin's arms tighten around her, and she cries for everything that never could have been.
-----
Title: Craving Power
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: The Rule of Two
Word Count: 179
Characters: Darth Vader, Palpatine (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Reflections of a Sith Apprentice
-----
For the first day he existed, all Darth Vader could think about was the Rule of Two. He'd read about it in the Archives, before they'd burned, and he knew that within weeks he would be the one to embody power. But now, well.
When he'd gotten his first mechno, he'd been worried it made him less human. He'd gotten used to it, of course, even grown to use it as every bit of a weapon as the rest of him. He'd still worried what it meant, but he'd come to terms with it.
He didn't think he would ever come to terms with what he was now. Because now, he was most certainly not human, not in any way that mattered. And he knew, too, that for all of his vaunted power and the fear he garnered in his subordinates, he would never fully embody power. Not the way Palpatine did. Not the way he could have.
He'd spend the rest of his life (save ten minutes) craving power and never again thinking about the Rule of Two.
-----
Title: In Hiding
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: The Works
Word Count: 144
Characters: Ahsoka, Anakin (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Post RotS, Ahsoka hides
-----
The Works. Just saying the words makes Ahsoka's gut clench with unease. Just being here makes it worse. She can feel the Dark Side all around her, for now she knows this place, these factories and dark empty warehouses, was used as a staging ground for the Sith. For, perhaps, the man she once called Master. But she doesn't know that for certain, doesn't know how long Anakin's spiral descent took, if he might have undergone Sith training while he was training her in the ways of the Jedi. Does not know how deep his betrayal ran.
The Works, now, are safe, at least for her. She hides in the shadows, skirting the light, waiting for her chance to get offworld, to escape, to find any others who might have survived. The Works reek of the Dark Side, but, Ahsoka thinks, so does she.
-----
Title: I'm Here Seeking Only What I Need
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Eopie
Word Count: 211
Characters: Obi-Wan, Anakin (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Obi-Wan goes into the desert
Author's Notes: Title/cut-text from "Airport Song" by Guster
-----
The desert was brutal, unforgiving. It was beautiful and terrible and sucked you in with promises of glory and exotic excitement. It was Anakin, if he were a planet. Beautiful and abrasive and deadly. Obi-Wan tried not to dwell on the similarities, even as he rode his eopie across the Dune Sea, whipped by winds that felt like Anakin's angry words, Anakin's son nestled in his arms, shielded from the sun and sand by Obi-Wan's robes.
Nothing grew in the Dune Sea. It was a barren wasteland, unyielding and oh-so-seductive. The twin suns were blinding, glorious in their power. Obi-Wan pushed the thought out of his mind. Everything here reminded him of Anakin, though he suspected he would feel the same on any planet. That he is here, in the crucible that forged the man, is simply an unhappy twist of fate. A twist of the knife.
He almost didn't want to give Luke up when Beru met him to claim the child. Didn't want to lose what was left of Anakin, but he knew he would not do the boy justice. He'd failed raising one desert boy, he would not fail two.
He turned back, empty-handed, climbed back onto the beast of burden and left to form a new life.
Here are humor/fluff/other ficlets
Here are Anakin & Obi-Wan, as well as general h/c and angst.
Here are War-related ficlets
Here are Anakin & Ahsoka
Title: break with the ones you've followed
Challenge: SWMININANO
Prompt: perdition
Word Count: 697
Characters: Anakin, Obi-Wan
Rating: R
Summary: post-RotS AU, snapshots of banishment
Author's Notes: This is actually based on my fic without granting innocence. Kind of... the other side of the coin. Title from "How to Save a Life" by the Fray
Warning(s): Very bleak material ahead, might be triggering for SI, depression, PTSD, suicide, character death, etc.
-----
The silence is maddening. Obi-Wan has not spoken since their ship departed for exile. He has plenty to say, plenty he wants to scream at his companion, plenty of blame and hurt and confusion thrown together in a toxic whorl in his gut. Anakin, though, does not seem responsive to much of anything, so Obi-Wan knows his cries will go unheeded. He tries to release his misery into the Force; it helps, but not enough.
-----
They had told Anakin he was free to find employment, but Anakin can barely get out of bed. Obi-Wan, always so frugal, always so careful, has the savings from his Jedi stipend, enough to keep them comfortable, so Anakin sinks deeper into the blankets and screams in the dark.
-----
Obi-Wan takes care of both of them. He feels like they are Master and Padawan again, but he knows the feeling is a lie. Anakin has chosen another Master, and even if he has denounced his allegiance with the Sith after mere hours as their servant, Obi-Wan still feels like he is living with a stranger. There is nothing to say, so they both keep their silence, punctuated by Anakin's breathy sobs in the middle of the night.
-----
The HoloNet is a blessing and a curse. Each day the death toll grows higher, each day they read of the names of Jedi who have been newly lost. Obi-Wan can't watch, though Anakin spends hours with the projections, curled in on himself. Obi-Wan isn't sure if he is ashamed, or proud, of the destruction he's wrought.
-----
He gets his answer. The 'fresher door is unlocked, but Obi-Wan supposes in hindsight he should have knocked. Anakin crouches beside the toilet, blood is everywhere. He looks up at Obi-Wan with fear and unfathomable pain in his bright blue eyes, razor blade poised over his flesh arm. Obi-Wan's barked-out disbelief (What are you DOING?) are the first words he has spoken in ages.
-----
He doesn't know what to do with the new-found knowledge of Anakin's coping mechanism. And worse, part of him wants Anakin to hurt, to suffer the way he had made the Younglings suffer, Padme, and Ahsoka, and the babies and so many Jedi on so many worlds. His guilt at those angry feelings gnaws at him, he tries to make it better by initiating conversation, but it does not help.
-----
The days smear together. They rarely leave their small house; Obi-Wan gets supplies every other week, but Anakin accompanies him very infrequently. Obi-Wan realizes with a start one morning that he has no idea how long they have been here, and how much longer they will have to endure.
-----
He's not sure where Anakin gets the alcohol, but it seems to take the place of the injury, off and on. Obi-Wan is past the point of wanting to see Anakin in pain, past the point of anger or grief. He has become numb to his own feelings, and instead feels through Anakin. Anakin's feelings are terrifying.
-----
Anakin's whiskey-numbed hands slip in the 'fresher, cut too deeply, the blade skipping across the bone of his wrist. The Force healing Obi-Wan employs brings them closer together than they have been in ages, an intimacy Obi-Wan barely remembers that they once shared. He can't stop himself, kisses away Anakin's humiliated, frustrated tears. When Anakin returns the attention, clutching at Obi-Wan's tunics, entwining their limbs, Obi-Wan realizes this will complicate things entirely too much; they are here because he allowed his attachment to Anakin to blind him. He will not let it happen again. He pushes away and leaves Anakin alone.
-----
Obi-Wan can see Anakin is dying. Little by little, he is withdrawing into himself, disappearing from the galaxy as he fades into the background. Obi-Wan knows this was never what Anakin wanted, that neither of them ever wanted to have the end dictated by forces outside of their control. Obi-Wan considers, and makes his choice.
-----
Anakin seems relieved by the plan, and swallows the poison like a shot of namana, no questions, no protestations. Just glad to be going out on his own terms - on their terms - nestled comfortably in Obi-Wan's arms.
-----
Title: the good man scorns the wicked
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Icon Challenge
Word Count: 381
Characters: Anakin, Obi-Wan
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Goodness knows, the wicked's lives are lonely.
Author's Notes: An off-shoot, once again, of without granting innocence and break with the ones you've followed. Icon text from "Defying Gravity", title, and cut-text from "No One Mourns the Wicked" from Wicked. Dark, same warnings as the others (though not AS dark)
-----
"Well. Get up. Anakin."
Anakin opens his eyes, groggy, disoriented. Obi-Wan is standing over him; he's on the floor in the 'fresher, and he's not sure why. He looks down, sees new bacta patches on his arm, feels the sticky throbbing ache of hangover combined with blood loss. "Sorry," he says. He can't think of anything else to say, and he is sorry, for everything. He's said it so many times, it has lost all meaning. But he does mean it. He is sorry.
"You're always sorry," Obi-Wan responds. It is not cold, or meant to be hurtful, Anakin thinks, though it is distant. He's felt the distance between them since he broke down on Mustafar and while he can't blame his former Master, he still feels hurt. So long on this planet, in exile, so long proving his guilt, and Obi-Wan can still barely look at him.
"I know," Anakin responds softly. Once, right after Mustafar, right before his trial, Obi-Wan had asked him if he was happy with his decision, with what he'd thrown away for his own selfish ends.
Anakin hadn't known how to respond, and he still doesn't. He still is aching with the knowledge that at the time, he'd done the right thing. For himself, for Padme, for the galaxy. Then, in his usual fashion, he'd overextended, gotten overconfident, gotten arrogant and nearly mad. He still feels like he is mad, the nightmares and the fugue states and the injury and the drink and everything else and he knows he is losing his mind.
"Get up," Obi-Wan prompts again, gently, holding out a hand. Anakin takes it, allows Obi-Wan to pull him to his feet. "Come to town with me," Obi-Wan suggests.
Anakin shakes his head. He hates going into town, hates being stared at, hates knowing that Obi-Wan is only bringing him because he's afraid if he doesn't, he'll come home to a corpse. Anakin's not sure why he even cares; he's made his scorn known, his disappointment, his sense of betrayal. And Anakin knows he deserves all of it and more.
He knows he deserves to feel alone, to live in his own head, full of its demons, to die alone and forgotten, the Hero With No Fear nothing but a story book memory.
-----
Title: Facing the Executioner
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Order 66
Word Count: 202
Characters: Ahsoka, Rex, Fives, Anakin (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Ahsoka and Rex and Order 66
-----
Ahsoka feels it in her montrals before she knows exactly what has happened. She drops to her knees, retching into the dirt, her lightsaber rolling out of her hand. Her head is spinning, pinpoint explosions going off behind her eyes. She reaches out, desperately, trying to sense her Master through their bond. All she can feel in that direction is exhaustion, fear, and rage. He must feel it too, then, this wrongness, this sense of other Jedi dying. She can only assume he's fighting, protecting the others, from whatever this unknown threat might be. She is tempted to comm him, but feels the muzzle of a blaster pressed against the back of her neck. "Rex, don't," she says softly.
"It's orders," Rex replies, but his voice is shaking.
"We can't." And that's Fives, at Rex's side. They're not all the same, not to her, not to Anakin. She can tell who has come to kill her without even looking at them.
"I know," Rex sighs, and Ahsoka feels the blaster lower. She stands, calling her lightsaber to her hand. "We'll be executed for this, you know," Rex tells Fives.
"Everybody's gotta go sometime."
Rex turns to her. "Run," he says.
She does.
-----
Title: Just Dance
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Outlander Club
Word Count: 301
Characters: Ahsoka, Anakin
Rating: PG
Summary: Anakin and Ahsoka share a dance on the eve of her Knighting.
-----
Ahsoka has never been to the Outlander Club before. She's heard of it, of course, from other Padawans and in passing in conversations between her own Master and Obi-Wan. But this is her Knighting, the youngest in the Order - even younger than her own Master had been (and since he is not that much older, and was not Knighted that long ago, she considers it a considerable accomplishment), and her Master has agreed to take her.
Her senses are immediately overwhelmed by the pounding music, the sights and smells of hundreds of creatures all dancing, drinking, sweating. She suddenly isn't sure she wants to be there, but Anakin's eyes have lit up and he looks happier than she's seen him in months, and she can't really think to leave.
She tugs on his sleeve. "Do you want to dance?" she asks, feeling in turns shy and bold.
Anakin looks confused for an instant, but nods, smiling, and they move out to the dance floor. She wraps her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest. It is not the Jedi norm, certainly, and while she had once had an almost crippling crush on the Hero With No Fear, this is not sexual. She does not expect anything to happen between them, tonight or ever, but she feels safe in his arms. She closes her eyes, lets the music wash over her, and lets the moment happen.
Four months later, the Outlander has been closed down. She is there, in the ruins, hiding from her own soldiers, from her own Master. She stands in the middle of the empty dance floor, closes her eyes, and brings forward the memory of that night. She feels Anakin's arms tighten around her, and she cries for everything that never could have been.
-----
Title: Craving Power
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: The Rule of Two
Word Count: 179
Characters: Darth Vader, Palpatine (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Reflections of a Sith Apprentice
-----
For the first day he existed, all Darth Vader could think about was the Rule of Two. He'd read about it in the Archives, before they'd burned, and he knew that within weeks he would be the one to embody power. But now, well.
When he'd gotten his first mechno, he'd been worried it made him less human. He'd gotten used to it, of course, even grown to use it as every bit of a weapon as the rest of him. He'd still worried what it meant, but he'd come to terms with it.
He didn't think he would ever come to terms with what he was now. Because now, he was most certainly not human, not in any way that mattered. And he knew, too, that for all of his vaunted power and the fear he garnered in his subordinates, he would never fully embody power. Not the way Palpatine did. Not the way he could have.
He'd spend the rest of his life (save ten minutes) craving power and never again thinking about the Rule of Two.
-----
Title: In Hiding
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: The Works
Word Count: 144
Characters: Ahsoka, Anakin (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Post RotS, Ahsoka hides
-----
The Works. Just saying the words makes Ahsoka's gut clench with unease. Just being here makes it worse. She can feel the Dark Side all around her, for now she knows this place, these factories and dark empty warehouses, was used as a staging ground for the Sith. For, perhaps, the man she once called Master. But she doesn't know that for certain, doesn't know how long Anakin's spiral descent took, if he might have undergone Sith training while he was training her in the ways of the Jedi. Does not know how deep his betrayal ran.
The Works, now, are safe, at least for her. She hides in the shadows, skirting the light, waiting for her chance to get offworld, to escape, to find any others who might have survived. The Works reek of the Dark Side, but, Ahsoka thinks, so does she.
-----
Title: I'm Here Seeking Only What I Need
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Eopie
Word Count: 211
Characters: Obi-Wan, Anakin (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Summary: Obi-Wan goes into the desert
Author's Notes: Title/cut-text from "Airport Song" by Guster
-----
The desert was brutal, unforgiving. It was beautiful and terrible and sucked you in with promises of glory and exotic excitement. It was Anakin, if he were a planet. Beautiful and abrasive and deadly. Obi-Wan tried not to dwell on the similarities, even as he rode his eopie across the Dune Sea, whipped by winds that felt like Anakin's angry words, Anakin's son nestled in his arms, shielded from the sun and sand by Obi-Wan's robes.
Nothing grew in the Dune Sea. It was a barren wasteland, unyielding and oh-so-seductive. The twin suns were blinding, glorious in their power. Obi-Wan pushed the thought out of his mind. Everything here reminded him of Anakin, though he suspected he would feel the same on any planet. That he is here, in the crucible that forged the man, is simply an unhappy twist of fate. A twist of the knife.
He almost didn't want to give Luke up when Beru met him to claim the child. Didn't want to lose what was left of Anakin, but he knew he would not do the boy justice. He'd failed raising one desert boy, he would not fail two.
He turned back, empty-handed, climbed back onto the beast of burden and left to form a new life.