Points of View

I've had the Mustafar dream more times then I can count.

This time is different.

This time, my Master glares up at me. I would know this face anywhere, and the basic semblence of it hasn't changed: a short, neat beard, high cheekbones, and a straight nose. It's his eyes that are wrong. His eyes are yellow.

I don't even have time to be confused. I am suddenly overcome with love for this man. It's exactly the way I used to feel about him; loyal, admiring, an edge of jealous resentment, but enduring and unconditional. Whatever he has done, or will do, I know in that moment, in the dream, I will always consider him my brother. I don't want to hurt him. I'll never want to hurt him.

"It's over Obi Wan! I have the higher ground!" The desperate plea tears itself from my lips. I barely register that this is not my role in this nightmare, all I can think of is Obi Wan and warning him not to jump. Please, just don't jump.

He glares in a way I've never seen him glare before. It's bitter, angry...dark.

"That's you're problem, Anakin." He sneers, "You've always underestimated my power!"

And with that he jumps.

He jumps and I cannot stop myself.

Obi Wan lays in front of me groaning, just as I did. If this were not a nightmare, if I were just myself, I might rejoice in this. This would be the ultimate revenge. But right now, all I feel is pain. I almost resent him for taking it this far, for forcing me to do this. Yet, no one forced me. I chose to mutilate him.

"You were to destroy the Sith, not join them! You left the Force in darkness!" I scream down at the torso below me. My strong and beautiful brother, trying to pull himself away from the lava with one arm. It's the worst form of torment, seeing him reduced to this. I can't bear to watch any longer and turn away.

"I hate you!" The words send knives through whatever is left of my heart. And what makes it worse is that he's saying that to me. It's his voice. Part of me wants to yell the words right back at him, but I can't because they would not be true. So I look back at him and say,

"You were my brother, Obi Wan. I loved you."

That's when he burns. A spark from the lava ignites his legs and spreads up over his broken body. He screams and cries, and reaches his one hand out to me. The sight of my brother, ruined, used, tortured, and burned is forever cemented into my brain, a sight that will always lurk just under my eyelids. I long to kill him, to put him out of his misery. But I cannot. All I can do is turn and walk away.

I jolt awake as the dream fades away. I am Vader and the nightmare does not have any effect on me save that I may be especially vicious today. I draw the darkside close around me to block out the heat provided by that memory. Yet, as whoever I was in the dream begins to fade away, as Anakin begins to fade away, all he can wonder is how, in a galaxy no longer fit for an Angel, his brother survives in such grief.

XXX

I've had the Mustafar dream more times then I can count.

This time is different.

This time, Anakin has blue eyes. It's the first thing that I register. The feelings I had during that horrible fight are as familiar as the back of my hand, and the emotions that wash over me tonight are similar, but not identical. I'm angrier then I remember being and I don't make any effort to control it. The despair is still there, but it feels more like self-pity. I'm not missing Anakin, I'm simply despairing that it ever came to this. That I'm going to have to be the one that kills him.

"It's over, Obi Wan! I have the higher ground!" His face twists into a bleak look of crushing grief and wild hope. Adrenaline courses through my body, setting a tingle in my limbs. I can literally taste the challenge in the back of my throat. Anger begins to burn in my heart against the injustice of him, an inferior even if I love him, telling me what to do.

"You underestimate my power!" I yell. I can make that jump. I'll sail through the air, over his head, and just out of reach of his 'saber. My body coils with the thrill of it.

I spring, but a seering fire rips across my legs and through my arm. I crumple to the ground and roll to the edge of the river, moaning in excruciating pain, and trying to stop myself with limbs that are no longer there.

"You were to destroy the Sith, not join them! You've left the Force in darkness!" Anakin is crying, his blue eyes sadder then I've ever seen them. I am not sure he could look more devastated if someone had stabbed him through the heart. Shakily he turns away.

Wrath blazes through me, more intense and personal then I've ever felt it before. He's leaving me, leaving me to die after all I had done for him before now. With every ounce of strength left in my body, I yell, "I hate you!" at his retreating figure.

If I thought he looked devastated before, he looks crushed now. The way he would look if he were dying in agony. He stares at me for a moment, and then says,

"You were my brother, Obi Wan! I loved you."

The words leave me reeling, confused. I can't understand what would bring him to say that to me after everything that has come to pass. But I don't have much time to think it over.

At first, I think it is simply the overwhelming heat of my rage, but then I realize that a fire has started about my legs. I am burning alive and the heat is spreading up over my entire body, singeing away skin, hair, nerves and bone. I scream and cry as I never have before, and I watch as my lone salvation, my brother, slowly turns and walks away.

I jolt awake as the dream fades away. I am Obi Wan Kenobi, and I am not burning. I am safe and alone on Tatooine and I have not left for six years. The dream was just that, a dream, a memory, nothing more. I shakily sit up and put my head in my hands, threading my fingers through my sweat dampened red/gray locks. I begin to cry as I have been prone to doing ever since my Jedi mask cracked on Mustafar. Yet as the dream fades away to distant memory all I can wonder is how, in a galaxy no longer fit to be saved by the Chosen One, my brother lives with the knowledge that I abandoned him.

"You'll find that many of the truths we cling to, depend highly on our point of view."-Ben Kenobi

AN: Yet another angsty oneshot found on my computer while I was working on Chapter 3 of Unorthodox Training. This idea of having the characters' switch points of view was originally for Frodo and Sam, but Frodo and Sam didn't really have a moment I could use and I found the idea worked better for Mustafar. The Anakin inside Vader, and Ben Kenobi have a slight moment of understanding for the other's pain. This is my first story directly dealing with Mustafar and all the showdowns dealt with there-on so I'd really like feedback. *hint hint* Anyways, soon I'll have ch 3 of Unortodox Training done plus a few humorous oneshots! (I feel the need to take a break fron straight-up angst)

Have a lovely day!