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It released a long tired groan, that resonated throughout the empty space around them, and slid their hands across their face - which was quite a feat considering they technically didn't have hands or a face.
Lately It had been working overtime, what with how kriffed up the balance had become because of a certain Darth Sidius. The last time things were this bad was when Revan was the Chosen one, but back then, things had actually eventually gotten better thanks to him. But not this time. This time the new Chosen one had decided it was a great idea to get pulled over to the Dark side big time and wipe out most of the Jedi population.
And sure, he was deceived by the same kriffin Sith that was now causing It this headache, but he had plenty of chances to make things right. And now It had to do so many troublesome things to set things straight again; just thinking about having to find another Chosen one was making their head hurt (and they didn't even have a head).
The Force swirled around It, whispering in languages long dead. And with those whispers, an idea started forming in their mind.
A wave of giddy energy rolled off It, traveling through the corridors of time and space, where it reached many Force-sensitives, who couldn't understand why they suddenly felt so excited and nervous at the same time.
And It decided that if the Galaxy's inhabitants were going to mess up their timeline, they might as well fix it themselves as well.
The first time traveler It saw was actually the son of the Fallen Chosen one, aka the best candidate for the new Chosen one. He didn't travel far, just to when he was first taken off his home planet Tatooine.
It had a lot of fun simply watching from the sidelines as the young man saved his old master and helped guide his younger self and their rebellion to a swifter victory with much less casualties.
But while it was fun to watch, it didn't really help with the imbalance that It was dealing with. But boy did it cause problems down the line.
The timeline, that had previously been a single stream flowing forward, had now shattered into dozens of smaller streams going all over the place. And this was where It started regretting their decision.
The first change came when instead of the Chosen one's son, his daughter came through instead. After that, It started seeing some variations in the timelines, where sometimes only one of the siblings time traveled, while other times they both went together. Eventually they even started bringing friends along, and It could only guide them safely to their destination and hope things would work themselves out.
It all culminated in the Chosen one himself taking a trip through time. And he wasn't alone either; the old master, who wasn't so old anymore, was with him, and they were both hurling backwards to a time before everything went to hell.
What happened afterwards was pure chaos and It loved it. The absolute mayhem that swept through the Jedi order at the news the two time travelers brought finally ended with the Dark Lord of the Sith as a lightsaber pincushion (a very satisfying ending for the exhausted Force entity).
But unfortunately for It, a disturbance so far in the timeline meant one thing; more time streams, and by consequence, more time travelers.
It would later look back and realise all that was just the beginning of a much larger pandemonium.
It looked on with interest as the Chosen one and his master reversed the stream of time yet again.
They weren't the only ones this time; a girl was with them, tied to the Chosen one with a bond that had grown frayed and fragile over time.
The girl was... interesting to It. She was once a Jedi, and at her core she was just that, but she'd also grown to be something more. There was a light living inside her, sustaining her. It knew the signature that light emitted; it belonged to a being known simply as Daughter, a creature that came as close to being what It was as one could.
It watched as the girl, the Chosen one, and the old master arrived and took over the bodies their younger selves inhabited. To It, this was an interesting turn of events, since until then, time travelers arrived in their designated time as a whole new being, integrating themselves into the timeline.
Most sentients would call the feeling of a soul being devoured by another something appalling that makes your entire being revolt in disgust, and the three time travelers did have a hard time coming to terms with the cost of their regression, but to It, it was simply a brand new developement.
They had seen thing far more horrible than this, and those weren't done for the purpose of saving the galaxy.
It continued to watch as the three progressed through the timeline, righting one wrong at a time. They were more careful than most time travelers It had seen until then, and It liked that. Seeing the old bonds between masters and apprentices grow strong and bright again made even the Force entity feel warm.
Following this incident, most of those going to the past instead regressed as a shapeless consciousness, taking over the body of their younger selves. There were a couple mishaps when several time travelers ended up in one body, or very rarely the younger mind survived and both past and future shared the body. Still in most cases, the older and more experienced one ended up absorbing the younger, efectively erasing them from existence.
And It continued to watch, getting steadily closer to being overwhelmed by time travelers.
Over time, It had grown desensitized to how many different Jedi, friends of Jedi, or just plain random people were thrown into the current of time. But even they took notice of this brand new duo.
Now, a Mandalorian alone wouldn't have caught Its interest; after all, clones had been sent back before on many occasions. However this Mando wasn't a clone, wasn't related to the clones, wasn't the clone supreme (boy, was it fun to watch that one regress), and was accompanied by a tiny Jedi Youngling of all things.
And It knew for sure that time travel was a lot different for them than for the people actually time traveling. While It could watch as the person made their way up the time stream, for the person in question it was a matter of a few seconds in darkness, or blinding light, or maybe the occasional unconsciousness.
It knew the people time traveling couldn't sense them, much less communicate with them, and yet they very clearly felt the Youngling's signature reach out towards their own.
Did they respond? Well, Force entities were only ever supposed to observe and help keep the balance so... maybe?
But hey, this was a little Jedi Youngling, not even able to talk yet, what harm would it do if they gave them a nice warm embrace through the Force every now and then? And if they protected him from harm a couple times, who was going to notice?
Ok, so maybe even Force entities are susceptible to cuteness, what about it?!
As It soon found out, having so many different people time traveling so many different ways through so many different time streams was a lot of work. It had to make sure each time traveler stayed in their own timeline, which was akin to trying to keep multiple fires burning in their own paths, which are only separated by thin walls of oil-soaked paper.
Again, there were a couple accidents; cases when a time traveler or two ended up several timelines over, and It simply watched as that caused even more chaos.
Well... at least the balance returned to the Force... somewhat. It thought resignedly as countless Force signatures zoomed past it, carrying their respective owners to times as much as thousands of years apart.
The Force whispered around them and It wasn't quite sure whether it was chiding them or making fun of them. Either way they were going to have to clean this mess up, and that was definitely going to be fun, and short, and not at all maddening for them.
It sighed again.
This was going to be a looong eternity.
