Note: I don't care that I don't own Star Wars. Many characters and places in this story are not mine. Yet, I hope you enjoy.
Oh, how I longed to be a Jedi! I schemed plans with my friends that would get us to the Jedi Temple on Corusant so they could train us to be Jedi. However, they were never able to fall through. I was just Woran, the eldest daughter in the Eaupp family. My parents worked with other families in trading. We roamed the Outer Rim, searching for good deals and ways to make money.
Since we never stayed in one place long, I was taught aboard our ship as we roamed from planet to planet. I did well in the classes that dealt with defending yourself against attackers. As traders, we had a constant threat of space pirates and bounty hunters that we had to worry about. The reason I did so well was I was somehow able to see things before they happened, so I had extremely fast reflexes, which brought me victory in practice scrambles often.
I heard people talking about this when they thought I wasn't listening. They weren't sure what this ability was for. They thought it could be evil and that I shouldn't be aboard the ship. My parents, however, refused to let me go, and so I stayed with them.
When I was six, a Jedi hired on with us to be a protector against our threats. It was a dream come true for us kids. We adored Anis Ritti. We begged her every day to show us some Jedi tricks or train us to be a Jedi. She didn't show us her tricks often, and never considered training any of us. We were often told to leave her alone, that she was busy.
Anis, however, became an idol in my eyes. She was in her late thirties, human, like me, except her skin was a much darker shade of brown than my own pale skin. I wanted to just hang around her all day. I hung on her every word.
Then one day, she noticed my ability to see things before they happened. Unlike everyone else on the ship, she did not think that it was evil. In fact, she said that it was a Jedi trait. At hearing this, I took up my pleas for her to train me again. After all, I did have the traits. Wasn't it right that I get trained properly?
Anis refused, but I kept asking everyday, in hopes that she had changed her mind. Finally, she said that she had some things to tell me about being a Jedi, and if I still wanted to, she would consider training me. I of course said I would listen, grabbing at the chance that she might train me.
We went into her room, just the two of us, and she closed the door. There, she told me about the Sith, two warriors well trained in the Jedi arts. She said that they were hunting down and killing the Jedi. It didn't matter how strong you were, if you went to battle with them, odds were, you would lose.
At the time, I didn't care much about the Sith. My desire to be a Jedi was too great to care. When I said that I wanted to be a Jedi anyway, she said she would think about it and let me go about my business.
I asked everyday if she had decided to train me or not. Finally, she told me that she was going to test my blood for midi-chlorians. If I had enough to be a Jedi, she would train me. I was so excited, I didn't even notice the needle she used to get the blood sample. As it turned out, I did have enough to be a Jedi, even though the count may have been a little bit below the average Jedi. At seeing this, she said she would train me, and I was overjoyed.
Anis started teaching me about the Force, the power that gave me the ability to see things before they happened, and about other things it could do. I lapped everything up. I was an eager learner. Anis didn't have a spare lightsaber, so she let me use hers while she trained me in its use until she got enough parts to make another one. I treated it with great care, and smiled every time I held it. I was going to be a Jedi.
A year passed by with me being her Padawan learner. I went everywhere she went, and I enjoyed every minute of it, even the times when the training got hard. One day, when my parents had come to trade on the planet Omethingsur, Anis started walking away by herself away from town, without telling me. I immediately took off after her and called out, "Where are you going, Mistress?"
Anis turned at hearing me, and glared at me. "I am going to be alone for awhile," she answered. "Go on back to the ship."
"But I want to stay with you," I whined. Anis brought one hand to her side, and I recognized she was about to use the Force to make me go back to the ship, and I panicked. "I thought padawan learners were supposed to stay with their masters!" I cried, before she could sweep her hand in the air and convince me that I needed to go back.
Anis stood there, holding her hand still by her side, still poised to rise through the air and use the Force. Finally, she let it go back to her side, and said to me, "You're right. Fine, you can come, but when I say to hide, you go hide somewhere where no one can see you, and don't you come out, not for anything, until its over."
I was confused. What was she talking about? Yet, she was allowing me to come with her, so I smiled and said, "Let's get going then."
We walked around the outskirts of town. I guess Anis wanted to make sure there would be somewhere for me to hide, otherwise, she would have continued out into the field. As we walked, I suddenly began to feel a tightening in my chest, as if a big, black hand had suddenly come and was squeezing me.
I was about to tell Anis about my feeling, when she told me to go hide. I started to protest, but she was firm, so I went inside an old building that was nearby. I quickly located a window and peeked out. All this time, the hand was squeezing my chest tighter and tighter.
Anis started to head out into the field. I had just about made up my mind to go after her, when I saw someone ride up on an STAP vehicle, which was like a flying scooter. It was then I realized that the squeezing in my chest feeling was being caused by the rider. He just radiated evil. He stopped it near Anis and got off. When Anis saw him, she stopped and faced the newcomer. He was dressed in black from head to toe. You couldn't so much as see an inch of flesh; even his face was covered by a big black mask.
There were holes in the window and wall, and there must have been a breeze blowing towards me so I could hear what they were saying. The newcomer said to Anis in a raspy voice, taking deep breaths at every pause, "Well, Anis Ritti, I have finally found you."
"What do you want, Darth Vader?" Anis asked, her voice calm and steady.
"You know perfectly well what I want," Darth Vader replied, "I did not think that you would be as dumb as the other Jedi. You know that the Jedi council has been totally destroyed along with the lives of several of your fellow Jedi by my hand."
"No matter how hard you try, you and your master cannot completely destroy the Jedi," Anis replied.
"I see you are arrogant, just like many of your friends were," Darth Vader replied, "and just like them, you will meet the same fate. It has not been easy to track you down, with you moving all over the galaxy, but I finally did, and this is where it ends."
"You will never win, Anakin." Suddenly, Darth Vader grabbed his lightsaber, turned it on, and swung it at Anis. She quickly jumped out of the way, grabbing her own lightsaber and turning it on along the way.
I could barely hear the hum of the lightsabers as they were swung, but I could clearly hear the cracking when they clashed. I watched the fight with anticipation. I knew from Darth Vader's red lightsaber and talk of killing Jedi that he was a Sith. Still, Anis could defeat him. I knew she could. Anis's green lightsaber met Darth Vader's red again and again.
Suddenly, Darth Vader faked a hit to Anis's head. She rose to block the feigned attack, and he swung through her opening. My eyes were wide as I saw the red lightsaber stick through her, then withdraw. She fell to the ground.
I was chanting "no" over and over again, very softly. My Jedi mistress couldn't be dead. She couldn't have been killed by a Sith. This was just a nightmare. I would wake up soon and find her standing over me, telling me to do my drills. It wasn't real.
I saw Darth Vader examine Anis's fallen body, to double check to see if she was dead. Then he paused, turned, and looked my way. I quickly ducked out of sight. I prayed that he wouldn't find me. I had no way to defend myself. When I peeked out of a hole in the wall, Darth Vader was riding off on his STAP, leaving Anis behind.
As soon as he was out of sight, I rushed out to check on Anis. All that was left of her was her robes and lightsaber. There was no body. It was then that the tears came. She was gone. My Jedi mistress was gone. I fell down on top of her robes and sobbed. "It can't be true," I said in-between sobs. "It just can't be true!"
Then I heard Anis's voice firmly say, "Woran!" I looked up, and I saw Anis, or at least her spirit. It looked just like her, except it had a blue tint to it, and was translucent.
"Mistress?" I asked.
Anis's spirit nodded. "I trust you saw what happened." I nodded. "As you probably figured out, that man is a Sith, and his goal is to rid the galaxy of all the Jedi. He doesn't know about you yet, which is why he didn't kill you, too. You have a very difficult future ahead of you, Woran. You must never reveal to anyone that you have had training as a Jedi. Do you understand that?"
"I do," I answered.
"Still, you cannot simply forget that you have had this training. You must continue doing those drills I have shown you in the Force. Will you do that?"
"I will."
"Good. One last thing. You must not fear. Remember, fear leads to anger. Anger..."
"Leads to hate," I continued.
"And hate...?"
"Leads to suffering."
"That is right. You must not fall to the dark side. It will be hard, but the light side is so much better. Still, you must not face it without a weapon. Take my lightsaber."
"Do you mean it?"
"Well, I can't use it now, can I?" It was a rare bit of humor from her. I managed a smile. "Take it. You'll need it."
"Yes. Thank you."
"Well, I'm afraid that I must go now. Don't forget any of what I've said. Good bye, Woran." She started to fade away.
"No, wait!" I cried out. I tried to hold onto her, to keep her with me, but she had faded completely by the time I got up. I stood there for a moment, to absorb everything that had just happened. Then I picked up her lightsaber, and headed back to the ship to tell everyone what had happened.
Just a few days after Anis was killed, the Empire came to Omethingsur and won it in battle. We were still there when they came, so we were taken captive and made members of the Empire. We were forbidden to travel outside of the Empire, and the Star Destroyers that hovered around the edges of the empire made sure of that. Even worse, this was the empire of Emperor Palpatine, the Sith master.
I became depressed as I watched the stormtroopers walk aboard our ship and marched us out. I was a young, barely trained Jedi trapped in lands ruled by a Sith. How was I going to survive?