It's a Wonderful Life Day (Take 2)
by Kay Iscah
Disclaimer: George is the deity in this universe and I but a lowly imitator. Translation much as I wish it was the GFFA isn't mine. I'm not making any money, nor am I trying to infringe with this story.
This story takes place between the Black Fleet Crisis and the New Rebellion. Luke has journeyed to Kashyyyk to meet Han, Leia and their kids and be with them and Chewbacca's family on Life Day. (I apologize for any unpleasantness memories of the Holiday Special may cause.)
If this story line looks familiar, that's because you've watched it at least once every Christmas. I fear I bring you a seasonal story, but well...somebody had to do it.
(Warning: Possible novel spoilers, and this story does not exactly follow the "It's a Wonderful Life" plot line. It's a tad darker.)
*****************************************************
Kashyyyk. There it was, growing steadily larger in his view shield. Luke hit a switch that he had hit millions of times on millions of planet entries. For a moment he forgot why it was so important he hit that switch, but he remembered and the brief lapse in purpose was forgotten.
"Excited, Artoo?" Luke asked hoping one of them was.
Artoo whistled and whirred about seeing Threepio and getting off humid Yavin 4. Luke smiled, "It is nice to see family."
Your sister's family, he reminded himself. And you better make the most of it. It's the closest you'll get. He had been terribly melancholy after his almost fall to the darkside, but in the last few years, he had been better. He now admitted it was his thoughts and not the galaxy that had turned a darker shade of grey.
The comm crackled. "Hey, Kid, they want you to land at the government port. I'm afraid they have some welcome the hero ceremony planned."
Great, Luke thought with all the enthusiasm the situation deserved. "Duty to the Republic, or can I get out of this one?" he asked Han.
"Duty, I think," Han said. "Leia's got them to promise to keep it short."
Luke could not help but remember another short ceremony. "How short?"
"Actually, I think she bargained it down to half an hour," Han told him. "This isn't the Kitonak reception." Luke smiled, so Han remembered that one too.
"Alright," he agreed. "Time to earn my credit line."
"See you in about two hours, Kid," Han signed off, then added. "Glad you could make it." The comm fell silent as the X-wing came to the point where traffic control would pick up on him.
"Sure," Luke murmured. "What else was I going to do."
Ceremonies. The last time Luke had enjoyed a ceremony was when he received his medal for the first Death Star. He had reached his dreams. When Leia had hung that medallion about his neck, he knew he had become a hero. Now he knew that the real heroes were the twenty-seven pilots who had died. Not that he, Wedge, and that Y-wing pilot, whose name he could never remember, had not done their part...
Luke smiled. Okay so maybe you are something of a hero, he admitted to himself. But you still hate ceremonies. He stopped for a moment, and decided to be honest with himself again. You do too like ceremonies. You like getting dressed up once in a while no matter how much you complain about it. You like having people smile at you and wave to get your attention. What you hate are these little internal debates over whether or not you have any right to be there. Yes, as shameful as it was, Luke liked the occasional ceremony. But the Kitonak reception had simply been a taste of hell...a very dull hell.
Traffic control interrupted his thoughts with landing instruction. Of course they were all in wookiee, so he shut off the audio and had Artoo do a running translation.
Traffic control guided him down to the government port.
The ceremony was surprisingly short. It consisted of a few Wookiee government officials shaking his hand so hard he feared the mechanical part might come off and the taking of many holovids. While he was grateful for the brevity, Luke felt a little disappointed.
Artoo whirred beside him in the transport, trying to put him in a better mood. The little droids efforts caused more warmth than his twitters. You're thirty-six years old and your best friend is an astronomech droid. Luke laughed. Man, his life stunk. Well, there was Tionne. She was a good friend too. He had thought about asking her to come along, but considering a new batch of rumors that had started at the academy, he decided that would not have been a good idea. Luke wondered how she survived without nieces and nephews.
"Here you are," the driver said as they stopped in front of Chewbacca's home. Actually he said, "Arrwuuuuuah Orrrmuuu nnamomp hooo." But Luke understood the gist of it.
He helped Artoo out of the vehicle and walked to the door. After taking a look around, he pressed the annuciator. The door slid open immediately to Leia's smiling face. She hugged him. "Come on in, Luke. We've been waiting for you."
Luke smiled and let her pull him inside. Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin ran up to him with exclamations of "Uncle Luke!" and "Lukie!". The "Lukie" was Anakin. Luke kneeled down to give them all a hug and ask the standard questions "What have you been up to? Have you been good for your mother? You're not giving Threepio too much trouble are you? Do you know what I've got in my pocket?" This last question was part of a game he had been playing with the kids for the last few times he had visited.
"Is it candy?" Jaina asked, her brown eyes shining.
"Nope."
"Is it a pet?" Jacen asked with the same gleam.
"Not even close."
"There's nothing in there," Anakin giggled. Well, in practicality, he was right, but Luke was not going to let him win that easily.
"No, there's something in there."
Anakin got that analytical look on his face which was always hilarious to see on a five, no six- year old.
"Um, a book?" Jaina tried again. Luke shook his head.
"Does it move?" Jacen asked. Luke pretended to have to think about that.
"Well, yeah."
"Air?" Anakin ventured.
"That's in there too, but this is something else."
"Tell us," Jaina and Jacen pleaded together.
Luke sighed. "Well okay." He reached into his pocket. "It's...a..." he paused for dramatic effect. "Tickle!" He grabbed Anakin before he could escape. The room peeled with giggles. The twins clapped, until Luke reached for them too. Once they had all gotten a good tickling the twins ran off, but Anakin hung on Luke's leg.
Luke ruffled the boy's hair.
"Hey, Luke," Han greeted him with an outstretched hand.
Luke took his hand. "You look good, Han. No more trips to the medical wing?"
"Nope, all better," Han told him. "Except...I can't remember who this woman is. She keeps saying we're married but-"
Leia gave him a playful punch in the ribs.
"Daddy, you're silly," Anakin told him.
Han put an arm around Leia and looked down at Anakin. "Yeah, your right. Even if I don't know who she is. She's good enough I should pretend I do." Leia smiled at him and shook her head.
"So where's Chewie?" Luke asked.
"He took Malla and Waroo out, so they could have some family time," Han said.
"Hope they don't have to cut it short this time," Luke said.
Han gave his lopsided smile, and Luke felt a pang of guilt. Han clapped a hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry about it."
"Lukie, can I show your room?" Anakin asked.
"Oh, I've got a room?"
"Not exactly," Leia said. "You're bunking with Waroo and Attichitcuk."
At that moment the old wookiee lumbered into the room. He growled a question.
"At least a few hours," Han answered. Attichitcuk gave the wookiee equivalent of a grumble and went to the kitchen.
"He's grouchy," Anakin confided. Leia shushed him.
"How about you show me to my room?" Luke said.
"Okay," Anakin said, took Luke's hand, and lead the way.
Luke tried to sleep that night, but he seemed to have developed an allergy to something on Kashyyyk. As he pinched his nose for the hundredth time and got out of bed to find a tissue, he hoped he had not developed an allergic reaction to wookiee fur. He found one, sneezed, and went back to bed. Why hadn't Yoda taught him a technique to block allergies?
He flopped his head on the pillow, then under the pillow as Itchy's snoring became too hard on the ears. He tried to steady his breathing and used a Jedi calming technique. Slowly he felt his muscles ease, his eyelids droop. His breathing became regular.... Achoo!
Blast it!
Up again, down again. Hibernation trance...hibernation trance...
Needless to say, Luke was a bit groggy the next morning. He spent a good portion of it lounging in an overstuffed chair while he pretended to help Anakin with his new puzzle and the rest figuring out that Jacen's new fuzzy pet was the cause of his allergies.
Luke stifled another yawn and tried to focus on the puzzle. The goofy thing kept turning into a symbol of his life, except his puzzle was missing a few pieces. I will not act depressed. I will not ruin Life Day for the others. It's just a puzzle. Stop being so blasted philosophical.
"Look, I put together Zoom's helmet," Anakin announced proudly and pointed. Zoom X-Star^ was the new fictional X-wing pilot that was big this year. With his trusty astronomech droid, Zip^, at his side, Zoom could out fly, out shoot, and out think anyone. Actually Zoom was what Stardust Toys had come up with after both Luke and Wedge had refused to sell them the rights to their names.
"Yeah, I see," Luke said. No reason to spoil Anakin's fun though.
Han stopped and asked Anakin a standard parent question. "What have you got there?"
"Doin' a puzzle," Anakin told him without looking up.
"What's it a puzzle of?" Han asked.
"Zoooooooom!" Luke exclaimed with a maniacal grin.
Han managed to only smirk, but it was a hard battle. "You're still sore about that. Aren't you?"
"I'm not sore," Luke said. "I just find it amusing how they can commercialize anything."
Han shook his head. "Nah, you're just sore cause they modeled the character after Wedge instead of you."
Luke hit Han with a throw pillow. "Be gone General Lone!"
Han almost lost it. "Didn't think you were a loyal fan of the show."
"I most certainly am not," Luke said. The occasional lie to protect the prestige of the Jedi was acceptable right?
Han escaped to the kitchen, and a few moments later the auditory convulsions of an adult male and female human were heard coming from that vicinity.
Luke shook his head and saw Anakin was watching him curiously. "Go back to your puzzle." Anakin grinned and went to work on Zoom's blaster. Luke tried to find a more comfortable position and found himself wishing the chair was a couch.
"Uncle Luke?" two young voices shouted together. Jaina and Jacen ran into a room holding a once fuzzy, now dripping pet up for display. "We gave Elmis a bath. Does he make you sneeze now?"
"Achoo" was Luke's answer.
"Guess so," Jacen said dejectedly.
"We tried," Jaina said.
"You bent well," Luke said from behind a kintex^^. "Why don't you take your pet back to your room." Luke made his way outside for some fresh air.
He walked over to the edge of false ground and looked over. An abyss lay before him. Not even the natives of Kashyyyk dared very far into its underworld. It was dark and deep. Luke felt a strange longing for it. That was the kind of darkness that swallowed you.
"Luke?"
He turned around. Leia came toward him holding a datapad. He took a few steps away from the edge. "This message came for you from the academy," she said. "I thought you'd want to read it."
"What does it say?" Luke asked.
Leia gave him a warm smile. "I don't read your messages." She gave him the datapad and walked back inside.
"Thanks," Luke said as the door closed. He made a quick wish that the message would in no way contain the words "dark Jedi" and brought it up.
Luke walked back indoors as one in a trance. He sank into the large chair, oblivious to Leia, Threepio, and Malla's frantic meal preparations. The words to some song Jaina, Jacen, and Han were singing in the next room congealed into a drone without meaning.
"Hey, Luke," Leia called from the next room. "Senator Dorif'kry was talking about Kyp the other day. It turns out-" She went on, but Luke did not hear her.
Anakin came to Luke and stretched his arms out to him. Luke pulled him into his lap and hugged him tight. A tear formed, then another. He did not try to keep them in check. They rolled down his cheeks. Anakin caught one on his finger. "You cry?" he asked. Luke nodded and held him tighter.
"Luke, did you hear--?" Leia came into the room, but stopped short when she saw him. "What's wrong?"
"Tionne," Luke murmured. He stopped, forgetting how to form words.
Leia placed a hand on his arm. "Why don't we talk outside?"
Luke put Anakin down and walked outside.
"Is Uncle Luke sick?" Anakin asked.
Leia gave Anakin a quick, distracted squeeze. "No, baby, he just doesn't feel well." She hurried out after her brother.
Luke was standing at the edge again, looking down into the lower levels. For a moment she was afraid to speak as though her breath could push him off, then she was afraid not to speak. "Luke, what did it say?"
Luke turned around, the trail of a tear still on his cheek. Leia could not remember a time where she had actually seen him cry. She took his hand, and pulled him away from the edge.
"There was a cave-in in one of the old temples," Luke said. "Tionne was caught under the stones. They got her out but..."
"I'm sure she'll be alright," Leia said lamely.
"No. They put her in the bacta, but-" Luke took a deep breath. "They think she's going to die, Leia. Tionne never hurt anyone, and she's going to die."
Leia hugged her brother. "I'm sorry."
Luke let Leia hold him for a moment, then he pushed away. "I need to go," he said.
"Where?"
"I don't know, just go," he started walking away from the house.
"Luke, stop. Wait!"
He did not stop. He did not wait.
He found a bar. He told himself that nothing mattered, but the type of bar was very important. Too many wookiees in the local bars. He would have either been swallowed in a sea of fur or stuck out like sore thumb. He could not go to the bars where the higher-class scum hung out. It would spread bad publicity for Leia.
He walked with the quick purposeful stride of a man who had no idea where he was going and entered the spaceport cantina. Not as rough as Mos Eisley but with the same variations on species, and the ratio of drunk to getting there was about the same too.
Luke sat at the bar and studied the surface intently.
"You want something?" the bartender asked him after a few moments.
Luke jerked his head up as though surprised by where he was. "Yeah," he said after a few seconds.
It did not seem that Luke was going to offer anything further, so the tender pushed a little more. "Well, what do you want?"
"Um..." Luke thought for a moment. What had been that drink Tionne had wanted to serve for the graduation of the second class of students? He had not let her. Something about not wanting to have to deal with a bunch of drunk Jedi. "Roesilwood wine^^^?" he said experimentally.
The bartender gave a short laugh. "We serve hard drinks here, flyboy. Try again."
"I don't know," Luke mumbled. "Just give me something hard."
The tender shrugged and went to look behind the counter.
Luke went back to studying the counter. He only half noticed the rustle of fabric when some one sat on the stool beside him.
"Hey, sweetheart, what's got you down?" a smoky, feminine voice asked.
Luke looked at her half expecting to see Callista, but she was simply some blonde with dark brown eyes. It was probably for the best. This day did not need a heart attack to top it off.
"Come on," she spoke again with a soft smile. "Are you okay?"
Luke snorted. "You really want an answer to that?"
The woman ran her fingers down his arm. "You wanna come to my ship? We could talk it over."
I never kissed Tionne, Luke thought. Then thought that was a very strange thing to think. He had never had feelings for her in that way. He guessed it was just one of those abstract ideas that you would never seriously consider or carry out, but when they popped up you had to wonder what if.
The bartender sat a drink in front of him and said something about credits. "I'd rather go for a walk," Luke told the blonde.
She smiled a little more. "Sure. Walks can be good. I've got some Roesilwood wine on the ship. We could take some with us. So where do you want to walk?"
"I want to go into the forest," Luke said in a low voice as if it were some secret.
The blonde rested her hand on his shoulder. "I heard there's a branch path about five blocks from the spaceport. We could go there," she said.
"No," Luke continued in the same tone. "I want to go somewhere more exciting."
The blonde raised her eyebrows. "Sounds fun. Whatcha got in mind?"
"I want to go down," he said. "Explore the lower levels. They say it's dark down there."
The blonde gave a nervous yet charming laugh. "You're joking."
"No."
Her hand fell off his shoulder. "You're crazy. You could get killed down there."
Luke shrugged and took a sip from his drink.
"Forget it, flyboy," she said. "Even I'm not that stupid." She retreated back into the space above her own stool, but seemed hesitant to just leave.
"Fine," Luke said.
"Hey, gorrt," a new voice said. It was very masculine and rather angry, much like the man it belonged too. It was also addressing Luke. "Gorrt face, you looking for trouble?"
Luke was not really looking for anything. He sighed and turned his head to see who was talking.
"Is he bugging you, sis?" the large man asked the blonde.
She rolled her eyes. "Would you go away?" she said hissed through cliched teeth.
The man ignored her. He whacked Luke on the shoulder provokingly. "I don't like you coming onto my sister," he said threateningly.
"He wasn't coming onto me," his sister said. Luke found the situation amusing and did nothing to hide that.
This aggravated the large man even more. "You find this funny, gorrt?"
"I don't usually get threatened," Luke said simply.
Someone in the bar swore. "Hey, that's that Jedi guy from the holovid." Luke did not bother to confirm or deny it.
For a moment the large man looked ready to back down, but he changed his mind. "Jedi, huh? Well, I got a few problems with the Jedi too."
The blonde tried again. "Jarc, you're drunk. Why don't you go back to your ship, before you do something stupid?"
"Stupid, naw. That's someone else's department. Right, Jedi?"
"I have a name," Luke said. He kinda hoped the man would ask for it, just so he could see his reaction.
"Stow it," the man said. Luke shrugged. "The galaxy decides you Jedi are so rotten that it lets the Empire happen just to get rid of you. Now, your trying to go right back to where you were in ivory towers 'watching over the populace' " he said in a dramatic tone. Luke got a whiff of his breath. Yep, he's drunk, but it's a new theory.
"Go on," Luke said.
"Go ON?" the man exclaimed.
"Or just go," the blonde suggested helpfully.
"Stay out of this," Jarc told her. "You know what I think, Jedi. I think your kind will be the end of us all." Jarc started to notice his lack of support from the other patrons. "Come on, think about it," he shouted. "Every single blasted galactic wars got Jedi right in the middle of it. Thousands of troops could go out and get slaughtered, and they're nothing more than a statistic, but one blasted Jedi dies or evaporates or what ever they do and the whole blasted galaxy goes into mourning. I say who gives bantha's rear."
Luke stood there and took it. He really did not care. He had wondered about the same things himself several times in the last few weeks.
Jarc tried to look more intimidating. "I think the government should just stuff you all in a cave and bury you in it."
Tionne. Luke clenched his fist. He felt the heat rush to his face. "Shut up," he said. "Just shut up."
Jarc grinned. He felt victorious in making the ever calm Jedi mad. "Aww, did I hurt the Jedi's feelings. Guess you can't handle a little criticism."
"It's not the criticism. It's your breath, you son of a sow."
"You wanna take this outside?"
"I'd be very happy if you went outside," Luke said, fighting the urge to use that fist. "Why don't you go find your sister someone more suitable to 'take back to her ship'?"
He saw it coming. He could have stopped it, if he had tried. But he did not try, and the fist connected to his jaw with enough force to knock him to the ground. It occurred to him as he tried to pick up the pieces of his equilibrium that he had let the man hit him, because he deserved to be hit. The blonde may not have been a saint, but she did not deserve a comment like that.
The blonde apparently was more understanding than most and was one of the first to try to help Luke up. There was some shouting. Luke tasted something strange and put a hand to his mouth. Ow. He confirmed that his lip was bleeding. Nice to know I'm still mortal.
He was helped up to his feet by some of the patrons. Jarc had been taken out. Some of the people were saying things to him, most of them were helpful, but Luke was not interested in being helped.
He managed to shrug free and stumble out. It was rude, but he needed to get away. Anywhere. Down. Luke made his way towards the outskirts of town.
It was a good thing that Kashyyyk had plenty of strong vines. Otherwise, Luke may have tried to climb down without them, and that would have been less successful.
Luke grabbed on to one branch and pushed another out of his way as he dropped onto a larger branch. He took a moment to catch his breath and look up. The thick multiple layers of branches blocked out most of the light. It made the view upwards almost as dark as the view downwards. Luke remembered his lightsaber and pulled it out to use as a flashlight.
Very poor mission planning, he scolded himself. You'll be demoted for this.
"Suicide attempts rarely involve much planning."
Luke whirled around and almost lost his footing. He searched groggily with the Force to find the speaker. "Who's there?" he called into the darkness.
A woman stepped into the light of the lightsaber. She was tall and unnaturally thin but not in anyway anorexic. Her features were sharp yet lovely, and she was green.
At first Luke thought it might be the light of the lightsaber. His eyes focused though, and he saw that she was simply green. Luke scowled. He knew that she should not be here, but his mind was too unsettled to form coherent questions.
Her eyes searched him. "Wait a moment," she said, and her coloring shifted into natural tones. "Is this better for you?"
"Um," was about all Luke could manage, but he squeezed out. "Who are you?"
"Tilotney," she said and held her head high. "I did a disservice to your sister once, and now I'm saving you to make up for it."
"Saving me from what? What did you do to Leia?" His questions were run-on, but she took them in stride with inhuman control.
"From yourself, and my friends and I killed her."
Luke shook his head to try to wake himself. That did not work, so he searched for Leia's presence. He found it and was glad that fact and Tilotney's words contradicted. "Look...Tilotney, I'd like to be alone so..."
She shook her head. "I was sent here to stop you."
"By who?"
"God," she answered. Her voice became compassionate. "Now tell me, what is it you really want?"
"There's a God?" Luke mused, and Tilotney gave him a cool look. "Okay, I want to stop existing."
"Why?"
"Because I'm tired, and I'm doing as much harm as good now."
"And suicide would make everything better?"
Luke just looked at her with cool apathy.
"You underrate yourself," she told him gently.
"I thought I was extremely overrated," Luke said. Zoooooom!! went through his mind.
"You are and that's why you underrate yourself," Tilotney explained.
"Look you lost me right after you opened your mouth," Luke told her. "If you grant wishes, get it over with, otherwise leave me alone."
"Okay, consider it done," Tilotney said.
"What?"
"Your wish. As of now, you don't exist."
"Oh," Luke said. He had nothing better to do, so he decided to humor the quixotic. "So if I don't exist, why am I here?"
Tilotney smiled indulgently. "You're not. This is the universe as though you were never born. You can only observe."
Luke shrugged. "So are we going to take a look around?"
"Indeed," Tilotney said. "Let us head back up now. Shall we?"
Luke shrugged again. "Just avoid large men with blonde sisters."
They reached the wookiee "ground level" far too quickly to have gone up the way Luke went down.
Luke stepped out of the foliage. The city seemed fine, no fires or riots. Luke licked his dry lips then touched his finger to his mouth. It had stopped bleeding. He always had been a quick healer. It was a necessary skill in his line of work.
"You don't exist; you don't work," Tilotney murmured beside him.
Before Luke could reply, he found his eyes drawn to the brightest point of light with in his vision. It was a gleaming white, deathly against the warm browns of the wookiee city, and it marched.
"Stormtroopers?" Luke crouched just in side the ally way.
"It's not uncommon for them to patrol the streets. The Empire doesn't want to risk another revolt," Tilotney said.
"What?" Luke started.
"You don't exist," Tilotney said.
Luke rubbed his temples. "I'm sure the whole outcome of the war was not dependent on my survival."
"No," Tilotney agreed. "But you did make things much easier."
Luke started to open his mouth, but Tilotney cut him off. "Let me show you something else."
There was a swirl of something. Luke thought it was cloth, but he considered the possibility that his brain was simply compensating for a scene change during this delirium.
He found himself in what looked like a large underground archive. He stood up and shot Tilotney a glare. "Where are we?"
"Coruscant," she answered.
Luke bobbed his head. Why not? "You know you could probably market that skill."
Tilotney did not reply. Luke heard other voices. He cautiously moved through the shelves so he could hear better.
"Ti, don't you get bored down here?"
"No, why should I?"
Luke breathed sharply. He knew the voices well. He darted to the isle they were coming from and skidded to a stop.
"You should let me take you out. To dinner or something."
"Tionne," Luke breathed.
The silver haired young woman was perched on short ladder. She was holding some extremely old looking data cubes. Kam stood on the ground next to the ladder, watching her.
"Where would we go?" Tionne continued softly and with little enthusiasm.
"Ti, we're the Emperor's Jedi," Kam said. "We can go where we want."
"You're a Jedi," Tionne shot back coolly. "I'm a record keeper."
"We can still go where we want."
Tionne stopped and thought. "There's a shelter somewhere on level 36. We could go help out there for a little while."
Kam winced. "Oh, please."
"You said, I could go where I want."
"I meant someplace we could agree on."
"I really don't want to go anywhere."
"I could have something brought down here, if you liked," Kam offered.
"If you're not looking for something, you should leave," Tionne said stiffly.
Kam touched her leg, and Tionne knocked his hand away. Angered, he grabbed her arm. "Don't play games with me, Ti."
"What are you doing?" Luke shouted at Kam, while he hurried towards them. Tionne was trying to look stubborn, but Luke could feel her fear.
"They can't hear you," Tilotney emerged from the shadows. "And you can't interfere."
Kam put a leg on one of the stair steps and brought himself closer to Tionne's level.
Luke tried to touch his shoulder, but his hand passed through. Unable to do anything, he spun away. "Stop this," he hissed.
Tilotney looked at him expectantly.
Luke took a deep breath. "I didn't say I never want to have existed. I simply don't wish to continue existing."
He could not be sure if he saw a flicker of embarrassment pass Tilotney's face.
"Okay," she said. "I just wanted you to remember the lives you have changed already."
Luke noticed that the shadows were those of trees, not shelves. He sat down on the branch beneath him. "You're starting to make me dizzy."
"Take a rest," Tilotney said. "This may not be an easy night."
"I was starting to suspect that," Luke retorted. He studied the creases in his hand. A thought came to his mind and passed through his lips before he had time to censor it. "Those aren't the only lives I've changed. Thanks to me Carida is gone, Gantoris is dead, the Cauldron Nebula is dust, and Brakiss has run off."
"Carida and the Cauldron Nebula were Kyp's doing," Tilotney said. "Maybe you should have stepped in earlier, but it was still his choice. Gantoris chose to keep secret the dark man who he knew could destroy him, and Brakiss made his own choices as well.
"No one expects you to be perfect, Luke, not even God. You just have to try and keep trying."
Luke smirked, "Yoda said there is no try."
Tilotney smiled back. "Yoda can take that up with God on his own time. It's a question of definition of terms, which I don't want to get into right now."
"What are you anyway?" Luke asked.
"An inter-dimensional being who got too full of herself and is now on a mission," she answered promptly.
"Oh," Luke said and tried to remember how much of that drink he had swallowed.
"Are you ready?" Tilotney asked.
"For what?"
"To continue."
Luke winced. "There's more?" Tilotney nodded. "What if I just promise not to jump?" he tried to bargain.
Tilotney shook her head. "Sorry, I need to make sure this is a lasting impression."
Luke sighed, "Alright let's get this over with."
Luke thought Tilotney moved, but again that may have been the scene change.
"Where are we now?" Luke asked.
"In a probable future, assuming you killed yourself," Tilotney said.
"These are just images then?"
"Like I said before, you are not the only person in the universe who has to make choices. What I'm showing you, will take into account the most likely choices they would make," she explained.
"So these things are not definite?" He said it to annoy her. It seemed to work.
Tilotney sighed, "Consider this a parable. There's a lesson in it, so pay attention."
"You're quite the master of subtlety," Luke murmured and looked around for sentient activity. "How many years later is this?"
"Ten."
The scene before him was a ship corridor. He picked a direction and headed down it.
"I told you this run was insane," he heard Mara's voice from ahead.
Of course, the Jade's Fire, Luke recognized it.
"Life is insane, let's just get out of here," another voice retorted.
Luke reached the cockpit. It took him a moment to recognize the man as Aves.
"The locals are gaining," Mara reported. To punctuate the ship rocked with a blast.
"I've got a course," Aves announced. "Just get us the few more klicks to the edge of the gravity well." The ship lurched a few more times.
"The shields are dropping," Mara gasped.
Aves shouted, "Just two more klicks!"
There was a strange noise, and Luke found himself surrounded by fire.
A forest was the next thing to fill his vision. Luke whirled around to find Tilotney. "What in space's black heart was that?!"
"You've been meaning to ask Mara to leave Karrde's organization for years. You just haven't had the guts to do it yet," Tilotney said calmly. "This was that one run too many, and you were the only one close enough to her who would dissuade her from the smuggling life."
Luke took a deep breath to sooth his temper. These were simply images, possibilities...
"Probabilities," Tilotney corrected.
"This is Yavin IV," Luke stated the obvious to avoid a debate.
"There's a clearing a few meters to your left, go there," Tilotney instructed.
Anxious to be done with this, Luke found the clearing quickly. There were two meter tall obelisks made out of a black volcanic stone in its center. They both bore inscriptions on their tops. Luke figured he needed to read them. The first was what he had suspected.
Jedi Master Luke Skywalker
Hero of the Republic
Loyal Friend and Brother
"Nice epitaph, short and sweet," he murmured. He read the second.
Jedi Knight Kyp Durron...
"Kyp?" Luke repeated, then turned to Tilotney. "This is dated for a few months from now. Was I supposed to swoop in and save him at some point?"
Tilotney stepped closer. "Not, exactly. You were not around to fight a foe, so Kyp went in your place. He wasn't ready."
"If there's a God, why didn't he stop this?"
Tilotney eyes bore into his. "God made you. You were supposed to stop this."
Luke shook his head. "So everyone dies? I can't believe that."
"No, not everyone. Your family lives, many of the Jedi still live, but death is not the only sorrow."
Luke rubbed his temples. "I really do not want to know what you mean by that."
"One more thing, and I will return you to Kashyyyk," Tilotney said.
The world reshaped itself once more.
"Where are we now?" Luke asked.
"The Solo's living quarters. Security has them change every couple of years."
Leia walked into the room and sat down at the table. Her eyes held the weight of the years. She dropped her forehead into her hands and sighed.
Luke knew she could not feel him, but he put a hand on her shoulder anyway. Han entered from another door but stopped when he saw Leia. He sat down beside her at the table and touched her face. "Long day, Princess?"
Leia smiled at the familiar pet name, but her eyes stayed hollow. "They took Dathomir," she told him.
Han seemed to understand how serious the situation was. "I didn't think there were that many."
"Apparently, there was a group of night sisters we didn't know about." She sounded weary, but her voice had the dullness of monotony. She had told him this sort of thing more than once before and recently.
"We're far from loosing this, Leia," Han tried to comfort her.
"I know," she said. "I...I just wish Luke was here."
"Do I stop this?" Luke asked.
"Not directly," Tilotney said, "but those who you teach do."
A dark haired teenage boy and a slightly younger, blonde girl attempted to slip past.
"Where are you going?" Leia asked them.
Caught, they stopped in the doorway.
"Anakin," Luke realized.
"Tahiri and I are going to my room to talk," he said.
"Alright," Leia said. "It's nice to see you Tahiri."
The girl gave a small polite smile and returned the greeting. Then Anakin pulled her away.
"It's good for him to have a friend," Han said.
"Follow them," Tilotney instructed Luke.
Luke left the kitchen gladly but with reserve. He never wanted to picture Leia with those eyes. But he knew that by following Anakin he would discover another unpleasantry, and his imagination was already running.
He found them sitting on the end of Anakin's bed.
"I have it all worked out," Anakin was saying. "Splicing into the accounts was easy. The identification will list me as seventeen..."
"But I'll never pass for seventeen," the girl protested in a hushed voice.
"I made two sets of ID cards," he assured her. "The first will get us off Coruscant; those will list you as my sister. The second set is for when we reach Agamar. There are no age limits on marriages there, and the money I've siphoned from my parents account will take care of us quite long enough for me to find a job." He kissed her cheek. "We'll be free."
Tahiri stood and walked to the window. "I don't see what's so bad here. We have all we need. In a few years, we'll both be at the age of responsibility, and..."
"It's not a question of material needs," Anakin argued. "My parents never have time for me. Yours are dead. We're practically living alone as it is. Coruscant is a dirty, crowded city. I feel like I'm in a cage here."
"Why Agamar?" she pleaded.
"Because it's the last place they'd look," Anakin explained. "We don't have to stay there, but our escape is laid out flawlessly."
"Is this a game to you, Anakin?" the girl exclaimed. Anakin looked taken back, but Luke could see that to a large degree the girl was right.
"Do you want me to end up in some blasted political engagement little Jacen?" he shot back.
"Jacen wanted to..."
"This is what I want!" He stopped and took deep breaths to calm himself. "If it's what you want too, I'll reserve our flight."
Tahiri looked ready to cry. "I don't know."
"You love me?" he asked. She nodded. "What else is there to it? This is our adventure."
"But you're training to be a Jedi," she tried another protest. "Won't they need you in the war?"
Anakin rolled his eyes. "This isn't my war. It's all politics and land grabs." He saw that Tahiri was offended and added, "One person more or less won't make any difference."
Tahiri sighed. Anakin stood and walked over to her. He pulled her into an embrace, and she allowed her head to rest on his shoulder. "I'll do what you want," she murmured.
Luke snorted in disgust. "They're too young for this."
"Yes," Tilotney agreed. "Anakin was born with the curse of intelligence. He can't simply do as he is told, he needs to understand why. He has a hard time being content.
"And since you, the great Jedi Master, couldn't find a satisfying purpose in a higher calling, he feels that he might as well give up too."
"I can't be ruining everyone's life," Luke said.
"Well, no, Jacen and Jaina are doing quite splendidly," Tilotney admitted. "But that really doesn't help to get my point across."
Luke smiled dryly at that. "You've made your point," he told Tilotney.
"Good," she said. "We can go now."
Luke looked back to the couple at the window. "What's truly frightening is how soon I'll be here again."
"But thing's will be different if you do your part," Tilotney assured him. "Shall we go?"
"One more thing," Luke stopped her. "I assume you can move through space in the present as easily as through time. Please, take me Tionne. I want to see her."
Tilotney nodded. The couple at the window faded, and the white walls were replaced with stone ones. Luke turned around and found he was in Yavin's medical center. Tionne was lying on a medical cot. Her lower body and right arm were covered with Bacta mini-tanks.
Luke went to her side. She looked pale, but she was still alive. He touched her silver hair. With the motion, he recognized the healing flow directed to Tionne from other's at the Academy.
He smiled. It made him feel warm. He sent his own healing warmth through the Force and kissed her forehead gently.
"I'm so glad you don't feel pain now," he whispered as he stroked her hair.
The medical droid rolled over to check Tionne's readings as Kyp burst into the room.
"How's she doing?" Kyp panted.
"She's out of danger," the droid's rippling voice assured him.
Luke smiled out of relief. Then he spun around to face Tilotney. "You knew she would be alright," he said somewhere between a question and an accusation. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"People learn through stories, Luke," she said. "Now you have another story to tell."
"I don't think anyone will be ready for this story right now."
"Then save it for later," Tilotney retorted practically.
Luke touched Tionne's face again then straightened. "I'm ready to go back to Kahyyyk now," he said.
He found himself back on his tree branch. "Tilotney?" he called. There was no answer, and though it did not surprise him, he felt a tinge of regret.
He felt a sting and put a hand to his mouth. His lip was bleeding a little again. Luke laughed and started to climb.
Half of an hour later, he returned to Chewbacca's home. Leia ran out to him while he was still on the path. He embraced her, then she pushed back to look at him. "Are you alright?"
"I'll be fine," he assured her.
"Han went to look for you," she told him as they headed toward the house. "I'll give him a call on the comlink."
"I'm sorry I worried you."
Leia stopped him again in front of the door. "Luke, are you sure you're doing okay?"
Luke smiled. "I'm doing surprisingly well."
Leia gave him a curious look, but since Luke did not offer further explanation, she did not push for one.
They went inside, and the kids pounced on Luke. He hugged each of them.
Chewie came into the room and grunted a message.
Leia lit up. "He said, the Jedi Academy just sent a message, and it looks like Tionne will be fine," she translated.
"I know," Luke said and winked at her.
Luke picked up Anakin swung him over his shoulder and charge down the hall with a battle cry.
"Zooooooom!!!"
^ Zoom X-Star and his trusty astronomech droid, Zip, are the property of Stardust Toy Industries. (Coruscant section 5B)
Stardust Toy Industries does not endorse this story in anyway.
^^ Kintex Tissues also claims no responsibility for this story.
^^^ The makers of Roesilwood Wine don't really care what they endorse. They're just happy to get some free advertising.
by Kay Iscah
Disclaimer: George is the deity in this universe and I but a lowly imitator. Translation much as I wish it was the GFFA isn't mine. I'm not making any money, nor am I trying to infringe with this story.
This story takes place between the Black Fleet Crisis and the New Rebellion. Luke has journeyed to Kashyyyk to meet Han, Leia and their kids and be with them and Chewbacca's family on Life Day. (I apologize for any unpleasantness memories of the Holiday Special may cause.)
If this story line looks familiar, that's because you've watched it at least once every Christmas. I fear I bring you a seasonal story, but well...somebody had to do it.
(Warning: Possible novel spoilers, and this story does not exactly follow the "It's a Wonderful Life" plot line. It's a tad darker.)
*****************************************************
Kashyyyk. There it was, growing steadily larger in his view shield. Luke hit a switch that he had hit millions of times on millions of planet entries. For a moment he forgot why it was so important he hit that switch, but he remembered and the brief lapse in purpose was forgotten.
"Excited, Artoo?" Luke asked hoping one of them was.
Artoo whistled and whirred about seeing Threepio and getting off humid Yavin 4. Luke smiled, "It is nice to see family."
Your sister's family, he reminded himself. And you better make the most of it. It's the closest you'll get. He had been terribly melancholy after his almost fall to the darkside, but in the last few years, he had been better. He now admitted it was his thoughts and not the galaxy that had turned a darker shade of grey.
The comm crackled. "Hey, Kid, they want you to land at the government port. I'm afraid they have some welcome the hero ceremony planned."
Great, Luke thought with all the enthusiasm the situation deserved. "Duty to the Republic, or can I get out of this one?" he asked Han.
"Duty, I think," Han said. "Leia's got them to promise to keep it short."
Luke could not help but remember another short ceremony. "How short?"
"Actually, I think she bargained it down to half an hour," Han told him. "This isn't the Kitonak reception." Luke smiled, so Han remembered that one too.
"Alright," he agreed. "Time to earn my credit line."
"See you in about two hours, Kid," Han signed off, then added. "Glad you could make it." The comm fell silent as the X-wing came to the point where traffic control would pick up on him.
"Sure," Luke murmured. "What else was I going to do."
Ceremonies. The last time Luke had enjoyed a ceremony was when he received his medal for the first Death Star. He had reached his dreams. When Leia had hung that medallion about his neck, he knew he had become a hero. Now he knew that the real heroes were the twenty-seven pilots who had died. Not that he, Wedge, and that Y-wing pilot, whose name he could never remember, had not done their part...
Luke smiled. Okay so maybe you are something of a hero, he admitted to himself. But you still hate ceremonies. He stopped for a moment, and decided to be honest with himself again. You do too like ceremonies. You like getting dressed up once in a while no matter how much you complain about it. You like having people smile at you and wave to get your attention. What you hate are these little internal debates over whether or not you have any right to be there. Yes, as shameful as it was, Luke liked the occasional ceremony. But the Kitonak reception had simply been a taste of hell...a very dull hell.
Traffic control interrupted his thoughts with landing instruction. Of course they were all in wookiee, so he shut off the audio and had Artoo do a running translation.
Traffic control guided him down to the government port.
The ceremony was surprisingly short. It consisted of a few Wookiee government officials shaking his hand so hard he feared the mechanical part might come off and the taking of many holovids. While he was grateful for the brevity, Luke felt a little disappointed.
Artoo whirred beside him in the transport, trying to put him in a better mood. The little droids efforts caused more warmth than his twitters. You're thirty-six years old and your best friend is an astronomech droid. Luke laughed. Man, his life stunk. Well, there was Tionne. She was a good friend too. He had thought about asking her to come along, but considering a new batch of rumors that had started at the academy, he decided that would not have been a good idea. Luke wondered how she survived without nieces and nephews.
"Here you are," the driver said as they stopped in front of Chewbacca's home. Actually he said, "Arrwuuuuuah Orrrmuuu nnamomp hooo." But Luke understood the gist of it.
He helped Artoo out of the vehicle and walked to the door. After taking a look around, he pressed the annuciator. The door slid open immediately to Leia's smiling face. She hugged him. "Come on in, Luke. We've been waiting for you."
Luke smiled and let her pull him inside. Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin ran up to him with exclamations of "Uncle Luke!" and "Lukie!". The "Lukie" was Anakin. Luke kneeled down to give them all a hug and ask the standard questions "What have you been up to? Have you been good for your mother? You're not giving Threepio too much trouble are you? Do you know what I've got in my pocket?" This last question was part of a game he had been playing with the kids for the last few times he had visited.
"Is it candy?" Jaina asked, her brown eyes shining.
"Nope."
"Is it a pet?" Jacen asked with the same gleam.
"Not even close."
"There's nothing in there," Anakin giggled. Well, in practicality, he was right, but Luke was not going to let him win that easily.
"No, there's something in there."
Anakin got that analytical look on his face which was always hilarious to see on a five, no six- year old.
"Um, a book?" Jaina tried again. Luke shook his head.
"Does it move?" Jacen asked. Luke pretended to have to think about that.
"Well, yeah."
"Air?" Anakin ventured.
"That's in there too, but this is something else."
"Tell us," Jaina and Jacen pleaded together.
Luke sighed. "Well okay." He reached into his pocket. "It's...a..." he paused for dramatic effect. "Tickle!" He grabbed Anakin before he could escape. The room peeled with giggles. The twins clapped, until Luke reached for them too. Once they had all gotten a good tickling the twins ran off, but Anakin hung on Luke's leg.
Luke ruffled the boy's hair.
"Hey, Luke," Han greeted him with an outstretched hand.
Luke took his hand. "You look good, Han. No more trips to the medical wing?"
"Nope, all better," Han told him. "Except...I can't remember who this woman is. She keeps saying we're married but-"
Leia gave him a playful punch in the ribs.
"Daddy, you're silly," Anakin told him.
Han put an arm around Leia and looked down at Anakin. "Yeah, your right. Even if I don't know who she is. She's good enough I should pretend I do." Leia smiled at him and shook her head.
"So where's Chewie?" Luke asked.
"He took Malla and Waroo out, so they could have some family time," Han said.
"Hope they don't have to cut it short this time," Luke said.
Han gave his lopsided smile, and Luke felt a pang of guilt. Han clapped a hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry about it."
"Lukie, can I show your room?" Anakin asked.
"Oh, I've got a room?"
"Not exactly," Leia said. "You're bunking with Waroo and Attichitcuk."
At that moment the old wookiee lumbered into the room. He growled a question.
"At least a few hours," Han answered. Attichitcuk gave the wookiee equivalent of a grumble and went to the kitchen.
"He's grouchy," Anakin confided. Leia shushed him.
"How about you show me to my room?" Luke said.
"Okay," Anakin said, took Luke's hand, and lead the way.
Luke tried to sleep that night, but he seemed to have developed an allergy to something on Kashyyyk. As he pinched his nose for the hundredth time and got out of bed to find a tissue, he hoped he had not developed an allergic reaction to wookiee fur. He found one, sneezed, and went back to bed. Why hadn't Yoda taught him a technique to block allergies?
He flopped his head on the pillow, then under the pillow as Itchy's snoring became too hard on the ears. He tried to steady his breathing and used a Jedi calming technique. Slowly he felt his muscles ease, his eyelids droop. His breathing became regular.... Achoo!
Blast it!
Up again, down again. Hibernation trance...hibernation trance...
Needless to say, Luke was a bit groggy the next morning. He spent a good portion of it lounging in an overstuffed chair while he pretended to help Anakin with his new puzzle and the rest figuring out that Jacen's new fuzzy pet was the cause of his allergies.
Luke stifled another yawn and tried to focus on the puzzle. The goofy thing kept turning into a symbol of his life, except his puzzle was missing a few pieces. I will not act depressed. I will not ruin Life Day for the others. It's just a puzzle. Stop being so blasted philosophical.
"Look, I put together Zoom's helmet," Anakin announced proudly and pointed. Zoom X-Star^ was the new fictional X-wing pilot that was big this year. With his trusty astronomech droid, Zip^, at his side, Zoom could out fly, out shoot, and out think anyone. Actually Zoom was what Stardust Toys had come up with after both Luke and Wedge had refused to sell them the rights to their names.
"Yeah, I see," Luke said. No reason to spoil Anakin's fun though.
Han stopped and asked Anakin a standard parent question. "What have you got there?"
"Doin' a puzzle," Anakin told him without looking up.
"What's it a puzzle of?" Han asked.
"Zoooooooom!" Luke exclaimed with a maniacal grin.
Han managed to only smirk, but it was a hard battle. "You're still sore about that. Aren't you?"
"I'm not sore," Luke said. "I just find it amusing how they can commercialize anything."
Han shook his head. "Nah, you're just sore cause they modeled the character after Wedge instead of you."
Luke hit Han with a throw pillow. "Be gone General Lone!"
Han almost lost it. "Didn't think you were a loyal fan of the show."
"I most certainly am not," Luke said. The occasional lie to protect the prestige of the Jedi was acceptable right?
Han escaped to the kitchen, and a few moments later the auditory convulsions of an adult male and female human were heard coming from that vicinity.
Luke shook his head and saw Anakin was watching him curiously. "Go back to your puzzle." Anakin grinned and went to work on Zoom's blaster. Luke tried to find a more comfortable position and found himself wishing the chair was a couch.
"Uncle Luke?" two young voices shouted together. Jaina and Jacen ran into a room holding a once fuzzy, now dripping pet up for display. "We gave Elmis a bath. Does he make you sneeze now?"
"Achoo" was Luke's answer.
"Guess so," Jacen said dejectedly.
"We tried," Jaina said.
"You bent well," Luke said from behind a kintex^^. "Why don't you take your pet back to your room." Luke made his way outside for some fresh air.
He walked over to the edge of false ground and looked over. An abyss lay before him. Not even the natives of Kashyyyk dared very far into its underworld. It was dark and deep. Luke felt a strange longing for it. That was the kind of darkness that swallowed you.
"Luke?"
He turned around. Leia came toward him holding a datapad. He took a few steps away from the edge. "This message came for you from the academy," she said. "I thought you'd want to read it."
"What does it say?" Luke asked.
Leia gave him a warm smile. "I don't read your messages." She gave him the datapad and walked back inside.
"Thanks," Luke said as the door closed. He made a quick wish that the message would in no way contain the words "dark Jedi" and brought it up.
Luke walked back indoors as one in a trance. He sank into the large chair, oblivious to Leia, Threepio, and Malla's frantic meal preparations. The words to some song Jaina, Jacen, and Han were singing in the next room congealed into a drone without meaning.
"Hey, Luke," Leia called from the next room. "Senator Dorif'kry was talking about Kyp the other day. It turns out-" She went on, but Luke did not hear her.
Anakin came to Luke and stretched his arms out to him. Luke pulled him into his lap and hugged him tight. A tear formed, then another. He did not try to keep them in check. They rolled down his cheeks. Anakin caught one on his finger. "You cry?" he asked. Luke nodded and held him tighter.
"Luke, did you hear--?" Leia came into the room, but stopped short when she saw him. "What's wrong?"
"Tionne," Luke murmured. He stopped, forgetting how to form words.
Leia placed a hand on his arm. "Why don't we talk outside?"
Luke put Anakin down and walked outside.
"Is Uncle Luke sick?" Anakin asked.
Leia gave Anakin a quick, distracted squeeze. "No, baby, he just doesn't feel well." She hurried out after her brother.
Luke was standing at the edge again, looking down into the lower levels. For a moment she was afraid to speak as though her breath could push him off, then she was afraid not to speak. "Luke, what did it say?"
Luke turned around, the trail of a tear still on his cheek. Leia could not remember a time where she had actually seen him cry. She took his hand, and pulled him away from the edge.
"There was a cave-in in one of the old temples," Luke said. "Tionne was caught under the stones. They got her out but..."
"I'm sure she'll be alright," Leia said lamely.
"No. They put her in the bacta, but-" Luke took a deep breath. "They think she's going to die, Leia. Tionne never hurt anyone, and she's going to die."
Leia hugged her brother. "I'm sorry."
Luke let Leia hold him for a moment, then he pushed away. "I need to go," he said.
"Where?"
"I don't know, just go," he started walking away from the house.
"Luke, stop. Wait!"
He did not stop. He did not wait.
He found a bar. He told himself that nothing mattered, but the type of bar was very important. Too many wookiees in the local bars. He would have either been swallowed in a sea of fur or stuck out like sore thumb. He could not go to the bars where the higher-class scum hung out. It would spread bad publicity for Leia.
He walked with the quick purposeful stride of a man who had no idea where he was going and entered the spaceport cantina. Not as rough as Mos Eisley but with the same variations on species, and the ratio of drunk to getting there was about the same too.
Luke sat at the bar and studied the surface intently.
"You want something?" the bartender asked him after a few moments.
Luke jerked his head up as though surprised by where he was. "Yeah," he said after a few seconds.
It did not seem that Luke was going to offer anything further, so the tender pushed a little more. "Well, what do you want?"
"Um..." Luke thought for a moment. What had been that drink Tionne had wanted to serve for the graduation of the second class of students? He had not let her. Something about not wanting to have to deal with a bunch of drunk Jedi. "Roesilwood wine^^^?" he said experimentally.
The bartender gave a short laugh. "We serve hard drinks here, flyboy. Try again."
"I don't know," Luke mumbled. "Just give me something hard."
The tender shrugged and went to look behind the counter.
Luke went back to studying the counter. He only half noticed the rustle of fabric when some one sat on the stool beside him.
"Hey, sweetheart, what's got you down?" a smoky, feminine voice asked.
Luke looked at her half expecting to see Callista, but she was simply some blonde with dark brown eyes. It was probably for the best. This day did not need a heart attack to top it off.
"Come on," she spoke again with a soft smile. "Are you okay?"
Luke snorted. "You really want an answer to that?"
The woman ran her fingers down his arm. "You wanna come to my ship? We could talk it over."
I never kissed Tionne, Luke thought. Then thought that was a very strange thing to think. He had never had feelings for her in that way. He guessed it was just one of those abstract ideas that you would never seriously consider or carry out, but when they popped up you had to wonder what if.
The bartender sat a drink in front of him and said something about credits. "I'd rather go for a walk," Luke told the blonde.
She smiled a little more. "Sure. Walks can be good. I've got some Roesilwood wine on the ship. We could take some with us. So where do you want to walk?"
"I want to go into the forest," Luke said in a low voice as if it were some secret.
The blonde rested her hand on his shoulder. "I heard there's a branch path about five blocks from the spaceport. We could go there," she said.
"No," Luke continued in the same tone. "I want to go somewhere more exciting."
The blonde raised her eyebrows. "Sounds fun. Whatcha got in mind?"
"I want to go down," he said. "Explore the lower levels. They say it's dark down there."
The blonde gave a nervous yet charming laugh. "You're joking."
"No."
Her hand fell off his shoulder. "You're crazy. You could get killed down there."
Luke shrugged and took a sip from his drink.
"Forget it, flyboy," she said. "Even I'm not that stupid." She retreated back into the space above her own stool, but seemed hesitant to just leave.
"Fine," Luke said.
"Hey, gorrt," a new voice said. It was very masculine and rather angry, much like the man it belonged too. It was also addressing Luke. "Gorrt face, you looking for trouble?"
Luke was not really looking for anything. He sighed and turned his head to see who was talking.
"Is he bugging you, sis?" the large man asked the blonde.
She rolled her eyes. "Would you go away?" she said hissed through cliched teeth.
The man ignored her. He whacked Luke on the shoulder provokingly. "I don't like you coming onto my sister," he said threateningly.
"He wasn't coming onto me," his sister said. Luke found the situation amusing and did nothing to hide that.
This aggravated the large man even more. "You find this funny, gorrt?"
"I don't usually get threatened," Luke said simply.
Someone in the bar swore. "Hey, that's that Jedi guy from the holovid." Luke did not bother to confirm or deny it.
For a moment the large man looked ready to back down, but he changed his mind. "Jedi, huh? Well, I got a few problems with the Jedi too."
The blonde tried again. "Jarc, you're drunk. Why don't you go back to your ship, before you do something stupid?"
"Stupid, naw. That's someone else's department. Right, Jedi?"
"I have a name," Luke said. He kinda hoped the man would ask for it, just so he could see his reaction.
"Stow it," the man said. Luke shrugged. "The galaxy decides you Jedi are so rotten that it lets the Empire happen just to get rid of you. Now, your trying to go right back to where you were in ivory towers 'watching over the populace' " he said in a dramatic tone. Luke got a whiff of his breath. Yep, he's drunk, but it's a new theory.
"Go on," Luke said.
"Go ON?" the man exclaimed.
"Or just go," the blonde suggested helpfully.
"Stay out of this," Jarc told her. "You know what I think, Jedi. I think your kind will be the end of us all." Jarc started to notice his lack of support from the other patrons. "Come on, think about it," he shouted. "Every single blasted galactic wars got Jedi right in the middle of it. Thousands of troops could go out and get slaughtered, and they're nothing more than a statistic, but one blasted Jedi dies or evaporates or what ever they do and the whole blasted galaxy goes into mourning. I say who gives bantha's rear."
Luke stood there and took it. He really did not care. He had wondered about the same things himself several times in the last few weeks.
Jarc tried to look more intimidating. "I think the government should just stuff you all in a cave and bury you in it."
Tionne. Luke clenched his fist. He felt the heat rush to his face. "Shut up," he said. "Just shut up."
Jarc grinned. He felt victorious in making the ever calm Jedi mad. "Aww, did I hurt the Jedi's feelings. Guess you can't handle a little criticism."
"It's not the criticism. It's your breath, you son of a sow."
"You wanna take this outside?"
"I'd be very happy if you went outside," Luke said, fighting the urge to use that fist. "Why don't you go find your sister someone more suitable to 'take back to her ship'?"
He saw it coming. He could have stopped it, if he had tried. But he did not try, and the fist connected to his jaw with enough force to knock him to the ground. It occurred to him as he tried to pick up the pieces of his equilibrium that he had let the man hit him, because he deserved to be hit. The blonde may not have been a saint, but she did not deserve a comment like that.
The blonde apparently was more understanding than most and was one of the first to try to help Luke up. There was some shouting. Luke tasted something strange and put a hand to his mouth. Ow. He confirmed that his lip was bleeding. Nice to know I'm still mortal.
He was helped up to his feet by some of the patrons. Jarc had been taken out. Some of the people were saying things to him, most of them were helpful, but Luke was not interested in being helped.
He managed to shrug free and stumble out. It was rude, but he needed to get away. Anywhere. Down. Luke made his way towards the outskirts of town.
It was a good thing that Kashyyyk had plenty of strong vines. Otherwise, Luke may have tried to climb down without them, and that would have been less successful.
Luke grabbed on to one branch and pushed another out of his way as he dropped onto a larger branch. He took a moment to catch his breath and look up. The thick multiple layers of branches blocked out most of the light. It made the view upwards almost as dark as the view downwards. Luke remembered his lightsaber and pulled it out to use as a flashlight.
Very poor mission planning, he scolded himself. You'll be demoted for this.
"Suicide attempts rarely involve much planning."
Luke whirled around and almost lost his footing. He searched groggily with the Force to find the speaker. "Who's there?" he called into the darkness.
A woman stepped into the light of the lightsaber. She was tall and unnaturally thin but not in anyway anorexic. Her features were sharp yet lovely, and she was green.
At first Luke thought it might be the light of the lightsaber. His eyes focused though, and he saw that she was simply green. Luke scowled. He knew that she should not be here, but his mind was too unsettled to form coherent questions.
Her eyes searched him. "Wait a moment," she said, and her coloring shifted into natural tones. "Is this better for you?"
"Um," was about all Luke could manage, but he squeezed out. "Who are you?"
"Tilotney," she said and held her head high. "I did a disservice to your sister once, and now I'm saving you to make up for it."
"Saving me from what? What did you do to Leia?" His questions were run-on, but she took them in stride with inhuman control.
"From yourself, and my friends and I killed her."
Luke shook his head to try to wake himself. That did not work, so he searched for Leia's presence. He found it and was glad that fact and Tilotney's words contradicted. "Look...Tilotney, I'd like to be alone so..."
She shook her head. "I was sent here to stop you."
"By who?"
"God," she answered. Her voice became compassionate. "Now tell me, what is it you really want?"
"There's a God?" Luke mused, and Tilotney gave him a cool look. "Okay, I want to stop existing."
"Why?"
"Because I'm tired, and I'm doing as much harm as good now."
"And suicide would make everything better?"
Luke just looked at her with cool apathy.
"You underrate yourself," she told him gently.
"I thought I was extremely overrated," Luke said. Zoooooom!! went through his mind.
"You are and that's why you underrate yourself," Tilotney explained.
"Look you lost me right after you opened your mouth," Luke told her. "If you grant wishes, get it over with, otherwise leave me alone."
"Okay, consider it done," Tilotney said.
"What?"
"Your wish. As of now, you don't exist."
"Oh," Luke said. He had nothing better to do, so he decided to humor the quixotic. "So if I don't exist, why am I here?"
Tilotney smiled indulgently. "You're not. This is the universe as though you were never born. You can only observe."
Luke shrugged. "So are we going to take a look around?"
"Indeed," Tilotney said. "Let us head back up now. Shall we?"
Luke shrugged again. "Just avoid large men with blonde sisters."
They reached the wookiee "ground level" far too quickly to have gone up the way Luke went down.
Luke stepped out of the foliage. The city seemed fine, no fires or riots. Luke licked his dry lips then touched his finger to his mouth. It had stopped bleeding. He always had been a quick healer. It was a necessary skill in his line of work.
"You don't exist; you don't work," Tilotney murmured beside him.
Before Luke could reply, he found his eyes drawn to the brightest point of light with in his vision. It was a gleaming white, deathly against the warm browns of the wookiee city, and it marched.
"Stormtroopers?" Luke crouched just in side the ally way.
"It's not uncommon for them to patrol the streets. The Empire doesn't want to risk another revolt," Tilotney said.
"What?" Luke started.
"You don't exist," Tilotney said.
Luke rubbed his temples. "I'm sure the whole outcome of the war was not dependent on my survival."
"No," Tilotney agreed. "But you did make things much easier."
Luke started to open his mouth, but Tilotney cut him off. "Let me show you something else."
There was a swirl of something. Luke thought it was cloth, but he considered the possibility that his brain was simply compensating for a scene change during this delirium.
He found himself in what looked like a large underground archive. He stood up and shot Tilotney a glare. "Where are we?"
"Coruscant," she answered.
Luke bobbed his head. Why not? "You know you could probably market that skill."
Tilotney did not reply. Luke heard other voices. He cautiously moved through the shelves so he could hear better.
"Ti, don't you get bored down here?"
"No, why should I?"
Luke breathed sharply. He knew the voices well. He darted to the isle they were coming from and skidded to a stop.
"You should let me take you out. To dinner or something."
"Tionne," Luke breathed.
The silver haired young woman was perched on short ladder. She was holding some extremely old looking data cubes. Kam stood on the ground next to the ladder, watching her.
"Where would we go?" Tionne continued softly and with little enthusiasm.
"Ti, we're the Emperor's Jedi," Kam said. "We can go where we want."
"You're a Jedi," Tionne shot back coolly. "I'm a record keeper."
"We can still go where we want."
Tionne stopped and thought. "There's a shelter somewhere on level 36. We could go help out there for a little while."
Kam winced. "Oh, please."
"You said, I could go where I want."
"I meant someplace we could agree on."
"I really don't want to go anywhere."
"I could have something brought down here, if you liked," Kam offered.
"If you're not looking for something, you should leave," Tionne said stiffly.
Kam touched her leg, and Tionne knocked his hand away. Angered, he grabbed her arm. "Don't play games with me, Ti."
"What are you doing?" Luke shouted at Kam, while he hurried towards them. Tionne was trying to look stubborn, but Luke could feel her fear.
"They can't hear you," Tilotney emerged from the shadows. "And you can't interfere."
Kam put a leg on one of the stair steps and brought himself closer to Tionne's level.
Luke tried to touch his shoulder, but his hand passed through. Unable to do anything, he spun away. "Stop this," he hissed.
Tilotney looked at him expectantly.
Luke took a deep breath. "I didn't say I never want to have existed. I simply don't wish to continue existing."
He could not be sure if he saw a flicker of embarrassment pass Tilotney's face.
"Okay," she said. "I just wanted you to remember the lives you have changed already."
Luke noticed that the shadows were those of trees, not shelves. He sat down on the branch beneath him. "You're starting to make me dizzy."
"Take a rest," Tilotney said. "This may not be an easy night."
"I was starting to suspect that," Luke retorted. He studied the creases in his hand. A thought came to his mind and passed through his lips before he had time to censor it. "Those aren't the only lives I've changed. Thanks to me Carida is gone, Gantoris is dead, the Cauldron Nebula is dust, and Brakiss has run off."
"Carida and the Cauldron Nebula were Kyp's doing," Tilotney said. "Maybe you should have stepped in earlier, but it was still his choice. Gantoris chose to keep secret the dark man who he knew could destroy him, and Brakiss made his own choices as well.
"No one expects you to be perfect, Luke, not even God. You just have to try and keep trying."
Luke smirked, "Yoda said there is no try."
Tilotney smiled back. "Yoda can take that up with God on his own time. It's a question of definition of terms, which I don't want to get into right now."
"What are you anyway?" Luke asked.
"An inter-dimensional being who got too full of herself and is now on a mission," she answered promptly.
"Oh," Luke said and tried to remember how much of that drink he had swallowed.
"Are you ready?" Tilotney asked.
"For what?"
"To continue."
Luke winced. "There's more?" Tilotney nodded. "What if I just promise not to jump?" he tried to bargain.
Tilotney shook her head. "Sorry, I need to make sure this is a lasting impression."
Luke sighed, "Alright let's get this over with."
Luke thought Tilotney moved, but again that may have been the scene change.
"Where are we now?" Luke asked.
"In a probable future, assuming you killed yourself," Tilotney said.
"These are just images then?"
"Like I said before, you are not the only person in the universe who has to make choices. What I'm showing you, will take into account the most likely choices they would make," she explained.
"So these things are not definite?" He said it to annoy her. It seemed to work.
Tilotney sighed, "Consider this a parable. There's a lesson in it, so pay attention."
"You're quite the master of subtlety," Luke murmured and looked around for sentient activity. "How many years later is this?"
"Ten."
The scene before him was a ship corridor. He picked a direction and headed down it.
"I told you this run was insane," he heard Mara's voice from ahead.
Of course, the Jade's Fire, Luke recognized it.
"Life is insane, let's just get out of here," another voice retorted.
Luke reached the cockpit. It took him a moment to recognize the man as Aves.
"The locals are gaining," Mara reported. To punctuate the ship rocked with a blast.
"I've got a course," Aves announced. "Just get us the few more klicks to the edge of the gravity well." The ship lurched a few more times.
"The shields are dropping," Mara gasped.
Aves shouted, "Just two more klicks!"
There was a strange noise, and Luke found himself surrounded by fire.
A forest was the next thing to fill his vision. Luke whirled around to find Tilotney. "What in space's black heart was that?!"
"You've been meaning to ask Mara to leave Karrde's organization for years. You just haven't had the guts to do it yet," Tilotney said calmly. "This was that one run too many, and you were the only one close enough to her who would dissuade her from the smuggling life."
Luke took a deep breath to sooth his temper. These were simply images, possibilities...
"Probabilities," Tilotney corrected.
"This is Yavin IV," Luke stated the obvious to avoid a debate.
"There's a clearing a few meters to your left, go there," Tilotney instructed.
Anxious to be done with this, Luke found the clearing quickly. There were two meter tall obelisks made out of a black volcanic stone in its center. They both bore inscriptions on their tops. Luke figured he needed to read them. The first was what he had suspected.
Jedi Master Luke Skywalker
Hero of the Republic
Loyal Friend and Brother
"Nice epitaph, short and sweet," he murmured. He read the second.
Jedi Knight Kyp Durron...
"Kyp?" Luke repeated, then turned to Tilotney. "This is dated for a few months from now. Was I supposed to swoop in and save him at some point?"
Tilotney stepped closer. "Not, exactly. You were not around to fight a foe, so Kyp went in your place. He wasn't ready."
"If there's a God, why didn't he stop this?"
Tilotney eyes bore into his. "God made you. You were supposed to stop this."
Luke shook his head. "So everyone dies? I can't believe that."
"No, not everyone. Your family lives, many of the Jedi still live, but death is not the only sorrow."
Luke rubbed his temples. "I really do not want to know what you mean by that."
"One more thing, and I will return you to Kashyyyk," Tilotney said.
The world reshaped itself once more.
"Where are we now?" Luke asked.
"The Solo's living quarters. Security has them change every couple of years."
Leia walked into the room and sat down at the table. Her eyes held the weight of the years. She dropped her forehead into her hands and sighed.
Luke knew she could not feel him, but he put a hand on her shoulder anyway. Han entered from another door but stopped when he saw Leia. He sat down beside her at the table and touched her face. "Long day, Princess?"
Leia smiled at the familiar pet name, but her eyes stayed hollow. "They took Dathomir," she told him.
Han seemed to understand how serious the situation was. "I didn't think there were that many."
"Apparently, there was a group of night sisters we didn't know about." She sounded weary, but her voice had the dullness of monotony. She had told him this sort of thing more than once before and recently.
"We're far from loosing this, Leia," Han tried to comfort her.
"I know," she said. "I...I just wish Luke was here."
"Do I stop this?" Luke asked.
"Not directly," Tilotney said, "but those who you teach do."
A dark haired teenage boy and a slightly younger, blonde girl attempted to slip past.
"Where are you going?" Leia asked them.
Caught, they stopped in the doorway.
"Anakin," Luke realized.
"Tahiri and I are going to my room to talk," he said.
"Alright," Leia said. "It's nice to see you Tahiri."
The girl gave a small polite smile and returned the greeting. Then Anakin pulled her away.
"It's good for him to have a friend," Han said.
"Follow them," Tilotney instructed Luke.
Luke left the kitchen gladly but with reserve. He never wanted to picture Leia with those eyes. But he knew that by following Anakin he would discover another unpleasantry, and his imagination was already running.
He found them sitting on the end of Anakin's bed.
"I have it all worked out," Anakin was saying. "Splicing into the accounts was easy. The identification will list me as seventeen..."
"But I'll never pass for seventeen," the girl protested in a hushed voice.
"I made two sets of ID cards," he assured her. "The first will get us off Coruscant; those will list you as my sister. The second set is for when we reach Agamar. There are no age limits on marriages there, and the money I've siphoned from my parents account will take care of us quite long enough for me to find a job." He kissed her cheek. "We'll be free."
Tahiri stood and walked to the window. "I don't see what's so bad here. We have all we need. In a few years, we'll both be at the age of responsibility, and..."
"It's not a question of material needs," Anakin argued. "My parents never have time for me. Yours are dead. We're practically living alone as it is. Coruscant is a dirty, crowded city. I feel like I'm in a cage here."
"Why Agamar?" she pleaded.
"Because it's the last place they'd look," Anakin explained. "We don't have to stay there, but our escape is laid out flawlessly."
"Is this a game to you, Anakin?" the girl exclaimed. Anakin looked taken back, but Luke could see that to a large degree the girl was right.
"Do you want me to end up in some blasted political engagement little Jacen?" he shot back.
"Jacen wanted to..."
"This is what I want!" He stopped and took deep breaths to calm himself. "If it's what you want too, I'll reserve our flight."
Tahiri looked ready to cry. "I don't know."
"You love me?" he asked. She nodded. "What else is there to it? This is our adventure."
"But you're training to be a Jedi," she tried another protest. "Won't they need you in the war?"
Anakin rolled his eyes. "This isn't my war. It's all politics and land grabs." He saw that Tahiri was offended and added, "One person more or less won't make any difference."
Tahiri sighed. Anakin stood and walked over to her. He pulled her into an embrace, and she allowed her head to rest on his shoulder. "I'll do what you want," she murmured.
Luke snorted in disgust. "They're too young for this."
"Yes," Tilotney agreed. "Anakin was born with the curse of intelligence. He can't simply do as he is told, he needs to understand why. He has a hard time being content.
"And since you, the great Jedi Master, couldn't find a satisfying purpose in a higher calling, he feels that he might as well give up too."
"I can't be ruining everyone's life," Luke said.
"Well, no, Jacen and Jaina are doing quite splendidly," Tilotney admitted. "But that really doesn't help to get my point across."
Luke smiled dryly at that. "You've made your point," he told Tilotney.
"Good," she said. "We can go now."
Luke looked back to the couple at the window. "What's truly frightening is how soon I'll be here again."
"But thing's will be different if you do your part," Tilotney assured him. "Shall we go?"
"One more thing," Luke stopped her. "I assume you can move through space in the present as easily as through time. Please, take me Tionne. I want to see her."
Tilotney nodded. The couple at the window faded, and the white walls were replaced with stone ones. Luke turned around and found he was in Yavin's medical center. Tionne was lying on a medical cot. Her lower body and right arm were covered with Bacta mini-tanks.
Luke went to her side. She looked pale, but she was still alive. He touched her silver hair. With the motion, he recognized the healing flow directed to Tionne from other's at the Academy.
He smiled. It made him feel warm. He sent his own healing warmth through the Force and kissed her forehead gently.
"I'm so glad you don't feel pain now," he whispered as he stroked her hair.
The medical droid rolled over to check Tionne's readings as Kyp burst into the room.
"How's she doing?" Kyp panted.
"She's out of danger," the droid's rippling voice assured him.
Luke smiled out of relief. Then he spun around to face Tilotney. "You knew she would be alright," he said somewhere between a question and an accusation. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"People learn through stories, Luke," she said. "Now you have another story to tell."
"I don't think anyone will be ready for this story right now."
"Then save it for later," Tilotney retorted practically.
Luke touched Tionne's face again then straightened. "I'm ready to go back to Kahyyyk now," he said.
He found himself back on his tree branch. "Tilotney?" he called. There was no answer, and though it did not surprise him, he felt a tinge of regret.
He felt a sting and put a hand to his mouth. His lip was bleeding a little again. Luke laughed and started to climb.
Half of an hour later, he returned to Chewbacca's home. Leia ran out to him while he was still on the path. He embraced her, then she pushed back to look at him. "Are you alright?"
"I'll be fine," he assured her.
"Han went to look for you," she told him as they headed toward the house. "I'll give him a call on the comlink."
"I'm sorry I worried you."
Leia stopped him again in front of the door. "Luke, are you sure you're doing okay?"
Luke smiled. "I'm doing surprisingly well."
Leia gave him a curious look, but since Luke did not offer further explanation, she did not push for one.
They went inside, and the kids pounced on Luke. He hugged each of them.
Chewie came into the room and grunted a message.
Leia lit up. "He said, the Jedi Academy just sent a message, and it looks like Tionne will be fine," she translated.
"I know," Luke said and winked at her.
Luke picked up Anakin swung him over his shoulder and charge down the hall with a battle cry.
"Zooooooom!!!"
^ Zoom X-Star and his trusty astronomech droid, Zip, are the property of Stardust Toy Industries. (Coruscant section 5B)
Stardust Toy Industries does not endorse this story in anyway.
^^ Kintex Tissues also claims no responsibility for this story.
^^^ The makers of Roesilwood Wine don't really care what they endorse. They're just happy to get some free advertising.