Guardians of the Force

Holders of the Balance



Disclaimer: I only own the characters that I create and not those of George Lucas who is the greatest man alive. (Flattery never hurts when you are ripping off of someone else's work)

Those of you who know and love Star Wars will know which characters are which. (Mine are all the really cool ones. Hey, I have to pump up myself a little.)

First line is borrowed as a joke okay.



It was a dark and stormy night.

The old man stood at the door of his home and looked to the east. The storm was approaching fast from the west side. Not a star shone in the night sky. His head bent, he seemed to stoop even more as his wife looked on. He could bare it no more. All his life suddenly seemed a sham, a disappointment. Long ago he had realized that all his training in the rituals of his people, the studying of the oracles, the learning of the phrophesies were for nothing. He long since quit them all. He was the oldest guardian who had ever lived and it showed in the sagging of his flesh, the carved wrinkles of his face.

"Tonight is the naming ceremony, I must go." he said plainly with no emotion.

"Bah," said the wife, "you can control many things, but not the weather. Stay, there is tomorrow to deal with these things."

"There is no tomorrow. I go tonight." Then strangely, he left his station at the door and seated himself quietly at their wooden table. 'Smooth,' he thought as he ran his hand across the top. The table had shone and been beautiful when he first made it in his youth. Now, the scratches and dents were as deep as the worry that crossed his brow. He wife moved silently about the room confused and uncertain. When they had married first, she had loved him so, and therefore had been proud to be the wife of the Guardian. Even now, her bosom swelled with love and caring, but what could she do to give him comfort now. So many children born to them and all had passed away. So many had been born to the families in the villiages below their mountain peak home. None had passed the mysterious exams that would hail the new Guardian's arrival until the little one of the Tzu family. 'What a bright child she is,' thought the old woman. Why the old man had kept it secret from others she couldn't fanthom, but then her own powers had faded with age; only the true Guardian never lost theirs. 'And now tonight in this weather he wants to go dashing about the forest to tell all of this child. When do wonders ever end!" she thought exasperated.



Darkness had began to seep into the Force long before the child was born and the old man could find nothing to explain it. Even his own powers of foreseeing had been no help in this matter and his control of the force had begun to slip away. Old age itself did not do this. This he knew for certain, rather the darkness, this unexplained darkness seemed to suckle on his very life. Then, the little one came. "What will be her name?" he asked suddenly. His wife looked at him stangely, saw the desparate look in his eyes and was afraid. With her birth a calmness had arrived, but the darkness he felt, the shivers that went up and down his spine even now never left him. The child was two, so small, and he had seen her in the marketplace last week. The memory made him smile as the storm outside picked up. She had fruits of every kind bouncing up and down, up and down as her mother tried to make her stop and people stood laughing though the fruit vendor obviously was not pleased. 'Soon little one, soon,' he had thought. Her giggling was like the chirping of the birds of the forest, the trickle of the nearby stream where they had always gotten their drinking water. Yet, now, a fear was building in him.

"I leave." he announced suddenly. At the door he stopped, quivering on his cane and stretched out his gnarled hand. The old woman felt the softest touch swoop across her cheek though she stood half the room away knowing, knowing, "I'll not see you again old man. I have loved you always. Go, go to your duty. All will be well." She added the last part hopefully, desparately. And when the door closed she sank to the floor and began to cry.