"So this is where you learned all your tricks?"
Luke ducked beneath a vine, and then kept ducking to keep Mara from grabbing it. He remembered one species had microscopic poisonous barbs, but not which one. All the vines looked like moldy rope, and the best bet was to avoid touching any of them. Yoda hadn't told him about the danger, instead using it as an opportunity to teach him how to purge poisons.
"Pretty much." He'd spent weeks running through the swamps, back breaking physical training by day and endless lessons on philosophy and the force until he couldn't stay awake at night. Even then Yoda would wake him, making him use the force to stave off exhaustion as long as possible. It hadn't been easy, but by the time he left Dagobah he was able to ape the physical abilities of a real Jedi. Teaching Mara had shown him how much there was still to learn.
"It's a far cry from Coruscant." Mara was covered in mud up to her thighs, she hadn't been quite light enough for a branch, something Luke had very emphatically not laughed at her for. "It feels so different, there's just as much life but its more tranquil. I wonder if they trained Jedi on Coruscant just to make sure they could handle the hubbub."
"I think Yoda chose Dagobah to hide, not for its suitability to train Jedi." Or had he here? The Bpfasshi dark Jedi hadn't come here, or at least his beckon call hadn't. Maybe Yoda had had an entirely different reason to choose Dagobah, if he even had. Luke banished his doubt, the force had led him here, he'd find Yoda.
"Multi-tasking is a thing." Mara slowed once she reached a patch of solid ground. From Luke's brief survival training he thought it was a game trail. She pulled a scanner from her backpack and gave it a quick sweep, looking for large animals. "We're clear, want to take a quick break?"
Luke answered by pulling the girl from his shoulders, setting her on the ground where she immediately moved to look at the weeds. He and Mara shared a look, the child was far too interested in the flora and fauna of the swamp. Growing up had clearly made Mara more sensible regarding muck.
She was prodding at one of the thick tubers with undisguised curiosity. "Why is this plant looking at-"
Luke was moving before she finished, and more importantly before the creature lunged out of the mud.
His saber was ignited and tentacles rained around him as the blade severed the lashing whips. The beast gave a deep and mournful cry as it lurched backwards, Mara sped it on its way with a few blaster bolts.
"Camouflaged ambush hunting tentacle snakes? It's like someone made a list of all the worst things and crammed them into one animal." Mara still had her carbine shouldered as she circled and searched for other threats. "It didn't even show up on the bio scanner, what does it use for a nervous system? Strings?"
"Those things never work well, I don't know why you trust it."
"Like the force did much better." She grabbed her younger self away from the still twitching tentacles. "Don't touch those, they're probably full of neurotoxins or mind-altering parasites."
"I heard about a species of those that evolved to take over these sessile slugs. It couldn't control humans or anything else, not coherently, but it did drive them crazy." Luke wasn't sure the story was real, Hobbie was an inveterate prankster, but he mixed the truth in often enough that he never knew what to believe.
"Yeah it killed an entire regiment of Storm troopers but not before they started cultivating it everywhere in a city. They had to burn it to the bedrock." Mara had at last relaxed enough to let her weapon back on its sling. "Sometimes I wonder why people ever go outside without breath masks."
"Because they can't just hang out in the air conditioning all the time." Luke scooped up Mara once again, it was easier to carry her than to shepherd her through the forest. "Let's finish our job so we can get back to it."
"No argument here."
Luke could move faster than the unaided eye could see for a little at least, and running a kilometer only took him a bit under two minutes, but the jungles of Dagobah weren't suited for speed. By the time night fell they had only covered fifteen kilometers and the force still pulled at them.
Both he and Mara were tired, but the call was driving them as the world grew darker. The clouds blocked the stars, and even the flashlights they'd brought didn't seem to illuminate much. Fog had risen, and even without the trees they'd be lucky to have fifty meters of unobstructed vision.
"We couldn't just land closer? This would have taken no time at all to fly." Mara was only grumbling for conversation, she was on edge like he was. "Instead we're wandering through a swamp at night, if we're lucky all we'll get is a broken ankle."
"We wouldn't have landed there without a reason." Luke was able to say the words with more confidence than he felt. From Mara's snort he could tell that she could detect his duplicity, she was getting stronger.
"If only we'd used some of my expensive and sensitive equipment to find our Jedi master instead of relying on- What's that?"
Mara had her carbine up and aimed and Luke had his lightsaber in his hands and lit in an instant. Little Mara was slung under his arm, somewhere she wouldn't get in the way if he had to fight. He hadn't felt anything, but that was no excuse for laziness. He put his back to her counterpart and scanned their surroundings, reaching out into the fog. "I've got nothing."
"Kill the lights." Mara switched off her headlamp and Luke followed suit, shutting down his saber and slipping on night vision goggles. He didn't see anything with them, but he could feel Mara's apprehension.
"There's something there, we need to deal with it." Her voice was calm, but filled with the confidence she always exhibited in combat. "I'm not resting with it around."
"Bloody haired and bloody handed." At the sound of the voice Luke reignited his saber and pulsed the force, all the mist in a hundred yards condensed and fell to the ground. It revealed Yoda astonishingly close, leaning on a cane and staring at them. "And you, filled with power and burning to use it. The way you seize the force so tightly, no wonder you couldn't feel my coming."
"Master Yoda," Luke shut down his saber and flipped the lights back on. Mara did the same, but she kept her hands on her gun. She was still on edge, something not helped by Yoda's unblinking stare.
"My name that is." Yoda didn't move as he did something with the force, something that made Luke's grasp on the mist vanish. "Yours though, about them I wonder."
"He's Luke, I'm Mara, and so is she." The little girl was fixated on Yoda from her hanging position, Luke let her down gently where she immediately retreated behind Mara. "We've come to ask for your help."
"And what for do warriors need my help?" Yoda wasn't the same as when he'd trained Luke, if he'd first encountered this being he wouldn't have dared question him. The- silliness for lack of a better word- was gone, instead he could just feel the Jedi's immense presence. "My battles are lost, my home cast down, my cause, my Jedi dead."
"The Jedi are not dead." Mara spoke before Luke could. "One's standing before you."
"Bloody handed I called you, but him?" Yoda shook his head in dismissal. "He's spilled oceans, enough to soak his desert home." Yoda's stare shifted to Luke and it was a struggle to stand against it. "I see you now, another Skywalker born of the force, another power restrained only by fragile bonds. A Jedi is beyond such things."
"I am a Jedi." Luke tried to infuse the words with the truth, with the bone deep certainty. "I've fought the dark side wherever it appeared, I've striven for peace."
"You have fought and fought and fought. I've felt your battles, your war. I can sense your plans, and I can see where they will lead."
"I was told that the future was difficult to see, that it was always in motion." Luke was trying to let his emotions go into the force, but it was a trial.
"It is not the future I have to look to, but the past. Jedi cannot win the wars they lead. All you are doing is giving the Sith power. The chaos and terror you will create they thrive on."
"What would you have us do then? Accept them? Let them enslave us?" Mara once again responded, but she hadn't beaten him to it this time. He hadn't known what to say. "While you hide here trillions suffer. We can't just ignore it!"
"The Sith destroyed the Jedi with their war. Your war will not bring them back." Yoda looked smaller, almost defeated. "Long years I have lived, and in this they have left me no wiser. One thing I know is that all the power of my Jedi could not defeat Sidious."
Mara shook her head violently in negation. "Sidious and the Empire must be destroyed. Even if you won't fight we need your knowledge."
"I taught Jedi for centuries, all that they know I knew. Is my training what you need?"
"We need to be able to fight better. The Inquisitors are more skilled then us."
"The Empire can train them too." Yoda sighed. "You are correct, the dark side must be fought. I will not send you back unarmed, even though I do not see the way to victory."
"We will show the way." Luke stepped closer, hoping to persuade his old master. "The Jedi are needed, and the people will see it."
"They did not when the clones turned on us, nor when Sidious called us traitors. Too long have we been apart from the galaxy, under my leadership. Something must change, though I know not what. I had hoped for guidance in my exile, yet I have not heard it."
"Whatever you find we still need to fight. Teach us how, and we'll work to make a galaxy that your future belongs in." Yoda looked at Mara for a long time after she finished speaking, his eyes occasionally flickering to the still nervous girl behind her.
"It will not be my future, that much I am certain of." The Jedi turned away from them and leaned on his walking stick. "Come back tomorrow at first light, and bring your ship. Much work is to be done."