It was dark. And cold, she adds as an afterthought. It was dark and cold and quiet and dry to the point that she could feel the air scraping past her throat. In short, this situation was everything she hated. She glances around, reassuring herself by gripping her weapons very tightly, one in her left hand, the other in her right. The darkness she was surrounded by felt… alive, for lack of a better word. She moved, trying to walk through the syrupy air, but every movement that she made felt sluggish. She stretched out, trying to feel any hint of… life, light, anything within the darkness, but couldn't make out a single trace. There was no light to speak of, so she decided to make some.
She lifts her right hand, her father's lightsaber, now hers, clasped within it, and ignited the weapon.
She screamed.
A tall figure, black clothes and armour tinged blue in the light of the lightsaber, stood before her. Its rasping breathing, unheard before, grated against her ears and she could feel herself begin to hyperventilate. She tried to move, defend herself, do anything, but she was paralyzed, held fast against her will. It raised its hand, and she could feel her throat compress against her will, strangling the air from her lungs. She gasped, weapons dropping from her hands as her fingers lost their feeling. Her knees trembled, willing to collapse, but frozen into their position nonetheless.
"Leia Skywalker…" it spoke, and something within her — anger, fear, helplessness — sparks a wildfire under her skin, and —
Leia's eyes snap open. She bolts upright, just barely managing to stop herself from banging her head on the window of the cockpit.
"Sith," she breaths, sagging back in her seat. A series of beeps emanate throughout the cockpit and she tilted her head back to her companion throughout the long months, "I'm alright, R2. Just a bad dream."
A pause, then a steady stream of whistles.
"No, R2, I can't go back. You know I can't. To do so would bring the Empire down on Luke and Han and Chewie and Uncle Obi." She brought her knees up to her chest and pressed her forehead into them. "You don't know how much Darth Vader wants to kill Uncle Obi. I do. And it's scary."
Sadder beeps this time.
Leia gazed out at the clearing in which she had decided was safe enough to rest in, but it was clearer than it had been before. An invisible force — with a capital F, she thought tiredly — had pushed away anything near the ship. Trees toppled and shoved away with no apparent warning, bushes uprooted forcefully and blown away. Even dirt had only escaped the sudden shift halfway, a great gorge dug into the earth in a shape vaguely resembling her ship.
"And I'm too dangerous to be around them."
"Your Highness?" came the tentative mechanical voice of Luke's mother's droid. "Master Kenobi is here."
"Thank you, 3PO, please let him in."
Luke turned away from the monitor displaying the most recent report of the Hoth station's condition. Master Kenobi had been kind enough to offer to aid Luke in controlling his until recently unknown abilities, and in an effort to support the Rebellion (must do more, must be more, what has happened can never happen again) he accepted. It had been slow going at first with Luke struggling to open himself up to something entirely new (to anyone) and both Master Kenobi and Luke now being high in the chain of command, which afforded little time to do anything else, but once he had had the initial breakthrough, his progress had sped up exponentially.
("You must reach out, Your Highness. In order for the Force to accept you, you must accept it."
"I know!"
A sigh, then a pause. "Do you remember your time in the prison cells, when Leia touched you? Do you remember what it felt like when Leia reached out?"
Silence. "She was… bright. Boundless. A sun in a clear sky. It was just… so easy to reach out then." Why not now?
"Perhaps… this time, imagine the Force is a conduit. And you are trying to contact her.")
"Good morning, Your Highness."
Luke smiled wryly at General Kenobi, "Master, there really is no need to refer to me as that."
"You have done a great many things in your short life that are deserving of respect. It would be remiss of me to not acknowledge that. Shall we begin?"
-Leia?-
Shoulders back, but not too far. Walk briskly, but do not appear to be in a hurry. Face calm, eyes focused, weave a basic shield around herself to discourage any onlookers from looking too closely. Over the past year, Leia had become quite proficient at being on the run. After she had blown up the Death Star and had chosen to draw the Empire's, and Darth Vader's, attention away from the Rebel's escape, she had leapt into lightspeed, blindly trusting in R2 and the Force to guide her. She had then randomly stopped at different systems and jumped in a different direction. This continued for several weeks, her catching quick naps while in hyperspace and then dropping out, stopping for supplies, and then tearing off the second she saw any sign of the Imperials. She had been so careful, even leaving behind her beloved X-Wing for more non-descript ships where she hoped the Rebels would pick it up, but they still found her.
("Leia Skywalker!" The voice was heavily modulated, barely distinctive through the vocorder. The small part of Leia's brain not panicking briefly wondered if the Stormtrooper would allow her a few seconds to fix the mechanism. "We have you surrounded! Lay down your weapons and raise your hands in the air."
Leia's eyes darted around, taking in as many of the numerous soldiers as possible. She was trapped, cowering against a corner behind some crates.
No, she was the daughter of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala. She would not cower.
She thrust her hands out, sending the crates flying into one of the squadrons that had entered the abandoned building on foot. Reaching towards the Force with everything she had, she stood to do battle...
—Rasping breathing, frozen fire thawing out, gasping desperately for air. Nononono I can't-!—
A deep rumble shuddered through the foundations of the building, strong enough to cause Leia to stagger.
What-?
And then the roof started crumbling down.)
Leia tears herself out of her thoughts, not allowing herself to outwardly shudder. As it was, she could barely suppress the grimace that threatened to appear on her face. She continues forward, meandering through the shopping stalls, stopping here and there to pick up random tidbits alongside the actual necessities. A smile here and there to those who she catches the eye of to disguise the quick glances for R2's position.
Two Stormtroopers strut past her, muttering quietly to each other and she makes sure to not react to their proximity. Careful to keep her use of the Force minimum, Leia enhances her hearing, and moves to a quiet corner to listen to them.
"-an't believe that we were sent to this dung hole of all places when the higher ups are preparing for something big."
"Well maybe if you weren't an absolute idiot, we wouldn't be stuck in this situation."
"And if you were paying attention, we would've been sent to Lord Vader's ship! That's a death sentence right now. You know that he's been so much more irritable since..."
Their voices fade out of hearing as Leia's tentative hold on her control slipped out of her grasp, the Force all but screaming at her in warning. She stumbles against the wall as visions flicker past her eyes and voices whisper in her ears.
A planet of absolute white; completely barren, except… "The Hoth system… the Rebels are there." The planet quickly morphs into a star, brilliant in its intensity, another beautifully strong sun blooming into existence not far away. The warmth emanating from the orbiting twins (why does that seem so right?) makes everything, everything, seem right, but as she watches, screams — hers, her uncle's, and a thousand others — echo around her. Like an infestation, darkness creeps over the light and smothers the first sun, turning it into a black hole that quickly draws in its sibling and all other light around it. A small silhouette in the darkness, outlined from behind in green. "Hmmm… come to me you must, Leia Skywalker. Much to learn, you have."
"Leia… my sweet starchild, find Obi-Wan, he can help you. Be brave, sweetheart."
Gasping, Leia sits up, nearly smashing her head into her worried astromech. Relieved cries and words wash over her as she takes in the crowd of worried people clustered around her. Inwardly screaming from all of the unwanted attention, she uses R2's domed head to stand and quickly brush off the worried hands reaching out to help her. Muttering in Huttese, "Am fine, just drank too much last night," she makes her escape through the closest alleyway. But of course, because the Force enjoys tormenting her, two minutes later she runs smack dab into the pair of stormtroopers that had passed her by earlier.
Tripping over her feet in an attempt to stop herself from running into them, she sprawls in a heap at their feet. "What the-? Wait, you look familiar." Came the inevitable exclamation from one of the pair. Leia coughs in embarrassment even as she stumbles to her feet and takes off running, R2 doing his best to keep up.
"Hey, stop!" She hears from behind her before the blaster bolts start flying. Pushing people out of her way, she sprints in the general direction of her most recently acquired ship, an old junker from before the Clone Wars era that makes her think of Han and Chewie. Screams start up around her as the general population realizes that a fire fight has started in their vicinity. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see shopkeepers, families, people fleeing and doing their best to stay out of the way. Her hearts gives a tug and she skids to a halt, one hand pushing back her hood so that she could see better and the other grabbing at her blaster.
"R2, get to the ship," she hisses and brings her blaster to bear. She tentatively reaches for the Force, heaving a sigh of relief as it doesn't attempt to overwhelm her.
One of the Imps is yelling into his comm to "Bring reinforcements, we found the Skywalker girl!" and the other one is tearing after her. There is no falter in the trooper's pace when they see that she has stopped, but Leia does not need a great deal of imagination to picture the savage grin underneath the helmet. Too bad, she thinks, and dodges the shots he fires at her with a confident ease. Using a flicker of the Force, she lashes her hand out, yanking the troopers' legs out from under them. Pulling hard on her connection to the galaxy, she knocks out the Stormtroopers and spins around to dash away. Luckily the shots fired had cleared the streets for the most part and Leia has a clear shot to the shipyard. Dodging into an alley to avoid the charging reinforcements, she dives behind some leftover trash and presses herself into the wall as much as possible.
Shouts reach her and Leia shrinks as much as possible into her cloak, adjusting her hood to cover her hair as much as possible. A squadron of troopers rush past, clanking armour and stamping feet hurrying towards where the altercation was. Leia waits one, two, three breathes and carefully stands up. Taking off her cloak, she flips it inside out, revealing the inside to be a light purple shade rather than the drab grey the other side had been, and puts it back on. Quickly and quietly, she moves back out to the streets, sticking her head out to check the coast was clear before stepping out.
Walking as quickly as possible without seeming to be in a hurry, Leia speeds away in the direction of her most recent ship. When she gets there, the ramp is already down and R2 is performing the preflight checks in the cockpit. She collapses into the pilot's seat, and joins her astromech in the completion of the setting up for launch. Well aware that she is trying to outrace the Empire before they close off the port, Leia rushes through the setup, and it is only when they are taking off that she finds she can breathe again.
R2 beeps beside her, and she reaches out to put a hand on his dome, "Yeah buddy. I'm ok."
Whistles follow that statement and she frowns, pensive as to the cause of her grand escape. A pure white planet, and a voice — as mechanical as the rest of its user — talking of the Hoth system. Well, there was only one thing to do.
"R2, prep the hyperdrive please. We're going to Hoth."
Hey guys~! I'm baaaaaaack :)
So I have a sincere apology to all of you. I am sincerely sorry for that has happened recently with my being unable to update or reply to any of your lovely comments. Over the last few years, I had kind of fallen out of love with fandom and the Star Wars fandom in particular, as The Last Jedi in particular ignited a lot of hatred in fandom and I felt like my favourite character had been disturbingly misinterpreted. But recently (as in two days ago) I managed to pull myself back together as I was reminded of the good things in fandom too and that if I don't like the canon story, then I can rewrite it. Thank you all so much for being patient with me as I struggled and tried so hard to pull myself back into the swing of things.
I am working on the rough draft of the chapter right now, so with any luck, I will definitely be done by the end of the summer lol.
Please feel free to let me know of what you think, and what I can do to improve the story. Your comments give me the drive to finish and keep going with my writing.
Feel free to follow/scream at me at theleiaskywalkerposts on tumblr!