It is Your Destiny…
Somewhere on the Outer Rim
Leia Skywalker dismounted her rented speeder and stood for a moment. It had been a long journey through deserted fields and rough terrain that had gotten her here. Although she wasn't entirely sure where here was. She had not known where she was headed when she left Han, she hadn't lied about that. Yet somehow the path had not been a difficult one to follow. Using the trail left by her father's presence, she now found herself at this strange place.
Looking back in the direction from which she came, she could barely make out the fertile fields in the distance. This planet was not a complete arid, desert world like Tatooine. At the spaceport where she had landed her X-wing, the land was swampy and the air humid. Rivers and streams slivered across the landscape like veins beneath the skin on her hand. But the further she had traveled away from civilization, the more the landscape had changed. Streams shriveled up and disappeared, flora turned from deep greens to golden yellows and muddy banks turned into sandy dunes.
Leia took in a deep breath, inhaling the dry air all around her. She was standing outside of a large, fenced-in compound. This was where the feel of her father's presence was strongest. It felt as if he would walk up to her at any minute, as if the wind would conjure him up and deposit him before her. But he was not here. She could tell as much the closer she came to this place. It was evident that he had spent a great deal of time here and by how much time she had missed him was not very clear. Only that she had missed him.
She walked forward, having set her speeder several paces from the perimeter fencing. Lifting the rusted latch of the old metal gate, Leia tentatively took a few steps onto the property before she was greeted by a tanned, young man with light brown eyes and sandy colored hair. Although he had approached her quickly, he did not feel threatening. His posture was tense and he stood in front of her, barring her path to move further inside the area.
"Hello," Leia said lightly, a smile wrapped around the one word greeting that translated into almost any language.
"Can I help you?" The man responded curtly in perfect Basic.
"I'm following a trail of sorts," she said. It was the truth by all accounts. "I was wondering if you, or someone, might be willing to answer a few questions."
"No, I'm sorry," the young man said simply and offered no further excuse than that.
Leia's heart sank at the proposition of finding her first real clue and then being denied a close look at it. Although his reply had not been outright rude, Leia could not fathom why she would be so quickly and solidly rebuffed over such an innocuous request. "I'm sorry," she replied with a puzzled shake of her head. "Is there a reason that you don't want to talk to me?"
"I'd like to ask you to leave now," he said, holding his arm up for her to go and taking a step toward her.
"I've traveled a long way, could you not at least offer me lodging until the morning?"
The man hesitated. Night was falling and it would be common amongst villages set out in the middle of nowhere such as this one was, to offer weary travelers food and a place to sleep. Strangely, this courtesy seemed to increase the further someone traveled away from the more 'civilized' core worlds. Building one's assumptions on that universal truth, the peoples of this outer rim world would usually prove to be quite open and generous. In fact, Leia thought, it would take a great deal of conviction for this man to fight off years of ingrained hospitality such as that.
The young man studied Leia's eyes for a long time and then looked off into the distance before he answered. He did indeed seem pained by his unvoiced thoughts and his manner became somewhat dejected yet his posture remained stiff with determination. "I'm sorry, but no. You still have just enough daylight that if you leave now you should be alright."
"I should be," she repeated, reminding him of what he was sending her out into. This world was rampant with, perhaps not the thieving, armed miscreants of populated worlds like Coruscant or Corellia, but with wild, indiscriminate animals of the grisliest kinds.
"There is no way I can allow you inside, madam," he said almost sadly. "You are only hurting yourself by wasting your time here arguing with me."
"What's inside? Can you at least tell me that?" She pleaded, looking over his shoulder to study the strange buildings behind him.
They were squat, windowless structures that confirmed the spaceport worker's claims that it had been an abandoned armory. People mingled around purposefully, all mostly humans such as the young man that was currently blocking her way. In the air, through the Force, she could sense no danger, ill will or any other sort of trickery. The Force was strong; strong within all of them if she had to guess, but it did not feel like the Force augmented aura of the over-populated Jedi Temple on Coruscant. It felt somehow more natural and free, less honed and focused as if it simply floated around like oxygen in the air.
"We are missionaries, all of us," he said, and then seemed to hesitate. "We only wish to study and to be left alone."
"Missionaries?" Leia repeated. "What message do you wish to share? Perhaps I'd like to hear it."
His facial muscles went taut and Leia felt the first wave of something more akin to annoyance than anger flicker from his strange Force awareness. Had he slipped up? Was she not to know that they were missionaries? "I must ask you again to leave and to remind you of the dangers the darkness will bring on a lone traveler," he replied.
"Right," she said, realization that this was not an argument that she was likely to win creeping over her. She felt exhausted, suddenly in true need of somewhere to lie her head down and sleep. "I'm guessing whatever your mission is, it doesn't preclude you to send helpless strangers to their near-certain death," Leia said, her words intentionally biting.
The young man clenched his teeth. "I don't accept your choice as my responsibility."
She raised her eyebrow to him. "Very well, then. I guess I'll be on my way."
"We will see to it," he said warningly.
The conversation was over; she had nothing left to lose. She had not wanted to reveal what her intention for this visit was, but she was getting nowhere regardless. "I'm looking for my father," she blurted. "Anakin Skywalker, he's a Jedi. I followed him here, his essence really, and I can tell that he's been here so there's no use in lying to me."
The young man's demeanor changed. He seemed to jump from intrigued, to elated and back to guarded once again. "We…don't recognize the term," he said.
Leia shook her head, confused. "What term?"
"Jedi." The man said the word not as one that he did not know the meaning of, but one – as he had stated – that he did not recognize or assign any value to.
"Oh," she replied, mystified. In what manner would her father live amongst people and not speak of being a Jedi? "What do you call yourselves then? I know you can use the Force, I can feel it."
The man seemed thoughtful. He glanced back, almost as if to find another person to discuss his predicament, but then he turned back to her and said, "Yes, we know of your father although we did not know of you. And I'm sorry, but you still cannot stay."
"Are you sure? Maybe you could ask someone else? Maybe-"
"Now is not the time for you to be here, we can feel it here and here," he said, touching his fingers to his temple and then to his heart. "Nothing will change that, not asking someone else, not your arguments, nothing."
Leia looked down, pensive. She felt his resolve, the balance he achieved through his words and his decision. He was right at least in his own mind and she could not argue or change it. "Alright," she whispered, still not fully understanding any of it. How did these people play into her father's plans? What were her father's plans? She had thought she had an idea, thought she might not be surprised at what she found here, but now… "Thank you," she said, nodding to him.
The man merely nodded back and Leia could feel him watching her as she turned to go, she could feel all of them watching her as she mounted her rented speeder and began the long journey back to the spaceport.
Four worlds, and four nearly identical stories later, Leia arrived at the spaceport of the current outer rim planet well after dark and was greeted by a very much unexpected sight. It was Luke. She walked toward him and when she reached him they embraced.
"How are you?" Luke asked as they stepped out of their hug.
"Fine. What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you."
She almost asked him how he found her, but she knew. He followed her essence just as she was following her father's. "What's going on?" She asked. She could feel the tension emanating off of him now, his initial pleasure with finding her giving way to something else.
"I'm back serving on the Eclipse. They're gearing up for something big to happen. I don't think they know what it is yet. But…" He hesitated, looking her up and down in a way that Han had a habit of doing as if they were trying to find out what was wrong with her, searching her skin for bruising in the shape of an answer. "Well, I was sent to find you," he finally said. "But mainly I've been worried about you."
"You've spoken to Han?" She asked.
"No." Luke paused, watching her curiously. "Is there a reason I should have?"
She shook her head. "I left without permission. I have a lot to answer for," she whispered.
"Nothing can change that now and the longer you stay away, it'll only make things worse." He stopped. "Come back with me, please."
She was weary from her travels and disheartened by her repeated failures at the hands of all of those strange people and places. Perhaps it would be good to go back with Luke and regroup. Maybe being back to normalcy, back amongst the Jedi and the Republic would help to sort things out. "Alright," she said, half-heartedly. "Lead the way."