This was written for the second fic exchange organised by SilverDaye this winter; my giftee is LadyVader23, and I was so excited to write for her again! It'll be six chapters long, and mainly be half-horror fic, half-character study of Luke post-ESB.
The prompts I was given, and tried to incorporate, were:
- Why are you still awake?
- Come with me.
- Can I have hug?
Hope you enjoy!
Venaira was a strange world.
Luke could honestly say that he had no idea why Boba Fett would've ever hidden out here with Han. Their intel may have come from a reliable source—at least, someone who generally knew what they were talking about regarding the Empire's movements in this sleepy section of space—but he didn't see it. The planet was wreathed and clogged with clouds from orbit, and when they broke atmosphere to make it through the clouds, all they saw before them was a vast expanse of trees.
There was water in the distance, the maps read. Massive lakes, bigger than the Dune Sea, some salty, some fresh, some so choked with chalk and other ground minerals that they shone different colours. The weather grew more humid in the area a continent over, the fog retreated, the distant blue sun shone brightly, and the many minerals in the earth led to a massive range of colourful plants, landscapes. Apparently it was a popular resort for artists to visit when on retreat, seeking to reinvigorate their muses with the array of rainbow trees, waters and soils.
That was not this continent, though. Of course.
The part of the planet that their informant had directed them to was a sleepy little town called Falcou, balanced precariously on the edge of a valley, beside a waterfall that gushed down, down, down. As the shuttle passed over the valley, Luke found himself staring at those falls in awe: white as crushed pearls, three times as wide as the breadth of the town, the torrent streamed off the sharp, striped rock and into a basin, before winding lazily towards the thick, black forest that consumed most of the valley depths like a bruise. He glanced up again when he saw the silver thread vanish beneath the canopy.
"That's a lot of water," he murmured.
Leia didn't reply to him; just smiled slightly, keeping her gaze on the ridge. Luke followed her line of sight and blew out a breath through gritted teeth when he saw what she was looking at: the Imperial fighter base perched a few more klicks up the hill from the town.
Before their eyes, a swarm of TIEs took flight to buzz around the other side of the hill, disappearing from sight.
"I don't like how close they are," Leia murmured.
"Our informant said it was a quiet town, right? How can it be quiet if the Imps are right there?"
"There's a small doonium mine in the neighbouring valley. It ran dry years ago, during the Clone Wars, but the Empire still have to have a garrison stationed here to keep an idea on anyone attempting to—"
"Get anything else out of it," Luke finished. "And sell to the Alliance."
"Yes. Falcou is quiet most of the time, but the moment the Imps go on leave they're there and rowdy—there's nowhere else to go, after all."
Luke's gaze was drawn inexorably back to the forest, and the thundering water that hurtled past it, then into it. "Not fans of white-water rafting? Hiking?"
"You've heard of white-water rafting?"
"The Rogues tell me the only thing more exciting is a dogfight."
Leia snorted. "Of course they do."
Their shuttle—an old trader's ship, lent to them by a friend of Lando's from Takodana—continued to coast down towards Falcou in a leisurely flight path, the woods yawning directly underneath them. Cold nipped at the back of Luke's skull; he glanced down, frowning, and had never felt so much like…
Like…
Like we're being watched.
He reached for his lightsaber—then remembered he had none. Just a collection of parts in his bag, and no crystal for its core.
Leia saw the expression on his face. "Don't tell me you have a bad feeling about this."
"I don't like this. The Imps," except it wasn't the Imps, actually, it was—"the woods—"
"Don't— we can't be ridiculous. We can't jump at shadows. Woods," Leia glanced down at them pointedly, squaring her jaw, "are woods. We— we had valleys just like this one on Alderaan. Filled with pine, and snow in the winter… They're fine."
Luke winced at the naked pain in her voice. "I still don't like this," he said carefully. He remembered this feeling, this cold; he remembered it from—
That cave on Dagobah. Seeing his own face as a monster's.
The gantry on Bespin. Learning his own blood was a monster's.
No. No. He wouldn't think about any of that.
"I think it's something to do with the F—"
"It can't be, Luke," Leia said, frowning. "It must just be instincts—and no matter what our instincts say, nothing seems to be wrong right now. We need to find Han."
Luke said, "Our instincts?"
"Yeah." Her frown deepened. "I feel it too."
Well.
Considering how good Leia's instincts were even without the Force, that boded well.
"Don't look at the forest," Leia commanded. "That's not where the informant said Fett is—they said Falcou. We need to keep our eyes on there. With any luck, we won't have to deal with the forest at all."
He did turn his gaze, then: on the rustic houses, ramshackled together in bundles on the side of the hill, cresting the slope and teetering beside the waterfalls, warm red against the harsh white. There was a landing pad slightly above them—unnervingly close to the Imperial base, but that was the price they paid.
Hopefully, they would see no troopers. And hopefully they were far enough away from major Imperial lanes to be recognised.
Two faces couldn't be plastered across the whole galaxy, right?
The comm crackled with the bored voice of whoever was manning the landing pad. "Transport Lodestar, please confirm your trajectory and continue the landing cycle."
Leia's voice was more well-known than Luke's, so it was Luke who replied. "Falcou Landing Base, this is Lodestar. Transmitting projected trajectory and starting the landing cycle now."
The moment the comm clicked off, Luke glanced at Leia. "Go and get changed," he said. He was already wearing the cargo trousers, tan poncho and hiking boots that were expected for local tourists, but Leia had had to make a few holocalls on the trip here and hadn't changed out of her Rebel white yet.
She nodded, and vanished into the back.
Luke manoeuvred them in slowly but surely, resisting the urge to show off. By the time Leia was out again, he'd signed the paperwork, forked over the credits, and bought themselves a week's stay.
In case they should need it.
He grabbed his pack and slung it over his shoulder, glancing sideways at his friend. Her hair, instead of in its usual elaborate styles, trailed over her back in two long plaits, held in check by a brown bandana; she wore both the hairstyle and the ratty jacket and boots like they were crown jewels.
Luke thought the jacket may have been Han's—it was slightly too big for her—but he didn't question it. He missed him too.
Han was why they were here in the first place.
"Ready to go?" he asked with a sunny smile. Everything he could see, including the both of them, was drab and dull in the gunmetal light filtering through the thick clouds.
Leia clipped the straps of her rucksack together across her front, and stood at the edge of the path, looking down into the valley.
It would have been a spectacular view had the forest not looked even darker and denser up close.
Leia narrowed her eyes at it, like she wanted to fight the trees.
"Let's go find Fett," she said.
Falcou was exactly what Luke had been expecting: a sleepy little town, just like Anchorhead. And just like Anchorhead, the strangers were glared at.
They'd tried fishing for information at the local tavern, which looked like it would fall apart at a stiff breeze, but that didn't work. Luke and Leia just sat at their booth, smiling and trying to talk to each patron nearby, but received only distrustful looks in return.
Luke found himself fervently wishing that Han, in all his shameless, swaggering glory, was here. Leia may know how to glean information from diplomats, but when it came to hushed interrogations in cantinas—
Well. Considering he'd been shot at the day Luke had met him, they always either went very well or very poorly.
But at least they went.
Eventually, Leia evidently got tired of sitting in the corner trying to make a nice first impression, and dragged herself to her feet—just marched straight up to the nearest, biggest table and sat herself at the end with her drink. She hadn't taken a single sip of it—it looked awful, and as a princess she was more accustomed to fine wines and less to the half-poisonous moonshine Luke's pilots consumed regularly—but she made a good show of looking like she had.
"Hello," she said with a smile—pleasant enough to be slightly welcoming, vicious enough to make it clear they couldn't back out of this conversation. "I'm Josie—my brother Abidan and I here are new—"
"That's obvious," a middle-aged human man snorted, looking Luke up and down before turning away. The young man next to him—presumably his son—looked at Luke more appreciatively, but was evidently still dismissive. Unimpressed.
Luke stood and made his way over to sit next to Leia, making sure his blaster was visible the whole way over, and gave a more amiable smile than Leia's when he met the young man's eye.
"Well, obviousness aside," Leia said, "we're here looking for a lost uncle of ours—we had no idea he'd even survived the earthquake back home until we heard he'd moved near here. Have you seen him? Tan face, lots of scars, tends to wear armour a lot?" Somehow, the Alliance had got hold of a description of Fett's face in their research—the knowledge he was a clone of Jango Fett had been a surprise to Luke, but he supposed he'd heard of stranger things since he left Tatooine. "I've heard he comes and goes."
She swallowed suddenly and Luke gave her a concerned look, covering her hand with his and using the other to rest it lightly on her hand. She leaned into the touch lightly and said, voice thick, "We're… it's been so many years, we're very worried about him—"
Luke looked up through his eyelashes to meet the son's eyes. The father seemed more guarded—sympathetic, grimacing at the story, yet guarded—but the son…
"I heard of an armoured man coming through here, a few years ago," he said. "He stayed at the Rainbow Inn down the road from here, then found lodging somewhere else. I assume it was permanent—I've seen him a few times since then, from across town, still wearing that strange armour, but I've never seen him come and go from the spaceport. Wherever his ship is, it's not docked there."
That made sense. There certainly hadn't been any Slave I in the same place they'd docked the Lodestar.
Leia beamed, and leaned forwards to clasp the young man's hand. "Thank you so much," she said emphatically, and the man blushed at the attention. "Did you say the Rainbow Inn was near here?"
"Yeah, just over the ridge—"
"Down the hill," his father interrupted briefly. "Not up it. Up it is the windmill and the women who run it, and you want to avoid them."
Luke frowned. "Avoid them? Why?"
The man spat on the floor. "Witches."
"Retired ladies of the forest," his son corrected with a stern look. "Like Grandma was—"
The man snapped. "Your Grandma left that creed to get married, and she stayed friends with them for life after. Those ladies were kicked out when the forest turned dark, and anything too dark for the forest nowadays is definitely too dark for random travellers who look like they wouldn't survive a fight with a tooka."
Luke tried not to take offence. "Ladies of the forest?" he asked politely. He… that forest had given him bad vibes, but…
The man eyed him suspiciously. "How'd you get that scar on your face, kid?"
Mauled by a wampa when in the middle of a civil war. "I tried riding an eopie once. Fell on my face in the sand on some rocks and my aunt had to stitch me up again." Luke tried to stop his voice was shaking, or sounding uncertain—was he convincing? Did he—
"Eopie?" The man glanced between them, narrowing his eyes further at Leia's pale complexion. "You two from Tatooine then?"
"Only til we were twelve," Leia lied smoothly. "I go pale and drop accents easily, apparently, but somebody"—she elbowed Luke in the ribs—"kept clinging on."
He shrugged, despite the tension in his shoulders, batting the back of her head lightly. "It's home."
"No, it's a shithole."
"She's right," the son pointed out teasingly. Luke laughed a little and smiled at him.
"Thank you so much for your help," he said, letting his own earnestness—and relief—shine through as he stood up. "I just hope we'll be able to find our uncle again—after so many years…"
"You'd best hope he didn't settle around here after all."
Luke blinked. Leia, who'd taken Luke's hand and been rising gracefully to her feet, paused, giving the older man a curious look.
"I beg your pardon?"
"A good few years off Tatooine indeed," the guy muttered to himself. Then he repeated: "I said you'd best hope he didn't settle here after all. I've seen him around, just like Sel here, but he don't live in Falcou. So if he lives around here, he lives in the Woods."
A shiver ran up Luke's spine at the way he said that.
The Woods.
"And it's been a good long while since I saw him." He raised his dirty glass in a mocking toast, an ironic smile quirking his lips. "So either he's taken the good choice and got the hell off this pile of dirt… or he snapped up that lovely cottage that was going for sale a few years back, and the Woods got him."
Luke stilled; cold dripped down his spine. When he glanced outside, he noticed idly that there were officers in Imperial uniform coming towards the tavern, troopers who'd taken their helmets off; it must be time for a few precious hours of leave from the base.
He was so stiff that it was Leia who laughed—nervously—tilted her head and asked, "Got him?"
"Don't go in there, kids. Not even for your lost uncle." He put his glass back down on the table. It was empty. When had it been emptied? "Your parents will want you back, with or without him."
Luke just gave him a tight smile—then gripped Leia's hand tightly. They should get out of here before the troopers came in and risked recognition.
"Thank you again," Leia said. "And… we'll… Well, he's the only family we've got left. That's why we're looking at him."
Luke tried not to think about Han.
Then he dragged Leia out, wrapping an arm around her like she was really his sister, and she tossed a few credits to the bartender, ducking their heads in faked laughter as they slipped outside—just as the troopers barged in.
They kept the ruse of murmured conversation up until they were a few streets away, and Luke's heart slowed its pounding.
"A cottage in the woods?" Leia asked. "Why would Fett want a cottage in the woods?"
"Maybe he wanted a holiday home in between bounties."
"But why would he come here now? With Han? That holo our informant sent us looked like it might be his face, but it wasn't clear, and we can't be wasting time exploring woods—"
"I'm more concerned about the Woods themselves."
Leia rolled her eyes. "I know, I know—there's something off about them, but that was an older man who's clearly lived here all his life. Can you really tell me your aunt and uncle didn't have superstitions?"
"They called Old Ben a wizard." He paused. "Which they weren't wrong about. And Aunt Beru used to say that specific desert children were sometimes blessed with the ability to sense sandstorms and Sand People attacks before they ever came."
"And was that true?"
"I was one of those children," he said. "Never skipped a sandstorm."
"Then I think that was the Force."
"The Force is in everyone. Everything." He looked in the general direction of the forest—he didn't need to know what was down there, or why, to pinpoint exactly where it was. It scratched at the edges of his awareness.
And, he thought, he scratched at its.
But he was too far away for it to do anything about it.
Leia gritted her teeth. "It doesn't matter. If we have to go into those woods, we will." For Han.
Leia, he thought distantly, was terrifying when her single-minded dedication to duty was channelled into a single-minded dedication to a person.
He met it wholeheartedly. "Of course." As much as… as much as the similarities to that Dagobah cave, to the terrifying truthful coil of the dark side on Bespin, made him want to turn around and flee in the other direction. "We should… we should just be careful."
Though, maybe she was right. Maybe he was being jittery for no reason—he'd been jittery for months now, panicking at the tiniest things—and it was just standard superstition. It… it should be fine.
Leia snorted. "Us? Stopping, thinking things through, being careful? Who are you and what did you do with Luke Skywalker?"
He laughed at the jab—as he was meant to. It broke the tension.
And she was right.
Since when did he worry so much about being careful, about not rushing into things?
He knew the answer.
"Let's go find that inn," he said. "Perhaps the innkeeper has more answers."
"An armoured bloke, huh?" The innkeeper was a stout woman with a broad smile; she reminded Luke of Aunt Beru. "You know, we've seen a lotta people come through here over the years, the odds of me remembering one specific person—"
"How many people come through decked out in armour that could withstand a blast from an ion cannon?" Leia asked—a little pointedly.
But, just like Aunt Beru would've, the innkeeper just chuckled.
"Fair point, fair point," she conceded. "I remember your uncle. He stayed wi' us three, maybe four times? Old Greoge in the tavern was right guessin' he'd set up shop in them woods. He spent a lotta time in there, somehow never getting caught by the Ghosts, always coming back… himself—"
"Himself?" Luke interrupted. Leia glared at him and mouthed, Let her talk. He bit his lip.
"Y'know, lad. When you see a Ghost, that's it." She made a gesture with her hands around her temple; Luke had no idea what it meant.
"I… see." He did not see.
"But your uncle was always himself—though I guess he was paranoid and jittery enough before Ghosts ever started messing with his mind. From day one, he never stopped looking over his shoulder. He tried to make sure his was the only key to his room—tried to steal mine!"
"But now he's in the cottage in the woods?" Leia pressed.
"Yeah. I assume so, at least—haven't heard from him in a few months, but I'm pretty sure he had a nice place out there, ignoring the danger. Maybe he had a few trinkets from the wizard's temple, they might've—"
"The wizard's temple?" Luke burst out.
Leia glared again—but this time she was more sympathetic. The innkeeper gave Luke an odd look.
"Yeah, the wizards—I thought they were galaxy-wide under the Republic, though I guess they died out 'bout when you were born…" She fixed them with a look. "Empire don't want us to talk about 'em, but the ladies of the forest weren't proper wizards, I guess. What was the Core world term for them—"
"Jedi?" Luke suggested quietly. The pieces of the lightsaber he couldn't build lay heavy in his pack.
"That's it! The ladies weren't that. Had a different take on the magic, or whatever, something more in tune with Venaira herself than the stars. But they kept contact, they had a lot of friends with them Jedi—there was one diplomat or another always passing through that spaceport and staying here 'fore heading into the woods, every month, no fails. Those were the good old days.
"But then," she waved her hand, "something went down with the war. I dunno, I don't follow politics, and I don't really care. But the ladies are gone now. And when they do show up, they're…"
She made the same hand gesture she'd made before: fingers wriggling beside her temple, vaguely imitating the shape of an explosion, more imitating a spinning motion.
"Anyway, the woods ain't safe now. Nowhere's safe without the ladies protecting us, but the woods? Don't go there. Wait for your uncle to come out." She drew a sheet of flimsi—a bill, and stars, wasn't that archaic—and tapped it with her stylus. "We've got a room for yous if ya wanna rent it."
She glanced at Leia's wallet—clearly, she'd clocked that they'd loaded up with quite a few credits for this mission.
Leia smiled sweetly. "Seven days—six nights—please."
The innkeeper barked a laugh. "You're a savvy one." Then she scrawled something on the paper and pushed it over. "There's the bill."
Luke tried not to let his eyes bulge.
Leia had a much better grip on her expression, but it was still amusing to watch.
She sighed, and forked them over. The innkeeper closed her hands around the credits with a wide grin. "Pleasure doing business with ya! If you need anything in your room, just call for Martha. And if you need somewhere to rent a speeder tomorrow, I can give you an address for that, too—owned by my sister."
"Rent a speeder?" Luke asked.
She shrugged. "Well, you're gonna go into the woods like a pair of crazies, aren't you?"
"Why would we do that?"
"Because you're looking for someone, and that's what most tourists do around here anyway. But the woods are pretty! But they're famous! But the Bubbling Falls are the most well-known in the sector!"
Luke gritted his teeth.
"Whatever. Do what you want, kids; I can't stop you. Just know that my sister'll ask for a hefty deposit on that speeder."
Leia narrowed her eyes. "And why will she do that?"
"Same reason I made you pay all seven days in advance." Martha shrugged again, tossed them two physical metal keys with Room 3 stamped on them in white, and dropped the credits into a locked box.
"In case you don't come back."
It was a double bed in the room Martha had given them, but easily big enough for them both. Leia had apparently been so used to her massive bed on Alderaan for years that she still had problems hogging the space, but after a few light bruises, they'd settled down to sleep.
Except Luke couldn't.
Martha's words about the fall of the Jedi… he wanted to go down there and ask her more. He knew so little about why they'd fallen—other than the fact that his father had turned and killed them all—and Yoda had said nothing— Yoda, if he returned to complete the training now, might still say nothing—
Against his will, he felt his breathing quickening, and fought to calm himself. The presence lurking in the valley—the Ghosts? Whatever remained of those ladies? He didn't know and he didn't want to know—slid a finger along his fear and ramped it up, until his heart was hammering in his chest—
He squeezed his eyes shut so hard he saw red and clenched his fists under the covers, even as Leia slept peacefully beside him.
No.
No, no, no.
He was safe.
Dark side or not, Vader couldn't get him. His father couldn't get him.
He did not need to worry.
He would not turn and be like him.
He was not like him.
He was not—
His eyes blew open, breathing hard.
Fear was just the path to the dark side.
He did not have to step down it.
He was not fated to join Vader in darkness unless he feared that he was, and—
And that left him in a kriffed up dilemma, didn't it?
I am here to save Han, he mouthed to himself, closing his eyes tightly again. Han is more important.
But I am so, so afraid.
"Why are you still awake?"
The soft-spoken words jumped out at him and he gasped, jerking away, even as Leia's cold hand found his arm in the bed and unfurled his clenched fingers gently. He took a deep breath and tried to relax.
"Luke?" she asked. "Are you alright?"
He let out that breath. "Yeah," he said. "I'm just…"
He glanced down, to see her brown eyes staring at him in the darkness, and turned away suddenly. Leia was brilliant. She was bold, and brave, and brilliant. He couldn't admit—
"Afraid?"
He stayed staring away, trying to blink away tears. "Yes. I know it's stu—"
"Afraid of what?"
He blinked. Tears dropped over his eyelids. "What?"
"Afraid of what? The woods? Because…"
He didn't want to tell her.
But nor did he want to lie to her.
"Since Bespin?" he whispered. "Everything."
His own shadow, morphing into a mask and cape.
The voice in his head, heavy and demanding.
The slightest touch of cold.
His own unchecked emotions that he was suddenly hyperaware aware could destroy him from the inside out.
He glanced back at Leia then; their gazes met for a charged second, before she rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling herself.
"I am too," she admitted. "Afraid, that is."
The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile, but it wasn't a happy one. Not at all. "Of what?" he echoed.
"Of losing you the way I lost Han. Of losing the Alliance the way I lost Alderaan. Of losing… everything again." Her voice shook with sobs, and then she wasn't holding his hand; he was holding hers, and gripped it tightly, her lifeline. "I'm so, so scared, all the time—I didn't want to admit to Han that I loved him because I was scared of losing him, again. Opening up. No one's been there for me as much as you, Han, Chewie and the droids have been. Not in years and definitely not since… since Alderaan.
"I'm scared of losing this war. I'm scared of seeing Vader again"—Luke flinched—"and scared that one day I'll be marched in front of the Emperor to be executed while he laughs. And I'm scared of losing you.
"But I have to go on. The Alliance needs me to—and you boys need me to. So I do. I stay afraid," she let out a shaky breath, "but I do it anyway."
"Stay afraid," Luke echoed, "but do it anyway."
"Those woods terrify me too," she admitted. "On a primal level I can't even begin to understand. But Fett might be in there. Han might be in there. So we'll have to stay afraid…"
"…but we'll do it anyway," Luke repeated.
Leia let out a breath.
"I think that's what bravery is."
They lay together for a few minutes, holding hands in the night. Then Leia rolled towards him.
"Sometimes bravery needs a little help though. For both of us." She held out an arm. "Can I have a hug?"
Luke smiled down at her, and kissed her hair. "Of course."
They hugged—tightly, like they truly were the brother and sister they'd pretended to be—and Luke found he could finally fall asleep like that.
He found that he could beat the fears creeping on him like plants around a decaying house—so long as he knew that he was not alone.