By the Whill of the Force
"Life is a pilgrimage – do not falter on the path because stones cut your feet and leave blood on the trail. In time, you will reach your haven."
~1~
Yavin 4
The rough paving stones of the great Jedi temple were hard and cold under Luke Skywalker's bare feet, despite the oppressive humidity of the afternoon. The sun beat down from a cloudless, pale yellow sky, and a thin, milky haze blanketed the jungle. The drooping hands of the trees cast long, irregular shadows over the ground in a patchwork pattern, and the whole moon of Yavin 4 seemed hot and exhausted.
It was just a summer's day at the Jedi Academy of Yavin 4.
Luke padded across the great field of interlocking stone, away from the cool, comforting shadow of the doorway and into the steamy afternoon heat. He squinted skyward, shielding his eyes from the sun.
Nothing yet.
Today was the day that Lilandra Ilkhaine and her sister Kerryna Occot were supposed to be returning to the Academy on one of their frequent visits.
Luke, being a huge Occot fan, looked forward to each and every one, and went through the same ritual every time Lilandra told him they were coming; their mutual friendship, which had just about reached a state of symbiotic reliance, practically caused him to lose sleep with excitement, although he couldn't be entirely sure that Lilandra felt the same, being rather dependent on the eight hours of sleep she was accustomed to during the work season, even on busy weeknights.
When the hallowed day finally arrived, he would stay out on the landing pad for hours, testing to see how long he could go without looking at the sky for a glimpse of Lilandra's sharp-nosed shuttle. Today, he was failing himself dismally.
This was to be a rather special visit, in Luke's opinion. He'd not seen Lilandra in months, and though she visited as often as she could, there never seemed to be enough time to accommodate everything they had to talk about, everything they'd planned to do, everything he'd counted on teaching her about the Force.
In the interim, she divided her time between Chad and Coruscant, having obtained dual citizenship and a key to Leia's apartment, busy fixing things up and attending meetings and seminars press conferences and sitting on boards and doing all the things vivacious twenty-six year old, newly-appointed senators were good at doing.
In her off time, usually a month in the summer and a few weeks at the turn of the new year and Life Day, she spent her days getting into all the trouble she probably needed to avoid. Every visit she paid the Academy turned into a different wacky adventure.
When they'd first been introduced, Luke had been in a rather disastrous fight with his wife, and Lilandra had just barely survived a shipwreck and an assassination attempt. That was also the time she'd brought her sister back from the clutches of the dark side, with Luke's help.
The next time their paths had crossed, Luke's niece had gone missing, and Lilandra had helped to deliver his twin children, something altogether monumental in itself.
Undoubtedly, this visit would be no different. Luke only hoped that they'd manage to avoid the life-or-death situations that seemed to inevitably arise at unbidden intervals in his life, most notably when Lilandra was around. Call it bad karma, but the young woman had a definite knack for inviting disaster upon herself.
To pass the time, Luke crossed his legs beneath him, and settled into a sitting position, hovering just inches off the ground. He looked around him, seeing his students putting only moderate effort into their training exercises. Some were off hiking in the thick jungle, others were just sitting quietly in shady nooks, meditating or making small whirlwinds in the dirt with the Force.
His niece, Jaina Solo, was doing neither. She was lounging languidly in a hand-made hammock that was hung across an unused doorway, letting her hands dangle limply over the sides. Luke couldn't tell whether she was asleep or not, but she probably was. Teenagers, especially ones of Jaina's age, seemed to sleep a lot. Briefly, he wondered if *he'd* been so lazy when he was Jaina's age.
Not a chance. At eighteen, he'd been far too busy with matters of consequence like buying stolen droids to indulge in such idle pleasures as a mid-afternoon nap.
*It must be rough*, Luke ruminated with a grin, *Traipsing about the galaxy for weeks on end, marrying your father's sworn enemy …*
Dave Tierce, Jaina's new husband and 24-year-old devil incarnate in the eyes of Jaina's father, Han Solo, was an Imperialist … well … an ex-Imperialist. In Han's eyes, that was all the information that was necessary when it came to approving mates for his eldest child. Jaina had had the right idea to elope.
Luke, though he secretly supported his niece's stubbornness wholeheartedly and appreciated Dave's warm personality and sense of humor, didn't like to get involved in such matters unless they were his own. He'd had enough trouble with his own wife, Mara since their twin children, Tanya and Nathen, had turned three and were sent – against Luke's wishes – to school on Coruscant under the care of Leia's friend Winter. He'd have liked to have had them stay at the academy, to firmly establish and develop their inborn Jedi powers, but Mara had insisted on getting them a proper education.
"Jedi won't always be needed," she'd argued, "I'd much rather see them developing *useful* skills than being idle at the Academy."
Luke still wondered if Mara had meant to insult him by that comment.
A shadow fell across his back, and he turned to see Ton-Ara Jaksbin, another of his students hovering behind him. He angled his head to observe the slight, fine-boned woman as she squinted down at him, a ripple of soft, white-blonde hair falling loose from the clip she'd swept her thin locks up in at the nape of her neck. She caught it between her teeth, attempting to smile at Luke as she patted her hairdo back into place. Luke grinned back.
There was an acknowledgement of Luke as an equal in the young woman's grin that he found quite amusing, considering her age and legal status, but he nodded at her just the same, having developed a deep respect for his surrogate niece over the years since she had come to stay at the academy.
Not only did her skills as a Jedi match his and Mara's, but in the prime of her adolescence, she'd gone and become a *doctor*, for crying out loud, as puberty had evidently instilled in her an almost otherwordly intelligence and wisdom that completely belied her current nineteen years. She never ceased to amaze her awed master.
She'd emerged from years of intense study with a serious weight in her pale blue eyes, a slimmer, taller, curvier frame, and bearing the mature moniker Dr. Tara Jaksbin. As she explained, she'd ditched the childish and foreign association attached to Ton-Ara and opted for the sophistication of the Coruscant version of her name afforded her by her colleagues at school.
She was both the triumph and the mascot of the Jedi, an endorsement of the miracles a life at the Academy could work: from orphan to double graduate in just a few short years. Luke felt blessed to be associated with a woman of such still untapped potential.
Mara, on the other hand, was slightly less appreciative of Tara's virtues. Having achieved higher levels of vindictiveness while Tara was achieving her higher education, his wife had spoken barely an affectionate word to the girl since her return. If Tara was affected at all by this, she declined to show it, and had most likely stepped outside for a moment to allow the heavy air to soak through whatever rage she'd accumulated towards her aunt on this idle, stifling afternoon, rendering it useless.
"Master Skywalker," she murmured in her soft, quietly condescending purr. "Must be Lilandra Day."
He stood, brushing off the legs of his brown denims, and grinned at her. "How could you tell?"
"You've been out here all morning in the blistering heat with your head in the clouds while your wife fanatically attempts to coordinate affairs to your impeccable standard." Her voice was slightly harsh, allowing the current state of her temperament to reveal itself only briefly before her docile smirk returned.
"I'm sorry, Tara. You know how much I look forward to her visits – excitement barely contained." He raised his arms in a shrug to show her he was only kidding. "Besides, I have to let Mara go on a power trip once in a while, don't I?"
Without Luke realizing it, they had begun to drift slowly over to the edge of the landing pad, slicing through the heavy curtain of heat with surprising ease.
"Right," Tara sighed. "She's plenty strong enough to make sure nobody anywhere does anything contrary to her ultimate rule."
"Let me guess, she's terrorizing the students again?"
"I believe I last saw Anakin trembling with fear in the corner of the common room after she caught him snoozing on the sofa," Tara replied with a delicately arched eyebrow, "and Jacen's barricaded himself in the kitchen with his pressure cooker."
Luke stopped her with a warm hand on the shoulder. "What about *you*, my dear? She hasn't surpassed her usual level of coolness towards you, has she?"
"Heat like this does strange things to people," Tara answered quietly, shuffling her toe against the ground. "Not to worry, Master Skywalker … Luke. I can handle this myself."
"She'll cheer up once Lilandra arrives. Needs a change of pace, I do believe," Luke said.
"I'm counting on it," Tara smiled. "I'm hoping this summer will prove to be as interesting as the last, although perhaps a little less … eventful. I suppose you've noticed by now that the name Ilkhaine equates disaster?"
"You like Lilandra, don't you?" Luke asked, surprised.
"Love her to bits," Tara said. "But she's so accident-prone! I should think that if I was in your position, I'd be dreading the sight of her ship entering the atmosphere, for fear that she might land in the permacrete rather than on it."
Luke imagined this for a moment: Lilandra Ilkhaine, poster girl for both left-wing values and political calamity, crashing her ship nose-first into the cracked stones of the Academy landing pad. It was surprisingly easy to picture. Easier still to picture were the tabloid headlines that would succeed such an unprecedented (if amusing) disaster.
Ilkhaine was an interesting girl to say the least, if one was to base that assumption on the number of recent scorching tabloid investigations into her public and personal life. Far from being able to do no wrong, she was well loved at the Academy, and for the most part by her constituents, who had never been represented by such a colorful, honest, unashamed figure. But the newspapers had been all over her lately, and Luke was dying to ask her about the truth behind some of the wild speculations.
However, that was only one of the reasons he was anxious for the senator to arrive.
"Are you in the mood for a deep confession?" Luke asked Tara jocundly, resuming walking at a sleepy pace.
"Try me," she said.
"I think I've learned to identify with Lilandra, instead of fearing her innate calamity. She reminds me of myself at her age – a refreshing change from Mara's intensity. Besides, you may deride her frivolous nature now, doc, but I do seem to recall something about the two of you spending much of last winter break running screaming up and down the corridors with Jaina and Anakin, flinging Jeru cakes or other foodstuffs at each other. No doubt there's a silly bone in you somewhere that appreciates it, Tara."
Tara sighed, smiling sheepishly at the memory. "I'd just like to point out that the great cake relay was all Anakin's idea. But I guess I'm having a hard time concentrating this morning, as well, through no fault of Mara's own."
Luke stopped abruptly, as they had reached the door to the temple.
"That's odd," he commented wryly. "My feet have truly gotten ahead of my brain this morning."
"That's nothing unusual." Tara grinned. "I have to get back to work. I've been trying to coax Ani into a fun-filled round of chemical experimentation, with the provision that he doesn't blow up the sink again. I just thought I'd check on you," she added.
"How thoughtful." Luke smiled through closed lips, and brushed his damp hair back off his forehead with one hand. "I suppose I should come inside and steal the reigns away from Mara for a while before she wreaks too much havoc."
Tara turned back to the landing pad for a moment, and glanced at the sky. "Don't bother. Our friend has arrived."
Luke turned warily, expecting that Tara was only playing with him, but no, sure enough, there *was* a shuttle streaking towards the surface of the planet, shining blinding silver in the bright sunlight. Luke smiled broadly in spite of himself.
Tara paused in the doorway, shielding her eyes from the sun as she gazed skyward, and then disappeared into the common room, announcing the arrival of the Ilkhaine shuttle.
She reappeared a moment later, followed closely by the towering Mara Jade Skywalker and the diminutive Leia Organa-Solo, and there was such a contrast between the three that Luke had to laugh. They were a walking contradiction.
Mara was easily the tallest of them all and clad in a forest green, knee-length skirt and matching tunic, with a silver belt about her waist and a black band holding her vibrant red-gold hair back from her face, exposing a wry grin and glittery emerald eyes that epitomized sarcasm and exotic beauty in one startling package.
Tara, with her willowy figure, often calculating gazes, and constantly evolving disposition was the Ego to Mara's Id. She had a temper that could rival even Mara's, but she was also a lot more pensive, a lot less impulsive, and reserved judgment only for when judgment was due, while Mara dispensed it with profligate efficiency.
Leia, the den mother of the Academy, was short and slight, and her absolute, undiluted kindness shone in her reflective brown eyes. There was no pent-up resentment as with Mara, no burgeoning rage as often showed in Tara's calm expression, but a simplistic kind of wisdom gained through years of negotiating life – wisdom that Mara was far too impatient to acquire, and that Tara was still too young to understand.
Luke slipped an arm around his wife's waist and the other about his sister's shoulders, and the group headed out onto the landing pad where the shuttle had just landed neatly and professionally, contrary to Tara's wary prediction.
Luke waited and watched expectantly and with some amusement as the passenger ramp descended from the cockpit door, only to become jammed halfway, and Lilandra Ilkhaine stepped into the bright summer sunshine in full dazed, dazzled, delighted Lilandra glory to stomp on it until it fitfully completed its trip to the ground.
She hadn't changed much in six months. She was tall, long-limbed and muscular, with a secretive grin that seemed to entreat its recipient to dive into her always-inviting hazel eyes and search her mind for the essence of triumph that put a spring in her step and a laugh in her voice.
The stunned, wide-eyed expression of thinly disguised amusement she wore now as she pounded her heels insistently against the stubborn ramp drew attention to the pink, sunburned rim of skin just above her cheekbones, bridged by an elegant, regal nose. Long waves of dark blonde hair highlighted with gold fell about her shoulders, stilled and curled by the humid air hanging over the jungle.
The ramp dealt with, she paused to gaze around her, enthralled by the scenery as usual, the grandeur and scope of her surroundings sufficiently pacifying her innate curiosity until her eyes finally came to rest on the group of her friends standing off to the side, whereupon she dropped the cloth bag she gripped in her hand and ran to them.
A childish squeal escaped her lips as she hurled herself first into Luke's waiting arms and then Tara's.
"Oh my *goodness*, it's so good to *see* you!" she laughed, warmly taking Leia's hand with a great deal more dignity than she had exercised in tackling the woman's companions. This was, after all, her boss.
"Long time no see, Lil," Leia said, abandoning formality and reaching up to embrace the girl. Lilandra smirked – the current Republican Senate had dismissed for the summer a bare four days ago, Gilad Pellaeon and his Imperial court taking over for the summer months.
"I missed you all!" Lilandra exclaimed, laughing, and offered Mara a warm smile, which the woman returned with an amused glare, all raised eyebrows and smirking lips.
Caught up in the midst of the ecstatic greeting, not one of them noticed Kerryna Occot's exit from the ship.
Kerryna Occot, more than twice the age of her younger sister Lilandra, recently reunited with the same, five years redeemed from the fifteen she'd spent under the influence of the dark side but still bearing scars of the experience both visible and invisibly, like her artificial right hand and her new fear of the Jedi.
The tall, thin, pale woman slipped quietly from the cockpit, carrying her own bag of belongings in the long-fingered grip of her good hand, and stood awkwardly at the base of the ramp, watching the scene unfold.
The sight of her younger sister hopping excitedly from foot to foot, radiating energy and life and joy, amazed as always at the prospect of life in general brought a smile to Kerryna's lips as she sighed quietly. The sisters may have had the same luminescent hazel eyes, but that was where the similarities ended.
Kerryna was more serene, more subdued than the flighty, giggly, giddy Lilandra. She was less given to fits of temper and sudden bursts of affection like her more volatile, and, all things told, more immature younger sister. She had a look of guarded, careful concentration about her that was evident in the set of her narrow shoulders and the oddly graceful slant of her long strides, and the way that she never seemed to see the scenery around her. Rather, she was fixated with the people present in her situation, focusing all her attention on reading their emotions, secretly searching their brains for either empathy or hatred … usually expecting the latter.
Timidly, she approached the group.
Even though she was just a Jedi, and harmless without her former dark powers, no one was entirely sure how to treat her or how to act around her. Hence, they usually just ignored her. Her outward face appeared completely unaffected, gracious in defeat – she was always friendly, always cordial: simply perfect.
Deep inside, she was seething.
"Hey, everyone," she said quietly, sheepishly. She waved, though for naught. No one saw.
The others turned to put a face to the familiar throaty growl, and smiled kindly, but there was pity in all their eyes, save for Lilandra's. Mara didn't even bother to smile, but scowled at the former Sith lord like she was yesterday's waste.
Kerryna didn't expect any kindness from Mara Skywalker. She clearly remembered the tortures she'd administered to the physically less powerful Mara, who, for all her bravado, had succumbed almost instantly to the pain, though what she lacked in endurance, she made up for in hatred. That was just the last time they'd met, five years ago.
The most powerful drug of all being power itself, the two women had naturally clashed at their very first meeting. At ten and fourteen years old respectively, they had both been the treasured possessions of the Emperor Palpatine; they had been raised on rivalry and taught to hate all and trust none – not even each other.
Thus, when Mara had overcome the darkness of her past with Luke's help, Kerryna's jealousy exploded with a terrifying ferocity. Indoctrinated to serve her Emperor, long dead though he was, she devoted herself to either restoring Mara's previous violent tendencies or outright murdering the woman should she refuse to return to the dark side – the unhappy situation in which both women had found themselves half a decade before.
Kerryna had, in relinquishing her dark powers, subdued her jealousy of Mara's inscrutable sense of self to admiration, but it was understandably difficult for Mara to accept this. She had come out of the whole ordeal several pounds lighter, with numerous broken ribs, a severe concussion, a broken wrist, a dislocated shoulder, and a bad cold. Small consideration had been given to Kerryna's lost right hand, severed off at the wrist with her own lightsaber, wielded inexpertly by a twenty-one-year-old Lilandra. The incident was rarely mentioned, though. It was not her body that anyone cared about. It was the color of the soul beneath.
Kerryna caught Luke looking at her, and grinned halfheartedly. His seeming admiration for her puzzled her greatly. She had expected – given what she had done to his wife – that he would not speak to her for the next millennium or so, but he was outwardly generous with his conversation and his forgiveness. She appreciated it, though she didn't yet trust it.
As for the others, their own involvement in the conflict of Kerryna's fault had left them predictably wary. It was far safer to just stay quiet, and meek, and subservient for a while, and give the memories a chance to subside. Perhaps in another ten years or so, it would be worth the effort.
An awkward silence hung like a curtain around the group for a long, painful moment until reliable, diplomatic Lilandra broke it.
"Well … why don't we go inside and talk?" she suggested brightly, fanning herself with her hand. "Feels a bit too much like summer out here for my liking!"
Kerryna laughed, a joyful, relieved laugh that the uncomfortable moment had ended and the onus to proceed had been taken off of her, and they all headed back into the welcoming, dry coolness of the temple.
***
Later that evening, Luke, Lilandra, and Mara sat on blankets on the roof of the temple, talking and enjoying mugs of hot chocolate, the kind with extra milky foam bubbling over the lip of the cups. The warmth of the twilight enfolded Lilandra in a comforting hug, and she took a deep breath, absorbing the heady aromas of the jungle. The scent of the hot chocolate, the damp soil, and the exotic jungle flowers all vied for control of her senses, and she felt ready to slip into a deep, relaxed sleep. Luke kept her awake with his chatter, however.
He was, as usual, full of questions about her recent duties, and seemed to find her stories about the difficult people she'd encountered and the remarkable things she'd witnessed terribly fascinating, and even Mara, who was chilly at best as far as Lilandra was concerned, had to admit that the young woman had a knack for turning a tale.
Perhaps it was because she involved the whole of her body in her story-telling – everything, from the incline of her head, to the set of her shoulders, to the pictures she drew with her hands seemed to contribute subtle nuances to the experience of having Lilandra Ilkhaine talk at you (for she rarely made small talk, preferring to relate complicated, rambling epics that left little room for comment but much for imagination).
So it was that, as the warm beverages were consumed, and the blankets were in turn wrapped around shoulders to ward off the pleasant nip of the jungle night, Lilandra ran out of stories, and Mara fell asleep with her head back against the railing of the roof stairs, snoring challengingly, as though daring someone to try and wake her.
After a few content moments' silence save for Mara's snores, Luke stood, collecting the empty mugs in one hand and his catatonic wife in the other, and headed down the roof stairs, promising a quick return.
And, for the first time all day, Lilandra Ilkhaine was left by herself, with only her thoughts for company.
Still smiling the remnants of the beam she'd worn throughout the recounting of her last saga, she lay back on the dusty stones and stared up at the sky.
There were so many stars visible here, and they wrapped the sky in thick bands of pale, twinkling light, as though the arms of the universe itself were cradling the tiny moon as it lay in the deep hush of sleep. The skyscape on Coruscant was nowhere near this dazzling. Too many neon lights and curling plumes of steam and exhaust vied for control of the sky, not to mention the odd six-hundred-floor skyscraper jutting intrusively into the scene. The only place she could think of where the view was so perfectly unobstructed was on Chad III, where she had grown up.
Out on the ocean, stars above and water below, it was easy to feel transient, yet trapped between two universal commons of boundless depth and mystery, unsure of the reality of your own fragile shell, but blissfully certain of the permanence of the sweeping realm that surrounded you. To lie here and drift between two alternate spaces of consciousness was happily reminiscent of the nights of her childhood, when all she'd needed was a wooden dock, a blanket, and the vast, impossible depths of her imagination. She sighed contentedly in spite of herself.
"It's good to be home," she whispered to the empty air. The academy always felt like home to her, because she knew that if there was one place in the galaxy she could go for reassurance and comfort and companionship, it was here. Leia's family had become as her own, a proxy for the two families she felt she hadn't known nearly long enough. Both the Occots, to whom she owed her nature, and the Ilkhaines, to whom she owed her nurture, had been murdered at key points during her sister's imaginary reign of the Empire and Lilandra's short childhood.
Kerryna.
Difficult though it was to separate herself from her moment of inner epiphany, Lilandra reflected on her sister's self-imposed isolation.
First point of contention: she barely talked anymore, for fear of saying the wrong thing. Even her natural movements were halting, cautious, as though she worried that some might view them as suspicious.
Lilandra couldn't imagine what it must be like to be her sister, to live every day as though simply living were an effort. She understood the wariness of her friends towards the woman – she had conspired to destroy their carefully constructed world once upon a time, and nearly succeeded.
Such was an easy task for Kerryna, who knew even under the illustrious and once-privileged influence of the dark side what it was like to live under a patchwork quilt of deception, misdemeanors, and empty promises. She used her personal knowledge of the hard-knock way of life to greatly injure the fragile bodies and souls of Luke, Mara, Leia, and company. In a way, the scars were still tender, and Lilandra supposed that that was why Kerryna lived under such scrutiny. One mistaken remark from her sister, and the barely sutured wounds from the past five years would be torn anew. When she considered it that way, she didn't blame Kerryna for clamming up.
But on the other hand, by making no attempt to remedy the situation, Kerryna was only enclosing herself in a shell of guilt and an obligation to everyone else's inner peace she felt she had to fulfill – the position she'd been in when she'd first fallen to the dark side. She was the type of person who loved to please everyone, much like Lilandra herself, but had never had much success at it.
She seemed to be moving backwards in her healing with the unspoken melancholy she'd slipped into, even while rebuilding her shattered reputation upon her homeworld. It worried Lilandra. Kerryna needed someone to talk to about everything she'd been through, someone besides her sister. Lilandra could reassure her, but she couldn't understand, and that was what Kerryna needed most: someone who could and would understand her.
Someone, perhaps, who had known her before her years of darkness, but Kerryna had never spoken of anyone, like a friend, who would have access to her previous thoughts, the hopes and dreams of a teenager. If any such person had ever even existed, they were likely dead, or had put Kerryna so far out of their mind that they would barely remember her face, let alone her secrets and ambitions.
Lilandra's thoughts were interrupted by Luke's return. She turned to look up at him as he sat back down on the blanket.
"Sleeping like a baby," he sighed.
There was emotion in his voice, but Lilandra couldn't tell exactly what it was. Luke's relationship with his wife had become stranger and stranger since the birth of their children, although no less passionate.
"Where exactly *are* Tanya and Nathen?" Lilandra asked, suddenly recalling the lack of joyful, disjointed baby chatter and the pattering of small socked feet on the metal floors as she'd walked through the halls of the academy that afternoon, reacquainting herself with her guest quarters, the labyrinthine corridors, Tara and Anakin's shared laboratory, the lounge and dining rooms, and all the familiar places of significance she'd come to know over the past five years.
Ordinarily, the twins would've been chasing after her, testing the strength of their own baby legs, grabbing at the low hem of her shirt, screaming her name across echoing brick chambers and hiding in shadowy corners and singing nonsensical songs. Being children.
Luke looked at her, appearing extremely tired.
"They're on Coruscant … at some fancy preschool that Mara picked out. I wanted to keep them here and educate them like Jedi, but she thought they should learn useful skills first. We fought about it for weeks – you can't possibly understand." He stopped, lowering his head. "We haven't really been the same since, and they've been gone for three months. I tried so hard to tell her that it's our job as their parents to teach them the useful things, but she … just couldn't see it that way."
"I see," Lilandra said, gathering her hair into a knot at the back of her neck and promptly releasing it in a gesture of pure habit. Then, she added, "You miss them, don't you?"
"Like hell," Luke admitted. "I miss witnessing their simultaneous passage through phases, and listening to their made-up language, and negotiating bedtimes just for the heck of it, even though they're clearly exhausted … you know, being their daddy."
Lil smiled. In the one or two times she'd spent long periods of time with the twins, she found she could already identify with Luke's sadness. Curly-haired Tanya was an energetic, squeaky-voiced firecracker, whip-smart and with a sense of humor all her own. Gentle, sensitive Nathen was the cuddly one, the child who treated every adult with equal admiration and was fond of imparting his wisdom concerning his sister's antics upon those adults. Together, they were an institution – never one without the other, only parts of a dynamic whole that reflected completely their parents' very different life philosophies. One couldn't help but feel the emptiness that reigned without their disarming double presences.
"I understand. It's truly not the same without them," Lilandra said.
"No, and once again, I feel like Mara and I have reached sort of a precarious point in our marriage. You can imagine the kinds of issues that would surface once you start realizing how mismatched your feelings about parenthood are. The sad thing is, she never really wanted them in the first place, not one, and especially not two."
"Oh, Luke, don't say that. You know she loves them."
"In her own special way, yes," said Luke dryly, prompting a wry smirk from the senator.
"So the past three months haven't been the happiest, I gather," she sighed, and Luke shook his head sadly.
"Not by any approximation. There's Mara, and the kids, and … and me …"
He trailed off, peering out through the safety bars across the jungle and then back at Lilandra, his eyes weighted.
Lilandra glanced sidelong at him, though he quickly evaded her gaze, preferring to stare down at his sandaled feet instead with an expression that was intended to be unreadable, but that merely came off as indescribable.
In that instant, Lilandra felt her sleepy subconscious zooming back into focus, the strange telepathic senses that resided there pulling her exhausted conscious towards the guarded contents of her mentor's equally thought-sensitive mind. She felt herself mentally diving into his head, rummaging through vast, invisible warehouses of information, searching for the emotion behind his logic in the strange way that only a Jedi can.
Luke sensed her mental fingers probing the darker places of his subconscious, and glanced at her, perhaps to make it easier for her to find what she was looking for. The depth of feeling in his eyes – feeling that strangely surpassed anything he could possibly feel for even his children – caught her off-guard, though, and she withdrew. It was not the pain of missing his own flesh and blood that she observed there, but the pain of missing an even greater part of himself that appeared to render him a torn man in her eyes. His expression left her feeling empty, confused, disoriented … perhaps as a shadow of what she was able to extract from his own feelings at that moment.
"Luke … good gracious." Lilandra's eyebrows furrowed, and she leaned in closer towards him. "What's the matter?"
She had caught something in his gaze that she had not seen for a very long time … not since Kerryna's time, when every passing minute gave him fresh cause to worry for Mara's welfare.
She went out on a limb. "Mara – she's not … talking of splitting up again, is she?"
"Why is that the first thing you thought of?" Luke replied at last. The haunted look vanished, and an admonishing grin appeared in its place.
Lilandra stared at him quizzically. "First impressions are indelible, Master Skywalker," she grinned. "I seem to have a vague memory of five years ago of you sitting beside me in the Falcon bemoaning the fact that you'd gone and chucked your wedding ring into the ocean – "
"I didn't chuck it!" Luke interrupted in protest. "I dropped it."
Lilandra smiled sympathetically. "Okay. But anyway, there you were, warming up the lightsabers for battle and worrying about a gold band that was probably Krakana fodder by then …"
"Is this supposed to be comforting?" Luke asked.
"If it had the intended purpose of reminding you that your bond with Mara is stronger than two rings, yes."
Luke declined response, but simply made a noise of reluctant assent in his throat.
"But who's to say my first guess is the right one, anyway?" Lilandra countered, inching closer to him. "Tell me what's really wrong."
Luke narrowed his eyes at her. "There should be restrictions placed on when Jedi are allowed to read people's minds. You bring that up the next time you're in committee, Senator."
Lilandra feigned shock. "I'm playing the part of the concerned friend, here!"
"I don't think you'd understand," Luke replied. "You're too young."
"Oh, come on. I thought turning eighteen automatically put a prohibition on me ever having to hear those words again," Lilandra said. "You know you want to tell me … you just don't know how."
She knew she'd gotten him with those words.
"You're very persuasive, you know," he said quietly.
"I'm not in my chosen field for nothing," she murmured back. "Tell me."
Luke sighed, shifting his weight forward so that he could talk quietly and still have her hear him.
"Do you know, Lilandra, why I was so looking forward to your visit?"
She sensed that he didn't require an answer for this particular question – it seemed to be more of a lead-in to whatever tragic Skywalker wisdom he was about to impart to her.
"No. Why?" she asked, pleased, leaning back against the wall.
"Because you're a distraction."
Lilandra nodded, blinking. "I get the sense that that was meant to be a compliment, but certainly one of the strangest I've received in a long time."
"Are you complaining?" Luke asked coquettishly.
"Nope. It sure beats 'Hey, beautiful, your father must've been a thief, 'cause he stole the stars and put them in your eyes'."
"Oh, because I'm sure you get that all the time," Luke said roguishly, then thought more carefully. "Actually, if I'm to judge you by your terrific representation in the journalistic world, then I'm actually inclined to believe you."
Lilandra laughed and shook her head. "I was wondering when you'd get around to asking me about that."
Luke assembled his best impression of one of his nieces in gossip mode, dropping his voice to an eager whisper. "Is any of it true?"
Lilandra waved the question away with her hand, but colored noticeably. "Most of those alleged 'secret romances' are just colleagues of mine who happen to be inordinately good-looking and travel everywhere in hoverlimos with tinted windows. But back to you, please – I'm proving to be more of a distraction than is absolutely necessary right now. Could you tell me why I should be flattered by your strange assessment of me?"
Luke thought for a moment, presumably about how to phrase his explanation.
"Because," he said, "you get my mind off of the worry."
"And what are you worried about?" Lilandra asked flippantly.
"Life."
Lilandra waited.
"Call it a midlife crisis, but lately I've found myself dreading my job and craving change."
"So? We all have our off-days," Lilandra shrugged.
"Yeah, but unlike you, I can't just call in sick or have someone represent me in the Senate. A hundred students at this academy depend on me to prepare them for a threat they'll likely never face but fear just the same. I don't mean to sound egotistical with this, but they depend on me to reassure them of their own skills, and their abilities, and the power of their vigilance. But lately the fear has begun to rub off on me."
"What do you mean?" Lilandra asked.
Luke pressed his fingertips together, feeling points of bone rounded by calloused skin. "I mean I've begun dreading the day that one of my students asks me a question I don't have an answer for." He paused for effect.
"Ever since we redeemed Kerryna, I've felt a change in the times. In the old days, it was easy. There was an understanding of the war that was going on, and everybody was clear on their purpose, their duty, and the ramifications of that duty. If someone asked us to write a thesis on our life's ambition, we'd all have handed in the same paper, practically titled 'All I Want for Life Day is to Defeat the Empire', you know? Now, the threats to the Jedi aren't so clear. The fact is, there aren't any at the present time; at least, none that we know about. You governmental types have taken over and ensured that all I have to do is keep my students in good physical shape and make sure they know their alphabets."
"You sound so bitter," Lilandra commented.
"I don't mean to be," Luke sighed, his tone softening just a little. "I just feel that I've fallen into a rut. I don't know how many times I can tell the same story before the charm wears off and my students start looking for something more. I don't even have my children around to teach, two little minds who aren't even aware of their power. Even *I've* stopped learning from the teachings of the Jedi."
"So what's the problem? Take this opportunity to retire in luxury if that's what floats your landspeeder," Lilandra suggested.
"It's not that simple in my mind," Luke disagreed. "You know me – I hate not having a purpose. I would love to be able to say that I have more tricks up my sleeve, that I can turn this around and make life into an adventure again, but the truth is, I don't, I can't. I sit around the academy while the abilities of my students plateau at the same level as mine, and I find myself incapable of encouraging growth in anyone, even myself."
He paused, gazing fitfully beyond the railing of the stairs to where the heaped canopy concealed the wild realm beneath, grasping at a single phrase that would explain all his complicated feelings at once.
"I suppose I've stopped believing in the current necessity for Jedi," he said at last. "And I just don't know what to make of it."
Lilandra considered this at length, realizing that she had never really given much thought to her unique position as one of the only Force-sensitive representatives of the galactic government. It was one of those things that she just took for granted, she guessed – she was more concerned with playing fair than using her accelerated sensory capacities to her own unlawful advantage, and consequently her abilities went frequently unused. It was likely that Leia, as the Chief of State, felt similarly, but that was why she routinely made time to visit the academy, if only to keep her powers in form.
Still, the politicians' hesitance to involve the Force and the teachings of the Jedi in their own daily rites didn't necessarily mean that there was no need at all for Jedi. Surely they must have their uses in peacetime as well as war …
Lilandra pointed this out to Luke, who sighed heavily, leaning back on the railing and looking up at the same stars Lilandra had admired not a half an hour before.
"Answer me this honestly, Lilandra. As a representative of the government, one who always has her finger on the pulse of current events and conflicts, and one who admitted herself just an hour ago that serious threats to the peace have been virtually nonexistent for the past half a decade: Do you *really* believe that there is a future for the Jedi?"
For perhaps the first time in her life, Lilandra was silenced by a question that she didn't have an answer for.