When Luke Skywalker woke up, his mind was a blank.
Soon, feeling started to kick into his sleep-numbed body, and he noticed the cold durasteel ceiling above him, then he noticed the wall beside him, which was made of the same material and was strangely not decorated in any way...
He jolted up in his sorry excuse for a bed, then calmed himself when the realization of where he was dawned on him.
He was in a cell, with a Chiss...who was staring across at him with an inquisitive gaze.
Luke didn't give him an explanation, his grumpy morning self believing that Voss Parck didn't deserve one.
The Jedi groggily rubbed his hand over his stubble-covered face. He was usually a bright and cheerful morning person, but he hadn't slept very well, and disturbing nightmares had haunted his sleep, which was another unusual occurrence.
There was one that he could remember with an uneasy clarity, and reluctantly he allowed himself to replay it in his mind.
Luke was on Tatooine, but not in a familiar place. Sand surrounded him on all sides almost tauntingly; the only other thing visible was the occasional rock surfaced by dry winds, as well as the rising twin suns, shining merrily. He bent down to touch the sand, to see if it were as real as it appeared, but it had no true substance. It was almost as if he were but a spirit with no purpose other than to be a spectator of whatever was to happen.
The sand shifted pointedly around a certain small area, the grainy fingers grasping at it being aided by the whispering wind. Suddenly, the little hole spat out something.
Curiously, he stepped forward a few steps and saw a white baby bird with glittering golden legs and beak, a bird of a kind that he knew wasn't native to Tatooine and that he had never seen before. It looked around with wide-eyed innocence and tried to shuffle around on the sea of sand, but it failed to move anywhere. It squeaked in annoyance at its failure but continued trying, never giving up.
Time suddenly seemed to blur, and the bird grew older, its golden beak and legs turning to pink, and its bright white body was dabbled with gray, as if a light paintbrush were painting it on. Then Time slowed, and a slithering red serpent came into view.
Hissing, it approached the bird, circling it a few times, but finally backing off a few yards, as if it knew that it wasn't the right moment.
Time again sped by swiftly, the pink turning to yellow, the gray body turning to black, and dark blue eyes turning into a piercing scarlet. Time finally slowed once again, but it seemed reluctant to do so, almost as if it were a living entity being forced to do something against its will.
The sable bird let out a harsh screech of anguish, and the snake took the opportunity to approach it, spitting out indecipherable questions and commands. With sad finality, the bird disappeared into the distance alongside the snake, as the two Tatooinian suns set, and the world became dark, not even lit by the normal bright light of the stars.
When the Chiss saw that the Jedi had finally reached a sense of awareness on the same plane that he was on, Parck handed him a gray bundle of clothes, telling him, "There's a razor available for your use in the refresher."
Grimacing at the material in his arms, Luke went into the 'fresher and changed. When he was back out, he mumbled in a frustrated way, "Why couldn't it have been black?"
Perhaps not recognizing that it was a rhetorical question, or perhaps simply seeing a good chance to point something out, Parck replied. "The color gray is supposed to serve as a reminder that although we are sinful, there is still a hope for redemption. Not that it truly matters, since they are not going to just set us free, but symbolism is thought of as a sort of irony by those beings directly in charge."
Luke gave a bitter snort. "What? Did you study them before you came here?"
The Chiss merely gave him a gaze boarding on the edge of being perturbed, but Luke sensed that he had hit something right on the mark.
Parck wasn't going to let on exactly what it was, though. Instead, his response was, "It's an observation that I have had quite a while to make. You'll have to remember that I have not remained with a 'cellmate' for very long."
Luke slitted his blue eyes, but he made nothing more of it. Maybe if Luke left Parck alone, then the Chiss would leave him alone.
It was hard to avoid conversation when there was nothing to take up one's time, so Luke finally broke the silence, almost angered at the hint of satisfaction in Voss Parck's red eyes at having known the extent of his patience so well. Parck, however, hadn't quite anticipated the question that Luke soon asked. "How have you been able to stand it?"
"I'm not quite sure what you mean."
Luke sighed. "Being alone in a cell, day after day."
"You'll find that the mind can be an endless source of patience and that time spent alone in meditation can do wonders for the soul," Parck replied easily.
"I know that," Luke growled, exasperated. "I've done my own fair share of meditation, but not constantly and without companionship. Why exactly did you drive off your fellow prisoners? Brutes and incompetents or not, surely it would be better to have some semblance of not being alone."
Parck shook his head slowly, as one might do to a guilty pet that knocked over something important and was trying to appear innocent. "Being around someone that is ignorant can often taint your own knowledge. It is best to remain apart from those who try to push their automatic and unconsidered opinions on to you."
Luke sensed an opportunity and jumped in, "Are you saying you can't hold your own against those that aren't as smart as you?"
Almost amused, Parck gave a cool smile, "I am merely saying that I'd prefer to be alone rather than surrounded by bearers of idiocy. If I have a choice, then that is the first one I will make."
"What exactly did you do to them?" Luke stared the blue-skinned alien in the eyes.
"Another tale, another time, perhaps."
"How come I knew you were going to say that?" Luke groaned.
"If you knew, then why did you bother to ask?" Parck lightly raised an eyebrow.
"I had to try."
"Trying is what ignorant souls do. If you know you can't do it or it won't happen, then you might as well save your resources and wait for a better time."
The Jedi was silent for a moment, then he asked quietly, "Is that one of Thrawn's techniques?"
"Only a fool wastes valuable manpower and resources on a battle that can't be won, Skywalker."
Luke said nothing for a while, then he looked up, staring Parck in the eyes. "Are you as good at picking apart dreams as you are people?"
Rather than answering directly, the Chiss asked, "What was your dream?"
The human took a moment to recollect his thoughts, then he began, staring down at the floor. "It was dawn, and I was on Tatooine, the place I knew as my home for years."
"But you'd rather not return there." It wasn't exactly a question or a statement, but somewhere in-between.
"Right," Luke agreed. "A bird was born out of the sand—"
"Perhaps it was you? It could signify how you wished to fly away from your homeplanet."
"Could be..."
"What color was it?"
"White."
Parck nodded, "The color of faith and purity."
"Time passed and it turned gray."
It was a moment before Parck answered, as if he were weighing what he would say. "As you gained knowledge."
The Jedi swallowed, "Then a red serpent came."
"Another symbolic color, standing for evil and blood," the Chiss told him.
"I think it wanted me to do something, but both I and the bird couldn't quite understand what it was."
"It could have been your father asking you to join the Dark Side. You refused because you had no true knowledge of your father or the Dark Side...Merely what the Jedi had told you."
Uneasy, not knowing quite why he was sharing his dream with a being who was still little more than a stranger, Luke continued. "It finally turned black, let out a piercing cry, and left with the snake. Then the suns set, and everything became dark."
"The end of the old days, and a fresh new beginning?"
"Maybe." Luke didn't quite think that his dream was as simple as all that, but he wasn't skilled at dream analysis.
Parck didn't think the solution was quite so easy either, but he didn't voice anything further. He had a feeling that the darkness and snake symbolized so much more.