Chapter Four
Luke dreamed on his way to Tatooine. Mostly he dreamed of his childhood with Uncle Own and Aunt Beru…but then he dreamed of Callista.
He dreamed of how they met on the Eye of the Palpatine…him tired, aching and badly wounded, trying to save the ship and the beings who had been forced into it. She a ghost of a Jedi Knight from years before, trapped in the machine, but finally working with him to help save the beings she had not taken an interest in since her death.
Meeting in a series of dream sequences. Falling in love.
Her leaving him, because after she took over Cray Mingla's body she had lost just about all access to the Force. All but one…the dark side.
She had left him, claiming to wish him to have a happy life with someone who could give him great and powerful Jedi children.
Her actions now surprised him.
Why had she suddenly changed her mind? Why had she taken away the one thing in his life that he truly, deeply, passionately loved?
He had loved her once—he loved Mara so much deeply now. They were one in a way that he had only glimpsed with Callista. Nothing Callista did now would endear her to him…she had to know that.
Then why was she doing this?
Troubled, he drifted in and out in dreams.
Mara glared at Callista through the rock she was imprisoned in. "You sicken me," she spat at her, not for the first time since waking on Tatooine almost a day ago. Callista was using her dark side powers to keep her from getting too near the bars of the door of the cave she was held in.
Callista merely smiled, a strange expression on a face that twisted with hate every time she looked at Luke's beloved. "You will see. He will come. And then he will be mine."
"But you gave him up!" Mara protested, exasperated. "You told him so, even after he came for you when you told him not too. What did you want him to do, live a life alone and miserable? You told him to find someone else!"
The gray-eyed beauty stared implacably at Mara. "Yes, but I told him to find someone better than I. Not someone…like you."
Mara growled and tried to get at Callista through the bars, but a strong shock traveled through her body at the contact. "You promised us you would leave us alone!" she reminded the other woman, rubbing her arm.
Callista tilted her head to the side. "That was before I had time to think about it more. You aren't good enough for him; you were the Emperor's Hand, for Force's sake! How ill-suited a match can that be? You don't appreciate his honesty, his integrity and innocence. Yes, innocence, for he still has innocence even after every trial through the dark he has gone through."
"Trials that you weren't there for!" Mara shot at her. "You left him alone when he needed someone the most! What does that say about how much, or how little, you actually cared for him?"
Callista's eyes shot with sparks and she took a step toward Mara. "You have no idea what it was like to cut him loose!" She screamed at the redhead. "I had to watch the holonews for any sign of him, to make sure that he was alive and all right. I worried every day that he would finally lose against a Dark Jedi. And where were you, during his trials? Off with your smuggler pals, or trying to kill him!"
Mara shook with anger and had to restrain herself from reaching through the bars and ignoring the sting of them long enough to strange Callista right then and there. "I was there for him should he need me. Neither of us knew that we loved the other, until it was almost too late. Once we both knew it, we never looked back, never gave up on each other. And I do appreciate his honesty and integrity; I find them refreshing and wholesome, something that I didn't get a lot of while growing up. You have no idea what my life has been like, Callista. You take what the holonews has shown since our wedding and you've used it and twisted it the way that suits what you want."
"Yes," came a soft voice from behind them. "It seems she has."
Both women turned their heads to see Luke standing quietly in the sand, seeming almost to blend in with his surroundings. Mara had not seen him on Tatooine since before he turned 22, when he killed Jabba, and was proud of the way that he stood, strong, in the fading light of the twin suns.
"Luke," Callista said with a smile as she walked toward him. "I have much to say to you. I thought this way I would most definitely gain your undivided attention."
Luke gazed at Callista coldly, and Mara was glad that she had never had that particular look of her husband's directed at her. "No, Callista. You've said quite enough. I've heard much from over here." He shifted his stance as Callista neared him, and Mara was interested to note that his right hand strayed near his lightsaber. She wondered if he could use his lightsaber on a woman that he had once loved.
Callista pointed a thin finger at Mara. "Oh, I think you'll hear me out. I do have control over her life right now. And I'm not asking much, am I? Just a talk. Why don't you come over here and sit so you don't have to stand the whole time?" She guided him to where there was a slightly indention in the sand.
Mara felt the pull of her danger sense mere seconds before Luke stepped on the slightly different colored, disturbed sand.
"Luke!" She gasped.
Luke hit the cleverly disguised hole and fell fast. He quickly dropped out of her line of sight and her ears strained to hear him land, safely. Finally, she heard the dim echo of his booted feet hitting stone, then a stumble.
"What…what happened?" She demanded to know.
Callista smiled at her, and this time her face seemed pure evil. "Oh, he just took a little tumble into a kyyrat dragon cave, that's all. You see, I'm still of the opinion that if I can't have him, no one can—that includes you."
She laughed as she walked away, down the hill to where she had a tent sent up for sleeping.
Leaving Mara to stare in horror at the gaping hole that Luke had disappeared into.