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Chapter Four:

The Eye of the Storm

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Luke opened the door of Obi-Wan's old home to greet the desert come to life around them. The wind swept across the sand in opposing directions, stirring up impossible whirlwinds. Luke reached out and grabbed Mara's hand, drawing him close to her. As well trained as she had been to deal with this atmosphere, he was the one who had lived through it for eighteen years. He could see the fury of the storm as it drew closer to them but he knew it had not yet hit its peak. They still had a few hours yet, plenty of time to reach his old home and the shelter it provided. If he timed it right, he could pass right through the storm without coming to any harm.

Luke Skywalker felt no fear at walking out into the middle of a sandstorm. Though it was something that he had been taught from a young age never to do. The sandstorms used to mean certain death to anyone who willingly went out into it. Yet there was something about this storm that felt different to Luke. The winds that whipped past his body also flowed through his mind in the Force. The sandstorm itself was natural, spun up out of the ground like a thousand Luke had seen before. It echoed in the Force, whirling through him. Sand smoothing the rough edges, and uncovering the darkest corners.

"It may seem bad right now," Luke spoke to Mara through their Force bond, his voice echoing through her head. It was easier than screaming at each other over the sound of the roaring winds. "But it will get a lot worse in a few hours. We have just enough time to make it to the homestead before the storm hits."

"That sounds like a big risk to me, Skywalker. You're sure your luck is that good?" Mara spoke back to him through the mental connection. She was not scared, but she was wary. He knew she could feel the whirling of the Force as well, but she said nothing.

Mara could feel his smile more than she could see it directed at her through the heavy cloth that covered his face. "Don't forget who you're talking to, Mara. I have walked through the storms before and come out unhurt. Trust me." It was those last two words that did it. Mara trusted him with her life, her heart, her soul. He had never led her astray. Fixing her goggles firmly over her eyes, she followed her lover out into the whirling sands.

The world seemed to vanish around her instantly, the sand was beating against her entire body through the fabric of her suit. The wind threatened to knock her off her feet but she kept them planted firmly within the shifting sands. The desert was no more than a blur of white sand. Without Luke's hand to guide her through the storm, Mara would have lost her way instantly.

'Relax,' Luke's voice flowed into her mind through their bond. 'Close your eyes and trust in the Force. It will lead you through the storm.'

The warmth of his voice soothed her fraying nerves and Mara steadied herself. She let Luke's words sink into her mind as she closed her eyes and opened herself to the Force. It flowed through her, like water through the sand and illuminated everything before her. Luke's presence shone brightly before like a beacon in darkness. He kept his grip on her hand tightly and led her through the sandstorm.

At last they found their speeder, hidden in an alcove of rock off to the side of Obi-Wan's homestead. Luke climbed into it and Mara followed, taking the co-pilot's seat for once without complaint. This was one of the few cases where she was sure that Luke was the better pilot.

'Hang on tight,' Luke told her. She increased the pressure on his hand and caught the flash of a grin from him beneath his coverings.

'Not to me, Mara, I need both hands to steer.' His amusement trickled through the bond and she released his hand. The lack of physical connection between them did nothing to lessen the bond, but Mara preferred his hand in hers. Buckling herself into the speeder, she gripped the handles on each edge of her seat.

"Let's go, Flyboy.' He caught the twinkle of mirth in her green eyes and didn't respond. Instead he opened the throttle and the next thing either of them knew, they were speeding through the sandstorm.

If the wind had been loud before, it was positively deafening now. It roared past Mara's ears with a shriek reminiscent of a Krayt dragon she had seen once. The sand beat against her so hard that it penetrated her clothing and within moments she was itching all over her flesh where the coarse grains rubbed her raw. She could barely breathe at the speed they were going, choking on a mouthful of sand every time she inhaled.

Despite how uncomfortable the ride was, Mara could not help but be exhilarated by the speed at which Luke raced them over the sea of sand. He really was an amazing pilot, it was good to admire his skill openly. Nothing she had ever seen him do had compared to this. Luke could fly anything, from his X-Wing to the Jade's Fire or a Star Cruiser, with equal ease. Yet here on Tatooine, flying over the dunes in his sky hopper, he seemed to be most in his element. This was how he had learned to fly, chasing the long shadows of the twin suns over the Dune sea. Speeding so fast he could hardly breathe and learning how to trust his instincts. It had been that first tickling of the Force was what had helped shape him into the amazing pilot that he was today.

Mara knew this, but she also knew how reckless he could sometimes be. She should not have been surprised when she looked over and found him flying with his eyes shut but she gave a start nonetheless. A chill prickled her skin as she watched him. So deeply immersed in the Force as he was, his piloting seemed almost automatic. Instead of the fierce joy of flight that she had expected to see in his face, he was utterly calm as if in a Jedi trance.

Mara focused closer on him and had to fight the urge to take the controls from his hands. He was in a Jedi trance! He had no conscious awareness of what he was doing, he was merely following the path that the Force was clearing for him. He could see it stretching out before him, parting the whirlwinds and letting them pass through unharmed. Mara watched him warily, while struggling to also watch the landscape around them for any abrupt change that Luke might not see. Yet she knew that they were safe, he knew what he was doing.

So Mara sank back into her seat and let the wind roar past her, let the Force rush through her. Every moment seemed to bring them closer to something momentous, a massive change in their lives that they could not predict, nor could they stop. She wondered at what it could be. Wondered at what else Luke might have seen.

She let out a deep sigh and focused on the world around her. She could feel the Force flowing through her, it seemed to roar like the wind in the strength of its power. The Force rushed through her mind, filling her to the brim. The wind was white with sand, and in the flickering of the grains over her vision, she could see images through the Force.

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In an instant, the world had changed.

The wind had died to a soft breeze as it flowed down over gently sloping hills. The hills were covered in a green so verdant it seemed to glow with life. Lush grass covered the land and through the trees in the distance, she could see a river glittering as it splashed against the sand. The ground did not soak up the moisture hungrily with its parched mouth, but embraced it.

Mara knelt in the soft grass and dug her fingers into the soil. The silt was rich and dark with moisture. It was soothing to her hands after the rough sands of the desert. Looking up into the sky, she realized that this must still be Tatooine. The twin suns hung in the sky but something was different about them. They seemed to be further away than she remembered, the heat was not as intense, the light was not as blinding. She could see that the planet had once thrived safely beneath the two suns and over the course of a millennia, Tatooine had been drawn ever closer.

The revelation of this in Mara's mind was astonishing to her, it was something that she had never considered. Tatooine had always been a desert waste, and she saw suddenly that some of the desert had already begun to form. Behind her, the grass faded away into rocky ground that eventually had eroded down into sand. Yet it was not the familiar sight of the sand that startled her so much, it was what lay upon it.

In the distance, there lay a temple of glass. It glittered against the horizon with a thousand glittering points of light. Each facet of the glass caught the light and seemed to hold it within until the temple itself glowed with power. Mara was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of power that flowed through the Force. It seemed to echo in the lands all around her, the wind sighing. A conscious mind suddenly seemed to reach out and touch her and suddenly Mara found herself trembling.

An unknown voice spoke into her mind, filled with power and wisdom. The words she heard were clearer than the glass that had been forged from the sand.

"In the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior. He shall be known as the Son of the Suns. He will shatter the ancient Order and bring both darkness and light to the Force. Only he shall be able to achieve balance between Light and Dark. Of his blood shall be born the last of the ancient line. He will bring about a new era of the Force by uniting the ancient ways and powerful knowledge. Those that have been Chosen by the Force will be the ones to change it forever."

Mara knelt upon the ground, clutching the earth desperately as the words resounded through her mind. The power of the Force filled her to the breaking point as the prophecy sank deep into her mind. She looked up desperately to see the temple of glass growing dark before her and her danger sense flared up into a sudden blaze.

The wind began to swirl around her once more and the grass disappeared into sand beneath her fingers as the light exploded over the horizon and the desert returned. The suns drew ever nearer, closer to the planet, transforming it into a desert where battles had been fought and lost. Light and dark became one as the shifting sands emerged across the planet. The temple stood still beneath the sea of time and waited. It was waiting for them.

-

Her eyes opened and in that moment of clarity, Mara Jade looked up the most alien and yet familiar sight she had ever seen. Rising up before them was a mountain unlike anything else on Tatooine. It was not large, but rising up suddenly from the flat land, it seemed to reach the heavens. Dark and ominous against the brown sky, it filled Mara with dread.

Yet it was not the ominous sight of the fortress that struck Mara the most. What shocked her was the palpable crackling of the Force around the building. It was as if this place was a nexus, where the energy of the Force came together into a physical presence before her. The power of the place overwhelmed her and for a long terrible moment, Mara could not move, could not call out to Luke through their bond to warn him.

Finally, as the fortress rose up close enough to blot out all else before them, Mara reached out and grabbed Luke's arm. She screamed his name, aloud, and through their Force bond. His eyes snapped open immediately, narrowed in concern on her. She shook her head and gestured up to the fortress. She was screaming at him but her words were lost in the roar of the wind, the rush of the power that suddenly filled him.

Luke looked up and saw the mountain. As soon as his eyes landed upon it, he knew that this was where the Force had led him. The energy that crackled around the fortress walls seemed to mirrored within his soul. For a long moment, Luke could do nothing but stare up in wonder. His hands tightly gripping the controls seemed to shake suddenly. The wind was too strong, they were drawing close to the heart of the storm. He struggled to keep his grasp, drawing deeply upon the Force to aid him. But the Force seemed to have a mind of its own, it fluctuated wildly around them. The air crackled with heat lightning, it sizzled past his cheek, searing a mark upon his flesh. He cried out and felt Mara reach out to grab hold of him. She wrapped herself around him and in that moment, the storm took over.

The wind howled around them, snatching the speeder in its invisible clutches and spinning it wildly around. The cyclone formed around them, the most massive one they had seen so far. It surrounded the fortress, the wind rising up off of the walls and expanding at the peak of the mountain. The two of them were torn from their seats, clinging desperately to one another. For a long moment, the two of them flew together in the whirling winds. Instinctively, they reached out to one another in the joining of minds that had saved them once before. Mara could feel Luke so clearly, his warmth around her, his desperate struggle with the Force that mirrored her own. It seemed to slither through her grasp, roaring through her like the wind, unable to be controlled.

A shifting of the wind suddenly pushed between them. Luke and Mara were torn apart and desperately, she struggled to hold onto her grip on his hand. There was a darkness in those blue eyes, a moment of panic from Luke in her bond. Then he slipped from her grasp.

He flew on the winds, still reaching out for her desperately until he was lost beyond the veil of the shifting sand. It slipped through her fingertips

She caught nothing but sand and that slipped through her fingertips, ticking away the seconds until death inevitably ensnared her.

The wind was tossing her around and around again, spinning her in its wide circle until she could no longer tell up from down, land from sky. The speeder was gone, having crashed to the ground far below her. That, on its own, would have terrified her but nothing was as bad as the certain knowledge that suddenly crashed in on her.

She could no longer feel Luke through their bond.

With a scream that matched the howling of the wind, Mara howled in anguish, in desperation, and in fear. Opening herself completely to the Force, she let it whip through her like the wind whipped her body until she was bloody and sore. She pulled upon the Force with all of her strength, struggling to manipulate it to her will. She felt the power of the temple below her like a physical presence within the Force and reached out to take hold of its power.

Pushing her power outward, Mara lifted her hands to the sky and the Force poured through her. A bright light shone through her, stretching up from the ground and pouring through her to touch the sky. She brought it all together, connecting heaven to earth, body to spirit and wind to water. She reached down into the depths of her power and felt a sudden stillness in the Force.

In that moment, Mara heard Luke's voice in her mind. 'I raised my hand and the sandstorm stopped. The wind simply ceased.'

A sudden dread grew in her heart and was confirmed when wind suddenly ceased in it's eternal howling The cyclone vanished, swirling back down into the sands, a soft wind flowing through her before dying completely. For a long moment, Mara Jade floated motionlessly hundreds of meters above the ground of Tatooine. The land was clear for miles, the sand settling back into the constantly shifting sea of the desert.

Mara stared in wonder at the world around her, keeping herself afloat with the Force. When her gaze returned to the sight of the mountain rising up before her, she felt a sinking in her heart. Her concentration wavered and gravity took its toll. Wind swirled up around her, catching her long desert robes. They swirled up above her head suddenly, she was blind to the sight of the ground coming towards her. She fought to escape the cloak that trapped her. It flew from her shoulders and almost escaped her grasp. Her fingers fought the wind as they expertly grasped the corners. The cloak billowed up above her like a parachute but she was falling too fast.

Mara closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of the world rushing toward her and struggled to focus on the grasp she had maintained on the Force. To her relief, it came easily, but it was somehow warped. There was an odd resonance to everything around her. Slowly, she floated to the ground, her eyes searching the world around her for any sign of Luke. Her eyes burned from the sand, her vision blurring before. She hit the ground running, stumbling and falling to her knees. She had never been so happy to feel the ground beneath her. She dug her hands into the sand, ignoring the heat of the baked soil. Mara knelt there for a moment, catching her breath, slowing her heartbeat from its rapid pace. With a weary sigh, she looked up to see what lay before her.

A few yards beyond her lay the wreckage of Luke's speeder. It had cracked into a dozen pieces upon the mountainside. Flames licked the ground from where the engine had exploded and Mara approached it in disgust.

"That's the last time I let you talk me into anything, Luke Skywalker," Mara muttered the curse under breath. There was no passion in it however, she felt sick in the heart where his presence had vanished. She could no longer feel him, she knew he could not hear her cursing at him and laugh at her. Tears burned her eyes, clearing away some of the sand.

Turning away from the destruction of the speeder, Mara drew a deep breath and looked up at the mountain. It flickered in her vision and she saw once more, the temple of glass beneath a millennia of sand and rock that crusted over it. The mountain rose before her, and the temple called to her.

Wind stirred up once more, pushing against her back. It felt as though the Force was flooding through her, washing her forward. Mara lifted her head against the pulsing heat of the suns and walked onward to the mountain of glass.

-

Leia was deep in the midst of hyperspace when she felt it. The shock of the bond snapping so suddenly was like nothing she had ever felt before. It reverberated through the Force from the planet ahead of them. As if something had shifted within the Force itself and stolen him from her.

"Luke," Her eyes opened with a shock and she stared out at the stars streaming endlessly past. She felt an odd sense of dislocation as it seemed that she stood still and the universe rushed past. The reverberations of the Force were coming from that direction, she could feel it pulling her endlessly forward. Waves within the endless sea of the Force crashed through her as she opened herself to it. They shifted around her and Leia cried out at the sudden influx of energy.

She could see the sandstorm whirling in her mind and a temple made out of glass, sparkling upon the endless sands. The light seemed to fill the glass, stretching upwards from the earth to the sky. Luke stood in the center of it all, a glowing form of light and pure energy. She could see him, but she could not feel him through the Force.

Leia's breath left her in rush, the moment frozen in time as Han turned to her in alarm. The vastness of the galaxy suddenly loomed up before her as they pulled out of hyperspace but Leia barely saw. She could still see the afterimage of Luke hovering before her eyes, but the place in her heart where she was bonded to him was empty. A hole swallowing her in its darkness. She did not like it one bit.

"Something is wrong," Leia whispered.

"You're telling me, Princess," Han was fussing with the controls of the ship anxiously. Leia was suddenly aware of the tension in her husband's body and she turned to him. Her alarm grew at the expression on his face.

"Something pulled us out of hyperspace before we reached Tatooine," Han informed her. His gaze was searching the vastness of the stars beyond, searching for the answer.

"We're close," Han muttered. "But this is definitely not Tatooine."

The world that rose up before them seemed to be the opposite of Tatooine. It was a lush world of vivid blue oceans that curled around the land. It glimmered against the view screen like a jewel in space. Something about the sight of the blue waters soothed Leia's troubled mind.

"Where are we?" Leia whispered. Deep in the back of her mind, she felt as though she should know this place. Something in her blood called out to the planet below.

Han frowned as he looked over the readouts, "A planet called Naboo, never heard of it."

"Naboo..." the word seemed to resound in Leia's mind, tugging at some deeply buried memories. "This was Palpatine's homeworld," that was a fact she knew. Yet it was not that which seemed to stir in her mind.

Han eyed the planet uneasily, "Well, Palpatine is dead and gone and the Imperials are scattered to the corners of space. We shouldn't have too much trouble here."

Leia blinked at him, "We're going down?"

Han shifted uneasily, a movement Leia was all too familiar with. "Well..." she knew it was never good when he drew that word out so long. "It seems that there may be a problem with the hyperdrive."

Leia groaned, "I should have known."

Her husband spread his hands, affecting a look of wide eyed innocence that she was far too familiar with. "Hey!" He protested, "It's not my fault!"

She couldn't help but smile, "It's never your fault, Han." Her eyes were troubled behind that smile however and Han could see it.

"Hey," he leaned over and took her hand. "Luke will be okay."

She smiled uneasily at him and shook her head, "I hope so..." her gaze turned out to the distant stars, searching for her twin. "I can't feel his presence any longer through the Force."

Han was deeply troubled by this. He could not know what it was like to be bonded through the Force as Leia was with her brother. But he trusted her and he had seen how their bond had aided them in the past. To hear that their bond had snapped, on the heels of Leia's premonitions of danger, did not bode well.

"We'll get to Tatooine," Han promised. He could not tell her that Luke would be okay again. If he knew the kid, and he did, odds were that he'd find his way out of trouble on his own. Still, it didn't sit right with Han that his friend might be in danger and they were stuck only a few parsecs from where he was.

Leia took a deep breath and nodded at his words. There were tears shimmering in her eyes and Han's heart broke at the sight. Gently he kissed his wife on the cheek and sat back in preparation to land.

"Naboo doesn't seem like a bad place," he mused. "I'll have these repairs done in no time and then we'll be on our way to saving Luke's hide yet again."

Leia smiled faintly at his words but she did not meet his troubled gaze. Her eyes remained fixed on the glimmering stars in the distance. She could just make out the twin suns of Tatooine orbiting the dusty sphere. Luke was somewhere out there, she had to believe that. The snapping of the bond had not felt like death, it had been something else. There were Forces at work here that Leia could not identify, and that knowledge sank her heart like a stone.

With a sigh, Leia leaned back in her chair and watched the galaxy vanish around them as they began their descent into the world of Naboo.

-

Luke Skywalker opened his eyes in darkness. For a moment, he blinked rapidly, unsure of whether or not his eyes were truly open. The darkness around him seemed absolute until his eyes began to adjust and he could make out some light in the shadows.

He was in a large room, the cool floor beneath his hands was smooth and slick. Pushing himself up off the floor, he stood and reached out through the Force. It flowed through him easily but an odd resonance seemed to come from the walls around him. The Force echoed here in this place and once more, Luke sensed the massive power that seemed to lie dormant within the fortress.

As he reached out through the Force, he was made shockingly aware of one simple fact. He could no longer sense Mara through their bond. Luke's heart began to beat faster, fear rising up within him. She had to be okay, he didn't know what he would do if she was not.

Luke reached out through the Force and tried to find Mara's familiar, shining presence but was left fumbling in the dark. Desperately, Luke tried to reach out to Leia, just to sense a loving presence, but she was lost to him as well. The Force flowed through him but his bonds with his loved ones was no longer present. It was as if a thread had been cut, the connections lost. A hollow feeling resounded in his chest and his heart throbbed painfully as if it had been cut open.

He took a deep breath and put the curious issue out of his mind. Something had happened to his bond with Leia and Mara, but that did not mean either one of them was dead. It was a troubling issue but one he forced out of his mind. First he had to figure out what this place was and how to get out. Once he got back into the desert, he would be able to find Mara easily, he was sure of it.

Igniting his lightsaber, Luke used it as a dim light in order to look around him. The room was very large and Luke could see cracks in the ceiling where a slide of rocks had filled in a hole. Luke felt the bruises on his body, the dust in his hair and realized that he must have fallen through that hole before the rocks had crashed through, blocking his escape route.

Luke sighed wearily and studied the ceiling. He could move the rocks out of the way and levitate up and out of the room, but it would take hours to accomplish the task. He shuddered at the thought of Mara wandering through the desert in those precious hours, calling his name. No, he had to find another way out.

His decision made, Luke began to scout the length of the room. His eyes absorbed every detail and was surprised at what he found. The room was massive and in times past, must have been a truly impressive sight. Columns of glittering glass stretched up out of the floor. The floor beneath his feet, Luke saw now, was also made of glass. The walls and ceiling were encrusted with crystals of various shapes and colors. The green light cast from his lightsaber glittered within the crystals. Light sparked off every surface and reflected back upon him. A large torch stood in the center of the room and Luke approached it slowly. Shutting down his lightsaber, Luke dug his tinder out of his pouch at his side and laid the flame to the wick.

Light sprang up all around him as every torch in the room burst into flame. They were connected in some way, to this central torch, and when it was lit so were they all. A fiery golden glow filled the hall now and the effect was astounding.

Luke saw where he was now in the full light of the fire. The hall appeared to be an ancient throne room of sorts, though instead of one chair at the end of the hall, there was a variety of seats all in a circle. In the center of the circle there was a glass pedestal rising out of the floor. It was etched deeply with ancient runes that covered the exterior like vines climbing up the side. The shape of the letters seemed somehow familiar to Luke and he traced them with a careful fingertip.

The pedestal seemed to vibrate beneath his touch and suddenly it was filled with a pure white light. The light seemed to stretch straight up from beneath the ground and up to the surface of the pedestal. For a moment, Luke's vision flickered and he saw a group of men and women seated around the pedestal. In his mind's eye, every seat was filled with beings of assorted races. Each one held an air of wisdom and power and at every side hung a familiar object, a lightsaber.

With a gasp, Luke stumbled back away from the pedestal and the vision vanished from his mind. He knew now what this place was, but was shocked that it existed here on his home world. He had never known of it, Obi-Wan had never spoken of it and no Jedi text he had read had ever hinted at the existence of any ancient Jedi temple located on Tatooine.

Yet here he stood, in the center of an ancient circle where Jedi councils had once convened. This was the reason for the odd resonance he had felt, the power that had coursed through him at the sight of this place. This temple was a stronghold of the Force and there were objects of power hidden here, and history. Luke was sure of it, as sure as he had ever been of anything in his life. The Force had led him home for a reason, it had brought him here. He wondered at how old the temple must be. How long had it been since a Jedi had stood in these halls and looked upon the ancient place of wisdom? He was the first in many years, of that he was certain.

Luke's gaze traveled the hall with a reverence he had never felt before. This was a holy place, he could feel it in his bones. From the main hall there stretched several corridors, all leading down into darkness. The temple was massive, he had seen it from the outside and mistaken it for a mountain rising up out of the desert. If he made the wrong choice, he would wander into the depths of the temple and become hopelessly lost.

Yet as Luke took a step forward, he was filled with a sudden certainty that he would not lose his way. The Force itself seemed to guide every step he took as he entered one the long corridors. Firelight flickered down the long hall and Luke could see no end to it, yet he was sure that this was the way he was meant to go. With a deep breath, he opened himself even more fully to the Force and allowed it to guide his steps through the temple.

The corridor was long and seemingly endless, every now and then it branched off into darkness or ancient doors appeared. Luke opened none of them, he passed them by with equal curiosity but he knew that if he stopped to explore every room of the temple, he might never make it out.

The path he followed seemed to lead ever upwards until at last he reached the end of his voyage. What lay before him then was a sight unlike anything he had ever seen. At the top of the mountain, the uppermost chamber of the temple, was a room made purely of glass. The glass beneath his feet shimmered with opaque and murky colors that seemed to shift beneath his footsteps. Above him the sky yawned great and open beyond the layer of glass the augmented it. The walls were vast windows, looking out into the desert beyond and from the top Luke could see for miles.

In the center of the room there lay a pedestal identical to the one in the council chamber below. But where the pedestal below had been empty, this one held one simple object. It was a book, lying open as if someone had left it behind in the midst of their reading. What was remarkable about it was that it also was made entirely of glass, it was part of the pedestal with glass pages that opened and turned but could never be removed. As Luke took a step toward it, he felt that familiar resonance within the Force once more. The entire building seemed to tremble as he stepped forward and touched the thin pages.

Light bloomed from beneath his fingertips, coming upward from the base of the pedestal. It illuminated the words on the page, written in old and ancient runes. Luke traced his finger over the letters and found that he could understand perfectly what it said.

The first page contained one word, one so familiar to Luke that he gasped aloud in surprise. The word on the page was one he had borne his entire life.

Etched deeply into the glass page, illuminated by the light of the Force was his own name: Skywalker.

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