Welcome to another fantasy AU! This is a gift for the lovely Severnlight (on AO3), whom I adore, and which I hope she enjoys :D
I would like to give a fair warning: this was extremely self-indulgent, with a target audience of exactly two people, one of whom is me. We've got so much worldbuilding! Drama! It's just me having fun, and stealing everything I've learnt thus far in university that I thought was shiny. And I also had a lot of fun playing with characters, twisting them around depending on the context and their circumstances. If any of them come across as OOC, my apologies; that's just me having fun and trying to be creative.
I've been planning this out since July, and it's had a lot of influences. In general, the impact of cartography during the early modern period is absolutely fascinating to me, so I draw on that a lot. I was reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon while I plotted this; A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine when I started writing; and The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth, Nala's World by Dean Nicholson and Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir when I was in the swing of it. And finally, I watched a lot of Visions towards the end. I wanted to mention all of these because the impact they had on this fic, whether in writing, style, plot or content, is palpable, and also because if anyone else likes them a lot I would love to chat :D
That said, I hope you enjoy!
Sketching steady lines while the ship rocked underneath him was difficult, but Luke made do, and slowly the mermaid took shape. She laughed on a rock in one sketch, the way she had during their brief acquaintance. In another, she swam through a rainbow torrent of fish, sharp teeth bared; in another, she was posed with the sea spear he'd seen strapped across her back, the muscles on her strong arms more pronounced. There were a cluster of five or six poses altogether, and he wasn't sure which was best.
"What do you two think?" he asked, and got a rustle of wings in reply. Artoo's claws sank into his shoulder immediately, while Threepio was clumsier in his descent from the boards above. He ended up more tumbling than flying down to Luke's hammock, a flurry of yellow feathers. Twenty years in the body of a golden parakeet, but he had never quite grown used to his wings. Artoo chirruped: his avian equivalent of a snigger.
"You alright?" Luke held out his hand to gentle stroke Threepio's wing, which calmed the tremors into stillness. Threepio hopped up onto Luke's wrist, then his knee, and peered over the page.
"Alright," he parroted in a high-pitched tone.
"Good. Which do you think fits Mara better? Which do you think fits the map better?" He flipped his pencil in his hand and tapped the back end of it against each drawing. "The friendly one? The hunting one? The fighting one? Brushing her hair?"
Artoo made a low, chittering noise of disapproval.
"Which one are you against?"
"Brushing her hair," Threepio imitated, bobbing his head along with Artoo.
"That one? That's the best likeness—her only stipulation about the drawing said that it had to look recognisably like her. That's the only one that captured her face really accurately." There was a suspicious silence from Threepio; either he was being recalcitrant, or Luke hadn't given him enough words to reply. "Is it not?"
"Not," Threepio said immediately. "Like. Her face."
"Not like her face?"
"Not like her face."
"Oh, come on, she's mer, their features are slightly different and that one is the only one that really shows that—"
"Not. That one."
"You don't think it's fitting?"
"Not. Fitting."
"I'd have thought that putting a picture of a striking mer on a map about fish distribution would actually make sailing apprentices look at it. I was gonna do another one, a merman on the other side, sunning himself."
"Another one," Threepio insisted, and Luke smiled.
"Alright, we'll take that one out. Maybe the one with her hunting for fish? It's probably the most natural to have as decoration there. It's more topical."
Artoo cheeped his agreement and Threepio voiced it for the both of them. "Topical."
"Alright then." Luke circled the sketch with the sharp end of the pencil, then glanced up at the creaking rafters. "I'll finish adding the last few details from the notes she gave me and use up the last of my parchment when we reach Little Corel. My last map on this side of the ocean."
Artoo made a low, sad cheep. Threepio said, "Last map. On. Little Corel?"
"On this side of the ocean, yeah. I don't know what resources there might be once we cross the Sunless Sea. And I don't know what we'll find—if there'll be a land to map at all. But I'll map it if I find it, whether it is the land of the gods or not." He reached up to brush his finger over Artoo's head. He'd known them both his whole life, and never met them in their human forms, but their plumage was always striking. Artoo's colouring was brighter than any other blue tit, like the black lines over his eyes were swept in kohl, and once someone at the market had assumed Threepio was made of gold and emerald, not feather and flesh.
Artoo ducked away from his finger and pecked it. Luke, deft and shrewd enough by now to tell when that was coming, dodged before he drew blood. "We don't have to go. That is—you don't have to come. If you want, I can contact Leia, and she can—"
"We don't have to go?" Threepio's tone betrayed his nerves as the shivers returned, and he looked a few moments away from taking him up on that offer.
Artoo's outrage only grew, until he was a small blue and yellow puff, and his claws sank deep into Luke's shoulder.
At his partner's reaction, Threepio steadied himself. "We. Can. Come."
"But you don't have to—"
"We. Have to go."
Luke swallowed, his throat tight. "If we'll find anything to break the curse on you two, anywhere, we'll find it on Ahch-To. But I can't guarantee we'll find Ahch-To at all." He paused. "I just… With everything, I want to…"
I just want to find Ben, was on the tip of his tongue, and it was true. I need him. But it wasn't the whole truth.
I want to escape Vader forever. He couldn't do it within the bounds of the known world. So he would go farther than that and tear the edges of the map to shreds in order to escape his father.
Artoo softened his needle-sharp grip on Luke's shoulder and bumped his head into Luke's chin. Threepio was adamant. "We. Want to. Go. With. You."
Luke exhaled slowly, glancing down at the page of sketches. He had stood at the stern of the ship and watched as they departed from Hosnia's shoreline. The limestone rocks piled tantalisingly high around the harbour, and he instinctively mapped their proportions, their locations. Hosnian Prime, the closest mainland port to the Corellian archipelago, bustled behind them. The tumble of grass and gorse down the sheer cliffs on either side, the bright purple heather picked out in minute brushstrokes against the green, aggressive splashes of sea holly.
Mara had laughed when she saw some of his paintings of the area, insisting he was drawing beauty from a bog-standard place—if he wanted beauty, she insisted, he should see the mer's caves, bristling with crystals, coral, and otherworldly light, which she could not have known were so far underwater he would never see them. But that didn't stop him from mourning them—along with all the other places he would never see, and the places he would never see again. Of the few certainties he had, that was the saddest one.
He glanced down at the page of sketches and smudged his thumb over them. The pencil scratches quivered, then stretched like a languid sea otter, and retwisted themselves over the page. The mermaid depicted tossed her hair, beat her tail fiercely, brandished her spear and teeth with enough threat to make even the most hardened Imperial pause. He smiled.
The currents shifting around the ship were just as strong in his awareness as the pencil lines he'd created himself. He felt it when they changed, a dark shape of slate and granite looming ahead of them. The Isles of Corellia, and the fierce currents they bent to their industrial needs.
"We're nearly there," he said.
He'd been here once before, to see Ben off, and the coastline of Little Corel looked much the same. A coast that faced the full brunt of wind from across the Sunless Sea, battered by waves at high tide and bruised by rockpools at low. The ship came in to dock and Luke made sure to tuck his supplies deep, deep in his pack. Then he went to help with the lowering of the anchor.
In actuality, with little clue of this ship's protocol, he was more hindrance than help. He couldn't see much, with how hard the wind was blowing; his ratty hair blew loose from its ponytail and flapped around his face like a cat o' nine tails. The sailors cursed at him when he staggered, but together they did wind it down into the water.
He was a little late disembarking; he had tried to plait his hair back like his mother had tried to show him, before he stepped out into the wind again, with little success. Eventually he twisted it into a sorry excuse for a topknot and Artoo perched up there, claws tangling in the mess and holding it together like a clasp. Despite the situation, the corners of Luke's mouth tugged upwards as they passed other sailors, whose mouths dropped at the sight of them.
Little Corel was a port town, though not much of one to speak of; it was a miracle Luke had managed to find a direct ship from Hosnian Prime. But there was still a thriving market as Luke strolled along the seafront. Houses and taverns painted cheery shades of red, yellow, and gold against the dreary landscape glowed like candies in the mist of silver rain. The market visitors were just as rowdy in dress, from lime green tunics to dark blue hats to a vivid yellow-orange scarf sported by a fashionable young man who eyed Luke appreciatively, winking.
Luke slipped into them quietly, easily ignored amongst the stall holders' shouts and loud chattering, and purchased a long, woollen coat the blue-green of a stormless sea. He had lost his own warm coat, the one that had been Ben's, and Jinn's before him, back in Saleucami. Vader had got hold of its tails and Luke had shed it without a second thought, catching Artoo as he toppled out of the breast pocket, rudely awakened.
He breathed slowly, keeping his heart rate slow even as his muscles clenched. He couldn't escape the anxieties plaguing him, but he could ignore them—sort of. It was made easier by the stench of the thick sea air, and the sweet-sour sauce sold at market stalls, made from the rotting seaweed that slopped over the rocks. Burning coals fizzed as meat and fried foods were tossed over them, pans clanging.
His stomach rumbled at the smell and he paused, hesitating. He didn't have much money left, but he probably wouldn't need it where he was going.
In the end, it was Artoo's wriggling and insistent chirping—something that needed no translation—that sold him on it. His friends needed to eat as well, and the stall owner had her own resident parrot to advertise her birdfeed. He may as well get himself a fried dumpling or skewer while he was at it. The queue was only a few people long, two of them women laughing and chatting animatedly as their feathered hats threatened to blow off, so he joined it and resolved to wait.
He burrowed into his new coat. The dye was cheap but cheerful, and the wool was warm. He had never been to Corellia outside of the height of summer before; he hadn't known it could be this cold.
Artoo tried to jump from his head to his fur-lined pocket. It took a few minutes of wincing as they untangled him from Luke head, but eventually he snuggled in. Threepio cawed sadly, and Luke shifted his hood so that he could curl up in that, though it wasn't quite the same.
Frowning at the hair now loose again, stinging his face with flicks, he almost didn't notice the stall next door. But once a strong gust of wind let him wrestle it back into a ponytail and shove it under the hood, his coattails flaring, he glanced up again and the stacks of ornate books caught his eye.
They were almost akin to the sort of thing Leia would study from, back in the great Jedi library in Alderaan—an apt comparison, in fact. Because Luke, drifting out of the queue almost unconsciously while his companions squawked in protest, recognised the script and titles. They were magic books, just like the ones his sister worked with.
The stall seller, a stately, elderly woman with dark hair limned with silver, glanced up when his shadow fell over the stall. She smiled broadly at him and gestured in greeting. Her hands made the Southern Sign Language signs for welcome, traveller and a warm enquiry about whether or not she could help him.
He signed back, though those lessons Ben had given him all those years ago were a little rusty, and asked if she would permit him to glance through some of her magic books. He was looking for a particular spell.
There were only a few actual magic books on the table, most of them novels, cookbooks, guides to various sciences like botany or astronomy, and even a few atlases. He thought he recognised an ancient codex in there, with the signature Jedi stamp in scratched and faded gold. But the actual spellbooks, the ones he was looking for, were only a handful strong. She told him to go ahead, so long as he paid for anything he took away, and asked what he was looking for.
Transformation spells, or spells to break a curse, was the simple reply, and she hummed in thought when he mentioned it, before flipping to a section in one of her books and jabbing her finger at the chapter title. Changed and unchanged, the page read in bold black cursive.
He smiled his thanks and flipped through the book, studying each one in depth.
He was standing there for something approaching ten minutes. By the time he was through the chapter, each potential spell carefully noted and catalogued in his head, the woman was staring at him with open impatience. He couldn't really face the idea of telling her that he found nothing useful in it, and that most of what it contained he already knew.
With an apologetic smile, he bought the book anyway.
When he glanced back at the food stall, the queue had tripled, and snaked so far back into the market that some vendors were shouting in irritation at the people crowding their businesses. Luke decided not to add to the crush—even if Artoo pecked him hard when his hand drifted too close to his pocket, perfectly clear in what he thought of that.
He just pulled his hood around his head, so close Threepio's feathers brushed his face, and forged forwards.
Contrary to what Ben had frequently lamented, Luke had paid attention in his lessons, so now he remembered perfectly well that he had once snuck in a which inns in famous travellers' spots are reputable? quiz into the usual training. The Lonely Dove, while comfortably making the list, made it on a technicality. It was simply the most reputable inn in all the Corellian islands. One would have thought they'd do a roaring trade. They were a family business catering to respectable folk from Coronet visiting the beaches bordering the Sunless Sea, and much of Greater Corel was dominated by crystal mines; there were no beaches to speak of. But it had grown seedier since said elite seized upon new trade routes to flock to the mainland instead, with warmer weather, less wind or rain, and no fear of currents dragging tiny Zevulon out to oblivion.
Nowadays it was perhaps their distance from the general hubbub of central Corellia which kept them reputable, as when Luke pushed the door in, the bell above it didn't ring. It fell to the floor with a tinkle and a puff of dust.
The young barmaid looked up from where she'd been doodling something on a calling card and dropped her mouth open. "Uh, welcome to the Lonely Dove." She dropped her pen and straightened up, her Corellian strongly accented. Luke had to focus to understand it. "Family business, impeccable service, all of that stuff." She eyed his pack—particularly the books bulging in it. "You a mapmaker?"
"No," he lied. In general, he wasn't a good liar, but this lie was one he'd had to stick to a lot. "Just a mage." He pulled out the book he'd just bought and gestured it, accidentally knocking a few loose brushes out of his pack as he did. He scrambled to pick them up. "And an artist."
She was younger than he was, hardly older than eighteen, but still she looked sceptical. "We don't serve mapmakers, Imperial bastards. Next thing we know Vader'll be down on our heads. Dad would kill me."
Not all mapmakers were Imperial… but nowadays most were. He'd been attacked by angry hordes before, furious that the Empire had mapped and cut up their land like squares of ink and paper. The Jedi's legacy was centuries older than even this inn's heyday, but there weren't many of them left. You didn't get any leeway for it anymore.
"I'm an artist," he insisted. "You enchant the paper to make the art seem more… special." He didn't know enough Corellian to articulate this properly, so he pulled out his page of drawings of Mara the mermaid to illustrate his point. The barmaid leaned over the bar curiously, and cooed when the drawing thumped her tail, flipped her spear in hand.
"That's something alright. I always wanted to learn magic. Pity them Jedi libraries on Coronet are gone." She smiled wistfully. Luke smiled uncomfortably. His father had been the one to attack and destroy all the Jedi schools and libraries, even in territories the Empire hadn't occupied yet. "Give me one of those drawings and I guess we can serve you."
Luke affected an unbothered look. "Which one?"
She deliberated, then jabbed her finger at the one with the spear. He smiled as he tore it off and handed it to her, mermaid's teeth still bared.
She took it with raised eyebrows. "Ain't never seen this stuff you could tear before." She rubbed the paper between her fingers. "Ain't never seen this stuff at all."
"Books you've seen, like this one," he tapped the magic book, "are made of parchment. That's animal skin, it's harder to tear. That's papyrus, from the delta at Anchorhead. It's cheaper to make, easier to write on. Doesn't last as long though."
"Huh. Good to know." She grinned at the page. "You ever seen a mermaid? I heard they're big, tough creatures." Her excitement was endearing. "Strangely beautiful, though."
"That's an apt description. I've met a few when travelling. She"—he tapped the drawings—"was the most recent. Met her a few days ago."
"Comin' from where?"
"Hosnia."
"Thank the tides you didn't say Naboo, or I'd've had to chuck the drawing. Naboo steals all our business."
Naboo's coastlines were hardly more beautiful than Corellia's, but they were warmer, sunnier, with less fear of the unknown, so Luke just decided not to make his stance on their tourism troubles known. Nor would he mention his mother was the Queen. And he definitely wouldn't mention that the trade route between Coronet and Theed was discovered and distributed into common knowledge by Jedi.
Their philosophy of gathering knowledge to share with the world wouldn't always have positive impacts. Luke knew that intimately. "It's a shame."
"You bet it is. I wanna go there one day but they're the enemy," she rolled her eyes, "and it would be betraying the family. I don't think the fancy pants in Naboo even know we exist. Anyway." She blinked, realising she'd gone off on a long tangent. "You want a drink or a room?"
"A room. Just for the night, please."
She bent down to rummage in the drawers under the desk for a room key. "You going somewhere else tomorrow?"
"The Sunless Sea."
She poked her head up to stare at him. "You ain't no fisherman, why're you going out there?"
"Fisherman?"
"What, is it like a pilgrimage thing for you? A suicide mission?"
"Why are fisherman going out into the Sunless Sea? I thought there were superstitions about that." The Tides and all their disciples would hammer your boat into sawdust, until your body was indistinguishable from a beaten hunk of meat strung up in a butcher's shop. You would die of cold when you moved beyond the sun's domain, further west. You would curse your relatives and their descendants back home, and no fish would wander into the straits of safe water, leaving the islanders to starve.
"Because there ain't no more fish in the straits." She handed him the key.
Luke took it but didn't move. "None?"
"Imperials overfished them. Great big nets, everywhere."
Luke's brow creased. "The Empire only have one port on the Corellian Straits, up in Chandrila. How did they overfish the whole thing?"
"They just took Dac City down in Mon Cala." She spat on the ground. "Few weeks ago. Fish're getting scarcer and scarcer."
This hadn't been long before he got to Hosnian Prime and started looking for a way out, then. "So the fishermen are desperate."
"Yeah. My"—she glanced around for her parents, then lowered her voice—"boyfriend's dad is one of the local fishermen. He's been struggling for months now, gone farther and farther out into the Sunless Sea every time. Dak's scared he won't come back next time." She swallowed tightly. "To the depths with them. With all of them Imperials. Vader especially. He'd probably sink fast with that armour of his. You've travelled a lot, you seen it? Black as coal, with his temper twice as flammable, I heard. And those scars—"
"I've seen him," Luke said tightly. The armour wasn't exactly what he'd been focusing on, at the time. Unconsciously he reached up to touch his hair, long and scraggly coming down his ear. "What room am I in?"
"Huh?"
Threepio, noticing his hand had stilled, put his head on Luke's palm in a gauze of reassurance. "To the depths with. Him," he cawed softly.
Luke forced a smile and stroked Threepio's head feathers. "Which room should I head up to?"
"Oh! Room twelve. If you don't like it, lemme know and we'll change you to one of the others. But it's got a nice big window you can see the harbour with, and for your buddies to sit on." She clicked her tongue at Artoo when she saw him poke his head out of Luke's pocket. "I'll send some feed up for you two lovely birdies."
He nodded curtly. "Thank you."
She opened her mouth to say something else, but he traipsed for the door before she could, and opened it without hesitation.
"Hey, is that sand you're tracking all over the floor!?" came her startled shout. "Did you go to Naboo first after all!"
He hoped that the door slamming shut was a reasonable pretence for not having heard her.
Room twelve was up a single flight of rickety stairs. Threepio fluttered up from Luke's shoulder to stand on the banister above and peer down at him, squinting. Artoo, not one to be outdone even by such an innocent, non-competitive action, flew after him and perched on the doorknob.
"I need to open that, Artoo," he snapped without heat. There was even a little amusement trickling back into his voice. Artoo cheeped something that needed no translation.
Luke waved his hand and Artoo jumped into the air to avoid him, chittering angrily, but he was airborne long enough for Luke to slot the key in the lock and twist the knob to get the door open. The room inside was surprisingly bright, with the window sure enough facing west over the dock, and the sea beyond it. It was hardly sunless today: a strong wind had tossed the clouds away. The sun hung bang in the middle of the sky, searing the sea with blinding reflections. Threepio hopped up to the windowsill as Luke cracked the window open and bathed in the chink of sunlight that fell.
Luke smiled at him, and at Artoo pattering along the curtain rail curiously. Then he burst out laughing as Artoo let a few droppings loose while directly above Threepio.
Threepio's shout made Luke laugh harder, but he went to fetch a cloth and wet it so he could rinse off his poor feathers, even as he screeched. "Artoo! Artoo! Artoo!"
"Artoo," Luke joined the chiding. "That was mean."
"That was mean," Threepio agreed emphatically. Artoo made a noise that Luke could have mistaken for a raspberry.
"I cannot believe that you two were married adults in love before I was born," Luke said. "You drive each other crazy."
"In love," Threepio said sadly, all traces of indignance gone.
Artoo made a sad noise as well, fluttering down onto the windowsill. That was a mistake, as Threepio yanked himself away from Luke's cleaning administrations to shout, "Crazy!" at him.
Then they butted heads affectionately. Luke turned away and sat on the bed to remove his boots.
He scoffed as he saw the torrent of sand that gushed out of them, accidentally breakings the birds' moment. He couldn't help but feel a little bad for the barmaid now that he saw how bad it was—he hadn't taken these boots off for a few days, and he'd thought that most of the sand that had clung to him as he traipsed through Tatooine would have petered away as he traipsed across the rest of the thrice-damned continent. But it hadn't: it still clung to him, rubbing his toes raw. It was as uncomfortable a reminder of where he'd come from as… everything else, really.
The boots settled next to the bed neatly, and he considered asking if he could borrow a brush from downstairs to take care of the sand, before deciding that after several days in the same clothes and boots, he probably needed a bath first. He shrugged off his new coat to hang it on the hook, then laid his pack gently down on the bed, quickly sorting through to find the brushes and pens that had fallen loose. He bound them back up in their case again, then glanced at the latest letter his mother had sent him, picked up from the post office in Hosnia. He'd read them through several times already, warmed by the sombre platitudes she always offered, and glanced over the diagrams. They weren't wonderfully drawn—she was a trained politician, not a trained artist—but he could tell they were meant to help him deal with the hair he insisted on growing long. He was touched by the gesture.
But he didn't go to attempt them now. First, he delicately, reverently, pulled out the book buried at the very base of the bag, protected from wear and tear by spells, enchantments, and the careful padding of spare clothes.
He settled the Codex on the bed and brushed his hands over it. No damage or dents of note, as far as he could see; the spells were holding. That boded well, because Ben was the one whose magic most strongly protected it, so if his spells still held, that meant he still lived. Luke wondered if they'd run into each other. If Ben had found Ahch-To and their lost gods, after all, and if Luke would be able to find it too.
He flipped it over, so he could examine the spine and the front. The spine still had the stamped symbol of the Jedi on it, several generations old but still gleaming a far stronger gold than the codex he'd seen at the book stall in the market. He imagined the spells on that one had long since worn off. The great tome, with all its haphazard knowledge gathered painstakingly over decades and sometimes centuries, was at the mercy of the world.
It shouldn't hurt him as much as it did. All the codices except his were scattered throughout the world, now, without any magic to protect them. If he'd been heading back to the library in Alderaan, he would have bought it, to take it back. But he wasn't going back, and there wasn't much point.
The Jedi's craft had come more under fire as rising and falling kingdoms increasingly used it to conquer and enslave their neighbours, then when the Jedi had become cagier about who they shared their knowledge with, they'd been accused of hoarding it themselves. He'd seen Vader torch the Jedi's libraries and schools of Tatooine and Ryloth himself. He, and his heart-map, had been the one to cause it.
His sister's branch, Appenza Library in Alderaan, was the last establishment he knew of that had survived the coups, assassinations, and attacks over the years. Ahsoka and Leia had chosen to stay there while they trained; most of the knowledge was kept there anyway, it was the best place for academic learning, and it was safer. But Luke had already spent twelve years cooped up in that mountain keep when Ben had posed him that same choice, and Ben had caved to his wishes to see the world—the same way he'd caved when Luke's father had asked for the same thing. He didn't regret that at all.
He just regretted that it had to be so complicated.
There was a thumping noise outside, and he heard the barmaid come past, with noises that sounded like aggressive sweeping. He caught sand and Naboo and menace among the torrent of muttering, and he had to agree there. He preferred Little Corel's stones to sand, personally, and tossed a mutinous look at the pile on the floor of his room.
He didn't like handling this on his own.
That trade route the Jedi had opened… it had killed the tourism industry from Coronet to Little Corel. The Lonely Dove clearly still suffered from it. But it was also why his mother had survived the burgeoning Coruscanti Empire's blockade decades ago, when she could call for help through the Jedi who sailed the straits and have her allies in Corellia shatter the blockade like glass.
Before Naboo had been annexed three queens later and the Empire had plopped her back on the throne against her will, of course.
He didn't know what was best, and he missed Ben.
He flipped the book open. Page after page, map after beautiful map, cascaded in front of him. Some were plain and simple; others more complex; others were tinged with magic and rippled with every touch, the colours bright and popping. Decades of research, of regular trips to one of the libraries around the continent to have the knowledge shared, organised, taught. None of the libraries had received information from this codex for years. There was only one library left to receive it.
He turned to the latest map, of the fish movements throughout the straits that Mara had described to him. He glanced at his scrap of papyrus, then to the bathroom, then to the empty header on the map.
Washing could wait—for now. He was almost finished.
The next morning rose early, but he didn't rise with it, his room facing west as it was. It was fairly late before he finally got up, despite the birds cheeping in his ears. At one point they'd given up, and flown out the window to go harass the gulls along the coasts by stealing their food.
Luke didn't try to stop them. He got up a little while later—and immediately regretted the lie-in.
He had a beautiful view of the harbour, and that meant he could see the massive ship in it. A ship he knew intimately.
Vader.
He scrambled out of bed, shoving his boots on with lightning speed. "Artoo! Threepio!" he hissed, glaring out the windows at the ships, eyes peeled for a flicker of their colourful wings. "Get back here, Vader's—"
"Vader!" Threepio screeched. He barrelled through the window like a cannonball and hit the bed just as hard, sending the pillow up in a puff of feathers. Artoo shot after him, chittering fiercely. "Vader! Vader!"
"I noticed!" Luke snapped. "Let's get out of here, now, before he forces the locals to lock down the ports." Artoo whistled his aggressive agreement.
Luke grabbed his pack—too quickly. The contents spilled out over the floor, clattering among the pile of Tatooinian sand, and he cursed, scrambling to pick them up again. Brushes, pens, last few sheets of parchment, papyrus… His heart stopped when he saw a book flopped across the floorboards as well, but restarted when he recognised the magic book he'd bought from the woman yesterday. The Codex was still safe and snug at the bottom of his pack.
He shoved all of it in haphazardly and swore again when the book refused to go in—it wasn't arranged right. He held it in his hand for a moment, then paused.
Tore off a piece of papyrus, grabbed a pen, scrawled a note, and dumped the book on the bedside table.
When he was about to take off, he paused again.
No.
No.
No, he couldn't. Why did he always—
Threepio was starting to squawk in distress at Luke's less than savoury language as he yanked the Codex back out and flicked to the last page. His picturesque drawings on the map of the fish mocked him. But there were still a lot of parchment pages left in the volume.
He pressed that page against the next blank one, tracking his thumb against the corners and muttering. There was a tightness in his chest, every one of his muscles shivered, and the world was so bright and loud it hurt—then his gut tugged as the ink began to bleed through the parchment and onto the next page. Darker and darker, from construction lines to great bold finishes and flourishes, the colours still jewel bright. When he was done, he lifted his hand again and released the magic.
The trembling stopped. The world no longer seemed so unbearably vivid. And Luke had two identical copies of the same map sitting in front of him.
He grabbed one of his knives from his boot and sheared the second one from the Codex. It fell into his hand, thick and heavy, and he laid it under the magic book on the bedside table.
A few hours later, that barmaid would come in to clean the room and find a gift of a magic book laid out for her, with the note, You said you wanted to learn magic—anyone can. Upon lifting it with a giddy smile, she would see the map as well, with the mermaid drawings and the fish and the currents annotated in a neat hand, and after a few thorny thoughts wrestling for attention she would conclude three things:
They did not have to starve yet.
Her sweetheart's family could be safe. They could be together happily.
And, as she recalled hearing that the young man with the map and magic had fled the island after a long Imperial pursuit… perhaps not every mapmaker worked for the Empire, or were quite so bad, after all.
Now, though, there was just Luke and his friends, and the increasingly scarce resource of a head start.
"I don't know Little Corel very well," he said, "it will be harder to lose him. When you were flying, did you see any paths? Would it be best for me to follow you? I can't just walk out the front door."
Artoo tilted his head back and called loudly, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement. Threepio translated.
"Follow. Me."
Then they flew for the open window, Luke shouldered his pack, and climbed out.
Don't look down, he thought wryly as he dropped onto a flint and wood roof, sending a few splinters skittering across and dropping onto the paving stones below. He jumped, and the world sharpened to catch him as he fell.
His initial plan had been to buy a small ship with his remaining funds, patch it up if necessary, and sail into the ocean from there. But there was no way he was going to do all that before Vader caught up to him—not if he was already here. He'd have to book passage elsewhere, repeat the entire bloody song and dance of shaking them far enough off his tail that he could get a decent head start, then try another time.
Which meant he had to get to the docks.
The sun was still in the southeast, late morning or noon as it was, but it glared as he fled west. Threepio was like a molten drop of sunlight himself, so at least he could follow the bright spark over the rooftops, since Artoo was harder to spot, but—
"There! Lord Vader said to follow the yellow bird!"
Luke skidded to a halt and hid himself in the dip between two adjoining rooftops, gesturing for the birds to lie low. Artoo, the tiny shadow ball he was at this distance, zoomed for a chimney, while Threepio dithered for a moment before landing on the same chimney. At a pointed cheep from Artoo, he tried to act natural, lifting his wing to preen it.
Luke crept along the roof and climbed up a little to peek over.
Two Imperial soldiers—members of Vader's personal retinue, judging by their blue neckerchiefs dangling over the standard off-white shirt—had their swords drawn in the street. They were eyeing Threepio with suspicion, like their heads would roll if they lost him. Which well they might, Luke supposed, but it made his task more complicated.
"You sure that's the right yellow bird?" the trooper on the left said sceptically. He had a small button nose wrinkled in confusion, and a prickly blond beard. "Can't really tell from this distance, and there's so many birds about."
The original trooper scoffed. "That's a bloody parakeet, mate. You seen any of them around Corellia? They're way too nice for here, it's just white gulls and gutter birds down in these blasted islands. They're meant to be up near Felucia."
"Alright, who died and made you resident bird expert?"
There was an imperious sniff. "We all have hobbies."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I'll contact the others—" He glanced up, then, just as Luke moved into a patch of sunlight. His hair glinted bright and gold. "Hey! Is that—?"
Luke took off running. Threepio screeched in terror but took off as well, leading the way. The troopers gave chase, brandishing their rusty shortswords even if they were far, far out of range.
"Stop! Stop, criminal, in the name of the Empire!"
Luke kept running. The birds soared over a particularly high roof, and he didn't hesitate before he leaped. Magic unfurled in his limbs, the world crystallising around him again, and he caught himself on the side of the wall just in time to haul himself up a metre. Two metres. Three.
He heard the squeal of metal through air and yanked himself to the side, stumbling down a few feet as he fought to get his grip again, hanging by his arm. The thrown dagger hit the stone wall instead and clattered to the ground. The second one they threw—shit, they were right underneath him now—would have grazed his leg if it hadn't caught on his thick trouser leg. It just hung for a moment, like it was confused at how it got there.
The third he had to duck to avoid, nailing the mortar in the wall right where his head had been. He grimaced.
"Thanks," he called down. It came out a little sarcastic, so when he yanked the third one out of the mortar and used it as a spike to help him climb, before grabbing the second one to complete the act, he called again. "I mean it."
"He's getting away, idiot!"
He went a little faster, then, though his limbs were burning. He left the daggers embedded at the top of the wall then flipped onto the roof.
"How much farther?" he panted. He didn't have a moment to catch his breath and he didn't take one.
Threepio didn't reply, just kept flying. Luke ran after him, stumbling this time on the far sheerer slope of the roof, and scowled when he barely managed to catch himself. "How much farther!?"
But from this end, he could look out to the dock on his own, and answer his own question:
Too far.
Threepio swooped low and Luke more slid than ran down the descent, dropping off the edge of the steep roof and catching the edge with one hand. His wrist clicked, his shoulder wrenched, but he dropped and rolled onto the next roof and only took a few bruises. He was so thankful he'd kept up the endurance training Ben had been giving him.
Up over the next peak, vaulting it like a horse. Falling onto his backside and struggling to recover, trembling from the constant exertion of magic, the exhaustion, how ferocious everything was in his awareness and understanding. He knew the world, and the path beneath his feet, which meant that he could manipulate it to his own ends, but knowing it so well was so much and he still couldn't take it as gracefully as Ben could.
Or his father could.
Not now. Not opening that line of thought now. Threepio had disappeared from sight into the next alley, where the roof gave way to the top of a sturdy stall awning. It was a long jump to the roof on the other side, but he thought he could make it if he took a deep breath, kept running and sliding at the right speed, and…
He slammed into the awning. It held his weight, like he'd hoped, though he was surprised at the lack of screams from the vendor underneath. The force carried over into his next jump, he brought his knees high, hands out to catch the roof edge—
And something caught him instead.
A hand fisted around his unkempt ponytail. It yanked him back; he screamed at the pain, chunks of hair tearing from his scalp and then bruises booming on his back as he hit the cobblestones, head spinning, pack thumping and thudding away from him. It took him a moment to register was he was staring up at, though there could never have been any doubt.
He towered over Luke. A shadow against the sunlit sky and the sea at his back, his armour angular enough to draw whispers of demons straight from the Alderaanian story books. At least, trickled into Luke's thoughts like the sluggish blood flow over his forehead and cheek, Vader was wearing his helmet. Luke didn't have to see his father's face.
The awning Luke had leapt off sagged behind him, and beneath it, at the stall, sat a man with a cut, scorched throat. Luke felt sick.
Vader noticed. "Keeping him quiet," he said simply. Unemotionally. But then he paused for a long, long moment—long enough that Luke knew this wasn't tactical. He was enjoying terrorising him.
"You have evaded me long enough," he informed him. Now triumph lit his voice from within like the sacrificial flames inside temple walls. Like the way his sword was already glowing in its sheath. Luke's awareness of the world hadn't faded with his injury; it had only grown more intense. He could feel his intent knitting strings of magic over his crown, closing the bleeding wounds, but he wasn't sure if it was the injury or the cacophony of Vader's magic making his head hurt so much.
Vader drew his blazing sword. Luke pushed himself up onto his elbows just to spit a frothing glob of saliva on the blade. It sizzled.
"Magic is not something to be used in battle," he said. He meant to hiss it, but it came out worse: sternly, like a teacher's admonishment. It came out sounding like Ben, who'd said it so often. "It is a form of connection. It is wrong to use it to attack or harm people."
Vader lifted the sword he'd set alight, charmed to fatal viciousness, and pointed it at Luke. His triumph was gone, now. His fury was the only thing burning, and it burned red.
Luke probably shouldn't have invoked Ben.
"And that foolishness," Vader informed him, surprisingly detached for one so enraged, "is why you die."
He slashed down but Luke rolled out of the way. Towards his pack, which he held out in front of him as Vader slashed again, drawing a line of fire in mid-air before Luke quenched it. Before it could hit the Codex. Vader hastily lowered the sword.
"Insolent boy."
"You've been chasing it this whole time, murderer," Luke said. "You wanna destroy it now?"
"I will destroy you first." He stalked forwards but Luke scrambled back, swaying to his feet.
"If you kill me, you know the spells on the heart-map you have there won't hold. It'll be useless."
"You are not the only one who knows how to cast such a spell anymore. Do not presume such importance. I have taken everything I need from it."
There were strange sounds going off in the distance, like miniature explosions. Luke didn't have the time to think about them as his stomach plummeted.
"No…" he said. "You can't—"
"Obi-Wan taught me first, boy. You are the less skilled imposter. And I have contributed far more to that Codex than you have. It is mine by right."
Luke was going to be sick.
"But hand it over now," Vader said, lower and more satisfied, "and your death may be quick."
More of those strange explosions. But he ignored them still, because there was a rustle of wings overhead. Luke didn't look up, but he knew what was coming. He tried to calm his heartrate.
"Come and get it," he spat, and threw his pack towards the sky.
Vader lunged, but Luke rolled out of the way, and Threepio dived to catch the thick fabric in his claws. It was too heavy for him to lift for long but he made it a few metres before dropping it, and by then Luke was already running to the end of the alley, leaping up onto a crate, a cart, and back to the rooftops above his pursuer. The pack landed in his hands and he slung it over his shoulder, looking back.
Vader hadn't given chase.
Vader was stumbling about, swatting at the air and wiping at the eye plates of his helmet. They were smeared thick with bird shit.
Artoo flew up to them, seeming very satisfied with himself.
Vader tore his helmet off and tossed it aside, glaring up at Artoo's trajectory—then his gaze landed on Luke. Luke's lungs compressed as they locked gazes, Vader's face revealed.
For a moment, he didn't even notice the slash over his eye, the burn scar over his cheek and nose. There was only the hair. Luke's hair. The cleft chin. Luke's chin. The eyes, the same shape and colour as Luke's, lit by the fire of everything wicked.
Luke was frozen still by that gaze. This was the monster who had torn his family apart. Vader lifted his flaming sword.
And there was a scream.
A fisherwoman carrying a newly bought set of kitchen knives turned into the quiet street and spotted the dead man behind the stall. She screamed again at she noticed Vader.
"You," she hissed. "You killed my husband!"
Vader turned, sneering—and had to duck when a thrown knife nearly took his eye out. "Pathetic—"
"You killed him!"
"Run!" Luke shouted at her. She looked up at him, her face a rictus of grief and fury, but when she saw his fear she froze. "Run for it!"
He didn't stop to see if she took his advice.
Rooftop and pavement blurred together in his teary eyes but magic kept him steady—magic, and the distant gold speck of Threepio's wings. He had nothing but himself, the Codex, and his friends, and if he couldn't keep going for the first one, he could for the other two.
Over the rooftops. Onto the streets. Staying on the streets, as the crowd thinned and the city gave way to a wide-open seafront, a road with little cover but a straight shot. The wind and salt spray stung his face, but they were a promise. One he hoped could be kept.
More of those strange explosions. Screams, too. Bang, bang, bang. He didn't know what that was, but as he glanced around at the mass of Vader's soldiers on his tail, like neat rows of ivory chess pieces, he didn't want to know. He kept running, ducked closer to the houses and potential escape routes.
Something banged above him. He didn't have time to look up, but he should have. A shadow leapt from the rooftop and tackled him, sending him rolling, as—
A whistling like a dagger through air, but higher pitched, clinking and smashing as it zipped around them…
His accoster rolled off him none the worse for wear and another bang rang out. His eyes zeroed in on the devices in their hands: two clubs, hollow inside it seemed, curved and flecked with metal. They sparked with every shot.
When a sailor came too near, they staggered. A thin blossom of blood spread across their shirt like the centre of a tickshead flower, and they fell.
Luke was so busy gaping at that that it was only when his gaze latched onto the two dark braided buns of his assailant that he realised who it was.
"Leia?"
"Glad to see you finally recognised me!" She grabbed his arm. "Keep running."
He did. "What in the worlds are those!?" he demanded as she unleashed more fire and blood.
"Pistols! We've been developing them back at home to help our soldiers in the war effort! Aren't they great?"
"They're terrifying."
She flashed him a grin that reminded him achingly of Ahsoka. "So am I."
He couldn't argue with that. But now it was on his mind, he had to ask, "Why are you here? Is Ahsoka with you? Why—"
"Of course she's with me! We're here to get you." Artoo and Threepio arced out of the sky, and Artoo landed on Leia's shoulder with a chirrup. "And you two, buddies."
"Why? How? What—"
"No time now." Ahsoka materialised at his shoulder then, too, and he yelped. At some point he must have let the magical awareness slip, too caught up in his shock; that was the only way he could have missed her familiar striped headscarf. "We need to get past the docks."
"Past the docks? We need to get to the docks!"
"Leia told you. We're here to get you out of here." Ahsoka didn't seem to have one of those pistols Leia had, but she stretched out a hand and Luke felt her seize the earth. The paved beachside road grew rocky and treacherous. Soldiers fell over the bodies of their dead friends.
Luke paused at that, his face creasing and mouth opening—to do what, he didn't know. But Ahsoka caught his arm and kept him moving, throwing him a sympathetic expression.
"We have a way out," she assured him. "You have to come with us, or you'll be going with Vader."
And there was no choice there, was there?