Home

Home.

It was a term that Tahiri Veila could not define at this point in her life.

Was it here on Tatooine?

Yavin 4?

Zonama Sekot?

The concept of even having a home was foreign to her now. At one point in her life she may have considered wherever Anakin Solo was to be her home. That chance died along with Anakin. Now his brother was gone as well, slain by his own twin sister.

Tahiri considered that if she were to define a home for herself, she would have to define herself first. What was she? She was no longer a Jedi. She was too human to be Vong. Bounty hunter was too new for her. She had no definition. No future.

Her past was here on Tatooine. This visit was something that she couldn't avoid.

Sliven, her foster father, had died. Word came from his own daughter, Tamarraqq, through a message sent by general comlink from Anchorhead. Tahiri remarked that it was important if Tuskens were using technology to get a message out. Tamarraqq had summoned Tahiri to be part of the funeral for her foster father. Tahiri remembered the ritual. The dead of the Tusken tribes were to be taken to the Valley of Spirits.

Tahiri had been told the story before. She even set foot on the edge of the Valley once. It had been long ago since then. She had been too young to understand its impact or meaning. It was also before she had been exposed to three different cultures so far during her life.

Tahiri had been waiting by her shuttle for Tamarraqq. The spaceports foreman had tried to speak to her, but she did her best to ignore him. Tamarraqq finally arrived by dewback. This was more the Tusken style. No speeders for them. Tamarraqq was disguised as a merchant. If she had worn her Tusken robes there would have been more than a riot at the spaceport. Tamarraqq approached Tahiri and gasped at the site of her.

The evidence of Vong shaping was permanently embedded onto Tahiri's forehead. They were in the shape of three long scars that were spaced evenly. Tahiri had gotten used to the shock that people expressed when seeing her markings for the first time. After the initial shock, Tamarraqq greeted Tahiri in her broken Basic and they both rode the dewback to the temporary camp the Tuskens set up just before the ridge of the Valley. Memories of Tahiris childhood flooded back to her just from riding a dewback once again.

They reached the camp and Tahiri was told by tribesmen through Tamarraqq's translation that the funeral was to be that night. The other tribesmen and women stared at Tahiri with scowls. She imagined it was because she left them and their way of life to become a Jedi. The more she could hear them speak, the more Tahiri remembered the Tusken language. At one point, however, Tahiri tried to speak Tusken and her words came out in the Vong language. She decided not to try and speak Tusken.

One of the priests went into the story of the Valley of Spirits. This was how Tuskens related their heritage. Through spoken word. Tuskens never wrote anything down. That would leave evidence of their presence. Tuskens told their stories to their kin so many times that they were memorized. Tahiri had heard the Valley of Spirits story many times as a child. It had been quite a while since Tahiri last heard it.

A great and powerful warrior had shown tremendous fury after a tribe had taken his loved one as a prisoner and tortured her. He came to rescue her, but she died in his arms. Through an uncommon hatred, the warrior slaughtered the entire tribe with his blue staff of Death. The victims included women, children, and pets. None could survive the warriors fury. The spirits of the dead stayed at their last camp. Ever since, Tuskens have deemed the place to be sacred. The Valley was to be visited on only two occasions. Captured enemies were to be brought there to feed the demons hunger. Tuskens who had succumbed to death were brought to the Valley for their final journey.

This was the last wish of Sliven.

Tahiri approached the mummified corpse of her foster father. Though she knew he was not her birth father, Sliven was the only father she had known. She wasn't old enough to know her true father. Tahiri wanted so much to hold her foster father's body. That was impossible. Only the tribes priests were qualified to carry the dead. Tahiri walked side by side in the funeral procession to the Valley of Spirits. Once there, the priests rehashed the stories of Sliven. His greatest feats. His weaknesses. His adventures. Tahiri listened with great detail until

She heard the call.

It was a faint cry at first.

She looked around at the Tuskens. Perhaps someone was mourning Sliven with tears. Not one Tusken stirred. The Tuskens could hold their emotions pretty well.

The cry continued. It was human. And it was getting louder. It was a moan of pain, not loss. Tahiri turned her head in the direction of its source.

The camp. The now empty camp. There was nothing down there but sand. And the deteriorated bones of a slaughtered tribe long ago. It occurred to her that the story never gave a time when the event actually happened. Was it a thousand years ago? Or merely decades?

The cry from the ancient grave site beckoned Tahiri. She slowly parted from the group of mourners and walked to the edge of the Valley.

The moaning continued. The voice wasn't physical. It transcended through time and space. Tahiri gasped as she realized where it truly was coming from the Force.

How was the Force involved with the Valley? Within a short time, she could see.

At first, she thought she was flow walking. But that wasn't possible without the help of Jacen. Caedus. The past through flow walking was but a shadow. This was not a shadow.

This was a vision.

The campsite was seen under a full moon. It was silent, but a comfortable silence. She heard the moaning again. It was coming from a tent on the outskirts of the camp. It was where prisoners were kept. Tahiri strained to focus through the Force and listen. The moaning tried to form words.

I love y—

The words ended abruptly. Tahiris eyes were focused on the tent. Suddenly, a dark figure emerged. She could instantly feel the warriors rage. Then she heard a most famous sound.

A snap hiss.

The blue staff of Death was a lightsaber!

The vision allowed her to witness the carnage that followed. The darkness of the warrior was familiar to her. She knew that darkness. She felt it in the presence of the New Emperor. She felt it on Dagobah. And she felt it within Caedus, although she couldn't recognize it as such at the time. She watched as Tuskens were cut down literally one by one. Gaffi sticks were no match with the warriors blade combined with his anger. They had encountered an enemy who embraced the dark side.

Maybe not embraced. She could feel the warriors rage, but it was something he had never experienced before. He didn't know how to control it. The dark side seemed to be controlling him. The warrior could not make himself stop. She could feel his hatred, but underneath, there was his fear. Once it was over, the warrior turned back and looked upon the death that he created. Tahiri could only see the back of him. He wasn't an old man. In fact, he was barely a boy. A teenager at most. She could now feel his painful regret at what he had done. He threw his lightsaber into the sand, thus extinguishing it. He sank into the sand on his knees and he cried out in his own pain, Mother!

He sat up after a few moments and retrieved his weapon. He turned his face toward Tahiri and she could see him. Brilliant blue eyes. Shaved dark blonde hair with a long braid in the back. His features almost gave him the same appearance as

Luke! No! Tahiri made the connection but could hardly believe it. Tatooine was Luke Skywalkers home planet. Had it also been his fathers? Tahiri suddenly knew the identity of the Valleys demon.

Anakin Skywalker!

The vision ended and the campsite disappeared. The truth had been too much for her and she fell to the sand.

She woke up at their temporary base camp. Tamarraqq was at her side. The priests were inside the tent. They were mumbling too fast for Tahiri to understand them. She looked at Tamarraqq with concern.

Tamarraqq said in her broken Basic, "Priest say...you see demon of Valley."

Tahiri said at once, "I know the demon's name. It's—"

Tamarraqq brought up her finger to her mouth in a shushing gesture. "Demon must no named. I know not you know. Its name...never be known."

Tahiri had never honestly believed in Tusken religion. Perhaps she was too young to understand it as well. She knew for a fact that Anakin Skywalker was not coming back, even as a Force spirit. The place where he experienced his first taste of the dark side was the last site he would want to revisit. Anakin Skywalker was not coming back in any form.

The Tuskens did not know this. Neither would they understand it. She could attempt to explain it to them. She could explain that Anakin Skywalker, though deep into the dark side, was redeemed in the end. Redemption in their enemies was something the Tuskens did not accept. She could show them her lightsaber to tell them that not all wielders of staffs of Death were all demons. Would that confuse them? Most of them were already showing their scorn for her presence at the funeral. Would they cast her out? She had already been through banishment once.

Ironically, it was Anakin Skywalker's grandson, Ben, who had given her the compassion to free her. The Jedi Council had almost assigned a permanent guide to watch over her actions. Considering that she had the Force, they declined that idea. Ben had invited her to retrain on Ossus. She refused. After the things she had done through the Force, she no longer considered herself a Jedi.

Now, after witnessing the rage of a teenage boy who would eventually become Darth Vader, she questioned herself. Could that have been her a few months ago? She used the dark side in the ways that Caedus taught her. She used it against those who she had once considered her family. Did she have that much rage in her to perform those acts? She murdered Pellaeon, but was it out of hatred? Or was it blind loyalty? It bothered her that the murder was simply an act of necessity. She now regretted the shot that killed him. Did that make up for his death? She wished she could go back in time and change it. She already tried that, however. Caedus told her that she could change the past. She found out afterwards that he only told her that for his own purposes. Perhaps it was that fear of losing Anakin Solo again that made her want to change the past. Was it fear, and not anger, that controlled her actions?

She had yet to find the answers. And she decided that becoming a Jedi again would no longer provide her with them. At least, not at this time.

The next morning Tahiri allowed Tamarraqq to take her back to the spaceport in Anchorhead by dewback. Tamarraqq said her quick farewell and Tahiri Veila was alone once again.

That was how she planned to find the answers to her questions. Alone.

She allowed the spaceport foreman to help her prep the shuttle for takeoff. He tried again to strike up a conversation with her. She ignored him as usual. It was strange that he didn't once mention the scars on her forehead. Then again, he was probably not paying attention to her body parts above her shoulders. Once the shuttle was ready, the foreman asked her a question that she wasn't expecting.

"Well, did you get what you needed while you were here?"

Tahiri considered her answer and replied, "I freed myself from my past."

The foreman laughed. "I don't think that's possible. I've been all around this galaxy before I ended up on this sand trap. I learned a lot. The way I see it, unless we each conform, unless we follow our leaders blindly, there is no possible way we can remain free."

Tahiri sneered, "With a philosophy like that it's no wonder you're stuck on this sand trap."

She was in the process of closing the ramp when he yelled out, "Where you are going now?"

"Home!" she yelled back.

"Where's that?"

"Don't know. I'll send you a Holo-card when I find out!"

The ramp closed shut.

The End