Luke met Yoda later that morning. He had walked carefully down the Falcon's ramp, testing his legs - which still felt like Karmoon jellyfish - took a cautious step onto the boggy ground and a careful breath of fetid, swampy air.
The ground felt springy, covered in a bright green moss and dead leaves. All around him were twisted, gnarled trees, their knobby branches wending to the sky, draped with long streamers of moss. The mist was thick enough that he couldn't see more than forty feet in front of him. But he could hear the myriad sounds of animal life, could see a thick snake not five feet from the end of the ramp slithering blithely around a dead branch.
"Good to see you improved and on your feet, it is," a chirpy voice announced, nearly at his elbow.
Luke almost jumped, distracted as he had been over the sight of this new planet, reaching automatically to his belt for a blaster that wasn't there. His eyes flew to the source of the voice - a small green creature, exactly as he'd remembered from his "dream".
"Yoda," he whispered.
The elfin Jedi nodded slowly, walked towards the ramp. "Welcome, young Skywalker. Come here for your Jedi training you have."
Luke wasn't sure how to answer that. Was it even a question? "I…" he fumbled. "Ben told me to come here."
He brought the heel of his hand to his forehead, to rub away the mental fog that still lingered after days of being completely out of it. "I don't even know what I'm…" he trailed off with a helpless shrug. "What I should be doing at this point."
"Wish to train as a Jedi, to defeat Darth Vader and Palpatine, do you?" Yoda asked, frowning.
A surprising flare of anger heated Luke's stomach. "No," he blurted, his answer surprising even himself. "No, that's not why. I wanted to become a Jedi like -" he broke off, afraid the catch in his voice would be telling.
Like my father.
Yoda's eyes widened. "Your father?" He echoed as though Luke had spoken the words out loud. "Ah yes, powerful Jedi was he. Powerful Jedi."
Luke's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Was everyone going to lie to him? Surely Yoda knew the truth as well as any of them.
Everyone knew but me, the idiot dreamer, he thought caustically, moving to sit down carefully on the edge of the ramp to save his limited energy. The only one kept in the dark.
"Sure," he mumbled, unable to keep the bitterness from coloring his tone. "I bet he was."
He felt Yoda's eyes on him, felt the scrutiny of the old Jedi's gaze. Maybe he was creating a bad impression on the elfin Jedi master. At the moment he hardly cared.
"Much anger in you, you have." It wasn't a question.
Luke felt a muscle in his cheek twitch. Yes, he was angry. So very, very angry. "I don't even know who I am anymore," he said tightly. "Just a pawn in everyone else's game. The facts I thought I knew are lies…. The friends I thought I had are now my enemies."
There was a long silence. Luke wondered idly if Yoda would walk away with a sad shake of his head, declare him a lost cause, a waste of talent, a traitor to the Jedi
mission.
"Why are you here?" Yoda asked finally, the question sounding genuinely curious rather than accusatory. The old Jedi moved to the edge of the ramp, leaning on his walking stick as he moved to sit, opposite Luke.
Luke shook his head, feeling for a moment the anger dissipate and the sting of tears behind his eyes. He swallowed back the lump in his throat, shook his head again, helplessly. "Ben told me to come. I didn't...want to listen to him."
He lied to me.
He gazed steadily at the ground now. "We had nowhere else to go."
Yoda nodded thoughtfully. Luke wondered if Han had told him how they'd barely evaded capture by Vader's forces, how they'd fled across that open field, strafing laser fire over their heads. Luke belatedly remembered what Han had told him, that the elfin Jedi had saved his life. Aunt Beru would have given him a stern and disappointed talking-to over his poor manners.
"I…" he began, hesitantly. "Thank you for your help. For saving my life."
Yoda nodded once, tilted his head slightly to one side, the compassion evident in his posture. "Long journey to arrive at this point, you have had, young Luke."
Luke blinked at the well of tears that swamped his eyes again, at the surprising tone of kindness in Yoda's voice. He had been through a lot in the short year since he'd left Tattooine. But he hadn't allowed himself to dwell too much on any of it. It was easier to do as long as he kept moving. The Alliance offered ample opportunity to drown his feelings in the busyness and adrenaline of simply trying to stay alive. Besides, he was far from the only one who'd had tragic circumstances. It was an unspoken agreement among his comrades on base that certain things, like one's past tragedies, were simply not discussed.
He did not like the torrent of feeling that threatened to crash over him now, like a towering wave of water. If he let it fall on him now, he would drown.
Luke pushed it down, back into its little box, where it could be safely ignored, swallowing against the lump in his throat.
Yoda nodded, almost in approval, as if Luke had passed his first test to becoming a Jedi. The old face wrinkled into a satisfied expression, both clawed hands settling firmly in the knobby top of his cane. "There is no emotion. There is the Force."
He listened, in spite of himself, wondering if Yoda quoted that to every young Jedi-hopeful who crossed his path.
"A powerful Jedi, the Galaxy needs," Yoda added quietly. "The rest, gone they are."
Luke laughed bitterly, the lump in his throat, the threat of emotion dissipating easily now with remembered anger. Is that why Yoda had saved his life? His utility to the Jedi cause?
A pawn, he thought darkly.
"I am not a powerful Jedi," he retorted. "I don't think I can be. I'm a liability." His hand caught a dead leaf from the muddy ground at the edge of the ramp, and he began twisting it around his fingers. "Don't you know who my father is?"
Yoda gazed steadily at him; he, sitting tiredly on the ground, busy twisting the leaf to smithereens, the way all his hopes and dreams had been mutilated. The old Jedi scrunched his features, set his mouth. "Yes, I know."
Luke raised his eyes. He plowed on, winding the pliable leaf stem tighter around his finger, so it turned white, cutting off the blood supply. "Aren't you worried Darth Vader's son might turn out to be just like him? Then there would be two of us. What would the Jedi do then?"
"Always in motion, the future is," the diminutive Jedi master answered cryptically, his gaze still thoughtful as he studied Luke.
Yoda tapped his cane against the deck. "The Jedi Knights long have been the guardians of peace and justice in the Galaxy. A deep commitment, this is. Decide you must, young Skywalker, where your responsibilities lie. A decision only you can make, it is."
Luke didn't answer, finally letting go of the mangled leaf and letting it fall, curled in a tight spiral, to the ramp.
"But know this, you should," Yoda added, his gaze following the crumpled leaf's fall to the ground. "Trained as a Jedi or not, Vader and the Emperor will still seek you out. Try to turn you to the dark side of the Force, they will. Best to prepare, it is."
A long silence, and then the old Jedi turned, walked back the way he had apparently come, dark form disappearing into the mist.
Luke gazed after him a long time, unmoving.