living things in desert places

"So," Valia said cheerfully as the sun sank over the Jundland Wastes, "good things take their fair time. We'll enter the wastelands again tomorrow, and in two days we'll reach the Valley of the Spirits."

It was evening again. Jaina had slept for a great part of the day, and so had her companions. When she had woken in the late afternoon she had realized she had not been awakened for her watch. She apologized but was waved off by Valia.

"You needed to rest. You did contribute a bit more to yesterday's events than we did."

During the day, the runner seemed to have applied her time to set some snares. They had desert rabbit for dinner, roasted over a small fire and seasoned well with the help of a small sack of herbs and salt the old woman produced from her bag. It tasted good: a million times better than nutri bars and freeze-dried vegetables. Jag had – probably reluctantly – discarded his helmet during the day. They had spent the last afternoon hours under the sparse shade of their tent, cleaning their weapons and mostly not doing anything. Valia used a wicked-looking dagger to carve something out of a piece of desert wood. While the sun sank, it took on the startlingly accurate forms of a female krayt dragon, complete with horns.

"You're planning on taking the shortest route through the Wastes, or the safest one?" Jag asked. Interested, Jaina lifted her head. It had not even occurred to her that Valia could deliberately have chosen a longer but more secure path.

Valia shrugged. "You saw what happened to the caravan."

"You saw I could handle it." Jaina crossed her arms in front of her chest and received a glare from Jag that had no need to be formed into words. "Fine – we handled it," she conceded. "Fact is, we don't have much time. We lost almost two days."

"Well, that's that. We could take a shortcut. It's not safe, not by any reasonable standards." The old woman seemed to weight her options. "It's not only unsafe in regards to Tusken Raider ambushes. The Wastes are dangerous in themselves."

"But you know them." Looking at the desert runner, Jaina tried to gauge the sense she got off her in the Force. There was a great amount of experience born from years and years of crossing the Dune Sea. Valia had not lived to see her grandchildren grow up by underestimating anything, not herself and not her surroundings, or by taking unnecessary risks. There was fear in her, too, a small flicker, steady and cold. But that was just as well. Jaina had learned the hard way that people who didn't fear anything were missing a vital understanding of what it meant to be human.

"I know them," Valia said, slowly. "We could take a shortcut. We'd be through the Wastes by tomorrow night. But we'll have to start off early tomorrow, and lie low all the time. We'll have to be constantly alert. And you have to do exactly what I say, and the second I say it."

"Seems sensible," Jag nodded. "When it comes to it, don't worry about us. We'll manage."

"I'm more worried about myself," the guide muttered darkly. "Well, we might as well try. I always wanted to check up a few things out there. Oh, and while we're talking about that." Her forehead crinkled in thought. "Have you ever wondered, girl, what your crazy Dark One would want out there?"

"Do I look like I knew what a Dark Jedi would think?"

Jag carefully placed the last power pack into his blaster with an audible click. He looked at it thoughtfully before adding: "I've been thinking about that, too."

Jaina shot him an acidic glare. "You don't say."

"No, seriously." Jag looked at her, calmly. He was actually looking at her, not through her. The realization made her heart lurch painfully. "What's she doing there? It's a valley in the middle of a desert. What would she be searching for out there?"

"Some kind of super weapon? A Dark Force artifact?" Jaina suggested. The words echoed through her head eerily.

"Another Sith meditation sphere?"

"Maybe." She frowned. None of those suggestions felt right, but they didn't exactly feel wrong, either. "Or she's just bantha-shit mental these days."

"Granted." Jag's humor was as dry as the desert that surrounded them. "Is she listening to some evil Sith overlord who's talking in her mind?"

Skeptical, Jaina inspected her light saber for the twenty-somethingst time that day. At least there was no sand caught in the crystal compartment of the hilt, not anymore. "I don't know. Are there any Sith Lords left?"

She swallowed at the knowledge that the last one to rise to power had been her brother.

"Hey, you're the Jedi, girl." Valia leaned back. "You tell me." She chuckled drily. "You know, living on a backwater planet like this Lady here is a curious thing. Of course, most of the news just rush past us, since who cares? But the Yuuzhan Vong couldn't be ignored, of course. The Hutts' involvement saw to that. Along comes a war, and a victory and a new government, and everything seemed fine. Except for the thing they called Swarm War, which might not have taken place close to here but still. And then rumors start of how there's a new Lord Vader, and believe it or not, Tatooine still stops to listen when the name is dropped. Next there is some commotion about Mandalorians, wild gossips about the Imperial Remnant, and suddenly the Galactic Alliance is discarded in favor for something entirely new once again. One would be an utter idiot to not wonder about what has happened in the meantime."

"That," Jag said after a long pause, "Was a very interesting summary of the galactic history of the past two decades."

"Wasn't it?" Valia laughed, delighted. "Just imagine my surprise when Jedi Girl here appears just in front of me. When the rumors went round Mos Eisley that a crazy woman was looking for a desert runner, I wouldn't have imagined."

"So what," Jaina snapped, feeling mildly annoyed and very disconcerted, "are you trying to say here?"

The old woman smiled sympathetically. "Did you believe you could set foot on Tatooine without her noticing? Jaina Solo, the moment you appeared here you had no secrets to keep anymore."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Of you, of course." Valia's words were matter-of-fact. "Or your mission, whatever you want it to be about. You've come here to search for someone, and this someone clearly is important to you. I would be stupid to think you'd greet her like a long-lost friend and take her home, of course. But what are you planning to do, actually?"

"Alema Rar," Jaina began and was shocked into silence when Jag's eyes sparked angrily at the same time and he drove his fist into the sand deeply.

"Alema Rar," he said. "She's a Dark Force user. She incited the Swarm War, which led to the disgrace of my family and me being exiled. She forged an alliance with the Sith Lord Lumiya and aided her and Darth Caedus-" A short glance towards Jaina, and she felt the now-familiar wave of guilt and grief, "In order to destabilize the Republic and the Imperial Remnant. She functioned as assassin, was sent to kill Princess Organa Solo and her husband. She aided Darth Caedus in the abduction of Ben Skywalker, during which he was tortured, and thus was an integral part in the events that led to the fight between Darth Caedus and Mara Jade Skywalker. There is no turning back for her now, and neither do we have the privilege of turning away from what is our duty. She has to be brought to justice."

He stopped, breathing faster than usual, and Jaina noticed his hands were curled into fists. Was he angry because of what Alema had done to him, and his family? Or was it that he wanted to apprehend her because her actions had hurt other people, as well?

Valia eyed them carefully, first Jag, then her. "You talk about duty, boy. What do you know about duty?"

"Do not," Jag said, slowly and carefully. "Do not tell me that I do not know the true meaning of the word duty, woman. What do you know about me?" He was white as a sheet, his fisted hands trembling. And Jaina could feel his pain. It came back to this: again and again. Duty. Jagged Fel, firstborn and heir to Soontir Fel, Baron to the Chiss Empire. Jaina Solo, last daughter of Princess Leia Organa Solo, hero of the Rebellion and the New Republic. Commander. Sword. Chiss. Jedi. It was so meaningless, and yet so vital. What were they without their duties? It was Jag's duty to bring justice to his family's name, and Jaina's to protect the ones that couldn't protect themselves. Their duties had made them who they were. Hunter. Sword. It was a privilege, and a curse. Not for the first time in her life Jaina wished she would be able to cast everything aside: her duties, her ties. Her past.

Valia's eyes had been searching. Now, her gaze softened. "There is the wisdom of the ancients in your eyes, boy. You are too young for such kinds of regrets. The two of you are."

Jag's pain was her pain. It swirled around them and into her, and it melded in a hurt so great she choked on it.

Jaina grabbed her mask. "I need some air."

Outside, the cold of the night was slowly replacing day's heat. She scrambled away from their campsite as fast as possible, not caring what they were thinking at her sudden exit. The crushing pain abated only slowly, leaving behind a void she could not explain and feared to look at. The night air was brisk and fresh. Carefully, Jaina took one breath after another, just concentrated on the flow streaming in and out of her lungs. Tears pricked at the insides of her eyes and she bit them back, forced them down again until she had the feeling she was choking on them – but she did not cry. Instead, she steadied her breathing, and concentrated.

Bit by bit, her racing heart calmed. The Force swirled around her, alive, not offering comfort but comfortable in the familiarity of its touch. She pushed away the lingering feeling of utter loneliness and walked back towards the camp. Circling back, she thought she heard some wild dogs' cry, but except for the wind and the occasional animal shifting the sand she did not hear or see anything. When she reached the tent, Valia's mutters greeted her. And then words leapt out of the quiet din, sharp and edged.

"So what's about the two of you? Gossip says you have history." The desert runner gave the word just the right amount of a tilt that made it imply just about everything. "How long have you known each other?"

Jaina stood, rooted to the spot, and did not dare to move. Her heart beat a tattoo against her ribs. Surprisingly, Jag answered, albeit after a long, long time. "Since before the Yuuzhan Vong invasion."

"So?" Valia prompted.

Jaina wished for a shovel to dig herself a hole to disappear in. Was he really going to-

"We were engaged. It didn't work out."

Valia eyed him critically. "And that was because?" She prompted.

Jaina imagined Jag shrugging, not looking at anyone. Imagined the pain still in his eyes, as deep as it had been the day it had happened. Felt his pain, alive in the vast endlessness of the desert. You were hurt, too. She shook off the sense of despair that threatened to drown her, an echo of her own, younger self.

No. It wasn't an echo. The pain was as fresh today as it had been years before. He is leaving me.

"A combination of things, I guess. Family." He did not say: duty. But the word hung in the air, unsaid, like a poison flower in its lethal beauty. "I had to go back to Csilla, she couldn't leave her family. We met again, eventually, on opposing sides of the Swarm War. It wasn't pretty."

"Hm." Valia hummed. "There seems to be a lot of pain between the two of you."

Please–

Jag didn't answer. Thankfully, the guide dropped the topic with that last comment. Slowly, slowly, Jaina unfroze, clenching her eyes shut and opening them again. She willed her heart to slow down and her lips to smile, and then she moved back a few paces and covered the distance to the tent another time, taking care to announce her arrival.

"Ah." Valia looked up as she crawled into their makeshift camp. "I'm slowly getting tired. We'll start early tomorrow, cross the Wastes. Probably, we'll reach the Valley of the Spirits at nightfall. What about watch duty?"

"I can start," Jaina offered. "I'm not tired yet, and I've slept more than the two of you. I'll take the last shift, too."

Jag seemed conflicted, but Valia simply nodded. "Wake me when it's my turn."

She burrowed down in her bed roll, and soon her soft snores were heard. Jag didn't move.

Was he, Jaina wondered, also feeling this raw and exposed? He'd just broken down whatever had once existed between the two of them into a few words, had managed to open up all the wounds she had thought had scarred over long ago. No, she realized. It hadn't been his words. It had been seeing him again, even after such a long time, that had brought forth many of her own insecurities and worries once again. It seemed that, even after years, Jagged Fel still managed to unsettle her to the point that she would remember all her old feelings for him: the longing, the desperate need and the happiness of being with him. They'd been so young then, and what he had offered Jaina – the way he looked at her, smiled, touched her – the way he made her feel had been so incredibly, incredibly precious. There was a difference, she had learned at that time, a difference between being part of a loving family, of being beloved, and of being loved by someone. They hadn't fallen in love right away, they had been too different. Polar opposites: the smuggler's daughter with her volatile temper and the icy baron's son. Love had snuck up on her, somehow. One day she had trained with him, admiring his control and strength but thinking him too cool and detached. The next she simply looked at him and it had been a blow to the gut. He was cool and controlled, but also kind, and humorous, and he cared. He was strong, but he didn't believe it himself. He was loyal to the Chiss Ascendancy – but he would question this loyalty when it came to it. And he asked nothing from other people he wasn't willing to do himself. Jaina hadn't been able to help herself: She had run. This was bigger than anything, something she couldn't wrap her head around, couldn't see any way of it being possible. It would only crush her and that was unacceptable: she was needed, she had to fight. She couldn't let herself be distracted like that. And… And Anakin. She couldn't have happiness, not when so many other people had died. Jaina had run (just like your mother, and she could see her father's smile) but Jag – how in every Sithing Hell had he realized what she felt? – had caught her and held her and comforted her, touched her in a way nobody had before. The next years had been a combination of this sheer need to have him closed and the wonder of being completely and utterly in love with someone. And all of it had been threaded through with earth-shattering fear: she could lose him, every day. Oh, he had made her laugh. And so incredibly, incredibly angry. He made her feel, and love. Jaina would never have expected to be able to lose him in other ways than through death. But she'd been young then, young and inexperienced and naïve. There were a thousand ways to lose something, and even more ways to break a heart. Maybe she had panicked, maybe he had been not clear enough. When he'd first asked her to marry him she had been shatteringly happy. And then the communication from the Ascendancy arrived that he was being recalled home. this time, he had no excuse. And everything had fallen apart utterly and completely.

Jaina had fallen apart.

It still hurt, even today, thinking of it: the revelation that she wouldn't be able to marry him, not if it meant leaving behind her family and her home. The knowledge that it would break not only her but his heart, as well, but that both of them did not know any other solution. He couldn't leave his family, she couldn't leave hers – it was a conflict without solution which they solved by parting without even saying good bye. Then: seeing him again during the Swarm War, all the things they had said and done at that time. The consequences of their actions. The ways they had changed. It was childish and naïve to think she still was the same and could feel the same towards him as she had when she had been a teenager. Still, somehow, emotions had persisted. Meeting Jag again on Tatooine, listening to him speak, seeing him interact with others – it had been like ripping open old wounds and while Jaina had long ago gotten used to the pain it also reminded her of a different time, a different world. She would never be able to let that go.

But it was something of the past, not of her present.

She wasn't in love with him anymore, as little as he was in love with her. They had been thrown together and had proven that they worked together well, even had been able to establish a tentative friendship. And Jaina would not break the fragile peace that seemed to have developed between them by trying to talk about their past. Instead, she settled into a cross-legged position and breathed out carefully. The wind that shifted the sands, the soft calls of birds of prey in the air: the desert was alive with sound, and yet quiet. Three moons stood in the sky, two of them full. The last one – Jaina didn't know whether it was Guermessa or Chernini – was almost complete. Valia had mentioned a full eclipse, she thought, absentminded. It probably would be quite the spectacle.

She forced herself to think of people and things other than Jagged Fel and their existing or non-existing relationship.

Hours passed, and Jag had made no attempt to settle down to catch some sleep.

Something had been bothering Jaina for quite some time, now, and during the still hours she managed to define what it was exactly. Not knowing how to address him, she fiddled with a bit of sand until Jag looked up from his study of a dusty, old datapad and answered her gaze in a silent question. Jaina answered with one of her own.

"You said you were at the Temple before you came here. How was he?"

Jag frowned. "Whom do you mean?"

"Uncle Luke."

"Oh." His frown relaxed. "He seemed… Tired, I guess." Leave it to Jag to be able to describe a person's state of mind with one adjective only. But he continued before she could say anything else, surprising her – and probably surprising himself, as well. "You two are very alike, did you realize? Not only because of your love for flying, or your fighting skills. There's this devotion to your family that never seemed as pronounced in…" He hesitated, then barreled on. "In Jacen. You care more for others than for yourself."

The laugh was startled out of her, in her surprise it carried neither the bitterness she thought it warranted nor the anger that had sometimes chewed at her.

"Bantha-podoo, Jag. I'm nothing like Uncle Luke. And I'm certainly not…" She bit her tongue. "Whatever. Just: that's not me, yeah? Don't compare us, because that's simply not right."

Then she realized she had not only spoken to him openly but had used his first name. In abject horror, she stared at her hands and didn't dare to move.

Jag mumbled something she didn't understand. Her neck felt hot. Thankfully, he didn't elaborate.

"You know," he said, "when you asked me how he was I expected you to ask about Zekk." His voice was casual. Startled once again, Jaina lifted her head to look at him and found his dark eyes fixed on her unwaveringly.

It had been Zekk. Her best friend, her comrade, her brother-in-arms. Zekk had been part of her life since she could remember, since she (and Jacen) had found him on the lower levels of Coruscant. Zekk had been there when Jag hadn't: they had grown up together, had trained together, had fought the Shadow Academy and the Dark Sisterhood together. Zekk had been tempted by the Dark Side earlier than Jaina but, as she had, he had wavered on the edge of the abyss and then turned back. They had fought, side by side, even before Jag had stepped into her life. And, differently to Jag, Zekk had never left it. It had been Zekk who had found Jaina, bleeding and injured, cradling the broken body of her twin after their fight. Zekk who had commed her parents and had held her while she refused to let go of Jacen, who had, when her parents arrived and had taken her brother's body out of her arms, carried her into the Falcon and had carefully laid her on a bunk in Med Bay and had not left her side until Uncle Luke had come and had put her into a Healing Trance. It had been Zekk who had been at her side and Jaina knew that she would always be able to rely on him, that he would always be there for her – but she had long ago lost the right to be anything more to him. Even if she had wanted – and on some days, Force, she had wanted it so much, if only to escape the loneliness of her rooms in the Temple – she had known that there was no way they would ever be more than friends. Jaina had lost Zekk, or, she had lost what they could have been, perhaps, in a future that did not coincide with theirs, the day she had chosen Jag over him, that fateful day in the past when she had been so sure she had made the right decision. You will choose the one person you cannot live without, Jaina. Miraculously, they had remained friends – even though it had been difficult, in the beginning – and they still were. But Zekk had Taryn, now.

It was strange that Jag would mention him. On the other hand, they had worked together for quite some time, trying to bring down Alema Rar. Maybe they'd become friends.

"He told me to take care of you."

Jaina couldn't help it: she whirled around. "Stupid idiot," she snapped. "I can take care of myself very well, and you know it. Chauvinist pigs."

Somehow he looked like he wanted to smile. The tiny tug at the corners of his lips made her heart beat pick up speed.

"I told him you'd say that."

"I hope you also told him to mind his own affairs."

"I told him I'd have an eye on you." He sounded so matter-of-fact Jaina swallowed her heated response and looked at him, suspiciously. "He wanted to come here, too, but the Grand Master sent you on your own, so I gathered you wouldn't do anything stupid."

"Thank you." Jaina snorted, sarcastically. Maybe, if she didn't give in, if she just pretended there had been nothing special, that she hadn't felt anything… "That doesn't explain why you are here, though. Did you think I'd let her get away? Or do you want to kill her yourself so badly?"

"I would let you kill her without a second thought." Jag's answer was level, matter-of-fact, and it confused her. "But you won't. And I have a duty to fulfil." Oh, the dreaded word. "Besides that, I have no doubt in your abilities and your integrity, Jaina Solo."

The way he said her name sent a jolt through her body.

"I thought you didn't trust me," Jaina said, her own voice sounding chocked in her ears, and just barely swallowed the not anymore that wanted to burst its way out of her throat.

It wasn't, she reminded herself, as if she had given him any reason to trust her in the first place. She had lied to him during the Swarm War, after all, and left him to die. She had broken his heart. She refused to let him journey with her, in the beginning. She had–

But Jag looked pensive. "It's not about trust, you know. Because I do trust you. It's just…" He paused and suddenly looked away from her. "Every time I look at you I can't help but remember. And that…" He didn't finish the sentence.

"I'm sorry." She'd said it before, many times. Jaina had told herself again and again, since she had dissolved their engagement, since she had returned his ring. She had said it again during their fateful parting over the skies of Tenupe. I'm sorry. She had said it again and again, whispering the words to herself in the star-less darkness of her bedroom in the Temple, in her bunk on the Falcon, in the vast emptiness of the universe surrounding her cramped fighter cockpit. I'm sorry. It had been the only thing she could do. She had wished to undo so many of her own decisions – but she had always known it was impossible. She had whispered it in her dreams: I am sorry, so, so sorry. But it wasn't the same. Her words were only the ghost of her sentiments, echoing and empty, and she didn't think Jag could grasp the magnitude of them, what she meant to say, what she felt. But she had to try. "I'm so sorry, Jag, I didn't…"

In the dim darkness his face was unreadable, his eyes dark.

"We were fighting on different sides," he said, finally, after a pause that felt like eternity. "Both of us made our choice. You are loyal to the Jedi Order, and to your family. It's in your blood. And that, I understand perfectly. How could I not?"

There was so much more in those few curt words. Not forgiveness, because he couldn't possibly forgive her. But Jaina suddenly was flooded with the sense that Jag knew her, even after all the time they had spent apart. It was like seeing an old house, a place one once had lived in, and recognizing it despite the new furniture: nostalgic, painful, even. In the moonlit darkness, she could barely see his features but she knew them, either way. There were lines around his eyes, from determination and exhaustion. His prominent cheek bones stood out sharply. It was the Jag she knew, and a different one, at the same time: one she did not know at all. And then he lifted his face, and his eyes held hers for seconds. She felt like falling.

He loved you so much, and it scared you.

Memory, as usual, was an unchecked blow to the gut. She had no right. He had no right. They had hurt each other so much: it was time they gave up on the past. It was time to move on.

"Almost the end," Jaina whispered. Jag didn't answer. But he didn't disagree, either.