Mara had requested for a droid to bring poles that were similar in size to the Sand People's gaffi sticks. Sun had looked at his stick for a moment before grasping it surely. Mara paused to recall the methods she had been taught to use while fighting with stick-like objects, briefly considering strategies. Then she lunged.
Sun seemed ready for her, however. He blocked, feinted, and then a few moves later he had her down on the ground, his metal pole pointed at her throat.
"What?" she gasped in surprise. How in blazes had this boy beaten her? She had been trained by some of the best martial artists in the galaxy!
Sun gave her a sweet grin, and somehow Mara knew that he was imitating the look she had given him earlier.
Glaring, Mara shoved the pole aside and got to her feet. "How did you do that?" she demanded. Her frustration was not helped by the fact that she could sense his amusement through the Force.
Tilting his weapon, Sun sent her a mental image of the moves he had used in slow motion.
Mara's lip twitched. The maneuver was somewhat crude, but it was effective.
"Don't expect to beat me so easily next time," Mara warned, preparing to emphasize defense over offense for once.
An hour later, when Vader returned to his quarters, he found a note directing him to the large room where the two were still fighting.
****
At least the funeral is lovely, Leia thought in a failed attempt to cheer herself up.
Alderaanian funerals were said to be among the most beautiful in the galaxy. But only outsiders could really appreciate such funerals; people who knew the deceased were typically too wrapped up in grief to truly care about whether the funeral was magnificent or not.
Tears traced paths down Leia's cheeks. Aunt Tia certainly would have thought the funeral beautiful, but Leia couldn't take solace in that...
The Empire had brought this funeral about. All her grief could be traced back to the Empire.
Her father was devastated by the whole incident; as for Leia, well, she hadn't really gotten over the shock of it quite yet...And Obi-Wan, the wise Jedi who always had some piece of advice to give, remained silent—even he did not seem to know what to say.
Leia was grateful that Obi-Wan had decided to attend the funeral, though he was running the risk of being identified. The place seemed to be crawling with Imperials...Though Leia could not see them all, she could sense an intense wariness in some humans; such a feeling was atypical for someone at a funeral, and Obi-Wan had confirmed her suspicions of their Imperial origins in a low voice.
The sinister Palpatine could not help but keep his eye on Leia's family. She grasped at and clenched her black sleeve, her face becoming even grimmer.
Your death shall not be in vain, Aunt Tia...And your sacrifice shall not be in vain either, Nial, Leia vowed to herself.
In a way, she considered this funeral to be Nial's as well. She had lost her friend and cousin to a brutal Imperial prison, and the pampered youth wouldn't last long there, Leia knew. Earlier, she had nearly asked her father to think about sending a rescue mission, but the words had died unsaid. She knew he would refuse to do it. Palpatine would probably be watching the Organa family closely for a while, and her father wouldn't dare to risk it.
She wished Winter were with her.
****
Garm Bel Iblis stared out the viewport.
It seemed as if he were always on the run, always directing this strike or that against the Empire. But that was all that was left of his life, really...
He ate, slept, went to meetings, commanded fleets, received news...And far too often, the news wasn't good.
He had heard Bail Organa's ill news: a sister had been murdered by the Empire. His chest had constricted after hearing of the incident, and he had recalled his own personal tragedy.
They said that memories faded with the years, but his memory of that day had, if anything, gotten more vivid.
He had been talking to an Alliance contact, codename Aach, right before he was to give a speech. He could remember being annoyed at the thought of the Empire, and then, moments later, the Treitamma Political Center had exploded. There had been a haze over his mind and then sudden clarity—his wife Arrianya and his two children had been inside the building. He could still smell the smoke, could still remember how he had trembled, could still remember the hopelessness and sorrow he had felt as Aach had told him to leave. Bel Iblis had been the target. The Empire had killed his family, but he should have been the one killed.
He had told Aach that fighting with emotion was the worst way to fight, as the emotion would eventually burn away—but for him it had never burned away. Flames of emotion still raged in his heart. He knew the pain Bail Organa must be feeling, having to live with the knowledge that it was because of him that a loved one had died.
The Rebel Alliance was all Garm Bel Iblis had left; the fight was personal, though he tried to intellectualize it...And for Bail Organa, it had become more personal as well.
Mon Mothma had not lost family yet, though she had barely escaped arrest years ago. It was up to her to remain the cool head in the triad composed of Bel Iblis, her, and Bail Organa. But Bel Iblis feared her ambitious nature—would she try to usurp power? Would she attempt to set herself up as Empress of the galaxy?
He certainly prayed she would not.
********************
Sun had learned much in a year and a half with the dark man. He had learned quite a lot about humans—the proper way to eat, which seemed sort of a ridiculous and drawn out process; what types of food humans typically ate, most of which were quite good despite their startlingly strong tastes; and how to distinguish between males and females. For some reason, though, Opakwa had had a difficult time explaining the difference between males and females due to Sun's age, though the former Tusken didn't really understand what the problem was...When Sun started growing hair on his face, Opakwa told him that most male humans shaved their faces, so after a few harrowing experiences with a razor, Sun was finally able to present a hair-free face (with the exception of his eyebrows, which Opakwa told him never ever to shave off).
He understood Basic (both reading and writing) quite well, even without help from the Force, and he was becoming skilled at reading lips, though his reasons for doing so were not out of necessity but fascination. With lips and facial expressions, the latter of which Sun was becoming better at imitating, Mara was Sun's main model. Vader wore a mask, and there were rarely other humans around, so Mara basically provided his only chance to study the human face apart from the strange holovision device. He and Mara had even shared fighting techniques with each other and were incorporating new elements into their dueling styles. Sun was also becoming more skilled with a blaster and better at piloting. Some of his favorite moments were ones spent out in space participating in mock dogfights with Vader. He wasn't certain, but he thought maybe Vader enjoyed those moments as well. It was always hard to tell with the dark man.
As Sun became more accustomed to human ways, it seemed as if Vader were experiencing increasing feelings of dread. He wasn't quite sure why—what would the dark man be dreading?
One day, the dark man came to him with an aura of seriousness surrounding him.
"You seem to be more comfortable with human ways," Vader observed.
Sun hesitated only slightly before both smiling and nodding, feeling proud of himself for using two human methods of expression at once.
"It is time to begin your Force training."
Sun felt unease pass over him. He had the feeling that once he truly began this training, his life would never be the same...
Of course, there had already been several drastic changes in his life...What was one more?
He made the Tusken hand signal for "ready," experiencing frustration when he realized he didn't know a human equivalent. But Vader seemed to know what he meant.
"Levitate this chair," the dark man said simply.
Sun looked at the chair. He had levitated a datapad, and he had pushed Mrekln and Vader...But how could he levitate that chair?
"If you take hold of your anger, then you shall find that the chair lifts with ease," Vader stated.
The former Tusken was skeptical. It was just a chair! He didn't feel any anger towards it—really, such rage seemed ridiculous.
But he did reach out to the Force and concentrate on the chair...Surely it wasn't that heavy...
Within moments, he had the chair up in the air.
Excited with himself, he turned to the dark man, expecting to sense approval. Instead, all he sensed was displeasure...
What had he done wrong?
****
The boy hadn't been using the Dark Side.
While Vader wasn't sure if Sun had been using the Light Side exactly, he knew that what the boy had used was not the Dark Side.
The former Tusken Raider had exuded no malice, no hatred. He had simply made a calm attempt to lift the chair, as if he had wanted to become one with the chair or some other ridiculous-sounding nonsense.
Vader scowled beneath his mask. That definitely did seem like the twisted reasoning of the Jedi.
And the Sith Lord was presently faced with a difficult decision. He could insist on use of the Dark Side, possibly frightening the boy, or he could begin ambiguously, attempting to emphasize Dark Side elements later.
Vader knew he should be advocating only the Dark Side; his master would be displeased if he knew otherwise...
But Vader also knew that Sun wasn't entirely tamed yet. He was still a wild animal; if Vader were not careful, then the boy would be spooked and run away once again.
And then Vader might be forced to deal with another of Palpatine's Hands coming to serve as a "companion" for the boy...If Palpatine didn't decide to train Sun himself.
Yes, he should definitely save the Dark Side for later.
****
Over the years, a growing concern of Obi-Wan's had been Leia's hatred of the Empire.
Her hatred was certainly understandable, as the Empire was continuously fueling the flames of her hatred with violent and oppressive acts, but...
Obi-Wan had hoped that Leia would grow up as a normal human female. And then Bail had insisted that Leia receive basic Force training, and he hadn't felt like he could refuse...Yet she was certainly not anywhere close to becoming a Jedi Knight. And with Bail acting as an anti-Empire role model (though Obi-Wan, as a Jedi Master, was certainly not without blame), Leia was unable to obliviously live out her life. And so, instead of trying to figure out how to win the heart of a boy, Leia was trying to figure out how to take down an Empire.
Leia held contradictory roles. Her hatred stopped her from becoming a true Jedi, her political nature kept her from becoming just an average girl, and her Jedi training tried to pull her away from fighting against the Empire.
Obi-Wan didn't know how to quell hatred. He had failed with Anakin, and he didn't think he could succeed with Anakin's daughter. He wondered if perhaps he should send her to Dagobah to train with Yoda...But he knew that she wouldn't want to be pulled away from her political duties.
He should've chosen the boy, shouldn't he have?
...What had he done?