"The moment is finally right, my dear boy," a male voice echoed inside Anakin's head as he tried to fall asleep in his bed at the jedi temple, "it is time you fully understand your destiny."

Half asleep, Anakin covered his head with the pillow and whined, "It's the middle of the night!"

The voice said, "When the sunrises, approach my location immediately." A series of coordinates flashed before his eyes.

"What?!" he finally opened his eyes and was met with his dark bedroom, "Hello?" No one was around, but he could swear he heard a man's voice moments earlier. He used the force to feel for any signs of life within his room, but there was no one there. He closed his eyes once again and tried to fall back asleep.

The next morning, the voice returned. "Awaken, my boy," he demanded, "I need to see you with my own eyes."

"Who are you?!" Anakin demanded, looking around his room, "Where are you?"

"Remember the coordinates," he answered, then, silence.

As Anakin prepared himself for the day, the coordinates he needed to go to wouldn't stop flashing in his mind. Every time he closed his eyes it was as if it were seared under his eyelids. He couldn't escape it. "Well, R2," he said to himself, "I guess I know where I'm going today."

He took a small shuttle for just himself and R2, told Obi-wan where he was headed, and went off in the direction of the coordinates. Once he made it there, he was more confused than ever because nothing and no one was waiting for him.

Anakin said out loud, "Okay then, weird voice from beyond. I made it here like you so kindly requested." He sighed and stared out into the abyss of space. Nothing.

At least, he was sure there was nothing. A small light he assumed was among the millions of stars in front of him appeared to be growing in size and moving toward him. Just when he thought he was losing his mind, it suddenly burst out and blinded him. He had to shield and close his eyes to avoid its brightness, but it wasn't enough. The brightness burned his eyes.

Everything turned white. Just as fast as it appeared, it slowly faded away. When he could finally open his eyes, he saw his ship was safely on some green ground. He tried to start up the engines, but it acted as though it had no power. "What?" he whispered to himself, "We were fine a second ago. Nothing's damaged."

He turned around to see R2 had no power either. He stood up and prepared himself to meet a possible hostile atmosphere, but instead he was met with a tranquil lush land. Everywhere he looked had lovely flowing waterfalls, gentle rolling hills, fields of colorful flowers, and a beautiful blue sky.

Just when he thought things couldn't get any weirder, he felt a presence walking up through the tall grass. He put his hand on his lightsaber and turned to face it.

"Hi," a young woman who looked to be about the same age said as she came out of the brush. She had dark blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and dressed in several layers of all white. She carried a thick fur overcoat in her arms. "You can let your guard down; I can assure you I'm not much of a fighter."

"Do you live here?" Anakin asked, "What is this place?"

She replied, "I don't live here, and I'm not sure where we are either. I didn't find this place on any sort of maps of the galaxy. My name is Zaria Olanis."

"Anakin Skywalker," he said, "did a strange voice demand you meet him here too?"

Zaria nodded. "It did, yes," she said, "I see you have a lightsaber. You must be a jedi knight."

He smirked. "The force told you that."

She looked around at their surroundings and said, "I sense the force all around us, it's like this entire place is made of it somehow. Have you ever heard of this place, or been here before?"

"Never," he said, "but I have a feeling we're supposed to walk this way." He pointed in the direction away from the setting sun.

As they walked, it felt as if the landscape were moving under their feet and guiding their path directly to where they needed to go. Still, there was no sign of the mysterious voice or the man it belonged to.

"It's getting dark," Zaria noted, "and we have no idea where we're going."

"I'll start a fire for the night," he said.

No sooner did he say that, did the landscape around them morph and turn into a perfect camp spot. Anakin tried to grab at some leaves but they moved out of the way.

As Zaria stared in awe she said, "Tell me you're doing that."

"This isn't me," he insisted.

Twigs inched out of the nearby forest and moved along the ground and into a perfect pile in the middle of the clearing. The two of them stared as a fire instantly started. "Did..." she hesitated nervously, "did all that really just happen before our eyes?" A large log rolled out and stopped before the fire, the perfect height for sitting on.

"I'm not sure if I should be impressed or terrified," he admitted.

"It appears to be harmless," she said nervously, "as far as I can tell. I don't sense any malice."

Anakin stepped forward first and carefully poked at the log. It felt real and solid. As the fire grew, he sat down in front of the log and leaned against it, too nervous to sit on it. Zaria moved in and toe touched it before sitting down on the far end herself.

"All this feels like the force itself somehow," she said, "but I'm not a jedi, so I don't quote me on this kind of stuff."

"Don't look at me," he replied, leaning to on his right elbow against the ground, "the masters never told me about a place like this."

Zaria asked, "How did you become a jedi?"

Anakin wondered how much of his life story he wanted to share with this girl he just met. "A jedi master found me and noticed I was force sensitive when I was little," he answered, "he took me away and I've been training in the ways of a jedi ever since."

"They took you from your mom and dad?" she asked.

"I don't have a dad," he said instinctively. He didn't expect to open up so much to a complete stranger so suddenly, but it was almost as if the landscape calmed him enough to do so, like it wanted him to in the gentlist way.

She replied, "No? I don't either. My mom has always told me a man has never touched her."

Anakin paused. "My mom claimed the same thing," he said, glancing at her, "but I've always figured some enslaver raped her and she just didn't want that on her mind whenever she looked at me." He covered his mouth. What was he saying? He had never confessed that to anyone, let alone say it out loud.

"An enslaver?" she asked innocently, "I thought the Republic did away with slavery a long time ago."

"I'm from the outer rim," he said, "their politics mean nothing where I'm from."

"Me too," she explained, "I'm from Isledbinyata. It's a frozen tundra planet that doesn't have anything on it interesting enough for either the separatists or the republic to care enough about to bother us. I guess with this war going on I should be grateful."

Anakin said, "Tatooine is the same idea. It's a desert planet. Not much is there. When I was 9, a jedi master just so happen to show up one day and told me he could take me away, so I went with him. I knew if I stayed I wouldn't have a future."

Zaria asked, "You knew that at 9-years-old old? You're more receptive than me."

He sat up and pulled his knees to his chest. What was going on? Why did he feel so ready to open up all of a sudden? It took years for him to get used to Obi-wan and the other jedi masters always poking and prodding at him to express his feelings and his past. Was it this girl? No, he knew she wasn't behind it.

"I was born in debt," he confessed, "if I stayed on Tatooine I'd still be paying it off."

"In debt...?" she trailed off. It took her a moment to figure out exactly what he meant by that. "You mean, you were a slave?"

His patience was waning. "No, I am a person who was enslaved by enslavers," he insisted, "no one seems to understand the difference."

She flinched at his sudden anger. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend."

"You didn't know," Anakin said, now calm, "let's try to sleep in this weird place and figure ourselves out in the morning." He laid down next to the fire and hoped that since it started itself, it would somehow keep itself going the entire night.

In the morning, the scenery had changed completely. The fire was long gone, as was the log and any sign they had ever had a campsite. Zaria rolled over at the same time he did.

"Did we sleep walk?" she asked, sitting up, "All the trees around us are different, and didn't the sun set over there?" She pointed across the sky next to where the sun now as, as if it rose nearly in the same spot it set.

"This place is freaking me out," Anakin admitted as he stood up, "but still...it's like it wants us to keep going." He turned and saw a massive temple in the distance at the very top of a massive mountain.

Zaria asked, "Should we listen?"

He replied, "It looks like we don't have much of a choice. Where else are we going to go?" He took the lead.

As they walked toward the mountain, Zaria couldn't help but stare at Anakin's lightsaber. "Can I see that?" she asked, "I've never seen one for real before."

Anakin took it out and lit it up for her. "Here," he said, "I put it on training mode, so you won't hurt yourself." He handed it to her.

"Wow," she said, waving it around, "it's such a pretty blue." She tried to twirl it, but it went loose in her hand. As it fell she tried to grab it in mid-air. Although it was on training mode, the heat got to her and she dropped it on the ground. "Whoa! I would have lost my fingers!"

He used the force to bring it back to his hand and put it back on it belt. "That happens a lot," he said.

"Is that what happened to your arm?" she asked.

Her question caught him off guard. Because he wore long sleeves and gloves he wasn't used to anyone noticing his robotic right arm. "You can feel my robotics?" he asked. She nodded. "This wasn't an accident," he explained, "I thought I could take someone on alone but it turns out I couldn't."

Zaria asked, "So being a jedi isn't always 'all that' I see. I thought before the war you guys just flew around the galaxy having fun."

"You've really never met a jedi before now?" he asked.

"Like I said last night," she answered, "my homeworld isn't interesting enough to bring the republic around, let alone any jedi knights." She looked up at the sky and realized it had clouded over. When she looked back at Anakin, she saw him shiver in the cold. "The temperature is dropping."

"I can feel that," he said.

Zaria took her long white overcoat she had been carrying in her arms the entire time and gave it to him. "Here, desert boy," she said, "I've been through colder than this."

Although his pride wanted him to reject it, he watched as the first tiny snowflakes began to fall between them. Besides, she had another coat on, although thinner than the one she gave him. He took it and quickly put it on. The cold bothered his right arm worse than his regular body.

It wasn't long before the tiny snowflakes turned into big ones, and then fell tenfold. Anakin had heard of white-out conditions before, but this was the first time he had ever witnessed it first hand. They tried to keep going through the blizzard, but it was soon too thick for them to navigate. They had to hunker down right where they were and hoped it passed quickly.

Just like everything else with the planet, the storm did pass nearly as quickly as it began. The sun came back out, and the snow that had accumulated in the trees dripped and melted away around them.

Anakin gave her the coat back. "Thank you," he said.

Together they turned and saw they had made it to the base of a massive mountain. When they looked up at the temple sitting at the very top, they saw what seemed to be more than 1,000 steps waiting for them.

"We're supposed to climb them," Zaria said, "I think."

"If we use the force we can jump up them a few dozen at a time and get up there much faster," he said.

"You can do that?" she asked.

"You have the power of the force on your side," he assured her, "you can do it too."

She backed away from him, "No way, I'm terrified of heights. I don't even really want to walk up these steps the normal way let alone jump up them."

He didn't want to either, but what else were they going to do? Stand there and do nothing? Anakin took the lead up, as he did before. He wanted to move up them swiftly in order to get to the top faster, but every time he turned around Zaria fell further and further behind him. He remembered she didn't have proper endurance jedi training, nor did she even know how to properly harness the force in her favor like he did.

"Need help?" he asked, extending his hand.

"You don't feel that?" she asked, "Like the force is trying to push us into these steps?"

He replied, "I do but I'm using my own force to push back."

At first he tried pulling her along by holding her hand, but she grew heavier the longer they climbed. She wanted to stop, but he wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. "Let me carry you, we'll get to the top faster."

"You would do that?" she asked, "I won't be too heavy for you?"

Anakin picked her up in a bridal carry, and swiftly moved up the steps. He used the force to lift her, and also to move his feet, but the force kept pushing back stronger and stronger. He didn't understand, didn't the voice that called out to them want them to meet him in the temple?

"Let's take a break," Zaria said, "we'll get to the top eventually."

Anakin finally stopped and let her down, out of breath. Why did it feel like the gravity was getting stronger the longer they walked? "I'm really starting to hate this place," he said.

Zaria sat on the steps, and then leaned back. Despite being stone, they were strangely comfortable to lean against. "I wonder what's inside the temple that wants to meet us so bad," she said.

He joined her on the steps, and replied, "We're halfway there. We'll see soon enough."

With the warmth of the sun directly on him, he couldn't help but remember his days on Tatooine and how he'd often take a nap in the middle of the day if Watto let him. He closed his eyes on the steps and remembered the happy moments he had living with his mom.