Seras little snippet thread

I had flown to Anchorhead, having a blast once more being in the sky, once more the very planet seemed to urge me on, to cheer for my passing. It felt… Stronger. I felt stronger. Ever since my first flight, there had been a stronger and stronger instinct from the Force.

I was just glad I knew what it was, because it was almost distracting, and almost terrifying. But actually comforting.

But while I couldn't always understand what the Force was urging I always listened. It was why as I was buying up some Pallie fruits for Aunt Beru I felt it and turned.

A whisper in a crowd, but enough that I felt where it had come from.

I looked up, and smiled.

"Well, if it isn't young Luke." The old man called out and I felt nothing but happiness as I saw Obi-Wan.

"Old Ben! What are you doing in town? Picking up some groceries?"

"Indeed, and you?"

"Picking up some things for Aunt Beru! I finished building my T-16! And now I'm not grounded anymore, Uncle Owen is sending me out on errands."

"Grounded?" Obi-Wan asked with a certain 'Ah yes of course,' in his voice.

"Well I might have finished the T-16 and flown it right away without permission." I explained with a laugh that Obi-Wan didn't hesitate in matching. A dry chuckle that told me he knew exactly what trouble I was getting into.

"You didn't crash?"

"Hey! I've never crashed anything in my life!" I denied and that was technically true, from a certain point of view.

The slight smirk on his face told me he might have caught that, but I was going to fall back on the best way to ignore things!

Deny deny deny!

"Do you need any assistance young Luke?" Obi-Wan finally asked and I shook my head, pulling out the small pad that had the list of things to buy.

"Everything is pretty light, and with my T-16, it'll be easy. Thank you Old Ben."

"Good, good. You should stop by sometime." He finally said and I blinked and looked up at him away from the pad, and stilled. "I have some-" I lost track of what he was saying.

Obi-Wan wasn't alone.

Qui-Gon was there.

The force ghost stood beside Obi-Wan, and his eyes were on mine. This was the man that had freed Anakin. That had released my father from slavery.

This was Tatooine. And I had spent my second life here. Learned its culture and ways. That was not something to be ignored or set aside.

I might be more than just Luke, memories were experience, was what made a person them, but even if I was.

"Breaker of Chains." I said, without knowing what I was going to say until I did.

The force flowed through me, and the hazy indistinct vision of the man sharpened until he was as real as I was, and he knew.

Knew I could see him, and he could see me.

"Young Luke." The man offered in turn with a light bow that I turned deeper.

"Luke?" Obi-Wan spoke in shock, his surprise tinging the force with a lightning like tingle.

"Thank you for freeing my father of his chains. Qui-Gon Jinn."

"Oh? You know who I am?" He spoke and Obi-Wan looked from the Ghost to me.

"Young Luke? You can see?"

"Of course? If the sands didn't whisper it, I still would." I said honestly. "Grandma Shmi, told Uncle Owen about Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi that freed my father. I always hoped I would see your spirit among the dunes some day. To thank you."

My words felt right. The Force flowed through me, letting my desires mix with the right path.

I don't think I'd have brought up knowing who he was on my own, but the Force was there. So surety gripped me.

The words were mine. The path set before me was one I could allow or stop. But it was my choice. Always.

"I see. You let the Living Force guide you well."

I watched as Obi-Wan jumped a little at the words, but I shrugged.

"I listen to the wind and sky, to the sand dancing across the dunes, and the croak of the Womp Rat. Gi Dopa Gasha's light guides my steps and illuminates the path." I said, and the words were meaningless, and yet.

I knew they touched the concepts I was trying to convey.

Qui-Gon smiled, brushing a hand over his beard smoothing, trying to hide it, but smiling despite himself. While Obi-Wan looked shocked.

"The Force is strong in him, indeed Obi-Wan."

"Master?" Obi-Wan asked, but never took his eyes from me, and when I looked over I gave him a smile, a comforting look of familiarity.

Because he was family.

I felt it, a twitch in the sands, a brush of wind.

"I have to go. Aunt Beru is waiting." I said then, knowing it was the truth, but that there was more I had to go, and the two men did as well just as surely as the force whispered to Obi-Wan, while it flowed through Qui-Gon.

"Young Luke… I would like it if you came to visit me sometime soon. There is… Much I believe we should discuss." Obi-Wan asked then, softly and gently. Owen and him didn't get along, and I had been warned away plenty.

But that was that, and this was this.

"Sure Old Ben." I offered making sure not to use his real name.

He was still one of the most sought after men in the entire Galaxy after all.

Then I bowed to Qui Gon who nodded and faded away into the sands of Tattoine like he was never there.

I hurried off happily. Something was tugging me along, something interesting, more interesting than running into Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan even!

—--

"That's everything!" I called out as I placed the last of the supplies I had been sent to grab in their correct place. Aunt Beru had helped and also checked everything off the list to make sure I had grabbed everything.

I had even returned some of the Wupiopi after haggling a bit!

Aunt Beru was very pleased.

Uncle Owen had his quiet pride as he had given me a nod and then headed off to do something or other.

Meaning, I had free time, and the whisper in my ear urged me on.

"I'm going out for a flight!" I called out, earning a smirk from Aunt Beru, and a grumble from Uncle Owen as he peeked his head into the room from his workroom.

His glare was harsh as he looked me over. But after a moment he nodded.

"Come in before lights out."

"Yes Uncle!" And that was that.

I rushed back to the T-16 and fueled her back up, going over a full checklist to make sure she was ready, and then I went back to my room without conscious thought and grabbed a work bag and some tools.

I felt my smile grow brighter as my hands grabbed everything for repair and metal work.

Apparently I was cutting something, because I really needed that blow torch. I grabbed a few other things that the Force didn't urge me towards, but that was just it.

The force guided, and in some cases would show the perfect path, but preparation, and your own abilities made things easier.

I grabbed a few bits and bobs, including an electronic device that had a recording of a Krayt Dragon call on it.

I had learned a good lesson from Obi-Wan after all.

Most things ran scared from Krayt Dragons, and so it was a good way to send the Tusken running.

Then with a look around to make sure Aunt Beru wasn't looking I grabbed three separate pieces from different sections of the room and stuffed them into my pocket, and then made sure my bag was hiding the bulge.

"Okay I'm off!" I called out, only to slow down and turn around. I took a quiet moment to snag a few of Aunt Beru's biscuits from the little plate they had been placed on to cool, and placed them in a napkin that was set right next to them just for that reason.

"Hmm?" Aunt Beru asked, making a very obvious noise as I took my reward and ran off.

"Love you bye!" I called out clutching my treat to my chest like a Jawa finding a new Power Converter. Aunt Beru always placed a napkin or something near her baking that I could fill up on a few. I really loved that woman.

Time to fly!

—--

Far. That was what I felt. I set the T-16's nose to the Dune Sea and just moved.

While it wasn't the most comfortable as I liked flying myself, I set the T-16 into an autopilot and pulled out the three pieces that I kept separate and made sure Uncle Owen never saw.

With a few moments of work they fit together, and I stuffed a power cell into it.

"Blaster… Functional." I muttered as I looked over the weapon. It was an old blaster pistol, I had found out in the desert. Nothing inherently wrong with it, especially after a cleaning and going over, but Uncle Owen would not approve.

I had a tendency to find all kinds of stuff in the desert. This wasn't even close to the first time the Force had urged me out into the dunes, although this was the first time I had a T-16 and could actually go more than a few miles out at most.

Something was out here that the Force wanted me to find. I felt the whispers of the sun glancing off the dunes and altered my heading with a light tap of the yoke as I placed the Blaster on safe and stuffed it into my bag in easy reach.

The whispers of what was, and what could be shifted.

What was it that I was called for? I had to wonder, this felt weird, but the warmth of the suns at my back guided me, despite the twin suns of Tatooine being in front of me.

I was safe. I was on my path.

It was sad that Anakin always felt so afraid. I shook off that idle thought. I had thought about Star Wars a lot since I had woken up. Since I had found where I was.

I knew it wasn't his fault.

Anakin hadn't known how to trust in the force until after he met the Jedi, and they had judged him on his fear because to them it was a massive red flag.

Fear led to one mistrusting the Force. Led them to taking control, because if you were afraid you sought control. The more you tried to control something the more impossible the task became.

You couldn't control fate, or a person, or anything. That led to anger, at your failure, morphing that fear into something else. Then you lashed out. Anger hot and boiling guiding your hand, you would feel anger at your helplessness, because you feared the lack of control, and then?

Hatred. You'd hate the life you live, the path that you had set your course to.

And so suffering would come. Yours and others.

Darth Vader was at the final stage. A man that suffered under his guilt and felt there was no redemption. So he spread suffering to others, because he saw no other path.

He feared the pain of accepting what he had done if he tried.

So Fear.

Anakin Skywalker, my father, was a man that feared accepting his own failures. Failures he had been guided into making by the man that now ruled the Galaxy.

"Like my father before me." I whispered to the sands. A promise that only I truly understood.

Because there was no desire in me for the Dark Side.

I knew where that path led, no, that lack of a path. Controlling every step of the way with an iron grip only led to failure.

So don't. Don't control, and instead be guided. I smirked, as the force nudged me, and I opened my eyes. My eyes lied, so I didn't use them when I flew.

"Here?" I asked, to myself, as I already started guiding my T-16 into a lazy landing.

Something was here. Something…

There? I shifted my landing guided by the nascent sense of the force, told me something was alive there. And the Living Force urged me on.

I was deep into the Dune sea. Far enough by now even the Tuskens would rarely tread. This was a place of endless wastes, and deadly things that could survive.

I landed with a soft shift in the top of the dune, with a breath of relief as I managed to keep the dune from shifting and sending my T-16 tumbling, or worse.

Getting its intakes full of sand.

Then I popped the hatch, grabbing my bag and supplies and jumped out.

Warm. The hot suns above made the sand beneath me warm even as it sucked me in, it almost burned.

I looked around. The breeze was hot as it flowed over the dunes, the sands warming everything that touched them and I waited.

It was here. Something…

The sand shifted, and I slumped.

I was going to be cleaning sand out of the damn intakes wasn't I? I yelped as I took a few steps and then a few more, the knowledge I would need to be… Here.

I jumped to the right spot and then it happened.

The dune was not a dune.

The desert was not a desert.

The earth rose, the wind blew, and the force flowed into me. I was a boy, but not a boy.

Just as the creature before me, was a creature, and yet not.

It shifted, focusing its will down on me, its head so large it couldn't quite figure out where I was.

What was a Krayt Dragon, when it was more than a Krayt Dragon?

When was a creature more than a creature?

I reached out, and laid a kind touch upon her, not physically she was too large and too far to touch myself, but with my self.

And as I touched her she reacted like she had been scalded, a roar louder than any I had heard before echoed out as she bucked and rocked.

But… There was pain, such great pain it made me queasy and sick and the hunger. Hunger that made my stomach ache, and my insides fold on themselves.

She was starving.

I felt what she felt, for a moment there was no her, or I. Only us. Only the Force as we were all connected, and I felt tears down my face, something never done on Tatooine the waste of water, and yet I spilled it for her, at her pain.

And she slumped. Fear clawed into me and I fell to my knees as well.

Terror, and hopelessness. She was dying. She knew it, and that horror was poisoning everything around.

I gasped for air. For a moment I felt like I was going to fall into the sand and die here too. That there was no hope.

I burst out. Something in me roared at the concept.

No Hope?

Never.

I pushed back, with all the hope I had. There would be another day. Another sunset, another wind across the dunes. With or without us. Time will turn and life will go on, and nothing ends.

There is no death. Only the Force.

The fear peeled back in shock. An abrupt awareness as I knew now she had seen me truly and was looking down on me. My eyes opened. I was lying nearly face down in the sand.

That was going to take some time to get all that out of my clothes, but I rose and stared up into the maw of the largest Krayt on the planet.

She was the Mother. The Great One. Not in her mind, but in the song of the planet, the sunlight touching her scales whispered it. The Wind roared it as it flowed around her. She was the greatest of all. The Eldest. The Great Mother.

I was looking at a Krayt Dragon, that I knew was ancient in the truest sense.

And she was starving. How? How was a Krayt so large unable to hunt?

There was a moment, a flicker in her mind, a threat, that she should eat me. And maybe live an hour longer, a minute, a second.

That it would be worth it for just that moment more!

But then she slumped, her head shaking the dune like an earthquake.

She knew her end was nigh. Trapped.

I shook off the sense I was getting. I opened my eyes, taking in the beautiful lie. "I'm sorry." I told her, and meant it. I was very small. I couldn't satisfy her.

She knew. The fear that poisoned her slowly seeped out as she slunk back beneath the sand. Hopeless.

It hurt to feel. As she disappeared she left a hole. A cave large enough my T-16 could fit inside, down into the depths, a darkness that moved and shifted. The dark side clouded everything as it poisoned what it could.

She was so old, by herself, she had created a Force Nexus to the dark side with her despair.

There was a gentle wind.

I know. I already knew why I was here.

I took a breath and stepped. Then another. I luckily had a light in my bag and lit it up as I headed into the depths. My light seemed to flicker and struggle against the darkness as I headed down deeper and deeper. I walked for longer than possible. The Dark Side played tricks, but I didn't give in to the fear that it was slowly encroaching me with.

Instead I took a breath, closed my eyes and stepped again. Down I went and then I opened my eyes and I was there.

The sand led down into a cave. An ancient stone cave beneath the dunes?

As I flashed my light I realized it wasn't stone. Glass. The cave was solid thick glass under the sand. Yet still darkness was everywhere. It flickered around me whispering to me, in tainted voices.

Hunger and fear.

I stepped. And brought light to a place that had no light, and stared.

There she was. And now I understood.

The Glass, how she was trapped, and just why the Force wanted me here.

I stepped forward on slow uncomfortable steps. As the glass beneath my boots shifted threatening to send me into a very painful fall, as I got closer and closer and then. My hand touched a bulkhead.

Where the ancient faded symbol of the Jedi shown by my light.

Old.

I breathed in and out. And looked at her. The Great Mother.

She had found a nest. She looked at me warily, but without rancor. She was listless, but I prompted her, asked how this came to be.

A nest buried beneath the sands of the Dune, the perfect hunting ground. She would have had to go much deeper into the earth to find such a perfect nest, but she had found this one. Only to not realize the danger.

I winced as I looked.

It was a ship. An absurdly ancient ship. Old Republic, Jedi Cruiser, or bigger. I couldn't tell the full size, not with the glass cave being such a tiny section. I could see where the glass was melted by Krayt Acid. She had burned her way inside and snuggled in.

Never realizing.

The hangar bay that had become her home. The doors had shifted. Thousands, maybe millions of tons of heavy Durasteel slammed down on her, probably while she was shifting in her sleep.

It had slammed down, not killing her, but still pinning her in place, and now she couldn't leave the main bulk of her body trapped inside the hangar. Her acid not strong enough to burn her way through, not after burning her way in. Not after hibernating here until she was hungry, until she was trapped.

She couldn't hunt except what was closest to the surface. Even with her massive size, she simply wasn't long enough to reach anything. She wasn't a Sarlacc that could just sit and wait for centuries.

The darkness whispered to me, and I stood unmoving, whispers of killing her, of the pearls within.

I would not.

That was not me. There was no temptation in that for me.

I looked at the air lock door that I was here for. Something beyond it calling to me. The Force had sent me here for that. My hand itched to start cutting into the door and find whatever treasure existed on an old Republic Jedi ship, but…

Instead. I looked at what may be the oldest creature on Tatooine, and I included the Sarlaac in that, and felt only sympathy.

This was wrong.

I looked at the doors pinning her down. There was no power, and I'd likely have to do a lot of work to open them again.

More work than I could do in the time she had left her life already fading.

I turned away from the goal, and headed into the darkness back up the long path which wasn't that long now that the darkness had already been passed through.

I opened my eyes to the suns of Tatooine and glared at the emptiness around me.

"Is this really what you expect from me? For me to do nothing?" I asked, and the voice of the wind was silent. The reason I had been summoned here now, was because she was trapped. She opened the path, but wasn't a threat to me now. All I had to do was leave her to her fate.

I couldn't believe that. To do nothing. Not from what connects us all. Not from the Force which I truly believed to be good.

I sat crosslegged on the sand, the warmth seeping through me, and closed my eyes.

And let myself feel.

Not all paths lead to warmth. The suns whispered. Some lead into the cold truth. Even those like us die.

Yes, but to let hope die out was wrong. I argued back.

She will go on, and her life will feed the lives of a thousand beings. Argued the wind.

Yes, and so will all things that live and die, but her death now is in front of me. She is afraid. I whispered back the dunes shifting with the breath of my voice in the wind.

The dunes below me gave out and I slipped into the dune sea.

Plunged deep, not into sand but water. I battled against the ocean I found myself in. Cold water dragging me down.

Are you sure? This is the path? It asked me, and I stopped fighting.

The Dune Sea. It wasn't called that just because it was an endless ocean of sand, but because once in the ancient history it had been an ocean in truth.

I'm sure. I spoke aloud, ignoring the suffocating of the memory of an ocean I was in. How can I not walk this path? When you name me, Luke. When you call me A New Hope?

How can I bring hope when I spurn those that need it!?

My hand breached sand and I dragged myself up coughing and sputtering as I pulled my chest out of the sand, even as I coughed out water that had filled my lungs. I tugged myself free of the sand and rolled a bit, ending up utterly covered in wet sand as it hungrily supped upon the water that once coated it.

"Was that really necessary?" I asked, and in return I felt the gentle wind brush my hair, already drying in the suns.

I was actually covered in water, actually wet. Just from the memory of once was. I felt it. The sorrow of the Dune Sea, of the sands that wished for their former state.

I looked up and saw it.

"Okay, I'll forgive you." I whispered and rose up, rushing to my T-16. I didn't have long to get this done.

I slammed into the cockpit and winced at all the sand that was already here. All the sand I would be spending weeks cleaning at this rate.

But some things are worth it.

I closed the hatch and hit the igniter, only for my girl to sputter.

Fuck!

I could feel it. She had slipped in the sand and now her intakes were clogged.

There was only one way to do this in time.

"Do or do not." I whispered and then pushed. With everything I had with every bit of me. Because I had one chance to bring some hope to this desert, and I wouldn't allow the Sands to stop me.

And so they didn't. They gave way to my will. The breath of the sand in my ear, literally as my right ear was full of sand telling me it would allow this.

And the intakes were clear from my Force Push.

I hit the igniter and instantly the gas, rocketing the T-16 into the air and spinning, freeing it of the rest of the sand and angling towards my target.

What I had seen as I lay on the dune was the crest of a Tibidon Sand Whale off in the desert.

They were huge sand fish that swam through the desert, as easily as a fish would swim through the ocean. Devouring anything hiding in the grains as it passed.

Harmless for the most part as they were terrified of vibrations in the sand, because they were terrified of their natural predator.

As I raced after it, I dug through my bag.

See! I told the sands, this was always part of the plan! I just needed the right tools.

And only felt the firmness of time making all of this pointless come back to me.

The sands would shift and things would die.

But not today! I roared back.

And as I raced in front of the Sand Whale. I hooked the recording of the Krayt Dragon up to the speakers.

Instantly the Sand Whale flipped itself, a massive tumble as it tried to run from the sound of the Krayt.

It started swimming as fast as it could, and in turn I guided it along.

Flying above I was easily able to keep it moving in the right direction. Straight towards the cave.

As we finally drew close. I could feel it. The shock of the Great Mother, as she felt what was happening, as I touched her, and showed her the bounty coming.

I gave a soft prayer to the Sand Whale.

The Force was made up of all things, including the cycle of nature. The spark of consciousness, no matter how small of the whale, would return to the Force. And I felt some shame, because this was the answer. A life for a life.

But I had made my choice.

As the Great Mother surged out and in a single move grabbed onto the passing Sand Whale. It cried an eerie call. But it had no chance, not against a Krayt that size.

—--

I sat on the sand as the Great Mother devoured her prey. I couldn't exactly head into the cave to find out what this was all about while she was using it to stick her head out of the sand. But that was okay.

I bit into the sweet bread that Aunt Beru had baked and smiled as I glanced over at the massive Krayt Dragon gorging herself on fish.

Yep. We ate together as the suns beamed down on us.

As we did I could feel it. The fear and hurt. The despair that had flooded through her slowly seeped away under the sunlight.

Under the light in her breast of Hope.

As the darkness faded, the sands, and wind, the sun and light, and everything in between grew silent as they softly whispered.

Skywalker.

Hopebringer.