Never Walk Alone

Chapter 4 - A New Master

Author's Note: Things... change. ;)

~ Amina Gila

"What was my father like?" Leia asks as she and Ben sit in the front of the shuttle that they're taking to Ilum, so she can get a kyber crystal. She couldn't practice with his lightsaber for very long, and being a Jedi means she needs to have her own. Leia knows a bit about swords, and lightsabers have a similar concept.

Whenever she doesn't have the Rebellion to focus on, she finds herself just... brooding, and that helps no one. She'd wanted to know her biological parents for so long. She's a war orphan, and it wasn't a guarantee they were dead, though Leia always assumed they were. Or at least, she told herself that every day after she met Ben.

Ben's expression shifts to something almost distant. "He was the strongest Jedi I knew, and he was a cunning warrior."

"You... knew him well?" Leia ventures.

"He was a good friend," Ben replies, something fond and strained in his expression at once. Somehow, she gets the feeling they were closer than simply 'friends'.

"I'm sorry," she supplies, quietly. There's nothing she can say to that which would actually... help. It's been a long time, but Kier's loss has never stopped hurting, not truly, and she knows Alderaan's never will, either.

"Me too," he answers, expression distant.

"What... happened to him?" Leia asks, tentatively. She's curious, and she really wants to know, but she knows it couldn't be an easy topic. "If you're alright with talking about it."

"He was betrayed and murdered by a Fallen Jedi," Ben explains, "Known as Darth Vader."

Vader. The cyborg she saw on the Death Star? Him? She can't quite imagine him ever having been a Jedi, but her father has always said that even good people can do... terrible things, and she knows people are more than their actions. They can change, as he must've.

He felt so empty when she saw him, and it made her feel the tiniest bit bad for him.

She feels like that now.

She lost everyone she loved.

But he killed her father, and Leia has no idea how to feel about that. Having the name of his killer somehow makes the entire thing seem far more real, and she doesn't want to think about it anymore.

She's going to get her kyber crystal, and that's more important than anything else. She needs to stay focused.

She's going to become a Jedi, and Leia doesn't entirely think she's fit for this, but it's what her father was, and she thinks that's what he would have wanted her to be.

***

"Did you stop Kenobi's escape from Ilum?" Sidious' hologram looms over Vader, who's kneeling on the floor in front of it.

"He escaped the planet before I had time to locate him, Master."

There's an almost agonizing pause of silence. "How many times will you fail to stop him, Lord Vader?" Sidious hisses, "He is already training a new apprentice, one who could prove a threat to us."

Vader twitches. "I will hunt them down, my master."

"You are distracted. You have failed enough times." Sidious raises his hands, unleashing a blast of lightning on him.

Luke jerks awake, gasping. Except, an overwhelming agony is still burning through him, so much like the fires on Mustafar but not quite as bad. He hardly registers that he was screaming in the first place until it stops. It feels like hours, but he can't imagine that – that was more than a few seconds.