Saga Slow Spinning Redemption (Official Holiday Challenge Response - Jedi Purge Era, OCs)

A response to the Official Holiday Challenge.

Warning: This is not the sappy mush I usually come up with around the holidays. It's got dark undertones, possibly even angst. In fact, I was pretty much trying to write the most un-holidaylike story I could while still fulfilling the technical requirements of the holiday challenge. Just to see what would happen. It's now up to you, the readers, to decide the success or failure of my little experiment. I'd really like your honest feedback.

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He is trying to blend with the crowd when he sees her, walking down the narrow, crowded streets of a grimy spaceport on a backwater world. She is hiding in the shadows of an alley, yet she stands out to him as clearly as if she is the target of a spotlight.

There is an urgency pulsing out from her. An urgency, and a fear. It is something he has felt much too often in the past months, but coming from someone so young, it unnerves him.

He reaches out to her, and she doesn't run, as he half expected, but he feels the short, hot flare of her surprise. She isn't used to people seeing her, let alone being interested in her well-being.

"What's wrong?" he asks gently.

She looks up, yet doesn't quite meet his eyes, and it seems she is somehow able to continue scanning the passerby.

"I'm looking for my master," she whispers. "We got separated."

The word 'master' explodes like a firework in his mind, setting off hundreds of connotations and memories. There is a bittersweet vision of his Padawan, only a year or two older than the girl he speaks with now. She is alone and afraid, searching for him. He swallows hard, fighting the grief and the guilt. He watched her die, unable to stop the emotionless, vicious cruelty of the newly-declared Empire. He could only run. He is running still.

He feels the flicker of fear as this girl says the word, and he know she means a different sort of master altogether. He doesn't like slavery. At all. It goes against everything the Jedi stand for. However, it is a fundamental reality of the galaxy, and he hasn't survived this long by charging off on idealistic crusades. He knew what to expect, coming here. Sevarcos is right up with Tatooine, Kessel, and Nar Shadaa in the listing of most wretched criminal havens, especially now. The Festival of the High Winds attracts slavers and smugglers like insects to a field of wildflowers. And he can be sure that the Imperials won't be far behind.

Yet the Force has drawn him to this child, like a tractor beam. He has no hope of breaking the pull.

She wears an unreadable sabacc face, yet he understands what she doesn't know how to say. She communicates through frantic images and waves of feeling. He feels what she fears, the agonizing sting of a shock whip lashing across her shoulders. He doesn't need to see the scars to know they're there.

He resists the urge to calm her thoughts. It is what he would do, instinctively, to any crying child in the crèche. But the Jedi Temple has been destroyed, and this girl, though as strong in the Force as any of the now-dead Younglings, will never be a Jedi. He lets another wave of sadness wash over him, not only for their memory, but because he cannot give this child the life she deserves.

The life he is currently leading would certainly not allow it.

But there is a sandstorm coming, and he can bring her inside until it clears. He is still able to offer that little bit of protection. He holds his hand out to her.

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She hesitates before taking it. She doesn't know what to expect from him, and in her short life, she has learned to expect the worst. Still, this is surely better than the alternative. The wind is picking up, and she has been on Sevarcos for months, and Tatooine before that. She knows what a sandstorm can do.

She lets the man lead her to an inn. The room he brings her to is small, and it is obvious that he hasn'

 

Wow! You're right, not mushy. But lovely, very nicely done.