Beyond - Legends Saga "Antigravity" | Song!verse AU | Kessel Run Challenge 2023

Title: “Antigravity”
Author: Mira_Jade

Time Frame: Saga; Song!verse AU
Genre: Everything!
Characters: Everyone!

Summary: A long time ago in another galaxy far, far away, Anakin Skywalker did not fall to the Dark Side. These are glimpses of what could have been.


Notes: This is my response to this year's Kessel Run Challenge! All of the stories in this collection will be set in my Song!verse, which is an AU where Anakin Skywalker was not, and I quote, dumb and Sithy in falling to the Dark Side. You don't necessarily have to read anything prior in this 'verse to understand what's going on in this collection, but if you're interested, there are links to those stories underneath the spoiler tag below.

Spoiler: Stories of the Song!verse

• “An Old Song, Re-Sung” | The one that started it all! A complete RoTS AU short story where, and I quote: Anakin is not dumb and Sithy. From a certain point of view, at least.
  
  
• “Her Still, Small Voice” | The sequel to AOSRS. A Mara Jade origins story that is, unfortunately, on hiatus.
  
  
• "Even Without a Voice" | My answer to the 2018 DDC. Ahsoka's companion story to Anakin's, picking up right from her leaving the Jedi Order through just after the subverted events of RoTS.
  
  
• "In That There That Isn't Here" | This is something a little different for me. A Sintas Vel diary I started for the 2020 DDC. This is, as of now, another incomplete WIP, but one that I hope to start up again someday.
  
  
• "All That's Unsung" | A complete short story, set 3 years post-RoTS. Featuring Anakin and Padmé trying to have a date night, and Rex and Ahsoka babysitting the toddler twins.
  
  
• "So Few Things" | A WIP novel, set five years post-RoTS, focusing on Bly/Aayla Secura after the subverted events of Order 66.
  
  
• "Color Me Pink" | A complete, goofy short story written for the 2020 April Fools Challenge, featuring the preteen twins and Mara Jade building their lightsabers, set about 13 years post-RoTS. It mainly focuses on one of my OCs, Rhysa, and her relationship with Ezra Bridger. With bonus married and happy Aayla Secura/Bly on the side.
  
  
• "We Claim Our Own Landscape" | A WIP short story, set about 20 years post-RoTS, where Han meets the parents.

Then, various odds and ends can be found in “The Rest is Silence”, "Our Love of Constellations", "She Says in Parentheses", "The Look of Love", "Cut Into Little Stars", "The Courage of Stars", and "From Such Infinite Space".

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, but for the words.

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Index​

Week I-I: "The Patient Gardener" (AOSRS coda) | Darth Sidious

Week I-II: "Something to Protect" (10 years post-AOSRS) | Anakin Skywalker & Ensemble Cast

Week II: "The Lost World" (6 years post-AOSRS) | Leia Skywalker & Anakin Skywalker

Week III: "Deniel and the No Good Very Bad Day" (4 years post-AOSRS) | Deniel Asce (OC) & Anakin Skywalker

Week IV: "Can't Take the Sky From Me" (36 years post-AOSRS) | Jaina Solo & Anakin Skywalker

Week V: "Theirs to Live and Thrive" (3 - 6 years post-AOSRS) | Ensemble Clone Troopers

Week VI: "Insufferable" (19 years post-AOSRS) | Leia Skywalker/Han Solo & Luke Skywalker

Week VII: "The Princess of Alderaan" (11 years post-AOSRS) | Winter Organa & Leia Skywalker & The Organa Family

Week VIII: "A Song of Renewal" (Here and There) | Ensemble Cast

Week IX: "Without Saying More" (20 years post-AOSRS) | Zaed (Darth Maul) & Luke Skywalker

Week X: "It Has Begun" (TCW; pre-AOSRS) | Barriss Offee

Week XII: "Like My Father Grandfather Master Brother Before Me" (Then and There to Here and Now) | Ensemble Cast & Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader



~ MJ

 

Author's Notes: My strongest two ideas for Week One's Prompt vacillated between such wild extremes that I ultimately decided to write both in order to figure out which I like better. Then, instead of choosing just one to post, I figured why not? So, here you are with two entries to start the challenge! My muse is just extra like that, it seems, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid after carrying on congruent KR threads last year.

My first offering is a look at Darth Sidious' thoughts on how his grand plan unraveled in An Old Song Re-Sung. (And Elli, I promise that I planned to write a Palpatine ficlet from the beginning - Vi has proof in a rambling PM from Monday, even! I can say that it's slightly terrifying, sharing brainwaves with you down to the second person POV, but I'm happy to be in such excellent company. ) The following ficlet is a complementary mush chaser to cleanse your reading palate, complete with Skywalker family and friends fluff.

Enjoy!

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Week I-I: “The Patient Gardener”​

He had not been courageous. Thus so, he failed to accept the power you offered.

Skywalker's intransigency was unfortunate, certainly. Years of patient sewing failed to reap the harvest you so carefully plotted and planned for, just as it ripened for the scythe. You had foreseen an entire empire raised in offering to the Dark – to feed the night that succored you in return – and you had committed your all to ensure its glory bore fruit in a bounteous yield.

It was unfortunate, yet his foolish lack of vision was only a hinderance, a temporary impediment. Rains could flood fields and the suns bake the land bone-dry. A harvest could fail for a season, yet that failure was hardly indefinite if the gardener was patient and canny.

You, you know and the Dark agrees, are both.

Towards that end, you remember who you’d once been in another life – Palpatine’s life, before you sacrificed that base human construct for the immortality of Sidious, instead. You'd once spent entire summers of your boyhood in the coastal valleys of Coomché. Generations of Palpatines had produced some of Naboo’s finest wines, and you’d played between the rows of claret grapes with bare feet in the sunshine. You’d helped pull the weeds that threatened to choke the young vines and siphon vital nutrients from the mature plants, both, listening to your uncle’s lessons about soil and water and light and life all the while.

You’d always had a gift for cultivation; one could say it was in your blood.

As such, you have always known better than to fix seed in merely one field. Instead, you have planted deeply in many fertile beds, coaxing roots to anchor in the dark long before breaching the surface of the ground in search of the sun. In the Apprentice that failed you, in the Apprentice that never was, in the Apprentice that is and the Apprentice that yet could be, deep in the very Republic itself, you've set wring-weed and tombshade and creeping necrosis and thorned tangle-grass to grow amongst the fine fruit-bearing vines and young green shoots, all.

You are certain of this: you will yet reap what you have sewn.

Skywalker may not have been courageous enough to embrace the Dark and all that it offered to those brave enough to gorge themselves and satiate the force that succored them in return, yet that will not deter you. That will not stop you. One defiant sapling could not halt the progress of the seasons, after all – no mere young star, no matter how brightly bursting from its nebula, could withstand the devouring maw of a quasar as it fed upon entire galaxies.

The boy had been foolish, and he will pay for his pertinacity most dearly. Like any barren vine, he would soon be pruned and plowed under to make room for a new seed; a new possibility; a new purpose.

You can feel it even now as you reach out with your senses – as you greet the night like an old friend and seek the vast, empty spaces between the stars. There in the dark, in the deep, slumbering and pullutating and growing, incubating like a seed in winter, content and cocooned far beneath the snow and the howling winds . . .

Soon, you whisper, and soon, the Dark agrees.

After all, you are a patient gardener, and the Dark is patient, too. Together, you wait in the shadows and allow your seeds to grow.

---

Week I-II: “Something to Protect”​

He had not been courageous before – not truly, if this is what courage really was.

Oh, he's led legions, sure; he’s commanded armies, but not like this. In that moment, he felt his calling as a general more certainly than ever before. His heart thundered out a proud beat to lead such fine troops as these into battle. Their mission that day had a clear objective; failure was not an option; victory was their only way forward.

Crouching in the snow – and honestly still marveled by the phenomenon, all these years later – Anakin Skywalker cast an assessing glance over his soldiers. “Are you ready? Our target’s almost in position.”

He was met with affirmative answers to a man. Anticipation filled him as he reached out with the Force – carefully, so as not to alert their quarry – waiting for the exact moment when . . .

“Now!” he shouted, and an answering barrage of snowballs was unleashed on the unsuspecting backs of Master Kenobi and Master Windu.

Cheers came from the children as the elder Jedi were pummeled under the assault. Luke and Leia, Anakin assessed the success of their opening volley, both scored hits on Obi-Wan, while Mara and Ezra had aimed for Mace. He was willing to bet that it was Mara’s snowball that had broken over the Korun Master’s tantalizingly bald head, and pride filled him as both men turned with matching scowls for the surprise attack.

“Second round, fire! We won’t have an opening like this again!”

More snowballs flew through the air, so many and so fast that even Mace and Obi-Wan couldn’t deflect all of them with the Force at once – especially with Anakin there to twitch his hand and ensure that those they attempted to thwart found their targets, regardless. The children laughed and egged each other on, delighted as only children could be, right until -

“Enough!” Master Windu's voice rang out with a power that had cowed both younglings and Jedi far older than them for decades. In a single instant, Anakin felt his own authority wobble precariously as the children looked hesitantly at each other, unsure if they had gone too far with their game. With brusque, sharp motions, Mace wiped the snow from his face and robes, his expression creased with irritation all the while.

Sheepishly, Caleb – who’d acted as Anakin’s commander for the assault – carefully ventured to say, “I’m sorry, Master Windu. I know we’re here for the survival course, but the children aren’t often in the snow, and we just thought - ”

“ - I would have expected Master Billaba to teach you better than this, Knight Dume,” Mace rebuked without letting him finish. “And you too, Master Kenobi. Is this the fine instruction you've passed on to your apprentice?”

“Oh no,” Obi-Wan shook his head in matching disapproval. “I can assure you that I am just as disappointed as you are.”

Anakin felt a tingle of warning in the Force – something that was more than just the combined displeasure of two Masters of the Council. Just as he was weighing whether or not to join Caleb in extending his own apology or throw caution to the wind and order another salvo of snowballs, both Obi-Wan and Mace raised their hands. At their command, an entire wave of snow rose in an imposing veil of white behind them – much to the delight of the children as they shrieked in exaggerated horror for the impending onslaught.

“This,” there was no mercy to be found in Mace’s gaze as he lifted his hands even further, “is how one plays in the snow.”

“Indeed, Master Windu,” Obi-Wan echoed pleasantly. “Shall we go about instructing them further?”

“It’s the only way they’ll learn.”

"Fall back!" With that, Anakin ordered his troops to dive for cover just before the deluge of snow was unleashed. “Get out of range, and we'll regroup to fire again on my mark!”

With that, he stepped into the open and raised his hands to meet the Masters blow for blow – let them see how the Chosen One himself fared when he had his own to protect – and the battle resumed in earnest.



~ MJ

 

Catching up, finally! Wow, a twofer, and that just on week one—that is pretty impressive! And it's so cool that both of these completely contrast in tone—and extra cool that with "Something to Protect" you managed to come up with a lighthearted, humorous scenario for our very first prompt, which so many of us (myself included) interpreted in a more angst way. As others have said, I love the way Anakin is a happy-go-lucky, fun character in this (he always had that at the bottom of his personality), and I loved the way Mace's strict, deadpan, Sam Jacksonish manner morphed into his joining in the fun. I can totally see him and Obi-Wan being extremely formidable opponents in winter highjinks!

And that Palpatine POV... just... shivers! The Sith really are patient; patience is considered a virtue by most of us, but they turn it into something, well, different. He may have missed out on turning Anakin in this universe, but you definitely show he's got the potential to turn to worse—he's clearly got something in mind even now, and who knows what or who that will be! Really neat idea to have him remember his youth on Naboo as a gardener, one of the ultimate patient pursuits; I don't know if that's your fanon or established canon, but it fits, somehow (both for him and for his homeworld).

So wonderful to be back in the Songverse again—keep it coming!

 

I can't thank you all enough for the wonderful feedback

Thank you for the compliment!

From our resident Mistress of Evil, I take that as the highest praise possible! I absolutely love the seed/gardener metaphor for Palpatine, too. It just fits for him as the ultimate puppet master! And it's a metaphor I've used quite literally in the Song!verse between that one scene where Anakin starts to uproot his own seeds in AOSRS and where he recognizes similar seeds in HSSV's bebeh!Mara. So, there's that.

Because snowball fights are the absolute best and you have to give the characters these happy little pats on the head after putting them through the worst.

AND I CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT!

I fully and a hundred percent completely agree that this is a real thing. It's science and everything.

You gotta have the best of both worlds! Thanks for reading!

I am so glad you enjoyed reading that scene just as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Honest to goodness, but thanks to you this is a WIP I really, really don't want to languish in hiatus indefinitely!

Just like any good symbiotic relationship between pest and host.

And my goodness, but the gardener metaphor reaped (hee ) such dividends here! One word honestly just flowed to the next.

Fanon, all - and pretty much just piggybacking on the few Naboo as space!Italy vibes we got in the PT. And thank you! Palpatine was uncorrupted at one point - a little boy playing in the dirt - and it's both fascinating and heartbreaking to think of where it all went wrong. It makes you wonder about the rest of the Palpatine family, too.

I had so much fun coming up with the plant names and was so proud of how they turned out! Plus the foreboding and all the pretty words!

IT'S A FACT: THIS WHOLE PIECE WAS REALLY JUST AN EXCUSE FOR ME TO LET GO AND BE DARKLY, AWFULLY POETIC WITH ALL THE PURPLE PROSE!!

BECAUSE THERE'S SO MUCH TO LOVE!!!

Exactly!

I'm torn between Mace Windu dares the cold to cause him any sort of discomfort and now Mara is going to knit him a hat, because she's practical with her gift-giving like that, and Mace is secretly going to cherish it and never let it go.

(Oh! And of course she's going to knit Maul a hat that fits his horns! )

I know, right?! Neither would I! Kanan Caleb, though, doesn't see why everyone else is scared of his grandpa grand-master, and he's seen Depa and T'ra sass Mace so many times now that he just has a healthy respect and not the fear of god that every other Jedi has, much to Mace's annoyance. (It just gets worse with Ezra - who probably calls Mace "pops" or "gramps" or some variation thereof, I haven't decided yet. )

Oh, yay! That's always such a compliment, thank you! It helps having two such distinct, amazing actors to "hear" when I'm writing, too! On that note, few can deliver a good line of sarcasm quite like Samuel L. Jackson, and I loved giving him this more playful, humorous moment! There's more to Mace than just teh rules! and it absolutely pushes my buttons, the undeserved hate some fans give him. Not in my 'verse, I say.

Oh but of course! This is all in pursuit of knowledge.

Indeed, I agree! Thanks for taking the time to read and leave your thoughts.

Thank you! I loved growing (hee ) this parallel! It just fits, and I was really proud of how that piece turned out.

Success! It was wonderful to show the Jedi in a moment of peace - so much so that even a Jedi like Mace Windu is able to let go of his usual reserve - and I am so happy to hear that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Honestly, there are just as many WIPs as there are completed stories in my Song!verse, so it's more like I need to get cracking on writing it! But, once more, it's terrific to have you back and I hope that you enjoy whatever story next catches your eye!

That it can, thankfully.

I'm just saying that if a great many of us were granted awesome cosmic powers . . . this is most likely what we would do with them. Or at least I would.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks!

&

Thank you! This analogy really fit so perfectly, and it kept on growing p) the more and more I wrote.

It is heartbreaking, isn't it? He wasn't born as Sidious, and it is a tragedy when you think about the home and the family he must have known at one time.

I loved coming up with those names, and I'm thrilled they resonated with you!

lololl! There's definitely more than a little bit of arrogance there.

Thank you!

It's awesome that you picked up on this! That's not something I consciously noticed until I was in the editing stage and trying to decide which fic to post! In the end, they are foils of each other, and I love how that came about by happy accident on my part!

I do love writing an Anakin who's not dumb and Sithy.

Mace is a Jedi Master for a reason, who knows just how to use his reputation for the best.

Yay! I loved writing Mace's fun side.

What else are friends for? :0

Thanks, again! I can't wait to write more.

And I thought I was all done with that nonsense after the last KR, too.

Thank you! That dichotomy in tone is one of the main reasons I just had to write for both ideas, and I love how they came out in the end! Especially with the fun in the snow. What's even the point of having "superpowers" if not the potential of ultimate winter highjinks?

That's it exactly! It's patience towards an unvirtuous end, in a scheming, ultimate puppet master - or wise gardener - sort of way! Sidious may have had one harvest fail him, but he's certainly not done in this 'verse. Not by a long shot.

Also, that's a bit of fanon from me, based on the few vibes we get of Naboo as a sort of space!Italy. I can only imagine that they would have some fine wines, and loved giving that rich history to the Palpatines - even if they will always be associated with the most infamous Palpatine now.

And it's wonderful to be back writing in the Songverse again! Thank you so much for reading, and I hope that you continue to enjoy the rest of the Run!

 

Author's Note: The challenge for Week Two was to write a story between 400 and 800 words in second-person POV where a character is lost. To do so, I'm dabbling with an idea I started exploring in All That's Unsung, with Leia and Anakin's particular connection to Alderaan, and Until All the Songs Are Sung, which touched upon the cataclysm in the Force that made the Song!verse possible in the first place.

As always, I thank you for reading and hope that you enjoy!

---

Week II: “The Lost World”​

You are lost. (Or is it here that is lost?)

You know this, yet none of the things you’ve been told to do in order to be found again are working. You stay still (two cannot seek, and he will always find you), and you search your surroundings for a clue (to make sense of this here that is not there). Most importantly, you reach out with your senses, calling for your family. Yet the core spark of your brother is strangely muted, as if you’re deep underwater and he’s somewhere even deeper still. You strain to return to his side, but indomitable currents fling you to and fro. You can’t see through the depths of the agitated sea, let alone begin to swim for the surface. It is too powerful to fight against, and you are too dim and small and lost.

Mama, you instinctively reach next, searching for her warmth and light and safetycomforthome. Though she cannot feel you in the Force as you can feel her, she always knows when you need her, but not this time. What is worse, it's not even that she is too far away, somewhere beyond your reach; instead, it's as if she has disappeared entirely. She is a gaping ache in your spirit, a wound rent long ago, missing when you’ve only ever known belonging until now.

Daddy! frightened then, you shriek more so than seek. Yet the hotly burning flame of your father was then anything but bright. Instead, he was cold, so cold, and the connection that was ever a touchstone of your essence was nothing more than a wisp – nearly sundered and somehow forgotten. There was no light (no light!), just an unfathomable darkness (so dark!) that you instinctively shy away from, even as firm hands grasp your shoulders to keep you still.

(Mechanical breathing rasps in your ears over the furious pounding of your heart. “I have chosen to test this station’s destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan.”)

Lost (where your father is lost and your brother is lost and your mother is too), you reach out for Uncle Ben (who is so dim and so far away) and Auntie Soka (who is farther still) and even Mara (who somehow hears, but doesn’t understand, how can she hear but not understand?) and then Ezra (who is across such a distance that your senses strain and threaten to snap completely), desperate for anyone -

(You may fire when ready.)

Agony explodes in your mind as fire erupts across the stars and a million voices cry out in terror before they're suddenly silenced. The cacophony ebbs and only your wails remain in the void – you, and that black thing who is not (is not, is not, is not!) your father restraining you while you reel and push back against this dream (vision?) with all your might.

Wordlessly, you scream and scream and scream until –

“Leia! Wake up, princess, it’s only a dream.”

– you are found.

“Shh, sweetling,” strong arms hold you tight as you open your eyes, comforting rather than constraining. “I’ve got you.”

You cry then, sobbing as your father sooths you. You can feel him, impossibly light and bright once more. You reach out, just to make sure, and feel your brother and your mother and your family, all of your family, just as they should be and where they should be. You slump in exhausted relief, knowing that you’re safe now, that you’re home.

“It was awful, Daddy,” is all you can say about the vision (dream?) once your tears subside. “It was so awful.”

“I know,” your father whispers, holding you tight (clinging to you as you cling to him?), “I know.”

You allow yourself to be calmed, yet refuse to let go as the last remnants of your nightmare (for surely it was that, at least) fade into the night.



~ MJ

 

On one hand, mega-yikes! On the other, you know I love these angsty moments in the when dire happenings of the canon GFFA make incursions into the Songverse in the form of dreams, visions, and premonitions. It makes them hit even harder, in a way, and this one really hits hard given who is experiencing the vision and what it’s of. This is the kind of loving and comfort our lovely princess deserves in any universe (and most definitely did not get in the canon one), and if she deserves it for a bad dream (!) she will more than deserve it for anything else this or any universe might throw at her. And of course there is no one better for to find her again than her own strong, warm dad, one of the strongest and warmest dads there is in the GFFA. <3 Beautiful work on a beautiful addition to the Songverse!

 

Thank you for the wonderful feedback, everyone!

Indeed not!

Thanks.

Aw, thank you! This means even more to me, with how you're so aces at including visions and dreams in your own work, as well!

Eugh, you know my thoughts on canon and how much I agree with you!

There's really nothing better, is there? I loved giving this moment to both Leia and Anakin!

Thank you so much for reading, and taking the time to leave such wonderful comments, as always!

Thank you so much for such an amazing comment! This completely made my day, and I've read it over more than once! Because it is all too easy to forget just how horrific ANH was for Leia (especially when Leia grieved and processed her emotions offscreen badly done Lucas) when we've been so deeply ingrained with this story and these characters for so long, just as you say! To explore that loss from the POV of Song!Leia as a child, and then to have Anakin pull her up from that vision just as Vader once held her down . . . well, I'm rather proud of how this story turned out, and beyond thrilled to hear that it resounded so well with you as a reader, too!



I'll be back with Week Three in a jiffy.


~ MJ

 

Author's Notes: Week Three's challenge was to make up a new OC in just 500 to 1,000 words! (Which was quite the challenge for me personally, lemme tell you - though I managed in 999 words. ) That OC was to interact with at least one EC, and use the line of dialogue: "something was bound to go right sometime today."

To meet the requirements of the prompt, I went to my sprawling notebook of Song!verse scribbles and found a certain upcoming story idea that requires an OC to fill a very particular plot hole. Thus, Deniel Asce was born! Now, it's my pleasure to introduce him in . . .

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Week III: “Deniel and the No Good Very Bad Day”​

“Something was bound to go right sometime today – hah!” Deniel muttered as he picked up the datacards strewn across the floor. “I’m waiting, anytime now.”

Yet the universe refused to budge. He’d woken up late again (he just couldn’t seem to adjust to Ossus’ rotation), and spilled blue milk on his robes while scarfing down a bowl of crunchies (all the hot food was gone when he reached the cafeteria, and nothing was his mother’s crepas, anyway) in a rush to make up for lost time. Master Eerin had gently pointed out the stain to him, but the younglings in the crèche had laughed anyway while his lekku flushed in shame. They hadn’t meant to be unkind, but their amusement rankled when he was a whole nine years old and yet stuck in a class with babies who were still more advanced in wielding the basics of the Force than he was.

Just like Shari should have been, the thought came unwittingly. She should have been there, giggling with the likes of Luke and Leia Skywalker because her nerra had blue splotches all over his tunic, and not -

His eyes burned, but he ruthlessly sank his sharp teeth into his bottom lip, refusing to cry. Master Windu had made it very clear that fear and anger and hate lead to pain and suffering and the Dark, and he would not disappoint his parents and his clan and this great blessing the goddess had bestowed upon them all by failing -

Still, his vision swam as he shoved yet another datacard into his pack. His next class was with the other initiates his age, at least, but he was late again after rushing back to his dorm to change. With his routine disrupted, his already tentative sense of direction was hopelessly confused, and he’d gotten lost trying to find his classroom. (Why, oh why, did the Jedi seem to value the journey over actually reaching their destination as quickly as possible?) He wasn’t supposed to run indoors, but the corridor was empty and he was late. As fast as he was going, he’d turned a corner too quickly and stumbled down a set of stairs that he hadn’t realized was there. He’d ended up in a heap on the floor with his pack spilled all around him, still late and frustrated and bruised to boot.

In a desperate scramble, he attempted to recover his belongings and his peace – peace, peace, peace, a Jedi was always at peace – yet failed spectacularly at both.

“Are you looking for this?”

Deniel whipped around, and his eyes zeroed in on the handbound journal held by none other than Master Skywalker himself.

His eyes widened, and he almost tripped again – torn between standing and respectfully bowing to the Hero With No Fear (the Hero With No Fear! Goddess, but Shari would never believe him) and darting forward to grab the journal for just how precious a treasure it was amongst all his possessions.

“Yes, that’s mine.” His hands itched to take the homemade book back – which his mother had given him and he wrote in every day (oftentimes more than once) to share the next time his parents visited. “Thank you, Master Skywalker.”

“It’s beautiful.” Master Skywalker returned the book. “Your parents must be very proud of you.”

He blinked, surprised that the Human was able to read the Ryl symbols tooled on the cover. His orange lekku twitched, a wordless affirmation and gesture of hesitance and sadness and hope that didn’t have a matching word in Basic. Then, remembering that he was no longer on Ryloth, he opened his mouth to say aloud -

“I understand.” Yet he didn’t have to explain. “It’s hard being away from home – even for something good.”

“And I am happy to be here, Master,” Deniel said quickly. “I’m honored, and my parents are, too.”

They were, and he was, especially after . . .

He swallowed and added – compelled by the easy warmth (that impossible burning glow) pulsing from Master Skywalker in the Force, “My parents kept me, when I was first discovered to be Force sensitive as a baby. It wasn’t until the Renewal that they accepted the Jedi’s invitation to train me. Now, it’s . . .”

So much. Too much. But it couldn’t be too much, if only for . . .

“You’re part of a new generation of Jedi Knights,” Master Skywalker said, the words for once encouraging rather than daunting. “There’s bound to be some growing pains for all of us, and that’s okay.”

Deniel nodded, even as tears threatened to fill his eyes again. Goddess, but he really did belong in the crèche with the younglings, didn’t he?

But that massive feeling of warmth only grew, and Deniel felt his tears dry. “You know, I was about your age when I came to the Temple.”

Deniel looked up, surprised. “Before the Renewal?”

“Before the Renewal,” Master Skywalker confirmed with a wry quirk to his mouth that Deniel didn’t quite understand. “It’s a lot to adjust to, but you’re not doing it alone. If you ever feel alone, though, my door’s always open. Please, feel free to talk about whatever’s on your mind. Trust me, it’s better than keeping it bottled up inside.”

His lekku twitched before he could silence them. “That’s what my mother says, too.”

Softly, Master Skywalker smiled. “She sounds like a wise woman.”

“Kora says she’s the wisest.”

“Good man,” Skywalker approved. “Now, what’s your name?”

“Deniela’sce,” he said, before correcting in proper Basic, “Deniel – Deniel Asce.”

“Anakin Skywalker,” the Master said in return – as if Deniel didn’t already know – and held out his hand rather than bowing in the Jedi custom. Deniel shook it with a strong grip, just as his father had taught him.

“All right then, Deniel, what class can I help you find?”

Deniel felt his lekku slump, relieved. “Master Regin’s history class.”

“That,” Anakin placed a hand on his shoulder to guide him, “is right this way.”

His day finally brightening, Deniel followed.

Spoiler: End Notes

Ryl Translations: Nerra means brother, and kora means father.

A note on Deniel: Deniel is the Breton and medieval French variation of Daniel. (Or so says the internet. ) It seemed fitting to take a Biblical name, in the Star Wars style, and give it a French slant à la the Twi'leks in TCW and Rebels. The homage to another young man far away from home cinched my decision even further - though Deniel is certainly not a prisoner in enemy territory here! Asce is another medieval French name that I gleaned just because I liked the look and sound of it.

A note on Master Regin: This is a very side point, but I am immovably of the opinion that a certain Andor character is a former Jedi. Is that a spoiler?? If it is, don't read any further in this note! (I'm looking at you, VI - GO WATCH ANDOR, YOU SLACKER!) In either case, expect more fic based on this premise soon. While trying to decide what Luthen Rael's name could have been before hiding from the Empire, I went on a deep dive through the website Behind the Name - which every author of OCs should have bookmarked as an A+ resource! Of the many user-submitted theories, Rael was suggested to be a dialectal contraction of the Old Norse name Ragnvaldr. The element regin in that name means "counsel and power of the gods", which fits Luthen's character to a T, doesn't it? Then, as an added bonus, it's a perfect homage to his actor's RL Swedish heritage! I ultimately decided to go with Regin alone, and now here we are.

~ MJ

 

That's just the guilty conscience speaking. You know what you need to do.

 

I'M GONNA REPLY TO EVERYTHING ELSE WHEN I DO MY OFFICIAL REPLIES, BUT FIRST THIS:

OMG, Elli, I knooooooow and that idea just kills me dead, toooooo!! I wouldn't at all object to Andor taking that route, but because of the exact reasons you mentioned, decided to go my own way.

VI, YOU'VE GOT SOME BINGING TO DO!!!