Phases of the Moon

Sunrise's Flare

In which there is a minuscule change to Sunset's Fight that greatly alters its path and creates a new universe branch.

Luna sighed as she finished reading the newest Vader comic. Still nothing all that new. Different more like, though the entire comic series was different ever so when compared to her memories. Vader never hired Boba Fett to go after Luke Skywalker. Vader didn't kill Karbin. Other simple differences that could be predicted by the fact there was no apprentice at his side.

But it still didn't explain the Skywalker business. Vader had known the name before the boy had even entered the picture, before Alderaan was destroyed. He had never needed to research things, or at least never Luke Skywalker.

There were pieces of the puzzle missing. Luna had always attributed all of her Master's strangely accurate guesses and unknown sources to....well, now that the girl seriously thought about it, she had never actually questioned it. Rather simply assumed Vader had forcite greater than the Emperor's.

Which was not how Star Wars seemed to portray things. Years ago, Luna would have chalked the discrepancy up to issues with the interpreted storyline, but she couldn't help but feel as though she was overlooking something important about all of it. Like there was a missing link that would make everything make sense if she connected it all together

Luna did her best to shrug off the idea, though she knew it would undoubtedly fester. She would love to try and figure everything out, but at the end of the day, the girl would never be able to do it without her Master's help.

And all that was left of him, in this world, was little more than the pictures in the comic book she was holding.

In a different timeline, Luna would have not left the table she had been sitting at to return the comic book, instead moving to check out, buying the book despite the fact she knew the story rather well having lived it herself. In this timeline, the girl instead returned to the comics section to return the book, planning to move on and browse the heavier texts for new stories, Star Wars or otherwise.

In other timelines, there wasn't a tall man wearing a hoodie standing in the aisle and paging through the comics, as he usually did not decide to enter the bookstore at this time or even on this day. Within those few timelines where both events occur simultaneously, the majority of those few, the two pass by one another with little to no interaction, even when Luna sometimes stuck around the comics for a few extra moments to double check that there was nothing present worth buying.

But this was destined to not be any of the timelines described above.

Just as the girl was passing by the tall man to return the comic to the precise location she had originally found it, he spun around to leave. If the two had been lesser people, they may have directly crashed into one another or at the very least, the girl may have lost track of one of the comic books from the surprise.

They were not and easily jumped out of each other's way.

"Sorry," Luna said, a reflex from her body's previous self that she was still debating on whether or not to break. The girl didn't even look at the man, eyes ahead on future plans and already halfway across the bookstore and beyond, zeroed in on the next ten steps that would carry her through the rest of the day, week, month, year, and beyond.

"Sorry, my bad," the man responded.

And then the moment of true deviation. The climax where the other near written in stone version of events were deviated from. Skipped completely. The moment where there was no turning back onto that other proven path.