Edges of the World

Chapter 3

Someone was yelling.

A Lot.

Mainly things like "this is so not my fault" and "never should have let her out of my sight"

It was clear there was someone else here, and whoever they were they were not having a good day.

Fortunately, the Force seemed to indicate that while mad, this being posed no threat to her of any sort.

Weird. The inherent nature of the Force felt very strange. Darker, colder, and somehow emptier. The place where she could normally sense the presence of the entire Order was empty. She couldn't feel any of her bonds either. Maybe this really was her Trial and that was why she felt so alone in the Force? She was probably going to have to investigate that. But first, time to make contact with the locals.

The source of the yelling was a pale Human, dressed like a spacer. She was assuming the spacer was male, but of course one could never tell those sort of things simply by appearance alone. He was not facing her, so she called over a "Hello there!"

"Finally! There you are you -" he stopped talking as he caught sight of her, and his mouth kind of just hung there as if he had been intending to say something and then forgot it. He'd be all kinds of handsome if he just closed that mouth of his.

She'd seen tons people react similarly before, especially on Outer Rim worlds like this one, places where Jedi were far less common.

There really was no mistaking what she was. Her no-nonsense short hairstyle emphasized her Padawan braid. Her robes were of a cut and style that only Jedi really wore, and well... the lightsaber was a dead give away.

She nodded at him with understanding. "Yes, I am a Jedi a-"

Now she was the one who wasn't finishing her sentences, although in her case it was because the man had decided to cut her off mid-word.

"I'm not being paid enough to deal with this nonsense!" He turned and stormed away. Which really was not good, because he was the only person Leia knew here. Well not that she knew him, but at the very least the Force had made it clear he was safe, and that was better than nothing. So she clipped her 'saber to her belt, and quickly followed after his longer strides. It seemed he was still ranting, something had clearly really ticked him off.

They were drawing closer to the sounds of a party. Music, voices, laughter. Of all the weird things she was preparing for when she set out through that tunnel, a hot guy taking her to a party was not one of them.

Just as they approached the edge of the party he spun around, jamming a finger in her face. "Look, sister, I have no idea what sort of nonsense you are trying to pull here, but I want no part in it. I was trying to be nice, helping you back to your quarters and all that, and first, you go and disappear on me, and now you pull... whatever this is. If you wanted me to leave you alone, you could have just said so."

She had to be missing something here. To make things worse, the man had managed to lose her in her confusion over his outburst.

She looked around the party and caught sight of a banner hung over a table with various cheap alcohols on it. "Happy Birthday Luke" it read, with a far less put together second banner pinned to it adding "And Princess Leia" What?

She looked around again, hoping to see something, anything, that could help her get her bearings. A lot of the party goers were giving her strange looks along the lines of the one the spacer had earlier. She sent out a silent plea to the Force to help her figure out what was going on. It seemed however that the Force really had a sense of humor that day because on her third glance around the room she saw something she really did not expect at all.