Edges of the World

Chapter 13

Crawling around the guts of ships, working on engines, figuring out the intricate puzzle of how the mechanical pieces and wires needed to fit together to produce the most efficient results, this was the sort of rote physical activity that truly allowed Leia's brain to enter the perfect state for meditation.

The Falcon's insides were a bit more complex than most of the ships she was familiar with. She was pretty sure most of the parts she encountered as she made her way through the ship's guts were not up to any code – it really looked as if the majority of the parts had been rescued from a salvage heap and then modified. Modified to serve more functions than they had been originally intended for, even when they had been new and actually could be counted on to work.

This ship truly was a marvel of jerry-rigging.

Even with the ship's unusual makeup, it did not take her long to find her groove and enter a meditative state. Finally for the first time since she had arrived in this strange impossible world, Leia could process all the emotions she had been experiencing since her Trial began.

What had happened in this universe?

Her thoughts went yet again to the vision she had the previous night.

To her mother lying on the ground.

Her father had hurt her mother.

No matter what else she learned about this universe, her thoughts kept returning to that horrible sight.

It felt so impossible, her dad was always so careful with his family. Even when playing around or training her or Luke he'd check in endlessly, so overly worried that he could cause even the slightest amount of distress in the people he loved. Yet she had seen it, clearly, when she had asked his lightsaber for its memories; Anakin Skywalker had horribly, terribly injured Padmé Amidala Naberrie. It was inexcusable and unforgivable.

Was he beyond redemption?

She wondered when her timeline and this one had split, if they had ever actually been the same.

She wanted to think that her father would never chose the Dark Side, that the version of him that existed in this universe had to be fundamentally different from the man she knew.

She was not naive enough to actually believe that was the case.

Something had happened to cause Anakin Skywalker to fall, and along the way the entire Republic had crumbled around him.

Luke hadn't even known who their mother was, and the two of them had been raised as strangers.

Darth Vader had clearly tortured her counterpart at some point in the past.

Things had gone as wrong as they could go.

She needed to know what happened, what had led to the split between this world and hers; it had to have been truly major for it to have such devastating results.

There had to a record of something that huge.

As she attempted to meditate she could feel the Sith testing out her shields. Every so often he would come close to breaking through, yet each time she managed to reinforce them before he had any real success.

She sighed and tried to clear her mind once more. With her hands occupied on the wires she was twisting apart and then together once more, she breathed in deep and counted to five, finding her center.

Even with the added distraction of the Sith scrambling to find entry into her mind, she needed to access that place of inner acceptance, to allow herself to feel what she was feeling, acknowledge it and then give herself permission to let it go. She needed to be balanced to handle what was coming next. She had to be calm, and at peace, and ready.