Edges of the World

Chapter 41

A knock on the door finally ended Leia's unsuccessful attempts to meditate.

"Leia, I'm bored. Do you want to talk or something?"

She opened her eyes, stood and stretched. "Sure, we can talk. Or there's always the dejarik board," she called to Luke.

"Will you quit it with dejarik? What is with you and that game."

She hit the panel next to the door, revealing Luke's annoyed expression on its other side. "I like to play games when on long interplanetary trips." She shrugged. "It's fun. People in this dimension do know what fun is, right?"

"Ha ha, very funny."

They walked together towards the ship's main living space. Leia eyed the dejarik table - the only seating available - for a moment before folding herself onto the battered bench.

"Ok, you've got my attention. What did you want to talk about?"

He was leaning against one of the galley's counters, fidgety and uncomfortable. "I... Well..." He went through a variety of single word openers. Each time he started he looked so hopeful, only to cut himself off before he even began, frustration flashing across his features. Shooting into the Force around him.

"Take your time, no rush."

"Look. I was hoping... well before we get to this instructor you are taking me to... I was hoping you could explain more about what you meant? About my father being alive?"

She really had been hoping to avoid that topic until they were on Dagobah. It'd be so much easier to just let Master Yoda explain everything. He'd understand it all so much better than she ever could, and probably would have a better understanding of how much Luke could and should handle hearing.

"See, this is why I'd rather just play a game. Less likely to end in some sort of fight."

"Leia, please."

"Weren't you the one who said it would be dangerous for you to get too upset while flying through space?"

"Leia! I am asking you nicely, please!" It wasn't the fact he had raised his voice that annoyed her. It was the desperate edge, the stubborn undertone. It called to the part of her that was more sibling than Jedi, to her petty need to attack him just because it bothered him.

If he had actually been her brother, she would have given in to that impulse. Called him one of the thousand mocking nicknames he absolutely hated. Dug in deep, aimed to wound.

But he was not that Luke.

He was someone else, someone who had a perfectly reasonable cause to be upset.

Leia forced herself to relax, to ease back in her seat and unfurl her clenched hand. She stared at the checkered table in front of her, nodding as she did. "Ok. What... what do you want to know?"

"Everything?"

"You have to be a bit more specific than that."

"Ok. I guess... wherever he's trapped, do you think we could save him? I mean clearly Ben doesn't, but I dunno... maybe you have hope?"

"I do. Have hope we can save him, I mean. Ever since I got here I've been doing everything in my power to figure out how to get him back. I'm not going to lie, it won't be easy but... I really think it can be done."

Luke exhaled, sharp and heavy. Leia shut her eyes, and listened to him simply breathe for just a little while, before he began asking her questions once more.

"You, you've been coming up with a plan to rescue him?"

She thought she'd been doing a pretty decent job using vague phrases to mask the true nature of how and why Anakin Skywalker was trapped, but if Luke kept pressing she'd run out of ways to deflect him from the awful terrible truth.