Chapter Text
“It won’t take long, Leia,” Luke spoke, addressing his twin sister’s sigh. “We’ll just quickly check out this tip, then we can go home.”
Luke sat at the controls of his HWK-290 light freighter. The Iron Hawk was a ship that Lando ‘gifted’ to Luke a while after the Battle of Endor, saying that Luke could make better use of it than him. Though Luke suspected that there was something shady and surely Lando behind the gift, it was a decent ship and worked in cases where his X-Wing only had one seat, and he wasn’t alone. Cases like this, where he was checking out another tip about either a Jedi Temple or an anomaly in the Force, where he would convince his sister and Ahsoka, to join him.
“What is this tip anyway?” Leia asked from behind him.
“Something about a possible old Jedi distress beacon,” Luke explained. The tip he got from an old Rebel friend was vague and still confused him, but it was worth checking it out. “We should be coming up on the location soon.”
“A Jedi distress beacon?” Ahsoka asked from the co-pilot seat, turning back slightly to meet his eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense. Any Jedi still alive from the Republic era wouldn't risk it. Even with the Emperor dead.”
Luke shrugged in response to his father’s old Padawan, pulling a lever and the streaks of hyperspace collapsed back into still, scattered points of light. “I figured it would be worth checking out. We’re coming up on the coordinates now.” He looked up from the screen to the viewport, nothing but the empty vastness of space and distant stars.
“There’s nothing here, Luke,” Leia said, gesturing to the empty viewport.
“There’s got to be something,” he argued, looking back at the controls.
“There aren't any nearby systems. Let’s just go home.”
“I knew I should have had Artoo come; maybe I put the coordinates in wrong. I gave them the data-stick.”
As Luke started to pull up the navigation computer to check the coordinates again, a low whine echoed through the ship as the lights and controls powered down.
“Everything is dead,” Ahsoka reported, flipping switches and pressing buttons that didn’t respond.
“I just had the power converters checked last week,” Luke sighed, slumping in his chair and reaching up to grasp a chunk of dirty-blonde hair with his flesh hand.
“We’re going to be the ones sending a distress signal now.” Leia rolled her eyes. “We shouldn’t have followed this tip anyway.”
“I don’t think that’ll be happening,” Ahsoka muttered lowly. Luke turned to see her brow furrowed and a dark look in her eyes. Before he could ask, the power returned to the ship, electronics beeping and lights flashing their usual rhythms.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Why?” Luke asked, turning back to the systems in front of him. “Power’s back, let’s get out of here.”
“Luke...”
“What, Leia? I thought you wanted to go home.”
“Luke, look.”
“Huh?” He turned, looking to his sister, then followed her gaze out the viewport window. Where the space was empty mere moments before, now there was a planet-sized black octahedron floating.
A quiet kriff hissed into the silence, panic and disbelief laced into the expletive. Luke pulled his eyes from the viewport to Ahsoka. Her sienna skin was pale and her jaw slack.
The ship lurched before he could speak, pulled towards the mass like a tractor beam. The center of the mass slowly opened, a bright light engulfing their ship and pulling them closer and closer.
“Strap in,” Ahsoka called out, her hands clenching the armrests of her seat. The light was blinding and all-consuming through the window, causing the three to wince and close their eyes against the strain.
***
The ship jolted and shook as it tore through the ground, instruments and lights were flashing and beeping warnings and damage reports. The metal hull whined as it came to a stop; the two men inside groaned and winced as electricity sparked from the control panel.
“I didn’t think you saw it,” the elder of the two said, rising from his seat and moving to the exit.
“It was a giant tower—of course, I saw it!” the second replied following the first man out of the wreck. His tone cut with sharp sarcasm over the anger and fear that rolled off him in waves.
The elder man shuffled down the uneven ramp onto the rocky terrain torn-up from the wake of their crash-landing, looking out at a landscape as dark and lifeless as the sky above it.
“Any sign of him?” the younger asked, coming out of the ship to stand beside him.
“No,” he replied gravely. “I think it’s obvious where he’s taken her.”
The younger man stepped forward, and the landscape opened before him—a rocky obsidian expanse centered on a distant cathedral, the same glowing spire that they almost crashed into. “We must hurry.” He started towards it, unwilling to lose any time.
The elder man moved in front of him, grabbing the younger man’s shoulders, forcing blue eyes to meet his own. Before he could speak, however, a jolt flew through the Force, comparable to being shocked by an electrostaff. “What was that?”
“You felt it too?” the younger man checked, his eyes wide.
He nodded. “We need to leave this place.”
“We need to find her first.”
***
Luke groaned, his neck and back stiff and sore. He blinked his eyes open, finding himself not in the pilot seat of the Hawk but rather lying on the hard dirt of whatever planet they were now on. Confused, he looked around, spotting Leia and an unconscious Ahsoka on the ground nearby, and no sign of the ship.
“Where are we?”
Leia shrugged at his question, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
The rocky mountainous terrain around them was covered in a thick layer of green vegetation. Plants grew in clusters around the base of the mountains, trees stretching towards the sky. Chunks of plant covered rock were floating in the air as if the gravity that affected everything else didn’t matter to them.
“You are his children.”
Luke jumped to his feet as the words echoed through his head. His lightsaber smacked into his palm and ignited into a vibrant green blade. Suddenly Ahsoka was awake and by his side, her twin pearl blades alight. Luke spun on his heel, searching for the source of the voice. At his other side, Leia was on her feet in an instant, her own blue blade igniting.
The trio formed a defensive line, their eyes all locked on the figure that materialized in front of them.
The pale-skinned being was glowing—there was no mistaking it. Her pale green eyes matched the color of her hair. Her hair floated down her back, defying gravity, much like the rocks around them. A circlet of glimmering gold rested at the crown of her head. Her long white and gold dress pooled at her feet, the neckline plunging nearly to her navel.
“Who are you?” Luke asked, on edge.
“I am Daughter,” the woman spoke again.
Though her mouth opened and moved, it sounded more like her voice was within his mind, echoing through like when he and Biggs would mimic Tusken calls through Beggar’s Canyon back on Tatooine when he was young.
Ahsoka cursed under her breath in Huttese—a habit Luke knew she'd picked up from his father.
“How is this possible?” she asked in Basic, eyes locked on the woman who was apparently called Daughter.
The woman tilted her head, her gaze now focused on Ahsoka. “You are the same friend?”
“You’ve met this lady before, Ahsoka?” Luke asked, refusing to look away from the ethereal woman.
“She’s supposed to be dead.”
The Daughter’s eyes narrowed in deep thought, her thin green eyebrows furrowed. “Stay here.” She turned on her heel, her green hair floating behind her, then suddenly where she stood was now a giant creature with wings and a bird face perched on four legs. It mirrored the same colors of the woman, pale green hair now a mane and tufted tail, feathers and fur a pearly white, its beak golden.
The creature crouched slightly before rocketing into the sky and out of sight.
“What was that?” Leia asked, deactivating her lightsaber and clipping it to her belt as she turned to the Togruta.
“The Daughter,” Ahsoka said, swallowing hard as she clipped her hilts to her belt. “She died in the Clone Wars. Saving my life.”
“I’m confused.”
“The Republic caught a distress signal from beyond the Outer Rim, during the war. Jedi code buried inside it.” Ahsoka's eyes tracked the empty sky where the creature had vanished. “The Council sent Obi-Wan, Anakin, and me to investigate. We got pulled in—similar to now.”
Luke could feel the twinge of pain Ahsoka felt at the memory across their thin Force bond, pain that lingered in her eyes when she looked back at him and Leia.
“This place is called Mortis,” she continued. “A Force prison, for three beings who are the Force, more or less. The Daughter, Son, and Father. Light, Dark, and the one who’s supposed to hold the balance between them.”
“And they took you?” Luke asked.
“The Father wanted Anakin.” Ahsoka’s jaw tightened. “The Father was dying, needed someone to take his place, and he knew of Anakin’s power. Obi-Wan and I were held hostage and Anakin’s test was getting us back.” She paused. “He passed the test but refused the Father’s offer. We tried to leave.
“The Son ambushed our ship on the way out,” Ahsoka went on, quieter now. “Dragged me back to his cathedral and possessed me; used me to fight Anakin and Obi-Wan. After I served my purpose, he killed me.” She let her words hang in the air for a moment. “The Daughter gave her life to bring me back. Anakin killed the Son while the Father kept him distracted. All three of them died. We left, and nobody spoke of it again.”
“But she’s alive,” Leia said.
“This place exists outside space and time.” Ahsoka shook her head.
“We should follow her and find out,” Luke decided, hooking his lightsaber to his belt and starting after the Daughter.
“Wait! Luke!” Leia called. “If the Daughter is alive, then what about the Son?”
“We won’t figure anything out without talking to her,” he called back, not slowing his stride. “We find her, get the information, get the ship, and leave. Avoid this Son guy at all costs if he’s alive.”
Ahsoka jogged, catching up to him. “Luke, we can't fight them. They aren’t Sith or Jedi; they are Force wielders. They can block or deactivate a lightsaber with a thought.”
“We aren’t going to get home if we stay here. We have to find out what’s going on here.” Luke stopped and turned to face his sister and his friend.
Ahsoka sighed, rubbing her temples. “I can’t believe I’m dealing with this nightmare again.”
***
Daughter knelt at the scale that sat in the entry room of the Father’s monastery. The hall was an ambient gray and blue, light emanating from the cracks and recesses of the architecture. The only other light in the room came from the statues' eyes—a gargoyle, representing the Son, watched from across the scale with glowing red eyes, though the space beside it stood empty. Behind her stood the griffin, pale yellow-white eyes fixed on her back as she knelt—her own likeness, watching over her. Father was kneeling at the center of the scale, his unease melting into the Force around them.
“You should not have brought more here,” Daughter said softly, breaking the silence. She refused to raise her chin and look the Father in the eye.
“If the One does not wish to stay and fill my place, perhaps one of his children can.”
Daughter finally looked up and met his gaze, her green eyes meeting his blue-green ones. “But you have broken the laws of time, Father. They are here at the same time; they could meet.”
“I decide the laws,” Father said, the authority in his voice causing the Daughter to bow her head submissively. “We have seen what he will become, they could change their reality.”
“They would cease to exist as they are,” she reasoned. The idea of the three dying for another time was a weight in her gut.
“A necessary sacrifice.”
Before the Daughter could argue on behalf of the innocent lives, the Father raised a hand, silencing her. The Son had arrived—stepping onto his side of the scale. And the balance was already lost.