Light in Her Darkness

Chapter 2

"Are you planning to come home soon? Amad is worried about you."

Kili resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the small hologram of his brother. "She wasn't worried when she sent me off to the Jedi Academy for my entire childhood."

Fili's eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms. He was wearing expensive looking robes, which meant he was probably in for a long day of meetings and public appearances. Such things always left him in a foul mood, and made Kili even happier to be far, far from home.

"She sent you to the Academy for training" his brother said evenly. "It was to help you."

"It was to see what use could be made of the spare," Kili retorted sharply. "And because people were afraid of me." Not every planet accepted, or even liked, Jedi. Superstition abounded everywhere, especially when someone was different or in touch with a power few understood.

"Heard it before, still sounds like magic."

The barest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Thankfully, not everyone felt that way. He leaned back to check the security feed he'd set up and tried not to feel disappointment that it still showed nothing but an empty room.

"Amad loves you, Kili," Fili's voice caught his attention. "As do the rest of us. It's not like we didn't want to visit, it's --"

"You couldn't be bothered to so much as send a letter, but none of you had any trouble showing up when I was eighteen to demand my return," Kili cut in. "Once you'd come up with a better use for me than languishing at the temple."

Bitterness leeched out in his voice and he scowled. The memory of one of his teachers at the Academy lecturing him on emotion and the dark side ran through his mind and he clenched his jaw in annoyance. Everyone was so quick to tell him how he should think and feel and behave. Not a single individual cared to ask what he wanted to do or how he felt. None of them cared. He'd always been little more than a pawn, at home and the Academy.

A flicker in the Force had him checking the video feed again, and this time he couldn't help the smile that jumped to his face.

"I have to go." He pushed to his feet, and carefully grabbed the small metal box that had been sitting on the table near him. "Bounty hunter is here."

"What?" Fili asked, alarm flickering across his features. "What bounty hunter?"

"Same one that's been after me the last month and a half," Kili said cheerfully. "I'll talk to you later."

"Wait," Fili said. "What bounty hunter? Are you --"

Kili cut off the holoprojector before his brother could finish, spun on one heel and exited the room, box tucked up under one arm.

He'd purposefully set himself up in an old warehouse on the outskirts of some nowhere planet in a forgotten part of the Outer Rim. The place was dark and run down, old bits of machinery and garbage littering every square inch. Creatures with bright, beady eyes lurked in shadowy corners and the entire place was thick with a stench he didn't care to identify, or ever experience again.

He'd been sitting in a small room on the second floor for hours and it felt good to stretch his legs as he moved in the darkness. Down below, he could hear the faintest sound of movement and he tracked it until he was certain he stood directly above it.

He put a hand on the railing separating the narrow strip of the second floor from the flat bay that made up the ground level, tested it for strength and then silently leapt onto it and knelt on the thin railing.