Lacuna~A Star Wars Sequel

Dememnted

So far, two weeks have gone by. No Maul, thankfully. Papa still doesn't seem to be bothered at all at the fact that his old enemy is coming to hunt us down. It's like the whole thing is a joke to him!

And Maul might not even be alone. There were two others that I heard. One of them I heard call the young boy Ezra. Whoever these two men are, I just hope they're friendly, and not with Maul.

Papa is cooking us some lunch in the small kitchen while I play with my necklace, bored sitting at the small table in our living space. I've decided to keep it on. I don't want it to start ringing again.

And as much as it brings back painful memories, it's comforting in a way. I guess I haven't been as appreciative of the happier memories with them as the bad ones.

Yet, I can't bring myself to say their names.

"Lost. I am lost. And yet, I can feel his presence. So close, so close," Maul's voice sounds in my head, startling me. He's here. "I can see him in my mind's eye. Kenobi."

Maul's close. He's on the planet.

"Kenobi!" I hear him scream. "Will it end here, like this? No. No! I must draw Kenobi out, tempt his noble heart. But how? How? I know. Ooh, I know."

My whole body freezes. What do we do?

"Papa," I begin.

"I know," he cuts me off. "I know he's here, Alex."

"What do we do?" I ask him, repeating my thoughts. I turn to face him. His eyes are closed but his body is faced towards the door.

"Pack your bags. Only take what you need. Load it onto the Dewback," he instructs.

"No speeder?"

"No. I shall need your speeder to sell for when you leave," he says.

"What?!" I stand up in shock. "What do you mean, 'when I leave'?"

"Simply that. When the time comes, you will leave me. Now go pack your things and prepare the Dewback."

"But.."

"Now, Alexandra. We leave in the morning," he says, raising his voice in the slightest. I flinch and walk out of the living area and into my old room.

There, I grab my bag and stuff my brush and a couple of hair ties into it, then grab the black box on my cot and store it in as well. I walk back into the living area and grab the rest of my clothes from my drawer and store those in as well.

I clip my heat lamp to my belt next to my blaster while my goggles still remain on my head from yesterday.

I glance at Papa and see that he's gone back to cooking, as if nothing ever happened. What is he not telling me?

Dragging my feet, I head up the hut stairs and walk over to the Dewback's stall. He bows his head when he sees me and I curtsy. It's not necessary to do this with a Dewback, but it's become a little habit of mine to just go along with it, and I guess the Dewback follows it too.

I reach my hand up to pet the creature and its long snout tickles my cheek, making me squirm.

"Now, what did I say about the snout?" I say to it. It can't really understand me, but I talk to it in basic as if it can. It nudges me with its snout again.

I open the pen and step inside, minding the droppings, and begin to load my stuff on the holder for the Dewback. The actual holder won't go on it until morning, as we don't want to hurt the creature by keeping it on him the whole night.

I make sure nothing can fall out before stepping out of the pen and locking up the rest of it. I quickly feed the Dewback and then shut his pen so no bandits take him. I go to turn around and head back inside, but something tells me to go to the front of the hill our hut is on.

I look over the edge at the dunes below me and see the faint outline of a man in black. Panic rises in me and I turn to go get Papa, but whip back around, deciding not to let the man out of my sight. Only, he's gone when I turn back around.

"So the younger one lives as well.." I hear Maul's voice ring in my head. I run back inside, not wanting to wait any longer to leave.

"Papa, he knows I'm alive too. I think I saw him outside!" I tell him. He just turns to me with a somber look on his face and nods. "We have to leave now before nightfall. I have a place we can stay until.."

"Alex, sit," he cuts me off.

"But.."

"Sit down. We will leave in the morning and that's final."

"Yes, Papa."

༒

I can't sleep. The haunting thought that Maul could come to our home any second keeps my mind awake. The world around me is dark, with only a single candle lit next to me.

"Okay, Master Kenobi, if you're down there, show me something."

I sit straight up. Another person is looking for Papa? Is it one of those men that I heard two weeks ago?

I get up out of bed and pull off my night clothes and put on my overalls that I left out, then head up out of the hut. I tilt my head to the sky, watching for any ships landing remotely close to our hill, but nothing.

The land stays quiet. The only sound being that of the Dewback's snoring and my breathing. Knowing I cannot go to sleep with now two people looking for Papa, I sit on the edge of the hill and gaze at the stars, also starting to put my hair into my infamous braid. No sand people will attack me here, and if they do, I know how to communicate with them.

It was another perk of being trained at the Temple. You get to learn all different kinds of languages of your choosing. That being said, I know at least ten.

The ones I know mainly are Astromech, Mando'a, Huttese, the language of the sand people, and Basic of course.

What did Papa mean when he said, 'when the time came I would leave him'? Did he mean that I would leave the planet once more? Or am I going to have another time jump?

I feel his presence behind me and look over my shoulder at him. The suns have come up by now, which means it's time to go. I stand up and walk over to him.

"You understand what you must do?" he asks me.

"No, I do not," I sigh.

"You will in time, my dear," he says, and then opens the Dewback's pen door. He leads the creature out of the pen and hands him over to me while he grabs the holder and puts it on the animal. I put my night clothes that I'm holding in my bag. "Hop on."

I go to jump onto the animal, but Papa stops me and brings me in for a hug. I sense his emotions are filled with sadness and guilt. He starts to stroke my head.

Oh.

This is the last time we'll be with each other.

I bury my head into his shoulder. "Papa, no. I'm not leaving you."

"You must," his voice cracks. I pull back and look him in the eye. He seems to be taking in everything about me. Frankly, I'm doing the same. My mind flashes back to the day I left. It's happening all over again.

I won't cry. Not this time. I need to be strong, for Papa. I know if I cry, this moment will live in infamy in my brain. I wipe any forming tears and hop onto the Dewback towards the back so Papa can guide it.

He hops on next and looks over his shoulder at me. I can't say anything to him. The moment I open my mouth, I'll lose it. He takes my silence as a go ahead to get moving.

And so we do.