Daring to Dream

Chapter Three

While the guards began apologizing to a cloaked figure rushing towards us, I stood there like an idiot, unsure what to do next.

The figure reached me and threw her hood back, Mom standing there. I knew her face because of the holograms. All the bitterness I ever harboured for her vanished as I immediately hugged the person who used to be my entire world as a baby. I did not know when they began, but I let my tears stain her shoulder. "Mom, I missed you so much."

"I know, baby. You've grown up so much, I can barely recognize you," she replied back, all the while cupping my head with a gentle yet thin hand.

I pulled back, smiling with tears, only to see two drops trickle down her cheeks as well.

"Come on," she said, pulling my luggage behind her. "Everyone's waiting for you."

"Everyone as you mean in?" The excitement of seeing the fabled Jedi Temple overwhelmed my tiredness.

"All the Jedi Masters." She was walking very fast, just like me. "Master Yoda, our grandest master, has been specifically waiting for you. He's very eager to know if you could be a Jedi or not. However, I must warn you," she winked. "You've only seen humans, and the council is full of alien species. Some will be really strange looking to you, but do not laugh."

"Mom, I know my basic manners." I was about to tell her I don't want to be a Jedi but thought the better of it. Let her have her way with her daughter for once, I can always deny later.

"Keep your cloak up, and do not speak unless spoken to," she told me sternly, acting as if she had been there to discipline me all my life instead of Dad, not like we had just met each other two minutes ago.

I was feeling excited, but slightly nervous. If I was able to be a Jedi, I had to leave Dad, and possibly Mom, for a life I didn't know existed until two years ago. If I'm not, maybe Mom will be ashamed or ridiculed or-

"Sweetie, we're here." A hand cupped my shoulder gently.

I trailed behind her like an obedient cat. Inside was a great, spacious room, just like a living room for the guests, with about twelve people occupying seats. The diversity between them amazed me, and the fact there wasn't any great commotion that I knew of between them, their unity surprised me even more. I and my human cousins don't even get along that well, they don't even share the same species, let alone blood!

"Masters," my mother bowed, and I did too, "this is my daughter, Zoya. She has just arrived, and I brought her here as per your wish."

"Meeting us for the first time, are you, hmm?" A green dwarf asked me, and I nodded in reply. I barely held back from telling him to correct his sentence.

"It is a pleasure to have you here, Miss?" A bald black [sorry, I'm not racist, I had to describe him] man ended on a questioning note, as if asking my name.

"Um, you can call me Zoya, master," I said timidly.

"Very well," a green master with long Medusa-like tentacles and black eyes proceeded. "Zoya, has your mother told you why you are here?"

"To be tested for a Jedi?"

"Yes, and no." Another master, with fleshy skin, eyes protected by some strange goggles and a mask spoke to me gently. "You are here to be tested if you have the Force, which is the energy that surrounds us. If you have enough of the Force, you have the potential to be a Jedi. Understood?"

I nodded. I liked that Jedi, he was kind and nice.

"Being a Jedi takes years of training, depending on your strength, so you shall have the final say in being tested, because if you show the Force affinity, you must be trained to be a Jedi. Even though you're much older than we would have preferred at training level, we might make an exception for you." The green master said next.