Hunted

XXIX. The Council

"I don't understand," she sputtered, "Luke Skywalker? You-you're..."

"Kylo Ren's uncle, yes."

Feeling weak again and worrying she might pass out, Serela grabbed her mother's arms for support and Reha lead her to the weathered table, sitting her down in one of the hard wooden chairs and brushing the crumbs away. Luke came forward to take a seat across from Serela while Reha pulled another chair over in order to sit closer to her.

"Start at the beginning," she pleaded, and clasped both her mother's hands in her own, afraid to let go in case she vanished, "Don't leave anything out."

Reha sighed, "There is much to tell my love, and you still have many others who wish to speak with you today."

"If I am so important that many people want to talk to me then they can wait," she said forcefully, and heard a tremor of Kylo's demeanor in her voice when she did.

Her mother's eyes widened at the attitude but she said nothing, instead launching into her explanation of everything as she remembered it transpiring.

"The two of you had just walked out the front door and I ran for the bedroom. I'd barely gotten the window open when I felt the heat from the blasts..." Serela squeezed her hands tighter, remembering that horrifying moment from her own perspective.

"Somehow, Light only knows, when I felt that blast of heat, it literally threw me through the window, just propelled me out of the house. Once I finally came to the cottage was in ruins and you and the ships were all long gone. I knew what must have happened to you, but I knew I couldn't do any good there on Takodana, and with the house destroyed and you gone there was no longer anything to stay there for."

Reha cleared her throat then, and seeing that Serela was shaking, lifted one of her hands to stroke her daughter's face, "I knew Maz Kanata still had many contacts on Takodana even after the attack on the castle. I simply traveled from village to village for a few days until I found someone who could put me in touch with the Resistance. Once I did and I explained the situation, who you were and who it was that had come to retrieve you, they sent a ship to get me the same day."

Serela looked at her mother, stunned, then over to Luke. He sat languidly in his chair, deep in silent contemplation.

"And where have you been?" she asked him directly, "Kylo went to a lot of effort to find you, but I heard from Phasma that they could never get the coordinates of your location. So how did you come to be here then?"

Luke hunched forward over the table and seemed to regard her with a leisurely curiosity. This was not a man accustomed to rushing to and fro, this was a man who possessed the Light, and large quantities of it. She peered into his mind and when she did she realised he was letting her, that he was showing and directing her to the information she sought. The island in the sea where the girl, Rey had found him, the plea to take up his light saber again and join the fight with the Resistance, to destroy the First Order and bring balance to the Force once and for all.

"But I cannot do it alone," he told her, speaking out loud. Her mother seemed nonplussed about being omitted from the internal conversation, maybe she was used to Luke Skywalker speaking to her in this way too?

"Who else then?" Serela asked, dreading his answer.

With a smile that said he knew what was in her mind, Luke replied, "I believe you already know the answer to that Serela... I need you... and your son."

"My son is the bastard child of a notorious mass murderer and a naive girl from a village on a feral planet, a bastard herself as I was constantly reminded aboard the Finalizer. What hope can there be for him if he is raised in this environment of war and chaos?"