The Children of the Stars

Destiny Arrives

Allana had not expected to set foot on Jakku again so soon. The sun was setting over the desert and the wastelands, turning the dulled durosteel of the Hellhound Two brilliant shades of violet and orange. The transmission had come in during the middle of the night on Hapes, but she answered it all the same.

This was it— this was the place where her destiny would finally be fulfilled, the prophecies she had dreamed of ever since she was small, the promises the galaxy had for her. It would all end here.

The Evenstar, her Battle Dragon, was parked only a few meters away from the Millennium Falcon. How strange it had been, to be separate from her family when they had completed the mission to retrieve her mother.

But because of her promises to Tenel Ka and the duty she had assumed when she became the Chume'da and now the Queen Mother, she was unable to go. The throne could get lonely in how it chained and entrapped the one who sat in it.

Maybe I can save him, she thought to herself as she remembered the one who she had traveled with to this forsaken place only a standard month before. Maybe I can bring him back with me, to Hapes.

In truth, Allana was unsure if Valin would accept such an offer, to stay with her on Hapes if he was suddenly able to do so, and openly. Hapes still had a long way to go in how it viewed the Jedi during the reign of Ni'Korish and her predecessors. The Heritage Council had been evidence of that, even if their threats had receded when they had publicly been linked to the Imperial Remnant and the spilling of Hapan blood upon Allana's ascension.

Besides, Valin was like his father in many ways. Not just the color of his hair or the shape of his nose, or even the Horn signature fighting style with a lightsaber. He was that stoic, quiet man of action, like Corran Horn was, and his namesake before him.

For all that one could forget that internal restlessness with his calm demeanor and strategic mind, it was still there, beating in his heart like a drum. No, his blood would always be screaming at him to go and save the galaxy. Not even out of a love adventure, like for Jysella and her mother, but out of a sense of duty.

It was the weary life of a good man and a great Jedi. One that he deserved to have after all of this, if he wanted it.

Hapes was a life of great luxury and politics— the kind of life that encouraged corruption and decadence. Things that she knew Valin would stand against. Could she really constrain him to such things, for her own sake and comfort?

She shook her head, tossing her dark braids over her shoulders. She'd adopted the hairstyle of Tenel Ka for her one last adventure, a physical reminder of what she aspired to be. Besides, it looked great. She broke herself from her reverie— what questions she considered, she would have to wait for Valin to return, to be removed from carbonite. She would ask him then and find out what he truly wanted.

From the Hellhound Two emerged the rest of her family. There was her father, Jacen, Tahiri, and Nellith. Kyp and Rey had joined the fray— and with them, a young man that Allana did not recognize.

This must be Kitri, Allana thought, remembering her twin's transmission to recap everything that had happened on the trip to Vjun without her.

It was strange to think that Jaina had such a rich life in those years without going to find her sister. She had spent time with this young man and his little sister, teaching both the ways of the Force and promising them that they would be Jedi someday, when they were all able to be together again.

Then again, Jaina and Kitri had succeeded where Allana herself had failed in finding Rey.

She wasn't sure how to feel about that. Jealousy, after all, was unbecoming of a Jedi. And she wasn't about to fail the trials before her and fall to the dark side now. They couldn't afford it now.