The 12th Circle
Chapter 2
Padmé saw a dove and he hadn’t seen it. A white dove, she hadn’t seen one since the Dark One had taken over and turned her beautiful dream into a nightmare. She thought she shad fooled herself at first, but the bird came back the next day and sat on the windowsill. It made eye contact with her. They just studied each other for a long time, conveying the wordless message. Then the Bird flew away. Did it mean her children were coming? She could feel them closer than before, some sense deep down inside. How long would it be now? How long?
***************
They had descended into darkness and they could suddenly feel the chill of the dark side. It ran up their spine and coiled around there mind. As tired as there feet were, they didn’t want to stop. Fear made them want to leave the dark forest as soon as possible. Four children and one full Wizard. Majus seemed rather calm despite the darkness and the children wondered if he had mastered someway of dealing with the intense sense and awareness of evil.
Despite being tired, they weren’t relieved when Majus insisted they set down camp. The thought of sleeping in the dark woods all had them afraid. They didn’t know if they would be able to rest.
“I sense your fear children,” Majus said as the children settled down. “Be guarded in this place, but do not fear it. However, do not underestimate it either. Do not truly sleep. You learned how to give your body’s rest, but not your minds in meditation. Use that technique.”
“Why Majus?” Sorin asked.
“The shadows,” Majus said. “They can creep into an open mind and attempt to seduce it to evil. You must stay focused, alert.”
“Does the Red Mistress really exist?” Mava asked with fear vibrating in her voice.
“The red mistress, the blood huntress, so many names she goes by, they go by.” Majus sighed. “Yes, they are as real as you or me. And nothing gives them more pleasure than feeding on Majik blood.”
“Do the Dark Majiks fear them?” Luke asked more out of curiosity than fear.
“Fear them? They worship them.” Majus told him. “They even will sacrifice their children to them.”
“That’s disgusting,” Leia said.
“There are also women, who desire to know their power so much, they allow themselves to be turned into the Red Mistress’ grotesque servant. They are fed on until they are near death and then the ritual of rebirth is begun. For all it’s physical ugliness, these women attain much darker power. The Red Mistress herself is quite beautiful.”
“I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to. I say we make as much time as we can with as little rest as possible,” Leia concluded.
“I agree,” said the other children.
“I don’t,” Majus said. “Here is where you will need much strength. To exert yourself to weakness would not be productive.”
The children looked at each other.
“I share my strength with you,” Luke said to Mava, giving her his hand.
“I share my strength with you,” Mava said to Sorin as she took his hand.
“I share my strength with you,” Sorin said to Leia as he gave her his hand.
“I share my strength with you,” Leia said giving her brother a special smile.
Sharing their strength, they rested, holding each other’s hands. Majus was proud of them. Fear had united them, he knew they would need something stronger than fear to complete the journey, but uniting them was important. The children’s minds remained alert all during the night. Their bodies rested, but they weren’t really comfortable. The fear was still in them. And all through the night they felt something evil trying to probe at them.
When it came time to rise, they were all ready to go. But the mental stress hadn’t allowed their rest to truly be rest. The blood sucking Red Mistress was their biggest worry. They all believed in the force of goodness, light magic over dark, but they were children and could not help fearing the monster in the woods.
“I think I hear something,” Mava said after 3 hours or so of traveling.
“What did you here?” Luke asked.
“Shh,” Leia said. “I hear it too.”
“I don’t hear it,” Sorin said.
“Shhh,” Leia commanded.
Silently, Majus watched the children. The boys finally heard the rustling, but by then Leia’s quick hand had grabbed her dagger and flung it into the grass beside Luke. He jumped, thinking she was surely aiming for his foot. He reached down to get the dagger and was surprised to find a creature attached.
The creature was a snake or at least snake like. Long, thin, slimy, but covered in all these spikes. Luke stared at it, amazed at it’s length, mostly because it was so thin.
“Good work Leia,” Majus said. “Those things are poisonous.”
Luke dropped it then. Leia pulled her dagger out of the dead creature as Sorin and Mava patted her on the back with a ‘good job Leia’. Despite himself, Luke felt a jealousy of Leia’s praise. He had always been the most gifted of the two force children. But that could only have been because, whatever little it might have been, he had been trained by previous Jedi masters and she had been trained (very little) by him, when he had just reached the stage where he could respectably say he was a jedi knight. Now that they had been knocked back to equal ground, could she excel beyond him? But it was selfish of him to want his sister to be a less able force user than himself, it was wrong, he wanted her to be on his level, it was…it was this place that made him feel that irrational jealousy.
As they walked, Leia came close to him.
“Luke,” Leia said. “I had this powerful sensation. I just sensed that thing and–” She imitated the motion she’d used.
“It was only a snake,” Luke rebuked.
“A snake that would have killed you, I saved your life little brother.”
“Can you stop that, you have no proof I’m the youngest, just because you’re taller–”
“Why can’t you be happy for me?” Leia said.
“When you do something important, like stop a Rancor maybe I will be,” he snapped.
“So we measuring foes now Luke?” Leia replied. “Is that how we grade force potential these days!”
The two other children and Majus stopped and stared at the twins.
“I’m not grading you, but being a Jedi is not about one little moment of clarity and killing a little snake.”
“Fine, Lucas,” Leia snapped. “I’ll let the next one kill you.”
Then she turned on her heels and walked away. So much for sharing strength, Majus thought as they continued on through the dark woods.
Luke and Leia traveled with an invisible wall between them for the rest of the day. The spent most of the day in silence. Sorin and Mava tried to raise conversation with each of them and bring it together, but it always failed. It continued that way for five days and nights. They still rested as they had the first night, in a circle, but Majus could tell that the circle was broken. Luke and Leia, as siblings often do, had had a spat. It was harmless and normal and if they were anywhere else, it could play itself out in it’s own time. But in the Dark Forest, any and everything could be exploited by the dark forces of the woods. Physically, the only threat they had met was the snake, if that’s what it was. Even though they could still feel a threat around them, not seeing it there defenses were down. Majus knew the greatest trick evil could play on there minds was pretending it wasn’t there.
At the end of the first week they ran into a wall of vines. Not a wall covered in vines, a wall that was actually made of thick vines. The vines had thick spiked thorns that bought back memories of the snake.
“What’s this?” Mava asked.
“Should we cut through it?” Sorin inquired.
“It’s the the fortress of the Dark Majik’s,” Majus pointed out. He had bought them in this direction on purpose. To show them the Dark Majik’s existed, just as they, the light Majik’s, did.
“We got to turn back,” Mava said. “Find a way around.”
Leia looked at Majus, who didn’t seem afraid at all. He seemed entirely too calm.
“Fear will destroy you my dear,” Majus said. “Understand the evil, but don’t fear it.”
Leia wasn’t afraid, she felt the darkness of the place. However, in the belly of evil, one could adjust. There was something else in Majus’ eyes that bothered her. He was looking at the wall of the fortress with a bit of longing. And she knew it wasn’t longing for the Dark Majik order or the power it represented. It was a look of love, something her adult self understood. Vanasi, his wife, she was among them. A lost soul, but still his love.
She began to wonder if her mother had ever looked at Vader with such longing. Had her mother loved Anakin despite the darkness that consumed him. She wondered if, despite his many injuries, despite the suit, despite everything, if given the chance to look upon Anakin consumed by the darkness of the Sith, would she have still loved him. She still couldn’t think of him as her father. Bail was her father, not Vader, not Anakin, Bail Organa.
“What’s that,” Sorin said as he point to a great flame rising up from behind the wall. A dragon emerged from the flames, all black and huge. It’s wings spread out and blocked what light was left in the sky. It looked at them and started toward them.
“Run,” Sorin said.
They turned to run, but were forced. to freeze as four horrible creatures rose in front of them. The things that rose out of the darkness seemed more dead then alive, their faces deformed. At some point they had to have been women. They had elongated fingers tipped with razor sharp nails and glowing red eyes. They looked pale and sickly, but they were anything but that, as witnessed by their quick movement.
Majus wasn’t afraid of them. He raised a hand and the creatures were thrown back as if by some invisible wind forced in their direction. They got up and were on top of the groups again in a few leaps. The children took out there weapons and fought against them. As soon as they found room to flee, they ran. The fled without looking, becoming scattered throughout the woods. They quickly realized they were lost in the Darkness, without Majus, without each other. Everyone was on there own.
Leia was lost in the darkness. She didn’t know if it had gotten later or if she’d just ran into an area of the forest where the trees were so thick it blocked the light, it was so difficult to see through them. There was thick brush and vines everywhere and she used her dagger to cut through them. Suddenly, something clamped onto her arm. She yelled and tried to shake it off. Finally she knocked it off and it flew away with a screech. She didn’t even get a good look at it.
Finally she came into a clearing, tired and spent. She sighed as she sat down to tend her wound and mumbled to herself.
“Hey,” a voice suddenly yelled. She jumped and then looked at the boy emerging from the darkness.
“Sorin,” Leia said relieved.
“Hey Leia,” Sorin said. “Have you found your brother, Mava, Majus. I saw some major fireworks, I think Majus was fighting off those things.”
“Fireworks?” Leia asked. “From Majus?”
“Yeah,” Sorin said. “Can’t you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Create fire,” Sorin replied.
“No,” she stated. “The force isn’t a magic–” She stopped herself remembering this was a different world. “No, I’ve never been able to do that with the force. At least not on my world. Though there is sort of white lighting that a Dark Majik from my world used against Luke once.”
“It’s pretty simple, if you remember all elements are one or at least parts of the same source,” Sorin said. He put his hands together and drew them apart. A small ball of fire lay in his hands. “I’m sure you could do it.”
Sorin came and put Leia’s hands between his own. He pushed them together.
“Close your eyes, feel the ‘force’ as you call it, and feel the element your trying to create.”
Leia closed her eyes. She could easily see fire and darkness, but she didn’t run from it. Sorin slowly drew her hands apart.
“Now open your eyes,” he whispered.
She opened her eyes and saw the small fireball in her hand. Even Luke hadn’t helped her make something this . . . this. . .”Wow,” she said as she stared at her small fireball with joy.
“Couldn’t really hurt anything big, but it’s a beginning.”
“Yeah, a beginning.”
‘A new beginning,’ she thought staring at the ball. What other things were possible here. She could never reach Luke’s level at home, HE would never let her. He was the big bad Jedi at home. She looked at Sorin, this beautiful boy, she’d never noticed his big brown eyes before. He smiled at her. What was she thinking, this was a kid and she was …. a kid, in a new world, looking for her mother. She couldn’t think like Princess Leia anymore, daughter of Bail Organa, she had to be a warrior with a clean slate. Besides, maybe there was a better future in this world.
“Leia, do you really have a husband?” Sorin asked.
“Yeah, in another world a thousand years from now.”
“Do you love him?”
“I married him, but we have more important things to worry about.”
“Yeah, we should find the others.”
Sorin suddenly noticed the wound Leia had gained.
“What’s that?” Sorin asked.
She glanced over at the bite. “Oh, I got bitten by something.”
“A dark woods creature, aren’t you worried?”
“No, as far as we’ve seen our only threat are those women monster things, everything else is just talk,” she said shrugging it off.
“Sometime evil is at it’s worse when it appears weak,” Sorin stated. “Majus told me that.”
“And sometimes small things want to appear vicious to hide their cowardice,” Leia told him. “My father told me that. And I’m not talking about the one I shared with Luke. Lets find the others.”
Luke and Mava hadn’t had it so easy. They hadn’t lost each other, because Mava had been attacked and Luke had been forced to carry her. He could still here Majus yelling, “Find a place to hide her.” Majus had floated like a cloud on the air, but the women had jumped on him. He’d propelled them back with a ring of fire, but one pursued the children. It took all Luke’s concentration to focus on moving branches and other obstacles in the path, he felt so inadequate back at the elementary force level. He felt like someone had cut the legs from under him. Speaking of his legs, he was suddenly again aware of how small they were and how impossible it was to run at a decent speed.
Suddenly Yoda’s voice reached up to him from somewhere inside “size matters not”. The girl was younger and smaller than him. It was harder to believe that size wasn’t an issue for him now that he was a boy again. If Yoda thought he was impatient then, he would have been truly frustrated with the boy he was now. Still, with another life on the line he was able to push himself to the limits of his strength. He dived into a swamp and it paid off, the beast didn’t follow. He had to cover young Mava’s mouth with his own and breath life into her. She lived because of him. He dragged her onto land when he thought it was safe.
“Thank you,” she said when they could breath evenly. “Healing is easier as a practice than during an actual battle.”
“I’m sorry for bringing you and Sorin into this. I should have know the journey would get harder and we’re still so far away.”
“If it destroys the Dark One, it’s a journey worth taking.”
“Is it?” Luke asked.
“Don’t you think so?”
“My motives are a little more selfish. The selfish dreams of the boy I now appear to be.”
“To save your mother.”
“To see my mother,” Luke said. “With my own eyes. I wonder will I see my sister in her or me or …” Luke paused. “I just want to see her.”
“All this, just to see your mother?” Mava questioned. “No, you’re a force of good. Even if you found out it wasn’t your mother calling you here, you would be here. I don’t know about Leia, but you would.”
Luke looked at the young girl, hero worship beaming through her. “Don’t confuse your feelings here, we have to find Majus and the others. How’s your leg feel?”
“Still weak,” Mava said.
“This is what your training is for, use it.
Majus was shaken in the grip of the Black Dragon. He had come when the children were lost and destroyed the vicious women in one breath. Then he had turned on Majus and fear filled his eyes.
“YOU LOST THEM. HOW COULD YOU LOSSSSE THEM. THEY CAN NOT GAIN THEM!!” The Dragon yelled. “You were suppose to be the besssssst they had to offer, but you are a fool.”
“I am sorry,” Majus said. “I warned them that the danger was more than it appeared to be.”
“You are more than a baby ssssitter,” the Dragon said with his long fork like tongue sticking out. “You are the guide. “
Suddenly the sky was filled with what looked like red velvet. The black Dragon looked up. “It issss the enemy. I will delay him, but you mussst do your duty. Ssssee to the children. Do not let their journey end here.”
The Dragon flew away. And Majus prepared to seek out the children.
Vanassi stood at the very top of a tower in the middle of the fortress. She was a striking woman, her face seemed sculpted from some ancient picture of a goddess, her eyes deep and dark, but hypnotizing. She had blood red lips any man would desire to kiss, but the youth she had attained was a false one. Her beauty was that of a woman long gone. She wore a long black dress and a cloak long and black followed her across the room. The cloak was trimmed in red, like flame, and sometimes it almost seemed there was flame surrounding her. She wasn’t alone, her companion was the Shadow Sith. They both stood looking into a crystal clear pyramid in Vanassi’s hand. Each of it’s three sides revealed a different person. Majus on one side, Leia and Sorin on another, and Luke and Mava on the third.
“You’re servants have served you welled Vanassi,” the Shadow Sith said. “They separated them. Now keep it that way. I never want those children to leave these woods.”
“Oh believe me, neither do I and all things here become mine.”
“Yes, this is your kingdom, but it is MY world, never forget it.” The Shadow Sith eyed the two sides with Luke and Leia.
“Why are those children such a threat to you?” Vanassi asked.
“Threat?” the shadow laughed. “THEY ARE NOTHING TO ME!!” He yelled. “But they are something to her.”
“Who?”
“None of your business.”
“Ahh, the Angel Queen, that’s why their energy feels so wonderful. One of my smallest pets has shared with me the blood of her blood, the children of the Angel Queen, the children of the prophecy. You say they’re not a threat to you, they are the ultimate threat to you. They are destined to be your destruction, the end of you rein.”
“Do you really think those pip-squeaks could destroy me?”
“No one thought I had a power as great as that husband of mine and now, I am THE power. I have a following all my own.” Vanassi smiled. “Don’t underestimate the power of your enemy my friend.”
“I underestimate nothing. Their power is her. They give her hope, I detest her hope. I AM the Dark Lord here, it was a destiny stolen before by a—” he grumbled and spit the words out. “By an insolent pip-squeak that I ignored. It shall not be stolen again.”
He threw his cloak around himself and was gone. Vanassi smiled to herself, she knew his secret. He feared them. She looked at the side of the pyramid that revealed Majus. He had allowed time to make him an older man, FOOL. But he was such a distinguished old man and still had the sure eyes of the boy she’d fallen in love with. If only time and power could have made her less in love with him. She turned her eyes back toward Leia, her plan, she had to remember her plan. She would reclaim Majus, just not this night. Right now, her focus had to be the child and finding the key to overthrow that Shadow bastard. When the world was hers, Majus too would be hers again.
Luke was as use to feeling Leia’s presence as he was to hearing his own heartbeat and he felt that something was wrong. Mava limped beside him and together they found there way back to the Fortress of the Dark Majiks. They were surprised to see a woman there. She was beautiful and she sensed there approach because she turned toward them.
“I that the blood huntress?” Luke questioned.
“No, it’s Vanassi,” Mava said.
“You,” she said pointing to the boy. “You are the angel queen’s child, but you are not the one I have tasted.”
Luke was confused by this but stood his ground.
“She loves you very much, you will bring her to me, but first I will taste of you.”
“Vanassi is the blood huntress,” Mava said shocked.
With flick of her wrist Luke felt himself moving toward her.
“No,” he yelled and pushed against her pull.
“Get off my brother,” a voice yelled as it threw a fireball at her head.
Vanassi out up a hand and snuffed it out. She released Luke and turned to see Leia.
“The daughter,” Vanassi said with a cruel smile. “Come to me, let me see what the Shadow Sith fears.”
“How about I just make you fear us,” Leia said creating a ring of fire laced between her hands.
“How did she?” Luke began.
“Whoa all I did was help her make a simple fireball,” Sorin said stepping into the clearing beside Mava.
“You feel the power growing inside you. I’ve tasted of you and now all that’s left is for you to taste of me,” Vanassi said.
Vanassi made eye contact and Leia felt herself pulled inside the other woman’s mind. The fire she had created disappeared.
Luke realized he was free of her hold and ran at her to break Vanassi’s concentration on Leia. He e didn’t know what she was doing to her, but he could feel Leia slipping into her grip. Vanassi threw up a firewall between them before he reached her. Before he reached her the wall fell she was gone.
“What happened?”
“Children,” a voice called stepping out of the woods.
They turned and saw Majus.
“Majus, they took Leia. They took her,” Luke said running to him.
“She’s inside the fortress then,” Majus said.
“Majus, she said she said she tasted her and Leia had a bite on her when I found her,” Sorin told him. “When Vanassi showed up, it was weird…like she had some control over her.”
“It was probably she who bit her, Vanassi always had a talent for transfiguration.”
“We have to go get Leia.”
“No Luke,” Mava said. “She was a casualty of war, we must go on.”
“We need Leia,” Luke told the girl.
“He’s right, we need her. The energy, there connection here, it’s very pure. They need it to defeat the dark one. If fact that’s what Vanassi wants. She desires, as we do, to banish the dark one.”
“But only to ascend to his thrown,” Luke guessed.
“Yes,” the Wizard replied. “And to do this she’s wants to form a connection with Leia, making her own dark energy strong enough to defeat him. Sorin, I need you to stay and guard Mava. She’s still hurt–”
“But Majus–” Mava began.
“No Mava, stay with Sorin. Sorin, be brave.”
“I will,” Sorin said.
******
In Vanassi’s chamber, Leia sat on a stool as the woman paced in front of her. Leia wasn’t tied up, but she wasn’t moving wither. She didn’t seem like a prisoner. To see Vanassi and Leia now, you would think they had known each other for years. However, listening to her was different. She told her the story of her parents as if she were speaking in a trance.
“So your father,” she began continuing her line of questions. “He didn’t serve the what do you call it, light side of the force.”
“He did, for a time, but then he turned,” Leia explained.
“Very interesting, how did he die.”
“My brother saved him from darkness.”
“How?”
“Love or faith in him, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I wasn’t there. It was war, I was fighting it elsewhere.”
“The warrior in you is strong, but it feels stifled. I can taste it.”
“Are you going to kill me?” the child asked with no emotion at all.
“No, I will make you mine. I will make you just like me.”
“Like the women, your servants who chased us.”
“No, Leia, you will be just like me. As powerful and as beautiful, for eternity. And we will rule this world together.”
Luke and Majus were inside. They both saw Vanassi’s deformed servants standing guard. While groups of perfectly normal looking children were trained by and older warrior. There was only a handful of them and there was no joy in there faces, unlike the light-Majik children at the Greenmoore. It made him sad to see them.
“I know the feeling Luke,” Majus whispered.
“You still love her don’t you?”
“Who?”
“Vanassi.”
Majus didn’t answer for a long time.
“I love her very much,” Majus finally said. “But she is lost to the darkness.”
“Many thought the same of my father and he was saved. Do you think–”
“No, I cannot convince Vanassi to let her go, you must convince Leia of the good still inside her. Reach her, find that connection that brought you here. Vanassi steals from innocence, that I cannot forgive. She is using this same method for her connection with Leia and it is unnatural, like her beauty, it was stolen and it can be broken.”
‘Love’ Vanassi thought, how silly was it of Leia to think that changed turned her father from the dark side. It hadn’t kept herself and Majus together when there ideals had changed. There had to be another reason. She had no more time to think of it. Her students were assembling in the next room. She ordered Leia to come with her and they walked out of the room.
“Leia,” a voice called in the girls head as she followed Vanassi. She paused for a moment, feeling like she could respond if she only could remember how. “Leia,” the voice in her head said again.
“Leia,” Vanassi’s called sharply and she followed the woman again.”
Hidden under black cloaks, Luke and Majus had followed the training group back inside. They were assembling in a large room inside there fortress. Luke saw a small child, no older than five, sitting in front of the room. The child didn’t seem scared at all.
“I’m sorry you have to see this,” Majus whispered to Luke.
“See what?”
“She is a gift to Vanassi. She is as old as I am, but she steals youth in ceremonies such as these.”
Vanassi entered with her flaming cloak trailing behind her and … Leia. Trailing behind the cloak trimmed in fire was Leia. As everyone fell on one knee, Luke went forward to get his sister, but he was pulled down by Majus.
“Not yet,” he said.
Luke was growing impatient, his sister was right in his grasp. He focused on speaking to her through her mind. ‘Turn and run Leia,’ he said.
‘I belong to Vanassi’ Leia’s mind responded.
“Dark Majiks,” Vanassi began. “This is the Angel child. And she is ours, with her we will rise and conquer this kingdom.”
Vanassi then turned to the little girl. She gently touched the young child’s face. Now the child looked afraid. Luke ached to get up and grab the child and his sister and run.
“My child today you become a part of something much greater than yourself.”
Luke was horrified, she was going to feed on that little girl. He noticed the look on Leia’s face was completely blank, emotionless. ‘Leia, can’t you see this is wrong. This is wrong.’
“Majus, we have to do something,” Luke wispered.
“Not yet,” Majus said.
Vanassi took the child’s arm and bit down and fed. Luke cringed as did the child. Why wasn’t she hollering, fighting this. He looked again at Leia’s face. How could he make her see, how could he make her feel. Feel, that was it. There mother, the reason they were here. He reached down inside and then reached out to her reminding her of the memory she gave him. The memory of that little girl and her mother. He pushed, reminding her that she too was a mother in another time and place.
“Now my dear it is your turn,” Vanassi said.
“No!” Luke yelled standing up.
“Luke,” Leia called.
“He is nothing to you,” Vanassi said turning toward her.
Luke could tell Leia look confused. The Dark Majik’s rose and grabbed there weapons. Majus then revealed himself, throwing back all of Vanassi’s servants with a flick of his wrist. They moved back toward him. As he fought them with his magic, Luke grabbed a staff and began fighting his way to his sister. Leia tried to run to help him. Vanassi grabbed her and Leia bit her. She hadn’t even thought about it, she’d just done it. Then Leia grabbed the scared little girl and tried to run, but she was surrounded.
Suddenly there was a great cracking noise. Something large and white broke through the doors and invaded the room. It was a huge white dove. Everyone stopped, confused. Then the dark Majiks went after it. Then there was a loud screech and noise the extraordinarily large bird had all of them grabbing there ears and falling to the floor. Then the bird grabbed Luke and Leia in it’s beak and flew out of the dark fortress.
“Majus,” Luke called. But the bird paid no mind and flew away. Leia was still holding on to the little girl when the giant bird dropped them somewhere outside the dark forest. She passed out from the blood loss.
“What happened to me Luke?” Leia asked. The futher she got away from Vanassi, the more she felt like herself.”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t some animal that bit you, it was Vanassi.”
“Now what?” Leia said. “We’ve lost Majus, Sorin, Mava, we can’t go back in there, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe that bird that saved us went back to get them.”
“Maybe,” Leia said.
Leia bandaged the little girls arm with a scarf she had. Luke found some food and they both sat up during the night saying nothing. Then they started forward the next morning. Luke felt bad about leaving Majus behind, but the only way to escape this dark place was to destroy the evil here and free his mother. He had to go on. The little girl was very silent too.
They reached a large body of water, in the middle of the next day.
“Great,” Leia said. “How are we going to get across this?”
(April 4, 2003)
