SUN DRAGON ━━ Star Wars

ii. rory versus thinking.

ii. ━━ rory versus thinking.

tatooine,
outer rim

HERE'S THE THING ━━ Rory does not like thinking.

(She is a Skywalker.)

OK, OK. Now, she knows that sounds bad. She's not, like, proud of it, or whatever.

Worry is this gargantuan monster dwelling deep inside of you and, if you let it, will take complete control and ruin your life. Anxiety can be crippling. She has no interest in thinking about the endless possibilities. The road not taken. Jedi love to say the future is always in motion. Basically saying there's nothing you can do in the grand scheme of things, on the cosmic scale of the galaxy. Or, one of Mace Windu's favorites: All is as the Force wills it. Which roughly translates into I don't fucking know, man. Hopefully nobody, like, dies though!

So. There's no point in freaking out about the future. Meanwhile, the past is a torrential ocean whose current will drag you under without a second thought ━━ it'll take a long time to resurface, and the water will always be stuck in your lungs.

Or maybe Rory is just terrified of reality. Maybe ignorance really is bliss.

Hmm. Thinking hurts.

So. Here Rory stands. Well. Here Rory briefly considers the fact that stealing a shuttle with no hyperspace drive and flying to Tatooine without telling her Master might have been stupid. Then she decides that it's too late and she's already here in Mos Espa anyways, which means she'd better walk into the bar before she has a public mental breakdown.

Dirty, gritty sand sinks beneath her feet. Her footprints disappear into the ever-shifting sands. It's weird. Leaving footprints is a way of advocating to the galaxy: Hey! I'm real! I was here! No prints, no proof. It's like everywhere she doesn't matter; she may exist, she might be real, she is here, but it doesn't change anything. It doesn't matter at all.

Like she's more ghost than girl.

What is a ghost, anyways? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and time again? An endless cycle of grief. Something dead that tries very hard to still be alive. An emotion suspended at the edge of time, coming back again and again. Something that wants to be remembered.

Being here, home again, makes her feel a little bit like a ghost. Once upon a time, this was her life. She's a Jedi now. . . isn't she? Or is she just like everyone else here, trapped in this infernal hell, doomed to walk these sands forever? She's slipping. Slipping away like the sands. Slipping straight through her own fingers. She is so thirsty. Aching and swelling in her soul.

Thinking hurts!

She shouldn't have come back.

But it's too late now and, besides, she doesn't want to think about that. She walks into the bar.

Wooden floors crumble and sag beneath her weight. Damp, torch-lit walls come into view and they are hit with a wall of musty decay. A deep, grating rumble of noise comes from within.

Two hulking Gamorreans guard the entrance. They're absolutely hideous and resemble ginormous pigs more than anything else. They have upturned tusks and snouts that look like they've been smashed in.

They grunt as she passes. She doesn't miss the way their rakish eyes comb her body.

She shouldn't have come back.