The Desolate Jedi | Luke Skywalker

Act I. v.

On the rare nights that it didn't rain on Dagobah, Eleri would sneak out of the house just to wander. She wandered during the day, she wandering during the night, Eleri's mind wandered the galaxy while her body struggled to keep up.

Tonight's topic wasn't a new one these past few weeks: Luke.

She never imagined a person could occupy this much of her thoughts. And she didn't even like the thoughts that accompanied him in her mind: envy, bitterness, a certain amount of respect - a fine line between them.

She knew she was a disappointment, not really a Jedi apprentice, not really a true warrior, not really a true anything! Luke had the Force, Luke had the power, and Luke had a life. A life he was so determined to return to, with friends he was hell bent on helping.

Eleri drew her knees into her chest as she sat atop the house. She didn't wander far, and once she wandered not far, she came right back and climbed the overgrown roots to the roof.

She couldn't stop comparing herself to Luke now, the Force and Luke just seemed to combine themselves into one destiny that Eleri would never be able to have.

She said she hated Luke - from a far, never up close. But she couldn't, not when he was the sweet person that he was. He offered to help with every mundane task Yoda sent her on, never quite reaching eye contact with her, and if he did he'd blush. No. Eleri didn't hate Luke. She hated herself.

She hated how she wasn't Force sensitive, she hated how she trained her entire life for something she could never achieve, and she hated how she was stuck on Dagobah for all of it.

Luke was just an outlet her feelings were pushed to.

All her life, her master constantly reminded her she would never be able to use the Force, and she's had her entire life to deal with that (poorly, mind you). But then Luke came along, and how was she supposed to deal with that? How was she supposed to deal with the fact that she could never have him?

She wasn't prepared to meet someone, she could have chosen a new personality, she could have been anything. And she blew it deciding to be herself. As nice a person that Luke was, he probably didn't really like her, but was too polite to say anything.

The first person she ever met, and she knew he was going to leave. Leave master Yoda, leave Dagobah, and leave Eleri. Going back to hundreds of friends - and Eleri didn't want to admit this, but probably even a significant other - Dagobah and her were nothing special, while Luke was everything new to her. Luke was the whole galaxy, filled with billions of people all living there lives, on different planets, with different relationships. He was the place her mind wandered too, daydreaming about living surrounded by people.

She sighed a little too loudly, but no one woke up, not even the R2 unit that she could see shut down by the window.

She wondered if Luke could feel her disturbance. Eleri knew Yoda did, her feelings could never be hidden from him, but he never spoke of it unless it was to scold her or it involved him in some way. But Luke? She thought of him awake in his bed - her bed, but she gave it to him, feeling Eleri's struggle and wandering out of the house only to see her on the rooftop.

She thought of him climbing up to where she was and sitting beside her, asking what she was doing.

Eleri thought of her opening up to him, finally being able to verbalize her lifetime of conflicting thoughts, and she thought of him listening. She thought of how his face always looked like he was on a mission, reeking of determination. And she imagined that maybe that determination could be directed towards her and she could finally have a friend like she always dreamed of.

And then common sense snapped her out of her daydream and told her it was stupid to fantasize like this. Attaching herself to an idea she had of someone was only going to hurt.

So she got up from the rooftop, dusted her pants and slipped inside to go to sleep, willing her mind to stop thinking.