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The twinkling stars on the horizon had been taunting him for hours, always looking like the lights of a town or settlement at night. He knew the nearest one: Endor.
In theory it was only a few weeks’ travel from Mustafar, that godawful place the old man had been fleeing, and certainly only a few days away from Yavin, where Han had been saddled with his burdens. He’d spent a tense few days sprinting through the woods, stealing a man’s horse for a large stretch, then running as fast and as far as his poor feet could take and walking the rest of the way, his pack bouncing heavily against his back. A part of him was worried that that stupid book would get damaged.
The rest of him didn’t care.
Sure, Han was a thief. A smuggler. An outlaw. Sure, the Empire was after him anyway for a couple of discreet jobs he’d done for a couple of other outlaws, and sure he wasn’t a fan of the fact his old partner had been a slave before he’d got himself free, and had to dodge a thousand Imperial patrols in order to get home to see his family, but that didn’t mean—
Why the hell had the old man done that?
Why did Old Ben Kenobi waylay Han at the side of the road when he was bleeding to death from a bloody sword in his bloody gut, his hand stained red as he grasped at Han’s cloak to give him a stained, filthy book?
Keep it away from the Empire.
Keep it away from Vader.
Give it only to the boy who asks for me by name.
Yeah, well, he was pretty sure that boy wasn’t Vader, considering how that monster had stampeded through the woods on his massive black stallion, loud as a thunderclap and keeping up with Han like a shadow, no matter how he had tried to lose him. He had a few days’ head start since he’d managed to injure that horse somehow, but then he’d ditched his own horse a few days later, and now he couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder at every twitch of a twig.
Han hadn’t wanted in this deep. He would’ve just chucked the book at Vader and run for it. But the way that demon had looked at him terrified him, the space behind his mask as dead and black as an abyss, and Han had known there would be no mercy.
Even if he dropped the damn book, he would never be allowed to escape in peace. Vader would come right after him, with the magic curling in his fist, and make sure he never spread the word again.
Thank the skies the starlight was bright. He could see everything well, and the cloudless skies were a far cry from the smog and smoke that must have hung over Mustafar. Where Kenobi… had said… he had stolen the book from…
Whatever.
It slowed Vader down. Supposedly. Han really didn’t know much about this whole magician thing, but one of Vader’s names wasn’t the Darkness without the Stars for nothing.
And at long last… at long last the stars on the horizon yielded to the flickering lights of a town.
Endor.
He ran the last stretch of the woods and out into the fields, through the fields; he tumbled in a rut, but then he stood again and got up. Kept running.
The moment his feet slapped the cobblestones, he took a deep breath.
Civilisation.
He could hide here.
He thought.
Vader might ransack the place looking for him, if the past few days were any indication, but either way that would give Han a chance to escape—
He needed a drink.
There was a sign just ahead of him, declaring the location of a tavern called The Mountain Road, only a few streets away…
“Han Solo?”
So on edge his feet were about to slip off it, he damn near jumped out of his skin.
A young man with a long, white cloak and a lantern was standing to the side, his brown boots silent on the cobblestones as he walked forwards. His hood was down, the amber light brushing his neat gold curls, casting warm shadows on his nose, and Han recognised him the moment he laid eyes on him.
No one else was allowed to look that ethereal while still giving him an exasperated, amused look.
“Don’t you look at me like that,” he snapped. “D’you have any idea what just happened to me?”
Luke pale eyes flashed as they caught the light, moving… towards his pack. Staring at where the book was.
Then he glanced up again, into the woods.
“I have an idea,” he said, a little grimly, though he was still smiling. “Do you want to come back to my room at the inn? We—”
“Is there liquor?”
Luke laughed. “My sister likes wine a lot. Says she needs it to put up with me. Anything else, not really.”
The last Han had seen of Luke, he hadn’t known he had a sister—though, admittedly, he reminded himself, swallowing harshly, the context in which he’d seen him was not one where people would talk about familial relations—but he took it in stride. Luke was a good guy, only a few years younger than Han himself. He’d be fine with him.
And if Han brought Vader down on his head, well, he’d worry about that later.
Ah, well. “Then take me there.” He smirked, and he was glad to see Luke blush the same way he had a year ago, like he had when they’d flirted on that mission to save a governor’s daughter from a djinn. Random conman and a magician: throw them together, and get surprisingly good results.
“As you wish,” Luke drawled, and turned to walk down the street. Han—hopping slightly on his really sore feet—followed.
“Nice cape by the way.”
“Thanks, my sister got me it.”
“How’s the whole”—he wiggled his fingers, flicking them slightly like starbursts—“mage thing coming along.”
“You mean magic?”
“Yes.” Unwittingly, he glanced behind him, though the road to the woods was pitch dark at this hour, and reached for his pack protectively. “That.”
Luke held out a hand and said pack nearly sailed into it. Han squawked in protest—grabbed the pack, and was dragged forwards, until Luke’s face was inches away from his, both of them clutching it tightly.
Luke’s skin seemed to glimmer under the starlight, he noticed from up close; the vast constellations above were reflected in his blue eyes.
“It’s going,” Luke said with a smile. “But I think,” he patted the pack, then let go, “we’ll have more to talk about that in a moment.”
He turned away again, lifting his lantern. The cloak fanned out behind him like a ghost.
Han sighed. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Give it only to the boy who asks for me by name.
Of course Luke had managed to get himself caught up in this shit.
He was exactly the sort of noble idiot with enough interest in the forbidden magics to do that.
And his room at the inn looked it. Han winced the moment he stepped inside—Luke was definitely the kid Kenobi had wanted him to find; was that why he’d saddled him with this on his dying breath?—and saw the amount of… trinkets… laid out. The map pinned to the wall with chalk markings, numerous books laid out over the table and the seated area…
There was a young woman sitting on the bed, perusing a similar text. She wore the same shade of white as Luke, and her dark hair was braided with silver strings in a crown around her head.
“Luke, I found more of Ahsoka and Yoda’s annotations in the margins, and I think—” she glanced up, then, to clap eyes on Han: muddied and scruffy. “Who the hell is that?”
Luke smiled archly. “This is—"
“Oh don’t tell me. You’ve got that look on your face. Tell me this isn’t Han—”
“—Solo,” Luke finished. “You do remember him!”
“I remember you going on about him to Ben,” she muttered. Luke pinked. “Now, I don’t know why he’s here, and I don’t care. The point is, I think I’ve narrowed down a few more positions for the portals where the stars shine…”
Great. More… what were they called? Astromages?
The woman was staring at him.
“Astromages?” Han definitely hadn’t said that out loud, but evidently he didn’t need to. She shot Luke—her brother—a look. “What sort of idiot did you decide to fall for last year?”
Luke coughed, and pushed Han forwards. “Astromage sounds cool, I vote we change the name to that.”
“Don’t you dare start—”
“This is Han Solo, as you’ve already guessed. Han, this is my twin sister, Leia.”
Han studied her. “Not identical, I presume.”
She narrowed her eyes back. “No. Obviously not identical. Why is he—”
“Han, am I wrong in guessing that you have a book in your bag, giving to you by Ben Kenobi?”
Han had it in his hands and was pushing it over before Luke could so much as blink. “You bet! Here it is. Take it.”
Luke didn’t take it. “Why’re you so eager to get rid of it?”
“Because I kinda want it off of me before Vader tries to skin me alive.”
Leia’s scornful expression dropped to something more fearful. “Vader?” she whispered.
“He’s been chasing me. He killed Ben Kenobi. He—”
“He does that. But the night will have held him off for now; his suit protects him from the worst of it, but starlight still nullifies his powers and he won’t risk a confrontation without them.”
“Powers?” Han shook his head. “Kid, I’m just the courier. I’ve handed you the thing I was meant to hand you. Your friend is dead. And if you don’t want to be, I suggest—”
He sucked in a breath.
Luke still hadn’t accepted the book Han was waving in his face. He went to pour out two glasses of wine, then seated himself on one of the chairs beside the table, glancing at all the star charts and maps laid out there. He took a sip from one glass.
Han broke himself off. “You promised me a drink.”
“I did. Here’s one.” And he extended the other.
Han grabbed it none too gently and took a sip, wrinkling his nose. Leia looked at him in distaste.
“Do you even know what Master Kenobi entrusted you with, Solo?” she asked.
“A book,” he said once he’d swallowed. “A fancy book, with a couple of stars embellished on the front. Another witch’s book?” He eyed it in his grip, flaked with Kenobi’s dried blood, then the other fancy books laid out around the room.
“It’s a map, idiot.”
Han frowned at it. “Looks bookish to me.”
Luke stood up to take it, then, gently brushing his fingers down the spine. Then he flipped it open, and raised his eyebrows. “Definitely a map.”
“What?” Han jostled toward Luke. “Let me—”
Luke interrupted him. “What do you know about magic, Han?”
Han scowled. “Well… it’s a thing you astromages use.”
“We are not called—”
“We are now. Keep talking, Han.”
Han frowned. “I dunno. The Empire doesn’t like it. Vader hunts people with it—”
“Not all of them,” Leia muttered.
“Vader has it,” Luke said. “It’s a different kind of magic to us—he uses fire—but he still has it.”
“And fire magic is evil?”
“Not necessarily, it’s just what the Empire uses and one of the types.”
“Why are there two types?”
“There’s a lot of types. Fire and starlight just happen to be the most common at the moment.”
“What—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Leia gritted her teeth. “We need to get to Dagobah to find Master Yoda. He will train us. Vader won’t be able to find or persecute us there, he won’t ever touch Luke again, and if Ben sent us the map, then we’ll be able to find the crossing.”
“Crossing?”
Luke smiled sadly at Han. “I don’t suppose you know where Dagobah is, Han?”
Han frowned. “No, can’t say I’ve ever heard of it… ‘cept in astronomy—”
“It’s a star system,” Leia supplied.
Han scoffed. “What, more stars?”
“It’s almost like they’re a cornerstone of our branch of magic.” Luke’s tone was teasing, his smile twitching into something with more mirth. “But yes. It’s a planet that circles Dagobah Minor.”
Han blinked.
Then blinked again.
Then—“You’re going to another planet?”
“It’s closer to its star than this planet is to ours. Very strong in magic—and only starlight magicians, or people who travel with them, can get there. And only with the map. There are multiple star systems that can be travelled to from Mundis—here—but each have a specific crossing, with a key, that has to be activated and used in order to open.”
Han stared between the twins. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Travelling to other stars… that’s insane. That’s impossible.”
“Without magic, it is. Though not for long.” He and Leia exchanged a glance. “I’ve heard that someone in the Empire’s been working on technology to do it, something in the fire branch of… never mind. It doesn’t matter.
“The crossing to Dagobah is nearby, we know that. We know exactly where it is. But Vader stole the last map—the one that maps the route from the crossing—and the key a long time ago, and kept it locked in his castle, to keep the gateway closed.”
“Why?”
“To keep Master Yoda on Dagobah,” Luke said, “and to keep me here.”
The amount of melancholy in Luke’s voice as he said that… Baffling sentence though it was, Han couldn’t bring himself to question it. And he couldn’t bring himself not to reach out and put a hand on Luke’s shoulder, the kid leaning into the touch. He reached up to give Han a peck on the cheek in return; Han tilted his head, and it became a peck on the lips.
“But Ben broke into the castle and got it back,” he said. “Vader no doubt knows exactly what we want to do with it, which was why he was so insistent on chasing you, but he is not here to stop us from crossing; we know where to go”—he gestured around at the maps, the immense amount of research they’d done—“and we know when, and we know how long. He won’t be here until dawn—”
“How naïve of you,” a voice growled, “my son.”
The shift of expressions one Luke’s face was staggering. Momentary shock, tension, horror, fear, determination—
But Han wasn’t watching when it hardened into resolve. He’d already whipped around, dived so his body was shielding Luke, yanked his pistol from his side, and fired.
Every bullet pinged off Vader’s armour without so much as a scratch; Vader lifted his fist and Han howled as a sudden heat scorched through him, intensifying further and further; he staggered back—
Until Luke elbowed him out of the way, planting a hand on his hip and pushing, and stood in front, crying out as whatever Vader’s strange power was took hold inside him. Han tried to heave himself to his feet, but only fell against the wine glasses and watched them shatter, dark liquid staining the sheets and notes blackish red.
Vader dropped his arm the moment Luke was in front of him, and did not move to attack again, even as Luke bent over double to recover from the pain, snapping the book shut against his chest.
Tears streamed down his face… then he straightened up again with a snarl in his eyes.
Vader was unaffected by it. He just held out a hand again, and tried to tug the book into his own.
Luke clearly knew that was coming.
Even suffering, he clutched it to his chest with a strength that turned his knuckles white.
“I’m not going to let you take this, Father,” he got out through gritted teeth. “You know I’m not.”
Father.
Han, staggering back to his feet and wincing at the shattered glass, stared at Luke. Then Vader.
“Cease this foolishness. Give it to me—it is mine by right, and Obi-Wan stole it—”
“I think you’re the one who stole it first. Remember when I found it in the library and you said as much, that you would never create such a ridiculous item?”
Father.
Luke— Luke knew so much about magic, and Vader, because— because he was—
“I was trying to protect you. I am still trying to protect you. You will give me that map, you will come back to Mustafar with me, you will come back to training as a fire magician and give up this foolishness I have allowed you to indulge in for far too long—”
“I don’t think that’s what’s about to happen, Father.”
“—and perhaps if you cooperate well enough, I will feel inclined to spare your… friends.”
Han was… a bit distracted during this conversation, but he still saw how Vader glared at him; he had to wonder how much he’d overheard, if he’d seen Han kiss his son—
Then that terrifying gaze—a vicious amber behind the dark mask, he could see it now—shifted to Leia. “Even the terrorist Rebel princess who corrupted you.”
Han looked between them in shock.
Luke was calmer, though his voice shook slightly. “You won’t hurt any of us.”
“I will not hurt you.” Vader… hesitated, then lifted a hand to brush Luke’s cheek. Luke tightened his grip around the book, wrapping it right to his chest, but let his— his father cup his chin gently in his hand.
Han thought he might faint.
Then Vader growled, “But you will be coming with me.”
“Dawn isn’t for another few hours,” Luke shot at him. “You have no power here.”
Vader flexed his hand, and the same burning that had consumed Han from the inside out returned with a vengeance, drilling through the soft flesh of his stomach and his lungs and—
“Do I not?” he purred.
“Stop!” Luke shouted. “Stop!”
Vader clenched his fist and Han screamed.
Luke dived forwards, tried to grab at Vader’s fist, drag it down, begging, “Please, please, Father, stop—”
With one of his hands tight on Vader’s… Luke’s grip on the book had loosened.
Vader’s left hand shot out to seize it, and Luke gasped as it was ripped out of his hands.
Han stopped burning.
His tears kept flowing, though the fire was long since quenched.
He was on the floor, somehow—he didn’t remember how. He patted around, finding himself surrounded by glass shards, dust; some of the glass had even made its way into his trouser pocket, though he didn’t bother fishing it out. He didn’t want to slit his fingers open.
And it all hurt so much anyway…
“Thank you, son,” Vader said triumphantly, holding the book up to the light. Han glanced around wildly, looking for Leia—but she had vanished, he realised.
The window was crooked open.
Luke stepped to the side, away from the window, to draw Vader’s gaze. His balled his hands at his sides. “Give it back.”
“No. It is mine. You are mine, and will cease this idiocy that I have indulged for far too long—”
“I have run around the entire Empire from you,” Luke said lowly. “I have fled trooper contingent after contingent. I have kept my name a secret. I have worked with only criminals in order to help the people I want to help—”
“I suppose that explains why you are so closely acquainted with this petty thief, then.”
“—and I have gone hungry, and been injured, and nearly died because of it. Tell me, Father,” Luke’s voice was shaking, “how have you indulged me?”
Vader intoned, “The Emperor has not yet found out.”
Luke looked away, shivering.
“Then let me get away from him before he does,” he challenged. “Let me go to Dagobah.”
“Yoda is an old, mad gremlin who will fill your mind with ridiculous ideas of integrity and light. You have already proven susceptible to mental persuasion—I will not have my son exposed to this sort of thing.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Luke snarled. “You can’t keep me under lock and key forever. So long as that crossing is open, I will find a way to escape, and I will go to Dagobah—where you will not be able to find me again, Father.”
Vader glared at his son. “Then it is a good thing that it will not be opened,” he shot back, and opened the book, reaching for—
His hand froze in mid-air.
He stared.
Then he snapped the book shut.
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?” Luke asked innocently.
“Where is the map? The key!?”
“Is it not in the book?”
Vader threw the book aside and grabbed his son by the shoulders. Han winced, preparing for the strike, but Vader just gripped him firmly, staring at him.
“What did you do with it!?”
“I told you, Father,” Luke repeated, “I will find a way to Dagobah. You will not be able to stop me.” He paused. “You will not be able to stop us.”
Vader looked around the room, then.
Looked around, and found Leia gone.
Desperation edged into his tone. “Luke.” He leaned right forwards, and Han would be shitting himself by now in Luke’s place but he was staring right back at him stoically. “You must tell me. You do not understand, you cannot go to Dagobah, it is dangerous, and if the Emperor finds out—”
Luke said, “I know you are afraid for me.”
“And I know you are not! When you should be. Why you are so set on so much stupidity eludes me, but if you are not going to listen to reason by choice, then I will force you!”
It happened so fast Han barely had time to blink. One minute Luke was facing his father, the next he was spun around, arms lashed together, and something… some thin gold cord that glittered like flame… was binding his arms behind his back. Luke grimaced in discomfort, but didn’t bother fighting it.
“If your friend has escaped with the map,” Vader rumbled, “fear not. I will find her, and I will seize it from her. And then she will meet the same end her terrorist parents did.”
For a moment, again, Han wondered at Luke and Leia being twins. At Luke being Vader’s son. At…
He didn’t know.
Luke shot him a look, and he decided to shut his thoughts up.
“I am going to destroy that key, and lock that crossing forever,” Vader swore, “and you, my son, are going to see it. Yoda will never cross back to this world. He will die alone on Dagobah, your friend will die on Mundis, and you will come home with me to retake your place, as you should have years ago instead of running wild.”
“And Han?” Luke bit out.
Why.
Why had the kid brought him up!? Han wanted to live, here!
Vader’s disdain was palpable. “Do not think I have forgotten about him. The thief who carried on Obi-Wan’s folly—who led you here. The smuggler who encouraged your wildness when you first met him, and even now clouds your mind and heart.”
Luke snorted as if Han wasn’t so frightened he was about to vibrate out of his own skin. “I wouldn’t say they’re clouded. Just… shifted.”
“He will die beside Organa.” Vader lifted a hand and Han was dragged towards him. “And you will watch them both.”
Luke was pale, Han realised, this close to him. He looked so tired.
“How do you even have magic, Father?” he asked. “It’s the night. The stars are out. Their light—”
“Is nothing once you master the deepest arts.” Despite himself—despite his words—the way Vader rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder for a moment was tender. “And I have always been willing to sink to any level to protect you, Luke.”
Luke just gritted his teeth and looked away.
Vader, tired of waiting for a response, just started walking.
Han’s sore feet protested vehemently, but he was forced to follow so follow he did.
He didn’t know where he was going, and although Luke did, he wasn’t talking; every time his father tried to strike up a conversation with him, tone gentle but firm, he ignored him. It was no mater. Vader could read a magician’s map as easily as Luke, and Han quickly found that the crossing truly wasn’t at all far away, as Luke had said; just up the hill, through a spot in the woods, exposed to the fire of the stars that raged in the heavens.
Han spent the whole staggering walk up the hill wondering was the hell was going on with Vader and his son.
Had Luke been raised by Vader? If he had, that made sense he’d know so much about him, and the book stolen from him, or Vader would be so protective, but—how did he not know about Leia? Why did he not know about Leia?
How long ago had it been that Luke ran away? He was approaching twenty three, if Han had done the maths right; he’d been an adult for a few years but Vader acted as though he was a child, or had at least been a child when he’d run…
Han and Luke had got… acquainted… about a year and a half previously; they’d spent six months travelling together in the winter, when Chewie was off visiting family again, and had made a surprisingly good team for all that one of them was a smuggler wanted by multiple authorities and the other was an illegal magician.
And that was another thing; if Vader was so insistent on… Well, Han knew nothing about magic, as Leia was so quick to remind him, but Vader seemed pretty damn pissed that his son was a type of magician that he didn’t hold with. When had Luke decided to switch? Did he just have… an affinity for it, or something? Did he choose it in a belated teenage rebellion? Did he—
“Cease your wondering, Solo. You are screaming.”
Han stared at Vader, and winced as the golden cord around his wrists crackled threateningly. Luke grimaced at him sympathetically.
“Are…” Han’s eyes were wide. “Are you reading—”
“No. Someone is preventing me.” Luke snorted, though Vader sounded entirely unamused. “But your thoughts are loud and distracting. I suggest you cease with them before I force you to.”
“You want me to stop thinking!?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard for you,” Luke teased, giving him… that look, and Han was torn between puffing up in outrage and biting his lip—
The cord crackled again in warning and Han glanced away rapidly, cheeks redder than the horizon.
“That’s nearly dawn, huh?” he commented to Luke. Luke squinted at the horizon.
“Not yet,” he said, and nodded at the path ahead of them. There was… a strange stone, there, surrounded by a ring of other stones; it seemed to twinkle in the same way Luke’s eyes did. “We still have time.”
Vader promised, “Time to die.”
They crested the hill, and he forced them both to their knees. “I will close this crossing and destroy the map, forever. By the time the sun rises from that horizon—”
“We’ll be gone,” Leia’s voice spat. “And you will be dead.”
Luke made a face. “Maybe we could get away with this without anyone dying…?”
Vader laughed lowly, then turned to face her; Han twisted around with the motion. Leia had a pistol and was levelling it at Vader’s chest with her left hand, her right… clenched around something she held out away from her body. Vader’s gaze zeroed in on that.
“Give me the map, girl.”
“No,” she replied, and shot him.
Vader didn’t even bother moving out of the way. As before, the shots pinged right off his armour without a dent. He closed his hand and seized Leia’s arm with whatever strange power he and Luke wielded, dragging her towards him—
But a moment later, it didn’t matter that it hadn’t worked.
It was always just a distraction.
Luke gritted his teeth and hissed an incantation, the threads around his wrists dissolving into light, then darted to get Han’s just as Vader registered the movement. He whirled around to stop him, hand outstretched—
Han dived.
The fall winded him, but he hit the ground and rolled away from the spurt of fire that came for him, watching it lick away the grass on the hillside before being quenched by… something.
In Han’s peripheral vision, Luke drew his arm back, then punched it forwards. Something silver flashed out from his fist, then Leia copied the movement; it was gone by the time Han turned to see it in more detail.
Vader roared. Silver shimmered around him; Han couldn’t see what it was doing, but he was bent over double, shoulders shuddering as he dragged himself back up to glare at Luke.
Luke was unapologetic.
“You aren’t going to stop us, Father,” he said, circling around, hands raised and ready for another assault. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“And I will not hurt you—"
“I know.” Luke’s voice was impressively level. “I know that’s why you’re alone, instead of bringing the Emperor’s men, even though it’s going to cost you this fight.”
Vader made a strange noise. “You overestimate your abilities.”
Leia had been sneaking closer behind Vader, hands raised and making patterns in the air, muttering spells; Vader lashed around to seize her wrist and twist it. She cried out.
“I will not hurt you, Luke,” he said, “but everyone else, I have no qualms about.”
He twisted Leia’s wrist and Han winced prematurely, but before there was any crack, or any damage more than a bruise, she gave in.
She opened her hand.
Vader let go in an instant to catch what she dropped and hold it up to the light triumphantly—
And then there was silence.
It was a pebble.
A rock.
“This is not the map,” he growled. “And nor is it the key.”
Leia bared her teeth in a grin as she backed up. “Did you think it was?”
“Where is it, girl?”
“I don’t know. I never held it. I never so much as touched that book.”
Vader whirled on Luke. “Where is it!?”
Luke responded by lashing out with more silver.
It was like the golden cords, but… not. More webbed; it sprayed from Leia and Luke, from both sides, and vanished within moments, though Vader still struggled against it like it was physical. In an instant, the dark lord was on his knees, and it seemed that he could not get back up.
Han gaped.
Luke knelt down in front of him.
“I’m sorry, Father,” he whispered, placing a hand on his helmet. “I did not want this. I did not want you to dabble in the most extreme fire magics, either; you didn’t need to.”
He lifted his hands with a wry smile. “I can protect myself.”
“Evidently,” Vader wheezed. “When did you become so powerful? You could never beat me in fire.”
“I am stronger in starlight. That’s my affinity.” He lowered his hands again. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not disappointed in myself.”
“You could never disappoint me, Luke,” Vader replied tenderly; he tried to raise a hand, possibly to cup his cheek as gently as he had earlier, but his bindings kept him immobilised.
Suddenly, overcome by… all of this, Han had to look away. It seemed private.
As he did, he saw Leia doing the opposite: her gaze was fixed on her brother and father, and his eyes glistened.
Vader finished, “I just worry. If you go to Dagobah Minor…”
“There is much you don’t understand. Can you trust that in the years since I left… I have done enough research, and learnt enough, that I do?”
Vader huffed. “You have certainly grown in strength.” His tone turned pained again. “Don’t go. I cannot lose you… Stop pursuing this path, before the Emperor—”
“I do not fear the Emperor.”
“You should!”
Luke took a deep breath, and took a step back.
He met Leia’s gaze, and then Han’s.
“We only have a few minutes before sunrise,” he said. He was right; the horizon was turning gold, glinting off Luke’s hair softly. “We should get on with it. Han?”
Han blinked. “What?”
Luke smiled. “Look in your pocket.”
Han frowned, for a moment, patting his pockets. All that was in there were… broken glass he nearly cut himself fishing out, and—
“Thank you,” Luke said, reaching forwards to take a thin crystal, the length and width of his little finger, from the mess, “for keeping this for me.”
“You’re… welcome?”
“I slipped it into your pocket earlier.”
“I figured.”
Luke laughed lowly, and brushed Han’s thumb with his own before retreating, turning the crystal in his fingers. Leia was already at the stone centred in the middle of the ring, beckoning to him. “For your information, this is the map and the key. It unlocks the crossing—then lets us know how to use it once we’re inside.”
Han stared at it. “Looks like a jewel to me.”
Vader and Leia scoffed in synchrony. Leia did not look amused at the similarity when she shot her father a look.
“It’s a holocron. We access it with magic, and it will show us the way.”
Han stared at it. “If you say so.”
Luke turned to walk over to Leia, handing it to her. She placed it on top of the stone, then… pushed it right through, like the stone was fresh bread or butter. Han watched it vanish.
He watched the ring of stones shimmer, lights expanding out and dazzling in a heat haze but powerful, shooting up to the fading stars, even as the others winked out one by one.
When Luke called out to him, his voice was distorted through the haze. “Would you like to come with us?”
Han met his gaze, tilting his head in question.
“We’ve always made a pretty good team.”
Han hesitated, for a moment.
He had an excellent view of the land from up here, touched with pink and gold. The green rolling hills, the towns, the woods…
He was a smuggler.
He’d explored it all.
He supposed another star system was another thing to explore—even, or perhaps especially, if it was the home of some isolated magician teacher.
He glanced back at Vader, and wondered if he was envious, that Han could go with them but he could not. Then he looked back at Luke and saw how his smile was brighter than the rising sun itself.
Chewie was still visiting his family—and would be for a while.
And the crossing would be opened until one of the twins closed it.
And besides, Han thought as he stepped through the shimmer and took Luke’s outstretched hand, leaning into the arm he slipped around his waist, Luke was right.
They did make a good team.