[open post] Recruitment

[neverjoinyou]

[Is your character just waiting to be discovered? Is your character trying to seek out potential Jedi, for one reason or another? Here's your chance! Feel free to request to be found by certain characters in the subject heading, if you have a preference.]

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Discovery (have at it)

[saythemagicword]

Billy Batson is just another orphan from the war. At least that is his assumption given how cloudy his memories are of what happened. He knows that he was loved. It's enough to carry him through his days.

He does his best on Fawcett to keep food in his belly. He even helps some of the others who have found themselves homeless. That is part of what he has been getting up to. Food is so much easier to get these days. People have been celebrating for weeks and he has a new trick.

So when no one is paying too much mind he just pushes a bit so he can climb up. All he needs is some left overs. His favorite cathar is feeling run down today and Billy has decided a full meal is just what the doctor ordered. Surely no one will mind if he takes a little bit. The celebrations were supposed to be for everyone after all.

[neverjoinyou]

It's taken him awhile to follow the threads here, but now Luke stands, apart from the crowd, watching. No one pays the hooded figure much mind, which is just as well because Luke's really not interested in being recognized today.

Today, he's interested in the boy climbing, in a way Luke recognizes now as enhanced by the Force. He wonders if the kid knows he's doing it, but regardless, he's desperate. The Empire has done that to a lot of children, and not all of them had Owen and Beru. And part of Luke is just as glad to offer the child a place to go, as he is an opportunity to learn the ways of the Force.

If he'll agree.

When the kid's back on solid ground, he'll find Luke suddenly standing in front of him.

"Impressive," he says quietly.

[saythemagicword]

Billy isn't as adapt at sensing if people are watching him as he could be. He is much more interested in the food he is positive no one will miss. He is hungry and knows at least one of his friends is too.

Learning to try and push himself up had taken so much effort but given his currents rewards Billy decides that it was well worth the pains from slipping up before.

"Um," he bites his lower lip a little. Tawny had warned him that if the wrong person ever saw this. Billy stops and just tries to adopt a innocent look that totally won't work. "I have no idea what you saw, mister."

[neverjoinyou]

The kid's a bad liar, but it only makes Luke a little sad. "I saw a hungry kid," he says. "Who probably knows a lot of other hungry kids. I'm not going to take it from you, and you're not in any trouble. I'd like to help you, if I can."

Luke does his best to radiate a non-threatening confidence, something he hasn't a whole lot of practice at. At least, not when talking to children.

[saythemagicword]

He is so happy the strange gift he seems to have hasn't been commented on. Billy has no idea where it comes from. Just that some days it makes things easier for him.

"I just wanted the others to get food too. Some of them get shy around the crowds," Billy confesses. His friends don't always know how welcome they will be. Fawcett isn't as bad as it could be but, homeless kids still don't always feel like they are welcome.

"And the food is supposed to be free today."

Seeking out Jedi!

[force_academic]

So, this was it, then.

For most of her adult life, she had not once seen anything of the "core" worlds. She had been acting as a Neophyte, learning the ways of the Force, the Scientific Method, and all sorts of small tricks in order to learn how to defend herself on the edges of what was considered civilization.

And yet here she was, her green Advisor robes shielding her from the stuffiness of the city. Xullsha Tal was searching for a Jedi. The one who won the war against the Empire.

Luke Skywalker.

Through a combination of her montrals and the Force, she reached out to find this one human. One who had somehow captured the imagination of the galaxy.

[neverjoinyou]

For someone who hadn't ever left Tatooine four years ago, Luke's getting a little jaded about travel. Maybe it's just that none of it's ever felt like it was on his own terms. Or maybe it's just that he's spent so much time in the Outer Rim, and then running from the Empire, that cities like this are just too alien. Too many people, too many bodies, too many conflicting thoughts and feelings and desires.

The one which calls out to him takes him by surprise. It's not a feeling he's ever had before, a conscious seeking but nothing like Vader's call back on Bespin. Nothing like his own desperate cry to Leia. He feels no malice in the contact, but he's learned enough to be careful. He's currently taking a solitary supper in one of the many anonymous restaurants of the city, so, experimentally, he returns his location hoping the lines of communication work the same way and he's mimicking the technique adequately.

If someone's looking for him, it's probably for the best they meet in a public place.

[force_academic]

Within her reaching out, Xullsha can feel a response back, a subtle touch through The Force that is a response back. A general way of saying "I am here" without giving away too much in return. But she definitely got the feeling of a restaurant. She walked towards the feeling within the Force while responding in kind with a "be there shortly", passing many people until she found herself walking towards the restaurant that she felt in the response.

But to be safe, she also has her wrist com up, with an image of what this Luke Skywalker supposedly looked like. It was...likely an inaccurate holo, as it was an image dug up from an Imperial database.

[neverjoinyou]

His appetite has diminished slightly simply from the curiosity and confusion of the contact, so when she arrives he's scanning the doorway for someone who might, possibly be looking for him instead of a meal. He can feel the presence approach, but he doesn't have any idea who he's looking for, and he'll have to trust that he'll know when he finds them.

[force_academic]

Xullsha used the image in her com to match the face, but it is The Force that identifies him, older than the image and with scarring not in the image. But the strength in The Force eminating from him was amazing. She walked and sat across from him, her green and black robes swishing as she planted herself.

"Uhhh..."

She sat across from someone considered a hero. What does one say to that?

"Hi?"

Discovery

[fire_punk]

The one good thing about Kevin's room is the view. That's probably the only good thing about his life right now. That and his stepmother's gone for the day. He flings a piece of trash across the room. The Emperor's dead. He doesn't know what she does when she leaves now. He doesn't care. But it's just too bad she hadn't gone to Endor with him. He doesn't even realize he's pouring grief and loneliness and rage into the Force. He barely has any control over it, just enough to keep from exploding things by accident.

[neverjoinyou]

The cry, across worlds, is strong. Strong and unfocused and angry, to the point where Luke feels a sense of urgency simply from the fact that left untouched, that sort of strength could become something destructive.

And that was the best case scenario. If someone with ulterior motives discovered this power?

It takes Luke a little while to find him, given the wide swatch the boy's feelings are cutting across his senses. But eventually, Luke is able to track him down, and locate the room, and determine no one else is at home. Before knocking, Luke centers himself, isolating himself from the negative emotions pouring from the room. But eventually, he must act, and he raises a hand to knock.

[fire_punk]

Kevin spins around when he hears the knock on the door. All he can imagine is that Mom's home already but she doesn't usually knock. He tries to pull his senses in, doesn't want to feel more than he has to. It hasn't been long enough.

Someone with ulterior motives? What else would you call one of Palpatine's Adepts? But he hasn't actually been trained yet. All she's done so far is feed his rage and hatred, albeit at her, until it's a miracle it has exploded far worse than when the Force first awoke in him.

[neverjoinyou]

It really almost feels like touching a door with a fire behind it, a warning not to open. This isn't just raw potential. It's barely-banked fury with nowhere to go, and Luke thinks it's a good thing he got here when he did.

Even if it might still be too late.

There's no answer, despite the obvious presence behind the door, so Luke leans close, trying to be heard through it without letting anyone in other apartments hear. He can augment that with the Force, too.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he says quietly, though it will be quiet audible to Kevin. "My name is Luke Skywalker. I want to help."

[fire_punk]

The boy relaxes just a hair at the stranger's voice. He steps toward the door. That's definitely not his stepmother's voice but... The stranger identifies himself as Luke Skywalker. There's only one thing a rebel leader like Skywalker could want here and it's not to help him. But, maybe, if he's here for Yvette, it's worth trying to help.

He reaches out for Luke's mind like he's felt Yvette do so often. The mental touch is hesitant, clumsy, and probably a lot more forceful than Kevin intends. It's not like he's ever done this before. It's not like he's ever heard of it being done gently before.

Discovery || Timey Wimey

[forceawakened]

The sandstorm caught Rey entirely by surprise, out in the Graveyard. She'd barely made it off the Crackle and into the dubious shelter of one of the massive hulks. Wedged into a hollowed-out gun turret, she wrapped her cloak tightly around herself and her staff to wait, breathing dust and cursing what the storm must be doing to her speeder. Out on the Crackle, it would be whipping up that coarse glass into a lethal, shredding cloud.

The storm raged long enough that Rey worried for her water, but she still had a few sips left when she felt something, a shift in the storm. Maybe it was a change in the sound of it all. Certainly, it wasn't much longer before the din was noticeably less.

When she came out, the air was still thick with dust, and the Graveyard glittered with fresh-scoured metal. She kept her scarf wrapped tightly around her face, adding another layer over her mouth. Which muffled her cursing when she found her speeder gone. It was a long walk back to Niima Outpost.

[neverjoinyou]

Jakku.

It reminded him entirely too much of Tatooine, but he knew better now than to say things like, "I'm never coming back here again," even to himself. The Force had led him here, and he'd learned to trust it. But it was going to be impossible to find anything in this storm, so Luke found himself taking refuge in some of the debris, reaching out fruitlessly to figure out why here.

The why shifted abruptly from the tenuous visions the Force sometimes gave him of the future and into really very present as the storm began to abate. There was no explaining it, but suddenly the presence of someone made itself intensely known. Something must have been shielding it before, but what?

Shaking dust out of his cloak, Luke emerged from the refuse and scanned the horizon, wondering if his normal senses would detect it yet.

No, not it. Her. He pulled part of his hood up over his mouth and squinted. With a wave of his hand, the dust around him coalesced and fell to the ground, and he felt he could breath and think for a moment. Well, mystery notwithstanding, the only option was to find her. So he made a beeline for the Force presence, senses attuned for any change.

[forceawakened]

Rey had a bad feeling as she struck out, her staff slung over her shoulder. It sharpened when she realized that certain landmarks were wrong as they loomed up out of the haze. There was a half-blasted TIE-fighter in her path that shouldn't have been there. Anything that small had been wrenched apart and carted away years ago, back in Niima Hutt's day. Maybe it had been unearthed by the storm? She was standing still, staring at it, when something tingled at the back of her neck.

She'd learned, a long time ago, to trust that feeling.

Without letting herself look around, Rey circled the TIE-fighter as if she were examining it for scrap potential, until she could look under its crumpled wing back along the long, straight line of her own footprints in the sand.

[neverjoinyou]

She was wary. It only made Luke wonder what had happened to her, but it wasn't a deterrent. He needed to be careful about this, and he thought the best thing was to make his presence explicit.

So when she looked back, she would watch a slight figure step into view, unhooded, his hands palms forward though one was covered in a black glove. It was his first glimpse of her, as well, and he judged her to be young, but not much younger than he was himself. Then again... Luke felt twice his age sometimes, these days. It didn't mean much.

[forceawakened]

She squinted through the worn lenses of her goggles, shifting her shoulder to make sure her staff was free if she needed it. He looked alone, but that didn't mean he was. Not out here. There weren't a lot of good reasons for one person to be following another.

But he didn't look local. It wasn't just that she didn't know him; she knew all of the humans around Niima, at least by sight. Not his clothes, either. He was dressed for the sand as much as she was. Something else.

"You want something?" she called when he was still at a good distance. She didn't bother to deepen her voice - there had been no point to that for a few years now - but it was filled with challenge.

[burnedchild]

((Figured this might be the better place for this to go, since Luke might not feel too comfortable with a former pupil of his who turned to the Dark Side going anywhere near the younglings.))


Jacob, truly, had no idea how his former master would react to the message he'd sent requesting to meet with him one more time; though Jacob had done everything he could to make it sound like what it was - an olive branch - he still wasn't sure whether or not Luke would believe it. He hadn't exactly left on good terms - he hadn't killed anyone when he left, but it had still been an ugly scene - and for all he knew, Luke might not have even expected him to still be alive at this point. Initially, Jacob hadn't.

When he'd left, he'd been consumed by the fear and bitterness and self-loathing that had dogged him all his life and, despite his best efforts, Luke hadn't been able to help him conquer. Jacob hadn't known what his place was then, nor if he'd ever find it; all he'd known was that it wasn't on the Light Side.

In the end, finding it was just what he'd done - which was why the young man that Luke would find himself face-to-face with when he arrived on the nearly-deserted planet at the spot Jacob had chosen for their rendezvous was nothing like the one he remembered. The fear was gone now, as was the self-hate, and despite the almost palpable darkness bleeding off him, he seemed nothing more than utterly at ease, at peace with the Force and himself - a sated apex predator in repose.

In the two years since they'd last seen each other, Jacob had gained a new understanding of many things, one of which was that love and compassion weren't traits either of the Light Side or the Dark Side; rather, they were the balance. They could turn someone to the Dark Side just as easily as they could turn them away from it, and that was why compassion was what he wanted to offer his former master now.

[neverjoinyou]

He couldn't let failure consume him. This was why Luke had continued, after Jacob had left. He'd sent out feelers in the past few years, wanting to at least determine the boy's fate. But he'd heard nothing, hoped for the best, and feared for the worst. In the meantime, he'd tried not to duplicate the same mistakes, despite the fact that he wasn't sure he knew what those mistakes had been. That was the trouble with building something like this from the ground up.

He supposed it was too much to hope that Jacob had renounced the dark side, but as he approached he realized that while so much else had changed, that had not, and Luke felt enough disappointment to realize he'd foolishly hoped this meeting would go differently. Jacob was no longer conflicted. Luke had failed in absentia, as well. Still, he felt no threat from the other man, and while Luke was always going to hold himself in readiness in situations like this, he made no move of his own against Jacob. While a peaceful reunion seemed unlikely, Luke wasn't about to spoil it himself.

"Jacob," he said quietly. Luke hadn't changed nearly as much in the two years, but the weight of responsibility showed in his eyes, and an additional stillness. He'd also grown stronger, while teaching others what he knew, and his power, too, was palpable to anyone who could sense it.

[burnedchild]

"Master Skywalker." It was a good thing Jacob wasn't here to fight him, because, exponentially though his own power had grown, they still weren't on the same level. "How does it feel to look into the eyes of one of your greatest failures?" Despite the words, though, there was no real venom in his tone; but he knew how Luke felt about what happened between them, how he still feels. Jacob might as well begin by addressing the proverbial rathtar in the room.

The truth, as it was, might have been an even harder pill for Luke to swallow - that he had not failed, despite the way that, on the surface of it, it seemed strange that Jacob would have been the one he lost. Jacob was always the one who put everyone else's needs ahead of his own, who sacrificed a little too much to take care of those around him, and even now, there was still good in him.

However, there were other things in him too, ones that had ultimately made it impossible for his path to be anything but this. Luke had never known the worst of it - Jacob had been too afraid to tell him, and he'd made sure to leave before the darkness in him had completely gained the upper hand. Since then, though, he had found another master, one from whom he didn't feel like he had to hide his compulsion to kill, and who had been able to teach him how to turn it from something all-consuming into something productive. There was a new order rising within the ashes of the Empire, and Jacob had already proven key in helping his master consolidate his power on several occasions.

[neverjoinyou]

Luke's hands are folded in front of him, a small symbol of his lack of intention to attack though the lightsaber swings at his belt not far away.

"It depends on why you called me here, Jacob," he says. The boy knows exactly how much recrimination Luke feels, even as there is some relief that he's alive. "I wonder that you still call me that. You have obviously found a new master."

Luke has no idea who that might be, but it's clear from Jacob's calm, his balance, that he has received some sort of training. Perhaps grooming is the more accurate word, Luke thinks.

[burnedchild]

"You've managed to figure that out, and you still don't know why I asked you here?" Unlike Luke, Jacob hadn't come armed. He hadn't expected he'd need to, though in retrospect perhaps the possibility that this might end with his former master deciding to administer justice for Jacob's victims should have occurred to him sooner. At least he has some faith in his ability to outrun Luke.

He spreads his hands. "This might be the last chance we have to speak on friendly terms. I didn't want to lose the opportunity - least of all when I owe you an apology. I've let you spend too long feeling like the failure here was yours."