One.

The Force sings to Samara. It has as long as she can remember, like music beneath her hearing, resonating through her body and into the air around her. In the gentle rise and fall of its harmonies, she can sense her fellow students, moving through their drills; the instructor, beyond them, is a still, watchful hum. Through her mask, she can’t see the drones, but she knows where they are, and they dip and bob in the stale air of the temple.

Samara takes a step back and brings her training saber up. The drone’s laser bounces off with a buzz. There’s another student just behind her, who steps easily out of her way. He— she’s almost certain which student this is, a human boy about her age—raises his arms in an overhead block. Samara ducks and shifts her stance into the empty space left by his movement, blocking low and then high, above her face. Two lasers strike the training saber behind her, and her own saber echoes them. 

The Force sings, and Samara falls into it, letting it move her through her forms. She does not need to remember them when her thoughts are only music.

She can sense her fellow student, and he’s just behind her, closer than would be strictly safe, but they do not collide. He moves when she moves, in perfect, glorious harmony.

The instructor claps her hands, and the exercise ends. The soundless music of the Force quiets, but it never goes away. Samara still hears it at the back of her mind; her constant, faithful companion.

She pulls off her mask, untangling the straps from her lekku. The drone is dark and silent now, and she brings it to her hand. It’s faintly warm.

She turns at the same time he does. He’s small for his age, quiet and serious. The mask has tousled his shiny, dark hair. His eyes are a luminous green.

He is familiar, though she has never spoken to him before. She knows him—has always known him.

“I’m Samara,” she says. She holds out a hand.

He takes it, brown fingers over blue. “Iskandar.”

Continue reading “Love Song in Six Verses: a Star Wars Story” →