disclaimer: I'm sure all readers understand Star Wars is not my property. And my use of it's characters and history is not for any kind of profit, just pure entertainment. Please don't sue me. I just borrow you characters to take them on a fun fantasy trip and then turn them back over to their bodies, lives, and proper universe.

Chapter 1

Part 2: Edge of a new world

He didn't need to eat, she thought as she sliced the food for him, he just enjoyed humiliating her, the servitude forced upon her, a former queen. But she knew they were here, her children had finally come. Nothing could break her now, it was only a matter of time before they rescued her.

"Don't get your hopes up. I sense them too, you know. They'll never get past the jungle, let alone arrive here. I don't fear you insignificant little brats." There was no fear in the Shadow Sith's voice. But there should be, he was about to face the children of the man that had been one of the most powerful Sith and the most powerful Jedi in the Galaxy. And chances were they weren't children anymore.
 

A black dragon sat perched at the window, ignored by them both, watching. His beady red eyes studied the scene deeply. Then it lifted it's massive wings and jumped out of the window sill. It's destination was the 12th Circle.
 

***********

The Queen's children had in fact come. But unlike in their world, in this one they were young, very young. When they'd reached the gateway to other world, Luke had estimated their age to be either eight or nine. They really couldn't know and the disorientation that occurred with slips into child-like consciousness made it hard to keep anything straight. And on top of that, they had to relearn their skills in the force.

They had come through the gateway prepared to save their mother. And their was no going back. When they looked back, the gateway was gone anyway. Again they'd gone through an entrance without an exit and for miles around there was nothing but jungle. And it was just a bit too quiet. Both children knew that right away. There should have been birds twittering, growling, anything but this dead silence. Luke wished he had a pair of Microbonoculars right now, just to scan the area. He had another option, reach out with the force. He wasn't sure how accurate that would be, but this silence was making him nervous.

"Better now than later," his sister said.

"Huh?" Luke replied, wondering what question she was responding to.

"Better to start learning to use the force now, especially to alert us to danger."

Luke smiled, his sister actually sounded excited about this adventure. They each reached out with the force, absorbing their environment. The land around hit them hard. It was surging with the force as their father had said. However, it was so unfamiliar it hit them the way a strong spice might assail an unfamiliar nose.

"Their hiding,," Luke began.

"I can't tell how many there are," Leia began. "But it's a lot of them."

"Our entrance shocked them," the boy said. "To them this is reality, seeing two people appear out of thin air probably was a bit of a shock."

Leia surveyed the area. Nothing but Jungle. There had to be a way to get a good visual survey of the area. She looked at a vine and her mind suddenly sparked with a plan.

"Luke, you figure if we climb this vine we can get a good view from the tree tops."

"Good a plan as any," the boy said shrugging.

Leia grabbed onto a vine and began climbing. Luke was amazed at her swiftness. She didn't stop to think, she just jumped right into it. Very unlike the woman he knew. How mischievous had Leia been as a child? Well, she hadn't exactly been "prissy princess" when they met.

Leia had already traveled halfway up the tree when he finished this train of thought. She didn't even seem tired and it was a long climb to the top.

"You coming little brother?" Leia said halfway up the vine.

"Hey, that little brother business is still up for argument," Luke replied. Though he had discovered he was slightly shorter than her at this age. So technically "little" wasn't incorrect. It was a fact he didn't find comforting.

He jumped on the vine behind her and found climbing it a little more difficult than she seemed to. His grip wasn't as steady and he wasn't as fast as his sister. It had to be this little body he was in now, it was throwing him off.
 

"Wow, I could get use to being young again," Leia said as she reached the tree branch and sat to wait for her brother. "Come on slowpoke, your slower than a tranquilized Bantha."

"Thanks a lot," Luke said struggling up the vine. "I'm having trouble adjusting to this new body. Obviously your not."

"What's to adjust to? I haven't felt this free in years."

Luke looked at her in disbelief, this wasn't the sister he knew. Maybe the disorientation of the crossover was having opposite effects on them. Where as he felt like the ground had been ripped out from under him, she felt renewed. And she was the one with a family at home. Home, they would be worried. How long would it be till they saw them again? He would have asked Leia this question, but she was already preoccupied with scanning the area for signs of life. Suddenly a prickly sensation creeped across both of their necks.

"Danger," the children said together.

They drew their crossbows and visually covered the area. They knew danger was coming, but not from where. They could flee, but would any direction be safe?

"Violators freeze," a voice yelled as both children were suddenly surrounded by ape-like warriors who swung quickly toward them.

Frozen in shock, they could only look wide-eyed at the group closing in on him. So much for scaring off the natives. No mission they had ever been on failed this quickly. There was no point in fighting through them, there were to many of them, and they'd be lucky to injure one. Even if they managed to injure one, they couldn't stop the others. So they lowered their weapons and waited. A plan would come to them, it always did.

The ape people had them surrounded almost immediately. The leader landed in front of them, picked up Leia and smelled her. He then dropped her on a branch and did the same to Luke.

"Land-dweller," he spat at them. "You have offended the Tree-dwellers with your presence. You're trespassing, we don't bother Land-dwellers and they don't bother us. It is how it's always been."

"Sorry, we're new here," Leia replied putting on her best innocent smile.

"LIAR!" he yelled back. "You have broken the law. Collect them and bring them to the elder," he yelled at his companions who carefully took the kid's weapons and tied them up with the same type of strong vine they'd used to climb up here in the first place. Then two largest ape men hooked a child under an arm and the whole team began swinging through the trees. Luke wondered if Leia was still enjoying her new found youth.
 
 
 

They were both suffering from serious motion sickness when they were thrown into a jail fashioned into a tree. They laid on the floor re-adjusting to the lack of motion before either child spoke.

"What I wouldn't give for my lightsaber right now," Luke said, speaking first.

"Make that double," Leia said getting up to feel the walls. "It's just wood, we could probably cut our way through the bars."

"But how far would we get?" Luke asked. "There's a probably guard nearby and I don't see us overpowering him."

"We could use that old Jedi mind trick, how hard could it be to concentrate on one mind?"

"Very," Luke replied. "It was hard enough adjusting our senses to this new place. I don't think we're ready for mind control."

"Well, I'm trying it," Leia spat back approaching the jail bars. Sure enough, a single guard stood alert there. "Excuse me," the girl called.

The guard growled as he turned to her.

"You'll let me go," Leia said waving her hand in front of his face and concentrating as hard as she could. Luke watched curiously as a mark of vein appeared on his sister's forehead.

"Yeah, right little girl," the guard said turning away.

Despite himself, Luke burst into laughter. He knew that it would make her angry, but he couldn't help himself. His sisters eyes began to glow with a rage he'd never seen before.

"Cut it out," she yelled.

But her anger only made him laugh more.

"I'm so glad you find this so funny."

"You'll let me go," he imitated, rolling on the floor with laughter.

Finally, the anger faded and Leia smiled. "I suppose it was pretty stupid. It will be a while before I can do that."

Luke's laughter slowed a little, but it took him awhile to get it under control again. He'd needed that laugh. Well, it was time for some famous escape planning. He could sure use some Millennium Falcon type luck right now.
 

******

They had finally given up on escape and begun to sleep when the guard came and pulled them from the cell.

"Hey, what's going on?" Luke asked.

"Yeah," his sister backed up groggily.

"The boss wants to see you," the guard growled, poking the children with a spear.

He lead them over an intricate set of branches that weaved together and lead to small hut like buildings in the trees. It was slightly reminiscent of Endor, except the Ewoks hadn't restricted themselves to the trees. It was nothing like Kashyyyk, except maybe in the winding branches and the fact the Tree-dwellers, as they called themselves, seemed to be quite happy avoiding the ground of their world. However, the trees weren't half as tall as the grand trees of Kashyyyk. Where as on the Wookie home world, the trees rose so far above land that you couldn't be sure the planet they were rooted in wasn't hostile. The Tree-dwellers could quite easily look down and see their was nothing seriously threatening on the ground below them.

They finally made it to a large hut perched high in the trees. Inside was a huge, old, Tree-dweller. Unlike the other fur covered ape creatures, who wore nothing or close to it, this one had an elaborate headdress filled with many feathers.

"You are not just Land-dwellers, are you," the ancient voice boomed out.

"Well, technically we dwell on land," Leia answered.

"You lie, you appeared from the air. You are here to banish the Sub-land dweller."

"The what?" the children asked together.

"Don't play with me," the older creature said. "The Sub-land dweller. A serpent who pops out of the ground and gobbles up the Land-dwellers. It is said when he gets big enough he will rise up and feed on the Tree-dwellers also. It must be destroyed, you must be the ones to do it."

"I don't know about a Sub-land dweller. We are here to save our mother."

"Your mother?" the elder Tree-dweller inquired.

"She's in the first circle, she's the rightful ruler of this world."

"The Angel Queen?" he replied with a glow in his eyes. "We heard she died at the hands of the dark one."

Leia was thrown off by the title "Angel Queen", but she continued. "Destroyed by the Dark One, please. She's the 'Angel Queen'. She's merely been captured by him and we are the only ones who can free here."

"You lie, the Angel Queen has no children. It is your duty to free us. Neither the Land-dwellers nor the Tree-dwellers will let you go without doing so. They saw you appear from thin air, they know you are the liberators as we do."

"And what if we refuse," Luke asked, more curious than anything.

"Then you receive the penalty of all Land-dweller violators, Death."

Luke looked at Leia. She seem to be taking the threat as a reason not to help. Well it certainly didn't make him want to help either, but even if they got out of the Tree-dwellers territory and back onto the ground, the Sub-land dweller as well as the Land-dwellers themselves would surely be a threat.

Luke sighed. "Well, how do we get to the Sub-land dweller?"

"We've arranged an exchange with the Land-dwellers, they know more about the beast then we do."
 
 
 

This time when they found themselves swinging through the trees, they atleast had control. They must have decided they weren't a threat, because they just handed them a vine and told them to follow. One of the Tree-dwellers had their weapons in a pack  slung across his back. As they moved within the trees among their Tree dweller guides, the jungle became green swirls in the distance. When the tree dwellers stopped, so did the children.

"Stay here," the ape man with their weapons instructed.

He slid down the vine and landed softly on the ground. A small group of other furry creatures emerged from the trees. From their perch, neither Luke or Leia could really make out faces. They gathered around the Tree-dweller and he handed over the weapons. Then they chatted softly and the tree dweller came up again.

"They're ready for you," the tree dweller told them. Glad to be rid of them, it seems, he and his companions swung away.

"Well, lets slide on down," Leia announced. "The 'land dwellers' are waiting. And we're one of them."

They grabbed a vine and slid down out of the trees. When they had made the long journey up, they had no idea how long the journey down would be. And when they finally got back to the ground, they didn't know if they were better or worse off then when they had begun.

"Greetings land cousin," the tallest of the long haired, hairy beast asked. If it wasn't for their long snouts, they would have looked something like a Wookie.

"Greetings," Luke said uneasily. "Perhaps here we will finally get the respect we deserve," Luke said putting up his best front of superiority.

"I'd like to know, how will you small ones defeat the Sub-land serpent?"

"How did we appear from thin air?" Luke replied. "We are not your ordinary humans."

"Humans? I hear you claim to be the children of the Angel Queen. You spread the rumor that she still lives, only in bondage."

"She does," Leia interjected, glaring at the land dweller. "And the longer you hold us here, the longer she stays that way."

"You attempt to bring hope where there is none. Your just another of the Dark One's tricks. If you defeat the Sub-land snake, then and only then I will believe you about the Angel Queen."

"Well give us our weapons, we'll kill the thing, and we can move on."

"You are truly a fool," the tall warrior said, "If you believe it is that simple child."

"You keep telling us we have to do it, than you say it is impossible. Which do you believe?"

"I believe that the elders foolish and paranoid enough to employ the help of mysterious children rather than their own warriors. And the only way to prove them wrong is for you to fail child."

Just the way he said the world child over and over again made it seem like a derogatory term. Could they have been lower in his eyes? It made the two of them all the more determined to beat this beast, this Sub-land dweller everyone decided they were suppose to get rid of. And the reason was quickly becoming less to move on from the twelfth circle than to show up the arrogant warrior.

"Follow," the warrior said as half his company fell in front of the new prisoners and the other half fell in back.

"I can't wait to be done with this Jungle," Leia whispered to her brother.

And they marched into the deeply tangled bushes of the Land-dwellers teritory.
 
 

*********

What amazed them most about the Land-dwellers homes was they looked just like the Tree-dwellers homes, except taken out of the tree tops. The small huts were the same size, the same shape, and even there leader had the largest of them all, and wore a fancy headdress. His wasn't filled with feathers though, it was a crown of teeth.

"So you claim to be kin to the Angel Queen," he said to the children.

Leia rolled her eyes, would they have to explain themselves to EVERY new being they met. This was getting annoyingly repetitive.

"For the hundredth time, yes!!!" Leia yelled in a voice that startled even her brother. "Listen, if you want us to fight this beast, stop wasting our time, give us our weapons, and point us in the right direction! We'll either die or we'll succeed and be able to move on from this place do what we came here to do! So please don't take up our time giving us the same load of fodder we've already heard!"

They all looked at the girl in stunned silence. Luke guessed, no one had every spoke that way in front of their leader before. And Leia herself looked stunned that she had done it. Did he know this girl?

"Very well," the leader finally said. "It attacks at night. Now unless you want to dig you way to it, it would be better to let it find us." He turned to the warrior who had brought them here. "Grosh, take them to my wife," he instructed. "You can clean up and wait for nightfall"

Grosh, the same warrior who had retrieved them from the Tree-dwellers, grabbed them roughly by the shoulders and led them out. Leia broke away from him. And Luke, not wanting to look weaker than his sister, broke away also.

"That wasn't a very diplomatic way of handling the situation," Luke whispered.

"Your right, it's going back to this age again. When I was about seven or eight this off world visitor arrived on Alderaan, business with my father. I didn't like the guy, so winter and I poked around. I had a bit of a temper then and when I realized he was trying to cheat my dad, to hurt Alderaan, I burst into their meeting and told the visitor right to his face that I knew what he was doing. After my father managed to calm me down and get me out the meeting, he told me he already knew and that I ruined his chances of collecting evidence against him. The man moved on to another system, a few years later he was caught, but I ruined any chance of him being caught then."

"What was he doing?"

"Marketing a new drug. It was suppose to be the next miracle cure, worked ten times faster than Bacta. But it was a hoax and it was addictive. It speeded up the system so much that it eventually killed off it's users. By the time people realized what was going on, he was gone. I went on this big guilt trip after that, told my father that I was just trying to do the right thing. He told me there are better ways to handle injustice than as he put it 'flying off the wing'. So I started to watch him, silently. Little by little I began to realize that you don't always have to shout to be heard. There are times to yell and scream, but---"

"Sometimes silence serves you better than noise," her brother finished

The siblings smiled at each other. "I just forgot the lesson for awhile there."

"Our adult consciousness is fighting with our child consciousness. We must be careful, if we start on the dark path here, we may never recover, never return to our true form."

"I don't need your Jedi wisdom brother, I know how to control my anger."

"Do you?" Luke questioned.

"Here," Grosh said giving them their weapons. He then pointed to a small hovel with a young  land dweller sitting in front. The boy stood up and saluted Grosh.

"Hello father, have you come to teach me to hunt?" the boy asked.

"No, these two will be staying here."

"Are these the offspring of the Angel Queen?"

"We have names you know," Leia spoke up. "He's Luke and I'm Leia."

"These are odd land cousins my son, take them straight to Gro-ma and don't associate with them," Grosh instructed then marched back off toward the central part of the village.

"I'm Pac," the child said and presented his hand. "Did you really appear from the sky?"

"No, we crossed a gateway between two worlds," Luke told him. Leia elbowed him in the side.

"What?" Luke yelled.

"He's one of them," Leia said.

"Is this story any more crazy than the ones already circling?"

"You guys are weird, but interesting. Come on, I'll take it to you to Gro-ma."

"What's a Gro-Ma?"

"My father's mother? My dad is the elder chief's son. He doesn't like Gro-fa very much."

They guessed Gro-fa was grand father. After that speech Pac's father had given on the foolishness of elders, it was the only conclusion to draw. A sour faced Tree-dweller woman exited the hovel and looked at the children.

"Those men, I can't believe they're sending children, even if they're not our own, after a beast. Come eat you three, it's going to be a long night."
 
 
 

The meal was actually good, some type of meat filled broth. And they had chatted with Pac, almost forgetting why they were there for a second. Afterward they went outside and Leia and Luke practiced using there crossbows. They were doing terrible and Pac was laughing at them.

"I use to be able to do this," Leia finally said.

"Yeah right," her brother said.

"No really, they taught me to use this thing. Now I'm use to use to a blaster. I think father was wrong, it wouldn't have killed us to have a lightsaber, it fact nothing could have been more useful."

"I think father knew what he was talking about."

"Oh yeah, we should really trust Darth Vader," Leia said aiming at the center of the target.

"Anakin Skywalker," he brother countered

Leia drew on the force before releasing her next arrow. When she let it go it hit the dead center of the target. "Well what do you know, it worked." Leia smiled proudly. "Beat that little Jedi," she said to her brother.

"That little stuff is going to have to stop," Luke spat back. "I don't like it."

"Sorry Lucas," she teased.

"My names not Lucas," Luke yelled back.

"Lucas," she teased.

"You two are silly," Pac said. "And funny. I'm sorry your going to be dead by tomorrow."

"What?"

"Everyone who, and I talking great warriors, that went after that beast died." Pac explained. "Plus some who haven't. You can barely get your arrow to hit the center of the target."

Luke raised his bow and pointed it at the target. He drew on the force and hit the target dead center.

"I just didn't want to cheat like my sister here," Luke pointed out.

"Okay, you guys have some talent, but the Sub-land dweller will not sit there and let you hit it." Pac turned in the direction of the arriving moon. "It begins," he said.

A yell suddenly rose from a distant house. Luke and Leia turned in it's direction.

"Good luck," Pac said patting them both on the back.
 

**************

They arrived at the central part of the village just in time to see  a extremely huge and mean looking cobra raise from a large hole in the ground. It was the biggest thing they had seen in both their young and adult lives. It could have wrapped it's tail around Jabba's Palace and still had tail to spare. It hissed at them, picked up a nearby Land-dweller and swallowed it whole. The twins raised their bows together and fired at the huge snake. Their arrows pierced the skin, but the gargantuan snake remained unharmed. It spat venom at the two children and they quickly rolled out the way. It then fled underground.

"The only way we're getting out of here is if that thing dies," Leia said running after it and jumping down the hole.

"Leia," Luke barely had time to call before she disappeared. And the hole closed magically behind her. "Leia," her brother called again in vain.

to be continued. . . . .
 

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