Neither do the wizards come
Take our children, one in ten
So grateful be that you’re poor but free
and you are not living then
–"Horse Tamer’s Daughter" by Leslie Fish

“Happy Choosing Day!” The cry rang merrily through the street as the children played
Chooser Tag. The brown cloak the Wizardlord wore tangled about his six year-old knees,
making it hard for him to catch his playmates. They ran from him, screaming in mock-fear.
Finally, he caught one of the bigger boys and handed off the cloak.

“Bad luck, bad luck to mock the wizards so, “ Aarana turned back to her cooking pot. Her
grandson wore the robe and chased his friends in the street. His mother was working today,
with every able adult, bringing in the harvest. Aarana used her crutch to cross the room and
watch out the window of the hotel kitchen.

The last thirty years had seen great changes. She remembered when Halvan was a major
trading port. The space port lay in ruins, destroyed by the last imperial garrison as they left.
Their technology rusted away, no one local knowing how to fix it. Now Halvan was a poor
city on a backwater planet.

Her brother had been taken by the Jedi wizards when he was a baby. She had lived in fear
that her daughter and sons would be as well, but the wizards came no more to Halvan. They
had not since the year before she was wed.

Those had been good years, working with her Maak, building a family. The Imperial
garrison and spaceport had brought prosperity to Halvan. Strange folk walked the streets
in those days, but most of them were just folk, despite odd colors of skin or scales. They’d
had a tavern then, along with the hotel. The strangers were good customers, and the
occasional Imperial overseers tipped well. The wizards had never returned, never come
back on Choosing Day to have all the children paraded before them, stealing babes not
old enough to wean. They had taken no Halvan child for thirty years.

Choosing Day was a festival for children now: fresh cakes and sweets, games and no
chores. The bad old reasons were lost to history. Halvans were not a long-lived folk,
and Ararana had just seen her fiftieth birthday, making her the oldest person in the village,
one of a handful that remembered. She stirred the sweet porridge again. Her grandson,
also called Maak, loved it. She always made it for him and his friends on Choosing Day,
wondering if her baby brother still lived somewhere in the stars, and if he’d ever tasted
the sweet porridge.
 

“This is Millennium Falcon requesting landing clearance from Fielshi Central spaceport.
We are arriving with medical supplies and a new navigational beacon.” Luke Skywalker
bounced between the navigator and comm chairs as they made their approach to the planet.

“Fielshi central here, Millennium Falcon. We’re packed full. We haven’t a pad or umbilicals
or anything, We’re diverting you to the Halvan spaceport. It’s not much more than a field,
but it’s all we’ve got. We’ll send a groundspeeder for you there. Coordinates should be
coming through now.”

“Acknowledge, Fielshi. Diverting to Halvan.” Luke switched off the console and turned to
his bondmate. “You got it plotted, Han?”

“Kid, that’s not a spaceport, that’s a permacrete slab in the middle of nowhere. Well, the
old girl’s landed on worse.”

They began landing procedures and set down on the crumbling pad. As they left the ship,
Luke looked at the devastated buildings. Typical Imperial procedure, to destroy the
infrastructure when they left so that neither the rebels nor the locals could use it.

The houses of the town were small, but clean and in good repair. Children ran through the
streets, without an adult in sight. One, too busy looking over his shoulder and yelling, barreled
straight into Luke. He looked up and startled, then ran off without saying a word.

“That kid’s eyes got big enough to fall out of his head. How many strangers do you think
he sees?” Han asked.

“Not many. Where are the adults?”

Han caught sight of an old woman with a crutch coming out of one of the houses. “I think
we’re about to find out.”

“What is your business is Halvan, Strangers?” Aarana did not like the look or feel of the
short black-clad stranger. The tall one was nothing but a spacer, but the little one put her
in mind of the Jedi wizards from long ago.

“We are waiting for a groundspeeder from Fielshi. Halvan had the nearest spaceport.”

She spat. “We have nothing since the Rebels drove out the Empire. Nothing. Not power
nor technology nor even safety. Jedi Wizards have returned to our world, it is said. They
will resume their child-stealing ways and our village will finally die.”

Luke was suddenly glad he’d stashed his lightsaber inside his inner tunic. Wearing it made
him conspicuous, but he couldn’t bear to have it away from him. He’d finally learned to
compromise and keep it out of sight but available.
 

“But on Choosing Day, we extend hospitality to any within our town. So you are welcome.
The adults will be home soon from the harvest. Would you like some sweet porridge?” Her
smile was almost toothless. She rattled a metal spoon in a bowl and children flocked from
every street, staring at the strangers.

“Come. The porridge is ready. We have guests for the holiday,” she told them as their eyes
got bigger at the sight of Han’s gunman’s rig, and Luke’s blaster.

Swept along on the tide of children, Han shot a helpless grin at Luke, and they were led,
pushed and herded to a hotel at the edge of town. It was in good repair, and sound against
the weather, but there were signs of age. None of the luminaglobes in the lobby were lit, the
only light came from the big windows.

The children swarmed into the darkened restaurant, the older ones lighting the candles on
the tables. Bowls of all sorts, some fine porcelain from the hotel’s glory days, some dented
metal ration bowls, obviously imperial castoffs, filled the tables.

Two of the biggest boys, almost big enough to be in the fields, wheeled out carts with
kettles on them. They made the rounds of the tables, serving the smallest children first,
and working their way to the strangers. The biggest, a redhead with lots of freckles, gave
the men a shy smile and said “Happy Choosing Day.”

The old woman came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She carried two
bowls of porridge, two glass goblets of red beverage that might be juice or wine. She
went to where a flame burned in a small golden bowl near a covered tray.

“Tell us, Grandmother. Tell us how it used to be!” The children called in unison.

“In the days long ago, the Republic ruled the galaxy. The Wizards who called themselves
Jedi ruled the Republic.” At the mention of the words “wizard” and “Jedi” the children
made a great racket of hooting and beating on the tables with their spoons.

“The wizards came every year, on Choosing Day.” Again, the children tried to drown
out the word.

“The Jedi called all the new mothers before them. The older children did not interest the
wizards. They had been tested and found lacking. The wizards would look at each infant
and those they wanted, their seized from the bosoms of their wailing mothers. Once the
Jedi had taken a child from a family, it was likely other children would be stolen as well.
Nurslings, babies too young to be weaned, were taken every year. And the wailing of the
women was loud in the streets for they would never see their babies again..”

The smaller children were crying by now, and the older ones looked grave at their history.
Luke listened intently, his heart aching. He’d read the Jedi side, that all children in the
Republic were tested and those that showed the Force were taken to the temple for
training. He’d never really thought about it from the side of the parents. He’d always
assumed they would be proud to have a Jedi in the family. The tear-streaked faces
around him gave lie to that.

The woman uncovered a tray of cookie people. “Infants were stolen, taken away to who
knows what fate.” She tossed a cookie shaped like a baby into the fire that burned in the
bowl. “Their mothers wept and begged. And some threw themselves off the cliffs rather
than have another child stolen by the wizards.” She tossed a woman-shaped cookie
into the fire.

“But the Empire came.” The word “empire” was greeted with cheers. “And the Jedi came
no more.” Two of the older girls took the cookie trays and passed them around. Han
shuddered when he saw the cookie people were decorated to look like stormtroopers.
He took one because the little blonde girl smiled at him and he didn’t want to be rude.

“The Empire brought technology.” She turned on a holoplayer an old model with a sealed
perpetual power source. The children boggled at the travelogue it was displaying. “The
Empire gave us power and hot water in the houses.”

One child stood up and said “Water in a house. I don’t believe it! Water come from a well.”

She waved at a sink in the corner. “That was where the water came from. And the globes
above you glowed with cool light. Trade was good. We had medicine and money. And
the Jedi did not steal our children.”

“The Empire was wicked!” shouted the boy. But the men could tell that it was all rehearsed,
and his words were not spoken from his heart.

“The Republic won its war, and the Empire has left us.” The tears that had vanished at the
talk of the good days came back. “And the Jedi will come. Remember the story. I will tell
it to you every Choosing Day, but someday I will not and you must tell the story to your
children and your children’s children.”

Forgetting the strangers, Aarana turned and ladled a spoonful of the porridge into the flame.
“For my brother, taken before his Naming Day.”

The children formed a line, each with a spoonful of porridge. One little boy ate his on the
way to the fire, and he had to scoop some from Aarana’s bowl. Each named a family
member, taken years before they or even their parents had been born.

To Han’s surprise, Luke took the end of the line. He poured his spoonful into the fire and
said, “Anakin Skywalker, my father. Won in a wager from his master, taken from his
mother, lost on Sullust, regained above Endor.”

“Our ways are not yours, stranger, but you honor them anyway.” Aarana bowed before him.

“Our thanks for the porridge and cakes, Grandmother. I hear the groundspeeder that has
come for us. Thank you for letting us see this ritual.” He bowed.

He collected Han and they left the hotel. The groundspeeder was old, perfectly maintained,
and comfortable. The driver apologized profusely for setting them down in strongly
pro-Imperial territory.

“We can keep the sentiment contained, mostly. But some of these towns were really better
off before the Empire left, and they resent the come-down.”

“That’s reasonable,” Han said.

“That’s why we’re here, Han,” Luke reminded him. “Cities like Halvan need the Republic’s
help or they’ll be ripe for exploitation by some renegade.”

“Looked like they already were. Stars, Luke that was creepy as Hell. The old woman
and all the kids, like some cult.”

“Just terribly sad, and not that much different from Alderaan Day in the Republic.
They remember those taken from them, people who are dead now.”

“Luke, you’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Taking responsibility for Vader’s crimes and trying to make it all better. Dammit, you
can’t fix the whole galaxy by yourself!”

“But I can help here, Han, I feel it.”

“The whole world needs help from the Republic,” put in the driver. “The Imperial retreat
wrecked our infrastructure. We had enough tech folks defect in the capital to keep things
running, but for the rest of the world, it was like the Apocalypse.”

Han swore softly about scorched-ground procedures, and Luke nodded his agreement. The
hotel was obviously the best Fielshi Central could boast. It was clean, but very plain and
had seen better days. The carpet was faded and thin, the curtains and furniture showing
signs of mending. Their room was comfortable enough.

“Luke, stop pacing, willya? You’re making me nervous.” Han lay on the bed looking over
a datapad on the conditions of Fielshi. The pad made an art of understatement based on
what he’d seen. After this afternoon, he felt guilty lying in a comfortable bed with good
light and running water.

Luke stopped and stared out the window at the blasted fields. “I have to help.”

“I know.” Han set the pad aside and wrapped Luke in his arms. They watched the late summer
sunset, made spectacular by particulate matter in the atmosphere. The Empire had used some
very dirty explosives to sabotage the infrastructure. “It’s what you do.”

“But how?” Luke thumped a frustrated fist against the window and pressed his face to the
cool glass.

Han said nothing, just turned his mate gently and held him for a moment before guiding him
back to the bed. He picked up the pad and brought up the pages he’d been studying.

“Look, a team of a thousand engineers could get the lights and water back on for most
of the planet within six months.” Han showed him the specs. “The basic piping is still there,
the transmission lines are underground and the imps did a lousy job of sabotaging the
generating equipment. If we could do that, the New Republic could call for general elections
within a year and get some mechanized transport and farming tools out to the smaller
settlements.” He picked up another pad and started calculating the feasibility of moving
the world to power sources which could not be sabotaged. Passive solar collectors were
cheap enough in the inner systems.

Luke took the pad and skimmed. “These people could be a major food exporter with
proper assistance. And Han, look.” He tapped a number near the general physical profile.
“No wonder those people hated the Jedi. They have a standard midichlorian count that’s
just borderline on Jedi-acceptable. The Jedi must have taken thousands of their children
every year. I wonder why no temple was ever set up here? It would be an ideal world for it.”

Han didn’t like the look in Luke’s eyes. “You’re not planning to start your school here, are you?”

“Why not? Han, half those kids in Halvan were Force-sensitive. If they aren’t trained,
if that old woman keeps feeding them horror stories about wizards and power, what’s
going to become of them?”

“They’ll hide their power and squelch it.”

“And pass it along to the next generation.” Luke set the pad aside. “That’s exactly why I
have to start teaching them. No boarding school, not even the appearance of child-stealing,
just a day school sort of thing. They live with their folks, come in for the morning, and go home at lunch.”

“Yeah, but you gotta get past Grandma first.”

“I have a plan that includes her. But I think it can wait until morning.” Luke sat up and took
off his boots then shed his tunics. He reached for the bedside light.

“I like this plan.” Han pulled him in closer before he could reach the light and kissed him.

“Definitely. Let me get the light.”

“No.”

And then there was no more interest in plans, or lights or anything because Han was kissing
him in the way that made his toes curl and his entire body tingle. His lover’s hands were all
over him, solid and demanding, wanting him. Luke knew there was fear and worry fueling
the desire, that the day was wearing on Han as it had on him, and that his mate needed him
to surrender and explode. He needed the explosion just as much, and yielded to the hands
and mouth that were driving his body into paroxysms of need.

Han’s left hand reached up and caught Luke’s right where he was letting it dangle at his side.
Luke always did that during sex, as if even now he wouldn’t touch Han with this part that
wasn’t him. Han always caught it and locked his fingers in it as he pressed their joined hands
into the pillow beside Luke’s head. He kissed his lover, slowly, and deeply.

Luke arched under him, bringing his whole body into contact with Han, and rubbing
against the hardness that pressed him down into the mattress. When Han’s mouth left his
to nip down his neck, he moaned and clutched Han’s hand. Han clutched him back, and
kept kissing.

Slowly, Han worked his way down, licking, kissing and savoring all the flavors that were
Luke. He paused, lingering on the nipples that stiffened so enticingly in his mouth, and then
down over the smooth chest to taste each rib and dart his tongue into Luke’s navel. He
was close enough he could smell Luke’s arousal, a heady musk scent blending with the
blandness of the semen that was beginning to leak from his cock. He’d been teasing
almost too long if Luke was that turned on.

Deliberately avoiding his ultimate target, Han slid his tongue into the crease of Luke’s
thigh and hip, seeking the taste to match the musk. A quick swipe along Luke’s very
tight balls wrenched an inarticulate sound from his lover and a tightening of the hand
entwined in his was his reward. He did it again, and licked the smooth, sensitive skin
inside Luke’s thighs.

“Han...” came the strained moan of his name. Luke was desperate. He needed Han’s mouth
around him, and he would explode into a million Force-colored fragments.

“Yes?” Han drew the word out as he slid back up Luke’s body for another kiss. Luke’s
mouth was dry from panting, and Han kissed him until he regained the familiar wet silk
texture. He rocked his body against Luke, letting him feel how hard he was too.

“Han.” This time, Luke was pleading.

“What do you need, kid?” Han pinned both hands near Luke’s head, and punctuated the
question with an extra hard rock of his hips.

“You.” Luke was barely able to talk. His head was swimming from arousal, and the kisses that
tasted of his own flavor. “You. Suck me.”

Han kissed him again and came up with the rakish grin. “All you hadda do was say so.” This
time there was no hesitation. No lingering. He went straight for the goal, and swallowed Luke
whole on the first stroke, eliciting a desperate gasp from his lover. Luke was really close if he
was being so blunt, Han knew. And the tightness of cock in his mouth told him the time for
teasing was over. He got down to business, and felt Luke tense on the fourth lick.

“Yes, yes, yesyes!” The shout made Han startle, but not pull away when Luke came. Luke
was ordinarily the most quiet of men, seldom saying more than a whispered “I love you” after sex.

Luke eased back to reality from the ecstatic state. He pulled Han up to kiss him again, and
then let go of his hands. “You are exactly what I needed. Tell me what you need.” His hand
curled loosely around Han’s cock. He loved the feel of it in his hands, the texture, the
unexpected softness of the skin over the thick hardness.

“You. I always need you.” He reached toward the nightstand, burying his face in Luke’s
shoulder as he slid that way. “I’m going to fuck you,” he growled against the thin skin of
Luke’s throat, and felt Luke shiver underneath him, “so hard that you’ll taste us both
afterward.”

Luke caught and worried at his earlobe. “It turns me on when you talk that way. Will you
be up for seconds?”

“You know it.” Han knelt up between Luke’s thighs and continued the raunchy stream of words
as he prepared himself, very slowly and deliberately, letting Luke watch.

Luke was breathing fast, watching this. He loved the way Han knew when he just needed to
lie back and be done to, to be out of control and wild. He returned the favor many nights,
enjoying watching his lover lose control. But tonight, it was for him. He moved eagerly
when Han lifted one of his legs over a shoulder, and brought the other up of his own accord.

Han plunged in, wringing a gasp from Luke as he sheathed himself entirely on the first stroke.
Luke was tight around him, hot as fire and he wasn’t going to last. The blue eyes were looking
up at him with love and pleasure, and making him even hotter. He didn’t thrust, but merely
rocked and let the tightness around him do the work. He’d last longer that way.

Luke smiled and watched, loving his lover and enjoying the outrageous position. He felt
ridiculous, his knees on Han’s shoulders, his feet waving in the air behind his lover’s head.
But Han was in so deep, and the next shift made Luke see stars. He tried for it again.

“Hold still,” Han said, moving at his own pace. No more. He could bear no more. A few
good thrusts and he was finished, pressing as deeply as he could with a noise deep in his
throat, feeling all the tension drain out of his body. Every bit of his resistance was gone.
And every braincell shut down for the night.

Managing something a little more graceful than a collapse, Han slid out, and Luke brought
his legs down to the bed.

They curled together, Luke’s arm under and around him, his free left hand stroking Han’s
face, lingering over the faint stubble starting on his jaw and running over the little scar on
his chin then tracing the sharp nose or an eyebrow.

“Thanks. I can sleep now. And tomorrow, we’ll save Feilshi.”

Han awoke to the sound of Luke in heated discussion. He rolled over and opened one eye
to see his mate debating with Leia and two other Republic councillors. Sounded like they
were reluctant to help this little world. Han wasn’t surprised. He buried his face in Luke’s
pillow, but it was cold. They’d been at it for a while. He tried to sleep, but the voices kept
getting louder.

Seeing there would be no hope, he wrapped in the bedsheet so as not to flaunt Luke’s good
fortune in Leia’s face and staggered to the antiquated bath.

Luke was growing steadily more frustrated. “Leia, look at the data I’ve sent. This world
could feed this whole quadrant and still export delicacies to Coruscant. And the people!
They’re borderline Force-sensitives, Leia, so many of them.”

“Luke, I know this is important to you, but the Republic has other priorities.” The words
were painful for Leia. It was so rare she saw this passion on her brother’s face and she
hated to squelch it.

“Jedi Skywalker, this world, indeed the entire system is insignificant. We are facing a revolt
by imperial sympathizers with heavy armaments. Several systems wish to secede.”

“Let them go,” Luke said at once. The horror on the councillors’ face surprised him. “We
were an alliance, not a prison camp. Systems joined us of their own will and should be free
to leave as well. And if something isn’t done here, soon you’ll have a whole planet of
imperial-sympathizing Force-users to contend with. You really want a million Vaders?”
Luke realized he had found the magic threat as the councillors all flinched. “I wish to
establish the first of the Jedi schools on this world. To do that, I will need appropriate
infrastructure.”

“What do you need, Luke?” Leia finally asked.

He listed the materials and technicians that he and Han had worked out the night before.
The councillors balked at the request for a thousand technicians, as if their own staffs
didn’t number in the dozens.

“It will take some time to assemble the people and things you require, Jedi Skywalker.
Look for them in six standard weeks.”

Luke bowed and thanked the Council. The others vanished, and Leia stood alone in the
pick-up range. Luke gave her the smile he could not let slip in front of the others. “Leia, I
need more help than what I told them. I need R2 and Chewie. Send Threepio as well. And–“

“I suppose you need your archive.” Luke nodded and Leia smiled again. “Shall I round up
the usual suspects and send Rogue Flight as well?” He chuckled his negation and she grew
more serious. “Luke, what’s troubling you?”

“The Jedi stole the children of this world. The people honor the Empire and make cookies
shaped like stormtroopers for holidays because the Empire stopped the Jedi. How can I help
them? They will hate me from the start.”

Leia nodded gravely. “You’ll know what to do when the time comes. Take care. And take
care of the big lug in the shower, too.”

“I will. I’ll see you in six months, dear sister.”

“Until later.” She vanished.

As if on cue, Han appeared, dripping,. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Pried it out of the Republic’s tight fist. Amazing how many are still scared of Father even
years after his death. The things I need will be here in about two local months. Get dressed,
we have a meeting with the High Council.”

Han presented the cargo, and left with the techs to install the new navigational beacon.
Luke presented his plan to the Council for the rebuilding. There was much hemming
and hawing, but in the end, the promise of Alliance help within two months swayed them.

“And last, I would like permission to set up a day school in Halvan. There are many children,
most woefully illiterate. I can teach them the basic skills to help rebuild. Fielshi should never
again be at the mercy of people with higher technology. I will teach anyone willing to learn
how to use and repair things.”

“Why Halvan? Why not Fielshi Central?” the Council demanded.

“Because I saw operating schools in Fielshi Central. In Halvan, I saw an old woman teaching
by oral tradition. That is fine for the history of a people, but not good when it comes to
reading manuals.”

The High Council dismissed him later after agreeing to all the requests. Luke walked to where
Han was just finishing his work.

“Are you ready to look for a place to live, Han? We’re going to be here for a while.”

“Anywhere with you, Luke.”

Luke swept his beloved mate into his arms and kissed him, in full view of the glowering techs.
They’d set the world right, and the children would learn of the Force, without the fear of ever
being taken by Jedi wizards again. They themselves would become the wizards, and help
transform Fielshi into what it once had been.

And in forty years, who knew what stories they would tell of the wizard who walked
among them on Choosing Day and chose the town instead of just the children.