The first few days of my trip to Cloud City were, to be honest, boring. Filled with the official pleasantries of dealing with the city officials and the heads of the miner?s union, the days dragged. The days had felt stale and sterile despite the beauty of the city. Politics, although an important part in my role as a Jedi (using the force to guide me though the galaxy to many spots of unrest, or for may other reasons) bores me. The constant posturing of the people involved making sure they come out on top. The cold, fake smiles, and the empty pleasantries, while they plot the best way to take down the other side, without any hint that they were involved, leaves me, sometimes, with the feeling that I in fact accomplished nothing. Although this dispute was not necessarily one of tough times, labor disputes leave me only half content because the knowledge that in ten years, or whenever the current contract is up, both sides will be right back in the same place. The splendor that was the view of Cloud City from my room helped to fill the empty satisfaction that I had after the negotiations. However, it was the reunion with my closest childhood friend, and the realization that she was the real reason the force had guided me here, had me over flowing with the warmth of joy and the still calm of true inner peace.

Morrigan and I first meet when we were children back in the shipyards of Corellia. My father had been first shift foreman; her father (well her adoptive father) was head of security. Both of them had offices in the main administration building of the orbiting facilities. One day when I was four I accompanied my father into work like I had many times before. This time however, while he was off dealing with a machinery breakdown, I had one of my early communications with the force. I followed the voice of the force to an observation deck that over looked the planet. I had walked over to the edge and placed my hand as close to the magnetic bubble that separated the deck from the cold vacuum of space as I dare. I was completely lost in the feeling of the energy from all living things on the planet pulsing up to me, seemingly though my outstretched hand, filling my young body with a warmth like I had never felt before. It was at this moment that I heard a soft gentle voice filled with the innocence of childhood call out from behind me, "Hey, what are you doing here?" Jumping, I turned to see a young girl about my age but a little taller and thinner. The brilliant blue of her eyes contrasted sharply to the dark obsidian of her hair and small set of wings on her back. She also wore a garish pendent of corusca gem and rubies that hung on an electrum chain that was clearly meant for an adult, looking awkward and oversized on her small frame. Startled by her sudden appearance I turned and stared. I was so overcome by her that I spoke with out thinking, "Wow, you are more beautiful then my mom." She blushed about three shades darker then the rubies in her pendent. That was when I heard a man laughing and first noticed her father, Lukas Bastra, standing behind her. "Hey Phifer." He said still trying to compose himself. "Does your father know you're here? Come on, let's get you back to his office before he notices your missing."

As we walked the halls back to my father office, Lukas officially introduced me to his daughter. When I inquired about Morrigan?s wings he began to tell me the story of how he had found her. He told about how before joining shipyard security he had been a freighter captain. One day his ship had come across a badly damaged freighter that had apparently been attacked and was seemingly dead in space out in the Outer Rim. He had lead a search party to the freighter to look for survivors. All the crew they had found were dead, they were just about to call off the search when Lukas heard a slight whimpering coming from a supply closet. When he opened the door he found a then two-year-old Morrigan sitting on the floor sobbing. She had been sitting there with her arms hugged tightly around her knees which she had drawn up to her chin out of fear of what had happened on the ship.

As we got to my father office, Lukas continued with the last part of his and Morrigan's story. He remembered how he had picked her up and tried to comfort her. He had known upon seeing her that she was from Iegos, but it had taken him a little to realize that he had not seen any other of her kind on the ship. Perhaps, he reasoned, they were what who ever attacked the ship were after. Morrigan had been hidden in the closet in order to protect her. The pendent that she now wore, presumably her mother's, and her only link to her family, had been stuffed into one of her pockets.

Despite the initial awkwardness of her father telling me her life story, Morrigan and I became fast friends. Whenever we were both at work with our fathers, we would spend almost all of our time together. Running around the shipyard going on adventures, finding all sorts of trouble to get into, driving our fathers nuts, as they had to try to find us. Over the next year we had also grown very close. She was one of the few people I told about the mysterious voice I heard, and I was one of the few people she talked to about how she felt out of place being the only one around with wings.

As I lay in bed contemplating the girl I once knew, and the woman I was just getting to know, the sun had begun to rise filling my suite with light. As the room began to warm in the sunlight Morrigan, who was lying next to me in bed, started to stir. Rubbing sleep from her eyes she turned her head to better look at me and said, "Hey. What are you looking at?" "Nothing." I replied with a smile, "I was just thinking about when we first meet, and how beautiful you look in the morning light." She chuckled lightly. Sitting up on her elbows she said, "Man, you're a softy. It's like you've never seen another person before." "I spend a lot of time alone." I returned, "The only person I see in the morning light is Deeters, and when the light reflects off his dome I get blinded." Not sure how to take my last comment, Morrigan just stares at me. As a smile slowly begins to creep across my face we both erupt into laughter.

Next update soon.