Just Passing Through...I Swear
What an Epic(a) First Day Out
<Creepy Green Light>
The moment my boots crossed into Epica City, I had to wonder if someone in the galaxy had looked at a map and simply declared, "Let's name this place Epica because subtlety is for cowards."
I could respect that level of confidence.
The city rose toward the heavens in shimmering towers stitched together by glowing skybridges while speeders hummed overhead like oversized insects with expensive taste.
Holographic advertisements danced across polished walls, vendors barked over one another in a dozen languages I only half recognized, and the air carried the scent of sizzling meats, strange spices, engine lubricant, and enough perfumes to stun a bantha.
Compared to our old quiet farm on Naboo, where my greatest daily challenge had been convincing stubborn shaaks that fences were not merely polite suggestions, this place felt like someone had taken the entire galaxy, shaken it violently in a cargo container, and dumped the contents into one city block.
Every direction held another mystery, another oddity, another being with enough tentacles, horns, or suspicious robes to make me quietly appreciate how wonderfully ordinary my childhood had actually been.
Yet beneath the excitement, the Force whispered with restless tension.
Threads of anxiety tangled around thousands of strangers brushing past me, brushing against one another, creating a constant tide of emotions that left every instinct in my body standing at attention. I found myself keeping one hand just a little closer to my satchel while my eyes refused to stop scanning the crowds.
Eventually I drifted toward a street merchant whose table overflowed with curious relics, polished crystals, battered datapads, antique trinkets, and several objects that I was fairly certain were either priceless artifacts or someone's kitchen utensils.
I was busy trying to determine whether one oddly shaped metal cylinder was an ancient Jedi relic or an aggressively artistic soup ladle when a sharp voice split through the marketplace.
"Stop them! Thieves!"
I turned just in time to see a frantic woman pointing toward three young men sprinting through the crowd with remarkable enthusiasm for individuals who clearly had somewhere they were not supposed to be.
My brain connected the words theft and robbery with the fleeing trio at roughly the same speed a malfunctioning protocol droid solved advanced mathematics.
I folded my arms. "Not my problem," I reminded myself. I had arrived on Epica all of twenty minutes ago. Surely getting involved in local crime statistics wasn't listed anywhere in the official itinerary for naive farm girl explores the galaxy.
Then my parents' voices echoed somewhere in the back of my mind about helping people, respecting your elders, and doing the right thing even when nobody was watching. I let out a long, theatrical sigh worthy of an overworked moisture farmer.
"I blame good parenting," I muttered to absolutely no one.
My feet, apparently having entered into a conspiracy with my conscience, launched into a run before the rest of me had formally approved the decision, and I found myself chasing after the fleeing trio through the crowded streets of Epica City.
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