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On her nineteenth birthday, Carla received almost two credits from her parents. At the time, given the circumstances, and the fact her family was, like the rest of the peasant caste they belonged in, impoverished, it was a sizable sum of money. Carla had always been a staunch imperialist, young and impetuous. She was a girl who, all her life, was there to watch as the Empire reached the heights of glory and pushed out to the ends of the galaxy. She was fifteen during the beginning of the fall.
Everyone in Carla’s village were simple people, humble and content to eat their daily bread and sing soft songs at night until they fell asleep. They were peaceful people, they did not dream at night. When the last lamps were put out each night, she dreamt of becoming a stormtrooper. But it occurred to her that she, standing one day in front of her mother, Carla really felt hesitant. Deep inside, she wasn’t sure. She was frightened.
Her father was against the idea. To him, it was sheer stupidity. Women do not belong in war, that was his contention.
Her mother was more sympathetic. “You’re just like me, when I was your age, Carla. No patience and with a noisy heart.”
She looked at her mother. Who was she to say, you’re wrong, and break her heart?
“What do you want to be?”
Carla couldn’t answer.
“Would you like to stay on the farm?”
She had done that all her life. Shyly, she shook her head.
“Would you like to work in your grandfather’s bakery?”
She was strong, and with quick hands. But she had never thought of becoming a pastry chef. She has killed the moles which digs at her father’s field with a gas rifle since she was eleven.
Her quick, clever hands would be wasted on kneading and beating flour for a pittance.
“You said once, to me, that you loved to play the guitar. Carla, why don’t you be a musician?”
A curious feeling overcame her. It’s true, she liked to play music, she thought it a beautiful art and a pastime, she had a talent for playing her instrument, though it wasn’t something that ever assumed importance in her life. But at that moment, she became conscious of an intense desire to leave her home and take to the stars. To leave this village, leave Eredyne, to cross the galaxy together with the famous Sith Commander. The people of her village do not dream at night, but she needed to. She must become something, instead of another dream-less peasant which now seemed to her an existence that was painfully shallow. She had remembered.
Go then, my daughter - her mother said. Fulfil your destiny. You were not made to stay on earth.
