tatooine_doofus | Room 317 [after workshops]

"Her whole planet!? And Leia's your sister, right?" She shook her head. "My home's gone, but that's just a city. That's ... is she okay!?"

She shivered. "That name sounds really familiar, and I don't know why. The Darth one. Maybe you did tell me and I just forgot."

"Let me start from the beginning, then," Luke said with a little sigh. "My uncle bought Artoo and his counterpart, C-3P0, to help us with our moisture farm on Tatooine. But Artoo said he was the property of Obi-Wan Kenobi and ran away into the desert to find him." He ran a hand through his hair. "I knew him as Ben Kenobi. Turned out he was one of the last surviving Jedi Knights--the Emperor and his top minion Darth Vader--who taught Ethics here last year--and he'd been camped out in exile on Tatooine because he was watching out for me while I grew up. He and my father had been best friends."

He took a breath. "Following along so far?"

Rikku considered for a long moment, then nodded. "I think so. The Jedi, that's like you and your dad, right? The religion-that's-not-a-religion Force thing. And your dad's friend was trying to watch out for you, while you grew up. That's ... I know someone who did that, for his friends, even though he had to stay around after he was dead." She smiled a bit faintly, then shook her head again. "Okay. I think I'm following. Wait, the Ethics teacher ... he was bad? Like, evil, I mean? That's ... kinda scary."

Luke nodded. "Exactly. Ben was watching over me because my father wasn't around any more--that's why my aunt and uncle raised me." He made a face. "Not that I knew that then--my uncle wouldn't let him near the farm and refused to say anything about my father, the Jedi, the Force or what life had been like before the Empire. He told me that my father had been a freighter pilot during the Clone Wars." He snorted. "Can you imagine him flying freight?"

Ignoring talking about Vader? The heck you say.

Rikku hugged her knees, pulling her feet up onto the chair with her. "That's ... that happened a lot, where I'm from. Your parents weren't around too long, so someone else raised you. Your uncle ... did he not get along with your dad?"

"I haven't seen him fly. I know he teaches it, here. He says you're a heckuva pilot. He beams about it." She smiled up at him. "I'm guessing freight's kinda not the same thing, huh?"

"I don't think they knew each other very well at all. From what I've pieced together since I've been here, it was more a step-sibling? Maybe?"

He grinned. "I'm not as good as he is," he said bashfully. "The way he flies--it's like dancing. He does it effortlessly and doesn't realize that what he does is impossible for the rest of us. Having him flying freight--these ugly, slow, hunks of junk -- it's an insult to pilots."

Rikku shook her head. "Whoa. So, uh, why would he be all upset and lie about him, then, if they barely knew each other? That's kinda weird."

She laughed. "Man, I want to see him fly sometime, then. I should totally take his class and then show off to Pops, give him a heart attack! And you know? If you're his son, you've probably got the same moves and you don't even know it.

"He knew my father had been Jedi," Luke said softly. "And the Emperor--specifically, Vader--we killing all of the Jedi. I think he was hoping that if he never mentioned them, I'd never hear about them. He was protecting me. I didn't see it like that then."

Rikku nodded slowly. "It's hard, I guess. I mean. They had to be worried about you, if the Jedi were being killed off. And you're a Jedi, you said, so that's dangerous. Maybe they were hiding you."

"They were definitely hiding me."

With his father's last name. On his father's home planet. Way to be passive-aggressive, Obi-Wan.

He shrugged. "So I followed Artoo and Threepio, we ran into Ben and Artoo ran this tape from Leia begging for help. She was on board the Death Star and had included the schematics of how to make the thing explode in Artoo. We had to get them to her father on Alderaan." He blew out a breath. "Of course, the Empire was tracking the droids, too. Back home. When I arrived, the farm was on fire and everyone was dead."

"Leia, your sister," Rikku nodded. "Is that how you found out about her?"

And then she heard the rest of it and flinched. Sand dunes, lit up by your home in flames ... she knew only too well what he must have felt right then.

After a few moments, she got up, went over to Luke, and sat down next to him, placing one arm tentatively around his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "Y-your aunt, and uncle?"

Luke stared out at nothing. "It was just the start," he said hollowly. "But I didn't exactly have a reason to stick around. Ben said if I'd been home, I'd have died too." It was clear that wasn't much of a comfort to him.

"So we went to find a ship to Alderaan, but by the time we got there, the entire planet had been destroyed by the Empire in an effort to get Leia to talk." His mouth thinned. "It didn't work--of course it wouldn't work-so they slotted her for execution."

Rikku closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "Luke, they ... m-my home is gone, too. They were looking for Yunie and they b-burned it to the ground. I got there just in time to see. Most of us ..."

She shook her head. "I keep feeling like it's my fault or I should apologize to all the people, but ... it's not your fault they're gone, any more than it's their fault they are. You're here. You have to make that mean something. Yeah?"

She took a deep breath. "They ... her whole planet?! You can't ... oh. They ... they were in power, and they can do ... anything they want. Oh, Luke." She felt heartsick. "Is she ... how do you even ..."

Luke leaned into the hug. "You don't think about it," he said. "The number just...numbs you. Leia's so much stronger than I am," he said. "She gets out of bed in the morning and keeps moving. I don't know if I could do that and I don't even like Tatooine all that much."

Rikku leaned over for a long squeeze. "It's ... you can't think about it. All the deaths, all the ... you can't. You'll go crazy. She must be pretty strong, yeah. Or maybe ... maybe she has to keep moving or she will think about it."

She shuddered. "So they were gonna execute her. Did they even bother with a trial?"

Luke snorted sarcastically. "Oh, sure. Nah, they just tossed her into a cell. We got sucked in by the Death Star's tractor beams and while Ben was off taking them down again, Han and I sprung Leia out. They were going to execute her! I didn't even know she was my sister. She was just in trouble."

And good looking, but he didn't really dwell on that part of his many, many neuroses.

"We got her out just as Ben was coming back from fixing the beam, but then he ran into Darth Vader."

Deep breath. "Who'd been his apprentice. Vader cut him down without really having to try."

Rikku shook her head. "They're in charge, they just get rid of people who cause trouble. That's ... they don't need a reason. They spread lies and tell people you never existed."

And took a breath sharply. "Cut ... cut him down? He ... he got ... hurt?" She really, really didn't think so.

Luke gave her a watery smile. "Not exactly," he whispered.

Rikku swallowed, hard, and leaned in for a long moment. There wasn't anything to say, some times.

"You, uh. You saved her, right? You did it. That's ... you did good. You know that, yeah?"

"Ben knew it was coming," Luke said, seeing the scene play out in front of him again. "He gave Vader this smirk, then looked at me and surrendered to the Force. His body disappeared before his 'saber hit the ground." He wiped his hands across his eyes and let out a shaky breath. "So yeah, we got back into the ship with the droids, the plans and the princess, and got the hell away from the Death Star."

He rolled his eyes. "Which, of course, followed us."

"Princess? Whoa. Your sister's ... wait, are you a prince, then?" Rikku shook her head. "I don't get it. He ... let Vader hit him? Why? Was it ... did it give you guys time ... to get away?"

"She's a princess because her adoptive family ruled Alderaan," Luke said with a small smile, "not because of anything Skywalker. And he let Vader hit him...I'll get to that. Basically, it's because Jedi don't fear death. So we saddled up all of our ships--which wasn't a lot--and went after the Death Star. There was a three-meter hole in it that would blow the whole thing. I hit it."

And if that wasn't a shot in a lifetime, nothing was.

"Oh. Okay. I mean, there's not fearing death, and then there's going, 'Hey, you know, what the heck.'" She facepalmed. "That so wasn't supposed to be .. that kinda came out ... never mind, please?!"

"The Death Star thing ... wait, you mean airships!? You were up there in airships aiming at something ... how could you even see it!?" She gaped at him. "We had to get out of our ship and stand on the roof and hope Pops didn't swerve just to hit stuff that small! And that was us, not the gun!"

"The starfighters had navigational help," Luke said, blowing past the bit about Obi-Wan as fast as possible.

The denial ran strong in him, oh yes.

"And the guys who, um, didn't make it who went before me helped too," he said quietly. "I knew where to hit."

Rikku looked over at him. "The guys who ... oh. You mean ..."

And then she smiled, a little sadly. "It's kind of nice to know, isn't it? That they're out there, helping. Somehow. Yeah?"

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