Chapter Text
If Leia was the roar of a krayt dragon, then Luké was its maw.
They were the twin suns of Tatooine except not, because only the Sons of the Suns were born with their blessings. Aunt Beru had always said she was a Daughter of the Moons: the wisp of moonlight and the breath of cool air on a weary traveler’s skin. Luké had always preened, smiling under her Mi-ti’s whispers:
“Which moon?” Luké would ask, the dimples in her cheeks betraying a hidden smile.
Beru’s bony fingers would tuck a lock of wild blonde hair behind her ears, “Amakuuna,” she’d say, “the Mother’s promise. Find her in your heart, my Títam, and you will find your song of peace.”
Except she couldn’t.
The clear blue sky of Tatooine held too much promise. Come to us, the suns would sing, just reach and fly! And on days when Luké’s skin was a dark brown and her hair as pale as the sand, Aunt Beru would stroke her head and smile.
“You are a Skywalker.” She had said, “Your eyes are blue because the sky has found a worthy champion — always looking up.”
Luké had smiled every time.
There was the sound of a whip, a crack, and Luké flinched badly. The pain did not come — it was not meant for her — and so the resulting shriek was not hers. A young female Weequay was chained to a stone post, sobbing into her hands. She was dressed in dark, almost black ribbons that shone like plasteel in the suns. Some trailed on the ground where they had broken loose, their bloodied ends gathering clumps of sand.
The words of her Depur did not matter; they never did. It was the same, as always — and if not the same, then always angry. Dressed in gauzy white, with white ribbons plaiting through her long hair, the human woman was the retha-Depur: the Pleasure Master of Mos Eisley.
Another crack of the whip, another spray of blood, and Luké felt the Force rush under her palms in a buoyant high.
It would be so easy to break the woman’s neck. Luké could see the possibility happening — could feel the heavy snap the Force would broadcast under her fingers, the satisfying slump of the Depur's body. The woman’s putrid aura would fade under her hands, like it had once before. Satisfaction pooled into her heart as she imagined the wind burying this monster in hot sand.
It would be, she thought, closing her eyes. Before the possibility had a chance to settle, she was assaulted with memories of a bloody knife and claws.
Wait. Hadn’t she killed Madame Boj’wani many years ago? Luké was suddenly aware of a sharp ringing in her ears, a white noise she hadn’t noticed up until now. Was this a vision, a test of her morality — of her progress? Her first kill (murder! some long-dormant part of her hissed) had been full of vengeance and fury, of self-righteousness and pain. The Dark side had lounged comfortably in her heart as she’d howled with rage to the goddesses.
Master Yoda had called her an angry little girl. Just like her father.
How had Ben convinced him otherwise?
Opening her eyes, Luké sneered and watched the spectacle in what felt like an echoing haze. The Weequay woman’s back was a raw mess, her screams of agony long since ignored. What was normally a sympathetic affair — avert your eyes, respect your fellow slave — had now drawn a tumultuous crowd. Some wore collars of their own. Most wore frowns.
It was because of the Depur. Madame Boj’wani was known to be a cruel mistress, a slave herself to Jabba the Hutt as well as his personal retha. A slave owning slaves was an abhorrent crime on Tatooine, both illegal and risky. Had she not culled the Hutt’s favor many years before, Madame Boj’wani’s life would have likely ended on behalf of the Ancient Grandmothers.
Instead, she’d been stabbed by her youngest slave, once for each of the goddess moons, and the feel of a dull kitchen knife popping through flesh wasn't one Luké would ever forget. She had justified her actions: the might of Amakuuna swelled inside of her, and she would see the death of every Depur on Tatooine to unleash it! It was her right of vengeance.
Crack.
Regardless, on Tatooine, to be punished as a retha-slave was to be considered ungrateful. An easy job, it was called. Already Luké could hear the whispers from those around her. Stupid girl, was the popular one. Now she’ll have it hard.
But to those in the retha, a whipping was a blessing. Nobody wanted a scarred body in their bed.
There was a phantom burn in her back as the whip shot across the plaza again. The sensation trailed down her skin like a blistering caress, causing sweat to follow in its path. She clenched her hands, her right glove creaking from the strength of her prosthetic.
Luké watched as the girl’s body fell limp against the post. Her chains clattered loudly. The sensation disappeared.
There was a beat of hushed silence before Madame Boj’wani spoke. Her face was dewed with sweat and some of her white dress was now transparent. Most of the outer Galaxy — or that of which Luké had seen — was modest in nature, and it seemed her meager four years in the Rebellion had overwritten that of which was forced upon her as a small child. The sight of the woman’s bare body underneath her thin dress was enough to incite a small shock.
“Any takers?” Her heavily accented Basic held a hint of amusement as she looked around. Her hands casually wrung Weequay blood from the whip’s tail. Whispers returned like a sandstorm as they mocked the slave girl for her stupidity.
In another life, Luké had fulfilled the demand of the Moons — to seize liberty in the form of death, to right the smudge she had wrought on her family name. Skywalker had been a slave name, as old as the tales of Ekkreth, and she was the first Freeborn Daughter of a Freedman. Humiliation would taint her soul no matter how far she ran or how much she lied. It had felt wrong to feel pride in her victory, the way in which the Moons asked her to.
You had freed yourself! they cried. Rejoice!
I shouldn't have been a slave at all! hissed something deep in her soul.
She knew better now. She was no Daughter of the Moons. It was not that of Amakuuna that whispered to her in the nights. Perseverance did not rest easy in her heart. She heard no songs of eternal promises, of retribution and patience, nor the grateful hum of travelers under her feet.
It was not the night sky in which her child-self had gazed up in wonderment at.
A long-suffering wick of indignation ignited once more inside her. She felt power flow through her arms, buzz in her stomach, bunch in her legs. Her scalp felt weightless as the Force rushed into her body.
A supernova, Teacher had once said. As bright as your sister.
She was the first half of a tatooém, the searing thrill of freedom. Her té, Leia, was the second half, the voice of hope. They were blessed under the blinding brightness of her Jítamé’s — of Shmi Skywalker’s — gods long before Aunt Beru had tried to convince her otherwise. Justice was written into their skin, determination in every hair. The heat of retribution and free-will had always burned in their hearts, in their blood, and was obvious like the fires in their eyes.
Amakuuna was the promise of reckoning. Jawoti and Kochu were the bringers of it.
Luké almost wished she could speak with Master Yoda again, if only to tell him he was wrong. Anger didn’t lead to the Dark side. She had seen enough evil in those who weren’t Force sensitive (had experienced it firsthand) to know that the Dark side resided in all living things.
She would happily fail this test. And any like it. For before she was a Jedi, or a Rebel, or a soldier, Luké was a Skywalker, a Daughter of the Suns, and she would break every chain she saw.
In one motion, Luké raised her arm with her palm facing the Depur and emitted a concussive Force wave. As distracted as she was by the sheer pain this woman’s image invoked, she somehow managed to scrounge enough focus to create a scrappy Force-push. Her arm recoiled at the sloppy work, and a muscle pinched in her shoulder. The world seemed to warp and ripple in the air like water as it billowed in the trail of the action. Sand, dirt, rocks, and even some small metal scraps were thrown as well.
Madame Boj’wani didn’t even have a chance to register the strange gesture from the tiny black-clothed girl. The Mistress was dead within milliseconds, her head bursting against the side of a wall. The bones in her body audibly clicked as they crumpled against the sandstone.
There was another stunned silence from the small crowd of onlookers. Even on Tatooine, where violence was a way of life, the sight of a much-hated Depur’s brains suddenly coating a wall was quite shocking.
Luké frowned in the stillness. Why was she still in this vision? She’d obviously failed this Jedi test.
Chaos erupted and the stupor she had stood in vanished. What had once felt like slow-motion was now too fast for her to follow. People were scattering, panicking in their haste to leave the Whipping Square, and were crowding the exiting alleyways.
With sudden clarity, Luké realized two things.
First being: somehow, someway this was not a vision. The bodies shoving past her were real. The spittle as people screamed in her face was real. The choking dust cloud from the stampede was real. Madame Boj’wani — the proprieter of the Pleasure House, the one she vividly remembered killing as a young teenager, now dead (yet again!) in the sand instead of a soft, velvet ottoman — was real.
But… Luké stared uncomprehendingly at the splattered remains, arm still outstretched. She had already died! Luké had killed her herself! She had done it! She had felt the Madame’s blood on her hands and face before! She’d been sick and had nightmares for weeks about it!
What was this? This wasn’t a vision and there was no way this was real!
The second realization Luké made quite literally exploded in front of her. An elderly man, with a collar cinched so tight the wrinkled folds of his neck drooped over it, didn’t have time to scream before his head was blown off his shoulders.
She screamed in his stead, cringing away from the sight with a stunted lurch. The old man’s body fell to its knees, the shredded arteries in his neck causing blood to gush like water onto the sand. Luké, in her wide-eyed horror, heard a solid thunk as his head landed on the metal awning of a small junk shop.
Another body fell in her periphery, its head also missing. More thunks, more screams, and Luké was harshly shoved. Her neck cracked from the whiplash. Gasping and stumbling, she quickly regained her footing and turned to look at who’d pushed her.
Shock and grief painted across the young man’s aura, as if she couldn’t tell from his face. His disbelief (and blame) assaulted her mind, and the panicked terror from the entire city block was overwhelming her senses. His hands balled into fists. He couldn’t be older than fifteen.
“What have you done?” He screamed in Huttese, his eyes huge and horrified. And then his head was gone, too, exploding instead of decapitating by the transmitter embedded in his neck.
Luké jerked backwards and fell as the gore splattered thickly across her face. A keening noise choked from her throat as she tore her eyes from the smoking wreckage of the boy’s head (gods it had been a BOY! A kriffing CHILD!) and looked across the plaza. Her heart shuddered painfully in her chest before jump-starting wildly, knocking the breath from her lungs.
There were dozens of bodies lying on the stone pavement. The smell of charred meat and burnt hair drifted to her and she promptly heaved.
This isn’t a vision! she screamed mentally. It can’t be! Tears squeezed from between her eyelids as she threw up everything in her stomach.
Panting, she looked back up at the carnage and vomited again, ropes of bile-tinged saliva trailing from her lips. Blood was caking the sand and running in streams between stone blocks. This was her worst nightmare, a horror that had threatened her peace of mind for over ten years and still plagued her in her dreams. She shakily wiped her mouth with her arm. Something slimy caught her sleeve and slid under her jaw. She drew her arm back and watched a chunk of scalp (its matted hair still attached) peel from her chin and fall in her puddle of vomit.
Cringing, eyes blowing wide, Luké scrambled to her feet and ran as fast as she could through the screaming crowd. There were three alleyways leading out of the Whipping Square, all of them congested with slaves and Masters alike.
("Jutí? How come they don't just stop being slaves?"
Owen looked down at his niece with an expression of great sadness. "Because they don't know anything else.")
The sound of a transmitter detonating right behind her caused her to flinch. Don't think about it, just GO, she thought, and forced herself forward. An empty doorway caught her eye, the door left ajar by the slumped body of a Rodian woman.
Within seconds of ducking into the glass-blower’s shop, her whole body suddenly jerked. Her muscles spasmed before seizing violently, and she toppled to the floor with a loud crash. Already-precarious fixtures knocked over and spilled their contents all over her back. She didn’t feel the large, stained-glass artworks fall on her, nor the dozens of glass shards embedding themselves into her flesh. Her panicked brain somehow (instinctively) rallied the Force to creep under her skin and create a thick enough barrier to mitigate the electricity. Having nowhere to go but outwards, sparks leapt from her exposed skin and sections of her clothes began to smoke.
Her focus swam. Gripping a nearby fixture to pull herself up, her prosthesis twitched and jerked her wrist away from the wire rack. With no balance, Luké stumbled into the stand and knocked over that one, too, raining colorful glass balls onto stone. The cheap wiring of the shelves tore into her skin as she tumbled over it, and it took no more than a few seconds for the electricity to transfer from her body into the metal rack. Luké shakily pulled herself out of the flimsy death trap, gritting her teeth as sensation — and pain — battered her already-weakened body. A particularly sharp and needle-like wire gouged into the side of her breast as she stood.
After regaining her balance, she rushed forward through the art shop without knowing where to go. Glass crunched under her boots and slid off her clothes like droplets. The explosions and screams behind her hadn’t faded, hadn’t stopped one bit, and she could still smell and feel the chunk of flesh underneath her chi—
Something slammed into her back and sent her flying through an exit doorway. Shouting in alarm and pain, the young woman careened into an unfortunate soul’s makeshift home. She used her left hand to push against something hard and sturdy under the tarp, and cried out in pain when glass drove deeper into her palm.
She didn't get a chance to get up. Another blow struck her, this time on her head, and Luké blacked out.