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Luke was never told much about his father. Here is what he knew. His father’s name was Anakin Skywalker. He was born a slave. He was freed and left Tatooine. He died a spacer around when Luke was born. But other than that, Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen refused to say anything about him.
Needless to say, Luke wasn’t happy with the situation and every year when asked what he would like for his birthday he responded the same.
“Please tell me a story about my Father.”
And every year Luke’s aunt and uncle said the same thing.
“Maybe when you’re older and can understand such things.”
Luke did not like that answer one bit.
Fortunately for Luke, one night after his uncle had gone to bed he and his aunt were watching the stars and she brought it up all on her own.
“Your grandmother used to come out to watch the stars every night. Said she wanted to check in with her little boy before he came home. I asked her once how she was so sure that Anakin would come back at all, he was so little when he left and I couldn’t imagine he had fond memories of the planet. She told me ‘Beru, for all Anakin has always wanted to live up to our name and travel the skies I always can rest confident in the fact that he will come home to me.’ I asked her again how she could be so sure. You know what she said?”
“No Auntie.”
“I’ll tell you what she said to me. She said ‘Beru, that boy always loved differently than anyone I had ever known before I was freed and it never made sense to me. Every good slave knows that the only thing they truly own is their thoughts and their hearts, and those things are all the more valuable for it. So every slave knows that when they love, they shouldn’t give their heart away, for eventually your love will be separated from you. That’s not to say that slaves can’t love completely and purely, but it does mean that the love is tempered by the fact that it can only be temporary.’”
“That’s so sad Auntie.”
“I thought so too, Luke, but I wasn’t finished with my story. When I told your grandmother that what I thought about it she gave me a small little smile and she said ‘You’d think so wouldn’t you? Anakin though, Anakin never loved like that. Anakin loved me with everything he had and when I warned him about a slave’s love he called me silly and told me he would always come back, for who else would tell him stories?’ I thought about it for a while and said to her ‘Shmi, I think you’re right, someday we’ll see him, though I suppose he will be the one with the stories to tell when he comes’.”
“And did she Auntie?”
“Did she what?”
“See my father again? I think you must have seen him, otherwise you couldn’t have known to take me in.”
“I think she did Luke.”
“Why do you sound sad then?
“Because it isn’t a happy story Luke. They saw each other and then she died and he left, never to be seen again. I do know one thing though. Your grandmother was right. When he lost her it seemed like he lost a piece of himself forever. He didn’t love like a slave, scared and protecting his heart. He loved like a free man, without worrying or considering what of himself he may lose.”
“He sounds amazing!”
“I suppose he does.”
Luke didn’t ask about his father much after that. He felt confident in the fact he knew his father at his core and he knew how to be like his father. That no matter how many skies he may walk across he should love without reserve or fear. For Anakin Skywalker loved like a free man, not like a slave.
Luke had part of the rebellion for almost a year now, and he still wasn’t used the questions he would get about his father, the jedi, the hero with no fear. He always felt a little bad having to tell people who came up to him that he didn’t know much. He didn’t feel bad that what little he did know he didn’t share. It was a little too personal after all. But still, all the questions started to get irritating, especially the ones about how Luke came to be. They all went a little like this.
“Wow! Your dad was Anakin Skywalker? I grew up hearing stories about him!” (and didn’t that rankle a little, he had to beg for every piece of information he could about the man growing up and here were complete strangers who knew more stories than he did)
“Yes, he was my father.”
“That’s so cool! Wasn’t he a jedi though? I always heard that jedi were monks, and well… you had to born somehow.”
“He was a jedi, I don’t know if they were monks, and I do not know who my mother is.”
“Oh, well sorry about bringing it up then.”
The same conversation always brought to the same unsatisfactory end. The only thing that really came out of it was a weird rumor going around that Luke didn’t have a mother at all, and he was just born straight from the force. Regardless, it got old.
One day, something different happened. A woman walked up to the table that Luke and Leia were sitting at and just stared at him. Not knowing what to do and worried that he would do something rude he stared back (all these cultures and species Luke had never seen before and it was really hard not to offend people). She wasn’t very tall or big or old or anything really except perhaps beautiful, in a stately, older sort of way.
“Uh….” was all Luke managed to say before the woman interrupted his bumbling.
“I knew your parents,” she said in a no-nonsense sort of tone. Leia, Luke noted, will probably get along with this woman.
“Parents? I didn’t realize anyone knew who Luke’s mother was,” Leia offered when Luke still looked too bewildered to answer.
The woman gave a sharp glance towards Leia and snorted “Of course that old goat didn’t bother telling you about your mother, probably slipped his mind while being wise and mysterious.”
“Old goat? Do you mean Ben?”
“Yes, I imagine his years started to addle his brain past his usual insanity. Kenobi was never one for sharing information when he didn’t have to.”
“That… sounds about right actually. Wait back to my mother, you know who she is?”
“I’d certainly say so. Served her loyally for fourteen years.”
“That is quite a while. How do you know that she is Luke’s mother? I can’t imagine that a jedi could have any kind of relationship without it needing to be a secret.”
“Hm. Well you’re not wrong. The jedi had this doctrine about attachments and love. Something about it leading to darkness that I never quite understood. And I know because I figured out they were married, recognized she was pregnant, and talked directly to her about it.” Leia laughed and Luke knew they would definitely get along.
“If the Jedi had a rule against it, why’d they get married?”
“Why most people get married I believe. They loved each other. Your father was never very good about being a jedi.”
“What do you mean not a good jedi? My father was a great jedi knight!”
“Now, now, calm down. Your father was a great man, but I’d never say that he was a great jedi and I mean that in the best of ways. The jedi were always a rather strange bunch. I already said that they had rules against love, and near as I can tell that was most types of love. Don’t misunderstand now, most jedi had this sort of universal love about them. They loved every being unless given a reason not to usually. But it was an impersonal love, it was the kind of love born out of a focus in justice and peace for everyone. But it wasn’t for any one person in particular, which was the purpose I suppose. Your father wasn’t like that. His love for your mother was special, unique, among all the love he gave. He would do all these silly little romantic things for her when he could. A flower from a planet he battled at, a poem he wrote about her, a holo of something beautiful he saw. He honestly wasn’t great at any of them, the flowers would stink, the poems were just bad, and the holos were always blurry. But what he had for her was for her alone, which is how I know that you couldn’t be the product of some tryst. Your father didn’t love people equally like a jedi, he loved each person uniquely.”
“I… can believe that. I don’t know much about my father, but I do know he loved very deeply.”
“Exactly, he loved like a husband, not a jedi. Which was a very unjedi thing to do.”
“He sounds like a love smitten fool,” Leia offered.
“He most certainly was.”
An intelligence officer ran up to the woman and whispered something in her ear.
“Well it sounds like I need to be going, maybe I can tell you stories about them later?”
“I’d like that.”
Luke never saw the woman again, he assumed she died on a mission. It wasn’t unexpected in a way. There were always casualties in the Rebellion, but this was the first one since Biggs that Luke had needed to truly mourn for a while. It was a different sort of mourning than with Biggs, which Luke figured made a good deal of sense. It wasn’t the same, for he cared about the two of them differently, and going by his father’s example Luke thinks that it is the better way to love. For Anakin Skywalker loved like a romantic fool, not like a jedi.
Luke was conflicted. He and the rest of the rebel squad were spending the night in the ewok huts in preparation for the next day’s assault, but that wasn’t the reason for his unrest. He was thinking about his father. Even six months later, the idea that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker was mind boggling and he was honestly relieved that people had gotten bored about asking about his father. He wasn’t sure if he would have been able to handle it. He could only imagine how that conversation would go.
“You’re saying that Vader is your father?”
“Yes.”
“There is no way that the Hero With No Fear could become Vader. Right?”
“I can hardly believe it myself.”
“I... If you so I guess. Well. I’ve got a… briefing, yes a briefing, that I need to be going to. Maybe I’ll see you later Commander Skywalder.”
“Maybe.”
Yes, that conversation could never go well for any of the people involved.
So, Luke sat in the dark straining his eyes to see if he could see the death star, trying to ignore the thoughts bouncing around his head.
“I don’t know how we haven’t met yet sir, but I’m Rex. I served with your father in the Clone Wars.”
Luke turned around so fast he might have given himself whiplash. The man talking to him seemed older, with a white goatee and tan wrinkled skin. His face seemed familiar.
“Are you sure we haven’t met before, you look pretty familiar.”
Rex laughed and said “ah, you must have met one of my brothers. People mix us up all the time, just got one of those faces I guess.”
“Oh, my bad.”
“I’m kidding, my brothers and I are clones, I just don’t get to make that joke very often anymore. Anyways your father. He was my general you know, and I was the captain of the legion, so we knew each other pretty well. When I first started hearing rumors about you I could hardly believe it. When order 66 happened I was with the Commander. I suppose I should consider myself lucky in that respect. Ashoka was in a better situation to deal with it than the general must have been. Don’t know if I could have lived with myself I had killed either of them.”
“You were that close?”
“Yes sir. Best general a clone could have asked for.”
“Ah,” Luke turned back to look at the night sky.
Rex grabbed Luke by the shoulder before he could completely turn around. “I didn’t mean that just from a professional viewpoint. General Skywalker was my vod as well. The General being a general is linked to that, I could hardly separate the two if I tried.”
“Vod?”
“Brother. Us clones are Mandalorian, or at least, Prime was, and that was how we were taught.”
“Interesting. Why are they linked?”
“Well for Mandalorians, your vod are those you trust to watch your back in a fight. And the General was always the person you wanted to have at your back. But its not just that. It was the kind of general he was.”
“The kind?”
“Right. So any good general cares about his troops, loves them a little you could say. Like General Solo and Organa. They are good generals because they care about their troops and are smart about how they use them. But General Skywalker took it even further than that. He didn’t just love us like a general should. Like we were important and individuals even as he asked us to risk our lives. As clones that was even more important to us. But like I said it was more than that. General Skywalker cared for us like we were his own. There wasn’t a plan he asked us to do if he didn’t think it would leave the most of us alive, that he wouldn’t be willing to do himself. He loved us like he was one of us. I saw General Skywalker cry exactly three times. One was for his master, one was for his padawan, the third was for his clones when another general tried to have us all killed. To me and to the rest of the 501st, the general was vod. He was more than vod, he was the picture of what I always thought the Manda’lore would be.”
“Manda’lore?”
“The leader of all Mandalorians, the father of all the clans, the one who looks out for his people. That was who General Skywalker was to me.”
The two of them sat in silence for a while.
“What… What do you think my father would have done if there was a mission that only succeed if he did it by himself? That had almost no chance of succeeding but if it did he would save one of his vod. But if he left, he would be leaving the rest of his vod to fight by themselves.”
Rex stood there for a minute and thought about it.
“One time, one of my vod had been captured and was being used for info by the clankers. The jedi council and the GAR brass wouldn’t let us make a move to get him back. General Skywalker decided to go anyways and leave the battlefield. We went to this highly secure facility and infiltrated, the odds of us succeeding were not good. But we went anyways because he loved like the Manda’lore not like a general. Does that answer your question?”
“I think it does Rex.”
“Good, you need to get some rest sir, can’t be sitting out here all night.”
“I think I’ll stay out here a little while longer.”
“Alright then, I’ll send one of the Generals to get you at some point.”
“Goodnight.”
Luke left that night to confront his father. Not just for the mission’s sake, or his father’s sake, but both. To do one or the other would be thinking like a general or a son. But as always he had his father to teach him how to love. For Anakin Skywalker loves like the Manda’lore, not a general.
Luke still didn’t know his father very well. He didn’t know why he fell to the dark side, or decided to marry his mother, or really much at all. Here is what he knew. His father’s name was Anakin Skywalker. He was a slave who loved like a free man. He was a Jedi who loved like a romantic fool. He was a general who loved like the Manda’lore.
Luke supposed that he knew enough in the end. He knew that no matter how dark, how evil his father had become, his father loved, and loved deeply.