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Trapped, isolated, alone. Three words Anakin Skywalker could always count on. Three words he knew would be a constant throughout his life, no matter the pathways he walked.
Trapped, isolated, alone. Three words Luke Skywalker would be able to rely on growing up. Three words that would follow him throughout his life. Three words that no one else could possibly understand. Not like he could.
Tatooine was never a home, it was more of a cage. Anakin was so young, too young to remember a single moment where he wasn’t in excruciating pain. His first memory was of the dark, the cold, isolation of a slave crate. He remembered sitting here, looking up at the darkness surrounding him and wondering how he even got to this place, and how he could ever hope to escape. He could scream and no one would come for him, call for his mom and there would be no answer. Isolated, trapped, alone. Synonyms for Anakin’s own name, his sense of self. He was nothing. No one would ever feel this way again, Anakin would make sure of it.
Tatooine was never a home, it was a nightmare you could never wake up from. Luke was only a small boy of three when he was made to work on the moisture farm alongside his uncle. If you could even call the man who abused him so many times his nerve endings were as fried a burned man’s an uncle. Trapped, isolated, alone. When Owen shoved Luke into the crate that was used to bring new farm tools and closed it without even leaving a hole to breathe. Trapped, isolated, alone. When Luke passed out in the very same crate and received a beating for being so weak. No one would ever understand the feeling, he was sure of it.
Years later, a seven year old, stuffed into the broken parts of a land speeder, a cage. It was his own fault, he should have never accepted the tip from the traveler. He should be grateful really, Watto was kinder than Gardulla. He only beat him when he had done something wrong, not to amuse himself as she had, not yet anyway. The metal pressed into his chest scraping against his rib cage and he felt so small, so insignificant. Because he was. This was his life. And he would endure it, because he couldn’t leave his mother alone to his hell, he would stay with her until his dying breath, which would come sooner than later. He knew it.
Weren’t sunsets supposed to be beautiful? They signified the end of one day and the start of the night. Luke supposed they would be beautiful if things were different. He supposed if everyday wasn’t filled with pain that never faded, and every night wasn’t filled with a cold that wrecked him to his bones. Maybe then he’d find them beautiful. Maybe then he would let the warmth of a day ending sweep over him, but right now the only thing wrapped around him was dread. He couldn’t leave though, he could never leave his aunt here. She loved him, she was probably the only person in the galaxy that did. He would probably die before her, Owen would get so mad some nights he was certain of it, but until then he’d protect her with his life.
Jedi Padawan, he supposed the term should make him feel important, like he might actually have a purpose in the clogs of time that was his life. But it didn’t, it made him feel even more suffocated, the pressure that had been placed on his shoulders was crushing him slowly, he knew that. But he was used to the feeling. He couldn’t tell Obi-wan. He couldn’t tell anyone. What would they think of him then? Isolated, trapped, alone. Yeah this was normal. It was fine. Chosen one? Everyone kept telling him he was. What a joke.
Owen had told him his parents had abandoned him in some broken alleyway. They didn’t want him, they didn’t need him. But sometimes Luke would let his mind wander, when he was on his knees cleaning up shards of glass, his hands broken and scarred, his breaths shallow from bruises scorching across his ribs.
His mind would imagine a father, saving him from this mess. Pulling Owen off of him and making sure that he could never hurt him again. His dad would never hurt him like Owen had.
Dead. She was dead. Anakin was weak, and would never have the power to save anyone, not his mom, not his childhood friends, least of all himself from the world crushing him. He hears his own voice coming out of his mouth, blaming his brother for everything that had just gone wrong, it was all his fault, it was all Obi-wan. He should’ve told him dreams had meaning he should’ve cared more. But none of the words he is shouting have any real meaning, any weight, because deep in the cold pit in his heart that grows ever larger he knows it’s his fault alone. He looks up at the woman in front of him, her hair cascading down her face, and he thinks to himself that one day he will lose her too. It’s inevitable really, maybe she was right, they could never be. Not because of the judgment, or the strain of lying, but because he is Anakin Skywalker, and everything he touches eventually burns away.
Dead. Beru was dead. The only person Luke had ever really loved, gone. And now Obi-wan was too. He had Han, and Leia now, but he had lost so much. Everyone he was near died; it was his own fault. And his dad. His father. The hero he had been looking up to, the savior that died in the war. He didn’t exist. Not anymore. The darkness swarmed around Luke’s head looming over him like a blanket in the cold that he desperately needed to wrap himself in, but he was used to the cold. He couldn’t stop himself from crying some nights, the cold acceptance he had grown used to slipping from his grasp slowly as the reality set in. He had to get away from Leia and Han, or he’d lose them too, he shouldn’t be trusted. He shouldn’t be allowed these kindnesses. Anyone who ever showed him kindness was gone, and he knew it was because he was Luke Skywalker, and that was a curse. Trapped, isolated, alone. That’s how he should stay.
Jedi Knight, General Skywalker. All titles that seemed important in theory but in reality meant very little. Every night when he went to sleep he was trapped, and he was always reaching desperately for a way out, and one could never be found. That feeling of pain and fear he felt that day he had lost his mom slowly began to wrap itself around his throat, choking his hopes and making him feel oh so cold, the more that went wrong, the more that he was shown by the senator, the betrayal, the people he was trying to hard to save, none of it meant anything, they were just soldiers in an endless war and everywhere he turned he was hit by the thought that he would never stop losing people, he would either lose everyone left he loved, or he’d lose himself, and honestly he wasn’t sure what was worse.
Jedi master. Redeemed Darth Vader. Legend. Myth. All things attributed to him now. Luke Skywalker was none of those things. Maybe he had been once to his students, but now, standing up in a pile of smoldering ash he ran. Ran away from his burning life, ran away from the screams that echoed even after his students were dead. He had to go, he had to get away before he could kill anyone else. Ben, it wasn’t his fault. It was Luke’s. He had taken Leia’s child and turned him into a monster. He really was Darth Vader's son. Not Anakin’s, Vaders alone. He knew that now as the flames burned around him and he ran. Trapped, isolated, alone. He had to go back to how it had been as a child, that’s the only time that no one got hurt, no one but him, but that’s okay. He was Luke Skywalker, and he deserved that.
Eventually even he himself would burn away, his soul burning for days after Mustafar. Anakin Skywalker? He was dead, at least that’s what Darth Vader told himself. Trapped, isolated, alone.
He opened his eyes but it wasn’t him opening them. He felt his gut wrenching at the feeling of Vader’s suit taking another breath and he wanted to cry, he wanted to scream and claw his way out of his own body, he felt trapped, and he would gladly welcome death if it meant he never had to hear another breath. And for all the times he had wished the force had been quiet, he had never hated the silence more. Trapped, isolated, alone. That was all he’d ever amount to. Slave to Gardulla, to Watto, slave to being the chosen one, and now slave to himself. Anakin Skywalker doesn’t exist now, but let’s be real. He never did.
As Luke sat on the edge of the cliff meditating, concentrating, he knew this is where it all ended. His story was over now. He was trapped in this place, isolated here, and alone. Utterly alone. Just as his story had begun, it would end. He had accepted it as a child already, it was okay. The world, Rey, Leia, they would all be so much better off for it. If he could give up his life to buy then even a minute it would be worth it. And as his eyes slid closed, he could’ve sworn he could hear his father's voice, sending him off, telling him it was okay now, but that couldn’t be, because he was alone, as he always was, and as he always would be.