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When Luke is snapped back to consciousness, he can tell even before opening his eyes that he is not where it is supposed to be.
The air is humid, and he feels the soft warmth of rogue sunbeams that fall in a striped pattern across his face, as though the brunt of the light is being kept at bay by something like a curtain.
When he finally wills himself to peel open his eyelids, he wishes that he'd stayed asleep.
His memory of walking through the mounds of desert and all but collapsing at the first doorstep he'd come across had turned out not to be one of his delirium-induced visions, because he now found himself lying on a cot not too dissimilar to the one he possessed at his uncle and aunt's homestead. The ceiling is plain and beige and is the first thing he sees when he finally peels his heavy eyes open.
He is almost immediately once more wracked with the dull aching of his body that he had possessed the first time he'd awoken—however long ago that had been by now. It is less agonizing however than it had been before, and he finds himself to be far less drowsy. So he sits up rather slowly, taking the discomfort of his stiff body with a soft groan and nothing more. He glances around the room that he'd now found himself in, half to get familiar with his surroundings so maybe he could find a way out, and half because he wants to make sure that he's not just seeing things.
The black outer-shirt he'd been wearing is draped across the back of a wooden chair, along with a dark brown robe he does not remember having on him when he'd arrived on the burning sandy planet. His black boots stand beside the chair, dusted lightly with sand he must've kicked up and gotten stuck on them on his way. There is a large piece of cut cloth covering the window on the wall opposite the cot. It's choppily done, as if made at a moment's notice, but it does well enough to block the majority of light from escaping into the room. The single wooden door across the room is also left slightly ajar, which leads Luke to then wonder just exactly how he'd gotten in here in the first place.
He spins around so his socked feet are hanging off of the bed, and hopes he'll have enough stamina to stand up without collapsing again. But just as he gets ready to, a man appears in the partially open doorway, staring directly at him.
The man seems to be around his age, give-or-take maybe a year or so. He has a dark blond, almost brown pile of loose curls atop his head. He's human and tall, surely taller than Luke by a good amount, and his also-tall dark boots do not do much to help against such a fact. He's dressed in a deep brown tunic, though the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and he has a black glove going up to the mid of his forearm on one hand. He's got a scar going down from one eyebrow to the mid of his cheek, and he is looking at Luke with relaxed bright blue eyes that seem so familiar for a reason Luke cannot yet grasp.
"You are awake," says the man, as if just to note it down verbally. His voice is raspy, as if from disuse, and rather deep though he speaks in an almost-whisper. A soft, barely-noticeable lilt lacing through his voice it tells Luke that he must be from an outer-rim planet. He speaks his words with a tone so simple that Luke cannot decipher any kind of specific emotion from it.
"Is this your home?" Luke asks first and foremost so that if it is he can apologize for the sudden inconvenience of a stranger dropping unconscious at the base of his door.
"You could say that," replies the stranger, leaning against the doorframe ever so slightly, his hands clasped civilly in front of himself. He tilts his head almost curiously, "How are you feeling?"
"As well as I can, I guess," Luke answers, though it is barely but a half-truth. Of course, he'd rather keel over in unconsciousness again than admit anything otherwise. He'd always been like that, so said Owen once.
(Stars knows where you get it from, he had said. Yet he looked even so as though he had some semblance of a basic idea. If he did, he told Luke none of it.)
"Are you hungry?" the man asks him before Luke can come up with anything else. And, as much as he does not really want to admit it and take from this stranger that surely must already not have much seeing as he is on Tatooine, Luke hesitantly nods. There is a scent floating about in the air that Luke finally filters through his senses once he'd admitted to himself what he'd required. It smells of heavy native spices, but not so much that it is overwhelming. "Can you stand?"
Luke figures it would be a better time to try than anything. He of all things did not want to try and play doctor and invalid with this man he did not at all know. He already felt awful enough, taking this man's space and food and time. He stands slowly, and if briefly wrought with a bout of dizziness as if having an anemia fit. When his vision clears, the man is still standing in the doorway, contemplating him with patience.
He cautiously steps to the door, where the man then turns, seemingly expecting for Luke to follow. He too teeters as he walks, Luke notices, almost like a drunk unsteady on his own feet. But he is sober, well-aware, and seems to enjoy analyzing Luke much like a hawk. He fumbles a bit with himself, as if self-conscious, but the man is not even looking to him yet.
“Are you okay?” Luke inquires to this mystery man, the words coming up and out rather suddenly. The man does not immediately respond and Luke immediately figures that he must have overstepped some kind of boundary. He didn’t even know this person, and surely it wasn’t really his business. He found himself opening his mouth to let out a little squeak of an apology, before the stranger responded first.
“Do not worry of me,” the man tells him, voice just as blank as before. He leads Luke into what Luke assumes must be the kitchen, to which the smell of spices from before growing sharper and more potent. There is a small table pushed up against the back wall, facing up to the shoddy counters and storage cupboards. There is one pot on the small little stove, and a small straw placemat on the table. “Worry more of yourself. Sit.”
A single wave of his hand pulls out one of the chairs, and he gestures for Luke to sit in it. He seems unbothered by Luke’s utterly surprised expression, for his face reveals still nothing. He stares at Luke through calculative eyes, then turns and grabs a small bowl from one of the cupboards. Luke watches as he takes a wood ladle and scoops some of whatever is in the pot on the stove into the bowl. The man then turns back to Luke, placing the bowl and a spoon on the placemat.
The dish is not one Luke can immediately recognize; it’s a mix of different chopped vegetables, maybe some kind of legume, in a brown broth of sorts. It seems to be of what the scent of spice was coming from.
“Terrine,” says the man, sensing Luke’s questioning mentality. “It will restore your energy.”
"Oh," he replied, taking a small spill of the mixture onto the spoon and lifting it past his lips. It was well, he noted. Warm and flavorful. Nothing like he's ever tasted before, surely. The man already seems to be nothing if not a good cook. "Thank you."
The other only nods.
"Uhm," he mutters once he swallows another bit of the food. "I'm sorry for…dropping in front of your home."
The man stares at him for a silent moment longer, before Luke can then see the faintest hint of amusement pass across his expression.
"It is of no consequence," replies the man, waving slightly flippantly in the air one of his hands. "This planet is not for the faint of heart."
"I know that," replies Luke almost immediately before he can even make to check the words spilling from his lips and not give too much away to this stranger. "I used to live here."
"Used to?" replies the man, although he does not sound all too inquisitive.
"I left for a while," he says, and thinks with a mental sigh that he might as well just give away his entire life story at this point.
"I presume you know not of how you returned?" asks the stranger, and Luke's eyes almost widened at the realization that the question was extremely accurate. How should this stranger know this? It comes upon Luke that even still he does not know this man's name.
"You think very loud, child." states the man simply, interrupting Luke's inner monologue of his growing confusion.
"What?"
"Your mental shields," says the man. "I did not notice before. You have not been trained well, no?"
He didn't notice before?
Luke frowns slightly, biting his lip and setting his resolve. "I'm sorry, but.. do I know you?"
"Do you?" the man reiterates, his blue eyes glinting with an almost knowing look. Luke's own eyes narrow.
"I asked you."
Luke watches as the smallest of smiles grows upon the man's lips, and as a soft huff of a chuckle escapes him. Luke didn't come to see what was so humorous about this.
"Do not be faint," the man then tells him sternly, the amusement gone from his face as he grows serious. "The year is seventy-nine-fifty-eight, Luke. You are out of place,” he pauses for a moment, seeming to think something over, “As am I.”
And for a moment, Luke can’t even seem to process that much. He peers up at this man and wonders for a quickening second just how much he knows about Luke. He looks into those sharp, aged blue eyes and suddenly…
It hits him.
“Fath-” he cannot even speak the full word before his breath hitches in his throat. His brows furrow and his lip trembles and emotion seems to overtake him. Drowning out only for a moment the old confusion of the scenes before him.
This man surely can be neither Darth Vader nor Anakin Skywalker. At least, not any Anakin he’d seen on the catwalk of the collapsing Death Star. The man he’d seen then was pale and deformed; scars and marred chunks littering his droopy face.
But this…no..
He seems more like the proud war hero Ben had once described to him.
“My son,” replies the man—Anakin. His father. Luke is sure he seems to be visibly aghast at such a new revelation. Anakin smiles slightly; the gesture nearly reminiscent of the wistful little thing he’d graced Luke with as he’d died. “I have much to explain to you.”