Luke Skywalker

Aren’t You A Little Tall For A Brother?

“The Evaporators on the ridge,” Leia repeatedly blankly. She shook her head, frustrated. “Luke, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” What a silly boy. Did he think that his ridge, wherever that was, was something universally known? Leia was from Alderaan, one of the best and most important planets in the entire Empire, and even she knew better than to assume that everybody she met knew everything about the palace and its grounds, or sometimes even the biggest features of the planet. Luke might not even know what her favorite waterfalls looked like! But she was supposed to know about some ridge that he didn’t even name? How annoying.

Leia scuffed her foot, then stopped at Luke’s question and looked at him instead. “He didn’t tell me anything.” She shook her head, her frustration shifting from her brother to Ben. “He’s not very…” What was the phrase her mother used? Oh, right: “Not very forthcoming, if you haven’t noticed. He didn’t even tell me I had a brother until he came in with you, and there were loads of times he could have said something about you while he was rescuing me if he’d wanted to. Or even if he didn’t.” Leia’s frown deepened and she added, “Although I guess he sort of didn’t rescue me, since he didn’t take me back to my parents? So I’m not sure it counts as a rescue, actually.”

She bit her lip, thinking hard. Saying that Ben hadn’t rescued her felt mean and unfair, because he had – but he’d been supposed to rescue her by taking her home, and he hadn’t. He’d changed his mind, and said she couldn’t go back – not yet. Because it was too dangerous, and somebody would only kidnap her again, and maybe this time they’d hurt her mom and dad to get to her. Leia didn’t want that, of course, but…

“I guess he kind of kidnapped me from my kidnappers?” she told her brother finally, shrugging weakly. “And I guess he…sort of maybe kidnapped you too?”

“It doesn’t matter. Not really,” he shrugged, realizing that it didn’t. And explaining it would probably just make him feel even more like the dumb farm kid he was definitely feeling like at that moment. “It’s just a thing at the farm.” 

Luke had no idea what forthcoming meant, but he felt like he could sort of feel it out. “It’s not like I know much of anything, either,” he offered. “It’s good, though. Like, I know you exist now, so that’s all okay.” 

Her explanation was kind of funny, but it didn’t feel like the kind of funny that you laughed at. He thought it over for a minute, but he decided that Leia’s description really didn’t feel entirely correct. “I don’t think that kidnappers usually come to your house and get your aunt and uncle to agree before they take you,” he offered, finally. “I think I’m more like... I  don’t know... I wasn’t really kidnapped, is all.” 

Aren’t You A Little Tall For A Brother?

Well, Luke definitely didn’t understand what adopted meant, then. Leia scrunched her nose, but wasn’t sure exactly how to explain it. Technically he wasn’t wrong in that he had been adopted by his aunt and uncle either way, but – well, that didn’t necessarily make them adoptive aunts and uncles. Leia’s aunts and uncles hadn’t raised her, but they were adoptive, because she only had them because her mom and dad had adopted her. Whereas Luke’s aunt and uncle had adopted him, yes…but that didn’t clear-up whether they were adoptive or biological relations. She’d just have to wait and ask Ben.

It was hard to tell someone they were wrong when they technically weren’t, they were just…well, wrong. Leia sighed. People could be so difficult.

But her frustration was immediately chased-away by the warm feeling that spread through her when he said he chose her, too. The words made her feel like she was being hugged by mom or dad, but on the inside. She beamed at him – at her brother.

But he didn’t follow her. Leia stopped and turned back, tilted her head to the side and stared down at him as though the shift in perspective might bring with it the understanding she was missing. “The evaporators?” she prompted. She didn’t know what Luke was talking about, but she could tell that it was bothering him – no, that something was bothering him. She didn’t think it was actually the evaporators, whatever those were. But maybe if he told her more about them, she’d be able to figure out what he was really upset about.

Leia was usually pretty good at that.

“Yeah. The Evaporators. On the ridge. I was supposed to help Uncle Owen fix them. I can’t do it myself yet, but he’s going to show me how.” 

Luke was pretty good at fixing things. He had a knack, actually. When he was six, Uncle Owen had told him that he wouldn’t be allowed to fix the condensers until he was fifteen or sixteen. However, he was so good at fixing things that he was supposed to get to try it today. 

He was actually looking forward to it. 

I’m going to be cleaning, so reponses will be intermittent, but throw some stuff at my children, pls.

The First Day Of Tomorrow

Leia patted Luke’s arm in a gesture that was as automatic as it was absent-minded. It wasn’t as though she didn’t care about sapients selling other sentient beings into slavery; she most certainly did. Passionately and often at great length, much to the exasperation of certain other members of the Provisional Council. But she’d also spent years learning to school her face into a blank mask and wrap walls around her heart. Luke wore his heart on his sleeve, and it was a heart large enough to hold the whole galaxy inside. Leia admired that about her brother, of course; it was one of his more wonderful traits. But she was a political leader of the Rebel Alliance. She wasn’t allowed the luxury of discomfort.

“A lot of places do the same,” Leia pointed out gently. “Ryloth is just less subtle about it. And if they want to become a member-planet of the New Republic, they’ll have to clean up their act. The upside of which is that because they haven’t ever been subtle about their slavery, it’ll be a lot harder for them to pull the bantha-wool over everyone’s eyes and pretend it’s anything but what it is. I’m not saying we’ll be able to put a stop to it, not right away anyway, but we can stifle it. At least if they join. And this invitation…it’s a good first step. Wedge may end up doing more good than just securing the medicine we need for this plague, and that on its own isn’t anything to sneeze at either.”

Leia wasn’t sure how much comfort that knowledge gave her brother. It was hard even for her to tell when he was going to sport a sudden streak of pragmatism or shift into taking a longer view than even she did. Leia assumed it was part of his Jedi stuff, and didn’t ask questions. She knew if she did, he would answer.

She slanted a glance at the two droids, cheerfully chattering to – and over – one another and smiled. “Maybe you should take Threepio with you next time. I’m sure he would be thrilled to help you translate some of those old relics and things you keep finding.” She was teasing, of course – Leia needed Threepio, more these days than ever before now that they had suddenly lurched into being a real government – but that didn’t mean she wasn’t looking forward to the look on Luke’s face at the offer, insincere though it was.

“Actually,” Leia continued, her eyes lighting up in sudden inspiration, “I might have something for you to do.” She arched an eyebrow. “How do you feel about leading a scouting team through the bowels of Palpatine’s palace?”

“Just because they’re not actively hiding it doesn’t mean that they deserve a medal or anything,” he offered, but he knew Leia was right. They were going to have to get it together to join the New Republic. Plus, it would be harder to lockdown an industry that had flourished in the open for centuries in order to do it. Still, he had a true distaste for slave-traders. But, Leia did too, he knew, so there wasn’t much point in talking more about it. 

“Uh... I don’t think that I need him, honestly,” he offered, knowing she was teasing, but still not really willing to shoulder the responsibility that could be taking care of Threepio. “Besides, you have much more use for him diplomatically and he doesn’ t really fit in the X-wing so well.” 

He was smiling by now. “Artoo is sort of necessary, you know?” 

He did sort of miss Threepio’s fatalistic stream-of-droid-consciousness rambling sometimes, though. But, he didn’t miss it that much. 

“I can translate most of it with the Force these days,” he told her, sort of proud of the admission. “I’m getting really good at it these days.” 

Aren’t You A Little Tall For A Brother?

“Of course there’s a choice,” Leia said, rolling her eyes at him. “My parents weren’t my parents when I was born, they chose me to be their daughter. And we can do the same, whatever Ben says about it.” She thought a moment, and then gave another firm little nod. “And I’ve chosen that you are my brother, so there.” It felt so right it almost felt like she didn’t have a choice about it – but she did, and she made that choice, and that made it even more right.

But Luke didn’t seem to feel any of her certainty. He was sitting still, but he felt like he was flailing – on the inside, where she couldn’t see it. She could feel it, though. Instinctively she reached out her hand for one of his.

“Okay,” Leia said. She thought it was odd that he hadn’t known one way or the other but she figured that probably meant that he hadn’t been adopted. “Probably if they didn’t tell you you were adopted, you weren’t,” she explained to Luke. “Otherwise they would have told you, I bet. My aunts and uncles mention it a lot, and my cousins really do.” Leia wrinkled her nose. She knew it wasn’t nice of her, but she really didn’t care for cousin Niano. “But let’s go ask Ben. He definitely knows who my real mother is, which means he knows who yours is, too. So he’ll know about your aunt and uncle, too.”

Leia climbed to her feet and grinned at the prospect of action. “Let’s go ask him!”

“Oh, well I guess my aunt and uncle chose me,” he said, shrugging. “I mean... they didn’t have to take me in. It was nice of them, I guess.” 

He’d never really stopped to think about these things. He wished that he didn’t have to, if he was being honest. It was sort of painful to think about obligation and family pressure and whether or not they even wanted to raise him. 

But why him? Why not both of them? If they were siblings, that is... There were actually a lot of questions. 

“I guess I choose you, too, then,” he said, even though he had the feeling it really didn’t matter what he thought. Both because he had known that she was, in fact, his sister from the moment Ben had told them that and because he definitely had the feeling that once Leia decided something was true, it was. If the truth knew what was good for it, anyway. 

“I knew I was adopted. They aren’t my parents, after all.” 

She was entirely too excited to learn things from Ben. So far, apart from having a sister-- which was kind of cool, he guessed-- Luke wasn’t really sure how much more he wanted to know. 

Aren’t You A Little Tall For A Brother?

hmm,” said Leia, thinking it over. Eventually she came to a decision, something she marked with a firm nod just like her mother did when she was presiding over the Aldreaanian Council or or a meeting with the Guild Masters or even just discussing her schedule for the day with her advisors. Everyone knew that when Breha nodded like that, a sharp little solitary twitch of her jaw, it meant that the queen had decided and the discussion was over. Leia hadn’t been discussing her thoughts with anyone but herself, but she still nodded. It was a way of telling herself that her mind was made up and she could put that question away now.

“All right, I’ll be your sister.” Leia walked over and took a seat on the floor near him. “My name is Leia Tsabin Organa, princess of Alderaan.” Ben had given the children each other’s first names, of course, when he’d told them they were siblings, but that was all he’d said. Leia figured if Luke was going to be her brother, he should know the full thing. Ben had also cautioned her against ever using her surname or royal title again, but Leia decided that that admonishment didn’t include her own brother. That would be silly. If Luke was her brother, then he needed to know who she was, right? Obviously.

She furrowed her brow in thought as something else occurred to her, blurting, “Wait, you said Aunt Beru. Do you mean a real aunt? I was adopted, so all my aunts and uncles are adoptive like my mom and dad,” she explained, just in case Luke didn’t know – everyone on Alderaan did, of course; she was the miracle princess who’d answered her parents’ long-delayed dreams of a daughter – but Luke didn’t sound like he was from Alderaan and more importantly he didn’t look like he was from Alderaan. He might not, and it would be rude to assume. It might make Leia look silly if he did know, of course, but then again, if Luke was her brother than he wouldn’t have known his parents either, would he? So he’d have been adopted just like her, and her question was silly after all.

Leia hesitated, then decided that since she’d already started she might as well finish: “I’m just asking because if you weren’t, then that means your aunt is mine, too.”

“Do we get a choice?” Luke asked, befuddled. “I mean... aren’t you just my sister because we have the same parents?”

Her question caught him off-guard. Of course they were real. What could she mean by-- Oh. That’s what she had meant. He hadn’t even thought of that. He’d never really thought about it. Of course, he’d never really had any reason to. 

“I... I don’t know,” he admitted. “They’ve just... They’ve always been Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. I didn’t really ever ask.”

It felt sort of unfair. She knew that all of her relations were adoptive. He really felt like he did know anything. He’d thought that his father was a lowly navigator and now it seemed like that wasn’t true at all. It was the only thing that he knew and it wasn’t true. 

The First Day of Tomorrow

@ididsaysobefore

Leia was tired. That was nothing new; sometimes she felt like she’d been running on adrenaline and spite ever since the plans for the first Death Star had ended up in her hands. But there was tired and then there was tired, and right now Leia was the latter. Part of it was the long and busy day, but she knew most of it was how helpless she felt in the face of so much death and illness that she could do nothing to stop.

Damn Ysane Isard, anyway…

A shrill sequence of beeps drew her attention from her datapad, and as her concentration wavered she recognized a familiar presence (a statement she was still getting used to being able to make). Leia tried to draw comfort from the fact that even without the Force she would have been able to figure out that Luke was in her apartment, because who else traveled around the upper levels of Coruscant with an astromech droid in tow? Especially one with a vocabulary like that. It wasn’t actually much comfort, but she tried.

She also gave up on work. She wasn’t getting anywhere, anyway. Better to take a break and come back fresh, preferably with some new ideas. For now, she shut the datapad down and stood, rolling her neck and shoulders against the stiffness from too many time parts in the same chair, and walked into the other room. There was no sign of Han and Chewie (probably working on the Falcon, because they hated feeling helpless almost as much as she did and at least tinkering with the old ship meant doing something) but Threepio was recharging in the corner, now booting-up in response to Artoo’s demanding whistle.

Leia turned to face the other organic in the room and mustered a tired smile for him. “I’m surprised to see you here,” she said to her brother. “I would have thought you’d have talked your way into going to Ryloth with Wedge…not that you’re supposed to know about their trip, of course,” she added drily, having little doubt that Luke already knew all about Rogue Squadron’s desperate diplomatic endeavors. “What brings you to Coruscant, if not that? Not that I’m not happy to see you.” Leia walked forward to offer him a hug.

Luke happily returned her gesture. It’d been a little while since he’d seen his sister. It was funny how he went eighteen years of his life without knowing he even had a sister and now it felt strange to go without seeing her for too long. 

“Ryloth?” he snorted. “I don’t really have any desire to go to Ryloth, even if I did know about the trip,” he said, his voice clearly indicating that he had known all about it whether he was supposed to or not. “It actually sounds sort of awful to me. The way they treat their own people...” he trailed off. He knew that not all the citizens of Ryloth participated in the buying and selling of their own people, but it was definitely too prevalent for his taste. Those poor girls. 

“I’m not really doing anything at the moment,” He admitted after another minute. “I guess that’s why I”m here, really. It always seems like if I don’t have anything to do, Coruscant can usually find me something.”  He sat down on the sofa and gestured towards the two droids. “Plus, I like to make sure Artoo gets back to visit once in a while. Otherwise, he’s just so sad, and the moping and sad music gets to be a lot to take.” 

Luke Skywalker: Sleep for eight hours straight.

                      “Looks like I’m 

                                                  going 

                                                            n o w h e r e.”

                 Legends/Eu Canon Only. No new trilogy canon need apply.

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