since there are extremely country sayings --"bless her heart," "I'm sweating more than a sinner in church," -- I posit this obviously means there are extremely tatooinean sayings that Luke will occasionally drop unknowingly ("we can wrassle that stinkhog later," "no need to chase the womp rat into the canyon," "pfft, staring at the sky never did bring no rain") that leave everyone else trying to figure out what the fuck he just said
(bonus points: Anakin also did this and Vader does it exactly once on accident before he remembers who he is, leaving the officers around him wondering if anyone else heard their 7 foot tall demon dark lord talk about wrassling womp hogs)
Oh I thought about this before, here's some I came up with:
A japor necklace for a womprat (giving a valuable thing to a person unfitted for it)
Trying to grow fruit in the dunes (trying to do something very hard)
A hutt slave (something that is very hard to steal away)
Like shooting womprats (something that seems easy but is actually very hard)
Keep digging and maybe you'll find water (keep trying)
The raiders hear at night and the krayts hear at day (be careful what you say, for everyone's listening)
Want to have the water and the water's money (having the cake and eating it too)
A scratch on the japor (something that's perfect barring a small flaw)
[i love all of these so much i wrote a word doodle about them :D]
âGânight, Luke,â muttered Wedge, rustling echoing through the dark as he settled into his bunk.
âNight,â murmured Luke absently as he laid on his own, staring up at the ceiling. Quarters on rebel bases were far from homey, cramped and hot and stinking of chemicals. A fan, Wedgeâs singular defiance against the heat, whirred in the corner with a dull buzz. Luke could have told Wedge it was useless. Trying to fight this type of heat with a fan desperately cobbled together from junk droid ventilation systems was like trying to grow fruit in the dunes.
A thought that made Luke shift in his bunk, trying to find a cool spot on his pillow. Heâd been thinking all evening. Thinking and thinking and thinking; thinking as the room filled with sunlight until the last beams winked out of existence under the night; thinking as the shadows in the corners deepened to engulf the entire room; thinking in the silence broken by Wedge stumbling in; thinking as Wedge had fallen asleep, Wedgeâs breathing joining in an easy rhythm with the fan. Â
He stopped a groan just in time as he tossed in bed again, tired of the heat. Luke had thought heâd gotten used to oppressive heat on Tatooine, where the air was vast and still, where the horizon shimmered with it, where the sun scoured bones to a gleaming white and the sand could burn the soles off your feetâbut there the air had also been clear. Here, in a closet sized room pocketed away in the depths of the base, it was stuffy. Suffocating. My, you just have to have water and the waterâs money too, Aunt Beruâs voice wryly rippled through the back of Lukeâs mind, and he pushed down the brief twist of grief at the memory even as a faint smile tugged at his mouth.
Tatooine. Lukeâs smile, already barely there, faded. The subjectâhalf the subjectâof his looping thoughts.
Tatooine. The spot farthest from any bright spot in the galaxy. Tatooine. Full of moisture farmers who fought the land for their living and usually lost but kept at it anyway; rotted to the bone with crime and corruption; filthy with evils like slavery. Tatooine. Ruled by the Hutts with iron and fire. Crushed by devastating poverty.
When Luke had been little, heâd gone to the tiny one-room schoolhouse tucked away on the far west side of town. All the education Tatooine had to offer, but you couldnât complain if your japor had scratchesâat least, thatâs what Aunt Beru had said sagely anyway. One time, heâd had to write a report on important figures of Tatooine. Luke had stubbornly sat at the table, hating to write but hating to disappoint Aunt Beru more, flipping through his options despondently. Jabba. Ziro. Gardulla. More Hutts. âHasnât anyone important come from Tatooine?â heâd groaned, determined to write about someone other than a slug. His classmate had laughed jeeringly with a bitter, âNope,â addingââYou think anybody up there,â waving up at the sky generally, âknows or cares about Tatooine?â With a snort, âOnly if theyâre in the market for a new slave.â
Luke had written his report on Jabba begrudgingly. He had tried not to resent how if he had grown up on any other planet in any other system, he might have had some actual choices for well-known figures. At least some kriffinâ non-Hutt ones.
Luke had completely forgotten about that report until today. During a briefing by a slicer about information recently uncovered on Imperial strategy, which had involved reviewing recordings of Imperial leaders. One of whom had been Darth Vader, voice chilling the surroundingsâhis holo-appearance sucked all the air out of the roomâas heâd calmly upbraided an officer before breaking his neck. It was a game for him, Luke had realized while watching. It was all a game for him.
But oddly enough, that wasnât what had stuck in Lukeâs mind, what heâd brooded over all evening. It had been Vaderâs final words.
Keep digging and maybe youâll find water. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
The recording had cut off then, everyone almost breathing a sigh of relief, but Luke had stood frozen to the spot. A new recording started, but Luke didn't register it all, stuck on what he'd heard.
Keep digging and maybe youâll find water.
It wasnât just the words, which had an odd twang to them for Vader; he seemed more of a continue to dig and perhaps youâll encounter water kind of guy. It wasnât just the sarcastic bite to them, implying a grasp of their true meaning. It was that Luke recognized them.
Keep digging and maybe youâll find water.
Tatooine had many sayings. Easy as shooting a womprat. Raiders hear at night, krayts at day. Like trying to grow fruit in the dunes. Canât complain about scratches on your japor. Luke had heard all of them growing up, sayings practical and gritty as Tatooine itself. ButâŚ
Keep digging and maybe youâll find water.
Luke had only heard that once. Once, when heâd gotten lost after school in an affair that landed him in hot water for months. Heâd wandered through the town, trying spot something familiar to guide him home, when heâd glanced over at a child giggling and heard her mother cheerfully remark about digging and waterâbefore their master had barked at them to get back to work.
Keep digging and maybe youâll find water.
The slave quarters. Only beings from the slave quarters from Tatooine said that. It was a slave proverb, wry and hopeless and hopeful at the same time. Brimming with keep trying, and maybe one day all while knowing it was futile. Luke had thoughtlessly repeated it a week later and gotten Aunt Beruâs version of a tongue-lashing, until sheâd understood that he wasnât mocking it.
Only someone raised, born, and bred on Tatooine would know those words. Specifically, someone raised in the Hutt slave quarters.
But that meant...
The fanâs whirring suddenly stopped. Must have died. Wedgeâs breathing continued in the dark, sure as a wave returning to shore. Luke kept staring up at the ceiling, ignoring it all, mind unable to stop running through what heâd learned.
Keep digging and maybe youâll find water.
Hasnât anyone important come from Tatooine?
Only if theyâre in the market for a new slave.
Keep digging and maybe youâll find water.














