[i love all of these so much i wrote a word doodle about them :D]
“G’night, Luke,” muttered Wedge, rustling echoing through the dark as he settled into his bunk.
“Night,” 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, Wedge’s 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. He’d 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, Wedge’s breathing joining in an easy rhythm with the fan.
He stopped a groan just in time as he tossed in bed again, tired of the heat. Luke had thought he’d 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 feet—but 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 water’s money too, Aunt Beru’s voice wryly rippled through the back of Luke’s mind, and he pushed down the brief twist of grief at the memory even as a faint smile tugged at his mouth.
Tatooine. Luke’s smile, already barely there, faded. The subject—half the subject—of 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, he’d 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 couldn’t complain if your japor had scratches—at least, that’s what Aunt Beru had said sagely anyway. One time, he’d 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. “Hasn’t anyone important come from Tatooine?” he’d groaned, determined to write about someone other than a slug. His classmate had laughed jeeringly with a bitter, “Nope,” adding—“You think anybody up there,” waving up at the sky generally, “knows or cares about Tatooine?” With a snort, “Only if they’re in the market for a new slave.”
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 kriffin’ 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 surroundings—his holo-appearance sucked all the air out of the room—as he’d 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 wasn’t what had stuck in Luke’s mind, what he’d brooded over all evening. It had been Vader’s final words.
Keep digging and maybe you’ll find water.
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 you’ll find water.
It wasn’t just the words, which had an odd twang to them for Vader; he seemed more of a continue to dig and perhaps you’ll encounter water kind of guy. It wasn’t just the sarcastic bite to them, implying a grasp of their true meaning. It was that Luke recognized them.
Keep digging and maybe you’ll 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. Can’t complain about scratches on your japor. Luke had heard all of them growing up, sayings practical and gritty as Tatooine itself. But…
Keep digging and maybe you’ll find water.
Luke had only heard that once. Once, when he’d gotten lost after school in an affair that landed him in hot water for months. He’d wandered through the town, trying spot something familiar to guide him home, when he’d glanced over at a child giggling and heard her mother cheerfully remark about digging and water—before their master had barked at them to get back to work.
Keep digging and maybe you’ll 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 Beru’s version of a tongue-lashing, until she’d understood that he wasn’t mocking it.
Only someone raised, born, and bred on Tatooine would know those words. Specifically, someone raised in the Hutt slave quarters.
The fan’s whirring suddenly stopped. Must have died. Wedge’s 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 he’d learned.
Keep digging and maybe you’ll find water.
Hasn’t anyone important come from Tatooine?
Only if they’re in the market for a new slave.
Keep digging and maybe you’ll find water.
