From Mnemotherapy. Previous parts here. I keep meaning to masterpost, but nahhhhh.
It’s an angst fest, but it can’t be one unless you properly go back and forth between angst and non-angst. So here’s some non-angst with the Skywalker fam:
Find the borders, Taru said, find the emotion.
And that was the difference from a memory rub and mnemotherapy, Mnemotherapy had a level of precision the former didn’t.
Luke found his way more clearly through the vein, tracing the edges of that despair. It clung to him, like sucking mud on his boots, but he continued, following the path he had taken before.
"If he's so afraid of monsters is this really a good idea?" his own voice rang out. He saw his memory-self holding a reek mask. "Who gave this to him anyway?"
"He's afraid of make believe monsters," Mara was saying, "that doesn't qualify. Reeks are like shaaks, Luke. They're herbivores. I wouldn't call them monsters." Ben bounded into the room. Six, Luke thinks. Back when he’d let himself be hugged.
Luke is there beside Mara, but Ben made a bee line to her anyway. "I'm thirsty."
"You know where the water is," Mara told him, gesturing to his cup across from them. The holo of the saurian opens its mouth in a sharp-toothed smile as he picks it up.
"Technically," Luke said, plucking it from Ben's hand to fill it. "Hutts used to feed them meat and --"
Mara cleared her throat loudly.
"Feed what meat?" Ben interrupted.
Luke stopped.
"Feed what meat?" Ben frowned. "Why’s my mask here?"
"Your dad was admiring it."
Luke flashed Mara a look over Ben's head. Ben beamed. "It's neat, isn’t it! Lowie got it for me. Wanna see?" He grabbed it and put it on and began making roaring noises.
"Oh, scary,” Luke edged away from it obligatorily.
Ben pulled the mask off, still grinning. “Only looks that way ‘cos of the horns. They eat plants.”
“You know," Luke said to Mara. "The last time I was close to one of those it wasn't exactly friendly. Pretty sure it wasn't a herbivore."
Mara feigned a gasp. "You don't say."
"Dad-Dad-Dad, how ‘bout I hide with this and you look for me? Pretend you're a hunter. Mom says on some planets reeks are in danger."
"Endangered," Mara corrected. She snorted a little at Luke's dubious expression and went for some tea as Ben scampered away.
"Count to ten!" he yelled from the living room.
"They wouldn't sell a herbivore's mask," Luke pointed out. "That's not exciting enough for a kid."
Mara shrugged. "Big bad hunter. Poor defenseless reek. Sounds exciting to me."
She laughed at Luke's expression and leaned forward on the counter, lowering her voice. "We can't really go on and on about all the things in this galaxy that have tried to kill you." She raised an eyebrow. "Some of those are outliers." And there that same feeling rose, like pollution, even as the memory continued, even as his memory-self opened his mouth to reply.
Ben's voice rose from the living room. "Count, Dad!"
"Counting!" Luke called back. "Seven, six..."
