PSL: Naboo

[hisfathersimage]

Luke ignored Vader for the rest of the trip.

For a moment, he had almost forgotten who and what he was dealing with. A totally self centred, self absorbed creature of darkness, boiled in rage and suffering who wanted him to convert to his way of thinking and start up a second reign of terror and horror after killing Palpatine.

And in aid of doing that, they were going... to Naboo?

He wasn't really sure why they were on their way there. It was his mother's home world. It was Palpatine's home world. It was a paradise of water and greenery that had produced something so rotten and evil that the galaxy heaved to try and dislodge it from itself.

He stands in the cockpit's doorway, nursing his stump in his left hand and watching hyperspace, preparing for the shock of dropping back out again.

Comments

[nouskaiananki]

It's outdated at this point, by Core standards. Possibly by Naboo standards - he wasn't sure.

But by Tattooine standards, especially moisture farmers? It was quite advanced. Not that he doubted Luke would figure it out.

"The beach is suited for that." Padmé and her handmaidens had done that, he remembered vaguely.

[hisfathersimage]

"And at the worst, there's still rations." He's eaten far worse than preserved rations.

[nouskaiananki]

"At worse there are rations." If he'd been content with that, he wouldn't have worried about Luke needing to eat.

"I can hear Bee Two." Luke wouldn't be able to yet, but if he wanted to take advantage of that fresh water to drink he might want to.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke goes to meet the droid first. The shell is removed, examinations are done and the end sealed with a waterproof, bacta patch to keep it doing its thing and to keep the pain down.

He's approved to take a real shower and comes back to announce it to Vader. "I can have a shower. I'll be a while."

[nouskaiananki]

As soon as Vader could hear Luke was with the Droid, he'd ask slipped off, to set up one of the refreshers. To lay out soap, towels, a mat on the floor. To gather up a robe (one of Skywalker's old ones, shorter in length and sleeve than Padmé wore, but of a similar construction and blue velvet) that he knew would be too big on Luke, but it would work.

"Follow me. Leave your clothing out, so it can be measured and cleaned," he comments as he hands over the robe.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke vanishes into the fresher. His clothes are set outside shortly after, roughly folded and with his boots next to them.

He locks the door and plans on being a long time. To clean, to cry, to scream, maybe. Most importantly, to be alone with his thoughts for a while.

[nouskaiananki]

Vader handed over the boots to a cleaning bot, took measurements of Luke's clothing, and handed them over to be cleaned and mended.

Took to closets for fabric and clothing, and just as importantly, finding a piece of luggage.

By the time Luke emerged he might only have a new outfit finished and his old one clean, but he'll have a few more drafted.

Nothing really worthy of Naboo, but. It was what he could do.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke's in there a long time. it involves two showers, a break down and a chunk of time sitting in a corner wondering if it's too late to make a run for the water and hope something eats him.

He's feeling a lot less inclined to try and kill himself. Whatever Vader's plan, it wasn't anything immediate.

He checks outside the door for clothing and eventually comes to find Vader, dressed in his old clothes, repaired and cleaned, the right cuff rolled up past the burn to leave the stump revealed.

[nouskaiananki]

Vader is seated on a couch, folding fabric and pressing it into a bronze suitcase, two sewing bots beside it. Clothing was laying beside them, dark brown pants, a blue shirt with heavy pintucks, a brown cloak.

When Luke rounds the corner, Vader tosses something to him, a tube of silk fabric, resin coated in the outside, soft on the inside, and with a gel in between the layers.

"If you want cybernetics to take well, you will want to prevent a callous."

[hisfathersimage]

"I'm already going to have to have a finger's width excised, apparently. Cauterisation damage." The heat damage internally would have to be removed surgically before anything new was attempted.

But he takes the cover anyway, slipping it over the patch covered stump.

[nouskaiananki]

"Yes that will be done for you. Under sedation." He isn't really speaking to Luke.

Vader keeps folding, this time a large piece of white lace and holds it out for Luke.

"A gift from your mother."

[hisfathersimage]

Luke looks at it, then back up to Vader. "What is it?"

[nouskaiananki]

"If you ever marry, you are supposed to work a piece of this into your clothing for the wedding, then pass it on to your children. It is a tie to your Clan, the Naberrie."

She had explained it once, when explaining Naboo's Clan structure.

[hisfathersimage]

If Vader had said anything else, he would've got an earful.

Instead, Luke looks at the material and nods. "Yeah. Okay." It seems unlikely, but he can accept this connection to a nebulous future and lost past.

[nouskaiananki]

There are a lot of other things he could say, could continue to say. But he's said what is important, and Luke seems accept that.

Progress?

"She made her veil from it." Not that he thinks Luke will wear a veil but. He wants him to know Padmé, to love her as much as he does, and it's a topic they haven't ended up fighting about.

[hisfathersimage]

"I'm not really anticipating a future where I get much romance, let alone married in some way or have children." Because his future currently seems to involve being hauled around by Vader until he snap and kills him, tries to turn him or gives him to the Emperor.

[nouskaiananki]

"Things change."

Luke is older than Padmé was when they married, and she would be older than him.

But things did change, opinions changed, and he knew that.

[hisfathersimage]

"Yeah. A week ago, I had two hands."

It was easier than reflecting on what he had actually lost.

[nouskaiananki]

Fine, be that way.

"It is just a hand."

[hisfathersimage]

"But I was attached to it."

[nouskaiananki]

There's is just a faint pause in Vader's rhythm of breathing.

Because he can't laugh against the pressure, but without it, there's no sound.

"Your arm is still more intact than either of mine." Combined.

[hisfathersimage]

He can't laugh... but he's amuse and Luke can feel that, a sizzle of bubbles across his awareness.

"Yeah, well, it's still fairly recent for me."

[nouskaiananki]

Shockingly, he does have a sense of humor. It's just a bit twisted.

"The pain will mostly pass. You'd have been better off bringing a blaster and slugiron until you've more training."

Should be be telling Luke how to counter Force Users? Probably not. It's he going to anyway? Clearly.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke doesn't respond to that. Slugthrowers were monstrous, and yes, he was a good blaster shot, but blasters were nothing against a lightsaber.

And... he had held his own. For a while. Vader was talking to him like he was as good as-

Well. Maybe he was as good as untrained. Master Yoda had tried to tell him.

No time for that now. He had his allocated breakdown for the day.

"What now?"

[nouskaiananki]

More monsterious than allowing Palpatine to exist?

Still-

-Vader can't quite cast away the unbidden memory of Ahsoka, more than a decade younger that Luke glaring, blue eyes angry and hurt.

"I wanted you to surrender. For what you have, it was admirable. You could be so much more in just a few years. But you share Anakin's weakness, you wouldn't abandon your friends. I knew that. I took advantage of that."

That didn't banish her face. But it faded it.

"Food. Or rations, whichever you prefer. I want to see her before we leave this planet."