Of Love and War Book 5: The Tragedy of Hope

Chapter 4: Luke Skywalker

AN:  Quick note, just wanna say, if you haven't seen it, there's a spin off book that's a collection of short stories covering things that have happened in the 19 year gap Zelina and Luke have been on Tatooine (As well as some new stories about pre empire era).  There will be some explanations on how things have changed, like explanations about how Zelina and Han met, how Zelina got her second lightsaber, etc.  Also, some stories or events mentioned in passing will be covered in that collection as well.  Of Love and War: Us Against the World.

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This side of the house was silent, since his mother was busy making dinner and had left him in his room to play. He didn't mind, he enjoyed playing with his toy ships and making them have dogfights with each other. The Imperial ships lost, of course. Usually he had the heroes from his mother's stories, especially his father, be the winners. He might have accidentally broken a few toys while playing, but his mother was kind enough to replace those toys every now and then.

Of course, now that he was older, he wasn't always playing. When he wasn't at school, or helping Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru on the farm, or helping his mother after hours at the cantina, he liked to tear things apart to see how they worked, and see if he could fix them. He was trying to convince his mother to let him start working towards being a pilot, but for some reason she was resistant. She would give him things to read about piloting, but she hadn't let him fly anything yet. One day she would, though, he just knew it.

Right now, however, as much as he tried to entertain himself with his belongings, nothing stuck. It had been like that for the past several days, but not nearly as bad as it was now. He kept picking things up with the intention to do something, but he just ended up setting it right back down.

Maybe if he tried to find something outside of his room to do he'd have more luck?

Quiet as ever, as if making any noise would somehow disturb his mother who seemed to have the patience of a saint with him most of the time, Luke slipped out of his room. Once out in the center space of their home, he paused, unsure of where he wanted to go to try and entertain himself. The refresher and the storage room were both an instant no, and his mother was making dinner in the kitchen, which left the living room and...

His gaze passed over his mother's room, which normally would have also been an instant no, but this time something felt different. This time his eyes were drawn back to the door, and he felt the sudden urge to go inside. He wasn't supposed to, so he probably should just go into the living room anyway and see if he could entertain himself in there.

Yet, his mother was busy in the kitchen, so...surely it wouldn't hurt to take a quick peek? To figure out why he had the sudden urge to go inside? His mother had told him more than once to always follow his instincts and strong feelings like this, so wasn't snooping just...following what his mother told him to do?

Before he could stop himself and admit the faulty logic of that thought process, Luke found himself already moving towards his mother's room, casting a partially guilty look over his shoulder towards the kitchen directly across the center room where his mother was. He still slipped inside despite the guilt, the door's hiss as it slid open and shut making him jumpy.

So now that he was inside...why was he here?

Puzzled, Luke looked with disinterest around the simply decorated room, ignoring the bed and passing over the small dresser with a mirror on top. For a moment he thought to check the small footlocker at the foot of the bed, but something didn't seem right about checking it. Instead, he found himself walking over to the roughly spun rug that lay in the open space of the room between the bed and dresser, covered in the sand and dirt of the room. He knelt down beside it with his back to the door, running his hand over the sand-infested surface, and while the feel of the fabric brought a faint sense of familiarity, it didn't seem to be what he was looking for. Instead, his hand wandered to the edge of the rug before pulling it back, moving the now partially rolled up rug by the wall.