dear_mun | (no subject)

Entry tags:

canon: star wars

(no subject)

I'm not fragile. There are just some things I... I don't know how to get through. You can't fix or fly everything the galaxy, or shoot something and it's all good. Annie's right it would be nice, but you can't.

...I guess even if you could something would go wrong.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Fragile doesn't always mean you're going to break. Don't take it personally.

[He's raised not to brag and he's uncomfortable with it, but-]

You know, there are sandstorms that can bury people alive, drown them in sand. I can survive in those. I can shoot better'n anyone, I've never panicked, I'm already getting to be a good pilot when anyone lets me on somethin' bigger than a hoverscoot.

I'm not soft.

Never said you were.

So I won't be broken up by - bad things. ...when it happened before it was because I was there for months and people were going and turning evil and what do you do, then, anyway? When you have to go into hiding because someone thinks he owns you.

But those were very weird, specific circumstances.

No. You learn, you move on.

[ Damn it his life. ] That's not cowardice, if that's what you're thinking. It's called not dying. You do what you have to do to not die.

[He's always kind of taken aback when she doesn't argue.]

-Right. Yeah. No one would be the same after that, it's not just... me. And I'm probably never going to another game with a 'cast', so... stuff. That's really not going to happen again.

[ She'd argue more if it weren't for all this damned respect. ]

It shouldn't. But if it did, you'd survive just the same.

Right. If bad things happen, I'll have Biggs to help me, and maybe Tank, and Ben Kenobi. [He got spoiled viciously in his old game, but no one had the heart to tell him "Oh, yeah, your home will be burned and everyone you love is going to be murdered within a week of each other."] Annnd I guess I'll be older, so - not yet.

Which is not saying I'm fragile now. I don't like that word. Just that I'll be stronger later.

...Am I making sense?

Perfect sense. There's always room to be stronger, anyway. There's no upper limit to that.

...Yeah.

[This respect thing is discombobulating Luke. People usually either argue or deflect.]

Like I'm gonna be old enough to drive landspeeders soon! I mean legally, I kind of... anyway. And then airspeeders! And everyone knows, if you can fly an airspeeder you can fly a spaceship!

[ She laughs at that. ] Don't crash it. From what I understand, spaceships are fairly expensive.

[ Not that she thinks he will, because obviously he won't. ]

Stars, they are. Even used Headhunters are forty-five thousand! But they're still pretty good ships. I know there's worse ones cheaper.

[At some point he's gonna land a ship in molten lava, Mal.]

Right, so. One step at a time.

[ She thinks. ] Well, three steps at most. [ Because too much caution is boring and stupid. ]

[ Luke, no. ]

I think you lost me.

[He once writes in his diary "I've had some bad landings, but this beat all of them except my first trip to Dagobah and that time Leia and I were buried under lava." Maybe if his ship got shot at less...]

[ She grins. ] Get ahead of yourself, but not too far?

It's not really... plans plans, yet. I've gotta talk my aunt and uncle around, and that's not happening for a while. They don't want me leaving home.

...And I know there's good reasons and I haven't run away since I was ten. It's just frustrating.

Right, well, home's not the same as cage. You should go if you want to.

I want to, but I'm not running out on them. I think that's why they don't like my father so much, he just up and left and then died far from home.

[ Mm zipperlips. ]

Why do they want to stay?

It's home to them. There's lots of people like that, on Tatooine- they're just not interested in other places. Only really Biggs and Tank are different, and Tank's too in with being older and having a landspeeder and stuff to talk to me anymore.

[SULK.]

[ Oh. The home thing again. ]

But Biggs talks to you?

Yeah! Sometimes. I mean, he has a girlfriend and he spends time with her, too. [Luke knows he shouldn't dislike Kandji, but...] And he is eighteen, so he... can't have me tagging along all the time.

But sometimes.

Good. [ Then he's not completely alone. ]

I'm kind of afraid he'll - leave, like he's always said he would. Go join the Academy. He'd old enough now, but he hasn't talked about it.

I'm... I should probably just ask.

Ask him.

[ A pause, and: ]

How long until you can?

But what if that's what gets him to go?

Um. Age of majority is sixteen, but you're supposed to have better chances if you're eighteen or more. It is a military school.

Then you'll know that's what he wants and you can figure out how to get out, too.

The military's mostly fourteen-year-old boys where I'm from. Age doesn't mean much, you can be just as incompetent as a grown man.

His girlfriend doesn't want him to go. I asked her.

You get your best coordination and strength when you're older, though. The Empire's real forces are majority-and-up, 'sept for clones. They start at at least a year. Or newborn. Depends how you want to measure that.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only