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starwarsfix · 1 year ago

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On Tatooine, Skywalker isn't a name you inherit - it's a name you earn.

The Sky Walker. Ekkreth. The slave who makes free. Every one of Ar-Amu's children know that, if they find a skywalker, a skywalker will help them go free.

Because names on Tatooine have meanings. Slave names, depur call them. Slave names, the free men call them. But to Ar-Amu's children, they are promises.

A Skywalker will do all they can to release the children from their chains. A Darklighter will show them a path through the darkness, away from depur. A Whitesun will provide them with the papers needed to walk freely under the suns.

Depur do not care what names their slaves choose for themselves, so long as they are slave names. But Ar-Amu's children know the value of calling things by their names.

Ar-Amu's children know how to walk beneath the notice of depur. There is safety in secrets. And the best secrets are always the ones that do not appear to be secret.

Anakin, son of Shmi, earns his name when he is 3 years old.

Shmi is already a Sky Walker, has been so since before Anakin was born. Her skill with mechanics and electronics makes her a valuable slave and an even more esteemed Sky Walker.

So it is no surprise to Anakin to find a young female twi'lek ducking behind the small curtain that separated Shmi's alcove from the rest of the slave quarters (a level of privacy no slave would begrudge a Sky Walker).

There is a heavy, bulky collar fastened around the twi'lek's neck, and Anakin knows immediately why she is there. A new slave, not yet chipped, held only by the bomb collar around her neck - she seeks a Sky Walker to remove the collar and set her free.

But Shmi is not there. Gardulla had requested Shmi's presence as she entertained her guests. Almost all of Gardulla's slaves are up above, ensuring the hutt is able to impress.

The twi'lek's eyes are wide and scared. It will not be long before her depur discovers her missing. It is unlikely she will be able to sneak back to where she is meant to be.

So Anakin takes her hand. He sits her down on the barely-there pallet that serves as bed for both himself and his mother. He can feel his heartbeat racing in his fingertips, but he is also calm.

"The Sky Walker is not here," he tells her softly, "but if you are willing, I will try to free you."

The decision is hers. Any wrong move in disarming or removing the collar and it would blow them both to pieces. He is the son of a Sky Wakker but not yet a Sky Walker himself. She must decide what she is willing to risk for her freedom.

Anakin already knows what he is willing to risk. He already knows what name he wants to earn.

He is Anakin, son of Shmi Skywalker, and one day he will be able to call himself Anakin Skywalker.

The twi'lek nods.

Anakin's hands are steady as he reaches out, a thin piece of wire pulled from the hem of his ragged tunic. It takes five breathless minutes, but he is able to remove the collar.

It sits between them, heavy with threat, not yet disarmed, but open. Its circle of bondage broken.

"Sky Walker," the twi'lek breathes as she stares at him, and Anakin smiles back at her.

When Anakin joins the Jedi, he asks the council whether he should change his name. They stare back at him in confusion.

"Change your name, why would you?" Yoda asks. But Anakin doesn't know how to (or even if he should) explain. "Skywalker, your name is," Yoda continues. "Skywalker, it shall be, hmm."

Anakin hopes it means the Council understands. He is a Sky Walker, it is his privilege and his duty to free slaves.

But the Jedi are not there to free slaves.

And Anakin begins to hate his name.

He does what he can. Turning a blind eye here. Leaving supplies there. Accidentally unlocking chains. But it never seems to be enough.

He is a Sky Walker, it is meant to be the purpose of his life, but instead - he runs around obeying the senate and the Jedi council.

Until he begins to fear the council knew what they were doing when they told him to keep his name.

Because a Sky Walker is a slave who makes free.

When they make him a general, Anakin wants to throw his name as far away from himself as he possibly can.

How can he be a Sky Walker, a slave who makes free, when he is leading an army of slaves?

When Vader hears the pilot who destroyed the Death Star goes by Skywalker, he is not surprised. The Death Star was a chain the Emperor wielded to bind the galaxy to himself, and Sky Walkers are good at breaking chains. He thinks nothing more of it.

Until he learns the Sky Walker is force sensitive.

Sky Walker is a name that must be earnt, a title and a promise and a badge of honour. It is a slave name. The name of a slave who makes free.

Or, the name of one who could have been a slave, who comes from a family of slaves, and risks it all to make others free.

It is telling that this Luke Skywalker uses his name freely in the Rebellion - a declaration that he sees the empire, the emperor, as depur.

On its own it is not much, something someone not from Tatooine would not understand.

But Skywalker is force sensitive.

So Vader goes digging.

Luke Skywalker, raised by Beru Whitesun and Owen Lars. Best friends with Biggs Darklighter.

First known as Luke Lars, before his name was changed to Skywalker.

For someone else, anyone else, it would seem innocuous. It is easy enough to find out that Skywalker is a slave name on Tatooine. For the boy to have initially gone by Lars would have been a way for him to be protected from his parent's past. For him to claim the name would be a child deciding to claim their history despite the slavery in it.

But Vader knows better. He knows how names work on Tatooine.

The boy becomes a Sky Walker the first time he frees a slave.

The disjointed recording of the Princess's cell they recover has him boldly proclaiming, "My name is Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."

For one of Ar-Amu's children, such a declaration would have been a comfort. A promise. Vader sees how the Princess does not understand what she has been told.

The Imperials see the boy's behaviour as naivety, but Vader knows better.

It does not surprise him that the boy moves quickly up the ranks of the rebellion. It does not surprise him that the boy is fearless in the face of the empire's might, that he laughs each time he escapes the traps laid for him.

He is a true Sky Walker.

The boy might not have been a slave on Tatooine (and Vader checked, because if there was one thing he would not allow it would be that), but he was the son of a slave. Grandson of Shmi Skywalker.

And he earnt his name again and again and again.

There is another name the boy could lay claim to. Another name he has earnt, Vader finds.

A name the Princess earns, also, as she chokes Jabba with the very chain he sought to hold her with. Starkiller.

One who has killed depur.

It is a name the boy earnt long before he joined the rebellion. That he chooses to go by Skywalker instead is telling.

He would rather be known for making free than for killing.

Vader admires him, even as he despairs. For he knows the end result of being a Skywalker beneath the weight of the Emperor. He knows the power of the Dark Side. All he can hope is to keep the boy, his son, from being enslaved.

But the Sky Walker refuses to join him.

Refuses to acknowledge the power of the Dark Side.

Refuses to admit defeat.

And perhaps, Vader thinks, it is better that way. Dukra ba dukra. His son will not relinquish the name of Skywalker, he will not turn, so he will die free.

But Luke is a Sky Walker, and Sky Walkers are those who make free. Not content to just free themselves, they are those who will walk directly into the grasp of depur if it means freeing others.

On Tatooine, names can be earnt.

And so Darth Vader earns again a name he'd thought lost to him.

He is the son of Shmi the Sky Walker. Father of Luke the Sky Walker - who calls Vader by his earnt name. Who walks calmly into the grasp of the emperor in the hope it will save his father (it does).

Dukra ba dukra.

He is Anakin Skywalker, he is a person, and he dies free.

(Again, highly inspired by @fialleril's work, which if you haven't read, you absolutely must)

#star wars #tattooine slave culture #amatakka #anakin skywalker #luke skywalker

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