Chapter Text
“4500 credits is my final offer, kid. Take it or leave it!”
“4500? But that’s the retail price!” Luke exclaimed indignantly.
“Yeah, and it’s as good as new, so retail price is what it’s going for,” insisted the burly salesman.
Luke grumbled, but couldn’t help the longing look he turned to the landspeeder in question. In truth, the salesman was exaggerating its pristine condition, but not by much. The speeder might have seen a few trips in its lifespan, as evidenced by the scratches in the paint here and there and the few minor bumps in the chassi, but the repulsorlift worked perfectly, all three turbines were undamaged and the cockpit sealed shut smoothly with a slick whoosh sound. Luke chanced a glance at the salesman, who only raised an unimpressed eyebrow in return. He was just about to begin another doomed attempt at haggling when the standoff was interrupted by Biggs calling out his name.
“Hey Luke! What about this one?”
Luke turned to see the vehicle Biggs was looking at. It was another X-34, this one open-air and in significantly worse condition. He walked over to examine it closer.
“I don’t know, Biggs. Look at the portside turbine, it’s shot!”
“Oh come on, you can fix that up easy. They’re bound to have the parts at the station.”
“Yeah, I guess. But…” He trailed off as he looked from the sun-bleached, banged up speeder to the sleek, vibrant red one he’d been eyeing earlier. He sighed before waving over the salesman again.
“How’s the antigrav on this one?” he asked.
“Just fine,” came the clipped reply. Luke resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“Well, can you fire it up for me? I’d like to see for myself.”
The salesman stared at him, clearly doubting Luke’s intention to actually buy anything, before presumably realising he wasn’t actually in any place to turn away potential customers, and starting up the speeder. It powered up and surged up to hover unsteadily over the ground, slightly lower than the one meter it was supposed to be able to manage. It wasn’t in any condition to ride, but good enough that he could get it towed to the station at least. Biggs was right; Tosche station would have the necessary parts for repairing the turbine, and apart from that, Luke couldn’t see any major problems with it other than its lackluster appearance.
“All right, how much do you want for it?”
“This one is up for 3500 credits.”
“Are you kidding me? This rustbucket isn't worth anywhere near that! I’ll give you 2000 for it,” Luke countered. The salesman gave him a sharp look at the low offer. To his side, Luke could hear Biggs give a small snort of laughter.
“Look, kid, just for you ,” began the salesman in a sardonic tone. “I can go down to 3250, but that’s it.”
“With the repairs it needs it’ll end up being just as expensive as the new one!” Luke said. The salesman rolled his eyes faintly at Luke’s exaggeration, but didn’t bother with arguing it.
“3000,” said the salesman, seemingly having decided that 250 credits was worth it to be rid of Luke.
“2500,” Luke countered, squaring his shoulders. Biggs raised his eyebrows at his friend.
“Kid, 3000 is already 500 lower than my asking price, and less than this speeder is worth. I’m not going any lower.”
“But–” Luke began, ready to launch into a counter argument before the salesman raised a hand to interrupt him. The older man heaved a sigh and closed his eyes, looking as if he was fighting off a particularly nasty headache.
“Two. Seven. Fifty,” He bit out before opening his eyes to stare Luke down. “Final offer.”
Luke pursed his lips and looked between the speeder and the salesman. He contemplated the price for a moment.
“It’s a deal!” He broke out in a grin and stuck out his hand, which the salesman studiously ignored in favour of giving another deep sigh and walking away to process the purchase. Once the man was out of hearing range, Biggs broke out in a hearty laugh and clapped Luke on the shoulder.
“I can’t believe it! If it had been me, I wouldn’t have been able to get it for anything below asking price,” he said.
“I have a way with people,” Luke beamed.
“Uh-huh, sure you do,” said Biggs indulgingly. Luke leaned down to examine his new purchase closer. There were some larger bumps on the body that would need to be straightened out, and the paint job had seen better days. The once bright red, now dull orange paint had been scratched all over and was peeling at the front, but Luke knew he’d have to focus on the engine before he could worry about the appearance of the vehicle. Besides, there wasn’t much point investing in a good paint job on Tatooine anyway. If he repainted it, the harsh desert climate would have it looking just as dull and scruffy as it was now in a matter of days. He reached out to rub off some of the dirt from the center turbine and noticed a weird sort of stain on it.
“What is that?” he asked, mostly to himself. Leaning in closer revealed it to be not a stain or a chip in the paint as he’d originally thought, but a mark of some kind, painted on top of the sun-bleached red.
“What’s what?” asked Biggs, leaning in next to him.
“This mark right here. It’s painted on. Must’ve been the previous owner,” Luke mused as he tried to make out the design. “I can’t tell what it’s supposed to be, though.”
“Hm, could be…” Biggs tilted his head to the side and squinted critically at the turbine, “…An egg?”
“That’s one strange-looking egg!” Luke laughed.
“No, look!” insisted Biggs, leaping to the defense of his egg. “It’s the outline of it, like it’s only shaded in.” Before Luke had the chance to voice his disbelief, the salesman returned with the papers for the speeder.
“That’ll be 2750,” he said, eyeing Luke as if afraid he’d suddenly try to get the price down further.
“Of course,” Luke smiled brightly and handed over the credits.
As soon as the exchange was complete, Luke and Biggs got to work attaching Luke’s new purchase to Biggs’ own speeder to tow it to the station. After repairing the broken turbine and tinkering with the engine some, Luke would eventually end up putting a layer of paint on the exposed areas of the speeder: not the beautiful bright red that the vehicle had initially been, but instead a lighter orange to match the already faded paint job. Without any great concern for the matter, he would also end up repainting the turbines, dubious egg markings soon all but forgotten.
Except he couldn’t forget about the symbol. It seemed the very universe itself wouldn’t let him. Since he first saw it on the speeder, it was like the kriffing thing was everywhere—on every peculiar crevice on every rock, in every oddly shaped cloud in the sky—or maybe it had always been there and he just hadn’t noticed until he saw it on the speeder. And now that he had noticed, he just couldn’t not notice it anymore. Maybe he was going mad. Maybe he’d spent one season too many on this useless sandy rock and the boredom and hopelessness had finally taken what was left of his sanity.
He reached his breaking point when the symbol appeared as a huge, ugly—and seemingly immovable—stain on the brand new shirt he’d just gotten for himself. It wasn’t often that he treated himself to new clothes, instead mostly having to settle for buying old used ones and having aunt Behru mend them. There were better ways to spend his money, and work at the farm had a tendency to dirty and ruin new clothes anyway. Still, the other week he’d found himself with enough money to spare and he just couldn’t resist the beautiful garment when he’d seen it in the shop in Anchorhead. It was made from a thick, starched fabric, had an asymmetric cut and when he’d bought it, it had been a crisp, bright white (on second hand, that probably hadn’t been the best idea on Tatooine of all places). Now though, it sported a large, stubborn dirt stain on the back: after being worn only once too!
On some level, Luke had known the shirt was done for the minute he took a turn too fast in his speeder, even before his back hit the ground, but he’d still hurried back home to try to wash it out as quickly as possible. He’d seen the stain over his shoulder, and he’d stared intently at it while trying to scrub it off, but it hadn’t been until he glumly accepted that the stain wasn’t going anywhere that he really saw it. It was only then that he recognised it as the very symbol he’d been haunted by for weeks now. In a brief fit of panic he thought the symbol must be some kind of message from Tatooine itself: a reminder that he would never be allowed to have nice things, and he would never be able to get off this planet. The notion passed just as quickly as it came though, and Luke quietly shook his head at his own dramatics. Having finally resigned to giving up on the shirt, Luke found something else to wear but grabbed the ruined shirt to take with him before going out.
He arrived at Tosche station later than he had originally planned, due to his unforeseen detour, and found his friends already there. He made his way to them at the counter where they all seemed to be poring over some new part or other. As he approached, Laze was the first to notice him.
“Hey! Where the kriff have you been, Wormie?” The others turned their attention to him as well at that.
“I took a bad tumble off my speeder on the way. I had to go home and change,” Luke said dejectedly.
“What, are you hurt or something?” Biggs asked.
“No, but look at this,” Luke unfolded the shirt he’d brought with him. “It’s completely ruined!” Camie rolled her eyes and went back to studying the engine part. Laze gave him a blank stare.
“You made us wait for you for half an hour just so you could change your shirt?” he deadpanned. Luke sighed.
“That’s not the point anyway, just,” he splayed the shirt out over the counter, earning an irritated glare from Camie, “Look at this stain!”
“Move that!” Camie exclaimed.
“As much as we all care about your wardrobe, hotshot, we have better things to do,” Laze said.
“This isn’t about my wardrobe, just– Ugh! Biggs, would you look at this? Tell me I’m not going crazy.”
“Uh…” Biggs looked blankly at Luke. “What exactly am I meant to be seeing here?”
“The stain,” Luke bit out impatiently. “Doesn’t it look familiar to you?” Camie reached out to move the shirt from the counter. Luke swatted her hand away, earning him an indignant scoff in return.
“Maybe?” Biggs said uncertainly.
“It’s the symbol again, the one that was on my speeder,” he insisted. “I told you it was following me, and now it’s trying to kill me too!”
“A stain on a shirt is gonna kill you?” Laze raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
“It was a really nice shirt,” Luke mumbled.
“Oh! I do recognise it, yeah. It’s the egg!” Biggs exclaimed. Laze shot him a look.
“Are you blind? How is that an egg?”
“Well, see it’s just the outline–” Biggs was interrupted by Camie giving a loud sigh. She made a big show of rolling her eyes and crossing her arms before deigning to speak her mind to them.
“That’s obviously a fish hook,” she said, glaring at the rest of them. Biggs’ brows furrowed.
“A fish hook?”
“Yeah, see that narrow line on the left, that’s the part where the fishing line goes, and the thicker line on the right is the actual hook part,” she explained as she pointed to the various parts of the stain.
“Yeah? What do you know about fish hooks?” Laze asked. “You’ve spent your whole life on Tatooine, have you ever even seen one?”
“My family grows a hydroponics garden, you know,” Camie countered.
“There are fish in hydroponics gardens?” Luke asked, distracted from his staring match with the stain. Biggs scoffed.
“No.”
“Whatever,” Camie said with an eyeroll. “What do you think it is then?” She narrowed her eyes at Luke.
“I don’t know,” he began, not having expected the question to be turned on him. “I… Well maybe it could be a flame? Like from a fire.”
Laze scoffed at him. “There’s no way–”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point anyway!”
“What is the point then, Skywalker?” Laze asked.
“That it’s following me! I swear I’ve seen it everywhere lately.”
Laze rolled his eyes at him.
“Seriously, it was on my speeder too, right Biggs?”
“Yeah, I saw it. It definitely looks like the same symbol.”
At this, Laze went quiet and looked towards the shirt, examining the stain with new interest.
“How can the same symbol be showing up in a stain? That’s just not possible, right?” Luke questioned.
“Maybe you’re going crazy,” Camie told him cheerfully, reaching for the shirt again. Like before, he slapped her hand away, this time making a face at her too.
“I’ve heard of something like this before,” Laze said, suddenly serious. Luke looked dubiously at him.
“Really?”
“Yeah. In the Core, people believe that every person has one, a special symbol that’ll follow them through their life. They say if two people have the same symbol, it means they’re meant to be together.” Here, the others leaned in in interest. Even Camie uncrossed her arms and seemed to listen to what Laze had to say.
“What, like… soulmates or something?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, I guess. They hold these big parties for all the rich people where they all have to draw a picture, but with their eyes closed so their symbol will show up. Then they look through all of them to see if any of them match. All so they can find the person they’re destined to be with.” As Laze described the gatherings, Luke tried his best to imagine what it might be like to attend one. He could only guess that the venue must be something grand, maybe in one of those buildings people say there are on Coruscant, the ones that stretch all the way to the sky. The people would all be beautiful and probably decked out in the most opulent clothes, infinitely finer than the now dirty shirt laid out on the counter in front of him. And one of them, maybe, would draw the very symbol now displayed in that dirt. Someone who was connected to Luke, someone who belonged to him, someone who was destined to love him.
“How do you know all this, anyway?” Biggs’ voice snapped Luke out of his fantasy, and for a second he saw on Camie a dazed expression that must surely have matched his own face. Laze leaned in, looking them all in the eye. Luke and Camie looked at him in rapt attention while Biggs only raised an eyebrow.
“There’s a fortune teller in Mos Eisley. She used to work at these parties, lead the ceremonies and stuff.”
“And you’ve talked to her?” Biggs questioned.
“Sure have,” Laze said, tilting his chin up at Biggs.
“You’ve gone to Mos Eisley?” Luke asked.
“ You all might find Anchorhead to be exciting enough, but some of us need to set our sights a little higher, you know?” Laze taunted.
“Yeah, well to some people Mos Eisley would be lowering their sights, not raising them,” Camie countered. “People like fortune tellers from the Core, for example. What’s she doing there?”
Laze bristled at her remark, but soon regained his equilibrium. “Isn’t it obvious? She’s hiding out from the empire, of course.”
“Why?” Luke questioned. “What did she do?”
“Well, I don’t know. I didn’t ask for her life story. The point is she’s there, and she’s reading people’s fortunes for a fee. She might be able to tell you something about that symbol.”
“Like who his soulmate is?” Camie asked urgently, “Or how to find them?”
Laze shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”
“Well, then he should see her, right? We should all go and see her,” said Camie.
“Wait, hold on, Mos Eisley isn’t a good place to be hanging around. It’s dangerous. And this lady is probably a scam anyway,” said Biggs.
“She’s no scam, all right. She’s the real deal,” defended Laze. “What do you say, Wormie? I can take you to her.” Luke considered this. Biggs was right in that Mos Eisley was dangerous, and he’d never heard of fortune tellers that could tell you who you were destined to fall in love with either, but…
He couldn’t know for sure that it wasn’t real either. And if there was even the slightest chance that what Laze was saying was true, and not just some tall tale, then there was someone out there who was haunted by the same symbol that plagued Luke. And that person was his soulmate, his other half, someone who would love him unconditionally and want to be with him forever. Could he really risk never finding that person, just because Mos Eisley was dangerous or because Laze might be lying?
“I don’t think there’s any harm in checking it out,” he said. “Mos Eisley might not be Anchorhead, but we can handle ourselves.”
“All right, if you think so, Wormie,” Laze said condescendingly. “We can go tomorrow. Oh and it’s not a flame by the way.”
“What?” said Luke.
“The symbol. It’s not a flame, or a fish hook. And it definitely isn’t an egg ,” he shot a glance at Biggs who frowned in return.
“What do you think it is, then?” Asked Camie.
“Look at the right part, at the patterns in the dirt. It’s not just a solid line,” Laze pointed at the shirt.
“Okay,” said Luke. “Your point being?”
Laze looked up from the shirt and fixed him with a look. “It’s a skull,” he said. “An animal’s skull, Skywalker.”
Luke swallowed. He studied the symbol again as if with new eyes. Laze was right, the patterns of the dirt seemed to be making out the curves and crevices of a skull, with the sleek curved line on the left making… A horn maybe? It could be a nerf, but the horn was too far forward on the skull for that. Or maybe a reek, if not for the fact that it was missing the two cheek horns. So then…
“A mudhorn,” Luke said.
The next day saw Laze confidently leading Luke and Camie to the reputed fortune teller. They’d all been able to skive off work for the day and headed off towards Mos Eisley before noon. Biggs, who was still apprehensive about the whole idea to say the least, had elected not to come with them. As they parked the speeder they’d arrived in, Luke took in the scenery of the town around them. It was probably nothing in comparison to some of the places that existed out there in the galaxy, but with only Anchorhead for a reference point, Luke was easily impressed with the size, the amount of people and the sheer vibrancy of the spaceport.
“C’mon, Wormie, we got places to be,” Laze said impatiently. To his side, Camie laughed at the jibe, her nonchalance betrayed only slightly by the rapid tapping of her foot and the poorly concealed eagerness glistening in her eyes.
Laze quickly led them off the main street, through a connecting street to a smallish alley behind the large buildings. The binary suns shone harshly, still low in the sky, neither having reached their zenith yet. The time of day didn’t seem to matter to Mos Eisley though; the narrow alley they were walking in was cluttered with shady-looking people not having bothered to wait for the cover of darkness before meeting each other to exchange money or other, less savoury items. It was entirely foreign to Luke and he struggled between trying to take everything in, and avoiding any and all eye contact with the individuals in the alley. He landed somewhere in the middle, settling for sneaking surreptitious glances when he thought he wouldn’t be noticed.
His concentration was broken, however, when someone barreled into him from behind. He barely managed to regain his balance in time to turn and face the other person. The young man had a sickly complexion, only highlighted by the dark circles under his eyes and the sheen of sweat on his face. His clothes were dark, despite the oppressive heat of the twin suns.
“Watch where you’re going!” the man hissed at Luke, before raising the hood of his cloak, which had presumably been knocked off in their collision, and shoving his way past him to hurry down the alley.
“What a jerk,” Luke remarked. He was again nearly knocked off his feet, this time because of Laze roughly pulling him, along with Camie, to the side of the alley.
“Hey, listen up you two,” he said. “This isn’t Anchorhead, okay? Mos Eisley is home to some of the lowest scum in the whole galaxy.” Here, he glanced over at where the man who’d collided with Luke was now trying to shove his way past the other people in the alley. “You’ve gotta be careful.”
“Really,” Luke said. He couldn’t help rolling his eyes at Laze. “That guy was a total loser but I think we’ll survive him.” The tail end of Luke’s sentence was drowned out by a booming voice coming from behind them.
“ELIO!” They all turned to see a tall, burly man enter the alley, a blaster visibly strapped to his hip. He scanned the passage with a scowl before seemingly finding what he was looking for. To the group’s other side, the cloaked young man turned to face the other, a fake smile on his sickly face. Luke and his friends stood in their nook, watching as the burly man approached the cloaked figure.
“Running won’t help you, Elio. You should know better. But then you should know better than to make an enemy of Jabba, too,” he spoke.
“Come on now,” the young man said smarmily. “You don’t really like working for that big slug, do you? I’m sure you and I can work something–” He was interrupted by a blaster hit from the larger man and abruptly crumpled in on himself on the ground. The other man approached the lifeless form in the alley. Luke regained his senses all at once and grabbed Laze and Camie by the arms, tugging them out of the alley and into a side street. Once he deemed they’d made it a safe distance away he stopped and let go of them.
“What the kriff just happened?” Camie said in an unsteady voice. She started pacing in small turns. “We could have died!”
“It’s okay,” said Luke lamely. “We’re safe.”
“We just saw a man get killed!” she exclaimed. At this, Laze seemed to shake out of his stupor somewhat.
“What? No, no he wasn’t dead, was he? I mean it was just one blaster hit. He could have survived that, right?” Laze was uncharacteristically pale and was nodding somewhat frantically to emphasise his own words. Luke felt his brow furrow but nodded once and forced a tight smile.
“Yeah, sure he could have.”
“Nobody survives a blaster hit to the chest, you idiot!” Camie yelled, causing Laze’s hands to reach up and tangle in his hair.
“I’ve never–” Laze began, “I don’t know what…”
“Hey,” Luke said, placing a hand on his arm. “We don’t know what happened to that guy. You’re right, he could have survived that, we really don’t know.” Laze nodded along. Luke turned his head and looked Camie in the eye. “The important thing is we’re all okay, right? We’re safe and none of us got hurt.”
Camie stopped her pacing and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Yeah, okay,” she said unsteadily.
“Okay?” said Luke. “We’re fine. Let’s just get back to the speeder and go home.” Laze dropped his hands from his hair and rolled his shoulders.
“No way, we’ve gotta go to the fortune teller.”
“Laze,” Luke said. “We’re all shaken up. I think we should just go back home.”
“Yeah, you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Skywalker? No, I said I’d take you there so I’ll take you there,” Laze ranted before taking off further into the town, leaving Luke and Camie no choice but to follow.
They walked for a few more blocks, making quick work of the distance with the pace Laze was setting, before he suddenly stopped.
“All right. It’s right here, around the corner, the green door,” he said, still quieter than usual for him, but the colour seemed to have returned to his face at least.
“Okay,” Luke said and quickly drew a deep breath. He’d been serious about going home before, but now that he was there, he felt some of his erstwhile enthusiasm returning at the thought of seeing the fortune teller. He turned the corner, Laze and Camie following him now. Upon seeing the green door, he felt his heart rate pick up, but… something didn’t seem quite right about the house. The area around it was nearly empty of people, despite this street being significantly bigger than the cramped alley they’d passed through earlier. There was only one person near the house, a middle aged woman tinkering with a speeder bike across the street. She only gave them a passing glance as they approached, before turning her attention back to her work.
That wasn’t all though. As Luke walked closed to the house he noticed one more worrying detail; the green door was ajar. He shared a look over his shoulder with Laze and Camie. Camie looked concerned but Laze only set his jaw and stared back at Luke in determination, or maybe a challenge, so he carefully opened the door wider and peeked inside. What he saw inside the house only confirmed the suspicious feeling he’d had outside. It was dark inside, and things were strewn all over the floor, pieces of furniture knocked over even.
“Hey, Laze, are you sure this is the place?” he asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” Laze responded, wandering over to the woman across the street. Luke stooped down to look through the things on the floor, but could hear Laze asking the woman about the house. Luke stepped further into the house and walked around the flipped table in what seemed to have been the sitting area. Around it were a mass of blank paper cards, some pens scattered among them as well.
“It was a bounty hunter.” At the words, Luke looked over his shoulder to see Laze back in the doorway.
“What?”
“The fortune teller, a bounty hunter came and took her,” Laze explained. “The old woman saw it all.”
Luke turned back to the cards on the floor. Among the blank ones was another, a single card that stood out among the sea of white. He picked it up.
“You said she would have clients draw a picture?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, with their eyes closed, or while meditating or something,” said Laze.
“Is that one drawn on?” asked Camie, peeking in through the doorway beside Laze. “Then it must’ve been from the last customer she ever saw.”
“Come on,” Laze said. “I took you. It isn’t my fault she isn’t here. Let’s go back already.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Luke said. As Laze and Camie started heading back, he looked down one last time at the card in his hand. The lines of it were a bit shaky, not from the hand of an artist, but clear nonetheless, strong. There was no mistaking the symbol. Drawn on the card, clear as day was the stylised skull of a mudhorn.