notbecauseofvictories:

guys, Tatooine is still the seat of a thriving slave trade while Luke is growing up there 

do you think the first time Owen brought him to Toshi, Luke was so excited, he was practically vibrating in his seat the whole way there, he had a whole list, all the things he wanted to see, that his friends had been boasting about—

when they arrive, there’s a boy waiting outside the mechanic shop. Luke—is Luke, and immediately scrambles out of the speeder, attempts to talk to him, ask him questions, give his entire life story in the space of ten seconds.

luke, leave him alone, owen says, once he’s docked the speeder. he’s working.

oh! luke says, does your family own this store? my uncle has a moisture farm, I understand.

but before the boy can answer, owen grabs luke’s collar and steers him into the shop. he’s a slave, luke, owen says softly. he belongs to he owner of the store. leave well enough alone.

and just like that, toshi sours in luke’s gut, the whole time he is in the store he can’t pay attention, not even when owen says he can pick out anything, anything he wants, because all luke can think about is the hollows of the boy’s cheeks, how he looked almost like luke, could have been a cousin, a brother (luke always wanted a brother) but slave is only a word he’s heard in passing, about other people.

(”we use free labor” owen says. “my step-mother was once a slave, and—”)

luke sulks and snaps until owen cuts the trip short, and luke almost cries when owen lectures him on the speeder ride back to the farm. He runs past beru without answering any question and races downstairs, throwing himself on his pallet.

(the boy had eyes just like his)

Luke Skywalker doesn’t understand what’s making him feel so sick and hot and miserable, but he cries, he cries