Saga Saga - PT Krayt Dragon in the Closet (Young Luke Skywalker Oneshot for MMM #10)

Title: Krayt Dragon in the Closet

Author: devilinthedetails

Characters: Luke Skywalker; Owen Lars; Beru Lars

Genre: Family; Mush; Fluff; General.

Timeline: Saga-PT. Set between ROTS and ANH when Luke is a little boy growing up on Tatooine.

Author's Note: Written for Monday Mush Mania prompt #10, which is to write a story featuring a promise made, kept, or broken. Lovely to see that thread revived and to hopefully contribute to that revival with this story!

Krayt Dragon in the Closet

A hammering loud enough to be heard halfway to Coruscant interrupted Owen’s sleep, making him sit bolt upright. Adrenaline surging through him, he fumbled for the blaster he kept on his nightstand in case of a Tusken Raider attack, leveling it at the door and clutching a Beru who was groggily emerging from her dreams against his chest.

He wondered if this was a Tusken Raider attack, although if it was he didn’t understand why the Tusken Raiders had announced their presence by pounding on the door to the room where Owen and Beru slept instead of sneaking in surreptitiously and murdering them in their sleep...But the ways of the Tusken Raiders were strange, and an eternal mystery to anyone who didn’t happen to be bloodthirsty savage. That’s what his late father had always told him, and Owen had no reason to doubt his wisdom on that score.

“Who is it?” he shouted with enough volume to be heard through the door, glad that his voice didn’t shake.

He half-expected the barbaric noises the Tusken Raiders called language to answer him, but instead the tremulous tone of his nephew replied, “It’s Luke.”

“Come in, Luke.” Owen grunted as he returned his blaster to his nightstand. Whatever Luke had distrubed him and Beru in the middle of the night about had better be important, because the boy had almost given him a heart attack with that racket on the door.

As the door opened and Luke entered, soft nimbus of blond hair illuminated by the glow of the hallway lights behind him, Owen demanded, “What’s all this fuss about? It better not be some crazy nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense.” Luke’s chin wobbled as he stood in the doorway. “There’s a krayt dragon in my closet and a sarlaac pit under my blankets.”

“A krayt dragon wouldn’t be able to fit in your closet.” Owen tried to sound patient even though Luke’s childhood fears and delusions could be frustrating. As a grown man, it was hard to remember a time when irrational nightmares had clung to him and felt real. All his fears of drought, vaporator failure, and Tusken Raider attacks were completely rational, he was certain. “And if there was a sarlaac pit under your blankets, you’d be gobbled up by the sarlaac already. Go back to sleep.”

Apparently, he hadn’t sounded patient enough because Beru elbowed him in the ribs.

“I’m scared to go back to sleep by myself.” Tears were beginning to form in Luke’s eyes, and Owen felt like a more terrible monster than the ones his nephew imagined lurking under blankets and in closets.

He didn’t want Luke to start crying. The boy would take at least half an hour to calm down once he began weeping, Owen knew from painful experience.

“All right. Don’t cry.” Owen pushed himself out from under his own covers. Crossing the room, he wrapped an arm around his nephew’s small shoulders and steered him back down the hallway toward the room where Luke slept. “I’ll put you back to sleep.”

Luke chattered in an incoherent rush about the sarlaac pit and the krayt dragon until they reached his room at the end of the corridor. As they stepped inside it, Owen spared a scowl at the posters of pilots and Podracers Beru had helped Luke plaster to the walls. They’d done it while Owen was busy repairing vaporators because they would’ve known how he’d disapprove of the posters. How he’d regard them as encouraging Luke’s dangerous daydreams of flying away from Tatooine at best and give him nightmares of death, disaster, and fiery doom at worst.

Owen flung open Luke’s closet, flipping on the switch that controlled its light. He poked his head in the closet, turned it around to search every corner, and even put out his hand to feel through Luke’s clothes to the hard wall of the closet before announcing crisply, “There’s nothing in here but your clothes, Luke. No krayt dragon, that’s for certain.”

“But I thought I heard one.” Luke’s eyes were wide blue oceans of confusion.

“You were dreaming. People hear all sorts of weird noises when they’re sleeping.” Owen yanked back Luke’s blankets, revealing that there were indeed no sarlaac pits to be found there. “No sarlaac pit either, you see? Now, get back under the covers and go to sleep.”

“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?” Obediently, Luke climbed beneath his blankets. As he laid his head against his pillows and Owen tugged the covers snuggly to his chin, he added, “And stay with me the whole night because I’m afraid to sleep by myself tonight?”

Wearily, Owen collapsed into the rocking chair Beru often used to cradle Luke on her lap for singing or reading before tucking him in for the night. The seat and spine of the rocking chair had cushions knitted by his industrious wife, a fact his back and bottom were immensely grateful for as he now faced the daunting prospect of sleeping in this rocking chair instead of beside Beru’s warm body.

“I will.” Owen massaged his temples and marveled at how he was spoiling his nephew.

“Promise?” Luke stretched out a tiny pinky finger Owen could’ve crushed if he wasn’t careful, but he was always careful with his nephew. “Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear.” Feeling like nine kinds of idiot, Owen entwined his pinky through his nephew’s and twisted, sealing the promise in the traditional fashion of generations of Tatooine children.

“Cross your heart and become a Tusken if you lie?” Luke persisted.

That was going a bit too far for Owen, who pronounced sternly, “I’ve given you my word. If a man’s honest, his word is so reliable, that it can be trusted without any extra oaths. If a man’s dishonest, no extra oaths will prevent him from being a liar. I’ve given you my word. If you believe it, go to sleep.”

Luke blinked, looked at him for a long moment, and ultimately seemed to decide it was safer not to argue with him when he took that tone. He curled in on himself beneath his sheets in a position that could only be described as fetal and slipped his thumb in his mouth, sucking on it for comfort in a gesture Owen knew would have to be broken out of him soon. For now, it was a gesture that filled him with an odd sense of tenderness as he watched his nephew drift back into the world of dreams where everything terrifying and wonderful was possible.

Not long after sleep swallowed his nephew, it claimed Owen as well. He slept surprisingly well in the rocking chair. Well enough to forget that he was sleeping in a rocking chair until Luke woke him in the morning by bouncing onto his aging knees that weren’t truly up for such an unanticipated assault as the orange and red rays of the rising sun began to streak through the blinds of Luke’s windows.

“Wake up, Uncle Owen!” Luke exclaimed as his excited bouncing continued to jolt Owen’s unfortunate knees.

“Settle down, Luke,” Owen scolded, patting at his nephew’s back in what proved to be a futile attempt at calming the eager lad. “You’ll break my knees if you aren’t careful.”

“Aunt Beru is making panna cakes!” chirped Luke, unfazed by Owen’s chiding, and Owen could indeed smell the distinctive aroma of the little hotcakes sizzling on the robo-grill. Soon Beru would be slathering them with bantha butter, pouring sweet carbosyrup that would inevitably make Luke’s hands sticky over them, and piling them on plates for breakfast. “You don’t want to miss them!”

“I don’t,” Owen agreed, lifting Luke from his knees and placing him on the floor. “I need to change. Go set the table, and remember the forks go on the left sides of the plates this time.”

Luke was always forgetting that.

“I do remember that.” Luke pouted. “I just get confused about which side is right and which is left.”

“If you get confused, ask your aunt.” Owen nudged Luke toward the door.

Luke made it as far as the doorway before he spun around to say, “You stayed with me all night. I wasn’t sure if you would.”

“Of course I would. I gave you my word, didn’t I?” Owen met Luke’s gaze seriously, trying to teach his nephew an important lesson about the honesty and integrity a man should have even on a planet as wild and cut-throat as Tatooine. Perhaps especially there. “A man should always keep his word once he gives it. If his word is nothing, so is he. Now, run along and set the table. I won’t tell you again.”

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha As always, thank you so much for commenting!I'm so glad that you found this story delightful because it was a pure, mushy pleasure to write. I really wanted to write an adorable Luke that could warm readers hearts and to have Owen pass along some good wisdom about honor and integrity to Luke. I understand that to little kids things like pinky swears can seem an important way to bind someone to their word, but an adult like Owen understands that an honest person doesn't need to make those sort of excessive oaths and promises, because for an honest person, his or her word will be enough. And for the dishonest person no amount of oaths or promises will be able to really bind that person since they will always be looking for a way out of keeping their promise.

@amidalachick As always, thank you so much for your kind words!I'm so happy that you found this to be so sweet since I really just wanted to write something that was pure mush and fluff. Young Luke was an absolute pleasure to write, and I enjoyed writing Owen as well, so I'm so glad that you felt I did a fantastic job of writing him. I really wanted to showcase some of the affection he had for Luke under his gruff, stern exterior, and how him being an honest, straightforward sort of person did have a shaping impact on Luke. As you say, he is gruff and practical, but under that, he loves his family deeply and will find a way to be steadily there when Luke needs him. And you highlighted some of my favorite lines so that makes me so proud. Thank you again for your kind comment!

@mayo_durron_666 Thank you so much for commenting! I'm so glad that you found this super sweet since it was a special treat for me to be able to write a piece of pure mush like this. It was nice to be able to show Owen and Beru parenting young Luke, and it makes me so happy that you found Luke making his uncle pinky swear so adorable since that was exactly what I was going for. I like to imagine that one of Owen's virtues is that he is an honest and straightforward man, so I really wanted to show him passing along a message of honesty and integrity to Luke just by staying with Luke as he slept just as he promised. What a wonderful way to teach the value of a promise kept! So it makes me super pleased that you felt this was so well-crafted.

@AzureAngel2 As always, thank you so much for commenting!I'm so flattered that you think I always get fan beloved characters and their way of dealing with each other honestly right because I always want to do these characters and their stories justice, so there could be no higher compliment than that. I like to think that we fanfic writers are an important part of keeping Star Wars alive with the love and soul we put into our writings, and of course all the readers of fanfic are also to be thanked for helping keep Star Wars alive