#fia exists here too for my own indulgence

[birds-n-knives]

Inkheart fusion AU

If you've been unlucky enough then you've probably heard of this before. Inkheart fusion AU was originally created in 2018 as a means for me to dive into the 'two minds learning to go by as one' idea and the psychological aspects of it but with Inkheart characters because I was so fixated on this trilogy. As of 2023 I officially renovated it lol!! It's no longer linked to Steven Universe and they're all just people now but with a little twist to it. Everyone is about established in this AU, but I'm going to get started with some useless trivia about these guys first

Basta and Dustfinger

- ADHD creature.

- Surprisingly not hotheaded at all.

- Dustfinger's deceitful nature and Basta's loyalty to Capricorn contradict each other, wailing on him mentally and rendering him unable keep himself together in the long run or form an ideology of his own.

- So in a way he's a living example of "expectation vs reality", having picked up Dustfinger's fire powers and Basta's skill in weapons, as well as Dusty's inability to wield them and Basta's fear of fire, making him inept at both. He seemed great in concept and Capricorn was greatly disappointed with came of him.

- Even Dustfinger himself finds him very freaky because of two sets of arms.

- He has a great sense of sight though. Peripheral vision? What's that?

- All in all he's basically Dustfinger but with more backbone. Literally and figuratively.

Basta and Cockerell

- Often had one of them vying for control at the beginning. Over time this became less apparent the longer he existed.

- Picked up the worst from both. Combine Cockerell's propensity toward violence and Basta's impulsive anger and you have him.

- He dislikes being referred to by either of their names.

- Doesn't care for them old wives' tales but still sports a good-luck charm around his neck to put a little voice in his head at ease.

- Unlike with Dustfinger and Basta, he has poorer eyes and a sucky depth perception due to his inability to move each pair of eyes in unison.

- Probably hit his head on multiple doorframes.

- Can be an imposing individual.

- His penchant at proving himself as pragmatic to Capricorn toned down Basta's fear of fire.

- Most of his clothes are either hand made by maids or passed on to him from Flatnose.

[threadsketchier]

Hi Everyone I’m Fuckin’ Stressed So Here’s a Fic

My mind’s been in a pretty dark place the past couple of days because of some really unexpected and unwelcome personal shit, so I just banged this out and I’m releasing it into the wild for whoever to enjoy or maybe even add to/keep going, because I wouldn’t know where else to go with it past this point and I just keysmashed this much out purely for catharsis.  Or not.  It can just be this.

Credit to MythicMittens for the original premise and credit to @fialleril for Amatakka and Tatooine slave culture in general.  (Fia, if you hate time-travel, I apologize profusely in advance and you’re free to ignore, but if this isn’t a squick, consider this an encouragement fic in return for all your indulgent snippets?)  And I had to do this scene twice from both POVs because I just...couldn’t not.

(Also: Cliegg is not in this for Reasons.  *handwave*)

Yes, I stalker-trawled your #amatakka tag and took literal notes.  I’m pretty sure I used at least one word/phrase wrong, but I couldn’t find a mention for it, so I improvised.

“Father.”

Their time has run out; his own yearning can’t keep him here, but he can’t bear to let go yet.

“I won’t leave you,” Luke pleads, his voice breaking, leaning forward as his father sags back against the boarding ramp.  But Anakin is gone, his last free breath rattling from his lips.  Bereft, tears flooding his vision, Luke lets his prosthetic hand caress the armor shielding his father’s heart and bows his head under the weight of his grief.

Thunder cracks behind him, and Luke flinches and looks back to see a white-hot wall of flame rushing toward them, a searing pressure wave knocking him flat against his father’s body.  On instinct he clutches Anakin tightly – there is nothing else left to do in this last split second of life before the Death Star’s destruction takes him.

Takes him to death, to the Force, to –

Cold, hard-packed sand greets him, grinding into his cheek, and Luke splutters grains from his mouth.  His eyes fly open to see a vivid desert pre-dawn, deep violet and crimson still blanketing the sky with only the hint of a sun’s golden glow kissing the horizon, and his father is nowhere in sight.  His ears are still ringing from the explosion and its heat tingles across his skin, but…he isn’t dead.  He can’t be.  This feels too tangible, too anchored by the sense of his own body in all its discomfort and disorientation.  The dry air is sharply clean, scoured of any distinct life, but he recognizes it nonetheless as he lies there breathing raggedly.

Perhaps death has a strange sense of humor, sending him back to this place where it all began.  This is home, it insists, whether he wants to regard it as such or not.

Groaning, Luke struggles to sit up, then freezes halfway when he hears the soft crunch of footsteps approaching.  He whips his head around to glance behind him – regretting it immediately – and sees a woman hastening toward him, her figure shrouded in a shawl and poncho over layered skirts worn against the dawn’s chill, all aged homespun.  She’d left a basket on the ground near a vaporator about a dozen meters away; she must have been out gathering the mushrooms before the day’s heat shrivels them.

He has to fight a dual wave of dizziness and nausea from his movement, and his eyes are shut when her hands grip his shoulders.  When he forces them open again, he’s staring up into a kindly and gracefully weathered face with warm brown eyes, a few dark strands of hair escaping from the shawl wrapped over her head.

“Traveler, I didn’t hear you make a sound before I spotted you,” she remarks with gentle wryness, her expression concerned and bemused.  “Are you hurt?”

“I’m…”  His voice sounds irrational to his own ears, as if it should no longer exist.  I’m a dead man, he thinks.  But Ben has continued to speak to him, hasn’t he?

She doesn’t even wait for his answer, reaching into the folds of her skirts to pluck out a canteen and offer it to him.  Basic aid and hospitality on Tatooine – if anyone passes by or seems remotely in need, water is always offered and almost always needed, and he’s certainly not going to refuse.  He takes several long draughts to slake his thirst, but doesn’t drain it; unless one is dying, it would be callous to do so.  Before he can hand the canteen back, though, she unwinds the shawl from her head and shoulders and wraps it around him.

He does hurt – he’s exhausted and shaky and fiercely sore from both the Emperor’s attack and the strenuous effort of half-carrying his father through the Death Star’s corridors.  But that’s not important right now.  “I don’t know why I’m here,” Luke blurts out quietly.

The woman scrutinizes him intensely, but he has no urge to shrink under her gaze; on the contrary, he feels a great sense of safety in her presence, and familiarity, despite never having seen her before.  “Do you remember your name?” she asks with a softly cautious and nurturing solemnity.

Something makes him hesitate for a moment – perhaps the sheer inexplicability of this situation – but he can’t find a reason to distrust her within himself.  “Luke.”

A spark alights in her eyes, and they flicker over him as if appraising him anew, and she smiles, the joy in her countenance as bright as the sunsrise.  “Hello, Lukka.”

He startles slightly.  She knows the tongue.  Suddenly he realizes what she must have been thinking about him, and how that view shifted with the addition of his name.  “Te nimku masa?” he asks in return.  The desire to know her name has become an urgent need he can’t fathom.

“Ek masa nu Shmi Ekkreth ku.”

His heart starts to pound.  Shmi Skywalker.  His father’s mother.  Nothing more than a missing grave marker and fond but wistful memories from his aunt and uncle, now somehow kneeling in the sand next to him, very much alive.  These vaporators must be the edge of his family homestead.  He is home, far before he was ever around to call it such.

Whether this is a dream or a vision born from the Force in the last moments of his living mind, stretched beyond the temporal limits of his body, or something far more profound – has he actually been sent to the past? – he can’t stop himself from breathing reverently, “Grandmother,” and leaning forward to throw his arms around her.

Even though he is a stranger, her arms encircle him and hold him firmly, accepting him without condition, and Luke finds himself unable to hold back the tears that his father’s death have already loosened.  He cries into her shoulder, deep and taut sobs that make his chest ache and leave him gasping.  Her hand strokes the back of his head and she rocks him gently as she lets him weep, and Luke knows now why he felt as though he belonged with her, much as he had with Leia.

Once the tide of his emotions washes back out and he sits limp in her grasp, they part slightly and he can see her own eyes glistening. Slowly she rises while still supporting him, gripping his hand, and says, “Come, Lukka.  Let me take you home.  We’ll speak more there, if you wish.”

So Luke pushes to his feet and lets her lead him back to the farm not yet touched by fire and loss.

They’re dressed in the color of night.  The color of freedom.

How odd, Shmi thinks, for a Jedi.  Her eyes catch the dull gleam of dawn’s light off the silver cylinder hooked to their belt, and she remembers when a Jedi first and last passed through her life, leaving it untouched save for the freeing of her son.  But she puts away the fleeting bitter thought; whoever this person is, they’re in some sort of need – one doesn’t wind up sprawled face-down on the cold night sands on the outskirts of a moisture farm for idle pleasure.  Perhaps they’ve been fleeing through the darkness seeking shelter, although it’s strange that she never heard them approach in the utter silence, as if they simply appeared out of thin air.

When they stir, trying to sit up with a drunken lurch, her breath seizes a little at the sight of their features.  Even in the dim early morning light she can see a tousle of dark blond hair, a dimpled chin, and a flash of blue eyes before they snap shut, and her heart quickens as she tries to reconcile the precious memories of her son’s face.  Could this be her Ani?  Enough time has passed for them to be grown. Have they finally come back to her, and were they accosted along the way?

But when she kneels by them and holds them steady, that sense deep within her that she has never been able to name but knows as surely as her own soul can tell that this isn’t Ani.  Something about them still rings true, though, like a distant echo of her voice off the canyons.  They’re young, but with a face that’s already aged well beyond their years.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” they say, looking terribly lost.  It’s possible they’re not even a Jedi, but rather employed a ruse.  Playing the trickster.  But calamity befell and someone else may have dumped them at the perimeter of the farm, hoping another would take responsibility for them while they washed their hands of the matter and took off.  Between slavers and pirates, anything could have happened.

Terror can be as effective at damaging memory as a brain injury.  “Do you remember your name?”  Do you remember who you are, child?

“Luke.”

It could be a coincidence.  It could be only an offworlder’s name, and the black garb meaningless.  But she’s not inclined to believe in pure chance.  A free one, clad in the cover and relief of night.  Shmi lets a smile split her face and greets them.  “Hello, Lukka.”

Their eyes flare with recognition.  She was right – Amavikka, a child of the Mother, whether freeborn or escaped.  When they call her Grandmother, their fervent whisper sets off a hum in her bones that runs deeper than any connection she might have with them through the honorific – she doesn’t recall anyone with this face during her time in Mos Espa, but they might have learned of her from the quarters after she was freed.  Behind every story was a person.

They seek comfort and solace in her arms, and she offers it without reservation.  They still remind her so much of Ani that it hurts, and she hopes that wherever her son is out there among the stars, that they can feel her unceasing love and faith for them.

Lukka will need a place to rest and recover, and Shmi knows that Owen and Beru will be more than glad to open their household.  Beru will probably have her tzai ready by the time they make it back.  “Come, Lukka.  Let me take you home.  We’ll speak more there, if you wish.”  She’ll understand if they won’t, but a small part of her is eager to hear their tale if they’re willing to share it.

Lukka keeps hold of her hand as they walk, and they haven’t gone ten steps before they murmur, “Ek masa nu Lukka Ekkreth ka.”

She stops in her tracks and looks aside at him, and he’s gazing back at her with a mixture of wonder and courage, and Ar-Amu’s song is singing high and clear in her blood.