Chapter Text
Not that much changed when Luke and Leia first presented.
They still played with the other kids. They still roamed the dunes. They still conspired to steal the family speeder and race through the canyons.
It was just that scents were more overwhelming, and Leia got angry faster, and Luke started crying more.
When they presented, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru sat them down and explained that their father was an Alpha. They had no idea what designation the twins’ mother was, but because their father, at least, had had a designation, the twins had inherited it.
Or rather, Leia had inherited it.
Luke was an Omega.
He had to wear perfume to cover his scent, but he still went to school with Leia. Their aunt and uncle said his designation wouldn’t be a problem until he got older, and he would have to either go on suppressants or drop out of school then. Leia just had to keep her temper in check. Uncle Owen gave her breathing exercises and told her not to get in fights.
Everything did change when they started using the Force.
It wasn’t anything dangerous! Luke and Leia could practically read each others’ thoughts anyway already; now they were just better at it, and didn’t have to talk out loud, which was handy when Luke got picked on at school and called Wormie when Leia wasn’t around. They didn’t even get caught until Leia floated him a hydrospanner when they were working on a vaporator out in the Wastes with Uncle Owen.
After a terse conversation he and his sister had been sternly told not to listen to, Aunt Beru took the speeder out somewhere. Uncle Owen set the two of them to helping with dinner and refused to say where Aunt Beru went.
In the kitchen, Leia put voice to Luke’s thoughts. “Are we in trouble?”
Uncle Owen sighed and put down the kitchen knife. Running his hand over his face, he turned to face them. “No,” he said, looking each in the eye in turn. “You’re not in trouble. But you could be in danger. That stuff you do, lifting things without touching them, sensing others’ emotions? That could get you killed.”
“By Jabba?” Luke asked. The slug was an ever-present threat hanging over their heads. More so since Luke presented.
“By the Empire. And anyone looking to cash in the bounty. It’s illegal to have those kinds of powers.”
“Why?” Leia demanded. “That’s stupid. We just have them. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You don’t need to ask why, you just need to keep your head down.” Uncle Owen was gruff. “Now start peeling protatoes.”
It wasn’t until hours later that Aunt Beru reappeared with Old Ben of all people. Luke and Leia looked up from the dishes they were washing in unison, and Uncle Owen sighed again.
“Beru back, then?”
“Yes,” Leia said. “And she brought Old Ben.” She wrinkled her nose. “I thought you hated him!”
“We don’t hate him, Leia, just…he’s dangerous.”
“Like us,” Luke realized, eyes widening.
Uncle Owen sighed again.
---------------------------
Luke laid against his aunt’s side. She gently traced his arm with one finger in a repetitive motion, attentive to Obi-Wan, who stood in front of the small family. Leia sat next to her uncle, sitting straight, hands on her lap, as if to demonstrate how closely she was listening. Owen looked at him shrewdly.
“Tell us again what you’re proposing,” Owen said.
Obi-Wan took a deep breath, centering himself. The twins looked at him curiously, clearly picking up the slight shift in the Force from him doing so. He gave them a small smile and began. “The twins have inherited several things from their parents. Their designations, of course, but the Force, as well. They are powerful—” He saw Luke and Leia puff up with pride and his heart ached. Anakin had been proud of himself, too, when he first came to the Temple and found out all he could do. “—but that can quickly become a danger if they aren’t careful. The law technically states that Jedi are outlawed, but I don’t think most Imperial authorities know the difference between a Jedi and an untrained Force-sensitive. I need to teach them how to shield.”
“I thought training them was too dangerous,” Beru said.
Obi-Wan bowed in acknowledgement. “That was when they were younger, and had not discovered the Force for themselves. Now they have. And together, they have a very loud presence. Plus, there is the danger you came to me for, the risk of them showing their powers in front of others accidentally.”
“Do we have to leave home?” Luke asked.
“That would be safest, I think. I brought you here so that distance could hide you from the Empire, but there is nothing here to hide you in the Force. There is a place called Dagobah that has enough creatures that can touch the Force that the two of you would be cloaked. The Sith would never find you there.”
“What’s a Sith?” Leia asked.
“What’s Dagobah like?” Owen asked at the same time.
“A Sith is one that uses the dark side of the Force, for greed and evil.”
“Like the Hutts!” Luke interjected.
“Quite so, young one. And may we all be glad that the Hutts do not contain any Force-sensitivity, or perhaps they might be Sith indeed.”
“And Dagobah?”
Obi-Wan turned to address Owen. “A swampy planet. Hot, like Tatooine, but with much more moisture, plants, and creatures. There is another Jedi master that lives there, Yoda, who will help me with the twins and help all of us in adjusting to the new planet.”
Luke and Leia’s eyes were wide at the mention of water and plants. Leia glanced quickly between her uncle and Obi-Wan, who could feel her excitement, and her unsurety that her uncle would let her and her brother go.
Owen harumphed. “And I suppose this Yoda has been there since the rise of the Empire?”
“Yes. As I have been here.”
“Will there be other children there?” Beru asked.
“Ah, no. I’m afraid Dagobah is even further from the Core than here, and quite uninhabited. But, we would only need to remain there until they have enough training to cloak themselves.”
Beru looked at each of the twins in turn. “What do you think, darlings? Would you be alright there with just Old Ben and this Yoda?”
“What’s Yoda like?” Luke asked, reaching up to hold his aunt’s hand without looking. She squeezed his back and held it.
Now Obi-Wan was able to smile for real. “He is quite short, of a long-lived species, and in the Temple he delighted in pulling pranks on the other masters with the children. He is one of the very best teachers, and has much experience.” Obi-Wan’s heart ached at the thought of Yoda cackling in the brightly-lit halls with a clump of younglings laughing around him. Truly, he had no idea what to expect on Dagobah. Yoda had a comm, for emergencies only, that Obi-Wan would have to contact him with on their way, but…it had been a long, difficult twelve years. Dagobah was very different from the Temple. Even with the two of them, they would not be able to provide the twins with the same education that a Jedi youngling should have. Nor the same community, the same safety.
“I think it would be alright,” Luke said. He sat up and leaned over to see his sister. “Lei?”
“If Luke’s going, I’m going,” Leia said decidedly. The twins grinned at each other. “We stick together, no matter what.” She turned back to Obi-Wan, and he saw a familiar glint in her eye, the same one that in Anakin spelled trouble. “Besides, I want to learn what the Force can do!”