Ten Years Ago…
"Luke!" Luke Skywalker jerked awake to the familiar sound of his aunt's gentle voice as she called his name. "It's time to get up, sweetheart."
Luke sighed as he pulled on the rough homespun farmer's garments that he usually wore. Today would be another boring day, with nothing to do but fix broken vaporators and listen to Uncle Owen's usual complaints about Luke being too much like his father. Luke didn't know why Owen hated his father, when he swore he was a good man. He shook his head. Perhaps later he could go see Maia.
Maia was an old woman, an Ancient, some 900 years old, despite being fully human. She had thick and somewhat messy white hair that tumble down her back in unruly curls giving her an unkempt look, thin bony hands, a wrinkled face, and cloudy white eyes, though she still seemed to see, sometimes even better than the Tatooinian desert hawk. When Luke was with Maia, his dreams of being a healer seemed so much closer, so much easier to touch.
She knew things, in a strange, intuitive way, much as Luke himself knew things. This sense of kindredness brought Luke to her door on more than one occasion.
"Luke! You'd better hurry if you want breakfast!" Luke sighed once more as he trudged out to the table.
After a quick breakfast he was off to the South field with Owen to fix a broken vaporator. And so the day continued, piece-by-piece the machine was put back together. They took a brief break during the hottest part of the day, but the minute it passed, they were out again.
Soon the twin suns began to slip beyond the horizon and Luke began his weary trudge home, falling slowly behind Owen as he struggled to keep up with Owen's long strides. A noise drew Luke attention to one of the vaporators. There, nestled in between the siding and a rock was a baby desert hawk, just old enough to begin flying. It's left wing bent at an odd angle and already it was beginning to dehydrate.
"Come here little guy, come on. Easy does it." Luke slowly wrapped his shirt around the small animal, gently picking it up and carrying it into the house.
Later on…
Luke sat cross-legged on the rough stone floor of his room, cradling the young hawk in his arms.
"Come on, little guy, come on. You need liquid in you, or you'll dehydrate even more and die." He said, dipping a small rag in the bowl of water his aunt had provided. "It wouldn't be very grateful of you to break my heart after I saved you." The logic of the nine-year-old was undeniably cute, his Aunt Beru thought, as she walked away from the closed door. If only Owen saw it to.
Luke wasn't getting very far with his work, and so he decided that he would have to go see Maia tomorrow. If anyone could save this little desert hawk, she could.