In resigning ("postponing," Ackbar had insisted) his commission, Luke had been looking for two things: Jedi artifacts, and some perspective on what to do next.
Things he had not been looking for: time travel, yet another return to Tatooine, and a romance with a dead mentor.
Then again, they did tick off the first two items, in a way.
His X-wing (generously donated to the cause of Jedi rehabilitation) had gone off course while in hyperspace, a freak anomaly he could hardly attempt to explain while trying to right his course so that he and R2 didn't end up on the wrong end of a black hole. But after a significant effort and a really uncomfortable feeling of being pulled in every direction at once, Luke had crash-landed in a desert.
A soul-crushingly familiar desert.
The ship was, for the moment, inoperable, his leg was, while not broken, liable to become so if he moved too far on it, and R2's circuits had somehow reversed polarity to the point of some droid equivalent of catatonia. And then he'd realized where he was, and it all sort of figured, even if it didn't yet make any sense.
He was on kriffing Tatooine, stranded in the Jundland Wastes, years and light years from anywhere and anywhen he was meant to be.
[IDK how much you want to play or handwave, but I thought this would cover our bases?]
Hell in a handbasket
Things he had not been looking for: time travel, yet another return to Tatooine, and a romance with a dead mentor.
Then again, they did tick off the first two items, in a way.
His X-wing (generously donated to the cause of Jedi rehabilitation) had gone off course while in hyperspace, a freak anomaly he could hardly attempt to explain while trying to right his course so that he and R2 didn't end up on the wrong end of a black hole. But after a significant effort and a really uncomfortable feeling of being pulled in every direction at once, Luke had crash-landed in a desert.
A soul-crushingly familiar desert.
The ship was, for the moment, inoperable, his leg was, while not broken, liable to become so if he moved too far on it, and R2's circuits had somehow reversed polarity to the point of some droid equivalent of catatonia. And then he'd realized where he was, and it all sort of figured, even if it didn't yet make any sense.
He was on kriffing Tatooine, stranded in the Jundland Wastes, years and light years from anywhere and anywhen he was meant to be.
[IDK how much you want to play or handwave, but I thought this would cover our bases?]