Chapter Text
Shmi Skywalker walks through Mos Espa with an envelope in hand and no more chip to hold her back. A wedding invitation, it proclaims, for it was under the guise of a marriage that she was sold and freed, as if Cliegg Lars would have a future daughter-in-law by the name of 'Whitesun' and not know better.
Shmi is no engineering prodigy like her son, but she did teach him everything she knew to protect him. She leaves the envelope at a familiar doorstep and stands back around the corner, remote hidden in her pocket, waiting for it to be picked up. When everything blows over, she doesn't look back.
The Republic doesn't exist on Tatooine. The Hutts only care for their own tribute and trade. The Desert shows no mercy. A slavemaster, even if one who no longer holds the transmitter detonator to any sapient, will not be missed by anyone.
Letter by letter, Shmi writes to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Letter by letter, stamped "return to sender", unopened.
Disappointed she may be, but Shmi can't say that she's entirely surprised. She had always known that there could be one day she would be separated from her son, likely to never see him again though her heart tells her otherwise. That is but the nature of slavery.
She had always known that the Republic didn't live up to what it preached, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing to experience it in person.
But still, she waits.