(this could have happened if Vader was less deep into damage control and the jammed-out Palace, and had taken the time to react to the capture of the fleeing Hand in person)

The bounty hunter ignored the accusation like he ignored all the glares and sneers aimed his way. The tilt of the battered helmet was for one person and one person alone.

For Luke, however, there was something about the scene that took him nearly ten years back in time.

Old Man Windrunner had had a nek, a scarred, fearsome creature, barely obedient and certainly not one for petting.

Windrunner took it hunting occasionally, but otherwise it had a tendency to roam the countryside surrounding the remote farm on its own, disappearing for days or even weeks at a time, and returning only for the water trough or to fill its belly from the feeding dish set out for it.

People said that it was the food it was really attached to, and that if one day it would find the dish empty, it would probably turn on its master.

Until the night when a band of Sandpeople had tried to raid the isolated moisture farm, and the nek had torn into the intruders with a ferocity that had made that raid the last Luke had heard of[1].

He had been about twelve then, old enough to grab a gun and keep the farm safe with his aunt while Uncle Owen went out to organize help for the Windrunners, old enough to accompany Aunt Beru when she went to deal with the aftermath of the attack.

The way Fett and Vader interacted, reminded the young Jedi of that gruff old farmer putting his hand on the leathery, still bloodied shoulder afterwards, and how the nek had leaned, very briefly, into the touch before stalking away with a growl.

Perhaps you didn't have to be nice about loyalty.

[1] Apparently, it had rekindled tales about a vengeful spirit guarding the outlying moisture farms, tales horrific enough that they had kept the farms safe for more than a decade around Luke's birth.