Chapter Text
Behind a plated mask and a red-tinted visor sat a mind. But no amount of durasteel could reach that far and thus memories, which were always unwelcome intruders, could not be thwarted.
The intruders had been close confidantes, once, and they knew everything. They knew how to get past locked doors. They knew which alleys were unguarded.
Without the intruders the fortress would be nothing and the memories knew this and thus they did everything.
However, the intruders are only intruders if the fortress has made an enemy of the past
because the past is their mother.
Always they fight in her stead, for she cannot fight for herself. She is tethered to the land of before. The intruders sustain no such shackles.
But if they do not fight for her she will die to barbarians, tortured and gagged, forgotten.
Somewhere. sand rose, disobeying gravity as it spilled into the upper compartment of its enclosure. Its hourglass grew larger, and the sand rose faster. It escaped out of the top.
The sands worked to protect their mother. The intruders were not gentle and they worked their way into everything.
They slipped under the mask and the visor and the walls and the compartmentalizations.
And the irritating intruders succeeded
Their job was complete and the past lived.
And a forgotten day was remembered.
----
Watto had been in his office all day, rubbing his head and muttering incoherent diatribes about tariffs and counterfeit ventilators and a number of other banalities that come with running a business.
Anakin needed a voltage regulator. He chewed his lip. Watto wouldn’t know he had been gone.
Watto lost a lot of money last night, too. There was no way he wasn’t hungover.
Mom might notice, but she had gone to pick something up…memory drives maybe?
Plus, as long as she didn’t find out it was for his pod and not 3P0 he’d be fine.
Anakin dashed out of the shop. The Jawas were coming today. Probably.
He squinted in the sunlight. It was hot today, even for Tatooine.
-----
There is no rule that states that metaphors must follow the laws of thermodynamics, but the sand obliged eventually. It began to fall.
The sand danced.
It appeared as if the sand longed to get away from the neck of the glass. Or perhaps all of the sand wanted to be in the neck of the glass.
Eventually it chose a direction: down. Thousands of grains of sand ached to reach the bottom.
The grains of sand grew larger.
A dusty boy fell through the neck of the glass and landed in a pile of his own past.
The sand knew him because it was him.
This little boy was the worst intruder of them all.
The little boy was talkative, he took any opportunity to recount his painfully silly machinations. Kitster was usually his partner in crime.
The little boy giggled and recited the directions for making pasta noodle jewelry and talked about his mother frequently.
He aggravated the fortress to no end.
The credulous nine year old was there, in the hourglass because he was dead. He died a long time ago.
But now, the little boy was different.
Because he was more than a memory now.
The sand began to escape from the bottom of the hourglass. The dead boy followed, wide-eyed.
Somewhere, an identically scruffy slave boy was living and breathing.
He was sneaking away, too. Exactly like his dead counterpart had done that day.
They needed to find the Jawas.
After the living boy found the Jawas, however, the ghost boy would be unique once more.
After the living boy found the Jawas, his life would be forever different.
The dead boy would be one of the few surviving relics of a remodeled past.
And now Anakin Skywalker would embark on his second future and leave behind his second past.
He had no idea.
----------
The heat was sweltering.
Evidence was everywhere: cloth was strung desperately in the streets and residents flocked to the artificial shade. Bars and basements were packed. On the horizon, shimmering heat waves flared. So did tempers.
Anakin darted under awnings and through shaded alleys.
He wiped his hair out of his eyes. They burned a little from the salt.
Then, a tiny nudge. Anakin stopped walking. Had someone poked him? It kinda felt like someone had poked him. But that didn’t make sense. He didn’t feel like he had been poked anywhere physically…more like someone had poked his brain.
Plus, there weren’t many people around. Kitster would be working…and he didn’t live anywhere near here.
But...you can’t poke a brain . That’s silly. And kinda gross.
Eventually Anakin chalked it up to the heat. Tatooine’s favorite scapegoat.
Convicted of a crime? Psssh, It was too hot for critical thinking!
Lost a bet on a pod race? Well it wasn’t the pilot’s fault, it was too hot to see!
Caught cheating? Why that wasn’t cheating , it was just two people trying to stay cool under the shade of a motel blanket.
On Tatooine there were a lot of friends who liked to stay cool under the shade of a motel blanket.
Anakin trudged along, a little apprehensive.
The shaded portions of his escapade were becoming less and less frequent.
He watched his shadow grow taller as he headed to the outskirts of town. For a moment, as he walked down an older street, his shadow looked like it had changed shape. It almost looked like he was wearing a…hat? And maybe…a cape? He rubbed his eyes and his shadow went back to being a stretched out 9-year-old boy.
Then, a little pull. It was comforting, but at the same time it was very, very, strange.
Anakin got the impression of something being lifted. It wasn’t heavy but it required a lot of concentration.
There was something about the feeling that felt so easy, and yet so ruthlessly powerful.
It was the same instinctual feeling that had guided him through pod-races and sandstorms. The same feeling that told him when someone was lying, the feeling that told him what other people didn’t want him to know.
He spotted the rusted sandcrawler as it made its way into the shallow basin that housed Mos Espa.
Anakin felt like he was watching the brain of something that was watching the brain of something else. Or maybe it was the heat.
The vehicle stopped and he approached it.
Suddenly the feeling was directed at him. It seemed to realize it was being watched and it was immensely curious. He felt like he was being shuffled through like a deck of cards.
Then something even stranger happened. Anakin got the impression that it recognized him, and it jerked away so fast that Anakin nearly fell over. Briefly, the presence lost its easy demeanor and Anakin felt unexplainable flashes of guilt, anger, and…pain?
“No! No!”
“Come back!” He pleaded, even though he didn’t really know how to communicate in the first place.
Somehow he knew the presence wasn’t gone, just actively ignoring him.
He paused for a moment to consider how weird what had just happened was.
Was he going crazy? He didn’t feel crazy. But do crazy people feel crazy? Don't crazy people think they’re normal…?
The ramp of the sandcrawler began its slow descent and a few Jawas hopped out. Some of the Jawas dragged their goods towards the nearest junk shop. Two approached him with boxes of spare parts in hand. One stayed behind. It appeared to be fiddling with the controls to the ramp.
Anakin nodded to the Jawas, who babbled to each other eagerly. He understood some of what they were saying, and they seemed really confused. About what, he wasn't sure.
Anakin sifted through the boxes absentmindedly; he couldn't stop thinking about…whatever had just happened. The Jawas seemed about half as interested in the sale as he was, which was arguably even stranger.
The Jawa at the ramp grew more exasperated. It had moved on from whacking the ramp control-pad to anything in the near vicinity. Anakin watched it, a little amused.
Then the Jawa shrieked. It was looking into the belly of the vehicle, but Anakin was at an angle that prevented him from spotting the source of the alarm.
He heard several heavy metallic thuds and the ramp Jawa backed away. The Jawas beside him fidgeted, but didn’t move any closer to the sandcrawler.
The thuds grew louder. Were they...footsteps?
The shape of a figure began to appear.
Anakin held up his hand and squinted against the suns.
He gasped.
A monstrous, angular thing emerged from the vehicle.
It was about the size of a human, or maybe a little bigger. It had a skull-like mask and it was completely black. It was missing an arm. The mask turned towards him sharply.
The creature stared into his soul.
Instantly, Anakin understood that this was what he had felt earlier. This…being was who he had watched. He wished it would stop watching him .
It marched towards him. Anakin watched its gait. It stepped unevenly, as thought it was limping a little, but it was trying to hide it.
He thought about running, but he felt like he was under some sort of immobilizing spell. It stopped about 15 feet away from him.
They stared at each other.
HSSSSHH
HUUUU
Anakin flinched. Was it…breathing?
It extended its remaining hand. It was holding something small and green.
What happened next seemed so insane Anakin wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it: the tiny object left the upturned glove of the creature and floated towards him. He plucked it out of the air and his jaw dropped.
HSSSSHH
HUUUU
The regulated breaths unnerved Anakin further.
Finally he managed to say something.
“What…how did you…”
“How did you know?”
Anakin peered at the voltage regulator he had been gifted. It was the best one he’d ever seen come out of a sandcrawler.
It was exactly what he’d come for.
The being did not answer.
Anakin fished in his pocket for the money he’d brought for the Jawas.
“No.”
Anakin flinched. The voice resonated deeply. It was very compelling.
The being (man?) ripped something off of his chest and sent it hurling towards a Jawa. He hadn’t thrown it, rather, it had floated in the same way the voltage regulator had a moment ago.
“Mercy will be more than enough.”
The being swiveled and faced the vehicle it had emerged from. It stretched a hand out slightly.
The desert was still.
And then it wasn’t.
With a modest upturn of sand and dust, all of the Jawas were dragged by some unseen force back into the rusty abode from whence they came. They shrieked and babbled their protests and kicked their tiny legs but to no avail.
There was no gentleness exhibited by the forces carrying the Jawas. They were handled like overlarge ragdolls, and yet Anakin thought he sensed restraint. The Jawas’ fates could have been much worse.
The ramp slammed shut much faster than it was built to.
Anakin’s jaw was nearly on the ground by now. The Jawas’ little trip had deposited a bit of dust and sand into his mouth and he coughed.
The strange being wasn’t done. It stretched out its fingers and curled them a little, and suddenly the sandcrawler was hovering a few inches off the ground. It began to rotate and didn’t stop until it faced the exit to the Mos Espa basin.
The message was pretty clear: fuck around and find out.
The being seemed so confident, so assured that it could bend the rules of space and time to its will, Anakin was beginning to believe it was some sort of god. Normally he didn’t believe in that sort of thing…but normally he didn’t believe in telepathy either.
The sandcrawler sputtered to life and hastily climbed out of the basin. Anakin watched it leave.
For some strange reason the Jawas were granted mercy.
Anakin wondered if it had anything to do with him.
He stared up at the being as it turned back to face him. He noticed a decent gash on the beings side. It was bleeding. There was a bit of skin visible on the edges of the incision. Anakin looked away quickly, not sure what the consequences were for staring.
“Um.”
Anakin cleared his throat, unsure if making more conversation was the correct thing to do under the circumstances.
He listened to the mechanical inhale and exhale of the figure and let it cycle twice before he said anything else.
“Your arm…are you …ok?”
The being nodded.
Anakin didn’t know what to say, but it was not due to a lack of things to say. Rather, he had so many questions he was having a difficult time deciding what was most pertinent.
"Who are you? What’s your name? Why did you do that? How did you do that? Why are you on Tatooine? Why do you breathe like that? Are you a human? Do you need a doctor? Why do you have a suit? Can you pee in that suit? Why are there wires at your messed up arm? Did you lose a prosthetic? How old are you? Can you take your mask off? Why do you have one in the first place? How come you escaped here when you could have done it anywhere else? How come you..."
The feeling was returning. Anakin got the impression that the being was reading his mind. It went over the questions, but elected to answer none of them. He pouted a little.
He tried to mind-read back at his masked acquaintance but to no avail.
He crossed his arms and waited for the giant to say something. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere and he wasn’t either, at least not until he got some answers.
“Where is your mother?”
The question knocked him off his guard and he was so stupefied (and compelled by that booming voice) that he blurted out hyper-specific directions to the street that she was delivering to.
Anakin startled. He’d been planning to bargain with the other man, trade a question for a question, answer for an answer. Why had he done that?
He kicked himself internally. What if the weird being wanted to kill her? He had just volunteered waaaay too much information. And why did this guy want to know about his mother anyway?
Ugh. The being was listening to his thoughts again. He could feel it. This was getting a bit annoying.
“Go away!”, he thought at the being. It stared at him. He stared back.
They stood there, taking each other in for what felt like a very long time. It was, in actuality, not that long at all, but humans are historically very bad at estimating time.
Anakin wiped his forehead again. Why did it have to be so hot?
The durasteel deity breathed at him.
It shuffled through his brain again. He didn’t like how unprotected he felt. He wanted the giant out . The giant seemed to approve of this opinion, which was pretty strange. Why would it be happy that Anakin wanted him out of his head?
Finally it appeared to have decided on whatever it had been pondering. Obviously it had no intention of telling Anakin anything. He glared at it and did his best to look intimidating.
The creature turned towards the city and that was when he saw it.
A silvery cylinder flashed briefly in the light of the suns. It dangled from the creature's hip.
Anakin startled. He could hardly believe it.
The being wasn’t some sort of god. It wasn’t some injured bounty hunter.
Behind the armor and the cape and the mask…
Stood a Jedi.
-----
There were no Jedi on Eriadu. This was not because of a lack of Force-sensitives; no, Obi-Wan was just fine. He just didn’t feel like a Jedi.
He tapped his old lightsaber in the pockets of his clothing, tentative. Here he was, with the knowledge of a Jedi and the weapon of a Jedi and another chance, and he was hiding. He would like to blame it on his current Force-less predicament, but he knew that wasn’t the truth.
He was scared, if he was being completely honest. He didn’t know how he was supposed to prevent the entire Galaxy from going to war. He was just one man!
How would he know how t-
“OUCH!”
Obi-Wan rubbed the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t been paying attention and K-80 had stopped. She turned around to look at him. He glared at her.
If she had been able to, she would have rolled her eyes.
“I stopped, sir.”
“Yes, I’m well aware, K-80. Thank you.”
“Now I’m going to keep walking. Do you think you can handle that, sir?”
Obi-Wan emitted a noncommittal grunt. He glared at the back of her shiny head.
He had instructed her to look for a place to eat. He couldn’t read the Eriaduian alphabet and was relegated to being K-80’s dusty, unhelpful sidekick.
He didn’t know how he was supposed to pay for the food or the valet parking. He considered selling K-80, but she was extremely useful. And he was starting to like her, no matter how snarky she turned out to be.
Did he have anything on him he could sell? He checked the pockets of his robe again. There was a little sand and some lint, but not much else. Then, slowly, a memory trickled back to him. Obi-Wan began to recall a trick that Anakin had pulled a long time ago.
They were in the outer rim and they were out of money. There was some local, unstable currency put in place by some resident merchants. It was blood money, though. The merchants sold weapons and drugs and organs and people. The Republic had done nothing and Republic credits were worth nothing.
He remembered how Anakin grinned at the thought of payback. Resistance, no matter how small, is still resistance.
Anakin dashed into the shop and emerged looking dashing. Obi-Wan remembered the effect the clothes and the attitude had on the residents. If he could summon enough confidence…it would work.
“K-80, I’ve changed my mind. I think I’d like to go clothes shopping instead.”
She turned and looked him up and down.
“Yes, that will be good for you.”
He huffed. She had meant to insult him, but in a way, it was true.
Even on Eriadu, where the roughed-up look was definitely in , Obi-Wan stuck out. To the untrained eye he would have appeared to blend in, but alas Eriaduian fashion is extremely niche.
That was why he needed the nearest boutique.
A sturdy-looking man with a long beard stared at him as he passed. Obi-Wan nodded and looked away.
He waited a moment and looked back. The man was gone. If he had–
--“OUCH!!”
Obi-Wan whacked into K-80 again. He pinched the bridge of his nose gingerly. He was beginning to think she was being sporadically locomotive on purpose.
“You walked into me again, sir. ”
How she was able to convey so much vitriol with such limited audio amplifiers, Obi-Wan did not know. A memory of C-3P0’s nervous elegies floated back. He smirked. Where would he be without the passionate commentary of a protocol droid?
Probably not on Eriadu. Definitely not in front of a clothing store.
K-80 gestured at a building in front of him.
“6th Floor, sir.”
“Will you be joining me…?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“The sign says ‘ No Droids ’.”
“Ah.”
He nodded to her and walked towards the archway. He looked back.
“Don’t get droid-napped. I’ll be back shortly.”
He stepped into the building, which exuded a sense of lavish naturalism that Obi-Wan kind of liked. It smelled like trees.
He rode to the 6th floor. When the elevator opened, Obi-Wan was met with the sight of rows upon rows of highly similar short-jackets, ponchos, stiff pants, and thick-soled boots.
A few shoppers milled around. Obi-Wan puffed up his chest and walked to a rack.
He chose a short blue shirt and a dark poncho. He supposed he could keep his pants, but he chose two nearly-identical pairs of boots. One pair didn’t fit him, but this was intentional.
More shoppers were flowing in from a ramp that led to the next floor. He followed the ramp to the next floor and gazed around. This seemed to be the women's section. Most of the clothes were the same as the ones below, if a little slimmer. He would “pay” here.
He approached one of the payment modules that was in a language he could read. He added the clothing to the chute and the screen prompted him to choose an action. He read over the list and hit the button labeled “return”.
A new screen appeared, asking for the pin on his digital invoice. He typed a few numbers in. The screen gave him an error and prompted him to try again. He did so. He antagonized the machine until the screen went blank, save for a small message that instructed him to wait for an employee to assist him.
He didn’t have to wait long.
A teenage girl in a very similar outfit as the one he was “returning” approached him.
She looked him up and down confusedly.
“How can I help you?”
She had an outer rim accent, which considering he was in the outer rim, made sense. He wasn’t sure why he was expecting something else.
Regardless he pulled back his shoulders and tried to sound as pretentious as possible.
“Yes, well, I’m having a bit of difficulty, you see, because the module simply refuses to refund my transaction.”
The girl looked from the frozen screen back to the bearded customer.
“Did you enter your digital invoice pen?”
“No.”
“Why not, sir?”
“I forgot it.”
“I’m sorry sir, but without your DIP, you can’t be refunded.”
“What am I supposed to do with them then? I don’t want them!”
The girl shrugged. She didn’t get paid enough for this.
“That’s not my decision sir. All I can direct you to do is to remove your clothing from the chute. Good day.”
Obi-Wan feigned an indignant glower. In a false huff, he took the clothing, which had been folded in the chute in the meantime, and “stomped” out of the payment module area. He exited from the 7th floor so as to avoid being spotted by any of the employees on the 6th floor.
He strutted out of the building with a chest so inflated he could have been a member of the senate.
“You took an exceedingly long time in there, sir”
Obi-Wan stared at the impatient droid in front of him. She didn’t appear to have moved from the spot he last saw her. He rolled his eyes.
“I went droid shopping as well. They have some excellent new protocol droids. Very quiet.”
He grinned at her and she turned on her heel.
It was time for phase two.
Now that he had successfully acquired a free outfit, it was time to do something about a meal.
“K-80, can you navigate us towards a market? Or some sort of second-life store?”
She turned her head to him so slowly he could hear the servos ticking. They stood side by side at roughly the same height and Obi-Wan saw his reflection in her polish. He widened his eyes and nodded a little, as if to say “go on…”
She made a little “hmm” and turned her head back to the street. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. What idiot decided it was a good idea to make K-80 capable of the silent treatment?
With a vague hand gesture and a sound that was probably meant to be a scoff, she began in a new direction.
Obi-Wan stuck out his tongue at the back of her shiny bald head.
It was the little things.