(( A/N: Just a little something that came to mind when I was watching ANH a while ago and trying to make sense of Anakin's notorious "sand" line from AotC. Originally posted on AO3 just a few days ago. First fic, hope you enjoy. ))
"Princess Leia, before your execution, I'd like you to join me for a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the emperor now."
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a boy born a slave. He lived with his mother, and though his master was sometimes fair, the boy was born into a life of fear knowing that he and the one person who loved and cared for him were at the mercy of a kill switch installed in their brains. This fear awoke him at night - sometimes he would see his mother, her eyes glassy as she lay still and dead in the sand before him. He lived in fear of chip killing her, his only source of unconditional love. And so, this wild-hearted boy worked dutifully for his master on a lonely, backwater planet, far from the reach of a Republic that was run by diplomatic and compassionate men. A planet covered by sand.
The boy was gifted with mechanics - a tinkerer. His skills were useful in a place where droids were ravaged by the planet's constant sifting and whipping of dust and sand. He could gut a protocol droid of its core components and find sand - mostly sand, the silica messing the the electricals, from just five minutes in a Tatooine sandstorm. It gets everywhere, he thinks. His mother grows worried as her son's soft hands grew coarse and rough, even bleeding from his duties, his tinkering. But the boy's master saw his good work, and soon, by the boy's value, his mother was spared her work and permitted to stay at home.
The boy found a love for racing - a dangerous sport, made possible by his gifts in the force. In his pod, he imagines he could outrun anything: his chip, his master, the sand. He would be fast enough that he could take his mother and leave the rest of them all behind in a cloud of dust. And, one day, he did. But his mother, his new master said, would have to stay.
Stay, said his master, the man who had won him in his own race. Far on the green planet below, the boy knew but did not understand that a girl was fighting a war against the oppression of her people. A girl with smooth hands and a soft voice, a girl who he had foolishly mistaken for first an Angel and secondly a handmaiden. But all the evils in the verse take the shape of an encroaching storm, and the boy knows he must outrun it. He outruns the fighters. He outruns the explosion. He saves her planet.
His master is dead. The boy is passed again, given to the charge of a purposeful young man, whose patient demeanor wears with familiarity as the boy grows older. As he becomes a man, the bond between himself and his master hardens to the bond of mentorship. He is his friend - his brother. And yet, his master his often critical, coarse, oblivious to the boy's perceptions that his master's council is always watching him. He can never be good enough. It grates him, knowing this.
The girl he knew is a woman now - and still under attack. He must keep her close, so they can both outrun the storm. The more he talks to her, the more confused he becomes. For the first time since he can remember, he is listened to - with rapport, but without judgement. Where the council watches his words with ready-made assumptions, she listens as though she hasn't quite figured him out yet. And god, her questions! He stumbles over his words, trying terribly to impress her, terrified that she cares about what comes out of his mouth. I don't like sand, he says, trying to make her understand. His hands, the components, his planet. The storm chasing him, chasing all of them. His visions of his mother dying. His being passed from master to master, being held under constant scrutiny by those he holds as idols. She is trying to understand. It's coarse and rough and irritating… and it gets everywhere.
He's seldom had a conversation that didn't end in someone telling him to be more mindful. Instead, their love is a continual interrogation, question after question, and so many without answers. But he must set an example as a Jedi; he must show that he's following the rules. But he cannot help himself. Deep inside, he understands that he is outrunning a different type of storm. And yet, in some small grain of his mind, he knows that there must be something wrong with his order if it forbids this kind of feeling. He is split between the life he has sworn himself to, the condition that led to this brand of freedom. And so, he suffers.
On a dead planet, the boy's mother is dying. He dreams of it. The girl understands that while his duty is to protect her, the boy must go to his mother. She vows to come with him. Just once, he has both her and his mother in his reach. But his planet is unforgiving. Through the years, and without him, his mother had found her own small brand of freedom. But at what cost? And why hadn't he come back for her sooner?
Deep in the desert, he tracks them down. The coarse bindings cut into her wrists, making them bleed. He had never seen her bleed. He holds his mother in his arms one last time as she slips through his fingers.
In the kind of haste and desperation that only love can kindle, the boy and girl say their vows. Their love is squirreled away, blind-steering the lives of two people trying to save the galaxy in completely different ways. He is a soldier, she is a senator. Their love burns short but bright, when they can let it shine. The storm is still coming.
His council continues to scrutinize, to give and take. After so many years of being passed from from one hand to the next, they deny him his chance to be his own master. But nothing matters more now than keeping them safe - the ones he loves. Join me, he begs them. Stay. But the tighter he holds, the faster they slip away. When he sees his own wild fear reflected in his wife's eyes, he knows he has lost her. Finally, he understands: there are none in the universe so foolish, so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe that they are free.
Years later, a young woman stands before him; he restrains her by the shoulders. The more you tighten your grip, she says, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. Just for a moment, he imagines them - stars, scattered all across the galaxy - in the palm of his own hand. They turn as dusty and dull as a handful of sand. He sees the crimson splash of Mustafar, and that which he loves just in his reach.
It all slips through his fingers.