A/N: Master Mundi actually possibly sensed Anakin's presence on Tatooine before Qui-Gon but chose not to search it out but this is a what if he did? If I stuck to the correct dates then Anakin would have been around eight or seven when this fic takes place so for the benefit for me it happened six years earlier than canon. This is AU and I know facts will not match. I have not read any star-wars books but have only watched the movies and am working my way through the animated series. This chapter covers quite a few days but I will likely not continue at that pace in each chapter. Not to say Anakin will be a perfect little jedi, he is Anakin after all.
Sylvn and her friend Twin had been safely situated in his ship, oh how he preferred the simplicity of Cerea where technology amongst his generation was not preferrable. He felt relief flood him that his daughter was now safe from the gangsters that had taken his daughter Sylvn and her friend to Tattooine but now he was following the presence he felt. The pull he had felt as soon as he had landed was hard to ignore, but for a while he had considered ignoring it but another part of him had demanded he follow it.
He let the force guide him and he was not disappointed. He looked at the source of the pull and was surprised, it was a human child of no more than two life days. Small for his age but with a pulsing presence in the force that shone with the innocence of youth. This child would make a powerful jedi, he felt it then. He just had to find his parents and take a midichlorian count to present it as evidence to the council.
At two life days, the child was not too old to be trained for he himself had been four life days of age when the young Master Kuro had brought him to the council. He had trained under Master Yoda into a respected Jedi Knight. The child was toddling over to a woman and from her actions, embracing the child in her arms seemed to be his mother.
Ki-Adi-Mundi walked over and began to speak. "That child is a special child, madam," he paused. "He has the potential to be a jedi and with your agreement I would present him to the Jedi council as an initiate." The Cerean jedi finished as he looked at the woman. Her eyes lit up, he could sense the relief radiating from her, he almost frowned. Many mothers often were upset.
"My Ani has always been special, I had dared not to hope, Master Jedi please take him," the woman said pleadingly. "I'm a slave and once Ani is old enough they'll make him a slave too. I don't want him to live a life like this. " She looked at her son who she cradled in her arms. "There was never a father, I knew from the moment I realised I was expecting that he would be special. I love him more than anything, he is my light but his path is with the jedi, not with me." She murmured as she pressed her lips against his hair.
There was something about her words of no father that stirred in his mind but he could not recall it but he filed it away to ponder on. "You make a hard choice but I assure you that he will be taken to the jedi. I am Jedi Knight Ki-Adi-Mundi. I am regretful to rush your goodbye to your son but my time on Tatooine grows short." He said gently.
"My name is Shmi Skywalker, this is Anakin Skywalker." She answered smiling at him despite the moisture in her eyes. "I'll get him some spare clothes, if there anything he will need?" She asked her voice low.
"The Jedi will provide him with anything he needs, a change of clothes will do him on our journey to Coruscant." Ki-Adi-Mundi answered calmly. Shmi Skywalker was a good woman and Ki-Adi-Mundi hoped the force would be with her. He could feel how much she did not wish to give up her son but her hopes for his future overpowered her other feelings.
Shmi nodded and handed Anakin to the jedi. The young child was looking at the Cerean jedi curiously, his appearance being one he had never seen before. The words nearly caught in her throat but she asked glancing at her two year old son, if she would ever see him again.
"The jedi code does not allow contact of families but once he is trained and a Jedi Knight he can seek you out, many Jedi at least meet their birth families, although it is not encouraged." Ki-Adi-Mundi answered her in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.
"Oh, he won't remember me then but he'll be happier and have a better life. That is what want for him. " Shmi answered hesitantly.
Before Ki-Adi-Mundi knew it he was heading back towards the spaceport with the toddler in tow. The child was sleeping and he was thankful that he did not have to deal with an upset youngling. Sylvn had been quite enamoured with the toddler and had taken him under her wing.
So now he was having to consider how he would debrief to the council. There would be a time for him to discuss his daughters actions that had led him to rescuing her from the grasp of the Hutts. He instead turned his thoughts to young Skywalker. The child intrigued him, he had ran a midichlorian count test and had been suitably amazed. The child held a midichlorian count that surpassed Master Yoda, no easy feat. His count was off the charts and Ki-Adi-Mundi did not consider it a coincidence the force had guided him to the child.
Anakin Skywalker had a destiny ahead of him. The child was untainted by darkness and his future at this moment was bright, perhaps he was a sign of the jedi lifting the blanket of darkness clouding the force. He honestly looked forward to seeing the jedi young Skywalker would become, there was no doubt in his mind that the child would become a fully fledged jedi.
The journey had been a surprise in that the child had not asked after his mother, he could sense confusion in the child but young Skywalker had been a well behaved young one and so it was with the two year old firmly held in his arms that they entered the temple hangar.
Jedi Master Mace Windu raised an eyebrow as he took in the unexpected addition. "Who do we have here?" He inquired calmly.
"A gift from the force, of course," Ki-Adi-Mundi answered just as calmly. "As soon as I set down in Tatooine I felt this little ones presence. The force wanted him to be found and when I checked his midichlorian count I found out why."
Interest flared in Mace Windu's eyes as he looked at the Cerean Jedi. "As high as that of Master Yoda?" He asked Ki-Adi-Mundi seriously.
"Higher, off the charts. He will be a powerful jedi one day." Was the answer.
Mace Windu looked at the child in the arms of his fellow jedi, a child who had the force ability greater than Master Yoda with unveiled curiousity. "The force indeed was guiding you, how else would a child in the Outer Rim be found by us before he was too old." He answered.