Desert nights were, in some ways, infinitely more treacherous than the days; sands that had been baking hot enough to scorch a humanoid to death in mere hours if the Tuskens or the Krayt dragons did not find them first suddenly plunging into freezing temperatures within moments of the twin suns falling below the horizon, the caves pockmarking the planet's surface at odd intervals that could shelter you during the afternoon heat or a sandstorm offering little in the way of safety from the chill, the great creatures that sentients would normally be safe from that slept during the day awakening from their slumber to wander the freezing wastes in search of a meal.
Even the mighty, sprawling palace of Gardulla the Hutt was not immune to the cold, the thick clay walls made specifically to remain cool in the day and retain heat for the night only really serving their purpose within the inner rooms, where Gardulla and her guests slept and where the central heating units actually worked. The rest of the palace was only slightly warmer than the frozen sands, and if one did not have the patience to stoke a fire before going to sleep, one did not often wake up in the morning.
This is just another unfortunate, unavoidable fact in the lives of the slaves that served Gardulla's court, and it was one of the strangest things that had made Shmi's blood positively simmer with frustration for the first time in years.
The simplicity of never being allowed to sleep where it was warmest had not bothered her much since she was a teenager, but for the past several months the annoyance she felt at such a petty, unimportant thing was almost enough to make her seethe with rage.
She could move beyond it; she never would have survived long within the Hutts 'employ' if she had not long ago learned to swallow her emotions and act as was proper for a servant.
It was just… harder, now, when her mind was plagued with the steady conviction of "you deserve better than my life".
"I am not going to let you grow up here."
It was her dearest secret, these words that she whispered to her child in the chill of the night, huddled shivering under a ragged blanket beside a pitifully crackling fire and alone except for the life slowly growing within her.
Shmi had never had anyone to whisper secrets to before, no one she could trust with the truest desires of her heart, whom she knew would never tell a Master about her wishes to escape and live a life of her own, far away from the dying heat haze of Tatooine. She hasn't dared to even think of such dreams since she was a child, not after her workworn mother had sat her down and gently explained, "Children always follow the mother, Shmi. Your life will follow mine."
It is the way of the Old Masters, the way they've kept generation after generation of families locked within servitude for centuries after the first few were taken from their homes and enslaved.
It is the way of Tatooine, the way the planet's meager empire of scoundrels and criminals, savages and despots had been built, thriving in the inattention of the Republic.
But it is not Shmi's way.
She will not let it be, not anymore.
Not Shmi's child, not if she could help it, not if all the Masters in Mos Espa came forward and one by one demanded her child's very existence.
"You will not follow me."
It is not a wish.
To Shmi, it is fact.
She will not let her child live this way, shivering in a warm palace, preparing food they could not eat and scrubbing floors in rooms no one ever entered, serving sentients who could take and take and take away so much of their life and happiness until they had nothing left to give them anymore.
In the freezing night, she whispered secrets to a life not yet lived, and in the burning day, she watched. She waited. She had no plan, no money, nothing at all but her name, but she would find a way. Somehow.
"You will live a life of your own, Little Skywalker. You will be free."
A/N: I think it's just a Skywalker trait to fight for your family, no matter the cost, and Shmi was definitely the first to do that.
~Persephone