Vader
by R. Campbell

Chapter One
Water on Tatooine

People change.

He had changed, though the revelation when he first thought it surprised him. He had changed. His body, for one thing. That was not the same, would never be the same again. He was white and pale, most of his body was gone, burned, sometimes he couldn't remember what he looked like before. Sometimes he couldn't remember what he looked like without the mask. Not that he wanted to. But it wasn't just this that had changed. The outside mirrored the in, he thought grimly, when he thought about it, although he didn't think of it much.

And just as he couldn't remember what he looked like before, he couldn't remember what he was before. The name "Anakin Skywalker" tasted foreign on his tongue. And Padme...he couldn't remember her either. And he didn't want to. Names like "Anakin," like "Ani," like "Padme" - they were names that belonged to the dream world, names that belonged to his nightmares.

People change. He didn't notice it, and even after it was over, he didn't think of it, didn't want to.

Darth Vader was imposing. Anakin Skywalker had never been.

As a boy, his mother and friends had called him, "Ani," and he had been a little slip of a boy. Precocious, yes, intellegent, yes. His mind turned cartwheels over his friends, over his mother even. Over Watto, over Sebulba. Ani was the kind of child who was constantly plotting, in a sweet, good natured way. How he was going to get off the dust pit that was Tatooine, how he'd free himself and his mother from the life of servitude they had been chained to, how he would beat Sebulba in the next pod race. When he thought these thoughts, he would bite his lip and his eyes would grow darker, lids halfway closed.

Ani, plotting, mishevious boy that he was, spent most of his time dreaming. He liked to go to the Avernus, the once lake, and watch the two moons of Tatooine rise. Avernus had been dry for near a millenium, and it had been covered by dust, but the locals still called it the lake, wistfully, harking to a better time, a time when there was water, a time without irrigation farms, a time long before the Huts, a time before slavery. This, of course, was a daydream of those who talked of it, Ani knew. The Huts had always been in charge, and there had always been slavery. He thought, even, sometimes, that there had never been water, but he had found a fossil of a fish one day. He kept the dried rock, with it's little skeleton fish in his pocket, and whenever he felt like things were impossible, he rubbed the fossil. There was water once on Tatooine.

Ani had dusty blonde hair, dusty because sand liked to settle in his hair, and it was only after he had washed that his hair color could be called blonde. It was a pretty golden color when it was washed, and it was soft and fine, before the dust settled in. His blue-green eyes were thoughtful and curious. At times, usually when he was talking to his mother, they softened into kindess, a kindness that was rarely on his face. This is not to say that Ani was not kind. He was nothing if not kind. He would give a friend his last drop of water if they were both dying of thirst. Small things also, small childish things. When he found Amee, the day that her father was killed by Tusken Raiders, crying in the alleyway behind her home, he gave her his marbles. When Kitstir broke his finger, Ani helped him finish his chores.

Ani was too small to be noticeable. He never did anything worthy, never changed the world. When he started podracing people began to notice him. But it wasn't a steady, complete notice they gave him. At first, everyone had been astounded that a human, and such a little one at that, could hold his place in such a dangerous sport, a sport that no other human could do. It was novel really, in Mos Espa and the area around, novel anywhere, actually. But the novelty wore off after a while; Anakin Skywalker never won. Novelty was Sebulba, at least, Winning was Sebulba, and whether that was truly novel or not did not matter to the gambling Hutts, or the Toydarians, not to the Greedos, not to anyone who bet on the races. And when the novelty wore off, so did their attention on Ani.

Mos Espa was not an ideal place for growing up. The conditions of life were hard, even for those who were not slaves. The sun was hot and brutal, the dust left a dry taste in the mouth; water was hard to find, even on irrigation farms. But Mos Espa was more than this, more than just a place where the climate murdered. Mos Espa was a place of cruelty. The Hutts had destroyed any of the morality that was left in Mos Espa, indeed, in all of Tatooine.

Ani had, of course, heard the folklore surrounding Tatooine's less-than-reputable past. Tatooine had once been a center for trade, not, of course, for the Republic; Tatooine was too far removed from Coruscant and the central planets to even been a main center for trade; but the planets in the outlying systems relied on the Mos Espa, Mos Eisley and Mos Efuerza for their every need. Mos Espa and Mos Eisley still stood, although traders would pass by the planet of Tatooine, having no interest in a place where Hutts ruled. Mos Efuerza, perhaps, would still draw traders, but its population had been destroyed by a sandstorm some centuries ago, and no one bothered to return to and rebuild the once thriving city.

But those facts were not interesting to children like Ani. What did capture his imagination were stories about the Jedi. There were Jedi, it was said, in Mos Efuerza, hundreds of years ago, millenia even, when there was water on Tatooine. They left, after a while, to go to the main cities, to Coruscant, where the Jedi council had been set up not too long ago, to be, as they say, "the guardians of the galaxy." People on Tatooine had long forgotten this, though, except for stories told to slave children while they were falling asleep.

To believe in the Jedi was to believe. To believe in the Jedi, one had to have faith. There weren't any Jedi around Mos Espa, Mos Eisley, anywhere. To believe was to accept, without thinking, that these people did, indeed, exist.

Ani believed. He believed in the only way he knew how. He went to Avernus the once-lake and squeezed his eyes shut, and whispered, "I believe, I believe." Sometimes, he prayed. Ani didn't believe in a higher power, but he believed in the Jedi. He believed that one day the Jedi would come and free him, his mother, his friends, all the slaves. As for the Force...well, it might be real, but not to a child whose life was lived out on a dusty, hot planet, not to a child whose life had been spent in the chains of slavery.

Although later, he would come to believe in the Force, although later he was see what it could do, what he could do, this is Ani, this is before Qui-Gon whisked him off that planet he so hated, this is before Obi-Wan taught him everything he knew, this is before Palpatine, before Lord Sidious, this is before Darth Vader. But that was later. Now he was just a boy, just a little boy, who liked to sit on the hard dirt next to where Avernus used to be, who liked to dream about being a fighter pilot, who prayed that the Jedi would come.

Sometimes he prayed for his father too. Sometimes he thought he could see him in the distance, but that was just stupid; he had no idea what his father looked like.

One day he had a conversation with his mother.

"Mom," he said. Shmi looked over at him. He was standing in the doorway of her room, where she was lying on the bed; blinds shut, although this didn't do much: she had a headache.

"Ani," she said, "I have a headache."

"I know. I just..." his voice trailed off. He just what? Shmi Skywalker looked at him appraisingly. He was a smart boy, much smarter, she had to admit, than her. Whatever he wanted, she might not be able to answer it; whatever he wanted, preocious boy that he was, she might not be able to deliver. And he just what? Ani was usually very - extremely - forward with his questions, he didn't stop after the word "just;" he plowed onward. But this, this question, whatever it was seemed to make him halt, and she realized, suddenly, how small he was. He certainly didn't seem small, but he was. "What, Ani?" she said, finally.

"How come...how come I don't have a father?"

Shmi blinked. "Is that all?" she said. "I told you your father died when our house caved in."

"How old was I?" He came to sit down next to his mother.

"Three. Then we were sold to Gardulla the Hutt."

"I remember. But you've never told me..." He seemed to be considering a question before he asked it, and after considering a moment or two, he decided to ask a different question. "Where were we before getting sold?"

"In Mos Efuerza."

"I thought Mos Efuerza was destroyed."

"Well, yes, but there are still some irrigation farms out there. We were slaves to a man named Plus Slave. but after your father died he considered us bad luck, so he sold use to Gardulla." This, of course, was not the true story, although Anakin later would find out the truth. It was Ani who was the bad luck. Bad luck was babies born out of wedlock, especially when there was no man around, no man to father even a bastard child. Tatooine, especially the men living close to where Mos Efureza, was very suspicious, and after a series of incidents, one in which a sandstorm knocked out irrigation pumps, another in which a fire started in the kitchen and burned down their master's house, and also the caving in of the house - for this part of the story was true.

"Gardulla had bad luck on us, too" said Anakin, thinking of how she had to sell them when she lost on the podraces.

"Yes," said Shmi. "Is that it? Did you want something else? I have an awful headache."

"Well, what was he like, my father?"

"He was a lot like you," Shmi said, "Kind and smart. He was wonderful to be with."

"What did he look like? Did he look like me? I don't look like you."

Shmi had prepared answers for the time when these questions arose. She had planned for this moment ever since Anakin was two, when he first asked who his father was. Kaylee had a father, Anakin noted at one point. (Kaylee was the girl whom Anakin played with when they were younger. Kaylee had dark brown hair and green eyes; she looked like her father. Ani had seen her so often running to her father and being picked up and swung around.) Kaylee once asked to him, "Where is your father?" She said it curiously, didn't think it would hurt him; but it did. When he came to her, at two years of age, Shmi gave him a sweet and dismissed him; he didn't bring it up for a long time, but during that time Shmi had planned an elaborate answer - this is who he was, this is how he looked; this was how I met him; this was how...

"He had your smile, your hair, your eyes." This was a lie. Ani had his grandfather's features - a grandfather, who, he luckily had never met. "You have my nose," she smiled.

"Mom. How come I don't remember him?"

"You were so little, Ani," she said, by way of vague explanation.

"But I don't remember him at all. You said he died before we came to Mos Espa, but I don't even remember him when we were at Mos Efuerza. I remember the house we lived in. I remember Kaylee. I remember her father. But I don't remember mine."

Shmi put a hand on his back, "That's okay. It was a long time ago."

Ani stood and walked to the door. Shmi watched, thinking he was so grown up for his age. Yes, he was mischevious and couldn't do math to save his life, but he was an old soul. He stopped at the doorway. She thought maybe he would turn back towards her, one more question forming on his lips. But he didn't turn around; he just stopped. He stopped, and stood there, that small slip of a boy, and he said, "I think you're lying to me."

Then he walked away.

He had a fight with Kitster once. The only fight they ever fought. Kitster had, being mad at him for winning a game of marbles, and also being in a thoroughly bad mood otherwise, said to him, "Where's your father, Ani?"

"What?" Ani said, feeling anger building inside him. Kitster knew he wasn't supposed to mention this.

"Your father? Or are you just a bastard?"

Ani pummeled him in the stomach. Kitster, as soon as he got his breath back, jumped on Ani. Shmi had finally seen them and stopped them, but for the next week and a half, Anakin sported a black eye and Kitster a split lip. They made up soon afterwards, for that is what best friends do, and as Kitster was about to apologize for calling him a bastard, Ani lifted his hand and stopped him. He didn't want it ever to be said again that he was a bastard, not even in an apology. He and Kitster then went to go play a game of marbles, each trying to let the other win.

Kitster was a good friend, Ani often thought later, in the years after Tatooine, in the years before the Empire. Kitster was a sturdy little boy who stuck beside him through much of their young lives. He was rather silly, not as smart as Ani, but Ani forgave him for that failing; indeed that failing made him all the more appealing to Ani, who tried, very hard, to be like Kitster, to not to appear different.

But of course he was. At age six, Watto, after seeing him fly around the junkyard in an old junk racer that he had found amid Watto's piles, entered him in his first podrace. Shmi, no matter how she tried to put a stop to it, could not; Watto was their master. Everyone was impressed; he didn't finish of course, but no one really expected him to. They all still bet on Sebulba, but most of the time they cheered him on - "Anakin Skywalker - the little boy."

But Ani was not that; Ani wasn't a little boy, or even a podracer. He did it because Watto made him, and because he got some enjoyment out of the speed and people's attention on him; no Ani was a dreamer. And when he stopped dreaming about the jedi coming to Tatooine, he started dreaming about becoming a jedi himself and he would come back, and he would free the slaves.

Yes, there was water once on Tatooine, and that meant anything was possible.