A/N: And onwards, because I can't do things by halves. Thank you for the reviews, by the way - I'm very touched by how much you've all fallen for the twins in such a brief time. Have a lovely weekend.
Music for this chapter: Sound the Bugle (Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron)
"I'm afraid it's workmen and engineers only past this point, sir," the stout foreman insists, gloved hands folded on his grimy sleeves. "You'll have to go."
The shipyards of Kuat are a chaos of steam, tibanna, and ringing durasteel. The stranger leans closer, and the foreman swallows as he regards the other man's intimidating height. Almost two metres, by his reckoning.
"I have reason to suspect one of your workers is not willingly in your employ," the stranger says, blue eyes briefly illuminated by the flash of a concentrated tibanna torch. "Let me through."
At this, the foreman straightens. "I don't like what you're implying, sir," he says, shortly. "We at Kuat Drive Yards do not engage in any business of that kind. Now, I suggest you show me some valid identification, or leave!"
The air cools a few degrees.
The stranger's expression darkens, and the foreman blinks twice, rapidly; he cannot quite shake the feeling that there is a storm coming, even out here on the planetary shipyard ring.
A shift of travel-stained russet fabric, and a silver-black cylinder darts into the stranger's hand, seemingly of its own power.
The stranger holds the thin cylinder out between them, parallel. "I trust this is identification enough."
The foreman flicks an expert eye over the object, identifies grooved housing, recessed switch, emitter and pommel, every part seamlessly fitted together, workmanship that only–
His jaw drops.
"Master Jedi," he splutters.
The stranger nods, once.
And the foreman moves aside.
The foreman looks on as the Jedi strides through the clouds of steam and groan of machinery with thunder in his step – watches as he moves to the end of the line and pulls at the shoulder of the youngest of the work-team, a brown-haired young lad no more than sixteen, who had been glad for the job when his parents passed away.
The young man looks up, an expression of honest confusion on his face.
The foreman watches the Jedi's shoulders drop.
The Jedi inclines his head in a minute motion, turns, and strides straight past the foreman and towards the outer ring again.
The foreman catches a glimpse of the man's face as he passes.
Defeat is too kind a word for what he sees there.
The Jedi rounds the corner.
And stands there, fingers pressed to his aching eyes.
"Stars," Qui-Gon Jinn murmurs.
Eleven months, and too many false leads to count. Obi-Wan's lightsaber rests heavy and accusing on his hip, opposite his own, and the river stone is a constant blip in the Force, tucked into his utility belt.
He has…not seen Tahl for half a year. Feemor, more. Both had been away with their padawans the previous time he stopped by the Temple for one of his scheduled reports with Mace – precious half days taken from his galaxy-wide search.
A painfully high-pitched beeping from his hip. Qui-Gon unclips his comm with unnecessary force and raises it.
"What," he growls.
"Why, it's nice to hear from you too, Qui-Gon," Mace Windu's baritone voice sounds, deceptively mild. "Where are you?"
"Kuat."
"Good, you're not too far. Can you make it back to Coruscant in eight hours?"
Qui-Gon leans his forehead against the wall. Inhales deeply. "No."
"I'll take that as a yes," Mace says – and Qui-Gon nearly smashes his comm against the wall, until – "He's been found."
The Force freezes, but Qui-Gon runs.
(:~:)
Shmi Skywalker is frightened, but she does not show it.
She has always been an immensely practical person, out of necessity more than anything. She had to have been, to survive the horror that her life had become after the age of six, when those men had come for her and her parents.
Fear either paralyses or adrenalises; Shmi very firmly keeps herself between the two.
When there is something to be done, she does it. When there is nothing to be done, she waits, and keeps herself and those close to her as far from danger as possible.
So now, when the overseers' harsh calls jolt her awake, she calmly wraps Anakin in his blanket, shushing him when he fusses, and marches out of their cubicle. All around, doors are screeching open and people are tumbling out – every slave knows the danger of being last to an assembly – and Shmi's feet fly steady and quick on the filthy steps down to the servants' corridors and into the front hall.
Only when she has aligned herself exactly in the row and spacing assigned to her does she allow herself to worry about Obi-Wan.
It is…an extremely unlikely coincidence that a slave assembly is called on the same night that Obi-Wan makes his attempt to break into the Comm centre.
Anakin shrinks a little into her shoulder, unaccustomed to the screaming and the noise – the attic with its cubicles and the clatter of the kitchen is all he knows – and Shmi presses her chin to the top of his head, murmuring comfort.
Aeron steps into place by her left, back straight and eyes afire, her grey-white hair a crown of light. They share a significant glance.
The Hutt-stink is more pervasive here; a heady, sickening draft that burns in Shmi's stomach.
The space on her right is still glaringly empty.
The torrent of slaves rushing out of the nearest entrance to the servants' corridors has slowed to a trickle, now, and the overseers at the doorway have started to alleviate their impatience by lashing unactivated vibrowhips at the backs of these stragglers.
And then, as the trickle turns into single, scattered numbers – the elderly, the sick, the recently beaten – Shmi catches a movement in the corner of her vision. The edge of a grime-streaked cream sleeve, now a little too short for the arm it encases.
Obi-Wan materialises into place beside her, face flushed, breathing hard. There is a telltale shake in his shoulders, but he simply shakes his head at her unspoken question and stares straight ahead, hands clasped behind him, feet shoulder-width apart, eyes bright with something other than the dim lamplight.
He looks, Shmi wonders, not unlike a soldier at a court-martial.
Where he comes from now, she does not know.
The last slave stumbles into line with a pair of new red streaks across her back, the final vibrowhip-strike cracks against the floor; and then a sudden, almost sacred hush, as the overseers fall silent.
Ahead and above, a faint squish-squish noise, like mulch grinding into moist paste.
The guards on the second level rush to open the doors to Gardulla's receiving-room; the Hutt herself appears on the balcony, the sound of her movement a horrible accompaniment.
She halts, and stares down at her collected property with a sneer on her features.
Shmi stares carefully ahead, not quite at her shoes but not up to Gardulla herself. Beside her, Obi-Wan is doing the same thing.
"It has come to my attention," Gardulla says, "that two of you tried to break into my comm centre, ten minutes past. The perpetrators have been caught and will receive due punishment."
Anakin whines into Shmi's collarbone; she holds him tighter. Any louder and an overseer is sure to notice.
"Now, I know my property well. Those two could not have conceived of such a plan by themselves. They do not have the nerve." Gardulla smiles; a sharp, lipless thing. "The mastermind shall have ten seconds in which to step forward."
Silence.
Shmi cannot turn her head, but her gaze slides to her right; finds Obi-Wan's chest rising in sharp, shallow breaths.
Gardulla makes a motion.
An overseer steps into the first line of slaves, pulls out a random one by the collar. The maddening crackle of his vibrowhip activating drowns out the slave's pleading cries.
The overseer raises the whip–
Obi-Wan takes a breath, shifts his weight–
Shmi opens her mouth to whisper no–
And an old human man raises his hand, two rows and three columns down.
"It was me," he says, plainly, eyes afire. "Blast you to the nine Corellian hells, Gardulla. I hope you rot there."
Gardulla's smile turns vicious.
In the corner of Shmi's vision, Obi-Wan shudders, and takes a half-step forward.
Shmi slips a hand out from under Anakin's weight and grabs Obi-Wan's wrist. Tendons and muscles flex under her fingertips – she can almost feel the rage there, burning without release.
But then Anakin whimpers again, and Obi-Wan's gaze snaps to the little head of golden-brown hair in her arms.
A moment, when the overseers move in on the old man standing there with his arm still politely raised, and Shmi feels Obi-Wan's pulse slamming against her fingers, a maelstrom shuttered in those ice-blue eyes–
And it passes.
The old man does, as well – by the flick of a switch and not by the lash of a vibrowhip, which is mercy enough at a time like this.
Anakin hears and sees nothing. One of his ears is pressed into Shmi's throat – the other covered by blanket and hand.
Gardulla flicks her fingers, and the overseers' shouts rise again as they begin herding the amassed slaves back into the servants' corridors.
Shmi closes her eyes briefly, releases Obi-Wan's wrist–
"Flute-player."
Obi-Wan's step stutters.
Shmi gasps aloud, the sound lost in the tramping of feet.
Gardulla's voice is drawling and sweet, like mud laced with honey, but her eyes are sharp and perceptive as she pinpoints Obi-Wan out of the masses of moving bodies.
"Flute-player, clean up," Gardulla calls, and Shmi slumps with relief, until – "This will be your responsibility."
That vicious, knowing grin is back, stretching like a wound across her shapeless head.
Obi-Wan inclines his head.
His eyes are red-rimmed.
Shmi brushes past him, fingers catching his sleeve for the barest of moments, and allows herself to be swept up into the corridors by the harried crowd.
She does not look back. It would hurt too much to do so.
Back in their cubicle, she pats Anakin back to sleep, and waits for Obi-Wan; waits until the candle gutters in melted wax.
Aeron appears and places a shallow basin of water on the floor; how she came by it, Shmi does not know. The two women share an expression that is not a smile or a grimace; simply a glance of understanding.
Obi-Wan returns and scrubs his hands clean without meeting her eyes. He goes to bed immediately after, drawing his blanket up to his chin and curling on his side, facing the wall.
Shmi sits in the dark for a long time before retiring.
(:~:)
Obi-Wan spends the next day in a haze of exhausted guilt and grief.
His hands move when he wills them to, as do his feet; he scrubs floors with mechanical numbness, and plays Gardulla's favourite melodies when she summons him to do so. Tarun and Tuari are nowhere to be found.
Come evening, he is too empty to eat.
Shmi attempts to get him to take a bite of meat or two; he shakes his head, and pulls the map out of the hole in the wall again. He had left it there in the morning, but now, looking at the lines etched there, he sees nothing but futility.
He will be sixteen in a week.
A slave for a year.
Obi-Wan has not missed one night of planning since he arrived; the worst of beatings and the longest of days did not deter him.
But now, he wishes for nothing more than sleep.
He slides the map back into the hidden recess, and moves to replace the panel. He can do more tomorrow.
And then his mind catches up with what he is doing.
Terror fills him, and he pulls the panel back down and scrabbles for the map in the same motion.
"Obi-Wan?" Shmi enquires.
He shakes his head violently to clear it. His heart is still hammering in his throat.
Don't skip a night. Never skip a night.
He remembers Tarun and Tuari, yearning for freedom every night in a cubicle just like this one, but never planning or plotting; the elderly Togruta who had given up, and the old human man just the day before, who had offered himself up in one last hurrah against an unstoppable force.
Don't skip a night. Never skip a night.
Obi-Wan puts shaking stylus to flimsi. Scratches out the beginnings of the vent system from the comm centre to the front hall.
Don't skip a night. Never skip a night.
If he skips planning tonight, he might get a good night's sleep. He would also likely skip again, the next time he is exhausted, hungry, or bleeding; skipped days would meld into weeks, and then months, and then years, and then he would likely go down in a blaze of blood-tinged glory standing up to a master whom he would have bowed down to for decades.
Don't skip a night. Never skip a night.
Soon, he will have been a slave for a year.
He will not make it two.
Anakin will not for two.
Obi-Wan grabs the plate with the scrap of tasteless meat, begins forcing down bites as he sketches. He does not rest until the parts of the vent-system he explored are completed in grey ink.
(:~:)
The next evening, Aeron knocks on the wall between their cubicles; Obi-Wan goes over to find her patting the scant amount of clear space next to her.
"Sit," she says. Something in the glint of her dark eyes makes it clear that this is a command. The brown skin around her eyes is wrinkled, leathery.
When Obi-Wan has squashed himself between a box of questionable objects and the edge of her pallet, Aeron begins to speak.
"I was born free," she says, without preamble. "I was taken into bondage when I was sixteen, not much older than you are now. I might not sound it now, but I was born on Coruscant."
Obi-Wan stares at her. Now she mentions it, there are traces of core-world accent in her voice; the way she bites her consonants, the poise of her as she speaks. He had always assumed it was her personality. Even her name reflects strength unmatched – goddess of war.
"My family was not particularly wealthy," Aeron says, with the look of someone who has not spoken in too long, and will not stop speaking until the words have all come. "But I lived close enough to the surface to remember the Temple. The Jedi Temple."
One still-wiry hand reaches forward, pulls the braid out of Obi-Wan's bound hair. It swings down past his shoulder, heavy with the weight of the once-colourful beads woven through it – grimy and faded, now, but every bit as important as the moment they were woven there, by hands steadier than his own.
"And so when I saw you play your flute for Shmi when she was giving birth, I knew then what you were." She touches his cheek.
Obi-Wan would reply, if he could trust his hands to move.
Aeron smiles at him, a brilliant thing that spills out of the Unifying Force. "Master Jedi," she says, and Obi-Wan sucks in a breath, closing his eyes – "If you were thinking of feeling any guilt at all over what happened, then I would remind you this, as a Jedi I met once told me: Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter."
Obi-Wan clasps her brown-skinned hands in his own shaking pale ones, and lowers his head to press his forehead to them in a bow. His braid brushes his knee.
When he rises, he signs the first words he has spoken in two days: "You met Master Yoda." A wondrous thing. An unexpected thing.
"I was a child at the time," Aeron replies, grinning wickedly as she adds: "About his height, actually."
That draws a smile out of Obi-Wan – muscles he has not used in so very long.
"And there we are," Aeron murmurs. "Stand fast, Master Jedi."
Obi-Wan re-binds his hair before leaving, the spheres of the beads in his braid pressing into his fingertips; hugs Shmi, when he enters their cubicle again, and pulls Anakin into his lap to teach him a clapping game.
Stand fast.
Do, or do not.
(:~:)
"Madame Gardulla, you have a guest."
"Who is it?" Gardulla's eyes are half-closed in the noonday heat; here in her receiving-room, it is especially stifling. There is a hint of annoyance in her tone.
Obi-Wan ignores the ache in his arms and continues to fan her, raising the heavy swamp leaf and letting its waxy surface catch the air. A line of sweat drops into his eyes, but he dares not stop to wipe it away.
He has not eaten since the night before, and the hunger is stripping away at his strength. The Force offers reprieve but also heightens his senses uncomfortably, like an echoing, dissociative daze. He withdraws from it, blinking. There is danger in resting in the Force too much – a moment's inattention could result in a world of pain.
"The arms dealer from Dantooine, Madame," the overseer says. "The one who commed about the new vibrowhips."
Gardulla waves a hand in acceptance and leans back in her seat, eyes closed. Obi-Wan fans faster.
"Flute-player, get the shoe-cloth," she drawls.
Obi-Wan hands the fan to the slave behind him, takes two steps to the right to the nearest servants' corridor, and grabs a semi-clean cloth. A week ago Gardulla might have had him fan her for the entire meeting, but since the incident with the comm centre she has rather delighted in watching him do more menial tasks in her presence.
He waits, head and eyes lowered, cloth in his hands. Even so, he senses Gardulla's eyes on him, oily and stained, so he ramps up his shields and focuses on the floor. The heat roils in his head and clenches his stomach. The Force, too, is strangely unbalanced, slipping and sliding like the churning of his gut, and he shuts himself off from it completely, now, like a fever-wrought patient flinching at the light.
Footsteps enter, and Obi-Wan hastens forward and kneels to wipe the slime of Nal Hutta's streets from the arms dealer's boots.
His hand touches leather.
The Force smashes through his shields like a winter storm; cool, fresh wind across a mind parched and scorched, clean rain and frosted lightning, hearthfire and tea, snow in a midwinter garden. The Force roars, rises, coalesces–
A pathway.
A bridge.
A bond.
Still knelt there, Obi-Wan raises his head and meets Qui-Gon's eyes.
Padawan, the word comes, thundering through his mindscape, inescapable warmth. Padawan-mine.
There is so much in Qui-Gon's gaze that Obi-Wan can barely keep up – joy, sorrow, guilt, worry, anger, relief–
Love.
Qui-Gon raises his head and looks over Obi-Wan's head – at Gardulla. "This boy is fast on his feet," he says, calmly. "Is he for sale?"
Play the part.
Obi-Wan's fingers spasm, and he moves to finish his task, even as Gardulla's Force-signature changes, behind him.
"No," the grimy-sweet voice comes. "Mister…?"
"Jinnson," Qui-Gon replies, moving past Obi-Wan to throw himself languidly on the seat opposite Gardulla. "But I'm open to negotiation."
A/N: And we'll leave it here until next time. Don't kill me. Honestly, though, you're all so lovely and each one of your reviews make me smile so very wide. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.