"Where are the people?"

"People? There are six or seven of them, I believe, in existence. I caught sight of them years ago. But you never know where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, which hampers them a great deal."

***oo***

Space has a lot of room. It's a fact so obvious that hardly anyone ever thinks to ponder it, but out past the Outer Rim there is absolutely nothing else to think about unless the spaciousness of space is first considered. Considered, processed, and dealt with. A person could easily be overwhelmed. Anakin is only excited.

"Stars' end," he mutters. Then he laughs. "But there is no end!"

He's still grinning and occasionally chuckling at the thought when a tiny blip of a planet appears on his radar. It hardly even registers (it's barely even an asteroid), but he heads towards it anyways. When his borrowed/stolen/hijacked/remodeled-and-so-much-better starfighter nears it, he slows and begins to circle it just to be sure that what he's looking at is, in fact, real.

This planet shouldn't even have an orbit, let alone a fixed orbit. It doesn't have the mass and yet it's behaving as if it does. Anakin knows how space works. How ships fly, how particles move, how propulsion propels, how much damage solar flares can do, and how planets move.

How stars burn. So many stars…

But that can wait. This planet makes no sense and he needs to know why.

He wonders if it's inhabited. As he brings his fighter closer and continues to circle, a movement on the surface catches his eye. When he recognizes what it is, he can only laugh. Not the excited sort he'd indulged in only minutes earlier, but something more hysterical and amazed.

It's a boy with a shovel whose size in proportion to the planet he stands on only makes the entire picture that much more ludicrous. Anakin estimates it to be maybe, maybe, three grav-ball grids in circumference. A walkable distance of just under two hundred meters. A planet so tiny that the only explanation as to its orbit is that it has to be made of the densest material in existence.

Whatever.

Technicalities can be set aside for now, because the boy looks to be digging up plants and making it look easy. Apparently the densest material in existence is also disproportionately soft and lightweight. Or this planet's sole inhabitant possesses unusual strength. He wonders if the kid speaks Basic.

"Um… hi," he says after he's landed and left the cockpit (breathable, non-existent atmosphere… and, somehow, gravity… huh).

The kid ceases his steady motion and peaks over his shoulder. Spiky blonde hair sways from side to side above a beady set of bright, focused eyes. "Hello."

He sounds like a normal kid. Anakin smiles a little. "I was just passing by and thought I'd check your planet out. You know, just to see what it's like."

This garners a small smile. "It's the only one of its kind. You wanna help me out? My arms are a little tired."

Thrown a little by the abrupt request, he hesitates before nodding. "Uh, sure, yeah. I can do that. What am I supposed to do? Are you digging up all of these plants?" They are little stubby things, barely a quarter of a meter tall, pale green and just beginning to sprout leaves. "Don't you want some plants around here?"

The kid lifts a hand and swipes it through his hair, dislodging the dirt there. He's been at this for a while it seems. "Not all of them. Just the baobabs. They're the shinier ones. The others can stay."

Anakin lifts a brow. "What is a baobab?"

That small smile is back. "Do you know anything about plants?" He gestures pointedly at two sproutlings to their left. "There, you can dig those two up. Make sure to go deep, otherwise they'll come back." Once Anakin has set himself to digging, the kid continues explaining what a baobab is. "They look small now, but once they grow up they kill everything else. Suck up all the water and take up every bit of dirt there is. And they get HUGE! If my planet wasn't so strong, three of them would crush it to pieces. One is a bugger to get rid of. Once I had two. Took me months."

The kid's face is all scrunched up in disgust and pained memory and Anakin has to chuckle at it. "I know this guy who's really into plants. I bet you he could find a place where these things could live without killing anything else…"

"Really?"

There's an astonishing amount of hope there and Anakin stops his work to look at his host directly. "Yes," he says. "Really. Seriously. This guy is really into plants. If he could, he'd probably try to fit one of these things in his apartment, but from the sounds of it they might get a little too big –"

"Take that one."

Anakin blinks. "Pardon?"

The kid points at the shiny sprout that Anakin has just removed. The seed is still attached and the whole things remains in one piece. "That one. Your ship looks fast, and it's not broken like my other friend's was…"

"Friend? There's another person who lives here?"

"No. I met him a while back. He was a grown-up, though, and I had to explain certain things to him a gazillion times before he understood them. Still, he was nice. Just too old." The kid is bending down as he talks and scooping up the young baobab with gentle hands. "These trees are strong. It will live if you have some water for it, and I can send some dirt with you. If your friend finds a place for it then you can come back and take some more of them. I'll… be happy if they don't have to kill anymore."

Anakin had been thinking about the friend that was too old and grown-up and why the kid's description seemed to make sense, when he catches the last bit. Don't have to kill anymore… "Can I ask you something?"

The smile reappears and grows larger. "Sure! I don't get asked things very often."

"Are you lonely here?"

The smile disappears and dusty eyebrows furrow as he thinks. Then the beady eyes seem to get even beadier as they zero in on Anakin's face. "Are you old too?"

For some reason the question hurts. "Not by most standards."

"This friend of yours. The one who likes plants. Is he ever lonely?"

It's like talking to Obi-wan, except for the shifts in topic are hardly subtle. "Doesn't seem like it, no."

"Then why would you ask me if I am? That seems like a silly question. If you ask a question, make it a good one." The kid actually looks agitated now and begins to pace. "And what's a standard? Sounds like something a businessman would say. I met one once. He was always counting things. Thought he owned all of the stars –"

"No one owns the stars," Anakin interrupts, vehement. It makes him angry that anyone could think such a thing, and yet the galaxy is divided into systems and quadrants and sectors and he supposes there is some implication of ownership there.

Slave.

The boy is staring at him now with wide eyes. "That's what I told him," he whispers. Then he steps closer and peers up at Anakin. "You're strange. It's like you're old and not old at the same time."

"I told you I'm not old."

"Why did you get upset about the stars?"

Anakin crosses his arms and stares back. "Why did you tell him they couldn't be owned?"

That small smile again. This child is starting to remind him of that Jedi troll back on Coruscant, and the difference in age baffles him. "I never said they couldn't be owned, just that no one owns them. I own this planet. These flowers are mine and I treat them kindly. The baobabs are mine too, but I'm giving that one to you so that your friend can hopefully own it better than I have. If he does, then he can have all of my baobabs. You see? It's not a bad thing to be owned. Some people just aren't people that should own anything."

"Or anyone." It's out before he can stop it and he wants to smack himself, especially when those lightly-dusted brows lift in sudden, sad understanding. Perceptive little chosski.

"Hmmm…" The kid stares back in silence for a few seconds and then turns with an excited wave. "Come on! We should watch a sunset."

This is probably the weirdest conversation he's ever had. "You can just choose when you want to watch one?" He's actually almost jealous if it's true.

"Like I said, my planet is the only one of its kind. I've been to one with a sad, skinny man and a lamp that he was constantly turning on and off. He actually made more sense than the others, but he didn't realize his planet had more than double the sunsets that mine has! Can you believe it? Still serious about the wrong thing! Too old…" They reach a chair and the kid acknowledges it with a grand sweep of his arm. "Take a seat, honored guest."

Grinning a little, Anakin sits. "Okaaay…"

The kid (still nameless…) turns and actually grins, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he's about to laugh. He's staring at the overly-curved horizon where this system's sun (its star) is just beginning to disappear. "Here it comes…"

And it does. Brilliantly and quickly. The colors change and fade into each other within the space of a few minutes and Anakin is left with just a brief surge of joy as a memory. Then the kid is pulling on his sleeve and urging him forward. "Come on! We'll watch another one! You know I once watched forty-four of them in a single day…"

"Really?" he asks. "Why?"

The kid pauses, actually stopping to consider his answer. "Sad and lonely are two different things. Sunsets are wonderful when you're sad…" He keeps walking and Anakin follows. "Is it helping?"

Anakin smiles at the kid's back. "Your planet is beautiful." He doesn't receive an answer, but he can feel the kid's joy and short burst of pride. "You know, my planet has two suns." Odd. He's never identified Tatooine as his. And why should he? Nothing good has ever come from that disgusting bucket of sand…

Until now. Because he's definitely bragging.

This draws the boy up short and he turns with wide eyes. Wide enough that Anakin thinks he catches a flash of green hidden in their depths, the natural color their beady-ness must be hiding. "Two?" the kid echoes before grinning broadly. "That's twice the color, twice the laughter, twice of everything!"

"Laughter?"

His oh so young (but is he?) host stops and plants the chair once more. "You can't hear it? Suns are always happy, like that's what they were meant for."

"My planet isn't a happy planet."

Without hesitation, the kid says, "That's why there's two of them. Now watch. This one will be brighter, because we got the angle right this time. Sometimes, sometimes, angles and numbers and standards matter. Just sometimes, though." Soft, frazzled hair flops to the side when he turns to look at Anakin. "Did I use that word right? Standard?"

On this planet, that word doesn't seem to fit, but he nods absently. "Yes. Here it comes."

The kid is right. It's bright. They both are laughing in delight before it's over and soon enough they're up and walking again. Anakin loses track, but when he finally decides he has to leave, his new friend hands him the baobab and a pouch of dirt and walks him to his starfighter.

"I'm Anakin Skywalker, by the way. Do you have a name?"

That stupid small smile again. "Probably. Do I need one?"

"If you don't give me one, then I'll have to come up with something weird."

The kid lets loose with a short peal of laughter. "Okay! That's fine with me."

Anakin starts to feel annoyed, but then he just shrugs. "Whatever." He takes a final look at this small, impossible planet. "My planet is full of sand, not soft soil like this one."

The kid frowns for the first time. "I don't like sand either… but you said it has two suns. We watched forty-seven sunsets just now."

Anakin blinks. "How long have I been here?"

Those tiny green eyes roll and the frown disappears. "Numbers again. I don't get you… but I like you. Come see me again, okay? Please?"

Anakin, wisely, promises no such thing. As to numbers…

Searching through his small bag of belongings, he comes upon his logbook and opens to a blank page. He smirks as he writes "NUMBERS" at the very top. Beneath it, he pens the first entry on the list: 47.

***oo***

"What is it that you do here?"

"I sort travelers into bundles of a thousand. I dispatch the trains that carry them, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left."

"What a hurry they're in. What are they looking for?"

"Not even the engineer on the locomotive knows."