Chapter 18: Dreams of Defiance
Anakin was scared.
No, that's not right; scared was when he stood at the edge of the pool, unused to seeing so much water in one spot and startled when Zarya wasted no time jumping in it with a delighted shout. Scared was when newly knighted Obi-Wan left on a dangerous mission alone for months, with no way to communicate with him and waiting with baited breath for any news on his wellbeing. Scared was when he was faced with something unknown and had to lean on her for reassurance that he was being irrational in his fears.
Right now, he felt terrified; the kind of horror that freezes you were you stand, incapable of moving a single muscle in attempt to get away from the danger. The kind where you know what is coming, but have no way of avoiding it. Yet he was still at the temple.
And he was terrified.
Zarya felt it like it was her own, sliding down her spine like ice and settling in her guts like lead, making her tense on the spot. It took her a while to figure out why she was suddenly so scared, and even longer to gain control of her limbs again. As soon as she did, she stood up shakily, much slower than she would have liked before she took off running as fast as she could, uncaring of the startled teacher and classmates she left behind.
She had been engrossed by the Jawaese language they'd been studying, a class she couldn't blame Anakin from skipping, (bad memories of his home planet, and he already knew the basics of that language anyway) but it suddenly felt meaningless compared to getting to Anakin and sheltering him far, far away from what could very well be threatening him.
They'd been here for almost two years now, and nothing had ever shaken him like this before.
She didn't pay any mind to the people she passed by, dodging around them with an ease that came from discreetly pickpocketing in crowded markets and, more recently, running in the temple to cause or get away from their most recent mischief.
Many are most likely displeased by her display of lack of restrain, but that was nothing new anyways.
She forced herself to stop abruptly at the end of the hallway near the hangar, knowing Anakin would be right at the corner. Heart thumping wildly in her chest and adrenaline coursing through her veins, she slowly peaked through the pillars of the hall, trying to analyse the situation instead of running in blindly like she so desperately wanted to.
At first, she thought the besalisk that was looming above Anakin was Dex, since he seemed so familiar to her for some reasons. Dex was the only of his specie that she knew after all, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon often taking them to his diner on special occasions. (Birthdays, holidays, Obi-Wan coming back from a successful mission, Qui-Gon being cleared for smaller missions, etc.) But that couldn't be him. Not only was that one even taller than the two meters tall diner owner, he was also in robes; with no less than two double-bladed lightsabers at is belt. A Jedi knight, then.
A very familiar looking Jedi knight; whom Anakin was currently terrified of.
Pushing her confusion at his familiarity aside for the moment, she calmly walked toward the two of them, doing her best to hide her anxiety which, for some reason, was rising the closer she came to the giant alien.
"Anakin, there you are!" Caught by surprise, his unnervingly still body moved suddenly, turning towards her at the sound of his name. Even more worrying, since he normally always knew when she was near him. "We're going to be late for our language class if we don't head there now, we don't have any time to waste."
It was a lie. Their language class started an hour ago, and right after that is lunch break. Hopefully the besalisk didn't care enough to check, though.
His attention was also on her now, watching her with narrowed yellow eyes. She didn't flinch once under the pressure of his gaze, glaring back at him just as intently.
"Right, sorry, I'm coming."
She hummed distractedly as an answer, not even looking Anakin's way as he walked briskly to her side, relieved to put some distance between himself and the older Jedi who brought his gaze back to him.
"The next time I catch you messing with what isn't yours, Skywalker, I won't be as lenient as I've been today."
She didn't pay any mind to his words; too busy brushing her mind delicately against said Jedi's own mind, reading his most prominent thoughts without alerting him to the slight intrusion.
Worthless... no regard for authority… ungrateful… what do… see in them?... no matter… see one day… true talent elsewhere… pathetic children playing with swords… as if they mattered in this galaxy…
Well. Nothing great going on in there. Nothing new either; he wasn't the only Jedi who disliked them. Still, she couldn't figure out where she knew him from…
" 'M sorry, sir," Anakin mumbled, taking her hand and pulling insistently, eager to leave.
It will probably come to her later. For now, her priority was getting Anakin away from him.
Out of the blue, she ended their tense staring contest by beaming at the knight and bowing her head lightly instead of the full bow expected from an initiate to a more highly promoted Jedi.
"Sir. I hope your day will be as pleasant as you are."
With that, she finally let Anakin pull her away before the now startled knight could register her parting words.
As they hurried out of his vicinity, looking straight ahead in an attempt to seem natural despite their speedy departure, she reached to their bond.
You have a lot of explaining to do, Ani.
I know.
Are you alright?
Yeah.
He sounded much more subdued even in his thoughts. That knight certainly did a number on him.
Who was he anyway?
Knight Krell.
Krell…
Images flooded their minds. A tall besalisk, kneeling with a smirk and a shaking blaster aimed right at his head. Him again, lightsabers out, deflecting lasers and cutting down soldiers in white without mercy.
Anakin and Zarya looked at each other, eyes wide.
Pong Krell.
'Rya, you know him…?
I have a lot of explaining to do, too.
(( ))
"I swear I was doing nothing wrong, I was just fixing some of the vehicles in the hangar, not modifying them one bit mind you, and he comes barging in, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me away from where I was working, rattling on about how I was sabotaging the speeders and stuff!" He paced in front of her in agitation, hands passing through his short-cut hair distractedly. "He even said he was going to bring in real mechanics and make them check every single one of them to make sure no one would get into an accident or something because of me. Me! I fix stuff, not destroy them!"
"Anakin," Zarya stopped him. "I know that, I'm the last person you need to convince when it comes to your intentions or talents in mechanic." She breathed deeply to try and calm her own frazzled nerves, shifting on his bed for a more comfortable sitting position. "What I want to know, is what happened to make you so terrified."
At that, he finally stopped wearing a hole on the carpeted floor, averting his gaze from hers.
"Nothing."
She scoffed. "How convincing. You do remember that I feel your emotions like you can feel mine, right? So it was for no reason at all that, for a moment, I was certain you were in terrible danger—"
"I wasn't!"
"What did Krell do to you, Anakin?" Her voice was rising with her frustration. "I thought you were going to be hurt, why was that?!"
"Because I thought so, too!" He shouted back.
She looked at him, horrified. She knew Krell wasn't a good guy, but he was still a Jedi and would be so for about a decade before he attempts to join the Sith. Surely he wouldn't hurt children…?
Anakin huffed, letting himself fall in a seated position on the floor and crossing his legs. He opened his mouth a few times before closing it again, uncertain of how to explain. Zarya sent a feeling of calm/safety/love through the bond in an effort to help him calm down. He immediately clung to those feelings like he would be lost without them.
"I thought- I thought he would hurt me because… When he grabbed me, I wasn't with him in the hangar anymore. I was back on Tatooine with Watto, right after being caught doing stuff I shouldn't have been. Instincts kicked in and, I didn't try to explain or defend myself, that—that doesn't resolve anything with him. I just froze, waiting for my punishment. It's… most times, it's worse if I try to defend myself."
They stayed in silence for a while, Anakin's head falling into his hands while Zarya stared unblinkingly at the wall behind him. What she wanted to do to that Toydarian sometimes… As for the besalisk…
"Do you think he would've actually hurt you?"
"I don't know, maybe? I'm really not sure. You can't go after him, 'Rya."
She stared at him, unimpressed.
"I'm serious!" He rolled his eyes. "We're kind of the oddities in this temple, and the more Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are trying to convince everyone else about keeping us together because of our bond, the more we're dragging them down with us. No one else believes us when we say the other initiates are picking on us, why would they believe us about a fully-fledged Jedi knight this time?"
Zarya shrugged. "I mean, we could always deal with him like we deal with the rest."
"We're not pranking him, Zarya. I doubt we would get away with sneaking a nanny droid in his room like we did with Ferus." A small smirk came to his lips at the memory.
Ferus Olin had come to dislike both Anakin and Zarya with time, especially since rumours of one of them being the chosen one came around. He often went out of his way to bother them with insults and challenges they couldn't be bothered to rise to, since they were without a doubt attempts to get them in trouble one way or another.
Once, he mockingly treated them like toddlers for a whole day at the amusement of other initiates, forcefully helping them at the most basics of tasks and talking to them like they were babies. A childish way to make them lose any kind of credibility in everyone else's eyes, which was easy to do considering they were still behind in many areas of study compared to the others their age who lived at the temple for far longer.
That very same night, they snuck a lightly reprogrammed nanny droid in the room he shared with other boys at the crèche. They weren't there to see the result, but the stories and laughter directed Ferus' way the next morning clued them in on what happened.
Like the droid was programmed to do, it took care of its charge like any other: bundled him in blankets no matter how much he tried to get out of them, trying to feed him a bottle, shushing him when he loudly complained, as if he were a baby.
The droid was reprogrammed to think he was a baby, after all. Ferus was absolutely livid when a caretaker finally came to his rescue, and he had no way of proving their part in it without admitting how he started it.
It was one of their most hilarious pranks yet.
"Why not? It could be funny," Zarya chuckled.
"Sure. I'm certain being accused by an angry besalisk afterwards would be a laugh, too." Anakin scooted until his back was to his bed, legs extended in front of him. He leaned his head on the bed when she started playing with his short hair strands. "No, knight Krell is not the one I'm after."
"Who are you after, then? Watto?"
He was silent for a beat, and then sighed.
"Zarya, I want to go check on my mom."
Her eyebrows rose at that. Although, she shouldn't be surprised; it has been a while, and while Shmi had a bit of money on her side thanks to yours truly, there was no way to check and see if she was free yet.
"And how do you suggest we do that? The Jedi won't allow us because of attachment, we don't have a way out of this planet and they might not take us back if we disappear for weeks and come back as if nothing happened!"
"… I know."
Well crap. He sounded so defeated, and she could understand why.
He's been on edge for the last couple weeks, having nightmares about Shmi most nights. The same one every time: his mom in so much pain, death right at her door. Yet she wasn't as afraid as she was… defiant, in those dreams.
Should they be real, Shmi was at the beginning, or the end, of something big. And they had no clue what it was.
It worried Zarya a lot, since this was happening years earlier than it should have and completely differently. Another change she apparently made, and this time it might be for the worst, since they had no way of reaching Shmi.
Or, as horrible as it sounds, maybe it's for the best since Anakin won't be there to see her die and, in a fit of blind rage, avenge her in the most horrible way.
Then again, should Shmi die, it will be a big, glaringly open wound for Sidious to take advantage of. No way would he pass up the opportunity to blame the Jedi for Anakin's mother's death.
"I just… I just wish I had a way, any way to talk to her and make sure she's ok."
Zarya bit her lip, uncertain on what they should do. "You might be jumping at shadows. It's been a couple years since you've seen her now, and we're talking about Jawas in one of our classes these days, maybe all that is stressing you out. There's no way to know if you're having anything more than ordinary nightmares."
He sent a glare her way, but his words lacked any bite. "Do you truly think that? Or are you spouting what the rest of the Jedi say all the time, about putting feelings aside and listening to the force instead?"
"No," she sighed. "I don't believe that." She's seen his nightmares, after all. And they were way too vivid to be anything else than a warning.
"Would anyone believe me if I tell them about my dreams?"
Her hand stopped playing with his hair as she thought about it.
"Some might. Most will tell you that, even if they're prophetic dreams, the fact that they're about your mom is blinding you. Why go save her specifically instead of anyone else suffering just the same or even worse?"
"Because I love her." He scrunched his nose. "Whiiiich they will see as an attachment and waste no time to kick me out of the order. This is truly the worst timing ever, with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon both gone on missions who knows where."
She hummed, thinking about other possibilities they could have. There were very few ways to go to Tatooine right now without disastrous consequences, but she could still try and rectify that.
"Don't do anything rash and let me see what I can do, Ani. We'll find your mom."
The way he looked up at her with such hope, trust and faith, there was absolutely no way she could deny him, in the end. Those were the lights she was determined to keep alive in his heart, no matter what.
She'll put the whole Pong Krell thing out of her mind for now, until he actually does something worth her attention. Right now, they both had more important things on their plate.
(( ))
What she could do, as it turns out, was very little. Initiates were subjected to a lot of supervision since they were mostly all under thirteen years old, so no way they could be gone unnoticed. They did have a few trips now and then, but not very often and mostly in the core, so certainly never even near to the outer rims.
There was one trip they will be leaving for soon though; the most anticipated one for all initiates Master Drallig deemed ready for.
The Crystal Cave of Ilum, in the unknown regions: the place where they will get their very own kyber crystal.
…which happens to be the complete opposite way of Tatooine. So that was a bust.
Finally getting their own lightsabers will be awesome either way.
So that's what Zarya was searching right now, studying a star map in the library on one of the monitors in the hopes of finding a planet near the outer rims that they could visit soon, and from there they could… what? Escape for a day and go to Tatooine? How will she even convince anyone of bringing them to said planet to begin with?
"What are you researching?"
Zarya jumped at the voice, turning to see a young human teenager right behind her. A short braid right behind his right ear showed he was a padawan, probably helping Master Nu, the chief librarian, for the day; which was a very common punishment from what she's observed.
"I'm… not researching anything in particular," she finally answered. "Just studying the map for class."
He raised an eyebrow and his lip twitched, seemingly not believing her.
"You've been looking at this particular region of the outer rims for a while now, that's not a part of the galaxy we tend to focus on much in class. No, you're looking for something. What is it?"
Oh, what the hell. It's not like he'll take a nine years old seriously anyhow, so why not go for honesty?
"I'm looking for planets near the outer rims where they'll let us initiates go to so that I can sneak to Tatooine for a day or so for… personal reasons."
At that, he definitely seemed amused.
"The Masters will never let initiates go anywhere in the mid rims, let alone the outer rims." He tilted his head to the side as she gaped at him. "What personal reasons? And why Tatooine?"
"You think I'm telling the truth?"
The teenager shrugged. "You were vague enough not to lie."
She thought about brushing him off; this was none of his business and she didn't want any knight or master to catch wind of her sudden interest in her planet of origin (in a way). Yet something, a feeling that resembled suspiciously like the Force was telling her to talk to him…
"Why the interest?" She was still suspicious after all, Force guidance or not.
He reached towards the monitor in front of her, gesturing to a planet that, coincidently, wasn't very far from The Sand Pit from Hell™.
"My Master and I are leaving on a mission to Ryloth in about a week; I'll be quite near your planet at that moment. If I'm not mistaken, you'll be on Ilum with a few others of your group, right?"
"Right?" She said as a question.
"Well, I have nothing to link me to Tatooine so if I was to go there, it certainly wouldn't be for personal reasons. And you'll be on the other side of the galaxy; no one will think for a second you have anything to do with it even if whatever I do there is for you."
Now she was feeling very sceptical. "Why would you do anything for me? We don't know each other at all."
With a friendly smile, he extended his hand to her.
"Sedyn Marr, pleasure to officially meet you, Zarya Skywalker."
She shook his hand, now very confused.
"You're that guy with the yellow lightsaber, right?" He nodded even as his smile seemed to wane a little. "I've seen you fight before, a while ago. You're good, but I still don't know you or your reason for helping me."
He shrugged again. "Let's just say that you'll owe me a favour and I might need to cash it in one day."
Why did that sound a bit ominous? She couldn't really feel any ill intention, so it isn't too worrying. She could search his mind, but intruding on someone that way isn't a great mean to make new friends in the long run.
"When I said personal, I was talking about a dear friend of mine. Family, even. I think she's in trouble, and I wanted to check on her to make sure she's safe. Are you comfortable with that?"
If Sedyn was surprised or shocked by what was basically her admitting she had an attachment, he didn't show it.
"Trust me when I say: I don't think there is anything more natural than wanting to help those you love. Now, tell me what you need me to do."
Well Zarya was certainly surprised. She didn't even try to hide her relief, either.
(
Things are finally getting into motion a bit more; Zarya will have no choice but to move with them too instead of going with the flow like she often does.
Ilum is next! Now what challenge should Zarya face? What would scare her, motivate her to move forward, or challenge her?
And what is going on with Shmi Skywalker? Tell me what you think!
Many thanks to Motion in the Dust, fantasy.92, karol552, TeamTano, sallymadrigal605, Chryseum and (1) guest for the reviews!
Hearing what you hope for, like and dislike in this story is guiding how it goes on, so keep at it!
Until next time!
-Maginary
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