Chronology: during TPM
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: every place, character, situation that exhibits the unmistakable SW trademark belongs to the 'venerable Flanelled One'. No rights infringment is intended. The story's main character belongs to itself instead, and to the… desert.
Note: That Qui-Gon had already been on Tatooine is mentioned by Terry Brooks in the TPM novelization (pag. 108, hardcover edition). As for the Tusken ambush against Darth Maul, well, he himself gives us an account of it in his Episode1 Journal (pag. 60-62).
A special thanks goes to my beta readers Eleia and Lys73 (wow, I've doubled my audience!).
I dedicate this story to the Sinai 'Sandpeople'. In a magic February night, beneath that starry roof that only the desert can show off, they made me understand the real meaning of the word: 'freedom'.
I dedicate it as well to Iain McCaig who contributed with his fantastic concepts to shape my dreams.
In the relentless light of the early afternoon the Nubian starship quivers like a mirage. But Amira's senses don't let themself be deceived by the red-hot frenzy of the desert. Lurking from behind the rock cathedrals, she watches. And waits.
An ambush has just failed. A group of Raiders, belonging to her clan, tried to stop the dark warrior. They lured him into the gloom of a canyon, sorrounded and attacked him. But the stranger didn't even grant them the honour of a real fight. With an impressive show of strenght and cat-like grace he jumped over his aggressors and eventually shook them off, fast and efficient as only hate can be.
OTHERS are his opponents… And his targets.
Now nothing remains but to wait. And to hope the diversion's at least hindered the black predator's hunt.
Against the trembling horizon line two figures stand out. They rush to the ship. The Tusken woman doesn't need eyes to make out the identity of the two runaways. She feels Qui-Gon's anxiety, his tense concentration. She senses Anakin's exhaustion, his strain to keep up with the Jedi Master. The projection of their moods is so intense as to take her breath away.
Cheer up, just a few paces to go…
A wave of sheer dread suddenly strikes her perceptions. She recognizes its icy touch. Far too well…
The unusually roundish shape of a speeder appears from behind the 'little wizard'. The dark lord is driving it. In the blink of an eye he fills the gap between his transport and the child. Only the instinct and Qui-Gon's timely warning save Anakin from being running over. The chase is not over though. The Jedi Master is the fulcrum which the mysterious warrior's aggression lever on. A red blade appears from the glare of the conspiracy of light and sand. It hits with a sore buzz the Jedi's green beam. Acrid smell of ozone flies on the wings of wind. It brings the young Tusken the echo of the ripplings in the Force field. The echo of its dramatic tears.
Without delay the child springs to his feet and reaches the landing ramp.
Go, Ani, go!
Amira's body tenses, overwhelmed by the feeling of the titanic clash happening in front of her very eyes. An old reflex surfaces from her subconscious. Her left hand tries to grasp the metal cylinder that in times past used to escort her leather belt. In vain. Her feeling of helplessness increases. And her anger. It emerges from the abyss of fear. Floods her mind like a river in spate. It throbs with the relentless blood pressure on her temporal veins: the Dark Side. Dense. Viscous. She can almost touch it.
Quicker, easier, more seductive…
Quickness. That's what she needs now.
This time I can't wait and see while my life breaks to pieces… I have to do something. NOW.
Exactly in that moment a powerful hand grabs hold of her shoulder. On the wings of a blind predatory istinct she's ready to deliver her deadly bowl. But a pair of red goggles freeze her momentum and… her intentions. Sharad Hett. Concentrated on the duel, she hasn't perceived the Tusken leader's approach.
The ex-Jedi stares hard at her, slowly shaking his head.
"Do no interfere. Watch instead"
She turns her attention back to the scene of the fight. Out of the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of the spacecraft taking off, its loading ramp still lowered.
What the hell… Yes! Clever… This is definitely your work, Obi-Wan…
The transport quickly moves toward the two duellers. A sand storm, set off by the big transport's repulsorlifts, reduces considerably the visibility. Availing himself of the momentary advantage, Qui-Gon leaps onto the rampway and shelters in the bowels of the ship, by then in line with her escape vector.
It's over. It's over…
Hett squeezes reassuringly the shoulder of the younger Tusken. Through the Force he sends her a deep feeling of peace and acceptance. The mental caress of a man, of a Raider, who has been walking a similar life path.
Amira's legs give way under the weight of the exhaustion and the tension accumulated in the last two days. Her nails sinks into the sand while thousands of images piles up in her mind. Memories. Recent and remote… A face, hardened by experience and responsability, shades into the soft innocence of a child's expression. The reflections of a bonfire dance with the shadows of the desert. Big, strong hands intertwine hers. While hers shakily wonder at the touch of tiny fingers. Blue blazing eyes shift from amused to concentrated looks. From piercing to sad… Those eyes. So alike. So different.
The woman raises her goggles looking for the last Nubian's metal blink in the Tatooine azure blanket. Through her breather a lullaby resounds, broken at intervals by her tears. "Ila-l-likâ, ila-l-likâ" it says over and over again… ''Good-bye, Good-bye".
Good-bye to her past and to her future. To the man who made her heart fly off. To the child whom that very heart let fly off. Her son… Now, walking the sky.
§
Epilogue
Tatooine's stars have never seemed so indifferent to the pain of Shmi Skywalker. So responsible for her loss. They took Ani away from her. And their twinkling triumph seems to make fun of the woman's bent figure, sitting wearily on the balcony rail of her back porch. All at once she feels the weight of years lying heavy on her back. Weakening her endurance.
Letting oneself go… That would be so easy…
A light rustle warns her of a new presence. An intruder. Hiding in the heavy tails of a cloack, it seems to scan her face from the darker corner of the porch. Still, like the evening air.
"Will you be all right?"
The woman's brown eyes half-close trying to focus and identify the owner of such an usual voice. A disguised voice. Or better, filtered…
"Amira?"
A slight shift of the stranger's head unveils a profile entirely wrapped in gauzes. Shmi doesn't need to know more.
"I'm glad to meet you again"
The slave's words crash again against a wall of silence. For a moment she watches the stoic and dignified figure of the Tusken woman. The back as stiff as a ramrod, the arms folded in the robe's wide sleeves.
"How, did you do it Amira? How did you manage?"
"This… This is not the first time I've been wandering about your home…"
"No. I mean, how did you manage to… give up Ani?"
The sense of her question pierces like a vibroblade into Amira's mental shields.
"Exactly as you did, Shmi. By learning to let go. Confident that it was the best I could do for him"
The older woman shakes her head. A bitter smile hovers on her lips.
"A life as a slave? Was it the best for him?"
"When I left him with you, you weren't a slave at all. And later on, what should I have done? Should I have torn him from the love of the only mother he had ever known? The will of the Force is often inscrutable, my friend… After all these years, I can hardly accept it myself"
The slave bows her head and fixes her eyes on the dusty floor of the porch. Both her tears and her words have dry up.
"Shmi, you've been the best mother Anakin could wish for. Never ever doubt that. What could I have taught to him? Grudge? Despair? Hate for those we love. Love for those we hate. The brutality of the life in the desert… No. You sowed the seed of generosity in his heart. And that one of compassion. They'll have to fight their way out of the burning sand. But soon or later they will germinate. I can feel it… And I know it"
The older woman looks at the young Tusken with renewed admiration.
She's comforting me. Right after loosing for the second time her own child…
"Maybe there is something you could have taught to him. Something I couldn't possibly talk to him about… Something like... freedom"
Amira doesn't reply. She silently thanks the spirits of the dunes for concealing her expressions under thick gauzes. And together with the expressions, her emotions.
She looks away from Shmi and from her own sense of inadequacy. From the endless doubts that torment every choice made. Every opportunity denied. But a pressing thought urges her to focus again on her intelocutor.
"Thank you, Shmi. Thanks for keeping my secret and protecting my… the child"
Shmi shuts her eyes closed. Her nod is hardly visible. She draws a long sigh, trying to pluck up her courage.
"Qui-Gon Jinn… He is Ani's father, isn't he? That's why you let him take the child along…"
The Tusken woman seems to waver. A never-ending instant.
"Anakin's soul belongs to the desert. But it belongs to the stars as well and to the... Force"
It's not an answer. Or maybe it is. Time for words is over. The wheel of life has resumed its slow cycle. And the desert claims Amira back.
Shmi watches her leaving. Becoming a shade in the shades. Not bent at all under the heavy load of a destiny that like the Force seems to be transmitted through the blood. Mothers who loose their own children. Children who loose their own mothers…
And she wonders whether this curse will ever end…
The End
Feedback is welcome, but again, not too "wude", please: I'm from the Outer Rim and don't fully master basic ;)
Jinna@sabermail.com