Anakin's sleep was never dreamless. Never, since he was a very small boy, had he been blessed with the feeling of sinking into nothingness and emerging from the other side with no sense of anything's having passed along the way. But lately, the dreams had been growing more intense.

Sometimes, as now, he dreamed of his mother. It was always the same. She was stumbling, dizzy and unbalanced, through a stone cavern deep below the Tattooine sand. There was a very narrow elevated path, lit by some strange optical effect of the cave. On either side of this road was a plunge into dark oblivion far beneath.

Shmi Skywalker, tottering as she was, would scarcely have been fit to cross the rope bridge that spanned Sand Dragon Canyon, located a quarter of a day's walk to the south of Mos Espa. For her to attempt this perilous journey was more than folly; it was suicide. And yet nevertheless, she did so, placing one foot after the other and moving -- slowly, cautiously, but moving nonetheless -- out away from the safety of the sandy cavern floor, over the great black maw that gaped up at the narrow winding path.

Anakin trembled as he watched her. He could not even begin to guess why she attempted the crossing. There was nothing on the other side, as far as he could see; the chamber stretched away into gloom. And yet, his mother was surprisingly surefooted, moving with a grace he would not have thought possible for someone in her condition.

Her condition -- and what was that? He had to confess that he did not know. Her wobbling gait appeared almost intoxicated, but something about that didn't feel right. What was it? Something nagged at the back of his mind. He knew -- he just couldn't remember, for the life of him.

She was halfway out of sight when she turned suddenly to see if he was there behind her. As she turned, a treacherous stone moved slightly under her left foot. This sent her off balance. She tottered precariously to one side for a moment, and the plunged into the blackness below, crying his name.

Anakin awoke in a cold sweat and sat bolt upright. This was a mistake, for tongues of flame shot up and down every nerve ending in his body. With a little grunting moan, he sank back to the bed on which he lay.

But what sort of bed was it? Coarse hairs grated against his bare skin, and his back itched all over. He tried to place himself, but could not. The very last thing he remembered was falling, and willing himself to merge with the Force, and then... And then the dream. There was nothing in between.

At last, he opened his eyes. He was staring at a ceiling made of a woven grey grass. The ambient light was tinted faintly red. He could hear, as in the distance, the hubbub of a small city. The very air smelled foul and stale, like the atmosphere on a space ship with faulty filters. But there was more to it than that. He did not recognize the odor, for he did not remember Tattooine that well and it had been completely absent from shining synthetic Coruscant. It was the smell of organic material decaying.

It was difficult simply staring at the ceiling, gaining no knowledge of what was going on around him, but Anakin knew better than to try to move again. Yes, he could use the Force to suppress his pain, but by doing so, he realized, he would be dismissing a valuable ally. The pain told him that his body was not yet healed, and by ignoring it and stressing his damaged body, he would only be wasting energy and risking further energy. No, far better to listen to the signals his own nerves were sending. And so he used the Force to calm him so that he was better able to fight his impatience.

He heard the rustle of reeds being pushed aside, and for a moment the sounds of city life from outside grew louder, but they receded again nearly almost instantly. Though the creature made no sounds, Anakin could tell through the Force that there was someone in the room with him. A moment later, there was a stick-thin form bending over him, much like Rehope except that its fur was soft and golden. It prodded cautiously at Anakin with its four arms for a moment, until the human gave a little, moaning whimper.

The creature's speech was mostly little clicking noises, simply strung together by vowel sounds: "Qokatek." The sounds bore so little resemblance to those of a human that Anakin could not even tell whether it was a question or a statement.

Anakin groaned. "I don't understand you."

The creature clicked several times in what Anakin took to be bemusement. Finally, it intoned, "Potchakopadet."

Anakin was still completely oblivious to its meaning as it used all four arms to swing him up from the rough bed and to his feet. Every inch of him cried out in protest. His legs buckled under his weight. He was still weak from loss of blood. He moaned in pain, but the creature paid him no heed, dragging him away from the bed. Anakin's physical strength was at an end, so he did the last thing he knew. He let the Force fill him, strengthen his body, drive back the pain from his mind. And then he was standing more upright, and walking steadily and evenly beside this tall, thin creature.

The room was sparsely furnished. Its floor was of dirt, and its walls and woven of the same grey grass that formed the ceiling. There was a roughly-hewn wood table in one corner or the room, and on it sat a ceramic bowl filled with dirty water. Anakin had time to take all of this in while the creature brought him his robes. He dressed quickly, still wincing as the fabric of the robes scraped over sores upon his back.

"What's your name?" the Padawan asked.

The creature clicked, "Kakatchipta."

Anakin assumed it was an answer to his quesiton. "I'm going to call you 'Ka' for short," he told it.

The creature swayed its upper body rapidly forward and back in a gesture that somehow reminded Anakin in a nod. Then, it gestured with its left two arms at a screen of reeds that made up part of one wall of the room. Anakin walked to them and pressed them gently aside. Immediately, the sounds and smells were significantly stronger.

He pushed through the reed curtain and found himself standing at the edge of a crowded thoroughfare, bustling with creatures he had never seen before, all with someplace to be and with parcels and bags under their arms. As he stood and watched for a moment, he observed something rather startling. There was not one human in the bunch.

Some of the buildings were grass huts like the one he had just left. Others were bulbous and organic-looking, all waves and arcs and curves. Their surfaces were rough. Still others were simply swellings of the ground, great mounds of dirt and stone with the insides dug out. It was all quite unlike anything Anakin had ever seen before.

A moment later, the thin creature emerged from the hut behind him and took him by the arm. Together, they joined the throng flowing down the dirty street.