Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OCs and possibly some percentage of the plot.
Oram Paklan and Shmi Skywalker watched the assessing childhood education expert walk off with Anakin Skywalker in tow. He closed the door to his office and turned to the woman, saying, "Now that your son is out of earshot, there are things I would like to discuss with you. You can tell him these things, but I would prefer to go over them just between us as adults, and you can then decide what to tell him, how much and when. You're his mother and you know him best and you know what you want for him best."
She cocked her head at him, reading his intentions in his posture, facial expression and tone of voice. Whatever he had to say, he was both sincere and well-intentioned. "What is it you wish to speak of?"
"I will begin by being blunt. Lukailav, as with many others of our . . . organisation, is a Force-sensitive, and had what she described as the sense that the universe was screaming at her to go to Tatooine, and once there that she had to free your son and yourself."
"Force-sensitive?" Mistress Skywalker asked.
A fair question was implicit in the inquiry. "Most people have heard of the Jedi. They are a religious sect many thousands strong with a central temple on Coruscant and the occasional schismatic temple such as the one on Corellia. Most Force-sensitives of any significant power tend to get found by organised groups with consistent and coherent religious organisations and structures like the Jedi or the monks on Jedha. We here are part of a group of Force-sensitives that try to exist outside the normal structures. We try to offer people the chance to be trained in Force use as simply another skill, such as piloting or drawing."
"So, Ani is . . . Force-sensitive," she said. "His dreams that come true, his ability to pod-race, these are indications of this?"
Shmi Skywalker was an intelligent woman. "Many of the Force-sensitive have similar sorts of abilities. A preternatural ability to read people, to have 'gut instinct' that works on a higher level, increased reflexes and balance or even just good luck are all hallmarks," Oram said. "However, while this is something I intend to discuss with you, in particular regarding his Force-related education, you need to understand something about why Lukailav freed you. She said the Force told her to free you and Anakin specifically. That there was something important about getting him." He looked her dead in the eye, impressing how serious he was about this. "It doesn't mean that he's some sort of Chosen One. It could mean that he'll be a great leader of some sort, or it could just mean that at some point in his life he'll make sure someone else does something important. It could also mean that leaving him where he was would lead to tragedy - perhaps that he would experience something that would cause him to do terrible things. I don't know, no one can, really. But if he asks why you and why him and not anyone else, well, it's partly that we don't have the ability to go up against the Hutts or free all the slaves on Tatooine, but that's why the two of you specifically."
The woman nodded. "I thank you for clarifying, and for giving me the choice on when and how to tell him. I think I will wait until he is a little older and a little more understanding of how hard it would be to free the slaves before I tell him too much more." Left unsaid was that she would avoid placing the pressure on him that he might be in some way special beyond the obvious. "Now, you said something about a Force-related education?"
"Yes," he said. "We'll be doing a few tests to determine exactly how Force-sensitive Anakin is, and once we know that we'll be arranging for you both to start a new life in close proximity to someone who can teach him the basics he'll need. That person will also help with determining what further training he might need. That is, if he decides he wants to become a politician, he'll need someone to teach him the ethics of using the Force in those situations. If he decides to become a teacher, there will be different skills and ethics and so on. Until Anakin has some more specific ideas about what he plans to do, only a general grounding can be arranged."
Shmi Skywalker then began to ask questions. Clarifying what was meant in terms of them starting a new life, determining exactly why they were so determined to hide from the Jedi and trying to understand what their choices were. She was determined, now that they were no longer slaves, to grasp the chance to choose for herself and her son. It was very pleasing when Oram took her wishes into account, then sent notes to his people to ensure that greater care was taken in the provision of choice. It was very clear they were concerned about the way the Jedi went about things, and how they took choices away from families, albeit with the best of intentions.
When word came back that Anakin was so strong in the Force that they had a much-reduced number of potential teachers, she again refused to be pressed into simply accepting their suggestions, demanding full explanations of how and why the teachers were picked.
All this talk had reminded her of something, though. She might not have Ani's raw power, but she too could speak to the Underneath, call on it to lead her well and take those steps she saw to bring about the right things. She had done so in the past, standing here and not there, saying this and not that, being defiant or being not. There was a single name on the list, one at the bottom of the list, one there because it was an option, but not one they thought wise.
"Her," Shmi said, placing a finger next to the name. She reached into the Underneath, the Force as these people called it, and asked once more. Yes, this was right. "Cara Mabban on Naboo."
Cara Mabban arrived three weeks later. She had clearly left the moment she was contacted. Shmi waited calmly with Anakin as the slender, brunette human strode up to them, with her first words being, "I don't care what the Force told you, this is a terrible idea."
"I thought you said she had lots of Force power," Anakin said, confused. It was true that the new arrival bled so little presence into the Underneath that, had Shmi not known better, she would have thought Cara had a below-average number of those midichlorians she and Anakin had been told were the physical determinants of power.
The woman looked at Anakin a moment, then something lifted inside her and where others glowed like the moon, she shone brightly like a small sun. Not as brightly as Anakin, but enough that Shmi could see why this woman was shortlisted as powerful enough to teach her son. "I prefer to hide," Cara declared bluntly, the something slamming down like a metal shutter before a sandstorm, hiding her once more. She turned back. "Why me?"
Whipcord tension spoke to fear. This woman was frightened and minimised her participation out of fear. But she also would, if pressed, force that fear aside to do necessary things. Shmi felt the Underneath and smiled. "Ani and I were slaves," she responded. "Sometimes you need to hide."
Cara reached out with the Force, clearly testing Shmi and Anakin. Her breath hissed between her teeth a moment, then she said, "All right. But he'll need a new teacher in time. I can't . . ." she swallowed, eyes tightly closed a moment as she struggled with something. Then she did something, something that sent all that fear and tension outward, dissipating it as though it had never been. "There are things I don't dare teach him myself that he'll probably need to know." She was calm now, though it felt like a false calm.
"Are you sure?" asked Oram of Anakin's new teacher.
Cara's lips twisted wryly, and she waved a hand a moment, the Force pooling in and around her easily for a moment before the sense of it vanished again as though it had never been. "It would appear that I must be so."
"You have a choice," Shmi said, smiling gently at the startled look.
"I do and I don't," replied the other woman. "If I chose otherwise, it would be . . . less good. That makes it not a choice. Metaphorically speaking."
They said their farewells to Oram, making their way to the ship Cara had arrived on. As they walked, the two women worked through the story they would tell people; that Cara had a brother from whom she had become estranged, that the brother had been Shmi's husband and a podracer by trade, that he had died and his debts had placed Anakin and Shmi in slavery.
"Ani used to podrace," Shmi explained. "He knows much of it, and was very skilled at it. The only human on Tatooine who could do so."
Anakin had been mostly quiet, occasionally asking questions about the various people they met, the different species, cultural markers and sights as they walked to the landing bay where Cara's ship was waiting. "Right, is there anything else we need to be aware of in terms of things he might know or talk about unexpectedly?" Cara asked her.
Shmi shook her head. "I think the story of you coming for your nephew and sister-in-law in memory of your brother should cover that."
Once they had taken off, the droid in the cockpit handling the flight, Cara joined them in the back of the ship and said. "Okay, before I start working with you on your Basic," she said to Anakin, "And meditation, what questions do you have for me?"
Anakin had always responded best to the straightforward. It had always been one of Shmi's concerns about him, that he was not subtle and didn't follow subtle well at all. This bluntness was likely to connect well with him. "When you said you did and didn't have a choice, what did that mean?" he asked. "Either you have a choice or you don't."
Cara's lips were pursed a little sideways as she contemplated the question. "Okay," she said after a moment. "At any moment in the day we have lots of choices, it's just that some of those choices are so stupid or awful that they're not really choices. Like, say, I could choose to go and blow open the airlock right now and kill us all. That would be a really bad choice. But the choice exists, whether or not I consider it to be a useful or good choice. In the case of teaching you things about the Force, I could have said no. But," she said with heavy emphasis, "When I reached the Force to check whether I should, the Force basically told me that if I said 'no' something would happen that I would think was . . . not really good. Because I want to avoid bad things happening, I feel like it's not a choice, because to make the other choice would be bad. Do you see? I have the option, but because of what I feel would be a good or bad outcome I'm limited by that."
"Oh," Anakin considered this. "What does metaphorically mean?"
"A metaphor is something people mostly use when talking about literature. Stories and holos and things like that. Basically, it's when you say that one thing is like something else, partly to explain it and partly to maybe make what you're saying mean more than it would otherwise. So, if I said someone's head is a vacuum, I don't mean that there's literally an actual vacuum sitting on their shoulders, I mean they're not very smart or don't know a lot. So, when I said I had no choice-"
"You were saying it was like not having a choice, even though you actually did," Anakin said. "Oh. Okay." He seemed to brace himself, then said, "Why don't you wanna teach me?"
Cara looked steadily at him, and said, "Because I'm scared. The way I learned to use the Force was . . . bad. It was so bad that it's actually hard for me to talk about it. I'm scared that I'll wind up teaching you bad things even if I don't mean to. I'm scared I'll do bad things because of how I learned. I'm still trying to . . . to learn how to stop being scared, and being scared can be really really bad when you're using the Force. It's not that I don't want to teach you, it's that I think I might be a bad teacher."
Shmi stood, placing her hands on Cara's shoulders, forcing the woman to turn and look at her. "The Underneath has not led me wrongly yet. If you cannot trust yourself, you should trust that."
"Somehow, it's not that easy," she said with a laugh the was more a forcefully expelled breath than true laughter. "But I'll try." Turning to Anakin, she asked, "Do you have any other questions right now?"
He shook his head.
"Okay, so then let me explain the two most important things I'm going to try give you a base in for when we get to Naboo," Cara said. "The first is reading and writing in Basic, and the other is meditating. The reading and writing is because nearly all the signs on Naboo are in Basic, the books you'll have to read for school will be in Basic, most ship manuals and holonet locations will be in Basic, you get the picture."
"Okay," Anakin said. Shmi nodded, determined to pick it up herself.
"Meditation is the first skill you'll need to learn in order to handle the Force," Cara said. "Meditation is useful for a lot of things. First, it's really useful in terms of practising just pulling up the power and releasing it for when you need it, it's also the basis for a lot of skills, like healing. You can use the Force to help heal other people or yourself, and part of doing that involves going into a trance, which is a really really deep meditation. Lastly, meditation is really important for when you need to clear your mind." She paused, taking a deep breath as she steeled herself to continue. "The thing is, you will probably hear about the dark side of the Force at some point. You can use emotions to boost your power, but in specific circumstances that can be dangerous for you and other people."
Anakin frowned at her. "What do you mean, dangerous? Like when you overload a circuit?"
Cara winced. "Not at all like that. It's more like . . . have you ever been so mad at someone that you just wanted to hurt them? Say, if someone was hitting you and you wanted to hit them back? Not just that you wanted them to stop, but that you wanted them to bl-" She closed her eyes, shuddered, and that sense of her bleeding feelings off into the Underneath came again. "You wanted to actually really hurt them, not just stop them."
"Oh." He thought at second. "Yeah. That's not good, is it?"
Shmi smiled proudly at him for seeing that clearly. "It is not, but it is good that you see that."
"You need to remember that it's not good, because when you use your feelings to add power to the Force, you tend to make those feelings stronger. So if you're angry or scared, they make the Force stronger, but the Force makes the feelings stronger. It's a feedback loop, and if you get too angry, you're likely to start wanting to hurt someone, not just want to stop them, for example. And you can see how you can't use good feelings like love or happiness to boost things if you're in a fight, say."
Anakin eyed her. "Is that why you're shoving your feelings into the Force?"
Cara quirked her lips. "It's a shortcut. Actually, there's a real proper way to do it, but sometimes, if you're in a serious situation where you don't have time to do it properly, it can make sure you don't start feeding the wrong things into what you're doing. Right now, talking about this is . . . y'know how I said I learned things a bad way?"
And her fears were now clarified. "You were trained by someone using the darkness," Shmi said in understanding.
"Yes," Cara said with a sigh. "There's a lot of crossover between dark and so-called light Force use, but it was a terrifying, horrible experience, so when I think about it I start feeling it all over again, and I also have bad habits."
"You use the horrible feelings to boost stuff," Anakin said, "Even when you don't mean to?"
She nodded. "The thing is, I assume you were told about how the Jedi see themselves as the ones who are supposed to be in charge of Force stuff?" When they indicated the affirmative, Cara continued, "Well, maybe I should be seeing a therapist about it, but there are laws about telling the Jedi things like that someone is a dark Force user in a lot of places. They're not very flexible about things like people who've stopped being dark users."
"So, how do you do it properly?" the boy asked. Cara paused for so long, he grumbled, "If you don't wanna tell me, you could say so."
His teacher shook her head. "It's not that, it's that sometimes these ideas are complicated, and I don't want to describe it in a way that makes you think the wrong thing. It's . . . okay, imagine if you're trying to teach me how to build a pod racer. I don't know anything about pod racers. If you just tell me to connect one part to another, I'd have to guess which wires connected to what. I'd have to guess how to bolt something into place, and I'm likely to punch a hole through some important casing because to me that looks like the best place to attach the part to the machine. Then I'll have something that won't work, or will only work for a while before exploding. The thing is, though, sometimes, if you know something so well that it's almost instinctive, you can wind up missing steps or not explaining right because you think it's obvious even when it's not."
"Oh," Anakin was thoughtful. "So, that's what happened with Kitster's 'hopper."
Cara eyed him a moment, then said, "The proper way to release emotions into the Force starts with meditating. Once you're properly tranced you examine the feeling you want to release. Figure out everything about it. Maybe you're angry because someone attacked and hurt you. But underneath that you might also be scared of that person. So there's also fear. You might want to hurt them back a little, which is stepping into strong dislike or even hate. You could feel embarrassed or ashamed that they hurt you, say because you think you should have been able to get away or stop them. You could also feel a little helpless because it happened. There can be a lot of feelings wrapped up and around something. Once you know all the things you're feeling, and why you're feeling them, you have to try to step back from it inside your head and review everything until you can look at the memory that's causing the feeling without actively getting angry or sad or scared. When it's like watching a holo. You can see the things that are wrong, but you can also see other perspectives. I mean, maybe if your Mom yells at you for acting out you'd get angry, but once you've looked at something from her perspective you see why she did it and suddenly you're not angry anymore."
"That doesn't sound complicated," Anakin said doubtfully.
Shmi looked at her son affectionately, but with the slightest trace of amusement. "Sometimes, the simplest things are the hardest," she told him.
"They really are," Cara agreed. "Because when you're having to look at the thing that makes you angry or scared, it's really hard to be objective about it, to try to treat it like a story you heard from someone else. It can make you angry or scared all over again, and if you stare at the anger and fear too long you can wind up letting it be the only thing you think about. But it's about accepting that something happened that made you feel something, accepting all the different things that you feel, being sure you know why you feel those things, and then resolving as much as you can to change the things you can, accept the things you can't and know the difference. Once you've done all that, you have to slot the memory away, like data in a library and then let the anger or whatever go, while keeping the determination to act with you."
"Store the memory like data in a library?" Anakin was intrigued. "Would that make my memories work like a library?"
Cara shrugged. "Sometimes. It does help to organise your mind, but everybody's different and the main thing is to not risk letting yourself be controlled by anger or fear."
"Like you," Anakin said tactlessly. Shmi winced and sighed.
"Like me," Cara agreed. "But before any of that you'll have to learn meditation. So, do you want to start with that or with improving your Basic?"
Cara owned a house that had been split into two apartments. Shmi and Anakin were settled into the downstairs and Cara had the upstairs. She had, with Shmi's agreement, gotten the woman a place working with the janitorial staff and in the cafeteria with the ballet company that the younger woman danced for. Shmi was also taking classes offered for free by the Naboo government, but gloried in going to do a job, getting paid and then being able to leave work and buy the things she wished, to lock the door behind her knowing there was no master who could demand more of her and to even take days off to help chaperone her son's class at school when they took trips to nature preserves.
Anakin had been placed in a fairly standard school, upon the suggestions of the child education expert. It had been determined that the boy was smart enough to catch up very quickly on subjects he knew little of, would likely rapidly outstrip his more average classmates, but would be better served by a more relaxed environment at first, with other children his own age and with the considerably greater free time available in a less specialised school. Shmi and Cara both agreed that once Anakin was fully caught up they could discuss what should be done to enrich his education.
Meanwhile, Anakin had been taught meditation after a few fits and starts. Cara had first tried the most basic notion, sitting cross-legged on the floor and concentrating. She'd tried mantras, meditating in different places, music and different postures. And then he'd taken a ballet class out of curiosity.
It wasn't that he'd taken to ballet. He said he'd found it uninteresting, but he'd admitted that the repetitious barre exercises had been soothing.
Cara had started him on what she knew of the first of the lightsabre forms then, holding a small rod in his hands in lieu of the sabre itself. Running through those basic exercises, over and over and over again, sinking into the Force and letting it carry his movements, that gave Anakin his first grasp of meditation. With that first step out of the way, she was able to begin working with him on dealing in the Force directly. "The thing is, people who are weaker in the Force have trouble reaching for it and feeling it. I've talked to a few people, who told me about how their first lessons with meditation were about being able to sense things in and about the Force, like . . ." she paused a moment, trying to explain. "A lot of Force users might get a general sense if someone is good or bad, but when you look at someone you can see things, like whether they're actually lying or whether they specifically plan to do something right now."
His eyes widened. "You mean people can't?"
She shook her head. "Not without practice. In your case, you need to learn a couple things, but the first is how to pull back so that you're not reading too much. It's rude, and it makes people uncomfortable when someone knows things about them without being specifically told."
At that point Anakin began to learn about consciously feeling the Force, being specifically aware of its presence, its movements and how to actively use it and more important, to actively not use it. They also began to work through his feelings at the end of each day, all the events of the day and created a mental landscape for him. Anakin's turned out to be the podracer he'd been building on Tatooine, while in flight no less. She decided to put off sorting older and more hurtful memories for a while as Anakin adjusted to their new life.
In spite of her fears, Cara began to relax as Anakin didn't seem to be picking up any poor darksider habits from her, and Naboo's calm and peaceful atmosphere did wonders for all three of them.
It was shattered by the droid invasion. Cara and Anakin both bolted to their feet when the blockade began, both of them hustling Shmi out of the house and Cara leading them down the street, into the woods and racing for a cave that lay on the outskirts of Theed. They hid for several days, but eventually they were found. When the blasters mounted on the invading droid fired, the battle fans hidden up her sleeves snapped to her hands, flying up to block the shots and reflect them at the droid. The fans were an improvisation using the kyber crystals taken from the lost lightsabres of dead Jedi. Over the outside of the fan was an overlay of the humming coloured light that characterised the Jedi weapons.
When the droid was sent staggering back, she didn't follow up or try to ensure it would stop, she just shouted at the other two to run, and fled with them. She wasn't going to fight. To do that, to seriously enter into combat, it was a bad idea. The fear and rage was pulsing in the back of her mind, and she didn't dare risk losing herself to the cycle of power, the addictive sense of imagined invincibility and anger that had driven her earlier in her life, however briefly.
Over the weeks following the initial invasion the Force allowed them to avoid capture, avoid being taken to internment camps and avoid being killed. Somehow, the Force also led them into the spaceship hangar. In the course of the fight, Cara trying to block blaster shots, Shmi just trying to avoid getting in the way of anyone or anything, and Anakin getting distracted while trying to keep up with the women, they were separated.
When one of the ships took off, Cara just knew what had happened. "Anakin, I swear on my father's ship, if you get yourself killed I'm gonna find a way to bring you back so I can kill you again," she hissed.
After the battle, Anakin returned in the ship and Cara was right there waiting for him. Her Force presence had been muted so much she felt more like a droid than a human, and she literally dragged him off the ship, a hand clamped around his wrist as she towed him towards Shmi. Through the point of contact a black cloud of terror and fury roiled, struck through with red lightning. "Ow! You're hurting me!"
She instantly let go, staggering back. "I . . . Shmi! Take him home. Please. I . . . I have to . . . I can't-"
Cara fled, not quite running, pulling the Force around her even further to cloak her to invisibility to any who looked at her. Shmi gently took her son by his other hand, leading him away through the chaos and avoiding notice. She had learned a few things about hiding from Cara and now used them to escape the madness quickly and quietly.
Once they were on the streets, well away from the hangar and heading for home, Anakin asked, "Why was Cara so mad?"
"Because she was frightened, Ani," Shmi explained. "She is already frightened of using her skills in a fight, and then you got on that ship and went flying into the middle of a battle. Instead of doing what we both thought you should and keep yourself safe," she shot her son a significant look that made him flush, shamed, "You took a ship and risked yourself."
"I didn't mean to, it just took off! And the droids had to be stopped!" Anakin protested. "And I was helping!"
Shmi could well imagine the far more volatile Cara's response to this. Despite the other woman's determination to answer Anakin's questions as fully as possible, she could be prickly and reactive to any suggestions relating to violence, the Jedi or dark Force users. She would have clearly explained everything to Anakin, but in this case it would have been laden with sarcasm, anger and if pushed too far the other woman would have said something reprehensible and possible broken anything breakable nearby.
"You were helping, but you did not think of how we would feel if you were hurt or killed, Ani," Shmi began. "I want you to imagine how you would have felt if I had been the one in that ship."
"You don't fly ships," Anakin said.
In this Shmi could be implacable. "Imagine it, Ani. Imagine seeing someone you care about, someone who is not trained in combat piloting throwing himself into the path of blaster fire. Imagine if it had been me where you were."
Her seriousness got through to him, and she could see the moment that Anakin understood the sick fear the two women would have felt. "But I was okay," he said, now less assured.
"But you didn't consider that. You worried us both, and we are angry at you for taking such a risk. It was a terrible risk, there are other pilots on Naboo, you are only a child, Anakin, and I am your mother. Cara is your teacher. You are our responsibility to care for, and we love you. You must try to think of others when you do these things. More than merely winning the battle, you must think of all the people who are with you, Ani."
They continued slowly down the street, walking around and past the damage that had been done to Theed. It was several blocks before Anakin asked in a small voice. "Are you at all proud of me for blowing up the ship?"
Shmi dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around him. "Yes. I am so proud of you. I am proud of your bravery, proud of your skill and your determination. It is only that I believe that your initial intent was to hide, and that you did not deliberately take off to fly into the battle that keeps you from losing privileges. You're still not getting any dessert for a month after the markets return to normal."
"Awww," whined her son, even as he leaned into her.
