"Mom, they sold the Pod!" Anakin cried out in delight as he burst through the door of their little hovel. Qui-Gon and Nathrrya were behind him and looked almost smug but were being quiet about it. Anakin showed his mother what he had in his hands. "Look at all the money we have!"
Shmi smiled but her eyes were stunned as she took the bag of coins from her son and looked through it. "Oh my goodness, that's wonderful, Ani!"
"Both of you have also been freed of your slavery," Nathrrya said as she and the Jedi Master entered behind the excited child. "Neither of you are slaves any longer. I have the codes to deactivate your implants." She pulled out the slave papers and handled them over to Shmi as she dug around for the codes for deactivation. She found the little remote device and both Shmi and Anakin realized this wasn't a joke, since the remote had belonged to Watto.
Using the device, she deactivated the implants. Nathrrya knew they would be correct and that they would work since she went back to Watto and questioned him at length on the matter. Knowing that the Toydarian was immune to Force suggestions, she also knew that he wasn't immune to the practice of mind searching. She forced her way into his head and dug around for the information she wanted. It was an uncomfortable action at best and that's only when the one doing it knew what they were doing. The truth of the matter was Nathrrya just didn't trust the bug-man to tell them the truth and give them the correct codes. She found out he never intended to give the right ones to the Force users. She enjoyed making him suffer.
Anakin looked at Nathrrya in shock, wondering if what he heard was correct. "What? Did you hear that, Mom?" He looked over at Qui-Gon. "Was that part of the prize or something?"
The Jedi Master only smiled contently. "Let's just say that Watto has learned an important life lesson about gambling."
Shmi was thrilled at the turn of events. She watched her son in his excitement and couldn't help but feel excited herself. She'd been a slave for as long as she could remember and her son was born into it - it wasn't a life she wanted for him and it seemed her prayers had finally been answered. She would have given anything for her son to be free and to do his own thing, but now she was free as well. She'd be able to experience his adventures with him. Anakin rushed to his mother and wrapped his arms around her waist, tightly hugging her. She knelt and hugged her son in return. "Now we can make our dreams come true, Ani. We're free!" She looked up at Qui-Gon. "Will you take him with you? Is he to become a Jedi?"
"Our meeting was not a coincidence. Nothing happens by accident." Nathrrya rolled her eyes behind the Jedi Master as he addressed the boy. "You are strong with the Force, but you may not be accepted by the Council."
The Sith ground her teeth and couldn't stay silent. "Oh please! Qui-Gon, we both know your High Council is going to reject him out of hand because of his age. That's regardless of whether he is what we believe him to be. You know damn well that the Order needs to change and I know you can see it."
The Jedi Master sighed and rubbed his temples. She had been making that same argument for a long time, practically since meeting her, and little by little he was wondering if what she was saying was true. "Yes… I will have to agree with you, Master Nathrrya. In the short time, I've been around you I have been reconsidering many aspects of the Jedi Order."
Nathrrya looked at him in shock. It wasn't easy to do that to her. "...excuse me?"
Qui-Gon smiled at seeing her reaction. "I'm calling you 'Master' because that's what you are. And considering what you say is true and the Council does, indeed, reject Anakin, what would you suggest is done?"
The two former slaves had given up trying to follow the conversation. Neither of them were making any sense of what was being said and Anakin had a sneaking suspicion that something was going to happen and it involved him. Since he was being mentioned numerous times between the two other adults he could only assume but it was nowhere near to an educated guess. The only thing that could be deduced by Anakin and Shmi was that it involved Anakin's future.
Nathrrya finally took a breath and ran a hand through her hair and rubbed at her neck. "Okay… so if the Jedi Council is really as short-sighted as I believe them to be - and trust me, they are - then I'll apprentice the boy and see him trained."
Qui-Gon was about to raise a protest but was cut off from speaking when she raised her hand to quiet him. She narrowed her eyes at the Jedi but glanced over at the mother and son. She reached for Qui-Gon's arm and pulled him to the side and lowered her voice. "Let me make it perfectly clear to you: I'm talking about discipline and control. We both can feel his potential right now at, what… eight? Ten? Just imagine that power when he's an actual adult… another eight or ten years from now. Please consider that and tell me you understand my concern."
He did see the concern and it did make sense. The amount of power in that boy and what he'd seen the kid do in the pod race along with the experiences he'd been told by his mother… it all made sense to him why Nathrrya would have such a strong stance on this. He raised his hand and stroked his beard in thought before looking into the Sith's eyes. They held her concern and he nodded his agreement with her. "So, you will not teach him your path?"
Hell yes, she thought. But that was selfish… and dangerous. She shook her head. "Not unless he asked, and even then, I would wait until he was old enough to really understand what that path means. The Dark Side is not for everyone, Master Jedi." She paused a moment and considered her words. She slid her tongue over her teeth thoughtfully as she did so.
"Look," she said. "Have you ever seen a mind completely and utterly crushed by the Force? I have and it's not a spectacle that you want to see over and over. Hell, you don't want to see it once. I wouldn't wish that on even the worst bastards." A long-forgotten thought surfaced in her mind but she shook her head and looked into Qui-Gon's eyes. Her trip into the tomb of Marka Ragnos was not a pleasant memory not only did she fight a Terentatek but she got to see firsthand what the long dead Sith Lord was capable of doing to trespassers. "No. You have my word that I will not teach him the ways of my path."
Even though they were being relatively quiet, a mother has ears that are to be reckoned with. "Nathrrya are you a Jedi?" she asked.
Nathrrya and Qui-Gon turned to the two. "No, I'm no Jedi. I won't claim to be something I'm not, but I can use the Force much the same way a Jedi can even though my training was very different."
"Do you have a laser sword too?" Anakin asked, his voice full of enthusiasm. Shmi had the boy by his shoulders and she gave him a firm grip. Anakin didn't seem to notice.
Nathrrya chuckled. "Yes, I do Anakin, and it's called a lightsabre. Would you like to see it?"
The boy nodded with bright eyes and watched as the woman retrieved her lightsabre from its hiding place. He admired the highly polished ebony black durasteel hilt. It was about twenty-five centimetres in length by the boy's estimation. The end where the blade would come out was about three and half centimetres in width and tapered to about two thirds of that diameter at the opposite end of the hilt. Both ends were encased in intricate silver and gold gilt mounts. Some of the gilt line work ran the full length of the hilt while others only ran about half the length. It really was a work of art.
Anakin looked up at Nathrrya. She caught the flicker of reserve in his eyes and the question he had made his brow furrow. "Is the blade a violet colour?"
The Sith cocked her head, her interest piqued by his question. "Yes…" she said warily. "How did you know? I've never had to use it around you, or at all, really."
Anakin frowned and his head drooped. He hesitated to answer and his lips wriggled from side to side as he thought about how to say what was on his mind. He knew what he wanted to say, just not how to really say it.
"Back when we were in the pod hangar I had… I don't know… a vision, I guess. I saw it clearly but it was all destroyed and you were there with your blaster in one hand and your lightsabre in the other. That's when I saw the colour."
Nathrrya and Qui-Gon shared a look that went unnoticed by Anakin and very much seen by Shmi. Things just became a whole lot more complicated and the Force users knew this and Shmi, as a concerned mother, picked up on the feeling but didn't know exactly how complicated this had just become. She remained reserved and allowed Anakin and the other two, to converse.
Anakin looked up at that moment, almost urgently, and looked at the woman. "And I remember your eyes the most," he continued. "They were yellow. Why would your eyes be yellow?"
Nathrrya sighed and clicked her teeth together a few times before she leaned against the nearest wall. She folded her arms over her chest and lowered her chin in thought. She had to be careful of what she said and she thought about her response as quickly as she could. But she didn't want to short-change the boy of information that would make him run amok.
"You had a vision, Ani," she said, raising her head to look at him. "A series of moments in time that have not yet come to pass but that are always in motion and changing. As for my eyes, they turn yellow because of the way I was trained in the Force. That's all you need to know about that right now."
Anakin seemed content with the answers he got from the female Force user. Qui-Gon was impressed by her answer and how she managed to deflect a relatively complex situation with Anakin's curiosity. However, it was only a matter of time before her true identity came to the surface and they would have to explain that to him and possibly his mother. It was time to change the subject.
"Shall we help you pack?" he asked. "The distance to the Queen's cruiser is long and there isn't much time left before sundown."
The two Force users walked along the paths of Mos Espa with Shmi, Anakin and a partially completed C-3PO in tow. The usual business was buzzing around them and they all went unnoticed for the most part. As they continued on their way, both Force users were keeping their attention out for anything strange.
Qui-Gon was the first to notice it. As they turned a corner he managed to catch something out the corner of his eyes. He grabbed his lightsabre and took one swift turn and lunged at the unsuspecting droid, swiftly cutting it in half. It clanked down to the dusty ground at their feet and he knelt to inspect it. The remainder of the party gathered around to look as well.
"What is it?" Anakin asked, his eyes glancing over the sparking droid.
"Probe droid," the Jedi said. "Very unusual too… not like anything I've ever seen before."
"I have," Nathrrya confirmed. She glared at the sparking remains and frowned. "That is an Imperial Probe droid. I can't believe they haven't changed that much in all these years." She crouched down beside the Jedi and picked up a piece of the outer shell and inspected it further. She sighed. "A more apt description of it would be a Sith Probe droid."
Shmi and Anakin tried not to dwell on what the two were talking about. Both knew that they would learn in time only what they needed to know. The two Force users obviously had their own communications and their own situations to deal with that only they were privy to.
Nathrrya got up and dropped the shell casing into the now smoking heap. "Damn. That apprentice is looking for us and he knows we're here. That means we need to book it back to the ship right the hell now because your padawan and Captain Panaka and his men will not be enough to protect the queen."
The group was nearing the location of the Naboo cruiser and had just made it to the edge of the clearing when both Force users became extremely agitated and on edge. They both felt the waves in the Force and they both knew that it meant danger was close. As a result, Nathrrya had even pulled out her lightsabre from its hiding spot within her duster.
Qui-Gon and Nathrrya both turned around as one to face the opposite direction. Off in the distance from where they had come they could both make out a quickly approaching figure in a black robe on a speeder. He was aimed right at Shmi and Anakin and intended to run them down.
"Anakin, Shmi, drop!"
As Qui-Gon warned the two, Nathrrya had activated her lightsabre and used the Force around her to throw the weapon towards their assailant. She knew that at the angle they were in, the blade would never connect with the apprentice's neck but she wasn't expecting it to. Just as she predicted, he pulled the speeder up to block the attack and the front half of the vehicle took the brunt of the damage. He leaped from the seat and flipped, pulling out his own lightsabre as his speeder crashed into a heap in the sand.
Nathrrya Force leaped the distance between her and the other Sith to quickly engage him, not giving him a chance to go after Shmi and Anakin. She used the Force to call her lightsabre back to her hand and she deflected the attacks the other Sith put down on her. He was strong, but she was better. The two of them going back and forth in the desert caused a small dust cloud to kick up around them, effectively blocking the two from sight but not for the glow of their weapons or the sound of them, as they fought on in their deadly dance.
Qui-Gon rushed over to where Shmi, her son and the droid were and helped them to their feet. He ushered them to the cruiser and hurried them on board. The three followed Captain Panaka as he came to escort them aboard. Once safely aboard, the Jedi Master turned and ran back towards where the two Sith were battling it out in the sand. He had his saber in his hand and activated it, the light shining a brilliant green against the red dust of the sand.
He neared them and slowed. He heard something and stopped to listen. Nathrrya could sense him coming to help but she reached out into the Force to speak to him. He felt the sensation tickle into his mind and form words. He was clearly able to hear her.
Get them to safety and get the ship in the air, he heard her say. I'll keep him busy until you come to pick me up. Just don't fly off without me!
The Jedi Master understood what was being asked and he turned and headed towards the cruiser. He rushed through the opening and went to the cockpit where Captain Panaka was with Obi-Wan and the pilot.
"Everything is in working order, Master," Obi-Wan confirmed seeing Qui-Gon enter. "Setting a course for Coruscant…" -he looked around- "...where's Nathrrya?"
Qui-Gon went to the pilot and pointed out through the cockpit window towards a small dust cloud. Those present saw the dancing red and violet lightsabres through the dust. "Over there, fly low."
The pilot nodded and took off. They hovered for a moment and he guided the ship towards the duel.
