Through Glass: A TPM Tatooine Rewrite In Which Anakin Does NOT Win the Podrace
By: Syntyche
chapter seventeen: feet of clay
The house was dark and quiet when Risq finally returned. He loved the soothing cool of his home, calm and comforting after long days barely tucked away from the hot suns in a cramped seller's stall at the market in Mos Eisley. He hated that cityport, but it was not only the closest gathering place for business in the area, it was also the most affluent, a favorite of Jabba the Hutt's, and the biggest tourist draw around – if Tatooine could even be said to have any "tourists." Most if not all new visitors to the planet usually either stopped only to refuel their starships and move on, or they had somehow managed to get themselves lost in the vastness of the galaxy and couldn't afford to leave.
It was dirty, sandy, dusty, and grungy, but Risq was more than content with his home on Tatooine. It was quiet and secluded, and no one bothered him – and that was all he wanted out of life at this point. As a young man, he had barely escaped the silly skirmishes between the power-hungry clans of his birth home, using all of his meager resources to find a way off-planet. At first, he'd only stopped on Tatooine to refuel and be on his way, but, interestingly, he'd actually come to like it here. There was something about the simplicity of Tatooine that appealed to him – the people in Mos Eisley were too wearily battered down just trying to get through the routine everyday of life to be as pretentiously shallow as most Core Worlders, but neither were they totally uncivilized like many of the clans beyond the Outer Rim. Risq liked to think of Tatooine as his "happy medium," that beautiful utopia beyond the grasp of the Republic.
He was truly a happy man.
He'd been much happier of course before he'd married Marjhan, but he had learned early in his varied life that war demanded sacrifices. When he'd met the exotic woman who quickly became his wife, he had gladly shared his wealth and home; anything he had that pleased her he gave as soon it came into his fingers. He hadn't realized at the time that her hunger was not as easily sated as he'd first believed, and that her moods changed in an instant, as volatile and dangerous as the shifting sands that surrounded him. Years spent at her side had made him suspicious, and once his slaves started disappearing from around the farm, he could no longer dissuade himself from seeing her for who she really was. It was a pity he had become too weak, too addicted to her to cast her off.
Lately she'd set her sights on one of his newest acquisitions – young Obi-Wan. Risq had a feeling that despite his efforts to protect the slave, Marjhan would succeed in the end. It was a game to her, and one that she would expend no small interest in winning.
He entered the cool sitting room where his wife waited for him, idly skimming a datapad. Marjhan tossed him an irritated scowl, barely raising her eyes to meet him as he strode through the door and Risq restrained a sigh – so much for the unfettered adoration offered by a loving wife after time apart from her hard-working husband.
"What's the problem, my love?" he asked mockingly, dropping heavily beside her on the settee with a sigh of relief. He'd put too much strain on his bad knee lately and was paying for it now. He really needed to have Jubily get his ice pack and meds. He gingerly straightened his leg out in front of him, flexing the muscles carefully as he reached for the slaves' call button but the first words out of his wife's mouth arrested his movement while confirming to his tired mind that he'd already lost the first battle in this newest conflict with Marjhan – and his absence in Mos Eisley may have cost him the war.
"He doesn't scream," Marjhan retorted immediately, shifting away from him as he threw her a disgusted glance. "Or get angry, or anything. He's too quiet."
Risq's eyes closed in revulsion. He couldn't understand Marjhan's fascination with the pain of others, a fascination that ran deep through her flawed character. He stabbed the call button angrily.
"Perhaps you could try leaving him alone, like I asked you to," he snapped brusquely, instantly alert, the pain in his knee pushed aside. "Surely it would drive him mad to be parted from your charming company? I know that I rue the time we're apart."
"You're making fun of me," Marjhan simpered, bottom lip outthrust in a thin, teasing line of ruby. If she thought she was getting any pity from him she was destined for disappointment, he thought irately.
"Yes," he agreed shortly, "I am. I'd prefer it if you left him and the others alone, you know. I need them to actually work. I told Obi-Wan that I would keep him safe from you and I intend to follow through on that."
"Oh, he doesn't believe that anymore," Marjhan replied easily. "I took care of that right after you left."
"Damn you," Risq sighed, but without much heat behind it. He should have known better than to make foolish promises to a slave – few could outlast the Lady of his house. He counted himself a fool that her inner fire and determination had been two of the traits that had made her so desirable to him at first. Had he only known where she would channel her energy in the future, he wouldn't have given her a second look. "You should leave him alone."
Marjhan's gaze was coldly calculating as she fixed it upon her husband, eyes gleaming intently under her sooty lashes. "Why?"
It wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation, and his answer was the same he'd given her so many times before. "Why? Because he's young, strong, and smart, and he does good work. He's not your personal toy to play with and punish as you choose."
Her lip eased out a little farther into a pout he'd once found attractive; now it served only to annoy him. "I'm just playing a little. He's fine. Better than fine, actually," she added with a lecherous smirk designed to irritate him further, and of course it did.
"Listen," He surged heavily to his feet, the pain of his old injury weighting him down and almost causing him to stumble. Sheer force of will kept him upright and the glower he fixed upon her would have cowed anyone else – anyone but his darling wife. "You know that you can have your pick of the slaves after the harvest, but our lovely antiquated healer droid can only patch them up so many times after you're done 'playing.' Now, I mean it. Harvest is important – "
"But you'll work him too hard!" she protested dramatically. The setting suns illuminating the wall behind her illustrated the gesticulations of her shadow, looming behind her as if her true nature was trying to escape the small, seemingly helpless form it was encased in. "You might hurt him," she added, with a mock-innocence that made him grit his teeth. A serving girl sidled noiselessly into the room, bringing his requested items, and Risq was surprised to see a jagged furrow sliding crookedly through the pale skin of her cheek.
"Jubily?" Cold dread knifed through his gut, twisting and tensing, and Risq turned disbelieving eyes onto his languid wife. "Marjhan?" he queried dazedly, wishing he were anywhere but right here at this moment. "What happened to Jubily?"
A slow smile spread across her lovely face, illuminating her dark eyes. "Obi-Wan wasn't quick enough," she said simply. "Which is astounding because he's got some amazing reflexes – I think he surprised even himself!"
"Damn you," he whispered furiously, "Damn you anyway!" He turned away from her, shaking his head in despair, but his wife's next words stopped him short.
"If it makes you feel any better, dear, she's better off than he is."
OOOOOOOOOO
Frigid water from the slave quarter's shower sluiced over his sodden skin, dulling the coppery fire of his ginger hair and dripping steadily off the end of his nose. He huddled in the corner, wishing the ice water would numb him all the way through, could somehow deaden the ache in his body and quiet the desperate screaming of his terrified mind. He'd been in here for quite some time, just letting the water spill over him, but he still felt so damned dirty. He'd have stripped off his clothes, but he didn't have the energy or desire; his simple tunic hung heavily across his broad shoulders, soaked and clingy, and his waterlogged boots were chafing the skin of his calves through his sodden trousers. He idly watched the streams of water rush toward the drain set in the floor, trying to lose himself in the mesmerizing swirl of the tiny whirlpool. So far, no luck – even in the midst of the spattering droplets he could still only see a slash of deep red in pale skin; a mark of his failure that someone else would bear forever.
His eyesight wavered as the cold stole deeper into his body, but as his blue-grey eyes unfocused, the slit of red only became wider, longer, filling his mind with the memory of his error.
"Obi-Wan?"
The voice was familiar; comforting but sad somehow as it wound its way past the hum in his ears to reach his tired mind.
Master, he recognized dully, and wondered why he was disappointed when his eyes slowly steadied and Risq swam into focus.
"Aw, damn," his master mumbled, awkwardly fumbling to shut the water off. The punishing streams pouring down on him ceased and Obi-Wan blinked, uncurling clumsily and pushing himself to his feet, knowing that his master would be dissatisfied with him for not being at work – after all, if he wasn't disappointed in him, why would Risq have let Marjhan have him, after he gave his word …?
Somewhere in Obi-Wan's mind was implanted the firm belief that his master would never let him down … that his master would always come for him. But Risq hadn't come.
"Obi-Wan, what is it?" Risq touched the young man's shoulder gently. "What happened? Come on, let me help you…"
Without bothering to wait for a reply, Risq extended a hand to the other man. Obi-Wan's hooded eyes were confused but he gripped the proffered help automatically and rose to his feet, then just as quickly staggered and fell, slamming to the slick floor on his hip and side. He didn't make any noise as he dropped, he simply rolled all the way onto his back, staring glassily up at the ceiling.
Risq mumbled a startled curse and knelt down, cursing his wife to seven levels of hell and ignoring the chilly wetness that was seeping into the knee of his breeches. Obi-Wan's wide ice eyes drifted over to fix on him from where the slave lay on the cold, wet floor but he said nothing. He didn't have to; the look of betrayal shining through layers of pain said it all quite eloquently.
"I'm sorry," Risq apologized helplessly. From Obi-Wan's reaction, he had a feeling that Marjhan had employed one of her favorite "breaking in" methods on the slave and he clenched his teeth as he gently tugged off one of Obi-Wan's heavy, buckled boots as Obi-Wan lay on his back, unseeing eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
The sock underneath was saturated with fresh blood. Risq dropped the boot and carefully eased off Obi-Wan's other boot and both of his socks, hissing in disgust as he slowly swiped the blood away with a clean cloth so he could survey the damage.
Marjhan had sliced through the soft skin of Obi-Wan's arches to the more callused skin on the soles of his feet, six horizontal cuts down the length of each foot. It was no wonder he hadn't been able to stand; the fact that he'd made it back to the slave quarters at all amazed Risq. Swallowing the bile rising in his throat, Risq dampened a rag with warm water and warily pressed it to the torn, bloodied skin. The sound of agony that ripped from Obi-Wan's throat then, after so long a silence, almost terrified him, and Risq gently pressed the young man back down to the floor.
"It's okay," he murmured, "I'm sorry, young one, I am. I didn't mean for this to happen." He couldn't bear to look in Obi-Wan's eyes; he knew he would drown in the swirling pools of pain that resided there. So he gently cleaned Obi-Wan's wounds and whispered quiet words to soothe the aching soul, and wondered what in hell he was going to do with his wife.
OOOOOOOOOO
Ouch, ouch, ouch.
It seemed to Qui-Gon Jinn that each tiny vibration of the ship's engines reverberated through the sleek passenger vessel's guest quarters and centered directly on his bandaged midsection. He was glad in his own way that Mace wasn't here; the "I told you so"s were really more than he felt he could handle at the moment. They were almost there, so he could hold on, but Qui-Gon did have the slightest inking that Mace may have been right about the Jedi Master's ability to make this trip successfully, or at least in a relatively pain-free manner.
But it was worth it, he knew. He would find Obi-Wan. The Dark would not get him. Qui-Gon didn't know where or even how Obi-Wan had managed to shield himself from the Jedi searching for him, but if it kept the servants of the Dark away from him too, then Qui-Gon was glad for it and more than willing to put in any necessary footwork to find his missing apprentice.
He also had to find Anakin. The Jedi Master planned to visit Shmi's tiny hovel first; he had no idea what he would say to the woman if her son wasn't there – after all, Qui-Gon had been the one to encourage the boy to race in the first place, which had somehow ended with Obi-Wan selling himself and snowballing into this whole unbelievable saga of epic proportions.
The Force sometimes had a bizarre way of accomplishing things.
Qui-Gon stared out his large window at the stars streaking by. Force, had it really been so long since he'd seen his apprentice smile, or teased him about being pursued by some leader's daughter on a diplomatic mission – or been teased in return about a king's overeager queen?
He didn't know how long he stood at the window, his thoughts wandering aimlessly around his mind, but as he stared idly out at the stars, the hyperspace lines suddenly shortened into pinpricks and soon a familiar rust brown planet swam into view.
Here, Master. Tatooine.
And his apprentice's resigned voice echoed in his head, Qui-Gon wondered if Obi-Wan had known what awaited him all along.
OOOOOOOOOO