Family. There's a lot of ways you can describe it, but my favorite one is this: people who love you no matter how different you may be, whether that's in your appearance, your personality, or your preferences. And one thing that's the same about all families is that they come in all shapes and sizes.
Some families are big, some families are small. Some families live together, some live apart. Some families live close together, others live far away. But no matter what kind of family you have, as long as you love each other, it doesn't matter where you are. And the people who love you most will always know you best.
One of the biggest pieces of growing a family was children. Some families had children by giving birth, others had them by adoption. But either way, it often results in a very common thing children have: siblings.
Sibling relationships are probably one of the most complicated types of relationships. Some are good, some are a pain, and some are just up and down.
Some siblings grow up sharing a room, while others have their own spaces. But in some more... special cases, siblings grew literally apart. This was so for a pair of twin brothers by the name of Anakin and Carmine Jinn. Well, the first one held the surname Skywalker, that being the name of their mother, who raised the older twin, whereas the younger one was raised by his grandmother, the twins' father's mother.
Anakin and Carmine did not hesitate to start making up for missing twenty years of each other's lives. And the two of them were thick as thieves. Messing about, having fun doing what each of them liked together, and of course hugging each other each chance they got, as loving and caring as brothers and sisters should always be.
But even though the two of them shared the same face, Anakin and Carmine had very different personalities; they were practically opposites, in fact.
Anakin, although reckless, was pretty serious about his work, whereas Carmine tended to be very cautious as well as playful. Carmine could be pretty childish sometimes, but it was in part because as shy and anxious as he was, he was also a happy-go-lucky type of child when he was younger, and that was a personality trait he never outgrew. Anakin was more of an independent spirit and would much rather be on daring adventures to show off his skills.
Each of the twins was very intelligent too, but like most people, each twin was intelligent at something different.
Anakin knew a lot about mechanics, droids, and basically anything mechanical, even some computer stuff, he was also very skilled at martial arts and speaking other languages. Carmine, on the other hand, specialized in music. He could play more instruments than all the Jedi with musical talent combined, dance in so many forms,and he was great at choosing functional and fashionable clothes. But they had a lot in common too.
Both of them grew up with a single parent, they each were teenage dads and married to beautiful women they'd each met by chance, and they both wanted the same thing in life more than anything else: to grow and raise their families in a peaceful time.
Appearance-wise, the twins were pretty easy to tell apart. Both twins had the same facial and body structure, they were the same height, and each had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes, but they still looked different in some ways. Anakin's hair currently reached down to his neck, and he usually dressed in all black, but Carmine's hair reached down to his chest, he dressed in brighter colors (mostly orange and brown), and he wore glasses.
So much had changed since the twins returned into each other's lives, including getting their father, Qui-Gon Jinn, back. Like a lot of parents, despite the twins being grownups now, Qui-Gon could not stop himself from still treating them like children. No matter how old the children got, no parent's job was truly done.
It had been a seemingly ordinary day at the Temple. After spending time sleeping in Obi-Wan's apartment and occasionally Anakin's, Carmine and Lamenta were finally officially almost finished fixing up their own quarters at the Temple dormitory; that way, they would have their own place to sleep whenever they were at the Temple to train.
Carmine was no stranger to sleeping in a dorm; he'd done so for four years back in his teenage years. Attending a musical boarding school, he got a lot of practice learning how to live on his own, as well as sharing a room with a roommate, while he expanded his knowledge and skills in music, dance, and composition.
"You really still sleep with this thing?" Anakin said, picking up a stuffed rabbit with an orange ribbon tied around its neck.
"Occasionally." Carmine said. "Mostly, Fluffy just sits on my nightstand, seeing as I have Caroline to cuddle with at night now."
Anakin chuckled; he felt the same way about Padme. Except, he never had a plushie of his own when he was little.
Carmine finished fluffing his pillow and took his rabbit to place on the bed.
"There. Now it's all done."
Suddenly, both twins' stomachs were growling. Perfect timing, as it was about time for lunch.
"Wanna grab some grub?" Anakin asked.
"Maybe twin telepathy is real, because you just read my mind." Carmine smiled.
So, the twins went to the commissary to get some lunch, where there happened to be sandwiches being served today. But when Carmine took a bite of his...
"Yuck!" Carmine exclaimed. He looked inside his sandwich and found. "Ugh, bacon. I should've known."
Carmine picked the bacon out from his sandwich and set it aside before biting into his sandwich again.
"Much better."
"You really don't like bacon?" said Anakin in disbelief.
"You really can eat that stuff?" Carmine replied, still trying to scrape the bacon taste off his tongue.
"Can I have yours, then?"
"Only 'cause I'm not one to waste food."
And Anakin didn't hesitate to take more bacon for his own sandwich. Tastes in food was just another thing that made Carmine and Anakin different. So did the amount of cleanliness each had at the table, that being shown when Anakin accidentally elbowed a cup of grape juice onto Carmine's shirt.
"Oops!" Anakin exclaimed, amid Carmine's shock by the cold juice. "Sorry, Carmine."
"Aw, and this was brand new." Carmine whined.
"Don't worry. With the messes my kids make sometimes, I know how to take care of a lot of stains."
So, while Anakin took care of the juice stained garment, Carmine went to change his shirt. Anakin was more than willing to loan him one of his outfits out of the kindness of his heart. But, when Carmine exited from the closet.
"This feels... different." Carmine said.
"You never dressed in black before?"
"I have, but I'm more used to brighter colors. And that's so whether I'm on or off stage."
"You actually don't look bad in black."
Anakin looked more focused on Carmine.
"You actually look more like, well, me. Only with long hair and glasses."
Carmine went back to his apartment and looked at his reflection in the mirror; he really did look more like his twin. If he removed his glasses, aside from the longer hair, he definitely looked identical to him.
"Maybe you could try brightening up your wardrobe once in a while, Ani." Carmine smiled.
"What's wrong with my dark robes?" Anakin said, posing in front of the mirror. "I'm not big on fashion, but I've found that black is slimming."
Carmine chuckled and said, "True, but a new color can bring out a new you. Maybe even a side you didn't realize you had. Try on something in my wardrobe. I got lots of different colors."
Knowing Carmine wasn't going to let this go until he gave it a go, Anakin walked into the closet and came out wearing an outfit of purple. It was the darkest color he could find thus far, but brighter than black.
"Really? You went with the darkest you could find?" Carmine crossed his arms.
"You said pick anything. I picked this."
Anakin looked at himself and Carmine in the mirror. Neither of the twins could believe how much they resembled each other when they wore each other's clothes. Then, Carmine had an idea. He'd shown the kids how he performed a spell to change his hairstyles as Count Crescendo, which explained why they didn't find a ship load of wigs anywhere in his trailer or in any dressing room he'd been in. So, he decided to give Anakin a little demonstration.
"Beware, for swear, switch our lengths and styles of hair."
Carmine waved his hand in a seemingly odd fashion, which made Anakin toss his head around against his will, and when Carmine was through, his hair got shorter, while Anakin's grew.
The twins looked into the mirror again and this time were both even more surprised. Now they really looked the same. Anakin just needed a pair of costume glasses from the kids' dress-up chest that looked just like Carmine's glasses, and he could totally pass for Carmine, and Carmine just needed to remove his real glasses and he could totally pass for Anakin.
Suddenly, the twins had an idea.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Anakin smiled.
"We pull a switcheroo?"
"You just read my mind."
So, the twins made a plan: they would switch places for one full day and spend time doing things the other would normally do and see how their friends acted when they weren't with a particular one of the twins. But, Carmine remembered that he couldn't see very well without his glasses. So, Anakin looked in one of Gabby's spell books and managed to find a spell that could temporarily clear one's vision. But it was hard to cast, so Anakin had to really concentrate to get it right.
Carmine couldn't believe his eyes when he found himself able to see without his glasses. But the effects would only last a few hours, so Carmine had to memorize the spell: Foculis Mei Videvendir, which was not easy to recall, especially that last part being a bit of a tongue twister.
"I perform at least fifteen different songs per concert," said Carmine. "I think I can memorize three simple words to a spell."
"Well, be careful. I'm still pretty new to spell casting myself, but I know it's not anything to be taken lightly."
"No worries. Let's just... well, do what the other twins does." Carmine suddenly thought. "What would you normally be doing right now?"
"When it's quiet like this, usually I'm in the hangar working on stuff, or spending time with the kids. What about you?"
"Most of the time, I'm usually doing musical stuff... but I do like reading too. Grandma and I used to do that together all the time. The library was pretty much a regular place for me."
"I guess I know where I'm going then."
"Me too."
And so, the twins exited the room and went their separate ways to live each other's lives for a day.
While I'm working on new ideas for my Magical Jedi Tales mini-series, as well as my current main story "Return of the Doresho," I recently came up with the idea to create another series. A 'What if...?" series for the Legend of the Jedi Princess-verse. I have a few ideas for What If...? stories, but am currently uncertain which to start with.
Here are a few I have so far...
1.) What if Qui-Gon had used magic in his fight with Darth Maul?
2.) What if Anakin had been raised by Miranda while Carmine grew up on Tatooine?
3.) What if Comedia's connection to the Force had been discovered and she was brought to the Temple when she was small?
4.) What if Dooku knew Qui-Gon had children after his passing?
If you would like to see any of these ideas first, let me know in the reviews. Or, if you have your own ideas for What if...? scenarios, feel free to share them in the reviews, or PM me if you would rather remain anonymous.
