Chapter Text
As a child, Shmi Skywalker was captured by slavers and taken from her planet of birth along with her parents. She had no memory of her life before slavery, because her life before slavery had been so short. Her father was killed trying to help them escape the slavers, and this was her earliest memory.
At some point she was separated from her mother and sold to a Hutt who lived on Nar Kreeta. At age twenty-five she fell pregnant, despite never having slept with anyone who could have caused this to happen. She gave birth with the assistance of fellow slaves, and was allowed to keep her son, who she named Anakin. Shmi took the name Skywalker for herself, a gift to her child, a promise of freedom.
The hope that they would one day walk free of slavery was dashed when Anakin was three years old.
Shmi was repairing Anakin’s favorite toy when she was informed that the two of them had been sold to Gardulla, a Hutt who lived on Tatooine. The transfer of slaves to Gardulla was scheduled to take place that evening. Shmi had enough time to finish sewing the busted seams of Anakin’s stuffed angel before they were forced onto the shuttle. She held Anakin the entire trip, and he was quiet, having learned to keep his head down in company to avoid punishment from their masters.
At some point on the journey Anakin fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed of flying – not on a slaver’s ship, but piloting his own starship. When his Mom woke him, Anakin cried into her tunic, and she held him close so that the others would not hear him. He clung to her as she rose from her seat and followed the other slaves from the shuttle. His beloved angel was safe between them, crushed in the steel-trap grip of his toddler fist, and before long he’d cried himself into exhaustion. Shmi whispered to him as they emerged into an unfamiliar heat, and Anakin looked up at his Mom, who was the most wonderful thing to look at. She was soft-skinned, with brown eyes and a smile that reassured him even in the scariest of situations.
“Ani, I’m going to let you stand, but you have to stay very still, and don’t leave my side.”
Anakin nodded. Their bond was strong, and he often understood what she wanted before she asked. His ability to sense her allowed him to focus on her presence, a distraction from his fear and confusion. Anakin was clever in the way many children are clever. Mom was safe. No-one else could be trusted. His emotions were a danger, and the only time he could express them was when he was alone with his Mom.
Anakin did not protest when the slaver took his angel and threw her across the courtyard. He did not chase after the angel to rescue her from the pile of rubbish she’d landed on. He did as Mom had instructed, and stood quietly, his right hand gripping her skirts, his other hand by his face as he sucked at his thumb.
When a shot rang out across the courtyard, Anakin remained where he was. He’d known it was going to happen even before the Arconan slave tried to flee. She had been one of the slaves he’d known from birth. Anakin watched the life leave her familiar eyes. The other slaves, including his Mom, had hit the floor once the blaster was fired, but Mom had told him to stay still, so Anakin stayed still. She tugged him down to shelter him beneath her arm, but it was too late. Anakin learned that there was no escape from this life, and that there was nothing he could do to stop slavers from killing the people he cared for.
“All slaves have a transmitter placed inside their bodies somewhere,” Shmi explained to the Jedi who Anakin had found. There was a discomfort in her stomach that could have been from lack of food, or foreboding. She always waited for Anakin to eat first, and struggled to eat when he was at “work.”
So young, still, and wide-eyed as he’d been in that courtyard. Shmi had never made him another angel, but he had his droid project, and there was a chance, however small, that someone might want him as an apprentice, not a slave. Once Watto realised piloting a pod-racer was not something a human could do, then Anakin’s other skills might have value.
“I’ve been working on a scanner to try and locate mine,” Anakin said, then took a hearty bite of the meager meal.
Shmi hid her wince by turning to the kitchen bench to dole out more food for their visitors. “Any attempt to escape…” only half-aware that she was speaking, as her mind was back in that horrible courtyard.
“And they blow you up!” Anakin said, and looked at her with a smile that broke her heart. “Boom!” He grinned at the newcomers, and the certainty that he would leave her soon settled over her like a stone shawl.
The Jedi who introduced himself as Qui-Gon Jinn had not come to free Anakin, or any of the other slaves. Then he told Anakin he was free, and that Anakin could be a Jedi, too. The joy was short-lived, crushed by the plummeting terror when he realized that his Mom was still a slave. Anakin wanted to hit Qui-Gon, to scream at him and tell him exactly what he thought of Jedi now. They weren’t heroes, they didn’t keep the peace, and they were as useless as pants on a Hutt. The girl who Anakin had first assumed was an Angel was just as foolish, but at least she wasn’t a broken promise. Her life was so different to his that he couldn’t imagine it. She hadn’t even known people were enslaved, whereas Anakin had lived with that reality forever.
When he abandoned his Mom to join the Jedi, it killed a part of Anakin. That death festered, rotting, infecting him with a sickness that the Jedi saw as soon as they looked at him.
Qui-Gon had called him “chosen.” The other Jedi did not agree. The green one who everyone respected dismissed Anakin’s love for his Mom. They said he was afraid. Of course he was afraid. Anakin had spent his entire life afraid. Sure, he’d defied the slave masters to protect his friends, and he’d gone out of his way to help anyone who needed help, but that didn’t mean he was without fear.
He was instrumental in breaking the blockade around Naboo. Then Qui-Gon was dead and he was left with Obi-Wan, who had treated Anakin with a cold detachment since the day they’d met. The Council told Anakin that he would train as Obi-Wan’s Padawan once Obi-Wan was able to take on a Padawan, but his first teachers were Mace Windu and Master Yoda. Mace was severe. His Padawan Depa Billaba much kinder to Anakin, and went out of her way to translate Master Windu’s moods and teachings so that Anakin might understand. The others his age avoided him. Anakin had a temper, and the younglings found him unpredictable. He heard them talking about him, about how it wasn’t fair he was so skilled, laughing at his failures, whispering behind his back. Some of them made no secret of their fear, of the fact they didn’t want him around. Others dismissed the idea that he was “chosen” to his face, tried to provoke his rage. What Anakin learned from them was that he would never be a good Jedi.
When the Chancellor asked to see him, Anakin was confronted with how deeply alone he was at the Temple. Palpatine was kind to him, warm and caring, taking the time to teach Anakin about the Republic and its functions. Anakin learned that the Chancellor wished desperately to end the slave trade, but the limitations of his office prevented him from interfering in non-Republic planets. He allowed Anakin to lament his own powerlessness, his frustrations with the Order, their comfort and safety on Coruscant. There was always somewhere to sleep, never beatings, no shock collars or explosive implants. Food was provided and although the training was intense they also got free time without a master overseeing their behavior – except if a fight broke out. Then older Jedi had to intervene, to take the time to teach the younglings how to talk things through before resorting to violence.
Paplatine subtly nurtured those difficult emotions in Anakin, cultivating a garden of instability. Anakin would return to the Temple resentful and scowling, less capable of tolerating frustration, more likely to snap or lose control. Windu guided him back through his teachings each time, but Anakin could sense Windu’s dislike of the Chancellor, and this made him defiant. Anakin was a mess of wounds, composed entirely of festering shatterpoints, despite Windu’s best efforts to mend them.
The boy found peace when Obi-Wan was with him, but not enough. When he became Obi-Wan’s Padawan in earnest, there was some sense of balance that circled Anakin warily, like a feral pet re-learning what safety looked like.
Then they were assigned to Padmé, and the war began, spurred by the Separatists launching a many-pronged attack, claiming hyperspace lanes and dropping millions of droids on Republic planets. The Battle of Geonosis, the deployment of the clone army, and the slaughter of Jedi in the arena was only a single, tiny facet of the war, despite feeling like the end of the Galaxy. Both a drop in the ocean and a flood that threatened to drown the Order. Since that day the Jedi and the Grand Army of the Republic had been on the back foot. So many Jedi had died on Geonosis, cut down by Separatists, the losses far outsripping their single, bloody victory. Two hundred dead was the official count of Jedi who had fallen. Anakin hadn’t been capable of imagining it, had blamed himself for the deaths, had thought, If I’d been stronger, if I was faster, a better Jedi, I should have gone with Obi-Wan, I should have, would have, could have stopped the deaths. Could have held their lives in my palm and crystallized them, kept their hearts beating and healed their wounds. But no Jedi had the ability to halt death in its tracks. Anakin had learned that when his Mom died in his arms.
He had taken a single item from the Lars house after burying his Mom. A toy that she’d made, one that Cleigg gave Anakin before he and Padmé departed.
An angel.