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Anakin stopped, sweat pouring into his eyes, as he squinted out across the desert.
"Are you alight?" A voice came from beside him, and Anakin turned on his heel, jumping out of his skin.
"Uh—" he started, words sticking. He swallowed, mouth painfully dry, as he took in the stranger.
White robes, that wasn't normal in the dessert, not when the sand stained everything a reddish brown. And his accent too… that was a foreign one. Core world, too well spoken.
"Sorry sir," Anakin ground out, stepping backwards, away from the shade of the building.
"No— No, no need to apologise," the man said, "I'm O— Obi-Wan. You can call me Obi-Wan."
"You do know I'm a slave, right, sir?" Anakin blurted out, without stopping to think. He didn't use names, that was just too dangerous to even consider.
"Where I'm from, we do not have slavery," Obi-Wan responded, lowering his voice a little.
He was right then, Anakin thought, a core-worlder for sure.
"What you doin' this far out, then?" Anakin asked, chewing on his tongue a little as he spoke, willing the dryness in his mouth would lessen.
"My ship crashed," the man replied, creases between his eyes deepening. "I've never been this far out alone. My mentor passed away last month, and this was my first mission alone."
Anakin swore under his breath, switching to Huttese as he did so. That was the one good thing about being outer rim, really. Core-worlders never seemed to speak more than one language.
"You need a mechanic?" Anakin asked, before breaking off, and hacking a dry, raw cough deep from his chest.
"Do you know someone?" Obi-Wan asked, crossing his arms over his chest, "I'm a bit lost— everything seems to be in a myriad of languages, I don't even recognise the alphabet on half the signs, and I really do need to get back to Coruscant."
"I'm pretty handy. Watto lets me do what I want all day on the weekend, as long as I bring back enough cash for 'im. So, I can fix your ship up, if you've got a few coin ta' spare."
"Would you?" Obi-Wan asked, smiling slightly, "please. That'd be marvellous."
"Course," Anakin grinned.
XXX
"Thank you," Obi-Wan mumbled, as Anakin slipped down into the cockpit of the small ship he'd been flying. "I'm so sorry, I never expected this would happen. I'm not used to being alone."
"My mum died last winter," Anakin said, placing a crowbar under the damaged fusebox. "S'not the same, is it? Without them, I mean. It was always just me and 'er. My grandparents weren't there, and I never 'ad no father, it was always just us. And now she's gone."
"No, it really isn't," Obi-Wan replied, heart-breaking for the young man n front of him, calloused hands and scarred skin telling just as much of a story as his words did.
Obi-Wan shifted, robes scratching against his back, the feeling of harsh wool trapping sweat beginning to aggravate his skin.
"Lucky I found you," he grimaced, "I was about to ask one of the bounty hunters to get me off planet, but I thought I might, well. I've heard stories about them, and…"
"They woulda stuck you with a needle and gotten a chip in ya' whilst you slept," Anakin shuddered, "slavers, nearly all of 'em. You woulda woken up at Jabba's, for sure, he pays a pretty penny for people like you."
Obi-Wan winced.
This wasn't in his training, he thought glumly, not for the first time wishing the Jedi cared more about street-skills than they did about meditation and books.
He did understand the need for reading… but really… He was so in over his head, so utterly in need of guidance.
The books didn't help him prepare for this.
Meditation wouldn't do nothing in a city of cheap drugs and free labour.
He sat down on the sand, crossing his legs, watching as Anakin worked.
The boy seemed too young for this sort of labour, Obi-Wan thought, he ought to be learning still— if he was a Jedi then Obi-Wan suspected he would still be a padawan, not standing on the edge of a dessert, working cash in hand for money he wouldn't even see under the burning sun.
He knew things were different outside the temple, but the Jedi had closed themselves off in the last few years— all but prohibiting diplomatic missions, let alone any sort of actual exploration.
Cautious, we must be, Yoda had declared the last time Obi-Wan had begged to be allowed off the planet. On Coruscant safe we are. Elsewhere, safe not.
Lucky he'd crashed on the edge of the city, Obi-Wan thought, stomach churning. He'd known there was something wrong with the ship— still hoed he would've been able to make it too a landing bay, but he supposed a few metres shy of the Mos Eisley opium den wasn't the worst place to have landed.
A few kilometres elsewhere… and he wouldn't have made it to the city, not with how little water he'd had on board.
He shut his eyes, silently thanking the force he hadn't landed elsewhere.
Almost a damn miracle, he thought.
XXX
"Here," Obi-Wan tapped Anakin on the shoulder, offering him a folded, sheet of newspaper, the familiar scent of street food wafting up from it.
Anakin couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten something at midday, even if it was just the salted bantha cheese and plain, crispy flatbreads sold from one of the covered markets on the roadside.
He took a sip from his flask, willing the dryness in his mouth away, before taking the offered bread, and settling down on the edge of the wing.
Sweat dripped down his hairline, into his eye.
He wiped it away, taking another bite of the pungent, ripe cheese.
"How long do you think until it's fixed?" Obi-Wan asked, visibly wrinkling his nose as he opened his own food.
"Tomorrow," Anakin replied, tracing the edge of the wing with his finger.
The searing hot steal burnt him where he touched it, and he snatched his hand back, jamming another mouthful of food in to suppress the sharp cry of pain.
"It's not too bad," he continued, swallowing the mouthful, "I've patched up worse. But the sealant will need to set— and it can't in the sun."
Obi-Wan nodded, settling back down, watching as Anakin worked.
Anakin's shirt rubbed his back, and he pulled it over his head. His mother would've chided him for that, warned him about the dangers of the sun, reminded him of Sukri, the elderly lady who's skin had all but peeled right off, the red, blistered, exposed flesh underneath all that reminded, reminded him of Cliegg, the man who'd started eyeing her up, making offers to buy her contract, before he'd gotten the Skin-Crawl curse— the dark marks that appeared, raised, bumpy, moving, crawling, growing, sucking his energy and draining his life force.
Shmi wasn't here anymore, though, and maybe the Skin-Crawl curse wouldn't be the worst way to go.
"Your back," Anakin heard Obi-Wan whisper, and he stopped, taking a moment to process.
"Huh?" he replied, twisting around to face the Jedi, who's face had gone ghastly pale.
Oh, right. The scars.
Common enough on Tatooine no one looked twice, but of course the coreworlder's wouldn't have that sort of punishment.
"They barely bother me anymore," Anakin shrugged, "it was a bad year, we weren't makin' enough in the shop. And when I don't make enough, Watto don't feed me. And I was fourteen— I was damn starving. So I nicked a few coins off one a' them traders. Only he caught me, and well. Handed me right into the Hutt's. They keep the laws here, you know how it is. Dragged me down to the square and gave me 300 lashes."
"That's barbaric," Obi-Wan mumbled, staring at the floor, cheeks red, "I… How do people live like this? How do the republic not—"
"Don't," Anakin cut him off, shaking his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "Just… It ain't all it's cracked up to be, the republic."
Obi-Wan nodded, and Anakin turned back to his work, the heat of the sun beating down as he fell into the steady routine of it.
XXX
Anakin didn't expect lunch, let alone for Obi-Wan to invite him to the cantina, offering to pay for whatever he wanted.
"Just until sunset," Anakin had emphasized, narrowing his eyes, but the Jedi hadn't protested at that.
And so Anakin found himself sat in the booth in the corner of the cantina, a full plate of food in front of him.
"You won't like mine," Anakin grinned, taking another bite of the heavily-spiced franikhad he'd ordered, before picking up one of the ahrisa from the side-plate.
"How do you know?" Obi-Wan protested, taking another mouthful of the fermented legumes Anakin had ordered for him. "I like this one."
"The spiciest thing in that is cumin," Anakin looked down at his plate, hiding his smile, "you can try some, if you want. But I'm just warning you, it's not gonna taste like the food you have on Coruscant."
Obi-Wan reached over with his fork, jabbing a piece of meat from Anakin's bowl.
"There's no sausages made from bantha blood, or, or— or wort feet, or anything in here, is there?" Obi-Wan asked, peering down at the strip of meat he'd pulled out of Anakin's bowl.
"No," Anakin pouted, "whats wrong with wort feet, anyway? But it's not, it's just—"
Obi-Wan took a bite.
His face dropped in absolute horror, eyes tearing up, and he choked, leaning across the table and grabbing Anakin's glass of blue milk.
He gulped it down, forehead sweating, cheeks looking red.
Glass empty, he dropped it down onto the table, and leant back in his chair, eyeing Anakin with a look of absolute mortification.
"H— How on earth can you manage to eat that?" he spluttered, "that's like liquid lava!"
"I warned you," Anakin shook his head, still smiling. "If I ever get off this shit-hole, that's the one thing I'm gonna miss. We know how to flavour our food."
"You plan to leave, then?" Obi-Wan asked, and Anakin felt his face flush, feeling momentarily embarrassed for having opened up like that.
It wasn't fair, Anakin thought, huffing. He knew it was impossible… but still. Was it really too much to expect people like Obi-Wan might at least humour him?
He shifted in his seat, awkwardly toying with the ends of his shirt.
"I know it's impossible," he muttered, "but there ain't much I'd stay for. And I— I have a kiddo. He's only five. Sometimes, I like to think, if I could get away from here… He'd never know what this life is like. He wouldn't have this… well. Ya' know. He could grow up bein' able to wash himself, with actual water, and he'd never know the feelin' of 'aving to face a master's lash, or choose between kriffin' medicine or bread. I just, it's nice to think I might be able to do better for him, innit? Even if I know that's just some kriffin' nonsense."
Obi-Wan's face had gone very, very blank, and he looked incredibly awkward.
"You… have a child?" He asked, quietly.
"Hmm," Anakin nodded. "Did a few favours for the school-mam, and she let him sit in the back a' her class sunrise til sundown. He's a well-smart kiddo, called him Luka, after 'is mam— she died givin' birth. Knows how to read and write, and everything. 'E as a future, if I could just get him off this kriffin' planet."
"You look all of twenty," Obi-Wan replied, still too quiet for Anakin's liking.
"I ain't," Anakin protested. "I'm 24. And besides, what's it to you? I helped you, and now you're being all core-worldy about it. My mam had me when she was sixteen— but it weren't by choice an' all. My father was her master. So don't act like this is some— some moral—"
Anakin cut himself off, face flushing, and clenched his fists, looking away. Kriff, he shouldn't have gone speaking like that to a free-man, even if he was being a right tosser.
"Sorry," Obi-Wan mumbled, "I'm… beginning to realise there's a lot I don't know about the world. I'm one of the Jedi, you know. I thought we knew everything. We were supposed to help people, and now I come down here, and it's all so different, and I'm…"
"Powerless, right?" Anakin chuckled darkly. "Well, I sure know how that feels."
XXX
"Get up, kid," came a voice from the other side of his door, and Anakin slowly blinked, wrapping his thin, wool blanket around his shoulders as he climbed up from the floor, coughing into the back of his hand.
He stepped up to the door, cautiously it open, cautiously looking back over his shoulder.
Luka was still asleep, curled up in a tight ball, tousled hair falling into his face. Smears of snot were covering his face, and Anakin winced, hoping Watto wouldn't be inclined to punish the boy for his grubby appearance.
He turned back to the door, looking down at his master— and up, at Obi-Wan, standing beside him.
"He brought your contract out," Watto gurgled, "always said you'd be better suited for more personal use. He paid a pretty penny for you too— and the brat. You'd better serve him well, boy— I won't have him returning you, not unless you want to become Sarlac feed."
Anakin blinked, stomach churning.
Obi-Wan had brought him.
So much for the pleasant evening.
Anakin shut his eyes, gathering his courage.
"I did not buy him for anything of the sort," Obi-Wan protested. "I'm taking you with me, Anakin. Back to Coruscant. To free you— and your child, too. I can't help everyone here, but I can help you, and the Jedi can take their—"
Obi-Wan cut himself off, face tight, and Anakin couldn't miss how tightly he was clenching his fists.
"Well," he continued, a little calmer, "slavery isn't right. And I'll be talking to the council. But for now… I think you'll fit right in in the city. You and Luka, both."
Anakin froze, hope beginning to stir, deep within him.
Not enough, not yet.
He'd only feel truly free when the chip was gone.
But for now…
Well, Anakin supposed he'd just have to do his best.