genesis: chapter 1 — kismet

[kernsing]

Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.

Rating: Teen. Category: Gen.

Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Anakin Skywalker.

Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Shmi Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn.

Warnings: Slavery, lack of agency.

Summary: 32 BBY | 968 ARR | first meetings
genesis /ˈʤɛnəsəs/ — n. the origin or mode of formation of something
Skywalker and the Jedi, in the beginning.
1 (kismet): the meeting on Tatooine.

Notes: Pro-Jedi sentiment, Jedi as culture.

While I don't think the Jedi handle Anakin's situation terribly well, I reject the idea that Anakin sees the Order as another form of slavery. Pardon my opinion, but if Anakin can leave without a bomb detonating inside of him, he thinks he's free. Poor boy doesn't have high standards.

I also think Anakin is actually free while in the Order, but for more reasons than that.

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kismet /ˈkɪzmɪt/ — n. fate, destiny

You sing of loam from ages past and futures now.

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Anakin Skywalker woke to phantom music.

He heard it in the binary sunrise: the slow dissipation of the night, the first bright rays of Tatoo II, the streaks of pink gold against the endless dunes.

He heard it in his mother's eyes: the flash of wetness gleaming as she tilted toward the suns, the tangible sensation of her hope-sorrow-joy ringing in his head, her wish of quiet courage wrapped 'round him like a soft blanket.

Their emotions had always been shared. She could hear it too, that foreteller of fate crooning in his ears.

Fate is real: it is a force that guides you to certain paths, leads you to certain places, brings you to certain people. And it is by no means good. It is harsh and cruel, unfair to the extreme in its casual brutality to those in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, to its credit, it is rarely deterministic. Except for those unlucky few, there are times when fate provides the crossroads, not the specific way. And then it is you who chooses to take a certain path, traverse a certain place, love a certain person.

Anakin's childhood was cursed to have a want for crossroads. Before the day the Jedi came to Tatooine, he had heard fate's song of blessing only once. He had been five or six, and freedmen came knocking on his door to offer a path to liberty. He and his mother could sense the truth in their words, their sincerity.

"But we can only take the child," said the Twi'lek. "We do not have enough room in the hold for another adult."

"Or," said the Human, "we could pick you both up when we come back. But you would have to wait at least two months. We do not like our odds against paranoid Hutts with recently escaped slaves."

Shmi rested her hands on Anakin's shoulders. "Please," she said, "take my son. Let him know freedom. I can wait."

The Twi'lek nodded. He knelt down to Anakin's level. "Do not worry. Cutting out the detonator is a sharp but quick pain, and freedom is worth it a thousand times over."

The music played for him then, circling around the two men, singing like a love for fathers.

But he was young, too young, and could not fathom the thought of parting with his mother. So he shook his head. "No." His mother's grip tightened around him.

"Do not worry," said the Twi'lek, "we will be back again, save in the face of death."

His words rang true. Yet the melody played a sharp sadness. He clung closer to his mother, surer. "No."

"Anakin," his mother said, pleading.

He looked at her. "I want to stay with you."

She hesitated, but slowly nodded. "We will await your return."

They left, and with them the music. A week later, he and his mother were won by Watto in a bet. That night, her arms wrapped around him, she whispered, "I just want you to be free." Rocking him, wetness in his hair, "I just want you to be free." He felt an anguish he should not yet know, the pain of witnessing your child's suffering.

He could not bear it. "I will be," he promised, anything to relieve that agony. "I will be."

His life would leave behind many broken promises, but this was not one.

He would be free.

He heard it in the endless sky: Today you come to me.

He reached up, up, up, and dug his fingers in wet, loamy earth, so soft and unlike the sands of Tatooine, whispering to him, Kismet.

Kismet. Outlanders walk into a shop.

Kismet. Strangers seek refuge from a sandstorm.

Kismet. A bet. A podrace. A crossroads.

Qui-Gon knelt down.

For less than a millisecond, Anakin felt the echo of a future: love, pain, anger, grief, guilt, joy—and—a bottomless yearning for something he did not yet have, a longing for his culture, an aching for his people.

His mother lost hers when she was four; she was ripped away, language half-learnt on her tongue. All she had left of them were lullabies.

The echo threatened to overwhelm Anakin, make him keel over in that one moment. But then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

It still left his sixth sense disoriented, skewing his perception of Qui-Gon and his mother. Their lights swam in his mind's eye for a long few seconds. After he had recovered himself, he could not recall what he had felt, save a ghost of the endless longing.

He looked at his mother. He remembered his promise.

He said to the song: This is the way I choose.

Anakin Skywalker would be a Jedi.

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Notes: Alternatively: prolepsis /pɹoʊˈlɛpsɪs/ — n. an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story

Influences: (1) some meta on time as nonlinear in the Force, (2) other meta (cw: genocide) on the Jedi as more of a culture than a religion, and (3) a tag from this work.

There's an interesting conversation to be had on whether Anakin's joining the Order is functionally a choice or not; I think he sees it as one for a long time simply because Qui-Gon asks for his opinion and that means something to him.

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