Chapter 1

Another day, another step towards freedom.

That was Anakin's mantra and dream, and the mantra of most every slave on Tatooine like himself. 

For the nine years he's been alive, he has been a slave on the dessert forsaken planet on the outer rim of the Galactic Republic for six years. The Republic out lawed slavery, but they didn't care about the profitless planets on the outer rim, plagued with slavery, pirates, crooks, and death.

Anakin dismissed his thoughts and got out of bed and readied himself for the day. It was no later than five in the morning and he really didn't feel like going to work today, but the life of a slave was neither glamorous nor comfortable.

The boy had dark golden hair that covered his fore head, tan skin from Tatooine's two suns, and two deep blue eyes that resembled the deep blue oceans that he could only dream of.

Just as Anakin was about leave his messy room, filled with numerous broken gadgets and machine parts, he felt a disturbance or shift in the Force. For as long as he can remember, Anakin has always been able to sense the feelings of others and tell lies from truth, and move telekinetically move small objects with little concentration. Sometimes he's even been able to make bad people go away when they try to hurt him. It wasn't until recently that he discovered the cause of these abilities: the Force. a energy that binds and connects all living things, an energy or more aptly force, that surrounds everything and keeps the world in balance.

Before leaving his room, Anakin promised himself to be extra careful and on the lookout for anything unusual.

Anakin's house was pretty small with only a few rooms; like all structures in Tatooine it had a sandy color to it and was built to survive the harsh desert weather and stay cool from the scorching heat. Despite the houses small size, it had a comfortable homey feel to it. Anakin was proud to say that most of the machines in the house were assembled by himself.

Anakin always had a knack for technology, whether it engineering, or piloting, or just fixing and assembling machines. He couldn't exactly say how he knew what to do why to do it. Machines and technology just made sense to him in a way he would never understand people and their subtitles. 

Just before exiting the house, Anakin took a moment to prepare himself for the stinging cold. Despite Tatooine's two suns, it could get as cold as ice during the night; a sharp contrast to the blaring heat during the day.

 Anakin exited his house wearing his usual plain worn down garbs and made his way to his Master's shop. It was no exaggeration to say that all of Tatooine looked the same, all the buildings had the say plain lackluster beige color and dome like structure. Everything looked like it was made of sand.

Sadly the shop where he worked at was no different, the shop was actually made up of several small buildings, which was actually pretty impressive for Tatooine.

When the shop came into view, Anakin started walking towards it a little faster. He was impatient to get the day started and finish his work. Upon entering the messy shop with multiple machine parts and boxes lying around, he met Master Watto's heavy glare.

Watto looked kind of like miniature walrus with mosquito wings and humanoid features. 

"You're late. What took you so long?" Watto said in his gravelly voice, that sounded like someone was dragging something heavy across the ground.

"I'm sorry, Master. I lost track of time," Anakin hurriedly, nervously tapping his foot. He was pretty sure he was on time, but he could feel Watto's anger and he knew better than to talk back.

"You're always late. Anyone else wouldn't kriffing put up with you, but since I'm the nicest master in all of Mos Espa"— the city they were in— "I'll let it go just this once." Just as Watto was about to fly out of the shop to slack off as usual until customers arrived, he looked over his shoulder and said in a tone that promised pain, "now get to work, I better not catch you slacking when I get back."

"You won't." Anakin promised, nodding his head and down eagerly like a impatient child— which he was.

Honestly, Anakin couldn't really complain too much about Watto. He really was one of the nicest slave owners in Mos Espa, and it allowed Anakin to work with machine which he enjoyed immensely despite the menial tasks that came along with it and he was occasionally got to podrace. Plus, it certainly beat being owed by the Hutts, he shuddered just thinking about it. 

With a bright smile that he usually commenced his work with, Anakin got to work on his daily tasks.

By midday, he was working on cleaning the fan switches. Just as he was about to finish the last one, he felt three beings enter the shop through the Force. The shop had many customers but Anakin could immediately tell there was something special about one of them. He could sense that the the Force densely surrounded one of them, and it gave off the feelings of hope, peace and serenity. That was not all Anakin could feel coming from them, there was and undercurrent fear and worry that he could feel coming from two of them when he strained his connection to the force.

The shift in the Force, Anakin thought excitedly. He immediately knew it to be true the moment he had the thought; never in his entire life had he felt someone so strong with the Force like himself. 

Immediately he set the fan switch on the shelf beside him— deeming his task less important than meeting the one who could potentially have all the answers to his questions— and ran out the door to see the new comers, excitement rolling off him in waves. When he reached the door to the shop he carefully peeked his head inside, eager to satiate his curiosity.

Anakin could clearly see the group of outworlders talking with his master. Anakin ignored their conversation and focused on the one that was connected to the force: the person in question was a tall human male with long brown hair and a matching brown robe. The man kind of gave him the impression of a kind old man or some sort of priest. Beside the man was a stunning young girl that could only be a few years older than himself with brown hair and large brown doe like eyes, and behind here was lizard looking humanoid with two long flappy ears— Anakin had never seen that species before but it seemed amphibian, he could clearly feel its discomfort from the hot Tatooine air. Following closely behind the lizard man was a blue and white astromech droid that looked to be of Nubian make.

"Boy, get in here now!" Yelled out Watto.

The sudden yell startled Anakin out of his thoughts, never the less he hurriedly walked into the shop.

"Ah, I see you finally listened to me about being on time, boy." Contentment radiated of Watto, like he was patting himself on the back for a job well done.

"Of course I have, you know I always take your words to heart," he said, shamelessly lying through his teeth as he walked up to the counter by Watto and took a seat on it. 

Anakin always followed Watto's orders in one form or another, but he didn't really care about the verbal lashing and the nonsensical lectures about what proper and not. By this point he had grown pretty desensitized to Watto's harsh words and threats, having learned that his bark was worse than his bite.

"What ever, just watch the store while conduct some business with my new customers," Watto said. "I'm sure we have what you guys need, why don't we head to the back and I'll show you all the Nubian parts we have for sale?"

"That would be great." The man gave Watto an appreciative nod, he turned back to his two companions. "Padmé, make sure Jar Jar doesn't get into any trouble while I'm gone."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of him, Master Qui-Gon."

Having said his piece, Qui-Gon followed Watto out of the building.

During the entire interaction, Anakin had been studying Qui-Gon intensely through the Force. He now knew without a doubt that Qui-Gon was like him, in that he could also feel and somewhat control the Force. And the fact that he was called a master of some kind by the girl only cemented his suspicions.

So many questions ran through Anakin's mind as he watched Qui-Gon leave. He desperately wished he could ask him how he was able to control the Force, and what the Force even was for that matter. Unfortunately he wasn't able to do so with his Master around, unless he wanted to be the one being questioned.

Once Qui-Gon was out of sight, he let out a low sigh of disappointment before he bottled up his morose feelings and turned his attention to his new guests.

Even though he was far more intrigued by the man, his companions were also quite interesting. He had never seen any species that looked like Jar Jar, and the girl Padmé was the most beautiful girl Anakin had ever seen, and even though she tried to hide it, he could sense extreme amount of worry coming for her making him even more curious.

"Are you an angel?" Anakin said jokingly and somewhat seriously, trying to cheer her up. "I've heard they are the most beautiful beings in the galaxy."

An amused smile appeared on her face as she gave him her full attention for the first time. "Maybe I am," she said feigning seriousness, although he could hear the giggle in her voice that almost burst out. "Where did you hear about that anyways."

"I'm a pilot, so I like to get any news I can about other star sectors and planets. One day I'm gonna leave this clump of sand and I'll need to know where to go after all." He smiled, a far off look on his face as he imagined leaving Tatooine.

"You're a pilot?" She gave him an appraising gaze.

"Yep! I'm the best pilot in all of Tatooine." He couldn't prove it, but he definitely believed. If there were any two things he was proud of, it was being a pilot and an engineer.

"And how long have you been on Tatooine."

"Ever since Gardula the Hutt lost my Mom and me while betting, so for around six years I think." Anakin squirmed just thinking about his life back then; he only remember a few things from back then but it was enough to give nightmares every time he slept, like scars embedded deep in his psyche that would never leave him.

"You're a slave!" Shock ran through Padmé's frame like electricity.

Anakin hated being called a salve even if it was true; it was humiliating and it felt like talking about it would make more real, especially when it came from some outworlder looking at him with pity.

"I'm not just some slave. I'm a person too and my name is Anakin."

"I know that, Anakin. I'm sorry, I didn't mean insult you, I was just surprised. Slavery is outlawed on the planet I grew up on, so I didn't know," she said in a tone that conveyed sincerity, her beautiful brown eyes pleading for forgiveness.

Anakin could literally feel her sincerity and guilt, and it had a soothing affect on him, but didn't completely get rid of his anger. He was never really mad at her in the first place. What really angered him was the situation he found himself.

Forcefully, he closed his eyes and choked down his anger into that place deep down inside him so that he wouldn't have to deal with it— he knew it was a bad habit, and that at some point his emotions would burst all at once like an ocean of anger and fear crashing into and overwhelming the island that was his mind and bastion of sanity. Unfortunately, he didn't know how else to deal with his negative emotions, ever since he was little he had to act strong, never show fear or anger to his previous owners.

When he finished dealing with his emotions a second later he opened his eyes and a calm smile returned to his face as if nothing ever happened.

Just as he was about to console Padmé, a loud commotion came from the other side of the shop. Looking over, he saw Jar Jar clumsily chasing after a rogue, three foot, skinny and brown droid that was maniacally running away from him.

The scene was hilarious and he almost didn't have the heart to stop it, but he had to obey Watto's orders and he could feel Padmé growing annoyance.

"Hit its lens," Anakin yelled out somewhat sadly once Jar Jar had captured the droid in his hands.

After a momentary pause of confusion, a light if understanding dawned on Jar Jar and he quickly tapped the droid on its lens; causing it to deactivate and fold in on itself.

"Mesa sowry about thats," said Jar Jar in a funny accent.

 "It's no problem, that droid is already broken anyways," Anakin said, "if I wasn't so good at building things it probably would already be broken."

Before Padmé could apologize Watto and Qui-Gon walked into the room. Anakin couldn't feel Qui-Gon's emotions but he could feel Watto's annoyance and disappointment, so he assumed that the two couldn't work out a deal.

"Let's go," Qui-Gon said to Padmé and Jar Jar, tiredness creeping into his frame as walked out of the shop.

For the first time since there arrival, the man's control over the Force around him broke for a split second, allowing Anakin to feel his anxiety and worry.

Anakin couldn't but be curious about what worried Padmé and Qui-Gon so much, but it didn't seem like he would get the chance unfortunately.

"It was nice meeting you, Anakin."

"Yeah, it was nice meeting you, too." Anakin watched the group leave sadly. 

There was so much that he wanted to ask, but he couldn't leave without Watto's permission.

"Those outworlders always think they're better than us, yet none of those Republican pacifists would have the strength to survive out here, eh?" Watto finally let his wings rest and sat down on the counter next to Anakin.

"I don't know? They didn't seem all that bad to me." Surprisingly, Anakin missed Padmé more than he thought he would.

Watto only gave a heavy grunt in reply. "Go clean the shelves and then you can go."

"Yes! Thank you, Master," Was all he said before he ran off in childish excitement.

Perhaps he would see them again after all.