***
Anakin helped Beru clear the table after dinner and followed her around, offering to help with her chores. There was something about her that reminded him of his mother, of Padme. She had a vivacity in her shy smile that Owen lacked and her eyes shone whenever Anakin told her stories of the places he had been, the creatures he had seen. Anakin thought that it was a shame that she would never leave Tatooine. She would marry Owen, a boy who seemed too stodgy for his age, and the sun and wind would eat away at her spirit until there was little left.
He wanted to take her away, preserve what he could of her. I've seen it happen before, he wanted to say. You show a little bit of defiance and then people who don't like what you're doing will come and put you down.
See, my Master, you've never met him, but he used to be a lot of fun. But I was this Chosen One or something special and that meant that the Jedi Council, which is this committee we work for, was always bothering me and him.
Well, it was his fault, at first. He was unsure of himself in the field, said that he had been made a Master at too young an age and he had no experience. Every minute or so, he would be comming the Council to ask if he was doing this or that correctly. Eventually, he stopped comming them so much but then they began to ask after him. They would run frequent checkups on us and ask after my condition. Then they kept scheduling meetings and I wasn't ever invited.
The point of this is, don't always listen to what other people tell you to do. You do it too much, you end up thinking like them. That's why everyone believes that Jedi are all the same, because we all listen to what the Council says and start thinking like them. But I'm different. I want the Jedi to think for themselves.
Yes, that's what Anakin would tell her, if only he could figure out a way to fit it into the conversation.
Owen was looking at him suspiciously. Anakin scowled. He had no intention of competing against Owen in anything that the latter wanted. Owen could keep Beru's attentions; Owen could keep Cliegg's attentions. They were not enough to tempt Anakin.
He watched as Owen made a suggestion to Cliegg. Owen would use his swoop bike to give Anakin a lift back to the Mos Eisley spaceport so that Cliegg wouldn't have to worry about it. It was downright fawning, the way Owen kept trying to be helpful to Cliegg. As if he were scared that Anakin would steal his father away.
"Anakin," Owen said. "I'm heading to Mos Eisley anyway to collect an advance on a payment and since it's along the way, do you want a ride back to your ship?"
Anakin nodded and followed Owen out to the complex where the vehicle was parked. As he straddled the bike and wrapped his arms around his brother, he wished that he were the one sitting in front, that he were the one in control.
The land rushed black and blue under him. He could see little, only noted that the sky was actually lighter than the surrounding terrain. The wind whipped his padawan braid around and he wished his hair were longer, so that he could feel it on his cheeks and fluttering in the wind.
Sometimes they passed by groups of Jawas, dark figures who turned to look at them with eyes that were pinpoints of light. Or by great banthas, huge hulking beasts that looked like ghosts when their shaggy coats caught any available light.
It was the ghosts that lingered between himself and his Master that made him feel like they were constantly in competition with each other. Master Qui Gon, for the most part dead, had the maddening habit of popping up at the most unusual of times. The way Obi Wan had taken a liking to Master Mace Windu and Anakin was not fool enough not to be able to guess at the content of their conversations.
And the way Obi Wan seemed to bloom when the Jedi Council called him "a credit to his Master" and so became increasingly polite and charming. As if he were in competition with Anakin to see who could become the model Jedi first.
So the first time Anakin had come close to beating Obi Wan during a sparring session, he wasn't surprised that Obi Wan would begin to slack on his training. Obi Wan had laughed and congratulated Anakin for quick reflexes, but he had seen the fear emulating from his Master, even if it hadn't shown on that changeable face.
It would look bad if the student were to surpass the master so quickly, and Obi Wan certainly didn't want to look bad, especially in front of the Jedi Council. Anakin didn't know why Obi Wan seemed so impressed by authority, but he guessed that maybe Obi Wan had found a surrogate replacement in the Council because Obi Wan missed having a father.
Because he had thought Obi Wan was Master Qui Gon's son the first time he had met them, what with all the obvious care he devoted to the older man and the intimacy of their relationship. He hadn't noticed then the fact that Obi Wan's too-short hair was the wrong color or that the features of the two men weren't similar enough to be family.
And for his part, Anakin's mind was often on his mother. He attributed some of his dreams to simple fear and anxiety, but even then, they persisted in unusually high numbers and tasted of prophecy when he woke up in a dead sweat. Though the feeling never became pressing enough for him to take action, unlike that night that spurred him to return to Tatooine, he used to mention his desire occasionally to Obi Wan. But he never pressed the issue and kept it mostly to himself. There was a part of him that didn't want Obi Wan to meet his mother, because Obi Wan was charming and everyone liked Obi Wan. His mother should not be like everyone else and she must love Anakin first and foremost.
Though Anakin almost did ask Obi Wan to visit his mother. It was a cloudy night so many years after the first that he left his bed and cracked open the door of his Master's room. He watched silently as Obi Wan rubbed against his sheets while moaning the same two syllables over and over When the sour smell of disappointment hung heavy in the air, Anakin closed the door and resolved to ask after his mother tomorrow. He later forgot the incident.
Anakin's nose itched and he didn't particularly want to raise his hand up to scratch it. He sighed and watched over Owen's shoulder as the bright lights of Mos Eisley came into view.
It seemed, he thought, that the brighter Obi Wan sparkled, the more fake his Master became. Like a glittering veneer had wrapped itself around his Master. If he chipped at it, sometimes he could sometimes see glimpses of the real Obi Wan underneath.
The Jedi Council, Yoda included, were idiots if they couldn't even figure that out.