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When Sith Beat Jedi To The Prize (Of The Chosen One)

Garth'zel had intended never to go to Tatooine again. The entire experience the first time he was there was hot and miserable. The only good point, so far as he was concerned, was meeting Andronikos. But as luck would have it, his ship ended up deciding to need minor repairs. Nothing too bad, but it did require him to land somewhere to get the parts he needed, because of course, the bit that went was something he didn't have spare parts for. The only planet within reasonable range? Tatooine.

It didn't take long for a Force-sensitive boy to catch his attention. One strong enough that he was surprised the Jedi didn't already find him. Well, their loss was his gain. ...Once he pried him loose from Watto, anyway. He suspects he actually had an easier time of it than a Jedi would, although he's not going to hang around and give one the chance to give it a shot. At least, unlike them, he's willing to come to Tatooine from time to time so Anakin could see his mother. Probably not more than a couple times a year or so, due to it being best to go there when they're at least vaguely in that part of the galaxy anyway, but it's far better than 'sorry kid, we're never bringing you back'.

Of course, there is one tiny problem with this whole thing. He's never had to raise children before and doesn't know what he's doing. With the ship safely in hyperspace and not due to come out of it for a good long while, enabling him to do things that didn't involve sitting in the pilot's seat of the ship, he's in the lounge area. Time to figure out what he's doing. "Have you managed to get any kind of schooling? Like from someone you know, sitting down with you for an hour here and there as time permitted to teach you things like how to write?"

May as well figure out what he needs to teach besides how to use the Force consciously instead of unconsciously drawing on it.

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"If I think something shouldn't be possible, others are likely to think the same. Which gives you an edge in defending yourself," Garth'zel points out.

"But doesn't that make things more difficult on you?" It wasn't was he wanted to be, a burden on a man who was teaching him and did seem to care about his welfare.

Garth'zel gives him a dry smile. "Are you telling me that you expect to be more work than running an Empire that ruled multiple planets?"

"No-" Hang on, let him back up and mentally repeat that conversation. "You did?" Given what Garth'zel has shared of his past, of their shared pasts, Anakin is surprised. He still can't really wrap his brain about not being a slave, unsurprisingly, but he can't at all understand someone like them becoming that powerful.

Garth'zel can't help it; he laughs. "Not something I ever expected to be doing either. I wouldn't have if the Sith I replaced hadn't hated my Master so much, he not only wanted her dead but everyone connected to her. Which meant going after her apprentices."

Different kind of 'Master' there, hopefully, made clear by the reference to being her apprentice.

He doesn't actually mind the laughter - it's not directed at him or meant cruelly - and his brain is still firing a bit off, like circuits that are almost connecting but not quite. He tries to figure out what that history would make someone like Garth'zel to the people he'd grown up, and the only words that come to mind are 'wizard badass' and 'hero' and it shifts everything to a different something he isn't sure how to explain.

"Wow."

"Let me know when your brain feels like working again," Garth'zel says amused. It looks like it may take some time for the kid to feel up to processing things properly. Not that he really blames him.

It is going to take a minute. Or several. Some of this conversation is just far above what he's capable of handling right now and he works to wrestle that into a box and shelve it until later. Probably when he's alone, so he can think. "What happened to the others? You said apprentices."

Garth'zel winces slightly. "They didn't make it. Thanaton had sent another Sith working for him after them and I wasn't able to get to them before the other one did when they called me for help."

Anakin guesses at the wince, he doesn't need the verbal confirmation. He looks down in his lap for a moment before sliding down to his feet and walking over to Garth'zel, putting his hand on Garth'zel's and patting it. "That's a lot." Of people to lose, he means, and he's trying to offer some kind of comfort for it, even if he knows there really isn't any he can. "I won't leave you." Because what does he have to offer, but a promise to not make him grieve him too?

"It's okay," he says quietly. "They'll probably always be a sore spot, but I had time to deal with failing them before my extended nap."

So at least it's an old hurt, not something piled on with the other things.

"You didn't fail them. Some things we can't stop. We can't prevent. We can just remember it, sear it in our brains and make sure the person who did it never does it again." There is something hard to Anakin's voice that doesn't belong in the voice of a nine year old, pain and rage packed so hard it might as well be solid, unyielding rock.

Garth'zel gives him a brittle smile. "Apparently, the Sith who actually killed them saw himself as being between a rock and a hard place. Refuse to go after them and get killed by Thanaton or kill them and end up on the wrong side of me. I think he was basically going for the option he thought he had a slightly better chance of surviving. Not that he did."

"Or lie, tell Thanaton he would, and bid his time until he knew which of you was going to live, or simply lie and then tell you of the plan." Are there shortfalls to both of these? Yes. Can a nine year old see them? No.

Garth'zel raises an eyebrow. "If one is going to lie to a Dark Council member, they better run very, very far away to make sure they're out of range for when said Dark Council member discovers they've been lied to."

Not that the present tense is the right one to use anymore, but whatever.

He's going to take that as a warning, even if it wasn't meant as such. "He still had choices." 'Choices' being something Anakin only partly understands. But killing someone because you were told to didn't seem the right kind to make.

"Or can you use the Force to tell if someone is lying?" He doesn't know.

"I can, yes," Garth'zel says with a nod. "I do so through things like emotional cues. That said, adults are better at hiding when they're lying than children are, so he would have been able to at least buy himself a running head start."

"He could have warned you then." Anakin doesn't think about that he's still standing so close to Garth'zel or that he might want more space. "Does that take you long to notice? Or where you just good at it?" He is fairly good at reading emotions, and he's noticed slaves tend to be.

"Mmm, as with all things one learns to do consciously with the Force, it does take some practice. On that note, still noticing the stars we're passing?" Time to turn the subject back to something actually useful to talk about rather than what a long-dead Sith's decisions were.

Anakin's eyes widen for a second, because no, he'd lost them several minutes ago when he had stuttered to a halt thought wise, and he tucks his chin down as he answers. "No." But since he does understand what he's supposed to be feeling for, he can find them pretty quickly again.

It's not really a big deal, just Garth'zel getting back to what they'd been doing before they got side-tracked.

"I am thinking at stopping at a planet along the route to Bothawui, by the way. For a few reasons. One of them, to give you more things to sense while practicing at this. The other reasons being to get you warmer clothes more suited to space and to get the things needed to get your schooling started sooner. I think it might help to be able to have a set schedule for what's done when."

Less time for Anakin to be at loose ends should make him a little less twitchy.

Anakin nods, it's not like he has much in the way of clothing to begin with and he's wearing most of them in layers to keep warm. But having schooling started, he thinks, would be nice. "I'm used to having a schedule." He didn't really know what to do without one.

"What kind of schooling?" Anakin, nor none of his friends, have every had any, he isn't sure what it's like.

"First off, teaching you how to read and write, since assigning you history to read won't do you any good if you can't read it," Garth'zel points out in a vaguely amused tone. Although the history can probably wait for a few years mostly, honestly; give Anakin time to build up enough of a vocabulary that he isn't needing to spend as much time reading with a dictionary handy. "Once you've gotten a decent grasp on reading and writing, things can expand from there."

"That's it? Reading and writing?" History later, and he knew numbers were taught too. Numbers were needed for pilots, he didn't realize he already had learned some by piloting a pod and working for Watto. "What do you need to get to start those?"

"For one thing, age and skill appropriate reading material. Unless you want to try learning, using my reading, which involves a lot of long words you have no way to work out how to even pronounce while looking at them, much less understand the meaning of?" He thinks not.

"There'll be more subjects, but first, best to get you started on what you need to actually get anywhere with them."

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