spncentral | 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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Garth'zel soon finishes his own food and rises to put his plate and fork in to be washed when he runs the cleaning unit later. "I'm going to go practice with the training remote. You can watch later if you feel like it."

Just give him time to work his temper off first.

"Yes Sir. I'll come later." Anakin is quiet, subdued even.

After Garth'zel leaves, Anakin finishes his food and cleans up the kitchen quietly, then puts the towels in the wash to wash and dry - and just busies himself with tidying up for a while until wandering towards the practice area, hoping Garth'zel is in a better mood.

Said practice area is the hold, because really, where else is one going to do this sort of thing without potentially getting something shot that shouldn't be?

By the time Anakin shows up, Garth'zel isn't even thinking about the earlier conversation, just batting bolts from the remote back in its direction with his lightsaber, mostly going for near misses.

The hum of the lightsaber overrides the sound of Anakin's approach, but Garth'zel can still sense it. "When I think you're ready for this, you'll practice with the remote and lightsaber both on lower settings," he says, tone considerably more relaxed than earlier. "My setting for the remote would take you down in seconds, and as my lightsaber is a lethal weapon, best to lower the intensity of the blade to where getting hit with it will just hurt rather than remove a limb or worse."

Anakin had stopped and listened to the hum of the lightsaber before approaching but staying well back as he watches. It very much looks like a game and a fun one at that. He isn't going to argue about not being able handle it right now, but he wants to at least hold the lightsaber.

"I didn't know you could make them less powerful."

"It's a good idea to be able to adjust the blade if needed," Garth'zel comments, next deflected bolt whizzing right below the remote--if it was aimed at an average human-sized person, it would have just hit them in the throat.

"Like when you're just practicing and don't actually want to kill or maim your opponent."

Anakin whistles at the impact, staying back at his distance. Given they can still talk and Garth'zel hadn't shouted at him to back up, he is going to assume he's at a good distance for safety.

"When it's less powerful, is it shorter?"

"It can be shorter if you want it to be, it doesn't become shorter by default when lowering the intensity of the blade, no. I am not going to let you take mine apart to figure out how it works. You can build your own to tinker with when I think you're old enough for one and have a good enough handle on using mine." Although proper training spars are going to need to wait until after they both have lightsabers.

"While lightsabers generally have the same components such as power supply and so on, there is individual variation," he adds a moment later.

"Can you tell by looking at it what intensity it's set on?" That seemed very important to know. "Won't I need to know how one works to build one? How do you learn?" The left him confused.

"What kind of variation?"

"Hold on, at this point trying to talk and do this is asking to get shot." Due to Anakin wanting actual detail about things.

"Cancel," he instructs the remote, not lowering his lightsaber until the remote obediently hovers in place without moving. A moment of stretching his hand out and calling it to him later, he's switching it off and putting it away.

"To get back to your question, through looking at what your settings on your lightsaber are. Looking at the blade itself, no. You're a few years off from needing to know how to build your own lightsaber, so don't worry about it for now."

Garth'zel holds out his lightsaber--safely turned off so Anakin could see how it fit into his hand. "According to what the best size for someone's hands is, for example. There's a fighting style that the practitioner needs curved hilts to be more effective at it, as another. Then there's things that are more about personal taste, like the color of the hilt or any decoration. I built this using parts provided from someone, and the hilt is one that had been part of an older lightsaber of hers, so this pattern is entirely her own design."

Garth'zel is going to learn it's going to be a long time before Anakin won't ask for details about something, and that's only going to lessen as be becomes more experienced and educated.

Anakin watches, filing away his commands and movements, waiting until Garth'zel is walking over to him to to step away from the wall and walking over to meet him. "What if you are using someone else's, and their settings are different?" He's listening as he leans in to study the hilt, eyes moving slowly over the hilt and all it's details. His fingers twitch at his side. "Can I touch it?" Not take it, just touch - he wants to feel the texture of the metal.

"Barring you using mine to practice with, you're likely using someone else's in a combat situation, so it's likely already at the right settings needed to kill someone," Garth'zel says dryly.

"You can, yes."

Anakin reaches out, lightly running his fingertips down the length of the hilt, his fingers slightly out of line so he can feel it with different parts of his calloused fingers. At first he's focus on the textural details and crafting of the metals that he doesn't pay attention to anything else.

"Ideally, you'd only need to ever make one or two, but well, things happen. Like someone cutting through the hilt to render the person with the lightsaber weaponless." Not that he's sure how much the kid is taking in that isn't his lightsaber.

He's hearing, but he couldn't repeat word for word and only has a basic idea of what Garth'zel is saying, more entranced with the almost delicate designs in the hilt, the difference between the tooled areas and the raised, polished design. It's beautiful, certainly. "Will you turn it?" He's trying to look over the entire pattern. "And what are these?" He points outs knobs for adjusting. "If you break someone's, you can't steal it later?" Why wouldn't you want to do that if you were fighting someone.

Garth'zel turns it as needed. "Remember what I said about adjusting the settings? That's what the knobs are for. Personally, if I'm going to be targeting something, I'm not going to be targeting my opponent's lightsaber. Their arm, on the other hand..."

Much bigger target.

Anakin nods, although it's not clear if he means it about the answered question or Garth'zel's comment. After studying the pattern, "I hope no one bleeds on it..." He's pretty sure a lightsaber doesn't leave a bleeding wound but fights are fights.

Garth'zel shakes his head. "The heat from the blade cauterizes wounds. There'll still be some bleeding, but not as much as one would otherwise expect."

"That's good." Wait, give him a minute. "Doesn't that make a wound less lethal?"

"If you get stabbed in the chest with a lightsaber, you're generally still going to die unless you get medical attention, very very fast. Also, if someone's head is removed, it doesn't matter how much bleeding there is, they're dead regardless," Garth'zel points out dryly. All right, that's enough of show and tell with the lightsaber. He hooks it back onto his belt where it belongs.

As Garth'zel pulls it away, Anakin backs up to a polite distance. "Yes, but you said arm. A limb or the belly?" Given this is the same kid who explained that slave chips are used to make runaway slaves blow up, complete with giggling explosion noises, odds are, he's just being a little morbid.

Garth'zel just gives Anakin a look. "Lightsabers are used to kill or maim. They're also to be used as a last resort when an attempt to resolve a situation more peacefully fails."

In Anakin's limited experience, maiming was just a very slow way of killing - maimed people couldn't work, people who couldn't work starved to death or died from dehydration first. Not because no one cared, but because no one had enough to share, except people who wouldn't do so anyway. Still, he wilts a little, violence is just part of what he's known. "Doesn't that need people to know what they are to work?"

"The only people who even have these, for the most part, are Sith and Jedi. And. Well. It's been a very long time since Sith have really been seen, so most people have forgotten about us. If someone sees me with mine, they'll assume I'm a Jedi." He shrugs. "There's enough stories about the Jedi out there that causing trouble in my presence will generally give most people pause. If they remembered the stories about Sith on the other hand, they're more likely to take pains to stay on my good side."

Lest they, you know. End up dead.

Well, they have circled back to something which made Anakin worry earlier, so he might as well bring it out. "What happens if a Jedi meets you?" Given...they didn't seem to like Sith. "Or me?"

"Well, I guess we'll find out if they're one of the ones willing to stop and talk or if they'll have a knee-jerk reaction to me being Sith," he says dryly. "If the former, it'll probably go more or less alright. If the latter, I'll give them one chance to back off. If they don't take it, the only one they'll have to blame is his or herself.

"I really doubt they'd do anything to you. Try to take you from me, yes. Do anything to you since you're a child and haven't been with me long enough to be taught too much they'd think they'd need to unteach, no. Just try to convince you that everything I've taught you is bad and wrong, probably. ...Possibly not if you repeat back some of the things I've said, since they'd be expecting your typical Sith, not one who's actually more or less absorbed at least some parts of the Jedi teachings." He shrugs. "Anyway. There's a reason we're going to be avoiding planets with a heavy Jedi presence. Just as well you aren't making a lightsaber until you're probably at least thirteen. Gives me time to try to figure out where you're to get a crystal for it that the Jedi isn't keeping an eye on. I'd take you to Ilum to find one, but it's where they get theirs."

Meaning Jedi everywhere.