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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"Huh." Garth'zel takes a moment to mentally digest that. "I'm not sure how cold plasma would work."

"All right, now rather than focusing on us, see if it has anything to tell you about our general surroundings." This would work so much better if they were planetside somewhere.

"I dunno." Plasma isn't perfect but it's similar enough and it's what he knows.

Anakin sits quiet, reaching out and trying to sense the Force, make sense of what he is sensing, and put it to words. "I sense something. Hot, like burning zinc." A comet, but he doesn't know what they are passing. "Stars. One is dying." He stops talking and reaches out. "People. There's people? Or was." They had just passed another ship in the hyperspace lane, although Anakin didn't - couldn't - have known that.

Garth'zel takes some time to absorb that. "The people, we probably just passed with both groups--us and them--being in hyperspace. I'm not sure what the first thing would be from."

He waits, with more patience than one might expect from a young child, for Garth'zel to think about what he said. "So you can sense people in other ships?" That was neat and useful. "I dunno. It felt like that, but small. It moved away fast. Towards a star, I think."

"Apparently you can," Garth'zel says dryly. "Given we're in hyperspace, I was only really expecting you to sense whatever stars we happen to be passing right now."

That gives Anakin pause, part not sure if he did something wrong or not, part not sure that he understood correctly or not in that Garth'zel didn't or couldn't have sensed that. "You can't?"

"Can't what? Sense other people in hyperspace. Possibly, if I really wanted to. But who pays that much attention? Besides you when told to do so." Nothing wrong, no, but definitely weird.

Well, he can't say he wasn't doing what he was told. "Is that typical? Like if someone went looking?" He might be digging for praise or feedback. He's very unsure of what he's actually doing.

"Using the Force to sense other people in hyperspace? I can't say that's something people typically do, no." It's probably a very good thing for him that he isn't planning on training the kid to be Sith, because things were likely to end very badly for him in a decade or two if he was.

"What does that mean?" He'll have to excuse Anakin being very confused. He isn't sure if what he did was good or bad, if he should just ignore that kind of thing the future.

"It means you can do things most Force-sensitives wouldn't think to do, apparently," Garth'zel says dryly.

"Oh. Ok." That's a little helpful, at least, thinking of something most people wouldn't isn't a bad thing to his thinking.

"Somehow, I get the feeling there's going to be plenty of moments of you doing something that it hasn't occurred to me should even be possible," Garth'zel says with a shake of his head.

"I'm sorry." He can only assume he's being a problem, which prompts the immediate apology. He doesn't mean to be a problem at all.

"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.