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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It depends on the kind of toy, really. Although educational toys he'd actually like.

"Probably good I haven't heard of it, isn't it?" People fighting in space and slavers using threats of it to force surrender...

"Probably," Garth'zel says with a nod. "Although at this point in time, I would be... very surprised if it still existed. Although I'm not sure how that cannon would have worked against regular ships. It would destroy one hit by it directly for sure, but I'm not sure its effects would expand like that with them."

"What made those ships different?" He slows the lid until he has it steady, frowning at it, before making it roll forward a little, then motions it forward more.

"They were some sort of advanced technology that no one's seen before. I honestly don't know how modern technology would compare to them. One would hope that after over three thousand years, ships that could counter them what weren't the Gravestone would have been built." Seriously, he has no idea where they're from; those ships came from nowhere so far as everyone was concerned.

"Huh. That's weird. None of you were worried about were it came from?" Because that was just spooky. Very spooky.

The lid runs an object, stopping and Anakin tries to push it to roll over the thing, but he can't quite get it to, and he makes a face at it.

"Considering the Empire of Zakuul used the Eternal Fleet to crush both the Republic and the Sith Empire in less than a year, we wanted to know where they came from very much," Garth'zel says dryly. "Given the Gravestone was the only thing we found that was remotely even a match, we had to make ourselves not worry too much about its origins. Even if we did want to know that. But it was overall a problem we could set aside."

Given they had a war to fight.

"What are you doing?"

"Still a creepy thing."

He rolls the lid back a little and tries to roll it forward again but it only bounces. "Um..." Playing really. "Practicing?"

"Try not to send that bouncing off something it shouldn't. Like me," Garth'zel says dryly. "I need to get you real toys to play with, not things that belong in the galley."

"I'm just rolling it." He finally gets it to roll over the object and continues pushing it around the table, rolling it like a wheel. "I've never really had many toys." The ones he did, he made, or Shmi had.

"I know. I'm also not sure what you'd want." Anakin may want to try taking the hint.

"I dunno. I like to make things. I can carve a little too. I made Mom some jewelry once, it was nice to see her smile like that." He doesn't have the space to turn the lid around, so he just starts rolling it backwards.

Garth'zel covers his eyes with one hand for a moment. "So looking for two or three things I think a normal human child would be interested in, then."

Along with one or two extra to do double-duty as being both fun and educational.

"We had a couple of balls we could kick around or throw, but it's not a lot of fun by yourself." Anakin shrugs. "I worked on my pod racer or my droid or stuff like that. Made stuff." So he didn't honestly know.

"We'll figure out something for you to occupy yourself with when you don't have anything you need to work on, don't worry." Best not to give the kid a chance to get bored. For the sake of his own sanity, if nothing else.

"Ok." He works the lid back to where it had started and puts it down, then studies the table for something else to play with. He turns the bowl back over, meaning to start putting things inside it.

Probably a good idea to plot him out physical activity too, because he's used to moving. A lot.

Garth'zel just eyes him for a moment. "Right, while you occupy yourself with that, I'll just get some reading done."

He's mostly letting Anakin get away with this because he's using the Force and this gets him practice with doing so.

Given leave to play with the objects on the table, he practices picking up each object and moving them into the bowl, then back out, stacking them in various ways. Once he's more confident in that, decides to start seeing what he can move to him, starting a stack by him.

At least he doesn't seem to need to tell Anakin to get in practice with that sort of thing. The kid seems to be doing just fine on that front on his own.

"That's probably enough of that for now. Extended use of the Force can get tiring. Particularly when you're either inexperienced at consciously using it or doing a lot of metaphorical heavy lifting with it."

Anakin is happy to have something to do, really, it's calming to have a task other than 'figure something out on your own'.

"Oh. Ok." He's disappointed, having a skill to practice to perfection is something he can measure, something he can prove. It's also something to do, of which he's lacking.

Know what else you wouldn't like, kid? Giving yourself a brain cramp or something due to overdoing it.

"You'll have plenty of chances to do variations of this in the future. Best to take a break before you potentially end up overdoing it, hmm?" Garth'el points out in an amused tone as he saves his spot in what he was reading before turning off his reader and setting it aside to gather everything back up to put away.

"We can play some dejarik so you can work on getting better at that instead." Then it'll be time for food again.

It would probably only take half a dozen brain cramps for him to learn a lesson. Probably.

"Ok." He's agreeing to not disagree rather than agreeing because he agrees. With Garth'zel marking his place in his reading, Anakin slides down to his feet and starts putting things in the bowl for easy carrying.

"I'm liking dejarik." Which is at least fun for him to do.

"Well, that's fortunate, given it's the only game the game table has," Garth'zel says amusedly. Hmm. He should probably look into getting more games that teach the same sorts of lessons, shouldn't he? Something to do later.

"I know some throwing games, if I had some stones or something to carve the pieces, I could teach you them." Children's versions of gambling games mostly, but he knew actual gaming versions as well.

But he's fine with what they have.

Garth'zel arches an eyebrow. "Would any of these games resemble Watto's preferred form?"

Children imitate what they know. And given Watto's gambling, it wasn't too hard to guess what kind of games these were.

"Some of 'em. Some of no, cause he's not real good at 'em. He likes ones with chance cubes, I'm pretty sure he has weighted ones." He didn't see a problem with gambling for small things, and a lot of the children he'd been friends with had played - after all occasionally one could win their freedom that way.