Chapter Text
Anakin was used to having realistic dreams.
He had been having them for a long as he could remember.
So he wasn’t completely caught off guard about feeling the warm sunset breeze blow threw his hair or the feeling of shifting sands beneath his feet even though he knows he had gone to bed in his and Master Obi-Wan’s apartment in the Jedi Temple, lightyears away from Tatooine.
Tatooine.
Anakin pulled a face.
He had no desire to dream of this planet, especially if the dream did not involve his mother.
He kicked at the sand and looked around him with a glare.
He knew instinctually that he was on Tatooine, but he knew that he had never been here before.
He knew of moisture farms – Of course he did. Mom had even hoped that maybe one day they might be bought by a Moisture Farmer. Not because working on a moisture farm would be easier than working in Watto’s scrap shop, hardly, but the thought of being away from the crowded city, criminal gangs, scavengers and folk just wishing to disappear was something she dearly wished for them. To be out in the open, where the desert met the sky uninterrupted, it would be the closest to freedom that his Mom had ever seen them ever having – but he had never been to one before.
But just as he knew he was on Tatooine, he also just knew that he was at a moisture farm
But why?
Maybe, a hopeful thought enters his mind, maybe Mom had finally…
He looked around the farm eagerly, calling out to her as he ran from room to room, up and down stairs, before finally coming to stand once more upon the sands above the farm, heart heavy as he stared at the still setting twin suns.
It was a foolish hope, to think that he... that she…
“I’m sorry.”
Anakin jumped, spinning around to stare in surprise at the young man slowly approaching him from the direction of the farm. He was dressed in white and cream clothes, the clothes of a farmer, and had a head of shagging blonde hair that fell into bright but sad blue eyes.
Anakin was stunned.
As often as he had experienced dreams such as this, where it felt he truly was in the place he was dreaming of, never before had anyone he saw in his dream ever spoken to him!
“I’m sorry,” the young man repeated as he came to stand by Anakin, not too close as to crowd Anakin, but near enough to imply he was a friend and meant no harm. His presences in the Force also sang the same. In fact, standing by this young man was like standing next to Obi-Wan or – and Anakin felt a stab of yearning – his mother. “I did not realise that bringing you here would cause you pain.”
“You brought me here?” Anakin eyed the farmer incredulously, searching for any hint that he might be a Jedi in disguise trying to test him. And well, while the young man certainly had a very strong connection to the Force – In fact, Anakin was a little taken aback by just how strong the farmer’s presence was, wondering as he basked in the warm glow of this third sun, if this was like how other force sensitives felt when faced being in his presence – the farmer did not feel like any Jedi Anakin had ever met before.
He was a Jedi, that Anakin was certain of, but he felt… newer? Anakin winced at the choice of word, but it was the truth.
Cleaner too, like fresh rain on Naboo, and not… Anakin peered at the farmer frowning, because no, no he did see hints of ancient, stagnant waters trying to seep into the clear spring waters of the farmer.
It seemed as if there was a fight going on within him and Anakin could only hope that fresh rain will make the stagnant lake water flow once more.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Anakin looked away from the curious farmer jedi and instead stared around the farm once more. “Why here?”
The farmer let out a sheepish laugh as he ran a hand threw his golden hair.
“Ah, well, I guess I thought having our first meeting on our shared home planet was a good idea, but…” the farmer’s smile slips a little as he stares apologetically down at him, “I had forgotten our upbrings were rather different.”
“You’re not a slave?” Anakin asked in a small voice, hands curling into fists at his side as he stares away from the young man.
“No.”
Anakin nodded, relieved before turning back to stare up the farmer once more.
“Have you come to free slaves? Is that why you brought me here? To help you?”
The farmer smiled, warm and gentle, causing a warmth to settled deep within Anakin’s bones and finally fighting off the last of the chill that clung to him, a cold that had previously refused to budge no matter how many layers he wore, how many blankets he piled onto his bed or turned the temperature in the apartment up so high that Obi-Wan complained of melting – though he never turned it down, leaving that up to Anakin, for him to decide when he was warm enough.
“Is that what you want? To free slaves?”
“Yes!” he did not mean to bounce up and down, that was not the Jedi way, but the farmer did not seem to be an ordinary Jedi and seemed not to mind Anakin’s enthusiasm, even smiling more widely.
“Then I will help you.”
Anakin had heard many promises in his short life and most had been broken, one way or another. Some by choice, some by circumstances and some because people can be cruel, but this promise has the Force singing around it, threw it, binding it between the two of them, binding them together, not quite the same as Master and Padawan, but it is still a bond that feels just as deep, just as true and unbreakable.
A promise and a bond that has Anakin waking the next morning with a smile.