deercountry | better to burn out than to fade away ☼ may catch-all

Anakin steps aside to let his grandfather in. The house is, so far, pretty plain and needs some minor repair. Already, he's replaced some rotten floorboards and stripped some moldy wallpaper from the walls. But it's going to take a little more than that to make it look nice.

"I noticed. But maybe with some examination and experimentation, I might get something out of them." Anakin shrugs. "I've got the time."

The mention of an R2 unit makes him perk up a bit.

"You have an R2 astromech? My uncle does as well."

It's unlikely that it's the same one. Right?

Anakin has lived in the slave district on Tatooine, he is the last person who would say something about the state of someone's house. As long as nothing is rotting or falling apart, it's perfectly fine and none of his business.

"Yeah, he got him from us somehow." He's never been clear exactly how Artoo came into Luke's possession considering he didn't even know he belonged to them. "Is 3PO around as well?" If Artoo was still functional that many years later who knew how long his protocol droid would last for.

"Yeah, he looked after us when we were little. He mostly spends his time helping out my mom now." Anakin grins. "I had no idea they'd belonged to you once."

He imagines 3PO had his memory wiped at some point, since he's terrible at keeping secrets. As for R2, it's hard to say. He's an odd droid.

"He had his memory wiped?" He's not sure how he feels about that and it's the only way no one knew their connection. The poor droid had done nothing wrong, only the misfortune to have Anakin as his maker.

"I built him when I was a kid." They were every bit a part of the family and now there was no one to remember his mother or even him in better days.

Anakin leads them further into the house, to a living room of mismatched furniture with dirty windows looking out on a garden that desperately needs weeding. He winces slightly when his grandfather asks about a memory wipe.

"I think so, otherwise he would've said something to us." Anakin feels a twinge of sympathy. He knows firsthand how much a droid can be part of a family. "Sorry."

But that's another fascinating piece of information. He quietly files it away next to the bits and pieces he's collected over the years. He wonders how much of his and his siblings' talents could be inherited. Can that kind of thing be inherited?

"What made you build a protocol droid?"

There's very little Anakin is willing to talk about when it comes to his past prior to the Jedi. He stands by the window looking out with his hands clasped behind his back as he considers his words.

"I wanted to help my mother. A droid would have been an extra pair of hands that could help out."

There's still the pain of his last memories of her, but it feels a little more important to talk about her now. The galaxy deserved to remember her.

It makes him smile, a little. Threepio ended up serving his family for generations after, even if he doesn't remember it all. Knowing he was built as a gift from a loving son to his mother makes Anakin think even more fondly of Threepio.

(Now he feels a particularly bad for the time he tried to replace him. Or threatened to reprogram him.)

But it does raise a question.

"I thought Jedi didn't know their parents."

"They made an exception for me." And he went on to prove why the rule was necessary. "They said no at first. But after Maul, Obi-Wan made a promise and he managed to change their minds."

He keeps his gaze outside, but he's not seeing any of it.

"I wonder if Master Jinn would have regretted making him promise that if he knew what I become."

Anakin turns over all of the new information in his mind, trying to filter through all of the new information. He has a lot of questions, but he settles on one.

"Who's Master Jinn?"

Clearly he's someone important to both his grandfather and Obi-Wan.

"He was the Jedi that found me, Obi-Wan's master. Maul killed him."

Then Obi-Wan sliced Maul in half kicking off a one sided rivalry that lasted to this day. It was odd that he barely knew the man who completely changed the trajectory of his life.

Anakin breathes in sharply. The fact that both Anakin and Obi-Wan can restrain themselves around Maul, who killed someone important to them both, must take a lot of fortitude. He's not sure he could do the same to anyone who killed Luke.

"I'd like to hear about him. And your mother. Whenever you feel up to it, I mean."

There are so many gaps in their history that Anakin never even knew about. And here he thought he was the one to be filling in the gaps for his grandfather.

"I only knew him for a few days." He makes no sign of acknowledgment that he heard him ask about his mother. He can't talk about her directly, there was too much tied in her final moments.

To change the topic he pulls out a holocron he'd tucked away in his robes and tosses it at his grandson.

"Here. You can have this. Consider it a house warming gift."

It's an old training holocron he'd recorded mostly for Ahsoka before she left. He'd left it in the Temple to presumably gather dust, but it had somehow followed him all the way here. While the bulk of the lessons were recorded back on Coruscant, there's a few additions at the end that were clearly filmed in Trench.

Edited 2022-05-19 09:39 (UTC)

Anakin catches the holocron easily, unable to mask his surprise. He hadn't expected a gift of any kind-- he'd barely expected his grandfather to show up in the first place. He holds it out in his hand and opens it, looking even more startled when the beginnings of a training video start to play.

When Ezra told him that Anakin Skywalker had a padawan once, he'd found it hard to believe. He couldn't picture his grandfather as a teacher but here he is, measured and patient and clear-spoken.

He ends the video by closing the holocron and sliding it into one of his pockets. Softly: "Thank you."

He shrugs, uncomfortable with the gratitude. "It's the least I could do." He's the reason why it had all been lost after all. It wasn't just the lives he took, he removed generations of knowledge from the survivors. What would come next would pale in comparison to what they once had.

Anakin shrugs. Nothing the older Anakin is thinking of even occurs to him. "You didn't have to do anything."

But he relents before it can get too awkward.

"I promised you answers and I've just been asking questions so far." He gestures at the sitting area, inviting his grandfather to sit down.

"Do you want anything? Food, something to drink?"

His manners are rusty, but he's trying.

"I ate earlier." More like used his new summoning powers to snack on a few bugs. He finally moves away from the window and takes a seat, hiding his hands in his sleeves so any awkward fidgeting could be out of sight.

"Water's fine."

It'll give him time to think of anything he wanted to ask. Or more accurately should ask.

"Sure."

With that, Anakin retreats to the kitchen. Filling up a water glass doesn't take long, but he dawdles a little, sensing that his grandfather might need a bit of extra time. Still, he doesn't take too long. He emerges from the kitchen and hands a glass to his grandfather.

"Here."

Then he sits down in one of the chairs. He places his forearms on his knees and leans forward, the picture of someone ready to listen. He's a patient listener, so he doesn't prompt his grandfather. He simply waits.

He takes the glass, but doesn't take a drink before setting it down. The expectation from his grandson is making him anxious. Too ready, if there was such a thing.

"Tell me about your father." He blurts out eventually. It's something that just came to mind, but the more he thinks about it, the safer it feels. After what Luke said, he doesn't think he should ask about his daughter that hated him once.

Anakin's eyebrows raise slightly in surprise, but he recovers pretty quickly. His dad is a pretty safe topic of conversation. As long as he glosses over a lot of how his parents met.

"My dad's name is Han Solo. He's a smuggler-turned-revolutionary. The best pilot in the galaxy, before my sister came along."

He pauses, thoughtful. "He's the sort of person who cares about people over ideals."

Anakin frowns. "I'm the best pilot in the galaxy."

Or maybe Han only got the title because he wasn't there to claim it. Evidently it became a family trait if his sister inherited their talents.

Anakin shrugs slightly.

"Maybe not enough people have seen you fly."

He knew piloting was in his blood-- Luke is well-known for his skill too. He wonders how much he inherited from his grandfather. More than he realized, apparently.

A slight smile. "Too bad we can't fly here. It'd be nice to fly with someone who can keep up."

Granted, the Rogues are good pilots. But flying with another Jedi is different. And he's intensely curious to see how good his grandfather actually is.

"If I can get my starfighter flying again I'll show you." Instead the lack of fuel means it's essentially a giant decoration for Obi-Wan's front lawn. He's thought about stripping it for parts before, but he's never gone through with it and instead every now and then he and Artoo would do some maintenance on it.

Flying was one of the few ways he could leave everything behind just for a while. When it was in the pilot seat nothing else mattered. It was the closest he could get to meditating most days.

"And I won the Boonta Eve Classic when I was nine. Plenty of people have seen me fly."

He leans forward, interested.

"What's wrong with it?" He'd like a challenge, and he hasn't had a chance to work on something just for fun in awhile.

Anakin's expression turns puzzled.

"I've never heard of that. But winning it at nine sounds impressive."

"Nothing. No fuel."

Podracing had been one of his interests even when he was older and he'd tried to follow the various circuits whenever he could. To hear someone who was related to him have no idea was a huge problem for him.

"How do you not know what that is? It's one of the biggest podraces. Does no one race in the future?"

Anakin does his best to hide his disappointment. He was hoping to have something to challenge him, but he can't do anything about a lack of fuel.

Anakin shakes his head.

"There are still races, but I've never heard of that one. Maybe it changed names."

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