Chapter Text
When Anakin is twelve, and Obi-Wan has only just started to truly gain his bearings about having a padawan, there is something of a shift.
“Obi-Wan?”
“Mm?”
“Um. I met Master Sesseni today.”
Obi-Wan takes a moment to put it together. “Ah, she’s the one you’ll be assisting for your Advanced Course Modules, right? I’ve worked with her before; she’s a phenomenally intelligent woman, and she’s had the supervisory role for students like yourself before.”
Anakin nods, but keeps focused on the floor.
“Ani?”
“I um…” Anakin fidgets. “I thought it would be rude to ask.”
“To ask about… her prosthetic hand?” Obi-Wan guesses.
A head shake. Anakin plays with a loose tunic thread. “The… um… I thought only boy twi’leks could have four lekku. And she has ears, not cones.”
Ah.
“Master Sesseni has traits that are generally associated with males of the species due to having been born such,” Obi-Wan says. “The term, if you are unfamiliar, is assigned male at birth.”
Anakin looks up at him, and then… keeps looking. Maybe this was more than just uncommon on Tatooine, or discouraged, or… Obi-Wan doesn’t know.
“When she realized that she did not identify as such, she took steps to transition into a woman, socially and medically. Some aspects of this were, I imagine, more ‘worth it’ than others. As lekku contain brain matter, and rewiring of the ears to be cones would have been risky, she has refrained,” Obi-Wan explains. “She could wear a headpiece that covers her ears with artificial cones, but I understand she means to deliberately send up a signal to youngsters who are questioning such things, so they know she is safe to speak with.”
Anakin looks down, hands curling. “So she was born a boy, but didn’t want to be a boy, and she gets to be a girl.”
“To greatly simplify it, yes.” It’s not the terminology Obi-Wan would use, but it’s the first step to explaining it to his padawan. “She is a transgender woman.”
Anakin fiddles. Obi-Wan waits.
“Okay, Master. What are we doing for dinner?”
--
It is another three weeks before Anakin, cuddled into Obi-Wan’s side on the couch, watching Dry Hearts Under the Mon Cala Stars, brings it up again.
“I want to be a girl.”
Obi-Wan needs a second to process that, but then he immediately turns off the holo and turns to his padawan. “Eh?”
Anakin looks down, and swallows, and then meets Obi-Wan’s eyes. “I want to be a girl. And Master Sesseni said that I can, and that it’s my choice if I want to tell you about it, but that she thought you’d be fine with it. With me.”
“Of course,” Obi-Wan says, because to delay even in his shock would be… bad. “You… okay. What do you want to do about this?”
Anakin looks up, eyes widening with what might be a touch of fear. “Do about it?”
Wow. Obi-Wan already fucked it up. Go him. “Do you want to tell people? Change your clothes? Your name?”
He—She. She. Right. Obi-Wan can get used to that. She relaxes. “I’m keeping my name.”
Okay.
“I dunno about the rest,” Anakin says, looking away again. “But, um…”
“Yes?” Obi-Wan asks, prompting as gently as he can with a hand on Anakin’s forearm.
“Can I grow out my hair?” she asks, her voice low and quiet and timid in a way that is at odds with the child Obi-Wan’s come to know. “I know it’s tradition, and you and Master Qui-Gon wore the padawan cut, but—”
“Komari wore her hair in a bun,” Obi-Wan says, before Anakin can work herself up into a strop. “She was Qui-Gon’s padawan sister, so definitely part of the lineage. If she could wear her hair long, then I can’t see why you wouldn’t.”
It’s going to hurt a little, to see the tradition broken, but the Komari thing is a point, and—and Anakin’s more important than something this simple.
“And you can call me Ani,” she decides, “but nobody else can.”
“Not even Aayla?” Obi-Wan teases.
Anakin makes a face. “Aayla can. Master Vos can’t. Everyone else has to ask, and I’ll decide then.”
Obi-Wan pulls her into a hug and presses a kiss to her crown, and tries not to show how panicked he is.
--
“He’s got the books and everything!”
“Oh, he’s trying! He’s… wow, he’s crying. Somebody go help him.”
“You help him, Umi, his padawan is your student.”
--
Anakin is in class.
Obi-Wan is in the Archives.
There are a solid two dozen pad-books stacked about him in different ways, as he tries to find a way to organize it all.
“Ah, I see she told you.”
He looks up.
“Master Sesseni,” he says, sagging back against the shelves he’s been using to prop himself up since this all started. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
“You can call me Umika,” she says, settling daintily on her knees next to him. “Getting a head start?”
Obi-Wan shrugs helplessly. “I’m—I have experience with my own sexuality and performative gender, but not… actual… I don’t know.”
“Performative gender?” she prompts.
“I did drag,” he says. It’s an understatement, but he doesn’t feel like getting into the details. “But it was never a gender thing for me like it is for other people.”
“Pity,” she drawls, and laughs at the pleading look he surely gives her. “Do you want me to just tell you which of these is actually helpful, and which are just redundant?”
“Please.”
She grins, and picks out three. “Here. These are usually the most helpful to masters who’ve only just started trying to connect with their students after a shift in gender identity, and you’ll be able to skim the parts about sexuality. You’re already more familiar with the concept than many parents and caretakers are, Jedi included. You can call me if there’s ever something that worries you, but… really, you’ll largely just continue treating her as you have. If she wants to transition medically, the Temple has specialized healers for that. If she wants to transition socially, the quartermaster can help with clothes and the like. And if she feels confused or conflicted, be a sounding board.”
Obi-Wan closes his eyes and lets his head fall back to the shelves. “I just…”
“Worry that you’ll get it wrong?”
He nods.
“She told me you said she could grow out her hair,” Umika notes. She takes a moment to gather her thoughts, or so Obi-Wan assumes. “I remember Padawan Vosa. She was only a few years behind me.”
Obi-Wan doesn’t comment, because as relevant as Komari had been to assuring Ani she could grow out her hair, she was a sore spot for what was left of the lineage.
“You’ll do fine, Kenobi. You’re already putting in the work.”
--
Things go… fine, at least in the Temple. Ani tells people to use the new pronouns, and most manage to remember. She gets a different cut of robe from the quartermaster, though there isn’t much of a difference at this age unless actively styled.
At thirteen, she comes home fuming and teary from a meeting with the Chancellor, throwing herself onto the couch and screaming into a pillow.
“Ani?” Obi-Wan rushes out of the kitchen, hands still wet and sudsy. “Anakin, what’s wrong?”
“He didn’t even try!” she whines, though she lets him pull her up and closer. “I told him and he didn’t even mean it when he apologized for messing up!”
What?
“Who, Ani?” he asks.
She sniffles and wipes at her cheeks. “The Chancellor. He kept calling me a boy even when I told him I didn’t like it. ‘My dear boy’ and all that. Said ‘he’ when he asked his assistant to bring in drinks. I don’t think—I don’t think he likes that I’m like this.”
Fuck ‘im, Obi-Wan thinks, in a voice that sounds a tad bit too much like Quinlan in a manic phase.
“The Chancellor is not only old-fashioned, but a very rich, very powerful man, and they rarely like to change their ways for the sake of others,” Obi-Wan says. “I won’t tell you what to do, but… if he makes you feel so poorly without any remorse, I would be inclined to think it a sign that he meant to influence a powerful young Jedi, not simple friendship.”
“That’s your way of saying ‘I told you so,’” Anakin accuses. “You’re happy he was a dick.”
Obi-Wan will refrain from commenting on Anakin’s language, this time. “No. I’d have much rather you found out his true character by looking into his political actions or something, not him being cruel to you. I’m sorry this happened, and I wish I’d thought to tell you it might before you went to see him.”
Anakin shoves herself away from him and goes to her room.
Obi-Wan puts his face in his hands.
Okay. He cannot fix the Chancellor. That is a situation and person he has absolutely no influence over. But he can fix… dinner?
He can fix up dinner.
--
“She’s so pretty…”
Obi-Wan looks up from his flimsiwork, finds his padawan watching a newscast with surprising levels of attention. Anakin is not one for newscasts, not unless they have to do with pod racing or engine specs, so the interest is something of a surprise, and possibly worrying. He stands and wanders over, and finds Anakin fixated on the face of one Padmé Amidala, newly appointed senator of Naboo following four successful years as its queen, and a year of self-reflection.
She isn’t wearing the heavy, theatrical makeup of the queen role anymore, but something clean and refined, sharpening her until she looks older than her paltry nineteen. Her dress is intricate, if not quite so much as that of the current queen at her side, and her hair is braided and coiled in a way that is distinctly Nabooan.
Obi-Wan can see why a young girl might want to emulate her, as far as ‘pretty’ went. Fourteen isn’t too young for make-up, right?
“I’m afraid my understanding of cosmetics is more appropriate to the stage than anything a person might want to wear on a daily basis,” he jokes. “But I know a few people that might be willing to give you more fitting lessons.”
Anakin flushes, and looks down at her lap. “Um.”
“The hair?” Obi-Wan tries. “Perhaps Master Billaba—”
“Can we not talk about this?”
Obi-Wan drops it. For now.
--
“All my other friends either don’t have hair or keep it short,” Obi-Wan explains. He doesn’t beg. It’s definitely not begging. “Except Quinlan, but he keeps his in locs, so he doesn’t count.”
Siri and Depa look at each other, and then at him.
“What do we get out of it?” Siri asks.
Depa brings a hand to her forehead with a smack. “Tachi!”
“It’s a fair question,” Siri defends. “I’ve got a padawan to train, too! You’re on the Council!”
“I just want to learn and practice so I can surprise Ani!” Obi-Wan protests.
She’s been uncomfortable in her own body, recently, fourteen and gangly and only just given medical approval to start hormonal therapies. They aren’t working as quickly as she’d hoped, even though it’s well within the parameters of how such things progress, and Obi-Wan’s worried about the frustrated embarrassment he sees on her face some mornings.
He just… wants to do something nice for his padawan.
“Fine,” Depa says, and sharply holds up a hand to stop him, “but you have to introduce me to that pilot you know from Kuat the next time she’s on-planet.”
“…the Devaronian redhead?” Obi-Wan asks. Depa nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He turns to Siri, who’s more likely to want something big.
She smirks. “You do a joint lesson for Ferus and Anakin, three times a week, for the next month.”
Pity’s sake.
“Both of them?” Obi-Wan hazards.
Siri’s smile deepens. “Yes. Both of them.”
Obi-Wan despairs, but he agrees.
--
Though Obi-Wan does not know it, Anakin’s early separation from the influence of the Chancellor has had many effects. One of those is that by the time she is fifteen, she does not quietly hate Ferus Olin as she might have.
What Obi-Wan does know is that Ferus is Ani’s first kiss, in part because he finds them having heated, angry make-out sessions in various supply closets three times before he and Siri drag their padawans to opposite sides of the galaxy to maybe chill a bit? Is that too much to ask?
(The make-out sessions would have happened whether Ani ever transitioned or not, whether she’d left the Chancellor’s orbit or not. In almost every timeline, they’d have been driven by teenage hormones and aggressive frustration.)
(They’ll be fine.)
--
Bail has invited Obi-Wan and his padawan to a semi-formal party, where Anakin can practice interacting with politicians in such a setting without the pressure of full Senatorial gala or something similar.
Her robe is cut in a style that suggests a more feminine silhouette than she currently possesses. Aayla had helped her pick them. Her makeup is done by hand, something Obi-Wan has watched her achieve mostly by trial and error, and in part through lessons with Shadow-adjacent Siri.
The hair is left for last, and Obi-Wan comes up behind her—she’s almost as tall as him now, which should be illegal—and he has to look around the side of her curls instead of overtop. He puts his hands on her shoulders.
“Allow me?” he asks.
She’s confused, but trusts him. He pulls a chair into the fresher so she can sit down, and asks her to close her eyes.
He starts combing. Spritzing. Braiding, and twisting, and drawing on his frantic research of Alderaani hairstyles that could be worn politely by visitors.
By the end, he’s nervously smoothing down strays and checking from all angles.
“Can I open my eyes now, Master?”
Time to face the music. “Yes, padawan, you may.”
Ani blinks, a little slow and sticky, but is shortly looking at herself in the mirror.
She turns her head one way. She turns it the other.
“I can change it if you don’t—”
“It’s great,” Anakin says, weak and odd and breaking, and Obi-Wan belatedly notices that she’s tearing up.
“Oh, no-no-no—” he scrambles for a tissue and ends up using the Force to grab it. “You spent an hour on that makeup, don’t ruin it for a hairdo!”
“I’m fine,” she hiccups, dabbing at her eyes. “It’s just—I do look like a girl. A pretty one. I’m—I have trouble with that sometimes, and you helped, and…”
Obi-Wan leans down to wrap his arms around her shoulders and press a kiss to her temple. “You look beautiful, padawan. Own it.”
--
Three and a half years later, Obi-Wan finds an army, and the galaxy spirals out of control.