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So goes the story of the Aether-child[1], the slave-boy named Sky-Walker and Rain-Bringer, with a Gift of Ar-Amu so great he was more at home drifting star-wards than he was planet-bound; the desert-child with wings so vast they stretched from end of eternity to end. Listen, children, and remember.
I tell you this story to save your life.
“You carry the blessing of Ar-Amu[2],” his mother tells him, hands rough as she cradles his tear-streaked face in her palms. “You touch the Aether[3]. It armors your feet, breathes life into your bones, and it listens to your hands. You walk with one eye open to it, see how it moves and how it will move. It is a great blessing, child of mine.”
He stares at her through teary eyes, at the light swirling like smoke around her, at the curled edges of her that are ever so slightly unfurled.
She is scared. He can read it in her eyes and her spine and the quiet words falling from her lips in a language dared only to be spoken in hushed whispers among themselves[4].
He stares down at the twisted scrap metal lying on the floor, still buzzing from where he’d caught it like the wings of a bird on the currents and made it dance. He pokes at it and startles when he feels his mother wrapped around it firmly, keeping it anchored to the ground.
He does not understand. Flight still echoes in it, he can feel it, and he had felt its joy when it danced. And yet mother had unfurled ever so slightly, enough to reach out and catch it, pinned it firm to the earth. “Then…what’s wrong?”
Mother sighs, and he feels tired-exhaustion-love-sadness as she cradles him to her chest. “We must keep it safe,” she tells him. “It is ours , and cannot be taken, but Depur[5] will try, for he hates what he cannot control.” She lifts his head and meets his eyes. “They will try. Try to twist you, trick you, consume you. But you, child, are Anahkeen Ekkreth, Rain-Bringer[6] and Sky-Walker[7], and the desert is in your bones. They will not take you.”
He knows to hide. He is a slave, knows the importance of secrets, and studies how his mother is curled in like the bud of a desert-bloom, tightly wound to shield against the harsh dance of sand and wind. She watches him, unfurls and shows him how: here-curl-pull and shadow-tuck-wrap , twist-light-luck and leave-breath-here, mist-trick-hide and lookaway-nobody-unimportant .
So much. It’s so much, and he true-knows that it makes something in his mother hurt soul-deep when she does it. She waits as he gathers himself, wipes a tear from his cheek. “I know, darling,” she tells him. “I know. But we must not let Depur see.” She coils fully, tucks herself away, and watches.
His eyes burn, and he yanks himself in, pulls into himself the secret of his gift so that no Depur may ever see it. It hurts, and he is blind, and deaf, and he stumbles and sobs into his mother’s chest.
Mother cries with him, but hers are the silent tears of a slave, of a control and discipline Anahkeen has not yet learned. “Someday,” she whispers in his ear, “you will be Free, and you will unfurl bright and bring the rains.”
“Do you promise?” He means, have you Seen?
Her eyes are sad but certain when she smiles. “It sings of you, names you the Aether-child, one foot in each world, even if now you only can walk here[8].” Her expression suddenly darkens, and she grabs his shoulder urgently. “Promise me, Anahkeen, that you will not lose yourself in the Aether, when you can walk there again.”
He blinks.
“ Promise me .” Her eyes are desperate, and even through the furled edges of the bud his Gift has wound itself into, he can taste her love-fear-desperation .
“I promise,” he whispers, and nearly weeps when his Gift whispers good-sorry-promise . He feels mother reach for him, ever gentle and secretive, and curls around her in response, and even when he aches, someday he will be Free.
Someday.
When he has grown tall enough that people will begin to think of him as being five years of age, his mother sits him down and fixes him with steely eyes.
She does not cry, because tears are a waste of water, but he can see in her desert-bloom how she weeps for him. “Anahkeen,” she says, “you are old enough, now, that I cannot…I cannot promise that you will stay with me.”
His hands curl into fists, and he grits his teeth to stop from wasting water. He knew it was coming, hoped that—he doesn’t know. Hoped that he would stay at her side forever, somehow. He still wants to cry. “Okay,” he whispers.
She takes his hands, uncurls his fingers, and grips them tight. “I—I am going to teach you to use your Gift,” she says. “You—I already wrap myself in it, and you have done so as well in mirroring me, brilliant child of mine. But I am going to try to…teach you how to twist it in your own way.”
He stares at her. “What do you mean?”
She smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “You wrapped yourself in an imitation of how I twist my Gift, Anahkeen. And that was so, so good of you, and has helped you so.” She squeezes his hands. “But I want to teach you what each of those twists did, so you can change them yourself.”
“Okay,” he breathes out, and he must not cry .
Slowly, ever so carefully, the desert-bloom that is his mother unfurls, delicate petals fanning out in this most beautiful thing Anahkeen has ever seen. Leaves, thick and sturdy, burst forth as well, and surround them, and he knows, somehow, that she has done her best to hide this flower from all but him.
“That’s so pretty, Mama,” he breathes.
He reaches out to touch it with a finger, but it is his own self that does so first, his Gift bursting into bloom suddenly and nearly knocking him to the sand with the sudden input of feeling-being-what-is-what-could-be . The leaves of his mother dart out and pull him close, spreading and hardening and cloaking , and he shudders and squeezes her hands tight as his head pounds.
“Sorry,” he whimpers into her chest. He has fallen into her, and she has pulled him into a hug—or is it two, one for him and one for him ?
She laughs. “It’s alright, child, I should have thought—it’s alright.” She radiates amusement-love-embarrassment and it’s so—so clear , he hadn’t realized how blind he was before and—
“It is pretty,” he says again. Curiously, he reaches inward and examines the bloom of his Gift, and he gasps because where his mother is a bloom, he is a sprawling tangle of life and wonder; tree, he thinks, but instead of scraggly and thin he is thick and vast, dripping with leaves and blooms and so, so tall he knows if he climbed its limbs he would truly earn the name Sky-Walker.
“ Oh ,” he says, and blinks back tears of awe.
He reaches for it, twists its vines through his fingers, and it shudders with welcome-life-delight . It twists and dances around him, chimes ringing out in greeting to the vastness that is—that simply is ; for what word can describe the everything , the deepest roots of being that forms the sand and air, that pools and swirls through souls and across worlds? What word is there for something both alive and dead, both sentient yet senseless, that guides and whispers without need to be understood, that shapes and destroys, trends towards chaos and leads to order, watches with cyclic eyes as time flows and twists round and round in eternal balance?
He is Anahkeen and he is his mother, he is the sand that rolls across the desert and the wind that drives it, he is life and death and dryness and rain and nothing and he is the moisture that clings to his throat and the despair soaked into the sand by every slave who walked these halls and he is the tears rolling down the face of a slave and the concern that is directed at a being named Anahkeen , dear one , son of mine , who begs them to pull back, darling, please—
Leaves, walls, barriers, he is choking, something has grabbed at his limbs and twisted , and he shudders in agony, and yet that is—is that him , who is it that feels and what is—he cannot breathe, he is blinded, and is cut off help me please—
Anahkeen, Anahkeen, listen, listen, please, come back to yourself, you are Anahkeen and you must be Anahkeen , you have to pull in, I can’t reach it all, you have to pull back too, I can only hold for so long—
Is that a vibration of air or soul? Does her mouth move with those words? He cannot tell, cannot see beyond the pain of those limbs that are twitching in her grip, and he shudders and he has to get free, has to strengthen so he pulls back the others and—
He knows her, he knows the woman who shakes the body (him? Is it him? It is nestled in the root of his knowing, he is pooled there, so perhaps)—
Sharp. Fear-pain-terror-hopelessness-love-desperation-sorrow , twisted with vibrations of air—words, words, he knows words, knows language—
Anahkeen, can you hear me? Anahkeen, please, I can’t lose you, please come back to me darling. You are not only an Aether-child, remember? You need a foot in each word, you must keep one eye closed, listen, listen, please, please —
Anahkeen. Rain-bringer, he-who-makes free, he knows this tongue, he knows the shapes of the sounds spilling from this being’s lips, the language of a people whose only safety is in secrecy, in being forgotten, in being small, and suddenly memory twists and screams that he-must-be-small-child because it is dangerous to be known and to know—
Anahkeen is a name, she has named the boy that is him Anahkeen Ekkreth, he is a slave-boy and son of Ar-Amu and he is Anahkeen , he is , he simply is in the way that all is but smaller and he must…must remember to be .
Relief-love-fear-concern. Desert-bloom twisted tight around him but it is not to hurt it is to stop him from snapping, from stretching too thin and forgetting to pool. There you are, darling, you’re doing so well, you are so beautiful, dear-heart, no need to reach so far, you are here and I am with you. Feel that? I love you, love you, love you, love you—
Blinking, he is blinking. He is sore and tired, but something slips and twists and he is Anahkeen , and he feels the sand on his feet but he is not the sand, he is Anahkeen, Anahkeen, he is just Anahkeen —
“There you are,” he hears whispered in his ear.
Here he is, here he is, Anahkeen the Rain-Bringer, Ekkreth the Sky-Walker, Aether-child, son of Ar-Amu, blessed child.
She is twisted around him and he feels her, she weeps for him and loves him, loves him, adores the boy that is her son. She is a desert-bloom, and he is a tree that stretches vast and wide, but he is young and need not walk on its branches yet. She knows, and so he knows, that he is indeed a Sky-Walker. She has Seen, tells him that it-has-been-it-will-be-always-shall-it-be , that he need not understand now, and so he pulls down his branches and vines and curls them around himself, stops them from grasping out and searching.
“You are here, star-child,” she tells him. “There is no need to fly yet, Ar-Amu will send you wind to carry you when it is right.”
Truth-truth-it-is-so , whispers through the leaves crowning his head. Pull-back-hide , you-will-know-when .
He shadows himself in his branches, curled into his mother’s arms, and feels himself weep in the face of eternity.
“Today,” Grandmother says, on a day where Lukka[9] blows fierce and long across the desert, so ferocious that not even Leyah[10] dares brave the winds, “I tell you the story of how Ekkreth learned of the Aether-chains.”
Grandmother sweeps her gaze across the listeners, all those who had been in the slave-quarters when the storm arrived. Most are young like him, still too scrawny to be of much use, watched over by elders or ill ones who have passed their own use outside the quarters, but among them are scattered faces Anahkeen has only seen in glimpses. He thanks Lukka for this brief reprieve, for all the faces that are now named, so he can whisper prayers for them in the night.
Many of the new names belong to the dancers, the night-workers—nods and quiet whispers when they pass in the halls are all he sees of them, because when he works, he is with his mother in the hangers or droid-quarters. As he is young and quick, he is often the deliverer, but there are places—the throne room, guest-quarters—where his mother will take it herself, leaving him to the machinery with strict orders to be careful.
Those places are not safe, for it is there that bounty hunters and enforcers gather to drink and entertain themselves, and he knows in the way that all slave-children know that those are the ones that disappear first, so you show them kindness while you can.
One such woman sits beside him, a pale green Twi’lek who he now knows bears the name Tet’cime. She aches, bone-deep, in the way that the others like her do, but the storm has lightened the bruises on her skin and brightened the humor in her eyes, and she even laughed yesterday when he showed her the lopsided flutterfly-droid he built from scrap. On her other side is his mother, who stitches up a garment with slow but precise needlework. Many of those gathered are doing the same—small jobs of crafting or fixing as they are gathered to listen to a Grandmother speak.
He himself has a small boiling-plate before him, half disassembled as he searches for whatever it was that caused it to fail. His tongue is stuck out in concentration, and he doesn’t even notice his Gift shifting the pieces until his mother sends him a sharp careful-stop-shield .
Oops. He twists himself tighter, branches and rough to hide him from the world beyond. Around him, the room has quieted as the Grandmother gathers herself, voice falling into the rhythm of the story-teller, the flow-click syllables of Amatakka released with the sudden gusts of winds of a sandstorm.
“Once, long ago, as Ekkreth was going along, they passed by Depur’s palace and heard a great commotion coming from inside, a loud noise that sounded as if someone was in great pain. At the entrance, a small group of slaves were surrounded by Depur’s guards, who laughed and jeered at them.
“Now there were also slaves huddled in their houses around the palace, and so Ekkreth took the form of an elder and approached, asking, ‘What is it that Depur is doing to cause such pain?’ For they knew that it was only one such as Depur would do such a thing.
“A woman turned to them and bowed her head. ‘It cannot be Depur that does such things,’ she said, ‘because Depur is dead.’”
She pauses for breath, and in the emptiness Lukka roars, sand whipping and whistling through the air, making the windows shudder and rattle. Anticipation buzzes bright within him and he shifts, because Anahkeen has never heard a story start this way.
“Now in this time Ekkreth was still young, and Depur was also, and it was not yet known what happened when Depur died. So Ekkreth was greatly confused and asked, ‘If this is so, who is now Depur?’ For they knew there must be a new Depur, as the people were still slaves.
“At this the woman’s eyes filled with tears. ‘It is one of our own,’ she said. ‘A daughter has killed Depur and lives in his palace.’
“At this Ekkreth was greatly astonished, as never before had a slave killed Depur, and asked, ‘How did she do such a thing?’
“The woman did not know, and told Ekkreth, ‘I only know that she came back from the palace one day and said she had gained great power, and that she had used it to kill Depur.’”
Something twists in him, and he feels his mother reach and pass him curiosity-question-okay , tilting her head and looking up from her mending. He swallows and nods; bites his lip and forces his gaze down to the scattered machinery on the floor.
Grandmother continues, voice ebbing and flowing with the storm that rages against their walls. “Now Ekkreth is a trickster, and knows little of death, so they were deeply confused by this story. But their highest wish was to free the slaves of Depur, so they knew that they must learn of this power and how to use it.
“So they took the form of a bounty hunter, clad in armor that showed signs of many battles, and approached the guards and their prisoners, asking, ‘Who are these slaves, and why do they stand here instead of working?’
“The guards saw that they were addressing a powerful outlander, and answered truthfully. ‘These slaves have wronged their master in the past, so she is calling them now to receive punishment.’
“Ekkreth scoffed and said, ‘What harm could such lowly slaves inflict upon their master?’
“The guards saw the anger of the bounty hunter and said, ‘Their master is a new one, and they did these things before she came to own them.’”
The room grumbles quietly at the words as the Grandmother pauses once more to breathe. Anahkeen pries off the protective panel of the boiling-plate’s simple computer and squints at circuitry, searching for its flaw.
“And Ekkreth saw that there was no more that the guards would say, so they entered the palace to speak to the new Master. They entered the throne room and saw a slave who writhed and screamed in pain, though no weapons touched them, and standing above was a girl who sneered down at them. At Ekkreth’s entrance, the girl turned towards them with anger and asked, ‘Who dares disturb me and test my power?’
“And Ekkreth bowed and said, ‘I have heard tell of this great power that you have, and that you can use it to cause your enemies great pain, and wondered at its secrets.’
“Now the girl was greatly flattered and said, ‘I am indeed powerful, hunter, and you do well to cower before me. I have been opened to the Aether, the very fabric of the world, and can twist even Ar-Amu to my will!’”
Anahkeen’s hand stutters and freezes, screwdriver falling from numb fingers, and he hears the others gasp alongside him; one of the others flares with a quick flash of pain-shock as their needle slips and draws blood. His eyes are fixed on the Grandmother, whose voice strengthened, captured with the slave-girls words the hysteria of the desperate, whose eyes spark with her madness. He shivers, deeply and fully, and his branches alongside him.
“At this Ekkreth was truly frightened, for Ar-Amu is the mother of all, and her will is not something to be twisted. So they asked, ‘How, powerful one, did you accomplish such a thing?’
“The girl laughed and said, ‘I have always seen such things, hunter, but Depur knew my strength and chained me to do his bidding. But I had enough, and I pulled on the Aether and it answered!’”
Grandmother pauses, lowering her hands from where she has thrown them as the slave-girl spoke. She smacks her lips, someone passes her water and she takes a thankful sip. Anahkeen and the room all stare, transfixed, held in suspense, as Lukka rages against the walls.
“Now Ekkreth had always used the Aether, and so opened their eyes to it to view the girl. The Aether connects all, and is strongest in pools around beings, but when they looked at the girl in the Aether they saw that she had pulled on the world instead of pushed with her own power, and with it she had pulled at the pain and hatred of the beings around her, and was consumed by it.
“Ekkreth was deeply grieved at the sight and so dropped their shields and let their own pool shine clear, for they had hidden it so none would know they were Ekkreth. ‘Sister,’ they called. ‘Child, listen, you hurt yourself and your siblings. Let go of the Aether you have pulled!’
“At their words, the girl laughed, ‘You weak creature, I will not fall for your trickery! I am powerful at last! I am Depur, and can bring justice to those who have wronged me!’
“Ekkreth was greatly grieved, for they saw that she was blind to all but herself. But they still loved her, and called upon their mother Ar-Amu to save her from herself. Ar-Amu listened and pulled at the twisted Aether that bound the girl to others to free it, but the girl gripped tightly and pulled back.
“Ekkreth cried out in fear, for nobody can hold back Ar-Amu, and said, ‘Sister, let go, you will die!’
“But she did not listen, and Ekkreth saw that she had bound herself so tightly to Aether they were as chains. Together Ar-Amu and Ekkreth tugged and twisted to free her, but she thrashed and clung tight with all of her being, and at last it was her body that snapped free with a final tug. It fell to the earth empty with a great sigh and her soul at last knew rest.”
Tears prickle in his eyes, but Anahkeen is master of them, knows the rules of the desert. His hand throbs around the panel gripped tight in one hand, he loosens his grip and winces at the red mark left there. “Drukka ba drukka[11],” he whispers, and hears the truth of it echo in the souls of his people. He meets Grandmother’s gaze, and her eyes echo with the same phrase as she continues.
“Ekkreth brought her body to the people and said, ‘She blinded and bound herself in trying to break her chains, but free she is in death. She was Depur, but is no longer.’
“The people wept over their sister, and Ar-Amu with them, for she knew not her Gift could do such a thing. And so she knew there must be a warning, so Ar-Amu gathered the tears in one hand and Aether in the other, and Ekkreth took them upon their wings, flying them among the stars so all who look upon the sky sees the Aether-chains for what they are.
“So that is the tale of how slave became Depur, a slave-girl who had the gift of Ar-Amu, who in breaking the chains of her Depur, chained and forgot herself[12], and how Ekkreth and Ar-Amu made seen Aether-chains in the night so that the Aether-gifted be not blind to them. Let all the people remember.”
The Grandmother’s hands fall to her side, and her voice lilts as the story winds closed, as she speaks the last line of ritual, of reminders.
“I tell you this story to save your life.”
The room sighs in release, conclusion reached. Anahkeen raises his finger to his lips with the others.
“I will remember,” echoes throughout the room, murmurs from every mouth, from throats young and old, and they each step forward to take her hand, finish the ritual.
With oil-smudged fingers, Anahkeen takes Grandmother’s palm and presses it to his forehead. It is rough and weathered, but there is a strength in those fingers that belies the frailty of her appearance. She meets his gaze, and her core is something old and deep, hidden but with eyes clear and certain.
“Ar-Amu’s blessings be upon you,” she tells him, and he knows she has Seen him, with those eyes that have seen as much as the slave-girl who became Depur and chained herself to the world. “Do not lose yourself, Rain-Bringer.”
Outside, in a storm of sand that only scours and brings no life, Lukka rages on.
It is Anahkeen and his mother who disappear first after the storm, before Tet’cime or any other dancers. They are afterthoughts, of course, gambled away to a Troydian who seems to recognize his luck, glancing at Anahkeen and his mother as if they could vanish at any moment.
Watto is a good master, Anahkeen knows, and yet he cannot help but miss the Grandparents and aunts of Gardulla’s quarters, wishes he could have known those new people before he was whisked away. His mother, however, feels relieved and thankful in a way he cannot quite understand, radiating an exhaustion that comes from a heavy burden suddenly lifted.
He dares not ask her what it was, doesn’t ask why she seems so glad to struggle through conversations with outlanders she barely knows instead of working hidden deep in the palace. Instead, he throws himself elbow deep into hyperdrives and machinery, squirrels away coils of wire and gears and hydraulics to build her a protocol droid, schematics scribbled on spare flimsi with notes from every such droid he repaired.
When a pod-racer appears in the repair shop, he studies it with fascination, poking and prodding at its gears, marveling at its engine-thrusters with a longing and a soon-you-must-fly that catches him like wind beneath his wings. He haggles and wheedles, words guided by this-must-be , until Watto lets him in the scrapyard, and he builds his own pod-racer with the Aether guiding his hand and eyes.
Then a stranger enters who is bloomed and shining bright with power, asking for a hyperdrive, the Aether sings now-here-fly-child , and he knows he will be free.