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Anakin was born during a sandstorm.
That was what his mother told him, running her fingers through his hair, telling him the story in a reverent hush - the way the winds caused a ruckus, the way the sand blew and rose and twisted, the way it roared, the way some of the neighboring women helped her. She had no one else, so they held her hand, they fed her what little water they could scavenge, and told her when it was time, when she had to push.
“Did it hurt?” He asked her in childish innocence.
She nodded. “Yes. It did. But I can’t even remember it that well, the pain, I just know it was worth it because at the end of it, I got you.”
Her smile was luminous.
Her smile was love itself.
Anakin buried his face in her chest and hugged her tight, felt like something other than property, something other than afraid - his mother was only ever safety, only love, and she quieted the screaming Anakin could always hear, the wretched wordless pleading. Her presence made him forget that they didn’t matter - he was eight, he was not an idiot, he knew what they were good for, he knew what they stood for, what they meant, and he knew the rule.
Slaves bear slaves.
She always said Anakin had no father and Anakin believed her, whoever he was he didn’t matter, he would never matter, because the rule was simple - slaves bear slaves -, and Anakin was his mother’s son.
His mother was a slave.
It didn’t matter, Anakin would follow his mother anywhere.
Anakin was born during a sandstorm.
The stories said that sandstorms were Hal’sthi’s gift and Saen’sthi’s curse - a duality of good and evil -, how the two can mean one and the same. Mother liked the old stories, the slaves all whispered the tales amongst them, hushed and afraid, but proud and reverent - the two coexisted, they all lived somewhere in the middle, as most creatures did.
Anakin was born right in the midst of one such storm, a shining beacon of hope.
“Our neighbors celebrated your birth, said you were a blessing, said life in the midst of death was a good omen.”
A blessing. A blessing in a desert planet was water. A blessing in Tatooine was freedom.
Anakin was just Anakin.
Anakin was just another mouth to feed.
Slaves bear slaves.
Anakin kissed his mother on the cheek.
Life was simple in its complexity.
Threepio wasn’t born all at once - it took years.
Anakin and Mom worked hard on building him, on finding the right parts, on putting him together properly. Programming was its own nightmare, but Anakin was clear on what he wanted Threepio to be, what he wanted him to stand for, what he wanted him to know.
He was born in darkness, in secret, a labor of love.
Anakin asked Mom about the stories, about the old Gods, and she sighed,
“Ani, what use will Threepio have for the old stories?”
“What use do we have for them?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Smart little boy. You could convince Moer’sthi Himself to give you the Moons.”
Anakin grinned.
He taught Threepio the legend of the Old Sea, the story of the Moon Daughters, the story of the Walker on the Skies - from which the Skywalkers took their name. He programmed knowledge of the Old Tongue. He programmed every story Mom could remember, learned new ones himself, and kept them like little treasures inside himself too, little pieces of truth and memory and worship.
Threepio was born of continuous work.
Anakin left and Mom continued the work on her own, with no less love, with no less devotion.
Threepio was born - and the act of it lingered.
The twins were born aboard a ship, in space.
Walkers on the Skies.
Walkers of the Stars.
Anakin could weep.
The Force was still grieving and Obi-Wan had needed to keep Anakin standing, an arm wrapped hard and secure around his waist, avoiding the healing, bandaged, wound on his stomach. His head was spinning, the headache from his head injury hadn’t lessened, and Obi-Wan had argued with him that he needed to close himself off from the Force, that he needed to give himself time to heal, without the pulsing pain and heartbreak that oozed from the world around him.
Anakin refused.
His child - they still thought it was one, the Force was so clouded - was being born and he refused to close himself off from the Force, refused to not share this too with the flowing energy of the world itself, of life itself, refused not to feel that thread of healing being woven into the aching bleeding thing.
His child was being born and he refused to close himself off from them, for the world’s grief to be the first and only thing they felt, for them to be thrown into life without the safety of his love in all the ways it mattered.
Karrslae walked the skies for the sake of freedom.
Karrslae stole from the Gods.
Karrslae took the Stars to feed the starving.
Karrslae, Walker of the Skies, from which their family was named, befriended Leia, the Mother kryat Dragon, and the world would one day know their peace.
He was going to stay awake for his child’s birth - that was final.
Anakin told Padmé the stories as he held her hand, distracted her from the pain, rubbed her belly and tried to keep her warm in the coldness of space - a chill he never got quite used to, a chill his child would be born into.
Obi-Wan never left the room, kept Anakin standing when necessary, moved to get whatever was needed. They had no functioning med-droid on board - they had switched ships after a clone attack, a risky move, but a necessary one. It was a lack of oversight, in the midst of panic.
They never thought Padme would give birth on the way to Alderaan, they never thought it would happen like this, but the most important things very rarely go to plan.
Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padmé made do.
“Tell me again.” Padme panted, gripping onto the sides of the bed, squatting in the middle of the room as Anakin had seen the women back in Tatooine do.
“Which one?”
“The story about Karrslae and the stars.”
Anakin tried to remember the way his mother told it, the rhythm of it, the specific words.
They flow over him like water.
“Karrslae, the Once Slave, the Free One, walked the bare wastes after the Death of the Sea.
Karrslae walked until his feet bled. Walked until the skin blistered. Walked until the land split and the heat of the Great Ones began and shaped new life. Shaped new death. Shaped new order.
Karrslae walked and found life. He looked upon a valley, upon a wasteland, and his dying brethren echoed together their woe.
‘We hunger’ they bellowed.
‘We thirst’ they wailed.
‘We starve’ they raged.
The Free One cursed the cruelty of the Gods. He spat upon the sand his disgust. He yelled to the Skies his rage. And he Walked.
Up into the Skies that bore him, he Walked, and with his own hands he stole the two brightest Stars that shone upon them, Loya and Lors, and gave them Shape.
Loya he willed into a great Rain.
Lors he willed into a field of fruit Trees.
The valley was a wasteland no more. His brethren would thirst and hunger no longer.
The Daughters heaved. The Daughters screamed. The Daughters bellowed.
Karrslae was cast down from the Skies, cursed by the Gods for his arrogance, and put in Chains so he could never Walk again to seek the love of the One Who Bore Him.”
Padmé smiled.
“But he Walked again.”
Anakin nodded.
“Yes, later, He Walked again. The Skies were his to roam, and the Stars to Shape. But only later, only after the Trials.”
Padmé squeezed his hand tight as another pain ripped through her, screaming through gritted teeth.
Leia was born first.
Obi-Wan held Padmé, on his knees behind her crouched form, and Anakin, in front of her, caught the squirming baby in his hands, feeling clumsy with the realization of it.
Him. A Father.
He cleaned her face like Obi-Wan taught him, rubbed his hand on her little back, and she took a heaving breath, wailing into the world her arrival.
All three of them cried with her.
“A girl.” Padmé said, in shock, and Anakin laughed, in victory.
“I told you!”
Obi-Wan hid his laughter into Padmé hair, coming loose from her braid.
Padmé grunted.
“Padmé?” Anakin asked, concerned, bouncing his screaming daughter.
She lurched forward, Obi-Wan helped her, as confused and concerned as Anakin.
“Padmé, what’s wrong?” Obi-Wan pressed, voice shivery with panic.
She shook her head. “Something’s happening.”
Luke was born minutes afterwards.
Padmé caught him in her own hands, Anakin’s forehead pressed to her cheek, Leia between their bodies.
Obi-Wan chuckled, rubbing Luke’s cheek with the pad of his thumb.
“Skywalkers are known to make dramatic entrances.” His Master mused aloud.
Padmé’s laughter rang out, like music.
The Force was incandescent in its joy.
The twins cried together and it was a chorus of triumph.
Ben was born in Chandrila.
Anakin was so enraged he could strangle Han Solo with his bare hands.
“Dad, calm down.”
His daughter was calmer than she should be - he could not begin to understand how. He could feel her in the Force, her rage echoed his, an answering call, but outwards she paced, hands pressing knuckles into her own lower back.
“I told you he was-“
“I know.” She said, her voice breaking, her eyes welling with tears. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. Dad, please!”
Anakin nodded, reluctantly.
“What do you need, sweetheart?”
She softened in her relief.
“Distract me.”
They would spend hours exchanging stories.
He would hold his daughter hand, press kisses to her knuckles, make her laugh with his idiocy as a younger man.
“I cannot understand why they kept putting you in charge of piloting during emergency landings.”
“Sweetheart, I was usually to blame for the emergency to begin with.”
Her peals of laughter settled him.
“Why did Karrslae befriend Leia?”
“Leia was the Mother. The Mother of the kryat dragons, the Great One. She shaped the dunes. She tricked the Gods too - she stole from Them the Caves. She was What Lived Below.”
She squeezed his hand, the pain ebbed and flowed, she grunted through gritted teeth, and Anakin sent calm into the Force, took some of her pain into him, released it into the Force, and she relaxed again.
“But why did he befriend her? She stole the Trees. She stole the Rain.”
“She didn’t know. She was starving too, she was thirsting, and she was so alone. She helped him during the Silence, he rode her into the Trials, she helped him win them, she helped him Walk the Skies again.”
“Why?”
“Because loneliness is a wretched thing.”
Leia wept into his chest.
Ben was born in the early morning.
Padmé and Luke would arrive an hour before, resigned and furious, but ready to help her through this.
It stoked the flames of his rage when Leia merely sighed, defeated, at the realization that her husband wasn’t coming.
“He doesn’t deserve you.” Anakin snarled against the top of her head and Leia laughed, a sound full of bitterness.
“Loneliness is a wretched thing.” She echoed her words back to him and Anakin’s heart broke.
Leia held the little squalling boy first, caught him between her legs with her own bare hands, waving off the med-droid, and the Force shuddered around them.
Anakin heard his grandson scream, let himself fall into the joy of it, let it wrap itself around him, and Luke laughed.
“Another boy. You’re getting outnumbered.” His son joked.
Leia giggled, such a young sound, and hugged her son to her chest.
“Another Skywalker is another Skywalker.”
They were the only ones left.
Anakin wept into his wife’s neck.
“Oh, Ani, when did they get this big?” Padmé asked through her own tears.
Anakin didn’t know.
Anakin didn’t think it mattered.
Jaina and Jacen were born on Naboo.
Rey had insisted on it, and Ben was a fool when it came to his wife.
Anakin laughed as he floundered, not knowing what to do, clearly panicking, and Padmé and Leia had taken one look at Rey’s exasperated expression and worked as a splendid team to get Ben out.
“What if she needs me?” Ben asked his grandmother and Padmé patted his cheek lovingly.
“The babies are hours away.” Leia reassured him and then winked at Rey over her shoulder the moment Ben was distracted.
Rey grunted in relief and sent Anakin and accusatory glance the moment Ben was out of the room, arm in arm with his mother and grandmother.
“Don’t blame me, young lady.” Anakin muttered, amused, as Rey paced around the sitting room.
“Twins run on your side of the family.” She snapped back.
Anakin sighed.
“You married into this family. You knew what you were getting into.”
She rubbed her belly.
“Leia only had the one.” Rey said in her defense and Anakin giggled.
He was an old man now.
He had fought his battles, won his wars, lived his life the best way he knew how. He had married a good woman, he raised two children he was proud of, he helped raise a grandson he saw too much of himself in, and now he was about to witness the birth of two great-grandchildren.
Anakin Skywalker had lived a good life.
“Jakku has a story.”
Anakin opened his mind and his heart to the Force and let its now familiar joy flow through him.
“Tell me.” He urged the young girl.
Rey swallowed hard, smiled, and began her tale,
“There was once a man that walked the wastelands of Jakku, after the Gods were betrayed - he was called Jakksu, the World-Eater.”
Stories are oftentimes the same.
If not their details, the messages behind them.
Jacen and Jaina were born and their screams echoed through the house.
Anakin sat, watched Obi-Wan tend to the flowers on the veranda, watering them. The waste of it would have grated on him once, it still does deep down, still somehow feels like a waste, but Padmé is warm and half-asleep beside him, and Obi-Wan is joyous and soothing in the Force - deep in Anakin’s chest.
Han Solo will arrive soon, they had been notified of that, but not even his arrival ruined Anakin’s good mood.
“Two new Skywalkers. The world trembles in fear.” Obi-Wan teased, taking his seat on the other side of Anakin.
Anakin took his hand in his and squeezed, and Obi-Wan squeezed back.
“What are the chances Ben and Leia kill Han today?” Anakin joked - only slightly - and Padmé slapped his chest playfully.
“The chances are slim,” Obi-Wan says and his eyes shine bright with humor, “but never zero.”
Anakin burst into shrieking laughter, and Padmé hid her giggles - still as beautiful as the day he married her - into his neck.
The Forced heaved a great sigh around them.
All was calm.