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"Are you an angel?"
Anakin glanced toward the voice. The girl was young, maybe ten. Her worn clothes and bare feet indicated poverty and the calluses on her hands suggested hard work. She was overly thin and her dull brown hair was pulled too tightly into two long braids. But her eyes were bright. Curious.
"What?"
"An angel. I heard the deep space pilots talk about them." Anakin cocked his head. Naboo wasn’t much of a planet. The rolling hills and crystal clear lakes were pretty enough, but they had no industry of their own. Relied entirely on their status as a spaceport on the outer rim. In other words a spaceport friendly to pirates, thieves, smugglers, spicerunners, slavers, and other ne’er-do-wells. This trip made it clear Anakin was sheltered on Tatooine. He thought he knew everything when he was elected Duke. But within months the planet was under siege, he’d fled with Jedi, and landed unceremoniously on this beautiful but backwards planet.
"They live on the moons of Iego, I think," the girl continued. "They're the most beautiful creatures in the universe."
Anakin blushed. What a funny child. He shook his head. "No. I’m from Tatooine."
"Oh," the girl said, slightly awed. "The traders say it used to be corrupt."
He shrugged. The Hutts were overthrown forty some years before but their shadow still loomed large. Especially in stories, he suspected. "Do you like the spaceport?"
She nodded with enthusiasm. "I'm a pilot, you know, and someday I'm going to fly away from this place."
"You’re a pilot?"
“Mm, hmm. All my life.”
Anakin hid a smile. "Are you saving to buy a ship?" It would explain why someone so young was working in a junk shop.
The girl’s eyes changed, but he couldn’t quite discern why. "I’m learning to fix ‘em."
"I bet that’s a useful skill round these parts."
"That’s what I say," the girl agreed. "But Watto only cares about podracing."
Anakin knew little of podracing. Naboo’s Grand Prix race through the mountains was famous in certain circles but considered dangerous and, worse, too difficult to cheat.
"Watto?"
She jerked her head toward the door Qui-Gon had disappeared through. "He owns the place, and everything in it."
There was something in the way she said it. A mixture of melancholy and resentment. Anakin frowned with sudden understanding, and outrage. "You’re a slave?" He knew it was a backwards planet, and outside the Republic's jurisdiction, but even so, slavery was far beyond the pale.
The girl’s eyes flashed. "I’m a person and my name is Padmé."
Anakin’s breath caught in his throat as he stared, shamed, and lost in her wide angry eyes. It was as if time came to a sudden halt. As if the stars themselves whispered secrets carried on the wind. The two children were surrounded by an energy more ancient than the galaxy, more powerful than a thousand suns exploding. They were set on a path they could not escape, one that would destroy them, consume them, enrich them, elevate them, abandon them, and with them the whole of the galaxy. It terrified him. All his instincts screamed for him to run. But he refused to leave this girl behind. He could not live without her.
"I’m sorry," he murmured. “I don’t fully understand."
Nor did she. They were pawns in a game so much bigger than either could comprehend. But Padmé was not one to wait for perception or permission. She reached out, her small hand closed over his fingers, and the Force sang.