Chapter Text
“Your thoughts dwell on you mother?”
“I miss her”
“Afraid to lose her are you?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Everything”
Mace cuts in, before Yoda can continue. There was no malice in the question, and now is not the time for old worn-out lectures.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” The boy’s eyes are unnerving when they pierce him. He does not have the pad as a shield this time. Without it between them, he feels suddenly naked.
“My sister.” Comes the short, reluctant, answer. Mace can only raise an eyebrow. The boy looks down again. His feet shuffle. In the force, his aura drops from apprehensive, frustrated, perhaps a little combative, into a deep melancholy. It is grief, plain and simple. The kind of grief a master feels when they lose a padawan. What any of them would feel at the loss of a crèchemate, or another person close to them. No child should have cause to feel this type of pain. And it feels old. Worn in like an old boot. Familiar as an childhood blanket. The boy is only nine. To feel such, so young, it is a devastating revelation.
“We were sold apart.” The boy tells his shoes. The sound still carries off the marble of the council floor, ringing through the councillors’ ears. “Ages ago.”
Mace thinks his lungs might freeze. Sold. No wonder the boy felt so dark, soaked in a miasma of negative emotions.
“Sold?” Adi’s voice is tremulous next to him. None of them want this to be true.
“You were a slave?” Ki-Adi is not always known for his tact.
“I’m a person!” is the indignant response, “and my name is Anakin!”
Mace is brought up short. Force. They hadn’t even asked the boy’s name before they’d started the test. He can feel the realisation rumble out through other masters in the room. The friction and resentment engendered by any experience with Qui-Gon Jinn had smothered his better instincts. The council had grudgingly proceeded with the test, for Jinn. Mace will need to meditate on the fact that his opinion on his fellow jedi blinded him so much to the actual youngling in front of him that they managed to miss this. The simmering resentment that always bubbles when Mace is exposed to Qui-Gon Jinn, though now boiling higher than it has in many years, is finally made secondary to the youngling actually in front of him. And it is only when that grudge is pushed to the back of his mind that he can properly take in just how cold the child seems. The boy is undersized, underfed, underclothed – and force, he really is wearing rags – in the middle of a large circle of much better dressed adults, who’ve been explicitly tasked with judging him. Half a galaxy away from anything he might call familiar, but for the fact that this child, this boy, must be singularly used to the sensation of appraisal, must be expecting some new cruelty. The boy could definitely use a hot meal and a new set of robes. He should probably see a medic. Depa would say he needs a hug. Mace is not good at hugs. Nevertheless, he turns what he hopes is a gentle expression towards the boy. Who does his best not to cringe away.
“We did not suggest you weren’t.” Instead of reassuring, Master Piell’s tone is accusatory, bridling at the perceived implication of the boy’s words. The effect on Anakin is immediate, his entire force presence shrinks in on himself, pulling away from all of them at a speed which leaves Mace breathless. The boys hands clasp in front of him. His feet turn so that he is facing Master Piell. His eyes do not leave the floor. Something indelible about him seems to slump.
“Yes Master.” Even the boy’s voice is defeated. Mace never wants to hear it again.
“The Jedi do not keep slaves.” The boy flinches. “Slavery is illegal in the Republic.” No reaction. Mace barely holds in a sigh. “Did Qui-Gon explain to you, that if he brought you here, then his intent was to free you?” The boy’s nod is enthusiastic. Small mercies. His weariness of a moment ago is gone, Mace is no longer staring at the top of his head.
“Master Qui-Gon bet on me, sir. He won me off Watto and” he pauses, little fingers twisting in threadbare, rough-spun fabric, “and he said I was free.”
“But…” That melancholy, the same brought up by the mention of his sister, returns.
“He said there wasn’t enough to free my mom too.” Any traces of released tension snap back in an instant. Mace is going to have to meditate for a long time tonight, if he does not want to end up strangling Jinn. Of all the reckless, careless, flatly stupid things Jinn has done, this may be the worst. A headache is building behind his eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose, vainly hoping that will stave it off for a few hours. For just long enough. He can feel the other masters in the room shifting, the tension strings between all of them. How are they going to fix this particular Jinn-style clusterfuck?
“In such circumstances,” Master Koon is the first to speak up “It is natural that you would be concerned for her welfare.” The boy’s shoulder’s slump, the tense twist of his fingers in his shirt eases. Thank the force for Plo Koon, and his innate ability to know how to deal with younglings. The man had seriously missed his calling as a Crèchemaster.
“Watto’s gotta be hoppin’ mad” the boy confides, eyes huge. “He’s lost a lot ‘cause I flew in the race, and I’m not there for him to take it out on. And mom can’t reach her back on her own. And there’s no one else to pick up the slack, so Watto’ll be even more angry. More’n I’ve ever seen him before, I think. And I dunno what he’s gonna do if he gets that mad.” The boy is near panting, as what was clearly well-hidden panic barrels through his small frame and tosses the boy into a spiral. “He could kill her!” the boy cries, then pauses struck by something even worse “he could sell her!” the word is a horrified whisper. In the future, looking back at this moment, Mace will understand why that prospect is so much more horrifying to the boy than the alternative that his mother could be beaten to death. Right now, that distinction is lost on him.
He cuts the boy off before he can spiral any further.
“That’s enough.” The child flinches. So does Mace. He has never been a particularly delicate touch. The boys negative emotions, pent up until this moment, slosh wildly around the council chamber, soaking them all in one small boy’s cold fear.
“I think” he tries to weigh his words carefully, heated anger and chilling fear warring in the force around him, “that we have heard more than enough.” He focusses on the boy “You have given us much to discuss young one, much to think about.” Several masters are nodding along with the sentiment.
“We must thank you for your bravery Anakin, in appearing before us today, and answering our questions.” Shaak Ti[1], second only to Plo Koon in terms of sheer parental instinct, and parsecs more serene (Plo Koon is given to pranks) takes up the reigns of the conversation before he can accidentally scare the boy any more. “If you return to the chamber outside, you will likely find Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon waiting for you.” Whether it’s the prospect of familiar faces, or if the boy truly does just have terrible taste in friends, the idea of seeing Jinn again brightens the kid up considerably, and he trots out of the chamber without another word. The doors close with a penultimate thud behind him, leaving the councillors alone with each other, and with a decision. Now the work begins.
No one speaks. The silence settles into stillness. No one seems willing to break it.
“We cannot send him back to Tatooine.” Mace wants to make sure that option is off the table. Whatever else they may think of, in deciding what to do with the boy, they cannot even consider a situation that would so clearly bear a high risk of re-enslavement.
“Agreed.” Plo Koon, at least, will be on his side. Others around the room are nodding. Including Master Piell, which is unexpected. Yaddle, quiet up to this point, finally speaks.
“Simple, this question is, hm? Obvious, the answer.” Her stare lingers on each of them. No one speaks. “Remain with us, stay here, the boy must.”
“Great danger, I foresee in his training.” Yoda, of course is the one to contradict her. “He is too old.” The master continues, ignoring Yaddle’s expression. “Too much anger there is in him.”
Yaddle’s emphatic ‘hmph’ shows what she thinks of that line of reasoning. “Anger, would you not feel, Master Yoda, if enslaved you had been?” the question is pointed. The sound of uncomfortable shifting filters through the space. Suddenly, no one is willing to look either of them in the eye.
“The boy is certainly strong in the force.” Oppo Rancisis, having been trained by Yaddle, is presumably immune to her scathing ability to put others in their place with a well-chosen question. “And we know that there is a darksider out there, whether or not Jinn is correct that the being was a sith.” He pauses, waiting for the rest of the counsel to struggle towards the conclusion he has already reached, “Would it not behove us, then, to at least ensure that so strong, and so vulnerable a child does not end up under their power? Or that of someone worse?” it is a damning indictment that not one of them had even thought of that possibility before now. the continued shuffling, and avoidance of eye-contact, attests to this oversight.
“I am less concerned with what potential danger he may pose in the future” Shaak Ti speaks up again “than I am with the care the child is obviously in need of right now.” Adi nods enthusiastically along with that sentiment, Mace could easily see Depa agreeing with it as well, which is what decides him.
“Regardless of the boy’s potential future, he has been brought here by one of our own, and is, for the moment at least, under our care.” Surely, none of them can argue against immediate measures to take care of the boy. They do not necessarily have to commit to training him, if they give him a change of clothes and a hot meal. “Besides,” he continues “if there is a danger to training someone of his strength and potential, then are the safest hands not our own?”
“An interesting point.” Master Tiin is folded over, elbows on his knees, eyes closed to better take in the arguments. The force around the room vibrates like a string instrument, each master’s considerations adding a new note to the dissonance.
It is Adi who makes the salient point, the one that brings every master from their individual notes into harmony.
“Where else could such a boy go?” she hits upon the crux of the matter. For the time being, at least, Anakin will belong here.
When the chamber doors open again, it becomes very clear very quickly that Anakin had not found Jinn and his padawan waiting for him in the ante-chamber. The small desert-boy was a lone figure in the vast frame of the double-doors. He looks around in surprise at the noise, and the sudden stream of light from the wide council chamber windows. Mace’s dislike for a certain Jedi Knight notched a little higher. He couldn’t quite catch hold of his sigh, before it fled into the chamber. The boy inches his way back into the centre of the circle, hesitance in every step. Mace attempts to mould his face into something that projects “reassurance” with what he will hope is at least middling success. Masters Koon and Ti are also solidly in the youngling’s corner, so he’s at least got some backup in the force. There’s also Adi, who Mace suspects just wants to squish the youngling’s cheeks. None of them have time to voice these sentiments to the nervous boy, before Jinn is finally striding his way back into the mess he’s dumped in their laps.
“He is to be trained then.” The desire to punch the smug smile right off of Jinn’s face returns with a vengeance. He watches the man place a proprietary hand on Anakin’s shoulder, and has to restrain himself from snapping. It is Yoda who answers.
“No.” Mace watches the boy’s face fall. Monitoring Anakin’s read on this situation is far more important right now than gauging Jinn’s. “A child, he still is.” Yoda continues. “A Padawan, you still have.” Mace had never before had cause to be so grateful for one of Jinn’s more selfish decisions; but his desire to cling to his padawan past the average age of trial – by mere months, but still, it breaks a pattern for Jinn – at least keeps the boy out of his hands. For now. Yoda is still speaking.
“Strong in the force, the boy is. See that we do.” Mace looks up to see Jinn’s mouth hanging open. Yoda has clearly forestalled another tirade about the force and prophecy that Mace does not want to hear. “Stay here he must then, hm?” that had undoubtedly been Jinn’s game here, the only reasonable outcome in this situation. Jinn knew it, they all knew it. “Return him to Tatooine” Anakin flinches “to slavery” Padawan Kenobi’s head whips around to stare at the child. Interesting, had he not known? Did Jinn not tell him? “we cannot” Anakin’s shoulders relax under Jinn’s hand. He receives an absent-minded pat.
“But. Too old, the boy is. Angry. Afraid.” Anakin is staring at the floor again. Where Yoda got his reputation for being ‘good with younglings’ is beyond him, he’s worse at this than Mace is. “Dangerous, his training would be. Clouded, his future is.”
“But he is the chosen one, you must see that!” And there’s Mace’s desire to punch him. Returned in full force. Mace has had quite enough for one council meeting.
“What we see Qui-Gon Jinn, is that you have bought a child – strong in the force, yes, but still a child – and brought him here to be trained. Have you at least begun the necessary filings to establish Anakin’s citizenship?” the silence that descends is awkward. Jinn is completely still. His padawan is staring at him. The boy just looks dejected. Shaak Ti speaks into the stillness.
“Chosen one or not, the boy requires far more than just training, Jinn. Anakin has burdens that no other youngling in this temple has experienced, if we are to make the exception for his age, we must also take his background into account.”
Jinn opens his mouth again.
They are, at that moment, interrupted by an envoy from the Queen of Naboo. She is returning to her planet, to an active occupation. Mace does not know whether to admire or despair at the girl’s determination. Jinn and Kenobi are still technically assigned to her. Anakin is still technically Jinn’s property. Because of course, Jinn has not been busy filing the boy’s paperwork, or doing anything useful while Anakin was with the counsel. From the eye-roll aimed at Kenobi, Mace would bet Jinn has instead spent the time arguing with his padawan. All three of them are therefore set off to return straight back to the hangar, ready to take the Queen home.
[1] In the stills from the film, Shaak Ti is not in the council session where they question Anakin, but Depa Bilaba is. Given that Depa is Mace’s padawan, I’m making the executive decision that she is too young to be a master yet, so I’ve decided to swap her out for the older, more commonly mom-vibed Shaak Ti. I’m aware this is probably a consequence of Depa being a nameless background character in the movies, before fleshing her out in other media made the timeline wibbly, but is this not what fanfiction is FOR?