Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tawl was known for many things: For its great expansions of fertile land, its gentle winters, long days of sun, and the thousands of farms that lived off its blessed gifts. What many didn’t know was that, as fertile and giving as Tawl was,  one of its sudden thunderstorms could take everything away. 

Qui-Gon Jinn was well aware of that, and he had learned to live off the land regardless. Born and raised on Coruscant, he never thought he would end his life as a charming Bachelor by marrying a gentle woman and moving into the countryside, to her hometown. He didn’t regret it though. There was a certain simplicity and rewarding feeling to be had from living off the land. 

But at that precise moment, drenched from head to toe as the wind howled and raked through his sodden clothes, Qui-Gon wondered if it had been the right decision. He also knew that as soon as he was inside his home again, cuddling with his wife and reading a book by the warmth of the chimney, he would answer himself with: Yes, it had been worth it. 

The thought of his wife waiting for him inside gave him a second wind. Qui-Gon tried to wipe the water from his eyes, but the pouring rain made the act futile. He had to secure the doors to the barns so they wouldn’t blast open with the wind, and check on his animals and hybrids before finding refuge in the farmhouse. 

The ground was soaked, his boots making a squelching sound on the drowned grass as he tried to walk from the chicken coop toward the barn. A flash of light briefly illuminated the night sky, from the rackety white house in the distance to the expanse of woodlands behind it, before the deafening thunder made the ground shake. The wind howled and whipped away the hood of his raincoat as he struggled to walk against the gale. Another bolt of lightning cracked the sky, and Qui-Gon heard the distant thud of a tree falling into the forest. 

As he reached the doors of the barn, something made Qui-Gon look back. Call it instinct. Maybe just a reflex. And when the next peal of lightning illuminated the sky for just a second, he saw it . 

Qui-Gon squinted his eyes and brushed the water away, trying to discern if he was just hallucinating, vision clouded by the darkness and the howling storm. But then the sky lit up again, outlining the clear shape of a slumped silhouette in the distance, lying limply on the ground near the treeline of the forest. 

At first, he thought that it was some unlucky traveler. Perhaps someone who had been hiking and taken by surprise by the storm. But as he got closer, he noticed that not only was the frame small but that it also had a pair of very distinctive ears on top of its head. 

A Hybrid. 

Another roll of thunder muffled Qui-Gon slamming the door of the barn open. The wind howled behind him, ruffling the straw on the floor and agitating the animals. He closed the doors with one hand as he held the shivering pup, soaked to the bone. Qui-Gon cursed as he felt the boy bite his hand with sharp puppy teeth, growling and snarling at him despite his pathetic state. Qui-Gon’s hold didn’t falter- he could take a few bites from a scared pup if it meant saving it. 

Qui-Gon wondered where the boy’s mother was, but judging by his thin frame and feral behavior, he couldn’t help but feel sorrow for him and the stark possibility that she wasn’t around anymore. More than once he had found a box of puppies at the edge of the road that people from the city threw away as if they were disposable. He had never encountered a hybrid . They were very prized and very rare.

“It’s okay, young one” Qui-Gon shushed, trying to calm down the squirming boy. He had stopped trying to bite his way out of Qui-Gon’s arms, withdrawing to quietly snarl. But his drooping eyes and lack of strength were more telling than anything– he was weak and tired. 

He looked around, trying to come up with a solution. Qui-Gon couldn’t take him inside his house, his wife wouldn’t be happy about a mysterious, soaked, and aggressive hybrid dog pup. But he couldn’t leave him outside in a storm like that. He would surely die. 

The animals inside the barn peered at them curiously. There were some horses, some cows, some goats, some sheep… realization dawned on Qui-Gon as an idea showed up in his mind. Of course!

He hastily walked towards the end of the barn, to the last stall, and opened up the door. Obi-Wan was curled comfortably on top of his fresh hay, wearing his favorite cream-colored robes and dozing near the radiator. 

The hybrid cow lifted his head, his drowsy eyes blinking at Qui-Gon sluggishly as he let out a soft and questioning moo. Qui-Gon rarely came to the barn at such hours. Obi-Wan began to rise and stir, confused and thinking that maybe it was milking time. 

Qui-Gon knelt beside Obi-Wan, shushing him and encouraging him to stay on the floor. The dog pup was almost unconscious, his blue eyes straining to keep open but losing the battle. He didn’t stir when he placed him at Obi-Wan’s side.

Maybe it was kindness for such a weak little creature. Maybe it was the fact that Obi-Wan was an omega and quite a caring and protective mother. Obi-Wan sniffed the unconscious pup and took it into his arms, cuddling it close to his chest. He gave the small boy a snuffling lick, mooing softly. And when Qui-Gon saw the pup stop shivering and tuck his face in the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck, he sighed in relief and closed the door. That would do for the night. 

He didn’t know what he had gotten into, or what exactly he had brought inside his barn. 

.

.

.

Awoooo…

For the last ten years of his life, Qui-Gon Jinn’s routine had always been quite repetitive, but he found comfort in it. 

He would wake up with the sound of his old rooster announcing the sunrise. And even though a respectable farmer would immediately get up and get to work on the land, before a respectable farmer he preferred to be a respectable husband, so he cuddled with his wife until the sun fully seeped through the white curtains of their bedroom. 

Then he would start his chores of the day, kissing his wife as she went to the chicken coop to grab some eggs for their breakfast, while he made his way towards the barn where the majority of their animals slept. The horses were very active from the early morning, although the goats liked to sleep in a bit more. He didn’t own many hybrids– just an old green goat and of course, his cow. 

Awooooo…

Obi-Wan was one of Qui-Gon’s noblest animals. It was a funny story of how at first he had hesitated about acquiring him. He had been such a small, frail heifer from Stewjon with knobbly knees that was on discount. He had bought him, as he hadn’t had any better option and they needed milk. In the end, despite all odds and first appearances, Obi-Wan turned out to be one of the best, perhaps even the best, of his milk cows.

Obi-Wan could be quite grumpy whenever he was roused to be milked, that was for sure. Few creatures hated to wake up as much as Obi-Wan did, but even when he grumbled and softly mooed in protest, he always got up and walked into position for Qui-Gon to milk him. Most of the time he would follow orders. Other times, his stubborn streak would show up. When he was in a mood or Qui-Gon did something he didn’t like, Obi-Wan would frown at him and whip his tail, disdainfully looking away and ignoring his commands. But with the offering of a sugar cube and a head scratch, Obi-Wan would melt down and peacefully rest his breasts on the table cushions and allow him to attach the milking machine.

His personality was the least of Obi-Wan’s oddities. The cow liked to wear woolen robes, even though of all the farm animals he was the one that needed them the least. His breed dotted him with dense coppery body hair, from the valley of his breasts towards his stomach and all the way down his legs. That and his white mighty horns were the perks of being a Highland cow. Qui-Gon often wondered if Obi-Wan’s inclination for high ground was another tendency of the breed. If so, he much preferred his fluffy fur, as he had lost track of the number of times he had had to rescue Obi-Wan from impossibly high and steep locations.

Awoooooooo…

That had been his routine for years. Obi-Wan had grown from being a small heifer to having his first calf, which after months of not knowing what to call him, they had decided on just calling him Cal for short. And then, every morning, Qui-Gon would go and get his milk. 

After the milking, Obi-Wan would just yawn and put back on his robes, waiting patiently for Qui-Gon to open up the doors of the barn and let him outside, to peacefully graze around the wide expanse of grassland and munch on the sweet dandelions that sprouted from the ground. He would lay there in the sun, sometimes spending time with his now-grown calf, and just laze about and wait for the night to come and be let inside again, to sleep on his freshly laid straw. A peaceful life.

Qui-Gon had never expected everything to remain exactly the same. Changes were something natural– everything changed all the time. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder at what point did it change so much . 

Aw-aw-awooooooo…

The answer was simple though. Everything had changed on the stormy night he had brought Anakin inside his barn. 

The morning after that terrible storm, where multiple trees had fallen and even knocked down some of his fences, Qui-Gon had woken up later than normal. His wife, the darling that she was, had gotten up earlier to fix him a cup of coffee and some bread for breakfast, as she knew he had spent a great part of the night trying to secure their farm. 

It was when he finally went to the barn to let the animals out once again, that he remembered about the puppy he had rescued. To be precise, he remembered about him when he found the boy snoring loudly with a bloated belly and rosy cheeks, Obi-Wan softly licking his hair with his robes askew and his milk already drained. 

After that, the dog pup became a part of their farm. Qui-Gon had named him after the events of that night, where the little hybrid had demonstrated to be fierce and challenging. Anakin . Warrior . He had thought more than once about getting a guard dog anyway, and even though he hadn’t considered a hybrid for the job, Qui-Gon liked to think that Anakin’s arrival on their humble farm had been a sign. 

The boy was cute. Like the majority of hybrids, he looked mostly human except for a pair of fluffy brown pointy ears sticking out of his messy hair, and a thumping tail. When he had finally woken up he had demonstrated to be a feisty little one, growling and snapping at Qui-Gon, while trying to hide in Obi-Wan’s arms. 

After a few weeks with the pup greedily drinking his cow’s milk and suspiciously eyeing him whenever he went near, the boy had finally begun to warm up to him as well, realizing that Qui-Gon meant no harm. He used to look between the tall farmer and Obi-Wan, taking in how the cow hybrid seemed unphased by his presence. One day Qui-Gon approached him with a piece of meat. A peace offering. The pup had smelled it snatched it out of his hands, and even let the farmer scratch his ears.

Ever since he had become loyal and grateful to the man who had rescued him. 

Except when Obi-Wan was involved. 

Aw-Awooooooooo

Anakin was loyal, strong, feisty, incredibly intelligent, and resourceful. But on top of that, he was also stupidly, and quite frustratingly, possessive. He had developed a terrible habit-  on top of chasing off his chickens and leaving muddy prints inside his farmhouse. He loathed it whenever Qui-Gon needed to milk Obi-Wan. 

It was cute at first, how Anakin seemed set on being at Obi-Wan’s side all the time. The pup hadn’t wanted to sleep inside the farmhouse near the fireplace, alongside his new masters. Even when he and his wife had tried to keep him inside to get him accustomed to it, the boy would howl and scratch the door to go outside, and promptly run back to the barn to cuddle with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan didn’t object to it. In fact, Qui-Gon knew his cow liked it, treating Anakin as if he was one of his own, grooming him and feeding him directly from his bosom. The pup was far past the age of breastfeeding, and he demonstrated it by wolfing down raw meat and scraps as if he were three times his size, but he still drank Obi-Wan’s milk as if his life depended on it. 

Awooooooooooooooo

Qui-Gon grimaced at the piercing howl from outside the barn. Obi-Wan mooed, distressed by the sound of the pup crying.

At some point, Qui-Gon’s routine had changed drastically. And what once was an easy and regular task like milking his cows, had turned into a whole odyssey that repeated itself each and every morning. 

Whenever Qui-Gon opened Obi-Wan’s gate to milk him in the morning, he would be greeted by Anakin growling and snapping at him, with his fluffy brown ears flattened to his skull as he menacingly flashed his puppy teeth. The boy would cling to Obi-Wan’s robes and try to “protect” him from Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon’s routine now consisted of waking up, cuddling with his wife until the sun peeked through the curtains, getting up and trudging to the barn, preparing mentally for the ordeal of plucking Anakin away from Obi-Wan’s bosom, while fighting off the pup’s scratches and vicious bites. 

Anakin could snap and growl all he wanted, but he was still the size of a sack of flour. Qui-Gon could easily pick him up and handle the squirming and thrashing boy. He did have quite the vicious bite, he had to say. His puppy teeth were so sharp that sometimes they even pierced his work gloves, but it was always a lost battle for Anakin. He had dauntless nerve and energy though and that's what Qui-Gon liked most about him.

Every morning Qui-Gon would pick up Anakin, open the Barn door, throw the boy on the grass, and quickly shut the gate again before the puppy could jump upright and dash inside. And every single morning Anakin would scratch at the door, growl, and cry, eventually just settling into a piercing, anguished howling .

Aw-aw-aw-awooooooooo

"Obi-Wan, stay still" He commanded, but it was fruitless. Obi-Wan huffed and tried to rise to go search for the extremely dramatic puppy crying at the door. 

That was where the problem resided: Qui-Gon could handle a feisty pup and a few puppy bites, but it was far more difficult to handle a pissed-off cow hybrid of Obi-Wan’s size.

The machine wasn't done yet. It was already an inconvenience that Anakin seemed to be set on drinking most of Obi-Wan’s milk through the night and early morning, it had put quite the dent in the daily milk production. And to top it off, because of Anakin's theatrics, Obi-Wan wasn't willing to stay still and let the machine do its work. 

"Obi-Wan" He tried to scold again, reaching over to hold the hybrid down. But just as he was reaching out, he saw Obi-Wan shift his head. 

He didn't know what to thank for his good reflexes- his years as a Judo instructor in the city, or maybe his years dealing with cattle? But just in time, he managed to dodge the threatening edge of one of Obi-Wan’s horns. 

He stepped back, flabbergasted. The hybrid was frowning and huffing, clearly in a wretched and uncooperative mood. 

"Did you just try to gore me?" He asked, even though he knew Obi-Wan couldn't answer. Or at least, he couldn't with human words, because the petulant arch of his brow and whipping tail gave a very clear answer. 

Obi-Wan could be moody and could be quite stubborn, but he had never tried to gore Qui-Gon before. He was just too sweet. 

Qui-Gon shook his head. There was nothing to do when Obi-Wan had his mind set. Sometimes he thought he had a mule instead of a cow. He might as well, given how little milk Obi-Wan was giving him. 

He unstrapped the machine from Obi-Wan’s chest, sighing and he shook the containers, barely one-third filled with milk. He would have to go to buy some from the supermarket again if they wanted to have some cake for Sunday afternoon. Obi-Wan stirred from his position, shaking his head and fetching the woolen robes to cover himself up once again. 

Qui-Gon got up and put the machine away, fetching the stool to hide it in the Barn’s attic. He knew Anakin hated the machine with all his guts– he had made it very clear from the very first day he had learned what the thing was for and growled whenever Qui-Gon took it out of its hiding, putting himself between the farmer and Obi-Wan to protect him from the evil milking appliance. Before Anakin, he could just have it around and use it whenever he needed it, but the milking machine was too expensive to let it lie around where it could be victim to a feisty and jealous puppy’s rage. A FERR-US 0L1N machine like that was worth a small fortune. 

Qui-Gon wondered how Anakin would react if he actually managed to break the milking machine, and realized that the other option was Qui-Gon manually extracting the milk from Obi-Wan’s breasts.

Awooooooooo…

Qui-Gon sighed, watching as Obi-Wan fretted from his stall, his fluffy blonde cow ears perking ever-so-slightly with each one of Anakin’s howls. He mooed softly and knitted his brows, leaning over the gate of his stall, anxious to go out and search for Anakin. 

“Dear” 

Qui-Gon glanced back and found his wife smiling mischievously, holding a palm to her mouth as she tried to hold down laughter. He found himself smiling too. 

She beckoned him through the back door, the one Anakin didn’t know about. As Qui-Gon got out and followed his wife to look around the building, he understood why she had been so amused. 

He craned around the corner to see the front door, where Anakin was dramatically sprawled. The boy was sniffling, his face red from crying and screaming, droopy with sadness. Qui-Gon watched as the boy sniffed once more, rubbing his eyes, before taking a big deep shuddering breath, throwing his head back, and letting out another anguished howl. 

He chuckled. If he didn’t know better, he would think Anakin was starving or being punished, or maybe even tortured. What would his neighbors think if they saw such a scene? The boy glared at the door and scratched at it, but of course, it didn’t budge. At his frustrated attempt to break into the barn, the little pup threw himself face down on the grass and sobbed dramatically, only to flip over onto his back and howl once again at the clear blue sky. 

Awoooooo…

“Anakin” Qui-Gon called. And at the unexpected sound of his voice, the puppy jumped off the ground and onto his feet. He looked flabbergasted, clearly not understanding how Qui-Gon had exited the barn without opening the door. His ears were perky with attention, his bright blue eyes open wide. In just a second, the boy was mixing whines and growls in an attempt to communicate his offended feelings and demands. 

Qui-Gon sighed, shaking his head. His wife was hunched over, trying to control her laughter at the scene. 

Anakin looked at Qui-Gon expectantly as he kept frantically scratching at the barn door, begging to be let in. As soon as Qui-Gon pulled down the handle – he knew was just a thing of time before Anakin figured out how it worked– the puppy was pushing in and running towards the back, where Obi-Wan’s stall was. 

His pitiful whines echoed in the barn as he ran towards the cow, who was already waiting for him, stretching his neck to look from over the gate. Obi-Wan mooed softly and smiled as he saw Anakin, who was jumping and struggling to try and climb the tall gate to get inside the stall. 

Qui-Gon walked towards the gate and unlatched it, watching Anakin jump at Obi-Wan and tug his robes desperately, whining like a lost puppy. His eyes filled with tears as he tried to get to Obi-Wan’s breasts, his most treasured possession. His whines were always fruitful because Obi-Wan would moo softly and pet Anakin’s hair, still soft and wooly like all puppies; kneeling on the floor to let the pup tug and open his clothes as he pleased.

Qui-Gon watched Anakin latch onto Obi-Wan’s nipple and drink eagerly, the sounds of his sucking mixing up with whines and puppy eyes directed toward the cow, and menacing growls towards him. He sighed and left the gate open, taking off his gloves and walking back outside. Hopefully, Anakin would grow out of his antics soon.

Of course, he didn’t. 

.

.

.

“My dear,” his wife asked one afternoon while sipping her tea. Qui-Gon hummed, not lifting his gaze from the book he was reading. They were enjoying the last beams of sun on their front porch, as all tasks for the day were already done. “How did you find Anakin again?”

Qui-Gon frowned and looked up, taking out his glasses. His wife wasn’t looking at him, her gaze fixed on the distance, where Anakin was playing in the grass by Obi-Wan’s side. It was a strange question– she knew exactly what had happened. 

“I found him abandoned that stormy night,” he said, confused. 

She hummed, frowning as she observed the hybrid boy. Qui-Gon followed her gaze, not understanding why she was asking. 

He sighed, observing as the pup ran around the cow, who was comfortably lounging on the ground while picking up flowers to eat. Anakin was full of energy, running and jumping and rolling on the grass, making a mess of his newly acquired clothes as he chased butterflies and dragonflies. He didn’t remain strictly by Obi-Wan’s side, he would often sprint off into the distance, but every few minutes he would come running back to check on him. Sometimes he also brought gifts– a poor unfortunate cricket, a shiny rock, a random flower. Obi-Wan just stared at him, smiling and mooing softly, licking his fringe whenever Anakin got too close (despite the pup's protests) and shaking off the blades of grass that got stuck to his clothes. 

He was just a hybrid dog pup like any other. Of course, he had some eccentricities, but Qui-Gon believed that those were what made every living being unique and interesting. Anakin had a lot of potential as a guard dog, exactly as he had expected. Although he had given up on training him to be a shepherd dog after the boy had herded a bunch of terrified sheep inside his farmhouse. The boy was loyal and fierce, always on alert to whatever or whoever happened to enter the farm. Mace Windu was witness to that– he hadn’t received the news about Farmer Jinn’s guard hybrid yet and had gotten the scare of his life when Anakin jumped and bit his pants, growling as he tugged viciously. Qui-Gon tried to explain that Mace was the mailman and just doing his job, but there was no reasoning with Anakin.

Other animals and hybrids were quite intimidated by him too. It probably had to do with the fact that Anakin seemed to find amusement in terrorizing them, to the point where the chickens had learned to pinpoint Anakin’s pacing steps and would run off inside the coop to prevent being chased around by the feisty pup. In some way that was positive, as lately he had been having trouble with a fox who liked to kill his hens. But it was difficult to see a sunny side to Anakin’s inclination towards chasing off his goats or barking at his horses.

Anakin had never really hurt another one of Qui-Gon’s animals, but still. Whenever Anakin was around they would perk up their ears and follow him with their eyes, on alert. Every farm animal seemed uneasy to be around the boy.

Of course, every animal except Obi-Wan. 

“Why do you ask?” he questioned, watching Anakin prick up his pointy ears and look towards the forest. The boy watched intently before darting towards the treeline, chasing something that Qui-Gon couldn’t see. 

It was his wife’s turn to sigh. She held her cup of tea thoughtfully. 

“It’s just… isn’t it odd that he appeared here? A dog hybrid?” she asked, turning around to look at him. Qui-Gon lifted his brows and caressed his beard. 

“It’s strange, yes. But not impossible” he mused. 

“Dog Hybrids are expensive, love. No one would just leave one lying around in the open. If he appeared here, wouldn’t he have been from some of our neighbors?”

“I asked around when I found him, but no one claimed him,” Qui-Gon reminded her. Of course, finding a dog hybrid was strange– they were usually bred and sold. He had asked around town if someone had lost a pup in the last storm, but after no one responded, he had decided to keep him. “Do you think Anakin had a previous Master before us?”

His wife shook her head, looking to the ground. 

“No, I don’t think so. What I’m wondering is: if he didn’t come from our neighbors, then… where did he come from?” she asked. 

Qui-Gon hummed and looked at the treeline, where Anakin was emerging. He had something in his mouth, probably another gift to bring to Obi-Wan. He frowned, trying to discern what the pup was lugging behind him, but the distance made it difficult. A piece of clothing? 

“I think he came from the woods,” his wife said then, thoughtfully. 

Qui-Gon was about to answer, but then he noticed that Anakin had run past Obi-Wan and was going straight towards them. 

And then he finally recognized what the pup had in his mouth. 

This time, Anakin’s gift wasn’t for his beloved cow, but rather for his Master. The pup huffed pridefully and wagged his tail as he deposited the dead bloody fox, almost as large as him, at Qui-Gon’s feet. His wife took in a sharp breath. 

“I don’t think Anakin is a dog ” she whispered. Qui-Gon gulped.  

.

.

.

Anakin had grown up quite a lot since he had found him. Once just a messy and feisty hybrid pup that barely reached Qui-Gon’s waist, he had turned into a juvenile little boy. He was taller, faster, stronger, and with an appetite that matched his growth spurt. He had not been weaned off Obi-Wan’s bosom– instead, he seemed to be even more jealous than ever, to the point Qui-Gon had started to think about looking for another heifer.

When Anakin was just a puppy, hoisting him up and tossing him out of the barn was an easy task. Now that he was bigger not only did he fight Qui-Gon viciously, but he also had begun to relentlessly scratch and bite at the barn door instead of howling, making a long-term project of creating a hole to sneak in via. Anakin grew so quickly that the hole had to be widened as each day passed, but he also had shed his puppy teeth and grown strong canines that easily tore wood apart.

After the realization that maybe Anakin wasn’t just a regular… dog, Qui-Gon and his wife had to measure their options. But in the end, after observation of the boy’s behavior (and his blue puppy eyes), they had decided to keep him anyway. Even if they took him inside the forest, Anakin would most likely come back to their land either way to sneak inside the barn and sleep at Obi-Wan’s side.  Even though he was way taller and stronger than any other domestic canine hybrid, able to hunt foxes the same size as him as well as countless rabbits and birds, he had demonstrated to be loyal to them and to get used to the farm life. Anakin couldn't return to the woods. He was too used to going inside the house and begging for head scratches and belly rubs, his little tongue peeking out as he kicked his feet with delight.  

Training him had proven to be fruitless though. The boy cooperated most of the time, but Qui-Gon could see the gleam of intelligence in those eyes. Anakin didn’t listen to him because he was trained or conditioned to do so. Anakin listened to him because he chose to. And whenever there was something he didn’t want to do, the pup would promptly ignore him and have his way. 

One of the instructions Anakin merrily ignored the most was to not torment the chickens. 

Qui-Gon didn’t know what it was. Maybe simple predator instinct? Maybe just an unknown grudge between the feathery hens and the feisty pup? It was so strange. He didn’t mess with the ducks, or the geese –although honestly, Qui-gon wouldn’t mess with a goose either– but there was something about his desert tusken-breed chickens that Anakin seemed to simply despise. 

It had gotten to the point where Qui-Gon developed an instinct– a sixth sense of some sort. Similar to when a child went too quiet, whenever Anakin wasn’t at Obi-Wan’s side or making his rounds on the fence, Qui-Gon would have to go check the coop. Sometimes it was a false alarm. Anakin also liked to run into the woods or beg for a treat in the kitchen whenever his wife cooked. But other times –like at that precise moment–  he would find the boy growling and trying to snatch up one of his terrified hens out of the coop. 

“Anakin, no!” He yelled, stomping his foot down. The hybrid boy bolted upright, surprised at being caught red-handed. “I told you to leave them alone!” 

Qui-Gon was getting ready to scold the boy– he knew that Anakin could understand him, even when played dumb and tried to pretend he didn’t. But right before he could open his mouth and start with his nagging, the pup bolted upright and ran through the space between Qui-Gon’s legs, making him lose his balance. 

“Anakin!” he yelled, cursing under his breath. The boy was fast, way faster than him at almost fifty years old. When he had just arrived at the farm, Anakin would lower his ears and sniffle when Qui-Gon scolded him, tucking his tail between his legs. After the third time Qui-Gon dismissed him out of pity only for Anakin to immediately return to his mischief, Qui-Gon had learned that maybe the boy was smart enough to pour out crocodile tears to get away from a reprimand.

That had to change, of course. Now whenever Anakin tried to shed tears and use his puppy eyes, even though Qui-Gon’s heart still ached, he stayed strong and kept his stern voice. But Anakin had discovered another way of getting away with his multiple antics. 

“Come back here!” he yelled, but it was too late. Anakin slipped and fell on the ground as he took a sharp turn entering the barn, scrambling to his feet again to dart towards the last stall.

Qui-Gon leaned on the doorframe, taking deep breaths and trying to regain his composure. He exhaled and grimaced as his knees cracked, and then stepped forward to search for the naughty pup. His whines and cries echoed along the barn. Anakin had a talent for theatrics, but they always paid off, as his whining and puppy eyes always worked with Obi-Wan.  

Qui-Gon prepared himself to have to deal with a pissed-off, protective, and angry cow. 

“Anakin” he started, peeking inside the stall. And just as the previous time, he found the pup whining and whimpering with his face buried between Obi-Wan’s breasts, his arms circling the cow’s waist and his tail tucked between his legs. Obi-Wan was hugging him back, licking his hair softly and mooing in comfort. 

But at Qui-Gon’s voice, all the tenderness and love in Obi-Wan’s expression faded away. The cow looked up from the pup, glaring at Qui-Gon and huffing. 

“Obi-Wan…” Qui-Gon tried to reason, taking a step back, but he knew it was a lost battle. 

Anakin keened louder, snaking his hands under Obi-Wan’s tunic to discover his breasts and bury his face directly against Obi-Wan’s skin. Qui-Gon didn’t know if the pup did it to trigger some sort of maternal instinct in the cow, or if it was just another one of his oddities related to his fixation with drinking milk. Obi-Wan’s breasts had grown larger, responding to the demanding mouth they had to feed by producing even more milk than before. Qui-Gon hoped Anakin would wean off his habit, but that didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. The pup would drink milk in the morning, run towards Obi-Wan to feed in the afternoon, and then drink right before nighttime and go to sleep with his belly bloated and warm. 

Obi-Wan huffed and threateningly turned towards Qui-Gon, lowering his head and showing off his sharp horns. Qui-Gon lifted his hands and took another step back. He sighed. There was nothing else to do. If he tried to pry Anakin from Obi-Wan’s arms, he would surely be gored by the angry, protective cow. 

He shook his head, giving up. He had better things to do than try to reason with Obi-Wan and explain to him that Anakin had, once again , tried to chase his Tusken chickens. As he turned around once more to look at them, he found Anakin already staring at him, his blue eyes devoid of any tears and a mischievous smile curling his lips. The second Obi-Wan grabbed his face to look at him though, Anakin affected a perfectly crestfallen, distressed expression and let out another whine. 

.

.

.

One winter afternoon Qui-Gon stumbled across an old photo album. When the cold came and some of the duties of the farm were curtailed by the snow, he liked to entertain himself by cleaning and repairing things on the farmhouse. And while fixing a particularly bothersome leak in the attic, he was distracted by multiple boxes with long-forgotten belongings. Qui-Gon positioned a bucket to catch on the leaking water and entertained himself by dusting off the boxes, opening them, and rediscovering treasures. 

One box labeled "Obi-Wan" really caught his attention. And when he opened it he was swept away with nostalgia. 

Obi-Wan was a very particular creature. 

Out of the three hybrids Qui-Gon had owned in his life, he was certainly the most odd of them all. Or maybe it felt that way because both Xanatos and Feemor had been predator hybrids and Obi-Wan was prey. The differences were undeniable, but there was a lot that he suspected didn’t have anything to do with being a cow but was rather just part of Obi-Wan’s personality.

A wave of endearment and a little bit of guilt overcame him as he remembered how rocky their relationship had been at the start. He had been unfair to Obi-Wan the first months after he bought him. After the loss of his Doberman hybrid, Qui-Gon had sworn to himself that he would never get another hybrid again as it hurt just too much, but faced with the reality that his only option of getting another milk cow at the time was by buying a hybrid, he had broken his promise and relented. Obi-Wan had been a frail and anxious little creature, too young and skinny to be a mother and produce milk, with almost no meat clinging to his bones. The abrupt change from the vendor to Qui-Gon’s farm hadn't exactly been easy for him, and Obi-Wan showed it by following him everywhere. Qui-Gon often reprimanded him and ordered him back to the barn, to which Obi-Wan would moo sadly and comply, only to slink back but at a farther distance. As if that way Qui-Gon wouldn't notice him. Qui-Gon found his presence to be irritating- the sweet simple thing was just asking to be hurt and he didn’t want to have to worry about a silly wayward cow that should just stay near the barn. 

He had to thank his wife for opening his eyes and putting him in his place. One stern talk about his unfair treatment of the hybrid hadn't been enough for Qui-Gon to immediately change as being stubborn was one of his biggest faults, but it had been the start. And in the end, allowing Obi-Wan to shadow him saved his life. 

Qui-Gon touched his stomach, feeling the ridge of scar tissue even trough his old flannel shirt. The scar was old, healed a long time, and he often forgot about it. 

The absolutely silent forest should have been the first sign warning him that something wasn’t right. Qui-Gon had been repairing the fence at the edge of his land one summer, out later than usual. The sun had begun to set on the horizon, but he hadn’t wanted to retire to bed without finishing his tasks for the day. Then he had heard the snap of a twig, and when he lifted his gaze, he met the unblinking yellow eyes of a bobcat hybrid. 

He had been quick to react and raised his arms to protect his face and neck, but wasn’t fast enough to dodge the attack altogether. The red and black bobcat had yowled menacingly as he sprang forward, and one mighty blow of its clawed paws had been enough to rend through his clothes and pierce the tender skin below. 

At that moment, bleeding on the ground and clutching his hurt stomach, Qui-Gon knew that he was going to die. The bobcat hybrid was huge, with snarling teeth and hateful yellow eyes. 

And Qui-Gon was just a defenseless old man. 

He didn’t know who was more surprised, the Bobcat or him, by a sudden angry bellow.  Before any of them could react, Obi-Wan had charged at the other hybrid and gored him, the Bobcat yowling in pain as one of his horns ripped open its stomach. The wild hybrid had screeched and flailed as it tried to rise to its feet but before he could Obi-Wan had already charged again, using his blood-streaked horns and bovine strength to throw him in the air and away from Qui-Gon, who was still sitting helplessly on the ground. 

Stunned from the fall and probably quite direly wounded by an aggressive cow of all things, the bobcat had just futilely snarled one more time before turning tail and disappearing into the treeline. Obi-Wan had snorted angrily one final time, stomping his feet, before turning around and gently helping Qui-Gon get up from the ground. 

The hybrid had helped him walk towards his farmhouse, where his wife rightfully panicked and slapped him for his carelessness, before hugging him and patching his wounds.  That had been the day when Qui-Gon had opened his eyes and learned his perception of the hybrid had been wrong. 

Obi-Wan was kind, noble, patient, and sweet; and Qui-Gon often found himself thinking that maybe Obi-Wan had been sent to him so that he could learn a lesson. To heal from his past griefs too. He felt like he was a better man after acquiring him. And maybe, if it hadn't been for Obi-Wan's existence, Qui-Gon wouldn't have kept the little shivering pup that showed up on his land on that faithful stormy night. 

The ridges of the scar were still there, five stripes from the clawed hand of the bobcat. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the last time they had seen the wild hybrid. Qui-Gon remembered catching glimpses of red and black fur between the trees sometimes, especially near the grasslands where Obi-Wan liked to laze around during the day. Sometimes he didn’t see the bobcat but would find Obi-Wan watching the treeline with a severe frown, only for him to get up and retreat to the barn. He would hear the pitched cries of the bobcat echoing in the forests like an angry warcry, but after some time he had realized that the wild hybrid seemed to just have an odd, one-sided fixation that consisted mostly of stalking his cow and yowling loudly and vengefully. Qui-Gon had been worried that the bobcat had a grudge and wanted to have his cow for a snack– but then one night when Obi-Wan was suffering one of his first heats, he had caught the bobcat trying to break inside his barn. Qui-Gon had promptly chased him off– with a shotgun, that time. 

It had been some time since he had seen the bobcat. He used to be so accustomed to the wild hybrid’s presence and now he didn’t remember the last time he had seen its snarling teeth and yellow eyes. He was certain that he hadn’t seen him since Anakin had appeared at their farm. Maybe having another predator hybrid on his land was what deterred the bobcat from returning. Qui-Gon chuckled, trying to picture little Ani snarling and trying to protect Obi-Wan from something like that bobcat. It wasn’t like Obi-Wan needed the protection though– he had made it quite clear that he wasn’t intimidated by the wild hybrid. 

Qui-Gon rummaged through the objects in the box and picked up the old bell that used to hang off Obi-Wan’s neck when he was just a small heifer. It was old and battered now, the leather strap worn and discolored. At some point, Obi-Wan had stopped using his bell because he didn't like the sound. Having something so loud hanging from his neck and announcing each one of his movements made him anxious, and they had decided to take it off to make him more comfortable. 

Still, Qui-Gon missed the telltale chime of the cowbell whenever Obi-Wan was near. Whenever his wife would make one of her amazing cinnamon apple pies, made from the red apples that grew in their garden, they would hear the soft chime approaching the kitchen windowsill. It was easy– if Obi-Wan saw his wife pick up apples, he would show up at the open window. And he would rest his chin there, sweetly observing his wife cut up the apples, batting his long lashes, and mooing softly as she gave him some slices and scratched the hair between his horns. 

The habit hadn't worn off, only now whenever Obi-Wan appeared on their windowsill in search of sweet fruit treats, he would be accompanied by none other than Anakin. The first time his wife gave the pup an apple slice the boy had made a strange face, crunching down the fruit with his fangs and making the juice spill all over his chin. He didn't like them that much, but whatever Obi-Wan did, Anakin wanted to do it too. Or at least be there while he did it. Anakin had stopped whining to get the same treats as Obi-Wan, as he had learned that Obi-Wan’s preferences and opinions about what a treat was were very different from his own, but his wife had taken the habit of having a jar of peanut butter always near. So Obi-Wan could get his fruit, and Anakin could lick the sweet fudge off the spoon. 

Below the bell, there were Obi-Wan’s old robes from when he was a small heifer. He smiled, unfolding them and appreciating the difference from the ones the cow used in the present. He had grown so much– it was strange to think that Obi-Wan had once been so thin and bony. Both robes had been made by his wife. She had always had a soft spot for the cow hybrid, and the feeling was entirely reciprocated. Obi-Wan loved to spend time with her, in his own way. He wasn’t the kind of hybrid to hog attention or demand pets and scratches, but whenever his wife would go sit under a tree to read a book, Obi-Wan would appear and nap at her side. He would follow her around whenever she did her chores on the farm, quietly grazing the grass or resting his chin on the fence. 

He was folding the old robes when he heard a loud bang downstairs. He frowned. His wife was out on the town as it was Wednesday and she had her Book Club. Then, after a second, he heard a high-pitched and confused ' rhoof? '

He smiled. Apparently, Anakin had woken up from his afternoon nap. The last time Qui-Gon had seen him the boy had just drank his fill of warm milk and had cuddled up with Obi-Wan in their stall, thoroughly knocked out. It was a heartwarming scene. Obi-Wan and Anakin napping on top of the fresh hay near the radiator. Anakin kicked his feet and twitched in the middle of his deep sleep, dreaming vividly, while Obi-Wan had barely opened his eyes when Qui-Gon chuckled. He had huffed and hugged the puppy closer, bothered by the sound, while Ani hadn't noticed Qui-Gon was even there. 

But now Anakin had woken up and decided to go search for him. Another confused little bark that almost sounded like a whine echoed through his house. Anakin wasn't used to the house being empty– there was always someone home.

"Up here" Qui-Gon called, and after a second of silence, he heard quick footsteps rushing up the staircase. He hoped the boy had closed the door behind him. He knew how to open it but he often forgot the closing part. 

Anakin barked again, confused. 

"Here" He called again, with a sigh. Qui-Gon groaned as his knees protested while he righted himself and crawled closer to the attic trap door. He looked down to the hallway, where Anakin was standing at the bottom of the stairs. The boy opened his eyes and perked his ears. "Come, Anakin. Come"

He didn't need to say it twice. In a second Anakin was scrambling up the stairs. The boy wagged his tail, sniffing the air curiously as he looked around. He scrunched up his nose at the musty and humid scent. 

But then, almost immediately, Anakin's tail stopped wagging and his eyes zeroed on the box of Obi-Wan’s old belongings. He took another deep sniff before growling and scrambling forward to the box.

Qui-Gon laughed. Anakin didn't know how to read but he didn't have to. He could probably smell Obi-Wan all over those things. 

The boy picked up Obi-Wan’s old robes and began to sniff them vigorously, letting out a series of growls and confused whines. Qui-Gon patted the boy’s shoulder, watching him rummage through the box, taking out more random items that once belonged to the cow and sniffing them. A blanket that Obi-Wan used to cuddle under when his hair wasn’t so dense. An old pair of earrings. And then, when he picked up a small woolen hat, Qui-Gon saw a bunch of pictures fall from it. He picked one up and smiled. 

“Look,” he told Anakin. The boy stopped sniffing the robes and stared at the picture “Who is it?”

Anakin frowned for a second before his eyes went wide with shock, bewilderment taking over his young features. The pup whined and crawled closer to Qui-Gon, trying to take a better look at the photo. 

It was a very nice one, probably around one month after Obi-Wan had arrived at the farm. When Qui-Gon had bought him, Obi-Wan’s hair had been shaved off for hygienic reasons (or at least, that’s what the seller had said) but after he had arrived, his hair had begun to grow and grow, reaching his shoulders. He didn’t have his luscious beard or fluffy body hair at that age, but the bright smile he was giving to the camera was undoubtedly Obi-Wan . 

Anakin whined, looking between the picture and Qui-Gon as if he couldn’t believe it. 

“It’s Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon said, with a chuckle. He showed the pup another picture– Obi-Wan sleeping on the grass, wearing his first pair of robes, chest almost flat and devoid of any breast tissue, his frame skinny and lacking the roundness and plump curves he had now. And then Qui-Gon found one last picture– one where Obi-Wan was sitting on a couch, smiling meekly and holding his pregnant stomach. It was a picture from when he was carrying little Cal. A darling blush tinted his cheeks, a pretty gleam that made his eyes shine. If anyone ever wanted a definition of what a pregnancy glow was, Qui-Gon would have to show them that picture. “See?”

Anakin opened his eyes wide as he saw Obi-Wan’s pregnancy picture. The boy snatched it from Qui-Gon’s hands, staring at it. He made a string of odd sounds– at first, he growled as if he was mad at the picture, but then he whined and looked at Qui-Gon pitifully like he did whenever he wanted something. Tears sprung to the pup's eyes as he was overwhelmed with a mix of feelings, his tail wagging for a moment before stilling and stiffening with rage, his little ears going flat against his skull only to then stand up with attention. Qui-Gon laughed, amused by Anakin’s antics. The boy gripped the picture obsessively, sniffing it and licking it and rubbing his face against it, only to then growl annoyed. He seemed to both hate and love the picture. 

Convincing Anakin to come down from the attic was a feat. Qui-Gon groaned as he tried to yank the pup away from the box of Obi-Wan’s belongings, while the boy howled and growled and bit him, offended by his manhandling. When he finally left Anakin on the ground floor and lifted the stairs that led to the trap door, the boy whined and let out some crocodile tears, ears flat to his skull and face red from anger and frustration. 

Later that day, when he went to give his animals some water and fresh food in the barn, he found the pup cuddled up inside Obi-Wan’s robes, hugging the gentle swell of his belly and gnawing gently at the fat. The cow looked very confused by the puppy’s antics, trying to comfort him, even though he didn’t know what was distressing Anakin so much. To be fair, Qui-Gon didn’t know why the pregnancy picture of Obi-Wan had distressed Anakin either, but it seemed that it had caused the pup to want to crawl inside Obi-Wan’s belly himself.

.

.

.

“Can I get two liters of milk too, please?” Qui-Gon asked. Jocasta Nu lifted her brows but fetched the bottles regardless. Anakin was sniffing the tomatoes, curiously picking them up and carefully putting them back into their place, mindful of his claws. 

“Oh, did Obi-Wan stop producing?” she asked, taking Qui-Gon’s money “You know you can always ask me to lend you Quinlan again to serve him and have another calf” 

Qui-Gon shook his head. Anakin perked up his ears, looking at them with a frown on his face. He was intelligent, too intelligent. He had recognized Obi-Wan’s name, which was one of the magic words to get the… dog’s… attention. Along with outside, food, town, and of course, Milk . 

Qui-Gon was grateful that Anakin didn’t fully understand what Jocasta was implying because he was pretty sure he would have gone berserk right there. But how could he explain to the gentle old woman that it wasn’t that Obi-Wan had stopped producing milk, but rather that Anakin was hogging it all for himself? 

“Thanks for the offer, I will keep it in mind” he answered, picking up the jugs and holding them out towards Anakin, who was waiting at his side. It was strange– Anakin seemed unphased and utterly uninterested in regular milk. Qui-Gon had tried to give him some store-bought on a bowl to try and coax him out from Obi-Wan’s bosom, but it didn’t work. 

Qui-Gon petted Anakin’s head, ruffling his dirty blonde hair. It had been a year since Anakin had started going to the town with him. The decision had been more impulsive than anything– one day Qui-Gon had gotten into his truck, looked at the curious pup watching him from the fence, and asked: Do you wanna come?

It was convenient. Anakin had learned quite quickly that he had to stay by Qui-Gon’s side while they walked through the market, and despite some isolated incidents –where he had lost Anakin for three hours, desperately searching through the stalls only to find him playing around with some old rusty knickknacks under a table in an alley– he mostly followed him around and waited for instructions. He helped him carry the groceries. Time didn’t wait for anyone, and Qui-Gon could tell that the years were taking a toll on his back and knees. Anakin would gladly hold bags and carry around vegetables if that meant he could get a treat at the end of their shopping. 

The boy liked to walk around town and smell the different scents, try the food that people gave to him, and flatten out his ears to get some pats. Anakin wasn’t too social, he could quickly get annoyed, insistently tugging at Qui-Gon’s shirt to go back home and growling at any passerby that he deemed suspect. He seemed to have a special disdain for small children, which Qui-Gon also didn’t understand. Anakin’s personality was so volatile and unpredictable, he was filled with surprises. 

Qui-Gon took his glasses from the front pocket of his shirt and put them on, squinting as he tried to read their shopping list. His wife’s handwriting was neat and pretty. That day there was an especially pretty ‘ Z’ that looked straight out of a calligraphy book. He would later fold the note and keep it with the other lists and letters he liked to collect from her. 

Anakin waited at his side, impatiently looking around, getting bored. It was nearly noon, and Qui-Gon knew that it would soon be lunchtime for the pup. He still needed to get some flour, so his wife could make another one of her delightful sweet pastries to eat along with tea. Folding his glasses neatly, Qui-Gon extended his hand toward Anakin and waited for the pup to grab it. He didn’t like to tug Anakin on a leash –and Anakin liked it way, way less – but he needed to keep him in check if he didn’t want him wandering away like previous times. 

The good thing about Anakin being a hybrid was that, unlike other pets, he was allowed to enter the different businesses from around town. Anakin would sniff on the scarce occasions they entered the supermarket, offended at the cold blow of the AC. He would try to keep his jaw shut and not let the blob of spit fall from his mouth whenever they went to the butchery –and then the butcher would reward his good behavior with a little treat–. His favorite place to go though was the workshop and hardware store, where he would rummage and look at the different machinery and tools, playing with the cords and marveling at the variety of doorknobs and screws that existed. 

Qui-Gon loaded their groceries on the back of the truck, patting Anakin on the head as the boy handed him the things. 

"Good boy," Qui-Gon praised as Anakin finished helping him load the groceries. The pup's face lit up and his tail wagged excitedly, a big smile brightening on his face. That was another phrase that Anakin had seemed to learn quite quickly. 

Their truck made a strange, wheezing sound whenever he started it but otherwise ran well as new. Anakin scrambled up the leather seats and quickly went to roll down the passenger window, making Qui-Gon chuckle. Anakin loved to lean out the window and feel the wind whip his face. If Qui-Gon pressed the gas pedal a little bit more than normal to make the pup feel the adrenaline of speed… then it would be his secret. His wife didn't have to know. 

The Jinn’s farm wasn’t far from town, it was just a ten-minute drive where most of the landscape was the surrounding forests and their neighbor’s lands, dotted with cattle and hybrids. Qui-Gon took a left turn toward the entrance of their farm, the truck shaking with the bumps of the gravel road. As they neared the house Anakin became progressively more excited, craning his neck to look out the window and making small keening sounds as his tail wagged. 

The sound of gravel kicked up by the truck was what made Obi-Wan wake up. Qui-Gon smiled, tenderness washing over him as he watched the cow snap back from his sleep. Obi-Wan was a creature of habit. For the last ten years, the cow had usually preferred the west side of their land to doze in the afternoons, as it had the greenest grass and best sun exposure. 

But whenever Qui-Gon took Anakin to town, they would return to find Obi-Wan at the farm entrance, resting against the fence as he patiently waited for them to come back. 

Anakin wagged his tail as he spotted Obi-Wan, letting out an excited bark. And before Qui-Gon could stop his truck, the hybrid was already jumping through the window and landing on the ground, quickly scrambling back to his feet to run toward Obi-Wan. 

Obi-Wan mooed excitedly, opening his arms as Anakin easily jumped the fence and hugged him, beginning his onslaught of whines and cries for milk. Qui-Gon sighed, opening the door of his truck and watching his wife come out of the house, cleaning her hands with a rag as she giggled. 

Anakin made quick work of undoing Obi-Wan’s robes and latching onto his nipple, drinking milk eagerly as he pawed the other breast. Obi-Wan licked his hair, unphased by the pup’s hungry growls. 

Qui-Gon sighed. He would have to unload the groceries alone. 

.

.

.

Anakin grew up. And he grew up quickly . 

As each day passed, Qui-Gon couldn’t help but notice the changes. It was a jarring experience– being at the pup’s side every day made it difficult to perceive it, but at the same time, Anakin evolved and developed at a vertiginous pace that was impossible to ignore. He and his wife had never had kids, but he wondered if that’s what being a parent felt like. 

Although he couldn’t help but think that a child would certainly be far less difficult to deal with given Anakin’s mercurial, awful temper and mood swings. At least a kid wouldn’t snap at his hand whenever he tried to pry away a chicken bone to prevent them from choking, or growl whenever he went near their favorite cow. 

The boy had gone through a series of growth spurts that contorted him from a feisty, cute puppy into a growling and lanky teenager who reached Qui-Gon’s chin. Anakin was already taller than his wife– and he was almost as tall as Obi-Wan himself. The cow didn’t seem remotely phased or put off by the pup’s height. He also didn’t seem to be willing to wean Anakin off of his bosom anytime soon, despite the now uncomfortable position they had to take for the dog to drink his milk. Qui-Gon had begun to search for a new heifer. He had given up long ago any hopes of getting any more milk from Obi-Wan. Was it Obi-Wan’s milk that made Anakin grow up so much?

With Anakin’s growth spurt also came his awful change in temperament. As Qui-Gon had predicted, the boy was incredibly intelligent, fierce, dauntless, and loyal. But with each passing day, Anakin listened to him less and less, the last remnants of the adorable earnest puppy dissolving in the terrible acid of hybrid puberty. 

It was a mix made in hell. Anakin was what all human teenagers were: A rebel. Stubborn, prideful, emotional, temperamental, and very quick to anger. He ate his weight in food every day, drank all of Obi-Wan’s milk, and still had the gall to glare and roll his eyes at Qui-Gon whenever he asked the young man to go help him carry equipment. 

But on top of that, he had all the oddities and downsides of also being, well, a… dog. And what could be worse than a pubescent moody teenager? A pubescent moody teenager who marks territory by peeing on everything he deems his –which included not only their land but also Qui-Gon’s boots, for some reason– and also humps everything . If Anakin was trying to show dominance? He would hump Qui-Gon’s leg. If he was angry? Hump and growl. Sad? Hump. What he liked the hump the most was the poor cow who fed him, who stood oblivious and mooed softly as the feisty teen wildly bucked his hips while he drank milk. 

Anakin’s contrary nature was only becoming more apparent. Qui-Gon felt like his hair was turning more and more gray with each passing day. There was simply nothing he could tell Anakin without getting a huff, a roll of eyes, a snapping tail, or an annoyed growl. 

“He’s most likely going to be an Alpha” the vet had said one day, after his inspection. The man took off his thick leather gloves, sighing as Anakin growled and snarled. If there was anything Anakin despised more than the Tusken chickens or the mailman, it was going to the vet. “Where did you say that you found him again?”

Qui-Gon gulped, looking at the boy. Anakin had his ears flattened to his skull, his tail tucked between his legs. He had been coerced and tricked– Qui-Gon had used the words town and workshop to prompt the boy to run to his truck. It was only when they turned left instead of right at the entrance of town that Anakin realized what their true destination was. 

“I found him on my land” he answered, grudgingly. The vet looked at him, unimpressed, and then sighed. 

“...By the forest…?” the vet prompted. 

“Yes” 

A beat of silence. Anakin lifted his ears at the lack of conversation. Despite the betrayal – and the fact that Qui-Gon had to overpower him to drag him inside the vet– Anakin being oddly well behaved. He wasn’t due for any vaccines (luckily) and they had foregone getting a rectal temperature. The astonished look and pitiful yelp he had let out the first time they had to check him for an odd fever was seared on Qui-Gon’s mind forever, it always made him smile. 

“Alright…” the vet sighed. He took his glasses off, staring at the hybrid boy. Anakin stared right back, unphased and challenging. The vet then looked back at Qui-Gon “Due to his… breed… he’s already a tough case. He’s going to become exceedingly territorial– and you will likely find that he is going to begin treating you like his pack . Especially if he’s an Alpha. Of course, if he turns too aggressive or too territorial for your liking, there are other options” 

“Other options?” 

Beside him, Anakin stared out the window, following the trail of a bright blue jay with enraptured attention. The boy craned his neck for a better view, his tail wagging behind him. 

“Neutering him would cause most of the Alpha traits to resolve” 

Anakin yawned, displaying his impressive canines before snapping his mouth shut and licking his lips. Then he seemed to remember that he was at the vet– and that he should be on guard and righteously indignant. Anakin gave the vet a baleful look and let out a soft growl. 

Qui-Gon gulped. Anakin already hated going to the vet. If he also neutered him he would never forgive him. It was a funny notion though– Anakin waking up without his family jewels. But despite the hilarity of the imagined astonished expression, Qui-Gon doubted that he would survive the rage born from that betrayal. He cleared his throat and straightened his back, subconsciously placing his hand protectively in front of his groin. 

“I don’t think that will be necessary for now,” he said, giving the vet a wobbly smile. The hybrid raised a brow, and Qui-Gon thanked the heavens that Anakin didn’t understand that the Vet had suggested they remove his balls.

.

.

.

Awoooo…

Despite all of Anakin’s flaws and peculiarities, there was always one creature on the farm that would overlook his oddities and still open his arms for the pup to snuggle. And that creature was, unsurprisingly, Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon loved Anakin, he really did. His wife loved the boy too, she would more often than not break the rules they had established in an attempt to train him, falling victim to the blue puppy eyes that –even when he already looked like a sixteen-year-old human– were still as effective as they had been on day one. It had been a few years since he rescued the hybrid, and the boy was beyond charming, besides being a great addition to the security of their farm. But Qui-Gon was also just a man, and like any man, his patience wasn’t infinite. 

And recently, it seemed like every foul aspect of Anakin's personality had been turned up to eleven. 

He didn’t listen to orders unless he wanted to. He glared and growled and snarled whenever he was told what to do, and Qui-Gon couldn’t remember the last time that the boy had showered. Judging by the patina of dirt and mud coating his clothes, it had been far too long ago. And even though Obi-Wan did his best by grooming him whenever he –still– breastfed, there were limits to the cleanliness gained from a hybrid cow. 

Of all animals and all creatures, the only one who seemed to have the patience to deal with Anakin was Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon didn’t know if it was maternal instinct or just plain willful ignorance, but even when other hybrids avoided Anakin like the plague, the cow just smiled and undid his robes for the –no longer a pup– to feed. 

So of course, the current situation was jarring and beyond unexpected. 

Awoooooo…

Qui-Gon sighed, turning and tossing around his bed as he tried to fall asleep. He glanced towards his wife, blissfully oblivious of the whole ordeal happening outside. She liked to listen to white music to sleep, a habit Qui-Gon had never adopted but one he now envied. White noise didn’t help relax him, but at least it would be better than the piercing, anguished howls reverberating through their land. 

As Anakin had grown up, Qui-Gon had given up on keeping him away from Obi-Wan’s bosom. When he was a pup it was cute, the little hybrid boy howling his heart out in despair as he was deprived of his milk. Then he had grown large enough to bite his way into the barn by ripping away the wooden boards that composed the door. Qui-Gon had gotten a new non-hybrid heifer to prevent another disaster, and suddenly those sullen howl-filled days were in the past. 

Of course, the boy kept barking, growling, and howling, as per his… breed. Anakin howling wasn’t a strange sound to anyone around the Jinn’s farm. But his howls were typically deep and honestly quite intimidating. Whenever Anakin howled, it meant that he was hunting something. That something could be a random rabbit, someone trying to enter their property, or just an unfortunate dragonfly. But what Qui-Gon was hearing now was entirely different. 

Aw-Aw-Awooooooo…

No, that wasn’t the howl of the intimidating guard dog Anakin had become. That was the piercing, anguished howl of the puppy who was being denied his milk. Though this time Qui-Gon wasn’t the culprit keeping him away from the teat, but Obi-Wan himself. 

“I hate you so much…” he whispered to his wife, grumpy and deprived of sleep. He regretted it immediately– of course, he didn’t hate her. But he did hate that she was able to sleep so soundly when he couldn’t. 

Qui-Gon hoped that the situation wouldn’t last more than one night, but to be honest, he didn’t know what would happen. Obi-Wan getting irate at Anakin was already something absolutely out of the ordinary- there was no telling as to how much it would last. And even though Qui-Gon knew that Anakin deserved the punishment, he couldn’t help but hope that Obi-Wan would get over it quickly, and give the boy his milk. 

All his previous outrage at the boy’s misdoings had melted down and turned into a mute plea for silence the longer the hybrid howled, and howled, and howled. 

He wondered what had driven Anakin to do what he had done. Anakin could be stubborn and difficult if he wanted to, but he wasn’t… malicious. Or at least, he sincerely hoped that he wasn’t. So yes, usually when Anakin went silent and MIA for too long, Qui-Gon would have to begrudgingly walk towards the Chicken coop to chase the hybrid away and make him stop terrorizing his Tusken hens. The teen liked to pick them up and hold them up to eye level, meeting the poor bird’s terrified gaze until he got bored of their frozen panic. Other times he would further traumatize them by biting off some of their feathers, using his maw to pull them out, and spitting them out onto the floor. 

But that afternoon something had changed. Qui-Gon wasn’t sure why– maybe the problem had started when he denied Anakin any more meat that day, even though the boy frowned and huffed, begging for seconds. Maybe because he had changed his brand of kibble– he knew that the hybrid preferred red meat, but Qui-Gon farmed mostly tomatoes, not money. Anakin hadn’t liked the new brand, smelling it and pushing the plate away, utterly offended. Or maybe the issue had been Anakin’s raging hormones and quickening race towards presentation, which should happen at any moment, causing even more mood swings and aggression than normal. 

But honestly, it probably was Anakin’s awful newfound habit of trying to constantly test the limits. 

The first time the boy had showed that kind of behavior had been when he entered the farmhouse dining room, even when he knew it was strictly prohibited. The boy had not only entered it– he had also taken a chair and sat on it, lounging lazily as if the place was his. Qui-Gon had chastised him but let him go, as he didn’t find the trespassing something to be concerned about. Honest to god, Qui-Gon didn’t know why his wife had decided that their fine dining room should never be used at any time, being saved for a special occasion such as Christmas or Birthdays. He just complied with the rule. Some things about marriage were about just listening to what your wife said. 

Then there was the issue with the fridge. Anakin knew how to operate most gates and doors, as the only difference between his hands and a human’s was the impressive claws that seemed to grow larger by the day. Qui-Gon fed Anakin every day with red meat, even when it put a dent in his monthly budget. He didn’t understand how the boy could eat so much and then go to drink all the milk that he did, but he related it with just how much Anakin was growing. Only one day he had gone to his fridge to get himself some yogurt– and it wasn’t there. 

Of course, his first suspect had been no other than his wife. Qui-Gon loved his wife, he loved her more than anything in the world, but there were some whims and things that came with marriage. And one of those was her stealing what was his. What’s yours is mine she would say, but Qui-Gon had a very specific preference towards strawberry Greek yogurt that was not to be meddled with. Especially since whenever he asked her if she wanted some from the grocery store, she stated that she didn’t like yogurt. 

But when he had asked his wife, instead of giggling and barely being able to say no from her laughter at her mischief, had just stared at him with a confused frown and denied any relation with the incident. 

Qui-Gon was getting old, so he thought that maybe he had simply forgotten he had already eaten his yogurt. But the next day he found that the last night’s lasagna was missing. And by the third, on an occasion where he returned to the farmhouse in the middle of the day to get some water, he had caught Anakin red-handed while he was wolfing down some raw ground meat his wife had bought to make some burgers.

Of course, he had reprimanded the boy. Anakin lowered his ears and glared at him, snapping his tail behind him. But even when Qui-Gon had tried to be stern, the next day there was food missing from the fridge again . And no matter how much he tried to make Anakin understand that it was off-limits, the boy would sneak and get some food. Anakin didn’t even like spinach. Why was he eating spinach?

Then it was biting Qui-Gon’s shoes. Going upstairs to their bedroom and getting on the bed with his dirty feet. Refusing to let anyone touch Obi-Wan. Lazing around when he knew he had chores to do. Qui-Gon had tried to put limits, but it was difficult when at every given moment Anakin was yet breaking another rule. 

And of course, whenever a severe reprimand was on Anakin’s way– like when he decided to pee on Qui-Gon’s living room to mark territory, the boy would quickly run towards Obi-Wan to get protection. And even after so many years where Obi-Wan had seen firsthand all the mischief Anakin was capable of doing, the cow still huffed and menacingly showed off his horns whenever Qui-Gon tried to pry Anakin away from him. Obi-Wan forgave Anakin even when one of his mishaps had caused the cow to be drenched in water, with his favorite robes turning sheer from the accident. Anakin would just have to whine and make moony eyes for Obi-Wan to forget about everything and just open up his tunics for the boy to drink. 

Regardless of the rationale, it had all culminated with Qui-Gon walking towards the coop and finding a bloody trail leading towards the back of the building, and tense silence. 

His first thought had been– where was Anakin? And was he alright? Because there was no way that a fox could have gotten past his guard dog. Anakin was an expert on tracking the pests, and no matter how much his disdain for the Tusken chickens, he begrudgingly protected them whenever it was necessary. Because that’s what Qui-Gon had asked of him. 

If Anakin was around, there was no way something could have happened to his chickens. Yet when he opened the door to the coop, he found all of them slaughtered. Not even taken away or eaten– just dead. 

“Anakin?” He had yelled, worried. And it was Anakin’s name that had captured Obi-Wan’s attention. Despite cows having a bad rap of being dumb airheads, Obi-Wan was incredibly intelligent, just as much as Anakin. Qui-Gon often found that Obi-Wan was more prone to blissfully ignoring things rather than not understanding them. 

Qui-Gon had looked around the coop, clutching his hat as he felt the fear settle in his belly. What had happened to his chickens? What had happened to his hybrid? Obi-Wan seemed to perceive his worry, mooing in distress.

But then Qui-Gon heard the quiet growls and snaps from around the corner of the coop. And then he found no other than Anakin himself, hunched over something on the ground. The smell of blood was strong. Qui-Gon’s first instinct at seeing Anakin covered in it was to worry for him. But then the boy turned around and he realized that the blood wasn’t Anakin’s. 

A vicious snarl curled Anakin’s bloodied lips. He had a feather hanging from the corner of his mouth, and the carcass of a dead chicken in his hands. 

It had been Anakin. Anakin had massacred all his Tusken chickens. 

Qui-Gon immediately began to yell, trying to chase the boy to chastise him, but Anakin snapped at him and growled. For the first time, Qui-Gon had been afraid and hyperaware of the consequences of bringing a hybrid of Anakin’s species to his farm. Awfully territorial. Strong, Intelligent, and Fast .

Anakin had growled at him, completely unrepentant of his actions. There was a feral shine in his eyes, dauntless and challenging, as he spat the feathers to the ground. 

But what made the pup freeze in place wasn’t Qui-Gon’s booming voice, or the heavy stomp of his feet, but rather Obi-Wan’s horrified moo as he turned around the corner and watched the scene. 

Obi-Wan was stunned, taking in the multiple feathers and carcasses of chickens with a blank stare. His ears twitched, the tag hanging from one of them clinking with the golden earrings pierced on the fluffy ears, the mark of Qui-Gon’s cattle. And then Anakin had barked in excitement, getting up from the bloody mess of his wrongdoings and running towards Obi-Wan to tug at his robes, revealing the bouncy breasts full of milk and squeezing them with his blood-soaked hands. Happy. Unrepentant. Thinking he would be rewarded . 

And then Qui-Gon saw what he thought he would never see. Obi-Wan let out a distressed moo, horrified by the blood staining Anakin’s hands and face a muddy red. And then he lowered his head to catch the hybrid dog with his horns and toss him in the air, away from him. 

Anakin had scrambled on the ground, completely flabbergasted by the turn of events. He let out an offended growl, but after seeing Obi-Wan’s face, it had morphed into a whine. 

And now, hours later and at three in the morning, it turned into a howl. 

Aw-Aw-Awooooooooo…

Qui-Gon didn't know how many hours of howling it had been. But as soon as his rooster sang –a little bit drowned out by the relentless cries of the dog at the entrance of the barn– he jumped off the bed and prepared himself some breakfast. 

When he got to the barn entrance, hair disheveled and a rancid mood souring his face, Qui-Gon found Anakin dramatically sprawled on the floor, his face crestfallen and brows furrowed. When Anakin heard him coming he took in a deep breath and let out another ear-piercing howl. 

Qui-Gon shook his head. Anakin had the strength and ability to break into the barn if he wanted to– moreover,  he had learned how to operate doorknobs years ago. But instead of going in, he decided to torture everyone on the farm with his theatrics. 

Even though he was still mad and disappointed at the teen massacring his chickens, Qui-Gon couldn't bear to see Anakin distressed like that for too long. Perhaps he had a soft spot, maybe old age had mellowed him. He still didn’t know what had made Anakin turn so aggressive out of the blue, he knew it wasn’t normal. So he still prepared a bowl of water and food for him, as always. 

Only Anakin didn't eat.

With a dramatic sigh and growl, Anakin turned away from the food. At first, Qui-Gon thought it was his pickiness about the kibble again– but the twitch of his canine ears and the theatrical sharpness of Anakin’s movements were what gave away he was just choosing to be difficult. 

“Really?” He sighed. The teen just huffed and whined, looking away. He took another deep breath and howled at the sky again, sprawled like a starfish on the ground. 

It turned out that  Obi-Wan had been his silent partner in insomnia. As Qui-Gon entered the barn to check on his animals he couldn’t help but go to Obi-Wan’s stall first. He sighed as he watched the cow shivering despite being curled near the radiator, a clear empty spot in his hay where Anakin usually lay at his side. 

And for the first time after years of having the hybrid dog, Qui-Gon watched Obi-Wan get up and unfasten his woolen robes, pulling them aside and resting his breasts on the milking table. They were larger than he remembered them– swollen and tender with milk in amounts that Qui-Gon had never needed. Just how much did Anakin drink daily?

Obi-Wan’s sigh of relief as the machine did its work was drowned out by Anakin’s anguished howls. Qui-Gon scratched the spot between Obi-Wan’s horns, his heart aching at the sight of the distressed cow. Obi-Wan’s blue eyes were filled with sadness, his ears low as he moved mechanically. 

Qui-Gon expected the whole ordeal to not last for too long. Obi-Wan had always had a soft spot for Anakin, especially when he was howling and crying. Yet when he opened the barn door to let the cow out, where Anakin was still sprawled on the floor dramatically, Obi-Wan didn’t even spare a glance at the teen. The cow lifted his chin, purposefully looking away before walking straight towards the grasslands. 

Anakin, who had lifted his head a little bit, full of hope, sobbed loudly and let out another howl. 

Awoooooo…

Anakin stayed there, without eating and drinking, limp and hopelessly under the sun. But even when it was a tad bit concerning, all worry would disappear as Qui-Gon noticed that the boy did move. Whenever Obi-Wan was a little bit too far –probably trying to get away from the insufferable howling to get some peace– Anakin would stop his antics, dramatically crawl on his knees towards where Obi-Wan was, and then lay down on the floor to keep howling at his side. 

At noon Anakin was also whimpering and making a show of being starving . Qui-Gon cleaned the sweat from his forehead and stabbed his pitchfork on the ground, stopping mid-hay bale. He stared at Anakin, who pretended to not notice that Qui-Gon was staring at him.

“I know you aren’t starving,” he said, lifting his brow. Anakin growled and clutched at his stomach, rolling to the side and whimpering. “You have food on your plate”

Anakin huffed, looked in the direction where Obi-Wan was peacefully eating dandelions, and whined again.

A beat of silence. 

“I’m not gonna give you his milk,” he said then, sighing tiredly. The teen had noticed the filled bottles Qui-Gon had carried from the barn, watching them intently as he took them to the farmhouse. Anakin flattened his ears and angrily flailed over into a fetal position, letting out another piercing howl. 

When the sun was setting and all the animals began to walk towards the barn to sleep, Obi-Wan finally acknowledged Anakin. 

The cow hesitated for a long moment. He was still angry and sad at what Anakin had done, but the truth was that he couldn’t remain angry at him for too long. 

Qui-Gon had observed the cow closely all day, trying to keep track of his moods and emotional state to provide support in case that it was needed. And even when Obi-Wan had pridefully looked away from the howling pup, he was clearly affected by it. His blue eyes had been glassy all day, and he regularly rearranged his robes, wincing at the tenderness of his swollen breasts. 

Qui-Gon would have to milk him once again before retiring to bed if he didn’t want Obi-Wan to be sore in the morning, although he honestly didn’t know what he would do with so much milk. He motioned for Obi-Wan to enter the barn so he could safely lock him up and go to sleep, but the cow didn’t move. As the sun set on the horizon, Obi-Wan paused right before crossing the entryway and turned to look where Anakin was still lying on the ground, face down. He hadn’t moved in several hours. He had stopped howling and instead would growl at anyone who walked close to him. 

Qui-Gon sighed. Obi-Wan nervously looked between him and Anakin, mooing in distress. It was as if the cow was asking him what he should do. 

He stepped to the side, motioning for Obi-Wan to go to the pathetic pup.

Anakin’s ears pricked up as he heard the footsteps– he could recognize Obi-Wan’s pace anywhere on the farm– but didn’t lift his head until Obi-Wan gently stroked his shoulder. 

Qui-Gon rolled his eyes as Anakin whined pitifully, making moon eyes at the cow and spilling out some crocodile tears. And of course, his theatrics paid off, because Obi-Wan relented and knelt by his side, opening up the fastenings of his tunics and helping Anakin get up on his lap, as if he was a helpless baby and not a capable teenage hybrid. The boy latched onto his nipple immediately, sucking as if he hadn’t eaten in ten days– as if he hadn’t turned his nose up at the kibble and meat Qui-Gon had laid out for him, as if he hadn’t wolfed down his chickens the previous day. 

That night Qui-Gon was able to sleep peacefully. There was no howling, no whining, and no crying. Only the peaceful sounds of the countryside. The crickets, the night birds, cicadas, and his own animals. He drifted off to the kingdom of dreams with a smile with the comforting warmth of his wife by his side. He distantly heard some odd moos and muffled sounds from the barn, that he promptly ignored. 

Trouble returned the next morning when Qui-Gon recieved a phone call from one of his neighbors, Mr. Jaro Tapal. For a second he thought he would have news to share with him about little Cal, Obi-Wan’s calf, whom Jaro had adopted as his heifer and future milk cow. But his hopes fell when Jaro asked him if he had been having trouble with farmyard pests as he had woken up to find his coop half empty. 

Qui-Gon ran towards the barn, where Obi-Wan was sleeping soundly with Anakin nowhere to be seen. His heart dropped as he considered his options and what must have happened. Maybe it was his panic that made him ignore the fact that Obi-Wan was naked from the waist down and so exhausted he didn’t even rouse with the commotion of Qui-Gon entering the barn. Had Anakin gone on another rampage? He went to his coop, half expecting to find fresh carnage. 

But what he found instead was Anakin freshly back from the forest, carrying four terrified chickens in his arms and another gently in his mouth. The boy froze as Qui-Gon caught him red-handed, flattening his ears to his skull, a sign that he was embarrassed. Anakin daintily dropped the chickens inside the coop and gently released the one in his mouth, the poor hen petrified from fear. The dog looked into Qui-Gon’s eyes and gently licked the bird’s downy head before gently patting it, prompting it to go inside the coop among the others. 

Qui-Gon sighed, not knowing if he should feel relief, anger, or earnest endearment at the boy’s antics. 

.

.

.

Something had changed. 

It was difficult to notice at first, but after a few days, it became patently obvious that something in Anakin had shifted. And after days and days of mulling over the issue, trying to come up with an explanation as to why his hybrid was acting the way he was, his wife came up with the answer. 

They were having breakfast at their dinner table, some freshly baked bread, eggs, and a cup of coffee. She was reading a fashion magazine, one of those that was far too expensive but that Qui-Gon bought regardless to make her happy. Her eyes always lit up when he gave them to her– they not only covered the latest fashions but also contained sewing patterns with them, which she often used to make herself – and him– new clothes. She was humming a tune that Qui-Gon could recognize as a jingle from a Christmas advertisement when suddenly she stopped and gasped. 

Qui-Gon lifted his brow, waiting for her to talk. 

“Anakin presented,” she said then. And those words were like the missing piece in a puzzle that made every oddity of the last weeks come together and make sense. Presented. He groaned and leaned back in his chair, slapping his hand over his face at his ignorance. Of course. Anakin had presented . 

Now everything made sense.

After his Tusken chicken massacre incident –and after returning Jaro’s kidnapped hens and buying some new ones for his own–, something had irreversibly changed. At the moment he related it to Obi-Wan depriving Anakin of his daily dose of milk, and the pup learning that his actions and games of surpassing every existing rule on the farm could have consequences. 

His behavior had shifted. Anakin had always been territorial and possessive over Obi-Wan – Qui-Gon had more than one scar to show from Anakin’s wickedly sharp puppy teeth– but recently he had taken it to a whole other level. After Anakin was allowed to return to Obi-Wan’s arms, Qui-Gon had found his milking machine torn to pieces in a corner, the suction cups bitten into deformed useless pieces of plastic, and the leather straps clawed to rivulets of thread. Qui-Gon had groaned, rubbing his temples and trying to keep his composure. 

After Anakin had grown up and Qui-Gon had given up on getting any more milk from Obi-Wan, the boy would growl and snap at the machine whenever it was in sight due to his one-sided and life-long rivalry, but he had never tried to break it anymore. He just smiled smugly at the thing while he drank Obi-Wan’s milk himself. Qui-Gon had never understood why Anakin acted that way towards a machine of all things, but there was a lot he didn’t understand about Anakin anyway. 

Maybe the fact that FERR-US had been used on that fateful day prompted Anakin to finally put an end to the poor, innocent machine. Or that’s what Qui-Gon had thought– that it had been a fit of jealousy born from seeing the machine sucking Obi-Wan’s milk once again. But as the days passed, the issue began to seem even more deep-seated than what he had thought. Anakin’s jealousy and possessiveness had only grown, and grown, and grown.

Qui-Gon couldn’t enter the barn without Anakin immediately getting to his feet and standing in front of Obi-Wan’s door, growling at him to stop him from even getting closer. After many years of living with Anakin on his farm, Qui-Gon knew that most of his aggression was just theatrics and posturing, so he just lifted his brow and walked past him to get to his other animals. What did Anakin think Qui-Gon would want from Obi-Wan anyway? Milk? Surely not. Anakin drank it all. But the dog didn’t seem able to see reason, growling whenever Qui-Gon neared the stall. He even snarled whenever he entered the barn . 

Anakin had suddenly turned territorial, more territorial than ever. Qui-Gon would be on his land, taking care of the weeds that grew between his crops, and Anakin would be silently following him in the distance, pacing along the edge of their fence. And even though the boy had always been loyal and tended to their land, there was something starkly different about it. Anakin’s expression was serious and all business as he regularly patrolled around the perimeter, sometimes growling at the treeline, where Qui-Gon couldn’t see anything more than bushes and branches. 

Anakin would watch at him as he farmed, and every few minutes he would run back to the farmhouse to check on his wife, and then towards the coop – where a new kind of chickens lived, and that luckily Anakin didn’t inexplicably hate–, then to the barn, to the horses, and of course, he would then run towards the grassland where Obi-Wan liked to laze to drink some milk. 

Qui-Gon stared off into the distance, squinting his eyes as he tried to see what Anakin was doing. That had changed too– something between Anakin and Obi-Wan had shifted. The dog was hugging Obi-Wan, licking his face, and parting his tunics to get to his breasts and drink his milk, but there was something different in it. Starting from the fact that now Anakin liked to make Obi-Wan lay down on the grass to get his fill, instead of cuddling in his lap. 

After checking on his favorite cow, Anakin would run back to Qui-Gon and keep him company for a while, watching the perimeter and defending him from invisible threats. And then the whole cycle would repeat itself. 

Anakin had also hit another growth spurt- he finally surpassed Obi-Wan in height and reached Qui-Gon. It had been very sudden and very jarring– one day Qui-Gon had turned around to ask Anakin to get him a wrench from the toolbox, and instead of looking down to meet his eyes, he had just looked straight ahead. And even though he knew that Anakin would never do anything to him, there was something inherently intimidating about having a… dog… hybrid of his size constantly lurking around him. 

Anakin’s growth spurt had not only granted him new height but also muscle. What had been the lanky frame of a teenager with awkward limbs had suddenly filled out. His shoulders had widened, his forearms filled, and his legs rippled with the strength that let him run the border of their whole land in just a few minutes. 

The bulge of his muscles reflected his inhuman strength. Hybrids were usually stronger than regular humans, particularly predator-species hybrids such as Anakin, made and bred to hunt and defend their territories. Anakin could carry twice the weight that Qui-Gon could, and he enjoyed showing off. He had started to carry Obi-Wan around, moving him to wherever he wanted to, kissing the cow’s face as he laid him on the grass. 

Qui-Gon had observed all those behaviors for the past weeks, scratching his head at the oddities and ultimately rationalizing and downplaying them. Anakin was odd, he had always been. But now with the possibility of Anakin having presented, everything took a different perspective.

Now he felt a little bit stupid. How could he have not noticed that all of Anakin’s behaviors had been the result of his hybrid nature? Okay, maybe he had only read the first page of the Hybrid manuals he had borrowed before getting bored. And maybe he had spaced out when the vet had begun to talk to him about Alpha’s ruts, pre-ruts, and presentations, as he had seen a book with an interesting title on the man’s bookcase that sent his brain on a tangent. But Qui-Gon hadn’t been worried. Nature was wise, and it always found its way, not needing any human interjection in the middle. 

His wife was staring at the wall, probably going over the multiple oddities they had experienced in her head as well. Qui-Gon looked through the window, trying to search for Anakin’s silhouette. The teen was near the fence, sniffing around and growling. Then he pulled down his pants and pissed on the wooden panels, continuing his rounds. 

Marking territory. Alpha . That was clearly an Alpha behavior. 

With the newly discovered information, Qui-Gon found that a lot of Anakin’s behaviors now made sense. But it was while he was in town shopping for some fertilizer for his crops a few days later that he realized something more . 

Anakin didn’t like to leave the farm too much. He would still go to town with Qui-Gon once in a while, especially when Qui-Gon implied that he might be going to the hardware store or the butcher, but that was getting rare by the day. Aside from Anakin’s reticence at leaving their land, the teen didn’t like to be petted or coddled by strangers anymore– or at least, he pretended he didn’t. He would growl and look menacingly at anyone who would dare try to touch his fluffy ears or come near his tail, snapping at little kids who got too close. But he still liked to receive treats and be called a good boy. He could growl and snarl all he wanted, but there was no hiding the wagging tail tucked between his legs. 

Still, ever since he had presented he was more likely to stay at the farm and guard the land, keeping an eye on Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s wife as well as the rest of the animals. His wife had confided to him, between giggles that interrupted her every few words, that Anakin got even more territorial and extra vigilant whenever Qui-Gon was away as if he had to man up and compensate for the farmer’s absence. 

He wondered if that’s how Anakin was at that precise moment. Vigilant, watching over their farm with dedication as Qui-Gon was away buying groceries. Taking care of their land, their cattle, his wife, and his cow. The thought made him pick a bag of wet food– his boy deserved it. 

Their town was small, maybe that’s why it was so easy to run into people he knew. Breha Organa was also buying some dog food– the high-end, imported brands that made Qui-Gon want to faint from seeing the price. Padmé wasn’t with her, the hybrid girl preferred to stay in their house, with the air conditioning and her plush beds to nap on. 

Of course, as any fellow dog hybrid owner, Breha asked him about Anakin and how he was doing. Qui-Gon grimaced, wondering if he should be honest and maybe vent about all the mischief Anakin had been responsible for in the last months. 

“He’s doing fine” he answered, in the end. “Finally presented. As an Alpha, we think”

“Oh, that’s amazing!” Breha gushed “We should definitely try to set him up with our darling Padmé. Their puppies would be adorable, wouldn’t they?” 

“Yes, I’m sure they would,” he answered, giving a polite smile. 

“If you ever need her help for Anakin’s ruts, you know we are here. Considering that boy, his first rut must have been quite disastrous!” she mentioned, laughing. “He’s already so feisty! Unless you have an Omega hybrid that I don’t know of?”

Qui-Gon lifted his brows, and the word rut scratched something in his brain. Right– ruts . That’s something Alpha Hybrids went through, wasn’t it? As Omegas went through heat. He remembered Obi-Wan’s heats when he was just a heifer. The young man would moo pitifully, lying on his hay flushed and squirming. He remembered having to chase away stray and wild hybrids from his land, too, attracted by the omega pheromones. He didn’t know why, but Obi-Wan always seemed to attract a variety of predator hybrids whenever he was in heat. His previous hybrids had been beta’s which didn’t go through such things, and ever since Obi-Wan started lactating he hadn’t experienced another heat, to the point Qui-Gon completely forgot that mating cycles in hybrids were something that existed . 

“Uh– I don’t know” he scratched his beard. “A rut?”

“Yes! An Alpha’s rut. If he presented, he must have gone through one, right?” She prodded. But at Qui-Gon’s lost expression, she frowned, further explaining “They go through a Pre-rut where they turn aggressive and volatile all of a sudden, and then a rut where they become desperate to mate. If they don’t have an omega to mate they can make such a huge mess out of violent displaced frustration. You know– the usual” 

Qui-Gon mused about what Breha had told him all the way home. There was something about the monotonous landscape of Tawl that made it easy to find himself deep in his thoughts. Had Anakin been through a Rut? Qui-Gon didn’t remember it. As Breha had described it, it would have been hard to miss. Impossible, even, if he considered just how Anakin was in the regular. Plus a hazardous amount of hybrid sexual hormones? Anakin would have been a ticking bomb and the rut should have been the detonation. 

As Qui-Gon parked his truck, the issue still ran through his mind. Maybe Anakin hadn’t presented yet, and what he was seeing was the results of a Pre-Rut? It didn’t seem likely– Anakin hadn’t been aggressive lately. At least not unprompted, like the Tusken Chickens massacre. Maybe he had presented as something else? Was Anakin’s odd behavior the result of his breed instead of his second gender? 

The young hybrid appeared right by his side as he got out of his truck, as always. Anakin stared at him and sniffed the air, curious about the odors Qui-Gon carried with him. If Anakin ever smelled oil on his clothes – proof that he had been at the hardware store– he would get offended at him for going without taking him. Even if he had offered and Anakin had rejected his invitation. After a few seconds of sniffing and growling, he decided that his inspection was done and promptly helped Qui-Gon carry the groceries out of the backseat. 

He couldn’t help but observe the boy’s physique and just how much he had changed. Anakin no longer had the softness of childhood lingering around his face, replaced instead by sharp masculine features. If Qui-Gon were to hold the boy to human standards, he could say he was extremely handsome. The thought about Anakin’s second gender crossed his mind once more– was Anakin an Alpha? What had happened? 

His wife was humming an old tune while she finished embroidering some napkins, listening to the radio station from a few cities away. The sound was of lesser quality, but the songs were better overall. Qui-Gon prepared himself some coffee and then looked through the window, spotting Obi-Wan lazing around on the far grasslands. Anakin was running towards him- it probably was his time to drink milk. 

Qui-Gon was about to turn around and sit down to talk to his wife when suddenly something caught his attention. He frowned, squinting as he tried to discern what exactly he was seeing. The scene wasn’t strange– Anakin and Obi-Wan, as always, on the land. He had seen it for years now. But what he hadn’t seen yet was the way Anakin was throwing Obi-Wan on the ground, quickly pawing around his tunics. 

He drew in a sharp breath. Was Anakin hurting Obi-Wan? He panicked for a brief moment– the thought was just inconceivable. But the dog was straddling Obi-Wan, turning him around and grabbing him by the hips and–

Qui-Gon blushed, taking a step back and stumbling into a chair. His wife looked up from her embroidery project, lifting a questioning brow. 

“What are they doing?” he asked faintly, even though he could tell exactly what it was. His wife looked to where he was pointing at. After a second of confusion, she opened her eyes wide and lifted a hand towards her mouth. 

“Oh god,” she said, softly. “I didn’t think– I didn’t think it was like that ” 

Qui-Gon cleared his throat, looking away from the scene. The words Breha had said to him came back to the forefront of his mind– If they don’t have an Omega to mate…

Of course, Qui-Gon had forgotten about that little detail. Once again, the quirks and perks of hybrid nature had shown up. Anakin was an Alpha, they had been right all along. But what they had forgotten is that Obi-Wan, the hybrid he spent most of his time around, was an Omega. 

He grimaced. All those odd sounds he had begun to hear at night coming from the barn made a lot more sense now. 

Qui-Gon’s eyes betrayed him and he found himself looking to his hybrids once more– Anakin was clearly not hurting Obi-Wan if he were to judge by the expression and sounds his cow was making. 

“You don’t think they can have babies together, can you?” he asked his wife with a haunted voice, paling at the idea of a little hybrid with dog claws and cow horns. 

.

.

.

The forest was quiet. And that should have been the first clue that something was lurking in wait. 

Qui-Gon often took walks through the forest whenever he had the spare time to do so. His wife liked to go with him and search for the different gifts the forest had to give. There were pine mushrooms and also morels that grew on the soft bed of the trees which she used to make amazing dishes. In the summer, there would be countless raspberries, and in the early autumn- like at that precise moment-  wild blackberries would grow by fistfuls on the clearings. 

That day his wife hadn't gone with him. She had decided that all of their curtains should be embroidered and had busied herself with the task. Qui-Gon liked to walk alone, too. He could reflect on life and do some introspection. And anyway, he wasn't exactly alone . 

He checked over his shoulder, finding Anakin trailing near him. 

Qui-Gon didn't know what had gotten into Anakin as of late. Maybe Qui-Gon was getting old and the hybrid interpreted it as a signal to further take care of him, or maybe Anakin knew something he didn't. But when the boy saw that he was headed towards the woodlands alone, he immediately tagged along like a particularly dedicated shadow. 

Anakin didn't bother him- he didn’t interact with him unless Qui-Gon started the conversation first. He respected that his Master wanted to be alone and think by himself, but still walked beside him. It was comforting in a way. Qui-Gon was a little bit embarrassed to admit that, with the years, he had turned into quite a talkative fellow. 

"These wild berries are some of Obi-Wan’s favorites" He commented, and at the mention of Obi-Wan’s name, Anakin suddenly became very interested in whatever Qui-Gon was saying. The farmer knelt, wincing as his knees cracked a little bit and his lower back panged. Anakin softly woofed at his side, but Qui-Gon dismissed his preoccupation with a hand gesture. "Next time we can bring a basket to take some home. He would love them" 

Anakin plucked one of the berries and popped it in his mouth, savoring the flavor. He made a soft woof in approval before beginning to gather fistfuls of the berries and stuff them into his pockets. Qui-Gon laughed and took a deep breath before getting back up. His wife wouldn't be too happy about scrubbing blackberry juice from Anakin's pants pockets, but that was going to be her problem. Qui-Gon looked around and kept walking the trail that led towards a clearing ringed by cypress. He checked the ground– there weren't any morels there. He sighed. With his declining eyesight, finding the mushrooms became a whole ordeal. He walked towards the next copse of trees, shifting the ground gently with his boot as he tried to unearth them. 

He paced around, bending once or twice to pick up the mushrooms, basking in the quietness of the forest. But then it became too quiet. 

A sudden wave of uneasiness washed over him, and Qui-Gon glanced around. Anakin was nowhere to be seen, how far had he drifted off? 

“Anakin?” He called, looking around. He wasn’t there. Qui-Gon frowned. 

He turned and walked towards the direction he had last seen Anakin. He knew Anakin could easily find the way back to their farm, even faster than he could. But still, Qui-Gon couldn’t just turn and walk away without the boy– he couldn’t leave him there, in the middle of the forest. Yet Anakin had been so intent on following him closely- what had happened?

A wave of worry overcame him as the worst-case scenarios crossed his mind. Was Anakin alright? Had he been hurt? Could he have gotten tangled in the thorned thickets or fallen from a tree? He called the hybrid's name once more, to no answer. His voice echoed between the trees. 

Then he heard a snap– a twig breaking in half, right behind him. He turned around, a scolding already on the tip of his tongue, planning to tell Anakin just how much he had worried him. But he didn’t find the blue eyes and indignant frown of his hybrid, instead, he was met with a pair of cold-blooded purple irises, gazing down at him from the treeline. 

Qui-Gon’s blood ran cold and it felt like the floor had given way from beneath him as the female hybrid glowered down at him, slipping soundlessly down the tree and pacing ever closer to him. A menacing growl curled her lips, displaying her sharp fangs. She didn’t have any hair on her scalp but a pair of gray feline ears twitched as she cornered Qui-Gon against an old tree, her thick tail swinging languidly behind her. A cougar hybrid. 

He was going to die. 

Qui-Gon took in a deep breath, trying to take a step back and away from the wild hybrid, but the cougar hissed, hunching ever-so-slightly and preparing to pounce. There was no way he could fight her. There was no way he could run away. There was no–

A growl reverberated from between the trees. It was a chilling sound. So primal, so angry and so thoroughly menacing that it made Qui-Gon freeze in his place from sheer fear. And when he looked to the side, to the direction it had come from, he found Anakin . 

Or he thought it was Anakin. The wild-eyed, aggressive, and snarling creature seemed so foreign in its rage and menacing expression that it almost didn’t look like the feisty boy Qui-Gon had raised on his farm over the years. 

Anakin kept growling, and it made the cougar hybrid center her anger on him instead of Qui-Gon, answering his aggression. 

“Anakin” Qui-Gon called, out of breath because of the panic. He tried to keep his voice calm and stern. Anakin walked in front of him, acting as a barrier between him and the cougar, which made the wild hybrid snarl and hiss in aggression, readying herself for battle. Qui-Gon felt his heart squeeze. “Anakin, listen to me”

The boy kept growling, his tail rigid and body tense. He was protecting Qui-Gon, but at what cost? He didn’t want Anakin to get hurt. He was just a farm dog. He couldn’t fight a wild cougar of all things. He couldn’t stand to watch his boy die trying to protect him.

“Go, Anakin” Qui-Gon called, but Anakin didn’t budge “Go to the farm. Run . Run and go back home”

Anakin didn’t listen- not even so much as twitching an ear in acknowledgment. And before Qui-Gon could tell - beg - him to go again– to leave him there, to save himself and run to the farm where he could be safe, the cougar pounced. 

The feline hybrid had tried to dodge around Anakin and aimed at him, and for a spare second, under the wild gaze of the cougar, Qui-Gon thought he was facing certain death. But Anakin was faster and had thrown himself between them, intercepting her attack and snarling as he tried to bite her shoulder. The boy stumbled back as he tried to hold the cougar, knocking into Qui-Gon and tossing him to the ground. 

Qui-Gon gasped as he watched Anakin push the feline away and give chase, his aggressive growls and snarls reverberating between the two. The cougar was strong and fast and had menacingly sharp claws at the tips of her fingers. Those claws drew blood when Anakin tried to attack her once more and she made a vicious swipe at his face. Anakin growled and took a step back, touching his now bloody face. But the wound didn’t deter him. 

Qui-Gon sat there, stunned and with his whole body paralyzed from fear, as he watched the deadly fight between the two hybrids. Anakin was in danger– Anakin was protecting him, but he was in danger . His boy, his pup. His loyal dog was fighting a cougar .

There was no way a dog could win in a match against a cougar. 

Yet Anakin kept snarling and growling, fighting back, dodging the deadly blows of the female hybrid, and biting her viciously. His boy was covered with blood but most of it was the cougar’s from the many bites that Anakin managed to land on the hybrid.  And then with one last bite to her side, the cougar shrieked in pain and fell to the ground, ripping away from him. Anakin snarled and tensed– ready to pounce on her, but she hissed one final time before escaping between the tries, leaving a trail of blood behind her. 

A dog would have never won against a cougar. 

And the incontrovertible truth was right there in front of his eyes. In the form of a haunched beast, snarling and growling in a way that made his body freeze with primal fear; with the blood of his defeated enemy coating his face. The truth Qui-Gon had always fought to ignore, to conceal. 

Anakin wasn’t a dog. He had never been. 

He took a deep breath as Anakin turned to look at him, his wild eyes tinted with a yellow hue as he kept snarling. 

Anakin was a wolf . 

.

.

.

Qui-Gon observed Anakin in the distance. The boy was patrolling around the fence, as always, stopping every once in a while to sniff the air or to mark his territory, before continuing his rounds. 

Anakin had saved his life. 

After the wolf had fought the wild cougar hybrid that had assaulted him, they had both returned to the farm in utter silence. Qui-Gon with a limp from falling over, and Anakin with a thin scar that crossed his right brow and cheek but luckily spared his eye. 

His wife had rightfully panicked, crying in his arms from relief as she heard what had happened. Everything had turned out well in the end. Qui-Gon smiled as she came out of the house with a warm cup of coffee in her hand. She sat by his side on the porch, hugging him tightly and resting her head on his shoulder. Ever since that day, she hugged him all the time, even more than before. He couldn’t say he was complaining. 

Qui-Gon watched as Anakin flew towards Obi-Wan, who was lounging comfortably on the grass, as he always did. And he couldn’t help but remember that first night he had found the boy, a shivering orphan pup who stumbled onto his land, lost due to the storm. He had grown so much, into a tall, strong, and loyal Alpha wolf that cared for their land and his pack. 

There was one thing that hadn’t changed though. He chuckled as he observed Anakin kiss Obi-Wan’s face sweetly before undoing his robes, flattening his ears to his skull, and making pleading moon eyes to the cow, begging for some milk. He didn’t need to beg though– Obi-Wan always readily acquiesced. Qui-Gon sighed. Anakin would never wean off Obi-Wan’s bosom, wouldn’t he? 

He wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t left Anakin by Obi-Wan’s side on that first night, where the omega cow fed and held the pup in his arms, where they had bonded so closely. Would things have gone differently? Surely yes. But Qui-Gon was happy things were as they were. 

Anakin and Obi-Wan were odd creatures. He didn’t know how much of their peculiarity was due to being hybrids, how much due to being Alpha and Omega, and how much was just their unique personalities. He watched as Anakin hugged Obi-Wan closely, licking his face lovingly and wagging his tail. Well, if there was one thing Qui-Gon did know about wolf hybrids such as Anakin, it was that they mated for life. 

Qui-Gon sighed, resting his head on top of his wife’s. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, feeling as giddy and warm as if it was the first time. She kissed his cheek before staring at the distance, where Anakin was resting his head on Obi-Wan’s lap, letting himself be petted by the cow. The wolf buried his face against Obi-Wan’s belly, wagging his tail excitedly and letting out a series of growls and happy barks. 

“Honey,” she asked then “Doesn’t Obi-Wan’s stomach look a little bit too… big?”