Chapter Text
Chapter One: Lightning in the Dust
Tatooine nights were quiet in a way that made the stars feel heavier.
Anakin Skywalker moved through the alleys of Mos Espa with the ease of someone born to the shadows. The twin moons cast pale light across the sand-worn buildings, and every few steps, he glanced up at them like they might give him a reason to turn back.
He should have been asleep. Tomorrow was a long day — Watto had him repairing vaporators at dawn. But something had pulled him from his cot, some electric itch in the back of his head. A dream. A voice. He couldn’t remember. He just knew he had to go.
He stayed low as he passed the outer stalls near the slave yards — a place he avoided, even during the day. The slavers here were meaner than Watto, the kind that liked to hurt things for fun. But tonight, the yards were alive with whispers.
Three of the big Trandoshan slavers stood near the gate, arguing with someone Anakin couldn’t quite see — someone cloaked in shadow, dressed all in black. The air around him pulsed. It was wrong. Like the air before a storm.
Anakin ducked behind a pile of rusted speeder parts, heart pounding.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
He shouldn’t be here.
Then he felt it — a sudden surge in the Force, instinctive and raw, wrapping around him like a cloak. His breath caught in his throat as a cold pressure slid past, like a wave searching for something.
It didn’t see him.
He wasn’t sure how he knew, but the presence — whatever it was — didn’t notice him. Something inside him was hiding him, curling tight like a creature playing dead.
Then the screaming started.
A blinding snap-hiss cut through the air, and lightning — not natural, not like the kind from the sky — burst from the figure’s hands. Blue-white arcs lanced out, slamming into the Trandoshans. They convulsed, collapsed, their weapons dropping to the sand.
Anakin’s mouth went dry. He knew what blasters looked like. This wasn’t that.
He shrank back farther, pressing his body against the metal as the smell of scorched flesh reached him.
A feeling of safety passed over him as if a wall had been built right in front of him shielding him from this hooded figure.
The cloaked figure turned slightly, speaking in a low voice — calm, cruel, commanding. Anakin couldn’t hear the words, but the tone was enough to make him shiver.
A broken, dented plating above Anakin’s head caught the moonlight just right — and in its warped reflection, he saw the figure’s face.
Pale. Cold. Eyes like burning coals; a sickly yellow color. And something else… wrong. Like he wasn’t looking at a man at all.
Anakin didn’t breathe. Didn’t move.
After a long, unbearable silence, the figure turned and walked away, vanishing into the shadows like a nightmare retreating before dawn.
Only when the silence returned did Anakin realize his hands were shaking.
He crawled out from the scrap pile, eyes wide, skin cold with sweat. The bodies were still smoking.
He didn’t know what he’d seen. Not exactly. But the image of that face burned behind his eyes.
And he knew — whatever that was, it wasn’t supposed to exist. Not here. Not on his world.
The next morning, he would try to pretend it hadn’t happened.
But he wouldn’t forget.
Not ever.