“My name is Padmé,” she answered in a slightly embarrassed voice.
“Beautiful name,”
The girl clearly did not know how to react to another compliment, so for a moment she simply stood there in silence and smiled at me.
I, on the other hand, decided to spare her any further embarrassment and shifted my attention to Jar Jar.
Which turned out to be a very good idea.
The Gungan had just activated some kind of droid.
“Oh no…”
Jar Jar pressed another button.
The droid blinked its photoreceptors.
Then its head rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees before falling off and hitting the floor with a loud thud.
For several seconds, we all stared at it in silence.
“Meesa thinkin’ dat not supposed to happen,”
Padmé snorted with laughter, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
Jar Jar looked genuinely pleased with himself.
As if he had just made a great scientific discovery instead of destroying another piece of shop equipment.
I turned my attention back to the beautiful teenage girl standing in front of me and smiled.
“Nice to meet you, Padmé.
I’m Anakin.”
She returned the smile.
“Nice to meet you, Anakin.”
For a moment, an awkward silence hung between us.
“I love racers, and I’m a pilot,”
Padmé blinked in surprise.
“A pilot?”
“Yes.
For as long as I can remember.”
I said it with a smile, perfectly aware of how absurd such a statement sounded coming from a nine-year-old.
“You really fly?”
“Sure.
I race, repair engines, and build different things.”
Clear interest appeared on her face.
“Have you lived here long?”
“As long as I can remember.
I was three when I was sold to Gardulla the Hutt, but later she lost us in a bet during the races.”
Padmé visibly grew serious.
“You’re a slave.”
I smiled.
“Yes.
My name is Anakin.”
Padmé looked slightly embarrassed.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.
It’s just my first time in this…
strange place.”
She looked around the workshop and at the street visible beyond the shop entrance.
“You didn’t offend me.”
“That’s just reality.”
Padmé blinked in surprise.
Jar Jar activated a pit droid, which immediately began bouncing around the room like a spring without any control.
For a moment, I watched the chaos in complete silence.
I genuinely felt weakness in my legs at the thought of cleaning up the mess it was about to leave behind.
But after a second, I remembered that I was leaving this ball of sand behind anyway, and I started quietly chuckling under my breath.
Taking pity on him, I said,
“Just hit him on the front panel.
He’ll shut down immediately.”
While waiting for Qui-Gon Jinn to return empty-handed, because I knew perfectly well how that conversation would end, I decided to talk with Padmé a little.
“What are you actually looking for in Watto’s shop?”
“Our T-14 hyperdrive generator is damaged, and we need a new one,”
I nodded.
“That depends on whether you have enough funds.
I mean paggats, the local currency, because Watto won’t accept anything else.”
I remembered the price of the part and grimaced slightly.
“It’s one of the more expensive things in the whole shop.
Watto doesn’t even let me touch it.
He says that if I damaged it, he’d have to sell me again to recover the losses.”
“That’s probably bad.
I don’t think we have any peggats,” Padmé said, clearly stressed.
“It’s the currency of the Hutt Syndicate, so that’s no surprise.
You look more like people from Republic worlds.”
Padmé looked surprised for a moment.
“That’s true.
We are traveling with a certain task to Coruscant.”
“Coruscant…” I repeated with a note of envy.
“I’d really like to see that city-planet someday.”
“You’ve never left Tatooine?”
I laughed quietly.
“I’m a slave.
Honestly, most inhabitants of this planet never even leave their own city, let alone the whole world.”
Clear sadness appeared on Padmé’s face.
“That’s unfair.”
“Maybe,” “But the universe rarely cares about what is fair.
That’s why you have to take care of your future yourself.”
Our conversation was interrupted by a clearly displeased Qui-Gon Jinn, who walked past us without even looking at me and pulled Jar Jar along with him.
Apparently, the negotiations with Watto had not gone his way.
“Goodbye.
It was nice to meet you, Anakin,” quickly following the Jedi so she would not fall behind.
“You too!” I called after her retreating figure.
For a moment, I watched as the three of them disappeared through the shop doors.
And although I knew perfectly well how the next events would unfold, I could not stop a slight smile.
I had just met Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala, and Jar Jar Binks.
Clearly in a bad mood, Watto flew over to the counter and began loudly complaining about foreigners who, in his opinion, could not tell an honest price from theft.
For the next several minutes, I listened to his full outrage-filled tirade about how difficult it was to do business with people from outside Tatooine.
“They come here, waste my time, look at the merchandise, and then it turns out they don’t even have proper money!” waving his hands.
“How can someone travel across half the galaxy and not have any pegats?”
I held back from commenting.
First, I did not want to listen to another half-hour lecture.
Second, I knew perfectly well that Qui-Gon would return anyway.
“Anakin!” Watto suddenly shouted.
“Instead of standing there, clean the shelves!
There’s more sand on them than in the desert!”
“Yes, Mr Watto.”
For the next twenty minutes, I took care of the cleaning while the Toydarian still occasionally muttered under his breath about hopeless customers and even worse negotiations.
Finally, he waved his hand.
“All right, enough for today.
Go home.”
I blinked in surprise.
Apparently, the failed sale had really ruined his mood.
I was not going to complain.
I quickly said goodbye and left the shop, heading in the direction Anakin would usually have gone.
And exactly as I predicted, a few minutes later, I noticed Sebulba choking Jar Jar.
It was truly astonishing how closely events followed the original.
I sighed and stepped closer.
“Leave him, Sebulba.”
The Dug looked at me with irritation.
“What do you want, kid?”
“For you to let him go.”
Sebulba snorted.
“You know, if you weren’t someone’s property, I’d snap your neck for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
For a moment, we stared each other down.
Finally, Sebulba released Jar Jar and shoved him aside.
I noticed our Jedi quickly approaching us with a clearly curious expression.
“You could have lost your friend,” I said, pointing at Jar Jar, who was still rubbing his neck.
Qui-Gon looked at the Gungan, then sighed heavily.
“I get the impression that trouble finds him faster than most people can even think.”
“That’s true,” “Sebulba really could have snapped his neck.”
Jar Jar started explaining himself, but I did not feel like wasting brain cells listening to his whining, so I ignored him.
After a few seconds of consideration, I decided to stay with them, exactly as the original Anakin had done.
Apparently, after work he had nothing better to do anyway.
As we walked down the street, I felt Qui-Gon Jinn’s gaze, filled with clear interest, boring into my back.
A shiver almost ran through me.
I wanted to turn around right there and shout, “Please leave this poor child alone, suspicious middle-aged uncle.”
I showed them several stalls selling cheap snacks and local specialties that most tourists avoided like the plague.
At one point, we passed an older woman from the slums who had been selling small goods on the same street for years.
“Anakin!” she called.
“You’d better go home early today.
There’s going to be a storm.”
I looked at her in surprise.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.
They detected it about half an hour ago.”
I nodded.
Really, being a child had a few advantages.
Adults were often kind to you for no reason.
I turned toward Padmé and Qui-Gon.
I ignored Jar Jar.
But my gaze stopped for a moment on the astromech.
“What about you?
Do you have shelter from a sandstorm?”
“A storm?” Padmé asked.
“Yes.
If one is really coming, it’s better not to be out in the open desert.
They can be really dangerous.”
Qui-Gon frowned slightly.
“Our ship is outside the city.”
“Far?”
The Jedi nodded.
For a moment, I considered my answer, although I knew the rest of the events perfectly well.
“I don’t know if you’ll make it back there before the storm.”
I looked at Padmé, then at Qui-Gon.
“Maybe you’d like to wait it out at my place?
We don’t have much space, but it will be safer than the desert.”
“Sorry, Mom,” I thought with slight amusement.
I was almost certain she had not expected that one day her son would come home with a beautiful teenage girl, an alien resembling a walking disaster, and an adult man who looked like a monk.
I really hoped Shmi would not have a heart attack when she opened the door.
After all, this was not a movie, but real life.
To my surprise, Shmi handled my latest oddity quite well.
When we reached our little hut, she did not bombard me with questions.
She simply opened the door and invited everyone inside.
Apparently, she was simply a truly warm person.
I introduced everyone to Shmi, then quickly pulled Padmé toward my room.
Since we had some time, it was only proper to show off my droid, right?
After all, nothing impresses girls like a self-built droid.
Or at least, I really wanted to believe that was the case.
“You really built this droid yourself?”
“Mostly.
He’s still missing a few parts, mainly the casing.
He was supposed to help Mom with chores.”
“It’s still impressive.”
I shrugged.
“On Tatooine, you quickly learn to repair things yourself.
Without that, you’re finished.”
“You know surprisingly much for someone your age,” Padmé said, looking over my sketches.
“Sometimes I feel like you’re older than all the adults I know.”
“You too.
Most children don’t talk about politics and different Republic worlds as if it were everyday life.”
“I travel a lot.”
“That explains some things.”
Padmé studied me carefully for a moment.
“You’re really unusual, Anakin.”
“I’ve heard worse.”
“I’m serious.
You build droids, repair racers, and speak like an adult.”
I shrugged.
“And you travel across the galaxy.
That also doesn’t sound like a very normal life for a teenager.”
Padmé giggled.
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I’d also like to show you my racer, but better after the sandstorm.
It’s too dangerous now.”
The conversation flowed much more easily after that.
I really enjoyed talking with Padmé.
For a girl her age, she was surprisingly competent in many topics.
Maybe a little naive, but it was hard to blame her for that, considering how and where she had been raised.
I’ll have to slow down a bit because I’m struggling and I don’t want to burn out.
I’ll be posting every other day or every day, depending on my creativity.
I need to plan the next dozen or so posts.
because I want to provide you with valuable content instead of filler