101 Star Wars Variations 89: The Father

For so long, she told everyone that there was no father.  How could she reveal the truth?  But in retrospect, it reveals so much...

You see, Anakin Skywalker's father was a Sand Person.

Shmi had been kidnapped by them twice.  The second time was after Anakin had left Tatooine.  The first was more unpleasant than the second.  You understand, she died the second time.  The first was worse.  The first time, she...

So anyway, that's why she told people that.  It was easier than the truth.   Her whole life was like that, hiding from the truth.  That was what life was like for her.  She shielded so much of it from her son.  Sometimes she wondered if this affected his development, made it impossible for him to deal with awful truths without reacting in anger.  She had never been angry in front of Ani.

This isn't to say that she didn't feel anger.  She felt it for all those who had made it so easy for it to happen.  She felt it for an existence that offered her no alternative.  She felt it for not only feeling powerless, but being powerless.

The only hope she ever felt was when she looked in her son's eyes.  She saw great power in him.  He would never be a victim.  He would always fight.  There was danger within him, too, but was it really worse than what she had known?  She didn't think so.  She believed, she knew that something good had finally happened to her.

The pain would end.  Cliegg took much of it away, but he was a substitute, a beggar with good intentions.  But in the end, just another victim.

Whatever it meant, these...midi-chlorians the Jedi spoke of, perhaps she had had some in her, too.  Perhaps that was the only way she'd had the strength to endure for as long as she did.  They were the only gift, the only inheritance she could give the boy.  Something she'd always had.  Something he could use better.

Like her father before her, Shmi Skywalker would only see her suffering end in death.  But her son would see something else.

He would know wonders...