"The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute—get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed."

Robert A. Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

(LINE BREAK)

"You will kneel to your Emperor, Skywalker." I said gravely with my arm out with the junk plasteel rod acting as my sword, all the while stopping myself from scowling as the rusted insulation ring for a totalled speeder engine slipped off my brow from it being a little too big for my head.

"Not today, Zurg!" Anakin yelled, his ensemble being even more outlandish than mine with a ratty blanket for a cape and a aheap, plastoid rod for his sword. "I am a Jedi, and I will beat you!"

I just laughed at the exuberant four year old that was my little brother and I twirled my 'blade' in one of the few maneuvers I managed to reteach myself in this life. Who would have thought HEMA sparring would prepare me to teach the Chosen One and brother.

"Then fight me." I declared, lunging forward and poking at Anakin's right side, intentionally missing.

Anakin squawked and swung at me like it was a baseball bat, connecting with the top of my head with enough force to draw a metallic ding from the impromptu crown.

"Argh!" I howled, dropping my 'sword' and letting myself fall to the ground bonelessly like I had been fatally struck.

Like I suspected, Anakin crept forward and poked at me with his impromptu weapon, moving closer with each prod.

"Kane?" He poked once more, which was when I sprung my trap.

I jumped up and grabbed at his hand, pulling him towards me and wrapping my arms around him. And just like that, my arms closed around him like a steel trap catching a womp rat.

"Noooo!" He squealed, trying to wriggle free. "Lemme go!"

"I will," I promised, grinning mischievously. "But not until I do this."

Without any more warning, I started tickling Anakin's sides and he let out a desperate laughing fit as he tried to get away.

I only kept it up for a few seconds before I let him go, which he took and scrambled away from me.

"S'not fair." He pouted, crossing his arms as he looked rather cross. "You're taller."

I couldn't help but laugh to myself. If this was like how it was supposed to be, Anakin was going to be about 6'2. He'll be a little taller than I originally was.

"I was a tiny little womp rat like you were too when you were just an adorable little baby." I teased, before dipping down to scoop up my 'crown' and the two 'weapons'.

Anakin just made a 'hmph' sound and plopped down on one of the cheap metal chairs I pieced together for our use.

"Don't be grouchy." I warned lightly. "Emperor Zurg is grouchy, don't be Zurg."

With all the indignant rage and fury an almost 5 year old could muster, Anakin shot a fiery azure glare at me, his face framed by his messy hair still.

"I am not Zurg." He said with every ounce of seriousness possible.

It was the most adorable thing.

"Okay, you win." I smiled and laughed lightly, tossing the toys into the storage crate that doubled as a cedar chest. "But you know what else Zurg has? A dirty face!"

Anakin's eyes widened in horror, and he jumped to try and run to the other side of the room.

"No! Don't clean my face!"

"You wanted to wrestle on the floor, Ani. You have dirt all over you."

"No!"

The scene of a gangly 10 year old chasing a yelling child was what our mother was introduced to as she entered our quarters with our rations after the day of tech repair she was scheduled to do.

"Kane, why are you chasing my son?" She asked quietly, but her voice somehow carried over the energetic prey noises the little gremlin was making as I got my hands on him finally.

"Uh," I paused, trying to think of what to say as Anakin went completely silent, "Trying to wash Anakin's face?"

"Like last time, where he fled to me to rescue him from you?" She raised her brow in question, but I could sense the warm feeling of amusement coming from her.

First, it wasn't my fault I had the hygiene sense of a Viking Age Dane that cucked all the Englishmen. I was almost obsessive about being clean, and I constantly scrubbed myself clean with the cleaning rags because baths weren't exactly a luxury afforded to us on a desert planet. But Anakin's indignation at me expecting him to be presentable wasn't something our mother appreciated all that much. She favoured babying him, at least in my opinion.

Sighing, I let Anakin go and he went scampering towards her, hiding behind her as he stuck his tongue out at me.

Where was a shock collar when you needed one?

"Do you have our supper?" I asked, already knowing the answer. But Anakin didn't and he had been complaining about being hungry just a few minutes ago.

Shmi grabbed a seal package from the cloth bag she was carrying and walked up to me, setting it in my hands.

"The tag on it was missing, so I don't know exactly what it is." She admitted, looking unhappy at that. "But it was all I could afford."

"That's fine." I shrugged, pulling on the slight seam to tear it open. I'd eaten worse and it had not fazed me, so I just opened it up and walked over to the small table we used for both tinkering with devices to trade and barter with, as well as where I kept my small collection of usable silverware.

After equipping myself with the necessary tools, I tore into the slop of mystery meat with gusto, ignoring the taste as I practically shoveled it into my mouth so as not to retch from the flavour.

Yeah, it was like an expired MRE.

Shmi didn't scold me, only because I had explained before that I did it so I wouldn't barf it up. Anakin was explicitly told not to eat like I did, because it wasn't something Shmi or I wanted him to emulate.

Sighing as I finished eating, I glanced at Anakin and our mother as they both ate, and another repeat of my musings resurfaced about the future. The air felt thicker lately, for lack of a better term, and I was having dreams that I feared were muddled visions; dreams of pain, and screaming, with a feral howl like a wolf echoing around me. There weren't even flashes of anything to see, just sound and sensation.

All it did was motivate me to continue my self-education in the Force, particularly the Light. The Beast would never have a claim on my soul, no matter how much I heard those faint whispers when I failed to suppress the radiating of pain, fear, and worse yet, resignation, the other slaves felt. Actually feeling the spiritual effects of breaking a slave brought back that old rage, a rage I learned to channel into productivity in the Marines, and the whispers were real now.

But I couldn't. I was a killer, and I enjoyed it, but corruption was the last thing I needed when the Jedi Order was my goal. Bide my time, get in with Anakin, learn everything possible, then become strong enough to stand by Anakin and protect him from the Sith, and even himself.

As I thought of those things while looking at Anakin, it just made me realize that I really needed to make a breakthrough in training myself in preparation for the next four years.

(LINE BREAK)

The dull whirring noise of the repaired droid arm I just finished with was barely making a sound once I greased the internal gears that made up the shoulder joint and I took a moment for myself to train my telekinesis again.

Anakin was currently helping Shmi with something to do with basic tech repair ever since one of the overseers realized Anakin was very skilled with anything related to technology or machines. So, I had our quarters to myself right now while Shmi was tasked with teaching Anakin while on the job.

I refocused my mind back into lifting and rotating the arm with the Force, flexing it at the elbow and clenching the fingers into a fist with a gesture of my own hand.

So far, I was hard locked in using hand gestures to get anything to move. I had to flick my hand or twitch my fingers to get my mind to act, and it was just a little bit aggravating. It was a sign of a mental block and handicap that needed to be rectified. But on the bright side, I made a breakthrough in my meditation exercises after conducting a bit of an experiment in physical exercise out of personal curiosity.

Cardio and pushups were painfully difficult compared to my past life. I was a lean, mean fighting machine in the Marines, capable of hours of exercise that left a delicious burn and kept my thoughts clear and sharp. I was a relatively young guy in his twenties and now, I was a scrawny little slave that couldn't get enough calories unless I did extra work to scrape out a few items to barter with. But at least Gardulla and her overseers allowed it.

But what was a typical exercise back before now left me a panting and sweaty mess, but colour me surprised when my sometimes shaky hold on the Force when I was too calm was as steady as it ever was for the next hour. Exertion and me actively doing something physically had done a better and quicker job at fortifying my hold on the Force than what typical meditation did.

And that was when it hit me. There was a type of moving and active meditation some Force users did, particularly martially inclined ones.

So today, a free day was set for trying that experiment once again, with the entire room to myself so I had sufficient space to maneuver.

I stood up and pushed the chair up to the short table, then I backed up and started stretching lightly, hopping on the balls of my feet lightly in anticipation. The next thing I did was grab three different machine parts from the table; a cylinder shaped fuel regulator for a heater, some type of engine filter that Shmi was working on, and a turbine engine that was certifiably archaic as a means to air cool whatever it was meant for, and I set them in a triangle around me. One was set on the ground to my right, another was set on the bed Anakin and our mother shared, and the last went to my cot behind me.

After doing that, I closed my eyes and focused on my heartbeat, feeling the thrum of it in my chest and the subtle sensation of my own blood flow in my ears. Focusing on that helped me to sink into the shallow pool of the Force I could regularly submerge myself into, and the faint shiver and sudden warmth that I identified with grasping said eldritch energy danced up and down my spine. It was like feeling the sun on my skin, and I could almost feel where everything was around me in my mind.

I stayed rooted to the spot, basking in that faint warmth that spread throughout my extremities, until my eyes sprang open and I lashed out with a punch at an imaginary foe in front of me. My left leg planted into the ground and I threw another punch, hopping back and around the center of the room and continuing to shadow box.

Throughout the constant combination of punches and jabs, I kept my mental hold on the warmth that was the Force and I felt the warm caress against my mind grow steadily with each passing moment that I was locked in a mock battle.

Inevitably, my mind drifted to the memory of my first fight that carried lethal risk. Every single detail of that night filled my senses now, the intensity making my breath quicken that wasn't from exertion. The smell of alcohol, body odor; the bared yellow teeth and unkempt beard of the knife wielding animal that tried to kill me. I swore I could see him in front of me as I evaded a stab towards my face with a fluid duck and lunged forward.

My skin felt feverish and I started hearing a dull roar trying to break through the background of my thoughts to distract me, but I paid no mind to it as I practically surrendered to the sensation of near euphoria that I hadn't experienced in over ten years. It was greater than any drug, I was drowning in liquid sunfire and I almost forgot where I even was.

Just as my breathing started to run ragged and a bead of sweat dripped from my forehead down to the tip of my nose, I suddenly stopped and pivoted, turning towards the fuel regulator on the bed and jabbed my arm forward and hand out with my fingers splayed to grip it with the Force.

Where it had once been a soft glow with an occasional variation in the warmth of it when I touched the Force before, it was now a kaleidoscope of light and flame, and the metal cylinder didn't just get levitated; the durasteel that made up the outside groaned audibly and nearly imploded from the strength of my grip on it.

The shock of the potency of my connection jarred me from the euphoric state, and the fiery energy I felt throughout my attempt at meditation dissipated, leaving me shivering and my legs wobbly. Without me gripping it, the regulator fell and tumbled to the ground with a sharp clang, coming to a stop on the floor.

I came down from the high and I stood rooted to the spot for a moment, trying to gather my bearings. That was so… intense. Not even my lashing out at the overseer had been this potent, and that had almost frightened me when it happened.

After confirming that I wasn't going to lose my balance and fall to the ground, I walked up to the product of my attempt at moving meditation, stooped down to pick it up and I inspected it, specifically the compression in the center of it from my accidental near crushing of it.

As my fingers brushed against the dented scar left from the manifestation of my will, another shiver went through me and I just looked at it, but it wasn't from the sudden chill that occured when I let go of my grip on the Force. No, this was from the realization that the first time I truly managed to sink my proverbial fingers into the Force, as a 10 year old, resulted in me almost crushing a durasteel cylinder that was pressure tested to handle a decent amount of stress and strain.

Just how powerful was I?

That was a good question, but a better question at the moment was whether I could replicate it again and continue to self train myself with a much greater intensity than I could before.

Yeah, I think I can do that.

Without a word, the dented hunk of junk was put back in its proper place at the foot of the bed and I reentered the center of the artificial triangle. With a wide grin on my face, I started once again.

(LINE BREAK)

"17. 18." Anakin counted off slowly as I did another rep of push-ups, his blue eyes practically shining in awe at my display of totally unmatched prowess. It was funny just how easily impressed he was, even if he was admittedly a five year old.

Once I hit 20, I stopped and planted my right knee on the floor to brace myself and take some weight off my burning arms, and I pushed up to stand. I then followed that up with me reaching out to sense Anakin through the Force, and sure enough, I could sense the surface of his thoughts and emotions from my fortified connection after my exercise.

"Okay, ready to grab some food?" I asked, having been bartering for extra food without Shmi following us for the last few days. The palace was fairly safe for slaves, all things considered. The last time someone tried to cause serious damage to someone, they got strung up and whipped bloody with a metal chain by the Zabrack enforcer that nobody screwed with. The guy was the most jacked humanoid I'd ever seen and it left me, not quite fearful, but uneasy at incurring his wrath.

I moved on from that dark thought and smiled at Anakin, who grinned up at me.

"Yeah!" He exclaimed, absolutely adoring the prospect of spending time with his big brother. "Can we trade my moisture converter?"

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Anakin was so proud of his mechanical skill and jarred the hell out of me despite knowing of his gift beforehand. And the little brat managed to repair a rather valuable piece of tech on a desert planet, a miniature version of those moisture absorbers that pulled water particles from the air.

"No." I said, reaching out with my hand and using the Force to pull the two repaired cobulator parts that I managed to piece together into my waiting hands. "We'll get something special that isn't food with that."

Anakin pouted slightly and I could feel some irritation bleeding through his presence; it still felt strange to try and decipher what each emotion felt like, almost like retraining yourself to understand colours and the sensation of temperature. But I was making due.

"Well? Let's hurry up and go, Ani, if you're wanting to get some blue milk." I said, turning on my heel and marching out of the room.

At the mention of those two words and my departure, Anakin visibly brightened up and hurried after me to catch up, reminding me to shorten my stride some so he could keep up.

We made our way to the center of a hall about 50 meters to our left that led to a small market place that most of the slaves went to regularly, and the typical traffic of assorted humanoids made the rounds throughout the multiple, makeshift stalls that always sprung up whenever a portion of a single afternoon was granted for slaves to stack up on food and rations they could trade for.

Crowded. Was my first thought as I made sure Anakin was right next to me and I started assessing the environment for a potential exit like I always did. Hand needs to be free, count first.

I counted at least a hundred assorted aliens and humans in a space meant to comfortably fit half that, and the prospect of theft or kidnapping was always a threat. It wasn't to threaten Gardulla, no, it was to extract personal trinkets like what I was holding from other slaves. The overseers didn't give a damn, just so long as no severe or permanent injury occurred in the shake down..

Just like the spirit of some of those African markets, but the smell here was worse.

So with that in mind, I needed to give Anakin one of the items to free up my dominant arm.

"Hey, can you hold this one for me, Ani?" I asked my brother kindly, suppressing the edge in my voice while gesturing with my head towards the object in my right hand.

Anakin didn't seem to notice my mood and nodded giddily, the flash of glee I felt go off in my head making me almost take a step back from the brightness. Anakin's emotions were extremely loud, even more than the other children that wore their emotions like fluorescent paint, completely visible and obvious. And I don't think I'll ever completely adjust.

With Anakin's acceptance, I stooped down and dropped the cobulator into his waiting hands. Anakin was all smiles at that, and now I was much more relieved since my hand was free and I started walking to a particular stall, hoping Grahm was there. He was a grizzled old human that was a retired bounty hunter, and he tended to have good non perishables in stock on most weeks.

The deeper Anakin and I got into the cluster of sapients, the stronger the scent and brighter everything was as I started squinting involuntarily from me unintentionally sensing all of them through the Force.

All things considered though, this state of affairs was actually marginally better than some of the rumours I'd heard coming out of North Africa when we moved there in preparation for deployment in Europe. Slave markets were conducted in secret then, too afraid of Uncle Sam's door kickers to do it openly.

A flash of what I determined was anger emanating from in front of us and shouting pulled me from that particular memory and on instinct, I stepped in front of Anakin and pulled my shiv from within a pouch I stitched into my long sleeve shirt. In an instant, loud chattering broke out and over a dozen people scattered out of the way to get away from where the source of the situation was unfolding.

The source, as it turns out, was between a female that looked almost human but was an unknown species to me, and an Aqualish that was snarling in his own tongue that I couldn't understand. Flanked beside them were likely friends because they looked prepped and ready to fight.

"... E chu ta!" Was the tail end of what I heard the near human yell at the Aqualish, which was immediately followed by a punch smashing into the Aqualish's face with a loud crack.

And that was how the fight began.

"Move!" I hissed at Anakin, pushing him along as the brawl broke out between them in full frenzy and a couple bottles got flung, with shouts of profanity coming from more than one.

This was pretty much the pattern of most days, occasional brawls and chaos with the rest of the time filled with a constant monotony of work and me training myself physically in ways I knew I safely could without hurting myself, and my training in telekinesis and sensing people.

I made a beeline to the outside section of stalls, sliding the shiv back up my sleeve and I kept my hand on Anakin's shoulder while squeezing through different people to reach Grahm.

Once I cleared through enough people, I spotted him before Anakin did because of my greater height and I made eye contact with him, waving in greeting.

"Grahm's just ahead, Ani." I gestured, smiling to myself when I heard the quiet 'Yes!' come from him at the unsaid promise of good food.

We reached his stall and I nodded to him in greeting, setting my cobulator on the worn, durasteel table he had set up to separate his wares from the impromptu walkway.

"Fancy seeing you again, Kane." He greeted me gruffly, scratching at the beard he'd grown out even more since the last time I'd seen him. He then glanced down at what I set in front of him. "And with a patched up engine cobulator by the looks of it."

"Yep!" Anakin chirped loudly, drawing Grahm's attention to him, and his own cobulator he was holding.

"Make that two cobulators, Grahm." I said, sweeping my gaze over the stacks of crates that were popped open, revealing stacks upon stacks of sealed ration packs.

Yeah, we're going to eat well for the next few weeks.

"Hmmm, lemme have a look, kid." He gestured for Anakin to hand him the device, which he did. Grahm then rotated it in his hands, peering at it carefully. "This one's not in the best of shape, I expected better."

"That one was still salvageable, the other's just better." I clarified, feeling a bit insulted for a moment. I busted my ass to fix that thing up to be considered functional. "Others would've scrapped it for parts, but I fixed it and already ran it through a ship engine and it didn't explode." I conveniently left out that I probably should've scrapped it, because it was a piece of junk before I got ahold of it.

But the way I made sure the parts worked was that another slave of Gardulla's patched together a rudimentary engine that was used to plug in repaired parts to see if they function properly, and I had both tested after paying the necessary price for the 'rental'. They worked just fine, hence me bartering with them.

"Alright, I can trust you on your word." Grahm conceded, eying me with a crinkled smile making the wrinkles and age lines on his face deepen further. "I can probably trade 10 rations for the good one, and 4 for this one." He held up the one he was holding for emphasis.

Anakin looked ready to immediately agree, but I scoffed loudly and pressed my hand against my chin. "You might get someone who's some stoopa to agree to that, but come on, Grahm. You know I can go somewhere else and get more than that."

I could easily get over 20 rations if I traded both to another vendor. Granted, I actually got along with and liked Grahm and would prefer to trade with him over the other rabal that were barely tolerable, but not enough to eat that loss in trade value.

"Hey," Grahm protested, scowling at my response, "Don't compare me to those cretins that stuff womp rats in bags and call it rations."

"What?!" Anakin squeaked, eyes wide in horror.

You. Mother. Fucker. Goddamnit, Grahm. You just had to make a stupid joke.

"He's just joking, Anakin." I assured him, rubbing his shoulder to stop him from freaking out further. "There's not any womp rats in your food."

I was the one that ate roadkill like a barbarian. Which, if I were honest, killing and eating womp rat maybe wasn't a bad idea.

As I thought of what to say as a counter, my eyes caught the dusty durasteel crate of bottles at the back of the stack, and on the side of the crate it said, condensed blue milk in Aurebesh.

"How about this," I decided to make a counteroffer after seeing that, "I'll accept 15 rations, and I'll take five of those blue milk bottles."

Grahm actually laughed. "I'd sooner accept double the rations than that, Kane. Blue milk's more valuable than rations lately."

Tusken raiders had been more active lately, and it put a bit of a dent in some of the sort of ranches outside the cities producing more of the commodity. The milk was expensive now, and we'd gone without for awhile now.

So, there was a reason it hadn't been sold.

"Which is why that crate's dustier than the floor." I deadpanned, scuffing my heel to kick up a slight cloud of dust for emphasis. "Nobody buying this week? Tends to happen sometimes if it's a damaged or bad batch. My guess is it's either misplaced or bad, so I'll take any heat off of you from pinching the milk off someone."

I was being a more aggressive negotiator now. I wanted that milk because it tasted far better than the water or that swill that some moron chemist called liquor from a month ago. Man was lucky I didn't shank him for giving me a shot of what tasted like gasoline. And I could deal with that pasteurized crap that made for bad butter or yogurt.

Also, I could feel Anakin's desire for it. He loved the stuff.

Grahm didn't look happy, but I could practically see the cogs in his head move as he glanced at me, to the offered cobulators, then to the bottles.

After a few moments, he sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Alright, you little brat. You got a deal." He relented and reached out to shake my hand, which I accepted and shook it. "But you're not getting a box for the bottles." He added, pointing to a ratty cloth bag on the left side of the table that was stacked on top of others that looked equally as bad. "Grab two of those."

They were better than nothing, so I accepted that and watched calmly as Grahm loaded up the bags with rations, then the bottles were put in the second bag with a metallic ting from the bottles hitting against each other. He then handed me the bags and took the cobulators, wishing me a good rest of the day.

"Come on, Anakin, let's get back before mom does." I said to him, the 5 year old perking up and following me as we made our way out of the market and back to our room.

Once we got back and I set down the newly acquired food and drink on the bed, I turned to look at Anakin. I could sense confusion radiating from him, if the matching look on his face hadn't clued me in.

"Yeah?" I asked softly, tilting my head as I looked down at him.

"Why were you and Grahm being mean?" He asked with an innocence only a child could muster, well, as much as could be managed by a child that had learned from overhearing spacers stopping by the markets and Gardulla's employees that Tusken raiders were disgusting savages that butchered people living outside the cities. I never expected my shielding of him made him not understand the bravado surrounding bartering though. It made him less scarred in the Force than I expected, that's for certain, which never failed to take a weight off my shoulders. But it will become a detriment if he doesn't learn about the insincere insults and two-facedness of the world under proper supervision.

No time like the present to explain that, I guess.

"Well, you know how those cat things in the alleys growl at each other before a fight?"

(LINE BREAK)

"I'm gonna travel to them all." Anakin said resolutely, gazing up at the stars with me.

The sky was completely clear of any obstruction and the starry night was sparkling in its full glory for us to look at. Anakin was enraptured by it, and it was small moments like this where I could shut my eyes and still see the outline of the Force radiating from him and the very atmosphere seemed to ripple faintly with each breath he took.

Hitzerk, one of the Mirialin guards that actually took a liking to me for whatever reason, let us sit outside past our curfew so we could look up at the stars. I had done this before as a small child and gotten away with it because I was four years old and wouldn't be beaten for getting away, and no guard would want to admit that a child snuck away. But all that changed when I turned six and needed to watch out for being disciplined.

"That might take awhile." I pointed out, glancing at him as we were sitting side by side. I then turned my head back up to look at the stars, imagining that I could somehow possibly see Coruscant from here. "And I'm going with you because it sounds fun."

"It'll be so wizard." Anakin smiled, leaning into my arm to retain some warmth from the nighttimes on Tatooine being rather cold. "Mom's coming too."

If I had any say in it, we were all getting off this planet.

"Of course," I ruffled his hair, making him groan loudly, "Can't leave you unsupervised for a second, can I?"

Anakin just pulled himself closer to me, looking up at the sky with as much focus as I'd ever seen on his face.

"One of those stars has the planet Coruscant orbiting it." I explained, pointing up at a random one with my right hand. "Coruscant is where the Jedi Temple is, and where people like us learn to be Jedi."

"Like us?" He asked confusedly. An adorable frown was on his face as he tried to decipher what I meant by us.

I just raised my brow and reached out with my hand, levitating the empty bottle of water I brought with me while we sat out here and brought it close to our faces. The coated durasteel rotated in slow motion counterclockwise with a faint flick of my fingers.

"You have this power too, Anakin." I said seriously, taking his right hand with my left as I slowly lowered the bottle to the ground and refocused myself to him specifically. "That Mandalorian I talked to a long time ago told me the Jedi call this power 'the Force', and that they can sometimes feel when other people have it. You feel different from everyone, even Mom. I know you can do what I can."

It was a little white lie that wouldn't hurt him. I wanted him to feel included in this, so I misled.

"I… I do?" He asked weakly, looking shocked at the revelation. "Do Kitster and Pala have it?"

At the mention of Anakin's human and Twi'lek friends he made relatively early on here, I felt his hope rise minutely.

"I d-don't, how do I do it?" He managed to get out the question and I squeezed his hand to reassure him.

"It's kind of hard to explain." I said slowly, trying to think of how exactly to explain it to a kid that had no context for it like I did. "But it's a bit like touching something without your hands, but weirder. Like, try and think how weird it would be if you could feel yourself get warm when you see something red."

Anakin hardly understood anything. I could tell from his expression and the feeling coming from him that I learned to associate with confusion.

Here's hoping I can actually do it properly.

"Here." I shifted how I was sitting so we were facing each other properly, then I put my hands on his shoulders. "Close your eyes and picture my face, nothing else."

Anakin looked skeptical, but he listened to me and he shut his eyes, a faint frown marring his face.

Odds are, Anakin and I had a Force bond from the close blood relation we had, and the fact that I had actually chosen to see him as my brother on top of being one by blood cemented it as a likely possibility. It also made sense if it was the bond that made it very easy to feel glimpses of his emotions and not just that he was Force sensitive.

"Are you thinking of my face?" I asked calmly.

"Yes." Anakin replied quietly, an air of anticipation surrounding us that I could guess came from the youngest of our family looking forward to moving things with his mind.

"Good, now I want you to just think of your breathing and me, nothing else. Feel your heartbeat and listen for my voice." I then reached out with the Force as I did when sensing my environment, and brushed against Anakin's signature.

It was difficult to explain to anybody who wasn't Force sensitive what it was like to receive information about the tangible aura of somebody's life force. It wasn't quite as difficult as explaining colour to a blind man, but it was adjacent to it from a technical standpoint. It was an additional sense on top of the typical five, at least for humans, and thus was not fully explainable with that type of terminology.

The most accurate comparison I could make was that brushing against Anakin's signature gave the same feeling of pleasant relaxation that you would get when lounging in the early morning sun, a pleasant warmth that was relaxing. It wasn't the sensation of the sun itself, it completely skipped the catalyst itself and went straight to the feeling of the pleasantness from the sun.

Pausing my breath for a moment, I focused on the thin bead that connected my senses to Anakin's signature, and a faint whispering of his name in my head while gently pushing against like I did when trying to read deeper followed.

Anakin stirred and his eyes opened. "You said my name."

A wide smile broke out on my face and I squeezed his shoulders some in assurance. "I didn't say your name with my mouth, I said it with my mind, Ani. It means you can use the Force, but I need you to concentrate again, okay?"

The lid on his excitement was precariously thin, but my request barely managed to keep the lid in place as he nodded and shut his eyes again. If his presence flared too much from his emotions, I wouldn't be able to establish the weak connection I could manage at the moment.

"I'm going to do that again," I explained quietly, rubbing my thumbs against his shoulders to help center him for a moment, "I want you to focus on what you feel across your skin and in your chest when you hear me say your name. I'll do it three times and then tell me how it feels."

With that, I stoked myself up to thicken my own presence in the Force in the hopes of making my message have a larger footprint for Anakin to feel the echoes of. Said stoking was me stirring up the memories of the day Anakin was born, and the emotions I had felt with such a ferocious intensity; fear of harm, fraternal love, protective fury, all of it was more intense than at any point in my past life and I felt a rush through every sinew and drop of blood in my body as I whispered Anakin's name once more through a string that now shimmered between us like the twinkling stars in the sky.

Anakin.

My fear of being too weak to protect him and Shmi put some fire in the warmth the Force provided to my soul, almost too hot for comfort. But I felt Anakin's Force presence shift in sync with my message, confirming he heard it.

Anakin.

My love for him ran deeper than any other throughout my life. Blood demanded I protect and care for my own brother by blood, and honour made the equal demand that I protect the brother I chose to be mine. Two powerful spells that turned my blood and soul into a crackling blaze that almost painfully burned away the icy touch that tried to settle at the edges of my mind at times when my sadistic streak became more pronounced, and left a smouldering mark on Anakin as it carried my message to him.

A shiver rippled through his frame that I could feel, but it wasn't an unpleasant one. It was like when suddenly wrapped in a warm blanket, and the pinched features of my little brother focusing intently on my instructions relaxed completely.

His name might have meant 'warrior', and the wrath and power of the Force may be at his command in the future, but he was my brother first and foremost of all things in this cruel world; I would be first through the wall to bathe in fire and blood before I would let him. I committed… horrible things in my past life with full knowledge of what I was doing, but I never regretted it because it was done to avenge my battle brothers, men who I had known only for weeks at that time.

Anakin was so much more than that, and I would bring a tens of thousands year old republic and their mortal enemies crashing down in a storm of screaming steel, stone, and blood if they dared lay a hand on my little brother.

You will be a Jedi, I promise. That memory, streaking unbidden through my mind, amidst a deluge of emotions that were beginning to make me feel feverish, was what I ended up saying to him and it proved too much for me to continue. The connection snapped and reverted back to its normal state and I pulled Anakin into a hug, holding him tight.

I felt more than heard Anakin's surprise, but underneath it was a bone deep warmth like a furnace.

"Did you hear what I said?." I managed to say, my voice cracking from the emotional wave I was struggling to compartmentalize.

"I'll be a Jedi." He mumbled into my chest, his much shorter arms struggling to wrap around my waist as he returned the brotherly embrace. "I felt warm, and happy."

It worked. It actually worked.

"Good." I said, more to myself than anything else. "Tomorrow, I'll teach you some more so you can use the Force like me really soon."

I didn't need to even look at Anakin to know how ecstatic he was at that promise. His thoughts betrayed him at this moment.

Not a single iota of darkness, just the same painfully bright affection he held for me and our mother turned up to 11.

Yeah, maybe I could pull off what Jinn or Kenobi couldn't. This kid wasn't falling, and it would be all because of me.

It was with that thought that I shifted my body to lean against the back of the sandstone rooftop that we were sitting on and wrapped one arm around Anakin to pull him towards me.

"Look at the stars, Anakin." I looked up at the sky, remembering the first time I saw the unfamiliar constellations like it was yesterday, and my wide eyed little brother looked up with me. "Each of them are like our suns, and they're so beautiful aren't they? Watch them, and see yourself running with them."

I paraphrased what I had once heard a lifetime ago, and I held him tight to me and tried to project what I felt about him into the open. Maybe, just maybe, he could sense it.

Four more years. Four more years and Anakin would be free from this planet, and I would be in the clear through Jinn or Vos coming back. Until then, I would do as I always did, and prepare for the approaching storm.

(End chapter)

Kane makes a giant leap forward in being able to use the Force, and now can do more substantial feats.

Mostly a general progression of things and whatnot. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and have a great day.

Raging.