( act one  ⎯  blood in the water )

Anakin Skywalker had been brought up under the burning red light of Tatooine's dying twin suns. Raised in a wasteland formed by endless dunes of sand and infernal heat, with his ankles and wrists chained to the very core of whatever hell could be found underneath all the golden grains of sand that covered the entire surface of the planet — unable to move, unable to escape from the claws of the hutt and from Watto's tyranny.

But despite this — despite being wrapped by chains his weak arms couldn't yet break — he never, not once, called it 'home'.

It didn't matter how much his mother reassured him by telling him how 'safer' Tatooine was compared to Mandalore (although he knew that even she herself didn't fully believe in her own words. The way she spoke was as if her reassurances were for her instead of him; After all, she had married a Mandalorian with the intention of running away from that very world — for him. He was sure she hated Tatooine almost as much as he did), or how much good she attempted to make out of their miserable situation, Anakin's only wish was to see his father's shadow silhouette in the horizon once again; Walking towards their little sandstone hut to tell them war was finally over, that they all could finally go back home. But that was impossible, and the scenario existed only in his dreams.

("We are safe here," His mother's words were like a recording on a stuck disk. "Now no war will never reach us.")

Mandalore was where his story began — it was his home. The only place he could think of when he heard that damned word. Home could only be described as the vanishing memory of his father's apartment at the very edges of Sundari, devastated by the civil war despite its remoteness; It's dull-gray walls, covered almost completely with their little family's framed pictures and his crayon-made drawings, army badges and honor medals Luke Skywalker's fearlessness had won him. The same medals Anakin once thought as his legacy —what the Skywalkers represented — the very thing he aspired to be: An honorable Mandalorian soldier who's greatest honor was to serve their people by fighting in whatever battle dawned upon the gray wastelands of the planet.

He clings tooth and nail to the memories of home he still has left. To every smell and every texture; To the way the fourth step of the stairs creaked every time someone stepped on it, to the spot by the door where his father would hide a second set of keys for his mother, aware of Shmi's habit of always forget hers on her spot at the dining table before every trip to the market; To the constant noise complaints from the neighbors over him, and his favorite hiding spot in one of the cabinets beneath the sink. No matter how many times his mother yelled at him how much it wasn't, he felt oddly safe there.

Anakin could still remember the sound of the leaking water (the times they had water, that is) and the patterns in which the drops fell. Humid but warm, and it was the only place where he could eavesdrop on his parents without them shooing him away and the only place inside the apartment where the restless sound of gunshots, blasters and cannons firing seemed unable to reach his ears. Where he could pretend there was no war threatening to destroy everything he knew. Safe.

He didn't have that anywhere else. Tatooine  had not deserved the title of home, he couldn't (nor did he want to) bring himself to give it. Three, tedious and wearisome, years and he hadn't found a single corner around the hovel he lived in — the only thing his mother could afford — where he felt half as safe as he did in that wretched spot beneath the sink. And ironically enough, he hadn't found one in his new quarters amongst the great halls of Coruscant's elegant Jedi Temple either.

(Because where could he hide from being a slave then? Where could he ever hide from being the chosen one now? — If he ever could.)

With his small wooden sword wrapped in between his hands (the same sword his father had carved for him in an event he couldn't quite remember), Anakin recalls the story his mother had been telling him earlier that afternoon while she cradled him in her lap as they watched the sunset, waiting for his father's silhouette to appear in the horizon as he returned home. Everytime Luke promised he would come back home, he did; Because Luke, like every Skywalker, was a man of word.

(Shmi could remember the black bearded mercenary. She was 13 or maybe 14, sitting on a sandstone rock, watching at the sunset on the only break she was allowed to have. Casha sleeping soundly on her lap.

He had been a robust man that had taken pity on her — little pity, she guessed, as the only thing he could offer to her was a small piece of bread taken apart by his dirty hands covered in charcoal, and a fairy tale that had been of no use to her until Anakin was born.

". . . Lightbringer suffered from the fall of the Great Lion and the consequences of her actions fell heavy on her back." She exaggerated her expressions, her actions and her words in front of her son in the same fashion of the nameless black-bearded mercenary. "But as she leapt to her death, Lightbringer buried the edge of her blade in the very eye of the dragon! And she saved the universe from doom.")

His sword was nothing like the weapon he had pictured while his mother related the child's fable; It was not white, it did not shine, and it had nothing mystical irradiating from it, but he still pictured the epic and heroic scene as adjusted his hands and turned his hips to swing the wooden sword, with such force that he loses balance and control over his own body, before managing to hit his father in the abdomen.

Faced with the blow, Luke threw himself on his back in a dramatic manner, acting out his death as he laid on the cold floor at his son's feet while the boy cheered at his victory.

"I won again!" His son's face splits into a smile as he raises his fists in celebration. A bright, sweet smile Luke would never get tired of seeing.

Luke lets his arms down as he opens his eyes again. "You did, buddy." He sighed. "I think you're a better swordsman than me now."

Anakin grins. "I've always been." He said smugly.

Luke chuckles in response, his soothing grin looked unseemly against his saddening sight. His body starts feeling weak, getting used to the ground against his armor and the feeling of his backbone cracking inside. Anakin craned his neck, as if the change of perspective would suddenly whisper his father's thoughts to his ears. A foolish thought until something in the ambiance shifts, and suddenly Luke's woes were his.

"Dinner's ready!" Shmi called out from the kitchen and that seemed to be enough for both of them to return to the present.

"Come on, champ." Luke groaned as he got on his feet. "You'll help me set the table."

Anakin didn't move from the spot he was standing on. He left his toy sword on the coffee table beside him and stared at his father with worry. He is hiding something, the feeling says, although he doesn't need of the strange presence to tell. "Are you leaving tomorrow?" The itch in his throat the question gave him vanished as soon as he let it go.

"I have to." Luke replied monotonically.

Anakin pouted, furrowing his eyebrows. "I want to go with you!"

(The times when Luke could rest from the blood and battle were rare. And even when he laid besides his wife on his own bed, sleeping didn't seem to be any easier than it was on the battlefield. He found himself staring at the ceiling with his eyes wide open, his dreams had become a restless loop of bloodshed and screaming, and every time he successfully made them cease he wondered why. Why did he keep fighting in the stupid wars this world kept throwing at him?

And every time he opened his eyes again he found his answer: Shmi.

The only thing that made him rise along the distant sun every morning of his life were her and her son. His son. The only reason he kept fighting was to give them a better life — the best he could provide, so Anakin wouldn't grow up with the taste of bilis fear brought and instead know peace. Only peace for the rest of his life.

The idea of ​​Anakin fighting, feet buried at the front lines, didn't please him at all. But he felt — in his heart something told him — that it was necessary, that this was his role in the boy's life: Because if he didn't teach him to defend himself, then what would become of him if one day his father doesn't come back home? What would become of him once he isn't there to protect him anymore?)

"Maybe when you're older." Luke quivered, picking his son's toys from the floor. "I still need someone to take care of your mother while I'm gone." He gave his son a soft smile before patting him on the shoulder, motioning for him to begin walking towards the dining room. "And who better for the task than the best of the best?"

His bones told him there was more to it, but Anakin decided to ignore it, almost dismissing the lurking gloom in his father's smile as he returned the gesture. "I guess you're right."

Luke remains silent before stopping his son in front of the door-less frame and crouching in front of him. His brows furrowed in doubt, considering his words well before daring to speak them. "You know why I fight, right?"

"Because that's what Mandalorians do!" He stated as soon as the question left his father's mouth, without a trace of doubt in his voice.

"No— Well..." Luke grimaced. Anakin understood he was at least half-right. "We fight to make a change. A good one." The man struggled to find the right words to give his young son an explanation simple for him to fully understand. "And sometimes, the only way to achieve a change for the better means more fighting."

"Why?"

"I don't know." He replied frankly. "Some people only care to listen when there's violence involved." Anakin doesn't answer, his father's words almost sound like another person's as he spoke them. He looks at his feet and feels a little stupid for not fully understanding what his father is saying, but in his heart he can feel there is a longer story behind it — one he's still too young to understand — so the boy keeps quiet. "But you're not like that. I know you're good."

Anakin trusted his father's words. Then, at least. He had loved him with everything his tiny heart could give, he had trusted his father would rise along the cruel sun of Mandalore once again. That he would end the war and come back home. Because he was a hero and that's what hero's do: They end wars and they return to their families, yet his father had died and left his mother a widow. He had died, and with him, his mother's freedom. His freedom.

(Heroes end wars and they return to their families. They don't die to abandon their children to suffer on sandy wastelands that call themselves planets. They don't break their wives' hearts.)

Anakin had trusted his father and he had betrayed him.

The only thing Anakin had wanted for as long as he stepped foot in Tatooine for the very first time was to see his father's silhouette in the horizon walking towards their little sandstone hut to tell them war was finally over — but that was impossible and that happened only in his dreams on a good night.

Because the last time his father's silhouette showed in the horizon it had been with an iron bullet nailed in the abdomen, his hand on his wound and blood dripping from his mouth — but the last thing Luke Skywalker had done before his cold body dropped at his son's feet had been to return home, as he promised he would.

(In his dreams, his father's eyes never shut and the blood never stops spilling from his flank, staining the pavement.)

His memories of home vanish, and with them, the way safety felt like.

✴︎

wc: 2025

🌥️ anakin admiring his father for being a good and respected soldier, thinking it's what he must be when he grows up and how proud of being a skywalker he is because of this while on the other hand, luke I hating having to fight, hating being a soldier and his only wish being that anakin never has to fight a war ever and that he doesn't live with mandalore's legacy of bloodshed 😀

🌥️ this is kinda sloppy and messy and i'm sorry if this is a little confusing!! this is written as anakin's memory 😭

🌥️ in my head, luke and shmi are portrayed by richard madden (or corey mylchreest, maybe. i do like richard better though) and elizabeth debicki, elizabeth just gives off that motherly vibe i get from shmi idk i love her sm.

🌥️ i think shmi had anakin on her late 3os in canon (i'm not totally sure), but she has him on her early-mid twenties in my au. she and luke are the same age :)