Rated: G
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns all the recognizable characters. Anareal is mine. ( pronounced Ah - NAR -ee- al, an African name meaning strength and peace) Making no money off this and if I was I'd spend it all on Star Wars stuff and George and would get it anyway.
Chapter 1
Hoth. There was no reason to ever go there. It was little more than a ball of ice and snow as far from Coruscant as you could go. But, it had a hydrogen/oxygen atmosphere and it was the perfect place to teach a Jedi student how to survive under extreme conditions. Qui-Gon had intended to bring her here when she was older, but…. well, it was about as far from Coruscant as you could go. He found that very appealing right now. His anger with the Council had dissipated. His need for distance from them had not. He had waited until he was about to make the jump to even inform them that he had left Coruscant. A tersely worded demand for him to return had been politely ignored.
After they landed on Hoth, Anareal had done little more than stare at first. He stood beside her, his hands tucked inside the sleeves of his robe, watching her reaction carefully. All her Force-enhanced senses tingled.
A little breathlessly, she asked, “ Are we going out there?”
“Why?” he asked, holding back a smile.
“What’s out there?” she asked.
“ What does the Force tell you is out there?” he asked.
“Master, I hate it when you answer my questions with more questions,” Anareal sighed.
But she reached up and dragged his hand out of his sleeve. Holding it tightly, she closed her eyes and began listening, stretching out with her feelings.
“There are creatures here,” she said,” Not smart, but not like animals.…what’s that word…..semi---…semi..”
“Sentient,” he supplied.
“Uh-huh…. Yes, Master,”she agreed. She squeezed his hand as she concentrated, drawing her strength from his presence.”That’s it. Scattered…..just one here and there….. and there are herds of other creatures, like big furry lizards …… and plants!”
Here she opened her eyes and looked up at him, face full of wonder. “Plants?” she asked.
He nodded,” But not really plants, though - certain types of fungus, algae, lichens.”
“Where?” she asked,” Can I see them?”
“There are caves….”
“Will you take me?”
“I thought you didn’t want to go out there,” he said.
“Can’t we take the shuttle into the caves?” she asked.
“No.”
Her tiny white teeth bit into her lower lip. “Those creatures are awfully big.”
“ The Force will be with you,” Qui-Gon said. “You would have nothing to fear.”
Anareal’s hand twitched in his, shifting with her thoughts. Then, a sudden stillness settled over her. It was an unsettling stillness, not calm or peaceful, and Qui-Gon’s alarm-sense tingled. He stretched out with the Force, but felt nothing.
When Anareal spoke her voice was both time-worn and certain,
“There will be a war here.”
All the hair along his arms stood up, as if ghostly fingers had walked down his spine. Remaining absolutely calm, Qui-Gon knelt down beside her. She looked at him with eyes that were forest-ancient, vision haunted.
“ A lot of beings will die,” she said,” I…. see ….walking tanks, and….cannons … and speeder planes. Explosions …. blaster fire…… One of the walkers crushes a speeder…. One falls over.”
“Here? On Hoth?”
She nodded, gazing solemnly into his eyes. Qui-Gon never questioned her visions, never tried to tell her that what she saw wasn’t there. No point in telling her that he had never heard of a walking tank. No point in explaining that no one would ever live on Hoth long enough to start a war. He had learned that for Anareal, the nightmares were often real.
Qui-Gon hated these times, when he wanted to shield her, protect her, tell her something… anything….. to comfort her. The worst part was, she knew he couldn’t do anything – except for what he always did. Anareal took one step forward and he welcomed her into his arms, enfolding her in the safe haven of his robe until she all but disappeared. She rested her head on his broad chest, against his heart. Qui-Gon felt her mental shields snapping into place, driving the vision away.
“If you want to leave, we can,” he said. He kept his voice soothing, a murmur as soft as a breeze.
“It won’t happen for a long, long time,” she whispered.
“ It may not happen at all,” Qui-Gon hushed her softly, offering her the comfort of his presence, letting her stay in his arms as long as she needed. He knew the vision had disturbed her, but he no longer felt the knife-sharp edge of fear that used to stab him when she saw things. Anareal had learned the lessons of mental shielding well, and she knew how to use the Force to quiet her fear.
” Why did we come?” she asked.
“ To see the caves, and the ice geysers, to learn how to keep warm.”
She shifted enough to look up at him,” Geysers?”
“Um-hm. Frozen geysers. And glaciers.”
He was rewarded with a sunlight flicker in her eyes, the ancient look melting away.
“Can we play in the snow?”
Qui-Gon suppressed the flutter of happiness around his heart. She could sometimes adapt faster than he could. “ As long as you like.”
“ Can I throw snowballs at you?”
He bit his tongue to keep from smiling. She didn’t like to be laughed at. “Do I have to let them hit me?”
Anareal nodded, her expression deadly serious. “ If we have a snowball fight, we can’t use the Force.”
“It would seem to be the only fair way to have a snowball fight,” he agreed.
Anareal leaned into him again for a moment and he gave her a fierce hug.
“Master!” she gasped,” I can’t breathe!”
Qui-Gon let go of her immediately. “I’m sorry,” he said,” I’m just very proud of you right now.”
She smiled her sunrise smile, the one that always appeared when she had pushed away a vision. Her small hand grasping a fold of his robe she said, “ That was easy. What’d I do?”
The corners of his eyes wrinkled in his own hidden smile. “ That was a very disturbing image you just had. You showed remarkable control.”
“You taught me how to shield. The things I see aren’t as bad during the day. I can control how much I want to see. Can we play in the snow now, Master?”
“ You seem awfully anxious to go outside all of a sudden. It’s very cold out there you know.”
“ You said there was a way to keep warm?”
“Yes.”
“Using the Force?”
“Eventually I’ll teach you that. But for now you’ll use a snow suit.”
She groaned. He stood up, leaving the tips of his fingers against her shoulder.
“Go use the ‘fresher.” Qui-Gon told her.
“I don’t have to,’ she said.
“ I want you to.”
“Why?”
“ I’m not going to put you in all the layers of a snow suit and then have you tell me that you need to use the ‘fresher. Now go on.”
He placed a hand between her shoulder blades and propelled her out of the cockpit. She came skipping back a few minutes later, joining him in his cabin. He was kneeling beside their travel trunk, pulling out jackets.
“All done?”
She nodded.
“Did you wash your hands?”
She held them up, wriggling her still-dripping fingers.
“Did you dry your hands?”
She wrinkled her nose and wiped her hands down the front of her tunic.
“That isn’t exactly what I meant for you to do.”
Anareal grinned at him, “ But they’re dry now.”
Qui-Gon shook his head and sighed. No arguing with that.
“ Take off your boots,” he said.
“ You have to help,” she said, plopping down on the floor in front of him and holding up one foot. “ They’re tight.”
“ I just got them for you,” Qui-Gon protested, “ How can they be tight?”
“ You didn’t just get them, it was weeks ago.”
Qui-Gon paused with his hand on her heel, getting ready to tug. “ Oh, weeks ago. That long. Here I was hoping to maybe go a few months before you outgrew something.”
He pulled and she said, “Oww. My ankle doesn’t bend that far!” It came off all at once. From heel to toe, it fit neatly in the palm of his hand. He set it down and reached for the other one. Anareal asked, “ Can I get pink boots next time?”
“Pink?” he looked at her with eyebrows raised, “ I don’t think the Council would approve of a Padawan learner with pink boots.”
“ Master, why? You taught me the Code. There’s nothing in it about not wearing pink.”
“ The Council likes our students to wear serious colors.”
“ What about the beings who don’t see the same colors we do? Can they wear pink?”
Qui-Gon knew he was in the middle of a losing argument, “ Can we talk about this the next time we get you new boots?” There was a good chance she might have changed her mind about the color by then.
“ ‘Kay,” she said, “ Oh! Yes, Master. We should stay in the moment, right? Right now we’re going to go play in the snow.”
“That’s right,” he agreed, breathing a silent sigh of relief.
Several layers of insulated clothing and two pairs of heavy snow boots later, they were both ready to step outside. Anareal’s breath caught in her throat at the first icy blast that came through the door. It was shockingly cold, bitterly cold. She paused a moment and then she took her first step into the snow.
Her small feet broke through the thin crust. She paused, looked down, moved a few more steps. Snow crunched. She turned to look back at him and then gave a delighted shriek and threw herself over backwards.
Qui-Gon marched out across the snow. He went first to the solar collectors on the side of the ship and turned up the controls. It seemed that they would be spending the night here now. He had intended to walk her to the ice caves, a five mile trip carrying full gear. But after her vision, he decided to just let her play and get a good night’s sleep.
He turned back to see her jumping back to her feet. “Can you walk and not leave footprints?” he asked.
Anareal smiled. The Force rippled slightly as she lifted herself off the ground imperceptibly. She started walking, leaving absolutely no trace. A giggle burst from her, “ This is fun! But, Master,why would I need to know how to do this?”
“ What if you were being followed?”
She paused to think about that. “ Couldn’t you just use a mind-trick? Tell them you aren’t there?”
“ What if there were too many?”
Anareal nodded in understanding Then she tried skipping over the snow. She was lost in the sheer joy of it, not paying a bit of attention to anything else, when a snowball hit her in the back of the head. She whirled around, feet crashing back into the snow. Losing her balance, she sat down hard.
“ Master!” She was trying very hard to look outraged.
“ Yes?” Qui-Gon’s face was a carefully neutral mask.
Anareal stood, brushed herself off. Planting her feet, she put her hands on her hips in a gesture that looked so much like him that it was all he could do not to laugh. Then she knelt down and scooped snow into her gloved hands. The snow was dry, powdery and after a few attempts at making it stick in a ball, she exclaimed, “ It is completely unfair to start a snowball fight when only you can make snowballs! How did you do that?”
“ Anareal,” Qui-Gon said, patiently, “ You can make statues out of sand and water. I know you can make a ball out of snow.”
“ You used the Force?” she sounded scandalized.” We said we wouldn’t use the Force in the snowball fight.”
“ I only used the Force to make the snowball. I didn’t use it when I threw it at you,” he said, reasonably.
Anareal frowned, “ I guess if that’s the only way to make snowballs.”
She set diligently about the work of arming herself and he hurried to defend himself.
What followed was 15 minutes of all out war. Then, breathless with laughter and covered with splotches of snow, Qui-Gon called a truce. He dropped to his knees in front of her, lowered his head and said,
“My Lady, I surrender the field to you.”
The happiness in her eyes was contagious. Qui-Gon wished there was a way to bottle this moment, to take it back out for her later.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“ Just my nose, a little,” she answered.
“ Draw on the Force, ask it for warmth and direct it to where you need it,” he instructed.
“ Master, that’s a lot of things to do all at once.”
“ You can do it.”
His encouragement, his certainty of her ability, was all she needed. A quiver in the Force, a brush of warmth and Anareal’s face broke in another smile. “ It worked.”
“ The Force is a powerful ally, Anareal. Don’t ever under-estimate what it can do for you.”
He stood. A brief blast of wind blew against them and Qui-Gon watched Anareal’s reaction. She turned her head away from the frigid gust, eyes closed. But he felt the ripple in the Force, echoing his own, as she directed it around her. Pushing outward with warmth, they withstood the wind chill until it had passed. She had done it so instinctively that he couldn’t help the rush of pride that he felt.
“Do you want to go back in?” he asked.
“Oh, no, Master. I want to make statues. If I can make snowballs, statues shouldn’t be too hard. Is that all right? We can go back in if you’re cold.”
Qui-Gon didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. “ No, I’m fine.” he assured her. “ I’ll check the outside of the ship while you do that. We did come through that meteor storm on the way in. I should make sure the ship isn’t damaged.”
Half an hour later, Qui-Gon was satisfied that the ship had suffered no damage that would put them in danger; and Anareal had completed a snow sculpture. He came around from the far side of their ship and watched her patting snow onto the sculpture, using her finger to draw a last crease in the familiar forehead.
It was an absolutely perfect, life-sized sculpture of Master Yoda. Qui-Gon looked down and away and got his laughter under control, before looking back at her with only the ghost of a smile.
“Do you think he would like it?” she asked.
“ I think he would be very flattered,” Qui-Gon answered.
“ Master Yoda is kind of like my grandfather,” Anareal observed.That threw him. Anareal knew her biological grandfather. Qui-Gon couldn’t think of anyone more different from Master Yoda than Anareal’s hard-working farmer grandfather.
“What do you mean?” he asked, kneeling down and looking her in the eyes.
“ Well, he was your Master, wasn’t he?” she asked.
“ Yes, I was his last Padawan learner,” Qui-Gon agreed.
“And you’re my Master,” she said,” which is kind of like being my father. So that makes Master Yoda kind of like my grandfather.”
Qui-Gon stared at her for a moment. The connections she made sometimes left him scrambling to catch up.
“ We’ll have to tell him that sometime,” he murmured, “ Are you hungry?”
“ Oh, yes, Master!” she said, “ Can we have something hot?”
“ Of course. You know the moment you release your hold on that, it’s going to fall over,” Qui-Gon indicated the snowy Master Yoda with a tilt of his head.
Anareal gave him a tiny, mischievous smile and waved her gloved hand. Master Yoda dissolved into a small bump of snow. She came to him, slipping her hand into his and they walked back to the ship.
Later that night, after a hot meal and a hot bath, Qui-Gon made her go get into warm pajamas. He sent her to brush her teeth and waited in her cabin. Anareal came in, cheeks still flushed pink from her bath. He helped her onto the sleep-couch and pulled the covers up to her chin.
“ Are you going to tell me a story?” she asked, hopefully.
“ Do you want me to?”
“ Master, why do you ask me that every night? You know I do.”
Qui-Gon’s mouth quirked in a grin. Imp, he thought. “ You could always change your mind.”
“ Never,” she said, sinking down on her pillow,” I’ll want you to tell me a story every night for my whole life.”
Qui-Gon’s grin faded into a sadder smile. He brushed pushed stray locks of hair off her forehead, twirled her Padawan braid around his fingers a few times and said, “ I wish that were true.”
He hadn’t realized that he had lapsed into silence, merely gazing at her fondly until she said, “ My story?”
He tugged on her braid once and let it untwirl. “ Impatient Padawan,” he said, “ all right. “
Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived. There was Happiness, Sadness, Vanity and all the others including Love. One day the feelings discovered that their island was sinking and they must all build boats and leave. But Love couldn’t bear to leave the beautiful island and didn’t build a boat. Love waited until the last possible moment, certain the island would be saved.
The island had almost sunk and Love needed to ask for help.
Greed was passing by Love in a grand boat and Love said, “ Greed, please take me with you.” Greed answered, “ No, I can’t. I have all my wealth and jewels in my boat. There is not room for you.”
Love asked Vanity to help. Vanity had built a beautiful boat. “Vanity, please help me!” Love called. But Vanity said, “ No, you’re all wet and ugly. You would ruin my boat!”
Sadness was close by. Love called for help, but Sadness was weeping too frantically for the loss of their beautiful island and didn’t hear Love at all.
Happiness passed by Love as well. Happiness was enjoying the silly boat and sailing on the broad ocean and Love’s cries for help were drowned out by Happiness laughing.
Then there was a voice. It was the voice of one of the Elders, “ Come Love. I will help you.”
Love felt blessed and overjoyed that an elder would help, and so relieved that he forgot to ask the Elder’s name.
When they arrived at dry land, the Elder went on its way. Love realized how much it owed the elder. Love asked and asked, but no one knew who had helped.
Then Wisdom, another elder told him, “ It was Time.”
“Time,” asked Love,” But why would Time help me?”
Wisdom smiled and answered, “ Because only Time is capable of understanding how great Love is. ………”
By then Anareal was asleep. She would ask him tomorrow how the story ended, then pester him with questions about it. He found himself looking forward to it.
Qui-Gon tucked her covers under her chin and kissed her forehead. He swept from the room, robe whispering against the floor, turning out the light behind him.
