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
Mon Calamari. A planet of unbelievable peace and tranquility, of small isolated islands and endless oceans. Anareal had loved it instantly. It was a startling contrast from Hoth. She loved the city of Reef Home and she loved the Mon Calamari people. Mostly, she had loved swimming.
On their second day Qui-Gon had taken her to one of the small islands around the equator. Most of the islands on Mon Calamari were too marshy, but this one was a tiny tropical paradise.
It was all he could do to get her out of the water. She would have stayed there all day. He had made it a test, a training, as everything in her life had to be training. He had let her take a bag of food to feed the sea creatures. But he had carried the only air supply. She could now hold her breath for a remarkably long time and she swam like a fish.
Hunger had finally accomplished what he had not been able to and made her get out of the water.
They had eaten and then stretched out on a blanket. To dry he had told her, even though they were both already pretty dry. Qui-Gon was lying face down, half-asleep, listening to her chatter. Right now she was lying on her back, finding shapes in the clouds.
“ That one looks like Master Yarael,” she said.
“Mm-hm,” Qui-Gon agreed.
“ And that one looks like a starship, well kind of.”
“Mm-hm.”
“How can you see with your eyes closed?” she demanded.
A smile tugged at him. “ The Force,” he said.
“ You aren’t using the Force. You’re almost asleep,” It was accusatory.
“ Most people get sleepy after 4 hours in the water,” he answered.
“ Oh, Master, look,” she said suddenly,” Now that one looks like a castle.” She shook him, reaching under and pushing on his shoulder to make him roll over.
Groaning, Qui-Gon complied. “ Where?”
“ That one,” she pointed.
“ Yes, you’re right. It does look like a castle.”
She lay there admiring it for a while longer and Qui-Gon closed his eyes again. The Living Force was strong here, as it was on all of Mon Calamari. He could sense it renewing him, giving him strength. The Lightside knew he needed it.
“ Master, can I be a Jedi and a Princess?”
Qui-Gon stifled another groan, mental and verbal. Not questions. Not now.
“ What is the first rule of success, Anareal?”
“Concentration,” she replied immediately, then continued to recite,”Focus your energy on one point and go there, looking neither right nor left.”
“ What happens when you do 2 things at once?” he asked.
“ You do neither,” she responded. Then she continued to recite every saying she could remember that he had ever told her,” The way is in your heart, not in your head. It is better to fail with honor than to succeed with dishonor. There is no right way to do a wrong thing. Do or do not, there is not try… .”
Qui-Gon flicked his fingers and her towel flew up and dropped on her head. A giggle erupted from beneath it but her muffled voice continued to quote him,“ There is always a best way to do something, find it. If you do not conquer yourself, you yourself will be conquered.”
Her voice choked off as a corner of the towel got jammed in her mouth. Anareal’s ribcage shook and contracted with laughter.
“ Disrespectful Padawan,” Qui-Gon said, but there was affection in his tone.
Anareal pulled the towel off her head and said, almost triumphantly “ Your focus determines your reality.”
Qui-Gon’s voice took more of a ‘Master’ tone “That much is very true. Where will your focus be? You must decide, Anareal. Jedi or Princess?”
“ You can only make me a Jedi, not a Princess,” she said. Then she sat up and turned to look at him. Her laughter was gone.
“ You can’t become a Jedi because of anything you feel for me, Anareal. You can only become a Jedi for yourself. If you want to be a Princess, you can always return to your family. Someday, you could run for election and the Naboo people could make you their queen.” The thought of her leaving him hurt him so much that he almost couldn’t breathe. He shielded her from that, watching her thoughtful face as she considered what he had just said. Her hair was sandy, and had dried knotted. It would take hours to comb free. Her braid was sticking out in places. The tip of her nose was turning pink from the sun inspite of his best preventative measures. She had never looked more precious to him.
When she looked at him again, there was an ancient look in her leaf-green eyes. He felt as if he was suddenly looking at someone much older than 7.
“If I have to choose, then I want to be a Jedi,” she said, “ I was meant to be a Jedi.”
Qui-Gon hoped afterwards that he had kept the relief out of his face. He nodded. “ Then I will renew my promises to you. I will teach you everything I know and I will never lie to you.”
“Yes, Master,” Anareal grinned and the little girl was back in place. “ You’ve already taught me a lot.”
“ And you’ve remembered,” he agreed,” Have I really managed to teach you all those sayings in only 3 years?”
Anareal’s eyes danced, “ Oh, yes. That and lots more useless stuff.”
Qui-Gon started, ready to reprimand her…….. then he saw the mischief in her eyes. Little scamp, she was teasing him. He looked down, biting his tongue to keep from laughing. When he looked back up, trying to seem stern, he said, “You’d better run. You only have until I count to 3.”
Anareal gave one shrill shriek and bolted down the beach. Qui-Gon counted to 3, leaped up and sped after her. He was rewarded with another shriek as she dodged and twisted to avoid him. He let her evade him for a while, enjoying the game as much as she, pleased with her command of the Force. Of all things, at this point in his life, Anareal was giving him a second childhood – a totally unexpected benefit of having a little girl as an apprentice.
Qui-Gon caught her around the waist, sweeping her off her feet. He made an abrupt turn into the ocean, wading out to above his waist. Anareal screamed with artificial fear, trying to scramble up onto his shoulders, dissolving into giggles. The water reached his chest, swirling around her legs. Qui-Gon swung her onto his shoulder.
“Take a breath!” he gave her one warning, heard her gulping air into her lungs. Then he dove, taking her under with him.
Anareal gave one powerful kick and he let her go, watching her swim away from him with the grace and speed of a Calamari native. She still wasn’t nearly as fast as he was.
She stayed down longer than he thought she would. Even Force- assisted he hadn’t given her much time to take a breath. But then, everything was a lesson. Life sometimes didn’t give you time to breathe. At last, after pretending to try to catch her for a while, he saw her twist and kick towards the surface. He came up behind her, tilting his head so that the water pulled the hair off his face when he emerged and she splashed water in his face.
Qui-Gon shook the water away, droplets flying off of him and glinting in the sun, and said,” Had enough?”
She tried to splash him again. He moved so fast, she didn’t even see him. One second he was a few feet away. The next, he was holding her wrists and making it impossible to tread water.
“Well?” he asked.
Anareal was helplessly giggling. He lifted her out of the water, threatening to dunk her.
“Master!…I give up!” she choked.
“Smart child,” he said. He let go of her, expecting her to swim away from him again. Instead, she kicked towards him, wrapping ocean-cold arms around his sun-warmed neck and held on.
“ I’m tired,” she said.
“I’ve wondered what it took to make you tired,” he murmured. Usually he was the one lying prone on the couch, physically and mentally drained while Anareal continued moving excitedly from one thing to another. Qui-Gon often wondered if she was solar-powered, or whether she got her energy by mysteriously draining it from him. “Ready to go back to Reef Home then? Or do you want to sleep on the beach?”
She looked at him in surprise. “ I don’t want to sleep. I’m too big for a nap! I just don’t want to swim back.”
“Ohhhh,”he said, nodding in understanding, ” I suppose I’m to carry you back then. Aren’t you too big to be carried?”
She giggled, “ Never. I’ll never be too big for you to carry me. Besides, you brought me out here, so you can take me back.”
Qui-Gon wondered briefly what would have happened to him if he had called Master Yoda ‘you’ in that tone of voice. There probably wouldn’t have been enough left of him to identify the pieces.
He shifted her around onto his back. “Don’t choke me,” he instructed and she shifted her hands to his shoulders,” and we’re doing this my way.” He felt her chill of alarm and suppressed a smile. “ Take a breath.”
She started to protest, changed her mind and sucked air into her lungs just as he dove again. To her credit, she stayed with him most of the way back to the beach. Finally, she kicked away, surfaced and then dove down to finish swimming in beside him. He picked her up out of the water as soon as his feet could touch. She squirmed out of his arms as soon as she knew her feet could and went darting back up the beach towards their blanket.
Qui-Gon paused in the ocean, watching her with a keen sense of wonder. Then he followed after her, rejoining the frustrating, bewildering, glorious dance that was his life with Anareal.
