The boy appears one day out of nowhere, stumbling through Mos Espa and looking dead on his feet. His clothing is torn, his blue face smeared with dirt and lined with exhaustion. Yet his gaze remains clear and focused, red eyes seeing everything with a startling clarity.

His eyes, Shmi thinks, remind her of Anakin. Both her son and this mystery boy have eyes that have see too much, that make them look older than they are.

The mystery boy stumbles, trips, and falls on his face.

No one bothers to help him as he struggles to get up.

Shmi looks away. A tug on her hand makes her realize that Anakin has come back from the errand she had sent him on and when she looks down he frowns at her, as if he's disappointed that she hasn't helped the mystery boy yet.

"We need to help him," Anakin says, and Shmi is going to explain to him why they can't, how helping the boy would doom him to a life of slavery and how it's better to let him die there than let him live with a burning hope in his chest. But Anakin looks at her, and for a moment layers of reality twist and warp and standing in front of her is something so shining, so bright that it's hard to look at. What stands in front of her is something burning and wild, something that will break if anyone tries to cage it.

"Please, mother," Anakin who is seven, who is her son, says as he burns as bright as the sun in the sky, "Please."

"Why?" Shmi asks, "Our life-" Shmi stops, her mouth dry. Does she want to tell her son that slavery is worse than death? That she envies the mystery boy who has the chance to die before he becomes anyone's property? That their life is cruel and harsh and that even if they do save him now there is no guarantee he'll survive?

Her choice is made for her when Anakin looks at her, and he is her little boy again in clothing that barely fits him.

"Because he's like me," Anakin says, meeting her eyes and Shmi feels herself tense.

She looks at the boy again. Who seems to have given up on standing and lays with his face pressed into the dirt. She looks at him and sees something with too bright eyes, too many limbs and wings that could cover the city if they wanted to.

She looks at him and sees her son.

She blinks, and the Chiss boy is back to normal, his dark blue skin and black hair are covered in dirt. He's gasping for breath and sweating.

"Kigh'ivet'aori," Anakin calls out, somehow pronouncing the Chiss name perfectly, and the other boy tries to lift his head.

"Hiveta," Anakin says, and it's desperate, like he's begging the other boy not to go.

Anakin's eyes meet those of the Chiss boy and the boy gasps out a quiet, "Anakin," before he goes limp.

Anakin does not move, his grip on his mother's hand tightens and through their bond Shmi can feel rage, sorrow, anger, help him, please help, help, help-

Shmi pries Anakin's fingers off her hand.

She goes and picks up the unconscious boy. Through their bond she can feel Anakin's relief wash over her as she begins the trek to their small hut.

"Thank you," Anakin says, pressed against Shmi's side, and Shmi doesn't know how to tell her son that she would do anything for him. She gives him a tight lipped smile and wonders how she's going to do this.

When they arrive home, Shmi lays the Chiss -Hiveta, she corrects herself- on the only bed in the one room hut and orders Anakin to go get some rags and water. She knows that she'll be using their rations to get this boy clean and fed and a part of her still thinks she should have left the boy in the streets but-

He reminds her of her son, and as Anakin comes back with the water and rags Shmi can't help but wonder if the boy is like her son in more ways than one.

If what she saw at the market is any indicator he is.

Carefully, Shmi wipes the dust and dirt from the boy's face revealing high cheekbones and full lips. He has such delicate features Shmi thinks he's a girl for a second before Anakin, as if hearing her thoughts, shakes his head.

"He's a him," Anakin says, and then looking fondly at Hiveta adds, "My friend."

Shmi ignores the shiver that goes up her spine, Hiveta hasn't been with them for a day yet and yet he still inspires such devotion in her son.

It's terrifying, and for a moment, Shmi can see with crystal clarity the both of them leaving her.

She ignores it, and continues washing the boy.

Hiveta wakes up to warmth curled around him. The warm thing is about his size and has an arm draped across his chest. Hiveta feels as though he should be wary of this, of the person whose warmth is curled around him in a way that makes him want to go back to sleep. But he isn't, all he wants to do is turn toward the warmth and snuggle deeper into it.

He doesn't. Instead he slowly, careful as to not disturb the person curled around him, sits up and looks around.

He's in a one room house made out of clay, there are mechanic materials scattered throughout the room and a woman with dark eyes staring at him as though he's too bright.

Hiveta wonders how he can be too bright when he's fairly certain he's corporal and not glowing.

"Hello," Hiveta says, and the woman looks sad, she looks sad but familiar and Hiveta just can't place it, "Where am I?"

"Mos Espa, on Tatooine," the woman replies as if she expects Hiveta to bolt, and as soon as he hears that name he almost does, instead he schools his face into a neutral mask and tries to remember how he got there.

He remembers a blue woman, Chiss like he was now. He remembers her looking at him like he was the most precious thing in the world.

He remembers his mother.

He remembers being sent away, watching as the woman fended off attackers with a lightsaber and the Force. He remembers her winning.

He doesn't remember her coming back for him.

Something in his gut twists as he thinks he's been abandoned, and something must show on his face because the woman looks as though she's sorry for him.

She doesn't say anything, and for that Hiveta is glad.

Hiveta remembers his shuttle crashing because he is in an eight year old body and even if he hadn't been he still doesn't have the training to fly a ship. He remembers crawling out of the wreckage, walking for what seemed like hours and finally coming across a city where no one helped him as he stumbled through the streets. Exhausted and dehydrated, he remembers falling to the ground and he remembers seeing, feeling Anakin Skywalker through the Force and wanting so badly to look at him.

He couldn't even lift his head to see the boy in the flesh. Then Anakin had called his names, and Hiveta met his eyes, whispered 'Anakin' like a prayer and passed out.

Hiveta blinks and finally looks at the body attached to the limb that now rests on his lap.

Anakin Skywalker had been cuddling him like a cat.

Hiveta tries very hard not to let out a hysterical giggle. Here is the boy who would become one of the galaxy's most feared demons and he is curled around Hiveta like he doesn't want the boy to leave. Here is Anakin Skywalker, a main character that he hadn't wanted to get involved with, sleeping beside him without a care in the world.

It's ridiculous. They haven't even met and yet if Hiveta reaches out with the Force like his mother taught him to then he can feel a bond between Anakin and him. It's faint, barely glowing, but it's there.

Hiveta wonders how it's there in the first place. Bonds are forged between two close individuals, and he doubts that Anakin and him can be that close already. Even if Anakin had been his favorite character, he doubts that the boy would simply take a shining to him because Hiveta had said his name.

It isn't that simple.

The woman clears her throat, and looks at him knowingly.

"Focus your gaze," Shmi mutters, "He's like you."

Hiveta doesn't know what she means by that, he certainly isn't Chiss like her and he doubts that Anakin is a reincarnated asshole from a different dimension but he listens.

He takes a breath, clears his mind and really looks at Anakin.

Only Anakin isn't there anymore. Anakin is a mess of feathers and limbs with too many eyes and bright, bright, bright enough to rival all the stars in the galaxy.

It's breathtaking, it's horrifying.

It's beautiful.

Dimly, Hiveta remembers that his mother looked at him through the Force sometimes, told him that he was a creature of many wings and teeth and that he should be wary of those who would use him.

Hiveta recalls the time his mother had told him that his father was the Force.

He had thought she had been joking.

The air around him seems to hum pleasantly when the realization hits him. As though it had been waiting for Hiveta to realize who his father was and was pleased with him.

Hiveta slams his mental walls up so fast and blocks himself off from the Force's incessant pleasure.

Anakin jerks in his sleep and opens his eyes.

Chiss red meets blue and Anakin almost falls off the bed in his haste to sit up.

"You're awake!" Anakin exclaims, "Hiveta, you're awake!"

Deciding not to ask how Anakin knows his name, and blaming it on the Force, Hiveta gives the enthusiastic boy a wary smile.

"Hi," Hiveta says, "Anakin." The name rolls off his tongue smoothly and Hiveta wants to say it again. There is something comforting about having Anakin by his side that makes Hiveta wonder if it has something to do with the Force.

Anakin lights up at the use of his name.

"Hiveta," Anakin says, twisting to look at his mother, "This is my mother, Shmi. Where's your mother?"

It's odd how Anakin is acting like they are already friends, though, with the Force Bond, Hiveta supposes they already are.

That doesn't stop the pang of hurt that lodges itself in his chest at the mention of his mother.

Anakin seems to catch on this, because he turns his large doe eyes toward Hiveta and pulls the other boy close to him.

"Hiveta?" he asks.

"My mother," Hiveta manages to speak around the lump in his throat, "We were attacked, she sent me off in a shuttle but the shuttle went off course and crashed. I don't know-" Hiveta stops, tears prickling at his eyes as he imagined the fate of his mother.

She could be dead.

Or worse.

Hiveta buries his face in his hands and misses the pitying look Shmi throws toward him. Anakin's grip tightens on Hiveta.

"Do you have anyone else that we could contact to take you in?" Shmi asks, not unkindly, and Hiveta lifts his head up to shake it, "Are you certain?"

"Yes," Hiveta replies, "There is no one." Khem would die with his master, Hiveta thinks, and if his mother really is dead than so is Khem and there is no one there for him.

Even ancient Sith Lord's aren't invincible.

He feels like vomiting.

Everyone he knows could be dead and now he's trapped on a hell planet with two strangers for company.

"We could take you in," Anakin says, and it's only then that he remembers that Anakin and his mother are slaves, "You're my friend."

Hiveta wants to laugh but he doesn't, he's trapped on a planet that houses slaves with no way off it. If he stays then he'll likely become a slave too.

But he can't think of a way out of it.

He meets Shmi's eyes, and her brown eyes are so sorrowful it almost hurts to look at.

She knows he knows.

"Could you?" he asks, and lets some desperation creep into his voice, "Please?"

Shmi doesn't want to say yes to Hiveta's question. She doesn't want to condemn the boy to slavery. She doesn't want to think about what happens to beautiful boys and girls on Tatooine and she doesn't want that sadness to corner her family.

She doesn't want to think about what Anakin will do if something happens to his new friend. The last time someone had tried to do something to Shmi in front of Anakin they ended up having to sweep ashes off the floor. Stars know that Hiveta is a beautiful child, that he will only grow into his beauty as he ages and Shmi thinks of the slaves dressed in silk and gold at the Hutt Palaces where she used to work and she feels bile rise in her throat.

She does not want that for Hiveta. Does not want a life of slavery for a child she barely knows.

Still, she stands, and makes her choice.

"Give me a few days to see if there is a ship that will take you away from here," Shmi says, and smiles at the boys in front of her.

Hiveta's relief is heavy in the air and Shmi knows that he knows that would happen to him.

"And if they don't?" Hiveta asks, his voice almost lyrical despite the sadness in it.

Shmi cracks a brittle smile.

"Then we try to find you a job as a freeman."

*bursts into new fandom wearing a shirt that says 'STAR WARS TRASH' on it* hey so i love star wars and ocs and have a star wars oc. here he is. his name is hiveta and he is the prettiest boy.

note, this fic will have elements of star wars the old republic video game in it bc i made Hiveta's mother the female sith inquisitor from ingame.

also, i think the whole 'people who are related to The Force are actually wonderterrors and look like monsters' is a dope trope and thus i used it for this fic lmao.