Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Star Wars universe. I own the ideas and plot of this story.

AN: English isn't my mother language, so if you notice any errors or mistakes in this story, please let me know and I will correct them. If anyone wants to beta, you are welcome. This is my first story, so don't judge too harshly. And most of all, enjoy!

Anakin always knew he was smarter that most people. Really, he thought he was smarter than anyone he ever met. Not that's saying much, slaves weren't exactly bred for intelligence, but rather brute strength and endurance, and the somewhat capable ones took care of the rather few things that actually required some level of ingenuity and knowledge. He had wondered about it, and, when asked, his mother explained to him how it wouldn't do for the slaves to know too much or be capable of outsmarting their masters. Anakin was very careful since that day to never really show how much he understood of the world surrounding him, about the parts he worked with and the things he could build with them, even about people. Although, he couldn't say that he could understand people, not really, in his mind, people were stupid, unreasonable and making decisions with no sense whatsoever. He doesn't quite know what to think about him also being part of said people. But, he could observe patterns, remember them, use them to predict how they may act and react. That being said, Anakin always remembered everything, even from when he was very little. That's another thing he wasn't supposed to advertise. Nobody was supposed to know any of those things, who knew how word would have gone around.

It was really difficult for him to hide in the beginning, he was, after all, just a child, even if a slave child. It wasn't fair, how he had no choice about being a child and how a slave was never supposed to be so innocent and vulnerable. He thinks he might hate it, this stupid condition that just refuses to go away faster, regardless of how much work he keeps putting into seeing, knowing and understanding everything. He knows he hates it when the big questions come, about purpose, philosophy, souls, minds and hearts and he just doesn't know enough, hasn't seen and lived enough, experienced enough to be able to reach a definitive answer Why can't he get this process moving faster? How is he supposed to know what to do with his life? When he thinks he finally reaches an answer, his mind is oh so helpfully suppling him with another scenario, another exception, 'till he only speculates. He realized this trap a rather recently, speculation without proof is only speculation and can only take him so far. It's easy to make that your truth and then think it universal. There are far too many things that he can't test or research here.

So he sticks to simple things, being practical and being good. It was obvious why being practical was necessary, much less obvious was the being good part, but he settled that it makes him feel good. Both were easy in his mind. He knew what he needed to do. He had a purpose. He never hid that, not from his fellow slaves. Only some still naïve children took him seriously. But Anakin knew, not just thought, when he said he's going to free himself and then free all the slaves, that he didn't just dream, that it's only a matter a time. He would keep watching, learning and hiding, would prepare and wait for an opportunity. And if that didn't come, he would make one. He could do it. Then he would go in the big world the pilots kept telling him stories about and grow. And most important, he would not forget his promise. That's why he always told people about his purpose, because if he spoke it to them it became a promise, it became real and he would have to keep it. First, he needed to be free and get out. Then he will see. The time will come. He could feel it.

That's another thing that was supposed to be a secret. The biggest secret. The way he could sometimes feel, see more, hear more. The way he sometimes felt that intuition and ingenuity alone haven't gotten him some result that fast, that good. How he could sometimes just feel how new pieces would fit in the whole machinery and only after start to think about the why. It had played a very important part in his education. Rarer, it helped with people too. He would just know if somebody strongly felt something, later, with practice and observation, even what it was they felt. On one or two occasions, he could swear he could even hear a person thinking, not what about, just them doing it, the speed, the pattern. He tried to practice with this also and would sometimes get caught staring at one person or another. Up until the time one very old and very wise slave woman, the elder of the slaves in that part, looked deeply back at him. Like she could see too. That's when he got scared, because it was imperative that nobody knew. That's when he decided he needed to learn to hide his mind too, in every plane of existence, then hide while feeling. If only he could get reliable data about his efforts in that! He only dared to talk to his mother about this, but she could truly not help. She was smart too, very observant, but she seemed to lack this extra sense. And he didn't have a father.

In the end, he decided the best he could do now until he could find some way to test it is by comparison with the physical world. Hide the thoughts he doesn't want known, don't think them, let them lost among the desert of his mind. Make them quiet, let them be the smallest spiders wandering the dunes, the most discreet serpents from under the sand, let them be overshadowed by the what he wanted known, by kryat dragons. And let all neutral and random thoughts fill the picture, be the occasional bush or rock. Let them all see the general landscape and be caught in it, let them thinks all is there and never try to look beneath. Just like he hides from the masters and the other slaves, it just all needed to be in his mind. It was harder with emotions. They seemed to just fill him, control him. He often even finds that his heart decides what needs to be done and his mind is left only with figuring out the way to get it done and justifications. Anakin decides then that if he can't quiet his normal emotions, he needs to make a lot of noise to cover them. He makes a storm. He practices summoning emotions then for every occasion. Anger and a healthy dose of fear always seem to do the trick with the masters. Both emotions they expect, know how to deal with, know they won't be a real threat. And anger can cover almost everything, with fear more or less underneath, so people don't look further. The only big problem is that feeling them sucks. So when his heart is not loud, he makes other covers too. He let's all the sweet innocent child characteristics come forth, and he's not a threat and nobody looks underneath. Like the sun that mirrors it's light so strongly on the surface of the calm desert, it just hides everything about the picture. It's all good because it's all him. There was hiding, but not pretending.

His mother was a little worried about these practices of him, but Anakin didn't really understand why. He was just keeping both of them safe. Seeming almost completely normal, non-threatening, showing just enough to make it worth it for Watto to keep him and his mother to take care of him, but not so much so that he becomes an escape danger or something too valuable. And, most important, being ready for the moment when they run towards freedom. Yeah, so he had his moments when he wondered if he wasn't too different, if he was wrong. Mom would always make him feel better, he would always be her boy. So maybe sometimes he was getting so lost in his mind he started to act a little weird or lost contact with just how the real concrete things really were. How the little grains of sand were just that. But he swore if he really put all his will into them, they would mold together in the stone they composed before, in a form of his choosing. But it doesn't happen so often now, he controls them. Or, rather, he is afraid of making his mother afraid, he's afraid of being that different. And really, she doesn't need to be afraid, that's why she's always there to take care of him. And she will always be his side, he will make sure of it. He knows, in his mind, that life isn't safe or secure at all for a slave, but he doesn't allow himself to think about the possibility of his mom being separated from him. He refuses.

When the Jedi came into his city, he thought he was ready.