Accismus⋆౨ৎ˚⟡.• Anakin Skywalker⋆౨ৎ˚⟡.•

11.

'It was her orders,' he shrugged. 'Artoo is with her. Besides, she made it perfectly clear in the meeting that we're her bodyguards and she runs the show.'

'Did your ego get the better of you again?' Sol said with a tone of mocking. Anakin glared at her through his squint before his eyes travelled to her lightsaber. It sat in her hand still ignited and despite the sunlight, Anakin noticed that it wasn't actually the blue he had first thought it was.

'Is your saber cyan?'

Sol blinked and looked down at her weapon's beam. As it hummed, she eyed it and eyed Anakin wearingly. It would be in his character to make some joke about how her lightsaber was not green nor blue, but she dared to nod her head. She sheathed it and the hum of it's beam paused, leaving the sounds of birds and faint rush of waterfalls to fill the air once more.

'You know that cyan is a mixture of blue and green, right?' Anakin finally put his palm over his eyes to shade them and look down at Sol properly.

'Yes, I know how colour theory works,' she retorted, and he let out a scoff.

'You know, not everything I say is an attack,' he said with a matter-of-fact tone. 'I was going to say that a cyan lightsaber means that you're skilled in combat and have a deep connection with the Force.'

For once, Sol didn't know something that Anakin did.

'Oh,' she let out and pulled up her weapon's handle to study it. She remembered obtaining her kyber crystal off Ilum. It was a challenge to find the crystal that was meant for her and for her only, but when she used the Force to assemble her lightsaber and have the crystal imbedded, it was all worth it. It had always been more towards the aqua colour than blue, but she never took much notice. But now that Anakin pointed it out, it was drastically different. She hadn't seen many Jedi with sabers that weren't blue or green.

'Look...' Anakin spoke again, and Sol looked to him, seeing that he was kicking his feet and avoiding her eyeline. 'I just wanted to say that... I'm sorry if I upset you. Back on the starfreighter, I mean. I didn't know you were... you know...'

Did Anakin Skywalker just apologise without being forced to? Or was Master Kenobi somewhere controlling him to do so?

'I was actually going to tell you that... I was a...'

Anakin struggled to let the words fall off his tongue. The turmoil in his mind was probably clouding his presence in the Force, but he hoped that Sol wasn't paying attention to that. In fact, her whole attention was on him. He saw how she looked up at him, the sun having gone behind a cloud and allowing the two to ease their squints for a moment. Having her attention solely on him in the beautiful garden on the beautiful planet made his insides churn again, but he forced that down to deal with one challenging thought at a time.

'I was a slave... back on Tatooine.'

'O-Oh.'

Sol had said only said two things in the past few minutes and they had been the same meaningless word twice repeated. But this one was from pure surprise and shock. Never had she thought that Anakin would have such a secret, much less tell her about it. In the space of a few days, Sol learnt that Anakin Skywalker was arrogant, egotistical, rude to his Master, sensitive about his mother, and was once a slave on Tatooine.

She felt silly for acting the way she did on the starfreighter. Yes, she was orphaned and left to fend for herself on the lower levels of Coruscant, but she wasn't on an outer-rim planet as a slave. And she never left anyone or anything behind. She never felt the loss of something when she came to the Jedi Order. She gained something; confidence, skill, a Master, and peace with the Force. But Anakin left a mother he could never see again on a planet he could never go back to.

'I was sold as a child with my mother,' Anakin continued, his face contorted with memories. 'I fixed droids. That was until Obi-wan came with Senator Padme and Master Qui-Gonn. They set me free, but not my mother. I dream about her, but they're never nice dreams.'

'Anakin... I'm so sorry-'

'Don't be,' he cut her and whipped his gaze to her's. 'I don't need you seeing me differently knowing this. But I wanted you to know... that I don't see you differently knowing what I know about you.'

'That's... sweet.'

A huff of a laugh blew out of Anakin's nose. The new perspectives had changed the way the two Padawans saw each other. And now that Anakin had made it even, they stood in silence in the palace's garden. Sol had forgotten about the surveillance droid that scurried out of the hedge, but would remember to notify the council when she next found R2.

'Thank you. For telling me that, I mean,' Sol said. 'It means a lot, Ani.'

'Again, with the Ani thing,' Anakin sighed and put a handout in a 'stop' motion to prove his point. 'I'm nineteen, not nine.'

'That means you can't call me Solaris, then.'

'But 'I like it',' Anakin did a Padme impression with a mockingly high voice and Sol huffed, feeling the usual irritation she did whenever Anakin irked her.

'Well, Ani is staying, then. Let's find the senator before Queen Jamillia sees my gardening work.'