Star Wars One-Shots

Eyes of the Dragon (Part 1)

Author's Note: This is for the Obikin 2023 bingo. :)

Warnings: Torture, slavery, child abuse, non-consensual touching, and indications of a certain something, though it didn't actually happen. O_O

~ Amina Gila

Sold from one owner to the next after his dragon abilities are discovered, Anakin finally ends up with Obi-Wan as his... handler. Except, Obi-Wan isn't a slaver like all the others, and he's also far nicer. And Anakin can do little to free the young Togruta Jedi, Ahsoka, who was recently sold into slavery, no matter how hard he tries. The most he can do is help her survive.

"The sun dragon is a beast that lives inside a star, guarding everything it treasures. Nothing could hurt it. Not fire, not flame. It survived through the most impossible circumstances, even life in the core of a star. Because the sun-dragon had the biggest heart in the galaxy, a burning furnace powerful enough to protect everything and everyone it loved."

It was a story that carried a far deeper meaning than those who heard it as nothing but a fleeting fairytale. It was also a promise, a reassurance, and more than that, a light to guide him on the darkest night. Anakin could understand that even if he was only four. He understood the hidden message most of all because his mother didn't have to tell him that he was the sun dragon for him to know that.

It was an energy that hummed beneath his skin, a constant burning knowledge, and whenever he delved deep enough into that... energy around him, that energy – whatever it was that helped him feel things, sense things before they happened, something that always surprised the other slave children – he would feel himself, shifting, transforming. He was the sun dragon, because a real dragon was hidden in his heart, every moment, even if no one knew it but his mother.

Anakin squirms around in Shmi's arms, trying to get a better look at the dark sky above them, stars dotting the endless expanse. Nal Hutta was never pretty like this at night.

"Why do the moons look funny?" he asks, eyes wide as he watches the usual brilliant light of the two largest moons transforming into something dark, fading to a pinkish red glow.

"They're the eyes of the sun dragon," Shmi replies, smiling faintly.

"It watching us," Anakin says, brightening.

"It watches over all of us."

"I be like it someday," he insists, a determination burning inside of him as fierce as the dragon that constantly hums under his skin. He will, and no one will ever hurt his mother or any of his friends again, once he's bigger.

"You already are like it," she reminds, softly.

"It doesn't hide," Anakin objects, staring up at the red moons – eyes of the dragon. No one can know what he is, that he's a real sun dragon, or the slavers will hurt him. Or they'll sell him away from his mother, and that can't happen.

"When the sun dragon was small, it couldn't reveal itself as openly as it is now. In time, Ani, you won't have to hide."

***

Anakin still remembers every moment of that conversation, even sixteen years later. Whether she had said those words because she truly believed them or because she was trying to comfort him when he was scared and lost, he... still hasn't found what she's promised yet.

He's spent his entire life hiding because he's too scared to do anything more. That's even more true now in some ways than it ever was before.

But it's still a reassurance he can turn, too, whenever he truly needs it, which is... much of time.