A hatred for sand

The only memory of ever not hating sand Anakin had was located in what had probably been his younger toddler years. The memory was blurry and felt like the only one that had remained from that time when his brain hadn't held onto memories of specific moments for more than a year at most. That he remembered it at all was probably thanks to the fact that he'd never felt that positively towards sand for the years to come. Toddler Anakin had adored the sand, it had been new, fascinating, smooth and shiny. It ran through his tiny fists flawlessly, took every shape he moved it into. The wind smoothed out any mistakes he might've made while sculpting it or drawing in it. It also eradicated any carefully crafted artwork he might've wanted to show off to his mother, but that was only vaguely annoying at the time.

The first negative experience Anakin had with sand happened not long after that. The other children had dragged him away to play with 'better moldable sand'. He should've been suspicious that that sand had been located in a narrow alley, should've refused to touch the weirdly wet and bright red sand, should've noticed the still warm body lying nearby, the dead eyes staring at them that the other overjoyed children seemingly ignored, but Anakin was a young child, young and despite his slave life still mildly naive and innocent. He'd not thought anything to be wrong until he'd returned home and his mother had almost screamed in shock at the dried blood on his hands. He'd never seen her that close to crying before, a severe sin when one lived on a desert planet. When she'd explained to him why the sand had been red and wet he'd nearly thrown up on her skirt. He didn't because the food in his stomach was rationed.

The next time Anakin felt a negative emotion towards sand it was cold pure fear. Not that the boy who liked to think of himself as fearless would've ever acknowledged it. He'd done something wrong; he couldn't remember what it had been for the life of him, but it must've been bad. Watto, who'd only recently bought them, had been upset and dragged Anakin to the outskirts of Mos Espa despite Shmi's begging protests. There'd been something weird tied to a pole out there that looked and smelled so horrible that Anakin felt nauseous and tried to turn his head away, but Watto had grabbed his chin and forced him to look. And then he'd explained that that there on the pole had been a fellow slave who'd angered his master so much that he'd been bound to that pole before a recent sandstorm as a punishment. He then proceeded to describe in detail how the sandstorm had scraped the slave's flesh off his bones, how it had skinned him alive. Watto didn't explicitly voice a thread, but Anakin had received the warning nonetheless. He'd not said a word for weeks after that and flinched whenever his slave master entered the room. Anakin thought he might've heard his mother cry herself to sleep silently one of those nights.

The third time Anakin felt negatively about sand happened one or two years after that. It was pure panic. Anakin hadn't intended to run into the huge male, he couldn't name the species, it hadn't even been his fault, he hadn't been daydreaming or anything, only felt a strong sense of foreboding in his gut before he'd simply been unable to step out of the guy's way in the crowded street and thus collided with him. The huge man had dragged him away into an alley, thrown him to the ground, kicked and hit him, pressed his face into the sand. There'd been sand everywhere, in his hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, throat and Anakin had tried to spit it out, cried, rasped and coughed and screamed for his mother as best as he could as he tried desperately to shove the big man's hands away. He'd seriously thought he'd die being suffocated by sand. At some point he thought he'd heard his mother yelling and only when he heard her scream at the man that he was damaging Watto's property did the huge rough abusing hands leave his battered small body. He was barely coherent as his mother carried him home, her torso occasionally trembling with suppressed sobs. After that day Anakin's overwhelming fear of sand slowly transformed into hatred, seeing as he couldn't escape it, trapped on a desert planet, and wouldn't allow himself to acknowledge that the fearless Anakin Skywalker was scared of something so seemingly pathetic.