#broke anakin's father is the force woke shmi is the father and mother and the white hot creation power of the universe formed into a being

[elijahmiles]

qui gon: who was anakin’s father?

shmi, the living embodiment of the Living Force, formed out of sand and bones and prayers of the weary and wandering, whose heartbeat is earthquakes and whose blood is lava, who formed anakin from blue fire and the black oil of the core of planets so she wouldn’t be alone in and could fulfill her destiny of reincarnated godhood: father???

[pulpwriterx]

BEN SOLO, GLADIATOR

Part I: Blood and Sand

Arkanis: One Year After the Death of Kylo Ren

Ben Solo had been his own judge and his own jury.

He found himself guilty, and imposed an appropriate sentence.

He appeared at the highly illegal Galactic Coliseum on Arkanis, home of the highly illegal but extremely profitable Circus Mortis, and sold himself to the Ringmaster, as a gladiator.

The Ringmaster was a Darkstar, Ragnar Darkstar, a nephew of Fenrir Darkstar, who had, until recently been the Chieftain of the Wolf Clan, and High King of all the clans of Arkanis.

The Ringmaster liked to tell the story to his favorite guests; the ones who spent the most credits and bet the heaviest.

“I didn’t have to ask him if he could fight. The man’s covered in battle scars. But I asked him, well, who gets the money. And he said it was to go, anonymously, to Rey Skywalker. And I said that I could do that. Then I asks him if he’s got a name. Ben Skywalker, he tells me. Is he a genuine Skywalker? Who knows. He has the look of one. But he never told me he was. And I asks him one more thing. What have you done, laddie, to deserve a fate like this? And he shrugs and says that if he told me, I’d hand him over to the local Clan Chief, to be tortured to death. Slow.”

Ben had a few conditions, of his sale.

He allowed he would fight a Wookiee, but not to the death, because he had been raised by a Wookiee, and was part of a Wookiee clan.

And if they put him in the ring with former officers of the Old Empire, or any servants of the Dark Side, he wouldn’t just fight these, he’d fight them to the death.

It wasn’t long before the big man who fought with a lightsaber in nothing but traditional Wookiee battle dress, jackboots, and a pair of exercise shorts under his battle kilt became a main attraction.

He was ruthless and unstoppable.

The Circus Mortis held spectacles in the evening on Mondays and Thursdays and in the afternoon and evening on Sundays, and it was only at the biggest spectacle of the week on Sunday night that you could come and see The Wookiee fight opponents to the death.

Otherwise, Skywalker would have killed them faster than Darkstar could buy them.

In the other spectacles, his gladiators, drawn from many humanoid races throughout the Galaxy, fought each other.

But, on Sundays, they fought a motley collection of Old Empire officers, Dark Side cultists and other hated minions of the Old Empire and the First Order that the Ringmaster bought, highly illegally, from overcrowded prisons and POW camps.

Nothing pleased the crowd like seeing those baddies dispatched.

“When it’s a Sunday and a holiday, or close to one? I give Skywalker his own spectacle. He killed twenty of them in one night for me during the last big festival.” Ragnar bragged.

But he didn’t just choose his gladiators and gladiatrix for their ability to fight; Ragnar tried to buy the ones who were the best-looking.

Because many of his spectators wanted a piece of their favorite gladiator or gladiatrix, and for a price, that service too was available.

Not that the Ringmaster was a villain about it.

If one of his gladiators wasn’t willing to sell their bodies for pleasure, or if they found the buyer a bridge too far, then Ragnar didn’t compel them to do it.

That was another arena in which Skywalker made Ragnar Darkstar a lot of money.

“He’s not too picky, is my champion. Surprise me, Fenrir, he tells me. If she’s a humanoid, and female and she wants me enough to pay for me, well, I always have been a sucker for giving a woman what she wants. And I’ve never had a disappointed customer, yet. It’s hell feeding the man, he eats like a Wookiee, but he’s worth every penny I put into him. It's only the best for my Wookiees. Skywalker’s got quite a following, and the ones who aren’t rich and hang around the back gate waiting on the off days to watch the gladiators train in the practice arena? He’ll see to them for free. They know Ben’s always good for it, too. My champion. Fights like a lion. Fucks like a stallion. Makes me a fucking fortune, may great Thor bless him to the end of my days!"

And Fenrir would laugh.

As for Ben, he thought he’d hate being a gladiator, but he found he liked it.

After he had returned from the World Between Worlds, his first instinct was to go to Arkanis, where the Skywalker saga began with the death in battle of the Skywalker who was a Chieftain of the Raven Clan.

Shmi Skywalker was a concubine, and Chieftain Skywalker’s cousin had sold her and Anakin Skywalker into slavery on Tattoine, to hide the fact that his dead kinsman had a rightful heir.

Of sorts.

Ben’s initial thought was to become a Clan Chieftain; he was certain he could defeat the current Chieftain of the Raven Clan, if he had to.

But Ben didn’t want to be a warlord, anymore.

Then he thought about going back to being Hela Darkstar’s concubine.

Hela would never hand him over to the authorities, but she wouldn’t allow him to have such a lowly position; that he was her concubine when he was 20 and she was 28 was sort of a joke, anyway.

That was when Ben remembered the infamous Circus Mortis.

He had expected it to be punishment, and it was, but what Ben hadn’t expected was that being owned, like an animal, gave him a certain feeling of peace.

It was almost like when he had been Master Snoke’s apprentice, but he had always hated that, in his heart.

This was better.

Simpler.

Easier.

Ben lived in the barracks with the Wookiees, and never had to speak Basic, or wear shoes or any clothes but shorts unless he was in the Arena.

He didn’t have to worry about anything; he was one of Darkstar’s prize animals and was kept as well as any prize bull or stallion.

And his life was simple.

He had his own bunk, and a chest of his things.

He woke early with his bunkmates, and all the Gladiators and Gladiatrix ate breakfast together in the mess hall, then they trained until lunch, ate lunch, trained until dinner, and after dinner, if there was no spectacle they had that time to themselves.

They even had a day off, Saturday, on which they could do what they liked.

On Wednesday and Sunday nights, Ben entertained his female customers, and he entertained his female admirers every chance he got.

It was a simple life of feasting, fighting and fucking, and left him too tired at night for nightmares or insomnia, and too occupied all day for anxiety and melancholy.

A life of immediacy and forgetfulness.

And he felt like he was doing his time for the crimes he had committed.

He sold himself to the Circus Mortis for five years; he thought, when his time was up he might make it five more.

Maybe he would stay, indefinitely.

It wasn’t what he had wanted from life, and it surely wasn’t what the Force, or Force Ghosts, or family Force Ghosts had wanted when they sent him back from the World Between Worlds.

He had heard his mother survived, and of course he knew that Rey and Uncle Chewie were alright, and that they would take care of each other.

He missed them, when he allowed himself to think on them.

But that was another man’s life.

Ben Solo’s.

Maybe even Kylo Ren’s.

But it wasn’t fated to be part of Ben Skywalker’s life, which he was content with.

From a certain point of view.

***

Poe held his hand to his nose, his eyes scrunched together in pain as he coughed, and Arkanian ale dribbled out of his nose.

Finn pounded him on the back.

“I’m OK. I’m OK. Tell me that again.”

The Twi-Lek trader excitedly repeated himself.

“I was not seeing things! I don’t know Solo as well as you do, I didn’t grow up with him, but I used to do business with him and his father. And the gladiator they call The Wookiee is Ben farkling Solo. Holy Mother Force, how did he end up there? I’ll bet after Kylo Ren killed Han, and that deal to sell those rathtars to the Hutts went sideways? Rotta probably tracked Ben down, and sold him to the Ringmaster.”

“Couldn’t have. Ben Solo was in prison in the detention block on Old Man Snoke’s Star Destroyer. He broke out and killed Snoke to save his girl. Rey Skywalker, the Last Jedi. And she killed the Emperor. And Ben Solo killed Kylo Ren and all the Knights of Ren. Don’t you know anything? Everybody knows that!” The barmaid reminded the trader.

“I meant after the war. Nobody’s seen Ben since. Well? That’s why.”

“Ben’s dead. He died in the war. He killed Kylo Ren, and all the Knights of Ren, but the effort killed him, and he became One with the Force.” Poe explained.

“Well, that’s what you heard. But I saw him. He’s worse than dead. He’s a slave. A Gladiator with an iron collar around his neck. And the Ringmaster’s peddling his ass, too. To women. Rich ones. So I’m not crying for him too much, but, still, to be kept and fought like a mad dog, and bred like a prize stallion? It’s not right. If you don't believe me? You should go to the Galactic Coliseum. On Sunday night. See for yourself.”

Part Two