She is healthier now, Rachel thinks, and happier. This is not a condition many associate with Tatooine, though Tatooine itself is a paradise compared to what little she can remember of where she came from (she once tried to reassure Shmi with this. She achieved the exact opposite). After all, here... here, she has family again. Here, she is free.
But many are not. She remembers this always. She is not strictly Amavikka, though she is picking up the language and the ways - initially it was in dribs and drabs from Anakin, because he adores Rachel and could not initially conceive of a former slave who was not Amavikka, later from others (mostly Shmi, who at first only gently corrected her grammar and pronunciation where necessary, and now teaches her in earnest, as well as giving specific answers to specific customary questions where Rachel does not want to cause offence).
However, she is a former slave, and while she is not quite Amavikka and they are certainly not mutants (though she has suspicions about Anakin) and not under the umbrella of Xavier's Dream, they are both close enough. She has power and she has freedom. She uses both.
It begins when she reveals that she can take away pain - Anakin, with more enthusiasm than common sense, has been working on his pod-racer, and burns himself with a laser welder. His shrieks of pain summon his mother and Rachel, his new sister, a shadowy presence around the Skywalker's hovel behind Watto's shop. Rachel smooths away the pain and wipes his tears, helping Shmi salve and bind his wounds. She knows that this is not entirely unexpected by Shmi, who knows that her daughter is capable of things beyond the ordinary.
Shortly after, she reveals that she can do far more. When they return to the shop, Watto is buzzing around, angry that Shmi has left the shop unattended, and intending to punish Anakin as a proxy for her - after all, it is 'his' fault. Especially since that welder was Watto's (even if Anakin and Shmi were the ones who actually used it). Such is the way of depur. He grabs Anakin by the bound burn, and the pain flares beyond Rachel's smoothing effect. Her little brother screams, and Rachel acts.
For months, the girl has been little more than a shadow, especially in depur's presence, blending into the background as if she were part of it. It is an instinct that all the Amavikka recognise, a desire not to capture depur's attention and wrath - or, worse, interest.
That is something that Shmi has worried about with Rachel, who is young and now that she is better fed - and the fact that even what little Shmi and other slaves could find for her, before she started hunting in earnest, left her better fed speaks horrors of what she underwent before - with her ruby red hair growing out, showing increasing signs of radiant beauty.
Even freed, the instinct to hide is a powerful one, and Rachel has an uncanny knack for it, seeming to fold the shadows around her.
When Anakin screams, however, she stops hiding, and Watto is slammed against the wall of his shop and pinned there by something invisible and implacable, at the command of one outstretched hand. Starlight burns in Rachel's eyes, and every piece of junk in the shop floats into the air, orienting itself to point at the Skywalkers' depur, the one who dared to hurt a member of her family.
Shmi begs her to stop, and eventually, she does. As she later explains, if Rachel destroyed Watto or forced him to give up his remote detonators, the consequences will be terrible - not only would they be seen as 'stolen', but there are other consequences to consider. There is nothing that depur fears more than power they do not control, and this more than anything else gets home to Rachel – she doesn't remember much of her past, but she remembers that lesson with aching clarity.
And, Shmi does not say, while she will admit to herself that a dark part of her finds Watto's palpable terror extremely gratifying, she does not want Anakin to grow up believing that this is the way. Depur must be defeated, yes, but if they are defeated like this, using depur's own tactics, it is the slaves who will suffer the most.
Rachel reluctantly concedes, and so Watto lives, bruised and afraid, and he never raises a hand to the Skywalkers again. He never even raises his voice. He does not become kind; he certainly does not become nar'depur, freeing slaves and trying to make things right. But he does not threaten the Skywalkers again, and Rachel is content.
He is also likely the source of her new name, one which grows in use and weight as she casts off her fear and claims the shadows for her own: she is called 'the Witch of the Quarter', by the Amavikka and the servants of depur alike.
The Amavikka speak her name with awe, gratitude, and respect. They know her true name, but if they speak where they might be overheard, they call her Askani, 'outcast', for though she is free, like them she walks the edges of the world. The freeborn from other worlds, spacers and traders usually, call her Mistress Askani as a result, often either with a hint of amused mockery (which rarely lasts, because those who spend any time on Tatooine recognise power when they see it) or increasing excitement and wonder, wanting to be able to tell others that they had met the Witch of the Quarter. The servants of depur only know her as the Witch. They spit and make signs to ward off evil as they speak it, and when they do it, it is dark, angry, and with a tremble of fear. As for depur, they prefer not to speak of her at all, and will not have her spoken of in their hearing.
She never intends it, and she certainly never encourages them, but the stories spread all the same. They pass from fearful overseers spreading a warning, to spacers and merchants spinning a tale, and to the Amavikka, who know most of the true stories (which are often stranger and more wondrous than any fiction) and keep them to themselves. And all the while, they grow in the telling.
The Witch of the Quarter sees all, they say. Even species that pride themselves on resistance to the powers of the mighty Jedi find it hard to lie to her.
She can take away pain better than any Singer, even the pains of the mind (though slaves rarely ask for that - their pain is theirs, and they hold to it, for they have little else).
She can calm tempers and inspire terror with a mere look from her life-green eyes.
She can make the most hardened overseer weep from guilt at their actions.
She can arouse the conscience of the coldest depur (though she rarely does that, because the depur know of her, and the depur are cruel, not stupid. Such actions invite retribution - for while they fear her, they know they can use her compassion against her).
She can find those who are lost (though she dislikes doing that, and will only do so when absolutely necessary), and make those who need to be lost disappear.
She can walk into a room and know who was there, and even, sometimes, what was done and what was spoken of.
She can lift a speeder with one thought, and shatter chains with another, and even the strength of the mightiest bantha means nothing to her will.
She can even speak to your soul, if she wishes to, in a language that all understand.
They say that these things are only a fraction of the things she can do, and many of those who have met her believe it. The Amavikka know it for true, though even they do not know how true it really is, for the Witch of the Quarter keeps her secrets well.
She walks through the Quarter clad in robes the dark grey-green of desert plants, and the reddish brown of a setting sun on the sand, carrying a slim stave of carved japoor wood (it was payment, and only a vague sense that it is important leads her to keep it. Well, that and the fact that she does a lot of hiking) and all know her for who she is.
No one knows where she came from, or what her purpose is. But the Amavikka know her true name, and they know more than most.
They know is that she was once a slave and that she will never accept payment from another slave as a result, so that they may more easily make themselves free (water or food, she will accept - she is kind, not stupid, and if she has spare, she can find someone who needs it).
They know that she despises depur and all their works, and she will disrupt them when she can - if you can find your implant, there is no one better to remove it.
They know that she dislikes the stories about her, but that she cannot stop them, for as surely as her hair is as red as Ekkreth's wings, she is one of the Trickster's favourites (some even say that her travels into the desert are to commune with Ekkreth. This is considered fanciful by many. Yet at the same time, no one is entirely willing to rule it out, either…).
There is one thing, and one alone, that all know for certain: she is the Witch of the Quarter, with starlight in her eyes, and she is not to be trifled with.