Anakin noticed Helena fiddling with the locket around her neck, but he already felt like he’d been prying too much. Helena had answered his questions, yes, but he didn’t want to push things too far. The locket seemed infinitely more intimate than anything he’d asked thus far, as if it might be that line he shouldn’t cross.
The humor left Anakin’s expression and he grew serious again when the topic of conversation turned towards his younger self.
“He’s talking to me with sentences again, which is an improvement over silence or short, one word answers.” Anakin shrugged. Though he tried not to let this bother him, the truth was, it did. He couldn’t change how the boy felt about him, he never could change anyone’s opinion of him, and most did expect the worst of him. On some level he’d learned to ignore it, if he hadn’t his time at the Temple would have been worse. But this was his younger self they were talking about. Ani was a separate person, but before arriving in the Land of Make Believe the boy had been him. The way the boy looked at Anakin now certainly gave a new meaning to the phrase ‘self-loathing’.