#Pools of Sorrow Waves of Joy|Anakin and Melakeni

[brooklynislandgirl]

Confess! Are you turned on by pain or violence?

Accusation Meme|| - {{tagging my darling @mynameisanakin for reasons}}

All of the air in her more-or-less vestigial lungs is expelled as she lands hard on her back. Her head is spared crashing onto the mat below with a reflexive jerk and she lets it sink down as her vision blurs for that split second. Above them are the catwalks and the star charts that span the practice room ceilings though a moment later even those are blotted out by the looming dark tunic, and the most beautiful smile that exists in all of the galaxy. Sweat stains his golden hair darker and the curls become tighter as a few of them stick to his face. A bead of dampness hangs off the tip of his nose until it falls and drips onto her face, causing Melakeni to blink. She doesn't bother to move. The heat from his body is almost as effective in pinning her down as his weight. The soles of his boots brush her ankles, and the weight of him settles into her. If they were anywhere else. If they were anyone else.. Keni would have sharply pivoted her hips to unseat him and be quick to swap places. She'd settle so that they would align as closely as possible and then she'd tease him with the slowest grind of her hips, the unmistakable evidence of need, of desire. But they aren't anyone else. They are themselves. They are ever under the watchful eyes of their Masters, of the entire Order when they are in the temple. There is no place for expressing their love of one another, no sharing the basic comforts of compatible biological entities in the fullness of their own ripening. So she swallows down the desire. She forces her sap to course through her phloem and xylem as serenely as it does when she meditates. She ignores the way she craves to feel him wrap his arms around her. To taste his mouth as he delves into hers. Ignores the ache that doesn't ever seem to go away. She thinks he knows. He must. His smile softens and adrenaline bleeds its course away. "You dropped guard on your flank. Next time, feel my swing the whole way through." I love you, is what he really says. "What makes you think there will be a next time? If I were serious, you would be dead." That is when he feels the metal edge of her hidden blade acquaint itself with his belly. Another flick of her wrist, and it is again hidden away. She has the decency not to try to lick the faintest red line. And I love you, my Za'lali. Once again, the Inevitability of Doom is postponed.

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin

imagine your otp

bonus:

[brooklynislandgirl]

Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden.  Passion leads to the Dark Side. So, you might say, we are encouraged to love.

@mynameisanakin​

[brooklynislandgirl]

Succubus: What’s one thing you can’t live without?

There is a blur of purple as both sabre and Master break form from the basic technique she was teaching.The heat and light of the focused plasma beam stops just millimetres from Rey’s face, and something animalistic washes over her even before Rey’s question has died on the girl’s lips. There is a pure cold-burning rage that Melakeni doesn’t try to mask before whipping the blade away and pressing the button on the hilt. She turns crisply on bare feet and stalks across the carefully cultivated grass where woman and girl were practising combat styles, and Keni withdraws into the shadows of the open door way. Once there, she stops. Turns around. Stalks back toward Rey and taking a stick-thin arm in fingers more like iron vines, drags her toward the house, unwilling or not.Into her most private sanctum.Stops only in front of a carved wooden shelf. An aura, dark and restive and faintly disturbing to anyone with even a passing familiarity of the Force, radiates from the items contained there. The hand that doesn’t have a death-grip on Rey hovers along certain edges and angles, and the soul-deep anger now mixes with a grief so palpable that it was a wonder the sun of Zelos II didn’t burn out because of it.“He. Was not. A. Thing.”

She lets go and tucks her hands inside of the sleeves of her voluminous robes. Lets the hood hide her face but the very astute and quick might have caught the emotion written in the lines, making her look…older. Defeated. Threadbare.

Sinking down until she’s closer to eye-level, she breathes out a heavy sigh from aching lungs.“They had many names for him. Many uses. They treated him like a weapon, a tool. They treated him like he was trash beneath their feet, something to be disdained and discarded at a moment’s convenience. Did you know… he was born a slave. Raised on a desert hell planet, he was almost your age when he was found by a Master and… imagine… They used the money he earned in a pod-race that nearly cost him his life…to buy him from his owner. They bought him…but they never freed him. “They used every fear he had, every loss he suffered as a means to control him, to use him as they saw fit, like some rabid creature on a very tight leash. The scars they put on him were not all bone and flesh. The madness in his later years was seeded in him from the first. All because one of them…a very long time ago…had a vision and spoke of one who would be Chosen by the Force, and we all knew that he was the one foretold. “They never really let him be a boy. He was trained twice as hard as any of us, taken on dangerous missions before he was fully ready because he… You and I…we feel the Force as it flows through us, around us, connects us to every living thing in the galaxy. But it was different…he was different in it. I don’t think…I could ever properly explain it, if you’d never felt his presence. It was at once glorious and terrifying and delicately balanced between the two most of the time. And maybe…maybe what made him different was… that he was the most compassionate soul I have ever met. He cared about….everything. Droid, clone, every sentient, every plant…”Her narrow shoulders rise and fall in the slightest of shrugs, her eyes closing and her mouth parted. The agony that sweeps through her is palpable. “During the war…they called him the Hero with no fear. But that….that wasn’t exactly right, either. During those dark days we tried so hard to stay connected and I know how much it hurt him to cause pain, to cause suffering. Having to see with his own eyes as the ideals of the Republic came crumbling down around him. To have everything he sacrificed for spat on, taken away from him, downplayed because he was the one who did what no one else could. “If they had let him…we would have left quietly. He had a wealth of rage inside, that’s true, but do… Do you know what rage is? It is fear and grief and suffering that is trapped inside, suffocating and compressing in the darkest of places. It is like magma beneath a planet’s surface. Roiling so intensely but only dangerous when it comes bursting up in a river of fire and smoke and heat, when it has no other outlet. And I need you to know…I am not saying he was perfect. Far from it. He was as human as you and ….well, as you. And I was his best friend and I loved him with every fibre of my being, and I know he had his faults and flaws, but I also know he always tried to do what he thought was right, no matter what the consequences were.”She takes a shaky breath and a sound comes out of her that could have been a laugh if it weren’t laced with unfathomable emotions. She rises from her crouch and comes closer still to the shelf. Delicate fingertips run along the hilt of the now antique lightsabre on the second shelf. Behind her eyelids she alone can see the memories. Same with a fragment of his robes that she’d kept for longer than she wished to acknowledge. The droid bit she still doesn’t know where it went or really what it was, but knows the smile that had been born of it. And lastly, she reaches for a small black box with no markings. Takes it down and opens it, a bit of light spilling onto her features as she finally peers into it. When she takes out the item from within, she treats it like a holy relic.Its flickering light catches on the braided bracelet encircling her wrist.“This was…the last time we…we were happy and uncomplicated. He loved this place. The quiet and the green and the fact that he had nothing to prove, nothing weighing down on him. He could simply be.”She turned the holo-image so that Rey could seeKeni looked much different. Still herself, but younger. More vibrant. Alive and full of joy, and the young man next to her was certainly handsome. Tall and strong and golden-haired. Arms wrapped around her waist, smiling down at her as she looked up at him in adoration. They were laughing even as he leaned down and buried his face in the crook of her neck. The words she said to him lost in time, but that echo through it still.“Many years ago…longer than I care to count… You might, in some circles, hear stories about how he…destroyed the Jedi to a whole. But even full in the Dark Side’s embrace… he allowed his master and mine to escape. He spared his senator. He risked life and limb and destruction to see that I was at his side. That they did not find Eigh…Luka. That Tazu and Rusk saved some of the children under my care. He destroyed a record with the name and coordinates of every Force-sensitive child in the galaxy at the time, some barely born, most not a full standard year. So that no one could find them all, use them. He treated the clones under his command as men deserving of dignity and respect. He worked tirelessly in his own fashion to make the galaxy a ordered, peaceful place, the Emperor’s orders be damned, and Palpatine? Feared him, just as the Council did…because he knew… That he couldn’t control and manipulate Anakin any more.”

She put the holo-image back into its box. That is perhaps when it became evident that her bracelet…was made of leather and human hair. A padawan braid.

“I could have kept him alive you know. I could have used the Force to heal his wounds, to make him as close to whole as possible. But in the end, I think… I think he was exhausted, beyond measure. Murdered in spirit by the turbulent life he led more than the damage to his mind and body. He would have stayed with me, if I had but begged. I would have died with him if he would have let me.”And in all but the biological sense, she had, turned to ash and salt and sand on his pyre.She swallowed and her voice became less than a whisper.“The most important lesson you will learn, little Rey, is that even the mightiest stars burn out.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin {{xx}}

Innocently, her very first thought is that either she hadn’t actually spoken aloud, or that perhaps it was entirely possible that Anakin hadn’t heard her. Sometimes it’s the former, in that they often communicate without need for real words, or language as understood by any other sentient or programmed droid. And sometimes, which was precious in and of itself, Anakin would get distracted, completely subsumed by whatever project he was concentrating on that the world outside of his head ceased to exist. It didn’t bother her like it might others. She didn’t need all of his attention at every moment to know that he enjoyed her company or that he cared about her in ways that defied description. And she knew that it was the same with him, that he understood that sometimes, much as she’d rather be with him, that her mind was elsewhere, entrenched in her own training, laser focused on her Master’s every word or whim, or that she simply needed to shut things out, drift through the embrace of the living Force as she would sunlight on her bare skin. It would never occur to her to be upset with him, to berate him for his lack of attention. And this was how the question came about in the first place. Laying on the roof of the Temple, watching ships break atmosphere, feeling the wind rush around the buildings but being sheltered from it, the pollution of light from the immense Galactic City limning them into a strange bas-relief, they hadn’t spoken for hours. But she was starting to feel cold nipping through her system which in turn makes her scoot closer to him, worm her way under his arm and drag some not yet frayed edge of his outer robe against her face. Breathing in the scent of soap and skin, clean and distinct, she can think of nothing else so comforting than his warmth as it wraps around her in the Force and through his robes. When they were younger, she sometimes wondered if he was always a touch feverish. Anakin was the first person that taught her about homesickness. Trying to distract herself from the elements and the desire to burrow into him, she asked the first thing that came to mind. It’s only when he answers that she realises she’s made a CRITICAL error in judgement. Her eyes are drawn to them. There at the end of what seem like impossibly long legs. Her gaze scrapes down the length of his thighs to just where they start. And they are useful. She absolutely doesn’t think of sand clinging to his skin in any way. She doesn’t picture him marching for leagues under all kinds of unbearable climate or atmosphere, doesn’t think about what would make him have to, because that only reminds here that there is a war on, and when it started….and every time he leaves… that he could...that… Supple. That’s what they are. And the word feels right on her tongue. The colour is gorgeous. But not half as beautiful as the shin guards, with their buckled straps. This is in fact the moment that Keni realises she may actually know more about Anakin’s boots than she has any right to. That she may have imagined him in them one too many times. She had to look away from them. Only to come face to face with that thing Ani does with his lip. Suddenly the cold isn’t so much of an issue, and she is thankful that the innate darkness keeps him from seeing just how green she can turn at any given moment.

“Fascinating,” is the only thing she manages to eke out. Because of course this is the moment you choose to be an idiot. Like he isn’t going to notice how much attention you just paid to his boots. Or that he can’t feel all of your blood is now just under your surface. “Maybe...maybe I should get a pair.” …. …… …….Smooth. She shifts at his side. “You should come inside. It’s starting to…” She gets to her feet, leaving the thought unspoken.

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin   {{XX}}

The moment she’d felt him break atmosphere, her meditation shattered into pieces. Fragments she found impossible to recollect, no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut, pushed everything else out of her mind. Her blood would not be silent as it roared hoarsely in her ears, coursed through her entire system like some caged beast determined to escape. It was all she could do to force herself to stay where she was, not go running to him. A patience that wears thin and coarse the longer they keep him. Reporting his mission, standing with nothing but the Force keeping him upright in the Council chamber no doubt, she can all but see him through the floors and walls. And she isn’t ashamed to admit that maybe a little of that anxiousness comes from him. If she were not a Jedi in her own right, she would have bowled him over the second he slips inside of her room. With as much dignity as she can muster, she’s by his side. Hands on his face. Breathing him in as close as she might while still managing to be a separate physical entity. It is a ritual, one that ends with them sharing the thin and narrow bed. Sometimes he tells her everything, sometimes she is content to dwell in this space and this silence, finally able to breath again.  Tonight it is the latter.  She was almost asleep, wrapped in the warmth and wonder of him, no pressing need to speak, content enough to exist beside him, legs tangled at the ankle and back curved into the wall of his chest. To allow him to run his fingers through the silk of her hair.

“Mela flowers.” She murmurs. A faint ghost of a smile curving her lips. “It is why my fathers chose to name me so. To hear them tell it, there were little leaves in the mess of curls when I was born, a rare trait in my specific bloodline. They also grow wild in the woods.” It is the second thing that gives her pause. How does it never occur to him that there is nothing in this life that is hers that isn’t also his? And she knows...she knows he’s not asking what she thinks he is, so... She turns gently, slowly so that she can press her face near his throat, while allowing him to keep hold of her hair. “If I give you my flowers, what would you do with them?”

[brooklynislandgirl]

Naughty

I love as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers  ~Pablo Neruda

For a minute the crystalline remains of the sugar cube ~a rare treat, makes her feel more mature and elegant than her age would suggest~ linger on her lips before she chases the sweetness with the tip of her tongue. Slow. Deliberate. The same way he’s drinking his...actually, she isn’t even sure what that is in his glass, only that the colour is enticing in the best of ways, reminds her of moon set over Kryndyn’s fifth gate.  On one hand, she is surprised at how well he’s doing. Anakin’s thoughts and emotions always turn up in his face, holo-projected through his body language ~even now, the incessant need for motion comes from the way his fingertip traces the glass’s edge, or a foot taps to a beat chaotically countering the soft music playing through the room but still managing to be rhythmic~ or otherwise singing through the Force. On the other, she’s also quite proud that their attempt at espionage is going so well. Maybe it’s because they are on a rim-world, where people don’t immediately recognise him. 

And as they wait for their contact, of course they talk. Although she isn’t sure that he had actually spoken the question, or if it simply sank into her thoughts because she always listens to the things he doesn’t say aloud. To her credit, there’s no tell-tale blush creeping over the uncomfortably exposed skin that’s visible to anyone that cares to look. A far cry from their robes but also very...liberating if a little scandalous. And therein lies the psychology of it, she feels feminine and sensual, not just another interchangeable knight. Maybe he glances a little longer than he might normally do so. Maybe he notices her as something more than his most constant companion who isn’t his Master.

“I think,” she says softly, meant for his ears alone, “that with the right person....I might be... very passionate.” It’s telling that she doesn’t exactly know. That she is even comfortable admitting it to him, but then there is nothing about her that off-limits to Anakin; their trust and closeness are such that she can be absolutely honest with him. There are times during missions with her Master that he rests his hand on the back of her neck, fingers coiled around the slender column of her throat, that tighten as the mood strikes him. Sometimes hardly noticeable. At others though...it becomes a struggle just to breath and the pleasure of that is as absolutely disturbing as it is painfully arousing. Her eyes flicker toward his gloved hand before she looks very quickly away.

“You’re going to laugh but... I always imagine that love making is special, not just something you and the other person should do just because you can. Because you are bored. Because you can’t express yourself any other way. It is so much more than that. And that it is... consuming. A kiss that haunts you all your days, spending hours trailing fingertips across skin, learning every shiver and sigh, the way you connect through the Force that is as agonising as it is sublime, listening to the way your...Khuyaq...exalts in the act. It’s very...hard to explain...with words. I don’t think it really...can be?” Delicately, she plucks another sugar cube from the little dish, places it on her tongue, and savours the way it starts to dissolve. Impulsively, she reaches out and touches the hand made out of flesh, as if through a strong physical connection, she can make sense of what she’s trying to say by sharing the sensations and emotions through the Force. Not a single sense wasted, nothing held back in the moment. Aware of everything and nothing but the person you’re with. She pushes the half melted cube to the corner of her mouth. “Like...like that.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

♟ — Does your muse believe in free will? Do they believe that people are mostly free? {for the illustrious plant}

Pono | Accepting

She wipes her mouth with the back of her forearm, ushering water away from her lips. If it weren’t already half empty and resources rationed because they were dwindling, she would have poured a little down the back of her neck, too. Not that the tepid liquid would be an improvement, the air itself is heavy, suffocating and nearly thick enough with wet as to be swimmable.

A rueful glance is tossed his way before her eyes roll up and behind fluttering lashes. It’s not an indictment of him as a person. It could never be that; Anakin is the one person who doesn’t rub her last nerves raw and doesn’t chafe her already overstimulated senses. She twists her neck this way and that and listens to the way it creaks. And maybe she doesn’t want to answer, but she always answers Anakin.“To a limited degree, yes. I think people are mostly free to choose how they react to the world around them, to one another. I believe that life is nothing but a series of choices to be made moment to moment. Like skipping a stone across the surface of a pond. Each action, each thought sending out a ripple across the Force, ever widening until one can no longer see the impact they make but that those choices echo.”This is largely true. Even slaves can choose some things. He once told her between nightmare and waking, of a thing he witnessed as a small boy before Master Jinn and Master Kenobi found him. The horror of that choice still haunts her though to a far lesser degree than it does him.

“But I also think…that once one steps a single foot on the path of the Force that it will dictate all that is to come. You can fight it, every step. Every breath, but the Force will always find a way to achieve its ends. Freedom is therefore an illusion, albeit a beautiful one.”

I believe in you.For me, that is everything.For me, that is enough.

“Commander?”Wearily, she lifts her head and focuses on the trooper in front of her. Focuses on the ochre chevron painted on the front of his armour, battered and scarred. “Yes?”“We’ve cleared the path for you, Commander. The men are in position to lay down suppressing fire.”

She sighs through her nose but smiles wearily at him. “Thank you, Belts. We’ll go in on my mark.”“Yes, sir.”

She isn’t sure what it’s like for Anakin but being stationed to a RMSU? The injured are carted in by the dozens, and those that don’t make it are carted right back out…or used for parts. It’s the most disgusting sort of assembly line. As soon as you finish one, you pull your gloves off, change into a fresh set. A missing eye. Minor burns. Three feet of bowel. A leg fractured in a dozen places. Days pass without notice. Endless red and screaming and the thing you start to fear most is the silence.

Then come moments like this. A small platoon is pinned down behind Separatist lines, carrying scouting footage, the most critical intelligence. Of the original twenty, she knows only seven remain, so she trades scrubs for her tunic and leggings, trying not to succumb to the heat and the wet of the jungle. She leaves the doctors of the Service Corps to their work ~a bloody butcher’s bill~ and does what she must. It isn’t a choice. Though it seems like one at the time.

Once Belts goes back to his brothers, she closes her eyes. Takes hold of the Force with both hands, tightens her grip until her knuckles are white. Concentrates until once again she can see his face: just as exhausted, pained, and too serious. She can taste his preoccupation with her safety, the strangled feeling in his chest that he can’t be here and she does the only thing she can. She smiles at him. Urges him to feel the caress of her hand on his cheek. Tries to leave him the impression of all the feelings she harbours for him.

“There’s a reason prophecy is always a little vague.”

I love you. Stay safe.

The ghost of her fades from their connection as she throws him a wink. Breathes out a focusing sigh and pulls the hilt of her sabre from it’s holster.

[brooklynislandgirl]

7.what color brings you peace? 28. hugs or hand-holding? {Have two}

Softly || Accepting

“Blue.”The word comes out of her mouth almost the second before he finishes asking the question, an indication that she’s listening to him not so much with her ears as she is the Force. Eyes shut, she doesn’t have to look to know, because that blue is stitched into every fibre of her being.“The colour of the sky when it holds the heavy promise of rain. Or when it’s barely breathed on by the kiss of morning. The colour of the sea. Both you can drown in or find the Force itself. The space between cities. The glow of a sabre defending from oncoming night.”She stretches into the heat of him, brow against his shoulder. His fingertips trailing along her spine in endless, patternless designs that can only make sense in his mind. Maybe each brush of skin on skin is a schema mapped out in its entirety inside his head, what he sees when he closes his eyes, a programming language of his own invention. In those little touches, the constant need to be in motion, she can feel his own anxiety slip away. His own kind of tranquillity. Hers, though, resides in him, the colour of his eyes.He doesn’t stop her as she shifts with his next question, sliding a leg over his and finds herself looking down at him. Leans forward until the ends of her hair brushes his chest. Laces her fingers with those that are not flesh and blood, not giving any thought to it beyond being careful as she is with all the rest of him; Anakin has spent a lifetime being too roughly treated to have to know it from her.“Would you think less of me...if I said....both?”She can’t help but tease him, trying to coax out a lazy smile. There is more than a bit of truth to it though. But hand-holding is only a crack from which light can creep into the darkest of places; it lets her satisfy herself for contact but it can never be enough. The desire to be closer and closer still that makes a handhold become a loose wrap of arms around his waist. A cheek pressed against his. Legs as tangled as the sheets around them, pooled now over and around their hips.Her other hand trails along his jaw, then falls away, flat palm on the pillow beside his head. “But I suppose you deserve a fair answer and if I had to choose...I’m going to have to go with hugs. When you pull me close. Swathe your cloak around me. You know how cold it can get, and when you’re wrapped around me, it’s like...nothing else matters. Nothing else exists.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin​

Bouquet.

Natsukusa ya Tsuwamonodomo ga Yume no ato  ~Matsuo Basho

She is burning alive.  The only relief to be found anywhere is the sheets beneath her, around her, that somehow haven’t yet caught fire. Soft and sleek and black. Expensive as they are luxurious. His scent completely enveloping her in its dark and mysterious way. She almost wonders if her Master had found them this way or if he’d made certain demands as befitted his covert identification. She almost wonders if the Council would approve such a thing. Almost wonders if they even kn- A whisper of sound scrapes at the edges of her senses. The door sliding into its recess in the wall. It is as loud in her head as thunder. She feels it in the very fibre of her bones and winces from the almost non-existent sound. Presses herself a touch deeper into the bed with only momentary regret as she tries to catch her fleeting thoughts as they scatter on little clawed feet. Sweat slicks her slicks her skin. Her eyes refuse to focus and trying to pry her lids open only makes her dizzily disoriented, especially in the near total darkness that surrounds her. Time and space and the relation of things leave only a filmy trace in the back of her throat like the residue of sickness. She tries and fails to rise up on her elbows and a rusty imitation of her voice follows several seconds too late after.

“Master....please....not again. Not...so...soon.”

Surely he can see that the welts on her back from where her blood was sucked to the surface and drawn into his strange vials were still raw and angry. Not that she’d balked at the use of herself this way. She never did.

Kuznezoffi is a parasitic poison. It needs a stable internal temperature and plasma to feed itself, to allow its toxicity to reach peak levels. And because it effects both the heart and respiratory systems, to which there was no antidote even in the most advanced of the Republic’s hospitals, she is the perfect host. At least that was the theory. It wouldn’t kill her, she lacks the requisite targets. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel it trying to claw its way out and that it doesn’t hurt like no tomorrow.

Even so...it takes her a moment to latch onto the disturbance all around her. All the shadows beyond her eyes squeezed shut seeming to concentrate around her into something more resembling durasteel. Oppressively heavy. Bitter as a winter night on Hoth. The creeping sensation of being watched in absolute judgement but not in the way she is used to. What her senses refuse to acknowledge, the Force is not so polite. It crackles around her without voice, nothing so reminiscent as it is static on a broken comm-link. The subtle vibrations of a kyber crystal in its housing. A thousand shredder bat wings- “Keni?”  A single word. A portion of her name. A small eternity between that and... “What the fuck are you doing here?”

But that cannot be right. It has got to be shades of the delirium. Because her Master is a different shape in the Force, tastes different on her tongue, feels different in every sense of the word except for the rage. That is too similar by half. Because her Master does not sound a thing like-

“Anakin?”

Palms splay damply against those sheets. She tries to gain purchase so that she can push herself up. Muscle remains flaccid and it takes so much out of her but she manages. Barely. One arm trembling from the strain. Her hair and the sheet stuck to her damp skin providing modesty, which is ridiculous. He cannot see her now. Not like she is. Not with how he practically washes out the Force entirely with a scattered pattern of emotion she can’t quite pin down even if she wanted to. “No. No. You...You can’t... you can’t be here.” Because he cannot know. Because he’s supposed to be half way across the galaxy. Because she’s not sure he’s even real or just a very tangible and lucid dream. Because if she’s dying, of course she wants Anakin here.

And because...if he is here, the sudden disconnect between them...

“I....I brought this. For you.” So many questions that buzz like wasps throughout his presence.  She only has one; how did he cross the room so quickly? But closer now, her wide blown and fervid pupils gather the faint light of the room, dimly take awareness of dark robes. Leather. Knee high. Blood grooves, or whatever it was he called the channels in the shin guard. The buckles... “....W-what?”  Despite the distraction of micro-focusing on something that made sense, something she intrinsically linked to Anakin, despite the rush of cold she felt that set her jaw hard to calm the chattering, she managed to get out the single word, and raise her gaze, though not high enough to meet his face. Maybe because she didn’t want to, maybe because she was afraid that she would see disappointment there. Hurt in his eyes. Or worse...she’d see nothing at all. But like Anakin always did, he deflected. Both what might be holding tight onto him and whatever fears she might be harbouring. This is what Anakin does, and it’s a protective measure either way you slice it. She isn’t so far out of her mind though that she doesn’t see his hand...the one that is still flesh and bone... held out. When he manages to pry open his own fist...there’s a tiny flash of light. Despite it being a little bruised and rumpled ~not unlike him, in the moment~ there is a glow that begins to come alive as the petals unfurl their gold and orange luminescence and it gains in intensity until it is as bright as... “A candle.” No. Think. Focus...  “Candlewick Flower.” Because of course Anakin would remember. “Happy birthday, Keni.”

“You...left your post. Flew...ha-half way across the galaxy...made a stop on Alderaan...and came...here. Just to bring me a flower.” “Yes.” 

“You....you’re insane.” She doesn’t hear what he says after that as her reserves are depleted and she slips into dreamless sleep.

[brooklynislandgirl]

~*~ Still and Discreet ~*~ What is the closest you’ve come to death?

Anakin’s question comes softly. Barely the brush of words at the back of her mind so that she doesn’t know if he’s actually spoken them or used the Force to whisper so that no one can hear. Perhaps it’s a little of both. It also takes her aback a little because he is so rarely direct. He approaches conversation much in the same way he does other things. Hovers at the edges. Little false stops and starts as if gathering the courage to let himself be seen and heard, to be known in any fashion outside his own head, and that is something that has been a part of him since the beginning, from the moment they first met, and likely before that. He has his reasons, ones that she could take lifetimes to try to undo, but when it is just the two of them, he’s a little more forthcoming. The rain patters just beyond the cave mouth, the air tastes wet and green as she breathes it in. The heat from the fire behind her and its flickering light lets her see just a few feet into the dark and she wonders what is waiting out there. She can sense them; clone troopers trying to find their rest. The ones sleeping off the worst of their injuries. The absence of the ones who are gone like pinprick holes in the Force. All of it pales when Anakin’s mere presence draws her awareness. Reaches out for her, envelopes every part of her. He can feel the same sense of loss and melancholy, she knows he can. And perhaps that is why he asks her. She drops the heavy tarp over the entrance to the shallow cavern and turns slowly. He stands there mostly in shadow, his face and his hair limned in flickering light.

How many times have you come close to it? Each one I have felt. She doesn’t say that aloud, doesn’t let it leave the tight confines of her control. She doesn’t want him to know how deeply she feels connected to him not merely in each other’s company but across star systems, not across the galaxy. She will never not feel Anakin. Languidly she slides her outer robes off her shoulders, her head bowed and unwilling to meet his eyes. Between her multicoloured skirts and the half-tunic that keeps her modesty gleams tawny before her hands move to her waist and drag down the fabric to just this side of indecency. A scar greets him in answer, white and thin and unmistakably precise, from the bottom of her hip to the middle of her side. Such a sabre-wound would have been murderous in anyone else that is not Melakeni. And to her it is ugly. It is a constant reminder that her Master does not tolerate disobedience for very long. “It took months to heal. Layer by excruciating layer as the fibre began to re-knit. And the remains...well, clearly they never went away. A warning that if need be...the second time I would not be so lucky.” She drops her hands. It is foolish and vain to hate it so much. More so the look that had crossed her Master’s face and the way his fingers brushed her face after the scream died in her throat.  “Nothing so terrible as what you’ve suffered. What thousands of others have known in this war. But enough that I...I know my place.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

💖 either, both, neither lol all good!

Dream a Little Dream || Accepting

Pools of Sorrow-Waves of Joy|Anikeni

HOW LIKELY THEY ARE TO ENTER A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

If she wants to be poetic, Melakeni would say that they share a soul within the force and were staggered in their embodiment so she could get a head-start in learning the things she would need to know; kindness, mercy, compassion, understanding, and patience. She would say that every step of her life has brought her closer to Anakin and there was never a time that they were not one with each other. Keni would say a lot of things, if only she could do so without fearing for Anakin, for them being separated, from a host of fears that she does her best to suppress. It is sufficient and understood whenever she tells him she loves him, or even merely sends the weight of her love to comfort him through the Force.

~*~

WOULD THEY…

MAKE THE FIRST MOVE? Yes | No Neither of them is actually certain who made the first fumbling and innocent moves toward the other, save that it likely had something to do with the games they played, the things they read and explored with one another, and just the blossoming of two young people who have been together more or less for more than a decade.

SAY “I LOVE YOU” FIRST? Yes | No

It was defensive. Reactionary. He'd been surprised when she agreed to something likely foolish and absolutely dangerous, and when he asked why, her response was simple. "...Because I love you." Or perhaps it was softer, quieter still when she flung herself into his arms that first time she thought she'd lost him to one of his master's missions and he held her close. "I will always come back. I love you." Maybe both are the truth. CHEAT ON THEM? Yes | No BE THE JEALOUS TYPE? Yes | No PLAN THE DATES? Yes | No INITIATE THE FIRST KISS? Yes | No REMEMBER ANNIVERSARIES? Yes | No ~*~ BOLD WHAT APPLIES: THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS: friends to lovers | rivals to lovers | enemies to lovers | still just enemies | mutual pining | star crossed lovers | old married couple | perpetual honeymoon phase | stable and boring | stable but not boring | secret lovers | best friends hiding their feelings | and they were roommates | friends with benefits | coworkers avoiding HR | one-sided affection | weird sexual tension | it’s complicated | toxic relationship | a secret affair | an actual dumpster fire | other PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION: hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips |  cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection {with the exception of rooftop trysts, hiding behind pillars, hiding below the Temple...} PRIVATE DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION: hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips |  cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection | Biting | Licking | Murder-Suicide Plots | Boot Appreciating | Actual Sleep | Food Sharing | Cybernetic Limb Teasing | Other

DO THEY STAY TOGETHER? yes, this is endgame | yes but someone is gonna die tragically | something is keeping them apart | they part ways as friends | they part ways as enemies | they’re on-again-off-again | they have a super messy breakup | it was just a fling | other BONUS:

WHAT TERRIBLE PET NAMES WOULD THEY GIVE EACH OTHER?

To Anakin she is Tiny Phantom Salad. To Melakeni he is Za'lali, and the heart that beats outside of her chest.

~*~

Hell or High Water Orphans|Anibeth

HOW LIKELY THEY ARE TO ENTER A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Anakin took Beth by surprise. She'd been content to live alone, licking wounds, and trying to recover her health and sanity when he turned up on her doorstep one winter night three-quarters dead, suffering from total body-sepsis, starvation, and a whole host of physical, psychological, and addiction issues. She could never turn him away, not when she was confident she could at least keep him alive long enough to figure out where he needed to go. And then she realised he was an Orphan with a tremendous destiny on him, and on the verge of Awakening. Even in the best of circumstances Beth knew that he would be easy prey to the wrong kind of person. So she decided to keep him and help him figure out where he best belonged. Little did she realise how that was going to turn out.

~*~

WOULD THEY…

MAKE THE FIRST MOVE? Yes | No SAY “I LOVE YOU” FIRST? Yes | No CHEAT ON THEM? Yes | No BE THE JEALOUS TYPE? Yes | No PLAN THE DATES? Yes | No INITIATE THE FIRST KISS? Yes | No REMEMBER ANNIVERSARIES? Yes | No Beth and Anakin are very self conscious and very self aware people. Making the first move so to speak is really seeing how close they can come to the other before needing to find a reason not to, as their situation is complicated by the fact that Beth is older than Anakin, and is his current Mentor. And while she has 99 reasons to try and push forward, there's 100 reasons not to. And I think Anakin understands why Beth can't say those words, even if they radiate off her like heat on summer asphalt. Also... Beth plans dates to things that will expand Anakin's horizons; orchestral music, civic debates, charitable events, people and animal shelter volunteering, and Anakin plans things that will allow Beth to see the Nola that he knows, and together they come away with a deeper appreciation for one another's passions. ~*~ BOLD WHAT APPLIES: THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS: friends to lovers | rivals to lovers | enemies to lovers | still just enemies | mutual pining | star crossed lovers | old married couple | perpetual honeymoon phase | stable and boring | stable but not boring | secret lovers | best friends hiding their feelings | and they were roommates | friends with benefits | coworkers avoiding HR | one-sided affection | weird sexual tension | it’s complicated | toxic relationship | a secret affair | an actual dumpster fire | other

PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION: hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips |  cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection PRIVATE DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION: hand holding | kiss on the hand | kiss on the cheek | kiss on the forehead | kiss on the lips |  cuddling | hugging | affectionate messages or comments | pet names | pictures together | no displays of affection

DO THEY STAY TOGETHER? yes, this is endgame | yes but someone is gonna die tragically | something is keeping them apart | they part ways as friends | they part ways as enemies | they’re on-again-off-again | they have a super messy breakup | it was just a fling | other BONUS: WHAT TERRIBLE PET NAMES WOULD THEY GIVE EACH OTHER?

Anakin: ??? Beth: There's just a kind of way that she can drawl out "Anakin" that can give the boy heart-palpitations. And when she writes about him, she would use: koʻu ʻuhan.

[brooklynislandgirl]

~*~ Glorious Thorn: Something specific that’s made you love someone? ~*~

A different night under the same stars and the same canopy of trees, the same overhang of rock. Another question no less delicately posed. It is not her body he is concerned with but her mind, her heart though she tells him a dozen times that she does not have one and therefore cannot possibly know what he means by it. Maybe this is Anakin’s way of distracting her. Of pulling her mind away from all the agony that surrounds them. To gently pry her from the grasp of despair that she comes too close to during the daylight hours which dog the passage of the moons overhead. Part of her believes that she could feign sleep. That he might believe her and let the matter drop in favour of letting her rest. But. She knows there’s so little time before he’s sent far away. Another planet. Another battle. And she doesn’t know when ~never if~ they will see each other again. She shifts in the dark, not bothering to open her eyes to the great nothingness she would see. Lays her hands atop the one resting just below her rib cage and leans into him, her back almost moulding itself into his chest.

“A long, long time ago, there was a little boy. He had the biggest blue eyes. Sad and sweet and lonely. He hadn’t seen very much of the world, of the galaxy. He was such a scrawny, inquisitive little thing. And I do mean little, I was taller than he was by a good hand-span. He was quite wizard with his hands, even then, and really very intelligent. Strong in the Force, maybe stronger than anyone. The first time I heard him laugh though, and looked up, and saw this little crooked smile on his face.... I knew that I would never be the same.”

She talks a breath but cannot stop herself. She has never lied to Anakin, directly or indirectly, and she didn’t plan on starting now. “Not so very long after, I saw night incarnate. Tall and lithe and dark. I drownt in the depths of it, of him. Just looking at him was...was... Like falling, for eternity. A voice that sounded like thunder, that could reverberate through my bones. To obey was not a demand but neither a choice. His will supplanted my own and I only wanted to please him. To meet his expectations. To exceed them. But it is entirely one sided, I think. Attachment is forbidden after all and even if that were to all change, he would see me as nothing but an apprentice, I think. And not a particularly good one. What was it that took root in me about him, I cannot say. As much of a mystery as the Force.” Her legs shift under the coarse utility blanket as she turns. Tucks her head under his chin.  Her hand trails against his arm until slim fingers coil around his wrist.  “And since I know you can keep well a secret, I have to tell you. The little boy I spoke of? I saw him. Just yesterday. He is much taller now. Still a little thin but much more solid now. His hair is getting longer but his eyes are still that same shade of blue, like the sky without a cloud in it. He is a full Jedi now, but his heart is so big. So full of mercy and compassion. He is the Force, I think, as much as it is him. They tell me he is reckless and full of courage. Brave as he is handsome, but still quiet in a turbulent way. Like a river trapped under ice, flowing ever outward beneath the perfectly still surface. He lost a hand saving his master, can you imagine that kind of sacrifice? ‘S’got a scar over his eye too, but I haven’t heard where that came from. He’s very different from the way he was when he first came to Coruscant, but...”

She gives his wrist a squeeze. Wonders if he realises she’s teasing him, just a little. “I knew it was my boy become a man. He did not see me standing near by and maybe I didn’t want him to. Maybe...I just wanted to watch for a moment. And when I did? I heard him laugh. And when I looked up...I saw his smile.”