#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]

@mynameisanakin, @tabbyrp ~*~

The smoke inhalation had done his body no benefit and she’s afraid without sticking him in a bacta tank that there will be scars left on his lungs. Even in sleep the shallow rise and fall of his chest is a morass of fear and displeasure and she wishes there was more that she could do for him, though for now Force healing has to come in small doses. Sometimes he fights her. Sometimes, he curls in and coils around her as if the past fourteen years haven’t happened and he’s still the scared little boy they brought to the Temple from Tatooine. Only, there is no Temple any more. There are no Jedi outposts, no Republic medical centres, no…

Her breath catches in her throat.

There is nothing but a new Empire that between them they have birthed into existence, and how proud that must make Pal… she can’t make herself admit it, not aloud, not even to herself. To admit their guilt is to admit that they have had a hand in all of this, from the first moment the plan was conceived, to it being carried out in such a breathtakingly blood-chilling way, and she can’t do that. She can’t lay any of the blame at Anakin’s feet though she knows some of it belongs there. And if Anakin is to blame, she will shoulder as much of it as she can because they are as much now one person as they ever were. She will no more abandon him now as she ever would have before all this. They left Mustafar two standard days ago, and she’s been piloting them seemingly aimless for all that time, even though she knows where she is going. She will take him to Zelos II, and to her fathers. She worries about them being caught, from either side of the mess, not that there are much of their kind left. The Force is empty, bereft of the life that had long filled it. That alone is heavy, oppressive. Sits on her chest and makes every part of her ache from it. The loss of friends, the loss of the younglings so full of hope and wonder ~she remembers being like them not so long ago~ and of course, the Masters. She may not have liked the Order, may not have respected it as she once did but… this is excruciating. She has no doubt as nightmarish as it all is for her, it can only be that much worse for Anakin.

She stares out the view-port. Watches as stars seem to crawl by at infinitesimal pace, thousands of systems that do not know yet that they are conquered, some not knowing anything beyond what primitive species can piece together on their own, creating new myths and stories about the strangeness in the skies. It is both peace and madness and she doesn’t know what to think, because her mind is cluttered and her spirit disquiet.

A part of her longs to go back to before the War had started, that she’d had the courage then to take hold of him then and there…and made a run for it. It wouldn’t have mattered where. If they’d been careful, found some quiet and quaint place to hole up for even just a little while, maybe the Order would have given up on them. On him. They didn’t have to be torn apart by the war, or the ever increasingly high pressured missions they sent him on. They talked about it more than once. They’d almost actually done it, once. And when he’d come back from saving Palpatine? He’d run to her. She’d met him half way. He’d almost kissed her, but something had stopped him. She’s never felt that much static in his Force Presence, the kind of turbulence that felt more like a star imploding than a young man feeling the relief of finally coming home. She didn’t see him much after that, not until after…after she’d been escorted to him by the clone trooper. She should have… His voice reaches her in a torturous sob. Calls out her name in sleep-soaked terror, and the sound is fractured. It is the first and only time Keni has ever flinched hearing it drawn out from his raw and aching throat. Her eyes are dry, like sand, feel gritty in their sockets as she closes them for a tiny splinter of a second. She takes a breath. Counts one…two… she reaches five and glances at the little astromech at her side. “You know the coordinates, Artoo.” The droid’s little whistle has never sounded so sad. “I know.” She gets up from the pilot’s seat and turns the console over to him. Her robes swish across the deck plating back to the cargo space where she’s rigged up a medical bed. She sinks down beside him, on her knees, and reaches for a cloth, dampened by cool water. She mops his brow and watches him shiver. She doesn’t have much else to add on top of him. So carefully she strips out of shawl and her robe, feeling naked but unconcerned in her inner tunic and skirt. She adds those layers and tucks it in around him. “It’s okay, Za’lali. I’m here.” She’ll always be…here.

[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}}

To say time was immutable was the worst kind of fallacy. It can be stretched or dilated. It can be shrunk. Filled to the very possible edges or shut up and forgotten. It was subject to individual perception which then was galvanised by a cohesive agreement to believe in the same fractured set of moments corresponding to external reality. At least that was what her Master had explained to her once. She wasn’t sure she understood what he meant then, nor is she sure she has a grasp on it now. Or if both were the same and she just chooses to see it differently. What she is absolutely certain of is limited to a minor handful of things. The first being that hours ago the Temple had come under attack. Which meant that somehow, somewhere, something had gone catastrophically wrong. It’s the sound of screaming and pounding feet that first alert her. So of course instinct takes over. She ushers her charges ~younglings that are injured, sick, and otherwise impaired~ to the safest place she can think of.

Thrulan knows even the forgotten places, pathways that most Jedi are unaware even exist. There aren’t so many. Only three. She gives him medicine for them. All of the credits she can scrounge so they aren’t a burden on his small family. The only other thing she knows with absolute certainty is that Anakin is still alive. The agony he was in was significant. Had nearly buckled her to her knees and she wasn’t sure if he felt her reaching out to him. Offering what strength she could that he might take it, enfold it around himself, to protect him until she can find him. Likely wishful thinking, but she wanted to believe it so much that she simply accepted that as a truth. Especially when she can’t feel him reaching back. That there’s distortion thick and heavy between them.

She can only fear the worst; that Anakin is here, and she knows he is. That he is trapped in some corner unable to free himself. That he is hurt. That he is...no. Twisted and cloaked as his brilliant presence in the Force has become, it isn’t waning. She won’t let that be the truth. She won’t let him go so easily.

That becomes a third thing. The halls as she moves are too quiet in places. Too loud in others. The great library is empty. There’s so very little to find there. Even the Temple Guards are not at their posts, and of course, why should they be? They were under an attack, there was better places for them to be. Her sabre flashes as she makes her way ever closer to Anakin. Though she’s brought up short when she sees who the invaders really are. As if she wouldn’t know the legion by sight. These men, never just clones, who have been under his command, whose wounds she’s mended, whose grief she tried to ease, whose deaths and sacrifices she’s recorded painstakingly for the archives so that they might be remembered beyond purpose, beyond what they had been created for. Only to be betrayed. Why would they have turned on Ana-

No. Not...turned. Parrying blaster fire as best she can, she senses....a link. They...They... Two clones go down and she tries to press forward, stopped in her tracks seconds later by a third trooper she hadn’t seen in the shadows. His rifle is aimed at her, held level. But he hesitates. Brows knit above her eyes, sweat damp strands of hair threatening to slip into her vision as she tilts her head. “....Biscuit?” Against all hope, the trooper removes his helmet, confirming that this was in fact the one she thought him to be. The one who still had an both legs thanks to her. “My Lady. I am so sorry. I don’t want to do this.” Not General. Not Master or even Knight Ivers. Not Melakeni. But...lady. She swallows past the rapidly constricting lump in her throat.  “Wha... what is happening, here?”

The trooper looks sick, green under his tawny skin in a way that is both natural and unnatural to her and the more he speaks, the more his face hardens into a mask of duty and remorse.

He doesn’t attempt to kill her when she staggers back under the weight of this new knowledge, one palm splayed against the smooth metal wall to catch herself mid-collapse. Her mind reels. Her sabre thumps dully against the floor as that hand comes up to her chest.

She takes hold of the Force and wraps it around her like an impenetrable wall that nothing can escape from or press advantage into as her heart breaks. The faces of her friends sweep through her memory alive and full of life. They are gone. As are the Masters she has spent the last decade serving. 

Remember these lessons well, little padawan, for suffering is a crucible of strength. Her Master’s voice comes to her unbidden and she knows he still lives as well. Where she cannot quite tell. But the voice, a silken thunder of a whisper in her ear, is not wholly wrong. She knows as terrible as the Dark Side must be, that the Jedi had long ago become corrupt. They slaved under the will of the people, currying favour and gathering quiet power until they no longer resembled what they once purported to be; servants of the Force.

And the Force is a living and breathing thing. A river that flows through everything from the most infinitesimal speck of stardust to the edges of the galaxy and perhaps even beyond, to places unknowable beyond the imagination of even the greatest enlightened minds. Its intention was not to steal and enslave infants. Its will was not to be ruled by fear of upsetting those in power in exchange for some small semblance of a voice in galactic matters. The Jedi Order, she can see more clearly now than ever before, was nothing more than rotting fruit on the Force’s branches, dragging it down with the weight of its corruption.  And as surely as the tears flowed freely down her face for what she knows has been lost because of it, for the innocence and sweetness and life that was now nothing more than a guttered candle, she understands that the will of the Force was for Anakin to... to wipe clean the slate. To destroy every last vestige of what was, in order for what could be to come about. The restoration of balance, to restore the Force itself and not what sentients had made of it.

She recalls a poem she had read in the archives, only a fraction of it as she let go of her anger. Her confusion. As she gave herself as always, to the Force and its will.

Even as it is for your growth, so it is for your pruning. Even as it ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall it descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Biscuit retrieves her lightsabre without a word of protest from her. She can hear the sigh as she looks up into his face. Despite this directive of his, there is some kindness left in the clone. “I’ll make it quick, Lady. Painless.” “A moment more, please?” He nods. She straightens up as sharply as her spine will allow, and levels her chin. She passes a hand over her face to wipe away any traces of emotion that lingered damply on her cheeks and tried, ridiculously, to straighten her hair. Doing so, she conceals clever little gestures with her fingers. “You should take me to him. He will want to do this himself.” “I...I should take you to him. He will want to do this himself.” She takes a step forward, relieves him of her sabre, and wraps a delicate hand around the white and blue armour. Her steps to the grand hall are silent compared to his own and they do not speak during the trek. She looks neither left nor right. Doesn’t look at the bodies strewn where they fell. Does not acknowledge the char and pockmarks that scattered across the walls from blaster fire. The fire and smouldering ash does not make her tremble though she fears that only second to what they will find. The smoke doesn’t bother her at all. In fact she forgets to make herself breathe in those achingly long moments. The Temple all around her that was once home is now a tomb.

Biscuit leaves her there in the centre of the hall. Takes a stance somewhere out of her periphery and she wonders later how badly he will be punished for allowing her to cloud his mind. For allowing her to come into the presence of his Lord armed and utterly capable of cutting him down if she were fast enough, clever enough.

And what does she find? Significantly more than she had hoped but disturbingly less than what she feared. He looks like a ghost haunting himself. Blurred and fractured at the edges, worn so thin she can practically see Coruscant beyond the doors behind him. Awash with old blood and new, and light that could be either from the dying of the day. His eyes are so hollow. His face drawn and remote and before he even acknowledges that she is there, she can feel him crawling over a threshold of breaking. This is not a man proud of what he has done, not a man who will ever sleep again knowing he has done the right thing, even if that is exactly what Anakin has done. Frangible arms wend around her in his terrible silence. Her eyes close as he brushes his mouth against the crown of her hair and breathes her deeply as if for the first time he can. Breathe. Take air deep into his lungs and scour his psyche with her presence. A hand comes up to his chest where his heart beats strong but erratic. And then? It isn’t a question. Nor is it a command. It isn’t even a choice because choice implied she had a say. No senator, no chancellor, no master, no living being loves Anakin the way she does. Nor had they in all the years before except for maybe his mother. And in an entirely different way. No. It isn’t a choice. And no one would ever have been foolish enough to believe that it was. She untangles herself from Anakin. Braces one foot behind her, shifts her centre of gravity. With preternatural reflexes, she reaches for and takes hold of her sabre. Thumbs the near flat depression on the hilt and allows the purple blade to ignite in the gathering gloom around them. Sees its glow flash in glossiness of his eyes.

Her other hand comes up. There’s a little flip and suddenly the blade is laid across both hands, and she curtsies before him, deep and tired and inscrutable. She does not have a heart, but if she did, it would be bleeding for her little sun, for her Anakin. “In all things, in all ways, I am yours to command, my Lord.” Loud enough to be heard by the gathered clones. Then quietly, more intimately, meant for his ears alone... “That is maybe the stupidest thing you have ever asked of me, Ani. The answer is always yes.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

Valentine's Application

Name: Anakin Skywalker Age: 23 Do you like to cuddle?: like I like air, yes. Can we make-out?: Yes, can we, please? A night in or dinner out?: Whatever makes you happiest. Ice cream or chocolate covered strawberries?: Both. Together. Clearly, if they’re both that good, they belong together. What makes you a good Valentine?: I’m so codependent I cannot function without you, nor do I wish to, and due to that I’ve paid attention to even the tiniest of details hinting at things you might want to do or be gifted with this day {and every other day}, and what would make that the maximum level of special. I am genuinely happiest when making you happy, and will literally do whatever that is. Would you cook for me?: Of course I would, happily. Would you let me cook for you?: Yes, and even if it was terrible, which I’m certain it wouldn’t be, I’d still really like it.

~~*~~

Her data-pad sits on the counter of the refresher, right where she can see it. And she can’t help but be anything other than painfully aware that the message the little electronic trilling sound warns her of can only be from Anakin. He’s the only person who would send her a message before she’s had even a whiff of caff. The only one who would sense, somehow, that she’s in the middle of a bath and that answering the message would require her getting out and dripping her way over to it. Which she does. And almost slips on the slick tile beneath her feet. Aaaaaand maybe she takes a moment to arrange her hair just right. Pinches a little colour into her cheeks. Flashes herself a smile in the small mirror above the sink.  Stops, and sets the data pad to the side, before shivering into the sleeveless under tunic that will afford her the tiniest bit of modesty. All the while feeling her stomach knot with fervid anticipation. All the while being absolutely ridiculous because it’s a message, not a holo-call. Like he’s going to be able to see ANYTHING. But he might.     Somehow. And that makes all the difference. The first thing that appears is his face.  HA! Nailed it. She takes a moment to view it. Takes note of many things, little details that might be overlooked by anyone else. The lighting over his face. The way his throat sometimes catches with a breath. The way that he manages to avoid looking right at her. Because he knows. He does. And how much she wants to reach out and run her fingers through his hair. Trace the scar that still looks fresh after all this time, but that does, actually give him an air of mystery. Like a pirate or duellist that should be ripping someone’s bodice open. She doesn’t really think Anakin’s been near a bodice to rip it, or if he has, hasn’t told her about it. Making herself move along, she can’t help but laugh. This is retaliation somehow for her little faux pas about the whole rodent day thing. And maybe that earns him a soft but hushed sweep of laughter because it’s Anakin and she can’t help but smile. Both because this proves he cares, and that he’s also making fun of her but in a good way.

She tries not to think about him being younger, in the most literal sense. And what would be a carved niche of time without a cuddle? That seems like a silly question to her although…really… the next answer gives her a streak of such brilliant colour he could have lost her entirely in a jungle. “Of course,” she whispers to herself, and then has to check the tiny room to ensure she is in fact alone. This could land them both in so much trouble, and maybe that adds another layer of thrill to reading this.  When she gets to the part about deserts, something catches in her throat. Perhaps it’s just her breath, but its solid enough to form a lump and she tries to swallow and blink it away. She doesn’t think he’s talking about food. She wouldn’t be either, if she actually could get herself to admit it, instead of hoping that he just…knows. The next bit is scrambled digitally and she can’t quite make out exactly what he wrote, despite how important that seems. At first she thinks maybe its a filter or something to do with holo-protocols for the Temple, and for one horrific second she’s absolutely concerned that maybe someone had intercepted this…but that doesn’t make any sense. If they had, why would any of it come through, especially the part about…..anyway. Maybe, maybe it was a glitch, maybe it was atmospheric disturbance when he wrote or sent it.  Everything is fine. It is. It has to be. But the rest of it is sweet. Is very painfully honest as Ani often is. But what he maybe doesn’t realise is things, gifts, all of it is inconsequential. What makes anything special…is himself. Just being with him, near him, seeing him across the hanger bay with that serious look on his face as he talks with Master Kenobi, knowing that no matter where he is in the galaxy he knows that she will wait for him…that’s enough for her. It’s always been in the past, and she can’t imagine that ever changing. Even if they do give one another food poisoning, because cooking isn’t one of her skills, and she doesn’t know if he has a talent for it, no matter how easy he makes everything else look.

She types in his code, memorised by heart. A,  Meet me. You know where. Tonight. If you’re still here. I hope you are. MTFBWY, K. Sending the message, she takes another moment to scroll her way back up and presses a kiss to his brow, even if he can’t feel it. Then she gets dressed before anyone realises how long she’s been in here.

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin​

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin {{xx}}

He could have been entombed in the dankest sewer of Nar Shaddaa, perfectly enveloped by the darkness there in, packed in carbonite inside of a metal cargo container and she would still have been able to read his expression and all the questions that came from hers, whispered like dry autumn leaves over a duracrete walkway. A voice as dead as they both must feel inside, of this she is sure, because even she can hear it. And could she have told him in the small, clipped words available to her at the moment? Likely. Did she want to explain what made it past her lips when she should have killed it the moment it was a mere thought in her head? Not exactly.  It hadn’t exactly slipped out as most of her rather personal questions often did, a vibrant curiosity to see into his mind while still maintaining respect for him, for his small but hard-won sense of privacy. Beyond basic human decency, she was perhaps one of the only people who did not think that she had any right to treat Anakin like some half-forgotten droid, to tinker as she pleased with his thoughts simply because she was entitled with the ability to do so through the Force, because even if he didn’t want her to, he also wouldn’t really give more than a vague attempt to stop her. No, this time she’d been deliberate.

For all that he’d told her how it had happened, and perhaps even why, in that sickened knot of words that he’d sobbed into the folds of her robes, one they couldn’t even think about untangling on the ship’s plating, she still... isn’t handling it well. It was easier for her to understand why he’d done...what he’d done at the Temple. How he was only an instrument of the Force, which to her mind absolved him of the murder. Not the Masters who had always been cruel, that was almost laudable in her mind. Who had wantonly destroyed the child Anakin had been and systematically continued to do so at their every opportunity. Who shouted from the rooftops that they wanted nothing more than peace and compassion but turned blind eyes to the suffering, the slavery, the injustice of every planet not covered in resources. And she knows, beyond doubt, that of all the masters he’d not been the one who had killed Kit Fisto, her friend and a truly decent soul, one of handful of people who had ever treated him with kindness and cordiality if not affection. She is so very careful not to think of the children though. She can’t. Especially when they are barely not children themselves, and the grief will drown her for the loss of that innocence.

Going with him to Mustafar had been an exercise in holding him together with her bare hands and teeth and any other part she could get on him, and that is still to raw inside of her to even think about. And in the silence that follows, this heavy and fragmented connection through the Force...she has to wonder if he didn’t survive. If these hours of nothingness means he hasn’t realised it and thus hasn’t stopped. Keeled over and become a rusted bit of flotsam inside his own skin.  So the question. To see if it will jolt him out of his near-catatonia. To get an answer that is the most personal thing of all, and admittedly self-absorbed, but... she can’t help it. Perhaps this is her way of lashing out. To pull out one of the venomous snakes writhing inside her chest, each with a different name on it. Why didn’t you trust me enough to come to me in the first place? Why did you feel you had to hide it until it couldn’t be? I’ve always been on your side, regardless of anything. I’d have kept your secrets as I always have. Why her? Of all the people in the fucking galaxy...why Amidala? Why couldn’t you...have chosen me. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I would have done anything you asked of me. I still will. You know this, Anakin. You. Know. This.

And perhaps the most vicious and tenacious of them all... Why couldn’t I have been enough?

Her eyes slash away to cut their way to his face the second he stirs. Catches the turn of his mouth and her nails bite deep and bloody half-moons into her palms. She almost flinches from his question.

“That you enjoyed it. That you didn’t imagine squeezing the life out of her for every time she’s cast you aside, lied to you, used you. Like she’s always done since she came back into your life. That I... I don’t know. Anything but...” But don’t say you love her. Don’t say you need her. Don’t....don’t say... She closes her eyes, unable to maintain what is at the moment passing for eye-contact. Hoping that doing so both lets her not look at him and hold back the sudden sting of tears threatening to spill over her lashes.

But he answers her.

And she takes it at face value even if it seems to ring a little hollow.

She takes a sobering breath, uses every bit of training in her skill-set to gain some kind of mastery over herself. “You...ah. You should go get some rest. You look like shit and I think I can handle this bit of empty space for a while.” He might have thought about the war then, but there isn’t one now. Not the kind that can be fought with Clones and droids and blasters and lightsabres, anyway.

[brooklynislandgirl]

🌡- Do they get sick often? Is if a trait of their species or unique to them?

Your Faith For Bricks || Accepting

She cradles his head in her lap. Carefully brushes away a stray damp golden curl from his brow, which is darker now that it is drenched. The shivers that wrack his body are painful for both of them, and for entirely different reasons. His because they make him ache, and likely send wild nerve impulses down as far as the organic half will allow and into the sensors of the metal and wiring. Or maybe it’s the other way around, but regardless, the sharp stabbing agony can’t be doing him any good. And it pains her because... he’s too thin. For the last maybe six or seven years now, ever since he’d shot up and surpassed her in height, he’d been lean, angularity visible in his long limbs and compact muscle, reminiscent of cats, and she convinced herself that it is merely his somatotype. But no matter how much or how little he eats, not a thing really changes. He burns it all up like the fuel that powers his fighter, then he cannibalises himself in bits and pieces, using up all that he can to keep going. And when even his reserve has become threadbare and moth-eaten? The sickness pours into him and takes roots where there are already holes. She can hear it in each rattling breath so shallowly taken. Can all but taste it in the sourness of the sweat pouring off of him. Feels it in each wracking cough that threatens to shake him apart until he is utterly unfixable. It is a wan smile she offers to his briefly staying glass-eyed gaze before they fall away again to something beyond her own capability to sense. She does not know if it is something in the Force that is so far out of her grasp by virtue of how it is him and he is it, or if it is ghosts from the past that rarely come to life on his lips.

She prays by the four moons that he finds his way back as the administered medicine winds its way through his fevered flesh, something she really hasn’t done since she was very little, long before she knew of the Jedi and a sad eyed boy and all the wonders and terrors that have since been made manifest. She leans up against the wall so very careful not to dislodge him and drags the blankets up around his shoulders. There is little else to do but try to hold him in place beyond the twitching and the shaking not of his own volition, and wearily she closes her eyes. She can pull only so much energy from herself and from the grace of the Force, and even that is drying up but she won’t sleep. Not until this sickness has broken, or he surrenders to it. Either way, he will have peace. “So many years ago...”

Her voice frangible to her own ears, she doesn’t expect him to follow along. But she keeps her tone low and warm. Reaches back through the time at the Temple to her less than distinct memories of early childhood.

“I suppose it happened when we were attending Father’s business in the Capital. Normally during trips like that he would go alone, you see, and Dad and I would stay on the estate. The tutors would come, some of the wives and husbands would visit, it wasn’t as isolated as it sounds, but one thing I wasn’t very exposed to were other children. But it was a warm spring, and they ~being as in love as they are~ wanted to take some extra time. See the sights, dine out together, and Dad was planning a trip of his own. One of the kind we never really spoke about.  “So off we went together. And the state apartments for each family had a huge garden in the centre of this U shaped complex. And I begged and begged Dad to let me go and play in the sunshine and the fresh air, and so down we went. And of course there were other children and we played as all kids do. Shambling dead, siege hooks, force-open-the-city-gates, and so on. The running. The screaming and laughing, the pride when you proved to be the better tactician or the better general ~and we all fought over who got to be the general~ I tell you, it felt absolutely magickal. And then, like all things must, it ended, and we went home at the end of those couple of weeks.” Her fingers slow in the way they card through his hair then stop. Her teeth grit together until they feel like they will break as she shifts gingerly beneath him, not wishing to dislodge or discomfort Anakin in any way, though she knows in a moment she must. Even with her lean she has to stretch out her fingers, feeling the strain through delicate muscle, and a judicious application of the Force is used in order to take the bota of water in hand.

She takes a quick drink, the water is tepid. Still, it’s a dozen times cooler than he is and he needs the fluids before he dehydrates himself into a hospital stay.

She ignores any weakly groaned protest and leverages him upward so that he won’t choke, insists that he needs this and she won’t have it any other way. Her tone is firm and tinged with worry, but long in its affection, her love of him. She presses it against his perfect lips, dry and chapped as they are, and only allows the smallest sips at a time. She doesn’t mind the run off that slides down from the corner of his mouth to soak into her tunic. Another wracking cough shudders through him, threatening to spill what little he’s taken. She makes slow, ever widening concentric circles against his back until he’s calmer, until he’s slid back down into her lap and tries to curl up in the smallest ball that is possible. “Where were we? Oh. Yes.”

She waits another moment, until she’s sure he’s settled again.

“It all started the third night after we got home. I remember feeling vaguely queasy and the thought of food made me want to wretch, so I refused it. My body and head ached something fierce, paired with a lingering sense of malaise. Within a few hours I was burning up but...it felt more like a chill, the kind that bites into the bone and refuses to let go. My fathers would not let me out of bed, and in truth, I didn’t really want to leave it.

“Within twelve hours, the first signs of blisters occurred between my fingers and toes before spreading outward. Then the crooks of my knees and elbows, along my neck and chest. It was hideous and kind of gross, gonna be truthful with you, but such is the Green Flu. Phlox is what we call it, colloquially. The worst of it is the rash....from which it gets its name. Scaly patches that resemble lichen. The itch is so bad you want to claw your own skin off. And they appear everywhere. Even your palms, the soles of your feet, your private places. “Of course, my fathers were visibly terrified, and sent for Dr Thripshaw straight away. She came and confirmed what they suspected, and that I must have been exposed by one of the other children. I’ve never really been sick before that, and certainly not after. In less than a year and a half I was brought to the Temple. And while I have had a chance to treat many a sick or wounded sentient, none of the illnesses that seem to spread amongst humans like wildfire can find real purchase in my kind. I think it’s just a case of incompatibility to sustain a virus or bacteria in our bodies.

“Funny, isn’t it?” She again smiled, this time not just for Anakin but also for having recalled such an old memory, and tasting the bitter-sweetness of missing her fathers, their affection and worry for her. She returns to running her fingers through his curls.

“The good news is...I think this is just the flu, Za’lali. You shouldn’t break into new and unusual spots, and you cannot have contracted Phlox. The worst should pass in a few days, and I will be here with you, for you, the whole time.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

A ship you say? Have a star ship. Some Anikeni. {Not that you couldn't do one with Beth, but a. I didn't want to call Beth out like that and b. I couldn't think of anything ridiculous to open this with}

All Hands || -

I. who wakes up first in the morning

It is not often that she wakes before he does. Anakin’s body and his spirit or some combination of the two has an internal clock that one could set as a galactic clock. Perhaps it is because they cannot risk being found together in her cell or his. Perhaps it was his childhood before he came to Coruscant. Perhaps it is his connection to the Force. She doesn’t really know why, but he is almost always the first one to wake.But this time she has a few moments of luxury. Wrapped around him, he slumbers in the curve of her arms. She brushes back the stray wisps of hair from his face though leaves his braid to cut across his cheek and leans in to breath him in. These moments are so rarely precious that she has to take full advantage of them. To daydream of their lives beyond the Temple walls if they had met any other time or place. What it would be like back home with soft cushions and rich covers, given the luxury of sleeping as late as they liked, days if need be, before his eventual restlessness would have them pouring between star-maps and freshly brewed caff, deciding where in the universe they would go. Where best to make a real difference. Or even more simply to let him sleep without his plague of dreams which come more frequently as the days pass.Perhaps a bit selfishly, she nuzzles the back of his neck and very carefully tightens her hold. He is supposed to leave today, an assignment with Master Kenobi that will keep him in Galactic City but away from the Temple. There are worse things, but… she has a bad feeling about all of this.“Be careful,” she whispers into his shoulder. One time for each of her moons. Blue a prayer hope for his eyes, a wish of happiness from the green for hers. The protection of violet for her sabre even in the dark, and the last unseen for when he is far away from her. It’s her charm, her silliest superstition. “Be safe. Be smart.”Be mine.“I heard that.”He smiles without opening his eyes.

II. who’s the first to fall asleep at night

He’s asleep before he actually hits his mattress. He doesn’t mean to be but weariness might as well have been his middle name. He doesn’t stir even the slightest as she sets on his bench the small treasure trove of a sandwich and some berries that make a lush wine when fermented properly. A bota of fresh tea, cold and crisp. Hints of honey and mint leaves. All because she knows he never stopped by the cafeteria.Clever fingers work at his buckles and one by one she pulls each boot off with, followed by the socks. She tucks both his robes and his coverlets around him not so bold as to strip him down to his unmentionables. That would be…improper as it was rude. For half a minute she debates silently to herself if she should bother with his glove but Anakin is very particular about that, even with her and eventually she decides that it’s better if she leaves it on. Even asleep he looks… she doesn’t care for the heavy shadows under his eyes and how starkly his bones brush against his skin. If he could look at her somehow and still remain asleep she would be willing to bet his eyes would be fever-bright.They are running him ragged, as if he were the only knight the Jedi had at their disposal and they don’t see how it’s etching him away. She has half a mind to march into the Council Chambers and ~There’s a dark indescribable feeling that drifts down her spine like the softest of touches that almost buckles her knees.Her Master is waiting.She leans down and brushes a kiss to his temple, gives a lock of his hair a tug and goes quickly before she is summoned a second time.

III. what they playfully tease each other over

Her eyes are closed, her head cushioned in his lap. She doesn’t peek even as her fingers reach up and latch around his throat. Not tight enough to cut off his breath, but enough that won’t be able to brush off the feel of her for hours.“And of course, I would import some of the finest of my trees from home, to build your pyre. And once you’re nothing but ashes, I would take them and have them compressed until they became a beautiful jewel, maybe the colour of your eyes, and then I will flounce around the galaxy with your remains hanging always in the hollow of my throat. And once you’re one with the Force, you will be so grateful that you shine against my skin like starlight.”

A variable of their Impending Doom game, this time she has poisoned him with something fast-acting and likely incubated in her own body ~not that she mentioned that last part, but she’s getting better at it, becoming less and less sick each time, which pleases her Master.He’s making that noise again, the faint whine that might be a moan, and it makes the muscles in her belly contract with the sharp ache to respond to it, and his throat rises and falls beneath her skin. Her nails have a mind of their own and want to dig in. They don’t. She tries very hard to never leave a mark on him in a place that can be seen.“That would be really nice,” he breathes out. “But unfortunately you let your guard down and I’ve managed to double-cross you.”His voice is tense. It’s low and dark, a whisper. His hand splays out against her waist before closing again, fingertips tightening against the ridge of her hip bone.She quirks a brow and tilts her head up. “How foolish of me. I suppose I deserved it. But… in that case…you must tell me of course, how even in death you manage to betray and murder me. In the greatest detail.”

IV. what they do when the other’s having a bad dayHe finds her in her room. Face buried in her arms, body shaking from the tears she should not be crying. If her patient could not be saved, then it must be the Will of the Force, but the platitude rings hollow in her ears. The woman had children, had a husband. What would they do now without her? Especially the youngest, newly born into her hands, just days ago before the sickness set in.She is supposed to be sleeping but grief can do nothing but pour out of her in wracking sobs. And though he is a universe away out on the rim, he comes. She can feel his arms around her. His cheek pressed to her hair. Little softly spoken things she can’t quite hear though she feels the rumble of his voice. The warmth of his presence like real sunshine she hasn’t felt in years.

And she pours herself into his presence. Lets him lift that sorrow as only he can but when he starts to pull at it, unravelling it and taking it into himself she pulls back from their connection, making herself lesser established in the Force. She can’t let him do that, can’t let him put more sadness into his already full soul.A flicker of displeasure at her resistance, the confusion that comes from wondering why she retreats, though maybe he knows and understands. She isn’t quite sure how to read him, not so far away. And as much as she misses him, she urges him to go back. To live in his moment before anyone notices he’s…gone.~*~

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s face darkens as he watches his former apprentice. Though his eyes are open they are storm-tossed and shimmering with unshed wetness, his jaw tense. He is both there and not, slipped off into some recess of his mind. A habit Anakin has taken up more and more these terrible days. He doesn’t like it. Wants to say something but what could it be beyond baseless accusation. He frowns but after a moment, the boy’s nostrils flare and he looks over. His voice is tight, grim.Pained.“I’m sorry, Master. What were you saying?”V. how they say ‘i’m sorry’ after arguments

The vase goes hurtling past his head. Shatters into a thousand fragments behind him. For all that his reflexes had always been faster than hers, faster than anyone’s, there is anger that fuels her use of the Force. The book he catches and sets down before it hits his chest, and his jaw tightens. “Get out.” She isn’t asking him.“Why are you so-”“I SAID GET OUT!”Despite the furrow of his brows, the wetness around his eyes, the tremble of his lower lip, she makes a strangled sound of actual anger in her throat and looks for something else to throw, they have very little between the two of them. “This is my room!”

“Fine!” She stalks forward despite him being between her and the door. She will go through him if she has to.He smells like her. His precious senator.“FINE.”The door rocks on its casters as it slams shut behind her, biting off the small echo of her slippered feet.~*~It is interminable days before she can bring herself to look at him. Guilt has eaten her alive and what is normally so vibrant about her feels withered and yellowish. She knows better than to think she has sneaked up on him and his body stills mid-kata, the swing bringing his blade within an inch of her skin. His blade wooshes off. She doesn’t look up into his face, doesn’t flinch.Her eyes close and she takes a breath. “I….owe you an apology for my behaviour the other night. It was dramatic and stupid and it should never have happened. Please…forgive me that indiscretion.”The words are stiff, but informal. What she is saying though is that she is sorry, and if he doesn’t forgive her, she will die here. Now. At his very feet.Because she will. She can no more live without him than she can exist without the sun on her skin and the air in her lungs.It feels like eternity, staring down at the ground. Trying to feel him, hesitantly, through the Force as she cannot bring herself to look up. To let him see the raggedness of her feelings on full display.

It is an eternity, before just as slowly, just as carefully, she feels his hands take hold of her upper arms. How they tighten around her, fingertips touching.Before he pulls her in close and buries his face in the side of her neck.I’m sorry, too. And just maybe that breath he takes is the first since he’s gotten back.

VI. which one’s more ticklish”Could….could you just not….you know. Do…that?”She lifts her face from the water where she floats like a dead man. Woman. Plant. Whatever. It’s endearing that it disturbs him, for all they tease about being the cause of one another’s demise. She drags her lower lip across both sets of her teeth then grins. “Swim? I mean, I suppose I could get out. Or just let myself be pulled under. If you’d prefer.”

For all that Anakin is acutely sensitive to the Force, the subtle innuendo goes right past him and right into the next star system. Its so very sweet, she can’t help but commit the look on his face to memory.”Not what I meant, and you know it.””Yes.” She does. So she dips down. Below the surface of the water, holding her breath. Comes at him like a very fast thing with a mouthful of teeth, which of course she is, just not built for it. Breaking the surface, she’s right in front of him and it takes very little to ruffle her fingers against his side. His weakness, one she’s known about for years.

He grabs her shoulders, thrashing even though she knows the water actually impedes some of the sensation. Pushes her down. Lets her slip through his grasp. And she’s so tempted, so very tempted to bite at him. And maybe he knows that too because before she can shake her hair out of the way, he’s pulling her up again.

There is the smallest of moments, they are breathing each other. Lips parted and almost touching. She is absolutely certain, beyond any shadow of doubt, that some stranger in wild space could feel a sudden heat boiling their blood with the sensations rising up through her, looking at him, this very second.And then as Anakin thinks about moving, she closes her eyes.And almost drowns on the water sucked into her throat as he tucks an arm around her waist and dips her so that he can reach one of her feet. Proceeds to tickle it as he brings it above the surface.”You should know by now, Keni. I know all of your secrets.”Well, maybe, she agrees soundlessly once they are laying side by side in the glow of their cave flowers. Most of them.But not all.VII. their favourite rainy day activities

He tinkers. But the word is insufficient for what it actually is. The closest thing she can equate it to is watching a master artist at his craft, whether it is painting or sculpting, some unbearably exquisite mastery it takes a lifetime to achieve. She watches every twitch of his fingers, the way his face becomes so serious the deeper into his passion he delves.She could lay there on his bed, on her stomach, and spend a century alone just watching him. And like the shadow of a cloud passing across the sun, she has to accept that maybe he doesn’t have that. Anakin is impulsive. Restless. A danger to himself and others if you believed everything you heard, which she of course doesn’t…but still. His like as a Knight, his life as a human… She pushes the thought away like the vile and uncouth thing that it is. Won’t admit that it scares her sometimes, especially with how he comes back to her. A new scar here, a little piece of him missing there. He isn’t a stranger to the bacta tanks, though she wishes he absolutely was.

She drags her gaze away and closes her eyes. Tries to focus the sound of the rain. The sound he makes which is ever so quiet. Anything but the inconceivable idea that some day she will look back at these, the happiest days of their lives, and know that he’s really…gone.And the only way to comfort herself is deciding, then and there, that if he dies, she will too. Together in the Force then as they are now.She doesn’t see him looking over, that same focus and concentration she was admiring a moment ago, and beginning the first rough sketch outline of her face.VIII. how they surprise each other

She can feel it. A thrum of energy in the Force. It stalks her steps throughout the infirmary as she administers medicine and healing energy to the patients. She talks to them of things no more taxing than if they’ve gotten rest, if this or that is feeling better. The answers, in most cases, are invariably the same. Of course they would be, nothing changes that dramatically overnight, even with the best of care.It whispers through her mind driving her nearly to distraction when she sits at her Master’s side, trying to meditate one one of the lesser known Mysteries. Which becomes a lesson in hand to hand combat that she is almost grateful for as it bleeds a little tension out of her even if she gains a few bruises when her reflexes lag.It is still there when she uses the refresher to wash the day off herself, when she picks at her salad and gives half of it to the Guardian she thinks is Tazu. Always so hard to tell with the masks, which is entirely the point, she supposes.Each step toward her room is an exercise in control.The robes stripped away. Replaced by a thin shift. Her hands rise up to unbind her braids and suddenly a hand comes over her mouth. Stifles the scream that is raw and blood-curdling behind the right pressure that crushes her lips to her teeth to the point that she can taste her own blood sweet on her tongue.Anakin’s breath is hot on the edge of her ear.“Gotcha! Owe me one!”She relaxes then, which is lucky for him, otherwise he would have sailed over her shoulder and flat onto his back when she stepped back and elbowed the air out of him. Instead she holds up both hands in the air, a sign of surrender.Because he is right. She does owe him for managing to scare her. But the prize is hers when he lets go and she narrows her eyes.“Did…did you actually just watch me change?”IX. their most sickening shows of public affectionThe curve of the niche is cold on his back, despite the layers of his robes. Under which her hand has found purchase, petting and caressing him, and it feels like his skin is on fire, but smooth as marble. Her lips affixed to his throat, biting deeper, drinking at the slick coppery tang so very different than her own sap. His arms pinned to his side by a judicious application of the Force. He can squirm all he likes, whimper as loudly as he dares, but she isn’t letting go. Not this time. One delicate fingertip traces the shape of his mouth, the full softness of his lips.Let yourself go. For me. Trust me to catch you when you fall. Words that flicker through his mind as softly as she can make a command, unable to be heard by anyone else. All that can be spied is a beatific look of serenity on her face, and the throes of concentration on his as all around them pairs of Jedi concentrate on their own meditations.Anakin has been gone too long. She cannot waist another second without a proper welcome, a glimpse of unspoken desires between them. Let him wonder if it’s accidental or on purpose that the imagery in her head is projected at him as strongly as their connection will allow.~*~

“They always seem much more tranquil when they are here.” “Almost disturbing this is, this attachment. A trouble it is for young Skywalker.”“His breathing still needs work, though.”“More like Ivers he should be. Agree with you I do. Young they are yet, wisdom will come in time.”~*~

If it was possible to die from mortification alone, Anakin would be thrice over. But they can’t meditate forever….

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin {{XX}}

It isn’t sleep where he finds her. She’d stirred from actual rest when he’d climbed out of bed but she’s not so controlling that she needs to be righttherebesidehim every second of every minute. Instead she’d burrowed deeper beneath the covers now bereft of the almost excessive heat of him. Eyes closed and lingering in the cocoon of drowsiness that permeated her being. No, this was something else. A languid desire to hibernate away the hours where the sun was hidden and the four moons did not shine. Something deep in ancestral memory to stave off the dark times, the lean times that left the progenitors of her species half alive and reaching for the light with bare limbs stretched toward the highest of the heavens.

And how sweet is that brightness of voice, edges thriving in the liminal space of quiet, body much larger and heavier pinning her down while his fingers graze her shoulder and he pretends he cannot be the source of disturbance. It is so innocent, so reminiscent of when he was much younger that she almost can’t stand it. So she rewards him for those three hours of muted entertainment of himself. She cracks an eye open, then the other, letting his face come into focus. Offers him a slow crawl of a smile. Yes, she is awake. And she is enough so that she can feel the enthusiasm coming off of him in waves normally reserved for things like secrets and treats and stories but most especially for treasures. Not that there are many here for him to find. Not that he really knows where here is, and perhaps that is for the best.

Tips of gossamer fingers caress the side of his face, following the sharp, natural curve of his bones from temple to chin with a resplendent affection, ever so careful. And when he finally lets her up, she trepidatiously sets her toes down on the woven fibre carpet set on the stone floor, fully ready to wince as she leaves behind the covers and the air touches her skin. Not that it is cold, she keeps the environmental controls at a steady temperature to spare the arm of his that is not flesh and blood from adding extra pain. Then she takes up her robe ~soft silk and brightly coloured like sea-water, absolutely not the coarse, heavy, and most of all damning ones of the Order~ slips it over top of the thin nightgown that was otherwise all she wore.

No time to put on the kettle for tea, no time to anything really but find slippers before they’re setting off through the lodge toward the outer door. She indulges his whims at every turn both because she can without reproach, and because it helps alleviate the guilt that would otherwise gnaw at her like rats in the grain.

His smile is beatific and for a brief impossible moment enough to hold everything else, real and emotional and imaginative, at bay. He seems to instinctively curl around her and she isn’t sure whether he’s protecting her or the view or some middle ground between but his reverence for it all is unmistakable. And because he’s leaning down to be so close it's only going on the tip of her toes that lets her nose brush against his lower jaw, tickled by the faint hint of gold there. “Yes, perfect, Ani.” Three half formed words slurred in her husky tone, her emerald green eyes not quite looking out at the shimmering cold snow heaped in smooth, trackless dunes before the break of trees it coats. Doesn’t make note of the ghosts of their breath and how the cold slinks chill fingers up and around her feet, her legs, anywhere it can get into. She hadn’t needed to see it to know the snows had come, she could feel it in her blood and how slow it was to flow through her. But just because it was a little hard on her, just because it could kill her in slow degrees did not make it any less pristine, any less beautiful. And maybe in some ways he was like snow. Once she adjusts to it and the moment, taking time to wrap a slender arm around his waist and huddle just that much closer, she lets her gaze scan the horizon. She isn’t looking for light, nor is she fully appreciating what he wants her to see, in the way that he sees it.

Their ship is cleverly concealed below the ground, an insistence of one father. Made his smuggling runs easier if he couldn’t offload the cargo, and it was her other father’s love and willingness to accept the crime for what it was. The lodge is old, older than she can truly know, handed down between generations. Far enough from the village to make them feel like the only two people who ever lived, but still close enough that she can get the things they need not already in stock.

This was the only place she could think of bringing him. The only place she could think of where he would be safe. Where they didn’t really have the Order. Where Coruscant was somewhere very far away, like a dream after years gone by.

“Not exactly, no.” And because she doesn’t want to lie to him, has never been able to, regardless of how interwoven they have become through the Force, she tells him as much truth as she can bear. “When we were younger...you used to tell me of great sand seas. A planet almost devoid of most life, where the suns shone in tandem brightness. And I told you of mine, with green everywhere. Lakes and rivers and the only time that wasn’t true was when there was snow. And you didn’t know what that was. Hadn’t seen it before...and I promised one day I would show you. And you laughed because you thought I was making it up. But now…” Now it wasn’t just piles of fluffy frozen water. It wasn’t a distant dream he might have trouble imagining no matter how voracious his mind was for new things to explore and experience. But she knows too this is far too close to truths she isn’t ready to get into. That what might be in the moment idyllic was actually several crimes the galaxy over. The illusion of freedom when she holds him unknowingly hostage. Kidnapped from the Temple and gone rogue beyond all their training. Separated from his master, his senators, from ...everything. All because she feared what they were doing to him. Feared how much of him they had ruined. Feared that if she didn’t so something, anything, no matter how drastic, there would be no Anakin when they were through scavenging him down to a molecular level. But this is not what he needs to know. All he needs to know is that she will never hurt him. She will never let these terrible things come to pass so long as there is life in any part of her. All he needs to know is that she loves him, now. Before. Forever. Completely, without condition or need for anything in return. “..Uhm. Ani?”

A little wave of a hand. A tiny nudging of the Force, as playfully as possible, and the tiniest tuft of snow hits him full on the side of his face. “Gotcha!”

[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]

@mynameisanakin {{xx}}

There is a subtle weight to the way Anakin looks at her. It’s not the oppressiveness of absolutely darkness nor of deep water, but more like the anticipation before a storm breaks. Ions dancing across her skin that make the small hairs on the back of her neck rise. Winnows its way down through her limbs before diffusing throughout the rest of her. It makes her want to ask if he feels that too but the time is never right and she doesn’t want to expose herself to the kind of scrutiny that he is capable of. Instead she focuses on the corners of his mouth and urges them through sheer willpower alone to quirk into a smile. One that will rise like her four moons until it reaches its zenith in his eyes. It’s a childish want and she knows it. She also knows it is in these small moments that such things are possible. That he might indulge her like he can’t or won’t in other situations. And it’s the closest she comes to admitting to herself that she both misses him and is envious of the long leash the masters give him. Admits that sometimes when she’s knee deep in holocrons and bacta-tanks that he might find something out there that will find a way to keep him. To make him forget her. She knows his work is important. His adventures are things she likes to listen to in rapt fascination. The dreams of other worlds and other people. A thousand lives strung together like a garland of little lights and he touches them all even if it’s in the smallest of ways. Hers isn’t the same but it suits her, she supposes, even if the excitement she hoped for long ago is now confined to the halls and byways of the Temple, rather than at his side like she imagined years ago. When Anakin is gone, there is space. Expansive and cold and empty despite other bodies and the soft, syllabant whispers that remind her of restless ghosts. Again, not wholly unpleasant as abject silence would be, but markedly different, as though he takes the idea of living with him and only gives it back when his boots touch the floor of the docking bay. By slow degrees her fingers find his sleeves. Glide over the warp and weft of the fabric. Stop at the crooks of his elbows. They linger there, insouciant vagrants finding a place to squat, making themselves at home. His physical presence isn’t that much different than his spiritual one in the Force; the biggest difference is the scent of him, the warmth that is lacking when he’s just a thought, a mental reach far longer than her limbs can possibly imagine. She soaks it in. Allows it to seep into parts of her untouched and untamed until she picks up his natural rhythms. Until their separate breaths become one inhale, the same exhale. A sigh. Something that becomes a communion of intermingled sentiment that one could not extricate the pieces without sending the whole thing to the ground. She can’t quite tell what’s joy and relief from the brightness and the need. The way he cages her in with his arms she has no choice but to lower her hands to the vague area of that space between his waist and hips and finds no hardship in doing that. Closer still they grow until one bare foot rests between his and she relaxes utterly in the solidity she finds. How the pose, if viewed from the outside, finds a parallel in dim memories of home. A vague reminiscence of her fathers standing in the exact same way. Their faces carved into the very likeness of hers and his. Not the features but the emotions in them. And it’s funny to her how one moment she can be utterly transfixed by the feel of this ~of Anakin~ and the next moment she’s home. Not for the first time she wonders if it’s the same, or similar, for him. If he remembers where he came from with the same fondness. If she is just as close as he gets to be connected to his roots. That singular sense of peace and well-being. Of rightness in the moment and with the universe that they are told should not come from any one source but all of them. 

It is a gift that she cannot explain nor properly thank him for even if she had the words that might express those feelings. For all the reasons that should feel wrong she can’t. And maybe, deep down, below some substrata of her being she takes that vague semblance of stillness from him as a sign of the turbulence inside his mind that has yet to be able to find its way to his surfaces. She’s never minded that. The thrum of life so vibrant in his veins that it spilled out into the world around him. The voracious curiosity that he had about everything and everyone. It was just who he was and she absolutely loves him for that. And maybe some small part of her envies that kinetic energy because it’s something she lacks herself. There’s a good deal many things like that which are different between them and none is less fascinating than the rest. Almost as much as the slight sound that escapes him and teases a little laugh out of her that’s immediately hushed because it shows a lack of self-control and elegance. Another thing she is painfully aware of.

So intrinsically intertwined as they are both in a physical and spiritual sense she can practically taste a darker current to his light, can feel something shift in the currents that surround him and it peaks a brow over one eye in subtle query though she’s not entirely sure he can see her face to know that there’s a question written in her features. Though she has suspicions because she knows where her own thoughts had travelled. “He’s not here, Ani.” Not in the room, not even on Coruscant. Her Master had spent hours with Master Windu before he’d collected his things. Told her that she should practice her sabre techniques. Told her he’d contact her when he was on his way back. There’d been a certain look on his face that prevented her from asking questions even if she thought she’d die if she didn’t know. She was still alive and here so clearly that wasn’t a universal truth. She likes being separated from him, kept out of his web of secretive missions even less than she cares to be separated from Anakin. And that nascent hate is another thing that whispers her unsuitability, because no matter how hard she tries, there is a shadow of it that lingers. One that looks a lot like the look resting on his face and why she suspects that it is her Master or the idea of him that upsets him. Zarek is the only thing she could put a name to the shadows falling over Anakin. And she recognises it because she has very similar instincts when it comes to him and his own Master. Worse still when he casually mentions the Queen-now-Senator. She knows that he has loved Amidala longer than he’s known Keni herself, and she has no way of combating the influence of the Naboo woman’s ghost on him. A part of her fears that she will always be second best to the woman even though she is better suited for him. They are both Jedi. She knows Anakin in ways Amidala never can, and she doesn’t trust the woman��s sense of loyalty and fairness. She doesn’t believe the Senator would give everything up for him. That she would risk arguing with him at whatever personal cost because he’s stubborn sometimes. That she would listen to him even when he cannot bring himself to speak. That she would place him ahead of whatever manipulative agenda she thinks might be best for the Galactic Republic. Amidala is only a career politician after all. Like Palpatine, like Organa, like the rest. 

And if Amidala did not mean so much to him, Keni isn’t sure she would care so much. But the woman represents everything that he might crave some day; she is freedom, she is not a significant part of the Force. She is exquisitely beautiful. She sees things in ways Keni can not, and is not bound by the will of the Council.

Her fingers curl up in his robes with a tightness she isn’t even aware of possessing. The joy of their reunion robbed from her features until they’ve darkened considerable, her eyes too bright with restrained malice that she tries so very hard to subsume, to push down into the bedrock of her psyche where it can do no lasting damage.

She’s just about to pull away from him, sink back into herself and hide behind decades of practiced non-existence when he starts talking again, distracting her from the dozen different tangents she’s found herself trailing behind. And that’s when the puns begin. Each one of them carefully chosen, each one of them carrying weight until she realises what he’s actually saying and the look on her face changes from murderous to incredulous to somewhat horrified amusement. If she laughs she might hurt his feelings. If she doesn’t laugh she might hurt his feelings. And so she just freezes in the moment. Bit by bit everything else does around her so that she can only hear the sound of him breathing, the water in the little fountain in the corner of the room trickling into its basin. Until everything becomes singularly focused on the feel of his hand travel it’s way up her side to her shoulder and into her hair. Which tilts her into his fingers. Her eyes trek from his endless blue downward to the midpoint of his chest. Where her thick lashes close leaving her able to feel more than see, an absolute gesture in tribute of the trust she places in him. And where one set of fingers glide down her face a moment later, her own much smaller ones take to wandering on their own accord. Across his chest. Down his arm. To the glove. So very careful. So very gentle. Afraid the slightest pressure will send arcs of pain across what’s left of his still healing nerve endings. Where she laces them together, only a teensy bit unnerved by the lack of living flesh and bone beneath her own.

“What if,” she murmurs in a low, husky tone before she opens her eyes half way, all green embers in the dim lighting so very far from the innocence etched elsewhere. “That was the one I wanted to keep, Ani? It’s very practical after all. Strong and resilient. Mind of its own, too, so like it could do amazingly dangerous things all by itself. I mean it’s absolutely perfect.”