#Pools of Sorrow Waves of Joy|Anikeni

[brooklynislandgirl]

💚 Anakin

Imagine You and Me || Accepting tagging @mynameisanakin

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... There was a princess who felt the whole world flowing in and through her. Every blade of grass, every flap of a hawk-wasp's wing, the ceaseless murmur of the hungering dead deep within the Bare Forest. When she was still little she submitted to the duty laid upon her by the General and sailed across the stars to a world called Coruscant. For all the things that lived on the back of this world, it had already died a tragic, avoidable death. The princess did not want to be here, so far away from her fathers, but she was the one chosen, and she could not shirk her duty. What she could not know, however, is that she would soon meet her destiny. The boy was close in age to her, and he too grieved to be here. He was small and lost and was taken from his mother. The other younglings of the clan dismissed the boy, but she did not. She crept toward him and shared her blankets with him, soothing him for the first of oh-so-many nights to come. As they grew older, the boy and the princess ~who now was simply ordinary~ bonded together, became hopelessly entangled with one another through and in the Force, and she realised that no matter what happened to him, she was meant to serve, guard, protect and love the boy. And she did, with every ounce of her being. This is where the rest of the story becomes muddled. Some day the boy was killed by a terrible monster. Some say he lived to become a wise and compassionate ruler. Some say he never lived at all. But Melakeni knows the truth, and the truth is that her za'lali was all of those things and none of them. He was only ever Anakin, her heart and her Doom. ~*~ Shady and I have spent years building this ship brick by brick. Inviting others selectively to share that ship, and that au, but ultimately we hoard it to ourselves hundreds of thousands of words at a time, and are in fact, still telling the story. I will let this one go only when I am dead and one with the Force. {{10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000/10, and fuck 'Canon'}}

[brooklynislandgirl]

Home for the Holidays – Our muses go to one or the others’ family home to celebrate the holiday (or family friends, just a family environment). {To answer the eternal question of whether Trees decorate trees, never posed to Keni.}

The air is cool and crisp as it caresses exposed bits of skin. Which for Anakin is very little and for Keni it is like a lover's ardent embrace; familiar, tempting, making her tawny skin glow as it teasingly plucks at her hair, pulling strands lose from its simple plait. Her strides ahead of him switch from long and tranquil to high and short. Almost like skips. She does not ever look like this on Coruscant. So at peace in the natural environment; so harmonious with every yellowing stalk of long grass, every song of shivering leaves which have turned a riot of colours, every buzzing hum of insect, scurrying ground creatures. None of which are her pets, left behind as they are for his sake of comfort. Not everyone has a loving fondness for hawkwasps. Of course, Coruscant does not smell like Zelos. With its rich damp loam and fertile lands, the last of the late blooming plants leave a lingering freshness. Their dark leafy canopies that stretch the ground have gleaming globes of mist or rain clinging to them like scattered jewels. Above them the sky is pale pristine blue though it can never compare to his eyes. Still in these hours they come closest than she's seen in years. A few fat, bulbous white clouds drift along like small ships in holding patterns. In the shadowy lee of vegetation and rock formations there is a thin layer of frost clinging to roots and ground. Even beyond the city confines there's the faint scent of baking goods, roasting meats, the aromas of a feast in the making. In short, it is a perfect day and they are themselves perfect within it. She glances back at him over one slight shoulder bare but for the sheer bits of cloth that flirt with being sleeves. The weather does not seem to get down into her skin with its brisk bite. She smiles widely, each of the points of her teeth fully visible not like they are at the Temple where she hides herself away in layers of robes and a meekness that doesn't really suit her. "Come on, Za'lali! The flowers will not pick themselves!" Joy laces through her words as the breeze carries them to Anakin, and whips her loose strands of hair into dark silk pennants that seem to punctuate the words. Then she turns away and continues to traipse her way through the grasses, seemingly unconcerned whether or not he's picking up his meandering step behind her or not. She has not told him what these mysterious flowers are for, if she is searching for anything in particular, though whatever ones he chooses seem to only further her conviviality. She holds out the woven wooden basket that she carries attached at her hip with scarves, the most tender smile curving her lips, and a bright affection for him always in her eyes. Fingertips grace his own or coil about his wrist ~leather or otherwise~ or sometimes she presses the flower to her nose and breathes in as deeply as her lungs allow. She never stays too long before she goes spinning away again, deeper and deeper into the wilderness. It feels almost like the mounting anticipation of Inevitable Doom except there is no reason to hide any of their intentions behind pillars and closed doors and little rituals. It is a gift that her homeworld allows them, being not two knights within the Order. Here they can be whatever they like. For Keni it is desperately in love with the very heart of her, and she suspects the same is true for Anakin. Eventually though, she can feel the way his Presence begins to wind itself through her thoughts. This is meant as no intrusion and she isn't even sure he's even aware that he's delving into her thoughts. He is an all-encompassing warmth as he traipses through, passive in a way as to never disturb her by becoming lost in the Force and her immediate space within it. She doesn't shy away from him. If anything she is more than glad to dwell a while in a place where they become the only constant and fixed things in the universe, all else only the roar of distant oceans. Or the whisper of starlight. She knows the knoll is beneath them, his head pillowed in her lap while her fingers stroke through

his golden locks in slow strokes. His eyes are closed, the same as her own, but she doesn't need that kind of sight to indulge his curiosity. "The Longest Night is coming soon," she says quietly as if form of loudness will break the stillness around them. It won't, of course. The braeside peace might be illusory, might let them feel like the only two beings in the whole of creation but the estate is not entirely too remote. The occasional pleasure yacht can still be seen in the sky as it approaches the capital. "After that, the snows and leanest days when the sun hardly seems to shine. Some of our old poets call them the Dreaming Season for all the time we typically spend indoors." It is a collective fear that starts as a wisp and hopes that once passed down through dozens of generations have become a living and breathing entity of its own. And like every one of those cultural nightmares strung across the galaxy, Zelosians have rituals to bolster themselves, to feel as if they have some kind of control over things they really can't. It's not unlike life at the Temple. With long enough centuries what starts as a gut reaction becomes a spiritual tradition replete with beauty and comfort. "To ensure the sun is sustained, to ensure it comes back to us, we build little boats of the thinnest materials. Atop them we set lanterns filled with light. The walls are etched with what we want in the coming year. Wishes and prayers, hopes for those who are far away or feeling unwell. But always, always at least one plea for the light to never fade. We decorate them with flowers and seed pods. Some of us make offerings of food or other little gifts. Then as dark comes we make a procession down to the great sea. We set these boats into the waves. It's beautiful, so very beautiful. Almost like a sea full of candleflowers." That swath of happiness mingled with the slightest sliver of fear ripples through her nastic response, giving her a moment of breathlessness. To better capture the moment of which she speaks where poor words fail to do justice to what she remembers from childhood, she drags Anakin's consciousness toward memories of all that she had seen. She knows that his fear of great bodies of water is not so easy to let go of and so she tries to wrap herself around him in the Force to provide a buffer, while outwardly she shifts from where she's laying and decides to thread some little purple flowers into his hair. "Of course, you do not have to make a lantern. You don't have to go to the shore. Not if it will trouble you, Za'lali. If you'd rather, you could hole up in the library. When we return, full dark will fall and we will celebrate with a small feast and plenty of cordial drinks. This is one of my dad's favourite holidays and so Father indulges him as only one can when they are madly in love." And of course, she is also as deeply in love with Anakin and his happiness is paramount to any other feeling that might sit in her chest. She does wonder if they have such rituals on Tatooine, with its blazing suns and its frigid nights. Are there stories attached to them to explain their significance or something observed simply because it had always been so? How can she ask him though, when all of his memories of that place are bitter and tinged with grief? It would feel as if she were picking at the raw threads holding him all together and she can't bear that. "If you had a wish to put out to the galaxy, what would you ask for?"

[brooklynislandgirl]

22. favorite droid?

Not So Long Ago || Accepting { @mynameisanakin because <3 }

Keni looks down at the little round-domed R2 droid though from beneath the slant of her lashes, she can also keep Anakin in view. It is very hard not to when he towers over her as he does whenever they have a chance to be in such close proximity. Her accommodations have changed now that the Temple is no longer that, though the irony that they are still trapped here despite everything is not lost on her. At least she is able to keep her flowers and plants about, and more comfortable furnishings to house his long limbs when wearily he is allowed drags himself to her ~their~ quarters.

She does not understand each little whirl-blip-beep-song that the droid makes. Even so his tale seems to be a very dramatic one and she wonders if there was a translated guide, exactly what would he be telling her of his latest adventures with his Master. She parts her lips to slowly drag her tongue across them, letting them remain in a seed of a smile before she flicks her gaze up to his face. A good handful of his golden curls are still damply plastered to the side of his head. An unfortunate adverse reaction to his helmet. His face is too pale, too gaunt, and it has been too long since she's last seen it.

One hand slinks out from the within the robe sleeve and reaches out. She trails her fingers down into the perpetually gloved ones, unconcerned that it is metal beneath the protective sheath rather than flesh, and weaves them together before offering that hand a slight squeeze.

"Most impressive, R2. I am in your debt for returning your Master to me in the same condition you both left in." She is not being patronising to Anakin or the droid. If anything she's more serious than she is with any of the dozens of humans that now make the bulk of the Imperial Palace. "We will see to it that you're given a good scrub down, sanding, and your fluids are balanced." Her other hand pats the droid in the same manner one would a cherished pet. "You are free to rest for the time being, as I need to tend..." She trails off. Of any being still alive, perhaps R2 knows best that Anakin is the soul of her concern. "Come, Za'lali. You, too, need something to eat and a hot bath."

[brooklynislandgirl]

“Is that a real knife?” Curiosity, not concern. He's quite certain Keni wouldn't actually stab him, and if she's intending to stab someone else, he's just as certain he supports her reasoning on that matter. But that legitimate, solid blade is quite the fascinating novelty in his opinion, it being decidedly not of the sort found on tables.

Fall Into You || -

While Anakin was not expected to turn up in her room, neither is he unwelcome and wholly unexpected. His very presence feels like an extension of her own will, of her own body. He is comfort and warmth and she thrives through their connection, almost as though he were a sun she can reach out and take hold of when all else is darkness and doubt. There is too much need of that these days. The entire galaxy is at war with itself. The pain and fear and agony of trying to eke out an existence between clashing ideologies, the lack of guarantee when it comes to those who are wholly innocent of these ills surviving screams through the Living Force. And if it is so loud to her, for Anakin it must be unbearable. And yet he does. Firmly and often without question because what else can he do?

Of course, she is certain that to voice such thoughts would be tantamount to blasphemy should one of the Masters ever sense it, particularly her own. She, like Anakin, does as she must, and puts aside the grief and the sorrow aside. Makes as much difference as possible. Still, the timing is too particular for it all to be a coincidence.

The brush of his voice, as sinuous and warm as the caress of his fingers along the back of her neck in a tender clasp, ripples through her and burrows itself into the pit of her belly. Her eyes shut and a flicker of a smile pulls her lips to one side. Of course the slender bladed weapon of beautifully forged aurodium and platinum was a real knife, one that was also unimaginably expensive. Crafted to draw the eye with its beauty it is deceptive; its oil-etched blade slender but incalculably vicious. Lethal as a rumour and twice as fast. Easy to conceal especially if one knows how to do so already. And yet, it is more than that. More than a mere tool of suffering.

She doesn't address him yet, there is still the final touches of ritual to be seen to. The low table before her is draped with a spare brown robe. One of a million that are the same, functional, plain cloth worn by every Jedi across the galaxy. The little bowl on the table is fabricated from the base of a broken mug, the edges carefully worn smooth. The pinch of burning incense and the coal it burns on carefully hoarded and made by her own hand after hours of meticulously grinding the right, fragrant plants and herbs. Her hands move like waves as she seemingly scoops the grey breath of smoke up over the knife and then herself before returning it back to where it had come. A gesture repeated slowly, rhythmically. A lifetime of practised motion.

If she has to pin-point the most valuable skill life in the Temple has taught her, it is how to be resourceful. Making due with common place items no one would find suspect. That would not go amiss. It is a crucial task because she has seen what becomes of others, those without roots in their native culture, and it becomes a varnish when they finally are able to embrace the past. Forgotten the core of what anything means and there's almost something... insulting... to merely display trappings on the body without connection to the whole. She is sure there is a word for it, somewhere, but it is not one that readily comes to mind.

Once she is done by her silent rubric, Keni rises up from where she'd been kneeling. She turns and welcomes Anakin properly then with the smile she reserves for him alone, the few steps taken to close the distance that lies between them. Her backs of her fingers which still bear the scent of the smoke on them graze the length of his jaw on either side before she lets them bury themselves in his hair with their ultimate destination being laced and clasped at the back of his neck. Her face comes within a heartbeat of burrowing into his chest and she breathes as deeply as her lungs will allow. Inner quietude floods the entirety of her being as it fills with the heat of his body, the little scents of soap and skin and cloth. The traces of oil. A hint of grease and mechanical lubricant that are now as familiar to her as sunlit meadows and green growing grass. It is the slightly bent posture some would call lazy that is as much a part of him as everything else that makes up the difference in their statures so that it only takes a little effort for her to rise up on her toes and brush the tip of her nose to his chin. Bright emerald dims slightly as her lashes lower half way. Such a gaze could be interpreted as seductive. Coquettish. For Keni it is simply the way she's always looked at Anakin, with an abiding love and affection that is tangible from across the galaxy. Eventually she has to concede to unhand him and when she does, it is with a hand sliding down to his and pulling him from where he stands back toward the sad state of affairs they euphemistically call a bed.

She encourages him to sit then edges a hip down onto the thin mattress beside him, one foot firmly on the floor. Beneath the hem of her robes, her toes are bare and visible. Scandalous. Something Anakin can barely tolerate for himself. She finds that to be an endearing quality.

"My world....has not always been the way it is now. In the mists of our history we did not have our cities or our homes to protect us against the terrors that breed in the night. There was no just rule of law or sense of place in our numbers which have never been the most thriving. And so my ancestors huddled by their light sources. Gathered in groups. Waiting for the coming dawn, vigilant but afraid. Now as all things do, our stories diverge and blend and change over time. But one of them was about a guardian or warrior who was keeping the long watch over sleeping families. In the hours before dawn he was set upon by Those That Walk but Are Not Dead. He fought them wave after wave even though they kept coming, swarming. Some time during that melee, the guardian lost his weapons and still carried on. He eventually lost the fight but the people were safe when the sun finally rose upon them again. They found his body on the edge of camp. His hand was clutching something and when they looked, they saw both a great wound in his side, and his own rib in his fist. Be broke a piece of himself off to continue fighting, made a knife of it. In honour of his sacrifice, we carry a chini'hayak ~the bitter nettle~ to remember and to never be without a weapon, once we come of age. We are meant to use it as a last course of action in saving the lives of others, or if it should come to it, taking our own."

She spans the small space between the bed and her makeshift table, takes the knife in hand. She flourishes the dark etched blade in a few basic manoeuvres, showing Anakin how easy and fluid the movements are supposed to be when using it. They are different than those used for a lightsabre which tend to be rigid, aggressive. The light of her room practically sings off the edge of the blade, catches on the different metals of the hilt, the minute gems embedded there. Then she tucks it in such a way that it lays flat against her forearm where normally she would wear a sheath to hold it in place. Where it could quickly slide into her waiting palm with the brush of the clasp-release. Her grasp is lose with every indication of muscle movement and the way she looks him in the eye that she not only knows he will want to touch it but expects him to. There is already acceptance of that desire, permission granted, etched into her features.

She knows that he will have questions, and she is prepared to answer whatever they might be, but first comes a warning. "It is very sharp, Za'lali. Though it is long and pointed enough to penetrate an organ or the base of the skull ~the kill must always be quick, clean, and above all else, merciful~...the edges are meant to cut as well."

The tip of her tongue comes out to dampen her lower lip much in the same way that he bites his often. Her own inquiries start to pile up behind her eyes where she holds them at bay for the moment. "Go on. I know you want to."

[brooklynislandgirl]

♥ Do they have at least one bonding activity they devote to doing with their partner exclusively?

Love and Courtship || Accepting

{{ @mynameisanakin }}

Impending Doom is elaborate with a compendium of rules, rewards, punishments, and structure that could rival the great Archives in complexity and for being abstruse to any outside observer. Which is also rule number 46...allow no one to ever observe acts of Doom.

While she and Anakin can claim all they like that it is simply an innocent game to alleviate outside sources of distraction, to remind themselves to be more mindful of their thoughts and connection to the Force, and a ragged litany of a great many other things they ought to be doing or not doing as faithful, obedient young Jedi, the fact of the matter is...that it isn’t. Really a game that it. What it happens to be is an elegantly multifarious ritual designed to carefully explore all the infinite emotions and desires they have that are far too conveniently forbidden to them for the mere fact that they exist. And were she put on the spot, Keni would have absolutely no idea when exactly it had begun or for just how long they’ve been playing. How different rules or clauses get added to it and which are carefully pruned for either not exactly bearing the hoped-for fruit or because by nature of being a living thing connecting them they have become obsolete.

One example of the previous had been the exchange of robes, practice sabres, and the like. Even for that brief period where she and Anakin had been roughly the same height ~much to her surprise~ no one had ever been fooled by their attempts at trading places. An example of the later had been the joint decision to be either the first or last padawans to seek their sleeping pallets in the clan creches so that they would not be discovered sharing blankets and curling up together. Privacy had been gained when they’d been appointed their small, cell-like quarters, but that instituted a need to become stealthier. To better learn how to weave compelling tales of why they were so often together. To being able to reach out across increasingly more vast distances all for the sake of never being parted for long.

Some parts of the game were strictly intended for comfort or pleasure in small ways that had intrinsic Logic built in: by sharing an actual water bath or shower or time in the refresher was not an excuse to rest against one another skin-to-bare-skin, but an effort at conservation of precious resources too often squandered in the austere decadence that was life on Coruscant. Her sense of taste and smell are by far sharper than other humans in part owing to the night-blindness that effects all Zelosians, preventing them from seeing anything at all in light less than that of a full moon. Biting Anakin the way she does is absolutely a conclusive tool for medical diagnosis of blood-born pathogens. When ~after hours of being bent over sick and wounded patients~ he would take his clever fingers both metal and flesh and work out the series of knots and kinks in her shoulders or neck, Anakin was displaying his retention of having learned that if left unattended these would cause great pain and eventually compromise her work.

All very reasonable, functional, things. 

But the part of the game that isn’t...the part that has its roots in her deepest love and devotion to Anakin has no real Impending Doom behind it. If anything it is directly opposing, born of a need to affirm life and health, things that others have always seemed to fail in ensuring that Anakin thrived. But it, too, is a ritual. From the moment she lays eyes on him, she cannot help but devour every line and lilt of his too long, too thin frame. Every strand of hair windswept across his brows. The weariness in his eyes that like a sea can drown her and despite being a strong swimmer, she would let happen because she can think of no better end than one found in him. The instant it is appropriate, she steals moments in which to press as close as physics and voluminous robes will allow. Beginning at his crown and trickling downward in mimic of rain, she brushes the pads of her fingers down his neck to his shoulders then follows along down the length of his arms and back up partially so she can make fists at the small of his back, grasping cloth if it is there, or to settle against his bones if he is only in his skin. She rises on the tips of her toes and tilts her head upward, eyes closed. She becomes a flower basking in the vivifying warmth and light of its sun. And then she breathes Anakin. Oh, her nostrils will flare and can pick up those traces of recycled and filtered air, the perfume she has come to dislike on principal, the faintly dusty reek of papers she downright despises. She breathes in the scent of sweat and soap. Of wherever he has wandered and come back from. She breathes in his exhale and fills her lungs with him. Lets him seep into her pores and through the supple bark of her skin. Absorbs him in a way that cannot take more than what is offered in their long embrace. All of it edged in a kind of quiet desperation because the truth is...the longer they are parted, the more she is starved of all that she has come to love. But the physical realm cannot compare to the way they meld around and within each other within the Force itself. Ebb and flow. Without beginning or end, without any desire or need to retain individual essence. They dissolve into a singular consciousness. Formless and eternal and without separation, and perhaps it has always been meant to be this way. Nothing but shades of colours that are indefinable to sentient gaze. Nothing but emotions expressed in their purest lights and darks. There is no need for words. There is no need for anything that is not one to the other. Nothing else can come close, nothing else can come between.  Nothing else exists. Nothing else can.

[brooklynislandgirl]

"I would leave with you if I had the chance." {For the most beloved of Plants.}

If I would, could you? || Accepting

The whisper is low, furtive. A scurrying thing seeking shelter while still being breathed through cracked and dry lips that rustle with the voice of dead leaves. A result of smoke inhalation if Keni was hard pressed to make a diagnosis. Face to face, she can feel his hands on her cheeks and his eyes are full of things that cannot be spoken of, however much they wish they could be. She pulls them down with her own, which are still shaking and glances behind her to the waiting transport. Twenty-eight clone troopers litter the deck. Only five of them with minor injuries. The rest are being triaged and colour coded. She doesn’t dare count the black tags. Soldiers she has known under Anakin’s command that will, at best, be salvaged for parts, likely for the rest of their company. If she does, she will crack right down the middle and that won’t do any good for them or for Anakin, though maybe he already knows. He understands what it all means, and they were his men. The closest thing he’s ever had to brothers of his own, friends who relied on him as much as they do on each other. Just as he’s urging her to go with them. To evacuate their positioned which is so incredibly fucked that there’s not really much to try and salvage. Anakin isn’t fighting back, he’s covering her ~and their~ retreat. It’s a sacrifice without a name, and she doesn’t really think any of the Masters will be put out when he doesn’t return.

Something does break inside of her, though. That leaks bitter rage and bile not only at the enemy but also their own commanders. She blames all of them for this. Sending them here as a unit with little support and even less equipment. They were supposed to be making inroads with the natives. Supposed to be using humanitarian relief as a way to gather intelligence and stave off losing another world to the Confederacy. But they know, here on the ground, just how much bantha fodder that is. The subtext is to create a forward base of operations. To use men and women and children, their impoverished resources, the land and air itself, as a jumping off point to go on the offensive. How much the native population knew about the lofty ideals of war is impossible to tell. But they had welcomed the 501st with a sickening degree of hope and relief.

Most of them are gone now. There’s smoke and a low ringing in one’s ears that limn the silence and throw it into stark clarity. It’s such a stark contrast to what seemed like an eternity ago, but in truth couldn’t have been more than hours. Supplies had come in and distributed to the village elders, with the rest being reserved for their unit. Meat. Fruits. Clean water. A rare and generous gift but Anakin had made sure that this reward was given to the men, if grudgingly. It was their first hot meal in weeks.

It was also the first time in those weeks that they had a chance to just sit together, eating sparingly, and letting the tension and fear and pain leak out of their pores. They were so tired. Beyond tired and into a realm of existence that makes someone question if they are actually alive or if this was some kind of situation where the body continues to be in motion for lack of understanding that it can simply fall and never rise again. Zombie-tired, she calls it and flashes him a grin sometimes, macabre teeth bared in the exact most terrifying way.

Sometimes she thinks the only thing holding them up is each other, and the proximity of the clone troopers who take their cues from Anakin.  And of course, as if they didn’t know any better, that kind of peaceful moment cannot last. Comes shattering apart by a volley of plasma bombs. Dirt, rocks, body parts mist the air until it’s too thick to see and immediately they ~two Jedi and the troopers~ fall out and into defensive positions for the incoming firefight. But grass and wood huts were no match for heavy blaster fire. And being caught in the open like this? It held all the tell tale signs of being an ambush. They have survived ~for now~ though the casualties are almost too numerous to fathom. Anakin intends to continue the mission on his own. And that, no matter whose order it is, even his, is not something she’s willing or capable of abiding. She looks back into his eyes. Sees the love and the fear and the desire for her to go, to be safe, radiating in them. She hates to be such a disappointment, but he’ll forgive her. Eventually.

Her full, cracked, dusty lips pull into a grim line as she works her mouth a certain way and lets out a long, low whistle, one that warbles at the end as it grows thin. She raises a hand and makes a gesture to the pilot of the last evac-ship. It is a gesture they all know, have been drilled in from the beginning of this war. She doesn’t bother to look back over her shoulder to see the confirmation signal. Hears the engines roar to life and feels a sirocco whipping their filthy, tattered robes around them. 

When it dies down, and before he can say a single word, she sighs and shakes her head. “With all due respect, General Skywalker, I do not follow or accept your orders.” Some day, he will understand that her place, whatever it is and whatever danger they might face, is at his side. And she will only leave if he’s coming with her.

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin {before} The Force feels quiet, nearly as technically deserted as the Temple has been since the start of the War. His particular presence in it doubly sparse. And there isn’t much time left before he’s being sent away again, which is one of the reasons why she’d come to his room. She wants to spend as much time as possible here, with him, as much as they can, because even she knows that it might be the last for quite a while. But she also knows when he needs that space of separate togetherness, to commune as he can, to gather himself up for the tasks ahead, many of them so grossly unappealing and questionable that they don’t sit well.

Having tentatively tested his waters, she recognises his expression as manufactured displeasure. That even if he is reluctant, that she has indeed ensnared him. She wants to live in that faint echo of his voice, the distinct cadence that she knows better than she knows the sap flowing through her veins.  And of course when he finally glances her way, she schools her own features into the very portrait of innocence, the surprise that he should ever have a single doubt that she knows what he’s talking about or why he should look at her with that half-lidded stare. The very one that ought to be outlawed as a health hazard because it absolutely murders her.

One hand rises, in feigned dismay, to rest at the centre of her chest. “Honestly, Anakin. I can’t believe you’d accuse me of being so... underhanded. Just... appalling, really. I may not survive this assassination of character.” And even in her own ears that sounds like a lot of fertiliser to shovel down and expect him to wade through. So it’s mere seconds before she giggles and flounces back on the hard, uncomfortable, and entirely too thin mattress beneath her. Sleeping on this, especially with his arm still healing in ways, cannot be good for him.

“And, I hope you know, this means I’m winning because none of those words were part of the game. So...what do I want?”

A nail taps at her chin, thoughtfully.

“I mean, I could ask for the password for your personal datapad, but we both know I’ve know that for years...so it looks like... the tunic right off your back. Hand it over.”

Rules, after all, are rules.

[brooklynislandgirl]

[brooklynislandgirl]

Volentine's Wishes

Keni,

I remembered what you said last year, about the small rodent-giving practices. It took some time to gather both information and the rodents, but I did it. Apparently, it is cruel to keep just one of them, which makes sense. This is probably why they are a symbol of love! It is very important that they stay together once in love.

So, I procured two of them. However, two has turned into seven in the time it took me to return with them. They should all be very friendly, at least, I’ve been petting them daily as I was advised. By the time the five babies were born, both parents stopped biting me during these pettings, so it must have worked. They are very friendly now!

I hope they will bring you much happiness and love, as you do me,

-A

~*~  ~*~  ~*~

It wasn’t until she’d reached her quarters that Melakeni Ivers allowed her composure to come apart. She leans back against the door almost the moment before it seals itself into place and takes a deep and shuddering breath, letting the ache flow through every fibre of her body. Her eyes squeeze shut and she rolls the back of her head against the solidness behind her. It is a grief that she’s held onto tightly, until now, where she can set it free. He had been so close. And she hadn’t so much of a glimpse of him before he was gone again.

She is used to having an Anakin-shaped hole living inside of her. She is used to traversing through her day offering comfort and healing to those who are sick and hurt without a second thought, be they Jedi or civilian. Consulting with other healers, the medical droids, the Masters who are terribly good at exhibiting external compassion when very little stirs them within. She is used to running her fingers through the soil of the medicinal herbs, feeling their life thrive in the vibrancy of their leaves, the aroma their oils leave behind that in some ways faintly remind her of a home she has not seen in too many years.  These kinds of days drift by with an ease that blurs and blends them into the back of her mind into a quiet sort of white-noise memory. Those days Anakin’s Presence is simply a close and often soothing companion, the thing that gives her softest smiles their brightness. That keeps the glow of her eyes alive and glimmering even when she is wilting from exhaustion.  There are days when she is accompanying her Master as either a tool or a prop or an extra set of senses, hands and so on. She has never been able to explain once she overcame her fear of the man why it is that he appeals to her so, beyond what is normal through the bonds Jedi and their apprentices. She cannot explain because she doesn’t know what it is, or why it still remains as strong as it does. When she is with him, there is very little time for introspection, and Anakin’s Presence is a buffer against the too much; too much pain, too much heat and awareness and agony. He is the softness that keeps her focused, keeps her thriving.

But ones like today? The ghost of him cannot fill the hole left behind. The abject yearning that claws its way through her until everything feels like it is in tatters and the only remedy is to find herself with arms wrapped around his waist. Breathing him in and assuring herself that he is alive and as whole as he can be, and that harm’s way has not found a way to sink its teeth into him. The want of his lips on her neck as she presses her face into his hair or his chest. There need be nothing wanton about any of it, just the language they speak of and to each other in their own way, that connection and completion they feel with no one else but each other.

When the quiet little sob of grief is finally swallowed down she opens her eyes and squares her shoulders. Straightens her robes and smooths her hair back into place. Reaching out with the Force, she trips the switch of the small lights of her chamber, and feels everything settle around her. Feels she is being... stared at.

The room is not so large that she cannot immediately find what is amiss, not so filled with all the possessions that they are not, by rite and tradition, allowed to have. The pillows have eked by as necessary bedding for frail limbs. The chest to keep her robes and secret things likewise, traded and bartered and smuggled for through illegal channels. The Council does not know that at least three of the grandest cities belong to her city and that she has made use of them in her private hours.

She cannot help but smile to herself. One of these days, she will bring Anakin. A moment later, green like forests, she shakes her head to diminish the daydream that springs up from that particular thought, and she makes her silent barefooted way to where the little enclosure is draped with one of her spare robes. It is the note that finds itself in her hand first. There is no residual warmth on the flimsi of his touch but she can imagine the sweeping strokes of his stylus. She runs a fingertip over the letters and feels the bright bloom of his excitement conveyed within them, as well as the near painful preciseness used to make every letter correct, the verbal equivalent of his wording and cadence. There is a pulse that rushes through her as her nastic responses quicken. She lifts the note to her lips after the seventh read-through. A dozen kisses saved for later.

Each time her giggles come a little louder until they fill the small room with joy. She can imagine what his hand will look like, the nicks and scars from having taken repeated torment to befriend their new little family. She will need to make a salve for it. For now though, she can feel herself humming within on an oscillating frequency normally reserved for more intense moments of Inevitable Doom. Her hands actually shake a little as she reaches out to pull aside her robe. And there within their containment, one peeking out of the doorway of what looks like some clay-moulded bark, is a tiny rodent. All twitchy nosed and sleek mottled fur and those restive dark eyes that had spied her even from across the darkened room. A few investigative sniffs proves her not to be Anakin and there is some hesitation as its little fight-or-flight instinct is engaged, though when she sets the lid aside and drapes her knuckles against the gravel, it eventually comes to see what she is. 

And this is inherently the danger of herbivores, because he does try to make a snack of one of her fingers. Right then. She rises and gathers bits of clover and mint and other greens from the neat little plants kept along shelves of her walls. Ones that she mists morning and night and whispers her truths to, the very ones that Anakin always seems to enjoy visiting, one of the things he likes about her chamber, that brings him a kind of only-slightly-guilty happiness. The little vole makes quick work of most of the meal, then drags away some for his mate, or so she presumes. She will have to research their care and feeding, though it seems that Anakin has, in fact, provided them a lovely little home to the best of his ability. She goes to sit at her desk and pulls out her datapad.

M-D-A The specimens that you have delivered to me are exactly perfect for the research project. They seem satisfied with their current conditions and of course I will keep them under the strictest observation. You have my absolute gratitude for being able to assist me, and you find me in your debt. I would be most glad to share the results of these observations with you upon your return to Galactic City, where I may properly thank you for going out of your way for me, my oldest friend.

I hope your latest mission sees you in good spirits and that the Force keeps you safe. I very much love hearing of your adventures off-world and the holo-net can hardly make up for the personal details your telling of them brings.

I am unaware of having to travel in the near future, so if you should have any need of me in the meantime, I of course will gladly look forward to your messages. Until then, know I wish you health and good cheer. May the Force be with you, always. With deepest respect and admiration, Melakeni

It seems cold and brittle and distant, like starlight on a moonless night. It feels like there is so much left unspoken because that is how it must be, in coded messages and aching spirit.  Anakin understands and she would never trade any of this save for another life where they might be free of constraints put upon them by the Order. Though she does wonder if that would make him happy or if what is now frustration would become something dull and listless, the bound-up denial of his natural compassion and desire to help those that need him most. It is a thing to consider, because as far as she is aware, they must be together as well, or suffer the same kind of separation sickness as the two little rodents tending each other and what she assumes are their five adorable children.

And what does she hope that he sees?

That they are loved already, mostly sight-unseen and bite-unfelt. That through their tiniest little glimmers of presence she feels even more connected to Anakin in his absence. That her message carries all of her love and hopes for him. That he has but to think of her and she will reach out to him across time and space and anything else that dare come between.

With or without the Time of Voles, with or without his physical proximity, there is no one that can occupy the shape of him inside of her.

[brooklynislandgirl]

@mynameisanakin {before}

Keni can feel the wave of doubt go rolling through the Force like a dust storm gathering what looks to be lethal power only to fizzle out in the end, unable to maintain it’s own momentum and stability. And she can’t pinpoint the exact reason why. Perhaps it is because he’s worked himself into one of his mental corners where he can’t see a way through, which happens so very rarely that it’s notable when it happens with them, or he too is feeling all of the same physical exhaustion and that’s made his head cloudy.

To be fair, she’s not feeling herself either. The terrain is rugged. There’s Confederate regiments too close for comfort, and the only reason why they are here...and she doesn’t even remember where here is at the moment... is that they are very close to a strategic hyperspace lane and nothing at all to do with the planet’s natives who are taking the brunt of the war. And they could spare her from her RMSU. It is a small blessing that Anakin and his troops are stationed here, fighting the good fight, and that he volunteered himself to be her escort.

Like hell he was going to let them drop her behind enemy lines unescorted. 

And for once, she can’t argue with him. Not a day have they been separated where her mind hadn’t been with him, making her tasks automatic, a product of muscle-memory than any conscious affair. That she’s lived in the seconds of holo-clips and leaked intelligence from the Outer Rim. She almost doesn’t remember what it felt like not to live in the constant terror of knowing...

The word slug fills in her train of thought and despite the morbidity of her thoughts, she finds herself laughing, more a silent shaking of her shoulders and her mouth drawn into a soft rictus than sound.

Of course she remembers the moment. She remembers the reflection of her face in his eyes and the shudder that runs roughshod through her at the plant devouring little fiend. And she remembers the faces they both made when...well. Yes. That was one more moment in their lives that she knew that she loved him without a doubt. Because she has always been willing to kiss him despite the fact that he’d licked it.

She looks over at him and nods, a touch of adoration in her approval. He scores a point for that, and some of the tension she hasn’t realised she’s been carrying gives way. She plucks her canteen from her kit and carefully unscrews the lid. It’s half empty and she doesn’t sense anywhere to refill it in the vicinity, so it’s a hard call. She takes the smallest sip of the tepid water, enough so that her throat doesn’t feel like sandpaper set on fire and then pours a tiny measure into her cupped palm. She dabs at the back of her neck. At her face. Wants to upend the bottle down into the front of her robes which are heavy and terrible and constricting in the worst ways.

And in doing and wishing all of this, she turns the question in her mind one way then another. She can tease him a dozen ways to Iego, can demure or twist it without the very terrible pun that is endearing only because it comes from Anakin.

A lifetime ago she might have replied with a simple “home”.

But home is no longer a verdant and well hidden planet that very few know about, and even less can find their way to, even with all the astromechs and latest charts. To the incredibly wealthy and welcome, to lovers and sight seers shuttled down to the planet by experienced Zelosian pilots, it is considered a paradise. To others, it’s a tantalising death. She is proud of that. No, home is eyes that shift blues like the so rarely seen above Coruscant. Home is a heart that beats fierce and bravely a mere few feet away. Home is... not a place, but a person. And she might associate many things with the world leaf, but Anakin is not a leaf. He is a brilliantly burning star.

Considering then for some other association, Keni sighs and shifts. The dark and heavy outer-robe has got to go. So too the inner set. Everything stripped down to her sleeveless tunic, her pants, her boots. And even those she’d consider removing if the terrain were more forgiving to bare feet. She then spares a bit more precious water to bath her newly bare arms. “Spring. Whenever Father was in the Capital doing troop reviews or training, or sitting on the arbitration councils with the General, my dad would sneak me out of the estate and to the countryside where we have our hunting lodge. The trees would just be starting to bud or unfurl their new leaves and everything was quiet, lush, green. It would rain almost every afternoon and he would let me sit in the pilot’s seat of his...”

Well, his smuggling vessel. “...ship, while he worked on the engines, or retrofitting something. I don’t really know but I’m sure you would have understood instinctively. I...I think in some ways, you and Dad would get along very well. He’s not Zelosian, either. But anyway. Yes, when I think of leaf, I think of those times. The music of the water falling from the heavens, the way everything felt so alive and at peace. A renewal after the long cold.”

Even though she turns her head over her shoulder to look at him, part of her gaze is remote, because she’s also somewhere else, a place indefinable but one that he can understands. He visits his own more often than he manages to be in the here and has been doing that more and more of late in those few and far between moments that aren’t life-threatening or spent with her. She always regrets when she talks so fondly of Zelos and the life she had there because their experiences are traumatically different. Guilt eats its way into her like acid, etching his victimisation in a way she will never fully understand as much as she wants to. It also paves the way for her rabid want to protect him from those things and the ones still going on though she has very few resources to actually do so.  She leaves her sproutling memories where they deserve to be. Far in the past and far away from here. Cranes her neck doing so and with resignation deep in the sigh she heaves, she rises up. Shoves her shed layers of clothing in and around the pack and hefts it back up onto her back. Once she’s ready to get back on the move, she holds a hand out to him and wearily smiles.

“Luxury.”

[brooklynislandgirl]

Sinday- voyeurism

Cardinal Seven || Accepting {{ @mynameisanakin, for reasons }}

~ Ivers Estate, Nul, Zelos II~

He doesn’t realise how mesmerising he truly is. 

Even in artificial light his hair gleams silver and gold except where the sweat of exertion has darkened it to a burnished hue and has it curling up by his ears, around his neck, itself stretched in the way it curves. Chasing the light as it pours down his shoulders, narrow without the multiple layers he wears as armour, a barrier to keep out the world as much as to protect the softer parts of him buried beneath his often placid surface, he’s not as thin as he once was but he’s not the dreadnought that the posters and holovids make him out to be. Even so there’s the the subtlest ripple of long lithe muscle as his hand slides up, down. Slow. Methodical. There’s a discernible pattern, an almost mathematical rhythm to his movement that in and of itself can be hypnotic if lingered over for too long. It feels like music, like dance, like art. The focus with which he expends his frenetic energy turns from the faint tremors and occasional twitches into something far more fluid. Anakin is water, filling in the edges with himself like a vast sea allowing itself to be imposed upon by its own choice. What then were he to let himself overflow, go spilling ever outward and only returning in hushed waves of his Presence?

This isn’t the first or only time she has watched Anakin. She could gather up all of the longing glances spared under the watchful gazes of the Masters, furtive as Ikopi when the weather turns and the predators begin their hunt, because there are risks, always. Add them to the the times he’s fallen asleep beside her and she’s glanced down with every feeling glimmering in her eyes, and smiled fondly as she’s stroked his hair. These are often the only times he looks like he’s truly at peace. She has learned to follow his every movement from beneath her lashes, so she can keep her head reverently bowed in the halls as they walked from one place to the next. And once she held them in her hands she could toss them into the heavens and there would be more of them than stars.

She would be lying through her teeth if she said that she didn’t find him as arresting as most people did, especially upon first meeting him. If she said that her blood didn’t catch fire when they were wrapped up in one another. That she doesn’t drown in his kisses only for him to breath life into her again when he pulls back and rests his brow, his nose tip to tip against hers.  But to say that this is all the she sees and feels is also a grievous falsehood. More than simply the shell that houses him is his voracious intellect. The way he intuitively grasps everything he reads, the things he watches. The gentility of his spirit in the kindness he shows others, the willingness to extend that to everyone from his troops to droids, the epitome of compassion. She is moved as much by his strength to rise no matter how others shatter him as she is by the little things. How absorbed he can become in a task that he puts his entire being into it. Or how blindingly radiant his enthusiasm can be when he enjoys something and chooses to share. All of his doubts and his fidgeting. His greater uncertainty of his place in the universe and how that shadows his every step. Those fears that are abjectly unfounded that he thinks are unforgivable as they are...well. He uses words like annoying and strange. Little does he realise that those are the very things she loves most about him, and always has.

Okay, and maybe that particular scar, earned during the battle of Rendili, might actually come in a close second though she would never admit that.

A hitch in his breath, a ground out but creative curse in the back of his throat and his body shudders to stillness, and she half smiles, blushing verdant to the roots of her hair. It sends a very vivid, very personal brightness through their connection.

Anakin stills, now realising she’s there. His best friend, his Left Hand, his adoring bride. All of these things and all else that she could be. Watching. Always watching. The tip of his tongue darts out and pulls his lower lip between his teeth where he bites down on it. Drains the colour until the full lower tier is nearly as pale as the rest of his skin before he lets it go by slow degrees. Once this happens he lets that smouldering blue gaze drop back down where a moment before it had caressed her own, but there’s just the tiniest flicker at the corner of his mouth that gives him away, the ghost of a smile meant only for her. Anakin’s not-so-secret is that he actually enjoys when she watches him.

“What?” It’s only a single word, lacking that very specific lilt that is part inflection and part ill-ease with conversation. His mind fills in a million things that it could be, all deliberately malicious in only the way he can be with himself.

She peels herself from where she’d been leaning and approaches now, appreciative and full of a little star-struck awe that never fully goes away. She waves a hand to indicate him in his entirety as she approaches on silent, bare feet. “I was coming to see how the work was progressing. You’ve been tinkering with that engine for hours now. Which, by the way...” She lifts a thumb up and wipes away a smear of grease from the hollow of his cheek. “Mmm, better. I propose a compromise. Come inside with me and while I make us lunch...you can tell me all that you’ve done. Because I don’t know what that glowing thingy is, and that other particular whatsit is but it looks...broken. Afterwards we can come up with at least a dozen reasons to avoid the Inner Council for another few days. So far, my favourite is you didn’t get any messages because of electromagnetic radiation storms pushing in from wild-space black holes. Or...” He narrows his eyes suspiciously. “...Or what, Keni?” One did not need to be sensitive to the Force to feel the influx of heat that clouds every ounce of her as she smiles, baring her teeth to their full extent.

“...Or that you were seduced by a terribly fierce witch who ended up doing indescribably carnal things to you that you are absolutely certain might have been your Inescapable Doom. I mean, could go either way.”

“Electromagnetic radiation it is,” he grins right before kissing her.

[brooklynislandgirl]

five times kissed {in boots or not}

Sweeter than Wine || Not Accepting

I. The darkness breathes around them and there are no moons to shine down in the vaulted space between their sleeping mats and the impossible ceiling above their heads. There is not really silence either with the breath of twenty younglings scattered about as she creeps her way on hand and knee, dragging pillow and blanket along behind her. She cannot see where she is going and relies on a rudimentary grasp on the Force to offer her a compass point. The fits and starts of his breath help. The distress is palpable. It feels like a burning stone in the middle of her chest. Feels like the way the sky looks just before a sudden squall.

It takes an eternity for her to finally get to where she intends to go, and it is there she hesitates. She knows instinctively were someone to touch her in the dark when she can’t see what is coming, she would lash out in fear and terror. And while the Masters say that one must control one’s fear because it is not a good thing. Bad things should be eli...elem...should be done away with. She doesn’t want to do away with the boy with sun coloured hear and lakes for eyes. Her boy.

She curls up around him. Forming a cocoon of flesh and blood, sharing warmth as she settles her pillow beside his and draws her thin, scratchy blanket across them both. Like her fathers would do, she rubs small circles against his back and leans in close to kiss his cheek. In a voice that is more Force than whisper, she says, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far away there was a beautiful world. And on this world there was a boy and a girl and an enormous garden...” ~*~

II. Her lungs burn. Her muscles threaten to seize. She doubles over. Hands on her knees, gulping in breath after breath, wincing at the sudden stitch in her side. Sweat pours down her back. She doesn’t have half the length of his legs and it’s so unfair! Only a standard cycle ago she’d been taller than him, faster. But now he’s out matched her, even if he’s paid for that growth in pain from bones, from muscle, stretching to new heights. He can now take the stairs two at a time, sometimes three when he’s daring, and all she can do is to try and catch up at a far slower pace. To add insult to injury, he doubles back. Cloak flapping behind him and robes threatening to wrap around his boots. He’ll need a new pair soon. She can tell, being so close to them in the moment, trying her best to not look like some mottled green, sweat coated disaster of a near-human. She is about as successful at that as she has been in keeping up with him.

“You almost had me until the stairs.” Oh yes, he’s just so helpful, isn’t he?  “I know.”

“You’re mad.” Thank you, Captain Obvious. “I know.”

“There’s something you don’t know,” he says, and there’s an edge to his voice. She’s hurt his feelings, unable to keep her internal comments to herself. She risks straightening, determined to meet his gaze when she apologises. That doesn’t happen because as soon as she can meet him eye to eye, she catches the thoughtful look on his face. Eyes too bright, pink in his cheeks, lower lip caught between his teeth. And the next thing that happens is he steals a quick but unmistakable kiss to her forehead. “You just-” “I know.” And with that he’s gone again, only the echo of his laugh teasing her to catch up. ~*~ III. Even apart there’s always something extra, something indefinable that others take note of even if it’s only at the edges of their animal brain, the senses enhanced by their training in the Force. A feeling like neither one is entirely in the physical space they occupy. It is like gravitational pull, perhaps. Something that extends out into space in all directions, for an infinite distance.

On Naboo, Anakin walks in a garden, the grass bending softly beneath his boots, the sun dappling his face as he turns it upwards toward the sky, eyes closed in something very similar to meditation were he not so aware of his surroundings. On Coruscant, Melakeni runs her fingers over a work bench, feeling the cold metal along the edges of her arm as she turns her gaze downward at half-sketched designs. Pod racers, strange ships, a new hand. A moment later, she picks up a neatly folded shirt and holds it up to her face.

She breathes the scent of him in. He feels the breeze waft across throat.  They reach for each other across the vast distance because they both know what it is like to be surrounded by people and be very alone. Some time later, he arrives in the common room and is greeted by the familiar faces that have always been there like stonework or stars ~hazy but really indistinct. They all have names, he even remembers a few of them. It isn’t long after that she arrives. A thousand new suns are born in the clash of blue and green, even if not a single word is spoken, if the only thing that happens is that look.

One person whispers, “Wasn’t he sitting by the window?” Another nods. “Wasn’t she reaching for a book on the shelf?”

And so it goes until the others filter out to get something to eat, called to another part of the Temple, or simply to not be HERE right now.  He gestures and her page turns. She hands him a new stylus.

Only a hand-span separates them.

Lips do not have to touch for a kiss to be so profound. ~*~

IV. She lies motionless in his arms as he carries her solemnly to her resting place. A single petal drifts down from her hair to land at his feet and he will mourn that just as much as the any other part of that except that at least the petal he can keep secreted in a pocket, where fluttering and twitching fingers can close around it, careful not to crush it. It will leave its scent on his skin no matter how often he washes that hand, because it will always and only be the one made of flesh, never the other.

It is both boon and bane that she still looks alive. 

He lays her gently amongst the pillows. With the utmost exquisite care, he strokes her hair. Her still warm cheek. Brushes the pad of his thumb along the curve of her lip. There is no political statement to be made now. No other thought but that in her demise she looks tranquil. As death, tender in its enactment, should be...or so she’d said once. His chest is tight and it’s so hard to breath when hers neither rises nor falls. Pressure builds behind his eyes as he tries to stand still, gazing down at her. His throat dry. Because he’s done this, hasn’t he? It’s all his fault. One moment she was laughing, and the next...

Her eye cracks open.

“Only way this works is if...you know... you can come down here for my dramatic turn to undeath and I savagely tear your throat out in a gush of hot, pulsing blood.”

This Impending Doom comes too close to the real thing for a moment before what she says actually registers somewhere between the layers that he so often exists between.

“And how am I supposed to be horrified at the punishment for my crimes if you keep talking. You’re supposed to be dead at least until I’ve eu-logised you.”  The word is not one he normally uses, and there’s a catch in his pronunciation of it that sets butterflies adrift in her belly, and suddenly their game...isn’t one. Before she realises it, she’s scrambled up to her knees on the impossibly thin mattress. Her hands become steel fists in the seams of his under-tunic. The tip of her nose caresses the underside of his jaw as her lips press into his throat. The desire is there to sink into his flesh. To drink down his freely given essence. But she doesn’t. Even when she can feel him pressing even closer into the kiss. Can savour the shudder that passes through him both in body and in Presence, more radiant than anything she’s seen, all heat and light when her lips part and she traces lines around cartilage there. Can feel the weight of one arm that wraps instinctively around her waist, the other becoming lost in her hair. Every single ounce of her writes into his skin; I love you, I love you, IloveyouIloveonlyyou.

~*~

V. He bolts upright. Sweat sticks to him like a second, clammy skin. His heartbeat sounds like thousands of troops marching at a pace that can never be achieved or sustained even by the most extraordinary means. The breathes he takes are far too quick and far too shallow for her liking. This has happened to Anakin throughout his life, from the first time he slept into the Temple, to now, in the aftermath of all that has happened. They would tell him that it was only nightmare. They would tell him to control himself better, that the dreams have no power over him that he does not give.

And she knows just what a load of bantha dung that is.

It’s been a while since he’s had a nightmare that powerful, that has ruined and will continue to ruin his sleep for days. She keeps a hypo in the drawer on her nightstand, but she’s not wont to use it, hasn’t before. Forcing him to sleep is just as horrific, if not more so than telling him it’s all in his head and to simply let it go. She shifts under the covers that he’s thrown off, and doesn’t take offence when his body stiffens at her touch. She waits for him to become acclimatised to the feel of her. Because nothing is as important in moments like this than for Anakin to feel safe, that he has the power to consent or decline as he wishes, even when all he might want to do is give himself over to her so he doesn’t have to make himself think. So that he can just be, which is often taxing enough without adding anything else to it. When she feels him relax even slightly, she curls an arm around his waist. Leans into his back and presses small, soothing kisses against his shoulder, against his back. With them comes a kind of clarity, not exactly of mind, but of body. She lets go only long enough to allow him to rise. At times like these he has a biological imperative to move. To stop him is to hurt him in an unforgivable way. He chooses pacing and that’s fine.  “Do you want to talk about it, Za’lali?”

“No.” He sounds so young and yet so terribly old. Eventually, he walks himself into exhaustion and comes back to bed, where she’s waited patiently. His head cushioned in her lap as he curls up as tight and small as his body will allow. She never really knows what it is he sees in his dreams. What they show him, what they warn of, but one thing she’s learned, is that they must be listened to. And he will tell her in his own time. In bits and pieces as he’s able to, and she will stitch them together into whole cloth.

She contorts at an odd angle to brush another kiss, this time to his hair. “A long time ago...”

[brooklynislandgirl]

October Prompts || Day 9: Knight Terrors  {{ @mynameisanakin }}

More and more of late Anakin is made up of stitches and scars; one more cracked bone, one more set of bruises, one more ruined bit of tissue. At the rate he’s going, he’ll be more tegaderm and bacta patches than skin. It almost feels like he doesn’t want to come back from the Outer Rim sieges, not on his own two feet anyway. But something broke inside him long before what is now being bandied about by long-winded politicians and frightened civilians as The Clone War.

She can only admit now that when the first of the blaster fire began as Master Windu predicted, signalling the Jedi who had infiltrated the arena to reveal themselves, Keni ~with borrowed sabre in hand~ had lost sight of Anakin. She isn’t certain at all if a part of her wanted to. She was with him, after all.

And maybe if she’d fallen in the arena, if she hadn’t gotten on the transport, Anakin would still have his arm. Without Amidala, Anakin and Keni would have remained behind, even if they’d been on different transports, begin to rally the Clone Troopers, and helplaunch the counter-attack that ended in retrieving their dead. The Masters could have dealt with the Count. Windu and Yoda, Kenobi and Zarek. Even Fisto and Ki-Adi-Mundi might have been better choices. The loss of life or limb on nearly anyone would have been easier to accept.

But their lives are not their own, she knows this.

Along with a heart still grieving the loss of his mother, his body struggles with the loss of one slender but once athletic arm. The new one he tinkers on suffices in the place of the organic, but he flinches when she so much as glances a touch off his shoulder, or comes too near it.

She doesn’t tell him that she is fascinated by it.

She has no words to tell him about anything, except the occasional whisper of encouragement and always the flooding of love and support that she can give. And hide from him things beyond her control. No way to explain that it haunts her dreams now.

 ** In one flashing move, the Count sends Anakin’s arm, severed at the elbow, flying across the empty space, still gripping his lightsabre. Anakin drops to the ground and the fires of agony burn hotter than a core reactor. He screams as the shadow of Dooku falls on him. The former Jedi is intent on delivering a coup de grace. Why does the Force not will him to use the Force, to shove the Count away. To roll out of the way. To anything.

Suddenly, thought the thick smoke that chokes Anakin on it and his own spit, comes Master Yoda. He stops on the smoke filled threshold.

She wakes up, still screaming. **

She doesn’t tell him she’s the one that packs his arm in the portable hyperbaric chamber. That they collected his limb for possible reattachment. How would they ~the Clones~ know that it would be impossible, that the wound, the veins and arteries and nerves were all cauterised by the Count’s lightsabre blade? That the arm had already died and become necrotic by the time it was retrieved.

Would he be sicked to know she could not bear to have even a single part of him incinerated with the rest of the medical waste? That she’d kept it in cryofreezers tucked away in the back only she ever bothers with?

** Anakin drops to the ground, grabbing his severed arm in agony. Acid-etching the memory of indescribable pain into every single nerve in his body, every cell of his brain. The Count looks on, giving another of his resigned shrugs.  “And so it ends,” he says for the second time. Even as he speaks, though, the great hangar doors of the tower slide open. Smoke from the battle outside pours in. And through the smoke comes a diminutive figure. The figure’s entrance is swallowed by Anakin’s echoing and excruciating howl. She wakes up, still screaming. **

She wanted to ask why he had to go. Why Dooku said what he had, what Anakin thought he meant by the End. Still in the medical centre, recovering, he isn’t much in the mood to talk. So she goes about her duties. She bathes his arm, debriding the bits that come free. She tries to catch his eye and he looks deliberately away.

There’s a gap between them that no words can fill and his Presence in the Force is a storm of heat-lightning. Rage and fear and pain swirling in an obscuring mist that blots out the quieter parts of his soul, and strike out at random. Landing where it might though she can see... can feel... that he is doing all in his power ~which is considerable~ to keep it from touching her in any way.

Tenderly, she runs her fingers through his hair. Feels it spring back against her fingers as they pass. 

She could not know then that the moment he recovers, that he’s fitted with his new arm, that they are going to draft him as a commander in the war.

** Anakin screams as his arm drops to the floor, cut off at the elbow. He falls beside Obi-Wan, curling up in agony, protecting what he can and exposing what he could not. Dooku looks down at the two felled Jedi and moves in for the kill. Master Yoda presses the switch to open the hangar doors.

She wakes up. This time, she does not scream. **

She’s lost track of how long it has been since he’d recovered. Since he’d been sent out across multiple systems, each farther and farther away from the Inner Core. Farther and Farther away from her. And each time he is allowed back, there is something new. The scar across his eye. The two that linger on the other side of his face, between his jaw and his cheek. More broken ribs. And each time it is presaged by that dream-memory of Geonosis.

She cannot help herself this time. When he drags himself wearily step by step toward the Temple landing pad, she’s there to meet him. Drags his weary and wary body into the shadow, before she wraps her arms around him. She doesn’t breathe him into her lungs as is their custom, derived from the ritual of her home-world, not like she does any other time before he comes or goes. “Anakin, please. Don’t go.” Her whisper is urgent and her eyes are squeezed shut against the tears that threaten. “I have such a bad feeling...” “I must.” He whispers back, pressing his cheek into her braids. One thumb caressing the curve of her cheek. He tries to reassure her through that singular touch. “But I’ll come back. I promise.”

He’s never broken a promise to her before.

That doesn’t stop the dreams from coming, rushing into her mind like mountain run-off in the spring.

She just learns to be quieter about them.

[brooklynislandgirl]

anakin/keni moodboard. Theme: what we do in the shadows

“What have I done?” Anakin whispered. Palpatine gave no answer. His eyes staring sightless toward the ceiling.  “You have finally brought peace to our Empire, Za’lali. And now, together, we must rebuild.”

~Anakin and Melakeni || A shadow like a sadness

~*~    ~*~   ~*~

@mynameisanakin

[brooklynislandgirl]

{And ye, then the cheese stopped being molested, and I was given A Sin, verily, with much straight-faced enthusiasm, and the name of that sin was...} Murder.

{Thus delivered was the chile of green, and the enchilada thus did quake for not the gnashing of sharp teeth and batting of claw but for the glory that shone in the light of the Ice-bringer and the Heater of Worlds Unimagined. In praise, in praise I offer Thee....IA IA IA.} Cardinal Seven || - 

“I hope you’ll serve under my command. I couldn’t have survived without you.” 

The woman cups Admiral Tohm’s scarred face tenderly. Her eyes are soft and none could mistake the sweetness to her every breath. The time ticks a beat. Two.  

“It would be my honour,” Shonn Volta answers.

Before either of them could explore the new found joy between them there comes a discreet alert at the door. The protocol droid on the other side has a polite invitation from Lord Vader that the new Admiral should join him on his private balcony which provides a gorgeous vantage of Coruscant spreading out far below, an ocean of light and shadow. His effusive joy is palpable four systems over. 

Despite Volta’s unvoiced concern, Tohm takes only a few moments to make himself as pristinely presentable, then excuses himself from her company. The man sees this as an opportunity to converse with his new mentor, a man who he has nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for, something that borders on hero-worship. 

When the door clicks behind him, Volta curses softly under her breath.

“Such goes the way when you watch the man you love leave you for his duty.” Keni’s voice is as soft as the trail of her fingers along the back of the chair. She materialises from nothing, grown tired of watching this little drama play out.

Volta turns on her heel and her yellow eyes narrow on Keni, seething orbs of fire that remind her of nothing so much as the fires of Mustafar. Sends a spike of revulsion through her sharp and deep and providing nothing more than support struts to the task at hand. The Imperial uniform looks much better than the rags Volta wore as a prisoner but do not suit the woman, is no improvement to the sour look on the woman’s face.  ”What would you know of it, Jedi?” she all but spits the word as a curse.

More than you will ever know. “I think this is where you are mistaken. For I am not a Jedi. Perhaps I never was.”

“You certainly skulk about like one. Vader’s lapdog, aren’t you?” “Biting words from someone who owes her very existence to his mercy and intercession, both on Diab 6 and now. He has the Emperor’s ear, and were it not for Toh- ah, pardon. Admiral Tohm’s pleas moving him, then you would be one more unfortunate casualty of the hyperdrive malfunction like the rest of your friends.”

Volta’s hand strays toward her blaster, which in turn arches Keni’s brow. “I wouldn’t recommend-” She never gets to finish the statement. The woman draws her weapon. She is not as fast as Anakin by any means, nor is she as beautiful to watch but she manages to deflect the first bolt with the blade of her sabre, the second impacts the armour beneath her robes. Volta makes a break from the door but by a simple gesture and bearing down with the Force, Keni stops her.  “I must say, I am disappointed in you. I thought you were so much smarter than that.” The woman turns and snarls. Keni only watches her impassively.  “So much hate and contempt.” “You’re all bastards. You starved my people. You destroyed my world, my life!”

“These are the things that happen in war. Your parents hid you, when they discovered you were Force-sensitive. Perhaps if they hadn’t, you would not have needed Master Fisto or Anakin Skywalker to save you.” “They imprisoned me.” “Exactly.” A brittle smile that shows all of her teeth. Still holding Volta in place, she presses the button on the side of her sabre, retracting both the plasma blade and the knives that just from the pommel and the small cross-guard. A turn of her wrist and she sheathes it at her side. “But all of this is a digression. You see, Shonn, behind every great man is a woman. She might never wear a crown nor might she ever stand beside him as a wife or a lover, the mother of his children, but she will take it upon herself to reorder the universe to suit his whim, and she will do every necessary thing to ensure his safety. You and I both know this to be true, because you and I are both that woman. And I am protecting my world, and my life.” Both of which existed in one person. She closes her eyes a moment and tilts her head. She listens to the whispers of the Living Force, reaching out through every inch of the floors above her.

“But...we are not monsters. Because monsters steal children from their parents. Monsters enslave them. Monsters cannot love. And because I am not a monster I have chosen to spare you the agony of heartbreak.” She almost laughs at that, circling the woman and leaning into her. She gives credit where it is due, despite being held in place by the Force, she does not tremble. She does not beg. She does push back. Tries to make the blaster in her hand obey her will, but she was never trained. She was never made to suffer rather than take joy in the Force.

Keni comes to stand before her and lifts both hands. Slowly, almost lovingly, she begins to part the double-breasted gaberwool tunic. Volta is taller than she, is not as delicately built as Keni and there’s a tiny stir of envy when her skin begins to reveal itself, covered now only by the sleeveless under-tunic. Ignores Volta’s growl at the feel of her fingertips shadowing her collar bones, down to the scarred cleft between her breasts. Slowly Keni drags her gaze from the tops of their swells to the woman’s eyes. “This must have hurt like nine hells,” she murmurs softly. There’s a touch of empathy in her tone, the mark of a healer. “A replacement like this, the work is extraordinary. And how lucky are you that you have had not one heart, in this lifetime, but two.” Spittle, still warm, lands on her face and she wipes it on the sleeve of her robes. This breaks the eye-contact but not the Force-hold that Keni maintains. Volta perhaps does not realise what it was like working in the trenches, patching and re-patching the wounds sustained by the Troops and the civilians that the Separatists had fought. How difficult it was to sometimes keep a person still when you’d run out of medicine to dull the pain but you still had to remove limbs or organs too damaged to remain. How much control. How much emotion you had to swallow down like you were taught. The valves and wires inside the woman’s chest are now thundering in overdrive, pushing adrenaline though her system. “I promise I won’t keep it. I will see to it that it goes to someone worthy. Someone desperate for the life it will give, and in that way, you can go to the Force knowing that a part of you still exists, that it has helped.”  The pressure from her fingers increases, bearing down on the woman’s skin. Bone offers so little resistance to wood, skin and tissue even less. There’s a struggle then, one that is real and terrible and leaves a rending in the Force as the women clash. Thing of it is though, all Volta fought for was her life.  Keni fights for more than that. She’d heard from Palpatine’s own twisted lips as he said that should some tragedy or accident befall Anakin, that Tohm would make for a suitable replacement. No one, especially not Anakin or herself could have interpreted that as anything other than the veiled threat it was. One attempted on his life had already been made. The same conspiracy that had weakened Palpatine. Had Tohm and Tracta left well enough alone, Anakin ~who had survived his end of the intended assassination~ and she might have succeeded in riding the Empire of it’s terrible Master on Diab 6. It wasn’t as if the Prism was exactly well known among the populace. As it stands there now is seeded into her that every whisper of every shadow contains ill-will for Anakin, not the least of which is Tohm and his woman. Which leaves only one desperate recourse to her. And it wasn’t like Shonn Volta would have ever survived the Prism, was never meant to be free.

The cracking sound is almost swallowed by the piercing wail that starts the death throes as Keni’s fingers shove themselves through Volta’s meat. The spray of hot, fresh blood splatters her face, her chest, likely half the room, floor to ceiling. She grasps the mechanical heart and lets her fingers surround it as she licks her lower lip. “If it’s any consolation, Tohm will be joining you very soon. You’ll be together then.” As somewhere high above Anakin tells Tohm the last piece of advice he has to offer is to never accept the existence of a rival, Keni rips the woman’s artificial organ from her chest, and releases her from the hold, allowing her body to slump to the floor. A few moments later, Tohm’s body falls from the balcony, sending him flailing and plummeting into the depths of Coruscant.

Melakeni Ivers says nothing as she makes her way to the chambers afforded to Lord Vader, courtesy of the Emperor. Neither does she care that her robes are soaked in blood, that it turns her dark hair even darker. She cares for nothing as Anakin’s hand ~the one of flesh~ comes to cup her face. His eyes scour over her with a thousand questions and ten times that much concern. Half in and half out of his armour he looks exhausted. The last few weeks have been hell on him, have sucked from his being every ounce strength and purpose from him, leaving him to look very much like he did the day she was brought to him in the Temple below them. Only this time they are not surrounded by the 501st.  In many ways that would be so much better. They both know not a word can be spoken. Neither of them have a single doubt that these rooms are bugged a hundred different ways and that Palpatine knows all that happens. Sees and hears every single thing.

She drops the heart uncaring of it at the moment and lets it thud dully in the folds of her robes. Her hands, still sticky and wet reach up. They take hold of his face and she pulls him down to her.

She doesn’t need to speak for Anakin to understand that everything she does is for him. And no life, perhaps including her own, is as important.  But she reminds him again, silently and suffused through the Force, as she captures his mouth with her own, in a kiss as deep and full of her love as any that has come before and will come after.

Soon, Za’lali. He can’t outlast us forever.

[brooklynislandgirl]

Sand- If you had to pick one drink to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Ocean Themed Asks || Accepting

She doesn’t stir at first. Even when Anakin isn’t here she hears him. Unique speech patterns and all in the deep timbre of his that’s softened only by how quietly he speaks when he bothers to do it at all. More often than not the longer they are together, the less and less he has to. She is certain that he comes across more eloquently, more fully, through the Force. She is also certain that he prefers it that way. The nuances of language do not exist within it, there’s no need to try to curb and wrangle his thoughts into a cohesion that allows for understanding, it doesn’t tax his often scattered and weary fragmented sense of self. She has never minded in the past. She does not mind it now though more often than not she ends up missing him more than she thought possible.

As it is, she sits her post, the small desk with her datapad to record all notes that might come in the form of patient changes, advisement from the medical droids and monitoring equipment. New admittance and those that don’t last the night hours of her shift. Those are the rarest and there is mercy in the Force for it. But it’s been hours and her lashes drift down toward the cusp of her cheeks, exhaustion chasing her through the sometimes boring nothingness and steady beats and thrums faintly reaching her from the larger chamber beyond.

She answers slowly. It doesn’t matter if he’s somewhere out on the edges of space, or if he’s only a system away. She trusts he will hear her just the same, the way she does him.  “Mmm. What I wouldn’t give right now for a decent, hot caf. A touch of cream, a little sweet - and you don’t have to raise that eyebrow to me, Ani. A tiny bit of sugar won’t go to my head whatever you think. And might just help with the stiffness in my neck. I feel like I’ve been staring at this screen for hours.”

She emphasises this by rolling her neck, trying to stretch out the muscles. “Don’t get me wrong. Juma juice shared with you, or a properly chilled Fizzy is great, but I think I would have wilted right into the ground if that was all we have access to. I need my stimulants hot enough to sweat the cup, and strong enough to lift this Temple single-handed.”

She can feel his Presence grin all around her, that sometimes slow but fey upturn of the corner of his mouth. Even now she can see it firmly in her mind’s eye. It starts with a twitch. Close kin to the one that comes on the heels of some stern lecture or condemnation of what seems to be his every thought, word or deed, but different in the fact that it spreads carefully, articulating itself over time; the line that deepens at the corner of his mouth until the other side catches up but not so fully entrenched but that creates twins of them as dimples she’s sure he doesn’t realise he has. It works its way upwards, providing it’s own scaffolding from his cheeks until it finally reaches his eyes. There it lingers, uncertain, so that his brow comes to overhang and shelter it, and forces him to look away. Maybe that’s the part that always gets her. Even in his joy, he never stays long in the moment. She knows why. 

And immediately, she backs away from that thought. If she knows anything it is that Anakin can pick up on even the slightest divergence in her emotions and those only tend to feed into his own tidal currents.

Anything?

That gets a laugh out of her, tired and gentle and not mocking him in anyway. What makes it come alive is that there’s a certain tone his Presence can take that is shockingly suggestive even if he doesn’t mean it to be, which she’s sure he isn’t trying to be. “Yes, truly. As long as you make it worth my while, Za’lali.”

Turn around.

Now she’s certain he’s up to something but being the good sport she does as she is asked, because it is Anakin and she would never fail to fulfil even his smallest request, no matter how odd or ill timed it might be, strictly because he is the one doing the asking. And Anakin never asks for much.

The seat creaks as she lifts her head and starts to turn. She doesn’t quite get so far when into her field of view is conjured a steaming mug with the tell-tale scent rising from the surface. She knows without a doubt that it is exactly what she was craving from the moment she described it. The mug is held by a gloved hand. A very specific gloved hand, attached to a very specific arm. A very specific knight.

There is a spasm in her chest. A clench in her stomach, that shoots straight up her vesicles and into her brain, with only one thought expanding ever outward in a supernova of emotion. “Anakin?” She practically leaps to her feet, and it is only his control and healthy use of the Force that keeps the mug from clattering out of his grasp to go crashing to the ground, the caf completely forgotten in the overwhelming cascade of emotions that go flooding through her. “Ani!”

Her arms wend around his neck in a strangle that masquerades as a hug. Her face pressed into the mid of his chest, dragging in lungful after lungful of him. The smell of dust and recirculated air in his robes mingled with something that she knows only as him. Every nerve and muscle in her body failing to convey how much she has missed him, how frighteningly glad she is that he is here.  The larger questions ~his reasons for returning, his adventures off-world, how exactly he’s managed to sneak up on her~ can wait for now.

When she can finally pull herself free though not completely out of the similar grasp of his good arm, she relieves him of the caf and takes a sip of it.

“Tell me I’m not dreaming.”