The End Justifies the Means

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Hidden Shadows

"He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit in the centrnd end enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself his own dungeon."

John Milton


The roughened soles of my feet made a faint rasping swish as I padded over the cool textured flagstone floor. When I reached the carved balustrade curving in a graceful bow around the balcony’s edge, I came to a standstill. An enchanted dark vista spread itself out before me. Masses of dark green leaves and colored blossoms served as an open air frame for the scene of moon dappled water and distant shadowed mountains. Tough ropy vines clung tightly to the old columns; growing in such thick profusion the weathered stone was all but invisible to the causal eye. Around and around the thick vines wended their way towards the heavens only to have their progress stopped by man’s failure to build higher.

Doomed to a dirt side existence they had moved in the only other direction possible – over the dark wood beams that crisscrossed above the stones, hugging them in a lovers embrace. The flowering limbs threaded and weaved in and over, crossing back and forth, intertwining until they’d created a kind of lush, leafy green roof thas aas almost impenetrable. I knew from experience that it was thick enough to keep the balcony in shade throughout the day and to keep those dry who sought shelter from the gentle rain showers common to the area at that time of year.

From the tangled foliage canopied overhead, I could hear the soft cooing and rustling of leaves as the lake doves began to stir. Layered beneath that comforting noise was the soft, wet sound of lapping water against the shore, the whisper of the wind through the tall trees, and the low chirping of the insects hidden amongst the twined branches and rocky crevices.

All the sounds of the night worked together like the individual instruments of an orchestra. Every note magically melded to come together in a soothing symphony of nature. The night music prepared the world for the soon to be dawning day by lulling and luring sentient beings deeper into their dreams. All beings it seemed except me. Something was hunting me in the realm of dreams and it was making sleep impossible.

The peaceful sounds caressing my ears nourished me but they also filled me with a longing that squeezed my chest in a vice-like grip. What I had said to Padmé over two months ago was true. If I had been born on Naboo, I never would have left. Maybe not even for the chance to be a Jedi.

I leaned against one column and folded my arms across my bare chest. The tough vines pressed into the flesh of my back in mute protest at my invasion but the slick, green leaves made up for its hosts’ rudeness and played their part in protecting me from the worst of the abrasiveness. I ignored the slight discomfort, concentrating instead on the cool, smooth feel of the leaves and soon any unpleasantness faded from my consciousness.

A deep breath filled my lungs with the sweet perfume from the profusion of soft purple and white blossoms that surrounded me. My mother had tried to grow flowers for as long as I could remember but Tatooine’s climate had been too harsh to allow nature’s beauty to grow. Every failure had been met with a sad smile and a rueful shake of her head as she acknowledged her own folly. Yet not more than a week would go by before she would plant something new, a seedling or half dead bulb that she had traded some spacer for. Her patience had been limitless and she’d never given up.

A cool breeze rippled through the greenery, bringing something new to the nighttime bouquet. Intertwined with the heady aroma of fragrant blooms, I picked up the underlying sent of fresh water and the faint tang of wood smoke from a bonfire lit hours earlier by locals celebrating their mystifying holiday. Padmé had tried to explain its origins while we had been traveling to the retreat but it had all sounded rather ridiculous to me. Or perhaps I just harbored a grudge against the foreign custom responsible for delaying our arrival and therefore the ceremony that tied her to me forever. I took another deep breath, inhaling sharply through my nose.

Despite my half-hearted prejudice, I found the smoky smell drifting from the still glowing embers pleasant and unexpectedly homey. I wasn’t sure why that was since no one on Tatooine ever lit a fire in celebration of anything. Fires were to cook, never to celebrate an event, and they never were lit on as large a scale as Nubian pyres. I shrugged my shoulders dismissively. I’d take a good Boonta’s Eve pod race over setting piles of brush ablaze any day. My home world had been warm enough without adding the heat from a dozen fires.

Firelight reflecting off canyon walls . . . the snarl of sand dogs fighting over a bone rising above the crackle of the cooking fire; over the hammering of my heart . . . the hum of my lightsaber cutting through the muddy clay dwelling sounding in my ears . . .

Something slammed its fist into my stomach with such force I gasped out loud.

I was unprepared for the swiftness with which the memory of the flickering light from the Tusken campfire pushed its way up from the depths of my mind. I was lost to the shrieks and low moans of terror that rang in the uncaring desert air. I was lost to the remembered thrum of vengeance coursing through my body like a righteous cleansing fire; to the sight and smell of severed limbs charred from the repeated slashes of my lightsaber wielded with a furious hatred.

{A Jedi does not know hatred}

I was lost to the memory of the addictive dark power that had flowed through my body like liquid energy. The hot, raw pulsing force that sang in every cell, every synapse, overshadowing everything that I’d ever been taught was wrong. Low whispers pulling me down into the black maelstrom, urging me to give into the anger and fear, to wallow in the hate. Hissing, snarling things trying to take me away.

Tiny claws gripped my spine, sinking poison into every vertebra. The events of that night in the camp rushed at me from the dark corners where they’d been kept successfully at bay from the moment I’d been offered the comfort I had so desperately needed. I’d barely had time to take in all that happened when Padmé had interrupted me and gotten far more than she’d bargained for. Numb from grief at losing my mother, in shock from all that had transpired, I’d grabbed on to the only thing I could – Padmé.

When she admitted that she loved me and I had renewed my every waking moment to the all consuming task of winning her, to seducing her and binding her to me, I’d managed to all but banish what’d transpired after I’d disappeared into the desert on what had turned out to be a fool’s mission. But now my conquest of Padmé was complete and I had nothing left to hide behind. My mind released everything in a torrent of images and emotions that threatened to drown me. The dizzying flashes and accusing voices rose, promising to drive me mad, promising to drag me to a place from which I’d never find my way back.

My mind felt fuzzy. My senses dulled as if my head were wrapped in cotton wool. Reality shrank to a pinpoint and all I could feel was something I shouldn’t have felt. No Jedi ever should. My neck no longer seemed capable of supporting the weight atop it and my head fell back against the prickly foliage. A cold shiver ran through me and suddenly I longed for the hot twin suns of my youth and the knowledge that my mother was just meters away – safe and alive.

Invisible screams filled the air. It had been a night awash in revenge, death and blood. I could smell it on the breeze. It tainted the sweet air with its coppery metallic bite. I could see the life blood, a creeping red tide slowly spreading from beneath the corpses to stain the golden sand. Accusing dead eyes staring at me through the flames. My mother’s eyes.

“I’m so proud of you, Ani.”

It was time to face what I had done and what it meant. It was time to acknowledge the truth. Yet I wavered. There was still the chance that I could tamp down on it all, repress everything and just go on as if nng hng had ever happened. I didn’t want to examine that night. I didn’t have any desire to analyze the events that had defiled my soul and besmirched my Jedi vows.

A helpless anger swept through me and the next thing I remember was my fist hitting the column again and again, smashing the vine and ripping through the leaves so I could hit the coarse stone with nothing to separate my flesh from the unforgiving surface. Pounding, pounding away - pushing at the taunting voices in my mind while at the same time obeying them.

It had found me, the dark energy that wended its way through the paths of my brain with eerie familiarity. How did it know me so well?

“Anakin? What are you doing? Anakin!” The panicked voice came from directly behind me but I didn’t pay it any heed. Only that dark, rasping voice insinuating itself in my head was important.

Cold fingers dug around the waistband of my sleep pants and then I was tugged out of reach of the column with a sharp yank. With a cry of frustration and rage I swung around to fight off whoever had dared to interrupt me. My metal hand closed around a wrist in a cruel grip. Jerking the intruder forward, I had already drawn my fist back when the red mist clouding my vision dissipated and I realized it was Padmé who I was about to hit.

I dropped her arm as if it were a live flame and backed away in horror at what I’d almost done. Once again I felt the vines press into my flesh. My knees suddenly gave way and I started a slow, helpless slide to the floor. The descent allowed the vines to scrape against my skin, carving ugly, red furrows down the length of my back. The biting sting of the rough bark barely registered.

The image of Padmé’s white face blanching in fear floated before my eyes. A low, animalistic groan rose from me and I buried my face in my hands. All sense of reality stopped. I was in a black hole with no way out.

“Anakin?” A soft voice whispered.

My head jerked up to find Padmé crouching in front of me. My hope that it had been a horrible hallucination died. I had been so engrossed in my pain and shame that I’d forgotten she’d actually been there, that I had almost struck her. My Jedi senses were so dulled; I hadn’t felt or heard her approach. I stared at her as if I’d never seen her before.

Night had started to release its hold on the sky. The dark had begun to fade and the pearly pre-morning light lent an ethereal glow to the skin visible above the crossed edges of Padmé’s robe. Despite the whirling images and tumultuous emotions raging below the surface, the first thing I wondered was if she was wearing anything beneath the deep blue velvet that hugged her every curve. Instantly I felt ashamed at that highly inappropriate thought. What was wrong with me?

Beneath a brow knitted with worry, Padmé’s chocolate eyes glowed back at me with concern and apprehension. I’d never felt colder in my entire life.

Her hand came out to gently caress the side of my face. When I didn’t react she sank down, coming to rest on her knees.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

What was wrong? What wasn’t? How could I tell her that she had married under false pretenses? Would it matter that I hadn’t fully recognized the truth myself until just moments, or had it been hours, ago? I’d lost track of how much time had actually passed before she found me.

“Anakin.” Padmé’s voice became urgent, her distress telling as she lost her formal manner. “Tell me what’s wrong. You’re frightening me.”

Yes, I was good at that.

Padmé leaned forward to capture the hand I held cradled to my chest. Her gasp at the sight of the bruised and torn skin sounded overly loud and out of place amongst the soft cooing of the lake doves overhead and the sigh of the wind through the leaves.

I offered no resistance when she drew my injured hand away from my chest and placed it carefully in her lap. My mind was numb. I felt detached from everything; the feel of the stone beneath me, the vines at my back, the heady perfume of the flowers, and the girl sitting before me tending carefully to my self-inflicted injury. It was as unreal as the events in a holovid.

Padmé was muttering under her breath in Nubian as she took the corner of her robe and dabbed at my hand gently, trying to stem the flow of blood and wipe away the bits of bark that clung to the flayed skin. I let her tend to it without protest, enjoying having someone minister to my hurts who didn’t accompany the proffered aid with a lesson on what I’d done wrong – again.

Mumbling something about bacta spray, Padmé made as if to rise.

"Don’t go.”

{Your presence is soothing}

Still holding my injured hand, she looked me straight in the eye with an expression that said if she delayed nursing my wounded hand, I was going to tell her what thene sne she’d witnessed had been about. I sighed in resignation. She had a right to know.

“There’s something I haven’t told you. Something you should’ve known before we were married.” I said in a voice devoid of all emotion.

Padmé frowned, the lines of her body automatically tensing in anticipation and fear.

I shuddered apprehensively but it was too late to go back. So I told her. I told her about that night at the Tusken camp but in far more detail than I’d dared before. I described how the dark energy had hummed in my veins as I’d given in and let my anger take me over. How the raw surge of pure power had been at my fingertips, letting me perform feats I’d never thought possible. How the screams of the dying had filled the air. How the blood had made it look as if the desert were weeping in sticky, red tears.

I stared off into the distance, into the room where hours earlier I had taken Padmé for the first time as my wife.

“The sand people aren’t supposed to scream when they die.” I whispered almost to myself. “But they do, Padmé, they do.” My eyes shifted swiftly back to hers and the chill that ran through her also ran through me from the contact of our hands.

Padmé looked away, the fingers of her free hand unconsciously playing with the same corner of robe she’d used to clean my hand. I watched as she absently squeezed the fabric again and again. I saw my blood stain her hand.

The muscles of her throat worked furiously as she struggled with the gory tale I had just told her. When she turned back, I expected to see tears but there were none. Instead her eyes burned bright and hot. I took a deep breath in preparation for what had to be said next.

“There’s more.”

And I told her something else. Something I had conveniently left out that night in the garage. I told her that I had liked the surge of pure energy, the feeling of invincibility, the feeling of being all powerful. I explained with an unconscious gleam of power-lust in my eyes the way the Force had sparked in my blood and inflamed my senses. That I had tasted what could be and found it delicious.

I fell quiet then, lost to that intoxicating memory for all the wrong reasons. What little remorse I’d been feeling dissolved away and I heard the call of the dark side in my head. But its voice was soft as if it knew it only had to bide its time before I would fall to it again. In the meantime it contented itself to gnawing away at the insides of my head.

Shifting my attention back to the brown haired figure still holding my hand with a tenderness I didn’t deserve, I reached a metal finger up to run from her temple to her chin. Padmé’s lips parted in a tired sigh.

The silky silence stretched out for an infinite amount of time. The first rays of sunlight began to pierce the now gloomy interior of our bedroom. Warm, golden light that cast doubt on all the ugly things I’d just revealed. Padmé belonged in the light. But did I? Where were the gods of mercy now?

Padmé’s voice floated around me, breaking through the morning sounds like warm water through ice. I listened in growing disbelief as she reasoned and excused the majority of my actions away. It had been the shock of myher’her’s painful death, her murder at the hands of a vicious tribe of Tusken Raiders. It had been the wretched separation from the only family I had ever known at the too young age of ten. I had done battle, she said and the women and children who’d been my victims had been the unfortunate and sad casualties of a war their men had started when they’d chosen to kidnap and torture an innocent woman.

Every word, every excuse both comforted and disturbed me at the same time. I watched as she brushed a curling strand from her face and left a streak of blood, my blood, across her cheek. The urge to be sick nearly won out.

What had I done?

She was willing herself to believe the lies that were spilling from her lips. She was willing herself to look away from the truth, the horror of what I had just confessed. Padmé was walking from the light into the shadows with her eyes wide shut.

That’s when I knew that I was corrupting her. That if I wasn’t careful I was going to drag her down with me. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to protect her or I’d be risking reducing her to a mere shadow of the person she was, the very person I had fallen in love with on sight.

At that moment I made a vow to my self. I resolved that should I slip again, I would not tell her. I alone would carry the burden of letting the darkness take me over. I couldn’t bear for anything ugly to touch her ever again. I’d vowed to protect her and that vow meant protecting her from the conflict that pumped through my veins and the tempting power that whispered seductive taunts in my head.

Ignoring the stinging pain in my hand, I pulled it away from Padmé’s gentle touch and hauled her forward, bringing us both to our knees. With my hands framing either side of her face, I pressed my mouth to hers, whispering against her lips.

“Don’t ever leave me. Promise me that.” I spoke the words into her mouth; desperation and pain resounding with every word. “Promise, Padmé!”

“Never, Anakin, no matter what happens.” She panted fiercely, her hands tangling themselves about my neck.

I didn’t occur to me until years later that if she could learn to lie to Obi Wan and her own family then she could also lie to me.


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TBC
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