Drowning in Dreams

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Part Two - Falling


“You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet, if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it, therefore, the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”

Edgar Allen Poe


Anakin - Ages 16 – 19


Anakin embraces the Force and it embraces him like a mother or a lover. It flows as naturally through him as his own blood surges through his veins. The mystical energy is a part of him, has been a part of him from the moment he was conceived, and its use is second nature to him. It’s instinctual, like breathing or thinking. It’s a constant presence and he can no more shake it than he can his own shadow.

His arrogance comes out. He knows he’s better. The urge to prove himself is strong and he chafes against the Padawan shackles enforced upon him by the Order. Often he reacts before he thinks, considers analyzing the problem a waste of time. He is impatient and easily provoked. Anakin has the disease of youth; not only does he think he knows everything but he also believes he knows better than both his peers and his elders. He simply doesn’t understand the old guards’ reluctance to try out new ideas and strategies. It is incomprehensible to him how they can stomach just standing around and waiting when they could be doing something. Action is preferable to discussion and he is never able to suppress his impatient fidgeting should the bureaucratic sessions go on for what he deems too long.

A sympathetic ear is found in the man who befriended him after the Battle of Naboo. A flush of pride never fails to suffuse Anakin at how he has been singled out by the Supreme Chancellor for special attention. Palpatine makes it clear he believes and trusts in the often chastised Padawan and Anakin, starved for attention and approval, basks in the scraps he is thrown by his benevolent mentor. It is not long before the young Jedi finds himself seeing the state of the galaxy more and more through the eyes of the older man. Palpatine has an uncanny way of turning a problem around and making Anakin see it from a different point of view, one the youth hasn’t been able to appreciate before.

It is a situation which makes Obi Wan vaguely uneasy, but then, he never did care for politicians.


****

There have been many girls to kiss since Nainelle, all with dark eyes and hair. Anakin gravitates towards those resembling the two most important feminine influences in his life. He is lured to them like the proverbial glowmoth to the flame. The boy still lurking within is constantly seeking out the symbolic home he forfeited to become a Jedi; while the burgeoning man, the increasingly dominant side, is drawn to these substitutes to alleviate the gaping void of loneliness that is his constant companion. For a short span of time they fill the hollowness inside him, they appease the ache for physical affection.

With his standoffish air and his handsome good looks he attracts the notice of the more daring females at the Temple. The attention is unwanted. Anakin is not inclined to play the flirtatious games the other Padawans engage in. He has his mind on the future and he instinctively knows involving himself with those he lives and works with is a bad idea – even with the freedom afforded by not having to worry about the forming of emotional attachments. With his eye on the future, he always makes sure to seek his experiences outside the confines of the Temple walls.

Inevitably, the more he experiments the more he realizes he needs to learn. The day it occurs to him perhaps somewhere out there Padmé may also be stretching her own wings, fills him with such white-hot jealousy he can’t contain himself. For the first time ever, he beats Obi Wan during lightsaber practice. For his troubles, for using aggression and anger instead of pure skill and reason, he is given thirty circuits and is banned from dueling with anyone but Obi Wan until further notice.


****

The lower levels draw him down. They call to him like a long lost friend. Obi Wan disapproves of his pastime, a circumstance which hardly proves a deterrent. Anything his Master frowns upon only tends to ensure Anakin pursues it with double the enthusiasm.

Anakin likes to wander the crowded, dank streets, investigate the seedy shops and explore the gaming dens where the spacers congregate. There is a certain comfort to be found in the places of ill repute for a young man who spent his formative years, first in the possession of the Hutts and then in the mean, cramped slave quarters of Mos Espa. Coruscant’s architecture is more sophisticated, the technology better, the climate far more temperate and hospitable, but the people and their vices are the same. Spice runners, thieves, slavers, gamblers, pleasure givers and the like, they all make their home and earn their livelihoods down in the lower levels. Anakin feels more at home there amongst the outsiders, the rejects and misfits, than he does among the top dwellers.

Among the twisted, narrow alleyways off the main streets scavengers roam and Anakin moves with confidence and ease. A thousand eyes peer at him from their hidden nooks and crannies, leery of the stranger in their midst but on guard for any opportunity to make a quick credit or two. It doesn’t take long for them to learn not to bother the tall figure who strides purposefully through their territory as if he were born there.

In the warren of the lower levels he loses himself in the anonymity of the masses of lost souls. He lets himself forget he’s a Jedi and allows himself to just become Anakin. In the clubs and gaming halls he develops transient friendships, connections; a secret life where for brief spans of time he escapes the rigid confines of the Jedi.


****

It is lonely being The Chosen One.

Anakin is an oddity in the Order. He’s the only one at the Temple with memories of a mother. He’s the only one who fights the constant worry for a loved one’s safety.

What is most troublesome to the young man, what plagues him with guilt, is the way memories of home are fading and blurring around the edges as each year slips by. Shmi’s face, once as familiar to him as his own, is now hazy and indistinct and, more often than not, he sees the image of another in his dreams. However his love for his mother remains as strong and fierce as the day he left her. Very soon, he promises himself, he will go back to Tatooine to fetch her. He is certain this will happen. Just as he is certain, in the not so distant future, Padmé will be his.

****

Anakin fantasizes about Padmé constantly. He imagines what the texture of her skin will feel like, what it will look like in the morning sun or in the moonlight. Tracing Laaran’s collarbone with his lips, he wonders how Padmé’s skin will taste, how soft it will be beneath his fingertips. Will she like a gentle touch or will she respond to a more masterful possession? Hours upon hours are spent planning out how he will explore every slope and hollow, every curve with his mouth and hands. Every detail is agonized over as his anticipation builds and his obsession grows.

Everything he does is with Padmé in mind. When he buries his hands in Ara’s thick tresses, as she takes his length deep in her mouth, he remembers silky brown curls lightly scented with an exotic mix of flowers and vanilla. The pleasure giver on Alderaan, a petite brunette with light brown eyes, shows him how to use his tongue and fingers between her thighs and he hungers to know how sweet Padmé will be upon his tongue when he sips her release. When he learns the erotic art of pleasure-pain from Dessa, wife of the senator from Kuat, when she teaches him the delights of using more forcefulness during foreplay and coupling, as she takes his virginity, he wonders if he will be in time to receive the same gift from Padmé. Anakin does not care to imagine otherwise.

His confidence builds as he becomes skilled in the arts of love and seduction. The women in between are but practice for the ultimate conquest. His crooked smile and slumberous eyes lure them in and he perfects the use of the shy, innocent boy act. Many court-weary ladies, thinking they are the ones in control, find out how wrong they are. This young man, barely more than a boy, pulls the strings and unless they wish to forfeit their brief time with him, they quickly learn to play by his rules.


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“Lady you bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such confusion in my powers.”

William Shakespeare


Anakin – Age 20


Absolutely nothing goes as he planned. He fumbles his words, turns into a gangly awkward adolescent in the face of her poised beauty. Every attempt to impress turns into a humiliating defeat. Misery plunges its vibroblade into his gut even as his love and desire burn steady and bright within the prison of his heart. His fingers itch to touch, to explore but he is just her protector, and he has no right to breach the distance the past ten years worked to build. They are no longer children afforded familiarity by their innocence. Now protocol and all it entails must be observed.

Anakin devours her with his eyes, feasts on her whenever she is within his sight. He cannot stop looking at her. It has been ten long years in the desert and she is like cool spring water to his parched throat. He revels in her sweet scent, almost content to breathe the same air as she, but not quite. He wants more and he is determined to have it. Anakin burns for Padmé and he will not settle for anything less than all of her.


****

Duty, responsibility, obligation, commitment – the hated words spill from Padmé, each a heavy stone attempting to crush his dream into oblivion. He listens without hearing, acquiesces without accepting. The Jedi teach that while a battle may be lost, the war may still be won. This is one lesson with which Anakin finds himself in complete agreement and he strategically retreats to plan a way around her defenses.

Across the room, far from the warmth of the fire, Anakin reflects on how sweet her lips tasted, the welcome weight of her body pressing down atop his, the silk of her skin beneath his fingers, and he knows nothing will stop him from finding a way - absolutely nothing.


****

He dreams about sand of all things, endless piles of sand, shifting and changing shape as the wind picks up speed and sculpts new configurations into the dunes. Gritty grains roll and tumble in an effort to fill in the tracks left by some hapless wanderer, yet the imprints never quite seem to disappear from sight. The phantom footprints lead off into the desert where the belligerent cries of the sand people echo endlessly on the howling wind. From somewhere behind him he thinks he can hear Jira, her voice cracking with age.

“There’s a storm coming, Ani.” The simple cautionary words fill him with a nameless fear which chills him to the core despite the heat of the twin suns.

Then he is flying across the dunes, flying faster than he ever did in his pod racer, his heart trying its best to fling itself out of his chest. . The panicked thumping beats out his terror for the universe to hear.

He sees her, sees his mother. For the first time in a long time her image is sharp and focused. Shmi’s eyes are black with pain. Her body writhes in agony as a bloody rain begins to fall.

“I’m so proud of you, Ani.” She whispers. And he can hear the death rattle from deep in her chest.

He awakes abruptly, steeped in the stink of sweat and fear.


****

Shmi dies in her son’s arms.

Anakin cradles her as she takes her last breath. He barely recognizes her. Her now frail body has been decimated. Dried, crusted blood and streaks of dirt, bruises and hideous swellings, all have turned her features into a parody of a human face. It nearly kills him to know there isn’t a thing he can do to save her. The Chosen One is useless, helpless, he is nothing. All the powers of the Force and he couldn’t reach her in time. He couldn’t ease her pain or stop her from suffering. He failed to protect his own mother from these savage…animals. His mind spits the last word contemptuously as hate fills his heart. Rocking her in his arms, he can feel broken bones move and shift beneath fragile skin and layers of ragged, dirty clothing. The simmering rage shoots upward and out, and he glories in it; gives into it, lets it explode with all the destructive force the dark side holds. It brings him to his feet with startling speed and murderous intent. Anakin erupts out of the crude hut with his lightsaber blazing, his mind focused on only one thing - revenge.

The quiet desert night is rent with screams of terror and grunts of pain. The pleasing odor of cooking fires is soon overshadowed by the smell of charred flesh and the coppery tang of blood rises up to taint the cool breeze. No one in the Tusken camp is spared. These are the beasts that tortured and murdered his mother. They deserve no pity, no compassion. He is a righteous avenger, unstoppable in his fatal fury. Raw power thrums inside of him. It courses through his body, electric and alive. It is more power than he’s ever known, and he uses it to wreak his personal vengeance.

One last keening wail drifts away into silence as the desert drinks its bloody tears.

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The Clone Wars


“Over the din of battle,
Over the cannons' rattle,
Over the strident voices of men and their dying groans,
I hear the falling of thrones.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox


Anakin - Age 22


When he is parted from Padmé he longs for the times when they can be together, the nights when they may share the same bed. He craves the intimacy like an addict craves spice. Entwined in the darkness, her flesh pressed against his, the scent of their lovemaking thick in the air, it is the only place he feels safe, warm, protected…loved.

No matter how exhausted he is, no matter what his mood, Anakin remains awake on these nights. It is there he renews his soul, it is there his belief in the good and rightness of the universe is reborn. In the shadows of their apartment bedroom, the only place he’s truly considered home since leaving Tatooine, he marvels at the beauty and wonder of Padmé, his forbidden wife. In her smooth creamy skin, the soft dips and curves of her body, he forgets the ugliness and horror of the battlefields. In her thick mane of chocolate curls scented with the flowers of Naboo, he forces away the stench of blood and death, the odor of rotting corpses and scorched flesh; all the fragrances of war. Listening to her steady, soft breathing he buries the memory of the screams of the dying, the sound of destroyers ripping apart at their seams. At Padmé’s side he finds the comforting security his heart cries out for when he is courting death among the stars.

In lieu of sleep, he keeps constant vigil throughout the night, murmuring sweet words of want, love and need against her bare skin. Only then is he able to admit to the things he doesn’t dare say while she’s awake. In the safety of the blackening night he tells her about the destructive winds which ceaselessly carve away at the empty place inside him. He whispers that only she fills up that empty void. Only she makes him whole. If he loses her, he will be as good as lost too. Tightening his hold, he vows he won’t ever let her go.

Fitted together, back to front, one possessive leg thrown over both of hers, his flesh hand ritually wanders her sleep warmed form, memorizing anew every indentation, every swell before finally coming to rest above her beating heart. Sacrament performed, Anakin tries his best to forget the terrible truth. But the darkness mocks him with it anyway - the ‘Hero with No Fear’ is just a pathetic myth.

If heroes do exist, Anakin knows he isn’t one of them.


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“The place is very well and quiet
and the children only scream in a low voice.”

Lord Byron


Anakin - Age 23


Everything he is, everything he does, it’s all for her. It always has been. He lives for her. He breathes for her. He fights for her. And now, at last, he murders for her.

The Emperor, his new Master, legitimizes his actions; cleanses them, sanitizes them with a politician’s spin and a Sith’s skill for deceit. When Anakin takes the last step, he makes his choice. It’s a decision which forever alters his path and ultimately decimates everyone he loves and everything he believes in.

He fails with the best of intentions.

So it is in the end that Anakin plays the gardener within the walls of the Temple one last time. Every Jedi is a weed to be ruthlessly dealt with and he rips the traitors up by their roots with cold blooded efficiency, discarding them as insignificant rubbish to make way for the seedlings of the new Empire. As he cuts a swath through his former home, as he hones his skills in the art of betrayal, as his lightsaber sizzles through flesh and bone, he only thinks one thought.

Padmé.

There will be no more hiding, no more clandestine meetings, no more secrets. Everyone will soon know Padmé is his. She will be safe from the nightmares plaguing him; safe because of what he is doing in the Temple this night. So many deaths. And they are all in exchange for the life of his most cherished possession. The transgressions he commits against his brethren are the currency he uses to buy her life. She can’t escape him, not as he somehow always feared she might; slipping away like a wraith into the shadows. No one, not even death, will take her from him. After this night she is bound to him by more than words of love, by more than the child growing in her womb, now she is bound to him by the blood on his hands.

Now, he owns her.

The fire burns. The Jedi fall. The Republic crumbles. And far, far above the din created by the clone troopers sweeping through the Temple on their march of death, the still air is marred only by the sound of a soul breaking as the younglings fall one by one beneath his unhesitating blade.

There is no mercy. Anakin can afford none. It is their lives for hers.


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“The devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.”

William Shakespeare


Padmé – Age 27


Assassination attempt. Betrayal by the Jedi. Treasonous plots.

It is unbelievable, inconceivable, yet it is Anakin relating this information and he wouldn’t lie to her, he couldn’t. Her mind spins and dips, unable or unwilling to grasp how, in the space of a day everything has changed so drastically. Still reeling, she is ill-prepared for the shock of Anakin advising her she must distance herself from her friends in the Senate, avoid all appearances of disloyalty. The warning is delivered with a patronizing smile and a lover’s caress - both of which only add to the sinister air, making the vague threat all the more chilling because it comes from the lips of her own husband.

In that instant, Padmé isn’t just afraid; she’s terrified – for the baby, for Anakin, for her family, for her world as she’s known it, and yes, for herself. There is a sick feeling rising from deep down inside her, a black tide of darkness enveloping her heart. It is the height of summer but she feels an icy tide freezing the blood in her veins and she cannot stop shivering from the encroaching cold.

Anakin has changed. In a matter of hours he has undergone some type of alteration. He looks the same to the naked eye but it’s there nonetheless. She sees it lurking in the back of his eyes, she hears it in the timber of his voice, she feels it in his touch as his palm caresses her cheek, she smells it beneath the perfume of smoke and sweat permeating his clothing – a cold, sly ruthlessness never there before.

An inner voice whispers to her, its breath foul and rotten. It slithers and hisses up her spine, warning her something is wrong, something isn't quite right in all Anakin is telling her. Common sense and practicality, years of political and diplomatic experience, scream to be heard but, for once, she refuses to listen. Instead, guilt raises its voice and drowns out reason - the guilt she's been harboring for keeping secrets from Anakin and for trusting Obi Wan before him. Violently, blindly, Padmé shunts all else aside while a part of her simply shuts down. She doesn’t have the will or energy to examine the situation too closely. She dares not. She will believe in Anakin, in her husband, in her one and only lover, in the father of her child. Padmé will do this because she loves him; she loves him and she is too afraid to look beyond that love. She is too terrified of the darkness she sees hovering behind his blue eyes.

A helpless voice inside her head, one that sounds far too young and pathetic for a woman who once was queen, whispers, “He will come back to you, he will.”

Shame at her weakness lingers in the back of her mouth like cold ashes. Telling herself nothing else matters, willing herself to believe it despite the dread descending like a moon eclipsing the sun, she stands amidst the falling debris of the Republic and desperately embraces the stranger who wears Anakin’s face and speaks in his voice.

What other choice does she have?

Padmé clings to one belief above all others. Anakin is a good man and he would never turn from what is right and true, he would never betray her and her beliefs. He wouldn’t forfeit everything they have fought and worked so hard for - never. To believe anything else is simply…unimaginable.


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"Love is my religion
And I could die for that.
I could die for you."

John Keats


Anakin - Age 23


Padmé is waiting for him, as she always is, as she always will be - as she is meant to. He thinks he has never seen her look so pale and frightened, so devastatingly beautiful. She is his most precious jewel – bought and paid for with innocent lives, with the forfeit of his very soul. He would do it a hundred times over. There is no price too high to pay to keep her safe.

Anakin laces his words with subtle insinuations, cautions Padmé to avoid her friends in the Senate and to be careful of future improprieties. He doesn’t realize how menacing he sounds – despite the gentle smile on his face and the way he tenderly tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear as he delivers his carefully worded threat. The air of sweet vulnerability she exudes intoxicates him, it fills his senses like the heady fumes from the most expensive of wines. As always, Padmé utterly entrances him. The trembles coursing through her small frame, the ones she cannot quite suppress, please him for some unaccountable reason. The fearful uncertainty, the tears shimmering in her brown eyes arouse him. As he holds her in his arms he thinks he should have thrown off the fetters placed on him by the Jedi long ago.

Anakin strokes the flesh of Padmé’s slender throat with a possessive, knowing hand, his gloved finger rising to catch her tears as they paint her cheeks. The clear drops are sweet on the tip of his tongue - as sweet as his impending victory over the Separatists. She is afraid for him and his mouth closes over hers to greedily drink her terror, his tongue laps up her desperate little sobs with seductive strokes. What is left of Anakin attempts to soothe her, even as the darkness feeds off of her fright.

Gathering Padmé closer, triumph rushes through his body and fans the flames of the dark power smoldering inside. He has banished his fear. He holds the reins; he’s the one in control now. From this day forward she will listen to him; she will follow where he leads. No more defiance. No more arguing. And, more importantly, there will be no more risking her life for causes and people who don’t deserve it. She’ll always be where he knows she is safe. Guarded and protected; kept away from any who would do her harm. She is his and his alone.

Padmé will have no choice but to listen to him. She will do so because it is he who keeps her and their child safe. She will soon come to realize what he has done, what he will do, is for the good of everyone. And if he has to, he will make her understand.

Anakin clings to one belief above all others. Padmé is loyal and she would never turn from him, never betray him or their love. She is the one person he can always trust. To believe anything else is simply…unimaginable.