Drowning in Dreams

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Drowning
Epilogue


“With my back to a record of error
And the highway of sin I have trod,
There come to me shapes I would banish--
The shapes of the deeds I have done;
And I pray and I plead till they vanish--
All vanish and leave me, save one.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox


Lord Vader - Age 23 – 41


His dreams - he drowns in them. Drowns in the horror; drowns in the pain; drowns beneath the endless waves of sorrow, guilt and rage. They mock him; cruelly reminding him of what was and what will never be again. Bitter recriminations and impotent fury feed him. For in the shadow realm she haunts him. There he can almost touch her, almost taste her, yet he knows no matter how hard he tries he will never again possess her. Unlike before, she is no longer out there just waiting for him to claim her the second he is old enough. Now there is only a black void where once her Force signature shone as fierce as the twin suns from his homeworld.

Vader’s subconscious is a yawning chasm of regret, a vivid tapestry of anger and pain, and for this, in his waking time; the rest of the galaxy is made to pay. He makes rulers bow before him, he brings entire systems to their knees, and every man, woman and child; every sentient creature alive trembles in his presence. The power and fear he wields are all he has left and he exercises them to their fullest extent. But there aren’t enough screams or enough blood in all the star systems combined to ease the endless rage and anguish eating him from the inside out.

And his dreams…they lie in constant wait.

There are some nights when they come to him in the familiar ravaging colors of destruction and death – scarlet splashes of red, molten yellow and gray smeared across a canvas of pitch black. They hum and throb with a gleeful malevolence, shimmering in the wretched, poisoned heat. The colors pant and breathe; living entities intent on devouring everything in their wake. They growl and bellow, snarl and snap, like ravenous krayt dragons never appeased.

"It seems in your anger, you killed her." His Master’s voice sings with false sympathy and mocking regret.

He hears the hideous words sounding over and over - a litany, a curse upon his soul for all eternity. Shards of excruciating pain blossom and explode within his chest. He lashes out, kicks and screams. No one hears him. There is no one left. He made sure of that.

On other nights the dreams seep up from the darkest depths of all the hells, showing themselves to him in varying hues of blue and brown; rich chocolate brown flecked with spangled white. These are the worst. It is these nightmarish scenes which draw from him the rivulets of sweat which soak through his leather and sting his fire scarred skin. The dreaded apparitions rip hoarse, disjointed gasps from his ruined lungs, setting off a cacophony of screams ricocheting inside his head. His internal cries bash endlessly against the confines of his skull - trapped like his body in its black metal shell.

It is on these nights he kills her all over again.

He steals her breath in these dreams, reaching out with his leather gloved hand, mechanical fingers clenching in a fist of death. She fights for it, she begs with disbelieving eyes, but he is too blinded by thoughts of her perceived betrayal, by his lust for power and glory, and she collapses before him again –

And again.

And again.

And then she is drowning; drowning in all the shades of blue, submerged in them, carried away by the dragging currents. Floating. Sinking. Brown strands of hair frame a pale, beautiful face. They curl and writhe in the creeping tide. White flowers glide past, snagging in the thick tangles like stars caught in wet chocolate silk.

Delicate fingers turn a japor pendant end over end under his fascinated gaze.

Enfolded hands, stiff and white, clasp a silver chained piece of japor - a gift given with innocence and love in a different life. Those once expressive hands stilled forever - resting atop the swell where the never to be born child lays.

It is a horrifyingly beautiful frozen tableau.

Padmé.

His love.

His obsession.

His masterpiece of death.


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The beauty, the horror, the past, and the future - the visions ensnare him, pulling him down into a hell of his own making; a hell where a pair of wounded brown eyes forever beg, forever weep, forever grow dimmer until there is no more light. And he is left alone in the dark to dream the hideous scenes from a life long gone.

His dreams - he drowns in them.

He always has.

He fears he always will.


The End

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