Rating: PG
Category: ANGST, drama
Setting: small planet in the Republic, Empire's almost in control
Summary: Finding peace and losing it. My take on Eros and Psyche.
Spoilers: trilogy I guess... mild spec on EP2 and 3
Feedback: Yes! sleeperdown@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.dreamwater.net/pottedcactus/erjika
Archive: Go for it, but if you could tell me, that'd be a kindness!
Disclaimer: Don't own em, no moolah for moi.
Plot bunny: =:`( <-- angst bunny
I'd never seen his eyes.
Even when I first met him, they were hidden in the smoky orange glow of street fires. He only came at night. And he would always leave early, before the steel dawn of day. Before the riots started again.
He never said why he was here. On this planet, or asleep by my side. I asked him once, and he begged me never to ask him again, sealing my protest with a gentle finger. All I know is that when he started coming, peace descended on my life.
This beautiful planet was once home to peace. No bloodshed, no battle cries, just the mournful wind slipping through endless fields of grass untainted. Many visitors found it too cold for their taste, too windy, too bleak, but I relished it. There was a wild freedom in having the wind slap across my face, the freedom in knowing no fear. My untamed world, my raging love.
Then the blood came.
The Republic was dying. Its weakening influence affected every member planet, including my own. The only defense they had, the Jedi, they were dying too. Along with everything else. A queen at one time, I was reduced to a peasant, another face in the crowd. A new government was coming, a better one, but a radical one. My planet so peaceful, now torn between the old and the new. The old, pacifistic to the point of stagnation. The new, swept up in blind fury, driven to violence in youthful blood. Both would lead to a void where I dared not look.
The riots had been going on for months. My topple from power was only the start of endless fighting, no gains on either side, save for louder cries of pain. The Republic, of course, could not help us. We were doomed to the monster we ourselves had created.
Creatures from all different planets will speak about the glories of war. About some fantastic battle, some extraordinary tactic that saved the day. What they don't speak of is the decay. The shrivelling creatures, slipping through the cracks, unnoticed in the celebration. They don't see the hunger, the uncontrollable fear. Fear of what? they would say. There is no fear. But there is. More than they can imagine.
I lived in that fear. Every day, that fear kept me alive as much as it killed me. Kept me hunting for food, finding a new shelter, hiding from prying eyes. But every day, it took something from me in payment. Inside I was dying, even if no one noticed. Not that anyone would have cared.
He arrived one night, his brown robe billowing behind him. No gleaming aura, no praising music in announcement. At first I thought he was merely another beggar. But there was something in his stride that hinted something else. Was it confidence? Perhaps. I had not seen true confidence in such a long time, so used to the boastful facade everyone tried to keep.
He asked me if there was a place to stay, in a deep musical voice. I said there was none. I tried to look into his eyes. Eyes have always been important to me. One can see so much in them, things one would never see in the rest of a person's demeanor. But the fire and the haze hid them from view. A mere orange gleam reflection. Nothing else.
He asked me where I was staying. I pointed to the ground. He took me by the elbow and hauled me into the nearest unoccupied building. Panic struck me, this was not the first time someone tried to take me away for rape. But I felt compelled to go with him. Something about him promised a life I did not know but wildly hoped for.
He told me he knew who I was, and how I ended up here, but he was confused by the riots. I told him what I could. Everything I had learned on the streets, every rumor, every fact. I told him of individual battles, where laser fire flew over my head. How every battle was the same. The same deaths, the same fight, the same stalemate. He sat and listened like no other. Even during my reign, all I had were pompous courtiers to gain an ear from. He did not question my reasoning, barely commented. When I exhausted myself, he contemplated, more than likely coming to his own conclusion. After a long pause, he motioned me to sleep. I said there was little chance of that ever happening. Somehow he got me lying on the ground, and I felt an odd compulsion to close my eyes.
He was still there when I awoke. There was a deathly silence outside, nothing but the cackle of burning. He said for me to wait in the area, he would come back at night. He didn't say where he was going. But I trusted him, this strange man who slept by my side without demands, and I didn't ask. He left.
Every night we would meet somewhere in the streets, where one of us would whisk the other away to some undisturbed spot. At first we talked of the war, of the declining Republic, of the rising Palpatine. But then our talks turned to other things. He asked me of my childhood dreams; I told him freely. I told him of my thoughts and past. Of peace. Of the nights before the wars, when the silence was one of tranquility, not laden with fear. Of the howling wind tearing me free of my mortal body. I never saw his eyes. But I knew he understood me. He always did.
Weeks turned to months. One loses track of time when one doesn't have a reason to keep it. I laid my life bare for him. He took it and kept it, cherished it in a way only he could. He never told me about himself, never revealed his face, nor his name. But his presence was a great comfort, and I was at loathe to ask him. Only once I did, and he asked me never to mention it again. Even when he was thrashing in his sleep, dreaming of some terrible unknown thing. Even when he screamed a name over and over, primal fear rolling off him in his sweat-soaked nightmares.
He told me he loved me. The first time he said it, I didn't believe him. I don't think he did either. But it grew, and he told me that daily. I loved him too, but it was so much harder when I wasn't sure who I was in love with. I never said anything. If he knew, he knew. If he didn't, it wasn't worth saying.
But curiosity squeezed its gnarled hands around me ever tighter. I was desperate to know this man, my love. In those smoke-filled nights, I realized that all I knew of him was that he was an outlander in a brown cloak. He was intelligent and he was compassionate. But that was it. Never speaking of his own life, I felt guilty in telling him my fantasies, always wondering if he ever had them too. Wondering if my own self-pity was valid, or if he had endured a pain far worse than mine. I wanted to know him, all his joy, all his misery, all his dreams, all his nightmares. I wanted to know why he jerked violently in his sleep, murmuring names in dark anguish. I wanted to see his eyes.
Curiosity burned me. He was having those nightmares again, the same ones every time. Whispering one name over and over, he sounded like he was crying. I couldn't take it anymore.
I fumbled for my lightstick. I never used it in his presence, at his request. But now I had to. It lit up, a dull white green clashing with the soft fire orange of hazy night. I was ready for anything- a deformed human, a face filled with scars, even a non-human face shamed into hiding.
But not this.
His skin was pale, sickly in the green light. Soft brown hair mostly hidden behind his hood, a stray lock against his temple. A beard, full and covering his face. His face... was contorted, silver tracks of tears down his cheeks. No no no, he kept crying. I was about to wake him when he turned violently and his robes parted.
A utility belt.
A lightsaber.
A Jedi.
My lightstick dropped, and he awoke. He saw the glow, he saw my face.
I saw his eyes.
Soft blue that could easily change to green or grey. Wide and lucid, despite being fresh from sleep. I wanted his pain, I saw his pain, a deeply buried pain he tried so hard to hide. From everyone, even himself. But in front of the pain was something I hoped never to see. Betrayal.
"I asked you not to..." His soft voice hoarse from sleep and shock.
"I didn't know..."
He sat there, staring at me for a long time. "You weren't supposed to." He looked like he was going to cry again. He stood, his brown robe hiding his features from the galaxy again. Hiding his eyes.
"You weren't supposed to," he repeated. "But now you do, and that knowledge may kill us both." My brain started functioning again. And I remembered.
The Jedi. The hunted. So many dead already, no one left to defend the Old Republic. He was hiding. And I betrayed him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "It's too dangerous now." He turned and left, the cloak floating behind him in the orange misty fires. I never saw him again.
The peace I had found deserted me. Many more months passed by. Palpatine became Emperor. Stormtroopers began controlling every planet. My own planet was ravaged beyond repair, the wild winds blew the stench of death into the smoky streets. The fighting had stopped with the Empire control, but instead of the cacophony of battle was the silence of defeat. All the Jedi were dead, so they say. But not him. I don't think he was killed. He's still hiding. Somewhere. Safe from me and my curiosity. Safe from my treason.
I finally saw his eyes. And now I wish I never did.
~finis~