"I'll keep your secret.
Think of me as the pages of your diary." -Alicia Keys
Study at Daybreak
Written by LuvEwan
Between the moon's descent and the sunrise, a compassionate appraisal of a Jedi Knight. Complete.
It's that strange, brief moment in time, when moonlight stretches across a sky of neither night nor dawn. The glow is tinged with restless sapphire as it spills through the window.
The drapes were closed, in a thick velvet curtain across the windows, but now they've been parted, and tied neatly with gold-spun ribbon. He couldn't just shove them aside. Not him.
The room is decadent. I know that these people are grateful for Jedi assistance, and since gifts are prohibited from our acceptance, this is the best method to show their appreciation.
But I cannot help but think that these rich hues, the clustered jewels and gloss…the smooth liquor, drained to a shallow pool in the bottom of his goblet, are beyond indulgence.
As he once said, after finishing a meal of particular lavishness, the fortune spent to place a delicate mint sprig on a slender dessert slice could have fed a poverty-stricken family for more cycles than he could bear to think. But he never allows his disapproval to surface. His response is always a polite smile and respectful tip of his head. Others are charmed, often smitten, maybe even love-struck, on occasion, so they don't notice the slightly lackluster gleam in his eyes.
He doesn't want this, lying on his side, on a heavily dressed bed, beside a crystal encrusted lamp and candelabra.
I move from my vantage at the door and stand by the foot of the bed.
He's stripped of the ceremonial robes of the traditional Pehali freedom celebration. The complimentary sleep clothes are untouched. He's slipped into wrinkled, worn familiarity: cream colored pants, torn at the ankle.
And he looks more breathtaking than when he stood beside the monarch. A high collar was framing his jaw and the key to the capitol was settled around his neck. Countless members of the audience were dazzled. I can always tell. The murmurs behind hands, the tiny gasps. I think I was alone in my mirth, watching him, knowing that secretly, he was feeling strangled by the stiff material and overwhelmed by the crowd.
He isn't particularly handsome to me based on the expanse of exposed ivory skin, rippled with bronzed muscle. It isn't the moist dapple on his lips--I know what it's from; the green-tinted bottle is empty, the sheen of sweat on his body means he had begun another.
Very few people have glimpsed him this way. He speaks with that cultured dulcet of his, walks with a hint of swagger-
And fools everyone.
My friend can conquer any enemy he must. Criminal, opponent, tattooed-faced demon, but for a single adversary, he is open pray. He is willing to take the glass in hand.
Then he is gone from the extravagance, the trials and weight.
I think he wanders to a place where every constraint and ancient shackle is removed. A haven without shadow or ash.
I sit beside him, and brush a damp strand from his forehead. His face is shaded, but the outline is clear.
In his private world, in his ephemeral sanctuary, he is beautiful.
And, for this shimmer of time, at the cross of dark and light, my heart stops for him.