Hullo!
Another little translation of one of my one-shots! You can see this one as a prequel to "Last breath" if you like. I'm French, so tell me if you see any mistakes regarding the English version!
Toodles!
…
Rain dripped along the edge of the leaves and tinkled the pale cobblestones in a subtle chime. It seemed nothing could have stopped this sound, so clear and at the same time so fragile, as if it could be nipped in the bud. Yet that gentle music from the crying heavens was ignored by all those who could feel it caress their skin and ears so much it had become ordinary.
For almost all of them, at least.
The hiss of his respirator mixed with that cool rain produced a sort of dissonance, a wrong note amidst the pure and crystalline musical tones, but it was the first time ever since he had been locked up in the prison that was his armor that he could ignore this hideous sound he created unwillingly. The only lullaby he could hear was the infinity of small droplets dancing and drumming on the freezing metal of his mask, of his helmet, of his body. This chime was the only ephemeral pleasure he could still savor regarding the rain, for never again would he feel its cool soft fingers on his burned skin. The last time had been on this cursed day he did not want to reminisce, when he had lost everything that really mattered to him. At that time, rain had bitten and frozen him to the bone, but he had ignored it just like he had ignored the cold, stuck as he was in the unending hellish suffering against which he was still fighting today.
Oddly enough, he was alone in this large alley in the middle of the lake. They had all fled when they had seen his menacing silhouette, crowned, it seemed, with living darkness. Parents had scooped up their children, friends had retreated and lovers had fled. Even the flames in the basins bordering the alley looked ready to die, because of the rain as well as because of the presence of this specter made of flesh and steel.
But Vader couldn't care less.
No. His insectoid lenses were completely fixed on the imposing but delicate form of the mausoleum flanked by high columns and statues representing the protecting goddesses of Naboo. Those sculptures, head held high with a distant gaze, were holding out the spears towards the skies, as if to defy them from crying over the place they so dutifully guarded. But even their chiseled and apparently ageless features could not banish pain and sorrow from this sanctuary.
Those emotions resonated so strongly in the Force that Vader briefly felt what seemed like vibrations of sadness emanating from the planet's whole population. That planet so beautiful but also home to so many harrowing memories.
They burned him, those memories, those emotions, now unworthy of him as they belonged to a dead man. But he could not erase them. His memory was a bottomless maelstrom of death, suffering, flames and hatred, but also carried elusive traces of joy, friendship…
Love.
He closed his eyes behind his mask, holding back what he refused to acknowledge as tears, and behind his eyelids hovered the ghost of a gentle smile, of dark curls and of a womb rounded by happiness and hope of a luminous future…
This building, this mausoleum, didn't look like her. He couldn't find her in those curves, this dome and those lines, distinctive architectural designs of a planet he now loathed as much as he had loved it.
What was he doing here anyway? Didn't he have something else to do? He should have buried the past, turned away from it just like when you really want to forget something. But days, weeks and months had gone by just as slowly as Tatooine's twin suns course and he hadn't forgotten.
He couldn't forget her.
Sometimes, he carried such a hatred towards her he would become diabolical and send to their graves anyone who had the misfortune to cross his path. He would then seek refuge in the reassuring shadows of the Dark Side, wrap up his wounded and scarred soul in it like in a shroud and would not reemerge before several hours, sometimes several days. For this flame of hatred was immediately put out by the empty shell that was his broken heart, and whose sole purpose was to make him go through every day while reminding him constantly that she had just made a mistake, and that her betrayal certainly did not deserve such a punishment.
And because of him, death had taken them, her and their child, just as his nightmares had predicted.
Sometimes, he would remember fragments of joy and laughter, of happiness and adoration, and those memories were even more painful than if he had fallen once again in the boiling lava of Mustafar. At times like this, his agony was such that he was certain he would break into a thousand pieces, or that his heart would be ripped out from his chest and burned to ashes. The only way he could forget and fight back the pain was to take shelter in the heavy and noxious fumes of the Dark Side so that he could concentrate on the task at hand.
Most of the time, it worked.
Not always.
His suffering seemed endless, but also nurtured the darkness growing each day more gloriously than ever in his mind. Where once there was light, now only dark reigned in an iron fisted control, for the only person who could have helped him find his way had been killed by his own hand.
He had nothing left.
Nothing, except broken memories, a great void.
And pain.
He didn't realize immediately how near he had come to the steps of the mausoleum. His black heavy boots had taken him, it seemed, at the foot of his past's cornerstone, at the entrance of the final resting place of Anakin Skywalker's reason for breathing, smiling…
And living.
All around him, the rain continued to make the stones and walls crackle, and Vader briefly thought he could hear the undefined whisper of an intangible entity drawn by the sorrow dwelling here. His cape itself was burdened by the downpour as if it wanted to nail him to the ground and stop him from approaching the closed engraved doors that seemed to blindly judge him.
Vader kept his eyes fixed on those doors while he lifted a bionic leg to stand on the first step. There were eight steps, large and lowly carved, allowing you to get to the doors. Eight steps that seemed as insurmountable as the highest mountains.
The first one…
« Are you an angel? »
The second…
« Anakin? My goodness, how much you've grown! »
The third…
« I truly… deeply… love you… »
The fourth…
« I accept and cherish you, now and forever… »
The fifth…
« Ani… I'm pregnant… »
The sixth…
« I will not die in childbirth… »
The seventh…
« … you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I can't follow! »
…
The eighth.
« She was alive, I felt it! »
…
The ninth…
Vader slightly staggered before finally stepping on the unique and large slab preceding the closed doors, like the closed eyelids of a face forever frozen in time.
How long did he stay here on the porch? The machine who was once a man could not be sure. A minute? A lifetime? Long enough to watch the rain fall forever or to observe the wind's vain efforts to drive out the wisps of sadness clinging to the mausoleum like banners torn up by fate?
Oh, how he had wanted to change that fate, but in the end, he was only able to hasten this future he so dreaded. Far from bending to his will, fate had spurred him into listening to the Dark Side's poisonous words, and it had cost him so much more than what he was willing to pay…
His gloved hand touched the doors' silver metal without a doubt, but had his arm been made of flesh, it would have trembled like a leaf subjected to the tormenting winds of Kamino. Before he could think about what he was doing, Vader pushed the doors open, rain entering the small room he could now see before him to soak the stone and marble ground. When he closed behind him so that he would not be disturbed, the downpour's chime remained outside, leaving a man torn apart by grief alone with the great marble bedrock bearing Naboo's coat of arms sitting in the center of the room and decorated with purple flowers. In this place, the only light was coming from a delicate stained glass on which the colors of life crowned the soft traits of a beautiful and serene woman with a luminous glory.
Anyone who would have observed the Dark Lord of the Sith climb the stairs leading to Padme Amidala's mausoleum so painstakingly before locking himself with its dweller would have noticed that one day and one night passed without Vader coming out. And during that time, rain kept falling, like and endless and ephemeral litany of silence.
When Vader finally came out, it was still raining, but this time he ignored it. Not once did he look back, even though his heart felt even more emptier than before. Maybe he could not forget, but he would have to. He wasn't Anakin anymore. That part of him now rested next to the woman he had loved more than life itself, and next to their forever unborn child.
A Sith came back up the alley in the middle of the lake, his powerful and steady pace pounding the ground with the Dark Side's strength, ready to carry the will of his master to the far reaches of the galaxy.
And in his wake, it seemed the sighs of the rain mingled with the distant cries of a woman…
Sorry if I'm a bit depressing :3
Hope you liked it !
Lereniel