Title: Farewell's Virtue
Author: AsianScaper
Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to George Lucas.
Rating: G
Category: Romance
Spoilers: None
Feedback: Friends, enemies: Send your comments or constructive criticism to asianscaper@edsamail.com.ph. Advice is highly sought after!
Summary: A Padme/Anakin fic. If farewells were to be said, how would it then be like?
Archiving: Just email me the URL to allow me a peek.
Dedication: To Vanessa Mae, whose music inspired the emotions to this piece.
Author's Note: Took me forever to write this...trying to find the words and failing more often than not. I hope it is adequate. Cheers!
__________
Glass cried the silent musings of a cold night, dripping with moisture known by the tides of sun and moon, when then the temperature danced through high and low. The concept did not pass unnoticed by the man who lay his warm forehead against the glass. Oh, how cool the transparent instrument was, soft in meditation of frigidity and frost!
His sight was lost to the visible world, turned within by the cover of his lids. Though the defense of vision hid the misty blue of clouds on a head so drowned in snow, one could see their chill in the way the man held the glass to him, clutching like one onto a bow of a restless ship.
A hand wrought from the dealings of roses at morn landed upon his tight shoulder, touching with the reverence of one, who knew the growth of flowers to be sacred. The knots of his body were untied by its tireless concern and texture deemed worthy to please the hand's owner.
"Ani," she said, softly as when dew forms to wash the crystals of winter from grass.
His eyes were cleansed of worry at the tone of her voice and he lifted his head from the pressures of the lucid wall.
How welcome was her voice! How utterly unworthy of his ears! It strummed a ballad for his sentience, that he may wake in a dream so profound and so very beautiful that the bright moon bowed to his wakefulness.
Without turning, he took her hand, held it to his cheek, and kissed it with lips dried by fondness and delight. His emotions brought forth a complexity of mirth and his lips curved to the cheer of summer dances, always moving to the lead of a melancholic, already ancient ballet.
Padmè could see the golden tresses of desert girls capering about the vivid costumes of men who knew the secrets of water. Such a joyful dance! Yet there the dancer's movements were slow, as if squeezing time dry, the juice left to their bowls of tranquility. They were filled with the knowledge that good things came to an end.
"You're so cold," she told him, smiling softly at the devotion he exposed to her touch. "Is it…?" She walked to the glass and felt it with recognizable curiosity, knowing that his sweat had hardened its listless stance. Sighing, she said, "Coruscant can often be a cruel place. We should never have returned here." She looked forth, into the lights of a city blowing with the grim breeze of beauty and decay.
They resided on the many towered forts of Coruscant, where only the sound of silence penetrated the walls. It was a surreal hall of multitudes, for as they stared to the starry sky so plagued with boats of technology, they could not hear the bellows and shrieks of man-made devotion. Their sorrow seeped from that, for it was so much like Naboo, secluded in the lap of nature and pulchritude. And oh! So very Silent!
"They were unkind to bring us here," Anakin said. His voice echoed anger and grief, which seemed interspersed with his skin, like his blood. It flowed uncannily with the remainders of the fear his mother had left him when first she succumbed to her selflessness. "If only…"
Padmé brought a finger to his lips and while turning him to her, put a hand to his chest. His height was the tower born to defend her weakness and he encompassed her now, his soul ever present in the progress of his words. She stole the sight of the city from his as his face beheld hers.
"Don't speak. You only make this harder for us both."
He shook his head and the moisture of skies already choked of freedom filled his eyes. "Padmé…"
They discovered the touch, which made their hearts sing and souls weep with elation. It was a kiss declined by heaven for its sweetness, adored by the garden for its taste and drunk by wine to add the flavor of content. It was unlike the messages brought forth by ire in the gazes they endured for it set all stars afire with bliss.
"Are farewells this painful?" Anakin whispered, whetting his agony with his lips as he kissed her forehead and withdrew. "Are we so cursed?"
"No, my love. Never cursed." Padmé's fingers declined his tears as she wiped them from his cheeks. "Happy."
Such was the power of words and touch that moonlight streamed through the corridors and bathed them heartily.
"What comfort will I give when I pass through death's delay?"
"My hope and yours," she said firmly.
Guile stirred up envy and now, the fellowship of cloud and moon wept for their inadequacy.
If indeed the partnership of two, halted time's progress, then all else became adverse to dates when now their love graced even the sky.
"My hope and yours," Anakin repeated softly. "And compassion in yours and mine."
The scene on a ship passed through their vision. There they found the rueful gait of refugees and the mysterious camaraderie in depravity. It was a conversation born of necessity then, clothed in conditional garb for both their safety.
Unconditional love lay in one's compassion and here they saw the dam overflow with passion for the welfare of another.
They were dragged from their island of repose when the door behind them hissed open.
"Master Kenobi," Padmé said, closing the space between herself and the Jedi Master in an open gesture of welcome. Anakin looked on with barely discernible dread. "It is a pleasure to have you with us…"
"No." Obi-wan Kenobi's loose robes embraced his figure like a shroud to hide his reluctance. His words were laced in regret and his step was heavy with the stride of one, who knew anguish well. For now he saw it in the gazes of two he loved so well, his tread was heavier than an animal's march through heightened snow. "The ship has arrived."
He avoided Padmé's gaze, yet knowing in the way his arms tingled with the touch of betrayal's snake that hers was burdened with agony's product.
Anakin took Padmé's hand, and kissed those cheeks already yielding to tears. He could taste the salt of her woe and his too, when skin touched skin and stole all life from both their faces. The consanguinity of blood with blood merged into words.
"I love you," he breathed before he pulled away.
The world fled her that day and true sorrow arrived when he left, his cloak waving the fell motions of a somber farewell.
__________
-The End-