"Blinking"

Lightyears.

Stars, countless and peerless in between.

Closing his eyes, he could make out every strand of loose brown tendrils and drew constellations on her face with her sun-tanned freckles.

Opening them again, he stared out at the vast void that was speckled with stars.

He brought his stretched-out arm back down besides him. He had unconsciously reached out again.

As long as he was alive, he would destroy. He would conquer, he would ravage, he would absorb.

His eyes watered as he struggled not to blink.

Close. Her back was to him. He left them this way for a moment longer, wanting to linger in the feeling he felt stirring in his chest.

Open. Black and cold. His forehead was pressed upon the glass window.

Close. She shifted and turned. For the slightest moment, he saw the profile of her face, silhouetted against a fire. He traced the shadow of her forehead, her nose, her lips.

Open. Suffocating and empty. Alone. His brows furrowed together and he let out a breath he didn't know he held in.

He would have killed, he had killed…he would have given everything, he had given everything to be in the position he was in now.

Power beyond imagination. Respect and terror upon hearing his name. Ultimate command of the galaxy.

She was a nobody who had no place in this story. A nobody with who had no backstory, no lineage, no claim to any right on either side of this epic saga.

A nobody who lucked out when a traitor stumbled over her on a forsaken planet in the corner of the galaxy.

A nobody who fantasized about heroes that moved rocks with their minds and hope.

A nobody that upon her expiration, would just wither into the vast nothingness of space, without anyone as much as noticing her existence withering and extinguishing.

Close. But not to him.

Lightyears. Solar systems and planets between. He destroyed after he searched and found nothing that left evidence of her presence.

Open. He knew that he would keep counting the stars endlessly with every breath he took. Make being alone temporary and everything else worth it.

Close. "Please", he whispered to nobody.