~Anakin's POV~
Anakin's eyes fluttered slowly open. Groaning from a crick in his neck, he gyrated the sore areas for a minute, eyes adjusting to the bleak dimness of his new predicament. Another nightmare? He wondered drowsily, as things became clearer.
He still had nightmares of war, or his first experiences in real prisons during the Clone Wars. Usually these dreams held no fear in them. Too many people had captured Anakin too many times for him to feel fear now, and besides, he knew he was only dreaming. He blinked rapidly in the dim light, trying to call the Force to end this nighttime masquerade, trying to wake…
He was awake, and he could not access the Force. Anakin's eyes widened as his memory suddenly snapped back into place with the pain of a rubber band smacking ones fingers. He gasped softly, sitting up from where he had been lying on his side, and looked around at the familiar and dire tableau he had managed to get himself stuck in this time.
He was in a small, dank and windowless metal cell. To his right, a ray-shielded doorway kept up an insistent buzz. He shook his head and raised his wrists, which were shackled tightly with Force inhibitor bonds.
The chains were only long enough to allow him to put his hands in his lap. His ankles were also shackled, his saber and cloak gone. His body ached from the fight earlier; it had been seven years since he had fought so vigorously. His body had been unprepared for the physical assault.
Directly, across from him, to his horror, he saw Padme also shackled, lying limply on her side; back turned to him. His heart stopped beating with a painful jab, and he tugged at his chains, desperate to get over to his wife. "Padme?" he whispered. His throat was raw and dry.
"Padme?" he said again, louder when no answer accompanied this. Fear shot through him, sending trembling shivers throughout his body. Was she dead? Had Vader killed her while Anakin was unconscious, and left her t here to torture him with his loss? He would not put it past his malicious clone. Frantically, he made out two other bodies inside of the cell to his left, also manacled hand and foot, also lying on their sides.
He saw Leia's hair had come out of their customary buns. A straggler had fallen across her face, giving the immobile features an angelic look. Luke's bangs had fallen over to obscure most of his own face at the side of his sister.
Grief threatened to swallow Anakin whole. Not this. Not this.
"Padme!" he cried again, hearing the hoarseness in his own voice. His desperation seemed to do the trick. With a small noise of inhalation, Padme's back jolted. Anakin's heart slowed its frantic thumping as his wife sat up, and turned to blink at him sleepily.
"Why are you yelling?" She demanded blearily, voice tinged with irritation. Anakin was so relieved he could only chuckle softly at the left side of her head, where her hair had been flattened, before turning his attention to the twins, who had also been aroused by the noise.
Muttering grumpily, his family sat up, obviously just as unaware of their surroundings as he had been at first. Complacency had been the undoing of many a man, Anakin remembered.
He watched as they looked around, and gulped when Padme's eyes broadened, sudden comprehension sparking to life in her eyes. Luke and Leia scrambled upright, heads swiveling to take in the situation, hands tugging lightly at their chains.
"Oh, no," she whispered softly. "Where are we?" Luke asked; eyes large as Artoo's dome as he gazed around at the dismal setting. Anakin imagined that they were wishing they had stayed asleep right now, he knew he had the first time he had woken up in this situation. He did not answer Luke, assuming rightly that the answer was fairly obvious.
"Are you all alright?" He asked seriously. The light inside of the cell was dim, not enough so that he could see if any of them were injured in any way or not. "I'm fine. Twins?" Padme sat up, leaning her back against the wall. He saw her let her head fall back tiredly.
"I'm okay, a little sore from the fight, but nothing serious," Luke replied quietly. At length, Leia added. "I'm okay too," allowing Anakin to exhale with relief at last. "Why can't I get to the force? I mean, I can feel it there, but whenever I try to touch it, there's a sort of wall between me and…It," Leia asked after a weighty silence.
Anakin was half gladdened by the distraction from their current peril. "The chains binding us are force inhibitors. You'll be able to feel it, but not touch it for awhile," he explained. "Is that why I feel so rotten?" Luke asked, sounding nauseatingly miserable. Anakin nodded. He had long ago gotten used to the effects.
"Probably. You'll feel dizzy and lightheaded for awhile after, too. Just remember your breathing exercises," he counseled. He could feel rather than see Luke nod thoughtfully.
"Ani…Do you know where they're taking us?' Padme asked softly, trying for all the universe he knew to sound indifferent, yet he heard the uncharacteristic fear in her voice.
This wasn't the first time, by any means, that the two of them had been captured by the enemy, but it was the first time with the twins. Padme knew how cruel the Sith could be. Torturing his family to get him to Turn was right up Sidious's ally of imagination…
Anakin would not put the idea past the Sith. His jaw clenched at the thought, and he resolved himself to protect them any way he could. He would rather die than let Luke and Leia be subjected to such torment, and Force knew he would never willingly go to the Dark Side.
"To Sidious," even to calm her, he could not lie. They all knew where they would be taken. "On Courascant, more than likely. The Sith Palace," once the Jedi Temple. Anakin thought he saw Luke shudder. He hardly blamed him. The Sith Palace was no doubt going to drip with the stench of the Dark Side.
Endless nights of fear and niggling doubt assaulting shields of light, along with whatever torture Sidious saw amusing to put them through. Not to mention the other Sith… It would be a living hell. And there would be no escape.
Anakin gulped, staring at his twelve-year-old children, and tears came to his eyes. They did not deserve this. They had already lived through so much, lost too much already, been robbed of a normal, safer life…
All because I'm the Chosen One.
"I'm sorry, all of you," he whispered. "I wish I could spare you this…But I can't," he sighed and leaned his head back against the cold metal. "We're special, Luke, Leia. We're Jedi, and something more. I knew that the night you were born…I only wish you wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of your gift," as he had and always would.
There was a tense silence, Anakin's words sinking in, the future possibilities of what they may encounter once on planet daunting. "We'll face it together, as a family," Padme said softly, her tone was hard, he saw her face harden into determination that was brave…but futile.
They were powerless in this. There was no way out. Anakin shook his head and closed his eyes against the blurring image of the ceiling above. Life seemed more bleak here than ever before. He had not felt such pain since that fateful day over Ilum, now gone, seven years previous.
"I don't know if Sidious will separate us. He might try to turn you two to the Dark Side, isolate you from us, from any Light…You must be prepared for the worst," he told them matter of factly, sounding for all the universe as distant and indifferent as his old teachers.
He did not go on, his throat was too tight for any more words, nevertheless, Anakin knew that tears would absolve them nothing, they would only heighten the twins' fear. An eternity passed, and none of them spoke. There were no words to describe the dangers which Anakin knew his children were to face, increased all the more for them, because they were the Force's own.
Terror sent waves of chills through his stomach, the waves curling eventually into a cold, hard ball in the pit, as if his innards were all twisting together to hide from the future destruction. Dread prickled at his scalp and eventually down his forehead, descended from his dank curls. Anguish racked long, iron claws against his heart and the despair threatened to overcome him.
Though, significant to his name, Luke did not falter in the face of adversity. "What do we need to know?" he inquired, no louder than the whisper of the wind. "About what?" Anakin asked.
"About how to survive," Luke replied. Anakin opened his eyes in surprise and looked up to see both Luke and Leia staring straight at him. even in the dim light he could see their faces etched with purpose and strength. They were not afraid.
"We're Jedi. This is one of the risks we have always had to live with, we know that, father. Ever since Obi died from torture that one time…We've never expected an easy or safe life. We don't want one. We want to be Jedi," Leia explained passionately, upon noticing the awe in his eyes. He looked incredulously to Padme. Who was smiling gently, admiration and immense, compulsive pride glinting in her eyes.
"Well, we are now. This is our big chance, don't you see? Nothing happens without a reason, maybe this is the force's way of telling us that its time to end this. The time to take down Sidious and the rest of the Sith is now. So, what do we need to know?" Luke repeated, back straight; chin tipped, eyes hard, mouth set into a grim line.
His sister mirrored his posture, and despite the fact that it was Anakin who had been nicknamed the Hero With No Fear for his own shows of valor on the battlefronts, he knew for a fact that his sort of courage could never compare to the example he was now witnessing of true bravery from Luke and Leia. Anakin realized that he had never met true Jedi until now.
"The most important lesson, you already know," he replied softly, throat tight with tears, humbled by this show of gallantry, grateful that the force had awarded him with such priceless gifts, had deemed him worthy to be their teacher when he himself was inferior compared to the supernova's of bright possibility sitting chained before him.
"You know who you are, and what that means. You are Jedi. That knowledge alone will get you through any circumstance Sidious will throw at you. It'll get you through the rest of your lives. The second thing you should never forget is that you are Skywalkers," he drew himself up, banishing fear, releasing dread and despair into a Force he was not supposed to be able to touch.
"And that doesn't just include your mother, I and your grandmother, but the others, too," he saw them all straighten a bit more out of respect. "You remember what they stood for, and that they loved you, how proud of you they were. Remember your love for them. Sidious is a powerful Sith, and he can lie, manipulate and wreck like no one else, " Anakin's mouth twisted bitterly. He would know.
"But he can't touch you if you don't let him, if you don't listen then all his pretty words and his sweet promises are for nothing. Love is what enables you to do that, it gives you a reason to hold on. So just…Hold on to that love, okay? Remember how much you love the people around you, how much you in turn are loved," he saw them listening intently to his every word, nodding, eyes serious and ready in the light.
He cleared his throat, eyes wet.
"You two…I'm so proud of you," his voice cracked. "You don't know how proud of you I am, how honored and grateful I am to be your father. You're more prepared for this than I was, already you're a better Jedi than I could ever hope to be. You bring honor to the other Jedi and their memory. They'd all be so proud of you," he looked across at Padme, who nodded and crossed her legs beneath her.
Her eyes twinkled as she gave the twins a lopsided grin. "I love you," three simple words that meant the universe to them all. "I love you too," as one, as always, the twins spoke together. Anakin crossed his legs beneath him, feeling a sudden spurt of exhilaration rush through him, slipping a cloak of boundless strength and inspiration around his shoulders.
He could do this. He could do anything, because he was Jedi. The Twins had inspired him with their own example. They did not have to train to become something they already were, something they were so deeply entrenched into that there was no return.
How was it they taught him more than he taught them?
Sitting with his back straight, cocky grin playing on his mouth, he motioned for Luke and Leia to do the same, then inhaled deeply. He could still feel the force, pulsing and throbbing against him like the stirring tides of the sea, swirling into a vortex of unsullied and undaunted Light that refused to snuffed into extinction, passion and chaos at a harmonized balance, vicious outrage transforming instead from the cold lump of fake coal into a roaring inferno of fire. The furnace of the four souls in the room warmed the air with combined tenacity and mutual love. There would always be peace in the end.
And as long as there were those who stood for the right, then the right would live on, and it could never be destroyed because it was within them. Hate, jealousy, malice were external emotions, thrown upon people without intention but by circumstance and by life who discriminated none.
Calmness, compassion, ration, unity were things that were naturally already in the hearts of every being, and Anakin called upon the power of those passions now. From that wellspring of Light came a simple rulebook that Anakin had once thought emotionless, but now rung with the truth that hundreds of generations of Jedi had fought and died for.
"There is no emotion, there is peace," he said. Padme repeated the sentiment, softly, eyes also closed, partaking in the meditation though she could not feel the force which swirled around her, tossing and turning at her sides battering against her inner doors.
She remained resolute in the face of danger, as she always had. Anakin was then humbled, too, by his wife. Luke echoed, then Leia.
"There is no ignorance, there is knowledge," Anakin's tense muscles slackened to the rhythm of their endless chant, from one generation to the next to the next, repeating the cycle with growing strength, so that it did not die but kindled on longer, like fire continuously being stroked.
"There is no chaos, there is harmony," even in the dim light, in the awful circumstances, in face of the devastation, death and injustice they had faced that day, and for the past seven years in truth, the Skywalker's stood resolute against the odds. Perhaps that was their overall, ongoing legacy: perseverance.
"There is no passion, there is serenity," passion grew and grew until finally it blazed bright within them, settling from the painful blaze of raw power into meek acceptance of such rare command, into bone deep serenity that neither torture, torment, hatred, despair or fear could disrupt.
"There is no death, there is the Force," whatever else happened, Anakin knew one thing: he was Jedi, now and forever.
I feel like I should warn all my readers now since I just re-read over this monster of a story and realized that it might be just a bit dark. This one will be full of angst, my friends. Its high up on the sob-inducer meter, even compared to my other ones. Also on the comedic/family moments that I love to write, but...Just expect it to get rough from here.
~QueenYoda