"Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon."
--- William Shakespeare
"Amidala." I breathed. She continued picking, and when she was finished she handed one to me. Beautiful and bold red with tiny droplets of peaceful sky blue splashed across it. I held it, and thanked her but she didn't make anything of it. She acted as if it was perfectly normal that a stranger was sitting with her, watching her work, in this desolate field.
"Do you live here?" I asked and she started to get up slowly.
Her large eyes looked at me and pretty soon we were walking across the meadow. The long stalks of lazy green grass brushing against our legs. I noticed the backdrop against the meadow itself as we passed through it all, thin looking waterfalls, which at one time must have been undoubtedly beautiful but now looked weak and drained. Their time had come and go.
"I live here with Mother Narratore." She answered simply. Never turning to look at me.
"Have you always lived here?"
"She took me in from my parents when I was very young. She said when it fell, like she knew it would, I would be part of the rebirth of the Old Republic."
I didn't even realize the questions I was asking her. Now I was almost desperate. I wanted more, knowledge, something in me wanted to learn.
"Do you ever see your parents anymore?"
She looked at me straight in the eyes. "No, they were killed by the Empire when the city was taken over. Dark days they were, very dark." Her eyes got sad and she looked at the ground again. Pausing for a moment, it was the only time I saw her stray her mind from her task.
"I'm sorry." I whispered. Because I was, truly sorry.
We arrived at a crumbling house, overgrown with vines by time, statues disfigured with time lining the balcony. It held a hidden beauty, and looked over a sparkling lake, green mountains in the distant barely touching fading pink sky.
Dusk was spreading and the sunlight gave an orange glow.
The whole place was overgrown completely, and appeared to once have been a beautiful lake house. But that wasn't what struck me. It was the atmosphere that did. It again changed violently, from beautifully sad, to dark, and passionate, hidden and fierce.
The walls almost whispered, as if drawing me into certain parts of the house, whispering dark secrets. It was becoming blatantly obvious something had happened here.
It startled me at first, I almost jumped and looked quickly to the girl to see if she had noticed it too, but she continued on, holding her basket heading into the house that she must have called home. She turned to me as I was caught up in the feelings this place was feeding me.
"You mustn't feel so much, she already knows your coming." Stopping in the middle of the balcony she looked at me. The orange dusk was starting to fade black, and through the edges of the mountain outlines stars started to appear.
Something tingled through my body as I looked at the stars. Something was happening. I wasn't sure of what but I knew some strand of my fate, past or present, was tangled in this night. The girl looked back at me and the rising white moon caught her skin. The mixture of the battling dusk and night caught her skin and she looked ghostly. Her eyes caught and she looked at me deeply.
"Wait here." She said finally touching my hand. "Stand there and don't move. I will inform her, though she already knows, that you're here." She smiled then at me, but for once her childish youth peaked through. She was excited. Giddy, almost. She picked up her gown and walked through an ivy-covered passage into the house. Standing here was giving me chills, here, almost more than anywhere I'd been.
Something happened here
It rang in my mind. But this time the feeling wasn't burning, it was achingly beautiful.
I was so caught up in it I almost didn't see the girl appear again, touching my hand in the now white moonlight.
"Come." She whispered. "The storyteller will see you now."
