YellowWomanontheBrink Thank you for the wonderful support and encouragement and I hope you continue to enjoy the story!
Chapter 2
The fury and power of the jet stream that swept her up was left behind, just where the break through the invisible barrier had occurred. No rush of air - instead of falling, utter stillness and a trickle of a waterfall. The feeling of reality shifting did not leave her. It was all an illusion, mind games, no other answer she could fathom. After the recent turmoil she must be dreaming, held hostage by her subconscious – how to consider another explanation? Maybe the ship she was flying hadn't come out of hyperspace? Crashed on landing? Hallucinations, visions, and nightmares - could it be that her whole life had been transported into the twilight zone of irrational fears?
Light of a huge moon poured in handfuls of mother-of-pearl. A withered tree stood by the brook. She found herself kneeling, clinging to the wrinkled bark of the trunk, looking up. In the once dense crown, suspended by a leg on a stubby branch, barefoot, clad in some rags with his hands tied behind his back, hung a man. His back was to her, but she would have recognized him from a thousand.
Slipping and stumbling on the smooth, wet stones, she did not immediately notice the flicker of movement in the dimly reflected light. A vision she had initially taken for a thermal flow, solidified into forms. Her heart quickened with excitement at the sight of bipedal figures, emerging from the ravine. The mirage was in no hurry to dissipate, as she stared hard, instead its outlines were growing closer. Over to the left, the cliff was obscured by a pall of dust, while on her right it became clearer and she lost all doubt that these were sentient beings, moving along the trail, maybe a caravan, there were simply too many to be casual travelers. Her heart sank at the possibility of hostile intention, but with a wave of forgotten feeling - hope – surged back up again. She ran with a kind of mad joy down the stony ridge, fumbling and falling down, jumping up again, waving her arms, insanely glad to see living people.
"This way, please! Help me!"
Some part of her mind seemed vaguely ill at ease: that part was now clawing and tugging at a corner, like a vornskr, playing with the hem of her dress. A vague premonition, but that bad feeling seldom deceived her; when she was led to the fire, there, sitting on some bales, were two men dressed in simple homespun clothes, with identical cloths covering the lower part of their faces. They were talking to each other in an unfamiliar language, shouting and waving hands. They paid her no attention as she waited patiently, observing the makeshift camp.
"I beg your pardon," she said quietly. "I need your help."
Two cloaked heads turned in her direction. She recoiled, when one of her escorts, standing slightly to the side, leisurely drew his knife then stepped closer, scrutinizing her. It was suddenly quiet. The newly lit fire crackled peacefully, consuming dry twigs, illuminating the space in an uneven circle. The two, who had recently argued, were staring at her with tenacious, prickly eyes. One of them threw back the cloth from his face, and she watched as a mighty Adam's apple bounced up to his chin, then back down again as he said something, pointing with a gesture to the side.
Until that moment, she simply thought Anakin was unconscious - she didn't know any more since he was cut loose and dragged towards the stand. So what she had first thought to be a pile of rags, tossed beside some empty pots and other appliances unknown to her, turned out to be a man. Now she realized, with dismay, who that was lying nearby, lifeless, with hands tied behind his back.
"It is my companion," she muttered, in an exhausted languor, feeling the ground sink under her; suddenly aware of what likely awaited her.
She wanted to say something else, to make another attempt at communication, when she was grabbed roughly. Efforts to break free were pitiful; she was shaken like a sack, tossed onto her side, and found herself very close to Anakin, near strange rusty buckets and bins with their crumpled lids, staring into his open, sightless eyes. Those happenings refused to become reality – caught unawares, floundering among the husks and rags; she did not immediately notice the approaching face and when the man bent down she felt a brutal pain in her stomach, as if her insides had burst. She must have hit her head, felt a sharp rock jam into her temple, and her vision split, doubled, with images of leering men with sparse rotten teeth coming through a sickening haze. She squeezed her eyelids shut; still trying to get up, yet feeling that she was utterly failing.
Coming to her senses, shaking off the stupor, she found it difficult to comprehend what was happening around her. Fireworks exploded in her temples, while a loud, agitated babble rang out from above. Her head was swollen and throbbed with pain, as if someone was busy trying to pull it through a narrow slit, ripping off her ears, and the overhead voices kept squabbling with their grisly intent in a guttural language.
Anakin was moved closer to the fire, and two of the natives were engrossed in a new occupation, chatting with one another as they carefully peeled the skin off the stump of his arm attached to the prosthesis. Acrid dust clogged her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to try clearing them. Why would they do that, she could not know. The corrosive dust lingered in her eyes; she squinted, unable to look away from the ghastly sight. They must have wanted to disconnect it because of the expensive metal; her mind clung tenaciously, to its last resort - to logic. For the moment one figure disappeared from view; springing to his feet after plunging his knife into the protruding shoulder blade of the helpless participant, and leaving his comrade busy making longitudinal incisions near the junction with the metal rim.
No, he's still alive, she decided, lying face down in the mud, by the fire. The moon slipped behind a cloud, and in the reddish glow of the flames she could see a tear glitter in his eye. There was a whiff of cold, damp air from the stream and she clearly heard that voices moved closer: cheerful, excited, full of malice. Her thoughts drifted in stubborn circles; there was always an intention behind the action, what they wanted - it could not be cruelty for cruelty's sake. One of the newcomers - looking up from the ground, she thought it was the one who had hit her - nodded to his neighbor, tossing aside the bundle of firewood he was carrying. Laughter was heard. A bucket of water, tipped from above and evidently meant for Anakin, doused her with icy splashes.
The murmur of alien voices, surrounding her made her feel trapped. The crackle of flames at her back was too close; she broke a sweat from the intense heat. A handle creaked, making her wince. Her lower abdomen ached terribly and when she was struck again - she groaned pitifully, fully realizing the unenviable nature of her position. Attention shifted to her. Her head ached. Animal fear spread its claws and scraped along her back to her ribcage, crumpling her insides into a single pulsating lump.
With her heart pounding furiously somewhere in her throat, a sheen of icy sweat covered her face and palms. A range of sensations, never before experienced, overtook her; a fate where all the brutality of the world, intentional brutality the existence of which she had so forcefully denied, caught up with her, left her gasping, as a sticky, clammy shudder closed over her chest. She was sobbing now, as one of the men who approached, leaned in, teeth gritted, grasping her chin. He smirked and licked his lips, and she tried to stop breathing- the stench of him was unbearable.
Anakin, she did not say it aloud, it was a soundless, wordless cry. How many times had he saved her by shielding from death? How many lives did she owe him, having failed to pay for one?
"Please help me!" Her lips barely moved, mouthing a spell on their own, while her rational mind accepted his complete inability at the moment to help anyone.
But he heard her. A spark of consciousness flared, unkindly, reflecting in his eyes. A gust of wind parted heavy clouds, so the cold glare of the moon split the darkness like a spotlight. The weight on top of her vanished and the two men that had been fumbling beside her, suddenly howled so shrilly that she felt every single hair stand on end.
One of them, the one with a bucket of water, stumbled and fell backwards into the fire. He waved his arms, in vain, beating at the flames. A shower of sparks shot up into the sky before everything was quiet. The unbearable smell of charred flesh made her retch over and over emptying her stomach over the cold sand.
She saw Anakin struggle to his knees, bathed in the reflected light, his back inching closer to the fire, thrusting his metal hand behind him, into the flames, as far as he could reach, burning through the rope. She knew that the nerve endings of the prosthetic registered by his receptors the same as the living ones. Mesmerized, she watched him slowly straighten his back - the outline of his figure darkening before her eyes amidst the unfolding inferno.
Recognition of what was happening failed to keep up with the flickering image. Someone threw a spear at him, and he staggered back, his body moving to the side, deflecting. Blood splattered her face and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the visuals - images so relentlessly vivid they imprinted themselves on her retinas, seeming to stay with her forever.
Fixing her gaze on a point, she watched as he rose unsteadily to his feet and his shoulders straightened. Armed men appeared, rushing towards him from all sides. He stood motionless, head slightly bowed, arms with shreds of burnt rope hanging harmlessly along his body and she could smell ozone, as if before a thunderstorm, even though the night sky did not portend a weather change. Slowly he clenched his fists, raising his hands as if lifting some sort of weight and when he lowered them sharply, with force, she felt the impact, a violent seismic shock that flattened all at once.
A lone silhouette in the midst of the fire lit wasteland. Those others, running towards him, moving with firm intentions, weapons at the ready, suddenly froze in the thickened air, unable to take the next step. Pulling in her head in horror, she stared, panting, at the thick human mush churning in the darkness; gagging at a sordid, wet stench. She couldn't really see what was going on there, and the moonlight was slow to shed a gleam of whitish pearl on the shapeless mass of coiled bodies, heads, arms, spears, twisted dagger handles in outstretched fingers.
Among the mangled, scattered remains Anakin stood as the personification of the apocalypse, a living nightmare, with a knife protruding from his scapula, adorned in shreds of cloth and skin. After taking a few steps, he knelt beside her, and she felt the crunch of bone against rock. For a moment he closed his eyes, exhaling through clenched teeth and visibly bracing himself, then proceeded to check her pulse, running a hand over her limbs, straightened her torn dress, lightly patting her hair with his flesh hand.
Self-control became impossible; her only defense was to turn away. She squeezed her eyes shut, so she would not have to look at him, to give herself the opportunity to breathe a little and whimper. Somehow her head felt too heavy with the weight of unbearable suffering when barriers holding back the deluge of pain simply broke. Desperately she was trying to ground herself by focusing on the sight in front of her and when she became sick of the grisly spectacle, backpedaling, closing her eyes and crawling backwards, scrambling on her hands and knees.
Who told her that love was a beautiful thing? Why her soul was hurting so much that she wanted to roll on the ground screaming in agony, tearing her own skin, pulling out veins exposing the heart and while this bloody living lump pulsed in her chest, to pray only for deliverance? She wanted to break her own ribs, to get inside to silence it. Is this her payment, extracted for the joy to feel everything in full?
"I don't remember everything, but I know I have wronged you gravely, milady." Hearing the words spoken in his formal tone, in that slightly breathless manner, made her almost pathetically grateful.
She forced herself to finally look at him when he helped her up. Then she was drawing back, hugging her sides, sinking whitened fingers into her flesh. She could hardly catch her breath, so loud was the heart beat in her echoing ribcage.
How could one person, by his existence, cause such turmoil?
Were there adequate words in all the languages of the galaxy that could describe the damage caused by his actions?
Did she really expect a person with his life experience and his life values, to do something other?
What was then and what is now. Two images merged together in a darkened fragmented consciousness - she wasn't there in the desert camp. She did not see the horror that remained among the velvet dunes, what was left of a village of sand people who abducted and tortured a woman.
I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them.
That confession, bestowed on her in a dusty garage on a planet forsaken by gods, still sounded in her head. His haunted look that made her insides freeze; what she saw in his eyes then, no one in his right mind would call 'sweet' and 'charming', as Sola described him, teasing her younger sister when she brought her Jedi bodyguard to the family home.
Did she expect anything else from his impulsive nature?
They were much alike really; she was also passionate, having learned to manage her emotions early - which did not mean denying them at all. And he only lifted the veil, but was it not her that was leading in their fateful dance?
Staggering, she moved out of the circle outlined by firelight towards the running water. Right under foot, like shakes of meat, were the remains, fragments of bones; powdered with grayish dust, entangled with scraps of cloth. Further away from the epicenter, but still illuminated by flames were warped, twisted corpses. Moving past figures with thick swollen tongues, without eyes, broken, spread out by some incomprehensible force, she made herself look strictly in front of each carefully stepping foot. In the failing light, it was already impossible to distinguish randomly scattered bodies from simple bundles of cloth. Weakened, she stumbled in the dark.
The stone fragments dug into her palm and knee as she lost her balance.
Not having the strength to stand up she remained were she was, passively surveying the landscape and absently noting, that she was sitting in the dirt, looking at an empty pail. Behind her the silhouette of a dry tree pierced the moonlight.
She was sitting on the ground, surrounded by dead men.
"Do you remember what happened before?" What you did, she wanted to add, but for some reason, couldn't.
"Not much. Just images really, feelings." Quiet intermittent voice, saying this, he continuously watched her, and she felt the solid surface being slowly pulled out from under her, leaving her in freefall.
She did not understand how she ended up on her feet, moving, as if in a deep trance. She approached him as he sank despondently to the ground. Tears burned her eyes. It was so strange to see him like this; dirty, barefoot, and lost. She stared entranced, surprised that under the rags he looked much the same as before. All familiar scars were in place, she noted as he pulled off his shirt, tore a piece of fabric, and wrapped his right forearm.
Absently she remembered how he always dressed very modestly compared to the Senate wardrobe. In the standard Order attire, garments completely covered the body, leaving only a silhouette. She never saw him in this state of undress outside her apartment, and it seemed to lend an air of unreality to what was happening. That he was sitting here without his usual clothes, at a fading fire, having tossed away the half burnt corpse to stop that sickening stench, and warming up a knife pulled out of his shoulder blade.
Of course, she knew that the Temple was not exactly a Coruscanti noble maiden institute, but from that detached composure, as he cauterized the wound, she shuddered.
"You'll have to help. I'm not getting it on my back."
She froze, trying not to look at his back, choosing a spot somewhere above his left shoulder. Red smear on a white background, that was all she saw, letting a cautiously deep breath to fill the cavity under her bruised ribs. But approaching, she was forced to consider him completely; face pale from blood loss, matted hair. The body naked to the waist was impressive in its outline; there was something primitive about it - from a time when the danger of a sentient being was measured by the strength of muscle and sinew.
The danger he presented was somewhat greater, so much so that even a great Order that existed for a thousand generations did not survive his membership.
She wanted to turn away, to protect herself from a flood of emotions that he would definitely be able to sense.
And then, unexpectedly, she lightly brushed his hand with her fingertips.
"All this dirt, it only bothers us when it touches us, personally. When we experience it ourselves," He lifted his head, gently turned his shoulders.
"But I feel what they feel. I hear their voices, their intentions, always." He sighed.
"Such a gift from the universe," Said with a bitter smile, so familiar to her.
"I was taught to focus my awareness, to put up shields, I vaguely remember it. But it didn't really help. I don't hear them with my mind. They are not in my consciousness; they are in me, everywhere in my whole body. I feel them with all my living cells: they are me and I am them. Everyone and everything," His eyes darkened, she felt a chill, a gravely cold, fear - perhaps he simply did not bother to put up the inner barriers behind which he habitually hid from the world or hid the world from himself.
"Sometimes it seemed to me that without a familiar voice, I would simply dissolve among them. Dissipate. I only wanted to hear your voice. Not to lose it to the silence. Afraid to let you fall into the abyss. I was afraid to be alone."
"I just wanted to keep your voice." He repeated, looking into her eyes. "There was no price too great for that, no mercy. Not for them. Not for myself. No one..."
While holding the knife wrapped in a rag, her hand shook a little, as the blade pressed against the wound. Metal hissed, boiling blood. Inwardly shaken, she heard him breathe noisily through clenched teeth. Dizziness did not allow her to rise immediately, and so she remained seated, involuntarily catching at the edge of her vision the moment he disappeared from the outlined circle of light. She sat and listened - gravel crunched under foot, a quiet splash when stones rolled down the slope and fell into the stream.
The moon had long since hid behind the clouds; the pre-dawn darkness covered everyone, living and dead with its canopy, guarding secrets. A secret, where they could have been just two weary travelers, sharing the warmth of a fire. How desperately she wanted this even calm, where there was nothing at all between them, no blood, no politics nor love.
Left alone, she continued to sit, motionless, pouring through heavy thoughts in her head, trying to fold them in order.
Silently, she watched him collect the remains, carry them to the fire to perform the rite of burial; the last rite that formed the basis of culture and civilization.
The smell of burnt flesh churned out her already empty stomach, but brought a surprising clarity to her mind.
What else had she expected, when she clashed for the soul of the galaxy with a Dark Lord?