A/N: Padmé is 4 years and however many months older than Anakin. In a previous chapter it was noted that Padmé recently turned 24 and Anakin is nearing turning 20. This means, depending on who had the most recent birthday on the galactic calendar, they are "5 years apart" (19 & 24, their canon ages in AOTC) part of the year, and "4 years apart" (20 & 24) during the rest of the year.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the gracious feedback. You reviewers continue to amaze me, and it is for y'all that I find the time to write/polish/post as quickly as I can. These particular chapters are very near and dear to me, and it's both terrifying and wonderful to share them with others. Thank you for your generous time and words.

Chapter 22. Soulmates

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

- William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

"Midi-chlorins are a microscopic life form that resides in all living cells. We are symbionts with them— life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force." - Qui-Gon Jinn, Jedi Master

"Uh-oh," I sing-songed quietly, my little voice barely louder than the lapping of the water at my feet. "I am going to be in BIG trouble…"

I perched on the bank of the beach, like a daybird misplaced on her nocturnal branch, and looked down at the mud all over my dress. The fabric appeared slimy, as moonbeams reflected off the wet cake of dirt blanketing the once pristine, blue cloth. Despite the threat from my mother's death glare that I had most certainly just sentenced myself to, I giggled.

But my new dress! Papa is going to laugh— but Mom is going to feed me to the opees.

Oh, well.

After quickly becoming resigned to the state of my clothes in the way a headstrong four-year-old can, I looked back up at the starry sky above Varykino. I was alone on the villa's beach after sneaking out of bed. I couldn't help it— I loved the water too much to stay away even after a full day of swimming. The lake called to me. It was like a dear friend, a long-lost relative— a member of the family just as much as the four people sleeping in the grand lodge behind me.

But rain had fallen during dinner, and what had been a dry path to the beach this afternoon was now a basin of mud. A tiny, insignificant detail. I'd made the decision to make my escape long before we'd finished our meal, even with the rain pounding down outside the dining room windows like drums in a marching band. Sola caught me creeping out of bed the night before and so I had moved with far more stealth tonight. The nightly world was as quiet as my footsteps as I'd tip-toed down the stairs in the atrium, but the real success was in getting past the front door without waking anyone up.

I inhaled a deep breath of sweet air as I looked around the tranquil lake. With the reward of my disobedience in front of me, I had no regrets.

As much as I felt a kinship with the water, though, there was something so magnificent about the dark giants of the mountains on the skyline in every direction. They were the guards of the Lake Country— steadfast, formidable, and imbued with a stately grandeur. All the surrounding mountains had official names, of course, but I had given the jagged peaks names of my own imagination. Minn, Vammé, closely ahead on the horizon line, I could just barely make out the dark spot that was the island we swam to today— I swam to. Oh yes, it was quite a day of celebration for me— Mom and Papa finally deemed me physically able to try to swim to the island, and I'd performed the feat like the Gungan girl Papa is always proclaiming me to be. Tomorrow we would go back, and I would talk again with the kind, old man who was making glass on the beach.

Back and forth, I padded along on the wet sand, thoroughly relishing in the feeling of its coarse grains squishing themselves between my toes. I was content just to walk along the beach with my thoughts as I peered out over the water. Suddenly, though, a clear and obvious solution to my muddied problem popped into my brain like a fugee grape. Of course! An impromptu bath!

Delighted with my ingenious, original idea of how to clean my dress— thus erasing all evidence that I had ever wandered down to the villa's beach far past my bedtime— I hurried forward into the cool water all the way up to my knees. Bending at the waist, I swished my nightdress through the black liquid with my hands, feeling the water vastly more than I could see it. The stars and two visible moons offered enough light to guide my way down here and to see the outline of the mountains, but it was still the middle of the night, and I only had human eyes.

This made it all the more peculiar when a faint streak of pink light became visible in the water a few feet away. I stilled, too surprised at first to be scared. The light was moving as if pushed by the current. As it slowly came closer, I could see the pink glow was bordered by yellow and purple lines of light on either side.

I peered through the darkness, entranced. It was a… fish? But unlike any I'd seen before. It was long, perhaps as long as my arms are wide from tip to extended tip. It was thick and round, almost like a whale, and its snout stretched out from body with a curvaceous grace.

I tilted my head in curious awe, having already decided not to be alarmed. If it wanted to eat me, it probably would've already tried. The large fish-but-not-fish gradually but steadily swam closer, its more varied colors shining all the brighter the better I could see them. The scales were mesmerizing— the strength of their glow seemed to vibrate as it moved through the shallow water.

Realization suddenly hit me, and I gasped breathlessly. This is an óma willa!

I bent further at the waist in a rush of nervous excitement. I had heard of óma willas in great-grandmother Leia's fantastical stories, but everyone always told me not to believe them. They were practically folk tale creatures of the Lake Country—spottings of them were so few and far between that generations would live on the borders of the lakes and never see one. They were said to be pure spirits— part-whale, part-fish, all-legend. But here one undoubtedly was, skirting the shoreline just a few steps from my toes.

If I'd had any doubt as to what I was looking at, it was erased when a musical, high-pitched note began to emanate out of the water. I clasped my hands over my mouth to stifle my new gasp of glee. In addition to their iridescent scales of light, óma willa were said to be able to produce song-like tones— yet another facet of their incredible species. I held my breath, enchanted, as the melodic sound became louder and wistful like the gust of wind through ears.

I reached my hand out towards the creature, its scales now vibrant streaks with the proximity we shared. The lines of pastel color rippled from above the water as waves undulated over the being below. I dipped my fingertips below the surface. As the óma willa continued its song, it moved its slender tail and moved a few inches closer.

Suddenly, I could hearmuffled commotion coming from the lodge. I snapped my head behind me as I understood why. The beautiful octaves of the óma willa had been loud enough to rouse the previously sleeping occupants. I froze, watching as first one and then another soft light switched on in rooms I knew belonged to my parents and my great-grandmother.

When I spun my head back around to the óma willa, it was only in time to see it spin away and depart faster than I'd ever seen a fish move. Its exit was a whirl of fused pink, yellow, and purple. The song was over, the encounter finished, but my elation was only just beginning.

I turned towards the beach and rushed through the little waves. "Mom! Papa!" I yelled; my voice as loud as I could carry it. "Sola! Great-grandmother!" Making it to the path, my bare feet racing across the grass so fast that I was surprised I didn't take flight. I didn't care that with every step mud splattered back up onto my nightdress. "Everyone! Wake up!"

More lights in the villa began turning on. As I burst through the garden gate, I heard my mother's frantic voice, gruff but alert, as is the tone of a parent awoken from sleep just a few seconds before. "Mémé?"

I ran through the hallways of the house, my wet feet slapping against the staircase as I flew. The lateness of the hour couldn't compare to the importance of the news I had for them. "You won't BELIEVE what just happened!"

I stood in the open doorway of the hut, watching the beads of rain as they poured down. I'd never tired of watching rain fall. Although it had far more occurrence in my life versus for Anakin, it had never lost its spell over me, either.

There had been a built-in bench by the grandest window in my childhood home. Since I was old enough for my feet to carry me, I would run there as soon as a storm started, entranced by the dribbles or showers of rain as they ran down the stained glass. Sola hated storms and would scurry to her room in fear. No matter how much I coaxed her, I could never get her to come appreciate the dance of the water as it found sporadic, microscope channels in the texture of the glass, spreading like liquid lightning bolts as it made its way to the ground.

The industrial flow which came down on Coruscant was nothing like the kind back here at home. This rain came with the heavy scent of lush vegetation, of the seas, of life.

I looked out over Mopal's yard. It was a cemetery of tools left in their spontaneous, above-ground graves in front of the hut. Beyond this rusted assortment was the clearing, and far beyond that the ancient villa. This time in the Lake Country had already blurred the lines separating Anakin and I in our roles so greatly, but with the water now acting as a moat between our seclusive island and the villa, all those rules seemed impossibly distant. A memory. Intangible. Unwanted.

It was as if the curtain of rain around the hut was a privacy shield for us designed by Naboo herself.

My senses were so attuned to the thick air that I felt him behind before he'd even touched me.

The first palpable sensation was his breath caressing my neck and left ear as he stepped closer. An involuntary shiver went down my spine, one I had no hopes of hiding in my scrappy cover of a swimsuit.

I drew in a deep breath, searching more for resolve than for air. "We shouldn't," I lied, releasing the words behind barely parted lips.

For a moment, I thought my feeble words were once again going to be heeded. Then, to my shock and my pleasure, his warm hands were on my waist, gratuitously dragging themselves down to my hips. My heartbeat accelerated profoundly but I couldn't determine where it was centered anymore— the pulse was loud and throbbing in my ears, my chest, between my thighs. His already rough and fragmented breath grew louder behind my ear. I could hear when he paused to moisten his lips.

"We can't." I offered the words up to whatever gods were listening as a final, weak show of attempting to adhere to our roles. Then my weight shifted purposely and I shuffled my feet underneath me slowly, roaming in a sensual dance. He seemed to like this, judging by the low groan he emitted. It broke down the last, flimsy barrier in me and I sighed his name.

"Anakin."

I didn't recognize my deep, longful voice. It was the call of a woman in need. He leaned even more forward and now his cheek was nestling against the top side of my head.

With a deliberate tug he suddenly pulled me flush against him. My lips separated in a throaty gasp at the jerky but not undesired movement. The reason and the logic as to why we should stop melted away in the heat I felt when the skin of my back collided up against his naked torso. His swim trunks crinkled quietly as my rear brushed against his thighs. Daring, my trembling— not with nerves, but with passion— left hand snaked its way up and behind me, first making contact with his shoulder, then his neck, then up behind his ear and into his hair. While I took in this glorious landscape, his hands spread from my hips to across my belly, lightly molding my skin like a sculptor with precious clay. I stretched my body taunt to feel more of him against me, slightly arching my back in the motion. His hands traveled higher now till they reached my breasts, and then it was my turn to let out a moan as he squeezed both with incendiary pressure. Even then, it was not enough. Wanting— needing— I used the hand already clutched around his head to pull him down towards me as I turned in his grasp to better face him. As I moved, his hands smoothly slid across to my back, coming to a purposeful stop on the thin tie that held my swimsuit top together.

"Essë," I breathed huskily, granting permission he was not asking for.

I was directing his head down in our descent of mutual destruction, but he was gladly following. Through the fog of lust, I became mindful of the advantageous tabletop in the private dimness of the hut somewhere behind his thighs. Our lips came closer to meeting, promising the first of many releases to come.

Oh, Anakin.

Anakin.

…A-Anakin?

With a start, I woke up. Anakin? He was laying several feet away from me on my right, where he'd been since we'd fallen asleep on the floor of the hut— separately— some time ago. His eyes were shut but he was moving without rhythm and breathing heavily.

I scooted up to a sit and brought myself nearer to him. "Ani? Ani!" Leaning next to him in a close crouch, I shook his shoulder gently but firmly. "Shhh, wake up, it's just a dream."

They don't call them Jedi reflexes for nothing. Before I could register that he'd even moved, his hand snatched my wrist in an unrelenting grip. Anakin's eyes shot open, unfocused.

"It's alright," I soothed. "It's alright. Everything's okay."

At the sound of my voice, bewildered eyes centered on mine. He looked shocked to see me there, peering down at him with all my concern. His clasp on my wrist loosened, abruptly jumping higher to clutch my actual hand. He licked his lips and swallowed, his breath erratic. But he was starting to calm down.

Giving him time and distance to relax, I scooted back a few inches and straightened my body out on the blanket once more. Facing him, I nestled my head into the crook of my bent elbow.

Forgoing more comforting words, I simply breathed louder but at a measurably slow pace, using my expression and my eyes to encourage him to join me. His gaze stayed locked on mine. Deep inhale, slow exhale. Deep… slow. Gradually, his chest moved in synchronization with my own, and the vein that had been protruding from his forehead settled down evenly. I resisted the urge to reach out and wipe my fingers across the smooth skin.

Truth be told, I needed this pacifying breathing exercise just as much as he did. My heart was still pounding from the erotic dream I'd been lost in.

After some weak chit chat following my hair observation and the sayings of Tatooine, true to form, Anakin and I had awkwardly blundered our way into breaking the tension. We ultimately found a way for each of us to squat down in the hut, our knees pulled up into our chests as we waited out the duel of wind and rain. Unfortunately, the storm lasted long enough that we eventually knew there would be no sun left to guide our swim home even if the weather abated. I had no usual fear when it came to swimming, but even I dared not traverse an open lake with many nocturnal creatures in it.

Accepting that we'd have to wait out the arrival of the morning sun before we could go home, and limbs aching from our uncomfortable sits on the floor, we'd improvised the best we could. Ever the mechanic, Anakin unscrewed the bolts keeping the table attached to the wall and carried it outside the hut. It was a good thing he was Force adept, for some of the bolts had been rusted beyond recognition and were too small to easily grip. All the same, all that corrosion was no match for a simple twirl of his fingers.

Taking turns, each of us used the break in the weather for some private time outside in order to take care of bodily business. Then, with the marginal gain in extra space, it was just a matter of what to do with the one blanket we had— one of Anakin's early finds on the table when we'd first walked in. It was old yet in good shape. But it wasn't near big enough to cover our two bodies simultaneously unless we laid closely side-by-side. Both of us shy and very aware of our near-nakedness, it didn't need to be spoken that this scenario wasn't an option.

I was slow to learn the trade, but now I knew what playing with fire looked like when I saw it.

The benefit of finally deciding to sleep on top of the linen was we could keep ourselves off the dirty ground. Of course, the drawback was that, from wherever we lay in the hut, I would know Anakin's barely clothed body was resting just out of arm's reach, unsheltered from my sight.

The only thing more heart-racing than facing him when we first laid on the grounded blanket was turning my backside to him. I could feel his eyes trace the intimate curves of my body like a tractor beam. The longer it lasted, the more I invited the stare and grew warm underneath it. Grasping to regain some control, I'd ended up adjusting to face him, somewhere in my mind arguing that if he was going to get a view than so was I.

With the lack of any air conditioning system for a rudimentary hut, the air had been become stifling and the space a bit claustrophobic soon after Anakin Force-shut the door, so he'd found a way to keep the mechanized contraption open only halfway in order to let in air flow yet keep out most of the moisture.

At long last, I'd ended up drifting off to sleep, all while noting the way the light from the night sky traced Anakin's frame in a silver glow. Perhaps I could blame that final sight for inspiring what had happened— and what had almost happened— in my sleeping imagination shortly after.

Back in the present, the young man opposite me whispered, "Sorry," into our darkness, as if scared of raising his voice too loud, else something might shatter.

We were still laying on our sides, facing each other. I gave him a reassuring smile. "It's alright. You seemed to be having an intense dream."

He swallowed. "I was." A remorseful grimace flashed across his face.

I too easily remembered the pain in his voice after his nightmare about his mother on the refugee ship. Full of sympathy, I soothed, "It's not your fault you had a bad dream, Ani."

Surprising me, he shook his head. Shadows cut from the starlight moved across his face, but I could've sworn the familiar mischievous glint returned to his eyes. "I didn't say it was a bad dream."

Our voices stayed soft— as if we didn't have the entire island to ourselves. "You weren't having a nightmare?"

"No, no, not in the least." He grinned. "Jedi don't have nightmares. I'm sorry I woke you, though."

I shyly looked away at his words. I was remembering my own dream now… and I was beginning to wonder if Anakin's had been of a similar mind.

"What were you dreaming about?"

I looked up to find amused eyes studying me. Disturbed, I realized more starlight cast itself on my face than on his, leaving the heat residue on my cheeks nowhere to hide.

Anakin's grin only grew wider. "Now I truly wish to know."

Deny, deny, deny. "Who says I was dreaming at all?"

Black eyes narrowed at mine, their cousins the shadows shrouding his face in a knowing look that shot a spire of excitement through my core. "Your blush, for starters."

I defiantly shook my head and made an obvious show of folding my lips inwards, underneath my teeth. I would die before I told him what I'd been dreaming about… even if, or especially if, there was a chance a similar scenario had played out in his own head.

The way he was hungrily drinking me in made me believe that was exactly what had happened.

To think, I'd actually felt sympathy for him.

"Don't make me use a Jedi mind trick on you."

Abruptly experiencing genuine fear, my eyes blazed with warning fire. "You wouldn't dare."

He chuckled at my flame as if he knew he could pinch it out between his fingers. "What's to stop me?"

I raced quickly to find an answer, all while trying to summon whatever mental barriers I could to stop a possible invisible onslaught. It was a comedic endeavor. I wouldn't even know where to begin erecting blockades. "A Jedi probing the mind of a Senator? I can think of a number of reasons. Let's start with galactic policy referendums on the methods and motives of the Jedi, Senate hearings about the capabilities and responsibilities of the Order—"

He put both hands in a prayer clasp between his left cheek and the floor. A mock display of propriety. "All right, all right, you're safe with me."

The lingering adrenaline in my own body made his claim questionable. It dallied with the idea that, perhaps, he was not safe with me.

But as I gazed back silently and his cheeky smile gave way to a careful stare, a truth which seemed so blatant and obvious that I couldn't even remember when it formed settled over me. My eyes scanned Anakin's face as he and the dark jointly waited for my reply to his casual declaration. I did not base my answer on his Jedi abilities, nor a presumption of any courtesies. It flowed from a source deep within my own soul.

"I know I am. I am always safe with you."

The gravity in my tone wasn't lost on him. Our eyes locked and began a slow dance known since the beginning of time. Somewhere in the cosmos, a clock handle ticked us closer to our fate.

The galaxy was too wide a place for where my focus was centered, yet the impetuous power of it seemed to cascade back and forth in our makeshift shelter. I looked into his pools and witnessed the threats of hell and the hopes of paradise, their lines as blurred as the rules separating us— roles and desires which had felt divorced in my dream just minutes ago. Reality was mimicking that fantasy now in ways that made my eyelids heavy with want.

Eyes as black as the hardened gemstones perilously mined on Mustafar shone at me with a small tilt of his head. His lips were curled back but he wasn't smiling. "I don't want to talk about the Senate, or the Order, or responsibilities."

I was aware of everything. The sound of the air rushing out of my nose in disorganized flows. The voyeuristic wind rustling just beyond the door. The barely perceptible shake in Anakin's chest with every one of his exhales. The way the end hairs of his Padawan braid splayed across his collarbone like the frayed ends of a ribbon. Ribbons. I'd worn those in the picnic field. Was that really just today?

The meadow. Where I'd first felt that new door open, and with it the breeze of a world of shoulds that were of a different texture from all I'd known before. Shoulds loyal to personal wants and desires alone. I'd departed the meadow caught between two thresholds but arrived at Varykino having committed to living freely for the rest of the day.

I hadn't made any decrees yet about the night.

"What do you want to talk about?"

A barely perceivable shake of his head. "I don't want to talk." His tone sent liquid heat through me.

Despite his bold statement, a clearly nervous right hand slowly pulled itself free from under his cheek. It pushed itself over the fibers of the blanket towards me, moonbeams casting silver rays across the back of his knuckles. I could not move, I could not think.

His hand stopped its deliberate campaign at the middle point of its journey. Or perhaps, that was his goal all along. I had watched, transfixed, expecting Anakin's reach to extend all the way to me, but this was not his play. Whether by self-respect or self-consciousness, he was waiting for me to meet him halfway.

Centimeter by centimeter, I straightened my bent right arm and extended my fingers forward the way one succumbs to the allure of a fireplace hearth— fully aware that the impermissible touch will burn, yet unable to stop from feeling the heat.

My travel was even more slow going than his. I felt every woven thread that rubbed under my palm. The pressure created notable friction, but it could not rival the heat emanating from my own flesh. Finally, our fingertips brushed against each other's delicately, nervously, as if they hadn't already made contact multiple times before. In truth, they never had like this. Anakin and I had held our hands in small embraces for practical reasons— helping me in and out of a boat or a wagon cruiser, helping to keep me steady while I walked through unstable ground. I'd used a clasp as a means to provide solidarity and comfort on the beach earlier as we'd fallen asleep. Even our short trek in the rain from the clearing to this hut could be retroactively labeled as him keeping me near during the madness of the storm.

But this… this was touch for touch's sake.

It wasn't for manners or for comfort– at least, not on any level that could be excused away later. His fingertips glided over mine like Chimiliean silk, the searing heat of his flesh spilling over like smooth lava on to the petals of flowers, but instead of wilting, I bloomed.

Brushing fingertips became joints, joints became caressed knuckles, and in a few timeless moments, my and Anakin's two hands were moving against each other in a slow, indiscernible rhythm fueled by both of us yet controlled by neither. Fingers interlocked and fluidly parted, the dance a continual movement bereft of rush.

It was more intimate than a kiss. Our hands moved like lovers who'd known each other for a millennium but were gradually becoming acquainted again after a desperately long separation. A familiar feeling came over me, as if I had known him in another place, another time, another existence. My hands would recognize this rhythm we were creating no matter what skin and bones produced them.

I feared the celestial atmosphere would break as Anakin shifted his weight forward, lifting his shoulder to bring our faces closer together. Instead, our hands only became more attached even as they continued to move. Trembling fingers now caressed wrists, dipped down into the soft highways of our forearms. Always slowly, achingly slowly.

Anakin ventured another daring step: using his low voice to interrupt out temple of quiet movement. "I'm grateful there was a storm." I swallowed, staring back into cobalt eyes that refused to release me. "And for this hut."

An irrational woman in the back of my mind wanted to laugh. I didn't even want to imagine the look on Mopal's face if he knew little Padmé— the little girl he'd once given treats too— was now using the floor of his hut like this. "There was a very old man who lived on the island." My voice sounded like I hadn't used it in years. "He used to make glass out of sand— and vases and necklaces out of the glass." I etched grooves in Anakin's face with my eyes. "They were magical."

He scooted himself closer to me on the blanket. Inches separated us now. "Everything here is magical."

I could feel his warm breath flirt across my cheeks. "You could look into the glass and see the water. The way it ripples and moves." Our fingers were creeping to a halt into a traditional, closed clasp. Hands had done their part, and beautifully. Now lips were yearning for a turn. "It looked so real, but it wasn't."

"Sometimes, when you believe something to be real, it becomes real."

"I used to think if you looked too deeply into the glass, you would lose yourself," I replied, my voice barely above a sigh. Anakin moved a fraction of an inch closer, his eyes fixated on my lips. His own parted while his eyelids fluttered closed.

Unaware that I was still capable of conscious thought, an irrepressible realization smoked its hazy way through my mind.

It would be one night. No one would ever have to know.

"I think it's true…" I could feel his warm breath on my mouth, in it. He was so tantalizingly close. My eyes began to shut, willfully surrendering to the inevitable. To the next dance of reunion.

At that moment, we heard a trill which belonged to no bird, no fish, no creature of land.

My eyes opened first. As if drunk, Anakin's lifted slowly and heavily. "What's that?"

Gods, I could still feel his breath on my nose, my lips, my chin. It's heat and flavor were seductive and beckoning.

But as I continued to hear the high-pitched note, I pulled away from his face by scooting mine back on the blanket. "I can't believe it." A smile spread across my lips.

Anakin looked at me with pleading eyes, as if imploring me to forget whatever was out there in the rest of the galaxy for one more stolen moment. For half a second, I considered complying. But this was something he would want to see, even if he didn't know it just yet.

"Come on," I encouraged. "Get up."

"What? Why?"

I wanted to laugh at the obvious dissatisfaction in his voice. He stayed exactly where he was on the floor as I alone rose to my feet. With a smile, I stood above him and extended an open hand down. Heaving a petulant sigh, he took it and allowed me to pull him up. At the sudden sight of Anakin's towering bare chest inches from my face, I almost forgot about the noise still calling us outside.

But now the sound had his growing attention. "I don't recognize whatever's out there. Do you know what that is?"

"I do," I grinned. "Follow me."

With that, I took a step towards the door. It was still halfway closed from when Anakin had adjusted it for our sleep, so I looked back at him pointedly. "Would you mind…"

He paused for only a moment, his eyes darting back to the floor of the hut with a lingering air of attachment. Then a gentlemanly smile forced its way to his face. "Not at all."

With another lazy wave of his fingers, the door opened.

He was close at my heels as I led us across the damp clearing. The clouds above had given way to a multitude of twinkling stars that watched as we tread on the soaked ground before hiding yet again under the trees. Leaves dripped with the aftereffects of the storm. The closer we moved to the cove, the louder the sound became.

Behind me, Anakin questioned, "What's going on?"

I kept our trajectory, mindful that my protector didn't like being kept in the dark but completely confident that this was a surprise best delivered without hint. I looked over my shoulder at him and echoed the words he'd told me in the Jendirian Valley elevator, when he'd first begun our adventure to the engineering room. "Mmm, no way. If this isn't what I think it is, you won't have to suffer disappointment of knowing what you missed out on. If it is, the surprise will be all the sweeter."

I turned my focus back to the root-filled ground in front of me, but I distinctly heard his light chuckle over my shoulder.

I saw the light from their glows just a few steps before we reached the cove. Our paces transformed into a measured creep as we navigated around the last trees, our eyes already hungry for what was before us in the water. The sight was beyond my wildest expectations.

Five creatures of similar length and build were poised in the water, their tails fluidly swaying from side to side as they gracefully moved in the wide lagoon. At our arrival, their song ended, but they did not disappear into the night as I expected them to. If anything, they swam even closer to the bank of roots and rock.

I dared to take my eyes off them for a second to guage Anakin's reaction. His grin was nearly splitting his face at the sight of the glowing scales of of pink, emerald, light blue, yellow, etc. He blinked, unsure of what to make of it all. "What are they?"

Slowly, I climbed down the uneven embankment to get nearer to the waterline. "They are óma willa," I whispered. "Fairy tale creatures come to life."

The marvel in Anakin's voice was clear. "You can say that again."

I crouched on the edge of a large rock and gazed at the sight of the beings before me.

{Everything here is magical.}

Anakin didn't know how right he'd been.

"They're very pure creatures," I explained. "Highly intelligent." I shook my head in disbelief. "I cannot say enough how rare sightings of them are. People live their entire lives in the Lake Country and never see one. To see five all together… and like this…"

Anakin made a large hop forward onto a nearby boulder that rested above the water while likewise being entrenched in it. "Careful!" I hushed. "Don't frighten them away."

However, the creatures didn't even stir at his sudden jump onto the rock; he crouched down low as I had on mine. The bright, pastel glow of the luminescent beings spotlighted their magic across the skin of his legs and hunched torso. "Óma willa," he repeated in reverence.

As if rehearsed from a memory, I extended a shaking hand out over the water. One of the óma willa broke off from the group and ventured nearer to my hovering fingers. I held my breath as its curved snout rose out of the water, coming within centimeters of my touch. "Even more beautiful than I remember."

Anakin looked up from the collection at our feet, his grin still plastered onto his face. "You've seen one before?"

"Once. I was four. No one believed me."

No, not true. Great-grandmother Leia had.

"I was grounded for a week for sneaking out of bed to go down to the villa's beach, which is where I was when I saw it. Then I was grounded another week for lying. Everyone was so sure it didn't happen that I even began to tell myself it hadn't." A delighted sigh of long-awaited vindication soared down and up my throat. I felt the urge to cry happy tears. "But it did."

Anakin suddenly went very still at my side, his right hand extended out over the water even farther than mine. Another óma willa rose up and stretched directly to nuzzle his fingers, and still he did not move. A look of wonder spread across his features. "I dreamed this."

I was caught off guard enough to take my eyes off the óma willa before us and study him instead. "What do you mean?"

"I saw you. And me. We were in a cauldron of darkness surrounded by swirling streaks of light." He left out a breathy exhale as his eyebrows reached high on his forehead. "I've seen this in a dream so many times but never knew what it was."

{You're exactly the way I remember you in my dreams.}

I came alive with new interest for his prior revelation. At the time of his unnerving remark, I'd been dumbed into awkward silence. Now, I wished I'd burdened him with a litany of questions. "You saw the island and the óma willa?"

He shook his head. "Not exactly. It was always you and I in a place with no light, except for these thin, neon streaks of blue, yellow— all the colors on their scales— moving around us at our feet. There was an element of fluidity, but I never realized it was water until now." He shook his head again. "All this time, I was dreaming this."

Whether by the sound of his voice or by his continued presence, all five of the óma willa swam closer to the rock Anakin had perched himself on. I watched in amazement as they clearly moved with the intention of being as near him as the water would allow.

They were gravitating to him like he was one of their own. "Ani," I started, my jaw dropping. "They're drawn to you."

{Very pure creatures. Highly intelligent.}

My own words from seconds ago echoed in my ears as I watched this young man from a desert planet become surrounded in a literal pool of light from Naboo's most sacred creature. This had never, ever happened in any of great-grandmother Leia's most epic stories.

Anakin laughed like a boy who had found old friends, clearly not understanding the gravity of what was happening even as he was pleased by it. "They're enchanting," he enthused. Then he shook his head again as the pads of his fingers stroked the snout of one of the óma willa. "I can't explain why, but…" He peered up at me. "Are they Force sensitive?"

I shrugged, truly at a lost. "I don't know. So little is known about them. I only know what I heard in my great-grandmother's stories."

"I think they are." Anakin smiled serenely as he made contact with one óma willa and then another. If I had a camera to record this, neither the Naboo nor Gungans would've believed the footage.

"Come here," he whispered, extending a hand my way and waving the fingers in beckoning. His eyes bounced back and forward from the óma willa to me as I carefully leaped from my perch to his, where he quickly made space for me on the low boulder. We sat there side-by-side for close to an hour, marveling and absorbing the sight of the óma willa. Several times they would branch off to come to my hand, but, for the most part, they stayed in Anakin's gravitational orbit. To circumvent this, he routinely took my palm under his own and reached them both out together as one. Our joint contact drew the óma willa like nothing else had before, and they would willingly follow our hands skimming over the surface of the water as if led by a string.

It was only when multiple yawns had escaped both our mouths that we finally laughed quietly and admitted we were equally in danger of falling face forward into the water if we didn't get sleep soon. As if knowing it was time for our departure, the óma willa made one last circle of our rock before disappearing with their light into the black depths of the lake beyond the cove.

Anakin helped me jump from our minuscule rock island back onto the proper shore of the true one. Quietly, as if waking from a dream even as we consciously slipped closer to slumber, we made our way back to the hut.

"The sun will be up soon," Anakin commented softly, his gaze aimed at the stars. "But I'm not opposed to an hour or two more of sleep before we make that swim— if that's alright with you."

I nodded, knowing he could see the action from his stroll behind me. "I think that would be wise."

As we passed through the hut, I had a momentary lapse of panic. After the experience in the cove with the óma willa and the fatigue in our bodies, the mood was wholly different than it had been when we were last in here, but that was no guarantee. I hadn't needed to fear, for Anakin collapsed on the ground in a mighty heap as if it were a bed full of Varactyl feathers. All the same, he peeked at me under eyes hooded with exhaustion as the choice of how much distance would be between us fell to me.

I settled in a spot closer than my original landing on the floor yet not as near as where we'd last been. It felt like a suitable compromise. As tired as we felt and Anakin looked, I didn't trust that the random hand or leg brush in sleep, however innocent— or not— wouldn't lead to a reignition of where we'd left things before.

I settled on to my side, though, tempting fate once again. Anakin was sprawled out on his back, but as I became still in my assumed sleeping pose, I watched as his head turned to his left and his gaze drifted over me. I could only imagine what he saw. My hair was matted to the side of my face in distressed, pressed curls. Although content, I was exhausted from the day and from the varied emotions of the night. And I was hungry again.

A long silence passed. "Padmé?" he finally asked, another yawn escaping him a second later.

"Yes?"

He rubbed his right eye, as if trying to keep himself awake. "May I say one thing?"

Nervous. Excited. Cautionary. Scared. There was a field full of things Anakin could say right now, and I held my breath as I emotionally ran the gamut in preparing for whatever he might choose.

"Alright."

His eyes drooped, then closed. The hand which had been encouraging them laid flat on his chest over his heart. After a long pause, it appeared as if he must've fallen asleep. I frowned, strangely thoroughly disappointed.

A few moments later, his left eye peeked open. "Hmm?" He looked at me like he was half-conscious.

Part of me wanted to shake him to wakefulness. Part of me said to get back in my more appropriate, original spot and leave him be.

I compromised, again. Quietly, gently, I asked, "Anakin? You want to tell me something?"

This resulted in a lazy smile. A content "Hmmm," was yet again my only answer.

I'd given up— surrendered to the pull of sleep he obviously craved— and then, through closed eyes, his lips mumbled just coherently enough for me to hear the words before the void claimed him. "You're going to be the death of me."

I blinked in surprise. Of all the possible things, I hadn't been expecting that. If I'd wanted an elaboration, it would be fruitless— I didn't have the heart to stir him. Truthfully, I wasn't sure I wanted to know what he meant.

I snuggled my head into the crook of my arm. I pushed away the abyss of sleep for a little longer yet so as not to waste this private chance to watch him sleep. This, truly, felt like the end of my day's ridiculously titled "research experiment". However, the vixen was not going to be pushed back into her cell, as had been anticipated. She had reached some common ground with her more disciplined sisters.

For something had become abundantly clear. I did not want to go back to the way things were. Yes, I was glad certain lines had not been crossed in this hut tonight. But now, in the calm and peace of my heart, I knew I did not look at Anakin and endeavor to scratch a desirous itch. There was something wonderful happening here— something that should not cease with the rising of the sun. I didn't know what the coming day would bring, but I knew that one way or another this time on Varykino would end. Hopefully, it would conclude with Obi-Wan having successfully tracked down my assailant. The comm call could come tomorrow. For all we knew, it already had, and we'd receive the message the moment we got back to the villa's beach and retrieved Anakin's belt.

{I don't want to take any more time for granted.}

His words on our private terrace caressed out from my heart and influenced up around my reasoning mind. I had feelings for Anakin, he very clearly had feelings for me, and maybe… just maybe… we should sit down and discuss what, if anything, we were going to do about it.

Optimism with the prospect made me smile with rapturous excitement. Dormé's influence took over, as I already knew the perfect dress for the conversation. The fireplace room in the villa should give us adequate privacy as well.

My plan coming together, I silently watched Anakin for a long time before finally joining him in sleep.

And there we dreamed, separate but as one... unaware that the extraordinary night when a little girl in a muddy dress saw an óma willa... was the very same hour a midwife on a distant planet put a wailing baby boy— born of the name Skywalker— into his mother's arms for the first time.

"For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here— between you, me, the tree, the rock. Everywhere..." - Yoda, Jedi Master