On the board of her own ship, Padme briefly opened her eyes. And together with comming back to her senses, the crushing pain and sadness spreaded through her body, weakened from exhaustion and...other things too haunting and heartbreaking she still barely could believe, yet this very place and the aching pain around her throat reminding her that it was not just a terrible nightmare. Some part of her still couldnť believe what happened. Some part of her still hoped that she could that there was still something to be done to stop everything from shattering. She lifted her hand weakly, brushing fingers lightly over her stomach, feeling the frantic movements inside, and the tiny bit of relief washed over her as she knew that at least her child was not harmed.
But it was a hollow solace, not any at all, as her and Anakin's tiny blessing's family was about to be shattered before they could even see the world for the very first time. And she knew there was nothing she could about it. She tried. She tried and she failed. And now she was too tired, too weak to try anymore. There was nothing more she could do. Right?
The world around her was clouded once again, hazy with tears and darkened with shadows creeping at the edges of her vision, expanding and spreading, swallowing all lights and shapes as her eyes closed, but this time it was not followed by relief of oblivion. Everything was now swimming in the ocean of darkness and something about it sent chills down her spine the way she couldn't comprehend even after all what just happened to her.
Despite the searing heat emitted by the rivers and lakes of molten lava out there, all that Padme could feel was cold, prickling into into her skin like icy needles, freezing her body motionless. She wanted to open her eyes but she couldn't, like her eylids werr glued to her face, shielding her sight from the outside world. In her panic, she wanted to scream but in the same moment she opened her mouth, her voice was swallowed by the endless void, silenced by touch of something which felt both like a cold hand pressed firmly on her lips, and a oily, sticky tendrils squeezing her limbs, holding her weakened body motionless and ripping through her entire being. The cold, omnious presence, ancient and chilling and demanding and wanting setting the inhuman eyes on her, ripping through he skin and tearing through her flesh.
She has no strength left to struggle against the hold of that darkness, the sharp pain spreading through her stomach and suffocating waves of chill and panic, and eventualy it all is fading away together with the last traces of her consciousness. The last thing Padme can see with her unseeing eyes before she knows no more is the beautiful and terrible face under the veil of darkness, the mouth spreaded into the chilling, terrifying, triumphant and loving smile , the several ethereal tendrils, swirling and writhing out of the shadows, their movements so inhuman, monstorous and at the same time...human and loving like gentle, motherly hands protectively, possesively, craddling two tiny human beings...
Obi-Wan could feel it, this violent, unnatural ripple in Force, the shar stab which felt like the reality itself was briefly torn appart, which set chilling down his spine even in the middle this raging inferno of lava and wasteland, but he paid it no real attention, his mind, his whole being occupied by his anger and the crushing feelings of betrayal and loss as he was fighting to the dark, violent being who took away his former padawan, who still wore Anakin's face. Maybe it was nothing than just an echoing of his own emotions he was struggling to keep under control the way he was thaught to his whole life. He paid it no mind even as he was walking (cowardly running would be more acurate description to the state his mind was in in that moment)away from the image of burned limbless body , too haunting to him to stand and watch the what remain ed of the child he raised slowly dying in agony, yet still too familiar, too... Him, to go and deliver the killing blow by himself. So, he did the only thing he was capable of on this heat shattering moment. He walked away. He... He ran away, in hollow atempt to escape something which will never stop haunting him.
When he came back toward the silvery ship which brought him to this hellish place, there was nothing more then the faintest traces of that unknown, inhuman, chilling darkness lingering on place where the still, motionless figure of Padme was laying on the verge of death, and Obi-Wan dismissed it as the remnants of the Dark Side coiled around her throat not so long ago. It had to be that, he told himself while leaving Mustafar, and he leaved it at that, dismissing the unsettling feeling as something not do well on, pushing it away to the deepest corner of his mind. There were other, more important things to turn his attention to. at least he kept telling himself that.
He didn't thought back to the feeling anymore, at least not until later, when he got reunited with master Yoda and Bail Organa on the almost abandoned medical station on Polis Masa, where the droids were now tending Padme.
Obi-Wan was in fact not much surprised by the medical droid delivering him grim news that the Naboo senator died, by the time they landed, her Force presence was practicaly already gone. But it was something else which brought the shock and confusion to him, and brought back that unsettling, chilling feeling that Obi-Wan experienced back on Mustafar.
"How about the child?" He asked, well aware now of the senator's pregnancy, and wondering if perhaps there was still a chance that at least her... Anakin's child, could survive. But to his surprise, the droid only started at Obi-Wan in visible confusion, and to his surprise, then asked.
"A child, sir? "
Obi-Wan frowned, reaching out towards the Force, sure he would not missed the presence of the child of someone like Anakin, only to find nothing. Does that mean that Anakin's child did not make it, dying with their mother? But why the droid seemed to be so confused by his question?
"Her child, the one she was expecting..." Obi-Wan clarified, only to the droid becomming seemingly even more confused, and to Obi-Wan's shock, replying.
"But sir, she had no child..."
In the depths of the known universe, on the secret place of chaos and darkness, beyond reality and nightmares, dwelled the once mortal entity from ancient times, a being of many names. The Beloved Queen of Stars. Bringer of Chaos. But most importantly, the Mother.
Yet, for many, many years, that last title no longer truly belonged to her, as despite her managing to shedding away her own mortality by committing an forbidden act to ensure that she would be able to stay with her immortal family forever, she ended up alone. Abandoned and imprisoned, locked away with nothing then loneliness and grief and madness driving her to the verge of insanity, and it only getting worse once the Father, the Son and the Daughter were vanquished from the world, the emptiness she felt even while still a prisoner, before she managed to break free only for nothing waiting her there anymore, only the eternity of being the Mother without children.
She refused that fate, she refused the galaxy exist Ing without her family in it, she couldn't bear it and so, she used the powers she should never possess to tear through fabrics of reality to change it, to find the two awakening sparks of life in mortal bodies, yet their souls echoing with faintest traces of her former children. Who where grandchildren of the Force itself. Who despite being mortal humans, had the potential becomming so much more. And they will, she will make sure of that.
She tore through fabrics of time and space, of the reality itself, to bring her new children to her side, saving them from the fate of being motherless as she could feel their mortal so called mother already fading away from the world before even her presence touched her, almost dragging the two tiny life forms now already calmly sleeping embranced and enveliped by her arms and their mind soothed by her metal voice, with her, had no outside force interfered.
She was lonely for years, the childless mother, bearer of meaningless, empty title, but now, she just found new purpose for both herself and the continuing existence of this galaxy. Now, she was the true Mother once again.
Yet there was still one thing misssing, a piece left to settle the chaotic void of their beings, weave together the lose ties and make them truly whole.
Her new children will still need their father. She could feel the deep longing in their souls even as they themselves were not aware of it yet, the same crushing emptiness she herself felt for eons after losing her previous family, dimmed and soothed only partialy by their unawareness of youth. But as they will growing, their longing will grow too, void in her souls tearing the galaxy appart eventualy if not being soothed.
Through space and time, through reality, through her newly formed connection with their once human children, she could feel the echoes of familiar and omnious, once blidingly bright presence of their father, now shackled by chains of guilt and loss and rage, the burned shell of his former glory. It won't be like that for long, she knew, the tendrils of her presence craddling the tiny, still mostly human for s of her new children. They were still too weak, too volnerable to be able to free their father from his chains. But that will change once they will grow up, shedding away more of their humanity, drinking from the power she, their Mother basked them in to awake the part of them born from the Force itself, strenghtening that part to forever protect them from the frailness of mortal life even if their humanity will never be fully erased.
The power of their children will grow. They will be able to reach for their father the same away she reached for them. They will be able to enter his dreams and make him hear their desperate calling, make him feel their longing. They will make the child of the Force realize the reality of his chains. Help him break himself free and following the calling of his flesh and blood.
And once he will join them, her family will be complete.