Dreams

Dreams

Author's note: A huge thank you to Cariel for beta reading this for me =D

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She only came to him in dreams; beautiful as a goddess, wise as a sage, but impish in a way only he could appreciate. Anakin didn’t know who she was, yet in his heart, he knew he did. She never spoke her name and he never asked. It was as though a part of him feared if he did, the reverie of their time together would be ruined and she would never return to him.

“Why do you look to the past when an entire future awaits you?” the nameless beauty whispered through the breeze that brushed past his ear.

He didn’t need to be sensitive to the Force to know when she was near for the soft scent of water flowers always alerted him to her presence. It didn’t matter the setting so long as he could smell Naceae the Sith Lord knew the mysterious beauty was near.

Darth Vader’s fingers nervously fiddled with his utility belt as he swallowed. The soft scent of water flowers was strong now, marking she was very near. Yet as he took in his surroundings—beautiful, lush trees overlooking a well-worn path—Anakin couldn’t see her.

“I’m scared,” he admitted quietly to the trees that seemed to watch him.

They rustled in reply, not in jest, but disappointment.

“It’s time to let go,” her voice whispered on the wind while echoing in his heart.

“I can’t. She was everything to me,” Anakin pleaded.

Everything, yet nothing, His heart betrayed him, causing his thoughts to scatter like the wind.

Lord Vader wished now more than ever that the mysterious goddess would join his side. At least he could stare into her amber eyes and find the strength he needed.

His surroundings began to shift and change, leaving Anakin staring over the edge of a towering cliff. Ahead, he saw nothing but mist, far below revealed little as well.

Vader knew what had to be done yet he was loathed to do it. His black leather boots remained right at the edge of the cliff, even his body longed to do it. The wind picked up causing his black cape to twist and turn in its desire to send him careening over the edge into the nothingness below.

“You know this has to be done,” she whispered again her voice so low and gentle, filled with all the emotions he had longed Padmé to feel for him. But she was not Padmé.

“I can’t…I won’t,” Anakin said softly, feeling the familiar knot of despair and sorrow forming in his throat. It wasn’t the first time he found himself here staring into the abyss of the unknown, that haunted him since Mustafar.

This was the first time he found himself feeling truly tempted to just take those final steps over the edge. It was also the first time Anakin realized his heart was begging for this to happen. But he was afraid of what it could mean, of what would happen if he were to finally allow Padmé’s memory to fade from his mind…if he were to just let her go and allow himself to move on.

It had been a few years, had it not? Two long and lonely, desperate years filled with shameful attempts to mask his need to relive the past through empty lovers. He saw them as hollow images of his angel. They saw him as nothing more than a pathetic, broken, man with the perverse fantasy that involved sleeping with the former Naboo queen. No one knew that the woman he imagined they were had at one time been his wife.

It didn’t matter that they all died by his hand some sooner than others, depending on how long it took for the shame to consume his thoughts and the self-loathing to eat away the last of his interest in them. The cycle would end and Anakin would swear to himself he wouldn’t do it again until his eyes set upon yet another beauty who bore even a faint semblance to the petite queen-turned-senator. He would court them, woo them with gifts, fanciful dinners and gatherings encouraging them to mimic and emulate the former senator until lust overrode the self-consciousness over his scarred appearance.

He felt calloused fingers slipping into his hands and immediately his thoughts returned to the present. Yet when he instinctively glanced down, Anakin found there was no hand resting in his own. It still gave him strength he needed and shyly his eyes turned to the mists ahead.

“I’m scared—I’m going to drown,” he murmured, imagining that the strange beauty was by his side, yet knowing she was, for her unseen fingers still remained in his hand. Falling never frightened him; it was far too familiar in many ways for Vader to fear it anymore. Drowning was another matter entirely and he was certain that beyond the mists was a raging ocean waiting to consume him.