Uhmā¦. My hands slippedā¦ and fell into a pile of seriousā¦. ermā¦ Iāll see myself out.
Anakin knew he was different when his mother couldnāt hear the music. Warm, beautiful, and soft, it soothed him when she wasnāt there to kiss his injuries or protect him from Wattoās brutish nature. The last notes of his song faded away like dying notes of an old lullabye.
He asks her, once, what her music sounds like and she looks at him funny.
āI donāt have any music, Ani. What are you talking about?ā his mother squats down in front of him and feels his forehead for a fever and when she finds none, that seems to worry her more. āWhen do you hear this music?ā
Anakin shrugs, his lower lip jutting out, now worried he had scared his mother. He does that sometimes, when he loses his temper or gets too uspet about one of his friends being sold away from their parents. Once he got so upset he gave himself a bloody nose and his mother had to take him to a doctor.
Watto hadnāt liked that.
āAni?ā His motherās voice calls him back to the present. āWhen do you hear this music?ā
āYou donāt hear it?ā Anakin peeks up through his bangs and he knew from the way his motherās lips were pursed and her brow furrowed that not only did she not hear the music but the fact that he could hear the music was different, strange. Like the light he could feel when he closed his eyes and looked out on the world with his hidden eyes.
Anakin Skywalker decides that day to never ever tell anyone about the music.
Anakin knew Padme was special when he heard new music for the first time in his life. It was beautiful and haunting, rising and falling like the shifting dunes out in the sea. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up and gives him goosebumps running down his arms and legs.
He loves the sound of her music, even the scary low parts with strange horns. He clings to the bright strings and the flourish of an instrument he canāt quite place. The dissonance is beautiful, a rich, complex harmony he isnāt quite old enough to understand but he loves all the same.
When she turns to smile at him, to speak to him, all he can hear are the sweet, clear notes of her voice, mixed in with the trill of that same strange stringed instrument. Maybe it was the sounds that the angels of Iego made. She was certainly beautiful enough to be an angel.
Anakin decides there and then that he was going to fall in love with Padme. How could he not? When her music was so wonderful?
She said she wasnāt, but Anakin knew better.
He could hear the music of her soul and it told him the truth. Padme was an angel, his angel.
Yes, he would definitely fall in love with her.
