MESSIAH / PARIAH.

                CORUSCANT IS A chameleon city, laid out like a bed of of glimmering jewels; with climbing edifices of neon && colored transparisteel. But it’s beauty is a lie. To a young boy recently freed from slavery on a desert planet, it can look like the promised land. But it didn’t take long for Anakin to realize the that there’s the same time up scum wedged beneath the surface as Tatooine has on top.

                 Anakin is about twelve the first time Palpatine takes him to a seedy Cantina in one of the Obi-Wan && Anakin to inspire a very early cynicism towards the general population && probably a superiority complex. Anakin quickly becomes disillusioned by the rampant underground crime, but is even more alienated when faced with the foppish materialism of the topmost levels.

               However, this doesn’t stop him from exploring every inch he can get away with when Obi-Wan’s looking the other way. It starts with Anakin’s desire to upgrade many of the droids he encounters in the Temple, leading him to effectively dumpster diving for spare parts on every level of the city. He learns to appreciate the even the grimier parts of the city as he meets people like Dex or finds a merchant that’ll trade parts with him. 

               Around the time Anakin is fourteen he discovers the swoop races held on the lower levels of the city. The appeal is immediate, && he starts sneaking out to race to race a couple times a week with the plan of saving up credits to somehow send to his mother. But the credit chip he uses to store the funds has to be registered under a fake name, && he has no way of reliably getting them to his mother on an Outer Rim planet, where credits aren’t even the standard currency. This is exactly what Obi-Wan explained to him when he caught Anakin coming home from his latest swoop race. 

               Although Obi-Wan suggests he destroy the credit chip, Anakin holds onto it in hopes of one day using the money to somehow free his mother. This becomes a stillborn dream when she dies in his arms. He forgets about the credit chip hidden at the bottom of his mattress, && the little boy that thought he could save her. 

                He only begins to appreciate the city a bit more during the war, since being on-planet soon becomes synonymous with seeing Padmé as she’s forced to spend more time in the capital.

              ‘     I  HAVE   NOT   FORGOTTEN .     ’         lando’s tone was    blunt ,    any lingering charisma    MALNOURISHED ,    left to    wither   away    and    die    at the  very  back  of his throat    -    along with the words    he   daren’t   say    -    but occasionally ,  ventured out to the   tip   of his tongue ,     TEMPTING   HIM ,    ever-so  slightly .   still ,  despite the gradual building of    INTERNAL    MALICE ,     he kept to his  usual  composure ,        ‘     …  i had just brought them in as    guests ,    i did  not  know of their    REBEL    connections …    if  i  had  known ,     i   assure   you ,    my apparent  neutrality    wouldn’t    have blinded my decision to    abide   by   the   law ,    if it meant saving    MY   CITY .    ’

     ❝ I FIND IT difficult to believe you were unaware of their connections to the Rebellion with the princess of Alderaan among them. ❞ Colossus, great war engine looming dark at the center of the room. Vader did not come here to make threats, he is the threat. ❝ However, the Empire is willing to forgive your negligence in exchange for a meeting with the fugitives.❞ He cannot sense the boy among them, no strange leap in his blood to signal his proximity. But there are ways of drawing any creature out of hiding; all one requires is the right bait. 

      CORUSCANT’S BEAUTY ,  as she is wont to think ,  comes only from this distance.  a city sprawled and luminous in the golden haze of a galactic city sunset.  she is lucky ,  she tells herself ,  to find herself in the heart of the republic ;  watchful and waiting as the senate district turns slowly from the sun.  lucky to be home. 

NABOO has spoiled her for such beauty ,  though it seems unfair to compare a city so bloated it’s swallowed the planet whole to the sweeping meadows and sweet smelling air of theed.  unfair to expect so much from an ancient ,  when they have long since earned the right to this all encompassing  organ she now calls her home.  something here aches ;  a scratch at the hollows of her rib cage                    nothing to keep her here beyond duty.  cut the tether loose and she’s adrift on the breeze.

                          (    she sees across the skyline an ember of gold ,  the temple half concealed as though by fine sheets of gauze and feels her cheeks burn.  PERHAPS NOT ONLY DUTY.   )

 such silence in this solitude she can barely hear threepio as he speaks ,  plans for an evening of holopad data and flimsi circling an already absent mind. a night alone.  that too shatters faster than she can comprehend ;  moving as though tugged by some unseen force of gravity                   ANAKIN IS HERE.           

and so they collide ,  outstretched hands finding purchase in the fabric of his robes.  breathing a prayer of thanks against his chest ,  listening to his heart drum a reply in turn.  HOME.  HOME.  HOME.  

   ❛    you’re  safe.  you’re  ALRIGHT.   ❜     her own hymnal ,  drawing back to study his face like something holy.  a hand to cup his cheek.  a thumb drawn soft along the bone.  she slips into loving like a second skin ,  pouring tenderness from parted lips.  ❛    oh ,   ANI.   i’ve  been  so  ―   ❜

               HUMANS ALWAYS RETURN to the open wound. A tongue searches the gap of a missing tooth, the same way our fingers test the depth of a bruise. We seek reminders, painful motivation for our next move; their every furtive meeting rips away the scab time && distance grows over their relationship. This proximity is a raw, unwholesome thing, && it hurts far more than the initial cut. 

               To have her in his arms is only a short reprieve from the reality of both their situations. This war will take everything from them, including each other. But that is a tragedy for another time; until then, the stars hold steadfast to their cosmic secrets. Their fate a mystery only the end can see. 

     ❝ I hope I didn’t startle you. ❞ He mirrors her movements && swipes a thumb along the line of her cheek; synthleather && engine oil a heady mixture in his hands. ❝ Threepio let me in. ❞ Not that he needs the droid’s permission to enter his own wife’s home. Anakin has a way of belonging in every room he walks into, a innate sense of power that validates his presence even within enemy lines.  

               He draws her in, craning his massive height to her level so that their lips meet softly. ❝ I missed you so much. ❞ His hand draws down to cradle her neck, fingers splayed at the jaw with furtive reverence. This war has hardened him, but he’s not yet all teeth && bone. There are parts of him that still give when touched, especially by her. 

              HER KISS IS a healing thing, warm with nuclear fusion && bright as a distant metropolis. His body trails off into threads of dark matter, skin embedded with stars that congregate around the impression of her lips. He stirs as if under thaw, && wraps eternity around her like a winter cloak. These moments between them are so rare, eked out in the isolation of Wild Space, where no inhabited planet nor moon will bear the destructive nature of their love. It’s a place to hide away from all worlds, && the responsibilities that come with them. 

❝  ARE YOU AFRAID ?  ❞  AS WRAITH  :  she becomes what was not,     she appears as what was not seen before.     AS WOMAN  :   she embodies the gentle,     she encompasses the compassionate.     DEATH / LESS   —–   a goddess in repose,     removed from her station by her own will,     to see for herself what the force has called into existence.     for all her abruptness,    she brings calm.     for all her coldness,    she brings warmth.

                ❝     you’re hiding,    my dear.     what for ?    ❞

s.   :   @messianick

               HE RECOILS ON instinct, his every nerve balanced on a hair trigger. Qui-Gon Jinn is dead, but Naboo had been saved. Anakin’s aways understood the cost of triumph; even at nine years old he’s never been afforded the luxury of youthful naivety. But there is aways hope. His mother’s voice in his head again, unalike but similarly soothing as the woman’s in front of him. 

     THE JEDI ARE DEAD. They had not been saved. Obi-Wan harbours that grief like a deadweight, a vacancy somewhere near where his heart still beat. All at once his face grows pale, gaze faraway & downcast, harrowed by the recall of such an atrocity. His friends – his family – all of them were dead. He does not want to count Anakin among them, but something in his heart insinuated that he must. 

     Sidious had spread his regime like a plague throughout the galaxy. He’d had his fingers dipped in every open wound, pulled the ligaments of the war machine to spark a devastating collapse. Vulturous, he’d preyed on the weak & the strong alike. Ever since Anakin was young, Obi-Wan had hoped desperately that the brief glimpses of darkness he’d seen from his padawan would fade with time. He’d hoped that somehow he could overcome that which set him apart from the very beginning. Whereas he had hoped, foolishly, for the refusal of nature itself, Sidious had encouraged the transformation. Sidious’ reign had been the bursting of a supernova, radiation spreading in all directions; Vader was the blackhole that followed. 

&& yet… . was he? Obi-Wan does well to close his eyes & draw in steady breaths, inhaling then exhaling again in a rhyme that would quell his growing anxiety. Cut off from the Force, he could not release his feelings as he normally would. Instead he had to deal with them, focus himself traditionally. There is a long pause where he does not speak, where he cannot bear to look at the unnatural, shifting countenance of his former friend, a horror incomprehensible in its formation. Then after a time, slowly, he will raise his eyes to focus on where the original fire-red eyes lay upon the other’s visage. 

        ❝ I need you to show me. ❞  His voice is quiet, subdued, lacking clarification. He needed to see for himself the validity of Vader’s words, the honesty behind them if there was any. Trust was something he could not afford to give so freely; not when the lives of countless rebels depended on his decisions from this point onward. While it was possible to negotiate for reform, Obi-Wan could not understand to what benefit it would have to the rebel cause to turn over & expose their underbellies. Furthermore, keeping Vader exempt from the crimes committed would infuriate nearly half the galaxy. But how could they think to put him on trial, to make him pay the fines of his legacy? He is all hundred mouths & thousand eyes, less human now than the galaxy itself. When he speaks again, it is more forceful, more like himself. 

❝ If the warfare is not your doing, if you hold no stakes as you say  – somebody does. Somebody is benefitting from this war & it isn’t you & Padmé. Something tells me it is not the rebels that you need to be negotiating with. They are the ones who pay the costs of this Empire with their lives, their planets, their families, their food & everything else. You ask me to force them into sacrificing more without even realizing it.❞

He curls his lip & looks away again, off to the opposing, unmarked white wall of the cell. This is not an agreement nor is it yet a blatant refusal. ❝ The representatives that Padmé speaks to? I know nothing about. We’ve sent no one here to my knowledge. ❞

               VADER DOES NOT remember the death of the Jedi, though it was his own hand that ushered their destruction. The memory stirs under the red haze like the head of some sleeping beast; jaws beholden with static && familiar screams. He does not need to know the details of his actions to understand the measure. A purge is no kinder name for what he’d help commit. Obi-Wan’s grief may not permeate the Force, but its burden is evident upon his face. Those deaths seem so small now; a distant graveyard in comparison to the dead planets now included in his appetite. Violence, to him, has become a symptom of his presence rather than an action. 

               No death is small. It’s a sentiment shared among the slaves of Tatooine, whose bodies were more often found in a rancor’s stomach than properly buried. He remembers the rites he’d performed as a child, the drink offerings for Kahkan && the lamentations that wavered like smoke from his mother’s lungs. It’d been another boy, the same age as him at the time. He’d picked up some kind of virus from an infected sketto bite && was dead by the end of the week. He hadn’t wanted to go, thinking that he’d have to look upon the diseased body of the child. But the boy’s master had only given his mother his clothes to bury, && burnt the rest out of fear of an epidemic. 

               He’d ripped his mother’s body from cold, corpse’s hands, && buried her without rituals or rites. At the time, in the midst of his Jedi training, he’d seen the traditions as archaic, the byproduct of ignorance && oppression. Now, however, he wonders if it would have made a difference. 

               Sidious never told him what he did with dead Jedi, but the temple palace smelt of burnt flesh for months after they’d been overthrown. Even in all his infinite splendor && grotesquerie, he cannot imagine an afterlife of burning. 

     ❝ Show you... ❞ Anger rears its ugly horns in the pith of his chest, the indignation at the fact that he still has to prove himself to the mighty Kenobi. ❝ How? Tell me what I must do to prove my intentions. ❞ Always the learner, never the master, even when the very stars hang on his whim. Anything— everything he’s done was in vain. He became the most powerful Jedi in history, && was still met with suspicion && mistrust at every angle. He delivered the galaxy to Padmé, && she looked at him as if he were a stranger. He ensured her && his children’s survival at the price of the institution that raised him; && watched his new master turn on them the same way he’d turned on the Jedi. His life has been a series of victorious failures, always exceeding the expected && falling woefully out of range of the desired. 

               VADER STALLS THE quip that immediately rises to mind; I am in the business of overdoing it, a dead man’s false confidence && words. He is no longer the fair hero of the forgotten Republic, a man with a twinkle in his eye && endless possibilities at his fingertips. Instead he replies, ❝ the commands of the Empire precede a doctor’s orders. ❞ && my own wellbeing.

               The bodies of slaves on Tatooine are left are more often let to rot than offered proper burial rites. Masters don’t see much use in even giving them unmarked graves when there are so many creatures native to the planet willing to pick their bones clean. So in the place of common traditions, the slave communities on the planet began to practice their owns means of burial when a body couldn’t be recovered.

               The rites should take no longer than two days as to ensure the spirit is passed along to Kahkan, the God of Death, before it becomes rooted to the place its body died.

               Water must be collected from the earth of whoever was closest to the deceased, and stored in a jug that is preferably crafted from whatever clay forms naturally where they died. This water is stored above the mantle alongside the water offerings many slave families put out every night for Cok’han, the Father of the Desert.

               The rites start with the person closest to the deceased burying something of theirs in the sand. This usually is a scrap of clothing or preferably some tangles of their hair. After that, the people attending the rites will pass the jug between them pouring out the drink offerings to Kahkan && ask for him to guide the deceased’s spirit to the next life. Lamentations, memories, && speeches happen after this, && the gathered generally sing to soothe the spirit as it passes between worlds.

               After this the party will gather in the host’s home and share mulaff (a thin wafer made of grains).

     ❝ YOU SAY YOUR name like it’s supposed to mean something to me. ❞ A hand travels to his saberclip, fingers alight with anticipation. 

               THE BODY HITS the medical table with a sickening thud, arms left at splay by the firm grip of rigor mortis. ❝ The telescopic eye enhancement must be removed without damaging the optic nerves. ❞ Had it been otherwise Vader would have simply pulled it free with the Force.

     ❝ WHAT WAS IT like to be undercover for so long? ❞ Did you know you were mourned? Did you care?