( act one  ⎯  prey of the dragon
/ whistles in the wind )
24 BBY ✶ 1 Era V

Sleep has never been a particularly easy task for Anakin, he eschewed it, anxiously awaiting for the day he outgrew his mortal need for slumber. He often spent his nights illicitly wandering the middle levels of Coruscant or simply lounging across the empty temple halls, anything to avoid what his mind brought once his eyes were shut; Exhaustion ate away at him until his master compelled him to go to bed.

His dreams were dismal and dreary, devoid of color and life. There, the gods that dwell between the gaps of his ribcage remind him he is not fully human (he isn't even half human, in truth. He had been minted with the purest extract of the universe's cosmic energy and his flesh had been sown into his bones by threads taken from spools of light and murk alike), dragging up memories long buried in the depths of his mind, bringing them back to life in grim torture. His visions, on the other hand, are acute and quaint, graphicly idyllic and picturesque. They were where the Force whispered and rendered his future through, as loud and vibrant as possible to attempt and distract him from its hellish true nature, his own true nature. Dreams are easy to forget, for the most part, but his visions are burned into his neurons. The only thing they had in common: He could never escape.

The sand hills are painted red and the sky is black; There is no sun nor are there any stars, but the mist, the fire and the clouds all come in dim shades of gray, amber and ochre. The sizzling dunes beneath his feet felt as cold as never ⎯ like the marble floors of the temple ⎯ but as rough as he remembers, he felt the way the faux breezes pressed in around his body from all directions and began to try and suffocate him; The air he tried to breathe in was bitter and dry and the taste of bile (or is it the metallic taste of blood?) lingered in his throat as it was forced out from his lungs.

The sound of wailing in the distance quickly caught his attention, easily recognizable: The restless pleas for help that scraped Shmi Skywalker's throat as they slowly turned into howls of pain.

"Anakin," his mother begged from afar, her voice merging into the distant sound of the pyre.

Standing still above the freezing sand dunes, Anakin couldn't move a single muscle for much that he tried; He tossed and turned to no avail, his shoulders shaking out of both force and fear, face soaked in cold sweat. It was as if the winds were the ones bounding his arms and hands, swinging him back and forth as they flowed past, through and around him. Back and forth, back and forth. Nothing he did got him closer to the blazing remains of his mother as her silhouette melted into the wooden stake she was tied to, her face was butchered and disfigured to the point it was unrecognizable, (was it thanks to the wounds or could he just not remember her features?) her steel blue eyes completely tainted by her crimson tears and her golden blonde hair soaked in ash and smoke.

(He remembers Shmi as beautiful ⎯ even covered in dirt, even dressed in rags; Despite the blackened eyes and broken jaws she would seldom walk into their hut with. Many times had he seen his mother beaten up, but injuries like these he could only witness through his visions.)

"Help me, ad'ika." She held her arm out for him. But as soon as he managed to free one of his hands from their restraints, the quicksand swallowed Shmi whole.

"No!" He exclaimed in horror, almost instinctively.

Anakin fell to his knees, grains of sand prickling his skin like shards of broken glass as he tried to reveal his mother's body hiding beneath them. His mother was gone, but the stakes remained still. Come back, come back, come back. Bitter steel rose from his entrails to his tongue, the taste of helplessness.

This isn't real, he reminded himself. It did not calm him down.

"Remember who you are, ner cyare," the memory of his mother's words withered away, aimlessly flying through the breeze as her body plummeted down to the core of the earth. "Take care of your heart." In his hanging hand lingered the metallic feeling of his father's engraved dog tags ⎯ the very last thing Shmi had put on his hands before he left Tatooine for good ⎯ and so did the phantom feeling of her last kiss on his forehead.

Obi-Wan had tried and failed to teach him to let go. "Everything dies." He says. "Everything rots and, eventually, it dies. It is the will of the Force, the way of life."

He knew, Anakin believed. About the crippling terror his young apprentice felt⎯ feels in his bones that can only be described as viscerally inhuman: It lives in him. Slithers throughout his veins and organs which from it feasts, terrifyingly slow so he can properly rue on the feeling, like the vines of darkness that cling to him relentlessly. He tries and tries and each time he fails: Every attempt to forget his poor mother can only result in worsened uneasiness, in even more lurid visions. He doesn't want to fail his master, or the order, but nor does he want to break the promise he made before leaving Tatooine behind. He can't let it go. What kind of hero would he be if he doesn't manage to save his suffering mother?

"To hold on to something, or someone, beyond their time is to pit your selfish wishes on the Force, it is the path to damnation. One that the Jedi must not walk."

Anakin wishes he could be more like his master.

Like clockwork, the dunes collapsed and he followed after Shmi, sinking beneath the sea of sand and falling into the void. Endless if it weren't for the branches of darkness that stretched to embrace him despite his struggles against them. There in the abyss, it was cold and nowhere as dead as he would rather it be. All at once, galaxies, Gods and stars are born and killed alike amongst the branches of light glimmering far away from his reach, it reminded Anakin of all the stories the children around him told of dragons dancing between the twin suns; Leaping and sliding from one to the other, gliding throughout the stars and drinking their fire until they burned out, of all the myths and legends from all across the galaxy his mother would retell. Some of the few memories of Tatooine that he cared to conserve.

In his heart molded by the Gods, a fallen dragon found a door towards its impending resurrection.

With its deer-like antlers and slender snake tail, the dark figure managed to cast off the prison in which it found itself trapped in (his heart, its mother star) for another night; Wingless and bathed in red scales that had been almost completely incinerated and drained of their color eons before, all the darkness emanating from it came from the void where its left eye was meant to be. Every time Anakin stared into its abyss he reverted to the five-year-old boy that sheepishly knelt beside his stepfather's corpse to close his eyes for the last time after his heart gave out.

"Stay away." He ordered in a creaking plea. As if it'd listen to his demands this time, as if anything was different. The dragon didn't answer but Anakin could swear he heard it laugh.

He glanced into the charred dragon's good eye. He doesn't quite like it, but it's preferable: An amber lake of ​​molten gold, smaller yet deeper than the seas of Kamino and brighter than a thousand suns, framed by the blackened veins that originated from the giant wound. His mother had told him the story a hundred thousand times, he can almost see the flaming blade of Lightbringer pierce right through it as if it were cake.

Panic flooded him as his surroundings glitched and distorted, the ear-splitting sound of the beast breaking the bones of his jaw as it attempted to swallow him whole, like thunder splitting the sky, followed right after. Ligaments and muscles mangled between itselves, twisting to the point they were barely even attached to its deformed skull. Anakin shut his eyes tightly and prayed to any god who could hear him ⎯ to any god who cared ⎯ to save him from his inevitable slaughter at the hands of his creation. His dread suddenly diluted when he remembered he is the only God that mattered.

He dared to gaze into the dragon's eyes again, a sudden wave of boldness rushing through his body, except this time it was not the void nor the pit of pyre, but his father's brown eyes, the ones that greeted him. Anakin would've gasped in horror had he had air to let go of.

"Have you forgotten me already?" But it's not his voice that speaks.

Luke's voice had been soft and kind. The voice coming out of the mouth of the mirage in front of him is rough and harsh, as if his vocal chords had gone long unused. Rotten.

(Everything Rots.)

Anakin's fear almost turns into anger but it fails to rise properly. Luke Skywalker's smile spreaded and his skin stretched in an impossible, inhuman way; His dark eyes sunk into their sockets slowly as his putrefied flesh begun to peel away from his empty shell, maggots feasting on his remains. An image beyond disturbing in the eyes of the young sun god. How dare that damned serpent use his father against him? After he had so generously housed it inside the gaps between his ribs.

"Can you hear me?" Luke's mouth didn't move.

The fire burning in and from his pith (a star, something meant to give life) does nothing to help him as he blacks out.

✴︎

"The day of isolation is near to the heart at hand," the mellow tune of the harp echoed through the Great Hall as Zeisan sang. A soft, airy and whimsical melody she had long memorized, rudely interrupted by the nearing thunder of the oncoming storm. "Night shall turn into abyss, siphoning the essence of Oriande."

The evening was frigid and the humidity of the summer air managed to seep through the walls of the Citadel. Zeisan would've shivered at the sudden breeze caressing her skin if she weren't more than accustomed to the feeling, though her shawl was of great help. She was grateful her brother-in-law had summoned her back to the capital following the summer's early arrival ⎯ despite this not being the reason behind his calling ⎯ she knew that, had she stayed in her residence at Cape Wyvern, 'the nips' would've already caught up to her.

"Declare it!" The Senator instructed without even looking up at her as he strolled across the polished floor of the lounge. "Feel the melody." His eccentricness shining through each of his movements.

The princess gritted her teeth before continuing. "Stones of ages crumble as their color fades to gray." She ended the verse almost screaming, tired of trying to intone in a way that compelled her teacher.

Managing her breath properly became increasingly difficult. Now matter how many times Sir Smythe tried to explain, She couldn't quite figure out in which ways singing would help with her public speaking skills ⎯ although it was the least boring part of her classes, she supposed.

(Nacysh constantly mocked her apparent lack of projection. He said he couldn't believe someone with a mouth as big as hers could be so scarce when it came to verbal presentation and social interactions ⎯ but that wasn't the case. She just found no diversion in giving speeches or debating with court members, and if she couldn't see the amusing side of any activity laid at her feet, Zeisan didn't see any point in bothering to put in the effort or pretend that she cared enough.)

The man shook his head in disapproval. "Louder! I want you to sing, not wail." This time he stopped to order her directly, brushing through his ginger mustache as he reflected on her deficient performance. "How can you wish for your words to be taken seriously if you can't even take advantage of the support brought to you by the music?"

Zeisan rolled her eyes, breaking her stance for a second. Her sight trailed from her brother ⎯ standing at the doorway, heedfully analyzing her rendition ⎯ to the Senator, back to the spot in the wall she had been told to look at as she sang. She settled into place, inhaling sharply as she pushed her shoulders back; Her posture perfectly firm and her gloved hands in front of her chest once again.

"Each of your words shall be understood with the utmost clarity across every corner of the lounge, across the bay ⎯ by a half-deaf senior, even." Konsus' subtle irritation was growing more and more evident, even despite his idiosyncratic attitude. But he, unlike her, was at least trying to put on a front. "Otherwise they'd be nothing but futile."

"This is nothing but futile." She mustered in annoyance, blinking slowly.

"I heard that." Konsus stopped his saunter to look at her directly. "From the top—"

"I think that will be enough practice for today, uncle."

"Lord Erykrasí," Konsus turned on his heels as soon as his nephew's voice made it through his ears. He unhesitatingly received the young Lord with an over-exaggerated bow as he waltzed further into the room, taking no offense to his interruption. "Seeing you here is the most pleasant of surprises, despite the worrisome circumstances."

"Do not dispirit yourself, Sir, I am certain I'll return to Naboo an uncle myself if the Gods so wish." Adnéat clicked his tongue, greeting the Senator with a hug as soon as he came within reach. "You wouldn't mind if I take the princess away from your graces, would you?"

"Oh Gods, of course not." Konsus chuckled. "For every minute I spend away from Her Highness, the more years of life the Mother gives me." He joked, managing to elicit a chuckle from her young niece as she eagerly stepped down from the podium and approached the men, confident yet subtle as if afraid to be sent off to chant again.

"You wound me, uncle." Zeisan placed a hand on his shoulder and the other on her heart, as if the warmth of his endearing comment made it right through her chest.

"Alright then," Konsus clapped. "Go before I regret it, and thank your brother for your liberty." His hands promptly shooed them away from the lounge, giggles rushing from their mouths before Adnéat offered his right arm and she took it without any hesitation before they began to roam across the castle.

The opportunities Zeisan had of seeing her siblings in the same room grew slimmer and slimmer as the years passed on. While Arwen and Zyairé had always lived on the edges of the world, Adnéat had left Kas Attara to study political sciences at the University of Coruscant and later looked to continue his diplomatic studies in the Mid-Rim, far beyond any Olympian lands. Sulan had moved in the temples of Avalón not long after turning fifteen, leaving her name and titles behind to devote herself to the Faith and its eighth goddess entirely, and, having lost her first child a couple of years after her wedding, Solaria had once again become vocally uninterested in whatever kind of activities Zeisan chose to waste her time on.

The company the princess had once found absurdly annoying had become one of her only sources of comfort, something she actively looked for; She had never imagined her family would become as cold and distant as were lands of Boreas. She couldn't help but think how much her mother would loathe it.

But now her family found itself almost entirely reunited in the palace once again, under the Viceroy's request. Her brother Adnéat, as always, was the only one outside of her personal court (filled with Ladies whose job it was to tend to her) who bothered to listen to her spewing complaints, and all the blathers she kept pinned in her chest until her ribs ached ⎯ about any other Sunspear initiate who had managed to successfully make her skin crawl, or of any kind of whispers she had heard hanging from the lips of knights, maids or servants when they unknowingly spoke to each other in her meddling presence.

Their chattering was found interrupted when Adnéat noticed their sister standing by one of the many balconies in the Argyum's colorful hallways, her pale hands resting on the icy marble stool as she delicately examined the late afternoon sky covered in thick black clouds and flashing lights that gathered before the forecast storm began as everyone else around them and in the capital below (widely visible from the hall's balconies) prepared for it; Dragging anything that the wind could easily carry away inside, covering the windows' glass and hiding behind their stone walls as they hoped the damage would not be awfully devastating.

The lilac fabric of her wimple was barely noticeable and it's color faint thanks to the lack of light; Her white veil, almost the same color of her hair beneath the cloth, blew in all directions thanks to the raging gusts of air breaking against her cheeks as did her pearly cotton sleeves. Adnéat approached her swiftly, noticing the way her torso was dangerously leaning over the stool as she stood on her tiptoes, her feet almost hovering above the floor and her weight completely resting on her weak arms, ready to give out any second. He took her by the shoulder and gently returned her to the ground ⎯ she didn't care to give any thought to his presence.

"Whatever are you looking out for?" Adnéat asked.

"The starman's steel will rain as the sun sets," Sulan began explaining mindlessly, almost robotic. "His upturned heart will be trapped beneath the mangled grapevine."

As she neared her siblings, the princess rested her elbows and forearms besides her sister's hands, settling into place. "Shall we invite him over for supper?" Zeisan ridiculed.

"Would you look at that," Adnéat's interruption didn't allow the tenta to give an answer to their younger sister's sarcastic comment (not like she would have anyway) as he kept striding down the hall. "The thunderbirds are gathering." He pointed out as he leaned on the marble balcony next to Sulan. He scanned their surroundings while she looked up at the sky, expectant. Adnéat's hair blowing back as the gusts of wind made a mess out of his hair, all the great crows sang and chirped in warning. "They're almost as many as there were the day you were born." The Lord recalled, glancing back at Zeisan.

She opened her mouth to speak but was promptly interrupted by shocked gasps coming from everyone around her, and by the roaring sounds of the sky. She briefly turned her face towards the hallway to see as everyone approached the balconies: A small crowd had managed to gather around them as a shooting star cut right through the black clouds ⎯ a small ship that had managed to pierce the atmosphere ⎯ everyone looking to see if they could catch a glimpse of what had somehow fallen from the sky; The fall had not been too harsh, seeming to have been more like a forced landing rather than an actual crash. Unfortunately for the pilot, though, they had landed amidst the woodvale on a sunless day, right before a typical yet notably deadly summer storm.

"What was that?" Adnéat asked under his breath as he searched through the thick plumwood trees below with nothing but his bare eyes.

Zeisan lit up as something seemed to have clicked in her mind. "Perhaps we can go see for ourselves. Don't you think so, aokēre?" She smiled widely at the thought.

"No." Sulan disproved immediately, her response almost overlapping with her question.

Zeisan flinched at her stare. She always seemed to forget about the eternal horror that had been permanently carved into her sister's face until she actually minded to acknowledge her presence. Her deep gray eyes wide open, dark circles contrasting violently with her translucent white skin, golden blood vessels peeking through. A haunting beauty. She could leave her corpse to rot for weeks and Zeisan could swear it would make no difference, perhaps the night terrors followed her because they believed her to be one of them.

She swallowed thickly, furrowing her eyebrows in disdain. "I am afraid you weren't the intended addressee of my question." Zeisan spat, turning her gaze back to her older brother in hopes that he would give the green light to her proposal. It was not her fault she had been stupid enough to get lost in the woods, she was better than that.

"You cannot let her go!" Sulan cried out. Her worries now directed at the eldest of the three, aware that her opinion didn't matter much in the eyes of the youngest.

"Calm down." Adnéat placed his hand on the tenta's bicep in an attempt to relax her increasing stress. Refusing to be moved by her hysteria. "I am afraid our sister is correct in her worries. The Ring Guard will see the matter managed properly once the storm has finished." He sternly refuted Zeisan's idea. She dropped his shoulders in obvious disappointment, his golden eyes clashing with her sister's violets in a contemptuous stare. The tenta was unbothered by it, long accustomed to Zeisan's belittling.

"Any more warning riddles?"

Sulan wrenched her arm away from her brother's feeble grip to smooth out the fabric of her white uniform. "I must go see how Her Majesty is doing." She whispered a soft voice, letting her head hang forward as she gripped her star pendant. She didn't care to answer Adnéat's question before walking away as there was no longer need for her presence in the east-wing's hall; The only thing she had cared to walk there for had already passed as she foresaw in her dreams and there were several duties and prayer sessions that needed her tending after all.

Her siblings did nothing but stare, unsurprised by her oddness, as she disappeared behind the walls. The Lord sighed loudly, his chest deflating as if he had been holding his breath for a while, freeing the stiffness that Sulan's presence brought around.

"Very well then." He let his arms hang limply at his sides before addressing the princess again. "Do not act unwisely, aodorya."

Zeisan chuckled. "When have I ever?"

✴︎

The grand staircase at the back of the palace ⎯ the one right beneath one of her bedroom windows, the one that led straight out into the woodvale ⎯ didn't bring back the best memories, but it did bring out a strange sense of comfort; Almost as if her mother's soul had been caught in the air that flowed around it, she tapped the heels of her brown leather boots against the indigo glass of the step, her impatience growing noticeable. Next to her shivering legs laid Nala, her eyes closed and her body comfortably curled up on the step despite the icy surface. Her black fur felt soft against the flames of the princess' fingers, gently brushing through it.

"Why not?" Zeisan asked, turning to look above her shoulder.

"Why not?" The boy repeated her question with loud irony, snickering at her question. "Well, maybe because we could die." He shook his arms in obviousness.

"Don't tell me you're scared," she breathed out humorously, unable to wrap her head around what seemed to bother him so much. If anything, Kavik Sankith was the definition of the wrong kind of knight: He is cunning and brave, kind and rational, no doubt about that ⎯ but he was also overly proud, pessimistic and often self-centered, qualities that weren't exactly encouraged by the senior knights in charge of his teachings. Kavik was far from being a particularly notable defender despite his continuous efforts, but he was stealthy and clever. The perfect help for whenever she looked to sneak out from the Citadel. "We're a Sunspear and a Selaehrian Knight. What's the worst thing that could happen to us?"

"A ver, you are not even a Sunspear yet, and I am barely a squire." He reminded, pacing from left to right across the small hall at the top end of the stairs. The shrieks in his voice always took a smile from Zeisan, despite the irritation and disapproval that lurked behind them. "If anything were to happen to you I'd get shipped back to Whaletail in the best of cases." And he couldn't afford that.

The sounds of binary stole Zeisan's chance to counterspeak. "See? Artoo agrees with me." Kavik pointed at the droid gliding beside him.

She turned her eyes towards the droid and furrowed her eyebrows. "Traitor." Zeisan mustered.

The wind's whistling and the sound of Kavik's boots squeaking against the floor became the only thing that could be heard around them once their discussion came to an end. Skittishly waiting for any kind of news. Lightning channeled across the silhouettes of the great crows ⎯ their flocks growing and growing in number every time someone looked towards the blackened sky, increasing everyone's uncertainty ⎯ and the calming chirping of the syllisis' solitary tunes could almost be mistaken for faint chattering as they flew across and in between the forest's branches.

"Well, I suppose you're right—" the princess was startled by her pet's sudden interruption. She raised her head sharply, something seemed to have caught her attention in the far distance. Her dark eyes were lost beyond the horizon and her pointed ears were raised high as she tried to catch any kind of unusual sound in her surroundings. "Nala?" Zeisan lowered her head, as if trying to put herself in her place, when the black-hound ran off.

The girl instantly fell onto her side, her bones cracking as she twisted her arm under the weight imposed by the rest of her body. Her dog had already reached the bottom of the stairs when she looked back up. "Nala!" without giving it a second thought, she stood up and sprinted right behind and into the woods.

"Zeisan, don't— Madre Santa..." Kavik sighed as he realized his attempts to try and stop her would be useless just before she disappeared beyond the bushes. Beside him, Artoo beeped in distress before quickly sliding down the stairwell. "Hey, wait for me!" The young squire crouched down to pick his bayard up from the white marble floor, clicking his tongue and growing angrier as it kept slipping out of his reach, and placed it in the designated part of his belt before following the princess's lead.

The woods, deep and murky, held its beauty in the hypnotic gradient that fell from the most vibrant of greens to the richest shades of violet, a source of terror or intrigue for many. Some believed that the forest was alive and that was the reason why its paths seemed to never stay the same, that it was why the vegetation whispered to the transients. Perhaps they wished to share their ancient wisdom with the passers, or perhaps they cursed those that dared setting foot among and upon their roots ⎯ or perhaps they did not speak at all and they were just trees. The apparent sound of whispering was nothing but the air crashing against the bellflowers that hung from trunks and branches, and the white crows that imitated the sounds of voices, the faint words infecting the minds of those who passed by were nothing but an illusion, as were the shifting environs.

As a child, Zeisan had wished to live in a treehouse on top of any tullian tree that could be found on the Woodvale, surrounded by a juniberry field and far away from her sisters' hassles. Her parents had been quick to deny her request, of course, living among the branches of a tree in a forest filled with predators without firm, well-structured walls to protect oneself wasn't ideal, and even if Zeisan had been sure they could build a fitting fort for her to live in ⎯ they just didn't want to, so she let it be and never asked for anything similar again.

Still, she kept dreaming of a world where, instead of going straight to the Gardens of Etheria every morning to play, she could lay on top of her personal flower field in front of the twisted tree she'd call home for as long as she wanted, without fear of staining her dresses and being scolded for it; She would be free to roam the shifting woodland and return at any hour she deemed appropriate as long as she made it back alive. And she still dreamed of this alternate reality, only now less often than she did before.

She pondered on the thought that she would have been free to make her own decisions without constantly feeling everyone's judging stare crawling on her skin, their murmurs and their attempts to convince the young princess to change her views on any matter (she was young and naive after all, was she not?). In her treehouse there was no place for political studies and pointless debate classes. It was small enough for her to ditch the need for correct intonation and projection, and most importantly, she would be alone. No Ladies, no Viceroy or Queen, telling her to smile and keep her mouth shut for her opinions were unimportant.

Hiking through the platinum mists eternally embedded in its breezes, mantles of amethyst, emerald and obsidian merging amongst themselves to cave into the lights of the crystals peeking out from the soils, were what allured unknowing pedestrians to the whispering forests, often to never escape from their wooden claws. Zeisan thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere, but Kavik didn't seem to share the sentiment at all. The squire and her droid had quickly caught up to her, but she had lost track of Nala; Kavik had been especially clear (and overly vocal) about his aversion on wandering too deep into the forest ⎯ he was not letting his displeasure at the fact that every time he tried to stick to the rules he would end up miserably failing on his attempts go unnoticed, and although bitterness still pricked on the back of his tongue, Zeisan had managed to convince him to keep quiet so that she could listen for any peculiar sounds that might indicate where her pet ended up.

"Nala!" Zeisan sang out. Her hands cupped around her mouth as a megaphone. "Nala!"

With his white, rank-less bayard made into a dagger, Kavik now lead their way in a straight line ⎯ cutting through any kind of vines, branches and leaves that crossed across the path he meant to take ⎯ to avoid getting irredeemably lost (from time to time acorns fell on his head or insects would suddenly swarm him, making him frantic and causing him to desperately changing the direction of his blows, and R2 to ridicule him). The fallen branches and dry leaves crunched under their feet as they walked through the twisted plumwood trees, accompanied by the crackling of thunder, whose intervals became slimmer and slimmer.

The cold seemed to filter easily through her buffon sleeves, though not so much through the fabric of her bust and skirt. The light end of her dress' gradient growing dirtier as she walked over the mud. She was more than used to the bad weather, there was no such thing like 'good weather' in Kas Attara after all, but thunderstorms brought memories; She had once been terrified of them, always preferring end-of-year snowstorms over summer ones. Atheia had hated the cold, she had hated the winter, often she said her twin daughters had been the only good thing to come out of one. Even if she disagreed on that last statement, Zeisan had long decided she wouldn't like the cold either.

"Listen," Kavik began once again. Zeisan repressed a sigh. "I just mean that, if I were a princess, I wouldn't be actively seeking to spend my evenings in a scary forest, looking for a dog myself, risking getting my friends into trouble and die." He complained loudly.

Zeisan raised an eyebrow. "Are you calling me odd? Need I remind you who's the one that has been flexing his muscles every time he catches his reflection on a puddle." She mocked.

Kavik wasted no time, stopping dead in his tracks and twirled on his heels to face her, his eyebrows furrowed and slight offense shining through his blues. Zeisan smirked at his reaction (the desired one), waiting with anticipation whatever snide insult would he pull from his vault of jeering remarks this time, but before he could come up with any equally taunting reply, a loud crunching noise interrupted their brief silence.

"What was that?" he squealed.

"Are you scared?"

"Yes!" His whisper might as well have been a shout.

Zeisan snorted at his response. She turned to try and find out what had been the origin of the strange sound, trusting Kavik to take charge of remembering which was the direction they should take to return home once they found Nala from that moment on.

"No!" Kavik snatched her from the shoulder before she dared to move forward. "Why not just, I don't know, let Artoo do the looking?" he said timidly, cowering behind the princess' figure, not much shorter than him.

R2, now standing before both teenagers, wheeled up. His chittering almost like laughter as he spelled out: You = Coward. Kavik grimaced sourly at the callout.

Zeisan looked around from her spot before him, trying to see if she could find an answer anywhere else. A sudden wave of dejá vù stole her curious fascination for the unknown and replaced it with grief and fear; Her heart began to throb aggressively against her ribs, reverberating on her eardrums, as the memory of the day of her mother's death replay itself inside her head. She soon noticed how dark and lonely the forest really was, and how they wouldn't hear them on the other side no matter how loud they tried to scream. Nausea settled in the back of her gorge, but she wouldn't let the trepidation spread any further. She had to be the brave one, she had to be bold. Bearing was her thing. Had they even noticed she was gone? Zeisan doubted it. She could spend days away and it wouldn't be until someone saw her again that they would remember she existed. Hopefully someone would notice this cry for help.

Papá would worry. She can't die in the forest, she can't do that to her dad. Maybe going into the forest hadn't been the best idea. Maybe Kavik had been right in his worries, she shouldn't have taken it upon herself to find Nala in this weather. She would say Sulan was too if she wasn't so upset with her for—

I found something. Artoo chirped out, excitedly approaching the pair as he rolled out from a couple of bushes.

"Is it Nala?" Zeisan asked, swallowing the uncertainty she'd never admit she had. The droid turned his head, rocking back and forth. More or less.

✴︎

The amount of adrenaline that hit Anakin every time he dared to defy his master's will was beyond addictive; Whether it was to sneak through the endless, bustling crowds encompassing the streets of the lower sectors of Coruscant to bet and partake on races that often stood on the verge of being as illegal as they were deadly, to simply slip away from the temple breathe air as fresh as it could get within the gray-tinged ethers of the big city for a calm midnight drive ⎯ doing simply anything where he could find himself away from the incessant reprimands of the council and their gazes, full of criticism and expectations prostrated upon him at all times, caviling and disapproving what seemed to be his every move; Away from being the chosen one and whatever the title implicated.

(Sometimes he felt guilty for dreaming of a life where neither an oath nor a clique of oldsters with nothing better to do than repress him, dictated the decisions he could and would make. Sometimes he felt as if the chains that made him a slave had never broken off. He quickly repudiates said feeling.)

Often were the missions his master dragged him on dull and flat. Unworthy of his time, he believed. As a boy, he had thought they would be much more lively, but the amusing missions proved to be one in a hundred. This specific time, they had done nothing much more than stare at a dead planet orbiting a dead star. Through his communicator, Obi-Wan repeated the same old lessons, litanies of reprimands and prayers about the code and the Force. The only rewarding way to regain all the adrenaline mispent on those tedious adventures? Defiance. The feeling counteracting caused in his gut, identical to that when accelerating a ship in a nosedive.

And that he did.

As soon as he was dismissed from the perished world, Anakin parted ways with his master. It had been brief, at least, no more than a sudden flash of light before it was finally gone and his dream ⎯ or rather nightmare ⎯ came into picture. Obi-Wan must have already found himself comfortable and well sheltered at the Jedi Temple. He, most likely, is already aware of his current predicament and has taken it as another lesson he must learn to, hopefully, finally relinquish his over inflated ego. Maybe he had been right. Maybe he really should have overviewed the state of the ship's engines before departure instead of bragging about his outstanding mechanical abilities, assuring he would know if his ship needed any kind of inspection.

He felt a sharp pain originating from his right arm, firm and tight, as if his arteries were on the verge of bursting out; He couldn't feel his left arm in itself apart from a faint tingling, but he could feel its ghost hanging next to his head. Anakin, still stuck in a trance, was vaguely aware of how embarrassing his situation appeared to be and how humiliated he would feel if someone were to find him like this, but he can't be bothered about it. The unbearable, sharp ringing in his ears is all he could clearly hear; Muzzy murmurs whistling along with the shrewd air flowing all around him, softly rocking him back and forth. Pressure builds up around his torso and breathing becomes increasingly difficult. Why does it feel like the winds from his dream never let him go?

Anakin felt the Force shift around him, the fabric of the universe unfolding seam by seam as if it wouldn't exist until he woke up from his unconsciousness ⎯ as if it existed for him. He inhaled and exhaled as best he could once the mind fog finally dispersed and his senses were keen again. He only asked for five seconds before getting up and composing himself; He would later try to communicate with Obi-Wan, or any Jedi Knight who would listen, and once back at the temple, whoever wanted to quarrel his ears off did so, he couldn't find it in himself to care about consequences yet, that if his comms hadn't been completely destroyed in the accident. It was routine at this point of his life, he felt like, he was fifteen and it was only normal for a teenage boy to want to live a little, the Order would end up taking away whatever fleck of freedom to do anything actually fun he had now after being knighted anyway. It wasn't as if he got in trouble that often, or ever did anything close of breaking his oath.

The Force didn't care to take into account the five-second buffer he had kindly asked to take, barely even beginning to count when he felt a gentle, almost hesitant, push at his stomach. Back and forth, back and forth. Every bone in his body splintered, stitching itself back together before he could open his eyes. His heart pounds desperately against his ribcage even though he has no idea of what is actually going on.

"Is it dead?" a whisper distracted Anakin from his little meditation session before he, again, felt a poke in his forehead. "Don't touch it! You don't know where it's been."

"Kavik, shut up."

You = Baby. The unmistakable beeping of an astromechanic.

"Alright, now you're just being rude."

Anakin could honestly say that he had never wanted a black hole to open up and swallow him whole as much as he wanted it to at that moment. Where was that dragon when you actually needed it? Two people ⎯ natives, he guessed ⎯ had found him. He planned to ignore them for a few more seconds, the ones the universe had stolen from him, but he gave up, reluctantly deciding to open his eyes before something stopped him. The touch, once gentle and timid, harshly tugged into his face and aggressively squeezed his cheeks with a grip sturdier than anything he has felt before, momentarily afraid it would actually crush his jaw.

"He has no markings." He could feel the girl's presence closer, through the Force and by her hold. "Can you hear me?" her voice, hushed and tender as to not scare him awake.

Anakin widened his eyes violently at the words. Immediately he wishes he never had.

Amber lakes of ​​molten gold, brighter than a thousand suns: The eyes of the dragon. A stifled gasp of dread, intuitively tattering from his mouth at the sigh. Anakin pushed her away however he could with his free arm. The girl, startled by his sudden reaction, let his face go, shoved him back on instinct. Anakin now swung amongst the creepers even more violently than before, making him even more aware of the gelid whiffs of air crashing against his frame.

He shrieks in distress, syllabes of half-formed words weakly spilling from his lips in mere confusion, unrecognizable. Please stay away, please stay away. He didn't know whether the words were echoing on his head or hissing from his tongue. The girl tilted her head. His nodding distress a source of entertainment for her.

His skin prickled and his whole body somehow stiffened on its own, more than what it already was and despite the already crushing pain of the tangled climbers. Anakin waited for her skull to snap like the dragon's head did in his dreams, right before diving in, but it remained perfectly in place, (he could swear he saw the universe reflecting from her eyes; Golden with life instead of yellow with fury. He liked that change, twin suns that promised glory instead of ruin) because she is real. She is a real girl and not the dragon. No human's ligaments stretched and came loose like its did and she held no wish to devour him. He hopes, at least.

"Is this heaven?" he finally asks. The girl snorted at his question.

     He tried to ignore the somnolence to properly analyze the scene. Or attempt to, at least. In front of him and upside down, stood a girl around his age. He has seen her before, but he can't remember how or when. Anakin scanned her neat attire; Her dress a muted violet, gray almost, bright gold chains hanging from her collarbone and across her chest, a white headdress (or is it some kind of veil?) falling from her pate through the length of her back, puffy auburn curls framing her face. She looked clean and starchy, distant, out of place amongst the woods and the mire. Her force presence is tough, vehement, almost suffocating, like she had chiseled and flourished from the marrow of its branches. Oddly unruly for a lady of the upper class in his opinion.

"You fell from the sky, we all saw you." A boy in blue clothes enters Anakin's blurry field of vision. Brown curls across an unrecognizable face and an equally muffled voice. "Kinda embarrassing for ya."

"What?" Anakin breathed out. All he could manage to say in his haze of stupor.

     "My dog found you..." the girl's voice begins to fade as he feels himself losing consciousness again. He could still see her mouth moving, but no sound managed to make it through his ears. Not even the incessant whispers he had been hearing ever since he became aware. "...Where do you come from?"

    Anakin torpidly watched as they spoke— argue, almost as if he wasn't hanging there. Both of them try to catch his attention; Hands waved before his eyes, fingers snapped hostilely by his head, in hopeless attempts to keep him awake (Anakin could swear the girl went as far as to slap him. Something that would've worked had he not been so far gone). His heart pounded desperately against his ribcage, lurching a little, as if punishing himself for being the cause of his growing doze, not wanting to be left in hands of strangers — or maybe wishing they wouldn't leave him alone, jammed in the ivies.

("Artoo," Kavik called out. The droid directed his attention towards the squire. "Notify the Citadel: We found a person in need of medical assistance." R2 didn't let any second slip before doing as instructed.

"Do you expect him to die?" Zeisan wondered. Her question felt aimless despite being directed at the squire.

"He'll be fine." Kavik shrugged off, uninterested.

"We cannot just leave him here."

"They'll pick him up."

"Not before the storm begins."

"What happens to him it's none of our business." Kavik spat angrily, in a tone where his statements would not be further taken as gags, struggling to keep himself from actually screaming; He knows Zeisan would not take offense from it but she is still his princess. "He's a Jedi, he should know he isn't welcome here." Zeisan wanted to oppose his beliefs, but he got ahead on his argument. "Do you want to be here when it begins to rain?" Kavik's irritation was serious this time. Evidently not a joke to him anymore if it was before.

"Well, no—"

"Good. Keep it moving." He walked towards their man-made path to head back to the palace. She didn't listen, however, feet boots beneath the earth in resistance.)

    'Can I have your name?' he couldn't stay awake enough to make sure his question left from between his lips.

     Awareness slipping away from him like sand in an hourglass, like sand between his fingers. Like the shards that nip his palms whenever he tries to rescue his mother.

✴︎

wc: 7825

🌥️ GOT NO HUMAN GRACE, YOU'RE EYES WITHOUT A FACE

🌥️ anakin: dragon pls eat and kill me rn 🙄😔 [sees zeisan's yellow eyes] NO!!!! DEMON!!!

🌥️ first official meeting AHHHH!! i hope you guys like kavik, he's very sokka coded, also he's frenemies with r2 🥺 i would like to note his name is pronounced like it's written, but in a very quick manner and with the accent focused on the 'i' :) 

and now that we're at it, here's zeisan's name pronunciation as well:
zeisan selaehra r'yvnia
(zeh-ee-sán) (seh-lah-jé-rra) (rree-yeev-nia)
it's probably super obvious but,, just to make sure

also, their names are zeisan and kavik iykyk 🤭

🌥️ the beautiful lullaby sung by zeisan in this chapter was composed by the most special person, sweetest angel ever loveysgarden for this fic! it was a very brief reference this time but there is a full song and i will literally NEVER shut up about it and i will keep using it whenever the opportunity arises — by far the best gift you could have ever given to me, this whole chapter is dedicated to you fr.

✴︎

translations:

mando'a.
"Ad'ika." : Word for 'child'. Son.
"Ner cyare." : My darling.

linarī.
"Aokēre." : Brother.
"Aodorya." : Sister (endearing).

arusian.
"A ver." : Let's see / First off (sarcastic expression).
"Madre Santa." : Holy Mother.