A/N: Enjoy ꨄ︎

Takes place during the time of the Clone Wars, with callbacks to Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

°:. *₊ ° . ☆ 　

  "Anakin, duck!"

  He dropped into a crouch before her lips formed the words, a blur of blue fire that sizzled through the humid air. Followed was the stench of cauterized circuitry. The tang of ozone tainted the buds of her tongue as the elongated head of a battle droid sparked and rolled off its spindly body.

  Blaster fire rang out. Ion detonators scourged the grounds as grit and debris congested the air. As the two resumed their charge, Anakin threw up one gloved hand in a force push that shoved a dozen droids onto their backs with an audible clank!

  "Show off," she shouted with a snarky grin. They'd just barely dodged twin laser cannons off a Hyena-class bomber that speared the skies.

  "Better to save that arse than have it charred!" he shouted, catapulting himself into the air with a powerful swell of the Force. He slashed through the droideka that rolled into their midst, with a mighty sweep of the plasmic blade.

  He truly was like a god of the skies.

  Skywalker.

  "Anakin..."

  She heard the name slip past her lips like a coveted whisper as her eyes flew open. Instinctually, she was wide awake and alert, a habitual habit since the start of the Clone Wars. The Battle of Ryloth was fresh in her mind with countless lives having been lost. From the Twi'Leks, to Jedi and clone troopers; the sea of faces caused sleep to evade her once more.

  Sighing she slipped out of the too-starched sheets—the itch it brought to her skin needing to be rectified with the cleaning droids yet—and from her room.

She ventured through the mezzanine halls, the architecture meant to bring a harmonious balance to the vaulted ceilings that drew the naked eye skyward. Out of her quarters she didn't bother arranging her long hair uniformly. The long waves of copper had grown exponentially in the last several months, the ends nearly brushing her waistline now, and she couldn't bring herself to cut it. It was the one piece of vanity she had control over and coveted.

The carpeted halls muffled her bare footsteps, the northwest wing solely reserved for the privacy of Jedi signed on to longer missions such as herself. Very few Jedi remained due to the Separatists at war with the Republic. With the Battle of Geonosis simply a precursor, thousands of Jedi were spread across dozens of planetary systems.

She, herself, was to deploy for her next assigned mission in three cycles. Upon the askance of Grandmaster Yoda, Hoth was her next location.

  She veered towards a room partitioned from the public, the sectioned off quarter reserved for private use, alone. She suspected Grandmaster Yoda had been part of the decision, the place designed to restore a semblance of peace for the Jedi as a retreat aimed to help them regain a former sense of self from the heat of warfare. To reflect on their origins as peace keepers at their core.

  Dark foliage greeted her with buds of fauna as she entered the Gardens of Tranquility. A lattice work of vines stretched across the glass domed ceiling overhead, the sound of rushing water sweeping into her senses with a brackish undertone. The rumble of the falls awakened her mind and eased her nerves as she sought out the bench formed out of ancient tree roots spidered across the grounds.

  The cloying humidity clung to the slip of a nightshirt that exposed her pale, bare shoulder. Adjusting the fine linen, she leaned back into the seat while the bed of her nail found a knotted grove in the wood.

Her thoughts wandered to a certain Jedi who had been knighted after emerging victorious from a successful mission on Praesitlyn. However, he'd not come away unscathed, sporting a fresh battle scar from sparring with Count Dooku's assassin turned apprentice, Asajj Ventress.

She'd noticed his hair had grown a significant amount, the ends curling under his ears. Those luminous eyes resembling an azure kyber crystal, now bore a hardness that had been forged by the ravages of war. His torn cloak and scuffed nerf-hide boots bore the striking resemblance of the war torn General the HoloNet dubbed:

The Hero with No Fear.

  "General Skywalker..." she whispered to no one in particular. Both hands were steepled in her lap as the Force moved through her as a gentle current, like undulating waves receding against the sands, the grains of her turmoil cresting to the surface. She expelled a breath, relinquishing the pressure suffocating her ability to peer deeper into the Force.

By the day it was getting more difficult to evoke, like a single ripple of water against a still, vast pond.

  Then, she felt it....him. Like an invisible thread that brushed against her signature like liquid midnight. His presence seeped through the very thread count of her shirt and deep beneath her skin, sparking the muscles that coaxed her to sit up.

  "I could sense your presence a parsec away, Elle."

  "Well, I didn't exactly cloak my signature did I, Skywalker?"

  A slow, teasing smile graced her lips as he appeared through the dense mist. He bore a similar grin that displayed a rare playful charm that had, since, grown muted in recent months.

  "Good to still see you breathing, Skywalker."

  He was dressed down in loose pants that hid lean, hardened muscle with a legwork that was just as lethal on a training mat as it was on a battlefield. The thin tunic stretched across his broad chest outlined contours of muscle; the honed physique of a Jedi. There was something rugged yet refined in the way he carried himself, his bronze skin a quiet testament to long days spent under harsh elements, unyielding and steadfast.

"As always, Elle, you wound me with your words."

"Then I'm grateful our banter here hasn't changed."

  A deep crease formed between his brow as he got closer, leveling her with a piercing gaze. "Serelle VanGuard, is this why Grandmaster Yoda sent you back?"

  "Calm down, Skywalker." The smile dropped off her face as he sat down and raptly seized her shoulder. "It's just a flesh wound."

"A flesh wound," he retorted dryly with a deadpan look as a muscle ticked in his jaw.

  The shirts loose material slipped down her shoulder, exposing a deep lesion that extended from the edge of her collarbone down the swell of one breast. On instinct she pulled back to shield herself from his penetrating gaze. "Like I said," she added pointedly, "it's just a flesh wound bacta will mend. The healers have already signed my release papers. I'm being re-routed to Hoth in three rotations."

  A steely expression swept across his face, darkening the shadows dusted under his eyes that had witnessed cataclysmic consequences of war. Barely did his emotions recede now, a turbulent tide that was quelled beneath the surface. "It looks like they tried to kill you. I regret I wasn't there to aid you."

  "Well, I'm no damsel. I can handle myself."

  "As you've always proven. Even when you fell into that nest of Gundarks with Master Obi-Wan."

  "You never let that poor man forget it, even now."

  He laughed softly, hardly a gesture seen in recent months as a row of pearly white teeth were revealed. "He gets quite annoyed whenever I bring it up."

  "Oh, Ani," She shook her head, fiddling with a silky strand of her hair. "At least the war hasn't stolen your humor."

  He tilted his chin back, measuring her reaction. His dark brow creased as he became serious once more. "You know, you're the only one I allow to call me that."

  "What—Ani?"

  "Mhm."

   The mood instantly sobered her, the compassion evident in her voice as she leaned in closer. "Because of your mother?"

  He earnestly looked at her those broodingly, abysmal eyes outlined by the cold starlight casted above. The weight of his gaze spoke of untold sorrows and unspoken thoughts. "Not even Obi-Wan knows of what transpired that night on Tatooine," he said softly. "Yet even now, you look at me no different. I've never forgotten that, Elle."

  Hues of the effervescent green in her eyes lightened in reverent tenderness. "You were in pain and you needed someone to just care. And I did—I do. You're my best friend, Ani." Closing the gap between them she gently took hold of his flesh hand and squeezed. "It's an oath we made as younglings that nothing can break."

  "Even though that oath led to almost falling several thousand feet out of a speeder once." His lips curled in a smirk, his eyes drawn away as if reminiscing. "Still can't believe I convinced you to sneak out of the temple for an illegal underground podracing."

  "Hey," She elbowed in lightly in the ribs with an arched brow. "I was determined to prove I was no prude for this friendship, and I did."

  "Yes," he chuckled softly. "And then Obi-Wan absolutely chewed me out, while Master Plo gave you a free pass."

  She fondly recalled the Kel Dor and the unflappably calm demeanor he'd kept even when she'd been a small child. Over the years he'd level out the hot blood that ran through her Dantooine veins. Under his relentless tutelage, he'd teach her the value of every life form and the benefits of a sound mind. Alongside the Chosen One, as they synced as one on the battle fields, she'd acquire a nickname soon established across the galaxy.

  The Wings of Skywalker.

  Truly she missed her former Master and prayed often for his safety on Felucia. She thanked the Force both Plo-Koon and Anakin were alive and breathing yet. Even as a newly knighted Jedi, attachment was still a battle for her.

Squeezing his hand back in kind, her fingers traced along the rough callouses of the flesh hand where a saber was often wielded, comforted by its familiarity. Surveying the roughened skin, she followed the swallows of his palm with the pads of her finger. The cybernetic arm of his opposite while sheathed in a leather glove, still affected him on a deep, psychological level, a reluctancy in accepting the newer appendage. She'd been splicing B-1 droids back to back with Plo Koon during the Battle of Geonosis, when Anakin and Obi-Wan had taken off from the Petranaki Arena.

Anakin's left arm was later found decapitated by Count Dooku.

"This makes you no less of the Jedi, or man, you were born to be." Her words surpassed the verbal boundaries in which her lips often refrained, crossing an invisible line that had been drawn long ago.

  But she meant every word in earnest. This change of his had never bothered her. There was always a care he placed when extending his cybernetic fingers. She felt the coolness of said leather brush against her temple as his gloved fingers wove through the long tresses of her hair.

Her fingers stalled as her heart suddenly rattled against her ribcage like a rabid spice spider. Every nerve ending sparked to attention with a slow breath drawn from her lips.

Carefully, ever so delicately, she leaned into his touch as an offering to this moment of closeness. For the first time in her existence, she didn't care about the sacred vow that bound them as Jedi to the Order.

She wanted—no, she craved this.

  In truth, the war had made her starved for touch after witnessing unending devastations that had pushed to the forefront emotions she'd long buried. With each brush of death, revelations had begun to surface of just whose solid arms she longed to be in the safety of. The comfort of. She, a woman, who harbored the same wants and desires to share with the man who burned with similar passions.

  His fingers slightly trembled against the crown of her head in a hesitation swiftly tempered by the assuredness of his touch. Slipping his flesh hand from her's, he raised her hand and imparted a kiss in the center of her palm: a concession.

  That's when it dawned on her: he was reciprocating what she was feeling.

  He knows.

  Slowly her eyes raised to meet his, her lips falling ajar in astonishment.

Before she could voice her thoughts, he tilted up his chin with a slow shake of his head. "I've known," he whispered, a subtle, gravelly edge to his voice. "And you're not alone in that feeling."

  Serelle watched an array of emotions flash across those variegated shades of blue. She reached up and brushed a golden curl that had fallen across his smoothed forehead, reveling in the softness. Slowly she trailed the pad of her thumb over the chiseled angular plains of his face, to the cleft of his chin, grazing the sensuous ridges of his lips that formed a cupids bow.

  His lips parted beneath her finger as he explored the delicate, feminine softness of her features with a reverence, as if tracing the beauty of a woodland seraphim found within the wilds planets. His fingertips grazed the soft skin of her neck and over the bow of her lips he seemingly branded to memory.

The roaring falls drowned out the sound of their breaths expanding and contracting heavily with each passing second as the nerves disappeared between them. An unbridled heat surged, snaking a fiery trail through the wake of their veins.

  Desire.

  "Anakin," she whispered, her eyes filled with the same stars that mirrored the galaxy. For so long she'd buried such passions in fear of the repercussions of the dark side. But how could this be wrong? She knew she... loved him, so ardently she'd die in his place if the Force willed it. Her fierce devotion bound her to him with a raw connection that was all-consuming.

  Heat infused their hands as fingers meshed together, the warmth between them electric as if reunited in a dance at long last. Those very same hands he'd help shape into a warrior fit perfectly into his like she'd been made for him.

  His eyes bore into hers as he raised her hand to his lips, lacing a string of kisses mirrored in devotion along her soft, snow-white skin.

  Her own eyes fluttered as their signatures in the Force crackled together. The hardened muscles of his chest contracted as she placed the bed of her palm against him, her pulse quickening. It spurned her to throw one leg over his lap straddling him—one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy.

  He gasped aloud and pulled her against him, sliding a hand around her neck. As the Chosen One, his heart had always belonged to a single woman, and his gaze never wavered from her.

Her knees pressed on either side of him, her long locks toppling over her shoulders and shielding them from the outside world.

  Anakin's gaze was intense and just as unguarded, allowing her a glimpse of his deepest desires through a window of his very mind.

  Moments of their lives played out before her eyes in a snapshot of memories. It was here she saw the true depth of his longing through his eyes...

   She was his beacon of light in the darkness.

  Her hair was like flame and her eyes blazed an emerald fire with an undying fealty to duty and justice. Wielding a plasmic blade that bled of compassion and an unrequited drive to serve others, she was truly magnificent in that moment. Standing atop a crimson hill with the 501st beside him underneath blood-red skies streaked with gold. He'd never seen her more radiant than in that moment as the wind assailed her, surrounded by their victorious exploits from battle.

His warrior.

She was no longer a young girl with a porcelain heart, but a fiery woman of unfettered passion and he was...

  In love... with her...

  She was enraptured, the tears threatening to spill over as she surfaced back to the present.

  Right as he brought his lips to her own.

The kiss opened like slow blooming flora, stealing all sense of the world from around them. It stoked the flames of desire that burned her from the inside out and pulsed through her veins.

  There's not been a moment where I don't see the stars, and think of your face, Serelle. How I've waited for you...

The words he spoke to her felt as achingly raw as her own.

  It blazed in his touch, in the echo of his heart as it beat fervidly with the strength in his hands molding to her skin.

  Oh, Anakin, I pray to the stars to keep you breathing I—

Love you, they both admitted in unison.

"It's your love that saves me," he whispered against her lips. He parted her's with his own once more for another long, sensual kiss that tingled down into her core, shallowing her breaths. "Only you..."

She trembled, the tension between them palpable with his hands possessively exploring the contours of her body, while a slow heat burrowed low in her stomach and flushed her skin. They caressed along the arch of her hips, trailing down the curve of her backside as a low groan resonated from the hollow of his throat.

A cool breath brushed against her ear, his teeth grazing the shell as he picked her up and whispered. "Be my wings..."

  The wings of he, Skywalker.

  Lowering her gently into the soft grass, his hooded eyes gazed into her's with wetted lips, soaking in every detail like a man starved. Heat lanced through her body as she willingly stepped into the flames with him, a ravenous hunger taking hold. Lips paved a trail of surrender and submission, formed in the wanton throes branded in their tongues as an all consuming pleasure engulfed them —until the coming dawn...