Saga "In the White Room." (Dark Vader/Ami, AU vignette. Happy Halloween!)

Title: In the White Room

Summary: ?I brought you back. I fixed it.?

Note: Inspired by Sylvia Plath?s poem, ?Lady Lazarus.? Excerpts from it are at the beginning and end of the story.

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They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

The walls are bare and smooth and white. In the days before you, they smelled like fresh clay and scouring sand. Now the smell of you has burrowed into the insulation and crept down to the floor. Daily, you breathe in the scent of wet leaves?the decay that has permeated through everything. No matter how they clean the room?scrubbing it floor to ceiling with soapsuds and solutions?the smell still stays in your white room like a ghost, attached not you, following behind like a veil. A white veil, of course. You are not surprised by its persistence?after all, it belongs to you, and you are its source.

You have not stopped decaying.

Every night, before you sleep, you wash your hands in the white sink and watch as the skin loosens and the bones grow stark and prominent. Anakin brings you lotion and you rub it in between your fingers, methodically, because the white room is the essence of method. It takes away a little of the smell, but it does nothing for your cordwood skin. But when he visits, he likes to take your hands and compliment you on their sleek muja smell, and if the conditions are stable enough, he kisses them, his lips firm against your palm.

You close your eyes when he kisses you. He is no more alive than you are. A heartbeat has not given him that vital connection to the rest of the galaxy. Anakin is dead, too?he just has yet to notice it. You noticed. You were quiet in your grave for weeks before he found you.

?Why?? you asked him the first time you could really speak. Your throat had grown hoarse in death, and words came stiff and disjointed from your tongue, where they once had flowed so smooth and diplomatically. ?Why did you bring me back??

?I love you, my angel,? he said simply. ?I missed you so much.? The black mask makes his eyes impossible to read, but you somehow knew that he was smiling, but that beneath the child?s grin was the cold gaze of Lord Vader. ?I had the power. I couldn?t save my mother, but I could save you??

You wanted (and still want) to tell them he had not really saved you. Death was mercy compared to what he has done. But you do not tell him this, because he loves you, and you have mercy on him, too.

Even if neither of you really knows what that word means.

The white room was what he designed for you, to be a substitute for the soft heaven that you found in death and in the Force. Everything was soft with rounded corners, the bed was a double?immense and covered with white shimmersilk and velvet. The one room is your bedroom, your refresher, and your kitchen, separated only by the lush carpeting fading away into long panels of white stone tile. You have no sitting area, no entertainment units, no connection with the galaxy beyond you. The white room is a galaxy inside itself, and what your husband does in the great black vacuum outside of it is no longer your business.

You remember a time when this was not so. You had stood outside, long ago, in your colors, and the galaxy had heard your words and listened, and you had burned fiercely against the tapestry of the Senate, determined to set fire to the empty prejudices and make a difference. You remember when you wore colors other than white?when your gowns swirled with rich vermilion, gold, cerulean, and indigo hues. Even your face had color?flushed with soft rose and tanned tawny by the sun. Now you are as white as your room?the flowers in your cheeks have wilted and died from lack of blood, and your gowns are shapeless and ivory.

Colored, flushed, and alive.

You have not known life for years, and it is close to slipping away from you now. One day you know that he will enter and find that you have not stirred, that you do not wake. He would d

 

You frighten me sometimes, Moonbeam, you really do. And it's not just the Frankenstein-esque nature of your story, or Vader's obsession to keep his wife alive. No, that's not it.

You are frightenly fantastic writer, that's what you are, and I thank you for it.

Again, I hate being repetitive, but well done.

Knight-Ander in his Sith alter-ego.

 

[face_shocked]

And that's about all I can say. Incredible, Moon. The tie-in between "Lady Lazarus" and your vignette was very skillful and quite creepy I might add. (Read that poem last year in English...Plath had a knack for imagery.)

Again: [face_shocked]

 

It's refreshing to know that this was inspired by a poem. I'd be really worried if the idea for this came entirely out of your own head! Frankly though, I am constantly amazed [face_shocked] by the quality of your writing. What words can I use to describe this - surreal? brilliant? incredibly well-done? they all fall short of the exact impression that this wonderful, wonderful piece left on me.

 

Ah, geez! That was so creepy, so psychotically beautiful. Man, I stand in the presence of another nutcase like myself!

 

....Whoa. Just... whoa...

 

Wonderfully creepy.

 

The most perfect liar is the one who never realizes that he isn?t telling the truth.

What an amazing line
Great (creepy) story for Halloween.


" I will even learn to stop people from dying."... [shudders]

 

You blew me away, Lady_Moonbeam. And I'm a very hard reader to please.

I'm gonna have to look up more of your work.

 

Beautiful, creepy, and a wonderful way to get the readers in Padme's shoes. You know what I think of this, Moon - 'tis wonderful. An excellent spinoff of Anakin's words.

 

How does one reply to that? Except... whoa.

 

*bows*

That was incredible.

 

I'm really ill at the moment, Moony, but I wanted to reply and let you know that I LOVED this piece.

If my stomach wasn't already swirling, it would have been thanks to your piece!

You have a wonderful talent that I hope you continue using!

Am

 

An utterly haunting peace. I've really got the chills!

Brilliant Such striking imagery.

 

Remember when I said I was your Moonie?

This only strengthens my resolve to remain one... you gave me the chills, Moon.I normally don't read A/A, but I knew it was you and gave it a try... wow. Your writing is beyond incredible. I loved the quote at the end- Sylvia is incredible.

 

I must admit Moon, im a bit at a loss for words this time around. Such an intriguing concept.

The creepiest thing about this, for me, actually, is that i can totally see Vader doing this to her. I dont think he knows HOW to live without her, and he's just that selfish to do this to her. He would bring her back a thousand times, allowing her no eternal rest or peace, merely because it is what he wants. She is what makes him happy.

Moon, dear, i love you.

::Windstar Out::

 

What an impressive story, Lady_Moon.

 

Ooh...this was so creepy. But great.

 

Without rest, without hope, without a prayer of eternity, just endless cycles, of returning to decaying flesh and that same flat taste of the grave, to a shrouded angel with his selfish good intentions? and to the white room.
Simply chilling.

 

I completely missed this piece of yours, Lady Moonbeam. I loved it with all its eerie dark magic (and I love that poem too!).

 

I don't know how I missed this before, but I am glad to have found it. What an eerily beautiful and haunting and creepy vignette. Perfect for Anakin, who wants to find a way to "keep people from dying." Wow -- a very unsettling and truly sad piece.

 

Wonder little dark piece, there.

 

Wow Lady_Moonbeam, this was an exceptional gothic piece, I loved it!