Title: A Rose in the Deeps

Author: devilinthedetails

Timeframe: Saga-PT.

Genre: Romance; Drama; Angst.

Characters: Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.

Summary: Anakin and Padme in the moonlight of their love.

Author's Note: Written for the lovely Romantic Quotes Roulette hosted by @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha. Thanks to @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha for the inspiration for this story that would never have gotten written otherwise.

A Rose in the Deeps

“With the earth and the sky and the water,
remade, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms,
a rose in the deeps of my heart.”—
“The Rose in the Deeps of His Heart,”
William Butler Yeats

After months away at war, Anakin had returned home. Home wasn’t the rough, unforgiving sands of Tatooine where his mother had died and been buried under a simple headstone on the Lars homestead. Home wasn’t the Jedi Temple with its cool lake, its serene meditation chambers, its graceful arches and statues of long-dead Masters eternally alive in the Force, and the unending musical harmony of the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Home was none of those places because in none of those places did Anakin’s ever-wandering soul find rest.

The only place that his soul found rest was in the enfolding, warmth of his wife’s arms, and that meant Padme was his home no matter how the Jedi stubbornly refused to accept their love and the undeniable truth that they should be together always.

They stood together now on the garden terrace of her Coruscant quarters. When they lifted their eyes to the night sky, the tightly clustered constellations of the Core were dimmed by the bright, ever flashing holosigns that dominated Coruscant’s skyline, advertising an almost unfathomable variety of goods and services for the myriad species that inhabited the Republic’s thronging capital world.

Even the silvery light cast by Coruscant’s quartet of moons—one waxing to full, one approaching a half moon, one a gleaming crescent, and the smallest waning toward the dark emptiness of a new moon when its light would be invisible to the unaided human eye.

Staring up at the stars and moons might have sounded romantic, Anakin thought, until it was understood that he and his wife could only be outside together under the anonymous cloak of darkness lest their forbidden love be discovered and exposed for the galaxy’s harsh judgment.

Tired of their forbidden love, raging against the Jedi who had prohibited it and doomed them to this fate of secrecy, shadows, and lies, Anakin lifted his fingers toward the sky as if he could call down the stars and moons as easily as he had once summoned fruit to him to charm her as they dined together on Naboo. As if ripping down the stars and yanking the moons out of orbit would change the Jedi and the galaxy so they could be together forever without shame.

“I love you.” Anakin pressed fervid lips to the soft nape of Padme’s neck, feeling her pulse beat against his mouth. “I would be with you in the open daylight and not just the dark.”

“You can’t.” He felt the pinpricks of fear rise on Padme’s tender skin. She was always so scared of his intensity when he talked of defying the Jedi and the restrictions they would impose on the untamable human heart. “The Jedi would expel you from the Order, and you need to be in the Jedi Order to fulfill your destiny of service to the galaxy.”

His destiny as Chosen One. Another form of slavery all the more painful because of the illusion that he was free to determine his own fate. Another heavy burden, a chain that bound him that he would gladly break to attain true freedom—the freedom to be with the woman he loved whenever his heart desired.

“I love you nobly as a Jedi should strive for peace and justice.” Anakin kissed his wife’s neck as he counted the ways he loved her beyond reason and rules. “I love you purely and humbly as a Jedi should turn from praise. I love you with the burning passion of my childhood faith that I could win a Podrace and escape the slavery of Tatooine. I love you with the love I though I lost when my mother died. I would remake the Jedi—remake the galaxy—for you because I love you.”

He would make her see how much he loved he and how he couldn’t control that love that rose from the depths of his being, overwhelming him like a river overflowing its banks. He would make the Jedi see that he loved her with a love that couldn’t be forbidden or constrained. He would make the entire galaxy understand and tremble with the knowledge that his love for her would not be confined to shadows or consigned to shameful secrecy. He would shake the very Core of the galaxy if he had to just so that he could be with her without prohibition or condemnation.

“You can’t remake the galaxy or the Jedi for love of me.” Padme shook her head, hair shining silver in the starlight and skin sparkling like diamonds in the pale moonlight. “I don’t even want you to try.”

“Why?” Anakin’s mouth went desert dry at her words, and it was a challenge to choke out this desperate, aching question. Was this her way of saying that she no longer loved him or that the intensity of her love had never rivaled his?

“Because my love for you is all the more beautiful because it grows in the darkness where no one but you can see it.” Padme stroked at the petals of roses white as moonlight twining like veins up her terrace wall. “Do you know what this flower is, Anakin?”

“A rose.” Anakin frowned, nonplussed by her sudden focus on flowers.

“A special kind of rose.” Padme continued to pet the petals with a gentle touch Anakin couldn’t help but envy. “A Naboo moonrose. One that only unfurls at night when the moonlight hits it. One that absorbs the moonlight, reflecting and responding to it instinctually. My love for you is like that, Anakin. You are my moonlight, and I respond to you. I had moonroses planted on this terrace because I wanted to be reminded of you and our love when you were away at war. My love for you is a rose in the deeps of my heart.”

She had echoed the sentiments he felt for her, and the fist squeezing his heart relaxed, opening like a moonrose at night.

 

Exquisite imagery/symbolism of roses blooming and Anakin's point of view is poignant and intense. A very compelling, lovely response to the Quotes challenge.

 

Definitely felt like I was back in the romantic bits of the Prequels.

 

@GregMcP Thank you so much for commenting! I was trying to channel some of that PT romantic tone, so I'm glad that you felt like you were back in the romantic moments of the PT

 

@Adalia-Durron Thank you so much for commenting! The quote that inspired this piece was so beautiful that I really wanted to try to create something beautiful in response. I'm so happy that you felt I succeeded with that

 

Gorgeous response to a beautiful challenge!

I just love this description. You do an amazing job of setting the scene, as always, but I also love how it's this tranquil little spot for them in the midst of all the bustle and commercialism of Coruscant.

Love how passionate Anakin is here, and I can totally hear him saying this. All of the dialogue for both Anakin and Padmé in this piece really sounds like them!

And this is just beautiful! I love how you used the quote, and I love the image and the idea of Padmé planting the moonroses to remind her of Anakin.

Wonderful work!

 

“Because my love for you is all the more beautiful because it grows in the darkness where no one but you can see it.”

And this is one of the many reasons why I love your fanfics. Because they contain gems like this.

 

@amidalachick As always, thank you so much for commenting, and apologies for the delayed response! I'm so flattered that you found this to be such a gorgeous response to the beautiful quote in the challenge. It was delightful to be able to come up with a story inspired by such a lovely romantic quote.

I'm so happy you loved that description because I really liked being able to describe Coruscant its nighttime sky in such rich detail. I always felt like the PT has such vivid world building so it is a pleasure to be able to explore that world building in my fan fiction. And I enjoyed teasing out that contrast between the natural beauty of Coruscant's night stars and the tranquility in Padme's terrace garden with the overwhelming commercialism and bustle of Coruscant that you describe. Peace amidst the chaos, the garden as a refuge in a sense.

Anakin's passion is always one of the most powerful things about writing him for me, and I'm so happy that passion came across for you here and that you could totally picture him saying the part that you quoted and that you found the dialogue for both Anakin and Padme rang so true in this story.

Once again, thank you so much for commenting, and I'm so glad that you loved how I used the quote and the idea and imagery of Padme planting moon roses to remind herself of Anakin, which I thought was really romantic

@AzureAngel2 As always, thank you so much for commenting! I'm so flattered that you continue to love my fanfics and that you thought the quoted line was a gem because it was one of my favorite lines in this story. There's a sort of romanticism about a love being all the more beautiful because it grows in the darkness