Saga - PT Stolen Moments and Balcony Kisses

Title: Stolen Moments and Balcony Kisses

Author: devilinthedetails

Characters: Anakin Skywalker; Padme Amidala

Genre: Romance, Mush, Family

Timeline: Between AOTC and ROTS during the Clone Wars. (Saga-PT).

Summary: Stolen moments and balcony kisses define Anakin and Padme's relationship.

Author's Note: Written for Monday Mush Challenge #8-K.IS.S.

Stolen Moments and Balcony Kisses

Padme wasn’t Force-sensitive like her husband, but she was Anakin-sensitive. To her constant sorrow, she couldn’t sense that Anakin was safe and whole—or as whole as he could be with a dead mother and a lost hand—across a galaxy, but she could feel his arrival like heat in her blood when he landed outside her apartment. In silver sandaled feet, she flew across the cool, intricate tiles that created the mosaic floor of her balcony to embrace Anakin as he climbed down from his ship.

Even in her delight at seeing him again and in one piece, she didn’t dare call out his name for fear of who might overhear it carried on the wind that tore through the canyon between buildings at this lofty height. Instead she murmured as she wrapped her arms tight as vines around him, “Anakin.”

He kissed the perfect braided coil of dark hair her handmaidens had spent a painstaking hour dutifully arranging and then kissed away the wrinkles on her forehead that only seemed to appear and disappear in his presence. His lips moved down to her mouth, and she drew him even more closely to her, his body lingering in her arms as she lingered on his lips…This was all they ever had time for, Padme thought, lingering kisses and touches…

“How long can you stay?” she whispered in a breath between kisses, folding her head into the curve between his neck and shoulder, inwardly cursing herself for asking when she knew the answer would inevitably be too short for her and her husband.

“Not long.” The heaviness in Anakin’s words echoed the heaviness in her heart. “I have to attend a briefing at the Temple in half an hour.”

A half an hour? That wasn’t enough time, her heart cried out, but she and Anakin never had enough time together. Valiantly, she said, “We’ll just have to make the most of our time together then.”

“We’ll seize every moment we have together,” he assured her, kissing her lips again, and she tasted the memory of their first kiss on a Naboo balcony. He, a desert boy from Tatooine who was so tantalizingly more than that, had told her she was soft and smooth unlike the rough, coarse sands of his homeworld. That was the shimmersilk fabric of their sweetly secret, eternally forbidden relationship, she realized: swift, stolen moments and balcony kisses.

“Thank you.” She curled her fingers into the hair he had allowed to grow too long on the battlefield. “For slipping me into the time in between your Jedi missions.”

“How could I do otherwise?” Anakin laughed, a carefree sound from a man who had seen so much death and warfare, and Padme could only hope that the memory of their swift, stolen moments together and balcony kisses could be a talisman for him when he next flew into battle on some strange, distant world so far from Coruscant and her. “I love you from one spiral arm of the galaxy to the other.”

It was a cliche line, but from Anakin’s lips it was entirely believable and moving. After all, he had almost traveled from one spiral arm of the galaxy to another in service of the Jedi and the Republic. If anyone knew the truth behind that trite line, it was her beloved Anakin.

 

Oh, what a beautiful contribution to the KISS challenge! Wonderful job painting this sweet, fleeting moment where Anakin and Padmé find time for each other amid all their respective responsibilities. As you rightly say, these two are pretty much forced to conduct their relationship in such moments; I just love the comparison of those moments to soft, fluttery shimmersilk fabric; what a beautiful way to conjure up the memory of that very first kiss of theirs. This stolen moment is one with that memory and with Anakin and Padmé themselves, and even in those spiral arms of the galaxy that will soon be separating them, they'll both be able to perceive the shimmersilk quality of their love. Gorgeous work here, and thanks so much for sharing!

 

Oh how lovely!! I really enjoyed the tone of this. The entire vignette had a shimmery, ephemeral quality to it that really defines Anakin and Padmé's relationship in a nutshell - stollen moments and balcony kisses really is spot on! But they cling to the moments they can have and let that little bit succor them when they're apart. For the time being, at least!

Beautiful work on this, as always! I enjoyed every word.

 

@Jedi_Lover Thank you so much for commenting! I'm so glad that you loved this story. You're probably right that fans will never let Anakin live down his sand line, but I'm sure Padme remembers it with fond love and amusement.

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha As always, thank you so much for your kind comments! I was trying to create a lyrical feel to this short piece so I'm so happy you felt I succeeded with that and was able to capture a romantic quality for this work. I really enjoyed being able to compose something short and sweet with the hint of impending tragedy in honor of Anakin and Padme. It was a very enjoyable Monday Mush Challenge for me, that's for sure.

@Findswoman Thanks so much for your marvelously detailed comments, and I'm so happy to hear you felt this piece was a beautiful contribution to the K.I.S.S. challenge. I thought the brief nature of the challenge made it a perfect one for exploring a sweet, fleeting moment Anakin and Padme can have together before resuming their separate lives and duties, and I'm so glad you agree. One of the more tragic aspects of Anakin and Padme's relationship in my opinion was how they were forced to conduct it in secret and in stolen moments, so it was nice for me to have an opportunity to explore one of those secret, stolen moments in this story. The shimmersilk comparison was one of my favorite parts of the story, so it makes me so pleased it resonated with you as well. Thank you again for your kind words! I really appreciate them!

@amidalachick Thank you so much for commenting! I'm so flattered that you found this to be such a beautiful and sweet moment between Anakin and Padme. Those details were some of my favorite and I really liked having the chance to establish the scene so quickly with those images, so I'm so happy they did just that for you and you loved them enough to highlight them in your comment.

@Mira_Jade Thank you so much for your sweet comment! I'm so glad you found this piece lovely and that you really enjoyed the tone. It was a fun challenge for me to try to write in a way that would reflect the shimmering, ephemeral quality of Padme and Anakin's relationship. The inspiration for this story was just thinking about how much time Anakin and Padme seemed to spend on balconies in AOTC and ROTS, and then that turned into a dominant image for their secret relationship for me somehow. You are right that at least for now they must cling to these moments of succor before tragedy strikes to tear them apart totally. Oh, and I'm so flattered you thought it was beautiful

 

@Raissa Baiard Thank you so much for your sweet comment I'm so glad that you found this to be a poignant look at Anakin and Padme's relationship because I was definitely feeling moved by the tragedy of their relationship as I wrote this piece. One of the saddest parts of their relationship is that despite being married, their time together comes down to these fleeting moments when they can be alone together before they must resume their duties and external appearances.

That was one of my favorite lines, so it brings joy to my heart to have you highlight it. I really loved the rich details of Padme's apartment on Coruscant, so I couldn't resist focusing on them a bit in this piece.

Bittersweet and wistful was exactly the tone I was going for, so I'm really flatted that you got that tone from the stolen balcony kisses, and I'm always happy to induce squeezing! Thank you again for you kind comment!