here's to all that we kissed | Glowfic Constellation

the-sunny-side

By the judgment of the High Council, Anakin Skywalker, padawan to Master Elesse Vendar, is ready to seriously pursue her Trials of Knighthood. She's young for it, especially by modern standards - barely eighteen - but she's made remarkable progress under Elesse's tutelage, they hold, and she's already passed the Trials of Courage, Skill, and Insight through the course of her apprenticeship. She'd passed Courage and Skill at sixteen in successfully holding off a Sith Lord until her Master could join her in the fight, and she passed the Trial of Insight throughout the year after, as she pursued treatment for her own psychosis, recognizing the tricks her own mind played on her as illusions.

(There'd been a debate on if this counted for the Trial of Spirit, but - not quite, the Council believed, and none of them were privy to the true challenges Anakin had faced alongside Elesse in that year.)

(None of them were privy to the full details of her undercover mission with Elesse, the one that ended in her crossing lightsabers with a Sith. Certainly not to the ways Elesse tortured Anakin, to maintain and further their cover - that would count for the Trial of Flesh several times over, though Anakin doesn't exactly regret having an excuse to demonstrate her pain tolerance again.)

The Trials don't have to be back to back - they rarely are, especially when intentionally administered - and by tradition, she should pass the Trial of Flesh before undergoing the Trial of Spirit.

There's traditional methods, which one chosen idiosyncratic to the padawan, the Master, and the whims of current fads. But the Trial of Flesh always involves overcoming and pushing through great hardship - tremendous pain, sacrifice, losses that sear one to the bone. (Sometimes literally. 'Interrogation techniques' are a popular fallback, and the worst of those are, well. Some would find the description of having their flesh slowly burned away gruesome. Anakin had needed to excuse herself from her and Elesse's common room after reading about it.)

And so, to her Elesse, tone light and teasing and trying not to sound too desperately breathy -

"The real problem for this Trial might be finding a pain that's a genuine hardship for me to bear." Then, more seriously: "I'd - like this to be something you do, though, especially if we'll need to challenge my limits."

(That's what Trials are supposed to do. Life isn't kind, and doesn't care much for safewords.)

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graceless

(Anakin Skywalker was born in a nexus of the Force, a chaotic tangle of energy, unexplained, vague rumors chasing her that she was the daughter of a darksider, but no father was ever found - )

Elesse Vendar dies in the galestorm around her, and when her enemy catches up - captures her - Anakin Skywalker lets it rip her mind apart rather than give up her secrets.

the-sunny-side

She wants to exist, too.

But Anakin isn't - won't be, can't be - a darksider, and she can't demand -

But she can redirect, and she can curl up in a bubble, the world shattering around her, and she can escape -

graceless

And from the ashes of Anakin Skywalker rises a new life - a new existence -

Her, and not her. A reflection, but still a fulfillment of that fundamental demand.

graceless

And in the stillness left in the wake of the storm -

The next vision is a cold room, undecorated, and a black suit, and a hiss of air through a machine, and a hollowed, dark reflection of herself.

The her is kneeling - almost meditating, except for how her mind circles around its emptiness rather than doing anything meditation should -

the-sunny-side

And Anakin knows this vision -

the-sunny-side

"What happened?" she asks, a lifetime ago.

graceless

"Everything of worth died, by my own hand," she says, voice flat.

(There's something stirring in that black hole in her center. Something dangerous lifting its head.)

(Anakin didn't recognize it at the time, but she does now.)

(It's hope.)

the-sunny-side

Anakin isn't that girl anymore, and she stands at the back of the room, watching and crying silently.

the-sunny-side

"I'm sorry."

She echoes with a painful empathy.

graceless