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Fire burns along the horizon as the sun waits for its resurrection in the morning. The light of the good moon shimmers on the water’s surface, and the stars come out. As the twilight hours wane, the lilac sky turns indigo. Far below, on the world’s surface, two girls hide away.
The poet’s heart wilts in her chest, thundering under the weight of the cosmos. She hums to herself as she drifts through the house, far away from the rest of civilisation. She sings the lullaby-like song designed by the people on her homeplanet and feels an aura of tranquillity fall over much of the galaxy. The calm before the storm, she thinks to herself. Unease settles in her bones as she further tries to delay the inevitable. And yet, you cannot defy the stars.
Her old desk welcomes her like a friend as she takes her seat. The poet brushes her fingers across the old wood, feeling for the indentations where she and her lover carved their initials long ago. Then she finds her old journal, handmade with leather and flimsi (everyone else in the galaxy writes with styluses onto datapads — flimsi is more rare, but it feels real, personal). She turns to a new page, cream and soft to touch, and dips her old quill into her pot of emerald ink before spilling words onto the parchment. Heartfelt words always came easy to her. When her words are dry on the page, the moment frozen in time, she returns her writing equipment to their places and leaves the bedroom.
The rest of the house is still. Old floorboards creak under her step. Outside, her lover sits on their old cobbled stone wall. She sips from a steaming cup of caf; her fingers stained the colours of her most recent project. And the poet smiles at her artist. Upon seeing her lover, the artist rises and rushes over. Their arms intertwine, and their foreheads rest together. The poet presses her lips against the white Togrutan markings above her lover’s eyes. The artist drifts her fingers across the poet’s onyx hair, dragged back into a pretty braided crown.
Stars burst in the poet’s veins; she was born for love and war, for the billions of stars in the sky, to be the moon the oceans rise towards — to be a conduit for balance in the galaxy. The artist is a being of light, the sun incarnate; the Force constructed her itself. Darkness rises, and the light meets it.
The artist is always the sun, the earth, the embodiment of all that is good in the galaxy. She is the sky on a cloudless day. Even after their lonely years, she still wears her lightsaber on her hip with pride — the Jedi Order left her behind, but she remains one of their best students. Always a saint. She still lives in service of their Code, executing it the way a good Jedi should. The same is not for the poet.
The poet never belongs in the same place as her lover. She carries a lightsaber with a violet blade, but no Jedi teachings showed her how to make it. The poet is the moon — held in the light, anchored, by her sun. If her lover is the sky, she is the storm. (Her shadow could devour the universe if she allowed it to.) And inside the storm lives the fire.
After war has echoed through the galaxy for so long, it is finally time for change. And the poet will be the one to bring it. Retribution. Reckoning. She wants to hold justice in her hands. Whatever it takes. Only justice will bring peace; bring balance.
Her artist’s words bring her back into the moment. “Come home to me, my love,” she pleads.
The poet cups her lover’s face in her hands, wishing they could stay like this forever. But the longer she watches her artist’s sorrowful eyes, the readier she becomes. She doesn’t know how this will end — however she knows she would sacrifice her life a thousand times for her lover. It didn’t matter. As long as she succeeded, everything about to happen would be worthwhile.
“I promise,” the poet recites. Their Force bond has always been unlike any other, so she shifts to use the Force to communicate without moving her lips. Even if it is not in this lifetime:I will always find you.
✶
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
“defy the stars” is from romeo & juliet. “i will always find you” is inspired by the chaos of stars. and the poet is based on a certain sapphic poet irl!!
this is still one of my fave things i’ve ever written 🥹 it hints at many things that will be important later.
