okay so, concept: inkheart mermaid au
in this au:
- instead of a secret reading ability, the plot is that mo has a secret ability to change into a merman that he never tells meggie.
- mo is a consulting aquarist (person who works with aquariums) and because of the nature of his job, he primarily serves clients who live on the coast, both private aquarium facilities themselves and rich ppl who have set up their own huge aquariums intheir houses. him and meggie travel around a lot when mo gets hired to work for this place here or that person there, as he monitors different environments and equipment for them. mo and meggie never really settle in one place for long because of it, but meggie doesn’t mind because she loves the ocean anyway, and spends her free time drawing and playing on the beach.
- despite where his job takes him, mo refuses to step foot into the water, no matter how hard meggie begs him to join her. he says she knows he just doesn’t like to swim and redirects all her questioning. due to that and the fact he also doesn’t talk about her mother, meggie has always assumed there was some sort of accident that made him afraid.
- (she’s right, but not in the way she thinks)
- dustfinger is a stranded former merman who hates the land and wishes desperately he could go back home to his life underwater.
- he got turned from a merman when, one night, mo inadvertantly discovered his ability to change forms while out on the ocean–and also accidentally transformed several other merpeople nearby into humans.
- in the original story mo tries to brush him off because he’s wary of dustfinger’s connection to capricorn and his men, but in this version, because of the nature of the lifechanging incident, dustfinger doesn’t have to stick around capricorn and basta and their henchmen to feel close to his home. instead, he hangs around the beach and travels from coast to coast, and it’s only when the longing becomes too unbearable that he returns to capricorn’s village. (he never stays long.) because he’s so often around the same areas mo frequents because of his job, they bump into each other more often, and because dustfinger never stays in cahoots with capricorn and co. mo never really distrusts him or attempts to avoid him.
- (this also means they’re more like friends than canon. they’re never really close because dustfinger clings to his last hope that mo, somewhere inside him, can turn him back one day, and therefore can never really help it but to ask when they’ve been in the same town for too long and mo can’t stand the question and the guilt it brings and always books it before it gets far enough for that.)
- (also that also means meggie remembers dustfinger in this version and, even more as she’s gotten older, has had several conversations with him. she knows he’s an old “friend” of her dad’s, but she senses the weird tension between them and know something is up. she kind of sees him as a weird but sad and distant, especially since she doesn’t have a lot of relations to compare him to.)
- unlike dustfinger, basta and capricorn bastly prefer their new life on land to the one before, and carve out their own little piece of earth to rule and terrorize, just like in canon.
- instead of a tragic incident while mo was readin out loud, resa and mo are out on the ocean driving their boat around and having fun, when they decide to take a swim and mo suddenly discovers his ability to transform, and accidentally transforms the vaguely nearby basta, dustfinger, and capricorn into humans. none of them are prepared to try to swim as humans, and begin struggling in the water and drowning, and in shock, merman!mo ends up rescuing them and throwing them onboard to save them. sometime between the last retrieval and them learning how to stop coughing, mo changes back into a human. (he stillto this day has no idea how he did it.)
- basta and capricorn are both convinced mo is some sort of sorceror-shapeshifter and demand to be changed back when they regain their breath. he tries but fails and stutters out that he can’t, and enraged, they try to take control of the boat and somehow in a panic mo drives them back into some safety inflatable boat kept on board. (dustfinger ends up staying on board with mo and baby meggie, because he wasn’t being threatening.)
- sometimes during the fear and hysteria mo lost track of resa and assumes she fell overboard. he freaks out and tries to look for her for a little bit (with no help from dustfinger) and then realizes he’s having an anxiety attack on a boat in the middle of the ocean with his 2 year old and some pale, wet, naked stranger who’s supposed to be a merman or something while he has freaky changing powers. choosing priorities, he’s collects himself and gets meggie to safety inland and makes an emergency call for a babysitter and then goes back out for hours to try and find resa. he comes back the next day, and the next after that. he never finds her and neither do the local coast guards he calls. mo thinks she was lost in the scuffle and drowned at sea and grieves.
- (she didn’t.)
- mo accidentally transformed her too and, being scared and in shock and also a mermaid, was not able to get back to the surface and find mo. she, of course, ends up living in the “inkworld” in the ocean with other merpeople.
- the inkworld isn’t actually a fictional world here, it’s an underwater culture that exists deep under the surface far out of reach of humans, and in it are merpeople.
- inkspell and inkdeath both end up taking place in the merpeople society and everything is mostly the same, the same characters and problems, except adapted to an underwater fantasy story instead of a medieval european fantasy one.
- fenoglio is a human researcher who stumbled upon the mermaid society years ago and has long given up trying to make people believe his “crazy conspiracy theories,” and has gone back to his normal life after being laughed out of academia. (that’s how meggie and mo meet him–mo has researched his condition/abilities before and found fenoglio’s research and tracks down the man who wrote the articles he read.)
- instead of being called “silvertongue,” mo earns a much more mundane nickname from capricorn and his like: they just call him a warlock, sorceror, or just “shapeshifter.” dustfinger calls him the latter at first, and slowly ends up calling (because mo has a degree in marine biology) “doctor folchart.”
- dustfinger retains his same canon connection to fire, except it’s much more novel and poetic, because dustfinger is a merman who learned to control and play with fire underwater. he once saw humans on the surface using fire anf became fascinated and obsessed with the strange warm, dancing, flames and searched every corner and consulted every book and cave witch until he learned how he could tame such a thing under the ocean.
- also i think in this au, because of his busyness elsewhere and slight fondness for and familiarity with the folcharts, he never betrays them to capricorn; capricorn has him followed and uses him to find mo.
- in terms of aesthetic, lighthouses and docks/ports are the background for the story in this au like bookstores and libraries are in the original.
- instead of the theme of books and pages and ink and words, in the story there’s a heavy romanticization of the ocean and things associated with it, with quotes and paragraphs and dialogue about storm-blue skies, and salty air, and the roundness of items worn smooth by the sea. a lot of imagery using the unforgiving nature of the waves and the push-pull of the tides in relation to the moon, the hidden depths hiding darkness and light in equal parts.
i have a LOT more thoughts to this but this post is already so long and also i don’t know how to do readmores on mobile fhdhdjsjejfkdkd.
@italodiscodisaster he does!!! i can’t believe i forgot gwin omfg. i don’t know enough about types of fish to speculate on species, but i imagine he’s some sort of long, quick, black/brown omnivorous fish that always darts around dustfinger’s tail when he’s swimming and follows him
also i LOVE figuring out tails colors in mermaid aus, and i was thinking along the lines of:
meggie: light blue or turquoise, because i always associate blue with her, and it’s a youthful color, and symbolic of her tie to the ocean itself
mo: dark brown like leather and old wood and worn jackets. brown is a very comforting, familiar color to me, and it fits him, i think.
dustfinger: bright orange, self-explanatory
basta: black, like night and the clothes the black jackets wear
capricorn: red, of course, to fit in with the devil symbolism
resa: yellow-green, can’t really explain except i like the yellow keeping in with the imagery of her gold hair and that mixed with a classic emerald green seems fitting for her
the black prince: dark blue because i think it fits him, also symbolic of his ties to the bluejay persona
violante: plum purple because it’s a VERY dark, depressing, hidden-depths violante color
mortola: a very dark cool purple, like eggplant, that’s almost black
roxane: an earthy olive green
brianna: a more red version of what dustfinger has
the adderhead: silver
cosimo: gold
and assuming elinor, darius, and farid are mermaid-ed in this au too, i think they’d be, respectively, a respectable, practical brown or mustard yellow, a sweet rose/salmon/peach pink, and light orange
inkheart characters as those funny bird paintings:
mo:
meggie:
dustfinger:
resa:
farid:
elinor:
basta:
fenoglio:
capricorn:
gwin:
me watching as disney’s tactic of getting people to blame sony for this spider man shit and pressure sony to give disney even more money and power is working:
sansaloyalist
disney execs are really popping the absolute biggest bottles whilst also setting fire to the film industry.
antifamutantdown
Supporting monopolies now MCU fandom? You bitches are truly brain dead, rotten, fucking worms in the brain. God…
Bro, it's like 4PM in São Paulo right now and all the smoke made it look like it's already night...city of ashes indeed.
That's POLLUTION for you guys. It's what you get when people burn the Amazon rainforest to make farms.
Ok so, the cloud of smoke over the city is from the burning of Amazon rainforest in Rondonia. Sao Paulo is 3300km (2052 miles) distant from Porto Velho. Athens is closer to London than Sao Paulo is to Porto Velho. Just to give you an idea of the damage they are doing to the forest right now, with the permission from the human trash president. Just so you guys from other countries have an idea of what's happening here in Brazil.
If you can reblog this to make people aware of the situation, I'll be really glad.
Look they've been burning the forest it's been 15 days now and people have died already in the fires. So the least I hope that the media will actually pay attention to Rondônia and the forest now that's affect São Paulo. The media here in Brazil is trying to take the attention away from the fires saying that what covered SP today as fog because of a cold wave, but many people already said: it's not fog, it's smoke. And if you're shocked about São Paulo sky, this is Rondônia where they are burning the forest:
So yeah, they are destroying the biggest ecosystem that is the Amazon right now. And the world must know.
Because if we depend on the media, the death of the Amazon won't be televised.
I love this song
South Korean beauty standards take shit to the next. Fucking. Level. Women are evaluated in totality based on every minor physical detail and whether it matches the ideal to the point where their decision to go under the knife for procedures the likes of blepharoplasty (surgery on their eyelids) is a main determinant of whether they get a job. For them, shit like this is an expectation. Fuck that garbage, burn it up ladies.
ygdungeongang
In Korea you are literally REQUIRED to have a headshot with your application. Your physical appearance is a major vetting point in the interview. Applicants have literally been told to bleach their skin for jobs. Seoul is the plastic surgery capital of the world.
This is HUGE for them. Support them. Even if you love makeup, their beauty culture is TOXIC. Support this movement
Get to know me better
Helloooo! I was tagged by @silver-words-and-inky-secrets
I. Name: Rachel
II. Birthday: 7th of August
III. Zodiac sign: Leo
IV. Height: 5'4"
V. Hobbies: Sobbing about Catelyn Tully, literally spending all my summer watching TV, reading, and um yeah that's about it
VI. Favourite colour: Any shade of purple really
VII. Favourite book (they're all series): Eragon, Inkheart , the School for Good and Evil
VIII. Last song I listened to: Mr Blue Sky by ELO
IX. Last film I watched: The Grand Budapest Hotel
X. Inspiration for a muse: Don't have one
XI. Dream job: Eh I'm not sure. Something to do with software development anyway
XII. Meaning behind my url: So Padmé was a queen once and that's about it folks
People I'd like to know better:
Doesn’t matter if you’re irish or not, watch Derry girls if you love irish accents, gay representation, comedy, accurate portrayals of Northern Ireland in the 1990’s, and nuns who are just done
you have been visited by the seven magic dragon balls your biggest wish will be granted but only if you reblog
Couldn’t risk it.
didn’t realize they change colors. now I know o gotta wish.
islandnymph
THIS SHIT IS REAL I GOT THE JOB I WAS NUTS ABOUT BC I REBLOGGED THIS YESTERDAY maybe it’s a coinkidink but it okay just take the necessary steps to achieve what you’re wishing for and YOU CAN DO IT
Mainly reblogging because oooo, pretty colors but hey, I want my dreams to come true 😄
Y'all: ugh I wish fandom content creators would post more 😩😩😩😩😩😩
Also y'all when someone posts fanart/fanfic/edits/etc:
look im not popular in any way when it comes to my content creating and i absolutely understand that more attention makes you feel good about the content you’re putting out but I think that one, depending on other people for your own drive to create content isn’t really okay. also there’s always going to be more likes then reblogs like I don’t know, I don’t think this is something worth complaining about.
erensjaegerbombs
The main issue here is that it didn’t used to be this way. At all. And I’m certain a lot of the people who are making a huge issue out of the like to reblog ratio are people who are been here for a while (like myself) and remember the days when reblogs dominated the hell out of likes.
Up until around 2016 or so, the like to reblog ratio was the total opposite of how it is now. And it applied on posts with fewer notes and posts with a large amount of notes:
You get my point. But over the last few years it has flipped completely:
And, of course, see OP’s screenshot.
It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that the posts with more reblogs have an astoundingly higher amount of notes because of increased exposure. Reblogging allows more people to see the content, that’s more people to either continue reblogging or at least give a like. For artists in particular who would benefit from the exposure in terms of commissions and patreon and all of that, this is a huge deal. It can make all the difference.
Tumblr as a blogging platform was created with the intent to post and share content. It’s not meant to be a consume-only form of social media like Instagram. For fandom blogs in particular, it always boggles me that people don’t share content that they like. Tumblr was appealing for fandom in the first place because of the ability to plaster your blog with amazing things that other people made - this used to be unheard of. For me, it’s like saving something precious so you can always come back to it again. It’s giving the people who follow me something awesome to look at too. Creating and sharing content is the heart of fandom.
People rely primarily on their dash for content. Most people avoid going into tags/searches because of wanky fandom drama. So reblogs are crucial for exposure! Likes are a nice gesture, but they do nothing to help share and promote content. That’s why content creators are frustrated or moving to other platforms, or why they stop making content altogether. Tumblr has its issues, but it’s still one of the best places for exposure due to its reblog function and overall post formatting. It’s discouraging seeing content creators on Tumblr as a concept die off. This site is nothing without them.
We can enjoy making things as much as possible but when we share it and no one cares enough to show it to others, it does make us wonder why we bothered in the first place. And this isn’t a new complaint from content creators. But it has worsened over time as the likes started dominating the reblogs.
It’s not that we don’t appreciate likes at all, notes are notes. But reblogs equal more notes, which equals more exposure, which equals happy content creators, which equals more content for fandom to consume. It’s a wholly positive chain of events that circles back around. Your reblog could be a deciding factor on whether that content creator chooses to keep contributing or to give up entirely.
Reblogs mean the world to us. They can really brighten our day a whole lot.
yeah, it’s absolutely a result of cringe culture. the whole atmosphere on tumblr has changed radically. with cancel culture, the constant policing of fandom content, calling everything ‘problematic’, harassing creators for doing literally anything, and unmitigated sense of entitlement to other people’s work, it’s literally impossible to like anything without someone crawling up your ass about it. creators are afraid to create, and consumers are afraid to share.
charlesdances
I think it’s also a combination of a lot of things:
- as above states ‘cringe culture’ and ‘cancel culture’ DEFINITELY plays into this and makes people super conscious about what they can reblog fully (without some twat who shames them or for them to lose followers)
- the whole ‘like’ habit is very much adapted from various other social media (a lot of people on tumblr I’ve noticed are super young and are used to this function i.e. facebook, twitter, instagram, etc)
- there are certainly way more people who aren’t creators and only come on to tumblr to either browse like those other sites and give likes and (sadly) either can’t be bothered to or have no incentive to reblog a post (again I’ve noticed this is a recent thing due to people coming into tumblr later and not recognizing the reblog function’s importance (or they honestly just don’t care)
- the search/tag function was never perfect but now it’s even more BROKEN
- the recent policing/flagging of posts earlier this year (ALSO BROKEN) that is dissuading people even more from reblogging/posting things
- and BECAUSE of the recent policing people are dissuaded and so many people have moved to other platforms
- some people are super into keeping to the aesthetics on their blogs (I have a habit of doing this)
Also I’ve noticed most of the people who stay on here have either been a really long time user of tumblr/are content creators who have accumulated and built a solid following/content creators who, popular or otherwise, rely on this platform for exposure and get work/have a lot of mutuals still on here/are willing to adapt to the constant bizarre changes made throughout the years on this hellsite (and the most recent changes are the ones that causes even the most grizzled of tumblr users to move on to other sites or at least to not solely rely on it so imagine those of which who don’t feel like they should even bother because they have no stakes in doing so)/all of the above.
Some people question the importance of the reblog over the like, and have this odd mentality of ‘ohh don’t just do it for the notes, JUST do it for the love’ which is honestly just baffling and screams of ‘hey thanks for making something I’m really into YOU SHOULD DO MORE FOR FREE’ or someone offering you a job and saying ‘oh don’t do it for money do it for EXPOSURE’. To these people let me tell you something:
Reblogs are free. And if you want to talk about EXPOSURE, reblogging a post can do WONDERS. Take it from someone who has gone through the various experiences of going to sleep after hours of work, posts it mostly for fun and for the fandom to enjoy, and then waking up to see that someone in the industry who has influence and power has noticed you. Even better? They’ve decided to hire you for work or to ask if they could spread your work around to people they know!
Reblogs help. Reblogs are important. Reblogs CHANGE lives.
(via @asktheboywholived)
and you’re kinda mandated to reblog this since, ya know, that’s the whole point? XP
Type your state or country into the gif search bar and reblog the fifth thing that comes up
Here I’ll go first
What the fuck
internet-fae-incarnate
What the fuck is hetalia
Is this hentai
Is North Carolina summed up with a hentai gif
that-tea-fucker
Wow everyone just hates us Californians don’t they
oh fucking hell i’m not even surprised
my state only had three gifs so i just searched up “us” and yeah accurate
masterofthesepticyard
can you guess?
Caring but harshly caring.
what does this have to do with anything?
wormy-boi
eeirien
pretty accurate
addickted-to-speight
Don’t know ‘bout the rest of NY state, but that’s pretty much what it’s like in WNY
I have no idea who they are, but I approve of their fashion choices.
Oh well, educational and depressing
sidhedraoi
Sure, the only thing that exists in Colorado.
jedi-master-megan
All the other ones for Chicago were normal or featured something about the musical buT THEN THERE’S THIS ONE
Hint: It's Ireland
writer: this is one of my male characters! he cares about his guy friends and loves them deeply.
tumblr: oh! so he’s gay!
writer: uh…no, he’s attracted to women.
tumblr: ….so he’s bi!
writer: uhh…no…….he loves his guy friends but he’s not romantically/sexually attracted to them.
tumblr: ….so you’re homophobic.
writer:
Healthy male friendships are almost as rare in mainstream fiction as gay male relationships, and maybe more rare in fanfiction. Let men be wonderful friends without pushing a romantic relationship, just like men and women should be able to be wonderful friends without the pressure of a romantic relationship.
*AGGRESSIVELY SLAMS REBLOG UNTIL I DIE*
the-shadowsmiths
This is literally the reason men are so terrified of being open about loving each other platonically, because they don’t want people to assume they’re gay just because they can be supportive of their fucking friends
I literally got anon hate about my response to this post, and I just want to say that I’m sorry…
for not reblogging it sooner.
Psyche bitch, this is a good post.
Spectre
Padmé Amidala stood at the entrance to Darth Vader's personal chambers.
She was dressed in the same gown she wore to her deathbed, blue pieces of material flowing like rivulets of water and white flowers adorning the hair Anakin Skywalker had once ran his hands through with a fervent sense of amazement and adoration.
She said nothing, just gazed at him with those soulful brown eyes. She extended pale arm in invitation and Vader flinched backwards. The only thing that Darth Vader feared in the entire galaxy was dead and buried, yet she still managed to haunt him, doggedly following his footsteps.
"I wasn't strong enough to save you, my love."
She withdrew her hand with a slight frown. Her hand drifted to her stomach, and something deep within Vader stirred. A primal longing, a wish for what could never be.
"Both of you."
He reached for the apparition with gloved hands only to see her shatter before he could ever reach her.
Don't leave us in darkness
Smoke came from the Jedi Temple, the ancient monument a site of massacre. This stress couldn't be good for the baby Padmé thought anxiously, but pushed it aside for the time being. She had to focus on Anakin, what she would do if he was who Obi-Wan said he was.
Her Ani, a Dark Sith Lord? She wished with every fibre of her being that it was not true. The sweet little boy from Tattooine was long gone, but the man who replaced him was surely no Sith Lord.
Unconsciously Padmé's hand drifted to her stomach. The younglings in the temple, gone. They were the embodiment of hope and purity itself, as all children are. Padmé hoped with all her heart that it wasn't true, that Anakin hadn't taken innocent lives that belonged to beautiful children who had yet to live. That the shrouded figure in the holovideo wasn't him, even though it looked like him.
He couldn't have.
He would never.
"Threepio!" Padmé called, already springing into action. She swiftly walked to her wardrobe and grabbed a change of clothes.
"Yes mistress Padmé?" The protocol droid asked, glad to be of some use. He disliked seeing the Senator upset, and she had been upset for a while now. Jedi business, he assumed. That was what he dubbed any problems that involved Master Anakin.
"Will you prepare my ship? We're going on a quick trip." She said decidedly, already picking up a blaster that was hidden under the table. The day of diplomatic negotiations was long gone, it would seem. Just in case, she thought, placing it on top of her pile of clothes.
C-3P0 began to babble but Padmé cut him off.
"Set the course for Mustafar."
The two met each other's eyes for a moment, before Threepio blinked in shock and nodded. For once, he knew this wasn't a time for words.
He trotted off and Padmé took a moment for herself. She sat down on Anakin's side of the bed heavily. She placed her free hand on the bedsheet, running it over the smooth silk. Padmé only noticed she was crying when the tears dropped on her nightgown. She wiped the tears away but they kept falling, too quick for her to brush them all away.
The holovid that Obi-Wan had shown her refused to leave her mind. The shrouded figure, the younglings and their fear. Their screams, oh force, their screams. They weren't seasoned warriors unlike their mentors, they were children.
Dead children now, Padmé thought.
Would he do the same to their children if it meant saving her?
An intense feeling of sickness pervaded her stomach and she ran to the fresher, vomiting up everything that had been in her stomach.
Padmé sat beside the toilet for minutes until she felt she could move without getting sick again. She wished the door would open to reveal a friend, someone who could advise her on what to do. This decision wasn't one she could make lightly, her children's welfare depended on her survival. But hundreds, possibly thousands...millions? more depended on her bringing Anakin back.
Threepio knocked on the fresher door and heard the Senator respond with an "I'll be there in a moment!". He may have only been a droid, but he could hear her sniffles from behind the door. Sighing quietly he resigned himself to a long wait. A moment was never simply a moment with the Senator.
Padmé stared in the mirror at her bloodshot eyes and pale face. A far cry from the seemingly flawless Queen she used to be.
Whatever happened next, the only thing she could do was what her conscience dictated.
She splashed some water on her face and quickly got changed. Then she exited the room and met Threepio at the door, ready to knock again.
"Mistress Padmé, there you are. Your ship is ready, but Captain Typho wishes to accompany you." He stated.
"I'll handle him. You go ahead without me and wait on the ship. I have to do something." She responded wearily, putting her blaster in its holster on her leg.
Padmé watched Threepio leave the room once more and made her way over to her nightstand. She opened the bottom drawer and lifted out the secret compartment in it. Inside lay a holorecorder she used to record messages in the event of something bad happening her. Messages to her friends and family, ones she had compiled over the years. Each sorted into a folder that could be only be opened by the person to whom it pertained, providing they knew the password. She had made arrangements for it to be found should she ever die without closure for those she left behind. Recently she had started recording messages for her unborn child, because of Ani's premonitions.
Padmé's gut had been nagging at her ever since she decided to go to Mustafar, telling her she might not come back, so with trembling hands, the former Queen of Naboo turned on and set up the recorder for what felt like a final time. The light flashed indicating it had started recording.
"I'm going to Mustafar to talk to Ani. I saw... I saw a recording of someone killing younglings, and Obi-Wan, he said-" At this point Padmé's throat closed up and she felt tears welling up once more. She took a deep, steadying breath. Clearing her throat she began once more.
"I think Obi-Wan was right, Ani's changed and it's not for the better. I don't want to believe that the person in the holovideo was him, and I won't, not unless he tells me it was. Maybe not even then."
Padmé heard a knock on her door and knew her time was up, it was undoubtedly Captain Typho asking why she was preparing her ship at such an odd time in the morning.
"I think it's time for me to go. If the worst comes to pass, know that I love each of you with every piece of my being. Hopefully this message will never been seen and I can delete it when I come back with Ani, but I don't think things will be that simple. They never are." She uttered the final sentence softly and turned off the recording.
Padmé sent the video to every folder and placed the holorecorder in her pocket. She would entrust it to Artoo later, she decided. She then greeted an impatient Captain Typho. He accompanied her to her ship but she eventually managed to brush him off with a reassurance that Threepio would look after her.
With a little difficulty Padmé climbed aboard her ship and into the cockpit.
She was not as sharp as she usually was (her mind was otherwise preoccupied), or she would have noticed a cloaked Obi-Wan following her and stowing himself away onboard.
With a heavy heart, Padmé took off. She turned autopilot off, preferring to have something to concentrate on instead of worrying. It would only drive her insane.
It was only a few hours to the volcanic system of Mustafar. This was to be the longest trip of Padmé's life, despite not being the longest in terms of time.
After all too long, Padmé entered the Mustafar system. There weren't many places to land, so Padmé chose the closest one which also was next to a control centre of some sort.
She sat there for a moment, at a loss as to what to do. There was always some predetermined plan when entering a possibly hostile situation, but how could a person prepare to accuse their husband of mass murder? Her head fell into her hand and a solitary tear fell from the young woman. She wiped it away, promising herself there would be no more tears until after this was over.
A figure emerged from a close by building and it was unmistakably Anakin. He ran to greet her. Despite herself, Padmé's heart swelled at the sight of her husband. Abandoning Threepio and his chatter, she met her husband close to the entrance of her ship.
They embraced tightly and Padmé relaxed for the first time all day, Anakin's gentle touch letting her know that everything would be alright.
"I saw your ship." Anakin said quietly, resting his head atop hers. His Angel muttered his name and withdrew from him a small bit.
"I was so worried about you! Obi-Wan told me terrible things." She said tearfully, her brown eyes staring intently into his own, trying to determine his thoughts. She touched Anakin's face to reassure herself that he was still here with her.
Something in Anakin's face shifted, his features hardened when he asked: "What things?"
"He said that you turned to the dark side...that you killed younglings." She cried, hardly able to say the sentence, let alone think about it.
"Obi-Wan is trying to turn you against me." Her husband stated, his eyes flashing yellow for a moment. Padmé stilled against him, wondering it it was a trick of the light.
Still she continued, saying "He cares about us, he knows...He wants to help you." She ignored his repetition of the word "us" and the fury that it contained.
"Anakin, all I want is your love."
Her voice cracked slightly when she said it, but he didn't notice.
"Love won't save you Padmé. Only my new powers can do that." He ignored the small shudder she made when he finished his sentence.
"At what cost? You're a good person, don't do this!" She exclaimed, wanting to reach for his hand but something stopped her.
"I won't lose you the way I lost my mother. I am becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of and I'm doing it for you. To protect you."
Oh Force, did he actually...
"Come away with me. Help me raise our child, leave everything else behind while we still can." One last plead, but Padmé didn't know that. She ran her hands over his hair, nearly stumbling over her words as they fell from her mouth.
Anakin began speaking, but Padmé could only hear the blood rushing in her ears. She heard snippets, "Peace to the Republic", "Overthrow" and then the worst of all. Padmé's mind honed in on his proclamation: "We can rule the galaxy, make things the way we want them to be."
In that one moment, Padmé's mind went blank. Did he even know what she stood for? That she was for democracy as much as she was for life itself; that millions of people on her home planet alone depended on her to keep democracy in order and in turn ensure their safety? That she knew an empire was not in the best interests of anyone save Palpatine?
"I don't believe what I'm hearing....Obi-Wan was right, you've changed." She gasped. The love of Anakin's life took a step away from him.
Had he killed the younglings?
"I don't want to hear anymore about Obi-Wan. The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me." He growled and ignored her slack face of horror.
Was that a threat? she wondered.
"I don't know you anymore. Anakin, you're breaking my heart. You're going down a path I can't follow!" She cried, fully meaning every word. She wouldn't follow him into this darkness. She could see his eyes now, startlingly yellow. The colour of a Sith. Still, she pushed onwards. This was her fault, these deaths were her fault and the blood was on her hands. She would bring her husband back to the light. He of all people was never pure, but once upon a time, on a planet far away he had been determined to do the right thing to help the strangers who had shown him even a little kindness. Surely he of all people understood that the empire was evidently to be little more than disguised slavery and exploitation of basic rights?
"Because of Obi-Wan?" Anakin questioned, staring at her intently.
"Because of what you've done, what you plan to do! Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you." She cried, on the border of hysteria.
"LIAR!" Her husband roared, his eyes fixated on a point behind her.
She whirled to see Obi-Wan standing at the top of the descending ramp. Her eyes widened, how dare he?
""No!" Padmé cried, utterly shocked at Obi-Wan's betrayal.
"You're with him, you brought him here to kill me." She whirled back to Anakin, desperate to convince him that she would never, even in a million lives betray him, much less plot his demise. But instead, she found her husband's hand outstretched and clenching the air around him.
But it wasn't the air around him that he was constricting, Padmé realised as her throat tightened and she couldn't inhale. Her heart clenched painfully as if it were her that that was being crushed and not her airway. The young woman's hands went to her neck, trying to loosen the invisible grip upon her. Eyes pleading with her husband, she whispered his name once more, to release her for the sake of her children if not for her herself. Her lungs burned painfully as they begged for air she couldn't give. She felt a weak kick from the child in her stomach, reminding her she had to live. But her vision was going black around the edges, and it seemed so much easier to slip into the abyss that beckoned her.
She heard a faint cry from Obi-Wan and was dimly aware of her legs falling from underneath her. As she fell, both to the ground and into unconsciousness, she cradled her stomach with her hands to protect her child. Her last glimpse was of Anakin, his face contorted with rage, yellow eyes burning.
This was not the man she loved.
Padmé woke up, acutely aware of a fierce pain in her throat and a worse one in her head. She opened her eyes to see Obi-Wan beside her, his face contorted with worry.
"Obi-Wan, where's Anakin? Is he alright?" She whispered, before feeling her body go limp and falling unconscious once more.
She awoke once more on an operating table. Not aware of what she was doing, she let out a cry of pure anguish, not from the physical pain but one that surrounded her. It was like thousands of lights were being extinguished and she knew that the lights were lives. How she knew, she didn't know, but she knew all the same.
She cried out, seeing Obi-Wan standing outside the room. His eyes met hers in a sorrowful gaze and in that moment she knew that Ani was dead.
Whether it be in terms of life or as the man she once knew, she wasn't sure. They were equally painful.
She didn't resent Obi-Wan for what he did, it was almost as painful for him as it would have been for her to do it herself.
She let out a cry at the feeling of her baby making it's way out, it felt like she was ripping in half. She heeded the instructions of the midwife droid as best she could through her pained state, and after blood and sweat and many tears, she welcomed her baby into the world. Relief filled her, she had defied Anakin's premonition and survived. But the droid informed her that the child was one of two. Twins.
Padmé's mouth opened in a soundless howl as she delivered her second child into the world.
She was barely aware of naming them, but she went with the names she and Anakin had chosen.
A boy and a girl. Luke and Leia.
The former queen was conscious of something tugging her away from her life. Agonisingly slowly, her vision faded and the blackness beckoned her. She fought it tooth and nail but it was insistent. She felt her lungs stop taking air in, felt herself die. Somewhere in the darkness, she couldn't tell how long it took, she felt a spark, two sparks and her mind recognised them. Family, her mind called them, family.
With a jolt of recognition Padmé pushed death away with a mighty shove and a mental scream of defiance. Nothing would take her away from her children, not now and most certainly not until it was her time.
She cried as she held them, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed reassurances to them that she would always take care of them.
As she walked to the conference centre, she refused to lean against Obi-Wan. Weakness was not tolerable, she had faced worse than this before and managed to walk unhindered. As she walked she gazed at the two children she held so close to both her body and her heart already. Obi-Wan held a door open for her and she sat herself down to his right, opposite Bail.
"Padmé, you of all people have to understand that sacrifices must be made." Obi-Wan sighed in exasperation, knowing his attempts were futile but trying nonetheless.
"Sacrifice? Don't act as if you're the only one making sacrifices Kenobi. My whole life I have sacrificed. I will not negotiate this." In her words a regal tone could be heard, reminding them exactly who she was and what life she had lived.
"They are my children, and since your Jedi Order is partly to blame for the loss of my husband, I will do my utmost best to prevent the same from happening to my children. They will grow up in a home with their mother, they will love and be loved."
"Senator Amidala, allowing your emotions to cloud your judgement you are." Yoda warned.
"These children are borne of my flesh and my blood. I will not compromise their happiness by keeping them away from the little family they have! I don't care if I have to spend my whole life on the run to protect them. I will reinstate the republic singlehandedly if I must. But do not attempt to take my children away from me for you know as well as I that I am a force not to be reckoned with."
Yoda acquiesced with very little grace and stood back from the Queen.
"A rebellion you wish to create?" He asked, face pensive. He sensed something stirring inside the Senator, an uprising.
"I've already started it would seem." She replied, allowing herself a wry grin. After all, what was the Delegation of Two Thousand if not a rebellion against the powers Palpatine held?
She met Bail's eyes, a silent agreement passing between the two ot them.
She had brought her planet to salvation when she was just a mere girl. Now she was a woman, what was to say she couldn't do the same for the Republic? (as long as she had the right contacts of course)
And contacts she had.