Chapter 70: ED : Chapter 68: Fallout IV
"The beast flew with her in it's talons for what she said seemed like hours, then there was a sudden, blinding white flash, and the creature suddenly dropped her onto a hard surface which knocked the wind out of her while she couldn't see.
By the time she recovered from the fall and could see again, there was no sign of the creature. Just another pathway full of more circular openings looking out onto different places and times."
...
Padme looked at me expectantly, but I'd been stunned into silence. It was mind-blowing enough to realize my actions had touched off a sequence of events so significant, the kriffing Loth Wolves were acting as the Force's agents to coax Wind through a doorway into the Vergence Scatter which shouldn't have been even be unearthed for another twenty-plus years.
The realization that the "luminous winged beast with an unimaginably strong Force-presence" could only be Daughter set my mind to spinning.
It was obvious that bright flash had been Her doing something to influence the World Between Worlds, but I had nowhere near enough information to even speculate as to what that might have been, or why She had even involved Herself to begin with.
It didn't surprise me the interior of the Vergence Scatter was the exception to the Daughter's and Son's imprisonment, because Their obviously mystical representation was the kriffing portal.
"Obviously, neither the Daughter or the Son can enter or exit the actual portal-ways, as Ezra and Ahsoka would have, because the Son wouldn't have needed a shuttle to escape, otherwise"
I silently mused, as I began coming to grips with the fact one of the Mortis Gods seemed to be conspiring with other agents of the Light, for reasons which entirely escaped me.
Mistaking my being shocked speechless for willful reticence, her expression darkened, as Padme exclaimed.
"The Jedi penchant for simultaneously keeping secrets, yet insisting others be scrupulously honest and open with them, is most definitely not a trait which endears you to many, myself among them. You're quite good at controlling your reactions and micro-expressions, Anakin, but I was trained to read people by the very best.
You know about most, if not everything, that I'm telling you, yet you're just sitting there. Mining me for information, while giving nothing back. It's disrespectful and insulting in the extreme, you know!"
I felt her anger then, but not as I normally sensed the emotions of others. This was like one of my own emotions being refracted and reflected back my way.
It didn't feel nearly so distinctly other, as the way my empathic gift gleaned and conveyed to me the feelings of other people. Reflexively, I drew more deeply on the ever-flowing, unimaginably vast river of serenity which was the march of the Force's song. Sending that calm, my concern, and caring in the opposite direction from which the anger had just come.
Realization as to what I'd done came a moment too late. "I didn't mean to do that!" I exclaimed with an urgency and alarm that had shattered my own peace as soon as I saw the fire in her eyes momentarily dim, before they widened in outrage, as what had been shooting sparks threatened to become an inferno.
It must have been the near-panic in my voice, or the fact I'd confessed before she'd even processed what had just happened, but I caught today's lucky break, as the outrage cleared from Padme's lovely features. Replaced by a look half-quizzical, and all haunted.
"Explain to me what that was, then, because Warrior Kython assured me my will's too strong for my thoughts and feelings to be manipulated without Force-techniques which would severely damage my psyche. Are you some kind of exception to that rule, because of how strong you are?"
The demand was made as graciously as a demand can be, but the question was tainted by a thread of fear I could feel the way I'd experienced her anger. It hurt, knowing I'd made her even a little afraid of me, so I gave her the truth in the hopes it would quell that fear.
"There's a rare phenomena called a Force Bond. Normally, it occurs between two Force-sensitives, but there are extremely rare cases where a Bond has come into being between someone particularly strong in the Force, and a person who isn't Force-sensitive. Generally it's a parent, sibling, or lifelong friend, but on the rarest occasions, simply two people who share a natural emotional rapport.
It's a metaphysical connection which allows the individuals in question to feel the others emotions, sense their proximity and the general direction in which they can be found, even hear each others thoughts, in the case of an extremely developed bond. I give you my word as a Jedi, that there's nothing coercive about a Force Bond.
That was simply my own calm and concern, pushed in your direction. I didn't even realize what I was doing, I promise you, Padme" I explained earnestly. My eyes meeting hers, as I silently pleaded with her to believe me.
When she didn't immediately respond, I went on quietly and a little more hesitantly "I wasn't positive about it until you got angry with me for not responding to your account, but I'd begun to suspect it was there on the flight back.
I know you may not be ready to hear this, but our feelings for, and attraction to each other isn't a result of the Force Bond. The Force Bond is the result of those feelings, that attraction, being mutual."
"Can it be broken?" Padme asked in a quiet, very reserved way. Breaking eye-contact, and taking a step back as she did so.
It was a simple, logical, natural question, but after what she'd said before, it caught me off-guard. I successfully fought to keep the pain of the rejection implicit to her question off my face, but didn't account for her feeling it through the Bond.
"Oh, Anakin, I didn't mean it that way! It's simply a lot to take in, and I want to know what's happening.
If you'd actually engaged with me while I was telling you about everything Gale told me, rather than just standing there cold and detached as any Jedi doing their duty, you'd know why I kept trying to approach you, as well as why it drove me to distraction that you were avoiding me!"
Padme quickly responded, hands on hips as she seemed to be caught somewhere between exasperation with, and a desire to reassure me.
My brow furrowing at this unexpected return to the previous topic, I nevertheless answered her question before getting around to asking what Gale's story had to do with this.
"Breaking a Force Bond requires in our case either killing the emotions, attraction, and rapport which brought it into being, or one of our deaths. Even then, things wouldn't go back to the way they were before. There would be this, absence, where the Bond had been.
Think of it like a raised ridge of forever sensitive scar tissue, but in your mind." I thought my reply was admirably clinical, but the very thought made the Force's song grow a little shriller and less harmonious, as if it too shared my revulsion for the prospect.
After a moment, I decided more was required to give her a full picture.
"You should also know the Force Bond will develop and grow stronger over time.
The stronger and more entrenched it grows, the greater the resulting wound, if it's subsequently broken. Avoiding each other completely, while consciously exerting effort not to so much as think about each other could slow that process, but now that it's no longer nascent, and we're actively experiencing the other's emotions, that wouldn't be enough on it's own to break the Bond.
The, the cultivation of an active antipathy would be required, and even that might not work."
"Is, is that something you want to happen?" She wouldn't look at me as she asked the question, but her voice was steady while she did so. It was the first and only time I'd ever seen her look uncertain and at all off-balance.
Something I found intensely endearing, as I realized she was doing what I'd been doing only a few moments ago.
"It's absolutely amazing how mature adults can harbor so much insecurity, when it comes to the prospect of being rejected by the one we want" I found myself thinking.
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