clone wars one shots

─ the voices of palpatine

( spoilers and major references/plot-points from the 22nd of january, from both ranboo and tommy's streams. dreamsmp inspired the entirety of this piece. )

―

Everything was a swampy, mucky grey. Fatigue littered broken tears as his hands shook, his head raised to the sky as the crinkly hand of Sidious caressed his chin in ominous contrast. His memories lay within the database of Artoo, and they were erased. The only thing left behind a loose dawn of cheek, two simple marks of punctuation.

The ghostly dawn of the Sith's face was ink against bitter air, a sculpture bending against his brain. Sidious was the dancer, and he the monster looking through the mirror. Radio waves crackled in Anakin's head, a sizzle of reality. Sidious held an expression of a gentle smile, a rebuke once pleasurable now ephemeral as it disappeared, a figure of imagination yet a result of manipulation.

Hanging corpses. Obtuse curses as shaggy hair melted into sobs. Deep voices a plethora of venom, lies and truth – reality daggers that dug into his soul. Words scanned across his eyes; screams of terror as hyperventilation terrorised. In his sight, as he tumbled to the ground and the world around him crumbled, as furniture rose and smacked each other in a violence uncontrollable, peace was a lie. A television screen with lines stabbing the image of the door; he was nothing more than another piece of furniture, shattered.

This was only the first time he entered the room, in that way, although its new name was more personal, ringing the truth as the stars frowned, their breathes held. The Panic Room... A cerise waltz, to the beat of threes. A ringtone so impersonal, tuned to a dull headache, but so loud against thundering earthquakes that swayed in trails of italicized blue.

How could a colon and a bracket cause so much pain? ...He just wanted to remember the first time he met Ahsoka, on the twilight of the last time he met her.

Because all that remained was tattooed onto his eyes.

:)

―

The endgame was upon the galaxy. The Force trembled in every living thing. Like a sun setting upon the Coruscant sky, light would be demolished. The Jedi would fall, and the Sith would rise in their ruins. Obliteration of the light-side of the Force was inevitable, its final sentences closer with every turn of the page. And in the centre of it all, was him.

Treachery was hidden behind blinds so twisted no mere man would even attempt to dethrone him. Mangled strands of the Force bended under his corruption, those who wouldn't obey snapped in a cruel slaughter. Everything was to command, those around him were marionettes with strings tugged onto his fingers.

Two chains. Of a moony silver, glinting in friendly smiles though they were invincible. Sidious fantasized about snapping them, brutally but perfectly, in the most delicate way as to coerce a human to fall in meteor showers. As metaphorical comets would throw buildings across the planets, he would be at the centre, as desperation fueled him. Those last two chains, each a golden lasso choking his neck like slavers, were the only thing keeping him aligned to the light. When they were destroyed, Anakin Skywalker would do anything to get them back.

The universe had given the man sent from the Force everything. The ability of confidence, to be head-strong, but most importantly, the universe had given him the ability to love. And that was a weakness. Because, at his core, Anakin Skywalker was attached. Now was the time to abuse that fact into nothing more than battered ruins of a castle that once stood with pride, later would be the time to re-build on the bodies of obliteration. The very thought of his apprentice screaming and spasming on the floor of concrete as he was broken, was glorifying beyond his wildest dreams.