wow! it’s a tag dump, a whole month after joining. pls avert your eyes

Home for the Holidays – Our muses go to one or the others’ family home to celebrate the holiday (or family friends, just a family environment). {To answer the eternal question of whether Trees decorate trees, never posed to Keni.}

The air is cool and crisp as it caresses exposed bits of skin. Which for Anakin is very little and for Keni it is like a lover's ardent embrace; familiar, tempting, making her tawny skin glow as it teasingly plucks at her hair, pulling strands lose from its simple plait. Her strides ahead of him switch from long and tranquil to high and short. Almost like skips. She does not ever look like this on Coruscant. So at peace in the natural environment; so harmonious with every yellowing stalk of long grass, every song of shivering leaves which have turned a riot of colours, every buzzing hum of insect, scurrying ground creatures. None of which are her pets, left behind as they are for his sake of comfort. Not everyone has a loving fondness for hawkwasps. Of course, Coruscant does not smell like Zelos. With its rich damp loam and fertile lands, the last of the late blooming plants leave a lingering freshness. Their dark leafy canopies that stretch the ground have gleaming globes of mist or rain clinging to them like scattered jewels. Above them the sky is pale pristine blue though it can never compare to his eyes. Still in these hours they come closest than she's seen in years. A few fat, bulbous white clouds drift along like small ships in holding patterns. In the shadowy lee of vegetation and rock formations there is a thin layer of frost clinging to roots and ground. Even beyond the city confines there's the faint scent of baking goods, roasting meats, the aromas of a feast in the making. In short, it is a perfect day and they are themselves perfect within it. She glances back at him over one slight shoulder bare but for the sheer bits of cloth that flirt with being sleeves. The weather does not seem to get down into her skin with its brisk bite. She smiles widely, each of the points of her teeth fully visible not like they are at the Temple where she hides herself away in layers of robes and a meekness that doesn't really suit her. "Come on, Za'lali! The flowers will not pick themselves!" Joy laces through her words as the breeze carries them to Anakin, and whips her loose strands of hair into dark silk pennants that seem to punctuate the words. Then she turns away and continues to traipse her way through the grasses, seemingly unconcerned whether or not he's picking up his meandering step behind her or not. She has not told him what these mysterious flowers are for, if she is searching for anything in particular, though whatever ones he chooses seem to only further her conviviality. She holds out the woven wooden basket that she carries attached at her hip with scarves, the most tender smile curving her lips, and a bright affection for him always in her eyes. Fingertips grace his own or coil about his wrist ~leather or otherwise~ or sometimes she presses the flower to her nose and breathes in as deeply as her lungs allow. She never stays too long before she goes spinning away again, deeper and deeper into the wilderness. It feels almost like the mounting anticipation of Inevitable Doom except there is no reason to hide any of their intentions behind pillars and closed doors and little rituals. It is a gift that her homeworld allows them, being not two knights within the Order. Here they can be whatever they like. For Keni it is desperately in love with the very heart of her, and she suspects the same is true for Anakin. Eventually though, she can feel the way his Presence begins to wind itself through her thoughts. This is meant as no intrusion and she isn't even sure he's even aware that he's delving into her thoughts. He is an all-encompassing warmth as he traipses through, passive in a way as to never disturb her by becoming lost in the Force and her immediate space within it. She doesn't shy away from him. If anything she is more than glad to dwell a while in a place where they become the only constant and fixed things in the universe, all else only the roar of distant oceans. Or the whisper of starlight. She knows the knoll is beneath them, his head pillowed in her lap while her fingers stroke through

his golden locks in slow strokes. His eyes are closed, the same as her own, but she doesn't need that kind of sight to indulge his curiosity. "The Longest Night is coming soon," she says quietly as if form of loudness will break the stillness around them. It won't, of course. The braeside peace might be illusory, might let them feel like the only two beings in the whole of creation but the estate is not entirely too remote. The occasional pleasure yacht can still be seen in the sky as it approaches the capital. "After that, the snows and leanest days when the sun hardly seems to shine. Some of our old poets call them the Dreaming Season for all the time we typically spend indoors." It is a collective fear that starts as a wisp and hopes that once passed down through dozens of generations have become a living and breathing entity of its own. And like every one of those cultural nightmares strung across the galaxy, Zelosians have rituals to bolster themselves, to feel as if they have some kind of control over things they really can't. It's not unlike life at the Temple. With long enough centuries what starts as a gut reaction becomes a spiritual tradition replete with beauty and comfort. "To ensure the sun is sustained, to ensure it comes back to us, we build little boats of the thinnest materials. Atop them we set lanterns filled with light. The walls are etched with what we want in the coming year. Wishes and prayers, hopes for those who are far away or feeling unwell. But always, always at least one plea for the light to never fade. We decorate them with flowers and seed pods. Some of us make offerings of food or other little gifts. Then as dark comes we make a procession down to the great sea. We set these boats into the waves. It's beautiful, so very beautiful. Almost like a sea full of candleflowers." That swath of happiness mingled with the slightest sliver of fear ripples through her nastic response, giving her a moment of breathlessness. To better capture the moment of which she speaks where poor words fail to do justice to what she remembers from childhood, she drags Anakin's consciousness toward memories of all that she had seen. She knows that his fear of great bodies of water is not so easy to let go of and so she tries to wrap herself around him in the Force to provide a buffer, while outwardly she shifts from where she's laying and decides to thread some little purple flowers into his hair. "Of course, you do not have to make a lantern. You don't have to go to the shore. Not if it will trouble you, Za'lali. If you'd rather, you could hole up in the library. When we return, full dark will fall and we will celebrate with a small feast and plenty of cordial drinks. This is one of my dad's favourite holidays and so Father indulges him as only one can when they are madly in love." And of course, she is also as deeply in love with Anakin and his happiness is paramount to any other feeling that might sit in her chest. She does wonder if they have such rituals on Tatooine, with its blazing suns and its frigid nights. Are there stories attached to them to explain their significance or something observed simply because it had always been so? How can she ask him though, when all of his memories of that place are bitter and tinged with grief? It would feel as if she were picking at the raw threads holding him all together and she can't bear that. "If you had a wish to put out to the galaxy, what would you ask for?"