Swallows are remarkable birds. We see them almost every day, which is probably why we often stop noticing them. They live close to people, building their nests under the roofs of houses, barns, schools, and kindergartens, as if trusting us with what matters most—their young.
This diptych was inspired by the swallows that have lived for years near my children’s kindergarten. They built their nests right on the children’s veranda, so close that the kids could watch tiny heads appear from the nests and little beaks open wide while waiting for their parents to bring food.
For the teachers, it was not always easy. They had to look after not only the children but also the swallow families. Young children do not always understand that baby birds should not be touched, taken from the nest, or disturbed. Sometimes the best way to help nature is simply to leave it alone.
What always amazed me was the courage of these birds. Despite the noise, movement, and dozens of children playing around them, they kept returning to their nests again and again.
In these paintings, I placed them among the branches of weeping willows. In the region where I grew up, willow trees were everywhere. They grow quickly, create beautiful shade in summer, and become especially magical when the wind moves through their long green branches. And when swallows weave through those branches, an ordinary summer day becomes something unforgettable.
Perhaps the most precious memories are made of moments just like these.
The wonderfully patient and kind Elthadriel asked me for an illustration of Aayla and Bly from the Star Wars universe ... and here it finally is.
I’ll admit: I don’t really know these characters. My Star Wars knowledge is mostly limited to the old movies (Episodes IV–VI these days?) and whatever fragments I still remember from my SWtOR days…
So I truly hope I did them justice. Thankfully, Elthadriel told me they liked the final result, and that alone makes me happy.
The coloring was fun, even if the entire piece took ages. Creating art during this art block is strange... the desire to draw is there, but the energy and motivation just… aren’t. It’s a weird and frustrating combo to work with.
With a whine, Anakin tossed and turned in his cot. This entire section of the crèche was quiet - dead silent aside for the soft breathing of his fellow initiates, and the rustle of his sheets as he moved restlessly. He tugged his blanket further up his body, trying to leech more warmth from the pitifully thin fabric. Coruscant was always so cold.
He hadn’t been here long, but he had been here long enough for everyone else to say he should’ve gotten used to it by now. But Coruscant was cold cold. There were no twin Suns here to heat the land, and no buffeting Sands to surround him, and no warm embrace of his mother. Instead, there were starscrapers and cool metal and air-conditioned crèches. Who needed air conditioning when the place was so cold to begin with!?
It wasn’t as cold as the nights on Tatooine, but at least the nights there were very short. Here, it was always too cold, regardless of the time of day.
The others said he was crazy for wanting it to be so hot. That these temperatures were comfortable for everyone else and he ought to suck it up. But he thought they could suck it! Stupid other kids with their wooden plank postures, and their clipped, proper, dumb sounding accents, and their lack of understanding of basic skills, and their lack of spine.
One of them had cried just because he’d punched them! Cried! Because of a punch! That was nothing! What a silly thing to cry over - and they’d cried for minutes. So much water wasted for no good reason! Even if there was somehow a seemingly never-ending supply of water here, and Obi-Wan had reassured him of that many, many, many times, it still seemed foolish to waste any. How privileged. Even Coruscant’s water reserves had to run out at some point.
But still, the adults said he wasn’t allowed to do that. But he didn’t get it! He was just defending his honor. Some no-good Twi’lek who spoke like she was born with more credits in her lap than the Skywalkers had even seen in generations made fun of his accent. Made fun of him for speaking Huttese. She so deserved it! But still, he was the one that had gotten in trouble, even if she was the one insulting him and his honor and his culture and his mother and his home. Even if he was glad to leave that place and be Free, no one got to insult it like that. Especially not when his mom was still there.
Anakin kicked his legs, then scowled at the wall his bunk was pressed against. Everyone here was stupid. Brainless as banthas.
… Fabric bunched in his fists, and with a frustrated noise, he sat up. It was so cold and so dark, and he wanted to move, and even though he wasn’t alone, with the other initiates sleeping soundly all around the room, he certainly felt like he was. He kicked again, pushing his useless, sad excuse of a blanket off of himself, before tossing it to the floor, discarded.
“Ugh– be quiet,” he suddenly heard a familiar voice above him hiss softly, Canli leaning over the side of his cot and glaring down at Anakin with narrowed orange eyes. “I’m trying to sleep!”
Anakin merely stuck his tongue out at the other boy in return, crossing his arms, and Canli scoffed, before he pulled back up and disappeared again.
Whatever.
Regardless of what the others wanted, it was still cold and dark and he wanted to move. Anakin swung his legs over the side of his bed and hopped to the floor. Canli’s patterned face reappeared so soon, peering down at him. “Hey- what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to see Obi-Wan,” Anakin returned, not as quiet as he probably should have been in a room full of sleeping people, but he was already padding toward the door.
“We’re meant to stay in here! It’s lights out!” Canli retorted with wide blue eyes. Anakin just raised a brow at him.
“Okay,” he acknowledged blandly, but then pressed the button on the control panel and opened the door anyway, leaving with ease, it sliding softly shut behind him. The Jedi still hadn’t realized he’d overridden the nighttime lock ages ago, when he’d first found out the temple had a small, indoor garden, and he’d ached more than anything to go see it. It made sneaking out really easy.
But, as much as he loved the place he’d begun to regularly visit in secret, he did actually just want to go find Obi-Wan this time.
The Knights had different quarters - their own - and weren’t too far from the crèche, but still far enough to be annoying. Especially when the halls of the temple were so overwhelmingly big - wide enough to fit at least 4 rontos side by side, and tall enough that it hurt his neck to look up to the ceiling.
Was there ever a need for halls to be this big? They didn’t even fly ships through it, even though they absolutely could. The Core was really strange. Bland and clipped and stupid and with all of these unnecessary grand gestures. No one needed halls this big if they weren’t going to fly ships through it. It was just daunting to walk through, especially given that he was small and it was cold and so eerily empty.
The temple was never really asleep, even at night, but right now, this corridor was completely dead.
Anakin hurried his pace a little, instincts buzzing anxiously about being alone so out in the open. Hugging himself for warmth, he finally came upon the Knights’ quarters, and he sped up to one specific door. Entering the code that Obi-Wan seemed certain he didn’t know (really, it was so easy to just watch what people type in, did they really think him an idiot?), he walked into the room. It was dark, all the lights off, but he didn’t need to see to know where he was going. Avoiding the furniture of the living room and the kitchenette, Anakin slowly pushed open the door to Obi-Wan’s bedroom.
There was a little bit more light in here than the rest of the quarters, a soft orange glow that reminded Anakin of the Suns from the dim lamp on the bedside table illuminating Obi-Wan’s sleeping face.
Hands grasping nervously at the fabric of his own sleep robes, Anakin stood in the doorway and stared for a moment, shifting lightly on his feet as he debated whether to wake Obi-Wan up. The Knight had seemed exhausted lately - presumably exhausted of him.
Not in a mean way, Anakin could tell - Obi-Wan liked him - but that didn’t mean he wasn’t tiring. The others said Obi-Wan was too young to take care of an initiate. That he’d just lost his Master (not the bad Master, this was different, remember) and didn’t have any time to grieve before he’d been sacked with Anakin - and even Anakin knew he was trouble. He could barely go a day without getting scolded for something or another, and even now, thinking about himself being trouble, he was being trouble. He’d left the crèche, wandered unsupervised, and entered Obi-Wan’s room without permission.
But it was so cold and so lonely in there. He just wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere warmer and safer and smaller.
Slowly approaching Obi-Wan’s bedside, Anakin watched the Knight’s face. Slack and more relaxed than he’d ever seen him, really. There were bags under his eyes that hadn’t been there the day he and Qui-Gon had Freed him.
He frowned.
Yeah, that was definitely because of him.
But, even though it was selfish, he started to climb up into the bed with Obi-Wan anyway. You had to be selfish on Tatooine, anyway - at least a little bit. Helping people was good and well, and obviously you should, but if you gave up everything for everyone, you’d have nothing, and you’d die. So right now, he was going to be selfish. He was cold and alone and he didn’t want to be anymore.
“Nnh, wh… Anakin…?” Obi-Wan murmured sleepily as he stirred, eyes cracking open, woken by the dip of the bed beneath Anakin’s weight. The boy sat and stared down at him. “How– what are you doing here?”
“It’s too cold in the crèche,” he complained, before leaning forward and grabbing onto Obi-Wan’s robes, looking at him with big, blue, imploring eyes. “Can’t I stay here?”
“Anakin, you must stay in the–”
“Please?” He leaned further forward.
“Anakin.” A scolding tone. Of course. Anakin frowned, mirroring Obi-Wan’s expression, and he squeezed the fabric bunched in his hands… before suddenly lowering himself down and curling up beside him, nestling into the curve of his body like he belonged there. It certainly felt like he did.
“Please…? You’re warm…”
… Obi-Wan didn’t respond for a very long moment, but he was thinking loud enough for Anakin to hear. His shields weren’t as good as he thought they were. Anakin carefully watched Obi-Wan’s emotions turn and shift as he thought, debating the consequences of allowing Anakin this… but eventually he let out a begrudging sigh and lowered a hand to rest on the youngling’s back. “... Fine,” he huffed. “But don’t you make this a habit. And you’re to go right back to the crèche at first sign of sunlight, lest you get us both in trouble.”
“Promise,” Anakin agreed easily with a sharp nod, something in him purring at the warmth and the contact, more than pleased that he’d been allowed to stay. Nothing felt too cold or too big or too lonely in here, unlike everywhere else in the temple, and Anakin closed his eyes, tension melting from his tiny body. A hand gently rubbed up and down his spine.
Maybe in here, with Obi-Wan, he could actually sleep.
And he did wind up breaking his promise a mere few days later, because this definitely became habit.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I'm giving up. I just finished "Survivor's Quest" and Lukemara/Skyjade is my OTP. I am reduced to writing them with every romantic trope. This is fine.
Please enjoy Luke and Mara Undercover As A Couple™ with Fancy Clothes That Make Them Reevaluate Each Other™ and Dancing™ and Trapped In A Closet™ and There Was Only One Bed™.
Oh, and because it's Star Wars, throw in a Force Bond™ that projects all their convoluted feelings straight into each other's heads creating a highly distracting feedback loop. And roll credits.
RIP Marjane Satrapi, author of the amazing graphic novels Persepolis about living during the fundamentalist revolution in Iran in the 70’s and 80’s. She also created the animated movie based on the graphic novels, which is where these gifs come from.
Reblogging in honor of Marjane Satrapi, one of THE great graphic novelists. Her comic Persepolis was a crucial text for shaping my belief that comics can deeply explore identity, culture, politics, and history.
