I was going to enter this piece into Fanfic's newest competition, till I realized that I had grossly misunderstood the prompt. I still love this piece, though, so here it is. Also, let me know whether "Padmé's Ruminations" or "The Immolation Scene" works best for this chapter - I couldn't choose between the two!

"Don't be afraid."

Audio-receptors snapped to attention at those words like the frigid crack of an enemy's neck. Cruel metal talons screeched along the floor of the Geonosian catacombs. From a small room above the entrance, through a translucent veil of obsidian, curious gold eyes gazed upon the young boy who said those words.

Don't be afraid, the young Jedi had said.

The embers of good in his deadened heart deferred to the soft female voice who used to say those same words to him, long ago. A slow whirring sounded as his joints contracted in on themselves to rest against the palms of his icy duranium hands. Tears were unfitting for a warrior as highly placed as himself now, but he'd shed many for her in his younger years.

The woman next to the boy, clothed in white, passed him a look. She replied in a small whisper. "I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life." 

A plume of pity for them sprung up. Why did they remind him of himself when he had been young? Why were the senator's eyes so doe-like, so much like her eyes? 

Dooku may have altered parts of his memory, and he was glad for that. It had made him stronger, faster, angrier, tougher. But he had failed to erase the girl with blue flowers in her hair.

His mind jumped to her second sentence. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. The words came from the mouth of a youth, of a girl who hadn't seen enough in the world. It was something that angered his softer side. Love gave you life. Love couldn't cause death....or so he had thought when he was younger.  

The words echoed in his hazy mind. I've been dying a little bit each day. These were young lovers, beautiful and full of life - having not seen the turmoils of this world. 

"What are you talking about?" the boy said softly. His face carried intense longing, desire - though he tried to hide it as a good Jedi should. 

Two voices spoke at once, though he saw only one pair of lips move - the girl's. "I love you."

The general's head shot up, and his eyes narrowed, darting around his quarters. But there was nobody to be found - no one with that feminine voice speaking in harmony with the girl dressed in white.

"You love me?" the boy replied. The general's fists clenched further; his toes curled inward. The slap of a body hitting the water came roaring back to his audio-receptors. A quiet groan ebbed from his vocalizer, mangled into a robotic sound of pain. 

His heart banged within his cybernetic chest, the black blood from the transfusion coursing through his synthetic veins with writhing hiss noises. For the first time since he had woken up from the surgery, he felt strangely faint. And as quietly as was possible with his new voice, he tried repeating those words, since she had evidently said them to him. 

"You love me?"

He could almost hear her reply. Isn't that what I said, dingbat? 

Before he was forced to live a lie as a Separatist slave, he dared himself to think it again. It was buried, stuffed so deep down that he could barely recall when he'd last spoken those words.

"I miss you, Ru."

The boy turned his head away and let out a shuddering sigh. His hands tightened around the bar of the Geonosian chariot. "I thought we had decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie, and that it would destroy our lives."

He blinked with newfound glee. This child would soon learn what love's price was. It would deprive him of his will to live and bring about a torment worse than the fires of Mustafar. 

The girl lowered her gaze. "I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. I truly, deeply....love you. Before we die I want you to know."

Her face edged towards his. The general crushed his eyes shut - he knew what would happen. Rage ripped through his organic remains. The fire was fueled by having his own love, the flower of his life, cut away from him. The hatred of watching a Jedi, those vile hypocrites, kiss their senators and love them despite their code. That code which had caused the death of over half his people, that code which had lost the Kaleesh people their honor.

His fists crashed into the wall on their own. Those fists trailed up to a body which harbored no life, no purpose except the eradication of the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic. The body which had lost its way after she, the light of his life, had died.

I will relish their deaths from within the catacombs. I will feast upon the sight of the monsters gorging on their blood. The Jedi Order will pay dearly for what they did to my body.

To my people.

To my Ru.

The dying embers of the honorable warrior faded into smokey ash, resting in the deep recesses of his failing memory and with the disintegrating face of his lover. Yet a dying gasp broke through. The last thought of the Dreamer, now and forever more.

Godspeed, young ones. May your wisdom be a heavy burden.

(965 words)