Couple: Paul Atreides & Chani Kynes
From: Dune saga by Frank Herbert

The similarities between Dune and Star Wars are oft-documented: among other themes, a galaxy-wide Empire, a messiah from a desert planet who struggles under the burden of his destiny - and an ill-fated love that shapes the future of that galaxy through their twin children.

Paul Atreides is the son of a Duke on a lush, water-filled world not unlike Naboo. Chani is a desert-dwelling Fremen on the Tatooine-like world of Arrakis (Dune). Long before they meet, their meeting is foreseen in a dream by Paul: a girl asking him to tell her of the waters of his homeworld.

Like Anakin, Paul is a Chosen One of sorts. It is prophesied by the matriarchal, Jedi-like (except perhaps more manipulative) Bene Gesserit that one of his bloodline will be the "Kwisatz Haderach," whose mental powers would bridge space/time and who would have absolute prescience. From early childhood his Bene Gesserit mother trained him in their ways, refining his mental and physical reflexes to near-superhuman agility.

The galaxy's Emperor fears the popularity of Paul's father Duke Leto and orders House Atreides to relocate to Arrakis as part of an elaborate betrayal to orchestrate the Atreides' downfall. Ultimately the Duke is killed and Paul and his mother flee into the desert, where they become members of a tribe of Fremen, desert-dwelling nomads. Chani, a warrior woman among the tribe, is assigned to guard Paul and facilitate his assimilation into the Fremen ways. Paul recognizes her from his dreams and is immediately drawn to her, feeling that she was like "a touch of destiny." Over several years, Paul's powers and influence grow among the Fremen tribe, who regard him as their own prophesied Messiah. Through a near-deadly ritual involving the powerful Arrakeen substance of spice, which among other things dramatically increases powers of prescience, Paul emerges as the Kwisatz Haderach, now able to see through all points in time at will. He foresees the Emperor's plan to regain control of Dune, and organizes an attack on the capital city. Paul defeats the Emperor, forcing him to abdicate and give his daughter Irulan in marriage to Paul to seal his own ascension to the Imperial Throne. While he is legally married to Irulan, it is a marriage in name only, as Paul remains utterly devoted to Chani, who - while officially just a concubine - he considers his true love and wife.

Paul becomes the most powerful Emperor the galaxy has known, seen at various turns as both savior and tyrant, using his powers of prescience to try to guide humanity on a course that, while bloody, he hopes will prevent it from becoming stagnant and destroying itself. He feels obligated to continue in this course and essentially trapped by the burden, despite his and Chani's longings to return to the desert to live out their days in peace together. She remains his sole source of emotional comfort and peace. At one point, after promising Chani they will soon return to the desert, he tells her they have eternity together, but she - sensing her own time may be drawing short - tells him "I have only now."

There are multiple plots to end Paul's reign, one of which results in his becoming blind, though he partially overcomes this deficiency through his powers of prescience. In another plot by the Bene Gesserit, and partly out of her own jealousy of Chani - who Paul has promised will be the only one to bear his heirs - Irulan has secretly been poisoning Chani to prevent her from conceiving a child. Paul suspects this, but does little to stop it: like Anakin, he has foreseen that childbirth will bring about his beloved's death, and he does not want to lose her. Eventually Chani finds a way around the poison through a spice-heavy Fremen fertility diet, and conceives twins. Despite his powers of prescience, Paul remains unaware she carries twins, only foreseeing a daughter. (In a deleted scene from Revenge of the Sith - glimpsed here - it is strongly hinted that Anakin believes Padmé is carrying a girl.)

Due to the spice-enhanced acceleration of her pregnancy, the process of birthing her children - a boy and a girl - essentially drains the life from Chani. Paul, separated from her at the time, hears her voice in his mind calling him by her private name for him, and immediately knows she is gone. Paul's enemies offer the grief-stricken emperor, in exchange for his abdication of the throne, a chance to resurrect his beloved as a ghola (a sort of clone which would have all her memories). Paul almost entertains the notion because of the agony he feels in losing Chani, but ultimately declines, killing those enemies before they can kill him or the babies. Because he did not foresee two children, he realizes he has lost his prescience and, in accordance with Fremen tradition for the blind, walks alone into the desert presumably never to return, leaving his children and Empire in the care of the Fremen and his sister.

Chani's consuming so much spice during her pregnancy results in the twins - Leto II and Ghanima - being born fully aware and with their father's powers to tap into all the memories of both their male and female ancestors. Paul and Chani's personas still exist in the memory of their twins, the Chani-memory serving as spiritual guardian to her daughter, protecting Ghanima from being overtaken by the memories of all the other ancestors within her. (Not unlike Padmé, whose Luke's own latent memories of guide him on the course to save his father.) There is one point where the twins briefly allow the personas of their parents to come alive and speak through them, and the Chani persona's desire to be reunited with her love is so desperate that she does nearly overwhelm her daughter, only relenting on the warning of the Paul persona.

Some years later, shortly before his own death, Paul returns briefly from the desert to try to counsel his son. As Emperor, Paul had foreseen the personal sacrifice he would need to prevent human extinction, a sacrifice he had been unable to bring himself to make: giving up his humanity to evolve into one of the revered spice-producing giant sandworms of Dune and ensure the thousands-year-long lifespan needed to guide humanity on the necessary path. Despite Paul's pleas, his son chooses to sacrifice himself and embark on this course, reshaping the galaxy and humanity in profound ways.