Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Jedi are being chased and hunted into extinction. The Force is even forbidden to them. This is an angst piece, people. I *am* the Queen of Angst, you know
Archive: TempleVoices.com only for the time being. I don't suppose you'd wait until we comb it over to archive it, would you Amber? I'll code the HTML for you... <offers up chocolate and a box of REAL tea>
Beta: Alas, none. It's my own fault, really. I didn't get to Amber in time.
Feedback: I crave it more than potato chips and chocolate frosting. ladywitch79@hotmail.com.
Notes: I had a hell of a time coming up with an idea for the angst contest, and then suddenly this broadsided me. The Hollow Men was written by T.S. Eliot in 1925, and is one creepy poem. While looking for a copy of it online, I found it on some web site in the nether reaches of the Internet, and it had been set up with five segments, a form I have kept in this story. If this is the incorrect format, I humble apologize to Mr. Eliot. Inspiration also came from Angie, who showed me through her own work that fan fiction can still be good, even if it does not contain any of the cannon characters. Big massive thank you hugs to Angie for giving me the courage to kill of the Jedi Order, to my mom for helping me identify the poem I had stuck in my head, and to my husband for not killing me for playing the 1812 Overture at 11pm for three nights running, as well as helping me to find a word processing program on the old computer that actually <gasp> checked spelling. The title is a Serbian folk song, and translated it means "Come, my dearest, why so sad this morning?" It is credited as being part of the basis for Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave, a song titled in honor of the Serbian heroes of the Turko-Serbian war. What do you expect when I listen to Tchaikovsky and write?
Disclaimer: The estate of T.S. Eliot owns the rights to The Hollow Men. The Estate of God King Lucas owns Coruscant, the Jedi, and the rest of the Star Wars Universe. Shrinda, Airik, Joi, Efran, and Rednith are mine, and if you really want them when I'm done with them, have a blast.
Sunce Varko No Fijas Jednako
~~~*~~~
I .
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rat's feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.~*~*~
A Jedi is never alone. That was one of the first truths that Shrinda had learned. No matter the distance that separated one from another, all a Jedi had to do was reach deep within his or her mind, and there it would be; that beautiful, glowing connection that keep all the Jedi tied together, melded their thoughts, and sang their children to sleep. That one portion of a Jedi's mind was always active, thinking, sharing, and loving.
After she had given birth to her daughter, Shrinda had also learned to find different voices in the quiet, comforting babble. She could find her family and loved ones easiest, and had not hesitated when she needed strength and love. Jedi were more than just warriors - they were, friends, lovers, mothers, and fathers, and above it all, they were each other's strength.
And now, Shrinda needed that strength, though she feared to draw on it.
When the killings had first begun, the Jedi had pulled together, coalescing to protect their own before they realized it only made things worse. The Jedi, the very beings who had stood for truth, life, and freedom for thousands of years, were being hunted as animals. They were being painted as unfeeling, power-hungry monstrous abominations that should not be allowed to live, much less gather together in a group that could kill the thousands of millions of innocent citizens that the Empire watched over..
And so they had left. Only a few at a time, and mostly at night. Those who tried otherwise were either captured by the Imperial Troops, or torn asunder by angry mobs looking to blame their misfortune on anyone.
Now the great Jedi Temple of Coruscant stood empty, its proud towers crumbling, and the Jedi had been left with a single order:
If you value the lives of your brothers and sisters, be as if you are already dead.
Such simple words, Shrinda thought, for such an impossible request; the Jedi were to never use the Force again. Not even to find each other.
Ironic that she should have survived the riots, the raids, the deaths of thousands of Jedi, including her own Padawan, and the long fight to be as far from the Temple as possible, only to give up that which she had fought for all her life. Tears streamed down her face, but Shrinda made no move to stop them. There was no one to see.
She was alone.
~*~*~
II.
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer.Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.~*~*~
Shrinda had found herself thinking about her children lately. Had their Masters gotten them safely away? Were they now learning Jedi lore in secret, with nothing but a handful of chiplights and a shoddy cover story?
Were they even still alive?
It was so tempting to search the Force for her babies. Joi had turned 22 years before she and her master had run. Maybe she had been made a Knight since then. Shrinda smiled; she still had trouble seeing Joi as more than the sweet little girl who had first tried to use her mother lightsaber when she was five, and had been so happy to be a big sister when she was six.
Efran had gone with Joi and her master. His master had been too far from Coruscant to fetch the 16 year-old boy, and Joi wouldn't have even considered leaving her only brother behind. They had left, planning to find Master Terrik, and to band together as a family until Shrinda and her husband could join them.
But Airik, husband to Shrinda and father to Joi and Efran, would not be joining them; he had already joined the Force.
He and Shrinda had planned to escape through the ancient sewer systems of Coruscant. Not exactly a dignified exit, but one they were more likely to succeed in than most others were. They had left behind their soft, beige robes, and had changed into cheap, graying clothes that were frayed at the hems. Even their lightsabers should have been left behind, but the two Jedi had known they would die for certain if they had no weapons.
They had not gotten far when they were set upon by the first pack of thieves. Fearful to reveal themselves, the couple had fought hand-to-hand, barely managing to escape. As it was, Airik sustained a cut to his shoulder from the jagged piece of metal one of the thieves had brandished. Instead of resting, they pressed on. The pilot who they had contracted to smuggle them off of Coruscant would only wait so long.
~*~*~
III.
This is the dead land
This is the cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.~*~*~
Airik died only days later.
The infection had been swift and deadly, taking even the two seasoned fighters by surprise. Shrinda suspected some kind of poison, but there would have been no way to get an antidote anyhow. All she could do was sit by, wiping the fever-sweat from her husband's brow, whispering lies to keep him happy.
Yes, they had made it.
No, the children had not been harmed.
Yes, he was fine.
The last, he had known as a lie, but had only smiled, and ignored the Force-dampening collar Shrinda had put on him to prevent him from reaching for the Force. In a lucid moment, he had kissed the back of her hand just as he had when they were first courting, nearly twenty-five years before. She had smiled through her tears, and gave him words of truth to take with him to the Force.
I love you.
When her husband's body had burned to the last ash, Shrinda had forced herself to keep walking, running, crawling, and whatever else it would take to get away. Her children deserved to know of their father's death, and despite her pain, Shrinda had no wish to join him as yet. Forbidden to use the Force, forbidden to be the woman she had been for every one of her 53 years, Shrinda was still a Jedi, and a Jedi was still hope for the very galaxy that had turned against her.
~*~*~
IV.
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdom.
In the last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid riverSightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.~*~*~
The hangar was empty when she finally reached it. Doubtless the man had tired of waiting, and had left his tardy cargo to rot. Shrinda had wanted to scream and rage, but had forced herself to only seethe quietly. She couldn't chance discovery, not when there was still the slim chance she could find someone else to help her.
At first, she had spent the hours between dusk and dawn, prowling the streets, searching for any stray gossip about a pilot that might help her. But when her fourth would-be murderer lay in a bloody pile at her feet, Shrinda had realized that all she was doing was courting the same fate as Airik. And so she spent the nights after, keeping watch over the stars.
The stars, long before any species had learned the secrets of flight and science, held a universal fascination. Everyone, even Jedi, stared at them as though searching for the answers of life's most difficult questions. Did they hold the afterlife? The secret to the immortality? Were they the embodiment of the Force itself?
Stars were nothing more than gasses and light, though. And many of them had long since been extinguished by the cosmic fates. Yet still, even with the scores of species flying through space, cultures still looked to the skies as if for Divine inspiration, assistance, or some other great bolt from above.
Shrinda looked up, the myriad of pinpoint lights filling her eyes. At that very moment, she was giving of light as well, a light that very might well be seen across the galaxy by two lonely Jedi children who looked to the skies for the parents who might never arrive.
~*~*~
She would have thought herself too old for the pilot's tastes. But then, Shrinda knew it had less to do with the sex, and more with power. Either way, the young man was going to get her off of the ghost planet that had been the capitol of the Republic.
With a knot in her stomach, she boarded the small craft that would take her and three other human refugees, a woman Shrinda's age, her daughter, and the girl's infant son, far away from this nightmare. The ship was really only big enough for two or three people, but it would do.
For the first time since Airik's death, Shrinda allowed herself to feel hope. Soon, if she were lucky, she would be with her children again. With a mother's fierce conviction, she knew that Joi and Efran were alive and safe.
That night, as the hurtled through space, she slept as soundly as a babe.
~*~*~
She was looking out the forward view when the streaming beams of light suddenly became normal stars again. The pilot and co-pilot began to curse in several rough languages, all of which Shrinda knew; the hyperdrive had died, and they were light years from the nearest safe planet.
In silence, she watched the two men play with various dials. After a few moments, the ship began to move again, but the hyperdrive was making grinding noises that did not bode well for their limping ship.
~*~*~
V.
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the ShadowFor thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the ShadowLife is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the ShadowFor Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the~*~*~
It was the best they could do, and it would have been fine if there hadn´t been so many people onboard. But rerouting the life-support systems to give the hyperdrive enough power to get the to a safe port was the only option. All the people on the small ship could do was pray they wouldn´t run out of breathable air first.
Using the distress beacon was right out, since the Empire did not take to kindly on smugglers, and even less so to smugglers with living cargo. The risk of suffocating to death as the six people gradually used up the breathable air was preferable to encountering a patrol of Storm Troopers.
When the co-pilot had informed the others of what was going on, the young woman, barely twenty, had begun to cry. She held her baby son tightly against her chest, and cried. Her mother had tried to shush her, but the girl only cried louder.
Shrinda had merely sat in her corner, watching the scene unfold. Once, before the madness had over-taken the Galaxy, Shrinda would have at least tried to comfort the girl. But now, all she did was watch with a dispassionate eye. Deep in her heart, she knew they were likely beyond comfort and help.
~*~*~
After the first day, they had accepted that they weren't going to make it.
Tired of the warning bells announcing the low levels of breathable air, the co-pilot had disabled them by putting his fist through that part of the panel. Fortunately, there was no electrical fire to burn off any of the precious oxygen.
Unfortunately, he also knocked out the ship's heating system. Gradually, their small metal tomb got colder and colder, until Shrinda could see her own breath condensing in the thinning air. Extra clothes and blankets were passed around so that they might preserve what little body heat they had left, but Shrinda saw the ice crystals forming on the co-pilot's mustache and he shivered in his partner's arms. The girl and her baby curled up with the girl's mother, conserving body heat.
Shrinda was left on her own.
The grandmother was the first one to die, twelve hours later. She took a wheezy breath, coughed twice, and then fell into a slumber she never woke from. Unwilling to loose any air through the airlock, the pilot had placed the dead woman in the small cargo space. The woman's daughter, still clutching her squirming baby, had protested the pilot's careless treatment of a corpse.
When the pilot died hours later, the girl dragged him into the cargo space herself. The co-pilot was left in his chair, eternally staring out into space. Shrinda would have helped, but she had lost control of her consciousness, and was drifting in and out of sleep filled with dreams of her husband, glowing with the Force and coming for her.
When she was a child, Shrinda used to have terrible dreams and her mother used to sing a soft lullaby to her at nights, crooning softly until the fear was gone, until her tears stopped. She sang every night until the dreams stayed away for good. Such a beautiful song... Hush little baby...
Shrinda shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs of her half-waking dream. She could almost hear her infant-self crying for the comfort of her mother's touch...
No, it was the baby. He was still in his mother's arms, but the young woman's eyes stared blankly into space. Shrinda found herself crawling over them, checking the girl's pulse. Shrinda felt no stirrings beneath the cold skin. The baby cried again, desperate for contact.
The Jedi looked at the baby, and remembered the sweet baby faces of her own children, both of whom had suffered more than any children ever should. Oh, that she could have saved them such pain! Without a second thought, she picked up the baby, and rocked him in her arms. She began to hum a song, even as her hand covered his nose and mouth.
When he stopped struggling, and his little limbs fell still, she placed the limp form in his mother's arms. Shrinda sang softly as she closed the girl's sightless eyes.
Hush little baby...
~*~*~
So cold. So very cold.
There was so little oxygen left, every breath hurt.
One of the first lessons a Jedi learned, was how to cope with pain. Center on the pain, focus on it, and then just let it go.
Shrinda inhaled deeply, her chest expanding to its limits...
Held the breath in...
And let go.
~*~*~
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.<end>
