Archive: m_a, SWAL, swff, anybody who wants
Archive Date: November 07, 1999
Author's Webpage: http://digitalmidnight.simplenet.com/
Category: AU, Drama, Angst
Disclaimer: George Lucas is a major deity and I'm just playing around
for the sheer fun of it.
Feedback: Yes with begging puppy dog eyes!
Notes: For the record, this is Mac's fault. If you're wondering what
the heck I'm doing starting another series, blame her! Better yet, join the
"Protect Your Favorite Fic Authors from Random Bunny Attacks" brigade and
keep me from ficcing again!!
Series: Probably (oh, who am I kidding?? Yes....)
Summary: What if the Sith had won...?
/There is no passion, there is serenity./
Ancient words, handed down for centuries, whispered from Master to Apprentice. A Code, existing only in the minds of those who remembered it, who treasured and lived its simple precepts.
/There is no death, there is the Force./
Comforting words. But in the chill lingering dusk of an empty, nameless place, he found it hard to take much warmth from words alone.
The tiny fire crackled, trying valiantly to beat back the encroaching darkness in fits and spurts of flickering light. Sap within the dry wood caught, bursting in sharp miniature explosions, casting cascades of sparks into the night that he automatically reached to dampen. It was a familiar sight, one that should have been warm, rife with the memory of countless other nights spent before such fires at his Master's side.
Now, it seemed that the fire awakened the darkness, unwisely taunted it, and at the edge of the light the shadows arose with flashing eyes and sharpened talons, poised to rend and tear. He shivered, wrapping his arms tighter around himself.
Beside him, his Master stirred, breath catching. He closed his eyes, his own breath held taut in his throat until he heard the labored lungs resumed their task, air wheezing reluctantly in and out. Only then did he release his own, opening his eyes and turning to look at the cloak wrapped form.
Never had he thought of his Master as tiny. Certainly not as frail, no matter the years reflected in the wisdom of dark eyes. But now... now his Master seemed to fade before his eyes, small and weak, worn down beneath the crush of the passing ages. The spark had left each motion, the fire drained from the eyes, and in its wake it left only a husk, tiny and shapeless and rapidly failing before the encroach of the night.
He reached out, gently straightening the tangled cloaks. Dark eyes slitted open, focusing on him only slowly. He brushed fingertips across the creased surface of a hot, dry forehead. "Rest, Master."
Some faint glimmer of stubbornness remained, sunk deep beneath the fading light. Some tiny remnant of the strength that had been, and it fixed upon him now, as assuredly as it ever had when he was a child at lessons. Breath came painfully, words more so, but come they did. "Go. You must."
He shook his head. A hand, the joints swollen and near crippled, unwound itself from the cloaks and reached out. He turned hastily to fetch the water cup, lifting his Master's head that the old one might drink. Dark eyes closed again as he lowered the cup, and he thought at first that his Master had slipped once more into sleep. But clawed fingers hooked into his sleeve as he would have drawn away, capturing him, the words a breath of whisper. "It is time."
He had not thought that words alone retained the capacity to shake his world. But they did, and these words reached down to his soul, streaking fear in their wake. "No," he whispered, voice ragged. "No, Master. Just rest. Please."
The firelight glinted off the dark eyes, for a moment lending them the fire of years before. "No. It is time. Rest... comes easy. Soon."
The eternal rest, at one with the Force, and he... he would be alone. The fear grew, blossoming within him, dark tendrils of chill sinking into his being. "No. Master, please. You can't. I'm not ready."
A gnarled hand reached up, brushing the tip of one of the many tiny braids woven through the length of his dark hair. Unerringly grasping the only one that mattered, the tail with its scrap of rag tie, the only one which bore the white strands of one of his Master's thinning locks woven into it. "Do not fear, Padawan. Fear leads to anger, anger..."
"Leads to hate, I know," he cried. The firelight swam in his eyes, brilliant and blinding, shot through the glittering wash of unshed tears. "I'm trying, Master," he whispered. "Please. You can't leave me. Not now."
"It is time," his Master repeated, softly. Dark eyes opened fully, hazy and indistinct, looking past him to things only they could see. "The Padawan becomes the Master. You... will be the last. It is time."
The tears spilled, unheeded, to track dirty trails down his dust streaked cheeks. "Master..."
The eyes focused on him again, even the last remnant of light fading from their depths. "Go, you must. Search... find him, you shall. The Chosen One. It is time." Burning hot, like desert sands, the tips of straining fingers touched his cheek. "Upon you... the rank... of Jedi Knight... I bestow... Qui-Gon Jinn."
His name was a near silent hiss from lungs that breathed out, in... and then ceased. He felt it, all around him, the rushing incandescent joy of a soul freed of its burden, casting off its aching case of flesh and bone to surge, triumphant, into the brilliant light of all of those that had gone before. "Master!" he cried, the word swirled away in the streaking motes of Force that lit up the night, bright and carefree. Beneath his hands flesh faded, disappeared, and only empty cloaks remained in his grasp. The fierce warmth of his Master's touch came to him, whipped about him, a final comforting farewell to the one left behind... and then was gone.
The night was still and only the flickering crackle of the fire broke it. He clutched the empty cloaks to his chest, tears falling to dampen their worn grey surface. He cried his grief, his loneliness, his fear. The sobs burst within his chest, struggling through a tightened throat to be muffled fiercely before trickling into the silent darkness.
Only when dawn came, the first dirty grey streaks of it lightening the horizon, did he stir. The fire, long burnt out, came only fitfully back to life as he tended it. His eyes were swollen and caked from tears, his throat raw and head aching. In their wake the sobs left only a weary emptiness... it was, he imagined, better than the fear. Perhaps.
To the hungry fingers of the fire he fed the last of what remained of the being who had raised him - robe and belt, cloak and cane. The fire crackled cleanly, taking the offerings easily and devouring them in sparks that mimicked the passing of the owner himself. Qui-Gon watched it blindly, wrung dry of any tears.
Only at the end did he hesitate. His Master's saber was small in his hands, a toy capable of wielding death in the pursuit of light. The blade hummed to life beneath his fingers, dialed thin and low, a knife length of crystalline green. It was awkward to do and finally he closed his eyes, guided by touch. The blade burnt clean through the rope of braid, leaving behind only the lingering stench of seared hair.
He coiled it in his hands, looking at it blindly. Twenty-one years of his life recorded in its length, and at each year another small band, threads of non-descript grey or glittering gold, whatever his Master had at hand on the anniversary of his birth into the teachings of the Light. He had treasured each of them, regardless. Been proud of them. Now... it lay in his hands, a coiled rope of sand dusted hair, thinner than his smallest finger and so long it had brushed his thigh.
The mark of a Padawan, apprentice learner of a forbidden order. With his dying breath his Master had freed him of it and bestowed upon him the rank of the order itself.
Lightsaber and braid, both flung into the heart of the fire which blazed up to receive them. In one swift gesture it was done and he was alone. Only his belongings remained, and he himself... Qui-Gon Jinn, newly raised Knight of the Jedi. He watched the fire dance, watched until it died once more, biting back the tears that threatened his vision. He was alone. The oldest surviving Jedi Master, Yoda, was no more... and he, Qui-Gon, was the last and utterly alone.
[...to next stage]