Title: The Merging
Author: Sarah "urnofknowledge"
Rating: G, though young children may not appreciate the themes being dealt with.
Disclaimer: This is the universe that George built. These are the characters that inhabit the worlds of the universe that George built. This is the author, who intends no infringement, who gains nothing financially from the use of the characters who inhabit the worlds of the universe that George built. You can go about your business. Move along.
Dedication: To those who see the beauty, and understand.
Author's Note: This short bit of writing was first penned for the fanfiX message board community, but that was a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away ;) ). It is meant to be taken as prose, and yet, to be appreciated as verse. If that makes any sense, which I'm sure it doesn't. What can I say ... the urn is cracked, always has been.
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"Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' th' great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke.
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust"
[...]
Quiet consummation have,
And renowned be thy grave.
--- CYMBELINE, William Shakespeare
Luke could not temper the swelling in his heart; it was like an agitated thing groping for release from the darkness of a destiny unfulfilled. Universes within universes collided and integrated in the storm of Luke's core, compensating for a lifetime of desire, a lifetime overshadowed by the gloom of foreordained purpose. But that purpose had been fulfilled, that task accomplished, to be imprinted, forever, in the pattern of the stars. Here, where he now lay trembling in the dark, all had been resolved, all that he'd been born to resolve, all that his father, and his sister, and the very spirit of the Jedi creed signified among eternal things.
With forceful yearning, Luke reached out to the hulk that was his father's failing body, troubled as it was, in the throes preceding death. It was all so ugly, bewildering, and unjust, like a nightmare, like a delusion; it didn't seem real. Nothing seemed real. Luke had to touch his father, he had to determine whether or not the Man described in Ben's tragic narrative truly existed and could be fathomed. And so he stroked that face as if encountering something sacred, or something of his own self. Breathing erratically, Luke struggled to voice what he was feeling, but words eluded him. All he could do was hold his father, hold onto the victory they'd shared, and the love that entwined their souls together in the Force.
Something rattled in Anakin's chest as he stirred himself up to speak. "You were right ..." he murmured, clutching at Luke's hands. Unheralded tears streaked the dirt along his cheeks, like rivulets of blood shed willingly. "You were right about me." The distractions of war, and disparity, and human infirmity dissolved in the greatness of Anakin's eyes as he moved to honor his son with his death. "Tell your sister ... you were right ..." Luke was right, he was right, all was right, as it was meant to be. Where once there was dank chaos, now there was peace. And Anakin began to drift toward that exquisite peace which exuded Obi-Wan. He knew fires could not burn in him, there.
"Father," Luke sputtered, weeping now, unable to lose again what had been lost to him all his life and only now had been restored. He tugged at Anakin's shoulders with a passion almost violent, willing him to remain alive, to carry their triumph through to completion. There was so much Luke didn't know of this enigmatic figure who seemed like a shadow fragment of the person Luke had become and still hoped to be. Luke's ignorance was terrifying; what if he never came to terms with the perplexity that was Vader, his own component? What if Vader's death made Luke's life invalid? Could one exist without the other?
A crushing hollowness impacted Luke's grasp of reality, as though he had become the atmosphere around him - still charged with the residue of Palpatine's death. Yet he inhaled in an abrupt shudder, just as Anakin breathed his last and fell back against the cold steel floor. Luke slowly respired, as if the natural act of breathing had taken on a new dimension. He respired in silence, and he laid his body against the armor of his father's corpse.
The Death Star shook from a series of internal explosions which rumbled in claps of thunder-like cataclysm. Luke didn't care. It only seemed right that all should end, here; Luke could see nothing in his future but death ... and the honor of such a death as his, in his father's arms, with his father's favor. Surely this was his fate, surely Ben had known this outcome from the beginning.
But there was a nagging in Luke's mind, a fervent harrying that unsettled this last resolution. Luke tried to push it away, rejecting it as the reemergence of his dark side, but it only intensified, disturbing his consciousness with the exigency of an impending storm. The sound was like the wind, howling, almost phonetic. He strained to listen, with every degree of his remaining strength. "Ben?" he called. It was not Ben.
Not quite of himself, Luke stood up. He knew he had to get out of there. It was not yet time.