A/N: Listening to sad John Williams music does scary things to me. This random little story is completely unrelated to my silly behemoth Four for Flirting, which is also here at ff.net, but it's the only other thing I've ever finished and I wanted some feedback. I know it's one of the least original scenarios ever, but I wanted to try my hand at it. As always, please please please leave a review (even if it's just to tell me I suck, which will make me cry but let me know you exist).
Summary: One-shot. A padawan at her Master's funeral ponders what it truly means to be a Jedi.
No Pain
As I watch them consign the mortal remains of my Master to the flames, I can think of but one thing. Luckily, it is the one thing I should be thinking of, something I am sure the other Masters would be proud to know: the Jedi Code.
Or, more specifically, a certain part of it: that a Jedi shall feel no pain.
It's a rough translation, of course; it certainly isn't meant to be taken literally. In the course of such a warlike life, the Jedi will naturally incur physical injury that will force them to feel pain of that nature. No; the Code speaks of emotional pain, of grief and loss and the misery of love torn asunder.
I am thinking of this mandate, true enough, but to my shame I am not following it.
I have always comforted myself by imagining that the Code, while supposedly the mainstay of all true Jedi, was written to apply in a perfect world. This galaxy which we live in is far from perfect, and therefore no Jedi can be expected to follow it to the letter. Thus do I justify my current disobedience: the flaws of this existence.
No padawan is meant to watch her Master burn; it is out of the order of things. By the time my Master has reached the end of his life I should be a Jedi fully trained and proclaimed, free of my trials and having spent many years in the service of the Temple. No padawan should be left standing here in the most absolute of uncertainties, knowing that the one being who has taught and guided and--oh, taboo--loved you for so many years, the only one in all the galaxy, is dead. Never again will you see his smile, hear his voice, fight at his side. He will not send you forth into the trials with the serene certainty that you will prove yourself nobly, nor cradle your weary form with fierce pride upon their completion. Never will he cut the symbolic braid from your hair and proclaim to all the galaxy that you are now a member of the noblest Knights ever to exist, worthy of the title of Jedi.
No, surely this cannot be how the Force meant this to happen.
I do not know how ancient the tradition of burning one's Master is; I cannot think of a time when a Jedi who did not disappear upon death was not burned with full ceremony. And yet, standing here now in my proper place at the head of the mourners, I cannot imagine anything more barbaric. Must I watch as the flames take the flesh, the contours of the face, of the man I have known and loved for so long?
Love, too, is meant to be forbidden to Jedi, and some seem to take this mandate quite seriously. I, however, cannot imagine how they can manage to stranglehold their emotions so thoroughly that they can restrain themselves from loving. I have always been helpless in the face of my love for the man--now the shell of a man--before me. His disregard of that particular aspect of the Code was equally notable; though he never said it baldly, I know with all of my being that I was loved as much as, if not more than, I loved him. If I be damned for that, then so be it; my heart has always been a truer guide than words I have never truly felt applied to my life.
Behind me the mass of my fellow Jedi is silent, and I can feel the weight of their regard on the back of my neck. Pity is the chief emotion among them, on equal footing with sorrow. Their thoughts, along with dwelling on the deceased, fall frequently on myself, the now masterless padawan learner who has not completed her trials nor even her training. But at her age, who will take her on? Too old to imprint and love as one's own padawan--too young to simply complete the training in a perfunctory manner and ship off to the trials--I may as well be anathema, and they all know it.
A small hand brushes mine, and I glance down at the one figure who is passing no judgment and weighing no consequences. Little Alyosha, at my side, who looks up at me with wide imploring eyes which convey the same emotion I feel. He sees not my dark future nor the possible unworthiness of the man who is laid out before us; there is only love and sorrow in his eyes, and a dim uncomprehension. My master was his friend and teacher, playmate and idol. His death is a blow that I do not know that Alyosha will ever recover from entirely; that, also, I empathize with.
The brand touches the wood around my Master, and a blaze immediately engulfs it, the flames licking ever so slowly toward him. Horribly, I feel my stomach lurch, and my first impulse is still to save him: to leap onto the pyre, pull his body free, and dismember anyone who comes in my way. Once away from that awful pyre, I would revive him, somehow--for it is impossible to rid myself of the feeling that if I can but take him in my arms once more, all will be well. His heart will beat under my ear, his strong arms will encircle me, and the love and protection that is by now a part of me will still be there, cradling me, for all eternity.
But I know this is not so, and I restrain myself. There is decorum to be upheld here. I can't simply go about leaping on pyres or dissolving into weeping; that would be beneath a Jedi's dignity. Once my Master told me that the dignity of a Jedi is at once everything and nothing. There is a type of dignity that is ingrained within the souls of all good people, a moral character and conscience that guides their actions and clearly outlines the honorable path. It is by this dignity that every Jedi--nay, every sentient being--should live her life, preserving it at all costs and dying to uphold it. Dignity of the sort that commands I restrain my tears at my Master's funeral, however, should generally be disregarded.
I realize at the moment, with a gut-wrenching finality, that I will never again see my Master's eyes sparkle as he whispers that utter blasphemy to me. Ah, Gods, I will never see his eyes again at all.
I would swear by them sooner than by the Code, always.
The flames lick onto his boots and soon they are burning, and I try desperately not to imagine the flesh blackening and curling within them. This is not my Master, I remind my screaming heart; this is but his husk, his cast-off flesh. Yet it does look remarkably like him, and my head has wisdom my heart lacks, so I cannot bear to watch. Beside me, Alyosha makes a small sound, and I reach down and turn his head away, allowing him to bury it in the folds of my robe. It is better to stifle his sobs, and I stroke his hair as he fights them, utterly uncaring of any disapproval from the Council.
For what is a Jedi, after all?
A warrior for the Force; a guardian of justice. A protector of the people. A being supposedly above such feelings as pain, and despair, and love.
And, beneath it all, we are men and women: people ourselves.
When the flames alight on my Master's robe, I too turn my face away, and I do not care that this is simply not done. Were my Master by my side--and it is too easy to imagine him there, benevolent, loving, supportive--he would be the first to enfold me in his arms and block my view.
But he is not by my side, and he never will be again. And no one, no one will ever take his place; no one could. I now have no supporters in this world but myself.
No pain.
Given a choice, I would not choose to be the Jedi who watches with stone-faced impassivity; I would be a woman, and weep at his passing. But this is not my choice, and I must make myself presentable so that some Master will take pity on me and complete my training, that I may be a full Jedi someday. So I lift my head and face the awful sight before me, staring unblinking into the flames until the image is permanently seared into my eyes.
If to be a Jedi I must consign my humanity to the flames with my Master, then so be it. My heart has already died with him; without that, what good would humanity be?
And from this day hence, I will feel no pain.