A/N

Drabbled up based on the ending of Rogue One, so major spoilers in case you haven't seen it.


Stardust

For some reason, dying doesn't bother me.

Sixteen years of staying hidden from the Empire. Three years of being on my own. One hour of fighting on Scarif. Three minutes until I, Cassian, and anyone else within one-hundred miles of the Death Star's laser strike are incinerated. All we can do is sit on the shore, and wait for the fire to come to us. The same fire that may await more worlds within the galaxy, even if we did manage to get the weapon plans to the Rebellion. Death, one way or another, is inevitable. Maybe defeat by the Empire is inevitable as well. But, I tell myself, we won here. The Empire has resorted to destroying its own base in a bid to prevent the plans for its superweapons getting into the hands of its enemies. Are they in such great supply of men and material that they can afford to destroy their own worlds at will? Or simply that desperate?

In life, I'll never know. I can only die hoping that it's the latter. For hope is the basis of rebellion, isn't it? Even without hope for my own life, I can still hope that my death will mean something. Or maybe a new hope will rise and finish what we started. But it doesn't matter. I can see the fire consuming the horizon, boiling the seas, spreading towards us like a harbinger of what's to come. The mushroom cloud remains in place, but the wave of heat and debris comes ever closer. I look at Cassian in silence. In silence, he looks back at me. There's nothing left to say, after all. I can't say I know him that well. But I'd like to think that within his mind, he's come to the same conclusions that I have, even if they're based on nothing but belief and hope. That our actions on Scarif haven't been for nothing.

The sea is boiling at the shore. The sand is burning my legs. We draw close, for comfort, if not for warmth. I like to imagine that my father and mother are here beside me. Saw Gerrera, who faced the fire before me. Chirrut, KS, Baze, Bodhi. Every other soldier we brought down to this world, who will be dead within minutes one way or another. I think of them, and in silence, say, "it's worth it." It has to be.

The fire comes, and I feel it all. I feel the heat of ten-thousand suns. I feel the wind of the tempest, of seas boiling, of the land of a planet screaming. I feel Cassian, holding me, right until the end, as death stretches into infinity. I feel my body being ripped apart down to the atomic level. I feel life, the universe, and everything. Collating, colliding, scattering. And as the fire consumes me, as I return to the universe which bore me, as time itself runs dry, I have one last thought, upon the breath of a dying mind.

In the end…we're all stardust.