The Savior
Suggested Theme:
Main Theme- Forward, Oneiroi! From Over the Garden Wall
Ben Solo Organa is fifteen and alone. Master Skywalker has confined him to this solitary cell for using the Force inappropriately. He is left at the cruelty of his memory.
"She defeated you fairly, you shouldn't have thrown her out of the ring!"
"Perhaps, when you're older, when you have better control over your emotions, you can be a diplomat."
"You just destroyed cargo worth a million credits!"
"Your Master is planning to kill you because you're stronger than him."
There are only two choices available to him in this situation:
Sleep and put my faith in the Force. Or I could pray for divine intervention.
His chapped lips twist into a sneer at the futility of the former, but then they soften into a curious pout for the latter.
I've never really prayed to the gods before. Mom doesn't like the idea of an all-powerful being controlling everyone's lives and not being hold accountable. Dad thinks it's just another tool to extort the poor. And Skywalker turns his nose up at anything claiming more power than the Force. But the gods have never tormented me like the "benevolent" Force.
On his last trip to Naboo, he got to spend the day with the Brotherhood of Cognizance, an arcane order devoted to the study of knowledge and art in Shiraya's name, and he remembers the unique way they prayed.
He grabs the cup of water on his squeaky desk and sets it in front of his sleeping pallet. He dips two fingers from his right hand and brushes the water from the top of his bottom lift all the way down his chin like a scar of remembrance. He closes his eyes and prays.
"Shiraya, Goddess of the Moon, please listen to my prayer. My family tells me that I have to be a Jedi, while Snoke tells me that I have to…give into him. I-I don't want either. I just want someone to listen to me."
He bows his head before the cup of water and opens his eyes. He sees nose and lips far too big for his child-round face. His brown eyes well up with disgust.
"I love your nose!"
The shock of a man's voice electrocutes the disgust out of him. In front of the closed door is a man, a young man, dressed in the tightest red slip he has ever seen. It is a minute after staring at the man's hard nipples that he pays attention to the rest of him.
The young man's shoulder-length hair is almost as red as his coral-like headpiece; the headpiece has three sets of eyes, green, blue, black, stack on top of each other like a pyramid. His left arm is pink with old burns, but the rest of his skin is as pale as the moon.
"Shiraya?"
"Oh no, my lovely!" The young man giggles like a Wistie. "I am Yun-Shuno, the Goddess of Forgiveness."
"Did Shiraya send you?"
"No, but I heard your prayer." Yun-Shuno's green-blue eyes shed tears as he speaks, but his mouth remains as upturn as Shiraya's crescent.
"I see….."
"I have come to listen to you!" The silent tears do not stop streaming down his pale face.
"Why are you crying?"
Yun-Shuno reaches up to touch the tear-tracks like he's surprised they're there. "I'm actually sitting alone in a bar with my heart utterly broken."
"…..So you're omnipresent?"
"Mostly yes."
"If you're heartbroken, then why are you here?"
"For you. And my heartbreak doesn't happen for another year in your time."
"Then where are you now in my time?" Yun-Shuno's eyes turn as green as an apple.
"Worshipping with Quoreal after our victory at Saijo." Green apple becomes night black. "He's slitting his wrists in honor of me."
"…"
"Anyways, this about you, not me!" Yun-Shuno changes subjects as abruptly as Han stopping the Millennium Falcon. "So what do you want to tell me?"
"I think you should sit down, next to me." Ben says quicker than the beating of his heart.
He smells sharp and heady like Jade roses, and his bones are pricking me like thorns.
"I-I….don't want to be a Jedi."
"Okay, then what do you want to be?"
"I-I wanted to be the Prince of Naboo."
"What do you want to be?"
"I wanted to be the Ambassador of New Alderaan."
"What do you want to be?"
"…I don't really know."
Tears blur his sight and his hands ball up.
Yun-Shuno rests his white hand on his cheek and brushes away a tear.
"And that's okay. Don't let some prophecy or family guilt get in the way of your life. You decide what you want to be!"
Clear tears and green snot dribble down his splotchy face. Yun-Shuno pushes his crying face down onto his chest; he can hear the goddess's heart beat like his heart.
"And let yourself have a good, ugly cry every now and then. It won't fix your problems, but it takes the edge off them."
It's been a very long time since he's been held like this, like he won't be discarded in the next moment for the Republic.
"A-Are you going to l-leave me?"
"Physically, yes."
Yun-Shuno soothingly runs his burnt hand through his thick, black locks.
"Take me with you."
"I won't." Ben feels his breath hitch in his throat. "But you can come to me."
"A year from now when your heart's broken and you're all alone at some bar?"
He pulls his face away from his heart and sees that Yun-Shuno is still crying.
"Yes."
Ben's hands, too clumsy and big to hold a saber properly anymore, touch the goddess's face; he tries to brush away the tears, but they keep coming like a deluge.
"You cry so much."
"I feel like I will never love again."
"I'll love you."
Yun-Shuno leans forward and kisses him.
Ben wakes up and sees his uncle standing over him with his thumb about to press the lightsaber's power button.
"Ben."
He gets up and moves pass him.
"Ben!"
He refuses to listen to him anymore.
He plans to join the Brotherhood of Cognizance and devote himself to Shiraya.
And I'll find Yun-Shuno.
Author's Comments- No links this time.
Originally, this story was about 1800 words in total, but I wanted to make it more minimalistic. I also wanted to make sure that I don't do something crazy like make a series for this one-shot because I have like four series that I'm nowhere close to finishing.
I also wanted to express my feelings about religion, specifically on gods, and the Force in the Star Wars universe. I do not think that the Force, Ashla and Bogan aka Light and Dark, gives a shit about the universe and the people inhabiting it other than for pure entertainment. To quote drunk Cersei, or rather what she heard from Tywin, in Game of Thrones: "The Gods have no mercy that's why they're Gods."
I like to write the gods and goddesses that are probably not real (with exception to the Mortis ones) as kind or even helpful in contrast from my perception of the Force. Because Shiraya knows that these Force-users need kindness every now and again. In Ben's case, his kindness comes in the form of Yun-Shuno as Armitage Hux for reasons I swear that I will get into in one of my series for Star Wars.