Immaculate
"And just like a soft breeze and a few blossoms on a branch that tell the coming of spring, so when a man attains Enlightenment, grass, trees, mountains, rivers and all other things begin to throb with life.."
The woman, the young woman, Shmi, had never been so scared in her whole life. Oh, certain moments had come close, that went without saying. When the pirates had come upon them in the Outer Rim Territories - when she had been made a slave - fearful times under different masters. But this? No - this was an acute fear, directing inwards painfully. It wrapped around her, thick like the robes she had pulled on at the edge of the settlement before heading out, alone, into the desert.
How many women's footsteps did she walk in, their tracks obscured by wind trailing down the centuries? How many women before her had walked the unmarked route she suddenly found herself upon? Surely many had entered the desert as she had done, their fears clutching at their hearts like convulsing hands, but she doubted any had felt what she was feeling. To her knowledge, in all her understanding of the nature of the universe, there had never been anything like this before. Perhaps her knowledge was simply too narrow, perhaps – it was possible – she was simply ignorant, simply did not know enough but – oh! What was to be done? What was she to do?
Her feet, wandering blindly (or as blindly as one who had trained herself in the ways of the desert could wander) had lead her out of the sight of all signs of life. Now she let herself drop with a graceless, soft oompf onto a dune, the sand shifting beneath her body, grains trickling down past her feet in a scramble of yellow colour and miniscule fragments of glinting quartz. She drew her knees up to her small breasts and wrapped her arms around her skinny frame – skinny from years of hard, thankless toil – skinny from years of never quite enough to eat – and fought back the tears. Her knowledge might be narrow, her ignorance might be great, she might not be as educated as the rest of the galaxy. But she knew enough to know that it wasn't possible. She knew what was needed and knew that she hadn't done it. She hadn't been with a man. She hadn't been with a man and so she couldn't possibly be with child.
And yet, she was.
The terror she had avoided, danced with, fought with, for so many weeks now clawed fiercely at her throat and threatened to choke her to death, or maybe to insanity. She clasped tighter at her bony knees. With child, with child, with child. She squeezed her eyes shut in desperation, as though that would make a difference, as though, if she couldn't see the world, it would cease to exist. As though she could alter reality through sheer will power.
But you can't stop the change, no more than you can stop the suns from setting. That was what her grandmother had always said, so much so, that even as small as she had been when she'd been made a slave, she could remember the old woman saying it, as though it were yesterday. Despite having forgotten so much. Despite having forgotten their faces.
A tear trickled down her cheek, trickled like the sand that still ran in small streams from the crest of the dune whenever her body made even the slightest movement. She'd already known, of course. She'd sensed that something had changed, even before her woman's blood had ceased to come. But she'd told herself she was being foolish, reminded herself that the blood had been absent in other times, absent because she'd worked too hard, been too exhausted, too hungry. Now, though, she had finally gone to the healer, avoided the curious, probing looks, gone to the healer and had had, what she had already known, confirmed.
She was with child.
Oh, how she'd disliked the expression on that woman's face, the amused, knowing eyes gleaming beadily beneath heavy worn wrinkles and hanging brows. How she'd disliked that look she'd been given, as though the healer knew everything. She knew nothing! Nobody could know anything! Nobody could know how it was to be with child and never have been with its father!
They would all presume that she had had someone. More likely, that someone had had her. Maybe in exchange for something sweet and soft to eat, or a new piece of beautiful cloth. It happened. She knew it happened. Or maybe, maybe they would think she wasn't that type of woman and would make up stories for themselves about a lost love, romantic tales of some offworld with gallant promises of returning one day, some day, when his fortune was made, to take her away from her life as a slave. A life she had never intended on bearing a child into, inflicting her lost freedom onto a defenceless baby.
She wiped her escaped tears on her robe, sand and dust griming into pale mud on her cheeks, and managed a small half-smile. There were already enough of those stories already. She didn't need fairytales. Sure, she hadn't planned this but at least she was here; it could have been much worse. Her current master was indifferent enough – better indifferent than angry or violent. And it was a desert planet. Her whole life seemed to revolve around them. Maybe it always would. Maybe she would die in the desert. Well, at least she understood it. Loved it perhaps. Loved to be in it, in the desert, here where she sat with her robes pulled around her. Sat amongst uncountable dunes with their eerie wild beauty. Here she could feel a real Something, a Presence, an ancient forgotten unnamed God perhaps. Here she could pretend she was free.
She breathed slowly. The world of sand spread out around her in all directions. In the desert there was no such thing as east and west, she thought, no such thing as time, no such thing as anything but here and now and sand and your own heart beating. She breathed again, deeper, centring herself, steadying herself. Closed her eyes and loosened her robes, bared her head and let the stinging, blinding wind cut sand into her brown skin. She already looked older that her years, but the falling light of the almost-night softened the faint, worn lines. She let her body melt away into the wind and dunes and piercing sand and darkening sky above her. She let her mind move out, extend, expand, as though she could perhaps reach the horizon – and felt the Presence.
Suddenly, it all came clear.
Suddenly, there was nothing to fear. There was no reason for terror or anger or even worry. She seemed to come alive. The whole world seemed to come alive. She understood and the world around her pulsed in like understanding.
She bowed her bare head and her will at the feet of the Something.
She was with child.
Not my will be done, but yours…
A/N: Firstly, I don't own Star Wars. Secondly, the quote at the start of the story comes from Buddhist teachings, more specifically from the Antarābhavasūtra. And the last line is from the Bible – I had intended on making Shmi say what Mary says to the angel when she finds out about her pregnancy, but somehow she got Jesus' words from the Garden of Gethsemane instead (when he knows he's going to die). Maybe because I think it's a sacrifice, to carry a force-born child…
I hope I haven't made too many errors. I adore Star Wars (and the larger universe created in the books) but I'm not perfect on the details and I apologise in advance if I've done something awful. As it was, I had to re-write some of this because when I glanced on Wookieepedia I realised that they'd only gone to Tatooine three years after he was born. So, be gentle on a lesser sister in the fandom! (grins)