My answer to vaderincarnate's Quotation Challenge at Enjoy!
Title: The Great Adventure
Author: Aelan Greenleaf
Category: Angst
Characters: There are two. That's all I'm saying.
Summary: Death is but the next great adventure.
#4: After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. -- J.K. Rowling
I never thought it would end like this.
I'd always thought he'd go out like a hero, lightsaber whirling in a tempest, taking down his enemy one by one before finally succumbing to the inevitable. I imagined him taking on a whole army by himself, and holding on until sheer numbers overpowered him.
When I was a boy, maybe ten or eleven, I saw for the first time someone die by my master's blade. Inexplicably, I erupted into tears, sliding down my cheeks as I cried for a deadbeat criminal who had brought nothing but misery to the world. My master, seeing my red rimmed eyes, gently took me into his arms, and comforted me. I calmed down, and turned to him, confusion in my mind.
"Why would I cry for him, Master? I don't know why I did that..."
He smiled sadly, held my shoulders tight, and looked straight into my eyes. "You have a strong connection to the Force, my young Padawan. Death is a powerful thing; it will always affect you powerfully. Never forget that."
That same master, the one that had held me in his strong, warm arms and reassured me so many years ago, lay before me now, nothing more than a shadow of his former self. His pale skin was almost transparent with the thin sheet of sweat that covered it. His chest rose up and down slowly with the agonizing sound of laboured breathing, dubiously aided by a apparatus at his side. No, this is not that way I thought he would die, defeated by his own body.
I remember when he fell. We were returning to base with our platoon after a victorious campaign deep underground in the caves of Sullust when I noticed he was no longer beside me. Turning around, I saw him gasping for breath on the volcanic rock of the cave floor, floating in and out of consciousness. I lifted him up into my arms and ran.
"Master! Master, breathe." I pleaded to deaf ears, as I ran towards the base. The medic was alongside of me, almost struggling to keep pace with my sprinting legs.
"Would my rebreather help?" I asked, still running, still sending signals through our bond to try to get him to just breathe
"No, I don't think so, sir." said the soldier, and that just made me run faster.
His eyelids flutter, and he moans softly in his fitful slumber. I wonder what he dreams of; hopefully a place where the sun shines brightly and he is happy. Happiness and joy is ever more elusive now, and I almost forget what it is like, to be carefree and cheerful. Even the thought of the woman that I love fails to evoke a pleasant emotion within me.
I can feel the corners of my eyes begin to tremble, and for the first time in a long time, tears begin to fall. I don't want to lose him, I can't bear to lose him, what will happen once he's gone? And then that voice returns, whispering to me softly as it coils a cold tail around my heart that all things die...
"Don't you have better things to do then to sit by an old master, young knight?"
The words are but a whisper, and I can barely hear them. I look up to see the strained smile of the man who is in all ways my father, my brother, and my best friend. His blue eyes that had once burned so full of conviction, of faith, and of life have turned a dull grey, almost completely void of anything at all. It is hard to see past the deteriorating mask and see the Jedi that I know is there.
I try to smile; it falls through. "No, nothing in particular, my dear master."
He looks past me, to the walls and the Temple that lays beyond. "Don't cry for me, Padawan."
I continue to stare at him. "Then what else can I do?"
The doctor finally told me, after I had waited for what seemly an eternity for news, that this was not a one time event. She told me that the condition that afflicted my dearest friend was not one that could be simply cured with a treatment or a pill; it was a disease, and that it was in its end stages. I can recall being totally and utterly shocked: how could he have hidden this from me, how could he had concealed this for so long?
"I don't understand. How can it be in the final stage? He's never been sick like this before."
She looked at me with sad, defeated eyes. "He's had it since he was about twelve, he said. He contracted it somehow, and he was afraid of being sent away, I guess. He never told anyone about it."
My knees felt weak underneath me. "What?"
She placed a soft, comforting hand upon my shaking shoulder. "I'm sorry."
He shifts to his side, and looks out the lone viewport in the small room, watching as the speeders and shuttles pass by, the reaching arms of Coruscant rising in the background. I am struck by his absolute calmness, the serenity of his self, as I sit worrying and wishing and crying.
"Anakin, do you remember what I told you about dreams?" He doesn't look at me; he keeps his sight on the ships that rocket through the atmosphere.
I laugh to myself, half-heartedly. "I do."
A slow, lethargic movement, and he is facing me once more. His chest heaves as he struggles to fill his lungs with life-sustaining air. "I told you that they pass in time. Was I correct in this, my dear apprentice?"
I look away. "Yes."
"Death will pass in time too, Anakin. Mourn me not, for I will never really be gone. To die will be an awfully great adventure, don't you think?" He smiles now.
I look back up. Tears are stinging my eyes once more, but his smile awakens something within me. "You don't like adventures, Master." I say, reminding him.
"Then I think it might be time for something new, hm?" His blue eyes flash with a moment of amusement, then disappear into grey oblivion. The gasps are louder now.
I leave my chair and kneel down by his bed, taking his cold, clammy hands into my own. They are so thin, so frail that I am afraid I will break them. The machine is beeping now, and I begin to rise to get someone to help, but he grabs my hand tight and, surprisingly, manages to pull me back down. He looks straight at me, grey orbs burning as he tries in vain to make his lungs take in more oxygen. The unspoken words, contained in his eyes beg me to stay. I turn off the machine, and remove it from him gently. The gasping slows, but I know that means nothing. Soon, he will asphyxiate from the lack of air pumping through his body.
I don't care that I am sobbing, that he sees me now at my weakest and while he is so strong. I can feel his grip slipping, but he is still holding on through sheer strength of will.
"I know you are different, my dear Anakin. I have seen the danger in your future." He closes his eyes, and I know he is barely holding on. A second later, he reopens them, and they are glowing a sky-bright blue, full of emotion and of unshed tears. "I want you to remember what is right. I want you to remember that life is transient. I want you to love and live, but I want you to know that this is not the end. Death is but another part of life, my Anakin." His force signature is fading; it is being swallowed into the night. He is losing the fight.
"Don't go, Obi-Wan." My tears fall onto our joined hands, their warmth swallowed up by his cold, failing grip.
He smiles one last time. "All things may die, Anakin Skywalker, but all things live on." Cerulean eyes fade to grey, and his hands slip from mine. He falls into the current of the Force, and melts into it, as they become one.
I never thought he would die like this. But even in death, he comforts me, like he did so many years ago. Even though he is gone, he teaches me, like he always has. Within his own death, there is a lesson, and I have learnt from it. The dead-star dragon falls away. Obi-Wan's adventure has just begun.