I was cooking dinner when she ran in, cheeks red from the wind and eyes wild.
"Mum! There's dead people at the fence!"
I turn away from my chopping and put my knife down, wiping my hands on my pants.
"Stay here," I tell her, going to grab my blaster rifle.
She follows me outdoors. She walks behind me in silence, as if this makes obedience to my earlier order. It's a long walk.
"Mum, who are they?"
They are lying side by side at the fence line and I don't recognise them. A twi'lek man and a human girl with short hair but for a long braid lying across her open eyes. Their clothes are full of blackened and burned circles around the chest, and a lightsaber still glowed, humming at the end of the arm thrust across the young girl's body. Bootprints mark and flatten the area around the two in a broad circle.
I look back towards the farmhouse, but my eyes return, inexorably, inevitably, back to the pair. It's a small wonder we didn't hear it from the house, I think. A large wonder that she was inside with me.
The sun is setting, dusky shadows settling into the planes of their faces. The light glints off the girl's wet cheeks.
"Get the shovel from the shed."
"But-" she's curious, but I need her away. Irrationally, I wonder if death is catching. If so, I want her far away, my precious, my precious.
"Go, now. Go!"
I met a Jedi once. Once when I was very small. Maybe her age. Something about negotiating a treaty. For memory, it didn't last that long, but my father didn't have to fight and die until I was almost grown. I still remember their peace, their patience. They listened. They gave me a smile, and I think they must have been kind.
There has been no kindness here. They have been left for the scavengers, this Jedi and their apprentice who I can't help but liken to my precious, my precious, my precious on the ground among the worms with the only song the hum of battle and the light of violence.
She returns with the shovel. A shovel for me and a trowel for her. And I begin to dig under the old barillia tree. Blue for peace, blue for war, blue for the lightsaber I haven't had the heart to move. I dig and dig, I dig the grave that others should have dug. She quickly grows tired of digging, and begins to gather flowers instead.
Twilight, and I hum songs over their bodies as should have been sung by others. Our arms lower them down instead of the ones who should have done so.
She scatters her flowers. I tell her to look for a big rock.
I retract the lightsaber while she is gone. Place it on his chest. In the ground they lie, side by side. Like I found them. I hope they would have wanted that.
She returns as I begin to return the earth to its place, covering what should not have to be buried and yet I am grabbing handfuls of dirt. I sing the songs I would sing for her, if it had been her, and I am thankful it was not. She helps.
We place the rock as it grows full dark.
There is no one to call them by their names one final time. No one to tell stories of how they filled their finite days. No one able to mourn the magnitude of life lost, no one whose heart will gape with the hole they left. No one who even knew their names. No one but a mother and a child who don't know them and yet I feel I do. I feel I know her, this little girl with the long braid. And I know I won't be sleeping through the night for a long time after.
"They were Jedi," I tell her, finally, and she is confused. And I know that all she will remember is that one evening there were two dead people at the fence.
Author's Note:
Sorry, I was in a mood haha Hopefully I haven't permanently scarred anyone - well, any more than they were already. Not what I expected my debut SW fic would be, but this idea got stuck in my head and wouldn't get out unless I wrote it down.
Anyway, got work in the morning, so I'd better get to sleep! Drop me a review if you liked this - I don't know anyone who isn't a fan of a good review, even if it's just a smiley face - I'd love the feedback!
Trix