Archive of Our Own ^beta

What if that was the last day of my life?

Every single thing about it is a blur, confusion.

At first, it's Ani, his eyes sporting that yellow gleam of hate that I have never seen before…

“You’re going down a path that I can no longer follow!”

…and sudden feeling like I am being suffocated, then dark. Dark. Dark. I can no longer see.

I don't know where I am and, other than hearing Obi-Wan and Threepio's voices, and occasional nervous, worried chirp of Artoo's, I cannot hear anything. Space is quiet, space is cold, but this sounds like much more than average cold and average silence. I am a frequent traveller; this is unlike anything I have ever experienced. My body seems to be getting heavier and lighter at the same time. How can such a thing be happening with artificial gravity inside of what almost certainly is a starship?

Then it's all pain, enormous pain in the groin and the rounded, friendly eyes of a nanny droid and her warming pads on my thighs. Could it be that I am having my first child already, after this unpleasant experience? Is this warmth supposed to make for the pain of childbirth and the fact that something seems to be very wrong with my respiratory system, making every push feel like death proper?

Like I have an idea of what death is...of course that I don’t.

They come, first the boy that is so clearly the light and then the girl that may be appearing a little darker when it comes to her hair and eye colour, but she is like the light in the dark to me. I had a name for a boy and a name for a girl on my mind and I manage to utter them, despite the fact that I cannot breathe properly.

And then, I say a couple of incoherent sentences and I feel like I stopped breathing for a moment. That is where confusion starts.

I am on a starship again, breathing inside of what feels like a rustling, transparent conservation bag. Aren’t those used for corpses? I am not a corpse. I am not dead!

Where are you taking me and why did you take my babies away? The shock of having had two and not one, experiencing not more than mere seconds of their powdery smell and soft skin and then, that blackout. And now I have no idea where I am, but I cannot move my hands and feet and I can no longer hear anybody familiar - my friends or my protocol droid.

After a long silence, there is something familiar. The voice of my mother. Mom, I am alive. Alive. Alive. Can't you see me? Can't you feel it? I am right here!

Has our connection weakened because I have spent most of life away from home? If somebody could open my heavy eyelids, I would be able to wink, blink or let you know that I am around in any possible way.

They lock the top of the conservation bag open and allow her to see my face, but not my body. What is going on here? And why are they not telling her that she is now a grandmother to Luke and Leia?

I can feel the presence of my father, too, and my sister. And then Bail Organa, who is suddenly around again, promises them to take my body to the mortician who would then prepare it for the funeral. Funeral? But I am alive!

They talk, the man occasionally pointing to me and, at one point, poking my ribs. Bail Organa tells him that I died from a broken neck and tells him to be careful in that area. And then, I can hear rustling. Is he paying for this? Why aren’t my parents doing it from their bank account? Also, didn’t he have a wife? Why is she not here with him to teach him some good manners? You don’t pay for what is the family obligation.

I would never badmouth him. I am just too scared for words. Now, if I could utter some and explain that...

The mortician talks about the customs of our homeworld and explains that most bodies are cremated at the central unit here in Theed, the Livet Tower, and that the ashes are then disposed of and returned to the soil, through the water. I have always been aware of this, but right now, I’m terrified.

Please, no Livet tower. Can't you see that I am alive? I do not want to end up as fish food in the Solleu River. I do not want to be burned and scream from a crematorium, with nobody being able to hear me from the crackling of the high-temperature flames.

The man then suggests that, for “what they need to show”, I should be buried in a mausoleum, my body sealed shut in concrete and then the said tomb covered in works of the best of the planet’s artists.

This being, whom Bail Organa addresses as Commodex Tahn, braids my hair and proceeds to take of my clothes and dress me up in a gown that must be somebody else's, two sizes too big. The next thing that he does is stick a large plastoid square underneath the dress and tie it to my waist.

Am I supposed to be exhibited just for this purpose? Is this the only reason I am being buried and not cremated? And why does Master Tahn swallow lumps and claim that he was going to retire after this?

Has Ani really gone that far? Would he come for my children if he knew that they were alive? Is that what this is about? Has he gone to the dark side for real? I thought that it had been my nightmare.

Once again, Tahn confirms that I am indeed dead and that there is no pulse. Bail Organa makes this odd comment about how I look like I am alive. I am not sure if he is complimenting Tahn’s work or saying that I am a beautiful corpse.

Then, somebody comms him. It’s my mother. Queen Apalaina insists on a state funeral and I never wanted that for myself. It’s a public event. And everything in my life was candid.

On the giant viewscreen, they will be showing occasional candid holos of the crowd marching. At some point, there will be my parents, my sister and my little cousin looking down, so nobody would see her cry. And then, there will be sweet clumsy Jar Jar Binks, stepping on a stone and almost falling over bosses Lyonie and Nass next to him. He always had more limbs that his mind could handle operating.

Speaking of that, I would trade one of my limbs for even his ears or tongue at any given time. Just so I could move any part of my body, to show them that I am here, alive and most certainly not being taken away to my resting place with unborn children in my womb. My Luke and Leia are alive, alive, alive. If only I knew where they took them to.

Master Yoda and Obi-Wan will not be there, neither will be any of the Jedi. Does that have anything to do with the fire I saw coming from the temple on Coruscant, minutes before I took a shuttle and departed to Mustafar?

And at this point, I am sure that I am dead. I am dying as a woman murdered by her husband, betrayed by the one I loved the most. And I am being buried without his last name on my death certiflimsi, assumed to having become pregnant from some sort of an illegitimate affair.

But that’s not the worst thing about it. The worst thing is that there is no way back.

This is death. I wish I could tell somebody, but everybody I love and know is still alive and I am not. I wish I could tell them that the short time it takes to pass from our world to the no-world is the strangest time they will ever encounter, as if the pain of death itself, especially if hypoxia was involved, was not great enough.

You cannot move, you cannot breathe, you cannot let others know that you can still hear them, smell them and taste whatever embalming solution they put on you, know that they’re touching you. You cannot tell them that, if they open your eyes, you’re starring right into the very core of their soul, but you cannot to left and right, to see if a celestial being is sitting on their shoulder. You can only look ahead, into the instance that will, in a way, represent your future in the place where nothing is the end.

Nothing ever is the end. When we leave this world, we are one with the Galaxy.

That was the first night of my death.