A Snow Song

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

It is Star Wars and it is also Christmas!

However, Star Wars does not have a Christmas! Or any kind of holiday season, I gather. That did not stop me from writing this spoiler-laden, slightly Clone Wars-borrowing-from take on A Christmas Carol. Luke is about to be visited by three spirits! Ooh yes.

[I wasn’t kidding when I said ‘spoiler-laden’! This will ruin the movie for you if you haven’t seen it!]

*

A Snow Song

*

Obi-Wan Kenobi was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. Luke Skywalker had seen him cut down, and then he had seen his body disappear, and then he had seen his ghost on several occasions, ghosts being generally pretty conclusive when it came to determining whether a person was dead or not.

It was the cold winter season on the planet Luke had chosen for his exile. He had, however, long stopped feeling the weather – the sun and the snow came by in fairly regular intervals, but he’d stopped noticing which was which.

“Good day to you, uncle,” came the voice of his nephew.

“Ben,” said Luke, not turning around.

“Isn’t the snow beautiful here? You never saw snow on Tatooine, uncle. Actually, there were great celebrations when it did come.”

“I know. I lived there.” Luke had never witnessed any of these celebrations. “You did not. You were lucky. You had all the privilege in the world and endless love from your parents, and look where it got you.”

Luke’s nephew just smiled.

“You’re not real,” Luke told him. “You’re an illusion. You haven’t even the decency to be a ghost right now. You’re a mirage, a conversation I’m having inside my own head.”

“One day I will kill you, uncle,” said Ben. “And I won’t burn your body. I’ll just leave you to rot.”

“Go away,” said Luke.

*

Luke’s hovel contained very little, though this was out of despair rather than frugality. By his bed, if you could even call it that, was a change of clothes and some scattered papers. There were no images in the room, not of other human beings nor anything else. There was however a light fixture on one of the doors, a light fixture broken for some time. Luke used candles to light the room now, and in the flickering orange malaise the broken object looked like a horned demonic face. Luke outstared it, as he generally did these days.

He lay down on the lump of clothes and rags he used for sleeping on and thought of his long-dead mentor. Was this how Obi-Wan Kenobi had spent his days on Tatooine? Talking to nobody, slowly going mad?  How had he spent his last hours treating Luke and his friends so kindly, when he had previously been staring into the blackest despair the galaxy had to offer?

Luke wondered if he would be so kind, were the child of Kylo Ren to seek him out one day.

As he lay there, feeling the frantic heartbeat of an animal in the forest nearby (it had been there for days now: soon it would be caught by a predator and devoured) he heard a noise so alien to him that he actually sat up and looked around. It was the sound of metal on metal, but it was old metal. That was the only way he could think to describe it. Old metal. Rust…

Luke thought of his father, and what had been left of him after his body had gone. He thought about calling his name, but something stopped him. He just waited.

The noise sounded like chains, he realized. He had been all across the galaxy, and only in the most primitive places were chains used. But they were used, and they hurt.

“Who’s there?” he called, finding his voice.

“It’s me, Luke,” said the being.

“Ben,” said Luke. The name had slipped out; there was only one Ben now, and he was also gone. “Obi-Wan.”

It was him. He looked exactly like he had done the last time Luke had seen him, that is to say, blue.

“Hello, Master Jedi,” said Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Luke felt a surge of anger unlike anything he had ever felt before. It wasn’t even all anger: there was sadness there too. “Where have you been?” he asked in a half-whisper. “Where were you when I needed you?”

“What will you tell your sister,” Obi-Wan said, “when she asks you the same question?”

“Don’t try that! Don’t try it!” Luke snarled. Outside, the small helpless creatures of the forest turned and fled for safer ground. “Why – are – you – here?”

“I once asked a dear friend of mine that same question, or one very similar,” Obi-Wan said. “I will tell you what he told me: I am here because you are here.”

“That makes no sense,” said Luke, although in many ways it made all the sense in the world.

“Luke,” said Obi-Wan, “the Force is no chain, but sometimes it functions like one. At the other end of this chain there are three people, each of whom represent millions of billions of others, and they wish to speak with you. Will you let them?”

“Will they save my sister, and my nephew, and my friends?”

“Luke,” said Obi-Wan, “you have saved more people than perhaps anyone in the galaxy has ever done, you have saved the living and the dead and the not yet born and the not beyond redemption. You don’t think it might be time someone – in some sense – saved you?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” said Luke quietly, feeling like a kid again.

“Three will come,” said Obi-Wan. “Be prepared for them.”

“Who?” asked Luke. “Yoda? My father?” He considered all other possibilities. “My mother?”

“Three,” said Obi-Wan. “Three, at midnight, for you. I have been in your position, Luke. I know the agony you feel. But you are strong, and the galaxy will never let you fade away.”

Luke blinked. Obi-Wan had….of course…faded away.

“I hate it when he does that,” he said to R2-D2, before remembering that the droid wasn’t there, and had never been. His anger had subsided now, but the sadness hadn’t. The Force itself felt old now.

“Midnight,” he said to no-one.

*

The First Ghost

Luke told the time via the Force. It was a concept difficult to explain, but that was what he did, and that was what he had done for years. So he knew, without the use of any sun or timepiece, when midnight came.

Nothing much happened at first. The debris on the floor seemed to shake a little, and something whistled through the trees, and then a man was…there. He was a ghost, absolutely, but in a way he looked like he had just strolled in off some street or other.

Luke looked at him closely. He looked like he could be the brother of Obi-Wan, or some relative or other. He was even dressed the same, although his robe was more black than brown.

“Who are you?” Luke asked.

“Qui-Gon Jinn,” said the man.

“Are you related to Obi-Wan?” said Luke. “He sent you, after all.”

“No individual sent me,” said Qui-Gon. “But you’re not wrong in your assumption, although we are not related by blood. It would be most accurate to call me his father.”

Luke tried to picture Obi-Wan as a boy, and couldn’t.

“He was my Padawan,” Qui-Gon elaborated, “a word meaning apprentice, a word now lost.”

“Oh,” said Luke.

“Just as you were his. I am one of the Jedi of times past.”

“I thought you were,” Luke said. “What have you come to teach me?”

“Once upon a time I taught everyone,” said Qui-Gon. “I am the reason you and others like you can communicate with the dead. I was the First Ghost, if you will. The first to return from the netherworld of the Force and meet the living.”

Luke nodded. “Of course,” he said, “I suppose….there would have had to be a first.”

“I’ve come to show you the past,” Qui-Gon said. “Your father’s and your mother’s and yours.”

“Alright,” said Luke. “I’m ready.” So far, this had all been a great deal easier than he had thought. Of course, he was only three minutes in.

*

Two pairs of boots crunched across the sand. Well, sort of. Qui-Gon made no noise whatsoever when he moved, although Luke thought he could still hear his footsteps.

“Tatooine,” he said to the ghost.

“Yes,” said Qui-Gon. “The most important place in the whole galaxy.” Luke looked at him to check he wasn’t joking.

“I’m serious,” Qui-Gon said. “Many of the quietest but the most important things in the world happened here.”

Luke could feel the dust against his face, and he suddenly felt very old indeed. He was old. But still.

There were more children on this ghostly Tatooine than Luke had ever seen on the real one. Some of them he was pretty sure were the children of moisture farmers, and some of them even looked like they might have come from wealth somewhere else in the galaxy, but most of them were most definitely slaves. There were no chains on their bodies, but there were chains in their eyes. Luke knew instantly which one was his father.

“What a start to a life,” Luke said as the boy scrabbled through a bin. “Slavery.”

“But he had a loving mother,” Qui-Gon said.

Luke too had had a loving mother in his aunt Beru, and the idea of her too in some alternative universe being a slave hurt his heart. “It didn’t save him.”

“Yes it did,” said Qui-Gon, in a strangely neutral tone.

Luke watched as young Anakin climbed so far down in the bin that only his legs were visible, and then clamber out again holding some sort of disgusting rotten fruit. He pulled a primitive metal blade from his pocket, and began hacking away at the rotting parts.

“He was a slave all his life, you know,” Qui-Gon said. “To others and to himself. Apart from one moment.”

“I know,” said Luke.

Anakin had finished removing the rotten parts of fruit and had ended up with a core that looked more edible. He carefully carved off a very small piece for himself and ate it, then wrapped the rest up in a cloth. Then he walked away.

“Slavery no longer exists on Tatooine,” said Luke. “My sister saw to that.”

“I noticed,” said Qui-Gon. “The whole galaxy noticed.”

Suddenly, the scene changed. They were a long way from the ugliness of Tatooine, and in a place that couldn’t have been more different: an elegant council room without a speck of dust in sight. In the room were a man and a woman. The man was in his thirties or thereabouts, with a black beard and piercing eyes. The woman Luke knew instantly.

“My mother.”

“I knew her briefly when she was a girl,” said Qui-Gon. “She was very talented indeed.”

Luke realized that he recognized the man, too, and he nearly said aloud “That’s Leia’s father” before remembering that of course he wasn’t, except that he had been. Bail Organa walked past Padme Amidala and closed the outer door.

“The bill will never pass, Padme. You’ll be laughed out of the Senate.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said.

“The Chancellor will be furious. He’ll sanction you.”

“If he saw the slavery on Tatooine, like I have,” Padme said passionately, “he’d agree with me that now is the time.”

“Our corner of the galaxy is still reeling from the Naboo affair,” said Bail. “They will tell you there’s no time, no resources, and…if I’m being honest, no motivation. I’m sorry, Padme.”

“So when will there be time, money and motivation?”

“Hopefully soon,” said Bail, and as he talked Luke talked over him, to Qui-Gon. “There wasn’t.”

“No,” said Qui-Gon, watching the departing figures. “Until your sister came along, and did what your mother could not.”

“I know what you’re telling me,” Luke said. “You’re telling me that a younger generation will always come along to fix the mistakes of their parents. But in my case, that simply isn’t true. Ben was our hope, Master Jedi. Ben was our new start. And it all went wrong.”

“But he is one,” said Qui-Gon, “and you’ve inspired so many. There are others waiting even now to finish what you started, people not bound to you by blood. Good people who heard your story and wished to emulate their heroes.” Luke saw a glimpse of children, more children: a girl crying alone in an abandoned marketplace and a boy sitting playing with toy weapons in a sterile room. “I am a ghost of times long past, Luke, but so are you.”

“Whose are those children?” Luke found himself asking.

“In a way, no-one’s,” said Qui-Gon, “and in a way, everyone’s.” They were gone. “But they exist because of you.”

*

“Tell me,” Luke said as they walked away across a sea of sand. Qui-Gon was fading away. “You alone knew the secret of speaking with the living. You alone were a you whilst everything around you was a…this. In the bluntest of terms – in the bluntest and most ignorant of terms – wasn’t it lonely?”

“There are some things the dead can’t explain to the living,” Qui-Gon said. “And it doesn’t work in terms of You and This. It’s vaster than that.”

“I want to know something,” Luke said, “and perhaps it’s something that can’t be answered. I saw my father standing there the night we defeated the Empire. As a ghost just like you are now. If he had never turned from the dark side, what would have happened to – him? What happens to people who have no connection to the Force, because people like that are among my dearest friends? Do they just – go? Because I can’t accept that.”

“It’s good that you don’t.”

“What will become of my nephew if he never sees the error of his ways? Will he just be gone, forever? What will become of my sister? And her husband? And their ghosts?”

Qui-Gon smiled for the first time, before he vanished.

“Do you think there is anything so evil or so powerful in the galaxy, Luke, that could permanently part a parent from its child?”

*

The Second Ghost

When Luke awoke in his bed, it was still very dark. He lay there, clearing his mind, and thought he heard Obi-Wan again. I’m sorry, Luke, the voice seemed to say.

Someone was walking towards Luke; he could feel it. More importantly, he knew it was a friend. He rose and used his one good arm to exit through the door, feeling both excitement and a fear he couldn’t quite let go. The fear turned out to be the more accurate emotion.

Han Solo was walking towards him. His ghost was flickery, like a hologram, but he seemed a little more there than Qui-Gon had been. Probably because Luke had dearly loved him.

He came close enough to touch. He looked sad, but not in the despairing way. He smiled.

“How we doin’?” Luke found himself asking, through a considerable amount of tears.

“Same as always,” said Han.

“That bad, huh?” Luke said. He tried to smile, and suddenly the universe sort of fluttered and he was young again. So was Han, and he was a little more corporeal, and they were sitting on the very top of the Falcon and drinking.

Luke wasn’t entirely sure what he was drinking (he had never been entirely sure what Han drank, either) but it certainly tasted real.

“I’m so sorry, Han,” he said.

“Don’t be,” Han said. “I had one hell of a good run.”

“No-one will ever avenge you,” Luke said. “I will make sure of that. No-one will kill your killer.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” said Han. “I know how the world works now.” He sighed. “Remember the days after Ben was born? Those were the best days. I wouldn’t change those days for anything.”

“Same.”

Han raised his glass. “This was the first parting that there was among us, Luke,” he said. “Rather me than any of you.”

Luke had wanted very much to say that it should have been him, but he held off.

“It’s funny how things go round in circles,” Han mused. “Funny and sad as hell. Wonder what Leia is doing right now.”

The universe seemed happy to answer his question, because it flickered again and there Leia was. She was kneeling on her bedroom floor and sobbing into her bed, whispering the names of her husband and her son. Han watched, grief-stricken, and Luke watched too.

“I should never have left,” he said.

“You and me both, buddy,” said Han. Then the universe was kind, and flickered again, and Leia and a girl were holding each other in a grief-stricken embrace. Luke recognized the girl. More importantly, he knew the girl, in a way he had no time to truly explain.

“She was a good kid,” Han said. “Wish I gotten to know her better.” He sighed. “Screw wishing.”

Suddenly they were far, far away, in a house neither of them knew. Two children, Twi’leks, were playing with toy ships.

“Why would you want to be a pilot?” said the younger one. “It’s dangerous.”

“Because they saved us all in the war,” the older one said. “And Mom says the galaxy is so much better now than when she was a kid, you can fly anywhere, you can go anywhere…”

Another flicker. They were at the foot of a ruined fallen statue.

“That was nice to see,” said Han. “Thank the Force. Thank somebody or something.” Both looked at the statue and realized who it was. “Hey, spit on that guy for me, would you?”

Luke obliged.

A family were coming towards them. Most of the kids were clearly adopted, bearing different symbols from their different cultures around their necks and arms and tendrils. The parents sat on the great stone arm of Emperor Palpatine as if it were a bench, and watched their children playing with absolutely no concern or reverence for what they were sitting on. One of the kids kicked a ball several times up Palpatine’s disembodied nose.

“If you ask me,” said Han, “that’s a pretty good note to end it on. Think I’m ready to go, Luke.”

He looked old again. Luke went to hug him, instinctively, before remembering that no-one could hug a ghost.

“Goodbye, Luke,” Han said. “Look after Leia and Chewie, and save my son.”

“I will,” said Luke.

“Well,” said Han, “until we meet again.”

He faded away with a smile, and although that was how Luke had always hoped and assumed he would go out, the grief was still very great. It lay on his heart even after he awoke again, and blazed in him like an illness as he sat there in his blankets.

He no longer knew the time, but he no longer really cared to know. Hours seemed to pass.

He listened through the Force to the world. He could hear his sister, still crying in her sleep. He could hear other people whom he didn’t know the names of, but whom he perfectly understood the essences of. And there was something or someone coming closer…

*

The Third Ghost

A phantom figure dressed in black was in the room. Luke knew immediately who it was, so he called out his name.

“Father.”

Anakin Skywalker turned towards him. Luke observed the scars and cuts on his ghostly face. He had never really been close enough to see them before.

“It is a source of great sorrow to me,” said Anakin, “that you see me like this. This is what I looked like the night I destroyed the Jedi Temple, and the Jedi children, and your mother.”

“Where is our mother?” Luke asked, counting both himself and his twin in the question. “Is she no longer…ever with you?”

“She is with your sister.” Anakin did not elaborate further, although perhaps he simply didn’t have time. “I am not here to show you the future, Luke. There’s no such thing as a ghost from the future. That way lies only madness.”

“I understand,” said Luke.

“I’m glad that you do. But I am here to tell you one, and only one, thing about the future. It will be alright.”

“What?”

“Time is cyclical. History repeats itself. These aren’t bad things, not in essence, they’re just things. Maybe there will even be another Empire one day, although I don’t think there will be. The future is a concept even the strongest Jedi in the world can’t fully understand.”

Luke nodded.

“When I was very young, five or six or so,” Anakin said, “there was a brief, freak snowstorm on Tatooine. I rushed out to play in it, and to collect some snow for my mother – I thought snow was the sort of thing that lasted forever, you know, if you kept it out of harm. I was beaten for running away, and thrown into a cellar. When I came out, the snow was all gone.”

“That’s horrible,” said Luke.

“I knew I’d never see snow on the planet again. There were celebrations, celebrations that me and my mother both missed. Some of my friends who had kinder masters were allowed to go, but not me. They were even allowed to join in with the songs, as long as they weren’t too loud.”

Luke had occasionally heard his uncle swear “by the Snow-Song!” but he had never really learned what it meant.

“Mom said, some day it will come again and I’d be here to see it, but it never did. I wanted to bring snow for her. When I started training with Obi-Wan, he had to explain to me that no matter what you do, it is very hard indeed to make snow last forever.”

“I’m sorry,” said Luke, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Not understanding the future…that was my fatal mistake,” said Anakin. “I know you will never turn out like me, Luke, but I wanted to tell you.”

“Well, it is appreciated,” Luke said. He wished bitterly that events hadn’t aligned to ensure he would only ever speak to his father’s ghost like a polite acquaintance.

“Goodbye,” said Anakin softly, “Ben can’t see me, you know. I tried, but he can’t see me.”

“I know you tried,” said Luke, which summed up his father’s whole life really. “Wait. You’re going, just like that?”

“I’m sorry,” said Anakin, “But like I said, there’s no thing thing as a ghost from the future. The person you now await is made from flesh and blood.”

“Okay,” said Luke. Then, “But if she’s the third one meant to come for me, then what are you doing here?”

“I am here because you are here,” Anakin said. Far off in the distance, Luke felt a presence getting closer. It was like hearing a pretty melody from very far away. It was the girl, he was certain of it, and he thought Chewie was flying her to him in the Falcon.

“May the Force be with us, every one,” Anakin said, before he disappeared just as the others had all done. Luke thought that was a nice thing of him to say, especially since it appeared to be a foreshadowing of something good to come. He looked at the place where his father had been for quite a long time.

The music was growing louder, as if the Force itself was singing. The girl was here.

He supposed he should go outside and wait for her. He dressed in the least dusty and dirty clothes that were lying around, and affixed the more comfortable of his metal arms. Feeling more like himself than he had done in ages, he went outside. He was fairly sure that there was in fact snow on Tatooine right now, and he thought that people there were celebrating it, and singing very loudly indeed.