Saga Anakin's Last Breath (teaser for a ROTJ story coming soon !)

Coming soon on the Saga board, a scene from Return of the Jedi that has never been shot.
Anakin, the former Darth Vader, is dying. But he dies as Anakin, not as Vader. He dies as a Jedi...

Or does he ?

Did he bring Balance to the Force, fulfilling the Prophecy made of old ?
And if he did not, does it mean that he must bring Balance to his own self ?
And if he must, can he do it within the time left to him - his last breath ?

---

[blockquote]"If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could ever possibly imagine"

- Obi-Wan Kenobi[/blockquote]
[hr]

Anakin Skywalker was being carried by his son along the corridors of the Second Death Star, already more than hald-dead in Luke's arms. Through the stained, half-broken glasses of his vision filters, he could witness the chaos that was sweeping through the Emperor's ultimate weapon. [i]How amazing[/i] he thought. [i]Nobody is paying attention to us, and yet I am the Emperor's right hand, who is being carried away by the most wanted criminal in the Empire.[/i]
He listened to the loud, heavy breath of his son. He knew he was being dragged to an escape shuttle, a shuttle he could now see.
But he could no longer feel the mechanical half of his body, and the feelings he got from his living half were more and more blurry - his physical pain slowly extinguishing, though this was by no means good news for him.
[i]My systems have taken far too much damage[/i] he had realized. [i]Now, I just hope that I will stay alive long enough for Luke to reach a quieter place. I have to talk to him one last time. I know the favor I want to ask of him will grieve him a lot, but he has to accept that he will never have a chance of getting to know his true father.[/i]

They finally reached the ramp of the shuttle, and Luke dropped his father for a shortwhile, so that he could recover a little before he would fly away from the Death Star.

And now, the time to speak had come.

Anakin Skywalker summoned what little strength remained in him :

"Luke... Help me take... this mask off..."
"But you'll die !" a Luke overwhelmed with concern replied.
"Nothing... can stop that now... Just for once... let me... look on you with my own eyes..."
Luke could not see it, but his father's face was expressing supplication as he spoke these words.

Now, as his son's hands were taking off the upper part of the helmet, a small stream of air passing through Anakin's lips formed the faint echo of a sigh of relief.

Luke removed the last layer from the mask. And Anakin opened his eyes as wide as he could, as he was striving to breathe his first non-filtered gulp of air in twenty-four years. He also tried to focus his sight on his son. The combination of those two long forgotten feelings, seeing and breathing unaided, was filling Anakin's heart with a sad joy.
But he had more urgent matters at hand than rejoicing on his being reunited with his former self.

Luke had to understand.

"Now... go... my son..." Anakin said with pain. "Leave me..."
"No, you're coming with me. I'll not leave you here, I've got to save you."
[i]He is truly my son[/i] Anakin thought, somehow proud of being Luke's father. [i]But he has to save himself. All I have is to say that now.[/i]
"But you... already have... Luke..." he said, struggling.

Black spots were dancing before Anakin's eyes, and he could feel his mind drifting away.
"You were right..." he managed to say in a supreme effort. "You were right... about me... Tell your sister... you were right..."

The effort had proven fatal. Now his agony was reaching its end. He was dying...
Or perhaps he was only losing consciousness ? Perhaps his son had a slight chance of saving him from the final Oblivion, after all ?...
[i]Either way, I am ready[/i] he told himself. [i]I should have died twenty-four years ago...[/i]

His mind went blank, and his spirit sought a refuge in the welcoming darkness of unconsciousness - or maybe that of death...

And then he somehow found the strength to open his eyes another time, and h

 

Amazing! Very moving, very poignant, simply amazing. I have to go cry now...

 

Hey, lemme time to begin the actual story

Meaning I owe you a few hearty laughs, all the more since I've read your "Force help me, she's pregnant !" vignettes while you were reading this

 

Tell me when the story starts!

~*Mariana*~

 

I will, I promise

 

Brilliant!

It was so moving and heartbreaking to experience that scene from Vader's point of view.


"Am I dead ?"
"Tell me" Obi-Wan replied, "if you were truly dead, do you think you would be able to ask me the question ?"
"I don't know..." the young Anakin said, managing to speak in spite of all the pain he felt.

Only the words now took a new meaning.

Which was frightening him...

The ending is very intriguing. I look forward to reading more of this!

 

looks good to me.

 

(thinks he's going to die if he keeps getting such extravagant praise for his fics )

Actually, this is only the beginning, Gina And there will be a good number of surprises

RebelMom, so good to see you again !

 

Looks wonderful! Tell me when the story starts

 

I want to have posted more than half of my Maiden on the Snow story before actually starting on this one, and I also have a vignette promised for Sunday

I'd say somewhere around next Wednesday or next Thursday, but who knows, if the Force is with me, it might even be sooner (I love surprises )

 

Great story! I'm looking forward to it starting!

 

Intriguing start! I'm looking forward to more.

Kristeh

 

I have no idea where you are going to go with this, which is good as I tend to be a smartarse with predicting things.

 

JM, I guess I'm in for a good slap in the face if I daresay "me neither", hmmm ?

OB21 and Kristeh : thanks for the two of you I guess I'll be in for an heavy load of PMs when I'm starting this for real

 

Upping this - it's a teaser after all

 

Upping this both for it's own sake and to advertise : I'm posting a Vader vignette tomorrow, centered on the end of his duel with Luke during RotJ

 

Advanced my schedule, so this begins on Monday or Tuesday

 

Ooh, that was interesting... And the beginning is quite well-written, too. I'm intrigued, now.

*plans to come back for more*

 

*plans for more tomorrow*

 

Great start to what sounds like could be an intriguing story.

 

Interesting start...Deaths Journey.

Maybe...Purgatory???