Saga - PT Hope (Various Characters - Songfic, kinda)

Title: Hope
Author: Briannakin
Timeframe: End of ROTS to inter PT-OT timeline
Characters: Qui-Gon, Padmé, Ahsoka, Mara, Obi-Wan, Beru, Luke
Categorization: Canon and Legacy - probably AU in places
Notes: There are a dozen other things I need to do, but after this week from hell, I needed something deep, just to give myself a creative outlet. I’ve never done a songfic - can’t say it’s good, but it’s format that most fitted my thoughts in these moments.

Lyrics are Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah with a verse from Jeff Buckley’s version.


Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah


Qui-Gon Ginn was dead and had been for over ten years. He now watched as the galaxy he had once sought to defend drown in fire. The boy that Qui-Gon had once heard laugh so expressively at danger, as though it was a song, was now at the centre at it all, consumed by darkness and inhumanity. Qui-Gin was helpless as he watched events he had inevitably set into motion. The minor had fallen, but in Dooku’s absence, Vader had risen. The child now was second in all, but Anakin no longer cared, about anything, and that was the greatest triumph of evil: apathy.


Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah


As Padmé Amidala lay dying, she blamed no one but herself. Anakin could have been so much. He could have been a Jedi Master, ended the war, brought the Sith line and the separatist movements to ends, and ushered in new age of peace. But his unfailing love for her drew out the worst in him. And by accepting his forbidden love for her, she had doomed him, herself, the Jedi, and liberty. There was no longer light, only night. In her grief and guilt, she drew her final breath. Then, then it was over.


Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
Its a cold and its a broken Hallelujah


Had she ever been to the Jedi enclave on Dantooine? Ahsoka was sure she hadn’t. She walked through the ruins, for it had been destroyed since the Empire had purged the Jedi. As her feet softly stepped over the elaborate carpets, covered with symbols of an order now dead. Everything of significance was coated with dust and debris, she somehow knew where she was going: to the archive. For while the Empire had rose victorious to smother the galaxy with its flag; it was cold and broken. Something greater would rise again.


You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah


“Kriff Emperor Palpatine!” the young Mandalorian woman screeched before a black glove slapped her across the face. It threw her back across her destroyed home.

The monster clipped his exit by turning around in the doorway. His huge black cape blocked out the light from the street. “Don’t take that name in vain.”

“I don’t even know the name!” she spat, beginning to move towards her blaster, discarded on the kitchen floor.

A snap-hiss and a blaze of red light stopped her and impaled her already broken body.

The last thing she heard was the cries of her infant daughter in the man’s arms. “Mara,” she whispered softly, wanting that word to be her last.


I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah


It was days like today when Obi-Wan simply did not want to go on. Depression had sunk in, and to top it off, he had gotten a signal to his data-pad (a rare occurrence, but sometimes when the weather was right, he could get a connection to Toshe Station) and had downloaded the recent news files. They were filed with the reports of the Empire’s conquest of Mandalore and the elimination of another “Jedi terrorist cell”. The fact that nothing else made the news showed how far into the media Darth Sidious had gotten. There were also images of Vader, victorious against all enemies. Obi-Wan knew it was all his fault, but he felt nothing.

So he forced himself out of his bed and made the journey across the Jundland Wastes. He stopped atop a cliff, overlooking a humble homestead. There, he saw a young woman tending to her shaded garden, humming a melody, as a young boy played off to the side. The boy stopped, then looked up in Obi-Wan’s direction and gave him a smile and a wave before turning back to his toys. So much was broken beyond this scene, perhaps maybe the Force itself. But here, life went on, as it always had and always would.

 

Brilliant move to use that particular song for a fan fic and you did so very beautifully!



You gather all the broken dreams and hopes of your main characters around it, let us share their horror about the rise of the empire.

 

1. Anybody inspired by Cohen deserves to be read, ASAP.
2. Anybody inspired by Buckley deserves to be read, ASAP - says a person who named a story after the dominant line in "Grace".

And you managed to fit all these analogies to actual characters here, perfectly. After all, they're essentially the characters of a single narrative with many possible outcomes, essentially in the same song. The Padmé part was pretty disturbing!

 

Absolutely beautiful. Lynda V.

 

Inspired use of the song. Each verse is perfect for the character aligned to it. Qui-Gon's shattered disappointment as he watches the little boy he knew grow into the adult monster, Vader. Padme's guilt (misplaced, perhaps) that Anakin would have been better without her - he "needed proof" and when tested, his faith failed him because of his fear of losing her. I like how you take the line "I've seen your flag on the marble arch" to refer to the banner of the Empire triumphantly flying over the ruins of the Jedi enclave. And yet, as Ahsoka knows well, "love is not a victory march." The next verse is the origin story of Mara, as a Mandalorian. Absolutely! She was taken in an act of defiance, her redemption much later will be another act of defiance. She was born a fighter.

The last verse is stunning in its connection with Obi-Wan: "And even though it all went wrong/I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah." Obi-Wan has nothing but his responsibility to this little child, and the memories of what it was like before he lost everything. It's a brilliant parallel to the first part, with Qui-Gon, who was also given a youngling to care for, and watched helplessly as it all went wrong. Here, there is nothing left to lose. He hears second-hand of the destruction of the very rebel enclave where Mara was taken, and in an attempt to ease his despair, he goes to check on Luke. And he knows that this, at least, turned out right. He can at least hold his head up proudly for this.

A beautiful song, and a beautiful expression of how these characters deal with the tragedies that they endured.

 

Gorgeous and poignant insights into pivotal strongly emotive moments for each.