Saga Death of the Goddess--Anakin, Shmi

Title: Death of the Goddess
Author: leiamoody
Timeframe: In the middle of Attack of the Clones, offscreen
Characters: Anakin, Shmi, Padme and the Lars family (mentioned)
Genre: Angst
Summary: Anakin mourns his mother.
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Anakin brought his mother's body home to the Lars moisture farm.

The suns could burn me into ashes right now, and I wouldn't care.

He got off the speeder bike, carrying her shrouded body in his arms.

Mom, it was my fault. I should have come here sooner. I could have saved you.

He could feel the people running out of the house. Then he looked up and actually saw them.

Off to the side stood the younger Lars and his companion, with the elder man sitting in his hoverchair. Anakin felt their shock.

That's all?! Can't any of you feel something more? You were supposed to watch after her! She shouldn't have been out on the dunes alone!

Anakin glared at them. He thought for a moment about taking his anger and using it to make them feel pain. Just a little, to make them understand what his loss felt like. It could be done so easily. Destroy them like he destroyed those beasts...

No! Mom would never forgive me.

Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin saw Padme. Concern and worry came from her. He had to keep her emotions at bay for now. His grief was the only thing that mattered.

He turned away from the group, and headed towards the garage.

Once inside, Anakin laid his mother's corpse on a long worktable at the back of the room. He had to prepare her for burial.

He placed his right hand upon the shrouded face.

Should I let her out of the shawl? No, it was traditional where she was from to be buried like this.

His mind drifted away from the present, and quickly retreated into the past, to a day just like this, when he was still a boy: eight years old, and helping his mother hang their laundry out on a communal clothesline which hung in the back of their slave quarters in Mos Espa.

While they hung clothes, his mother told him another story from her childhood; the myths from her parents' homeworld. On this particular day, she had told him the tale of the black-haired goddess, and her flowing cape of gold. She flew on the back of a great winged kishmin through the plains and valleys in the early frost of the planet's dawn. She was the goddess of the sunrise.

But at night, she would die. When the sun descended into the western waters of the Beyond, the goddess would wrap herself in the golden cloak, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head. Then the lady in her shroud would be carried to her bed of obsidian and flamegems. There she would lie, until the horns would sound, heralding the eminent arrival of yet another dawn.

The goddess would then be resurrected, and she would ride once more, her golden cloak flowing out behind her. From its unfurled edges would emerge the sun. So she was not only the goddess of dawn, but also the goddess of the sunset---a double-sided symbol of life and its light, and death and its darkness.

But it was only a story, a myth from days long forgotten on some obscure planet deep within the Outer Rim. His mother had loved telling those stories, and the one about the resurrection goddess was her favorite. That story had comforted her on those long nights when she was a girl, and learning to sleep without any backdrop of light to provide comfort.

She had always been afraid of the dark. The peace of night, with its gentle rhythms and subtle flows, that was an element she enjoyed. But the absence of light, that frightened her. Even as an adult. Every night before they would go to bed, his mother would set out three small candles set in glass. Then they would stand over them, and she would say some words that he never learned to understand. But he could feel through unspoken means that it was a prayer of some kind, asking for protection against evil.

Anakin whirled away from his mother's body. She hadn't wanted evil to bring her son harm. But it had found him, and he had let it in willingly.

I failed you. I let the Dark Side get control of me.

He pulled his lightsaber from its belt clip. Right then, Anakin wanted to throw the cursed thing across the garage. It was the weapon that had taken the life of every single Tusken Raider. All of them...he had beheaded...or run through with his blade.

I'm evil now. Once a Jedi kills in anger, the Dark Side has poisoned them forever.

Everything was gone. No matter what he had been taught about death during his training...the Jedi never cared about death. Joining the Oneness after the end of physical life, that was what awaited a Jedi. But what was there for someone like his mother? Would she be given a chance at some kind of afterlife?

Anakin let out a frustrated sigh. It was pointless to think about now. What had to be focused upon was finding the proper resting place for his mother's remains. He vaguely remembered her saying that she wanted to be laid in a tomb out in the desert. That had been the tradition of her people, as her parents had told her when she was young. But he couldn't do that to her. In the Jundland Wastes, her mortal shell might be found and desecrated. No, no, his mother deserved dignity in death, that which wasn't given to her in life.

He looked at the lightsaber once more. It was a meaningless instrument. Simply a weapon that was used. Nothing more. He would gain nothing by throwing it.

He clipped the saber back onto his belt.

Anakin turned once more to the shroud-wrapped body on the worktable. He would bury her, here on the land of the farm. Not the eternal spot his mother would have wanted. But perhaps that did not matter in the end.

What mattered most was that his mother could finally have peace. And he hoped...maybe knew...that she was gathered into the Oneness. No matter what the Jedi might believe. A woman whom the Force had granted with the Chosen One surely would reward her with the gift of being absorbed into the serenity of the Light.

I hope you're there, Mom.

 

Impressive, very well written. I love a good one-shot or viggie, and this is no exception. Well done

 

I thought this was very good.

Anakin believing he's fallen to the Dark Side after that? Very interesting. Very well done.

 

Oh, how sad . . . the hopeless hope at the end only sharpens the sadness, somehow. If poor Shmi is "there" somehow, what is it she's got to see? Her son as a homicidal maniac?

I loved the image of the mother praying over the candles to keep herself and her son away from the dark--but the dark getting him anyway, and because he allowed it to, no less.

The story of the sun-goddess was beautiful and absolutely believable--probably because it has parallels all over the world. It's the story that makes "the suns setting" bearable, to misquote Shmi herself. The Jedi have their own, more austere and less colorful version of the belief, but neither version helps Anakin very much. It's possible that he could even be wrong about the eternalness of his damnation (ROTJ suggests he is), but since he doesn't believe that the "suns will ever rise again" once they set, he's convinced that his failure is permanent--a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The here and now is all that matters to him--and more significantly, his particular perspective on the here and now. The line about how "his own grief was the only thing that mattered" is telling. His first instinct is to injure the Lars family in some way, not console them or even grieve with them. He can't even let Padmé's concern touch him. Perhaps some of it is his need to self-punish as well as simple self-centeredness, but the result is the same--a Sithly leaning toward focus on the self. It's a piteous back door to the path of evil, but he's on it, nonetheless.

His decision to bury his mother's body where he wants it rather than where she wanted to be buried suggests both that he doesn't really believe that she's "there" and that he places his own desires above those of others. In one of Lucas' interviews post-AOTC, he spoke about how Cliegg Lars' eulogy was all about Shmi and how wonderful she was, while Anakin's was all about himself. You've really captured that sense here, without leaving Anakin entirely unsympathetic.

Very nice job!

 

Very powerful scene!

This part in particular --

Anakin glared at them. He thought for a moment about taking his anger and using it to make them feel pain. Just a little, to make them understand what his loss felt like. It could be done so easily. Destroy them like he destroyed those beasts...

-- is a creepy foreshadowing. How could he not understand that the Lars family was grieving, too? Maybe because he was somehow losing his empathy? Interesting how he compartmentalized the Sandpeople as "those beasts" -- not "human" and therefore not worthy of consideration. How much easier it is to slaughter them if they're only "beasts."

I loved the look into Shmi's religious beliefs. The evening candles & prayers were sweet and so like her.

Nice job!

 

That was so very sad, but beautifully done.

That's all?! Can't any of you feel something more? You were supposed to watch after her! She shouldn't have been out on the dunes alone!

It's very underable to feel anger at them at this time. Poor Anakin.

 

Oh my! Beautifully done!

That one hit me right where it hurts... my heart (yes I DO have one!)

The suns could burn me into ashes right now, and I wouldn't care.

He got off the speeder bike, carrying her shrouded (and empty) body in his arms.

Mom, it was my fault. I should have come here sooner. I could have saved you.

LOVED that line about the suns burning him into ashes. VERY powerful!

 

This was so sad, yet so powerful and amazing; I truly loved it, wonderful job leiamoody.