By Tenshi no Korin (uintaa2@hotmail.com) Who doesn't own these
lovely lads, and is making no money, and would adore to be
feedback to.
For Joy, who remembered where it was left lying on the floor.
summary: anything I put down will only sound trite, the fic IS
a summary! =)~
If I could put it on, would it turn me into you?
I used to wonder that as a child, before I got my height, when
you were this immense invulnerable person. The cloak moved with
you, was part of you, and in your inhabiting of it it became
more mystical and wondrous to me than any jewelled costume of
exotic dignitary or painted queen.
You were Jedi. You were everything.
My robe always looked so childish next to yours, the hem
dangling several feet higher when they were hung side by side.
I put it on once when I was fifteen and wrapped myself in the
feel of it, even though the bottom dragged the floor and my
gangly arms were hopelessly lost in the tangle of sleeves.
I think I must have been somewhat in love with you then, but
not as a man, just as some awed and honored father teacher who
surely knew everything.
But you didn't. When I realized you were human I realized I
loved you. I was so very sick, and we were lost, and not even
the council knew where we were. The snow wouldn't stop and the
cave was freezing cold even with the fire and I wondered
vaguely if we were going to die. That was before I realized my
legs weren't holding me and surely I must be tired, but the
look on your face caught my hazed glance and I knew I was
shaking with fever and not with cold.
And you took off your robe. And you wrapped it around me.
You thought I was asleep, or didn't care if I heard you, one
night in that endless night, holding me in your arms, trying to
keep me warm when frost gilded the ends of your hair.
You thought it your fault. That the fragile negotiations had
failed. that the planetary government turned against us. That
we had to flee into the snowfield to save our lives.
That I had gotten sick. That you may have cost me my life. None
of it was, of course, and I tried very much to tell you so
through my ravaged throat. It was only when you looked at me in
astonishment that I realized you hadn't said a word, I heard
every sounding of your heart within my own.
And that I would desperately love you the rest of my days.
It was after I came out of the fever three days past our rescue
that I let the medic droids take your cloak from around my
shoulders. You told me that I would scream if they tried. I
knew the reason, but at seventeen, could not tell you why.
You draped it around me one other time... I cannot even now
recall when. Some anonymous planet, some faceless mission with
long empty hours of nothing to do; the kind of assignment we
reveled in. I shivered, for the night air was cool on my bare
skin, and you gathered your robe from the foot of my bed and
draped it around me, along with your arms. It was as though you
had made love to me all over again. There was no time, there
was no Jedi, we simply were. And you loved me. You spoke it so
softly into the folds of your cloak around my shoulders.
Every Jedi has one, some more if they don't travel frequently.
there's no mysticism to the garment. In fact, it was chosen for
it's homogenous nature.
Yet here I hold it in my hand, still warm from your skin,
permeated with your spice scent and blaster smoke and Naboo
rain. It became a relic the instant it slid from your
shoulders, and holy when I gathered it up in mine.
It's a special sort of fabric, durable, soft, and although its
highest quality is to diffuse blaster shots, when I was younger
I swore it was made specifically to dry tears. You held me as I
cried them into your sleeve so often. And now I weep mine into
it, in some forgotten alcove of Theed with celebration a roar
around me.
Perhaps it is some Force prompting, I do not know, but my own
garment crumples to the floor and yours settles to my
shoulders. It weighs ever so much more than mine ever did. I
will never carry it with your grace, I fear, even if it is
taken up so it doesn't dangle off me.
No. This will always be your robe, master.
You were Jedi.
You were everything.
And I will love you the rest of my days.
Archive 