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All told, she is a Jedi for less than a year.
The adults whisper of danger, a word that means nothing to her beyond the faces they make when they say it. She only knows it because of the stove she isn’t supposed to touch because it will hurt. And the roof she shouldn’t climb because she might fall and her uncle is getting too old to come after her. They whisper of something called war. She thinks that must hurt too.
They whisper of Jedi. She doesn’t really know what that is either, except that the stranger that visited when she was little was one. She doesn’t remember this, beyond feeling quiet, for maybe the first time in her life. People tell her the quiet was a Jedi. She doesn’t remember anything beyond the quiet.
She is too little to send, her mother says.
She is not too little to scare her baby brother, her father replies.
She doesn’t understand why the baby didn’t like his toys floating. She always likes her toys floating. Her sister says there’s nothing wrong with her but she never says that about anyone else which means she has thought it at least once.
They stop whispering about the Jedi one day, she isn’t quite sure when, and start talking about them.
A Jedi is coming to take her away. She’s going to be one too. She doesn’t know what any of that means really, no one explains it to her but her parents are relieved and her sister is angry and her baby brother is the same as he always is.
The Jedi do explain, when they come, with kind words and quiet.
She thinks she wants to be like them, someday.
It is a little scary to leave everyone behind. She’s never been to the city before and the Jedi bring her to a place so much larger than what her sister described.
There is quiet. She loves the quiet.
She is not alone either.
Her new little friends, her crèchemates, they love to make their toys floats too!
The adults still whisper, in this new place, about danger. They whisper about war. She still doesn’t understand it but when she curls up with her crèchemates it feels so far away and unimportant.
She isn’t certain how long she is a Jedi. Only that it is less than a year, for her birthday came before she left and does not come again before the end.
She doesn’t understand it. Even in the years after as she recreates it in her mind.
The flashes and screams and the padawan, she had just learned his name and would forget it within the space of two years, spinning and dashing and invincible for those few glorious moments. She is so little, she will outlive him and mourn anew at the gangly limbs, she watches him choose.
There is no time to block both shots.
Her crèchemate survives maybe a minute longer for his sacrifice.
She doesn’t understand it. Even as the master dashes to his crumpled body and cannot even spare a moment to check his pulse.
She thinks she cries. She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t remember how she got into the ship. She doesn’t remember why there are only two of them left.
The master’s breaths are shallow. She pats at his side, careful of the blood.
She asks what they’re going to do.
He breathes and she knows this is important. It is good.
Her crèchemate cries for a very long time. He stares at nothing for a long time after he stops.
She asks the master again. What they should do.
Her mother said she was a very helpful little girl, her crèchemaster said she was considerate.
She finds the medkit and puts it on the master’s lap so he can reach it without having to walk across the ship.
She’s only ever been to two planets before, now she thinks it will be three.
She tries to ask her crèchemate if he can read yet. He doesn’t seem to hear her.
Food is important, she knows, it is one of those things that doesn’t really need to be taught. She finds ration bars and splits them with her crèchemate. He doesn’t want to eat. She bothers him until he does.
The master isn’t breathing anymore.
The sounds of the ship lull her to sleep.
She wakes up to banging, someone frantically calling a name she doesn’t recognize. There’s a terrible sound, piercing and awful, it makes her want to cry. She doesn’t.
The padawan, she remembers, told them to be brave. He said to trust in the Force too, but she isn’t really sure how to do that yet. She thinks she can be brave.
A stranger comes in, hushed complaints that they didn’t open the door for him and sure, the guard’s a heavy sleeper, but you can’t depend on that! She learns several new words before he halts.
She catches his eye first, from the corner she’s stuffed with blankets to make her crèchemate feel better. His attention falls on the master next and she’d hoped, really hoped that an adult would know what to do, but clearly he doesn’t.
His annoyed complaints shift awkwardly over to ritual murmurs of mourning and another stranger comes in from behind to hiss that they don’t have time for this.
She tries to nudge her crèchemate but the strangers snatch them both up with promises of safety. Her crèchemate screams as both strangers curse and scramble to cover his mouth. She wishes they wouldn’t.
She wishes she could scream.
She holds her crèchemate’s hand as the adults whisper, about danger and risk and what to do. She thinks she understands what danger is now.
The master is dead. Like the padawan. Like her crèchemates. Like the Jedi.
They’re scared too, these strange adults.
She squeezes her crèchemate’s hand.
There’s a lot of talking, so much fear she could drown in it. There’s a new empire and old life debts and a dead Jedi and two little younglings no one really wants.
There’s a conclusion, eventually. The calmest one of the group, which isn’t saying much, tries to smile at them as she explains. They’re going to have new homes, with nice people who will keep them safe. She asks if they can go together, her crèchemate’s hand spasms in hers and squeezes tight.
The answer is no.
This makes her want to cry too. It isn’t fair.
She hugs him tight as they tell her it’s time to leave.
They separate them carefully. She thinks someone cries, it might be her.
She never sees him again.
They bring her to a little village on the very edges of the planet’s settled land, where the farms start to fade into dense forests too sacred to cut down.
They introduce her to an older couple and tell her these are her grandparents. That her father is a disappointment, an announcement that makes them frown with disapproval at the young man in question. He laughs, it’s a little strained.
She forgets sometimes, over the years, that they aren’t really. That the doting woman who feeds her sweets and stops breathing when the stormtroopers arrive is not her grandmother. That the calm man who sits quietly with her in the early mornings and starts breathing when the stormtroopers finally leave is not her grandfather. That the son executed in the fourth year of the Empire’s reign is not her father.
She tries to remember, sometimes, when the pain doesn’t threaten to overwhelm her. Her name, the one she had before. Her crèchemates, the pieces of the teachings she can remember.
She wonders, against her will, if she’s the only one left who knows anything. They were kind. She loved them. For less than a year.
She knows very little.
She wonders, against her will, if her first family still lives. If they remember her. She loved them too. It was a very long time ago.
She thinks about fighting, sometimes, as she grows into adolescence and then adulthood. As the empire’s grip tightens. Her father; the disappointment, the fake, the quietly mourned. He made her promise to take care of them, to be a good granddaughter. She knows he didn’t have much faith in the little girl who swore she would but she finds she can’t break that promise.
She sees her grandparents to the end, seven months after the Empire’s collapse becomes more than a dream and less than three months apart.
She buries them, in a plot side by side. When the world finally starts to feel like it won’t kill her for the very thought she makes a grave for her father next to them. It isn’t right, there are traditions no one can perform for an empty grave, but it is what she can give them.
The neighbors offer their condolences. The strange dance of acquaintances who know too much and not enough.
She takes care of the farm. The legacy that was meant to be his. She forgets to eat sometimes. Stands in the kitchen so long the food burns without her notice. Shakes in place until she’s sure she’ll never stop. When she was little, her grandmother would make tea and her grandfather would sit and wait for her to come back.
It’s quiet. So quiet she could scream.
She wonders if it was worth it. If they would do it again if they knew. Knew it was all for a little girl who didn’t even amount to much of anything. Would they still die for that little girl, knowing what she does with all the years no one else got to see? Would they sigh with disappointment, knowing she can’t even go to the market without shaking? Would they regret it, knowing she doesn’t remember even a fragment of the mantras? Would they be angry, knowing she’s forgotten their faces?
She wonders if she will ever escape the ghosts.
She doesn’t know.
She goes back to the kitchen.
Her tea has gone cold.