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Hello, my dear readers!

It’s been a while since I turned out a song fic, so I think this one isn’t overdue, by any means. This one is to Erutan’s cover of “Come Little Children.” (Yes, I know the video is a BBC Merlin fan video, but the original video was disturbing. Certainly much, much more disturbing than this one. Remind me to never watch Pan’s Labyrinth. *shudders*)

Anyway, if this doesn’t turn out self-explanatory, please tell me in the comments and I’ll see what I can do to fix it. I’ve been working on it so long I certainly need a second opinion.

Content Warning: Very dark in places, though there’s a shine of hope at the end (I had to give you that much, right?! 😉 ) Slight language warning. Death. That’s it.

Come Little Children (Sidious’ Lullaby)

                Sidious smiled at the limp form of the Jedi growing cold on the ground by his foot, arms still wound around his dead apprentice, even in death. He turned his back on the dead apprentice and dying Jedi, laughing inwardly as he thought how it had come to this. The ultimate revenge, even if it did mean that he lost his potential apprentice.

A sound behind him disturbed his delightful musings. Sidious whirled around to see the Jedi rising to his feet. It seemed that Kenobi was not quite dead yet, and his eyes were hard, cold, empty, bereft of anything save purpose. Before Sidious could react, he had taken the dying Jedi’s lightsaber through the body. The last thing Sidious heard before departing from the world he had only ruled for mere hours was Kenobi’s cold, merciless voice whispering, “That was for Padme, and for Anakin.”

Damn you, Sith. Damn you to hell.

Come little children

I’ll take thee away

Into a land of enchantment

Come little children

The time’s come to play

Here in my garden of shadow

                Dark gray eyes glistened with tears as the Jedi Master cradled his one-time apprentice. He sobbed into Anakin’s hair, unwilling to let go, even though Anakin had long since gone still, was beginning to go cold.

There were no words to this grief, only tears. There was no peace, only pain. There was no comfort. Only guilt.

I did this. I did this. I killed him!

Sidious stood over the Jedi, gloating. “You finally found a battle you could not win, didn’t you, Master Kenobi?” Slowly, Obi-Wan moved to rise, still holding Anakin’s still form. Sidious ignited his lightsaber through the Jedi Master’s defenseless body, and Obi-Wan slid back to the ground, without a cry or a gasp.

Follow sweet children

I’ll show thee the way

Through all the pain and the sorrows

Weep not poor children

For life is this way

Murdering beauty and passion

                Lightsabers clashed, blue on blue, the edges of one blade a dirty, smoky color, the other almost pure white to its core. Sidious watched and smiled sardonically. It had been easy, all too easy, to twist the apprentice’s mind, to deceive the master. And now, they were locked in mortal combat. The Sith Lord cackled in glee, relishing the mental torment and the conflict.

It ended all too quickly. Kenobi did not see the opening that Skywalker had left, or perhaps he had, and did not capitalize on it. That was the irony. A second later, Skywalker’s enraged attack forced him forward, impaling him on his mentor’s blade. The lightsabers fell from nerveless hands, in unison, clattering and growing still in a terrible syncopation. Kenobi slid to the floor, catching Skywalker, his face a broken mask of concentration with pain and horror showing through the cracks. “Anakin? Anakin!” The cry was a howl of grief and loss in the Force.

“You’ve caught me again, Master,” Skywalker coughed. Sidious frowned. He thought the boy had actually turned on his mentor. Kenobi held him close as the death rattle proclaimed Skywalker’s last exhalation.

“I won’t ever let you go again,” he promised, his voice breaking. Hardening, ice-scoured eyes turned toward Sidious. “You. You did this. You did this!”

Hush now dear children

It must be this way

To weary of life and deceptions

Rest now my children

For soon we’ll away

Into the calm and the quiet

                Sidious smiled down at the half-open, confused, cloudy green-blue eyes of the new knight. Kenobi blinked, unseeing. Sidious’ hand hovered over the oblivious Jedi’s face, the black heart within him urging him to put those eyes out forever, but he stayed it. No. It would be far sweeter to force the Jedi to watch as the world around him fell to pieces.

 

Obi-Wan groaned. The smell in the air around him reminded him of the perfume of death: sickly sweet. Horrid decay mingled with the half-remembered echoes of something… something… He struggled, surging upward, but he seemed to be pinned down. In the murk, there was something lurking, hiding just beyond his reach. A cold melody, alluring but with a heart of stone, echoed through his mind. He shuddered instinctively away from it. He was alone… why was he alone? Shouldn’t there be someone with him?

Above him, somewhere, a voice, as cold and harsh as stone, shot with the fires of some damnation beyond imagination’s span, as ancient as the bones of the earth but with none of earth’s lasting strength and stability and kindness to support life, dry and rattling as some desiccated, dead thing, spoke. “Sleep, Jedi. Sleep, and do not forget how your master fell. Yes, he left you. His failure will become yours in time. Soon, very soon, the Jedi will fall.”

Resolve hardened in him like steel leaping from the flames of the forge. He fought; he strove against the will, and it was not his loss that pressed him down into the empty inky blackness of oblivion, into deeper, swoon-like sleep.

Come little children

I’ll take thee away

Into a land of enchantment

Come little children

The time’s come to play

Here in my garden of shadow

                Obi-Wan held his apprentice’s body, redeemed in death, and prayed that his tears would be enough. For himself, he did not fear. He had never been afraid of death; he had always been more concerned with hurting people. Death had a tendency to follow him around, but it never got easier. It was growing cold already, and Obi-Wan wondered for a moment how long it would take for him to follow Anakin in death.

It was strange. There had been pain at first, but now there was none. It didn’t hurt any more, and though he could feel his heart stutter, his mind was no less clear. He drew in a breath, the tell-tale rattle already in his lungs.

In the last moments, the confines of space and time opened to him, and he saw a vision in which their heroes—Padmé and Yoda, and Ahsoka—continued on, renewed the Jedi Order, which rose from the ashes, wiser and stronger. The Republic returned, to democracy, and reforms began. Anakin’s unborn children grew, and Ahsoka and Ben guided them to adulthood, as Jedi, in peace.

Sidious was dead. The shadows had departed from the Force.

He and Anakin had triumphed. They had given rise to a new era.

Then, peaceful, Obi-Wan slipped the bonds of matter and awoke to a wider world.

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