Crown of Lazarus Teaser #2 - Tumblr exclusive!
No-One Knows Just Who To Believe
(This is the follow-up teaser to the one posted yesterday, which can be read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55069789#main). Edited on 4/12/24 to fix some formatting issues.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
It began slowly, as it always did. His mind, wrapped in infinite nothingness, thought only in the subconscious, all greater thought replaced with the gentle soundless static of the hindbrain. His body existed somewhere far away, his worries and fears farther yet still. For an endless moment, he simply existed within the threads of reality, interwoven with its fabrics, cradled and protected like a dragon in its egg.
But slowly, the harsher edges of existence began to creep in as they always did, like a camera slowly zooming in, and he became aware of his own wakefulness bit-by-aching-bit.
In his mind’s eye, he saw himself, but the proportions were all wrong, with some parts far too large and exaggerated, and other parts far too small, shrunk down like some sort of twisted caricature. He was rotating in an endless void, but simultaneously he was far too still, like an image pasted hastily into a video.
He became aware of his heart thumping, a sensation painful in its sudden stimulation. His breathing echoed loudly in his ears, his blood crawling through his veins like tunneling insects, bringing with them the numbing agony of his nerves regaining sensation.
Anakin slowly peeled open his eyes, eyelids sticky with disuse, nausea boiling in his gut. He felt too hot and too cold, sweaty and shaking, as his organs and various internal systems began to reboot and reawaken.
Even as his sluggish mind slipped in and out of what Anakin called his Reawakening daze, he clung desperately to lucid thought, knowing that he had to think up a damn good excuse for why he was mysteriously back from the dead.
The morgue, he figured. I’m probably in a body locker in the morgue.
Briefly, he wondered why he wasn’t freezing, but as he clumsily felt along his body, he recognized the scratchy textures of the blankets considered damn-near sacred by the clones. The blankets - thick and one of the more expensive pieces of gear - were limited to one per bunk, and it was a pain in the ass to get a replacement. As such, they were considered special by the clones - the blankets were always neatly folded, even in the messiest of chambers, even if the various other sheets were strewn all over the place. The blankets were always kept clean, and to steal a brother’s blanket was considered to be a serious crime. A handful of the 501st had even customized their blankets with dyes or sewn-on patches, despite it technically not being allowed.
And Anakin could feel some familiar patches on some of the blankets he was wrapped in.
Tears began to sting his eyes as he gingerly ran his fingers over one of the patches, shaping it out in his mind until he was certain - this was Rex’s blanket, that was laid out underneath him, cushioning what to them was Anakin’s eternal slumber. And the blanket draped over his torso, that bound his right arm to his side but left his left arm loose, Anakin recognized as Kix’s. And the one that gently wrapped around his legs and feet, Anakin could feel Jesse’s name embroidered on. A few other blankets embraced him, and more still cushioned the body locker around him, and Anakin’s heart clenched painfully with both immense love and grief. Damn his trust issues - he should have told them long ago.
With a shuddering breath, Anakin carefully unlocked the locker with the Force, gingerly sliding it out until a dim and flickering light greeted him.
Oh-so-gently, he moved the blankets out of the way so that he could sit up - they had really tucked him in tight, and it took all of Anakin’s willpower to not break into ugly sobs right then and there. He needed to find them, now. Just the mere thought of his beloved troops mourning for him another needless minute longer… it coiled something in his chest, curdled his heart like spoiled milk, radiating bitter guilt from his soul. He needed to go to them, to explain, to apologize to them, to beg for their forgiveness. He needed to reassure them that it was alright, that everything would be okay, that he was fine, that they would be fine. But, as he clambered out of his not-so-final resting place, he encountered a bit of an unexpected issue.
His wings were back. And they were a lot bigger than he remembered.
Shavit. Kriff. E chu ta. Karabast. Damn.
How in the Sith Hells was he supposed to hide this?
A thousand horrid scenarios raced through his mind. The Jedi, furious at him for lying to them for years. The Republic, desperate for a victory, throwing him into suicide missions again and again until there was nothing human left of him. Obi-Wan’s crestfallen face as he realized the betrayal.
Experiments. Slavery. Torture. His death.
Scenarios, infinitely numerous and infinitely grotesque, raced through his mind.
Except, as he panicked, he saw as the golden feathers became awash with a sickly pale green color, the same color he had come to associate with fear and panic and terror. And, as he noticed this, the pale green was replaced with the blue-violet of confusion.
Okay, he thought. Okay, maybe there is a way to hide this.
As he thought this, a light pink-yellow shade crept into his wings - hope.
He breathed deeply, tenderly stepping around the candles that had been left in front of his body locker, drawing his wings in tight to prevent them from knocking over the lit flames - or worse, catching fire.
All around the room, tiny trinkets and objects his men had held dear were carefully laid or propped up, tiny offerings to help him in his final march towards a battle far away. That was the idea, anyway.
Anakin only realized he had paused when his drooping wingtips knocked over a small wooden carving of a bantha, the grief-gray and guilt-gray-green feathers flinching in surprise and knocking over a few other nearby trinkets. The subsequent racket, though not terribly loud, was enough to make him freeze, that pale green color returning.
“What was that?” A voice sounded from right outside the door.
The Final Guard, Anakin realized. It was a tradition the clones had inherited from the Mandalorians, wherein the Final Guard - a select group of the deceased’s closest friends and allies - would stand watch over the body until it arrived at its final resting grounds.
“What was what?” A louder voice, one Anakin recognized as Hardcase’s voice, responded.
“Didn’t you hear that? That racket?” The first voice - Appo’s voice - hissed.
“I haven’t been able to hear much of anything since… well.”
A solemn pause, a heavy sigh.
“Get that checked out, vod,” Appo muttered.
“Once the Final Guard is done,” Hardcase agreed. “Oh, and the noise was probably just some of the offerings falling over.”
“Probably,” Appo concurred, voice thick with grief.
Breathing out a soft sigh of relief, Anakin tucked his wings tight against his sides as he eyed the vents. Those would be his best best out of the morgue, unless he wanted to knock out Hardcase and Appo with the Force, which he very much did not want to do.
It would be a tight squeeze, but maybe…
Unscrewing the vent and removing the cover was the easy part. Much harder to do was actually maneuvering his body into the small space that was a few feet above his head, all without making too much of a racket. He, however, had a secret weapon on his side: sheer Skywalker stubbornness.
Alas, he mused forlornly as he kicked uselessly at the air, finding himself stuck within the vent, I am also cursed with Skywalker stupidity.
His wings prevented him from moving forwards, the feathered limbs simply being too wide to fit, but also prevented him from reversing out of the vent, as any backwards motion bent the feathers the wrong way, sending sharp pin-pricks of pain through his newfound appendages.
“Stupid… kriff… damn these wings!” Anakin hissed under his breath, wiggling and wriggling each way in a fruitless attempt to free himself. With a sigh, he went limp, resigning himself to his fate. Still, as he reminisced on the events that had led him to this point - sulking, really, though he’d never admit it - he imagined his wings simply… disappearing.
Feathers fused back into flesh, hollow bones breaking up into thousands of fragments before merging into his muscles, tendons dissolving into goo and sticking to his sides until the wings were gone completely, with only his bleeding gums from where he had cracked a tooth on his metal hand, biting down on it to muffle his agony, to show for it.
Gasping and panting, tears streaming down his face, Anakin forced himself to move forwards with shaking hands. He had to keep moving. He had to keep going. Somehow he knew that his wings would come back, but he didn’t quite know what would bring them back. It could happen at any moment, for all he knew, trapping him in the vents until he reabsorbed them - something he very much was not keen on.
Well. At least he didn’t have to worry about having to hide them, though it wasn’t quite what he was hoping for.
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the vent collapsing beneath him, sending him plummeting very ungracefully to the floor below…
The aura around the petrified clone Captain was a horrid shade of pale green and shock-silver, the man’s face draining of color as he stared down at Anakin’s frozen form, their eyes meeting.
Captain Rex collapsed in front of him, unconscious.
