Chapter Text
It was the emptiness that woke him in the morning.
It was emptiness that laid with him in bed each night.
In fact, it was that very emptiness, the one that Benjamin had lived with for so long, that had been getting worse recently.
It had been creeping up on him.
He’d let it, in slow barely detectable increments.
Day by day, the black hole within his chest had widened and widened, until he was locked away in his own mind.
He watched himself move through the motions of his life distantly, as if an audience to himself.
The end of September was usually one of the Reverend’s favorite times of year. Just as the leaves were just starting to turn and the air smelled like crisp wind and chimney smoke… but this year none of it felt as it used to for Benjamin.
He was alone.
He was utterly and entirely alone.
And every time that cresting wave of emptiness hit him, the trees above lost their vibrance, the birds ceased to sing, and the wind itself halted in its tracks.
As if the daytime held its breath in the wake of his hopelessness.
Of course, Benjamin knew better than to believe such things were truly happening; These moments of silent stillness only existed within the confines of his traitorous mind.
He knew better, yet no amount of kindly visits to members of his congregation or focused sermon writing could make up for these thoughts and feelings.
He’d try to dismiss them, as he had in times past; But now, every time he admired the autumn leaves or the wail of birdsong in the woods around the chapel, his mind was flooded once more with reminders as to why it wasn’t so for him.
The birds would stop singing before they sung for him.
The trees he loved would all die where they stood before he had a right to see their beauty.
These voices and thoughts had only gotten worse as of late. Why on earth was he like this? He had asked himself the question countless times since he was a child.
His grandfather had been the most respected preacher in this county, with a legacy of expanding the influence and reach of his humble church thanks to the patronage of the wealthy Palpatine family.
But, legacy couldn’t make one likable.
No matter how faithful a servant or how penitent he was, God didn’t seem to care that no one wanted to be around him longer than it took to greet him before Sunday sermon and nod respectfully as farewell afterwards.
The small village that was his parish had been the same that his grandfather has taken by storm two generations ago; And now, a part of him wondered if it was his grandfather’s fault that he was so disliked.
There had been rumors he’d heard over the years, along with the insistent silence that his mother had kept around the subject…
Rumors and secrets whispered about a scandal involving a woman, long, long ago.
A girl really, if the whispers were true, who’d been taken by the devil in the night and made to do his bidding.
And the preacher who’d punished the evil within the witch? The good Reverend Skywalker himself; Benjamin’s grandfather.
On nights spent pondering his loneliness and inability to be accepted in the town he’d been told would herald him as the grandson of a hero, Benjamin wondered if the people harbored resentment over the tale.
There was no real proof that such an event took place, Benjamin had checked every way that he could. But all in all, the tale had become no more than an old farmwives tale.
But that must have been all it took, for no more than word of mouth was needed to plant the seed of distrust towards him.
He knew he had little right to complain in truth, Benjamin’s inability to converse easily with others didn’t help the matter either.
There was so fixing him. He’d been trying this long with no luck…
In front of where he sat, the burning log in his fireplace popped, sending sparks skittering out of the hearth.
One of the burning sparks hit Benjamin’s leg, burning through the wool of his pants and straight to the skin.
But he didn’t so much as flinch… What right had he to flee pain?
Maybe that was exactly what he deserved at this point? Maybe he was born bad and deserved to die the same.
He’d pondered over that thought so many times; That he may deserved this all to begin with.
He’d never made his parents happy… they were good people and they never understood him.
He’d been born too late to know his grandparents, and not once in his youth had he been chosen as a friend or lover.
No girl ever liked him back, no boy did either for that matter… even back then, he was always alone.
Even the missionary who’d lead him to this holy calling, Pastor Snoke, had moved on to another parish before he’d passed away.
Everyone left, and no one remembered him long enough to even care.
The very townspeople he preached sermons to on Sundays went as far as to have the local judge officiate all their weddings…
Ben had always wanted to officiate a wedding.
He’d not even been invited to a wedding since he was a child and his parents had taken him… He’d even wanted to get married himself someday. Funny that.
Looking down in his lap, he looked upon the open Bible that he always tried to study before writing his sermon for Sunday. But he felt nothing, the voice of inspiration too had fled from him.
He smiled wryly to himself.
He felt nothing.
That was it, he couldn’t even cry that night; He couldn’t even pity himself… he was so long past that.
His chest was hollow and empty.
As empty as the garden that he’d not had to energy to tend to, and empty as the chapel house he lived in.
He couldn’t even despair.
So tomorrow morn, he knew what he would do.
~
The sun had yet to rise, but it wouldn’t matter to him.
The wind was cold and the full moon was still midway through her rise and fall as he went about giving his horse all the feed he had left as well as a full trough of water.
That, along with the grass in the church yard should last her for a few days before someone came across her.
His horse had been the one friend he could boast of; The black mare had served him well these past five years, and a frisson of pain coursed through him at the thought of leaving her alone.
But she was a beauty, Benjamin knew she would be treasured by whomever found her.
Ben brushed her down one last time and draped a saddle blanket over her back to protect her from the morning chill before going about collecting was supplies he needed in the barn.
The leaves looked even more golden in the lantern light and a quiet voice in the back of his mind, one hidden far behind clouds of despair, would have called them beautiful.
A hum resounded in the air around him and he knew where he was before he spotted it; And there it was, the chestnut tree he’d had in mind all this time.
He’d been haunted by this great chestnut ever since he’d came across it the first time he’d ventured through these woods to hunt.
It had obviously once been chopped down before, as one side of the tree was but a weathered stump.
But out of the roots around it grew a strong beast of a tree.
It felt right, he realized... This tree that he's always felt pulled towards.
Plus, its height and strong limbs made it the perfect tree to suit this purpose.
Benjamin climbed up onto the first branch, his heavy rope looped 'round his arm as he did so. Pulling himself up past the second and the third, he climbed until he was at least a hundred feet or so off the ground.
Barely lit by the waning full moon and the lantern he left on the ground, Ben went about tying the rope to the tree and into the closest thing to a noose he could manage in the dark. Just as he finished, his head looked around in confusion; The woods had suddenly gone quiet…
No wind blew, no birds or owls called out in the dark, not a thing could be heard outside of his own labored breaths.
But no matter… he’d seen enough strange moments of stillness such as these to ignore it; Plus, he had his mind set on his task and needed no reminders as to why he was doing what he was doing.
Benjamin placed the rope around his neck and stood on the branch, reaching one hand out to the tree to steady himself as he did so.
Beneath his fingers, he felt the vines of ivy that covered the tree. Swirling twists and dangling tendrils wrapped around the entire chestnut until almost blanketing it entirely.
In better days, Benjamin had once noted the oddness of it, that this strange tree was the only one in this wood with any ivy on it.
Shaking his head and taking a deep breath, Benjamin exhaled. He was only prolonging the inevitable.
And so he jumped.
A moment of weightlessness sent a shiver up his spine before he met his end and all went black…
But then he was caught.
The rope around his neck had yet to pull tight… but his feet had yet to hit the ground…
Having shut his eyes as he jumped, the Reverend now opened them in confusion.
In midair, he was held...
And wound tightly around Benjamin's chest and torso… were vines.