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matrilI wrote this a while ago and forgot about it. I just happened to think of it now, thinking of the Skywalker family and stuff. So...here we are.
Dreams that Never Pass
The dreams came often when Leia was very young, and became less and less frequent when she was older. But they never went away entirely. Sometimes years went by, and suddenly she was there in the dream again, as if no time had passed at all.
They always began the same way. There were fields of soft grass, and warm sunlight, and laughter. The sky was a brilliant blue that was almost like home on Alderaan. A little deeper color, maybe, but still familiar. Human children ran and played alongside the little ones of a race with beak-like snouts and gentle, curious eyes. In the distance, buildings of astonishing beauty rose up almost as if they had grown from the ground.
In the middle of all this, Leia would gradually become aware of herself, sitting in the grass, surrounded by others. A woman whose arms meant comfort and safety, a man whose face was full of laughter and kindness. Leia had still been a young girl when she awoke from the recurring dream and realized for the first time that they were her parents, not Father and Mother Organa, but her real parents. And she had been ashamed, because it wasn’t right for her to dream of them when Father and Mother loved her so much and were the best parents anyone could have.
So she told Father, hanging her head. When she looked at him a shadow seemed to cross his face, but then he smiled and said, “No, it’s right for you to dream of them. Of course you wish you knew more of them; of course you’re curious. They were good and admirable people. They would want you to remember them.”
And Leia had felt better, somewhat. But Father didn’t know just how real they were, when she saw them. He thought they were ordinary dreams. She had ordinary dreams, and this one was different. She could feel her mother’s touch, and her hand still tingled from it when she woke up. She heard her father’s laugh, and knew it was just how it must have really sounded when he was alive. Sometimes her own laugh sounded the same. How could she have guessed so well just exactly how they looked, how they moved and spoke? In her dream, they were alive.
There was another, sitting there with her mother and father. The one who was like Leia, but different. It made her happy and lonely all at once when she was awake and thinking of that memory, as if she had found a part of herself that she hadn’t known was missing. In her dream, they played together and teased each other and chased one another all around the fields until they collapsed into giggles on the ground.
Details shifted sometimes. They were having a picnic near a series of gorgeous waterfalls, or running up the broad steps of a palace that looked nothing like the one on Alderaan, or dipping their feet in a pool of water in a forest clearing while the beak-snouted creatures swam near their toes and burst through the surface, spraying out streams of water to make the children clap their hands and smile. But the four of them were always together. And even though Leia had a very happy childhood, marred only by the ever-present shadow of the Empire, she never felt so complete and perfect a happiness as she felt in the dream, with these people who ought to be strangers, yet who she knew so well.
When Leia was a child, the dream usually ended there. She watched, contented, as her mother and father looked at each other and smiled, and the sight blurred away from her into nothing. The morning after, she was a bit wistful, but mostly the memory of the dream was a gift she held close.
As she grew older, though, the dream went on, and became frightening. The sky darkened with clouds the color of ash, and thunder rumbled, growing closer. Leia’s mother was brave, at first, taking the children’s hands and whispering that they shouldn’t be afraid. But her father stood up and looked at the sky with wide, worried eyes. “We should run,” her mother said urgently, and her father just shook his head. “It’s too late,” he kept saying. “It’s too late.”
The thunder grew louder, and Leia would look up and scream, always horrified no matter how many times she dreamed it. Fire was falling down from the sky like rain. “It’s too late!” her father cried and spread out his arms as if to embrace it. Leia couldn’t move, from fear or something else; she was never sure. But strong arms took her and carried her away, into shelter, though when she looked up she couldn’t see a face. Instead she looked out and saw the other one, taken to a different shelter far away, and it made her heart break that they couldn’t be together.
The worst happened after that. While she watched the fire-rain turn the lovely landscape into burning wreckage, her mother and father were out there still. Her mother pulled desperately on her father’s arm. “Run! We have to run!”
“It’s too late,” he always said, and the fire came down heavier and heavier and suddenly he was buried in it and nothing was left but a shadow. Leia’s mother fell to her knees and cried and cried, turning her face up at the black sky in a despair that was somehow worse than her father’s. And then the fire ate her as well.
The fire stopped falling at last, though its damage was already done. The grassy fields had become a hopeless, bleak waste of browns and blacks. Leia cried sometimes, and sometimes she ran into the waste and stood where her parents had fallen, filled with a bitter rage. “You left me. You left me. How could you? How could you leave me?”
Her mother’s voice seemed to answer, an echo that was all that remained of her.
Too late...too late...too late...
The dream never went away.
-----------------------
I have a nasty lump on my head - I'm so hopelessly clusmy, I smacked my head not once, but twice today, in the same place. Ow, ow, ow.
Dreams that Never Pass
The dreams came often when Leia was very young, and became less and less frequent when she was older. But they never went away entirely. Sometimes years went by, and suddenly she was there in the dream again, as if no time had passed at all.
They always began the same way. There were fields of soft grass, and warm sunlight, and laughter. The sky was a brilliant blue that was almost like home on Alderaan. A little deeper color, maybe, but still familiar. Human children ran and played alongside the little ones of a race with beak-like snouts and gentle, curious eyes. In the distance, buildings of astonishing beauty rose up almost as if they had grown from the ground.
In the middle of all this, Leia would gradually become aware of herself, sitting in the grass, surrounded by others. A woman whose arms meant comfort and safety, a man whose face was full of laughter and kindness. Leia had still been a young girl when she awoke from the recurring dream and realized for the first time that they were her parents, not Father and Mother Organa, but her real parents. And she had been ashamed, because it wasn’t right for her to dream of them when Father and Mother loved her so much and were the best parents anyone could have.
So she told Father, hanging her head. When she looked at him a shadow seemed to cross his face, but then he smiled and said, “No, it’s right for you to dream of them. Of course you wish you knew more of them; of course you’re curious. They were good and admirable people. They would want you to remember them.”
And Leia had felt better, somewhat. But Father didn’t know just how real they were, when she saw them. He thought they were ordinary dreams. She had ordinary dreams, and this one was different. She could feel her mother’s touch, and her hand still tingled from it when she woke up. She heard her father’s laugh, and knew it was just how it must have really sounded when he was alive. Sometimes her own laugh sounded the same. How could she have guessed so well just exactly how they looked, how they moved and spoke? In her dream, they were alive.
There was another, sitting there with her mother and father. The one who was like Leia, but different. It made her happy and lonely all at once when she was awake and thinking of that memory, as if she had found a part of herself that she hadn’t known was missing. In her dream, they played together and teased each other and chased one another all around the fields until they collapsed into giggles on the ground.
Details shifted sometimes. They were having a picnic near a series of gorgeous waterfalls, or running up the broad steps of a palace that looked nothing like the one on Alderaan, or dipping their feet in a pool of water in a forest clearing while the beak-snouted creatures swam near their toes and burst through the surface, spraying out streams of water to make the children clap their hands and smile. But the four of them were always together. And even though Leia had a very happy childhood, marred only by the ever-present shadow of the Empire, she never felt so complete and perfect a happiness as she felt in the dream, with these people who ought to be strangers, yet who she knew so well.
When Leia was a child, the dream usually ended there. She watched, contented, as her mother and father looked at each other and smiled, and the sight blurred away from her into nothing. The morning after, she was a bit wistful, but mostly the memory of the dream was a gift she held close.
As she grew older, though, the dream went on, and became frightening. The sky darkened with clouds the color of ash, and thunder rumbled, growing closer. Leia’s mother was brave, at first, taking the children’s hands and whispering that they shouldn’t be afraid. But her father stood up and looked at the sky with wide, worried eyes. “We should run,” her mother said urgently, and her father just shook his head. “It’s too late,” he kept saying. “It’s too late.”
The thunder grew louder, and Leia would look up and scream, always horrified no matter how many times she dreamed it. Fire was falling down from the sky like rain. “It’s too late!” her father cried and spread out his arms as if to embrace it. Leia couldn’t move, from fear or something else; she was never sure. But strong arms took her and carried her away, into shelter, though when she looked up she couldn’t see a face. Instead she looked out and saw the other one, taken to a different shelter far away, and it made her heart break that they couldn’t be together.
The worst happened after that. While she watched the fire-rain turn the lovely landscape into burning wreckage, her mother and father were out there still. Her mother pulled desperately on her father’s arm. “Run! We have to run!”
“It’s too late,” he always said, and the fire came down heavier and heavier and suddenly he was buried in it and nothing was left but a shadow. Leia’s mother fell to her knees and cried and cried, turning her face up at the black sky in a despair that was somehow worse than her father’s. And then the fire ate her as well.
The fire stopped falling at last, though its damage was already done. The grassy fields had become a hopeless, bleak waste of browns and blacks. Leia cried sometimes, and sometimes she ran into the waste and stood where her parents had fallen, filled with a bitter rage. “You left me. You left me. How could you? How could you leave me?”
Her mother’s voice seemed to answer, an echo that was all that remained of her.
Too late...too late...too late...
The dream never went away.
-----------------------
I have a nasty lump on my head - I'm so hopelessly clusmy, I smacked my head not once, but twice today, in the same place. Ow, ow, ow.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 04:30 pm (UTC)