"Always Known," Luke and Leia gen flashfic

[sunnyskywalker]

Originally posted in a comment in a flocked post elsewhere.


Title: Always Known
Fandom: Star Wars (Disclaimer)
Categories: Gen, PG
Word Count: 525
Summary: Luke and Leia were more aware of their connection when they were children - to their guardians' dismay.


In an airy room filled with white, child-sized furniture in the Royal Palace, Leia Organa drew two suns blazing over a desert landscape.

In a cramped underground room filled with bits of machinery and stray grains of sand on the Lars homestead, Luke Skywalker drew a white palace in the middle of a lake.

Leia selected fine-tipped markers to draw a boy with shaggy blond hair and blue eyes standing next to a tall, spiky machine.

Luke pressed hard with his pencil to make the hair of the girl next to the palace dark. He frowned and tried to erase some of the lines when the elaborate braids didn't look quite right.

"Good morning, Princess." Bail Organa hugged his daughter. His eyes widened when he saw the drawing. "Can you tell me about your picture?"

"Luke! I thought I told you to help your aunt with breakfast," Owen Lars said as he entered his nephew's room. He stopped short when he saw the drawing. "What's this?"

"It's a boy in the desert," Leia explained. "He's six, like me. And that machine makes water out of the air. I don't think it looks like a farm, but it is."

"It's a girl my age in a big house floating on lots of water," Luke said. "She doesn't have to help make breakfast 'cause she's a princess."

"I see," said Bail after a moment. "This boy... did he live a long time ago?"

"You've been filling your head with nonsense from the Darklighter boy's comic books," Owen said. "Queens and knights think they're too good to work like the rest of us. All they do is meddle and make trouble."

"No, he's there right now," Leia said, adding a domed building next to the boy. "He's adopted too."

"She's not a queen, she's a princess!" Luke protested. "And she's only a little bossy."

"What a... creative story, Leia," Bail said. He looked at the picture for a long moment.

"I don't care what she is!" Owen snatched up the drawing. "Now you just forget about these daydreams and help your aunt."

"He's not a story, he's real. We should visit him sometime. He's lonely."

"Yes, Uncle Owen." Luke pouted as he dragged his feet toward the door. "It just isn't fair," he muttered.

"I'm sure there's a boy like him somewhere in the galaxy," Bail said. "I'm sorry, Princess, but I have to send a message to an old friend and then go back to work. May I have your picture?"

"We all need to work to keep this farm running and I won't have you whining about doing your part. Is that clear?"

"Sure!" Leia said. "Maybe he could come here instead. He'd like the lake."

"Yes, Uncle Owen." Luke hurried to the kitchen. Someday, he would fly away from this place and find the girl. Her house seemed a lot more fun.

Leia started a new picture after her lessons. This one showed her and the boy in front of a viewport, looking at the galaxy from above. He probably couldn't come visit right away, but she knew she would find him someday.

Comments

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I'm adding this to my personal SW canon!
I really like how it manages to be sweet and creepy all at the same time. You've also managed to make the kids sound like kids - and at the same time creepy Skywalker kids strong in the Force. I also really like the juxtaposition of Bail and Owen - and both in manners of character and in how it shows the differences in the kids upbringing.

[sunnyskywalker]

Thank you! I'm flattered :D And I'm so glad the kids came across as convincing to you - I think that was the hardest part for me to write. And I loved doing the creepy undertones. That's one of the things I like about SW, the combination of the fun kid-movie feel and often dark and creepy things happening that aren't really explored.

I had fun with Bail and Owen. We have a pretty good model for how Owen would handle something like this in ANH (just forget about the droids and Kenobi and all that, Luke). I figured Bail would be a little more subtle in trying to distract Leia - he must be an expert at that sort of thing, surviving as a Rebel in the Senate for so long. I really must do something with Beru and Breha one of these days, though; they get left out too much. (Understandable so with dialog-less Breha, but I like Beru.)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

That's one of the things I like about SW, the combination of the fun kid-movie feel and often dark and creepy things happening that aren't really explored.

I could not agree more. I think that is one of the strengths of the Sw 'verse - that is all adventure and excitement at first glance, and then there are these really creepy, very disturbing flows beneath. I sometimes wonder if Lucas realizes this, or if he still thinks its all just fun and games. I'm inclined to believe the latter based on how obvious he does evil in Revenge of the Sith. After all he doesn't need to make the emperor that obvious with the distortion of his face and so forth. His talk with Anakin at the opera is evil enough. You get that this guy is bad, bad news.

Also yes, Bail had to be a master at that type of subtlety. And a Beru and Breha thing would be for the win.

[sunnyskywalker]

I think you're probably right about Lucas. I mean, he has the Rebels use the Ewoks' belief that Threepio is a god to get the Ewoks to fight and die for them - and it's cute. The characters can't spare so much as a line wondering about ends and means?

And yes to the over-the-topness of Palpatine's face distortion. I figured he got that way by RotJ because he used the dark side to extend his life too long and his body was falling apart, but no, it turns out that evil makes you ugly.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

The characters can't spare so much as a line wondering about ends and means?

No its all a bit odd. But I've been thinking about this and I suspect that the naivete of the protagonists and the story as presented in the films is one of the reasons the fandom is so successful. You're always left wondering a bit "why?", "But don't they realise?" and so forth. And all this wonderment leads the way to fic and meta.

I find it interesting that one of my favourite shows, The Wire, has virtually no fandom. People will rave about it and talk about how good it is - but because it is so good then there are no cracks and oddities that the fans can play with. So maybe one of the strengths of SW is that it is at times very flawed?

[sunnyskywalker]

That's true! It's like Harry Potter - there are so many gaps that you feel you just have to write something about it. Interesting about The Wire, too. There must be some happy medium between "so open things fall out" and "so neatly wrapped up there's no room to play."

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I keep thinking of it as "Open" and "Closed" universes. With SW and HP being very much in the "Open Universe" category - simply because there is just so much room to play in. And a show like The Wire being in the "Closed" category for the opposite reasons. These are just work definitions mind, and not rigid categories either. For instance George RR Martins "A Song of Ice and Fire" (which you should read I might add) isn't entirely closed, but it's more Closed than Open.
If that makes any sense?

(now this is just meta in progress, so please help me out here. ;D)

[sunnyskywalker]

"Open" and "closed" make sense as working labels to me. You might be able to distinguish different kinds of openness and closedness, too. I'm thinking "open in terms of the story not being finished," "open in terms of their being lots of room in the characters' pasts and futures to speculate," and "open in the sense that it's a big universe with lots of unexplored corners." Star Wars has the second two, and if you add in the EU has the third as well, skirting right on the edge of being as open as possible. HP had all three until recently (not with the main characters' pasts being open, but plenty of secondary characters' pasts were - like McGonagall, the Marauders, etc). LotR is more closed - there is a lot of world to explore, and characters like Aragorn and Galadriel have lots of unexplored history, but a lot of things are wrapped up.

I know, and I've been meaning to get myself down to the used book store all summer. I need another series to follow :D