Midwinter #1: Terrors in the Night (Star Wars: Classic Trilogy)
Title: Terrors in the Night
Author: bratty_jedi
Prompt: Not-So-Bleak Midwinter #1:
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
--"A Christmas Carol" or "In the Bleak Midwinter" by Christina Rosetti
Fandom: Star Wars (Classic Trilogy)
Characters & Pairings: Leia Organa; Mentions of Luke, Han, Chewbacca, Vader, and Leia/Han
Rating & Warnings: General Audiences
Word Count: 560
Summary: In the morning, she would be brave. ... But at night, when all was dark and she could do nothing to help her friends... how could she be brave...?
In the morning, she would be brave. It was easy to be brave when there was no other choice. It was even easier to be brave when there was something to do and she could feel like she had some control over her fate. But at night, when all was dark and she could do nothing to help her friends, to help her ... brother ... that was still such a new word. How could she be brave when all she could do was lie in the dark while he was alone out there, already doing what he believed he had to do to save the galaxy and one extra man she truly believed to be unsaveable?
She needed to sleep. She would need to be alert in the morning if she were to survive the coming fight, but sleep wouldn't come with the same inevitability as the dawn and the battle. The noises outside, the memories and fears they brought with them, made sleep a distant dream.
The chattering of the ewoks and the crackling of their fires sounded too much like the torture droid Vader had used on her. No matter what Luke thought, she knew the truth about what lied behind the mask and it wasn't her father. Her father was dead, along with her entire world, and the monster behind the mask bore responsibility for that.
The rustlings of some unidentified animal moving in the trees around her, a small reptile or rodent type creature perhaps, sounded too much like the whooshing on Cloud City as that same monster stole something else from her: the man she'd only just admitted she loved. Han was safe for now, sleeping near a softly snoring Chewbacca on the other side of their communal room, but not even that knowledge could erase the dread and fear she'd felt before Lando had announced he'd survived the carbon freezing process.
The snappings of twigs under foot as ewoks and perhaps soldiers moved around outside were the worst. The loud cracks echoed in her mind and froze her heart as she heard not twigs snapping but a door slamming. The door had shut out the coldest of the cold, leaving those inside to freeze through the night. But there had been two who were not inside, two who were shut out in the snow and the coldness who would freeze to death in the night rather than just freezing through the night.
Except they hadn't frozen to death. Somehow, against all odds and reason, despite the deaths of both their mounts, despite Luke's injuries, Han had managed to keep them both alive on that bleak, freezing night. Could they all do it again? Could they all survive despite the odds against her newly-minted general and his ragged band and the even longer odds against Luke on his private mission? Their luck must run out sometime, but it hadn't yet. Her boys had survived that wintery night and everything else the Empire and the galaxy had thrown at them. Maybe they'd already passed through the worst and the coming dawn would bring hope and freedom not darkness and death. The warrior in her wasn't naive enough to truly believe it, but the princess clung to that spark of hope just enough to finally find the sleep she would need for the battle to come.
Author: bratty_jedi
Prompt: Not-So-Bleak Midwinter #1:
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
--"A Christmas Carol" or "In the Bleak Midwinter" by Christina Rosetti
Fandom: Star Wars (Classic Trilogy)
Characters & Pairings: Leia Organa; Mentions of Luke, Han, Chewbacca, Vader, and Leia/Han
Rating & Warnings: General Audiences
Word Count: 560
Summary: In the morning, she would be brave. ... But at night, when all was dark and she could do nothing to help her friends... how could she be brave...?
In the morning, she would be brave. It was easy to be brave when there was no other choice. It was even easier to be brave when there was something to do and she could feel like she had some control over her fate. But at night, when all was dark and she could do nothing to help her friends, to help her ... brother ... that was still such a new word. How could she be brave when all she could do was lie in the dark while he was alone out there, already doing what he believed he had to do to save the galaxy and one extra man she truly believed to be unsaveable?
She needed to sleep. She would need to be alert in the morning if she were to survive the coming fight, but sleep wouldn't come with the same inevitability as the dawn and the battle. The noises outside, the memories and fears they brought with them, made sleep a distant dream.
The chattering of the ewoks and the crackling of their fires sounded too much like the torture droid Vader had used on her. No matter what Luke thought, she knew the truth about what lied behind the mask and it wasn't her father. Her father was dead, along with her entire world, and the monster behind the mask bore responsibility for that.
The rustlings of some unidentified animal moving in the trees around her, a small reptile or rodent type creature perhaps, sounded too much like the whooshing on Cloud City as that same monster stole something else from her: the man she'd only just admitted she loved. Han was safe for now, sleeping near a softly snoring Chewbacca on the other side of their communal room, but not even that knowledge could erase the dread and fear she'd felt before Lando had announced he'd survived the carbon freezing process.
The snappings of twigs under foot as ewoks and perhaps soldiers moved around outside were the worst. The loud cracks echoed in her mind and froze her heart as she heard not twigs snapping but a door slamming. The door had shut out the coldest of the cold, leaving those inside to freeze through the night. But there had been two who were not inside, two who were shut out in the snow and the coldness who would freeze to death in the night rather than just freezing through the night.
Except they hadn't frozen to death. Somehow, against all odds and reason, despite the deaths of both their mounts, despite Luke's injuries, Han had managed to keep them both alive on that bleak, freezing night. Could they all do it again? Could they all survive despite the odds against her newly-minted general and his ragged band and the even longer odds against Luke on his private mission? Their luck must run out sometime, but it hadn't yet. Her boys had survived that wintery night and everything else the Empire and the galaxy had thrown at them. Maybe they'd already passed through the worst and the coming dawn would bring hope and freedom not darkness and death. The warrior in her wasn't naive enough to truly believe it, but the princess clung to that spark of hope just enough to finally find the sleep she would need for the battle to come.