three-fer! "only the brave," "bedtime stories" and "on the trail"
Author: wyncatastrophe
Title: only the brave
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: attrition
Word Count: 295
Characters: Palpatine, Anakin Skywalker
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Palpatine reflects on the use-value of attrition.
Author's Notes: *pants* Still … trying … to get … caught up … and I … do not … own Star Wars!
[only the brave]
Attrition gets us all, in the end. We win, we lose, we win again - but never quite as much as we lost before. The slow erosion of confidence and strength wears down men as surely as mountains.
I am immune, of course. Not because of any overweening greatness on my own part - stupendous folly, that! - but because I seek only my own power and the glory of destruction that is also, always, possession. I never stand and hold my ground, and thus can never be truly battered by fate. I flee before it, skimming ahead on the currents of time.
Only the brave can be defeated.
This is a truth my always-and-future apprentice cannot yet grasp. He has the courage of his convictions, and of his youth and vitality; he flings himself into the teeth of fate as though screaming a challenge to the gods. Takes the horrors of war and bids them defiance, pitting himself against them as though his will alone could save this sorry galaxy - though never for himself.
He is almost certainly the bravest man I have ever known.
That courage is what will bring him down, finally. I know not yet the circumstances, but I have foreseen his fall clearly. That endless striving in the face of defeat will be his undoing; the faith he keeps will destroy him. Because, in the end, he will not be able to keep faith with all sides at once, and he will not be willing to admit defeat at last, or surrender in conscience. So he will do anything, pay any price, make any sacrifice, even - especially - of himself, to stand and fight just a little longer.
He will not yield to fate, but attrition gets us all in the end.
Author:wyncatastrophe
Title: bedtime stories
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Luminara Unduli
Word Count: 412
Characters: Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, OC, mentions of Luminara Unduli and Bariss Offee
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "That's not the way I heard it."
Author's Notes: Same as above.
[bedtime stories]
“So you knew Luminara Unduli from before,” Ahsoka prompts him.
Across the narrow cabin, Anakin’s best and most controversial friend - if you don’t count Master Kenobi for the first part, and Ahsoka doesn’t, because he used to be Anakin’s Master, and that’s different - snorts once and fails signally to conceal a grin.
Anakin shoots her a glare, but Ahsoka thinks he’s only funning. It’s hard to tell with those two, sometimes. “Master Unduli,” she presses, trying to tell herself this isn’t pestering.
Anakin sighs, but this is his okay-I’m-going-to-humor-you sigh, not his exhausted-can’t-take-any-more sigh. (He has a whole range of sighs; Ahsoka thinks maybe he learned them from Master Kenobi.)
“Yeah,” he concedes. “I knew Master Luminara. Well, sort of.”
Ahsoka wriggles with anticipation for just a second before pouncing on this thought, an old habit that she knows gives away her felinoid heritage. There’s a story here, she just knows it. “Well?” she demands eagerly.
“Oh, I’d say he knew her apprentice better,” their companion interjects, smirking up at them from her work - some kind of leather-tooling, Ahsoka doesn’t know exactly. “Much better.”
“You are making trouble,” Anakin informs her severely.
“Not me!” she protests ungrammatically, the words quivering with laughter. “That was Bariss. And you. Did you really strip naked to battle underwater monsters?”
“What?” Anakin gapes at her in outrage, mouth working. “No! Bariss found the water monsters! And I had my clothes on!”
“That’s not the way I heard it,” his friend insists, laughing outright now, and Ahsoka can’t decide how much of what she’s saying is real and how much is just teasing Anakin. Sometimes the things she finds funny don’t make much sense.
She catches the rolled sock Anakin throws at her without looking up, sniffs it once distastefuly, and tosses it into the corner. “Ew,” she remarks, apparently undisturbed by this assault on her person and cleanliness. “I think Barris left out the part where you stank to high heaven...”
“What?” says Ahsoka, over her Master’s indignant spluttering. “Why did you stink? How come you know Bariss so well? What happened?”
Anakin sighs again, but this time it’s his I’m-settling-in-to-tell-a-story sigh, and Ahsoka grabs a pillow and curls around it to listen.
“Well,” her Master begins, drawing the word out reflectively, the way he always does at the beginning of a tale, “there was this border dispute on Ansion ...”
Author: wyncatastrophe
Title: on the trail
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: The Works
Word Count: 456
Characters: Trever Flume, Ferus Olin, OC
Rating: PG
Summary: Three friends scrabble their way through one of Coruscant's least appealing districts.
Author's Notes: See above! zomg I have so much to write to get caught up by tomorrow! While also preparing my assignments in Real Life, yikes!
[on the trail]
“I hate this place,” Trever complains as they scale down a last rickety ladder to emerge in a broken-roofed building at the edge of The Works. "It gives me the creeps."
It gives everyone the creeps, Ferus is about to say, but he is distracted by the way Ryn jumps past him off the ladder to stalk the perimeter. It’s not the way a Jedi would examine new surroundings; more like a hunter’s prowl, maybe.
“I know,” she says over her shoulder to Trever, leaning over to peer through one broken window before kicking the fragments out of the way to hop up and perch on the sill, cantilevering herself with one hand braced against the inner wall. “I hate it, too.” Ferus clenches his teeth against the urge to haul her back in before she can fall to her death below; Ryn has never needed his help for this sort of thing. “But if you’re going to hide something on Coruscant, this is the place.” He has to agree with her there.
“Can we review?” Trever asks nervously, obviously ready to launch into one of his catalogues of misfortune.
“No,” says Ryn calmly, craning her neck to look, not at Trever, but overhead at something on the outer wall above.
And with no more warning than that, she’s gone, stretching up to catch hold and swing herself up and out of sight.
“... Oh.” Trever stares at the empty space in the window where Ryn had been, eyes round under his shock of blue hair. “Can she do that?”
“Only if she wants to give me a heart attack,” Ferus answers heavily, still trying to get his breath back, and then nearly jumps out of his skin when Ryn’s voice speaks somewhere beyond the rafters.
“You worry too much,” she says, and Ferus jerks his head up to see her peering in at them through a hole in the ruined roof. “I was just getting the lay of the land. If we cut northeast, across the warehouses, we ought to reach clearer air by nightfall.”
“There is no clear air in The Works,” Ferus reminds her, and she shrugs.
“Better than this,” she says, and with the red smog staining her pale skin rose in the afternoon light, it’s hard to argue. “We can shelter for the evening in one of those towers, and head out to search again in the morning.”
Ferus wonders uneasily how much of her hunter’s knowledge can be transferred to this cityscape of chemical waste and still remain relevant; but it’s got to be better than his erratic command of the Force, at least for now, so he take a breath and lets it go.
“Lead the way,” he says, and they move out again.
Title: only the brave
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: attrition
Word Count: 295
Characters: Palpatine, Anakin Skywalker
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Palpatine reflects on the use-value of attrition.
Author's Notes: *pants* Still … trying … to get … caught up … and I … do not … own Star Wars!
[only the brave]
Attrition gets us all, in the end. We win, we lose, we win again - but never quite as much as we lost before. The slow erosion of confidence and strength wears down men as surely as mountains.
I am immune, of course. Not because of any overweening greatness on my own part - stupendous folly, that! - but because I seek only my own power and the glory of destruction that is also, always, possession. I never stand and hold my ground, and thus can never be truly battered by fate. I flee before it, skimming ahead on the currents of time.
Only the brave can be defeated.
This is a truth my always-and-future apprentice cannot yet grasp. He has the courage of his convictions, and of his youth and vitality; he flings himself into the teeth of fate as though screaming a challenge to the gods. Takes the horrors of war and bids them defiance, pitting himself against them as though his will alone could save this sorry galaxy - though never for himself.
He is almost certainly the bravest man I have ever known.
That courage is what will bring him down, finally. I know not yet the circumstances, but I have foreseen his fall clearly. That endless striving in the face of defeat will be his undoing; the faith he keeps will destroy him. Because, in the end, he will not be able to keep faith with all sides at once, and he will not be willing to admit defeat at last, or surrender in conscience. So he will do anything, pay any price, make any sacrifice, even - especially - of himself, to stand and fight just a little longer.
He will not yield to fate, but attrition gets us all in the end.
Author:wyncatastrophe
Title: bedtime stories
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: Luminara Unduli
Word Count: 412
Characters: Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker, OC, mentions of Luminara Unduli and Bariss Offee
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "That's not the way I heard it."
Author's Notes: Same as above.
[bedtime stories]
“So you knew Luminara Unduli from before,” Ahsoka prompts him.
Across the narrow cabin, Anakin’s best and most controversial friend - if you don’t count Master Kenobi for the first part, and Ahsoka doesn’t, because he used to be Anakin’s Master, and that’s different - snorts once and fails signally to conceal a grin.
Anakin shoots her a glare, but Ahsoka thinks he’s only funning. It’s hard to tell with those two, sometimes. “Master Unduli,” she presses, trying to tell herself this isn’t pestering.
Anakin sighs, but this is his okay-I’m-going-to-humor-you sigh, not his exhausted-can’t-take-any-more sigh. (He has a whole range of sighs; Ahsoka thinks maybe he learned them from Master Kenobi.)
“Yeah,” he concedes. “I knew Master Luminara. Well, sort of.”
Ahsoka wriggles with anticipation for just a second before pouncing on this thought, an old habit that she knows gives away her felinoid heritage. There’s a story here, she just knows it. “Well?” she demands eagerly.
“Oh, I’d say he knew her apprentice better,” their companion interjects, smirking up at them from her work - some kind of leather-tooling, Ahsoka doesn’t know exactly. “Much better.”
“You are making trouble,” Anakin informs her severely.
“Not me!” she protests ungrammatically, the words quivering with laughter. “That was Bariss. And you. Did you really strip naked to battle underwater monsters?”
“What?” Anakin gapes at her in outrage, mouth working. “No! Bariss found the water monsters! And I had my clothes on!”
“That’s not the way I heard it,” his friend insists, laughing outright now, and Ahsoka can’t decide how much of what she’s saying is real and how much is just teasing Anakin. Sometimes the things she finds funny don’t make much sense.
She catches the rolled sock Anakin throws at her without looking up, sniffs it once distastefuly, and tosses it into the corner. “Ew,” she remarks, apparently undisturbed by this assault on her person and cleanliness. “I think Barris left out the part where you stank to high heaven...”
“What?” says Ahsoka, over her Master’s indignant spluttering. “Why did you stink? How come you know Bariss so well? What happened?”
Anakin sighs again, but this time it’s his I’m-settling-in-to-tell-a-story sigh, and Ahsoka grabs a pillow and curls around it to listen.
“Well,” her Master begins, drawing the word out reflectively, the way he always does at the beginning of a tale, “there was this border dispute on Ansion ...”
Author: wyncatastrophe
Title: on the trail
Challenge: SWMININANO2
Prompt: The Works
Word Count: 456
Characters: Trever Flume, Ferus Olin, OC
Rating: PG
Summary: Three friends scrabble their way through one of Coruscant's least appealing districts.
Author's Notes: See above! zomg I have so much to write to get caught up by tomorrow! While also preparing my assignments in Real Life, yikes!
[on the trail]
“I hate this place,” Trever complains as they scale down a last rickety ladder to emerge in a broken-roofed building at the edge of The Works. "It gives me the creeps."
It gives everyone the creeps, Ferus is about to say, but he is distracted by the way Ryn jumps past him off the ladder to stalk the perimeter. It’s not the way a Jedi would examine new surroundings; more like a hunter’s prowl, maybe.
“I know,” she says over her shoulder to Trever, leaning over to peer through one broken window before kicking the fragments out of the way to hop up and perch on the sill, cantilevering herself with one hand braced against the inner wall. “I hate it, too.” Ferus clenches his teeth against the urge to haul her back in before she can fall to her death below; Ryn has never needed his help for this sort of thing. “But if you’re going to hide something on Coruscant, this is the place.” He has to agree with her there.
“Can we review?” Trever asks nervously, obviously ready to launch into one of his catalogues of misfortune.
“No,” says Ryn calmly, craning her neck to look, not at Trever, but overhead at something on the outer wall above.
And with no more warning than that, she’s gone, stretching up to catch hold and swing herself up and out of sight.
“... Oh.” Trever stares at the empty space in the window where Ryn had been, eyes round under his shock of blue hair. “Can she do that?”
“Only if she wants to give me a heart attack,” Ferus answers heavily, still trying to get his breath back, and then nearly jumps out of his skin when Ryn’s voice speaks somewhere beyond the rafters.
“You worry too much,” she says, and Ferus jerks his head up to see her peering in at them through a hole in the ruined roof. “I was just getting the lay of the land. If we cut northeast, across the warehouses, we ought to reach clearer air by nightfall.”
“There is no clear air in The Works,” Ferus reminds her, and she shrugs.
“Better than this,” she says, and with the red smog staining her pale skin rose in the afternoon light, it’s hard to argue. “We can shelter for the evening in one of those towers, and head out to search again in the morning.”
Ferus wonders uneasily how much of her hunter’s knowledge can be transferred to this cityscape of chemical waste and still remain relevant; but it’s got to be better than his erratic command of the Force, at least for now, so he take a breath and lets it go.
“Lead the way,” he says, and they move out again.