Fic: Strange Melodies
Feb. 8th, 2006 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinitydaySo I have a mild migraine, which explains the insomnia last night. I also have no food in the house, which sucks. 'cuz I'm hungry and I don't want to go out to get something to eat.
I found this on my harddrive when I was moving files.
Title: Strange Melodies
Fandom: Star Wars
Timeline: Mid-AotC
Characters: Padmé, Beru
Word Count: 906
Author's Notes: I wrote this for theforce.net's "silence" challenge, where you weren't allowed to have any spoken dialogue in the fic, which might explain a lot about this.
Padmé wasn’t used to long silences. Most of her acquaintances were politicians, too much in love with their own voices to allow a long silence to settle in. If Padmé were to be honest with herself, even she usually found it easier to make polite small talk, if just to settle the nerves of those around her. She was adept at putting people at ease, as all politicians had to be.
But this was different. For one thing, all attempts at small talk had already faltered. They’d covered introductions, a little personal history. But Beru didn’t seem interested in Padmé’s work and Padmé didn’t know enough about life on Tatooine to start a conversation without sounding as if she were belittling the other woman.
Then there was the stranger fact that Beru didn’t seem to mind the silence at all. The young woman offered Padmé smiles to calm her, but no words. She was already at ease--or as much at ease as she could be considering the circumstances. Certainly more at ease than Owen or Cliegg, who had long ago abandoned the women to work, had been. It went without saying that she was more at ease than Anakin had been, but considering what had happened to his mother, Padmé couldn’t blame him for that.
And Padmé, herself, found herself at a loss for things to say, possibly for the first time in her life.
What could she say to this girl who had no ambitions beyond her current place in life. They were two very different people; Padmé couldn’t get over that. Beru had already made it clear that she was perfectly content to remain at the moisture farm when they had earlier made awkward small talk. Padmé had lapsed into silence not long after that and still couldn’t think of what more she wanted to say.
Sorry your--what was Shmi to Beru, anyway? Her boyfriend’s step-mother, which was about as distantly related to Shmi as Padmé was to the missing woman. Her Jedi Protector’s mother, her friend’s mother.
No, Padmé could imagine several ways that conversation went, none of them pleasant.
Beru began to hum, softly and absently so that Padmé was only able to recognize the melody in snatches. The song came to an abrupt end when both girls realized what they were doing--Beru, humming in the first place and Padmé stopping her work in order to listen more closely.
At this point, Padmé realized that she might not want to break the silence. It reminded her of home, in the kitchen with her mom and her sister, baking when she was a young girl. It had been too long since she’d experienced that type of camaraderie. So when Beru ducked her head, seemingly intent on her work but obviously slightly embarrassed about her supposed faux pas, Padmé moved closer, offering her an encouraging smile and spreading her arms in a hesitant yet itchy manner.
Beru understood.
Immediately, she showed Padmé the proper way to cut the vegetables, correctly assuming that the more skilled task should be left to her hands alone. Tucking her hair behind her ears, a move that Padmé unconsciously mimicked, Beru placed her hands on top of Padmé’s and guided her through the steps. Once she was confident that Padmé understood what she was doing, she went back to her own task, which reminded Padmé of kneading dough, only seemed infinitely more complicated than she remembered kneading to be.
Then Beru started to sing.
The tune was only slightly more recognizable now—Beru wasn’t the galaxy’s best singer, but she made up for that with her enthusiasm and lack of self-consciousness, now that Padmé had made it clear that she didn’t mind the noise. Padmé couldn’t recognize the language. Definitely not Basic, and it didn’t sound like Huttese, which she might not have been fluent in, but knew enough of to recognize. In fact, it didn’t sound like any language she had heard before.
As such, it took Padmé awhile to realize the repetitions and pauses in Beru’s singing were not part of the song, but rather an invitation to join in the song.
Padmé tried, sounding the words out phonetically, stumbling over the strange syllables and stranger melody more than once. But Beru was nothing if not patient, going over the lines until Padmé was able to sing along for the chorus.
All the while, she kept working, even picking up the slack those times when Padmé started concentrating too hard on the song, or worrying about Anakin again, and forgetting about the task at hand.
Beru worked well with another person in the kitchen, deftly weaving her hands in and out of Padmé’s own clunkier ones. She was used to this, Padmé realized, used to working with Shmi.
But there was no time to further contemplate the implications of that, nor any time for Beru to notice Padmé breaking off. An alarm rang, faintly. At first, it worried her, until she remembered that Cliegg had warned her about the alarm earlier. The remote areas of Tatooine were in some ways even more dangerous than the busy, crime-ridden spaceports. The Lars family had long ago installed an alarm to let them know when someone came onto their property.
Anakin.
Objectively, Padmé knew it could be anybody--anything--but in her heart, she knew that it was Anakin, returning.
She went out to meet him, almost afraid of what she would find.
I found this on my harddrive when I was moving files.
Title: Strange Melodies
Fandom: Star Wars
Timeline: Mid-AotC
Characters: Padmé, Beru
Word Count: 906
Author's Notes: I wrote this for theforce.net's "silence" challenge, where you weren't allowed to have any spoken dialogue in the fic, which might explain a lot about this.
Padmé wasn’t used to long silences. Most of her acquaintances were politicians, too much in love with their own voices to allow a long silence to settle in. If Padmé were to be honest with herself, even she usually found it easier to make polite small talk, if just to settle the nerves of those around her. She was adept at putting people at ease, as all politicians had to be.
But this was different. For one thing, all attempts at small talk had already faltered. They’d covered introductions, a little personal history. But Beru didn’t seem interested in Padmé’s work and Padmé didn’t know enough about life on Tatooine to start a conversation without sounding as if she were belittling the other woman.
Then there was the stranger fact that Beru didn’t seem to mind the silence at all. The young woman offered Padmé smiles to calm her, but no words. She was already at ease--or as much at ease as she could be considering the circumstances. Certainly more at ease than Owen or Cliegg, who had long ago abandoned the women to work, had been. It went without saying that she was more at ease than Anakin had been, but considering what had happened to his mother, Padmé couldn’t blame him for that.
And Padmé, herself, found herself at a loss for things to say, possibly for the first time in her life.
What could she say to this girl who had no ambitions beyond her current place in life. They were two very different people; Padmé couldn’t get over that. Beru had already made it clear that she was perfectly content to remain at the moisture farm when they had earlier made awkward small talk. Padmé had lapsed into silence not long after that and still couldn’t think of what more she wanted to say.
Sorry your--what was Shmi to Beru, anyway? Her boyfriend’s step-mother, which was about as distantly related to Shmi as Padmé was to the missing woman. Her Jedi Protector’s mother, her friend’s mother.
No, Padmé could imagine several ways that conversation went, none of them pleasant.
Beru began to hum, softly and absently so that Padmé was only able to recognize the melody in snatches. The song came to an abrupt end when both girls realized what they were doing--Beru, humming in the first place and Padmé stopping her work in order to listen more closely.
At this point, Padmé realized that she might not want to break the silence. It reminded her of home, in the kitchen with her mom and her sister, baking when she was a young girl. It had been too long since she’d experienced that type of camaraderie. So when Beru ducked her head, seemingly intent on her work but obviously slightly embarrassed about her supposed faux pas, Padmé moved closer, offering her an encouraging smile and spreading her arms in a hesitant yet itchy manner.
Beru understood.
Immediately, she showed Padmé the proper way to cut the vegetables, correctly assuming that the more skilled task should be left to her hands alone. Tucking her hair behind her ears, a move that Padmé unconsciously mimicked, Beru placed her hands on top of Padmé’s and guided her through the steps. Once she was confident that Padmé understood what she was doing, she went back to her own task, which reminded Padmé of kneading dough, only seemed infinitely more complicated than she remembered kneading to be.
Then Beru started to sing.
The tune was only slightly more recognizable now—Beru wasn’t the galaxy’s best singer, but she made up for that with her enthusiasm and lack of self-consciousness, now that Padmé had made it clear that she didn’t mind the noise. Padmé couldn’t recognize the language. Definitely not Basic, and it didn’t sound like Huttese, which she might not have been fluent in, but knew enough of to recognize. In fact, it didn’t sound like any language she had heard before.
As such, it took Padmé awhile to realize the repetitions and pauses in Beru’s singing were not part of the song, but rather an invitation to join in the song.
Padmé tried, sounding the words out phonetically, stumbling over the strange syllables and stranger melody more than once. But Beru was nothing if not patient, going over the lines until Padmé was able to sing along for the chorus.
All the while, she kept working, even picking up the slack those times when Padmé started concentrating too hard on the song, or worrying about Anakin again, and forgetting about the task at hand.
Beru worked well with another person in the kitchen, deftly weaving her hands in and out of Padmé’s own clunkier ones. She was used to this, Padmé realized, used to working with Shmi.
But there was no time to further contemplate the implications of that, nor any time for Beru to notice Padmé breaking off. An alarm rang, faintly. At first, it worried her, until she remembered that Cliegg had warned her about the alarm earlier. The remote areas of Tatooine were in some ways even more dangerous than the busy, crime-ridden spaceports. The Lars family had long ago installed an alarm to let them know when someone came onto their property.
Anakin.
Objectively, Padmé knew it could be anybody--anything--but in her heart, she knew that it was Anakin, returning.
She went out to meet him, almost afraid of what she would find.