Beyond - Legends This New Year's Eve (An Entry for the Winter Holiday Fanfic Contest, O/Cs, Completed 30 December)

The candle in the window could be seen in the distance, a beacon of warmth and welcome to the weary travelers.

At least, that is what the being who lit the candle would hope. He could recount dozens of stories that began that way, with a candle guiding people to their destination. In fact, there was one for nearly every year on his home planet, when candles were lit as part of holiday tradition, and every guest approaching a home would be welcomed, even at a distance, by the flickering light of the candle that had been placed in the window.

Here, he was not so sure. This, after all, was Coruscant, world of cityscape and little else, a place where the city had to be divided into districts simply because there were no natural divisions of cities. Everything that might have been its own city was connected to another, every natural shape had been multiplied hundredfold by towers racing up into the sky and gorges delved between shipyards, and every connection to the rest of the cityscape had no end in sight. Traffic poured over the planet?s surface in hundreds of different levels, at breakneck speeds and at slower ones appropriate to the vehicles, around, between, or even through the buildings, swooping, rushing, soaring, screeching through the landscape, and, every time night came upon a particular district, its inhabitants would be treated to a barrage of artificial lights, if not from the news tickers or buildings, then from the traffic itself. In the lights of the speeders passing by, the candle could be easily missed.

And, yet, he could not be sure it would go unnoticed. No matter the source, light tends to be a thing not easily missed, and nothing happens without a reason. He had heard from childhood ? or, as the others teased him, from his puphood ? that light shines in all directions, to guide the ones who are to be witness of the great events in history and also to include others, even those who may never hear of the greatest events. In that way, every light, every point of burning luminescence, is in itself a herald of something greater, something for anyone to see, a miracle in itself that can never be limited to the one who lights it anymore than it is limited to a person on one side rather than the other. The lights were a staple of his culture, and the candles a holiday tradition he had promised his mother he would observe here on Coruscant, bless her now-ancient soul. He knew exactly what she would say, that if it were not important, she would not ask. That the species observes the tradition as a reminder because its members are themselves a reminder to the rest of the galaxy, a herald of something which they cannot themselves even know, and the candle, the beacon of warmth and welcome, will radiate hope outward for all who need to see it. And he would laugh at her overdramatized sincerity but know that she was completely right, and with her came the authority of one hundred and fifty-six years of the galaxy?s darkest hours. No one could deny her claims to experience any more than they could deny her hope that darkness was at its end, that there might be undulation and fluctuation, but that darkness had, utterly and forever, been defeated.

The memory of his mother gave Sath Sulvichva Norsoya Maorov occasion to smile as the small apartment was lit by the dancing lights of the flickering flame. Pouring out some hrakna, the potent liquor known best by its fame on the Kameer homeworld of Kecyrk, into a glass, he raised it in a seeming toast before drinking it quickly.

Maorov was a Kameer, one of the short creatures native to the planet Kecyrk, and, quite often and with good reason, compared to weasels and other such rodents, with the curious exceptions of the Balosar-like antennae between their ears. The striped bipeds carried with them the nickname of ?Rodent Jedi? for both their appearance and their fame within the extinct Jedi Order. Maorov himself had known two of the twenty-four famed Kameer who became Jedi, Master Ethe Rostov, a family friend who seemed more like a family member,

 

Nicely written.

I liked the detailed description of Coruscant.

 

Keeper_of_Swords: I?m glad you think it?s well-written; of course, that?s what I?m going for. And I?m especially glad you like the details. So much of this bit of the story is all in the details that it?s a good thing I have that going for me.

Now, to release my inner pyromaniac?
__________

Feore took another sip of the hrakna ? it was stern stuff, but the taste was growing on him. ?So the three travelers were Jedi, and they found this? Master Incov??

?Well, he wasn?t Master Incov at the time,? Maorov said. ?He was just a little boy named Tsion, and his birth-pack had been born only two weeks before. The Jedi were there to investigate the appearance of the light in the sky. All the systems around had seen it, but it was pinpointed in the Kecyrk system.?

?That?s a good story,? Feore said, setting down his drained glass. The Xallaiman were a reptilian species, with dull green skin and beaklike snouts. Feore had a wide, blunt horn on his nose and a small, white, almost feathery goatee. He himself was two inches over four feet tall, considered tall for his species and by Kameer standards, but short overall. ?So that?s the basis of the holiday??

Maorov had leaned against the window, staring into the candle. ?Have you ever really watched a flame??

As Feore refilled his glass, he looked at the candle. ?No, I can?t say that I have.?

?It?s quite remarkable,? Maorov said. ?I?ve always thought so. The way the light dances is so completely fascinating? It seems to have a shape, but at the same time, it defies all observable form. You can draw a flame, but it?s like a cloud; you can never actually capture it because it has no certain shape, it moves, it?s fluid, it snaps and flickers without resigning itself to any form. It?s a three-dimensional entity, but it?s so completely? immaterial. It has heat, it has color, but there?s no feel to it. It?s almost like, somehow, it?s more real than any other thing we?ve come to know, that when you look into it, you?re seeing something more real, more material, even than we are, which is why it seems so passing to us.? Maorov passed his fingers over the flame, pulling them back when the heat got to them. ?The brightest part is nearly opaque, but it fades out, a marriage, almost, of light and darkness. Yet the way it gleams almost disorients you, like the flickering light is a constant that?s in motion, like you?re trying to define your standard along that motion, which is more real than the vertical and horizontal that you?ve come to know.?

?A treatise on flames?? Feore asked. ?You seem desperate to change the subject.?

?I?m not sure,? Maorov said. ?Have you ever seen a room completely lit by candles? Every year, on the solstice, the night before Svazdipir, we go to a church service, and every year, we spread candle fire around while we sing a hymn. It looks like a delicate wavering between light and darkness, but, in truth, the whole place is lit up. The shadows play tricks on you, but there are only shadows because of the light itself. Light?? Maorov sighed. ?That?s the basis for the holiday. Light is a big part of Kameer culture, that?s why the candles are such a big part of our holiday tradition.?

?You?re not alone there,? Feore said. ?The Xallaiman light candles on their holidays, one for each one of the values that gets a holiday in the week.?

?Yeah,? Maorov said. ?It?s not entirely different for the Kameer. Those two weeks that the Svazdipir star shone in the sky, not a single candle burnt out in all the seven cities, so we light a candle for each day. But the candles themselves are something we?ve always been told stories about, the way they shine out for everyone to see, because no one is left out of the great stories of history.?

Feore shifted in his seat, having resigned himself to following the trails Maorov took from his story.

?Think about it. All the dynamic pairs we recognize in nature are more like different sides of the same coins. Male and female get together to create a perfect whole, the start of a family. Life

 

Before Sath Sulvichva Maorov stepped off of the ship, he checked his appearance in the mirror, dressed to the nines in his Senate uniform. He had taken just a little gel to his antennae to smooth down the fuzz, and he looked every bit the official.

As he began walking down the entry ramp, he saw several of the Junior Ambassadors from the Consul?s office there to greet him. The capitol complex of Sint-Redlumburg loomed all around him, the chief guardtower hovering over him in the sky.

He was greeted by the Junior Consul, who hugged him warmly. ?Welcome back, Consul General Maorov.? Before Sulvichva could respond, he was being escorted to a landspeeder. ?We?ll be at Sint-Lorenov?s in no time,? the Junior Consul said.

*****

Maorov took a deep breath as he pulled up outside the cathedral. As he walked up the path, he watched as the Junior Consul opened the door. ?You?re lucky you messaged them in time,? he said. ?They were going to christen the boy yesterday.?

Sulvichva walked through the door, and the heads in the pews turned to face him.

On the dais was a face everyone recognized, Tsilas Patmose, the Jedi-in-exile Kecyrk had harbored for more than two decades. Master Skywalker had allowed him to come and observe the early training on Yavin IV, and he had been declared a Knight, and had even taken on the training of an apprentice, namely one Marc Nebur, who was also there. Next to the two Jedi stood someone Sulvichva recognized even more quickly.

Sath Sulvich, his older brother, stepped down off the dais and ran down the aisle to embrace his little brother. ?Thanks for coming, Va,? he whispered.

Sulvichva hugged his brother tightly before breaking it off to follow him up to the dais. He took his place next to Patmose?s apprentice. Looking down, he could see all twelve of his other siblings in the front row, next to his parents. He smiled when Sath Sulvichri waggled his fingers in greeting.

Sath Sulvich walked back over to where his wife, Yela, stood. She stepped forward at the beckoning of the reverend standing in the middle of the dais. She held a tiny bundle in her arms, one that Sulvichva could only guess was his first nephew.

As Yela Maorovna pulled the cloth from the baby?s head, Sulvichva couldn?t miss the unmistakable glint in the child?s eye. The eyes were green, the primary marker among Kameer that the individual was Force-sensitive.

?I assume you have chosen a name?? the reverend asked.

Sulvich smiled. ?We?re going to call him Ilyin,? he said.

Sulvichva smiled. While all the other Force-sensitive Kameer had been christened Tsion, ?Called One,? Ilyin meant ?Bright One,? carrying the sense of having been illuminated. He couldn?t help thinking it appropriate as the child?s face lit up.

Sulvich continued. ?Ilyin Sathvich Azteya Ukranya Maorov.? He had been given two saint?s-names, one for the namesake of all Kameer pups born as the only child of their birth-packs, and one in memory of ?Squeaky,? Knight Ethe Ukranov, the Maorov?s fallen Jedi brother.

?A fine name? the reverend said. ?We welcome, then, to the Kameer Orthodoxy, a new member of the Maorov family, Ilyin Sathvich.?

?And,? Tsilas said, ?If he is to come to Yavin, he will be the twenty-fifth Kameer of the Jedi Order.?

As the congregation began to cheer, Tsilas assured Yela, ?It is your choice. He may come later, or you may come with us. The new dawn for Jedi is here, and we want you to be a part of his life.?

Sulvichva just smiled as he took it all in, pondering the entire scene.

As he stared into the bright forest-green eyes of his nephew, the Bright One, he could barely keep himself from laughing.

It would be a happy new year.

 

Aww, that was great! I loved how he got home just in time!

 

Lt_Jaina_Solo: I'm glad you enjoyed it. I certainly enjoyed writing it.

Have you read the other two parts of this little trilogy?

Home for the Holidays

Hope to Those Who Have None

This Winter Holiday Fanfic Challenge really got me going...

 

Yeah, I've read the other two. Loved them as well (as I see you've already noticed). Great job with the challange!

 

Honestly, I think this chunk of the challenge is the one I enjoyed writing most.

Strictly, I may have enjoyed the plot of "Home for the Holidays" more, just because it had more plot, but this was just a good one to write. In all honestly, I wrote it while completely high on the works of C.S. Lewis. (I got two anthologies of excerpts from his work for Christmas.) I also got to finally expand the theme of Christ's life as the GFFA might have experienced it...

In case anyone's interested, this is also a set-up. The Kameer have been mentioned in my "Shadows of Conflict" fanfic series, so this sets Sulvichva up as Senator for Part Three: Assassination, due out sometime next year ( ), sooner rather than later.

 

Oh, and I could also mention that Sulvichva's attitude, the kind of bitterness leading to breakthrough, came from a song. That's actually where I got the name for the fic. Here, I'll paste the lyrics in...

New Year's Eve
from the Album "The End Is Near"
Performed by Five Iron Frenzy, Words written by Reese Roper, Music by Reese Roper and Dennis Culp

It's New Year's Eve and I'm full of empty promises
I half-pretend to keep this time,
Just like last year,
The band is loud, and I'm wandering the shadows,
Wishing I was never here,
I persevere...

A crowded room,
These whitewashed tombs,
They raise their glasses high,
They kiss the past goodbye!

This New Year's Eve, I'm waiting for tomorrow,
My heart is on my sleeve,
And, yes, I still believe,
This New Year's Eve will turn out better than before,
I'm holding on, still holding on, until they close the door...
On me...

It's New Year's Eve, and I feel my insecurities
Are haunting me like ghosts,
They sink in quicksand,
And then, with thundrous praise
And lofty adoration,
A second passes by,
Yet nothing changes...

I hate my skin,
This grave I'm standing in,
Another change of years,
And I wish I wasn't here!

This New Year's Eve, I'm waiting for tomorrow,
My heart is on my sleeve,
And, yes, I still believe,
This New Year's Eve will turn out better than before,
I'm holding on, still holding on, until they close the door...
On me...

A year goes by, and I'm staring at my watch again,
And I dig deep this
Time for something
Greater than I've ever been,
New life to ancient wineskins,
And I was blind,
But now I see...

This New Year's Eve, something must change me, inside,
I'm broken and misguided, and tired of bein' tired!

This New Year's Eve, I'm waiting for tomorrow,
My heart is on my sleeve,
And, yes, I still believe in you,
Yeah-ah-ah-ah, Yeah-ah-ah, in you.

 

Well done little trilogy of stories, there, Ty-Gon, and thanks for sharing.

In this story, perhaps my favourite part was the study of fire's philosophy. You really got my mind moving there, and I love the new perspective!

I really like the short and sweet ending, and also the spiral of events in closing with thediscovery of the 25th Jedi of Kameer.

The stories were well thought-out, and your inspriation obviously shone very clearly throughout. Your powers of description seem to be a hallmark of your work! Keep it up!


*Derisa*

 

_Derisa_Ollamhin_:

The stories were well thought-out, and your inspriation obviously shone very clearly throughout. Your powers of description seem to be a hallmark of your work! Keep it up!

That means a LOT to me. Thank YOU so much.

As for the discourse on the philosophy of fire, yeah, I enjoyed writing that. That was a combination of my having just read two anthologies of selected readings from the work of C.S. Lewis and my own little pyromania.

 

Darn it, does he have to submit more than one? It wasn't original so much because it's like another one he's written himself. ARUGH! Too good stories in too much abundance!

 

Ish: That little comment alone just completely made my day. Thanks so much!