lucetilogs | A short time ago, in a farm-house not so far away...

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A short time ago, in a farm-house not so far away...

Who: The Skywalker Family, immediate and extended and any close friends.
What: An evening with the family
When: August 4th
Where: Skywalker Ranch...or...something
Summary: Luke and Ami bring everyone over for a Sunday thing.
Rating: H is for Heartwarming

It's a bit of a monthly tradition, and has been for some time. The first Sunday of every month is the day the entire family gets together for an afternoon and has a nice dinner. Some might call the family a bit old fashioned, but it's just something that they do and have for as long as any of them can recall. It's never a fancy thing, but then does it really need to be? It's about the warm, fuzzy feeling of being surrounded by relatives and friends, sitting out on the porch and watching fireflies, and relaxing.

Food's been left to the people who can actually cook, because let's face it: Luke takes after his mother and Grandma Padme was not known for her fried chicken. But there's plenty of it. Chairs are set up on the large back porch so the weather can be enjoyed and tea along with a cooler of glass-bottled Coca-Colas, a bit of a splurge for the end of summer.

Everything's set to be a fairly nice afternoon and evening, provided the mosquitoes aren't too bad anyway.

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"Do you know how fireflies began to glow?" Ami asks as she ushers her daughter outdoors. It's the preface to an old myth about the princess of fireflies from the south side of a castle moat and her prince from the north side; somehow Ami always seems to be telling Arya myths and fairy tales.

"It's a very cute story, but sometimes sad," she cautioned.

"I don't care if it's kind of sad," Arya said stubbornly. "I still want to hear it."

Cute but sad probably means it's some kind of lovey-dovey story, and she is solidly convinced that those are just pure fairy tale. Not that she doesn't enjoy hearing them; she just highly doubts that any of it is true.

But still, she walks along beside her mother, her dog tailing along behind her as always. The air is warm, but not too warm. This is how summer should always be.

Oh, of course they're pure fairy tale. What else could they possibly be? Ami's always encouraged flights of fancy and imagination, but she's always tried to draw the line between that and reality very firmly. If certain myths seem to tug at her, if certain stories feel oddly familiar, it's easy to tell herself it only means they touch her feelings somehow, and she's never considered it more deeply than that.

This story isn't one of those anyway, just a little tale about a firefly princess.

"One day, it was decided the Princess Hotaru of the fireflies at the south side of the castle moat should find a husband. This shouldn't have been very difficult, since she was very beautiful and bright and attracted many suitors. None of them touched her heart, however. Finally, she decided she would set them a task, and whoever could achieve it would be her groom."

Ah, a princess and a suitor. She thought as much. Still, if it's a story her mother wants to share, she wants to hear it. Absently, she reaches back to scratch Mycah behind one ear as she listens.

And then comes the questions.

"What kind of task?" Arya perked up as an idea struck her, suddenly all interest. "Slaying a dragon?"

"You're very close," Ami said, with a touch of pride that her daughter was quick to pick up themes in these stories - it would help her a lot in literature classes in school, too. "She told them to bring her back fire. For an insect, that's a very dangerous task just like dragon fire for a human."

Arya nodded. That made sense. Fire was dangerous for anything, let alone a bug. Still, she gave her mother a sly grin. "I guess they couldn't just slay a dragonfly, then."

"No," Ami admits. "They went to the nearby houses, to kitchen fires and candle flames. Many of them were hurt very badly trying to accomplish this for the princess."

There is a small note of disapproval there - a girl causing so much fuss over the question of love, demanding so much before she'd give any of herself. But Ami hadn't been easy for Luke to woo, either; it had time and patience to break down her reserve and her instinctive mistrust of people - of any class - approaching her.

"However, one day, the prince from the Northern side of the moat heard about the glittering princess and came in a palanquin of white lotus petals."

As far as Arya was concerned, a bunch of foolish boys going off and hurting themselves was probably a good thing. If the princess didn't want to marry any of them anyway, better that they didn't get the fire anyhow. But her thoughtful look fades into one of confusion rather quickly towards the end of that.

"What's a palanquin?" The word feels weird in her mouth. Pronunciation may be a little butchered.

"It's like a litter," Ami answers. "It lets the person sit down on a chair, carried by several other people."

It might have been noted it made a very literal symbol of the people who rode smoothly on the effort of others. But as this was a story of a princess and a prince, that was only to be expected.

"Oh." That made sense. Although it's just the sort of thing that's always bothered her. She wrinkles her nose. "That's really lazy of him."

Not to mention the mark of an outright jerk. But then again, princes aren't supposed to walk on the princely feet, are they?

"Maybe," Ami says, but there are other lessons here and other possibilities. She decided to paint him in a potentially better light: "Maybe he wasn't able to walk very well, so he had to travel that way."

Arya thought about that for a moment. "A crippled prince?"

Why did that sound so familiar? Maybe she had heard this story before. Something about a prince who couldn't walk and was carried around in a litter. Something wrong with his legs. It was ringing a bell.

"Maybe he was," Ami lets herself be spurred on by the idea. "But even so, he had a lot of love to offer the princess, so he wanted to try for his chance to win her hand, too."

And why not, she thinks. She'd rather Arya find her true love, even if he was missing a limb, than end up with a guy she didn't want.

"Besides, as a prince, he was still capable of doing everything he had to: He could make laws to protect his people, and oversee justice for his kingdom." He couldn't have led his people to war, but he could appoint strong and loyal generals...

Arya thought that over carefully as well. Something really was ringing a bell. She must have heard this story before. Maybe it hadn't been her mother who had told it; maybe it had been in school at some point. In any case, she gave a slow nod.

"So he was an actual ruler, then, and not a jumped-up knight." Why does she remember something about the prince wanting to be a knight? It's not like that would be important to the story. She thinks. "Someone who would actually think of his people first."

"He was a ruler," Ami affirms. "Maybe a very good one." Doubtless she had told Arya stories of knights and protectors throughout her childhood, always the noble warriors fighting for love and justice. (Why did that theme and phrase always seem familiar? Because everyone grew up on stories like that. Of course.)

"He always tried to think of his people first. That's why he wanted to marry a princess who would be a good and gracious and loving queen for his kingdom."

She's spinning this into something of her own story, adding in things as Arya asks questions.

Arya cracked a slight smile at that. Cheesy love stories never were very high on her list of favorites, but at least this was a prince who had his priorities straight. Finding the right queen to help protect his people was at least a noble twist to the traditional Knight in Shining Armor type story.

"What was his plan for bringing the fire?"

"He just decided to come to the princess, with all his men and all his retinue, and their glowing lanterns," said Ami. "Besides that, as a firefly, he himself already had a bright light that filled the room,"

"The moths and beetles and all the different insects that had tried to bring fire, had burned. But the firefly prince, the one most compatible with the princess himself, brought his own light."

Arya bit her lip thoughtfully, looking at Mycah as if for confirmation of her thoughts. The dog just stared back blankly, but somehow, that helped.

"But isn't that kind of cheating? Besides, fireflies don't have actual fire in them."

It wasn't really bringing fire when you just brought a glowing tail, she figured.

"There were the torches, too," Ami reminds Arya. "He was wise, and cautious. Instead of risking his life rashly, he thought about how to fulfill the command without anyone suffering."

"I guess." It still felt kind of like he had copped out on the actual challenge. It would be like someone promising to slay a dragon and then showing up with a really big lizard instead. "But it's so easy. Why didn't anybody else think of it?"

She would think lanterns would be the obvious choice.

"They weren't thinking clearly." This time, a bit of disapproval colors Ami's voice. There's a lesson there, Arya: think clearly, even in love (or passion, in this case). She made her choice to cleave to Luke with her eyes open and fully aware of what it would mean. It wouldn't have been a fair choice otherwise.

"Because they were too caught up in thinking they were getting a princess."

Arya's own disapproval was clear in her tone. Guys could be so stupid over things like that. Girls, too, for that matter.

Somehow that idea makes Ami frown, not at Arya but at the idea. "She must have set that condition because she knew most of them wouldn't see her as herself, but only as the princess."

Maybe it's not too unlike the men who probably see her sister, Daisy, as the ticket to even more of the Mizuno inheritance now.

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A short time ago, in a farm-house not so far away...

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man this brings back memories of fireflies at my grandparents' growing up. <3

right? <3 nostalgia bomb, right here.

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