Anonymous asked: Anything about the line 'sext: people died for you. i bet you liked it.' from How to Make Love to the God of War for Leia Organa pretty please, your writing is so gorgeous and it would fit Ashe Vernon's poetry so beautifully. ILY thank you so much I hope this promptathon is fun for you.
War—what is it good for?
….well, you.
Mostly you.
Almost exclusively you.
(This is not an apology. It is maybe an explanation.)
.
Something you don’t realize until you’re standing in the control room, watching the battle for the Death Star: there’s very little screaming.
You’re intel, not military; the only experience you have of a warfront is battle sims and holos. The stories you’ve read have all been infantry battles—sentients dodging blaster fire and scattering their blood on the earth, calling for a meddroid even as the concussive missile shakes the air. The sound of AT-ATs, all creaking joints and thunder; clone troopers calling out commands. Droids, screaming. War was loud, full of mud and blood, you knew.
But here, from the control room on Yavin, there’s just the quiet whir of the servers, orders given and received. You can’t hear the chatter of the squadrons—they’re talking to the controllers, who are bent over consoles furiously reading out data. Sometimes one of the sensors beeps—but quietly, as if it’s worried about making a fuss in the huge, heavy silence. Blue Squadron goes down in a rain of fire, their ships immolated against the vast shell of the Death Star, but all you know of it is Lieutenant Rula’s announcement in a cool, flat voice.
It’s all very civilized.
Somehow, even in victory, you feel a little—cheated.
.
(This is not true. It is not all battle sims and holos; you remember war.
You are eight when you dream of your father on the battlefield. He is holding a sword of fire, and he breathes too loudly, harsh in your ears—you are scared, and so you reach for him, seeking comfort. He turns on you, and he is shadow and death and that awful sword of fire, not your father at all.
He says in a breath of smoke, who—?
You wake up to your father’s arms, real and warm, cradling you to his chest. It was only a nightmare, Bail says, as you cry wracking sobs. Shh, it wasn’t real.
You can still taste it on the inside of your mouth sometimes, ash and fear. Later—after you kiss your brother and find blood in your teeth; after you watch Darth Vader’s corpse burn from the safety of the treeline—you will learn this is your inheritance.)
