bren’s musings

Lia Malogaan was wide awake and out of bed the second she heard her five year old cry out. She tried not to wake her wife, but Roxanne still stirred, ever the light sleeper. They both were. You don’t spend a good part of your life fighting a war and the simply sleep soundly throughout the night when it’s all over. And even then, having a child changed their sleeping patterns even further. If Viola so much as coughed in her sleep, they awake. “I’ll go check on her, go back to sleep,” Lia whispered to her wife, kissing Rox’s forehead before she padded out of their bedroom. She began counting the seconds before Rox ignored her entirely and instead followed her. She knew Rox wouldn’t go back to sleep, but she still said it anyways.

She was a little worried. Their Viola was five years old and had been sleeping through the night on her own for a while now. So when she heard her cry, she was instantly concerned. Old habits and her protectiveness over her own child had her wanting to reach for a weapon or the nearest makeshift one she could get. Then logic and reason kicked in and when she entered her little one’s room to see her completely alone, woken by a bad dream, her heart rate calmed.

It took a good while to get Viola to calm down, her daughter sleepily detailing a scary dream through her tears as Lia scooped her up and held her close. She assured her daughter that everything was as it should be. She was safe at home, nothing out of place, no one in their home but the three of them, nothing to be scared of. Lia sat in the comfortable rocking chair next to the window, her daughter in her arms. She gently rocked back and forth, soothing her daughter as best she could.

Viola was still restless, squeezing Lia tight. She was fighting sleep, still shaken by the nightmare had dared wake her little girl. Lia softly stroked Vi’s hair and rubbed her back. “I’m here, love,” she said softly. “Go on and sleep, momma’s got you.” Vi nuzzled into her neck, cuddling impossibly close and Lia’s heart clenched. She didn’t think it was possible to love someone this much, but here was her and Roxanne’s precious little one, defying all odds and expectations.

Lia rocked her daughter, humming softly all the while. Viola fought sleep, but eventually caved. She finally felt Vi relax, though her tiny fists still gripped Lia’s shirt in a vice like grip. The room was dimly lit, illuminated only by the three moons of Naboo.

She felt rather than heard or saw Roxanne. Lia smiled softly. She knew it wouldn’t take long, just as she knew Rox wouldn’t just go back to sleep without her. As Rox approached, Lia kept rocking, still gently rubbing Viola’s back. “She had a nightmare,” she whispered. “Something about a monster with teeth too big for its mouth.” She thanked the Force that a monster that might not even be based on any real creature was all their baby had to be scared of. When Lia was six years old, she had terrible dreams of disappearing friends and a man in a cloak coming to take her family away. And later, later the nightmares would get worse, more bloody and terrifying and filled with ghosts of lost loved ones. She still had them sometimes. Even after years of peace, they never really left.

It was all worth it. The nightmares, the scars on hers and Roxanne’s bodies, both visible and invisible, it was all worth something. Because it meant that all Viola Malogaan-Starfallen had nightmares about were scary monsters. The only scars she had were from tripping while playing and scraping her knees, from general childhood clumsiness. If Lia and Rox had anything to do with it, Viola would never have to touch a blaster or hold a knife anywhere outside of the kitchen. All they fought for and all the terrible things they did had all been for something and this was it.

She felt Rox at her side, her hand in her hair for a moment before settling at the nape of her neck, her wife most definitely knowing exactly what was going through Lia’s mind. And then she felt her lips on her forehead. “Come on, let’s go back to bed,” she whispered. She saw how Vi gripped Lia’s shirt and Lia could feel Rox’s quiet laughter, as if it had bubbled up from her own chest. “All of us.”

Viola didn’t stir as Lia stood. Rox pulled them both into her arms, smoothing back Vi’s hair before kissing her temple, a gentle hand settling on Lia’s back. They walked back to hers and Rox’s bedroom. Viola didn’t wake as Rox gently extracted their sleeping daughter from her wife’s arms, laying her in the middle of their bed. Rox and Lia climbed in after, on either side of their daughter. Lia reached across their baby, their precious little light, and Roxanne’s fingers laced through hers.

They didn’t need words to say what they were feeling or thinking. Neither of them thought they’d get this. Not a quiet life on Naboo, not a daughter, not a future. Before she even met Roxanne, Lia had never even considered this life. She didn’t think past the next morning. And here they were, living that future they’d fought so hard for. The very proof of the future they fought for was sleeping peacefully between them. Lia squeezed her wife’s hand.