#fall walks

A hiker admires the autumnal colors in the forests of Weir.

Quebec

Streetlamps in a Row, 2025

@ Cabo Ruivo, Lisboa, Portugal

OCTOBER - TREES

🎧🍂

The OT gang goes on a fall walk (ft. leaf pile shenanigans) 

3po: whenever he sees a leaf that is particularly interesting, 3po will begin to talk about the type of tree and any interesting facts about it. Wedge politely listens for a bit, before jogging up to the front of the group to chime in on something Han was saying. R2 is rolling next to 3po the whole time, and will on occasion point out very pretty leaves for 3po to tell him about. 3po also does checks every ten minutes or so to make sure everyone has adequate gear for the chilly air to  ensure no one catches a cold. He is absolutely delighted when Luke tells him his golden colored plating matches a gorgeous tree with yellow leaves. 

R2: everything 3po says about each leaf gets cataloged and filed away in his database. It seems like random knowledge, but that random knowledge could be a lifesaver. After all, it has been before. Besides, r2 is a sucker for pretty leaves. Usually, he would love to spread chaos on outings, but he was enjoying the beautiful forest scenery, and also his friends were causing enough chaos by themselves. (however, when han is standing near a puddle, r2 couldn’t resist speeding through it and splashing him. Cue: distressed 3po noises because han could catch a cold when wet and in chilly air. Leia barely concealed her laughter).  

Luke: loves running around in the leaves. He also loves levitating them with the force (it always makes him laugh). He’s fascinated by all the colors, especially leaves that have ombres on them. He and leia use the time to talk to each other a mile a minute about anything and everything. He and han debate piloting techniques, and wedge joins in, much to luke’s delight. 

r2 pushes luke into leaf pile. So then luke force-pushes r2 into a leaf pile. And then leia pushes han into a leaf pile. And then han pops up and grabs leia and pulls her into the leaf pile. Lando jumps in the leaf pile and takes a video while doing it. Wedge jumps in, and 3po gets dragged in by r2’s cables. 

Everyone is in the leaf piles. 

Then luke and leia start a leaf fight. (cue: pure chaos). 

Luke chatters away, loving every moment of the time he has with his family in the patches of sunlight that make it through what is left of the forest leaves and warms his face. (yes, he did position han next to the puddle, and yes, made sure r2 could see han just waiting to be splashed. What of it?) 

Han: leia and luke are chaotic, but they’re his family, so he fondly watched them play around in the leaves while chuckling to himself. After all, they have over two decades of sibling shenanigans to make up for. He joined in their leaf fight eventually, which included him picking up leia and tickling her, while luke cackled off to the side. During the times when his wife and brother-in-law stopped throwing things, and actually walked calmly, he took leia’s hand and gently swung it back and forth between them. Everytime she looked beautiful he would kiss her forehead (so he was basically giving her little pecks every few seconds), until she kissed him back and made him all flustered, and then she ran off to jump on luke’s back while he was taking a holo-picture of a tree. 

Han WAS having a good time, and then r2 splashed him with water, so he spent the rest of the walk shivering and plotting revenge on the little droid.  

Chewie: purrs softly pretty much the entire time. The walk was just so… peaceful. it reminded him of life before the war. It reminded him of the forests of his home. 

Chewie and r2 absolutely played tag that ended with both of them in a river. 

Then Chewie walked up to Han, looked him dead in the eye, and shook of the water. It sprayed everywhere, drenching han for the second time that day. (cue: even more distressed 3po noises). 

He and Han continue walking after everyone else goes home. They’ve been friends for a while so they didn’t have the need to say anything, they were content to just be. 

Chewie and Han walked in comfortable silence until they found their way back to the clearing the Falcon was parked in. 

Chewie patted his best friend on the head, content with the day. It was nice to watch the leaves turn and fall. It may be sad for some, but not Chewie. He knew that some things never change. 

Lando: takes pictures of every single cool thing, and also insists on getting a group selfie. 3PO offers to take a picture of the group, but lando says unless they are all in the picture, he doesn’t want it. He does, however, have 3PO take artsy photos of him holding pretty leaves in the sunlight.

(the pictures all came out really nicely, don’t worry).

He and wedge actually bonded a bit. Lando gave wedge HORRIBLE dating advice (even HAN knew it was bad advice. Han later pulled wedge aside and told him to disregard what lando said and gave him slightly-better-but-still-not great advice. Leia heard this and then pulled wedge even more aside and was like listen dude ask out my brother or im gonna send you both on errands at the candle store and sneak a gift card to a fancy restaurant in your pocket and force this and neither of us want that. Poor wedge.) 

Lando also talked to r2 about various pranks they have pulled in their chaos-filled lives, but lando exclusively called r2 “my silver friend” and luke literally fell over from laughing.

Wedge: enjoyed listening to fun facts on leaves and trees from 3po. At one point Han and luke were talking about piloting techniques, so he abandoned 3PO’s info session to join that conversation (and also have an excuse to stand next to luke). Whenever the wind blew, leaves would flutter around wedge and the rest of the group, and luke would laugh. He said he never would have even imagined seeing a forest of falling leaves on tatooine. Some leaves caught in luke’s hair and his blonde curls caught the light of the sun. Wedge couldn’t get the imagine of luke looking like a prince of autumn for the next...forever. 

Luckily, leia elbowed wedge in the side before he could make a fool of himself. Then again, she was smirking at him, so maybe that ship has sailed. 

Leia: won the leaf fight. While there weren’t any official winners, it was pretty obvious that she was the victor. 

Leia had never realized how much she missed her brother until he was in her life. She enjoyed playing around in the leaves with him. After only a few minutes, she found that she and her twin were soaked with the moisture trapped in the space between the underside of the leaves and the frosted dirt, the cold drops clinging to their skin. 

After the leaf fight, everyone was damp, and the droids had little droplets of dew rolling off of their polished chrome surfaces. 

She also enjoyed walking hand-in-hand with her husband. Han kept kissing her head so frequently, that Leia decided to reciprocate by dipping him bridal style and giving him big ol’ kiss. 

He literally would not stop blushing, and she found herself falling for him more.

Leia got to watch her husband and brother bond, and got to be entertained by Luke blushing everytime Wedge even looked his general direction. He was going to be so fun to tease when they got back to the house. 

In the moments of silence between lando’s holo camera going off and r2’s occasional beeps, leia found herself enjoying the silence most of all. She would let her thoughts drift her into a hazy world of all the things she wants to think about, but never got the chance to. Some of it was fun, like planning gifts to get for Lando’s birthday (he was eyeing up a very fancy fedora, and she thinks that will do nicely), some of it was simple, but it’s simplicity was what makes it beautiful, like wondering if she had enough blue milk for breakfast the next morning or if she should ask Luke to pick some up since leia liked the milk brand a this grocery store better. 

Some of it was thoughts that she pushed away intentionally, like anything and everything to do with Alderaan. 

When her thoughts went there, Luke would gently put his hand on her shoulder and point out a bird or a leaf or a critter that he thinks leia would find interesting. Chewie would shift a little closer, making gentle and comforting sounds towards leia. Han would tighten his grip on her hand just a little. 

Leia enjoyed the chaos and then the quiet that was in between, and hard as it can be, she liked drifting to her own world. And always, when she came back, she was surrounded by family.