Daddy, Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ol' Days

by KiraJenLove

Jen and Kira pass their story on to their children.

"Daddy, Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ol' Days"

By Kirajenlove

Disclaimer: I do not own The Dark Crystal or any of its characters, and no profit is being made from their use. This fanfic is just for fun. The title is the name of a country song.

"Daddy, tell us 'bout the good ol' days!" piped up a young male Gelfling.

"Yeah, dad, tell us again about how you and mom healed the Crystal!" said the oldest child, a preteen boy named Martu.

"Come sit by the fire, children, and I will tell you the story," replied Jen. Kira smiled at them from the kitchen as she cleaned up the evening meal. Their little home was a Pod house that the Podlings had taught them how to grow. There was enough room for the entire brood - all 5 of them, plus their parents, a very proud Jen and Kira. A roaring fire burned in the fireplace. Jen had his own special chair near the fireplace that the children were not permitted to sit in, but they were quite comfortable reclining on the floor as they listened to the story.

"Well, a long time ago, but not so long ago, I was living with the UrRu in the Valley of the Mystics."

"Were you all by yourself, daddy?" asked the youngest little girl.

"Yes, Ana, I thought I was the last Gelfling. The Skekses sent the Garthim to kill my family, and the UrRu raised me since I was a baby."

"Is that why we don't have any grandmas or grandpas?"

Jen's face turned melancholy. "Yes, my child, that's why. Except for your grandma Ydra, but she is Podling. You have no Gelfling grandparents."

Jen continued with the story. "Anyway, I was living with the UrRu, and one day, my master was dying. He called me to his side, and told me I needed to find a shard before the three suns became one."

"The Great Conjunction!" shouted out the middle child.

Jen chuckled. "Yes, that's right, Tam, that was the Great Conjunction. It only happens once every thousand years."

He continued. "He told me to go to Aughra's to get the shard, and then he died right there in front of me."

"Ewww, was it all bloody and stuff?" exclaimed Martu.

Jen grimaced. "No, Martu! He just disappeared…"

"Ooooooo!" gasped all the children.

"What did you do after that, daddy?" piped up Ana.

"Well, I stayed just long enough for my master's funeral, but then UrSol made me leave, and I started out on my journey."

"How did you know where to go, daddy?" said the 4th child.

"My master just told me to follow the Greater Sun for a day to the home of Aughra."

"The old witch!" shouted Tam.

"That's not nice, Tam! Aughra is a very good friend of ours. You don't say things like that about her."

Tam suddenly looked ashamed. "Sorry," he said meekly.

"So I climbed Aughra's mountain, and eventually I was caught in some tendrils in front of her door."

"What did they do to you, daddy?"

"They lifted me up in the air. Then she came out to see me. She couldn't believe that I was a Gelfling at first. She thought they were all dead."

"What did she do then, daddy?"

"Well, she made the tendrils let go of me, and she led me inside."

"This is one of my favorite parts!" whispered Jenna, the second-born, to Martu.

"At first, all I could see was darkness," continued Jen. "Then, as I kept walking, the doors in front of me slid open, and I could see inside her laboratory."

"What did you see, daddy, what did you see?" cried the children excitedly.

"I saw a huge orrery that filled up the whole room."

"What's a orrrrrry?" asked Ana.

He smiled at his youngest daughter. "An orrery is a machine that has little suns, moons, and planets all moving around each other just like they do up in the sky. It was beautiful."

Kira joined them from the kitchen. "I remember seeing that in dreamfasting with your father. I wish I could have seen it in real life, but the Garthim burned up Aughra's home."

"Honey, I haven't gotten to that part yet!" exclaimed Jen.

"Oh, sorry," Kira said. "Please continue."

"Well, Aughra explained the Great Conjunction to me, and then she dumped a whole boxful of shards on the floor. She didn't know which one was the right one."

"So how did you find out which one was the right one, daddy?" asked Glee.

"Well, I remembered the chanting of the UrRu, which gave the idea to use my firca."

"That's your little pipe, isn't it, daddy?" said Ana.

Jen pulled out his pipe and gave it to her to play with. She blew a few experimental toots into it, then giggled and passed it to her siblings.

"What note did you use, dad?" asked Martu.

Jen reached out for the pipe, took it and said, "Well, let's see…" He put it to his lips, took a breath, and played an extended "C" note. Then he took it down. "Yes, I think that was it." The children all watched in amazement.

"I had narrowed the choice down to 3 similar shards, but the note told me it was the one in the middle, because that one glowed purple. So I picked it up."

The children, knowing what part was coming next, said, "The-then what happened, daddy?"

"Then…..THE GARTHIM ATTACKED!" Jen suddenly reached out and grabbed one of the smaller children, as they all screamed and squealed with delight. Kira stood nearby, laughing with them. Jen was so good with the children.

With the child still on his lap, he continued. "The Garthim came at me - there were so many of them! So I jumped up onto the orrery that was rotating towards me, and it lifted me up to a ledge. Then I jumped off and broke through the window."

The children were all on edge. "THEN what happened, daddy?"

"Then I ROOOOLLLLED all the way down the hill!" He lifted the child on his lap up in the air, and swirled her around in a circle before placing her back down on the floor. She giggled and squealed. He sat back down.

"Then it was getting dark. I wasn't even sure where I was going. I stayed the night in the forest. The next day, I found myself in a swamp with all kinds of weird creatures and plants."

"What kinds of creatures, daddy?" asked Ana.

"I don't know, honey, just weird ones. Your mommy probably shows you some of them on your walks in the woods, doesn't she?"

Ana nodded.

"Well, as I was pondering what to do with this shard, I saw a vision IN the shard of a Skeksis breaking the Crystal. I think it was trying to tell me what happened. Right then, I heard a noise. So I decided to investigate."

"What was the noise, daddy, what was the noise?"

"Well, I saw something cross my path and go into a hollow in the ground on the left side of the path. When I went to take a closer look….BOO!" Again Jen reached out and grabbed another one of the children, who laughed and giggled with glee. In fact, her name was Glee.

Jen looked over at Kira's pet, who was now the "household" pet. "Come here, Fizzgig," Jen called. Fizzgig, who was by now used to Jen, obediently rolled over to him, and allowed Jen to place him on his lap. "It was THIS little guy," said Jen. "He scared me so badly that I fell into the muddy swamp!"

All the children laughed. "I remember seeing that, Jen. You were a sight," remarked Kira.

"Yes," said Jen. "I can laugh at that now."

"But now it's my turn to tell the story," interrupted Kira.

"You're right, Kira, this is where you come in," replied Jen. "And children, this is important, because this is when your mother and I first met."

Kira continued. "Well, children, I have told you before how my mother left me in a hollow tree trunk when I was a baby, just before she was killed by a Garthim. I was found by a Podling woman named Ydra, and she fed me and cared for me; she raised me as one of her own. She became the only mother I ever really knew."

"Grandma Ydra! We love grandma Ydra! She always gives us goodies when we go to visit her!"

"Well, children, I hope you love her for more than her goodies," replied Kira.

The children agreed. "Yes, she does love us," said Martu.

"Well, this particular day I was walking through the swamp, when I sensed someone there. I could hear Fizzgig growling and barking at someone or something, but it didn't seem to be a Skeksis or a Garthim, so I decided to check it out. As I approach, I see your father sitting waist-deep in the mud. I didn't even know what he was at first! So I tried asking him, but he didn't speak Podling."

"But daddy speaks Podling now, doesn't he?" asked Jenna.

"Yes, he speaks it now, because I have taught it to him these last several years," said Kira. "He has been a very good student." She gave Jen a smile.

"When I realized that he was Gelfling, I spoke to him in our own language. We realized that we were no longer the only Gelflings left. Then we dreamfasted together. Jen had never dreamfasted before, so it was new to him. We learned about each other's lives. Then he started sinking, so I called a Nebrie to bring him up out of the swamp."

"I like Nebries!" shouted Tam.

"Ewww, they're wet and stinky!" countered Glee.

Kira continued. "After that, I led him to a boat at the river and we sailed down the river to the Podling village. On the way there, I sang and Jen played his pipe. It sounded beautiful."

"I love it when you sing, mommy," said Ana. "You sing beautiful."

"Thank you, my sweet."

"And I second that," added Jen, who gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. The children quickly covered their eyes with their hands. "Ewww! Mushy stuff!"

Jen and Kira both chuckled at that.

"Kids, if it weren't for that 'mushy stuff', none of you would ever have been born," reminded Jen.

"How is that, daddy?" asked Glee inquisitively.

Jen blushed. "Um, errr…..I'll tell you when you're older. Back to the story, now."

Kira cleared her throat and began again. "Well, as your father and I were in the boat, we saw a Crystal bat flying high above us. It was spying on us."

"They're baaaaaaad!" shouted out Tam.

"Yes, Tam, they tell the Garthim and the Skekses where we are," Jen said.

"They snitched on you!" Tam added. "Then tell us what you did, Mama!"

"I'll tell you what your mother did," Jen interrupted. "She took out her sling and shot that thing clean out of the sky!"

All the children cheered. They ran over to hug their mother, who gathered them all for a group hug. Then she allowed them to settle down before continuing with the story.

"Well, we continued on until we reached the shore near my village, and we walked the rest of the way. The Podlings who were working and watching outside the village were so surprised to see me returning with another Gelfling! We all went back inside and had a wonderful party."

"That's when I got to meet your Grandma Ydra," added Jen, who then laughed at himself. "I couldn't speak a lick of Podling. Your mother had to help me. The very first words I learned were 'Falyu vam', but I think I said it wrong the first time."

"That means 'Thank you'! I learned that from mama!" piped in Jenna. Her father smiled at her.

Kira picked up the conversation. "Well, we had a wonderful time for a short while. Your father even took out his firca and began playing along with the Podling musicians. But then…" her face fell.

Jen continued. "Then the Garthim attacked…AGAIN…and completely destroyed the Podling village. Your mother and I tried to escape in all the smoke and confusion. It was terrible. A Garthim actually grabbed my arm with one of its pincers."

The children were wide-eyed. "What did you do, daddy, what did you do?"

"I pulled out the shard, my only weapon, and struck the Garthim with it. That made it let go of me. Then your mother and I ran for our lives, even though the Garthim were gathering Podling slaves and putting them in cages."

"That's terrible, dad," said Martu."How come the Skekses treated us and the Podlings like animals?"

"I don't know, my son, I don't know."

"We ran to the outskirts of the village," continued Kira, "and hid behind a log, but a Garthim saw us. We thought for sure we were going to die. But then, all of a sudden, a SKEKSIS jumped out of the bushes and stopped the Garthim!"

"Why did he do that, mommy? I thought the Skekses hated us?" inquired Glee.

"They did, honey, they did. That Skeksis only saved us so that he could try to trick us later. He was just being clever."

"Oooooh," they said.

"I had never seen a Skeksis with so few clothes before. He was dressed in rags. I remember he said later that he was an outcast, though I don't know why."

"We ran and ran through the forest," said Jen, "until we couldn't run anymore. We finally tripped and fell, and we both just stayed there. Kira tended to the wound on my arm while we talked, and we both fell asleep on the forest floor."

"What did you do in the morning, daddy?"

"When we woke up, we found that we were at the ancient Gelfling ruins. It is part of an old city where real Gelflings used to live, but they were long since gone. Now it was just made up of a rusty gate, stone walls with carvings on them, and a vine-covered throne."

"A throne?" asked Martu. "You mean like for a queen?"

"Yes, Martu. Gelfling society was always ruled by a queen. When we investigated the ruins, we found a wall with some writing and pictures on it. Your mother couldn't read, so I read it for her."

"But you know how to read now, right mommy?" asked Ana.

"Yes," replied Kira. "Your father taught me, just like he taught all of you."

"Dad," interrupted Martu. "What did the wall say?"

"It said, 'When single shines the triple sun, what was sundered and undone, shall be whole, the two made one, by Gelfling hand, or else by none'."

"That was the prophecy, right? What did that mean, daddy?" asked Jenna.

"It meant that the Crystal must be healed by the next Great Conjunction, in order to bring together the Skekses and the Mystics, and that only a Gelfling could heal it. That's why the Skekses killed all the Gelflings. They didn't want to lose their power and position."

"Oooooooh," they all said in unison.

"Then, suddenly, a Skeksis appeared!" added Kira. "It was the same one who had stopped the Garthim the night before! He tried to coax us into coming to the castle with him, but I was too smart for that. Your father, on the other hand, was almost convinced by his pleadings. I put a stop to that." She looked smugly over at Jen, who blushed.

"Did the Skeksis hurt you?" Glee asked.

"No, we just ran away, but he wasn't very happy," stated Kira.

"Then we ran to a forest clearing, where your mother called the Landstriders," said Jen.

"Yaayyyy! Landstriders!" they all shouted. Jen and Kira had both familiarized their children with Landstriders as they were growing up, and frequently took them on rides. Kira also taught them how to call them.

"We got on our Landstriders, and Fizzgig begged to go with. In fact, he threw a little temper tantrum when your mother first said 'no'." The children laughed. "But then, she let him come along, so we all rode to the castle."

"What happened when you got there?" asked Glee.

"When we arrived at the castle, we saw the Garthim who had raided your mother's village arriving with their catch of Podlings," said Jen. "Then your mother, bless her heart, got it in her mind to do a full-on attack on the Garthim. Can you imagine, one Landstrider against 5 Garthim?"

"Wow, mom, you were very brave," offered Martu.

Kira blushed. "Either very brave, or very foolish," she said. "All I could think of was freeing my Podling friends. I was very angry at the Garthim, and being on the Landstrider made me feel powerful. So I attacked."

"When I saw your mother attack, I couldn't just sit there and let her do that by herself. I had to join her. So I followed," said Jen.

"We both ran full-speed into the group of Garthim, and I fell off. Jen soon joined me. While we were busy trying to free the Podling captives, the two Landstriders were busy fighting the Garthim. The Landstriders are one of the few animals on Thra who will attack a Garthim."

The childrens' eyes were raptly attuned to their parents. "Then what happened, daddy?"

"We only managed to get one of the Podlings out; the Garthim had killed both the Landstriders and were turning to us. We were backed up against the edge of a cliff, and the Garthim were coming closer, and closer…" Jen altered his voice to make it sound suspenseful. "Then Kira grabbed me and Fizzgig, and we jumped off the cliff!"

All the kids gasped, their eyes growing wide. "You jumped off the cliff!" exclaimed Martu. "How did you survive that?"

Instantly, Kira opened her wings, and all the children gasped in amazement. They knew that their mother had wings, and this was not the first time they had seen them, but opening her wings at this point in the story really brought it to life. Then the children started giggling and laughing, and Jenna, Glee and Ana likewise opened their own small pairs of wings, in solidarity with their mother.

"That's no fair," pouted Tam. "How come we boys don't have wings?"

Jen leaned down and whispered just loud enough for the others to hear, "I'll tell you THAT when you're older, too."

Kira closed her wings again, and sat down to continue the story. "So we floated safely to the ground. I'm sure those Garthim above were quite confused." This made the children laugh.

"When we reached the bottom," said Jen, "we saw a large hole in the bottom of the castle that drained waste. It was in the shape of a monster's head. I believe Aughra told me it was called the 'Teeth of Skreesh'. This was our best entrance to the castle, so we went in."

"I didn't want to go," said Kira. "It smelled like death, and I was afraid."

"You, Kira, afraid?" asked Jen. "You aren't afraid of anything. You have more courage than anyone I know."

"Oh, but I am, Jen. Courage is just doing the right thing even though you are afraid."

Jen nodded in agreement. "Did you hear that, kids? A good lesson to learn."

The kids all nodded. "So what happened when you were inside the castle?"

"Well, do you remember that Skeksis who tried to trick us? He had followed us, and he met us down under the castle. At first he tried to trick us again, but then he just grabbed us."

The children gasped. "What did you do?"

I stabbed him with the shard, of course," said Jen smugly.

"Yeaaahhh!" all the kids cheered and ran up to hug their daddy - their other hero.

After Jen passed out hugs, he continued. "But that might not have been such a good idea, because then he got really mad, and pulled some of the ceiling down on top of me. I blacked out after that."

Kira took over the storytelling from here. "I was absolutely horrified at what I saw him do to Jen; I called out to Jen, but he wasn't responding. Then that Skeksis dragged me away."

"Ewww, mom, you mean you were actually touching a Skeksis? How gross!" said Martu.

"Well, honey, I wasn't exactly enjoying it, either," said Kira. "He dragged me down the hallway until we met two more Skekses. As soon as they saw us, they screamed like a couple of little girls and ran back down the hallway. They were afraid of me! Can you imagine that? Something as big and scary as a Skeksis, afraid of a little Gelfling!"

The children thought that was pretty funny, too, and started laughing. "The Skekses were afraid of us? That's funny!" laughed Tam.

The Skeksis brought me all the way back to the Throne room. Oh, children, there were so many of them! And they were so big and scary! And I knew they all hated me! Not because of what I had done, but because of who I was! They were discussing what they planned to do with me, and I can tell you children, there is no scarier feeling that being on the receiving end of that. They wanted to kill me, they wanted to drain my essence." Ana moved closer to hug her mother's leg reassuringly. Jen listened more closely, since this was a part of Kira's experience he was not that familiar with, since he was knocked out at that time.

"They decided that first they would drain my essence, then kill me," said Kira. They dragged me off to a room where they would drain my essence. One of the Skekses strapped me into a chair and forced me to look at a purple beam of light that came out of a hole in the wall. The beam sapped my strength, and I could feel my will fading. Just then, I heard your father's voice!"

The children's faces, which were rapt with attention until now, suddenly showed expressions of hope. "Daddy?"

Jen chimed in. "I had regained consciousness from under the pile of rubble, and I spoke to your mother with my mind. Apparently, she heard me. I told her to fight them."

"Then, I heard an old woman's voice. It was Aughra! She was in a cage by the wall. She was telling me that I had the gift, that I should call the animals, to free them. So I did. I called them many times, and they all woke up and broke out of their cages, and attacked the Skeksis. You can bet he was pretty surprised! They made him back up, and he backed against the lever that controlled the beam, taking it off me. Then he backed up some more, and fell through the hole in the wall. I don't know what was down there, but I think he died. He never came back."

"Yaaaaaayyyy!" shouted all the children for joy. "Our mommy is so smart," said Glee, hugging Kira's legs.

"After I got out of the rubble, Fizzgig and I kept walking through the passages, but I made a misstep, and fell into a hole - a dark hole full of GARTHIM!" Jen jumped at the kids, arms outstretched. The kids screamed.

"Daddy, how did you get out of the Garthim pit?" they asked incredulously.

"Well, it was pretty dark in there, and they all kept trying to hit me and grab me, but all they did was break a hole in the wall, which just happened to lead out to the shaft of the Crystal. When they made the hole big enough, I crawled through it and climbed up the wall. I finally found another hole in the wall that had a room inside it. I went inside, and found Aughra! She showed me the way to go."

"I always wondered what you were doing while I was 'otherwise occupied'," said Kira. "You must have come into the same room I just left."

"After that, your mother and I made our separate ways up to the Crystal chamber, where the Dark Crystal was," said Jen. "Once there, I could see the Crystal for myself, and my mission suddenly became clear. I had to put the shard into the Crystal when the 3 suns joined, and they were fast approaching. I hid myself as the Skekses started coming in."

"I kept myself hidden, too," said Kira.

"I saw you there, Kira," said Jen. "You looked terrible. I wondered what they had done to you."

"When the Skekses were in place, who should finally find me but Fizzgig! He was so happy to see me, he couldn't stop barking. But that attracted the attention of the Skekses! They made their Garthim attack us, but Jen ran and jumped onto the Crystal. But he dropped the shard! It landed on the floor next to the shaft."

Jen looked sad and ashamed. "I can't believe I dropped that. If I hadn't, they wouldn't have…"

Kira raised her finger to his lips, giving him a knowing smile, shaking her head. "Sssshhhh…"

"The head Skeksis tried to grab it off the floor, but Fizzgig bit him!"

"Yaaaayyyy, Fizzgig!" shouted Tam, who gave the little creature a hug. Fizzgig growled slightly in annoyance.

The Skeksis then threw Fizzgig down the shaft! I thought for sure that he was gone forever. My heart was full of grief, but I couldn't let that take me over. Immediately I opened my wings - " At this point, Kira once again opened her wings for effect - "and jumped down to the floor, and I grabbed the shard. The Skekses were all around me, trying to grab the shard from me, but they were all afraid!"

"And I was stuck up on top of that Crystal, completely helpless," said Jen.

"That one Skeksis was trying to trick me into giving them the shard, but I knew better than to do that. Do you know what would have happened, children, if I had given him the shard?"

Martu thought for a minute. "They would have killed you AND daddy, wouldn't they?"

"That's right, Martu," said Jen. "And none of you would be alive today." The children all gulped, taking that in.

"And the Skekses would have lived forever," added Jenna.

"That's right, Jenna," Kira agreed. "So I reminded Jen of his mission -" she gave a look to Jen - "and I tossed it back to him. He caught it. And that's all I remember."

Kira looked over to see tears starting to run down Jen's face. She went over to him and held him and kissed him on the cheek. "It's okay," she whispered to him. "I'm here."

"Daddy, you're crying?" asked one of the children, about to cry herself.

"Dad, please don't cry," said Martu. At his age, he was more sensitive to seeing his father cry. He went over and gave him a hug.

Jen struggled to speak. "They…they killed your mother," he gulped. Kira hugged him closer.

"Did you really die, mommy?" asked Ana.

"Yes, honey, I'm afraid so," replied Kira.

"Do you have a scar from it, mommy?" asked Tam.

"No; no scar. They completely healed me."

"Mom, what was it like being dead?" asked Martu. All the other children nodded in agreement on that question.

"Well, children, I'm afraid there isn't much to tell. It was like being in a dreamless sleep. The next thing I was aware of was waking up to your father holding me."

"Once I had the shard back, the Great Conjunction came. I was so angry at what they did to your mother, I screamed as I plunged that shard into the Crystal. It had cost me everything I ever cared about."

The children were still listening closely to Jen's story. "As soon as it was healed, it turned pure white, and its energy threw me off onto the floor. I started walking over to your mother's body just as the UrRu arrived."

The children hugged their mother's legs again, but remained quiet.

"As I watched the Skekses run around, frightened and frantic, and as the UrRu marched in with a purpose, and chanting, I held your mother's body in my arms. I was both mortified and in awe of what was going on around me. I couldn't believe all this was happening."

Now it was Kira's turn to have some tears in her eyes. She was touched by Jen's care for her while she was "gone".

"Soon, the Mystics had taken their places, and the Skekses had no choice but to take theirs. Before you knew it, they were drawn together and formed into one being - the UrSkeks. They were good beings. They were tall and skinny, and floated off the floor. They told me what they had done to get split apart, and then they told me to hold your mother close, which I did, and then she came back to life. I was so, so relieved and happy to have her back again. Then your mother and I watched as they left through the hole in the ceiling."

Some of the children had tears in their eyes, and they had been very quiet the last few minutes. Then they went and hugged their mom very closely. "We love you so much, mom. We're so glad you're alive."

Kira held her little brood closely. "I am so blessed to have such wonderful children," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. Then she reached over to draw Jen to her. "And I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband, who loves me so much." The whole Gelfling family did a big group hug.

"And that's the end of the story, children," concluded Jen. "And we lived happily ever after."

"Very happily," added little Ana. The others couldn't agree more.