Title: "Different Seasons"

Summary: A reflection on the cycle of the seasons and the dreams of humanity. What does it mean to be alive?

Content: Inter-trilogy Vader angst. A/A. Guest-starring Shmi Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala Skywalker.

Author's Note(s): You know you're insane when you watch The Lion King and get a SW plot bunny from "The Circle of Life" theme. First of four stories, based on the seasons -- summer, autumn, winter, spring. The rest will come up soon. :)

Ooh, btw, this is officially my first Vader fic. Take a moment to appreciate the irony -- my username is vaderincarnate and I've ne'er written Vader fic in these two years ... ah well. Remember to review!

He dreams of Summer.

For some, perhaps, the year starts at a different time, but -- for him -- always the summer. He remembers the twin suns, the desert sky, the golden sand ... but, more than anything else, he remembers a radiance that had nothing to do with the temperature.

If his Summer was not carefree in the way that it was for other children in different circumstances, he finds that he nonetheless has little to complain about. Looking back, certainly, he sees that Summer was the most carefree time of his life, at any rate; though it might not compare to others', it is enough for him to remember.

He remembers warmth that had nothing to do with the dusty heat and everything to do with the love and care and tenderness that a little slave-boy had never found lacking, no matter what else he didn't have. Remembers happiness amidst hardship, joy amidst sorrow -- there were moments during those long years when he hadn't minded the toil, when the uncomplicated pleasure of being alive with that sweet warmth at his back was simply enough.

Summer wears his mother's skin. Not the way he had last seen her, haggard and abused by weeks of torture. Nor the way he had seen her on that last day when he walked away for what was supposed to be forever. The Summer he remembers, the Summer he cherishes, has the look of a woman well into her prime -- she was never truly young, his mother -- but with a love and dignity that she wears like a cloak all the same.

And, when things are too cold -- for it does get cold, even during the summertime -- Summer wraps her cloak around him to shield him from the storms of the world. Those nights, when the frightened young child he had been, long ago -- scared of the dark and of the ghouls and of the thousand and one other things that young children are scared of -- slunk into her bedroom for comfort, he always found it, and that always meant more to him than whatever else he may have wanted for.

So, in his dreams, he walks up to Summer's door. The sun blazes at his back and -- in the dream -- he can feel its warmth, its caress, something that he hasn't felt physically for a decade or more. The harsh touch of the wind to his cheek, the grit of sand in the air, the perfect blue of the sky ... always, his dream-self will be tempted to linger outside the door, tasting and sampling the old flavors of Summer that he had never appreciated in life.

But he never does. His dream-self -- his old-self, without the armor, without the darkness, without the worries, and without the weight of guilt upon his shoulders -- scampers into the little house of his childhood, searching for Summer. Always, his dream-self is a little afraid -- though, in the dreams, he never quite remembers why -- of not finding her, of finding an empty house full of nothing but dust and memories ...

... and, just when he is beginning to feel a bit scared, he will find her. She'll be standing there, in the kitchen, perhaps, and he'll dash over to launch himself into her arms as well as his toddler's legs can manage, and everything else -- the fear, the worry, the world itself -- will cease to matter.

Because Summer takes him into her arms and, always, that is enough. It is comfort, perhaps, but also something else.

Safety.

Protection.

But not those, either, not quite -- it's not a feeling he can easily sum up in a single word, not something that can be adequately defined by even a library's worth of words. Because, when he remembers Summer, he remembers a Summer who cares for him, loves him, will do anything in her power to keep him safe from harm. An unquestioning, undying maternal love that would never be retracted or recalled, regardless of whatever happened -- Summer's warmth, if not tangible, is its own balm nonetheless.

And maybe it's that, just the knowledge of it, that makes him feel these things, this gentle luster that pervades his cold and broken body every time he dreams of Summer.

He doesn't remember much of Summer, not really, beyond the dreams. His memories of that halcyon time -- the only truly peaceful years of his life, though he wouldn't realize this until far later -- have been dimmed by long miles and longer years. More than that, though; the changes cannot be described in aspects of place or time, perhaps, but in what has happened since his last Summer. What has happened to him, what he has caused to happen, what he has become ...

He is no longer Summer's child.

Yet the dreams, the dreams ... when he dreams of Summer, he remembers that warmth, that comfort, that contentedness he can no longer feel ... and when he wakes, it's never quite enough.