notes: I'm so sorry this took so long to get up. I've been fighting massive writer's block, and I also moved states last weekend, so I've been *super* busy. I hope I didn't lose all y'all's interest because of that... Regardless, I hope those of you who are reading enjoy this chapter!
CHAPTER 8
Leia dreamed.
She stood on a vast plain. Tall grass grew from the earth, wavering in the storm-bred wind, whispering secrets in a language Leia knew but could not understand. Lightning flashed and thunder tolled, shaking the ground and air, and rain poured from the storm-clad heavens, soaking Leia hand and foot, plastering her long hair, hanging around her shoulders and down her back, to her skin.
The soil underfoot was hard metal—metal sheets of durasteel and iron soldered together so that the light, which burned beneath it, could not escape, even through the seams—but the grass was soft and gentle against Leia's hands and feet.
Instinctively, the knowledge born of long familiarity and fear—fear of touching, fear of using—Leia knew what the light that tried to escape was: the Force, burning bright and hot within her.
Lightning struck the ground. Leia jerked and spun in time to watch clods of grass and burning metal spray into the air. She ducked, lifting a hand to her face in needless protection. Light poured forth out of the jagged wound—only for it to be battered down by the rain, driven back beneath the already-reforming metal shield.
Leia took a step forward. The ground was knitting itself back together, metal growing like living roots, meeting in the middle and merging together. The light that poured forth hissed and spat like flames under water as raindrops spattered onto it, falling between the bands of growing metal to quench the fire burning there. Leia looked down at it, and wondered—wondered at this power buried deep within her, buried beneath this plain of grass and steel; wondered at the light of it, and the warmth; wondered at the potential for destruction she harbored in her soul.
I don't want this, she thought, and turned away. I never wanted this. I hate it. I hate it so much. Why did the Mother give this to me?
Still the rain fell, watering the grass and strengthening the iron, quelling the light wherever it escaped—where the lightning struck, where the wind tore, where the grass died—until the bands of durasteel could grow back over and silence it once more.
Gods, Leia prayed, take this from me.
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Leia felt it in her bones.
And there—on the wind, whispered in the grass, echoed in the iron underfoot, in the flames embedded in the earth beneath—Leia heard a voice, speaking in the language she knew and could suddenly understand.
A gift, it whispered. A gift, a gift, a gift...
Use it wisely, oh Child of the Force. Use it wisely…
Leia woke.
~oOo~
Luke's voice was the first thing Leia heard. "How did you sleep?" he asked, suddenly warm and bright and bearing with him the taste of sand and blue sky.
Leia, shocked, answered automatically. "Fine," she said, hugging the spare shirt to her chest. Then, "You're still here." There was surprise in her thoughts—genuine shock at Luke's presence.
"I said I was going to be here for you," Luke said. "I meant it."
"But you…you're really here," Leia said, still sounding surprised.
"Well, yeah," Luke said, confused.
"I thought I made you up," Leia said softly—and with that came a rush of memory: Pale Eyes on top of her, inside of her, pumping against the cradle of her legs. Leia shuddered and curled into a tight ball, wedging herself into the wall's corner. The cot's mattress was soft beneath her, a sharp contrast to the hardness of the floor when Pale Eyes had attacked her—and for that Leia was grateful. It was a solid reminder that she was here, now, not still trapped beneath Pale Eyes' weight.
Yet still she could feel him—could feel his weight, his hands, him in her. She could see his eyes, pale and bright and demanding. She could smell him: sandalwood and spice. She could hear him grunting.
No, she thought, covering her ears with her hands. Please, no. Her breath came in panting gasps, shallow in her lungs and sharp in her throat. She hurt between her hips and inside her chest. Fear swallowed her thoughts, turning everything a shade of white and black and stealing away all cognition but an endless cycle of memory. Please, Leia begged silently to any god listening.
"Leia?" Luke's thoughts broke through the memories, grabbing Leia's mind and wrenching it out of the past and into the presence. "Leia, are you alright? Talk to me. What's happening? I can feel your fear, and you—"
"I can't get him out of my head," Leia sobbed, curling even tighter into a ball, cradling her head between her elbows. "He's there, and what he did, and…and…" She gasped, trying to find the words for it and failing.
"Hey," Luke said quickly. "It's okay. It's okay, Leia. You're safe now. He's gone. He's not hurting you. You're alone. Well, except for me, and I'll never hurt you. Ever. I promise."
"I don't even know what he did to me," Leia said miserably. "I don't… Why am I so scared and hurt?"
"I…I know what he did," Luke told Leia hesitantly. "Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen told me about it. I saw something happen in Mos Eisley once, and asked about it, and they explained it to me. If you want to know, I can tell you."
"What happened in Mos Eisley?" Leia asked.
"There was a slave auction one day when we were there. I asked why there were so many men buying girls. It didn't make sense to me. I mean, I knew all about slavery already. You can't live on Tatooine and not know about slavery. But that seemed weird.."
"Why were they buying the girls?
"To have sex with them. Or at least that's why some of them were buying them."
"I've heard about sex," Leia said slowly, calming now that she had something other than her memories to think about. "Mamá and Papá said it was something that happens between two people who love each other very much. They said they'd explain it more to me once I was a little bit older. But then…" She trailed off, her thoughts spiraling into sorrow at the thought of her dead mother and father.
"It doesn't always happen between people who love each other," Luke said quickly, trying to distract Leia from her train of thought.
"It doesn't?" Leia asked.
"No. It can happen between anyone. But when one of the people having the sex don't want to, it's called rape."
"Rape," Leia repeated, trying out the word.
"Yeah. That…that's what happened to you last night."
Leia was silent for a very long time. Then, finally, she said, "Oh."
"Are you okay?" Luke asked.
"No," Leia said. "I...I don't think I am."
~oOo~
Leia spent the rest of the day curled into the corner made by the walls and her cot. Luke remained with her, a warm and stalwart voice speaking to her in the darkness of her thoughts and her fears, distracting her with anecdotes about his life—how Biggs had taken him back to Devil's Canyon and allowed him to fly the skyhopper, how he had found a krayt skeleton out in the dunes beyond the north field, how his aunt and uncle had gotten into a fight earlier that week.
Leia remained mostly silent, simply basking in Luke's calming and soothing presence. Every so often, however, she would remember—would remember Pale Eyes' weight, his touch, his eyes. She would shudder then, and curl tighter into a ball, a sick, heavy feeling in her stomach that made her want to throw up.
When her daily food came, Leia glanced at the door and at the droid arm poking through the slot at the bottom. She did not, however, rise. The smell of the food—thick porridge swimming with chunks of ill-colored meat—made her nausea worse. She gagged and then dry heaved, bringing up only sour spittle that she swallowed back down. It burned her throat.
She slept some, desperate to escape the sick, heavy feeling in her stomach. It spread tendrils of sickness out into her chest, into her throat, into her head, until all she felt was miserable pain and fear and desperation.
"What if he comes back?" Leia asked Luke that afternoon.
"Then I'll be with you," Luke said.
Leia wasn't sure she wanted Luke with her then though—wasn't sure she wanted him to bear witness to what had happened between her and Pale Eyes. Part of it was that she wanted to protect him—wanted to save him from the experience, the pain, the terror, the disgust, wanted to keep him from this thing that was worse yet than anything she had suffered before—but mostly it was that she was ashamed. She was ashamed of the pain, and of the terror, and of the disgust, but mostly she was ashamed of herself.
I should have fought harder, Leia thought. If only I had done something different, it never would have happened.
That she could not figure out what she could have done differently—what she could have done to protect herself and keep Pale Eyes from hurting her—did not help.
A thought came to her, lying on the cot with her back pressed against the walls, knees drawn up to her chest. She did not want Luke coming to her—did not want him to experience what she was experiencing, suffering—but that did not mean that Leia couldn't go to Luke.
She had tried to sink into him right after the throne room and Vader's attack, when she was in the speeder on her way to this new hell. She had not succeeded. As always she could touch their bond, but she could not sink through it; there had been a wall there, preventing her from going into his mind.
But now Luke is back, Leia thought. He said there was a wall that he couldn't get through, but now he can. And our bond is different now, like an ember, not a cord. So maybe...maybe I can make it through now?
She tried.
She sank down into her mind, finding their bond in a second. It burned bright and brilliant amid her thoughts, an ember in shadows. She pressed against it—and for an instant, a heartbeat, a breath, she thought she was going to make it through. The ember opened before her, a doorway into Luke's mind. She could see the brightness of the sky, could taste the heat of the desert, could hear the grind of the vaporators churning—and then fear, unexpected and surprising, rose in her throat, choking her breath and her mouth and her heart, and the doorway crashed closed around her.
Leia whimpered and curled into a tighter ball.
Why was she afraid? What was she afraid of? She loved Luke and she trusted him implicitly—she trusted him more than anyone, even more than the memory of her mother and father. So why? Why was she afraid of him?
Had she always been afraid of this? Of going into Luke's mind?
A new thought struck her: Was this why she had been unable to sink into his thoughts? Was her fear a barrier, keeping her out?
She didn't know, and she had no way of finding an answer to her questions. Not yet. Not now.
She drifted off to sleep, still hugging the spare shirt in her arms, the air cold against the bare skin of her shoulders and hips.
Leia opened her eyes to the plain. Thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flashed in and between the clouds. Wind gushed around her, tearing at the grasses and sending them waving, tugging at Leia's simple dress.
Beneath her feet, the durasteel burned. It glowed with red-hot power, the light seeping through the stalks of grass and into the sky. Leia shifted her feet back and forth, looking down and expecting to be burned—only she wasn't.
A gift, the wind sighed. A gift, oh Child of the Desert.
Leia gathered her strength. "I don't want this gift," she shouted to the heavens, to the thunder, to the wind. "Take it back!"
A gift, the wind whispered. Use it well.
Lightning lanced down from the sky, striking Leia. She screamed as it seared through her, cutting down the avenues of her bones to connect with the ground underneath her feet. The durasteel groaned and buckled, then opened with a reverberating crunch. Leia fell.
The power of the Force opened up around Leia, embracing her and drawing her down, down, down. Leia gasped and struggled, fighting the inexorable pull of gravity and the Force, clawing at the light in a fragile, useless attempt to drag herself back to the surface.
A gift! the light screamed around her, striking her ears and mind and tongue until she was forced to swallow it, to drink of it, to devour it.
No! she tried to shout in reply. Take it back! I don't want it!
Still she fell.
Still the light embraced her.
Overhead, the light hissed as rain fell upon it. Leia felt it fall onto her upturned face, running down her cheeks like tears. It was cool and tangible, gentle like spring and soft like summer. Wherever the rain touched, the light of the Force flickered and dimmed, quelled and quashed by the water.
Yet beneath Leia, the Force yawned wide and open, a mouth made of a single ember. Leia screamed and scrabbled for the edge of the doorway, fighting to keep from falling through it. Her fingers slid through empty space and emptier light, and she tumbled in.
She was in a field of vaporators, the achingly blue sky of a desert stretching overhead. Two suns beat down on her head, shielded by a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over her forehead. Her hands were buried in the guts of one vaporator, a toolbox at her feet, a droid tootling behind her.
"Uncle Owen?" her voice called—but it wasn't her voice, it was Luke's voice.
Fear rose like bile in Leia's throat, spilling into her mouth and down her chin. She choked on it, drowned in it, until all there was was fear and a bone-deep terror.
There were no more barriers—no more walls hiding her thoughts, hiding her emotions, hiding her secrets. She was as bare before Luke as if she was naked in front of him. They were one—truly, wholly, inseparably one. There was no going back from this; his thoughts were her thoughts, her emotions his emotions.
Leia didn't care that it felt right. She didn't care that it felt as if her soul, made complete by Luke's presence in her mind, felt whole with her in his. She didn't care that, beneath the terror and the horror, was joy—unfolding, inflating joy that stole her breath away. She didn't care, didn't care, didn't care….
Leia woke, scrabbling for purchase in consciousness, crying weakly.
"Leia?" Luke called, falling into her mind with all the grace of a gundark. "Leia, are you alright? What's wrong?"
"You mean you didn't feel me?" she asked.
"Feel you?"Luke asked, confused. "Feel you where?"
Did that mean she hadn't actually been in Luke's mind? Had it just been a trick of her dreams? Of the Force?
Regardless, now at least she understood the fear—the fear that perhaps was the thing keeping her out of Luke's mind.
Did she even want to fight that fear, though? She wondered. Did she want to go into Luke's mind enough to battle the fear, to conquer and defeat it? Did the yearning she felt, in spite of herself, to be whole, outweigh the fear of her nakedness before him? Or was she comfortable with how things were now, with Luke in her mind and in her heart, but their souls still remaining separate?
A new thought came to Leia. Or was the rain, which quieted the burn of the Force—the rain that Leia herself had instigated, that she herself bade fall—was that what kept her from going into Luke's mind? Did the rain soften her gift—her curse—enough that she was unable to pass through the doorway?
Leia chewed on her bottom lip. Did it really matter what the reason was? Regardless, she wasn't able to go into Luke's mind—and suddenly she wasn't sure if she wanted to. Because, regardless of the reason she was unable to fall into Luke's mind, the truth remained that she was afraid of Luke, and of the whole that they would become if Leia merged her mind with his.
"Leia?" Luke asked, sounding concerned. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," Leia said hurriedly, shutting her thoughts off from Luke. "I was just...thinking."
"Okay," said Luke slowly. Leia wasn't sure he believed her—but then, she wasn't sure she would believe her either.
The night passed long and slow. Leia spent most of it awake, dreading the plain and the pull of the Force that she was sure would greet her as soon as she slipped into unconsciousness. Luke remained awake with her as long as he could, but after midnight—or at least midnight for Luke—he fell asleep, exhausted from the day's work in the fields. So Leia remained awake, alone and afraid with her thoughts and memories, shuddering and shaking in her ball in the corner.
This shouldn't bother me this much, she told herself, again and again. So what if it's called rape? It wasn't that bad. It wasn't. Worse things happened to me.
Yet, no matter how many times she told herself that, the awful, niggling, worming feeling of sick dread and disgust ate at her like a dog gnawing at a bone. It would not leave her, would not let her sit comfortably. She was afraid of being naked, but afraid of being without the comfort of the shirt cradled in her arms. She was terrified of every scuff at the door, every sound of voices through the thick durasteel. What if it was Pale Eyes coming back? What if it was someone else coming to do the same thing?
Luke woke early—earlier than usual—and went for a walk. Neither his aunt nor his uncle were up—and neither were either of the twin suns. Only the faintest smudge of light on the horizon heralded the coming dawn, and the stars remained burning bright in the inky darkness of the sky overhead. Luke sent her pictures of what he saw, images and flashes of feeling and emotion: joy, peace, contentment, awe.
"It's beautiful," Leia sighed—and wondered again if she dared risk everything to be able to join Luke there in that moment.
"It is," Luke agreed, turning in a slow, lazy circle, taking in the pre-dawn shadows, the stars, the moons hanging on the lip of the world.
"I…I wish I was there," Leia said slowly, fighting a silent battle within herself. She wanted—more than wanted: yearned, needed—to be with him. She wanted to be whole. She wanted to be complete. She wanted to be one.
Yet the fear remained, bone-deep and all-consuming, confining, constricting. She couldn't breathe through it, couldn't feel her heartbeat over the rush of blood in her ears, couldn't keep from spitting bile between her teeth at the thought of joining Luke, of letting him know her completely, be part of her.
This—this was enough, wasn't it?
Luke walked out to the vaporators in the northern field, slipping through the gate and into the long rows of white-gleaming machinery. They seemed to glow with an other-worldly light, like porcelain, like marble, like bone. The air was cold against his face and hands—he sent the sensation of the desert's night breeze to Leia, who had not felt the wind except through Luke for years—and the scent of it was sharp and clear. There were mushrooms on the vaporators, Luke showed her, yellow and green and red.
Movement.
Luke stiffened. Leia could feel his thoughts tensing in her mind, his attention drawn away from her. His thoughts spiked with alarm, with fear chased by terror, by horror.
More movement. Luke's thoughts jostled in Leia's mind, as if he was running and they were bouncing back and forth inside his skull. She felt his fear, felt the sharp edge of it in the corners of his thoughts, felt the tinge of red creep into her mind from him.
"Luke?" Leia called, reaching for him. "Luke, what's going on?"
Only silence answered her queries.
~oOo~
Luke woke to the feeling of sand beneath his back, head pounding, eyes aching. He blinked groggily and tried to sit up—only to be forced back down onto the sand by the end of a gaffi stick. He flopped back gracelessly, vision swimming, shadows crawling in from the corners of his eyes. For a long second he battled them, fighting them back into the corners of his vision, swatting them away. Yet inexorably they rose, like black wings of death, and stole his sight.
His head lolled to one side as consciousness fled, leaving him limp and at the mercy of the Tusken Raider that had struck him down.
When he woke again, it was to the feeling of cold metal around his wrists and the gentle sway of movement. He opened his eyes blearily, blinking once, twice, three times against the light of Tatooine's twin suns beating mercilessly down onto the sands of the desert, bright even though he was turned away from the sky.
Lifting his head, Luke spat out a mouthful of terse, thick hair. It tasted and smelled of bantha, strong and musky and full of the desert: dry, hot, and sandy. The scent of it filled his nose and mouth, clogging his throat and creeping down into his lungs. He wondered how long he had been lying with his face pressed against the bantha's hide; he wondered if he wanted to know.
The ground passed dizzily away beneath him. Luke caught one glimpse of it, then quickly shut his eyes. The sand was moving quickly under the bantha's four feet, slipping away as if it was a rug being pulled out from under it.
Leia.
The thought struck Luke like a load of bricks. The last thing he remembered was her screaming, calling out to him in desperation. Then—nothing.
"Leia?" he called, hopeful and needy. He was afraid, though he was trying to hide it, even from himself—afraid of what had happened, afraid of what was going to happen. He remembered his uncle's stories about his grandmother—about how she had been taken and tortured by the Raiders, about how Clieg and their neighbors had gone out after her, about how all but Clieg had died, stripped to muscle and bone by razor wire and death traps laid by the Raiders.
Was that going to happen to him as well? Was he going to be tortured to death, with all his family and friends killed in an attempt to rescue him?
"Luke." Leia's silent voice was filled with such profound relief that Luke could not help but tear up.
She cares, he thought. She really cares. Not that he had doubted that, but to hear her so relieved and so glad, in the midst of his terror was enough to make tears well up in the corners of his eyes. I'm not alone, he told himself, and it was as if he had drawn in a deep breath of fresh, clean air after going for hours without. I'm not alone…
"Luke, what happened?" Leia asked. There was fear in her silent voice, and uncertainty—fear and uncertainty for him.
"Tusken Raiders," Luke told her, and sent an image of the one that had stood over him when he had awoken the first time. With it he channeled a sense of fear, of disgust, of the stories he had been told as a child as warnings against straying too far from the farm. "They're the ones that killed my grandma," he added softly.
Warmth flooded through their connection and Luke basked in it. It was soothing, calming, a balm against the fear eating away at his ribs and at his heart, creeping up his throat as bile, sinking into his stomach as hot acid. It felt, in that moment, as if he could face whatever was coming to him—could face it, so long as Leia was with him.
There came a jolt, and then the bantha beneath Luke stopped moving.
"Luke?" Leia asked, sensing the spike of fear that raced through him, edging his thoughts with ice and iron. "What's going on?"
"I don't know," Luke replied. "We've stopped, but—"
Luke was cut off as a hand fastened in his hair and yanked. He slid off of the bantha with a surprised cry, landing on hard-packed sand with a grunt of air forced from his lips. He struggled, fighting air and chains and sand, until he was struck over the head with the end of a gaffi stick. He fell still, dazed and aching, until he was pulled upright with a hand in the front of his shirt.
He was in a Tusken camp. Hide tents were clumped together before him—he counted twelve at a glance—while off to the left was a fenced-in area for the tribe's banthas. A cluster of Tuskens stood before him, male and female and small children with heads cocked to one side, gazing at him from behind goggles and masks.
Luke gulped and twisted in the Raider's hold. "Let go of me," he grunted, and lifted shackled hands to pry at the fingers knotted in the front of his shirt.
The Raider laughed and released him. Luke fell the three feet to the ground and landed with a thud and a grunt, numbed legs buckling beneath him.
"Luke!" Leia cried, feeling his pain through their bond.
"I'm fine," Luke reassured her quickly. "I'm just—"
"You will make a pretty slave for the Hutts," said the Raider standing over him. His voice was rough, gravel and stone, the Basic words warped and twisted in his hard Tusken accent. He laughed again, and the rest of the tribe joined with him. "You will bring us good money." Then the Raider bent down and, seizing Luke by the chain connecting his shackles, dragged him into the cluster of tents.
Luke was brought to the tent at the very center of the tribe. The Raider dragging him threw him through the open doorway, then followed him in. Luke scrambled to regain his feet, but only made it to his knees before the Tusken was on him again. Grabbing the chain again, the Tusken lifted his hands over his head, then fastened them to a bar overhead.
"I have brought you a friend," the Tusken said to someone to Luke's left. "Be nice."
Luke turned his head and found himself staring into the bright green eyes of a girl a few years younger than him. Her red hair was a cloud around her head, cut short to her shoulders. She was clad in a simple dress, clearly homespun, with a pattern of blue triangles ornamenting the bottom hem.
Turning, Luke watched the Tusken leave the tent, and then looked back at the girl.
"Hi," he said, careful and uncertain.
"Hi," she replied, equally careful, equally uncertain.
"I'm Luke. Who are you?"
"Talia," the girl said.
"How long have you been here, Talia?" Luke asked.
"Dunno," said the girl. "They fed me three times, but I don't think they do that every day."
Luke frowned. "Oh," he said. "Okay."
"What's going on?" The thought came to Luke as if from a distance, just as it always did when Leia spoke to him first. His mind was still connected to hers, allowing them to talk—though he was not fully in her thoughts, limiting what they could share.
"There's another girl here," Luke told Leia. "Her name is Talia." He sent her a picture of the girl, and the sound of her voice.
"What do they want with you?" Leia asked, her words accompanied with the image of the Tusken Raider.
Luke pulled to mind the memory of the Raider speaking to him—telling him he would be a pretty slave for the Hutts—and sent it to Leia. He felt her shudder, her thoughts shivering against his, and Luke sank into her mind with a soothing note of calm. He could feel her fear, could feel her distress—she was afraid for him, memories surging up, up, upwards in her mind until she choked on them.
"It'll be okay," Luke said, sounding more confident than he felt. "I'll escape. Or…or something."
"Luke…"
"What?"
"It's not that easy."
"I…I know. But I have to try. I can't let my family die for me." His words were heavy, his tone hard.
There was a beat of silence. Then, "I'll help you then," said Leia. "Whatever you need, I'll help you."
"Thanks," said Luke, meaning it more than he could tell her.
He came back to the tent, to the chains, to the hot, hot air. Talia was staring at him, her eyes wide, her expression confused and alarmed.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," said Luke, frowning. "Why?"
"I dunno," said Talia. "You just looked…far away."
Luke smiled at her. "I'm okay," he promised. "I was just thinking." It wasn't technically a lie; he had been thinking, just thinking at someone else rather than to himself.
Talia shifted—and Luke realized, for the first time, that she was stretched up onto her tip-toes. While Luke was able to stand with his hands uncomfortably stretched above his head, Talia was shorter than him, and was drawn up onto her toes in order to reach the bar. Luke's stomach clenched, and something dark and hot rose in his stomach and into his lungs, choking him.
"Luke, are you okay?" Leia asked, feeling the rise of emotion.
"I'm fine," said Luke, hard, with words made of iron. "I just…"
Talia looked at him, small and afraid, uncertain and with pain in her eyes. The dark feeling swallowed Luke's throat and rose into his mouth like tar, until he was drinking of it, breathing of it, living with it in his lungs and heart and eyes.
I have to protect her, Luke thought, loud and fierce. The tar roared in exultation.
"What did you say?" Leia asked.
Had Leia heard—or almost heard—his thought?
"I thought that I have to protect her," Luke said, and once more showed Leia the sight of Talia standing stretched up to the bar. "I have to get her out. She's just a little kid…"
"We'll get her out," Leia said. "We'll get both of you out. We will."
She thought something else—something loud and fierce. Luke felt the thought against his mind, brazen and bold, like copper and steel and gold. He could not, however, quite make out what it was Leia had thought.
It was Luke's turn to ask, "What?"
Leia was surprised. Luke could feel it in her, sharp and subtle, like a needle.
"I was thinking that I'll be with you through it all—good or bad. And I'll help you all that I can."
"Thank you," Luke said again. "Now we just have to figure out a plan to escape."
end notes: So what did you think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know! :)
(And, if you're so inclined, maybe lend me some encouragement, as I'm still fighting writer's block, and am struggling with a lot of things in my personal life right now (depression, anxiety, PTSD stuff...)? All of which to say this is my refuge, and so to get some good feedback would really encourage me and brighten my day... Only if you want to, of course. I don't mean this as a bribe or anything...)