Author's notes: Over on the Jedi Council fanfic forum, the Kessel Run challenge just started. To quote from its official thread: "We all know that Han and Chewie made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, so in honor of that achievement, you will complete eleven writing prompts spread out over twelve weeks. Ten of these prompts will be secret prompts – you won't know what they are in advance, and once they're posted, you'll have one week to write and post your fic. Given the time limits involved, most of these prompts will have a word range of 100 to 1,000 words. There will also be one longer prompt for a 2,000 to 8,000-word vignette. This prompt will be revealed at the very beginning of the challenge, and you will have the whole twelve weeks to write it."

This isn't my usual sort of thing, but the week one prompt gave me an idea that had to be written, and so here I am. This story will not be a cohesive narrative, but rather, varied individual bite-size vignettes focusing on the original characters from my story Renewal. (Depending on the prompts, Mara and/or Luke and possibly other characters may wind up appearing as well.) I don't know how many prompts I'll manage to write something for (though I'll be trying to do all eleven), and since I don't know what the prompts are in advance, the stories may be all over the place both in tone and as far as timeline placement. But if you liked Renewal, you may enjoy this.

That said, there are definitely spoilers for Renewal here. Big ones. You might want to read Renewal before reading this. If you'd rather live dangerously and dive right in, here's your brief primer on the overall story and who these characters are:

SPOILERS AHEAD

TURN BACK NOW

HERE WE GO

When Palpatine took Mara from her family, her parents, Ronan and Nadira Jade, survived despite Palpatine ordering their execution. They spent years on the run out of fear that Palpatine might be searching for them, during which time they had two more children, Nico and Corissa. They reunited with Mara approximately six months after The Last Command, when they saw mentions of her on news reports about the new Smugglers' Alliance and its liaison and reached out to her.

—

The Kessel Run week one prompt is:

Write a story between 100 and 1,000 words that starts with this sentence: "Saying goodbye was never easy, but she couldn't put it off any longer."

The Funeral

"Saying goodbye was never easy, but she couldn't put it off any longer."

A heavy sigh from her brother interrupted her dramatic monologue, and Corissa glared at him. "—couldn't put it off any longer. We are gathered together to bid farewell to our friend Bee—"

"Are we sure it's a bee?" her father murmured.

"Daddy!" Corissa put her fists on her hips. "Don't interrupt."

Her father was making the face he made when he was trying not to smile, and she gave him a suspicious look before continuing. "—our friend Bee, who lived a long and happy life before he dropped out of the sky—"

Her mother put her hand over her mouth, and Corissa understood. It was a sad moment for them all. "We now put him in the ground to decompose and fertilize the grass to make more flowers for other bees." She carefully set the little box Daddy had found to be a bee coffin into the hole she had dug, and kicked some dirt over it before shoving the headstone into the ground at the edge of the grave. It was a very nice stone, a smooth whitish oval with little bits of sparkle in it, and she had carefully written "BEE" on it and drawn a flower underneath. The ground was a little hard, and she twisted the stone back and forth to loosen it before giving it a final shove. It was only a little bit crooked, and Corissa thought it was pretty good for her first grave. Bee would have liked it.

"Now it's time for a dance solo," she informed her family.

Nico narrowed his eyes at her. "You have got to be kidding me."

"It's of cultural importance—" a phrase she had just learned at school and rather liked "—for bees to have dancing at their funerals."

"You don't know anything about bee culture," Nico argued. "You just want to dance."

Daddy set a hand on Nico's shoulder. "Hush. This is important to your sister."

"Yeah, Nico," Corissa added. "Hush."

"Sweetheart," Mommy said, her voice sounding a little funny. "It's almost dinnertime, and Daddy has the night shift tonight. He has to eat before work. We can't take too much longer."

"It's a funeral," Corissa said. "It's important."

"I know," Mommy agreed. "But maybe you should do the dance now and tell us about it afterward."

Corissa sighed, but lifted her arms to the proper position and started the routine she'd made up. It had a lot of twirling and pretending to smell flowers and a little bit of wiggling her behind, because she'd read that's how bees talked to each other. There was a funny sound and Corissa paused to look behind her, but Mommy's hand was over her mouth again, her eyes shining like she was crying. Reassured, Corissa finished the dance and held the final pose proudly. It must have been a very moving dance to make Mommy cry, and Corissa smiled brightly at her, even though she was supposed to be very serious for a funeral dance.

"That was beautiful, sweetheart," Mommy managed to say, her voice sounding choked.

Daddy was making that face again, but he pulled her in for a hug, then lifted her into his arms even though she was really too big for that now.

"You are so weird," Nico told her.

"It's important to be respectful when people die," Corissa argued. "We talked about funeral traditions in social studies last week, and Master Oro said so."

"That explains a lot," Daddy murmured. He kissed her cheek. "You were very respectful, Corissa. Grandma would have liked your dance very much."

Corissa beamed, then stuck her tongue out at Nico.

Mommy leaned over to kiss her other cheek. "It was a lovely funeral, Corissa. I'm very proud of you."

"Can we eat now?" Nico asked.

Mommy put an arm around his shoulders. "I think that's a good idea. Who's hungry?"

"Me," Corissa said at the same time as Daddy, and she put her arms around his neck and held on tight as he carried her back to the apartment, following Mommy and Nico. She loosened her grip only to wave over Daddy's shoulder at Bee's final resting place. "Daddy," she said.

"Yes, baby?"

"Some cultures burn up dead bodies. Can we do that with the next dead bee I find?"

Daddy's mouth twitched. "I think that the—decomposing might be a better idea. Maybe you could draw a picture of a funeral pyre instead."

"Okay," Corissa said, thinking about what that sort of picture should look like. Definitely a lot of sparks, and—

"She's not using my special pencils," Nico said.

Mommy bent down to kiss the top of his head. "Don't worry about it. We'll have dinner and then she can draw with her own pencils. What did you learn in school this week, Nico?"

Nico started to tell her, but Corissa didn't think that nutrition was anywhere near as interesting as funerals. She hoped that she didn't have to learn boring things like that when she was eleven like Nico. She also hoped that there was leftover cake for dessert. Sometimes Daddy was sneaky and ate the last piece.

It was good, Corissa thought, that she wasn't dead and could still eat cake.

Funerals definitely made her hungry.