========
The Commenor Years - A Tale Of Danni Quee
A Star Wars New Jedi Order fanfiction
Tale One - Glowbugs Way Up There
By: Mark "Moogle" Brown (moogle@fanforce.net)
========
Disclaimer: The writer will not be held responsible if someone decides that this piece of
fanfiction is copyright infringement.
***
"Mommy!" shouted a three-year-old Danni Quee as she spotted her mother and proceeded
to bound across the playground at the day care center.
Marla Quee smiled, something that she found herself doing a lot of the time when it
involved her young daughter. For a woman who investigated the astronomical wonders of the
galaxy, she was very frequently surprised by such a small part of that galaxy, namely Danni.
"Hello, my darling Danni," she said as she regarded the girl with a warm look.
Danni beamed in a way that only a three-year-old girl regarding one of her parents
can do. It was a look full of simple love and wonder, and all sorts of other things that
weren't as easy to recognize. Then she giggled. "Hee-hee! I'm a darling!"
"You certainly are." The warm look on Marla's face quickly changed to amused. Of
course, Danni had no idea what it meant to be a darling, Marla knew. The girl was pleased
for no other reason than that her mother called her something that sounded nice. "Say bye to
your friends," she continued.
"Bye!" the girl shouted, beginning to wave her arms frantically in the direction of
the other children.
"Bye, Danni!" called back the dozen tinny voices of the other three-year-olds at the
Wee Care Day Care.
The waving continued until well beyond when Danni could no longer see any of the
other children, when she finally realized that they couldn't see her no matter how much she
wanted them to. At that point, other children might have started complaining, but not Danni,
who could keep herself busy for hours merely looking at her surroundings, since she was not
yet old enough to know why things happened.
It was a sight well worth her time to watch, Marla decided. Things like this made
her wonder what she was like when she was so small. She couldn't remember anymore, and it
wasn't like those were exactly quiet times in the galaxy anyway. They were quite tumultuous,
in fact; things were always changing. Marla was fairly certain that was how she came to be
interested in stars in the first place. Though she may have been spirited from planet to
planet frequently - why that happened, she wasn't sure - she could always look up and know
that stars would be there. Maybe not the same stars in the same places, but there would
always be stars.
But Danni, Danni would not have to have any of those worries as she grew up. Why,
just last year the Rebels - no, the New Republic, they were calling themselves now - finally
took Coruscant away from the Imperials. It was difficult to imagine things being so bad
under this New Republic, although the cynical part of Marla was determined to keep her
preparing for the worst.
Danni's voice startled her. "What'cha lookin' at, Mommy?"
"Nothing, darling. I was just thinking," replied Marla.
The girl's curiosity was not placated. "About what?"
Marla had to pause to think for a couple of seconds. She wasn't really sure what she
could tell Danni that her daughter would understand. "My life."
"Why?" Danni continued, with a desire for information much like that which all
children possess.
Having had little experience with children before her own, though, Marla did not
know this, and felt like she had to answer the question seriously. Thinking about it threw
her for a loop, because she didn't know why she was thinking about her life. "I don't know,"
she told Danni.
"Aw, you're no fun," Danni whined. She skipped ahead of her mother and pouted until
a couple of birds flew past her. Danni squealed and chased after them, what had grown of her
blonde hair bouncing behind her as she ran the clumsy run of a three-year-old.
The woman sighed and wondered not for the first time what she had done to deserve
the privilege of raising a daughter so full of life. An annoying voice in the back of her
head reminded her that if it weren't for that sniveling excuse of a man, Castor Rodan, then
she never would have given birth to Danni in the first place. But considering how low her
opinion of the politician was, it was not a very hard task to banish the thought of his
existence from her mind.
After a couple of minutes, Danni came moping back towards her mother. "I couldn't
get the birdies," the girl said mournfully. She sniffled a couple of times.
Marla may not have been a mother long enough to know about child curiosity, but she
had survived Danni being two, so she could well sense when a tantrum was on the way. This,
she knew, was a tantrum in the making.
"That's okay, Danni dear. Birdies are better off flying free," she told Danni. Given
Danni's earlier predisposition to asking questions, she was prepared to explain that further
if necessary.
But Danni just said, "Okay!" Her face brightened immediately.
It was nice to spend time with Danni, but Marla noticed from the sun's position that
it was starting to move along in the day and she had things that needed to be done.
"Let's get home," Marla told Danni.
"Home! I like home," the girl said, her green eyes twinkling.
Marla smiled at her daughter. "Me, too."
***
Rays of light shone through the kitchen window of the Quee residence, the last that
the sun of Commenor had to offer for that particular day before retreating below the trees,
and eventually to the other side of the planet.
She put away the last of the dishes she and Danni had used for their evening meal
earlier. Marla knew that she could have afforded a servant droid, if not a sentient servant,
but she wasn't interested. Being self-sufficient was the way she was brought up, and she
intended to teach the same to Danni.
"Pretty," the girl whispered. Danni had been following her mother around a lot of
late. She was standing off to the side of her mother, right in the light shining in to their
home and sparkling on the floor.
That statement Marla could not deny, but she also knew that compared to the sky at
night-time, watching the sunset was like staring at the hindquarters of a Hutt. "The sky at
night is even prettier." She had never let Danni stay up late enough to see the night sky
before, but now was as good of a time as any.
"I wanna see!" exclaimed Danni, bouncing back and forth across the floor excitedly.
"If you're a good little girl, Mommy will let you stay up and watch with her," Marla
said gently, knowing full well the effect her words would have on Danni.
"I am a good little girl," Danni protested. She punctuated this point by dashing
across the floor and clinging onto her mother's leg, then smiling cutely up at her. "See?"
Marla decided that maybe sending Danni to day care was a bad influence. She'd
certainly never seen her daughter pull a stunt like this before. But then, she didn't mind
much, as she wanted to let Danni look at the stars anyway. "I guess," she said, pretending
not to believe her daughter though she actually did.
The girl put on her best whining voice. "Please," she begged.
"You can go, on one condition. You have to let go of my leg, so I can walk."
This made Danni start giggling, but she let go and continued following her mother as
they walked through the residence to get a blanket. Once that was found, they headed outside
for a reserve within walking distance. Marla carried Danni there, then set her down so they
could both find a suitable patch of grass.
As Marla flicked out the blanket, it billowed softly in the gentle breeze, flapping
and straightening before landing on the grass. Adorned on it was a symbol whose identity she
had never known; all she was ever regarding it was that it was very special, and that was
just her grandmother in old age.
Danni knew of none of this, of course, as she was not yet old enough to grasp the
concept of a grandparent, let alone the concept of someone who was no longer alive. She
happily leapt down on the blanket as soon as it was done falling, rolling around and
laughing madly.
It had been perhaps fifteen minutes since they were in the kitchen, but it was still
plenty enough time for the sun to have set. Fortunately, it was a cloudless night, and the
view of the stars in the sky was clear.
The woman watched with a bemused grin as she saw Danni flopping around on the
blanket, knowing that in short order Danni would notice the sky and grow quiet. This
happened no less than five seconds later.
Laughter melted away into the depths of the night, the last echoes of Danni's
playing fading out, and she was absolutely speechless. The girl stared, completely rapt, at
the darkness of the night sky.
"What are they, Mommy?" Danni pointed up at nothing in particular.
There was no doubt in Marla's mind what her daughter meant by 'they'. "They're
called stars, Danni."
A few seconds passed before Danni said anything; she was too busy staring at the sky
to register the comment right away. "They look like..." the girl started, but trailed off
when she could not think of the words. A few more seconds passed, then a grin crossed her
face. "I know what they look like. They look like glowbugs, way up there!" Danni loved
glowbugs.
Marla kept quiet for a couple of minutes while Danni's inquisitive green eyes
scanned the entire night sky. When it looked like her daughter was done, she said, "I get to
look at stars every night as part of my job."
She could almost hear Danni's jaw drop the ground. "Really?" an excited Danni asked.
Marla simply nodded. "If you want, when you're older, I'll let you help."
This seemed to excite the girl more than Marla had ever seen. Her daughter jumped
straight from the ground into her arms, wrapping her little limbs around Marla. She made no
effort to move.
"I love you, Mommy," whispered Danni.
"I love you, too, Danni dear," Marla whispered back.
The sounds of their voices were slowly replaced with the sounds of night on
Commenor, the gentle whirring of power generators, hovercars buzzing far off in the
distance, the noises made by insects in the trees. As Marla stared up at the sky,
remembering a similar moment she and her mother had once stared, she noticed that Danni's
breathing became heavier. The girl had fallen asleep.
Slowly she stood, not wanting to disturb her daughter. Unable to fold up the blanket
with Danni slung over her shoulder, she flipped it around the two of them like a cloak, so
Danni would not get cold before she was put in her bed.
The cadence her shoes made on the ground added to the sounds of the night.
It took a bit longer to make it home than it did to walk to the park, since she was
carrying Danni, but this did not bother her.
Danni continued to sleep soundly as her mother placed her in her bed, tucked her in,
and kissed her good night.
With Danni asleep and the house to herself, Marla went upstairs to where she kept
her telescope pointed at the sky and sat down in the chair below it. Through it she looked
at those glowbugs in the sky, and even thirty years later her sense of wonder was no less
than the first time she looked at them.
***
The Commenor Years - A Tale Of Danni Quee
A Star Wars New Jedi Order fanfiction
Tale One - Glowbugs Way Up There
By: Mark "Moogle" Brown (moogle@fanforce.net)
========
Disclaimer: The writer will not be held responsible if someone decides that this piece of
fanfiction is copyright infringement.
***
"Mommy!" shouted a three-year-old Danni Quee as she spotted her mother and proceeded
to bound across the playground at the day care center.
Marla Quee smiled, something that she found herself doing a lot of the time when it
involved her young daughter. For a woman who investigated the astronomical wonders of the
galaxy, she was very frequently surprised by such a small part of that galaxy, namely Danni.
"Hello, my darling Danni," she said as she regarded the girl with a warm look.
Danni beamed in a way that only a three-year-old girl regarding one of her parents
can do. It was a look full of simple love and wonder, and all sorts of other things that
weren't as easy to recognize. Then she giggled. "Hee-hee! I'm a darling!"
"You certainly are." The warm look on Marla's face quickly changed to amused. Of
course, Danni had no idea what it meant to be a darling, Marla knew. The girl was pleased
for no other reason than that her mother called her something that sounded nice. "Say bye to
your friends," she continued.
"Bye!" the girl shouted, beginning to wave her arms frantically in the direction of
the other children.
"Bye, Danni!" called back the dozen tinny voices of the other three-year-olds at the
Wee Care Day Care.
The waving continued until well beyond when Danni could no longer see any of the
other children, when she finally realized that they couldn't see her no matter how much she
wanted them to. At that point, other children might have started complaining, but not Danni,
who could keep herself busy for hours merely looking at her surroundings, since she was not
yet old enough to know why things happened.
It was a sight well worth her time to watch, Marla decided. Things like this made
her wonder what she was like when she was so small. She couldn't remember anymore, and it
wasn't like those were exactly quiet times in the galaxy anyway. They were quite tumultuous,
in fact; things were always changing. Marla was fairly certain that was how she came to be
interested in stars in the first place. Though she may have been spirited from planet to
planet frequently - why that happened, she wasn't sure - she could always look up and know
that stars would be there. Maybe not the same stars in the same places, but there would
always be stars.
But Danni, Danni would not have to have any of those worries as she grew up. Why,
just last year the Rebels - no, the New Republic, they were calling themselves now - finally
took Coruscant away from the Imperials. It was difficult to imagine things being so bad
under this New Republic, although the cynical part of Marla was determined to keep her
preparing for the worst.
Danni's voice startled her. "What'cha lookin' at, Mommy?"
"Nothing, darling. I was just thinking," replied Marla.
The girl's curiosity was not placated. "About what?"
Marla had to pause to think for a couple of seconds. She wasn't really sure what she
could tell Danni that her daughter would understand. "My life."
"Why?" Danni continued, with a desire for information much like that which all
children possess.
Having had little experience with children before her own, though, Marla did not
know this, and felt like she had to answer the question seriously. Thinking about it threw
her for a loop, because she didn't know why she was thinking about her life. "I don't know,"
she told Danni.
"Aw, you're no fun," Danni whined. She skipped ahead of her mother and pouted until
a couple of birds flew past her. Danni squealed and chased after them, what had grown of her
blonde hair bouncing behind her as she ran the clumsy run of a three-year-old.
The woman sighed and wondered not for the first time what she had done to deserve
the privilege of raising a daughter so full of life. An annoying voice in the back of her
head reminded her that if it weren't for that sniveling excuse of a man, Castor Rodan, then
she never would have given birth to Danni in the first place. But considering how low her
opinion of the politician was, it was not a very hard task to banish the thought of his
existence from her mind.
After a couple of minutes, Danni came moping back towards her mother. "I couldn't
get the birdies," the girl said mournfully. She sniffled a couple of times.
Marla may not have been a mother long enough to know about child curiosity, but she
had survived Danni being two, so she could well sense when a tantrum was on the way. This,
she knew, was a tantrum in the making.
"That's okay, Danni dear. Birdies are better off flying free," she told Danni. Given
Danni's earlier predisposition to asking questions, she was prepared to explain that further
if necessary.
But Danni just said, "Okay!" Her face brightened immediately.
It was nice to spend time with Danni, but Marla noticed from the sun's position that
it was starting to move along in the day and she had things that needed to be done.
"Let's get home," Marla told Danni.
"Home! I like home," the girl said, her green eyes twinkling.
Marla smiled at her daughter. "Me, too."
***
Rays of light shone through the kitchen window of the Quee residence, the last that
the sun of Commenor had to offer for that particular day before retreating below the trees,
and eventually to the other side of the planet.
She put away the last of the dishes she and Danni had used for their evening meal
earlier. Marla knew that she could have afforded a servant droid, if not a sentient servant,
but she wasn't interested. Being self-sufficient was the way she was brought up, and she
intended to teach the same to Danni.
"Pretty," the girl whispered. Danni had been following her mother around a lot of
late. She was standing off to the side of her mother, right in the light shining in to their
home and sparkling on the floor.
That statement Marla could not deny, but she also knew that compared to the sky at
night-time, watching the sunset was like staring at the hindquarters of a Hutt. "The sky at
night is even prettier." She had never let Danni stay up late enough to see the night sky
before, but now was as good of a time as any.
"I wanna see!" exclaimed Danni, bouncing back and forth across the floor excitedly.
"If you're a good little girl, Mommy will let you stay up and watch with her," Marla
said gently, knowing full well the effect her words would have on Danni.
"I am a good little girl," Danni protested. She punctuated this point by dashing
across the floor and clinging onto her mother's leg, then smiling cutely up at her. "See?"
Marla decided that maybe sending Danni to day care was a bad influence. She'd
certainly never seen her daughter pull a stunt like this before. But then, she didn't mind
much, as she wanted to let Danni look at the stars anyway. "I guess," she said, pretending
not to believe her daughter though she actually did.
The girl put on her best whining voice. "Please," she begged.
"You can go, on one condition. You have to let go of my leg, so I can walk."
This made Danni start giggling, but she let go and continued following her mother as
they walked through the residence to get a blanket. Once that was found, they headed outside
for a reserve within walking distance. Marla carried Danni there, then set her down so they
could both find a suitable patch of grass.
As Marla flicked out the blanket, it billowed softly in the gentle breeze, flapping
and straightening before landing on the grass. Adorned on it was a symbol whose identity she
had never known; all she was ever regarding it was that it was very special, and that was
just her grandmother in old age.
Danni knew of none of this, of course, as she was not yet old enough to grasp the
concept of a grandparent, let alone the concept of someone who was no longer alive. She
happily leapt down on the blanket as soon as it was done falling, rolling around and
laughing madly.
It had been perhaps fifteen minutes since they were in the kitchen, but it was still
plenty enough time for the sun to have set. Fortunately, it was a cloudless night, and the
view of the stars in the sky was clear.
The woman watched with a bemused grin as she saw Danni flopping around on the
blanket, knowing that in short order Danni would notice the sky and grow quiet. This
happened no less than five seconds later.
Laughter melted away into the depths of the night, the last echoes of Danni's
playing fading out, and she was absolutely speechless. The girl stared, completely rapt, at
the darkness of the night sky.
"What are they, Mommy?" Danni pointed up at nothing in particular.
There was no doubt in Marla's mind what her daughter meant by 'they'. "They're
called stars, Danni."
A few seconds passed before Danni said anything; she was too busy staring at the sky
to register the comment right away. "They look like..." the girl started, but trailed off
when she could not think of the words. A few more seconds passed, then a grin crossed her
face. "I know what they look like. They look like glowbugs, way up there!" Danni loved
glowbugs.
Marla kept quiet for a couple of minutes while Danni's inquisitive green eyes
scanned the entire night sky. When it looked like her daughter was done, she said, "I get to
look at stars every night as part of my job."
She could almost hear Danni's jaw drop the ground. "Really?" an excited Danni asked.
Marla simply nodded. "If you want, when you're older, I'll let you help."
This seemed to excite the girl more than Marla had ever seen. Her daughter jumped
straight from the ground into her arms, wrapping her little limbs around Marla. She made no
effort to move.
"I love you, Mommy," whispered Danni.
"I love you, too, Danni dear," Marla whispered back.
The sounds of their voices were slowly replaced with the sounds of night on
Commenor, the gentle whirring of power generators, hovercars buzzing far off in the
distance, the noises made by insects in the trees. As Marla stared up at the sky,
remembering a similar moment she and her mother had once stared, she noticed that Danni's
breathing became heavier. The girl had fallen asleep.
Slowly she stood, not wanting to disturb her daughter. Unable to fold up the blanket
with Danni slung over her shoulder, she flipped it around the two of them like a cloak, so
Danni would not get cold before she was put in her bed.
The cadence her shoes made on the ground added to the sounds of the night.
It took a bit longer to make it home than it did to walk to the park, since she was
carrying Danni, but this did not bother her.
Danni continued to sleep soundly as her mother placed her in her bed, tucked her in,
and kissed her good night.
With Danni asleep and the house to herself, Marla went upstairs to where she kept
her telescope pointed at the sky and sat down in the chair below it. Through it she looked
at those glowbugs in the sky, and even thirty years later her sense of wonder was no less
than the first time she looked at them.
***
