There Is Nothing Lost Chapter 1: The Anatomist's Boy Takes Ill, a star wars fanfic

Characters: Allana Djo Solo, Dorian Starskip (OC), Veeran Starskip (OC), Leia Solo, Han Solo, Anakin Skywalker, Jacen Solo, Ben Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Mara Skywalker, Padmé Skywalker, and other ECs and OCs

Timeframe: A long time ago

Genre: AU and everything else, probably

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you – this a Regency AU. :P

This is so not the type of AU I usually write. One of my friends (Mira-Jade) has been writing really excellent Jane Austen fanfic lately, and we joked about what Festus & Ferrus would do if they were in an Austen novel, and well... this happened. Definitely going outside of my comfort zone with this collection, but hey, I like a challenge.

The first fifteen chapters were written in response to the Kessel Run challenge over on the Jedi Council Forums. I had to write one story per week for twelve weeks in answer to a variety of prompts, which were only revealed at the beginning of each week. Since I was the one hosting the challenge, I wrote for an alternate set of prompts concocted by my friend Mira. And I loved writing in this AU so much that I decided to keep it going after the challenge ended.

In addition to your typical Regency era tropes, there will be copious borrowing from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and there will also be some Force shenanigans. Yep, the Force kind of exists in this AU.

I hope you enjoy this weird thing that I've written...

There Is Nothing Lost

"What though the sea with waves continuall
Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all;
Ne is the earth the lesse, or loseth ought:
For whatsoever from one place doth fall
Is with the tyde unto another brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought."

—The Faerie Queene

Index

1. (below) The Anatomist's Boy Takes Ill | Dorian Starskip & Veeran Starskip & Doctor Mezzon (OCs) | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 1

2. The Young Miss Visits the Orphanage | Allana Djo Solo & Dorian Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 2

3a. The Houses of Skywalker and Solo | Han Solo & Goldenrod; Leia Solo & Allana Djo Solo; Luke Skywalker/Mara Skywalker | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 3, drabble set 1

3b. Poor Orphans in the Wide World Scattered | Dorian Starskip & Veeran Starskip; Allana Djo Solo/Dorian Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 3, drabble set 2

4. The Base Violence Necessary, or Ruminations of an Anatomist | Doctor Mezzon & Dorian Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 4

5. A Private Conversation | Veeran Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 4, bonus monologue

6. A Not-So-Private Conversation | Allana Djo Solo/Dorian Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 5

7. Between the Moon and the Stars, Part 1 | Allana Djo Solo/Dorian Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 6, Part 1 of 3

8. Between the Moon and the Stars, Part 2 | Allana Djo Solo/Dorian Starskip, Veeran Starskip, Ezra Bridger | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 6, Part 2 of 3

9. Between the Moon and the Stars, Part 3 | Allana Djo Solo/Dorian Starskip, Han Solo/Leia Solo, Goldenrod, Veeran Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 6, Part 3 of 3

10. Le Premier Meurtre | Veeran Starskip & Dorian Starskip, Neige (OC) | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 7

11. Her Father's Daughter | Anakin Skywalker & Leia Skywalker | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 8

12. "From Lonely Moon, to Lovely Sun" | Allana Djo Solo/Dorian Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 9, a sonnet

13. The Beauteous Forms of Things | Skywalkers, Solos, and Assorted Characters | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 9, 50 sentences

14. The Substance Is Not Altered | Veeran Starskip & Dorian Starskip | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 10

15. Five Partings and One Reunion | Allana Djo Solo, Dorian Starskip, Jacen Solo, Ben Skywalker, and Assorted Characters | Kessel Run Challenge, Week 12

16. That Which He Close Concealed | Veeran Starskip | Some things are better left unsaid

Kessel Run, Week 1: Write a story between 100 and 1,000 words that starts with the sentence: "You're burning up."
(OCs Dorian Starskip & Veeran Starskip & Doctor Mezzon)

The Anatomist's Boy Takes Ill

"You're burning up."

Dorian Starskip closed his eyes, holding unnaturally still as a hand moved from his forehead to the side of his face. For the briefest instant, he felt the urge to lean into that touch, to leech the cold from those thin, icy fingers, to take comfort from what was hardly more than a clinical examination and imagine it to be an expression of tenderness instead. He resisted that urge, calling upon every ounce of his considerable will to remain motionless on the table.

"I'm fine," Dorian tried to say, though it came out in a raspy whisper, scraping from a throat that was too hot and too dry.

"You are not," the doctor returned, his manner only slightly clipped. "Get down from there. I'll not have you dying from fever."

Dorian felt something tug against his thoughts – an old, familiar pressure, one he'd known all his life. His twin brother's fury was barely contained, and the bitter words formed within his own mind as easily as if he'd thought them himself: No, wouldn't want something else killing him, would you?

He moved to obey the doctor's order, rolling onto his side to climb down from the table; but the motion was interrupted by a wave of heat and nausea that left him damp with sweat and shaking.

"I'll take him," Veeran said quickly, and Dorian sensed his brother's frustration and concern as he approached the table.

"No," the doctor replied, ever calm and cold and precise. "I don't want his sickness to spread."

Veeran's voice again, lowered to a growl, more threatening than a twelve-year-old boy had any right to be: "Try to stop me, old man."

The doctor sighed audibly. "You are a most troublesome child. Very well. Take him to bed, and see that he stays there. And keep your distance from the others."

Dorian opened his eyes and tried to look around him. The room was only just beginning to brighten as sunlight peeked in through its lone window, and there was an unlit lantern sitting on the desk and the faint smell of smoke in the air. He felt none of the usual morning chill.

His twin's arms wrapped around him, solid and sure, lifting him off the table and lowering him slowly to the floor. Veeran supported nearly all of Dorian's weight as he helped him stand. Too hot, Veeran whispered across their bond, worried. Dorian closed his eyes again and leaned into his brother's side.

Can you keep a secret? Another voice this time – a girl's voice, gentle and hushed; a bright spot of memory buried under a world of soot and filth and blood.

"Yes," he murmured in answer to her question, just like he had the first time she asked.

You promise you'll never tell?

He smiled in spite of himself. "Never." His awareness sharpened suddenly, then, as if he were waking from a dream; and though he could still feel the mumbled word on his lips, he could no longer remember the question he'd been answering.

"Who are you talking to?" Veeran asked, an edge of panic in his voice. The arm around Dorian's waist tightened. "He needs medicine."

The room was silent, and Dorian cracked his eyelids open just enough to see the doctor watching him. Those dark eyes flitted to Veeran for an instant, and a strange expression passed across his face, an expression too elusive for Dorian's fever-addled brain to pin down.

"Yes," the old man said, "I believe you are right. Take him to bed; I'll be in shortly to attend to him."

Veeran guided him back to their cramped quarters and lowered him onto the rickety bed. Dorian curled up on one side, shivering as his brother pulled a thin blanket over him. Veeran sat down next to him, and the bed frame creaked and sagged beneath.

"I'm fine," Dorian tried to reassure his brother. He reached under his pillow and pulled out what was – other than the clothes on his back, though those were hardly of any significance – his only worldly possession: a book bound in plum-colored cloth, its pages worn from frequent use. Dorian clutched the book to his chest for a moment, remembering the girl who'd given it to him, with her kind gray eyes and her coppery hair, tied back by ribbons as deeply purple as the tome in his hand. Sometimes it felt a lifetime had passed since then.

His arms shook as he tried to prop the book on the bed next to him; no matter what he tried, he couldn't get it to stay open. His brother watched him, his brow creased and lips pressed in a thin line. Finally, Veeran reached toward him with one hand.

"I could read it to you," he said simply.

Dorian looked up at his brother and offered a weak smile. "You hate this book."

Veeran shrugged his shoulders but didn't withdraw his hand. Dorian glanced down at his most precious possession, then loosened his fingers from the book; his twin opened it and flipped past several dog-eared pages. "Where should I read?"

Dorian shut his eyes and drew the blanket up to his chin. "You pick."

He thought his twin might groan or mutter at that, but he said nothing, and Dorian heard only the sounds of London waking outside, and a soft flutter as Veeran continued to turn the pages. At last, the fluttering ceased, and Veeran exhaled and began to read:

"For he by words could call out of the sky
Both Sunne and Moone, and make them him obay:
The land to sea, and sea to maineland dry,
And darkesome night he eke could turne to day:
Huge hostes of men he could alone dismay,
And hostes of men of meanest things could frame,
When so him list his enimies to fray:
That to this day, for terror of his fame,
The feends do quake, when any him to them does name…"

Author's Note: I'm still not sure what possessed me to take a silly throwaway mention of a silly AU idea and turn it into an actual thing, but here we are. Despite my love of history, I make no guarantees that anything will be historically accurate, and I'm definitely not going to try to imitate any of the accents or speech patterns or slang that a couple of poor orphans would have had in this time period.

Also, that passage quoted at the end comes from Book III of Edmund Spenser's epic poem, The Faerie Queene.