All around them were trees. Great, silent ones. Their branches were noisy, Leia noticed. When she craned her neck the canopy was so high she stumbled. Up there, the leaves danced and bounced.
Below, winding in and out among the great trunks were ankle high wildflowers, small yellow and white blossoms that gleamed in the smoky dawn like twinkly starlight. She walked with Han along the path the flowers suggested, having no idea where they led.
They were being followed by the forest but they were also following the path the forest set out for them. Leia didn't know what that meant exactly, except- well, it meant something. A togetherness? Perhaps a guided togetherness, one leading the other...
It might be spring, even though most of the trees had foliage. What gave her that impression was each great trunk showing a carpet of moss growing only on one side. Only the one, as if all the great trees were in agreement with the moss about how they would tolerate each other. The moss too looked to be in bloom. Sticking out sideways from the trunk, the blossoms were hairlike; delicate and straight, which reminded her of the fur on Chewie's arm for some reason, even though this hairy carpet was green. Oh, that's why, she thought of Chewie, and she snorted.
"Princess," Han said. He didn't call her that as much anymore. Long ago, or it felt so long ago now. Ages. But it wasn't time so much as it was the people involved. Time passed. Did people?
Leia frowned. They did, but a person passed was a person dead. They grew, she decided. Yes. They could grow old, and they could grow better.
"Did you say something?" older, better Han asked.
"What's the difference between a wood and a forest?" she asked.
She held his hand, her own arm aching where she'd been shot. She could move it though, if a bit gingerly. The gentle swinging motion of their arms as they walked didn't cause an extra hurt, and anyway she wouldn't have stopped. She was learning there were things she couldn't stop, but this was one she could and still she wouldn't.
She was a little unsteady too and needed the support of his hand. The ground was soft through centuries of leaf deposit, and every once in a while a broken limb, half-hidden and hard, surprised her.
"I think Chewie would call this a forest," he answered her, his voice quiet and deep, and she could tell he was mulling over the answer. He might not know either, but Chewie did. Chewie of the trees, Leia thought, and imagined him bouncing with the unseen creatures high above her.
"It's got something to do with size," Han finished.
"Because it's old," she nodded.
Han walked, and after a few paces nodded slowly. He seemed to still be listening long after she had stopped. "You take a pain pill?" he asked.
Leia blinked. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing," he hastened to say. "Just wondering how you feel."
"I can't remember," she answered. They had slept a little after the celebration quieted down, but it had gone on so long it might have lasted most of the night. And now dawn was breaking. "I think it wore off."
"Maybe," he said with an indulgent smile.
A few hours ago, Leia had learned a secret she knew she would take to her deathbed. And then she'd gotten shot. She looked down at her arm, the site of that small nonlethal explosion, watched as blood seeped through her sleeve. The color changed, blooming like the wildflowers growing among the trees. Everything meant something. First a drop and then a spread. It fascinated her.
"Spring can't be contained," she said now to Han. She had told him her secret, and blamed it on the pain pill. It surprised her at first, the words tumbling out. It was war, and she could see she had surrendered something to General Solo, in the same manner the Imperial stormtroopers in the woods- forest, pardon me, Chewie- surrendered weapons and armor. They were back at the base camp, weakened; a group huddled on the ground watching the others celebrate.
They came to a fallen tree. Someday it would be a log, but right now it was freshly dead. It was so big, she thought grievously. So long, so tall. Through the new gap in the canopy created by its absence she saw the dawn breaking in ribbons of pink and orange clouds.
"So beautiful," she murmured, struck by the majesty of the new day. "These colors. This forest."
Han stood atop the log and spread his palms. "May I?" he asked. She looked a question, and he placed his arms on her waist to hoist her over the tree. Her vision blurred with the speed in which he moved her, everything reduced to streaks of green and brown.
"I hate to tell you, sweetheart," Han said, "but the battle made this sunrise."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"The smoke, the chemicals, in the atmosphere. It's some kind of science. The suns' rays hit atmo and they bend and you see colors. Probably yesterday it wasn't as pretty."
"I had forgotten about sunrises."
Han had to turn his head to the left to look at her. That was new, the switch from sneaky glances to meeting eyes. And she thought of how when she used to sneak looks, she'd think about his hair over his brow, or his jawline, or how he moved. She could look openly now, and it was freeing.
"You know what that is," and he swung their joined hands upward, pointing at the colors, and it didn't hurt her arm any more than holding it still did. "That," he said, "is victory."
"Victory," she repeated, unsure of what to make of that.
The battle was over, and for once it seemed like the war might truly be ended. All the battles. No more battles. They didn't have to fight anymore, and it felt strange. Not that she wanted to fight. She'd longed for this day. Intensely. Dangerously. And now she didn't know what the day held, if she should take a pain pill or eat breakfast or kiss Han long and deep.
"Not as pretty?" she asked.
He smiled down at her. "It didn't wear off," he told her.
"My heart got shot once," she nodded at him. "A laser went through it."
"Are you talking about-"
"And then I think it froze, and for a long time it didn't feel anything at all."
"I had a frozen heart once, too," he shared.
"Did it hurt?"
"It did."
"Mine, too. This arm is nothing like that," she told him.
He smiled. "That's good. I thought it was different. Informative. At times even a bit entertaining."
She heard the tease. "Entertaining?" and she bumped his hip, and they walked some more. She didn't know where they were going. She had no destination, but maybe he did.
The sunrise was over quickly, the sky now blue. On her own homeworld, where the sun would never again shine, her mother had told her the color of Alderaan's sky was the reflection of the seas, and that's why it was blue. It must be true of Endor as well. Unless there was some constant light-bending thing going on.
But he was right about why the forest looked the way it did. The haze had given way in the dawn to reveal wisps of smoke curling before great trunks of trees, some bearing hurtful gouges. Something had happened here. Something much more tangible than a sunrise, that left the forest silent and still.
Victory, on the other hand, was something she had contemplated. The surrendered troopers back at camp were seeing the same sunrise. "To the other side, this must look like defeat," she said. Such beauty. But they would sing laments, or cry, or perhaps get so wrapped up in their end they wouldn't notice.
"Everything is both," she said.
"Boy oh boy, it did not wear off," he chuckled.
Sunrises, Leia thought. They happened every day, though differently.
"What do you want from this," she sighed, "from this day."
"You," he said readily. "And a nap, with you, until you're healed. And then you. Every day. All day. You."
She tucked her arms into his middle and the position of her wounded arm felt perfect, immobilized and cushioned by his warm torso. It didn't hurt. It had been such a long time without relief, and she was so... overcome, grateful, so... she didn't know, except that suddenly she felt terribly sad, like she'd been sad a long time and that it was now time to cry.
Han held her a long while, wordlessly dropping kisses into her hair. The chirping of the birds got bolder and the day grew warmer. Han's shirt was wet, she realized, from her tears, she'd cried so much. And then she was ready to stop.
"I want that nap," she said.
He kissed her once more, and lifted the bottom of his shirt up. "Need a tissue?" he asked ruefully.
She wiped her face with her good arm, smiling shyly. "No," she lied. "We should get back to camp."
He took hold of her hand again. "It's this way."
Leia had no real idea where the camp was but she trusted Han. That, too, had taken a while, but it was there now, always.
If she were to listen to him, the vision she now had was influenced by the pain pill, yet she chose to believe it. It was she and Han, in springtime, and they were new and young and tender, and the rays of the sun would nourish them, and they would grow. Winter was inevitable. Why go through it alone?
Many thanks and much respect to AmongstEmeraldClouds, who edited this piece and who taught me a lot about writing.