voice » there's gotta be a better way to waste a day

[rebelprincess]

Hello, everyone.

[ Snow's voice is cheerful, though she sounds a little awkward. She's not used to addressing the network publicly. ]

I've been spending a lot of time in the library lately, reading a lot of mythology and... tales. [ Shh. ] It made me wonder about what everyone's favorite stories from back home might be. I'd like to hear them, if anyone's willing to share.

Thank you.

Comments

[voice]

[borntorebel]

I'm not sure if I know the same sort of tales or myths that are told in most of the worlds that people here are from, but I enjoyed to listen to my father talk about what happened before our government was turned from a Republic into an Empire.

[rebelprincess]

[ Now if that isn't a notion Snow can sympathize with... ]

Those kinds of stories are important. It's good to remember our histories.

Would you like to share?

voice.

[perceptum]

Everyone's a false story, a fallacy. [ she says, casually, as though this information is nothing - but more importantly: ] When I was small, they told stories about Earth-That-Was. Before we moved out into the stars, there was a planet. They said it was beautiful.

[borntorebel]

[Well, despots all tend to have certain things in common.]

You'd do better to actually ask my father, since he is on board, but my favorite is how he met my mother.

[Since she now knows exactly who Padmé Amidala of Naboo is.]

[rebelprincess]

[ It's somewhat difficult to argue with that first assertion, apart from the fact that it isn't phrased as an argument at all. Being as how Snow White is something of a story-come-to-life herself, who's to say that everyone isn't just a story? Not... necessarily a false one, but still. ]

Was beautiful? Was it abandoned?

[perceptum]

They left a long time ago. Used it up and ruined the ground and all that was left was to run. [ this all happened centuries before river was even born, but she sounds almost a little wistful all the same. it's hard to be homesick for a place you've never known, but she's giving it a good go all the same. ] There are beautiful stars, but Earth-That-Was...they say it was breath-taking.

[rebelprincess]

[ Funny, that. ]

That sounds familiar. I think my husband's favorite story to tell is the one of how we met.

[ And there's some sadness in her voice, because he's not here to tell it. ]

[rebelprincess]

It's a bright planet. Beautiful blue for all the ocean. I've never seen it from the stars, but I've seen it in pictures taken from them.

I'm not surprised to hear that things didn't end well.

[borntorebel]

Hm, yes, well, the story is a little complicated. My birth mother was married to a man who fought against the evil in our galaxy. [She's trying to tell this story as best she can, without the spite that she still feels for Darth Vader.]

He supposedly died before the birth of my twin brother and myself. Our mother died shortly thereafter. My father, the man who raised me, was...is good friends with her.

And the story of how he met his wife, the woman who raised me as her own child, is his favorite to tell anyone who will listen.

[rebelprincess]

[ Oh. Well, that sounds like a semi-complicated story that Snow can absolutely empathize with. ]

I'm sorry about your birth parents. It's good that you were taken in by someone who could do right by them.

[ Don't mind her, she's just going to sit here and have a billion regrets about what happened to her own daughter. ]

And I bet he tells that story as often as he can get away with, too. Those are the kinds of stories people don't get tired of hearing, I think. Love stories are like that.

[majestyofthethrone]

There was once a princess, in a kingdom far away, whose father coveted her. Her mother, thinking that this was not good, took the princess to a tall tower, where there were twelve coffins, and she told her, these are your brothers - this is where your father thinks they are, but they are not really here. I used old magic and I turned them into swans.

She showed the princess a feather, and the feather summoned twelve swans to take her away. Before she left, her mother said that they could defeat their father, but the princess had to sew shirts of aster-flowers for her brothers, and she had to do it in silence.

So the girl promised she would do this, and flew away with them, to live in the woods as swans did. Every day she would gather aster flowers, and sew, and do it in silence.

Years passed.

One day, a prince from a neighboring kingdom, he saw her, doing her hard work, and he tried to chase her, but she ran away. So he kept hunting for her, although his mother did not like it, although it was not good for his kingdom.

But still.

Finally, he found her, and he spoke to her, but of course she did not speak back. He was so taken with her that he invited her to come back with her to him castle, and because it was winter and cold, the princess agreed, as long as she could take her flowers and her shirts. Her brothers did not like this, but she went anyway. The Prince's mother did not like it either. It did not take long for her to try and kill the princess, claiming she was a witch. The princess kept making the shirts, though, and just as they came to take her away, to the pyre, she finished the last one.

The swans came, then, and the prince threw the shirts on the swans, and they transformed into tall men. Together, they overthrew the Prince's mother, and their own father.

But the girl, now able to speak, and heir to a large kingdom, for her brothers had sworn this when their mother turned them into swans to save them, was not so sure what she wanted.

And she was horrified when her brothers began to turn on one another, as swans do. They killed her Prince on their wedding day, and tried to marry her themselves, because they were their father's sons, and there is no good in the men of their blood.

So the girl killed the last brother, the youngest, as he slept, after their wedding night, and prayed that their child would be a girl.

[borntorebel]

[It's even more complicated if she brings in the Force and her brother. She's literally only mentioned the bare essentials.]

I didn't really know them or have a connection to my birth parents. I had a vague flash of my mother's face, but that was it. It wasn't until I arrived on this ship that I actually met her. She was lovely.

[But she's gone again. And that's all Leia will say about it.]

He does. There was a succession problem and it ended in a marriage between him and my mother. It's a much better story than the one time I filed a petition against naps at the age of three.

[righteously]

Two words:

Star
Wars

hope you don't mind a threadjack here

[de_void]

hello stranger would you like to be friends.

voice.

[de_void]

So are we talking myths and legends, or are we talking just fiction in general? [this is important, snow.]

it's beautiful tbh

[righteously]

on a creepy scale of one to ten, this is like a six and a half
just an fyi

[de_void]

gonna be honest, i've gotten worse.

[righteously]

I honest to god believe you, I really do

[de_void]

i'm basically harmless though. [liar.]

i just get a little excited about star wars because my best friend has never seen it and you basically just reaffirmed my faith in humanity right now.

[righteously]

kid, if you had any idea how ironic that statement was
either way, you need to get that guy to watch some damn star wars, that's pathetic
I mean it's borderline freaking illegal, that's a national treasure.

[de_void]

that's what i've tried to tell him. and it's not even like he has a reputation to lose by doing something nerdy.

not that star wars is all that nerdy. i mean, allison has seen it.

[righteously]

what
that's
okay, nobody loses any part of their reputation over star wars, man, that's just
that's

wait, you know allison?
who is this

[de_void]

stiles.





YOU know allison? [what the frickin frak has allison been holding out on him about fellow star wars fans.]

[righteously]

holy crap, seriously?

[ Stiles "what the hell is a Stilinski" Stilinski. He remembers you. ]

let's just say it's a small multiverse, kid.

[ Like seriously, damn. ]

[de_void]

yeah no shit. still haven't explained how you know allison. or my name, for that matter.

i mean i know i'm a pretty big deal... [look dean, you can only expect stiles to be serious for one sentence, maybe two tops. he is incapable of anything more than that. which you should be well aware of if you do indeed know him.]