Title: The Battle Pit
Author: levade
Fandom: Lord of the Rings (books)
Wordcount: 2,279
Rating: General Audiences
Characters: Original Characters
Prompt: scarecrow
Notes: For Spook_me 2017. Inspired by "The Scouring of the Shire", Return of the King. Ubeta'd, sorry - ran out of time "...nearly seventy of the ruffians lay dead on the field, and a dozen were prisoners. Nineteen hobbits were killed, and some thirty were wounded. The dead ruffians were laden on waggons and hauled off to an old sand-pit nearby and there buried: in the Battle Pit, as it was aftwards called. The fallen hobbits were laid together in a grave on the hill-side, where later a great stone was set up with a garden about it. So ended the Battle of the Bywater, 1429, the last battle fought in the Shire..."
The movies left out the Scouring of the Shire, and it's too bad! Sauron was killed when Wormtongue cut his throat and Wormtongue was killed by hobbit arrows. A much more satisfying end I think!
Summary: Many decades have passed since Aragorn's rule and some things have fallen out of memory and time. Settlers moving into the Shire should beware of things left behind.


"To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill."
"The Scouring of the Shire", Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien

~0O0~

We'd heard the old tales, of course we had. Trees that walked and fought, giants made of stone. Elves, immortal and more beautiful than the prettiest woman, dwarves who battled dragons, and little folk who fought some last, great battle in that green hill country just before the sea.

I reckoned it was just nonsense to keep folk out. After all, no one had seen any of the little folk for generations, not in the hill country or near Bree. They said once upon a time the little folk had lived in holes in those hills.

They say a lot of things, and a lot of it makes no sense. The Barrow Downs are just graves and the old forest is strange, that's true, but none I know has ever seen a tree move without the help of the wind.

They warned us, but we laughed and rebuilt the bridge, took out the rotting old sign that folk said used to warn us big people out of the Shire, and settled into the most lovely farm land ever seen. Those tall folk with the dark hair and grey eyes, they warned us to leave the sandy stretch near the hills be, and not disturb it. Said it was a battle pit, from long ago. We left it alone, aye, but it was near where the hills rose and little grew there in that sandy soil. 'Twas no hardship to let it be.

Nothing happened. The crops grew well, the children ran and played and all that nay-saying? Superstitions. Old wives telling tales.

Until that eleventh year.

The eleventh fall when harvest time came and Young Miller laid his leg open with scythe. Bled out right there on the field, he did, and the blood stained the wheat terrible, a trail of it that didn't fade until first hard rain. 'Twas after that folks got nervous about being out at night and the children wouldn't play in the corn fields. Said they could hear men's voices and the sounds of fighting. We laughed, for children's minds run as wild as they do in the summer, shoeless and chasing fireflies. Naught came of their fears. We found only corn and the sandy area where nothing grew.

But my people were scared like they never been scared before, and I decided something had to be done to settle the fools before they shot some young lovers out for a night under the stars.

~0O0~

The corn leaves rattled in the wind, dry husks of dead leaves crunching under my feet as I walked the rows of corn. Nothing else made a sound. No foxes racing over the fields shorn of golden wheat. No owls, swooping low in search of mice. No mice, scurrying about for a grain or two.

No grasshoppers. No crickets.

Nothing.

It was eerily silent with only the wind stirring the night.

Something moved suddenly, a dark dash of motion that had me spinning, torch raised in my hand as my other hand fumbled for the knife at my belt. Flickering light fell on the scarecrow, tied tight to a sturdy pole set deep in the ground, straw stuffing rustling in the wind, and his tattered cape fluttered before stilling. I let out a quiet laugh, nervous and high, and my heart pounded harder when the sound only seemed to be swallowed in the odd silence of the field.

With a last hard look at the scarecrow, I turned and set off toward the stretch of sand at the base of the hills. The fields ran near right up to that sandy pit, with a strip of bare dirt to walk around. Naught would grow in that strip of dirt. Not even turnips or carrots. Even the tall grass that grew all along the tops of the hills and down along the sides in spring left the sand of the pit alone.

And so did we.

The wind blew harder, coming off the sea and winding down through the old ruins of the tower hills, a bitter, briny smell that set the corn rattling again.

I shivered and looked around. Even the moon had deserted me for some clouds and left the night overly dark. There were no voices, no visions of folk long dead, but oh, the wind and the rattling rustle of the corn did set my nerves on edge. I decided I'd seen enough when a sudden gust blew against me, hard and then harder still. I took a step back and felt my boot sink into the sand, just about to my ankle. I staggered and looked down, expecting to see a hole or depression.

Something was wrapped around my ankle! Something tugging and tugging as if it wanted to pull me down into that pit of sand with it. I shouted loud when I saw a glint of white and, lowering the torch, I realized it was bones that had caught my foot. Long bones of fingers wrapped around my ankle, pulling and tugging at me, trying to drag me deep in that pit. I dropped the torch and pulled with all my might against that grip, tight and hard around my ankle, and finally, with a crack and a pop, broke free, that skeleton hand still wrapped around my ankle!

I staggered and tripped forward where sand became solid ground, and began to run hard, heart pounding, running blind, away. Away from that pit, straight into the corn.

Leaves slapped my face, caught at my clothing, pulled at my hair and I yelled something fierce before pulling free.

To run. How long, I can't rightly recall, but it felt as though my heart would burst when I saw the end of the corn row. Rustling leaves and the call of a raven sharp behind me, I pushed hard against the corn stalks that sought to wrap around my feet and trip me up.

But the corn shifted suddenly and there was only a solid row of plants, leaves twined and twisted together, and no matter how I pushed it only pushed back.

I turned and ran the way I'd come, back toward that pit, and I pushed hard to bust sideways through to another row. I was almost there, almost free!

I saw fire. Fire flicking from the top of a corn plant...

No. No, the plant was not on fire.

It moved, MOVED, and stepped out into the row where I stood as if rooted to the ground and I felt my stomach clench, my heart stop when those eyes of glowing fire turned to look at me. The grating sound of a scythe clashing with metal filled my ears, and the scarecrow, suddenly grown huge and hideous, the top of its head burning, it's fingers the blades of scythes, ran at me with a rattling cough of a laugh.

I screamed and ran like I have never run all my life, leaping over corn plants and slashing at them with my knife, shoving through those leaves, but right behind me...

Right behind, I heard the rustling sound of leaves and the crackling sound of fire that flickered from corn husk to corn husk and the rattling cough of the scarecrow. I felt its scythe fingers slashing at me, smelled the scent of fresh green as it cut through corn husks and a sudden sharp burn as those flashing scythes sliced into my back.

I staggered forward and burst out of the corn field, suddenly free of grasping leaves and ran as if the very wraiths of Sauron were on my trail. I didn't stop until I pounded across the bridge, almost collapsing at the first poles of the barricade wall we had put up against wolves.

Looking behind me, expecting the scarecrow, I blew out a breath and stared in disbelief.

Nothing pursued me. The only sound was my labored breathing and pounding heart.

I knew what I had seen, knew it well, and pushed myself away from that fence to run to the first house in sight. I beat hard on the door and cringed when I heard the guttural croak of a raven behind me, coming near. "OPEN! BEWARE!"

I ran to the next house, panic and a surety that something was coming pushing me through my exhaustion. "AWAKE! AWAKE! TO ARMS!"

From door to door, I yelled and pounded and woke every soul I could, and when they came out sleep-eyed and pinched-faced at being awakened, I yelled to grab bows, grab muskets, grab whatever weapon was at hand and assemble at the barricade wall.

They thought me mad, the crazed-eyed man with shredded clothing and blood running down his back, but then a scream, high and thin, broke the babble and the wailing cry carried across the fields.

Everyone turned, wide-eyed and suddenly silent to stare past the barricade wall.

Out of the hay fields and the corn fields they came, creeping forward slow, just a bit, just a bit. And above them, ravens wheeled and croaked until the sky and the stars with it was naught but feathers and beaks and flashing, gleaming eyes.

We stood then, shoulder to shoulder, musket and pitchfork and bow, and trembled at the sight of those living creatures of straw and hay slowly, surely creeping forward. Row upon row of them, as if the winds had gathered up the hay and bound it together then given it breath.

Right up against the barricade they came, pushing against the solid logs dug deep until the barricade groaned as if in agony, and when the rustling and groaning was almost too much and the logs must surely shatter...

They stopped.

And the silence was achingly loud.

They looked at us with eyes that gleamed with unnatural fire, cold and angry in the bitterness of night.

One shifted forward, taller the than rest with eyes of malice set in that straw, red and gleaming, and arms of branches, knobby and stiff. A beard of corn silk beneath corn husks for lips, some awful mockery of man, and it spoke, voice deep and treacherous. "Eleven years you have harvested this land. Eleven years with hands of greed that took even the gleanings and left nothing for the hungry dead who roam the hills. By blood and strength did we win this land, and they killed us with treachery and lies. They buried our bodies unmarked. Unremembered." It's voice made us shake and tremble. "Long ago did they pass, and we remain. Eleven years have you robbed this land, but by blood and death do we claim it now!"

"Hold!" Shaking and trembling, I stepped forward. The voice was compelling, but fear held me fast to my resolve. Fear of losing all we had built, all we loved. The bitter cold nights were coming, days growing short and there was nowhere we could go.

This was our home.

I grabbed a torch and held it in my trembling hand. "Eleven years you say we have held this land, growing and reaping crops. Eleven years and never one warning, never a single whisper it was not ours! What held you silent so long, Lord of the Hay?"

Could a creature of straw and corn silk sneer? I swear it so, it did. The deep voice boomed over the fields, sending the ravens to the air again. "Eleven years we suffered you, thieves and cowards!"

"Stand back!" Angry now, I took a step forward. "By hard labor we claimed this land and made empty fields and forests a home. By blood of our own people we have paid, and hard labour as well!" Young Miller's face rose in my mind, cheeks still round with youth, and his blue eyes merry. His father had no child upon which to pass his trade, and his house was silent and still with the mourning for that beloved son. I saw someone move to stand next to me, and then another, and another. I held the torch higher, hand steady now. "You have no claim on this land, Lord of the Hay!"

Someone lit an arrow and shot it, and the flaming barb slapped the barricade wall with a solid thunk, close enough that the threatening figure shifted away. Red eyes gleamed solid as the ravens came back to the trees and settled along the barricade wall like a black cloak. "Blood you have spilled, and that claim I cannot deny. But mark my words, Man." It moved back, that terrible figure, but it laughed deep and low, a sound that made some drop their weapons and cover their ears. "Eleven years from now, we will return for a reckoning."

And like a wave of silence and darkness, they faded away, back into the fields and the ravens took wing, flying up into the night sky.

Eleven years.

~0O0~


My children are grown now, and they work the land, though we leave the lands closest that sand pit well alone. The fields have lain fallow for nigh over ten years.

Eleven years is almost come and no one has died, nor has anyone been grievously wounded.

No blood has been spilled on those fields.

Eleven years is almost up.

I do not know what will come out of those fields for us this time.

~0O0~

starlight-in-your-eyes:

do you ever just think about Jesus living here on earth

i think sometimes we tend to think He just bounced from one miracle to another and everyday was a Bible story but His ministry lasted for three years and the Gospels don’t actually cover that much so

imagine all those ordinary days??

He probably had favorite foods and morning routines and sore dirty feet from walking while sweat ran in His eyes in the hot Judean sun and He got blisters and hiccups and colds and maybe He snored

all the times He laughed till He cried and i bet He had inside jokes with His disciples. imagine having an inside joke with the person who gives you breath to laugh in the first place

and He had human skills He knew how to build a house and cook and wash his clothes and read

passing food at the dinner table and bumping hands with Jesus

talking about silly inconsequential things like the weather

maybe some nights John was sleepy and he leaned against Jesus and could hear His heartbeat

maybe some nights a disciple had insomnia and he climbed out of his bedroll to find Jesus sitting against a rock, looking up at heaven, and they sat and watched the stars together

(the God of the universe looking up through short-sighted eyes at His creation, and the disciple wants so badly to ask what it was like to shape each star, but he looks at those calloused human hands and something in him trembles)

do you ever think that the ordinary days so far outnumbered the miraculous ones that the disciples, sometimes, almost forgot

and then He goes and turns water into wine and feeds five thousand people from a kid’s lunch and brings dead Lazarus walking alive out of the tomb and they just kind of lose their breath

not because they didn’t expect deity to accomplish the impossible but because this God has been living with them

it’s not the miracles that are unthinkable

It made me think about some of my own attitudes, my own actions and those of my church. Mostly, it made me look again to Jesus to see how his actions guide us. And if you do identify as LGBTQ, please know there will never be hate posted here. Never. Shame on me if I do.

I have gay friends, straight friends, Christian friends, and atheist friends. Friends. People I love and care a great deal about. We don't always agree. *G*

I love them, but now? I'm not sure I've been caring enough about them.

Food for thought. Food for action.

---

Violence Toward LGBTQ: A Pastor’s Reflection


Saint Augustine once wrote the famous words:

In essentials, unity;
in non-essentials, liberty;
in all things, charity.

Today, and especially in light of the horrendous massacre in Orlando, in which forty nine souls had their lives cut short by a shooting spree at a gay night club, I would like to focus on the third of Augustine’s three statements. For the purposes of this reflection, I will add the words, “and toward all people and all people groups” to the charity part.

Because of the way that Jesus came to us in love—not while we were at our best but while we were at our worst, not when we were treating him as a friend but when we were treating him as an enemy—we Christians of all people should find creative and consistent ways to love, listen to, and serve all kinds of people…especially in their days of need and loss and sorrow.

In light of the Orlando tragedy, I am especially moved to highlight this basic gospel imperative, to love your neighbor as yourself. This is not a time to be silent about the horrible injustice that occurred in Orlando last weekend. And it is not a time for preaching one’s views about right and wrong when it comes to sexuality. This is a time to love. This is a time for compassion. This is a time for tears, to enter into the sorrow and the loss, not with answers but with presence.

And, whatever one’s beliefs may be about sexuality, silence is never an option where abuse and injustice are perpetrated. Because, as Dr. King once said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Furthermore, Jesus never seemed too concerned about sending “mixed messages.” He welcomed sinners of every kind—religious sinners and irreligious sinners, sexual sinners and pious sinners, bottom of the barrel and holier-than-thou sinners—and ate with them. Without caveats. And he took a lot of criticism for it from pious religious folk. But he didn’t seem to care.

A day or two after the Orlando shooting, I cane across a tweet by an LGBTQ advocate named Tamara Lunardo, retweeted by Rachel Held Evans, which said the following:

Straight friends,
especially you Christians,
please know:
We hear your silence so loud.

According to Ms. Lundardo, most of the outcries about Orlando seemed to be coming from everyone except those who identify as followers of Jesus. It’s as if she was saying, “Hey you Christians, they are hurting down there in Orlando. So then, you Christians, where are your tears? Where are your outcries? Where is your compassion? If it’s there, let us see it and feel it and experience it. If you have a light, you Christians, this is most certainly not the time to be hiding it beneath a bushel.”

There are exceptions to Ms. Lunardo’s concern, like this thoughtful piece about weeping and mourning together over lives and loved ones lost from the Southern Baptist leader, and a relatively new friend of mine, Russell Moore. Or one tweet and then another from another friend of mine, pastor Matt Chandler, to his sizable number of followers:

What a horrific act of evil. Christians your Muslim friends & neighbors woke up this morning wondering how they will be viewed. Love them. Also consider the fear and pain this will have in the LGBT community. Let’s be the people of God in this heinous and awful violence.

But, responses like these notwithstanding, to whatever degree Ms. Lunardo is right in her concern, that is, to whatever degree Christians do choose to remain silent about such violence done to any person or people group created in the Image of God, is the degree to which the gospel’s humanitarian pulse and ethic must be revisited.

In the spirit of loving deeply in the midst of having differences, I am especially struck by the following excerpt from an essay written by a former chaplain at Harvard:

The divide between Christians and atheists is deep…I’m dedicated to bridging that divide—to working with…atheists, Christians, and people of all different beliefs and backgrounds on building a more cooperative world. We have a lot of work to do…My hope is that these tips can help foster better dialogue between Christians and atheists and that, together, we can work to see a world in which people are able to have honest, challenging, and loving conversations across lines of difference.

The former Harvard chaplain’s name is Chris Stedman.

Chris is an atheist, who also identifies as “queer.”

Is it possible to disagree with each other on sensitive subjects, and still maintain meaningful and even loving friendships with each other? And, as Russell Moore suggests, is it not only possible but imperative and right to weep and mourn across such lines…and in such a way that the lines become transformed into bridges?

As an atheist and member of the LGBTQ community, Chris Stedman believes it is possible.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe it is not only possible, but is an essential part of Christian discipleship. It is morally imperative for the people of Jesus to weep with all of our neighbors who weep, and mourn with all of our neighbors who mourn.

“Who is my neighbor?” the teacher of the law asked Jesus.

Your neighbor, O child of God and heir of the Kingdom, is anyone who is near and anyone who has a need.

In the spirit of neighbor love, Kate Shellnutt from Christianity Today posted this on Twitter, in response to Orlando:

Looking for churches volunteering
or offering security for Pride events
in light of the Orlando massacre.
#lovethyneighbor

I don’t know about you, but to me this provocative comment from Kate feels like something Jesus would affirm. You know, Jesus…the same Jesus who healed ten lepers even though only one of them would say thank you, the same Jesus who made a Samaritan the hero of his story about neighbor-love right in the face of the reality that Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans hated Jews, the same Jesus who commended Rahab for providing refuge for Israel’s spies even though she was still, at the time, an active prostitute, the same Jesus who went after Peter in love when Peter had denied him three times, before Peter ever repented or said that he was sorry, the same Jesus who looked a prostitute dead in the eye, while she was still dressed like a prostitute and had come to him straight off the streets to kiss his feet with her prostitute’s lips and douse his skin with her prostitute’s perfume, and praised her for her expression of love, regardless of how unorthodox it may have been to the cultural norms of the day.

Kate Shellnutt’s tweet sounds to me like what Chick Fil-A, a Christian owned and operated restaurant, did in response to the Orlando shootings. On Sunday, the day that Chick Fil-A is always closed so its employees can worship God at their churches and observe a Sabbath rest, they decided instead to brew gallons of tea and prepare hundreds of their sandwiches, and then they handed them out free of charge to people who were donating blood for the LGBTQ shooting victims.

This is the same company who, because of its President/CEO’s belief in the Bible and, on that basis, the historic Judeo-Christian sex ethic, got boycotted by a gay activist and then reached out and ended up becoming good friends with the same gay activist (you can read the full story, from the perspective of the gay activist, Shane Windemeyer, here).

The truest disciples of Jesus, not in spite of their Christian beliefs but because of them, take initiative to love, listen to, and serve those who don’t share their beliefs.

Chick Fil-A’s response to Orlando is merely an attempt to mirror the action God has taken toward everyone who believes, and the reason why anybody ever believes in the first place…

It is God’s kindness that leads us to repent.

It is not our repentance that leads God to be kind.

Let’s make sure that God’s kindness is tasted not only on the pages of Scripture, but through our lives and through our loving. Because the more we are into Jesus, the more conservative we are in our belief that every single word of the Bible is right and good and true, the more liberal we will be in the ways that we love.

Jesus said to the adulteress, “I do not condemn you. Now go leave your life of sin.” Reverse the order of these two sentences, and you lose Christianity. Reverse the order of these two sentences, and you lose Jesus.

This is the faithful response. Yes, this. To seek with all of our hearts to love our LGBTQ neighbors in ways that our LGBTQ neighbors themselves would recognize as love. The response that makes us suspect in the eyes of those who are religiously smug and relationally scared, the response that leads some to even accuse us of being soft on law because we are so heavy on grace. The response that causes onlookers, especially the more pious ones, to mischaracterize us as “gluttons and drunks” because of the aroma of Jesus, who was similarly accused, that seeps out of us.

In theory this sounds reasonable, but in real life it is messy. As Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, love in practice is a dreadful thing compared to the love in dreams. But the real and messy love—the kind that leads us to maintain conviction while communicating love and compassion and empathy to those who might not agree with our convictions—is better than the love in dreams, which is a sentimental love that has no roots. The real and messy love, not the love in dreams, is the love that Jesus entered into. And we must follow.

And so I ask again, is it possible to profoundly disagree with someone and love them deeply at the same time? Is it possible to hold deep convictions and embrace people who reject your deep convictions simultaneously?

Yes, it is.

Do you remember Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man (Mark 10:17-27)? Do you remember how Jesus told the man to sell all of his possessions, give to the poor, and then follow him? Do you remember how the man then turned away from Jesus because he had great wealth? If you do remember the encounter, did you catch these two incredibly significant details?

First, Jesus looked at the man and loved him.

Second, the man walked away from Jesus feeling sad. Not judged. Not ticked off. Not feeling bullied or dismissed or excluded or marginalized. Not saying to Jesus and his followers, “I hear your silence so loud.” No. Not this. But SAD. The man walked away in the tension of paradox—held captive by the chains of his money idol, yet sensing a forfeiture of a different and perhaps more life-giving form of wealth.

So let’s ask ourselves, what will matter more to us in the end—that we successfully put others in their place, that we took a “moral stand” regardless of who we alienated and whose fragile spirits we crushed in the process…or that we loved well enough for lines to turn into bridges? God have mercy on us if we do not love well because all that matters to us is being right and winning culture wars and taking moral stands that put people in their place but don’t win any people’s hearts. I want to contend that truth and love can go together. I want to contend that truth and love must go together.

Into a climate in which Christians were routinely made fun of, maligned, and persecuted for their convictions, Peter wrote these words:

In your hearts honor Christ as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame (1 Peter 3:15-16).

Critics turned to friends, lines turned to bridges…through gentleness and respect. Can you imagine it?

So then, as for the dear souls lost in Orlando…

Look at your neighbors with compassion, and lean into love. Listen to the cries and the sorrows. And take to heart these words put to song by Charlie Peacock:

Don’t speak. Save your words.
Silence the lips
of the people with all of the answers.
Gently show them
that now is the time for tears.

Because Jesus wept.

No, really. You need to listen to this and watch these kids. They are GOOD.



XD Wish they'd had this when I was in school!

LOL for the Vader


♥♥

I gotta tell you this. Star Wars was an enormous part of my years growing up. It ate parts of my imagination that I will never see again.

This isn't a bad thing. I feel fortunate that I saw the original trilogy before the prequels because if you came onboard with the prequels first? I'm sorry. Really. There needs to be an apology made.

No, they weren't all bad. I loved parts. I hate, loathe and want to spit at other parts which I won't get into here because I respect other's opinions and expect the same back.

But they lacked a lot of what the original trilogy had -- and yes, there were problems with Eps. IV, V and VI.

I think when you have a story that spans so many years, so many generations and a writer who changed his mind so many times (yes, George, I mean YOU) there are bound to be issues.

My second fandom is Tolkien, and it suffers the same problems. Two writers, though Christopher was working off his father's notes and writings, and a very long time span, with the same generational span of fans.

Opinions change, views shift, and what was once widely accepted suddenly is viewed with a skeptical, cynical eye.

I really think you have to look at generational differences. There's been a shift in the perception of life since 1977 when Star Wars (A New Hope) came out. Fans then saw it one way. Fans now see it another.

So this trailer isn't going to be perceived the same by all the fans. You have fans who were adults in 1977. Some were kids. Some weren't born yet.

Me, I'm in the middle. I grew up in the middle of all of it, but there are definitely fans younger and far older than me. I'm from the age of grunge and disillusionment, where we knew darn well we weren't going to be able to do as well in life as the generations before us and yes, we still resent that, sorry. It was more gritty and, in some ways, more honest.

We're kind of back to the lalala, everything is fine here, we're all fine, how are you? generation when most certainly it is NOT all fine.

That's another rant. :p

So, the trailers. I...am on the fence so far. I'm cautious in trusting JJ Abrams with SW. The first Star Trek movie was fine, the second? A bloody pulp of a shipwreck.

Can he understand it all and embrace the generations of fans and not screw it over like George did with all of his canon re-writes? Hm. I don't know. I hope so! I would love to see something that was as controversial and wonderfully written as Empire Strikes Back.

No Ewoks, please. No JarJar (one can only hope he's dead by now or someone finally killed him).

Star Wars was a mythology in its conception, and turned into a marketing monster by the prequels. Can we go back? Not sure. Hope so, but not holding my breath.

Seeing the Falcon again reminds me of that story (forget which book...and no, not going to talk about EU books) where the people in charge of monitoring the outbound and incoming flights have a conversation about why the Millennium Falcon is up on the pad again, like it is so many mornings. "Don't worry, he's not going to make trouble," one says. "He goes up there to remember the old days."

Aww, Han. Damn, dude. I hope they haven't totally neutered you!! Sometimes I wish you hadn't married Leia. I wish you'd stayed wild and rebellious or maybe gone out in a blaze of glory.

And Luke. Luke was someone I understood as he stood there staring out at the sinking suns, wishing so hard he could get off that backwater world.

Be careful what you wish for, eh?

Especially if you're a Skywalker.

But that's the thing. For life-long fans, regardless of age, these stories and characters have found a place to live in our hearts, in our imaginations and they grow as we grow, changing with the years. That's why I say it's perception. George put it out there for the world to see and it became ours, our story, our friends fighting for their respective sides. It continued and grew.

It was not stagnant. It didn't die. Fans wrote stories, authors wrote EU books and contradicted each other and fans argued and dressed up and dreamed....

Once you put a story out there, it is never solely yours again. Not if it sparks in readers/viewers. I think George was smart to sell it and get out. It wasn't his any more.

I know you're feeling weighed down
It's all on your shoulders
I know the dreams in your head
Don't look any closer
I'm gonna make you stronger
Hold on just a little bit longer
Cause I'll be there
When you feel like you're going under
Yea I'm gonna be there for ya, yea

The sky could fall
The ground could shake
The stars burn out
And seasons change
Time will pass and beauty fade
But all My love will remain

When there's a secret to tell
It's locked and I'll keep it close
When you're walking through fire
I'll take you to streets of gold
I'm gonna make you stronger
Hold on just a little bit longer
Cause I'll be there
When you feel like you're going under
Yea I'm gonna be there for ya, yea

And when the world all around you
Is out of place
And you can't seem to find a familiar face
I'm here to remind you
My love remains

Royal Tailor - Remain
From the album Royal Tailor