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winterA day of nothing but waiting for other people to do their jobs, and of course my vampire muses have taken a runner. Fortunately a certain (ex)Jedi is too polite to refuse me.
First 25 of a set of 50 prompts from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
1character, but using three sentences for each prompt. No pairing, no sense, no purpose apart from being able to say "This is the Yan Dooku in my head."
MEDITATIONS ON A FALL
Part 1
In Yan’s Trials, he is blind and deaf and entangled in a labyrinth of walkways and machinery. Then the light appears. He strikes.
When night is dying and sleep does not come, he lights up his lightsaber and places it on the bedstand. The blade stretching into the fading darkness. Its hum lulls him to sleep.
For a Jedi, to want is forbidden, Yan’s Master tells him. To have is forbidden. But no-one says anything about wishing for the moon.
To each, there is a time, he thinks as he brushes red dust from his clothes. Or perhaps better to think that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Old Serennian sayings are more comfort to him than Jedi aphorisms, these days.
A shiver runs from his elbows to his shoulders, a prelude to tension. He drops to the floor, and the blaster bolt draws sparks from the bulkhead. The Force moves with him.
In the eyes of his enemies, Dooku sees fear and anger, and that is as it should be, for his calm and courage are guided by Light to win over Dark. In the eyes of his fellow Jedi, he sees respect and comradeship, and he is pleased, for he has given all he has in their name.
In the eyes of a woman, he sees yearning, and he does not understand.
As the lightsaber slices into flesh and the warlord falls to the sand of the arena, the crowd screams like a single thousand-throated creature of Abyssian nightmare. Dooku does not hear it. There is no chaos; there is order.
Qui-Gon asks his Master if he does not feel cold at all, but Dooku just smiles. He does not talk about the nights on the plains of Serenno or the noble dahiki that only come out once the moon sets, wary of all that moves so much as a hair’s breadth. He smiles, and remembers the hunt.
When new younglings arrive in the Jedi Temple, their personal possessions are taken from them so that nothing should remind them of their previous lives. Yoda washes the cuts on the palm of a six-year-old boy, wounds inflicted by a medallion that was handed over without protest once asked for, and wonders if the time is coming for him to take another padawan. The boy watches him and does not make a sound.
Yoda tells him he talks too much, but Padawan Dooku knows, deep in his mind, when he’s right and when someone else is wrong. It doesn’t make sense to him to remain silent and let others stray from the path when he can show them the way. Years later, he remembers the conversation as he deflects blaster bolts fired by an enraged princess who didn’t appreciate Qui-Gon’s criticism of the way she treated her servants.
It has been forty years since he last saw these, forty years between his journey to Coruscant and his father’s funeral, but he still recognizes every portrait in the attic gallery of Dooku Hall. The only unfamiliar face is a smiling large-eyed child in orange and blue, gesturing imperiously astride his toy speeder from the last painting in the gallery. He wonders what happened to that boy.
Try not, do, Master Yoda always tells him. But he’s not dismayed when the first lightsaber he builds fizzles out in the rain. His next one will be better, and no-one expected a seven-year-old Youngling to construct a perfect saber anyway.
Jocasta’s hand never trembles when she updates the register of active Jedi. She still bites her lip, though, when she touches the screen and makes a thick line appear, cutting a familiar name in two. Yan Dooku: missing, presumed renegade.
The shard-gecko crouches down in Qui-Gon’s lap and hisses, ruffling its scalpel-sharp scales. Dooku pauses on the doorstep of his padawan’s cabin and bows formally, ignoring the boy’s quizzical look. The reptile lowers its head in turn and lays its scales flat again; some manners are universal.
His first thought is that the holocron looks like the sunset sky over Coruscant, filigree light-sculptures of traffic trails against the bloodied clouds. The label under it, in a long-dead librarian’s hand, makes no logical sense. How can knowledge be prohibited?
Dooku’s starfighter banks sharply and follows the trail of explosions down to the planet surface. The battle is fought in black and white. It’s not until he looks for survivors that the colour sensitivity in his eyes recovers and he sees that his own lightsaber is red.
“Yan!” the woman calls out across the crowded starport, with the familiarity of a childhood playmate. As he approaches, she catches herself and curtsies. “My lord Count.”
A Jedi is not allowed possessions, but as many other things, this is an issue of trust. Not a reasonable approach, he thinks as he opens the compartment in the curved hilt of his lightsaber. Pebbles from a hundred beaches tumble onto the table, minuscule corporeal snatches of memory.
Sometimes, Qui-Gon pretends he can’t hear Master Dooku in the heat of the moment. Later, when the boy’s wounds have to be patched or his latest pet seen to, Dooku pretends he can’t hear his padawan’s apologies. The lesson doesn’t seem to be taking in as well as it should.
He takes care to make sure the others see his Jedi habits as affectations, obscured by his age and his frailty. The saber, the calm, the meditations to them are his dewclaws, vestigial remains of something that was once a weapon. It will be a long time before they learn his claws are real.
At first, Dooku tries to set limits and barriers, thinking that Qui-Gon will need them the way he himself needed Yoda’s strict rules. Then he learns that when faced with a barrier, Qui-Gon simply turns and continues in a direction no-one can foresee. Soon, instead of trying to direct his padawan, Dooku follows him with fascinated curiosity on ideological pathways he’d never walked before.
Since infancy, the number that defines him is “one”. One planet in the system, one Count, one heir, one destiny. The creche full of other Jedi younglings leaves him in shock for a week.
There is no clear moment of changing paths. Between the first thought and the first blood, there is shadow. He feels as if he were falling.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that I left you here with a starfighter, a lightsaber, three weeks of rations and firm orders to stay put, Padawan.”
“That was yesterday, Master Dooku.”
“How foolish of me to forget that.”
Once Dooku is assured that his padawan is stable and will come out safely from his sand panther encounter, he leaves the infirmary for his own quarters. He stands in the fresher until there is nothing in his mind but the sound of water, and his skin is free of the smell of Corellia’s forests. There is no need to needlessly subject himself to hardships, after all.
To Be Continued
First 25 of a set of 50 prompts from
1character, but using three sentences for each prompt. No pairing, no sense, no purpose apart from being able to say "This is the Yan Dooku in my head."MEDITATIONS ON A FALL
Part 1
01. Hood
In Yan’s Trials, he is blind and deaf and entangled in a labyrinth of walkways and machinery. Then the light appears. He strikes.
02. Buzz
When night is dying and sleep does not come, he lights up his lightsaber and places it on the bedstand. The blade stretching into the fading darkness. Its hum lulls him to sleep.
03. Wish
For a Jedi, to want is forbidden, Yan’s Master tells him. To have is forbidden. But no-one says anything about wishing for the moon.
04. Seasons
To each, there is a time, he thinks as he brushes red dust from his clothes. Or perhaps better to think that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Old Serennian sayings are more comfort to him than Jedi aphorisms, these days.
05. Threat
A shiver runs from his elbows to his shoulders, a prelude to tension. He drops to the floor, and the blaster bolt draws sparks from the bulkhead. The Force moves with him.
06. Portrait
In the eyes of his enemies, Dooku sees fear and anger, and that is as it should be, for his calm and courage are guided by Light to win over Dark. In the eyes of his fellow Jedi, he sees respect and comradeship, and he is pleased, for he has given all he has in their name.
In the eyes of a woman, he sees yearning, and he does not understand.
07. Loud
As the lightsaber slices into flesh and the warlord falls to the sand of the arena, the crowd screams like a single thousand-throated creature of Abyssian nightmare. Dooku does not hear it. There is no chaos; there is order.
08. Energy
Qui-Gon asks his Master if he does not feel cold at all, but Dooku just smiles. He does not talk about the nights on the plains of Serenno or the noble dahiki that only come out once the moon sets, wary of all that moves so much as a hair’s breadth. He smiles, and remembers the hunt.
09. Purge
When new younglings arrive in the Jedi Temple, their personal possessions are taken from them so that nothing should remind them of their previous lives. Yoda washes the cuts on the palm of a six-year-old boy, wounds inflicted by a medallion that was handed over without protest once asked for, and wonders if the time is coming for him to take another padawan. The boy watches him and does not make a sound.
10. Mouth
Yoda tells him he talks too much, but Padawan Dooku knows, deep in his mind, when he’s right and when someone else is wrong. It doesn’t make sense to him to remain silent and let others stray from the path when he can show them the way. Years later, he remembers the conversation as he deflects blaster bolts fired by an enraged princess who didn’t appreciate Qui-Gon’s criticism of the way she treated her servants.
11. Attic
It has been forty years since he last saw these, forty years between his journey to Coruscant and his father’s funeral, but he still recognizes every portrait in the attic gallery of Dooku Hall. The only unfamiliar face is a smiling large-eyed child in orange and blue, gesturing imperiously astride his toy speeder from the last painting in the gallery. He wonders what happened to that boy.
12. Second-rate
Try not, do, Master Yoda always tells him. But he’s not dismayed when the first lightsaber he builds fizzles out in the rain. His next one will be better, and no-one expected a seven-year-old Youngling to construct a perfect saber anyway.
13. Dash
Jocasta’s hand never trembles when she updates the register of active Jedi. She still bites her lip, though, when she touches the screen and makes a thick line appear, cutting a familiar name in two. Yan Dooku: missing, presumed renegade.
14. Attitude
The shard-gecko crouches down in Qui-Gon’s lap and hisses, ruffling its scalpel-sharp scales. Dooku pauses on the doorstep of his padawan’s cabin and bows formally, ignoring the boy’s quizzical look. The reptile lowers its head in turn and lays its scales flat again; some manners are universal.
15. Wisdom
His first thought is that the holocron looks like the sunset sky over Coruscant, filigree light-sculptures of traffic trails against the bloodied clouds. The label under it, in a long-dead librarian’s hand, makes no logical sense. How can knowledge be prohibited?
16. Sight
Dooku’s starfighter banks sharply and follows the trail of explosions down to the planet surface. The battle is fought in black and white. It’s not until he looks for survivors that the colour sensitivity in his eyes recovers and he sees that his own lightsaber is red.
17. Address
“Yan!” the woman calls out across the crowded starport, with the familiarity of a childhood playmate. As he approaches, she catches herself and curtsies. “My lord Count.”
18. Minute
A Jedi is not allowed possessions, but as many other things, this is an issue of trust. Not a reasonable approach, he thinks as he opens the compartment in the curved hilt of his lightsaber. Pebbles from a hundred beaches tumble onto the table, minuscule corporeal snatches of memory.
19. Cotton
Sometimes, Qui-Gon pretends he can’t hear Master Dooku in the heat of the moment. Later, when the boy’s wounds have to be patched or his latest pet seen to, Dooku pretends he can’t hear his padawan’s apologies. The lesson doesn’t seem to be taking in as well as it should.
20. Claw
He takes care to make sure the others see his Jedi habits as affectations, obscured by his age and his frailty. The saber, the calm, the meditations to them are his dewclaws, vestigial remains of something that was once a weapon. It will be a long time before they learn his claws are real.
21. Limit
At first, Dooku tries to set limits and barriers, thinking that Qui-Gon will need them the way he himself needed Yoda’s strict rules. Then he learns that when faced with a barrier, Qui-Gon simply turns and continues in a direction no-one can foresee. Soon, instead of trying to direct his padawan, Dooku follows him with fascinated curiosity on ideological pathways he’d never walked before.
22. Unique
Since infancy, the number that defines him is “one”. One planet in the system, one Count, one heir, one destiny. The creche full of other Jedi younglings leaves him in shock for a week.
23. Gravity
There is no clear moment of changing paths. Between the first thought and the first blood, there is shadow. He feels as if he were falling.
24. Yesterday
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that I left you here with a starfighter, a lightsaber, three weeks of rations and firm orders to stay put, Padawan.”
“That was yesterday, Master Dooku.”
“How foolish of me to forget that.”
25. Jungle
Once Dooku is assured that his padawan is stable and will come out safely from his sand panther encounter, he leaves the infirmary for his own quarters. He stands in the fresher until there is nothing in his mind but the sound of water, and his skin is free of the smell of Corellia’s forests. There is no need to needlessly subject himself to hardships, after all.
To Be Continued
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 10:28 am (UTC)Very interesting. A look at Dooku as he becomes disaffected from the Jedi?
Years later, he remembers the conversation as he deflects blaster bolts fired by an enraged princess who didn’t appreciate Qui-Gon’s criticism of the way she treated her servants.
I love the idea of Qui-Gon getting them shot at; he so would have, being a forthright (and tactless) boy.
He wonders what happened to that boy.
I *really* like that he doesn't recognize himself as a child.
Jocasta’s hand never trembles when she updates the register of active Jedi.
Oh, good. Show his defection from the view of one of his agemates.
It’s not until he looks for survivors that the colour sensitivity in his eyes recovers and he sees that his own lightsaber is red.
Creepy!
The lesson doesn’t seem to be taking in as well as it should.
I can see Dooku being rather baffled by Qui-Gon, especially early on. Qui-Gon strikes me as someone who was always a little bit askew from everyone else. It must have driven his classmates nuts.
Then he learns that when faced with a barrier, Qui-Gon simply turns and continues in a direction no-one can foresee.
If you can't climb the wall, blow up the building. Hee! I bet Dooku had a lot of moments when he wished he could trade Qui-Gon in for someone a little less unconventional.
“That was yesterday, Master Dooku.”
“How foolish of me to forget that.”
Oh, can I beg like a puppy for a whole *story* of Master Dooku and Padawan Jinn? Please?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 10:32 am (UTC)Between the two of them, they were the cause of three heart-attacks and one premature birth among the Jedi Council. And the loss of most of Yoda's hair.
Hmm...
Date: 2006-02-16 02:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 02:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-10 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-11 10:21 pm (UTC)Reminded me to finish the 1character Dooku thing I'm half-done with, too :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-11 11:47 pm (UTC)Can't wait to read yours!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 12:25 am (UTC)The 1character stuff is hard. If it was two sentences, I wouldn't have this problem, but it's annoying to think down to just one. I refuse to cheat with semicolons either. It's certainly a break from the longer and odder Dooku stuff I've been writing, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-12 12:41 am (UTC)That's why I cheated with triple-sentences. I might do kosher 1character sentences for some other characters, but Dooku's far too complicated for that.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-19 12:23 pm (UTC)Many of these feel very right, but I think this is my favorite.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-19 12:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-19 12:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-19 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-20 12:07 am (UTC)BTW, if you don't mind me asking - how did you come to read my drabbles? I've noted an influx of new comments on them, and I'm wondering if they got recced somewhere :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-20 12:42 am (UTC)Of course he does. ;) *ponders whether the curved handle would stay upright if he hadn't weighted it with pebbles*
I came over to peek at your journal from the Friending Frenzy, though I didn't post in it myself. *checks other comments* I did send Charmisjess the link.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-20 12:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-19 08:15 pm (UTC)The idea of Dooku using his lightsaber as a bit of a nightlight? Oh, gorgeous. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-20 12:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-16 01:46 am (UTC)Ten made me laugh until I almost cried.
18 is a bit bothersome. Part of me wants to shiver and the rest keeps wanting to go, well, no wonder Qui gave Obi a freakin' rock!
20 is disturbing. Very on target, but disturbing.
21 is just a joy to read. And I really hope to find it's managed to prompt a larger story.
22 made me want to laugh while also wincing.
24 did make me laugh until I teared up.
Please tell me you've written more Dooku fics!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-16 01:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-16 03:17 am (UTC)