The Real Life

Gasping, I awoke in a cold sweat. I rubbed my forehead and tried to get ahold of myself, saying, "Rune, Rune, Rune, it's just a dream..." I stood up and walked to the otherside of my room, checking my clock - it was two-thirty in the morning. I grabbed a scrunchie off of my dresser and pulled my long brown hair back into a messy ponytail. The floor of the sleeping quarters in the Jedi Temple was cold at this time of night. I started to go back to bed, but I heard the clicking noise of boots in the hallway and poked my head out to see who it was.

"Timothy!!" I screamed and ran out into the hallway. "I haven't seen you in months," I said and gave him a hug.

"How have you been?" he asked. He smelled of dust, and his boots and part of his uniform had mud smeared on it.

"Fine. What have you been doing? You're filthy," I said, rubbing my sholders because of the faint draft.

He laughed and replied, "I got a promotion..." he started.

"How wonderful!" I said... I was always butting in during our conversation... It's just - I hadn't seen him in so long, well in at least seven or eight months... "Go on." I smiled weakly.

"Right. I'm now the Imperial Courier," he said and straightened up and grinned as if he were trying to impress me.

"Wow, sounds like fun," I said and yawned. Despite my nightmare, I was exhausted. Suddenly Nom poked her head out into the corridor. "If you do not mind," she began, her black and green hair swirling around her head wildly like it was posessed, "I am trying to sleep! Be quiet away before I have to come down the hall and make you quiet."

"Ooooooh, somebody's mad," I snickered and pulled Timothy into my room. "Here, have a seat," I said and pulled up a chair for him to sit.

"Yeah, what's been troubling you?" he asked. I realized he could see my face fully now; my hair was plastered around my face, and I was pale as ever.

"Oh," I began. I didn't want to tell him about my nightmare because it startled me and made me frightened. "I've been living in the Temple for thirteen years now, well since I was six and discovered as a Sailor Jedi. You know that. And every time I think of you or Mother or Father and home, Chad, I have this recurring nightmare..." I said, just as Peter awoke at the sound of my voice and flew over and nestled himself in my hair and went back to sleep.

Alarmed, Timothy scooted his chair closer to my bed to listen better. "What nightmare?"

"Well." I was reluctant to tell him. "Don't laugh, but I dreamt that Mom and I were exiled to Nar Shaddaa and there we met you... but that's funny because I've known you all my life... then we were threatened to be sold or something and we stole away on Nom's ship. Now you know good and well that Nom has stowaway-proofed her ship as to where no one can get on board. Anyway, then we get here to Courscant and turns out I'm a Sailor Jedi. But I've known I was a Sailor Jedi for the past, what... thirteen years? Well, then we fall in love and get married. Oh, and so we are going back to Chad, so I can meet my dad, and turns out I'm pregnant with your baby..."

He made a face and said, "How could I marry you? Let alone, us have a baby... We're best friends for crying out loud, plus I'm betrothed, and in love, with and to a lady back on Chad, one of your handmaidens."

"Well, I know, then we get attacked and you are killed. Then when I'm having the child a month or so later, I die - die, Timothy! It scares me every time it recurs." I pulled my legs up onto the bed and wrapped my arms around them for warmth and comfort.

"Awww man, you're shaking, Rune," he said and wrapped a cover around me. Just then, his tracking unit beeped, and he answered. It was just some static and a few orders to take the newest relay of messages on to Tantooine. He sighed, kissed my cheek and turned to leave. "I don't know what to think of your dream, it's scary to me, and look, I'm a twenty-one year old man." He half-laughed and turned and walked out of the door, and I didn't try to sleep until the clicking of his heels had ceased.

I sighed and lay back down in bed. My dream didn't come again that night and I slept at least that half of the night in peace. In the morning, I met up with Chouko and Chikako and told them of my dream.

"Woah, THAT'S weird," Chikako said. "What do you think it is supposed to mean?"

"Ugggggggg..." Chouko moaned. "Past life dream Rune. You were remembering a life you lived before this one."

"But no one aged!!!" I started, alarmed. "Everybody and everything is and was the exact same in my dream, well except the part where I fall in love with my best friend and we get married."

Benjamin and Mara walked up, holding hands. "Hey guys," Mara said.

"What's wrong Rune?" Ben said.

I groaned and told him of my dream.

"Oh. Well, I know that people have deja vu about alot of things that have happened in the past, and it has been similar to their past lives..." Ben started.

Mara finished. "...what he's saying is, we don't know, or at least I don't, if a person has ever recalled a past life exactly as it was every night for I-don't-know how long."

"I don't know," I said, slumping my sholders. By the time we had reached the picnic tables outside with our lunches, I had given up my little quest for the understanding of my dream and decided to live with it, since I at least knew that I was back in the real world now. Sitting back under the shade of the large trees, I munched on my sandwich and watched both the training of the other senshi and the playing of my friends.