Star Wars AU work in progress: Becoming Love: I, In You: The Rise of the Clone Wars
First Half of the Seventh Chapter of a SW AU work in progress (broken into two posts because of the LJ’s troublesome word/character lengths)
Series Title: Becoming Love: I, In You
*Story Title: The Rise of the Clone Wars
*Tentative/working title only - subject to change, as I’m not sure I like it!
Pairing: Mainly Dormékin with some background Sobidala (Sabé/Obi-Wan/Padmé Amidala).
*Rating: Uhm, probably a borderline PG-13/R-ish, overall, maybe (?)
*This may be subject to change, in a few very specific later parts.
Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely boys and girls from Star Wars, more's the pity! What I do have is an extremely contrary muse that refuses to shut up and leave me alone (or to make up its bloody mind about certain things) . . .
Summary: What if Senator Padmé Amidala had refused to go into hiding on Naboo, during the events of AotC and a scheme were instead hatched that involved sending Dormé Tammesin (the Senator's only surviving handmaiden on Coruscant who’d been trained as a decoy) into hiding as Amidala, with Anakin Skywalker to accompany and protect her, while Obi-Wan Kenobi went searching for the individual(s) responsible for the attempts on the Senator’s life and the first of the Senator's decoys (now one of the primary trainers of her new handmaidens), Sabé Dahn, brought her newest students to Coruscant to help Jedi Knights Siri Tachi and Garen Muln in their new assignment to hide and protect Padmé, while she remained on Coruscant to covertly continue the fight against the passing of the Military Creation Act? What, then, might have followed . . . and how would events have turned out differently than in the film saga? Dormékin AU of AotC!
Author’s Warnings: 1.) Please see the Author’s Warnings for the preface and prologue and first chapter of this story, as they continue to hold true pretty much throughout the rest of the story!
2.) Again, this story does not have a beta - I’ve proof-read and checked the grammar, but I won’t swear that there aren’t any typos! I will be happy to fix any errors that are pointed out to me!
Author’s Notes: 1.) Please see the Author’s Notesfor the preface and prologue and first chapter of this story, as they continue to hold true pretty much throughout the rest of the story!
2.) Please keep in mind that some of the scenes in this work are going to be deliberately modelled after scenes in AotC (specifically the novelization of AotC by R. A. Salvatore), especially near the start of the story!
3.) Please keep in mind that a lot of the basic background for this story is essentially congruent with the backstory for my SW AU series You Became to Me, at least up until the point where Dormé is the one who is sent to Naboo with Anakin. Thus, Nabooian customs are the same here as in You Became to Me (including traditions involving one’s coming of age and the giving of ritual names), Padmé has memories of Obi-Wan Kenobi using the Force to share with her the experience of meditative oneness with the Force, on the ship escaping from Naboo, during the timeline for TPM, Sola Naberrie has had two miscarriages that can in some way be linked to her little sister’s status as a (now former) Queen of Naboo and has a history of strong feelings of jealousy and envy towards Padmé, Dormé’s family has (with the exception of her youngest brother) been neglectful at best and borderline abusive at worst towards her, and etc. If there are references to past events that readers don’t get and are curious about, I invite questions. Some things I can probably explain fairly easily. Others will need to wait on the progression of the actual story.
4.) Again, I have a journal entry with a running list of costumes/images that work as "illustrations" for much of this story, a more complete/updated version of which can now be found at http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/136333.html and, when the story is completely done, I will likely go back and either create specific entries with links for each chapter or include the proper information on costumes and such for each chapter in that chapter post.
Star Wars
Becoming Love: I, In You
The Rise of the Clone Wars
Chapter Seven: A Few Surprises
1,000:05:22-1,000:05:23 After Ruusan Reformations (25,001 After Republic’s Founding), 14-13 days prior to the Battle of Geonosis
The best things that come to one in life are often unexpected . . . if only because, with the unexpected, there is no weight of expectation to get in the way of pure enjoyment.
- Sabé Kandala Dahn, former primary decoy for Queen Padmé Amidala Naberrie of Naboo and former interim and elected Senator for the Chommell Sector, from private papers dated prior to the Battle of Geonosis
It’s not that Padmé doesn’t like or that she doesn’t trust Garen Muln or Siri Tachi: it’s just that they aren’t the person she wants to be here, guarding her, and it bothers her, a little, to consider how and why these two have specifically ended up being assigned to protect her. She knows that Obi-Wan asked them for their help and that they, in turn, promptly volunteered for the assignment, meaning that their presence here has nothing to do with their support of her politics or her stance against the proposed Military Creation Act. She’s seen the way they both look at Obi-Wan, and she knows something about that Tachi woman, from the stories Anakin has told Dormé and Dormé has in turn passed along to her, about Obi-Wan’s childhood in the crèche and his years as Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan learner, so she is perfectly aware of the way in which Siri Tachi has been (unsuccessfully, of course) chasing after Obi-Wan, since about the time they all became Padawan apprentices.
Padmé has heard less of Garen Muln, aside from the fact that he’s Anakin’s favorite among his Master’s friends, since Garen is one of the few good mechanics and pilots in the Jedi Order who enjoys flying and tends to tinker with various machines for no other reason than that they are where he can get to them; however, she knows what unrequited love looks like (she’s seen the look often enough on her own face. And Sabé’s face. And Bail Organa’s), and the man is quite clearly thoroughly infatuated with Obi-Wan. She might be tempted to make common cause with him, as she essentially has with Bail, but for the unfortunate fact that he physically reminds her just enough of Obi-Wan to keep her off-balance around him and to prompt her to rather guiltily recall her brief affair with the young man Sola found for her coming of age ritual - the red-haired, blue-eyed teenager who’d reminded her almost painfully of both Obi-Wan and the first beau she and Sabé had shared, Ian Lago (the son of King Veruna’s Prime Counselor of State, Kun Lago, and the first person they had ever considered taking for their third, for whom she had considered refusing to take the nomination for the monarchial elections, given his close ties to King Veruna’s court and the scandal that would have inevitably followed, had she been elected and had they considered to see each other).
Padmé never did get that young man’s name - Nabooian coming of age ceremonies are ancient, and, though nowadays most young people fulfill the part of the ritual that celebrates the passage to adulthood by laying down with their childhood sweethearts, rather than by literally allowing a stranger to take them by the hand at the bonfires of midsummer festivals, there are those who still go to the revels cloaked or masked. In her case, given that she was Queen and that this part of the celebration had been put off and put off and put off again, until finally her sister put her foot down firmly and declared that she would complete the ritual even if Sola had to find a young man for her and push them down together by one of the fires, it is, perhaps, unsurprising that no names were exchanged. She knows that Sola and Captain Panaka arranged things, and she knows that the youth was kind and gentle and attentive and careful of her nerves but passionate when she proved ready for him, and she knows that for that one night she was able to close her eyes and forget herself and let herself be cherished and loved and worshiped by hands, lips, flesh, tongue, wrapped about by warmth until she felt as if she were in the arms of her beloved, where she belonged - but the young man had been almost eerily like Obi-Wan, and her memory of him reminds her of Garen Muln.
Garen is a little taller, his slightly wavy hair closer to russet than to true red, the features of his face a bit more sharply pronounced and obviously different from Obi-Wan’s, but then, he’s also at least a decade older than that young man had been, that night, and so it makes a certain amount of sense for him to be a bit more uniquely himself, despite the resemblance to Obi-Wan. Young men and women of a certain age tend to share a certain amount of similarity just because they are so young, their bodies still settling into themselves, still growing in to their final forms (it’s what made it so easy to find handmaidens, when she was younger, and requires a lot more individual work on the part of her new handmaidens, now, to make them look both more alike and more like her). It’s easy to imagine Garen as her one-time lover, grown older and darker of hair, even easier to imagine him and Obi-Wan as virtual twins, running about the Temple crèche, as younglings, and disturbingly easy to picture them together (as teens, as young men, as they are today), just as Garen must imagine them, in his dreams. And that disconcerts her to no end. She turns towards the sight of a bearded face only to be presented with an oddly familiar stranger, turns to smile at some wry, witty comment, made in a softly lilting voice with a purely Coruscanti accent, only to find herself brought up short by the sight of purely blue eyes, no familiar flecks of grey and green and indigo to be found within their crystalline depths.
Padmé wants to like Garen - Obi-Wan speaks of him in the highest possible terms, and it is entirely possible that Garen is his closest friend and ally, in the Order, aside from Anakin - but she finds herself rattled, unsettled, and skittish in his presence, unbalanced and irritable, though he is nothing but polite, kind, sympathetic . . . very like Obi-Wan might have been, under similar circumstances. It would be easier, Padmé cannot help thinking, if he were not so very like Obi-Wan, or if he had been at all obvious about his feelings for Obi-Wan - if he were bluntly forward (to the point almost of abrasiveness) in his attentiveness, availability, attraction - more like that Tachi woman. (For the life of her, she simply cannot imagine how Obi-Wan tolerates the woman, as brashly obvious as she is! For Asherah’s sake, the only way the woman could possibly be any more blatant would be if she were to burst into a passionate declaration of her love and then grab Obi-Wan and yank him down for a kiss!)
She is beyond relieved, when she and Sabé have finally finished having their first serious discussion with Knights Muln and Tachi - touching on their duties, as guards, given what Sabé expects to be responsible for, with the handmaidens and regular security, regarding her everyday safety, and given what Padmé intends to try to do, in terns of continuing to quietly gather support for her stance against the proposed bill - and the first comment out of Sabé’s mouth is, “Those two Knights seem an odd choice, for protection. One might almost suspect that the High Council is trying to lull us into behaving as though Obi-Wan is still here, for some reason!”
“Lady bless, I know!” she agrees, laughing a little (and only a little raggedly). “Every time I turn about and see Garen, I startle like a child in a crowded market who’s accidentally mistaken a stranger for her mother or father! And that Tachi woman - ”
“I honestly think she doesn’t realize how obvious she is, since Obi-Wan is so very oblivious to his own charms. I’ve heard she is a fine Knight. I suspect it may just be proximity to Obi-Wan and anyone or anything close to him that makes her behave like this. Surely it must just be that, or else the Council Masters would have had to have had words with her, by now.”
“Still! She positively glowers, whenever she looks at me! And I swear I heard her growl when you mentioned Obi-Wan’s name, earlier. Does she honestly think - ”
Sabé interrupts her indignant reply with a quiet but indulgent little laugh of her own. “Oh, now, be fair, cariodal. It’s Obi-Wan. Can you really blame her?”
“If this is how she behaves around him, I certainly can!” Padmé only irritably insists.
Sabé shakes her head, smiling softly. “She’s Obi-Wan’s friend, though, and she certainly doesn’t have to be here, ansa. I think we should at least give her a chance. If she’s still growling and snarling at us in another three days, then I’ll have a little chat with her, alright?”
“Like the one you had with those handmaidens about resisting the urge to put certain, ah, additives in Obi-Wan’s food and drink?” Padmé asks, arching an eyebrow.
Sabé laughs unabashedly, clearly remembering how thoroughly embarrassed Obi-Wan had been after that little incident, when the supposed inhibitor-relaxers and aphrodisiacs a certain group of far too helpful handmaidens had liberally laced his meal with had merely given him a fever so high that he’d been quite delirious - unable even to stand up under his own power, much less call on the Force to heal himself, by purging his body more quickly of the drugs - and the two of them had been forced to manhandle him into a tub filled with ice-water before they could even risk trying to get a healer in to see him. In retrospect - from a point of view far removed from the initial unadulterated panic and fear and the shamefaced fury that had followed, when they first understood what it was that had truly happened and why - the memory of that event is farcically funny. (Those poor handmaidens! The girls really did have only the best of intentions, at heart!) “Something like that, yes,” she easily agrees. “If nothing else, if I’m forced to speak with her, I promise I will make it quite clear where we all stand.”
“Oh, very well, then. But you absolutely promise, after three days - ?”
“I swear on the Lady’s name,” Sabé interrupts Padmé’s grousing to solemnly swear. “I”ll take care of it - and her - if need be.”
When Padmé exhales, it’s as if a crushing weight has suddenly been removed from her slender shoulders, and her whole body sags, swaying with relief. “Bless you, Sabé! I should never survive without you.”
A little sharply, Sabé retorts, “You won’t ever have to, if I have anything to say about it.”
With a small smile, Padmé retorts, “You just see that you keep that promise. I worry about you, sometimes, am’chara. You and Obi-Wan both. The risks the two of you take - ”
“ - says the woman who’s refused to go into hiding after three separate assassination attempts on her life in the past two weeks. Thank you, but I think I’ll trust my own judgment,” Sabé cuts her off to wryly declare.
There’s not really a whole lot Padmé can say to that, aside from, “You cannot wrap me in cotton swaddling and tuck me away somewhere safe, like a private memento to be kept, brought out only to be admired and exclaimed over, like some kind of trophy, Sabé.”
“But I can see to it that you at least pretend to be careful. And I will.”
“You and Obi-Wan both, evidently,” Padmé sighs, making a sour face.
Scoldingly, Sabé merely notes, “Well, perhaps that should tell you something, when we both agree that you need to be far more careful that you have been, of late.”
“You two agree on far too much as it already is! If it were up to the two of you, I’d be the leader of a formally declared Separatist movement, rather than a Senator of the Republic!”
“And I say again: perhaps it should tell you something, when we both agree!”
“I’m not going to give up on the Republic or the ideals of peaceful democracy and diplomacy just because the Republic has hit a few snags, lately, in its governance!”
“We’re not asking you to give up on them, Padmé! We’re asking you to be realistic enough to know at what point your ideals and this Republic’s government part ways! We both fear that point has already come and gone and would appreciate your input on the subject - your considered, unbiased, well thought out opinion, if you please!” Sabé simply snarls back at her.
“My opinion is that the two of you are both cynical doomsday criers!”
“This, from the woman who says the Jedi Order should have been torn apart and reassembled according to the oldest known ways of the Order, in the wake of Ruusan!”
“No, this from a woman who knows political corruption and meddling in spiritual affairs when she sees it and is unafraid to say so!” Padmé irritably retorts.
“Then why are you so afraid of looking for that same corruption in the Senate?” Sabé explosively demands, throwing her hands up in a gesture of despair.
“One hardly needs to look for that in the Senate to discover it!”
“Then where is it your objection lies? How bad must it get before you draw your line in the sand? The Supreme Chancellor is so because he took blatant advantage of the invasion of his world to gather political weight and allies and sympathy for himself. Must he remain Chancellor indefinitely past the limits of his term because of an outbreak of actual civil war to convince you that this system is broken and needs to be down away with?”
“Democracy is not some knick-knack to be broken, Sabé!”
“They why do I hear you speaking of mending the system so often, when you speak to Bail and his family and others of your friends and allies?”
“That’s different!” Padmé instantly protests. “Just because there are individual aspects of the system that have gone awry and need to be corrected - ”
“Corrected. Mended. Different terms for the same thing,” Sabé insists scoffingly, with a far too casual shrug. “And I seem to recall a very wise woman who once said that when rot has spread so far through a system that it’s more than just a branch or two that have been hollowed out and filled with corruption, the best cure is to either cut or burn all the way down to the root or to tear the whole thing out and replant with entirely new seed.”
“That’s a low blow, quoting Winama!”
“Not if it’s true. How do you think Shelané would - ”
“Sabé! Enough,” Padmé gasps, pushing herself away from the table they’re sitting at hard enough to rattle the china of their teacups as she stands. Calmer even with just that slight increase in space between them, she continues, declaring, “I dislike where this is going and I do not wish to quarrel with you outright, rather than merely debate a point. I need you to be here with me, not off with the girls making yourself scarce or siding with my Jedi protectors because we are not talking and you fear I may do something foolish. I am determined to see this thing through and I shall, whatever else happens, but I’d prefer to do so with your help. Please. Let’s not quarrel. I am sick unto death of quarreling!”
Sabé sighs and rises from the table, too, circling around it to place a gentle hand on the nearest of Padmé’s shoulders, the sharp joint under her hand a little bit too determinedly squared off, Padmé’s body all but thrumming with tightly wound tension. “You look tired, alanna. Are you sleeping at all?” she asks, touching Padmé’s chin with her fingertips to tilt that beseeching face up a little more towards the light, where she can see her better.
She leans into the touch automatically. “Not as much as I should. There’s so much to do! And - and whenever I sleep, now, I have nightmares about - about the window and - ”
“Muilaidh, you know he was perfectly safe. He could have caught himself long before he fell, if necessary. And Anakin went after him so quickly that he could have caught him, if all else had failed. You need to stop dwelling on that,” Sabé quietly but firmly insists.
“That’s easier said than done, I’m afraid. I know it’s irrational, but it truly was awful, seeing him dive through the glass like that. If it had been me, there would have been nothing I could have done to save myself, if I’d been thrown off.”
“You know how strong he is. Remember the way he shared with you, on the ship? Think of that, and I’m sure it will help keep you from worrying so much.”
“But - ”
“Padmé. One of these days we’re going to finally convince you not to think of others in terms of your own abilities, and you’ll be amazed at how much better you sleep, at night. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi Bendu; you aren’t even particularly strong in the Force. There was much more he could have done, to save himself, than you could have ever tried to do. The Force was with him. He was perfectly safe,” Sabé only insists.
Padmé smiles a little, at that, tiredly but genuinely. “You sound like Dormé.”
Sabé smiles softly back at her, brushing the backs of her fingers gently against Padmé’s right cheek. “I’ll take that as a compliment. How are things going with her? She’s amazing, isn’t she? Thank the Lady she found her way to us when she did! I hate to think of how her spirit might have been crushed or hardened, if she’d been stuck in that household much longer. Damn that family! They had no right, to treat her that way.”
“They’ll regret their cruelty to her and their distance sooner or later. If not in this lifetime, then afterwards,” Padmé replies, shrugging a little.
“I’d prefer it if it were in this lifetime, alanna,” Sabé grumbles, scowling.
“You can’t make her idiotic family love her, am’chara. That’s not the way it works.”
Sabé’s frown deepens, her eyes darkening with frustration. “Unfortunately.”
“Yes, well, more’s the pity, but I fear there’s little the likes of we two can do about such things. We can’t save everyone all the time.”
“Hrumph. Now you sound like Obi-Wan!”
“And you sound like Anakin. Pout a little when you’re scowling, and I’ll have to take a picture, so that Dormé can see your face like this,” Padmé only laughs in return.
“Oh, that’s nice, compare me to that little - ”
“He’s not so very little anymore, Sabé. He’s . . . I think he may be taller than Obi-Wan, a little, now.”
The look Sabé gives her is composed in equal parts of baffled confusion and alarm. “Is that consideration I hear in your voice? Are you plotting something for the formerly smallest hero of Naboo?”
Padmé’s gaze immediately darts away from Sabé’s, and a slight hint of blush rises in her cheeks, the rush of color highlighting the fact that she is even paler than usual. “Who, me? Why would you think I’d be plotting something for Anakin?”
“Possibly because I think this is the first time I’ve heard you refer to him as Anakin, rather than Ani, since you decided not to fight the High Council about keeping in contact with him, personally. And, then, too, there’s also the fact that you’re starting to turn red,” Sabé rather dryly replies, her forehead creasing a little in concern as she reaches to pour Padmé another cup of soothing hot herbal tea.
“Sabé! I just - he just - he’s changed a lot, over the years, that’s all. I hadn’t quite expected him to be as grown up as he is,” Padmé awkwardly tries to explain, flushing even darker in the process, apparently self-conscious of her own uncharacteristic embarrassment.
Sabé makes a considering little sound in the back of her throat. “Are those changes great enough that we need to sit here and discuss them and their possible implications on Obi-Wan’s life, or can we go ahead with our plans and confirm your meeting with Senator Lexi Dio this afternoon in the Temple gardens?”
Padmé’s face is flaming, but her voice is firm and level when she replies, “No, Sabé. Uyster practically leads the coalition of agriworlds. I need to talk with Lexi about the proposed bill. She shouldn’t support the notion of militarization, and that makes her a potential ally.”
Sabé raises an eyebrow at Padmé’s red face, but otherwise she lets it pass. “Alright, then. I’ll comm and make certain that the meeting is on. Do you know what you’re wearing?” she asks, pausing on her way to the nearest holocomm unit to throw a glance over her shoulder at Padmé, in her well-worn (in fact, somewhat ragged) and rather plain white linen gown and beaded pink and mauve silk and velvet jacket, her hair haphazardly pulled back from her face and allowed to tumble down her back in a riot of loose curls.
“Something nice but relatively unremarkable, so as to avoid attracting any undue notice. We’ll be meeting in a part of the gardens normally not open to visitors, so hopefully no one will near enough to see us anyway, but on the off chance that someone does manage to wander over to where we’ll be walking, I took the precaution of ordering a long satin coat fashioned after the manner of the one Lexi fancies so much - and which she’s agreed to wear to the meeting, by the way - only in shades of green and brown and creamy gold to her bright blue and brown and light gold. We’ve agreed that, if approached by a stranger, we’ll pretend that we’re sisters attached to Sheltay Retrac’s retinue. I’m not entirely sure that story will hold up, if you come, unless - ”
“Oh, I have a set of heavy black robes somewhere cut in a similar if perhaps slightly more ornate fashion that I believe I can wear. I may not match you two perfectly, but I think I’ll be able to pass myself off as the dour, responsible older cousin, if necessary,” Sabé cuts in with a wry smile. “The two of you can always claim that I’m the one who actually got you the job with Sheltay, in Senator Organa’s household, if someone asks.”
This time Padmé is the one who raises an eyebrow at Sabé, her small half frown seeming to silently ask if these more ornate robes might not be less appropriate for such a secret meeting than Sabé seems to think.
Sabé, though, rather firmly declares, “I am going with you, one way or another. Would you prefer me to wear what I am now?”
“That dress is rather, ah, noticeable, am’chara,” Padmé notes with careful diplomacy.
“Orange is a nice bright cheerful color. I rather thought the place could use a bit of cheer.” Sabé shrugs breezily, flashing her a smile. “And it’s been a while since I’ve worn it.”
“I remember,” Padmé quietly replies, looking down at her hands. “You were . . . very upset with me, that day.”
Sabé just scowls at her darkly. “You shouldn’t go swimming in the rain, ansa, no matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen the Lake Country. It’s not safe to swim in a thunderstorm. You’re lucky I was able to yell at you. You could have drowned, easily.”
Resisting the urge to either sign in frustration or roll her eyes, Padmé patiently tells her, “I was practically born swimming, Sabé. I think Dormé is the only non-aquatic person I know who’s a better, stronger swimmer than I am, with the possible exception of Obi-Wan.”
“Muilaidh, arguing with me about that now isn’t going to make me change my mind and invite you to go swimming in the middle of the next rainstorm to come along. It’s just going to delay finalizing the meeting with Senator Dio,” is Sabé’s quiet response, the closed-off look on her face making it quite clear that she has no intention of budging on the subject.
Padmé’s sigh is long-suffering, but her smile and her eyes are suspiciously bright as she ducks her head, murmuring (with only a slight touch of bitterness), “Of course. Because you’ll always take care of me, whether I want you to or not.”
“Precisely. So shall I comm Lexi?”
“Please. I’ll go lay out my clothes and call for some of the handmaidens.”
“As you wish, Milady.”
If Padmé winces as she turns towards the bedroom, Sabé studiously does not notice.
*********
She surfaces slowly, rising through layers of consciousness like a deep sea diver making her way in gradual stages towards the open air, occasional words and noises filtering in to her as if from a great distance, the meanings of the words largely failing to register across the distance separating her from full consciousness.
“ . . . no, I know, Artoo, it’s silly, isn’t it? I should’ve seen this before. I can’t believe I missed it. It was always her, and I might’ve never even known how wrong I was, thinking it was Padmé, if the High Council hadn’t pushed too hard and made her dig in her heels.”
A high-pitched but fairly soft questioning warble fills the following silence.
“Yeah, I know, I know, I’ve already been ridiculously lucky, but it’s not enough, not yet. She has to understand, too, and I’m not sure how I can convince her. I’m not . . . Artoo, I’m not sure I really have the right to try, after all these years of - ”
Another warble, pitched closer to a squeal, halts the flow of words.
“Okay, okay, so wallowing in my own past stupidity’s not going to help. I know that. No, really, I know it! Don’t start making those rude noises at me, alright? You don’t have to remind me that I can be a real idiot sometimes. It’s just - well, it means so much to her, serving . . . I’m not sure I have a right to try to take that away.”
Another series of tootling warbles breaks the silence, ending in a low, round, extremely rude sound, somehow reminiscent of a little boy pretending to make flatulent noises.
“Alright, enough with the insults, okay? I’m really not that dumb. Fierfek! Look, it helps if your enemies underestimate your strengths, especially if you’re dealing with a bunch of paranoid kung like the High Council Masters. Obi-Wan always says - ”
This time the flow of words is cut off by a series of low rude noises, all jaggedly sharp and run together, like a rude little boy blowing wetly through his lips.
“Hey! Don’t talk that way about Master! He’s doing the best he can. If he’d stop worrying about me long enough to tell me more about what’s going on - ”
Another warble interrupts, followed by a low, round, rude noise, and it is somewhere around here, as this noise is reaching her consciousness, that Dormé finally begins to become aware of the fact that someone very near to her is talking.
“Okay, alright, so he should’ve been worrying less and telling more. But that’s not his fault! Everybody always expects him to be able to do anything and everything all on his own, so it’s not like he’s exactly used to be able to lean on anyone else for support. E chu ta! Damned koochu Council Masters! If they’d just take their own frelling advice once and awhile about not being so frakkin’ afraid of everything and everybody - ”
“Anakin is that you?” Dormé asks muzzily, pushing herself up on her elbows on the narrow and rather overly hard mattress and squinting into the darkness. “Are you talking to somebody?” she asks, frowning a little in confusion and yawning sleepily.
“Oh, erhm, yeah, sorry. I was just talking to Artoo. I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he sheepishly replies after a few moments of silence. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing very important.”
A distinctly aggravated and challenging blatting noise follows, and Dormé finds herself smiling, in spite of her sleepiness, and chuckling as she swings her legs across the bed so she can stand up, noting, “Artoo doesn’t seem to agree with you. Are you sure - ”
“Artoo,” Anakin quickly declares, a soft glowing filling the room at nothing more than a gesture from him - the lights of the room gradually turning on, but somehow rising to a level of illumination no more than that of only about a sixteenth of that of their normal glaring brightness - so that she can see for herself that nothing is wrong, “quite possibly worries even more than I do. And that’s saying a lot, considering I was actually only worrying myself, some more, just now. Really. It honestly isn’t anything worth getting up for. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep - too used to Coruscanti sleep cycles, still, I guess - so I thought I should try to work through a few more possibilities in my head, before I laid back down again.”
“You’re sure you’re alright?” she asks, pushing the thick waves of her hair back absently from her face so she can see him more clearly, where he’s curled up cross-legged at the end of his bed, sleeping pants and shirt creased and mussed, bare feet tucked away mostly under his knees.
“I’m fine, sakiana. Go back to sleep,” Anakin replies, smiling at her softly.
“Okay.” She smiles back at him and then slides underneath the covers again, her slippery silken scarlet and ivory nightgown catching only slightly on the rough material - far less than the fanciful lace and ribbon edging on the uppermost layer of her other nightdress (the satin beige and brown and black nightgown she’d worn the first two nights) would have done - allowing her to slide back in with a certain amount of smoothness, so that she doesn’t have to stop and wriggle about to untangle herself from the bedclothes. “We’re almost there, you know. One more day - less than one more day, really - and we’ll be there.”
“I look forward to it.”
“Hmm. You’ll sleep better on Naboo. It’s easier to adjust, when you have an actual sun to adjust to,” she half mumbles and half yawns as she lays back down.
The lights are fading away to black and Dormé is already most of the way back to sleep by the time Anakin replies, and so the words, “I’ll be fine, as long as I’m with you,” don’t really have a chance to register before she slides back under into sleep’s dark embrace.
*********
This chapter is continued in the next post http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/139702.html because the LJ’s idiotic word/character limits won’t let me put the whole chapter in the body of just one post!
Series Title: Becoming Love: I, In You
*Story Title: The Rise of the Clone Wars
*Tentative/working title only - subject to change, as I’m not sure I like it!
Pairing: Mainly Dormékin with some background Sobidala (Sabé/Obi-Wan/Padmé Amidala).
*Rating: Uhm, probably a borderline PG-13/R-ish, overall, maybe (?)
*This may be subject to change, in a few very specific later parts.
Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely boys and girls from Star Wars, more's the pity! What I do have is an extremely contrary muse that refuses to shut up and leave me alone (or to make up its bloody mind about certain things) . . .
Summary: What if Senator Padmé Amidala had refused to go into hiding on Naboo, during the events of AotC and a scheme were instead hatched that involved sending Dormé Tammesin (the Senator's only surviving handmaiden on Coruscant who’d been trained as a decoy) into hiding as Amidala, with Anakin Skywalker to accompany and protect her, while Obi-Wan Kenobi went searching for the individual(s) responsible for the attempts on the Senator’s life and the first of the Senator's decoys (now one of the primary trainers of her new handmaidens), Sabé Dahn, brought her newest students to Coruscant to help Jedi Knights Siri Tachi and Garen Muln in their new assignment to hide and protect Padmé, while she remained on Coruscant to covertly continue the fight against the passing of the Military Creation Act? What, then, might have followed . . . and how would events have turned out differently than in the film saga? Dormékin AU of AotC!
Author’s Warnings: 1.) Please see the Author’s Warnings for the preface and prologue and first chapter of this story, as they continue to hold true pretty much throughout the rest of the story!
2.) Again, this story does not have a beta - I’ve proof-read and checked the grammar, but I won’t swear that there aren’t any typos! I will be happy to fix any errors that are pointed out to me!
Author’s Notes: 1.) Please see the Author’s Notesfor the preface and prologue and first chapter of this story, as they continue to hold true pretty much throughout the rest of the story!
2.) Please keep in mind that some of the scenes in this work are going to be deliberately modelled after scenes in AotC (specifically the novelization of AotC by R. A. Salvatore), especially near the start of the story!
3.) Please keep in mind that a lot of the basic background for this story is essentially congruent with the backstory for my SW AU series You Became to Me, at least up until the point where Dormé is the one who is sent to Naboo with Anakin. Thus, Nabooian customs are the same here as in You Became to Me (including traditions involving one’s coming of age and the giving of ritual names), Padmé has memories of Obi-Wan Kenobi using the Force to share with her the experience of meditative oneness with the Force, on the ship escaping from Naboo, during the timeline for TPM, Sola Naberrie has had two miscarriages that can in some way be linked to her little sister’s status as a (now former) Queen of Naboo and has a history of strong feelings of jealousy and envy towards Padmé, Dormé’s family has (with the exception of her youngest brother) been neglectful at best and borderline abusive at worst towards her, and etc. If there are references to past events that readers don’t get and are curious about, I invite questions. Some things I can probably explain fairly easily. Others will need to wait on the progression of the actual story.
4.) Again, I have a journal entry with a running list of costumes/images that work as "illustrations" for much of this story, a more complete/updated version of which can now be found at http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/136333.html and, when the story is completely done, I will likely go back and either create specific entries with links for each chapter or include the proper information on costumes and such for each chapter in that chapter post.
Star Wars
Becoming Love: I, In You
The Rise of the Clone Wars
Chapter Seven: A Few Surprises
1,000:05:22-1,000:05:23 After Ruusan Reformations (25,001 After Republic’s Founding), 14-13 days prior to the Battle of Geonosis
The best things that come to one in life are often unexpected . . . if only because, with the unexpected, there is no weight of expectation to get in the way of pure enjoyment.
- Sabé Kandala Dahn, former primary decoy for Queen Padmé Amidala Naberrie of Naboo and former interim and elected Senator for the Chommell Sector, from private papers dated prior to the Battle of Geonosis
It’s not that Padmé doesn’t like or that she doesn’t trust Garen Muln or Siri Tachi: it’s just that they aren’t the person she wants to be here, guarding her, and it bothers her, a little, to consider how and why these two have specifically ended up being assigned to protect her. She knows that Obi-Wan asked them for their help and that they, in turn, promptly volunteered for the assignment, meaning that their presence here has nothing to do with their support of her politics or her stance against the proposed Military Creation Act. She’s seen the way they both look at Obi-Wan, and she knows something about that Tachi woman, from the stories Anakin has told Dormé and Dormé has in turn passed along to her, about Obi-Wan’s childhood in the crèche and his years as Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan learner, so she is perfectly aware of the way in which Siri Tachi has been (unsuccessfully, of course) chasing after Obi-Wan, since about the time they all became Padawan apprentices.
Padmé has heard less of Garen Muln, aside from the fact that he’s Anakin’s favorite among his Master’s friends, since Garen is one of the few good mechanics and pilots in the Jedi Order who enjoys flying and tends to tinker with various machines for no other reason than that they are where he can get to them; however, she knows what unrequited love looks like (she’s seen the look often enough on her own face. And Sabé’s face. And Bail Organa’s), and the man is quite clearly thoroughly infatuated with Obi-Wan. She might be tempted to make common cause with him, as she essentially has with Bail, but for the unfortunate fact that he physically reminds her just enough of Obi-Wan to keep her off-balance around him and to prompt her to rather guiltily recall her brief affair with the young man Sola found for her coming of age ritual - the red-haired, blue-eyed teenager who’d reminded her almost painfully of both Obi-Wan and the first beau she and Sabé had shared, Ian Lago (the son of King Veruna’s Prime Counselor of State, Kun Lago, and the first person they had ever considered taking for their third, for whom she had considered refusing to take the nomination for the monarchial elections, given his close ties to King Veruna’s court and the scandal that would have inevitably followed, had she been elected and had they considered to see each other).
Padmé never did get that young man’s name - Nabooian coming of age ceremonies are ancient, and, though nowadays most young people fulfill the part of the ritual that celebrates the passage to adulthood by laying down with their childhood sweethearts, rather than by literally allowing a stranger to take them by the hand at the bonfires of midsummer festivals, there are those who still go to the revels cloaked or masked. In her case, given that she was Queen and that this part of the celebration had been put off and put off and put off again, until finally her sister put her foot down firmly and declared that she would complete the ritual even if Sola had to find a young man for her and push them down together by one of the fires, it is, perhaps, unsurprising that no names were exchanged. She knows that Sola and Captain Panaka arranged things, and she knows that the youth was kind and gentle and attentive and careful of her nerves but passionate when she proved ready for him, and she knows that for that one night she was able to close her eyes and forget herself and let herself be cherished and loved and worshiped by hands, lips, flesh, tongue, wrapped about by warmth until she felt as if she were in the arms of her beloved, where she belonged - but the young man had been almost eerily like Obi-Wan, and her memory of him reminds her of Garen Muln.
Garen is a little taller, his slightly wavy hair closer to russet than to true red, the features of his face a bit more sharply pronounced and obviously different from Obi-Wan’s, but then, he’s also at least a decade older than that young man had been, that night, and so it makes a certain amount of sense for him to be a bit more uniquely himself, despite the resemblance to Obi-Wan. Young men and women of a certain age tend to share a certain amount of similarity just because they are so young, their bodies still settling into themselves, still growing in to their final forms (it’s what made it so easy to find handmaidens, when she was younger, and requires a lot more individual work on the part of her new handmaidens, now, to make them look both more alike and more like her). It’s easy to imagine Garen as her one-time lover, grown older and darker of hair, even easier to imagine him and Obi-Wan as virtual twins, running about the Temple crèche, as younglings, and disturbingly easy to picture them together (as teens, as young men, as they are today), just as Garen must imagine them, in his dreams. And that disconcerts her to no end. She turns towards the sight of a bearded face only to be presented with an oddly familiar stranger, turns to smile at some wry, witty comment, made in a softly lilting voice with a purely Coruscanti accent, only to find herself brought up short by the sight of purely blue eyes, no familiar flecks of grey and green and indigo to be found within their crystalline depths.
Padmé wants to like Garen - Obi-Wan speaks of him in the highest possible terms, and it is entirely possible that Garen is his closest friend and ally, in the Order, aside from Anakin - but she finds herself rattled, unsettled, and skittish in his presence, unbalanced and irritable, though he is nothing but polite, kind, sympathetic . . . very like Obi-Wan might have been, under similar circumstances. It would be easier, Padmé cannot help thinking, if he were not so very like Obi-Wan, or if he had been at all obvious about his feelings for Obi-Wan - if he were bluntly forward (to the point almost of abrasiveness) in his attentiveness, availability, attraction - more like that Tachi woman. (For the life of her, she simply cannot imagine how Obi-Wan tolerates the woman, as brashly obvious as she is! For Asherah’s sake, the only way the woman could possibly be any more blatant would be if she were to burst into a passionate declaration of her love and then grab Obi-Wan and yank him down for a kiss!)
She is beyond relieved, when she and Sabé have finally finished having their first serious discussion with Knights Muln and Tachi - touching on their duties, as guards, given what Sabé expects to be responsible for, with the handmaidens and regular security, regarding her everyday safety, and given what Padmé intends to try to do, in terns of continuing to quietly gather support for her stance against the proposed bill - and the first comment out of Sabé’s mouth is, “Those two Knights seem an odd choice, for protection. One might almost suspect that the High Council is trying to lull us into behaving as though Obi-Wan is still here, for some reason!”
“Lady bless, I know!” she agrees, laughing a little (and only a little raggedly). “Every time I turn about and see Garen, I startle like a child in a crowded market who’s accidentally mistaken a stranger for her mother or father! And that Tachi woman - ”
“I honestly think she doesn’t realize how obvious she is, since Obi-Wan is so very oblivious to his own charms. I’ve heard she is a fine Knight. I suspect it may just be proximity to Obi-Wan and anyone or anything close to him that makes her behave like this. Surely it must just be that, or else the Council Masters would have had to have had words with her, by now.”
“Still! She positively glowers, whenever she looks at me! And I swear I heard her growl when you mentioned Obi-Wan’s name, earlier. Does she honestly think - ”
Sabé interrupts her indignant reply with a quiet but indulgent little laugh of her own. “Oh, now, be fair, cariodal. It’s Obi-Wan. Can you really blame her?”
“If this is how she behaves around him, I certainly can!” Padmé only irritably insists.
Sabé shakes her head, smiling softly. “She’s Obi-Wan’s friend, though, and she certainly doesn’t have to be here, ansa. I think we should at least give her a chance. If she’s still growling and snarling at us in another three days, then I’ll have a little chat with her, alright?”
“Like the one you had with those handmaidens about resisting the urge to put certain, ah, additives in Obi-Wan’s food and drink?” Padmé asks, arching an eyebrow.
Sabé laughs unabashedly, clearly remembering how thoroughly embarrassed Obi-Wan had been after that little incident, when the supposed inhibitor-relaxers and aphrodisiacs a certain group of far too helpful handmaidens had liberally laced his meal with had merely given him a fever so high that he’d been quite delirious - unable even to stand up under his own power, much less call on the Force to heal himself, by purging his body more quickly of the drugs - and the two of them had been forced to manhandle him into a tub filled with ice-water before they could even risk trying to get a healer in to see him. In retrospect - from a point of view far removed from the initial unadulterated panic and fear and the shamefaced fury that had followed, when they first understood what it was that had truly happened and why - the memory of that event is farcically funny. (Those poor handmaidens! The girls really did have only the best of intentions, at heart!) “Something like that, yes,” she easily agrees. “If nothing else, if I’m forced to speak with her, I promise I will make it quite clear where we all stand.”
“Oh, very well, then. But you absolutely promise, after three days - ?”
“I swear on the Lady’s name,” Sabé interrupts Padmé’s grousing to solemnly swear. “I”ll take care of it - and her - if need be.”
When Padmé exhales, it’s as if a crushing weight has suddenly been removed from her slender shoulders, and her whole body sags, swaying with relief. “Bless you, Sabé! I should never survive without you.”
A little sharply, Sabé retorts, “You won’t ever have to, if I have anything to say about it.”
With a small smile, Padmé retorts, “You just see that you keep that promise. I worry about you, sometimes, am’chara. You and Obi-Wan both. The risks the two of you take - ”
“ - says the woman who’s refused to go into hiding after three separate assassination attempts on her life in the past two weeks. Thank you, but I think I’ll trust my own judgment,” Sabé cuts her off to wryly declare.
There’s not really a whole lot Padmé can say to that, aside from, “You cannot wrap me in cotton swaddling and tuck me away somewhere safe, like a private memento to be kept, brought out only to be admired and exclaimed over, like some kind of trophy, Sabé.”
“But I can see to it that you at least pretend to be careful. And I will.”
“You and Obi-Wan both, evidently,” Padmé sighs, making a sour face.
Scoldingly, Sabé merely notes, “Well, perhaps that should tell you something, when we both agree that you need to be far more careful that you have been, of late.”
“You two agree on far too much as it already is! If it were up to the two of you, I’d be the leader of a formally declared Separatist movement, rather than a Senator of the Republic!”
“And I say again: perhaps it should tell you something, when we both agree!”
“I’m not going to give up on the Republic or the ideals of peaceful democracy and diplomacy just because the Republic has hit a few snags, lately, in its governance!”
“We’re not asking you to give up on them, Padmé! We’re asking you to be realistic enough to know at what point your ideals and this Republic’s government part ways! We both fear that point has already come and gone and would appreciate your input on the subject - your considered, unbiased, well thought out opinion, if you please!” Sabé simply snarls back at her.
“My opinion is that the two of you are both cynical doomsday criers!”
“This, from the woman who says the Jedi Order should have been torn apart and reassembled according to the oldest known ways of the Order, in the wake of Ruusan!”
“No, this from a woman who knows political corruption and meddling in spiritual affairs when she sees it and is unafraid to say so!” Padmé irritably retorts.
“Then why are you so afraid of looking for that same corruption in the Senate?” Sabé explosively demands, throwing her hands up in a gesture of despair.
“One hardly needs to look for that in the Senate to discover it!”
“Then where is it your objection lies? How bad must it get before you draw your line in the sand? The Supreme Chancellor is so because he took blatant advantage of the invasion of his world to gather political weight and allies and sympathy for himself. Must he remain Chancellor indefinitely past the limits of his term because of an outbreak of actual civil war to convince you that this system is broken and needs to be down away with?”
“Democracy is not some knick-knack to be broken, Sabé!”
“They why do I hear you speaking of mending the system so often, when you speak to Bail and his family and others of your friends and allies?”
“That’s different!” Padmé instantly protests. “Just because there are individual aspects of the system that have gone awry and need to be corrected - ”
“Corrected. Mended. Different terms for the same thing,” Sabé insists scoffingly, with a far too casual shrug. “And I seem to recall a very wise woman who once said that when rot has spread so far through a system that it’s more than just a branch or two that have been hollowed out and filled with corruption, the best cure is to either cut or burn all the way down to the root or to tear the whole thing out and replant with entirely new seed.”
“That’s a low blow, quoting Winama!”
“Not if it’s true. How do you think Shelané would - ”
“Sabé! Enough,” Padmé gasps, pushing herself away from the table they’re sitting at hard enough to rattle the china of their teacups as she stands. Calmer even with just that slight increase in space between them, she continues, declaring, “I dislike where this is going and I do not wish to quarrel with you outright, rather than merely debate a point. I need you to be here with me, not off with the girls making yourself scarce or siding with my Jedi protectors because we are not talking and you fear I may do something foolish. I am determined to see this thing through and I shall, whatever else happens, but I’d prefer to do so with your help. Please. Let’s not quarrel. I am sick unto death of quarreling!”
Sabé sighs and rises from the table, too, circling around it to place a gentle hand on the nearest of Padmé’s shoulders, the sharp joint under her hand a little bit too determinedly squared off, Padmé’s body all but thrumming with tightly wound tension. “You look tired, alanna. Are you sleeping at all?” she asks, touching Padmé’s chin with her fingertips to tilt that beseeching face up a little more towards the light, where she can see her better.
She leans into the touch automatically. “Not as much as I should. There’s so much to do! And - and whenever I sleep, now, I have nightmares about - about the window and - ”
“Muilaidh, you know he was perfectly safe. He could have caught himself long before he fell, if necessary. And Anakin went after him so quickly that he could have caught him, if all else had failed. You need to stop dwelling on that,” Sabé quietly but firmly insists.
“That’s easier said than done, I’m afraid. I know it’s irrational, but it truly was awful, seeing him dive through the glass like that. If it had been me, there would have been nothing I could have done to save myself, if I’d been thrown off.”
“You know how strong he is. Remember the way he shared with you, on the ship? Think of that, and I’m sure it will help keep you from worrying so much.”
“But - ”
“Padmé. One of these days we’re going to finally convince you not to think of others in terms of your own abilities, and you’ll be amazed at how much better you sleep, at night. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi Bendu; you aren’t even particularly strong in the Force. There was much more he could have done, to save himself, than you could have ever tried to do. The Force was with him. He was perfectly safe,” Sabé only insists.
Padmé smiles a little, at that, tiredly but genuinely. “You sound like Dormé.”
Sabé smiles softly back at her, brushing the backs of her fingers gently against Padmé’s right cheek. “I’ll take that as a compliment. How are things going with her? She’s amazing, isn’t she? Thank the Lady she found her way to us when she did! I hate to think of how her spirit might have been crushed or hardened, if she’d been stuck in that household much longer. Damn that family! They had no right, to treat her that way.”
“They’ll regret their cruelty to her and their distance sooner or later. If not in this lifetime, then afterwards,” Padmé replies, shrugging a little.
“I’d prefer it if it were in this lifetime, alanna,” Sabé grumbles, scowling.
“You can’t make her idiotic family love her, am’chara. That’s not the way it works.”
Sabé’s frown deepens, her eyes darkening with frustration. “Unfortunately.”
“Yes, well, more’s the pity, but I fear there’s little the likes of we two can do about such things. We can’t save everyone all the time.”
“Hrumph. Now you sound like Obi-Wan!”
“And you sound like Anakin. Pout a little when you’re scowling, and I’ll have to take a picture, so that Dormé can see your face like this,” Padmé only laughs in return.
“Oh, that’s nice, compare me to that little - ”
“He’s not so very little anymore, Sabé. He’s . . . I think he may be taller than Obi-Wan, a little, now.”
The look Sabé gives her is composed in equal parts of baffled confusion and alarm. “Is that consideration I hear in your voice? Are you plotting something for the formerly smallest hero of Naboo?”
Padmé’s gaze immediately darts away from Sabé’s, and a slight hint of blush rises in her cheeks, the rush of color highlighting the fact that she is even paler than usual. “Who, me? Why would you think I’d be plotting something for Anakin?”
“Possibly because I think this is the first time I’ve heard you refer to him as Anakin, rather than Ani, since you decided not to fight the High Council about keeping in contact with him, personally. And, then, too, there’s also the fact that you’re starting to turn red,” Sabé rather dryly replies, her forehead creasing a little in concern as she reaches to pour Padmé another cup of soothing hot herbal tea.
“Sabé! I just - he just - he’s changed a lot, over the years, that’s all. I hadn’t quite expected him to be as grown up as he is,” Padmé awkwardly tries to explain, flushing even darker in the process, apparently self-conscious of her own uncharacteristic embarrassment.
Sabé makes a considering little sound in the back of her throat. “Are those changes great enough that we need to sit here and discuss them and their possible implications on Obi-Wan’s life, or can we go ahead with our plans and confirm your meeting with Senator Lexi Dio this afternoon in the Temple gardens?”
Padmé’s face is flaming, but her voice is firm and level when she replies, “No, Sabé. Uyster practically leads the coalition of agriworlds. I need to talk with Lexi about the proposed bill. She shouldn’t support the notion of militarization, and that makes her a potential ally.”
Sabé raises an eyebrow at Padmé’s red face, but otherwise she lets it pass. “Alright, then. I’ll comm and make certain that the meeting is on. Do you know what you’re wearing?” she asks, pausing on her way to the nearest holocomm unit to throw a glance over her shoulder at Padmé, in her well-worn (in fact, somewhat ragged) and rather plain white linen gown and beaded pink and mauve silk and velvet jacket, her hair haphazardly pulled back from her face and allowed to tumble down her back in a riot of loose curls.
“Something nice but relatively unremarkable, so as to avoid attracting any undue notice. We’ll be meeting in a part of the gardens normally not open to visitors, so hopefully no one will near enough to see us anyway, but on the off chance that someone does manage to wander over to where we’ll be walking, I took the precaution of ordering a long satin coat fashioned after the manner of the one Lexi fancies so much - and which she’s agreed to wear to the meeting, by the way - only in shades of green and brown and creamy gold to her bright blue and brown and light gold. We’ve agreed that, if approached by a stranger, we’ll pretend that we’re sisters attached to Sheltay Retrac’s retinue. I’m not entirely sure that story will hold up, if you come, unless - ”
“Oh, I have a set of heavy black robes somewhere cut in a similar if perhaps slightly more ornate fashion that I believe I can wear. I may not match you two perfectly, but I think I’ll be able to pass myself off as the dour, responsible older cousin, if necessary,” Sabé cuts in with a wry smile. “The two of you can always claim that I’m the one who actually got you the job with Sheltay, in Senator Organa’s household, if someone asks.”
This time Padmé is the one who raises an eyebrow at Sabé, her small half frown seeming to silently ask if these more ornate robes might not be less appropriate for such a secret meeting than Sabé seems to think.
Sabé, though, rather firmly declares, “I am going with you, one way or another. Would you prefer me to wear what I am now?”
“That dress is rather, ah, noticeable, am’chara,” Padmé notes with careful diplomacy.
“Orange is a nice bright cheerful color. I rather thought the place could use a bit of cheer.” Sabé shrugs breezily, flashing her a smile. “And it’s been a while since I’ve worn it.”
“I remember,” Padmé quietly replies, looking down at her hands. “You were . . . very upset with me, that day.”
Sabé just scowls at her darkly. “You shouldn’t go swimming in the rain, ansa, no matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen the Lake Country. It’s not safe to swim in a thunderstorm. You’re lucky I was able to yell at you. You could have drowned, easily.”
Resisting the urge to either sign in frustration or roll her eyes, Padmé patiently tells her, “I was practically born swimming, Sabé. I think Dormé is the only non-aquatic person I know who’s a better, stronger swimmer than I am, with the possible exception of Obi-Wan.”
“Muilaidh, arguing with me about that now isn’t going to make me change my mind and invite you to go swimming in the middle of the next rainstorm to come along. It’s just going to delay finalizing the meeting with Senator Dio,” is Sabé’s quiet response, the closed-off look on her face making it quite clear that she has no intention of budging on the subject.
Padmé’s sigh is long-suffering, but her smile and her eyes are suspiciously bright as she ducks her head, murmuring (with only a slight touch of bitterness), “Of course. Because you’ll always take care of me, whether I want you to or not.”
“Precisely. So shall I comm Lexi?”
“Please. I’ll go lay out my clothes and call for some of the handmaidens.”
“As you wish, Milady.”
If Padmé winces as she turns towards the bedroom, Sabé studiously does not notice.
*********
She surfaces slowly, rising through layers of consciousness like a deep sea diver making her way in gradual stages towards the open air, occasional words and noises filtering in to her as if from a great distance, the meanings of the words largely failing to register across the distance separating her from full consciousness.
“ . . . no, I know, Artoo, it’s silly, isn’t it? I should’ve seen this before. I can’t believe I missed it. It was always her, and I might’ve never even known how wrong I was, thinking it was Padmé, if the High Council hadn’t pushed too hard and made her dig in her heels.”
A high-pitched but fairly soft questioning warble fills the following silence.
“Yeah, I know, I know, I’ve already been ridiculously lucky, but it’s not enough, not yet. She has to understand, too, and I’m not sure how I can convince her. I’m not . . . Artoo, I’m not sure I really have the right to try, after all these years of - ”
Another warble, pitched closer to a squeal, halts the flow of words.
“Okay, okay, so wallowing in my own past stupidity’s not going to help. I know that. No, really, I know it! Don’t start making those rude noises at me, alright? You don’t have to remind me that I can be a real idiot sometimes. It’s just - well, it means so much to her, serving . . . I’m not sure I have a right to try to take that away.”
Another series of tootling warbles breaks the silence, ending in a low, round, extremely rude sound, somehow reminiscent of a little boy pretending to make flatulent noises.
“Alright, enough with the insults, okay? I’m really not that dumb. Fierfek! Look, it helps if your enemies underestimate your strengths, especially if you’re dealing with a bunch of paranoid kung like the High Council Masters. Obi-Wan always says - ”
This time the flow of words is cut off by a series of low rude noises, all jaggedly sharp and run together, like a rude little boy blowing wetly through his lips.
“Hey! Don’t talk that way about Master! He’s doing the best he can. If he’d stop worrying about me long enough to tell me more about what’s going on - ”
Another warble interrupts, followed by a low, round, rude noise, and it is somewhere around here, as this noise is reaching her consciousness, that Dormé finally begins to become aware of the fact that someone very near to her is talking.
“Okay, alright, so he should’ve been worrying less and telling more. But that’s not his fault! Everybody always expects him to be able to do anything and everything all on his own, so it’s not like he’s exactly used to be able to lean on anyone else for support. E chu ta! Damned koochu Council Masters! If they’d just take their own frelling advice once and awhile about not being so frakkin’ afraid of everything and everybody - ”
“Anakin is that you?” Dormé asks muzzily, pushing herself up on her elbows on the narrow and rather overly hard mattress and squinting into the darkness. “Are you talking to somebody?” she asks, frowning a little in confusion and yawning sleepily.
“Oh, erhm, yeah, sorry. I was just talking to Artoo. I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he sheepishly replies after a few moments of silence. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing very important.”
A distinctly aggravated and challenging blatting noise follows, and Dormé finds herself smiling, in spite of her sleepiness, and chuckling as she swings her legs across the bed so she can stand up, noting, “Artoo doesn’t seem to agree with you. Are you sure - ”
“Artoo,” Anakin quickly declares, a soft glowing filling the room at nothing more than a gesture from him - the lights of the room gradually turning on, but somehow rising to a level of illumination no more than that of only about a sixteenth of that of their normal glaring brightness - so that she can see for herself that nothing is wrong, “quite possibly worries even more than I do. And that’s saying a lot, considering I was actually only worrying myself, some more, just now. Really. It honestly isn’t anything worth getting up for. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep - too used to Coruscanti sleep cycles, still, I guess - so I thought I should try to work through a few more possibilities in my head, before I laid back down again.”
“You’re sure you’re alright?” she asks, pushing the thick waves of her hair back absently from her face so she can see him more clearly, where he’s curled up cross-legged at the end of his bed, sleeping pants and shirt creased and mussed, bare feet tucked away mostly under his knees.
“I’m fine, sakiana. Go back to sleep,” Anakin replies, smiling at her softly.
“Okay.” She smiles back at him and then slides underneath the covers again, her slippery silken scarlet and ivory nightgown catching only slightly on the rough material - far less than the fanciful lace and ribbon edging on the uppermost layer of her other nightdress (the satin beige and brown and black nightgown she’d worn the first two nights) would have done - allowing her to slide back in with a certain amount of smoothness, so that she doesn’t have to stop and wriggle about to untangle herself from the bedclothes. “We’re almost there, you know. One more day - less than one more day, really - and we’ll be there.”
“I look forward to it.”
“Hmm. You’ll sleep better on Naboo. It’s easier to adjust, when you have an actual sun to adjust to,” she half mumbles and half yawns as she lays back down.
The lights are fading away to black and Dormé is already most of the way back to sleep by the time Anakin replies, and so the words, “I’ll be fine, as long as I’m with you,” don’t really have a chance to register before she slides back under into sleep’s dark embrace.
*********
This chapter is continued in the next post http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/139702.html because the LJ’s idiotic word/character limits won’t let me put the whole chapter in the body of just one post!