We love the women that fandom hates: Padme Naberrie [day five] - fic
Originally written in Polish, translated by idrilka. 228 words in English.
Kind of Obi-Wan/Padme, a gapfiller to The Phantom Menace.
Stages
Come with me, Master Kenobi, she will say, taking you by the hand. Her own hand will seem ridiculously small in yours, the queen’s soft palm, her strong grip, you won’t dare to let go.
(I’m not, you want to say, but you never open your mouth, because you remember that yes, you are, you are a Jedi knight now, no longer an apprentice but a Master instead.)
Growing up is hard, she will say, kneeling next to you in the long grass, a girl eleven years younger than you, far braver and far stronger than you, her hands touching your face.
(You’re defined by the stages of your development, you think, an initiate, a padawan, a Master-Jedi knight. You can’t remember what came before that. You want to ask her who she’d been before she became queen.)
I know, she will say, twisting your braid around her finger, a gleam of silver in her hand. You close your eyes and it’s done, the familiar weight just behind your ear is gone; her fingers in your hair.
(The stage in between, when you need to make sure: you open your eyes, you touch, first braids behind your ear - you open your eyes, you touch, nothing under your fingertips. A cut, twelve years.)
Her hand touches yours, the cut braid held between her fingers, an artificial limbo.
(Metamorphosis.)