There are smiles between them, always.
It could only ever be in private, of course; the eyes of Naboo, of the galaxy, are on them at every waking moment. But behind closed doors, where they can breathe and let their shoulders fall and let themselves be living creatures and not the symbols of their world, even on the worst days those private moments are defined by smiles.
It is hard on them all; Padmé's frustration rolls off her in angry waves whenever she's forced to deal with the Senate. For a young woman whose soul is steeped in honesty and duty, who has only ever been a servant of her people, who would suffer gladly if it meant their well-being... self-serving politicians make her handmaidens' blaster hands twitch. They make her want to scream.
(Eirtaé has developed a habit of removing the Queen's lipstick first. Sometimes Sabé decides, to her fellow handmaiden's eternal irritation, that properly removing Padmé's makeup is a secondary concern to allowing her to shriek her anger into a pillow. None of them are certain exactly what that ceremonial lipstick is made of, but it stains like they cannot believe.)
But even on the really bad days, these private moments are ones of reassurance. Rabé earns her keep a thousand times over in ways Sabé, always less open, never could. Her words are warm and golden—honey to the sickly-sweetness of a politician's oil. She murmurs comfort as she runs a soft brush through their mistress' hair and lets Padmé vent in words Captain Panaka would absolutely never approve of.
And when she's let off some of the pressure that all of them can see pounding against her temples, Sabé will kneel in front of her and squeeze the Queen's hands between her own. Padmé meets her eyes, sighs, and gives her a wry smile to assure her that she is herself again.
Not all days are bad ones, and it is very rare for a smile exchanged in the Queen's quarters to be forced. It's a place of laughter and light—of Sabé making sly comments about visiting dignitaries that make Padmé shake with suppressed laughter and Rabé choke on a mouthful of hair pins and Eirtaé inform her that such comments are inappropriate, while visibly biting her cheek to maintain a straight face. Or of Padmé teasing one or all of them, and someone taking revenge with a hard pinch to that one spot on her side where she's ridiculously ticklish and then the whole place dissolving into glorious chaos.
Sabé somehow always ends up 'fighting' on her mistress' side, even and sometimes especially when she was the one who started it. Saché has made several comments lampshading this; Eirtaé just raises her eyebrows and looks amused. Sabé returns her teasing looks with a combination of guileless innocence and defiance.
(The smiles that pass between Sabé and her queen when they are really, truly alone are too precious to be embarrassed by.)
"You're so serious all the time," Padmé tells her, lips pulled softly upwards at the edges while she props herself up on one elbow and toys with Sabé's hair, plucking at the wispy bits behind her ears until her handmaiden cracks a smile. She can't help it, her rare smiles bring out such joy in her mistress. Padmé isn't like her; the young Queen's entire soul lights up with honest joy when she smiles. Sabé may wear her heart on her sleeve, but Padmé wears it in her eyes, and has never been able to lie with them.
She smiles, then, when her queen looks at her with gentle encouragement, because she can deny Padmé nothing; even less when she is so vulnerable.
(Sometimes she smiles because she really doesn't have a choice in the matter. Padmé triumphant after a hard-won victory is always flushed with happiness. She is in no way above tying Sabé's wrists to the headboard and tickling her mercilessly until she's half in hysterics, pleading for quarter in Twi'leki between wheezing gasps of laughter. When Padmé gives up laughing in favor of kissing her out of what little oxygen she's managed to get, Sabé knows she's won.)
Padmé's kisses are almost always born through a grin that's almost shy; what these early, brief kisses lack in finesse they make up for in emotion, in the earnest joy of them. She hovers over Sabé on her forearms, draped across her double's chest where she can run her thumbs over Sabé's temples and shake her head at her handmaiden's smirk.
And she is just as self-satisfied as she looks. Oh, yes. Sabé can hardly help that much. She adores Padmé—as her friend, as her leader, as her lover—and she doubts she will ever really believe she's worthy of this beautiful creature. But worthy or not Padmé has chosen her. Out of everything, over everyone—Eirtaé exists, Rabé is almost as close to the Queen as she is and Padmé does like feeling she can protect someone, and that's to say nothing of the galaxy of handsome matches Naboo would be eager to see their Queen make...
She would hardly be human if she didn't allow herself a few moments, every so often, to be smug. She's just glad Padmé thinks it's endearing.
Sabé takes a unique pleasure in bringing unexpected smiles to her mistress' face.
It is very easy, when she is not in the role of Queen, to make Padmé smile. This is different. Padmé is intimately familiar with Sabé's quirks and turn of phrase; they often move to do the same thing at the same time, they finish one another's sentences on a regular basis. Sabé has it on excellent authority from the girls that it's kind of creepy. But Padmé has always been ever so slightly unpredictable—Sabé knows her better than she knows herself, they communicate without a word, she will often reach out to halt a movement her queen has not yet made, but there is a reason she is not the Queen. Padmé retains just enough impulsive brilliance to make her bodyguards go prematurely gray.
When it is Sabé who manages to be impishly unpredictable, Padmé is equal parts shocked and delighted. The expression alone is enough to make her double purr.
But the surprise is essential, and the trouble in loving someone with whom you share the closest thing to a psychic bond physically possible without the Force is that it is very, very hard to surprise them. Luckily Sabé makes a career out of quick and decisive moves, and not telegraphing her intent to make them.
She softens under Padmé's hands, sighs into her, tilts her head back in submission. Padmé's hands run along her sides, over her breasts; the long, shuddering breath is not an act. And before her Queen has time for more than a moment's enjoyment, Sabé has rolled them both over and pinned her.
Padmé's eyes widen. She almost pants, dark hair loose over the pristine pillows, mouth half-open in shock and shoulders tensing instinctively from the sudden movement; but her eyes are dark and eager and even as she gives an incredulous half-laugh the corners of her mouth twitch. Sabé's grin is too happy to be vicious, her gaze too focused and careful to be feral. But only just. Only barely.
This, tonight, is different.
Padmé—the Queen Amidala, really, and it is very rare that she is allowed into these chambers—is not smiling.
"Leave us," she says flatly the moment she crosses the threshold, and there is a visible ripple through the handmaidens as they try to interpret the command. Sabé's gaze flicks to her mistress' clenched hands; she offers no clarifying signal. In public such an order would be automatically interpreted as a royal plural, and only Sabé and Eirtaé would remain at a polite distance. Here, the meaning is more nebulous; after a moment of wavering, Saché and Fé glance at each other and hesitantly let themselves out.
The Queen glances back. "All of you," she clarifies, and why she hasn't dropped the royal monotone Sabé has no idea. The room can't be bugged.
Observer? she signals. If her lady has reason to believe she is not safe in her own quarters, it is entirely characteristic that she would seek to send others out of harm's way.
The Queen shakes her head impatiently. "Rabé," she says, and while she doesn't quite snap at them her voice is still hard. "Eirtaé. Leave us. Please," she adds in an afterthought that comes out harsh.
Eirtaé regards her evenly for a few seconds, then inclines her head and lets herself out; Rabé glances at Sabé first, and only retreats when the royal decoy gives her a small nod.
Padmé, fists still clenched, sits down jerkily. Sabé wishes she would sigh, or rest her head in her hands, or something.
"My lady," she says softly, crouching and placing a hand on her queen's knee. Padmé squeezes her fingers tightly.
There's a pause.
"Children," she chokes finally. "Children, Sabé."
Sabé tightens her grip. The fire had sprung up all at once, burned too fast and too hot to be natural. The authorities were calling it arson already; who could possibly want to set fire to a children's hospital—a nonprofit children's hospital, whose patients were already poor, children whose only hope at treatment was through royal funding...
"There was nothing you could have done," Sabé says. She keeps her voice even; they cannot both cry, not right now. "Nothing, my lady."
Padmé pulls her hands away. "They had to have planned this," she says, desperation beginning to rise in her voice. "If I didn't know about it, if our intelligence didn't stop this, what good are we? What's the point, if we can't even—!"
Sabé stands instinctively, places a firm hand on her mistress' shoulder before she's able to stand and start pacing.
"It wasn't your fault," she says. "My lady. Padmé. Please listen to me. You did everything you could."
Even through the makeup, she can see the desperate confusion on Padmé's face, the restless urgency and the vicious rage. Padmé is a protector. She's a fighter. She always has been. But until they have a lead, their lady has nothing to fight. It's like watching a cross-tied gualama who's been separated from her young, except they haven't even given Padmé the courtesy of tangible bonds. At least those could be fought.
She can't go on like this. Sabé shifts her grip from the Queen's shoulder to her arm, squeezes gently before shifting her grip to slip the worst of the headdress free. "You'll feel better when you're out of this," she says softly. It will be an undertaking, without the others' help; but an honor, as well. Padmé cannot handle the presence of so many people right now, not even her dearest friends.
Sabé rolls her shoulders, and moves to take off the heavy outer robe so at least her Queen will be marginally comfortable while she works on the makeup.
Padmé stops her.
It's not hard or harsh, the hand that grabs hers; firm, but not painful. She holds it for a second, and releases it willingly as Sabé slowly lets it fall back to her side. The Queen's eyes are as dark and intent as Sabé has ever seen them, staring up at her. Sabé fights the sudden urge to look away, maintaining eye contact against that kind of intensity is almost more than she can bear, it's like vertigo, she feels weightless... but looking away is even harder. She's heard of predators that hypnotize their prey so that it can't run, and wonders if they were half as transfixed as this.
In retrospect it is not sudden. Padmé stands slowly with those dark eyes burning, carefully aware of every move as she steps forward. There is nothing quick about it and yet it seems one second Sabé is standing over her, and the next her shoulders thud as she stumbles back against a pillar. That her breath stutters is half reflex—the shove was not gentle—and half confusion as she finally notices that she's moved.
The Queen has the fabric of Sabé's robe twisted around her hand, pressing clenched knuckles into the girl's shoulder just beside her collarbone; in the next moment her free hand is wrapped around Sabé's throat, and the sound her handmaiden makes—equal parts gasp and moan—is possibly the least dignified one she's ever given in her life.
Padmé groans and her hand tightens—not hard, not enough to interfere with Sabé's breathing, but enough to make its presence impossible to ignore. The hand tangled at Sabé's shoulder tugs ineffectually at her robe, but neither of them are paying it much attention.
True to form Padmé's initial kisses are rushed, shallow, a bit clumsy; it's different, very different from what Sabé is used to but it's still reassuringly her. She's not laughing now, however, and it's mere moments before she presses closer, harder, more demanding. Sabé closes her eyes and lets her head fall back as Padmé's tongue urges her lips apart, and forgets how to breathe.
Padmé pulls back with a wild gasp an eternity later, and Sabé blinks stars out of her vision as her Queen lays hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jaw like it's all that's keeping her alive.
"Your word," she whispers against her handmaiden's ear between kisses, as the hand at Sabé's throat moves to fist in her hair instead—and when had her hair left its bun? "Your word, I swear, I just—need—"
There is absolutely no chance that Sabé will ever lapse into Huttese accidentally, and if somehow her mind were to wander through sheer coincidence to Hutts in the middle of sex she would have much more serious problems than her Queen tickling her past the point of enjoyment. Stop, in Huttese, is absolute.
"Anything," Sabé breathes into her Queen's hair, and Padmé's fingers as they clench in her hair are almost painful.
But only just. Only barely.
There are days when Padmé feels nothing short of lost. When despite her best efforts and considerable talents she simply can't make headway; when she throws herself at walls of indolence and inaction to no avail and begins to doubt her people's faith in her. There are days when she simply can't bear to have any more expectations, any more trust, placed on her shoulders—when she needs desperately to just be a young woman, for a few hours.
This is different. Tonight Padmé cannot separate herself from her duties, cannot be anything but a Queen. It's in her bearing as much as the smearing formal makeup. Tonight, she needs to feel she is not a passive observer. That she is in control.
Sabé arches under her touch, and lets her have it.
Ever the consummate professional, ever the bodyguard and protector, Sabé has always been painstakingly careful about the marks she leaves on her mistress. She has never held back, per se; it would be an insult to them both, and cruel to deny Padmé what she sometimes needs so badly. But Sabé's lips and tongue on her mistress' neck are always and forever soft, her bites never deep enough to leave more than a temporary imprint of teeth where she braces them over Padmé's pulse and hums to hear her Queen's breath hitch. She is too careful with her lady's life, too wary, to ever risk leaving a mark that might differentiate them.
(Small and fine-boned though they both may be, she is over a hundred and fifteen pounds of hard, sleek muscle ingrained with years of combat training. If Padmé bears bruises on her wrists the exact shape of Sabé's fingers where she pinned them to the bed, if there are fading scratch marks down her stomach and along her sides the next day, well, the girls are tactful enough not to mention it and at least they're difficult to see unless you're looking for them. The bite marks, those not even Eirtaé knows about. She hopes.)
Padmé has no such restrictions.
She (finally) manages to locate the fastenings of Sabé's robe, and doesn't bother undoing them more than is necessary to loosen the garment enough to pull it over her handmaiden's head. Sabé has to shake one clinging sleeve off her wrist, a brief distraction her Queen uses to shrug out of her heavy outer robe. Sabé takes a moment to realize that Padmé physically cannot remove any more of her clothes without help, but before she can reach out to assist her the Queen has shaken her hair mostly free of Rabé's hard work and has Sabé backed up against the bed.
"Leave it," she says, cupping a hand around the back of Sabé's neck and pulling her back in. She shifts forward, balances with one knee on the mattress next to her handmaiden's hip, and tips her over.
And really something about that order strikes Sabé as terribly unfair, but Padmé's mouth is at her throat again and a hand on her hip holds her still while her lady works and Sabé can let herself be selfish if this is the result. She bites her lip when Padmé's grip on the back of her neck tightens; her Queen nips at the sensitive skin just under her jaw and sucks, hard, enough that there is no chance it won't leave a mark. Sabé rolls her hips, she can't help it, and is rewarded with another deep, hungry kiss.
Padmé's nails run delicately down the back of her thigh, and she pulls back just enough for Sabé to see the welcome spark of daring and mischief in her eyes as—gently—she hooks her handmaiden's knee over her hip.
Sabé takes a deep, shivering breath as her Queen trails fingertips slowly down her stomach, and gropes blindly for something to hold on to.
Padmé, looking down at her, smiles.