A/N: Thanks for your reviews!
Disclaimer: Can bald Sabé be mine? No? Alright. None of it are mine!
Chapter 1: Setting to Order
And we. turned not toward the Open
but to the stuff of our lives.
It drowns us. We set it in order.
It falls apart.
- Rilke, Eighth Elegy
In the days when she was novice to the Order of Ailla (or served the gods, as Captain Panaka might say ), long before the sun made its ascent into the wide sky over Ranneth, Sister Kalare would have gone around the quarters with the wooden bell, chanting the Prayer of Great Compassion for morning wake-up. Then from the blue shadows of their cells the sisters and novitiates of the abbey would emerge, quiet steps padding down the wood planks of the hallway to their ablutions. Then into the hall, where the Abbess had already began the Sitting; and so the day proceeded with meditation, prostrations, and prayers until the sun filtered through the upper east window. Breakfast followed; a brief affair of oats and honey and fresh fruit if the season was right.
The rest of the morning was spent in study of scripture or in further meditation. Sabé and the two other novices had begun their term with a year's long observance of silence to cultivate patience and insight into the true use of speech. Mornings for them were a time of great mental activity, for committing the teachings to memory and for recording her reflections in the year's journal. Midday meal was served at half past noon, and the afternoon was spent in the upkeep of the monastery, during which Sabé was apprenticed to Sister Thessa, who at eighty-seven standard years old, was still in charge of fixing the Abbey's ever-growing number of malfunctioning machines. Around 6 pm, a light evening fare for those who wished it (Sisters who observed stricter vows did not partake of dinner), then evening prayers, and bedtime promptly at 10 pm, if not before. And this was so in all the days that preceded the first.
Handmaiden training proved a vastly different experience. After a day-long journey via the hovercraft Sabé was woken from her nap and escorted into an unremarkable building in the outskirts of the Theed. After a few excited words to the matron at the door Captain Panaka motioned for her to follow him through the gate – she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes – and past the small courtyard, then it was down a maze of bluish hallways and solid metal doors until they came to a small gymnasium. Shouts and the slap of bodies against mats echoed through the room, and Sabé saw that three pairs of girls were training in hand-to-hand combat at the far end.
The wooden floor shone a waxed yellow, and the mats were brilliant blue. Sabé, too long used to the Abbey, couldn't help but wonder who it was in charge of buffing the gym floor until it shone, and how long it must take. The overhead lights were very bright.
The first girl who noticed their appearance let her guard down for a second. This allowed her taller, blond opponent to land a kick directly at her solar plexus. The shorter one emitted what could only be termed a squeak, and fell hard on the floor.
Sabé winced, and the thought occurred to her – rather dimly but growing in apprehension – that she would also have to train in hand-to-hand combat.
"Handmaiden Saché," the Captain called, advancing on the group, "you'll have to learn to focus on you closest opponent at all times, or any change in the environment is going to throw you, as Handmaiden Eirtaé has so kindly demonstrated for us. But as this is a training module, Eirtaé, let us save the more damaging maneuvers for someone who is not on our side, hm?"
"Sorry Captain," said Eirtaé, but Sabé saw the little smirk playing at the corner of her mouth as she held out her hand to the brown, curly-haired Saché.
"I was just that happy to see you back, Captain," quipped Saché, getting up on her own and throwing her blond companion a look of utter disgust, "it's been far too long since we've felt your gentle guidance."
The four girls had assembled, by order of height. They looked at Sabé curiously, but as she was hooded they abandoned the effort after a cursory glance and focused their attention back on Panaka.
"And I see that these two weeks of training hasn't impelled you to control your tongue any better. Rabé," he addressed another of the girls, who Sabé distinguished by her high cheekbones and rather large ears, "have they been like this the whole time?"
The handmaiden replied, "We have all been very well, Captain. It is good to have you back."
"See that, Saché? You'd do well to learn from Rabé." Panaka said.
Saché gave a long suffering sigh.
"Handmaidens, I would like you to meet our new queen."
He motioned for Sabé to show her face, which she did, lifting up her head and the eyes of the girls grew round.
One of them said quite naively, dipping in a courtesy, "Your Royal Highness."
Saché rolled her eyes, "This is not the queen, Yané. It's the decoy that the Captain's been so keen on. Her Royal Highness is at least an inch shorter. And her eyes aren't hazel, they're brown."
"And she has hair," Eirtaé exclaimed, pulling off the hood as the girls gave a collective gasp, "For Shiraya's sake, Captain, where did you find her?"
"Where are you manners?" said Rabé with a repressive frown, but to Sabé she gave a smile, and a hand to shake, "my name is Rabé. What is yours?"
And while at repose her features were not exceptional, now kindness lit up her face, made it open and beautiful.
"I am Sabé."
As the rest of the girls duly introduced themselves while Captain Panaka refrained himself from tapping his foot. There was much to be done in a short amount of time. The Captain was glad to see that at least the girl would find an ally, or a protector in Rabé. The others all talked back far too much for his liking. Saché was especially strident, she had a tongue sharper than a guillotine; Eirtaé thought herself above them all (which she was, being a Lady and all); Yané could really be a bit dim-witted at times, but Rabé had something of gentleness in her. And this new girl, the decoy, he had been so utterly focused on her physical resemblance to the queen that her mind was still a mystery to him.
The Captain rubbed his hands together. It's been a month since the Queen's coronation and the Trade Federation was getting more unreasonable by the day. Calculations streamed through his head – physical conditioning itself will take three weeks to get her up to par, which meant he will have to cram in the decoy training in the middle of that.
Quickly he wrapped up the meet-and-greet. There were still training modules to complete that very evening, and he had on hand – oh by the gods – a young nun who will have to be divested of all her pacifist conditioning in a very short amount of time.
From early childhood Padmé Naberrie had known the precise effect that face of a pretty woman may have on a man. Her mother was exceptionally beautiful, and in general the males who came within her gravitational field had - with very few exceptions - turned into illogical, blubbering idiots.
Padmé herself had been a pretty child, but not beautiful or much of anything out of the ordinary. Bright eyed, dark haired, with skin translucent that any signs of a blush showed clear through – she was the apple of her parents' eye, but of no more than passing interest to strangers. Until her twelfth year - then suddenly the dark of night brought about an astonishing transformation. One day she woke and in the street faces turned to hers when she passed; every service was suddenly provided with more alacrity when she went about her business in town, and while she had never been short of friends at school, it was easier now to call herself friend to hundreds with little more effort than a smile, and a gesture of inclusion.
Many a girl would have basked in it. Beauty was a virtue, after all; and no matter how enlightened the society and civilization became, there was no denying the natural pull of a lovely faceBut luckily for Padmé, her ambitions and her dreams had been long cemented before the onset of her beauty. Indeed it was as if her loveliness was only the long-anticipated final ingredient to complete the picture of her allure, as if it was fated for her to be beautiful. And indeed, her beauty, when coupled with her truly prodigious intelligence, together launched (catapulted, really) Padmé into her political career. And oh, what a brilliant career it has been.
The discovery of Sabé was quite a surprise. The differences between herself and the Decoy were glaring, of course, when the individual habits of years was upon them, and they used their own facial, verbal, physical expressions. Padmé was usually an animated talker, she tended to gesticulate wildly when excited; Sabé on the other hand rarely talked at all in her first few days, and went around with a blank face most of the time. Her decoy had been a nun for the last three years, for Shiraya's sake.
But perhaps most strange to Padmé of all was that her decoy had absolutely no idea how to use her beauty. What Padmé had come to understand intuitively had to be rather painstakingly spelled out to her decoy, namely, that Beauty was not only in the natural arrangement of the face, but also in its expressions. For Padmé, her normal modes of speech and emotion tended to evoke the most attractive of those expressions, no matter what she did. Sabé, on the other hand had to be taught almost the whole range of looks. Hours had to be spent in front of the mirror to perfect the expressions, to which Beauty was not sacrificed and emotion was clearly conveyed, producing Charming Coquetry (for easily influenced elder politicians, mostly male), Ice Cold Aloofness (for bothersome courtiers, especially those who come courting, the perverts), Regal Distance (especially on public occasions when photographs might be taken), Earth-Motherly Generosity (whenever in the presence of children, to signify a difference in station, especially if the children were not so apart in age), and the like.
Smiling – with all the teeth shown and the corners of the eyes crinkled-like – was prohibited, as was boisterous laughter; though after day one Padmé hadn't seen her decoy smile, or laugh.
For the next few weeks, Padmé would take care of state business during the morning, and flew in to the training facility in the afternoon for practice. Evenings she spent back at the Palace, where, thank the gods, the beds were so much more comfortable, and there she stayed up late and read reports and prepared for further indignation from the Trade Federation.
The first four days of combat training were rather harsh on the Decoy. The precepts practiced by an ordained nun was very different from the philosophy espoused by Captain Panaka, which involved a lot more punching, hitting, kicking, and running away if attacked – though the idea of the decoy was really to stick around while the real queen ran, so she would have to be rather good at the fighting.
Days one through four consisted almost exclusively of her decoy getting kicked, punched, sometimes flying a little through the air before landing painfully on the mat. Padmé generally went easy on her, as did Rabé, but Eirtaé was the kind to believe in tough love, and Yané and Saché hadn't gotten perfected their control yet, and did the worst damage purely by accident.
But she never complained; not within Padmé's hearing anyway, though there was a distinct possibility that the training regimen was so exhausting that anything but sleeping was a waste of breath afterward. Padmé thought that if any of the other handmaidens were to be put through the same regimen they would not have done so gracefully, or silently.
There was also the speech training, the familiarization with Padmé's carriage, her walk, and mannerism, which they completed later in the afternoon, while the other handmaidens had some time off, or trained on the more domestic aspects of their service to the Queen. And here, aside from teaching Sabé how to use her looks, another set of philosophies had to be implemented, but at least these were easy to explain.
"There is no time when you don't give a damn about politics," Padmé thought she summed it up quite nicely there, "Every word matters, and every gesture. Because there is no time when you are not being observed. There is no time when you are not Queen."
Sabé learned quickly; and having a literary she bent mastered the speech patterns as well as a host of court phrases – especially the ones designed to stall so Padmé could make some sort of a hand signal to indicate her opinion, or rather, command on the matter.
On the first day of week two, the afternoon began with combat practice with the usual six-foot bamboo pole, intended to simulate the tall arm of wall torches in the palace which are, in fact, detachable for the purposes of defense, though why any one wouldn't rather just use a blaster was beyond Padmé's guess. Panaka had woken the handmaidens early that morning; each had about four hour's sleep since the evening before. All morning he had them run the obstacle course outside. And as the afternoon got on Padmé could see the strain wearing at the girls. Eirtaé looked especially murderous, and even Rabé did not have her usual smile. Glancing over at Sabé, however, Padmé saw that her decoy looked positively ill. Her face was flushed, red stood high on either cheek, and she was sweating even before practice began. She shot a look at Panaka, but he ignored her. Practice under all conditions, was his motto; they must be ready under any circumstances.
Her decoy was fighting tired, and the first round Padmé had gone easy on her, but even so Sabé could barely bring her arms to block towards the end. Her second round with Rabé was only worse. Padmé watched from the corner of her eyes, and tried to shout out a warning even as Rabé's parry caught Sabé full on the sternum. Sabé stumbled backwards, swayed as she tried to right herself and fell face-first onto the mat. After a second Rabé was on the ground, shaking Sabé gently, the decoy had raised herself to her elbows and tried vigorously to shake her off. Then Sabé's shoulders heaved, and she sprinted out of the room.
"Back to your positions," roared Captain Panaka, "Rabé, go see to Handmaiden Sabé. Everyone else, this is a combat training, I want to see those sticks back in your hands, and everyone fighting!"
But before Rabé had even gotten to the door of the gymnasium, Sabé had returned. She was rubbing the spot on her chest where Rabé had hit her, but other than that she looked completely better. The greenish pallor gone, as were the sunken eyes and the hunched walk. She was even standing a couple of inches taller. The training pole sat lightly in her hand as she picked it up, twirling it experimentally. The sickness had disappeared in an instant.
Sparring resumed, this time with Sabé going against Eirtaé. And from the corner of her eye Padmé was astonished to note that Sabé was holding her own – more than holding her own, in fact.
"Handmaiden!" This time it was Panaka who yelled, and the rest of them dropped their sticks in time to see Sabé complete a perfect spin about five feet in the air to avoid one of Eirtaé's high arching sweeps. Padmé knew the blond handmaiden's technique; she had felt its blow on more than one occasion. Eirtaé used it because it was so hard to avoid its trajectory; the only way to get out was to roll under, and try to cut out Eirtaé's legs from under her. that situation usually ended in the taller handmaiden either kicking, or striking from above, since she had the higher ground. But apparently there was another, better way to do it.
Sabé landed silently, with almost inhuman grace. She twisted the staff in an elaborate, dizzying figure, and before the could blink, two sharp cracks sounded as Eirtaé's stick clattered out of her hands, leaving only Sabé, her pole held horizontal to her opponent's chest.
"My stars," said Saché, who had been fighting Yané.
"How did you do that?" Eirtaé asked incredulously.
"Well," Sabé said, barely breathing hard, "I guess I finally found my knack for it."
The same strange leap repeated itself later that afternoon, at their speech training. Sabé was asked to deliver a speech that Padmé had given during her coronation, the idea being that she could be shown the video of it afterwards and compare her performance to the real thing. The handmaiden had looked over the speech, and turning her hazel eyes on Padmé, asked what it was that she was looking at, when she talked that day.
"The fountain," Padmé said, remembering, "and the spray of the falls behind them, in the distance."
"Was it sunny outside?"
"There were moments of sun," Padmé replied, "but mostly the clouds were moving fast, with the wind."
Sabé nodded.
She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them, she was no longer Sabé Veruna, the plague orphan, rehearsing in a training compound in front of the skeptical audience of Captain Panaka and Padmé. She was Queen Amidala, addressing the citizens of Naboo on the day of her coronation.
Five seconds in, Padmé was stunned. Five minutes in, she was flabbergasted. The expression of Panaka's face told a similar story. Her decoy was giving the speech as she herself wished to give it – better, in fact, than she had given it. Every inflection was a thing Padmé had worked on, for hours, in the space of her chamber. For the role of the Queen was an act for her as well, yet it seemed now that the act came much more easily to the Decoy, than even to the Queen herself. All of a sudden it the role took on the girl standing before her, wearing her combat-training uniform as if it were the royal regalia, holding her head high in defiance of any challenge.
"Well," said Captain Panaka to silent room after Sabé had finished, "I think you're ready."
