Author's Note #1: Happy May the 4th, everyone. My main author's note is going to be at the end of the chapter today because it is long and it has been awhile since I've posted, so I'd like to get into the story as soon as possible. Review responses can also be found at the end of the chapter, after the author's note. As usual, I've attached a summary of each of the most important events that have led up to this chapter, to remind everyone of what has happened since it has been so long. It is organized a bit differently this time, which will hopefully make it easier to read. I hope you enjoy this next instalment, and I'll see you again at the end of the chapter. :)
Summary
Sabé as Empress Amidala's Decoy: Unable to find and "rescue" Padmé from the fictitious "invaders" whom he has engineered as a scapegoat, Vader faces scrutiny from both the nobility and the public at large. To counter this, he forces Sabé to pose as a rescued Empress Amidala. He takes one of her fellow handmaidens, Rabé, into custody to ensure her cooperation. Few realize that Sabé is a decoy except for her fellow handmaidens and Ahsoka.
Barriss, Ahsoka, and the Sith Shrine: Ahsoka has been suffering continuous memory loss since Vader attempted to erase her memory for the second time. To help her find a way to halt and maybe even reverse this memory loss, Barriss introduces Ahsoka to a secret Sith Shrine hidden beneath the Imperial Palace, which can be accessed via Vader's office. This is where he keeps his most private documents, since only Dark Side users can access the Shrine. Ahsoka discovers files that reveal Vader's fiscal corruption and the assassinations he engineered for those who would stand against him. She also encounters a mysterious voice who claims to embody the Dark Side of the Force. Lastly, she learns that she can halt her memory loss by "harness[ing] energy from contact with [a] kyber crystal" and can reverse her memory loss by establishing a "potent connection with [a] kyber crystal" that has chosen her. However, the information comes at a price: when Barriss's unauthorized presence in the Shrine is discovered by an Imperial captain, she stalls for time so that Ahsoka can escape. This act of bravery costs Barriss her life.
Betrothal to Vivio and the Radicalization of Ahsoka: Ahsoka eavesdrops on a conversation between Vader and the van Cruliuses, where she learns that Vader is planning to betroth her to Prince Vivio van Crulius so that he may gain the Elder Houses' favour and stability for Imperial rule. When he discovers her eavesdropping, he flies into a rage at her continued resistance to him. Vader beats her unconscious, but not before Ahsoka manages to grab his lightsaber in self-defence, inadvertently harnessing energy from his kyber crystal that halts her memory loss. Nonetheless, this traumatic experience has a radicalizing effect on Ahsoka, who rejects peaceful resolution as a solution and chooses instead to fight fire with fire. She goes behind the back of pacifist and former ally Princess Sapphira of Naboo, teaming up instead with Princess Nadila of Chandrila, who also wants to enact violent retribution on Vader as revenge for his destruction of her planet.
Recruitment of Princess Sapphira and the Panakas: Padmé and her allies—Kaeden Larte, Bail Organa, and clone troopers Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor—turn themselves in to Imperial Moff Quarsh Panaka (Padmé's former head of security from when she was queen). He takes them to Isé Sapphira, the current princess of Theed, Naboo. Instead of arresting Padmé and her allies, Sapphira decides to help them rescue Ahsoka, Luke, Leia, and Demia (Bail and Breha's daughter) from the emperor's clutches. Former handmaiden Saché joins the team, as do power couple Mariek and Quarsh Panaka. Everyone pledges their loyalty to Padmé as the true Queen of Naboo.
Ahsoka's Escape Plan: Vader has chosen the date on which Ahsoka will leave for the planet Crulius with her new fiancé, Prince Vivio. Ahsoka works with Nadila to plot Vader's assassination and her subsequent escape from the palace, a scheme which they intend to enact on the same day as her departure from Coruscant. Ahsoka's plan is to poison Vivio and flee his ship in an escape pod; Nadila will then pick her up, equip her, and fly her back to Coruscant's surface to assassinate Vader. Ahsoka recruits Eirtaé (one of Padmé's original handmaidens) to break Obi-Wan out of prison on the same day.
Vader's Insanity: It is revealed that Vader has come to believe his own lies about the galaxy's past. He has convinced himself that he was born heir to the Imperial throne and that Ahsoka and Padmé did not flee the palace but were instead captured by rebels, who brainwashed them into resisting his rule.
Padmé's Attack on the Palace: On the night that Vivio and Ahsoka are scheduled to leave for Crulius, Vader throws a sendoff garden party. Padmé sneaks into the Imperial Palace and switches places with her decoy, Sabé, a position that she uses to launch an attack on the garden party. In the chaos, Vivio and the Grand Inquisitor manage to drag Ahsoka onboard Vivio's ship, but Saché Adova follows them, unnoticed.
The Deaths of Vivio and the Grand Inquisitor: Ahsoka's attempts to poison Vivio during the garden party turn out to have been unsuccessful, since he suspected she was up to something. Saché comes to Ahsoka's rescue and kills Vivio. She and Ahsoka struggle to escape from the Grand Inquisitor, but they are saved when Princess Nadila's troops board the ship and attack him. Once the Force suppressant in Ahsoka's bloodstream has worn off, she kills the Grand Inquisitor once and for all. Ahsoka and Saché reunite with some of their allies: Princess Nadila and Countess Emalina of Chandrila, Captain Tonra of Naboo, and Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan. Breha has come to rescue her daughter from Vader. Ahsoka, Saché, Tonra, and Breha head to Coruscant's surface to rejoin the fight, and Nadila and Emalina stay on the ship in case it is needed for a quick getaway.
Padmé and Vader's Standoff: Padmé and Sabé accidentally encounter Vader and Tarkin while they are seeking Padmé's children. Tarkin and Vader have taken Yané hostage because she knows where Luke and Leia have been taken. Padmé summons her army (Rex, Wolffe, Gregor, the Panakas, and a portion of the Naboo Royal Guard) to engage Vader and Tarkin in a standoff. Tarkin tries to murder Yané but Padmé throws herself into the line of fire, sustaining a severe injury in her side. Sabé knocks Tarkin unconscious before he can deal any more damage to either Yané or Padmé. Rex distracts Vader so that Padmé and her handmaidens can escape, and Wolffe sacrifices his life.
Vader's Murderous Intentions: In the aftermath of his standoff with Padmé, Vader learns of Vivio's death and decides that he must kill Ahsoka. He reasons that it would be too suspicious for her to remain alive after two of her fiancés have died, but if he can kill her and attribute all three of their deaths to the rebels, it will move the Elder Houses and the galaxy at large against those who would resist his power. He is convinced that killing Ahsoka is for her own good, to protect her "innocence" from the influence of the rebels' "brainwashing". He is equally convinced that once Padmé witnesses the murder of Ahsoka, she will agree to "love" him again in order to protect the lives of their children.
Padmé and Ahsoka's Reunion: Padmé, Sabé, and Yané—who are still fleeing the standoff with Vader—run into Ahsoka, Saché, Tonra, and Breha. Yané unites with her girlfriend Saché, and Ahsoka and Padmé reunite, as well. Reluctantly, Padmé admits that she has sustained serious injury, and Ahsoka suggests that Obi-Wan may be able to use Force-healing to help her. They agree to split up into teams. Yané, Saché, and Breha will join Kaeden, Sapphira, and Bail in rescuing the young children whom Vader has taken as hostages (Luke, Leia, and Demia). Padmé, Sabé, and Tonra will set out to find Obi-Wan so that he can heal Padmé. Ahsoka will track down her lightsabers so that she stands a chance against Vader should they meet in a duel.
"Forgive Me, Ahsoka": Padmé is still overcome by guilt at the thought of her husband torturing Ahsoka on the night of Order 66. She asks that Ahsoka forgive her for having stood aside and enabled Vader's abuse for so long. Ahsoka is shocked by Padmé's request, since she considers Padmé to be the only person who hasn't betrayed her and, furthermore, the person who outright saved her from Vader. However, before Ahsoka can overcome her shock and reassure Padmé that there is nothing to forgive, they are interrupted by Vader's troops, led by the captain who murdered Barriss.
Battle in the Hallway: The Imperial captain initiates a brief holo-call with Vader, who tries to provoke Ahsoka and Padmé. When Ahsoka refuses to turn herself in, a battle against the Imperial troops ensues. Padmé calls Mariek Panaka to extract Ahsoka from the battle and to assist her on her part of the mission, which she does.
Ahsoka and Rex's Reunion: Mariek brings Ahsoka to one of Padmé's dressing rooms, where she, her husband Quarsh Panaka, and the remaining clones (Rex and Gregor) have set up a mini-base. The five of them decide that Ahsoka will disguise herself as a handmaiden to go find her lightsabers, and the rest of the team will trail her to keep Imperials off her tail and to warn her of incoming dangers. Ahsoka formally meets Quarsh Panaka and learns why he once supported the Empire. She also meets Rex, who is initially cold toward her because it is painful for him to see Ahsoka and know she is not the same person he once knew. Eventually they come to a new understanding and reintroduce themselves in hopes of a new start.
Chapter 35
Ahsoka had not forgiven her.
Padmé lurched blindly after Sabé and Tonra, blood roaring in her ears. Around every corner, she saw a pair of blue eyes succumb to yellow, or felt a blaster bolt tear into the skin at her waist, or heard the hum of a music box seep back into silence. Was that a lullaby from her youth? Yes, she was sure of it. Mum, Dad, Sola…their names winged through her mind like a prayer. Could it be that they were here even now—watching her, protecting her, loving her still?
No. Her family belonged to her past, and her past had been slipping through her fingers since the moment she'd stepped aside to let her husband build his empire on its ashes. Once, this quintessential Naboo past had been all she had wanted for her future: strolls along the Solleu River and picnics in the Lake Country and forays into Theed with her family. Shopping with Sola in the high-end districts near the Palace Plaza. Taking her nieces to the ballet or the theatre or the opera, pillars of their planet's proud artistic heritage. Listening as little Pooja dreamt of her future, assuming without second thought that she would actually get to see it.
And maybe she also would have found a little something new, like mornings overlooking the lake at Varykino from within an airy nursery, a datapad in one hand and a cup of caf in the other. Her head at rest, maybe, against her husband's shoulder; his arm wrapped snug around her waist. An amiable silence between them as they watched their children play.
That was all gone now. Yet longing lingered in her heart like an itch she knew she would never quite reach.
Music lurched from the adjacent hall before pulling coyly back in on itself, like the call of a coquettish stranger. Padmé's feet picked up speed and before she knew it she had sprinted around the bend, down the hall, chasing madly after gasps of melody. The dungeon walls were closing in, pressing the air from her lungs, and yet somehow her breathing had grown heavier, deeper. She was hungry for it. Forgive me, Ahsoka. I need you to forgive me.
And oh, gods, she had been so pretentious, not requesting but demanding such a thing! No wonder Ahsoka had just…stood there, slack-jawed and speechless and cold. Padmé shivered. The wails of the dungeon's prisoners ricocheted around her and through time, bouncing between past and present and future, blending them together, and the odour of blood nearly knocked her to her knees. She had left a seventeen-year-old girl to die in a torture chamber—or worse, to lose herself with no choice but to live. And now to ask point-blank for her forgiveness? Inconceivable.
Shockwaves punched up through the ground, bucking her against a jagged stone wall, and no sooner had she caught herself than footsteps echoed from down the corridor, their rhythm as faint as a wisp of smoke. "Obi—Obi-Wan?" Padmé breathed hopefully, tilting her head, watching the shadows stir in the distance. Find him. He will heal you. Find him! Her feet tripped over one another, carrying her to salvation, and a desperate smile split her face. "Obi-Wan!" she cried out to him, hurling the last syllable down the hall on a scream, but fire surged up her raw throat in protest and she buckled, panting and trembling. "Help me…please…"
"Help you?" She could have sworn she caught a flash of violent blue eyes, flaring like two candles in the dark. "Why should I? You did not help me. You did not help her." Padmé loosed an incomprehensible howl, clutching her head between her hands. The screams of the past had found her, and they were familiar: Ahsoka's screams. The night of Order 66. Stop! Anakin—"Stop it!" Padmé begged, her pitch scrabbling high enough to turn ear-splitting, her knees slamming against the cold floor. "Anakin, stop it! Let her go!"
"No, no, no." A voice spoke directly into her ear—a female voice, this time. "Padmé, we don't seek to change the past. Try it once and you'll only drive yourself insane."
"Who—who are—" She tried to sit up but sagged backward instead, coughing fitfully. One hand slid around the back of her neck to support her head; the other smoothed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Padmé peered up at her mysterious saviour, and her features pinched in confusion. "S-Sola? You…you came back…"
"'Came back'?" A slow, sharp-edged grin skewed Sola's beautiful face. "Funny thing, that…I never actually left." She trailed an ice-cold finger down Padmé's neck, leaving oscillations of goosebumps in its wake, and nudged the edge of her nail against the pressure point. "Padmé," she seethed through her smile, "I will haunt you until the day you die."
"But…" Padmé's lids were so heavy, she could barely blink. "But you're my sister."
Sola simply laughed. All over her face, pockets of flesh were bubbling up, swelling to the size of egg-sacks, only to burst with a spray of viscous, yellow pus. Horror chipped away at Padmé's shocked stupor, unleashing the scream bundled deep inside her. By now Sola's eyes and nose had collapsed in on themselves, dripping down her cheeks like candle wax, morphing grotesquely into the features of Obi-Wan, Pooja, Ahsoka and Luke and Leia and then at last Padmé was staring into her own face. The double's eyes went wide and she giggled, the echo bounding through the narrow space they shared. Then, with a demure smile, she lowered her head and let out her breath on a sigh, as if to relish her own existence. "'Sister'…," the double muttered to herself, and frowned abruptly. "That is not what I am."
Her head snapped up and Padmé gasped, "Wait," but the double had already charged with a wicked snarl, her fingers curled into claws and her teeth bared in hatred. Padmé scuttled backward, the palms of her hands quickly wearing raw against the floor, and before she knew it her elbows had collapsed beneath her and she was falling, falling…falling…"Your Majesty!" Oh, gods, each syllable hammered her eardrums like a tiny fist. Beads of sweat prickled her brow, even as she shivered vehemently. The sting in her side had whetted into horrific pain, digging deep beneath her skin like a knife, and her lips had parted to free the scream lodged in her throat. Your Majesty. That referred to her…right?
She mustered the strength to open her eyes. Sola and Obi-Wan and the double were nowhere to be found, only Sabé, who floated overhead with worry etched across her face. "But…w-where is Obi-Wan?" Padmé slurred, grasping at the front of Sabé's robes to stay upright. "I saw him, Sabé, and Sola—she was here, too! She…"—Padmé broke down into sobs—"she was!"
"Padmé…" Sabé trailed off helplessly, her voice soft in disbelief.
"Ohhh, gods…I killed her." A feverish laugh frothed at Padmé's lips. "I killed her!"
"Killed who?…Padmé…Padmé, please, listen to me. We have to keep moving."
"No, no…my fault…didn't stop him…gods, Sabé, why didn't I stop him!?"
If Sabé ventured a response, Padmé didn't hear it. Her world had shattered into a kaleidoscope of light and darkness, and there was something absurdly beautiful about it, the way it cushioned her fall from reality. Fragments of speech broke through the veil—"…don't think…doing so well…need to…Kenobi…"—but she couldn't seem to stitch them into coherent meaning. Words, meanings, were slippery things. Slippery like consciousness. Slippery, like love…
Padmé. Padmé, you listen to me now. You are going to get up, and we are going to find Kenobi. But that couldn't be right, the world was breaking and she couldn't put it back together. Not anymore. Sabé, she said, Sabé, if I don't—her voice was soft, brittle almost, sinking beneath each syllable—if I don't make it, take care of Luke, Leia…Ahsoka…promise me.
The promise did not come, but she was past the point of caring. Her lids drooped half-closed as a swarm passed overhead, faces indistinguishable in a thicket of dark hair, and she couldn't tell if it was herself or her sister or Sabé, closing in and reflected a thousand times over.
The emperor's office was still, but as far as Ahsoka was concerned, it might as well have been a minefield. She held her breath, shifting gingerly onto her tiptoes and past the door. Something about it felt ethereal, elusive, illusory, like she was wading knee-deep into a dream.
A few lamps flickered forlornly throughout the room, and a soft rainfall poked holes in the silence. The temperature ran warm—toasty, even, like the heat given off by a fireplace. The image might have soothed her, had Barriss's death not been playing on repeat through her mind. Ahsoka hadn't stepped foot in this room since that fatal night, and while the thought of Barriss's sacrifice still made her heart clench, she had no choice. She needed to even the odds against Vader somehow, and this was the only way she could think to do it.
Ahsoka eased her weight against the door, and darkness chased tails of light back out into the hall. The moon caught the quickening rain, now bleeding silver down the windows. It was part of the weather show that Vader had scheduled for the party tonight. At the reminder, she scowled under her breath. Even nature was made to bow to his whims, and for what? A half hour of trivial entertainment? Of course not. For him, everything was a show of power.
She balanced one hand against a nearby table, groping her way across the room. Lightning slashed the sky in half, and blades of gold shattered over the hardwood floors. The storm was picking up now, and Ahsoka's heart rate along with it. She checked her comlink for the thousandth time, but neither Rex nor the Panakas had tried to warn her. Warn her of what, exactly, she did not know. She grit her teeth, forced herself to keep going. Ropes of rain lashed the windows, a chaotic dance for an audience of one.
Finally, she drew to a stop in front of a pair of bookshelves, the same ones Barriss had wrenched apart to open the Sith shrine. Ahsoka's eyelids fluttered to half-mast as she sought out the light in the Force. She reeled it in, funnelling its flow back out of her body and into the bookcase, but before she could finish, the warmth of the Light Side sputtered out and died on her fingertips, leaving her gaping down at her open palms. "Oh…oh, come on…" She flexed her fingers in a vain attempt to hold on to the Force. Frustrated tears sprang to her eyes, but she instinctively masked them with a growl. "Come on, damn it!"
No response. The Force had gone completely silent. Ahsoka slumped, shell-shocked, against the nearest bookcase, her lungs filling up with the white-hot rapids of panic. Okay. Okay, Tano, think. Think—and breathe. Why would the Force be evading her? She knew her midi-chlorians weren't fully awake yet, but just half an hour ago, she had mentally controlled her dagger without much trouble. She had stabbed an Imperial soldier in the chest and—
She had stabbed him. In the chest. After he had been ordered to stand down.
The blood drained from her face as the implications sank in. She had killed him not to defend herself, but to make a point to Vader, which made her no better than—than—
Yellow eyes usually characterize an embrace of the Dark Side. Ahsoka scrunched her brow as Barriss's words leapt to the forefront of her mind—and then, of course, the tail of the sentence reeled back to strike her in the gut. The Dark Side—an unfortunate prerequisite for accessing that entrance.
She screamed into the palm clamped over her mouth, getting nothing for her trouble but a mouthful of sweat. Her whole body had gone limp in the arms of her captor—captor. Instinct snapped to life without waiting for her mind to catch up. Her stance widened to ground her and she seized the arm of the stranger, flinging them over her back and to the floor in a silver heap of satin. Her dagger was drawn and aimed before she'd even caught a glimpse of their face. "Now," Ahsoka ordered, "tell me who the hell you are."
Her opponent ascended from the pool of satin, a nonsensical pout on her lips. "Aw, can't we play nice? I've been so curious to meet Amidala's new pet." Her pout switched to a smirk and she threw back her head in a fit of giggles. Moonlight splashed her hair like a glaze, lending a lustrous quality to the plaited, jewel-encrusted loops. Her gown matched both the colour scheme and dress code of the garden party—likely an Imperial noblewoman, then.
Ahsoka narrowed her eyes, deliberating what to ask first. "You know Padmé?"
"Everyone on Naboo knows Padmé Amidala."
"So you're from Naboo, then?"
The noblewoman quirked an eyebrow. "Am I from Naboo? You're adorable."
"You seem to know who I am," Ahsoka said. "You have me at a disadvantage."
"Then why would I sacrifice the upper hand?" The stranger's grin was remarkably brazen for someone at knifepoint. "Not a bad idea, by the way, using a handmaiden's robes to disguise yourself, but you're still quite recognizable, principessa, especially to someone in my position. Now sit, sit, right in that chair. We'll discuss terms."
"'Terms'?" Ahsoka scoffed in disbelief. "I'm the one with the dagger."
"And I'm the one with this." The noblewoman slipped a comlink from her sleeve, dangling it casually out of Ahsoka's reach. "I'm not asking, Highness. We will sit and we will discuss." She glided to her feet and brushed herself off, laughing in an octave that bordered on delirium. "Gods, you have no idea how long it's been since I've had a real conversation. No double meanings, no half-truths, just…two people, talking. Can you imagine, principessa? Oh, me neither. From what I hear, we were both isolated in this palace for…oh, so, so long…" She frowned. "I swear I'm half mad by now. Maybe you are, too, though not for the reasons the emperor says. It really is its own kind of torture, isn't it? The seclusion?"
"You're stalling me," Ahsoka said. "You're buying time for Vader to get here."
"I will do that, yes. But not yet." The noblewoman smiled thinly. "I see why Amidala keeps you around. You're a smart girl, perceptive. I know this because you're still alive. But…so beautiful, too. It's unfortunate. By now, the empress must have taught you why that is."
"How do I know you won't comm Vader while you've got me distracted?"
The woman hummed in thought before sinking to the floor, setting down the comlink and—with one delicate arc of the wrist—flicking it across the room. "How's that, principessa?"
"You probably have another one," Ahsoka challenged her. "Don't you?"
"It's…possible, but you can't prove a negative. You might just have to trust me."
"Trust you? Are you serious? You're my opponent. Stars, I don't even know your name!"
The noblewoman tilted her head, considering. "Sanandrassa," she said at last.
"Sanandrassa?" An impression of gauzy curtains and mahogany desks and static chronos flashed through Ahsoka's mind. One of her former classrooms, or at least a blend of their common elements. But why a classroom, of all things? "Hmm. Can't say I know you."
"Well, that's not a surprise." Sanandrassa clamped her hands over Ahsoka's shoulders, steering her firmly but gently toward the nearest seating arrangement. "I faded into political obscurity after your precious Amidala took the throne. Of Naboo, that is." She pushed Ahsoka onto a scarlet-upholstered divan and slid into the seat across from hers, ruminating. "Queen Amidala…one of the few monarchs to see herself reach greatness. So often these most valuable things in life—glory, honour, grandeur—are bestowed only after death. What a waste, no? But Amidala's case was…different. She fended off the entire Trade Federation and rebuilt our planet from the ground up. No outside support, either—couldn't bear to be indebted to other rulers, I suppose. It was one of her only policies that I liked, but even so…I can respect her bold presence in our planet's history." Sanandrassa gave a cursory shrug and muttered to herself, just loud enough for Ahsoka to hear, "Shame that she's only a consort now."
"What was that about Padmé?" Ahsoka snarled, fisting her hands in her lap.
"Ooh, protective, are we?" Sanandrassa leaned forward, a merciless grin breaking over her face. "It's just a fact, Highness. Even princesses and queens can fall, and Amidala's no exception. 'Galactic Empress' may rank higher than 'Queen of Naboo', but what does that matter when she has no power of her own? Come to think of it, I'm not sure what she did—if anything—in the initial months of her husband's rule…"
"Well, let's see. She gave birth to twins, founded the Rebellion while still in recovery from her pregnancy, and then she saved me," Ahsoka snapped. "You call that nothing?"
Sanandrassa balked, a wry chuckle escaping her lips. She must have been a woman who'd led so sombre a life, she had lost the ability to take it seriously. "Touché. I should have known better than to go after Amidala. I've fallen a lot farther than she ever did." She crossed one leg over the other with luxurious languor. "Then again, she is so…idealistic. Back in our day, she was the youngest queen in some time, so it came with the territory. But now I see she has passed this idealism, this naïveté, on to you. Tell me, dear, what exactly is your plan?"
"Nice try, my lady, but if you think it will be that easy to—"
"No, that is not what I meant." Sanandrassa tented her fingers with slight impatience. "Let us assume, for the moment, that you and Amidala manage not only to kill Vader, but to live to tell the tale. Then what happens? The miraculous return of democracy?" She pursed her lips as if to suppress a laugh. "Of course not. The crown prince is still an infant, meaning that his father's untimely death will create a power vacuum. Every member of Vader's advisory council will want the throne, and they won't hesitate to use you or Amidala to get it."
"It doesn't matter what they want," Ahsoka said. "Padmé will be named the Dowager Empress and the power will pass to her. Once she claims the regency in the name of her son, she'll use her position to dissolve Imperial rule and reinstate the Galactic Republic."
Sanandrassa rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be so naïve, dear. You should want your brother to sit on the throne. So long as he does, remember, you've got yourself a secure position at the top of the social hierarchy." She paused, almost solemnly, before continuing in a lower voice. "This empire of ours is unprecedented, my dear. There's no guarantee that Amidala will be able to claim the regency. And if she does not, then what happens to the former emperor's sister—not to mention his wife and children? Depending on the new ruler, you'd all be executed or married off or flaunted as war trophies."
"Padmé would never let that happen. I would never let that happen."
"Yes, well, Queen Apailana said she would never let the Empire conquer Naboo. Then they marched on Theed Palace and slit her throat." Sanandrassa flicked an imaginary speck of dust from one shoulder, wrinkling her nose in disdain. "I just want you to think about this rationally, principessa. Vader is not the only evil in this galaxy. Has it ever occurred to you that all you have risked and sacrificed could be in the name of something even worse?"
"Worse!? Worse than a man who would—" Ahsoka shut her eyes, her heart pounding in her throat. No. It couldn't be worse. It could not possibly be worse. Still, if Padmé failed to claim the regency, then…"What about me?" The words, quiet as they were, whetted her voice into something low and vaguely dangerous, a timbre foreign even to herself. Sanandrassa's head snapped up, a crease assuming the space between her brows. "After Luke and Leia, I'm technically next in line, aren't I? What if I made a bid for the throne?"
Sanandrassa blinked once, then multiple times in quick succession. "You…you think you can…oh." Finally, she managed a laugh, but it was too weak to be truly sardonic. "You would do well to listen to me, my dear. I am the only woman on Vader's advisory council. I did what I had to to secure that seat, and I know the sort of men who wield power in this new empire of ours. One of them seems to have a particular vendetta against you. Why is that, I've asked myself? Revenge? Lust? Power?"
Ahsoka swallowed hard. "You don't scare me, milady."
"I'm not trying to scare you. I'm simply speaking the truth. Amidala's going to be a long shot as is, and she's already established in politics. I can't imagine the council backing the claim of a young, inexperienced, female Togruta with—what is it you have, amnesia?"
"I, uh…" Ahsoka wracked her brain for an answer, but to her surprise—and subsequent distress—she came up empty-handed. Did she have amnesia? It had never even occurred to her that her situation might come with a medical diagnosis. It had always been just, well…her situation. Her memory loss. A travesty inflicted by another person, not the inner workings of her body or mind. But now that she thought about it, how did that even work, on a molecular level? Did it count as amnesia if her memories had been erased through the Force?
In any case, Sanandrassa had already moved on. "Look," she huffed, "the emperor's advisors are discriminatory and lecherous and all-around horrible, but they're a very real obstacle. Not necessarily an insurmountable one, but if I were you, I wouldn't gamble my title and status on their cooperation."
"A title's all but worthless without power. You said as much yourself."
"Is that what you want, then, principessa? Power?"
Ahsoka might have laughed, had she not been so aggravated by this woman's ineptitude. "Stars, no. All I want is to be able to live my life like it's actually my life. No more gilded cages." She realized she had clasped both hands over her right lek, which was still bruised from her violent encounter with Vader in the sitting room. "That's all I ever wanted."
Sanandrassa examined her, almost pityingly, before deflating under a sigh. "Let me ask you a question, then. If, right in this moment, you had a chance to walk away from everything—disappear on some Outer Rim world, start a new life and cede Princess Ahsoka to the past—would you do it? Even if it meant you had to leave the Empire standing?"
"I…" She grimaced. "No. No, I couldn't do that."
"So freedom isn't your sole desire, after all. What I can't decide is whether you want to bring down the Empire to protect others, or if you seek revenge on your own behalf." Ahsoka's expression must have betrayed her horror, because Sanandrassa's smirk took on a note of wry sympathy. "It's only natural, my dear. Vader destroyed your life, to a certain degree. It makes sense that some part of you would want to destroy his. Of course, if you do stay, there are other ways you could influence the progression of the Empire. The council may not want you on the throne, but I could see them, er…endorsing you as an empress consort—"
"A consort?" Ahsoka sputtered in indignation. "You mean, like…like marriage?" Well. Damn them all to the seven Sith hells! She'd had enough of the Empire's marital politics. "No. Absolutely not."
"Consorts do have a power of their own, what with their influence over the monarch."
"But that's not true power. It can't be, if it's reliant on the power of someone else."
Sanandrassa offered up a shrug, her shoulders strung with a new, more pronounced sort of tension. "I'm not saying I support it, exactly, but…I did warn you, yes? So long as you're here, they won't hesitate to use you as a stepping stone to power."
"Well, in that case, they'd be making their claim to the throne through their claim to me." Disgust and anger clawed up Ahsoka's throat, leaving a sour taste in her mouth. "So between the council members and me, I would still have the strongest claim, right?"
"Of course you would, logically speaking. But the council won't listen to logic, not if it gets in the way of their personal aspirations. Those men will want one of their own on the throne, and make no mistake, principessa: they'll do whatever it takes to get what they want."
"I already told you," Ahsoka bit back, "what they want doesn't matter to me."
Sanandrassa's eyebrows jumped to her hairline, but she was quick to hide her surprise with a calculating tilt of the head. Lamplight trickled into a halo around her, sweeping the shadows of her lashes down to her chin. Ahsoka searched her eyes—or tried to, anyway, but before she could even come close to getting a read on her, Sanandrassa had adjusted her posture and pulled a flask from her gown. "Here, Your Highness. You've earned this."
Earned this? For doing what? Ahsoka shook her head. "No, thank you. I don't make a practice of accepting drinks from my enemies."
Sanandrassa chuckled. "What did I say, hmm? Smart girl." She took a fortifying swig from her flask, then lowered her eyes to wipe the excess liquid from her mouth. "You know, Highness, it's bad form not to make a toast. What do you say?" Ahsoka clenched her hands in her lap, a bitter, uneasy coldness sloshing through her stomach. "I'll go first, if you'd like—"
"Cheers, Princess."
She jumped at the thunderous voice not a few feet away from her, at the clamour of boots and blasters clicking into place, their martial percussion wriggling over and under the beat of the rain on the roof. "Hands up," barked the voice, and a final blaster clicked, just an inch or two behind her head. "Tea party's over. You're coming with us."
The blood of her queen ran dark and slick between her fingers. Sabé snatched her hand away from Padmé's wound, turning in panic to the dark-haired girl who had come up behind her. "She needs help. Now. Is there anything you can do? Just to hold her over till Ke—"
"Sabé, relax. Please." Rabé knelt beside her fellow handmaiden, squeezing her shoulder in silent support. "I need you calm enough to answer some questions for me."
"I am always calm," Sabé hissed through her teeth.
"To the untrained eye, maybe…but I know you. You don't have to lie to me." Rabé tugged Padmé from Sabé's arms, guiding her head into her lap. Chestnut tresses splashed the torn silk of her dress. "Any symptoms I should be made aware of, besides the obvious?"
As if on cue, Padmé spasmed violently, dark lashes fluttering against pale cheeks. Sabé bit her lip and looked away, globules of wet pinpricks—tears, they were tears—stinging the corners of her eyes. "Hallucinations," she managed through the clot in her throat. "I'm sure of it. She said something about seeing her sister, but…we both know her sister is dead, has been for almost two months now. And then she started sobbing, said that she'd killed her. I'm not sure if she was talking about Sola Naberrie or…or someone else."
Rabé sighed deeply, her lips pursing as she exhaled. "Okay, well, we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm no doctor, but for now, I think I can stabilize her. I've done it before, when I ran that art forgery ring as a teenager. One of our clients found out we were dealing replicas, and…did I ever tell you this story?"
As if it mattered. Sabé wasn't particularly fond of reminiscing, let alone over Padmé's bleeding body. Still, she shook her head and motioned for Rabé to continue. Small, morale-boosting distractions—stories, songs, and the like—had always sharpened Rabé's focus under pressure, and right now, whether Sabé liked it or not, Rabé was the one with Padmé's life in her hands. She needed to remain focused at all costs, and Padmé needed Sabé to make sure of that for her.
"It wasn't the first time a client realized they'd been double-crossed, but this case was different. Some pompous businessman with ties to the Pykes. He was not happy to find out he'd been outsmarted by a bunch of art students." Rabé gave a weak chuckle and accepted Sabé's cloak, taking off a ribbon of fabric with one clean tear. She wrapped the fabric around Padmé's waist as she spoke, just tight enough to staunch the blood flow. "So my second-in-command shows up at headquarters with a stab wound in her stomach. No damage to critical organs, thank the gods, but it's not pretty. And she happens to have a ballet performance that night—because of course it's ballet, not a pottery exhibition or something—so then I have to sneak into her dressing room with a whole tub of bacta and…help me carry her?"
It took Sabé a moment to realize that "her" now referred to Padmé. "Carry her?"
"I can't do much else without clean hands and proper medical supplies. But the prisoners' med bay has loads of equipment to spare. Locked away, of course, but as we all well know, I've yet to meet a lock I can't pick."
Sabé resisted the urge to ask how Rabé knew about those medical supplies. Not that she needed to; the bruises on her friend's arms were answer enough. Sabé flinched at the thought as Rabé passed the cloak back to her, and she quickly shook her head to clear it. "If you lead the way," Sabé said, refastening her cloak, "Tonra and I can carry Padmé."
"Perfect." Rabé knotted the makeshift bandage with a decisive tug. "And don't worry, Sabé…Padmé will be all right, I promise." Her eyes assumed a mischievous gleam as they flitted to the end of the hall, where Tonra stood on lookout, his blaster aimed steadily into the darkness and his shoulder blades drawn taut against the tunic of his uniform. "I owe at least that much to your boyfriend after he rescued me—"
"He's not my boyfriend," Sabé snapped.
A hefty silence draped itself between them. Rabé clamped her mouth shut, clearly hoping that Sabé would break the tension, but Sabé's gaze had wandered back to Padmé, slack against a floor slicked with grime and grease, yet still so achingly beautiful. Seeing her now made the memory of her laughter all the more cruel, the way those little dimples peeked out beside her eyes and a wide, uninhibited smile spread from ear to ear, like sunrise melting across a horizon. Sabé wrenched her body around, shouting "Tonra, Tonra!"—and her voice broke. Dammit. "Come help me get her to the medical bay. Now!"
Tonra was at her side in a second. She flicked her eyes up into his, which tugged her in by the heartstrings, into him, into swirls of grey like thunderclouds and behind them an unspoken question and behind that question…an understanding. Gentle, and suffused with sorrow nonetheless. He knew that he would never be first in her heart; they had come to that understanding years ago. But still he had always put her first, chosen her—first—and even so, even though she wanted to, she could never do the same for him.
"Sabé," Tonra breathed.
"Tonra, I'm so…sorry." That word—sorry—lurched out of her at the last second, as if it had bobbed up her throat on an acid bubble, then been shot straight through her lips. Sabé had always seen words as something of a projectile, a weapon; she resented it when they wandered beyond her control. Especially since that last word had spilled out of her like a messy, watery sob, like a bubble finally bursting. "I know it's been a long time and there's still so much to be said, but we have to get her to a med bay. Padmé's the priority right now."
"She always is," he replied. Sabé didn't detect any spite in his tone, but it could be hard to tell with Tonra. Like her, he had been well-trained in the art of masking his emotions. "You know I'll always take care of her. And…and of you." He hesitated. "If you want it."
"I know you will," Sabé murmured, hoping those few words could convey the depth of her emotion. She did love him. That had never been the question. Tonra examined her carefully and nodded. Some part of her almost wished he would put up more of a fight, but she was quick to dismiss it as foolish sentiment. To protest now would be to gorge on precious time, to steal the breath right out of Padmé's lungs.
They hoisted Padmé between them—Tonra supporting her neck and shoulders; Sabé, her ankles. Rabé led them down the shadowed hall, and Tonra, who was walking backward, had to crane his neck to follow her cues. But every few seconds, his head would jerk—sharply, almost imperceptibly—in Sabé's direction, as if to reassure himself that she was still there.
He always just managed to avoid her eyes.
They slogged onward. In Sabé's every arm muscle, fatigue piled on top of itself like a tower of permacrete slabs. Her legs pumped sluggishly beneath her, igniting fire up her calves and into the stitch in her side. But the desperation, the love within her heart was stronger. The pain paled in comparison to all that she had done, all that she would do, for love.
For Naboo.
For Padmé.
Up ahead, Rabé's pace dwindled, and Sabé and Tonra curbed their speed to match. Before them stood a rickety door, rimmed with rust and not entirely secure on its hinges. Rabé swiped the gun off Tonra's hip and fried the control panel with a single blast.
Tonra and Sabé entered in almost reverent silence, wordlessly laying Padmé on top of a durasteel bunk. The cold brushed skeletal fingers down Sabé's spine, the darkness settling over her shoulders like a shroud. The med bay, grey and dreary as far as the eye could see, was lit only by the static blinks of medical machinery. Clicks and whirs flew like spittle from all directions, whetted by an equally grey silence. Sabé knelt beside Padmé's bunk and swept a stray lock of hair from her forehead. Rabé had paused in the threshold, hands on hips, eyes screening the room before latching on to Sabé's.
"You got any pins?" she asked, and Sabé flinched as the silence crumbled to ash between them, any hint of its once-sacred nature now lost. "Or anything sharp and thin, really," Rabé continued, oblivious. "They stripped me of any possible weapons when they took me into custody." With a terse nod, Sabé removed the brooch that secured her cloak, letting the rest of the fabric stream to the floor behind her, and set to work slipping pins from her hair. The moment she was done, she shook the spoils into Rabé's open palm, who rewarded her with a smile and a warm, "Thanks, Sabé. This gives me plenty to work with."
As Rabé got a head start on the cabinet locks, Sabé scooped her cloak off the ground and draped it gingerly over Padmé's delicate frame, tucking the seam beneath her chin to keep her warm. Then she slipped her hand beneath the makeshift blanket, into Padmé's hand, and squeezed. She knew, logically, that Padmé wouldn't be able to feel it, but that didn't stop grief and despair from riving her in two when Padmé didn't squeeze back.
The damned silence bled back in, the kind that only ever occupied a space where something had been, once, and then had been lost. Ghost town silence. Graveyard silence. Sabé's head jerked suddenly in Rabé's direction. "If she needs anything—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Rabé came clipping across the room, twin med packs under her arms. "You'd give your right arm for her. Or maybe your left. Wouldn't want to look too much like Vader, would we?" Her grin folded in on itself as she knelt beside her patient. "Unfortunately, what I really need right now is someone to help me with the stitches."
"Stitches?" Sabé's heart rate spiked at the word. "It's that bad?"
"She's unconscious, bleeding out, and delusional. So…yeah. I'd say it's that bad."
"But…but how are we supposed to find someone else who could…?" Sabé trailed off, clamping one hand over her mouth. Fear had drilled a dangerous edge into her voice. "Out of all of us, Rabé, you're the only one with any medical training, unless…unless one of Tano's handmaidens…no, that wouldn't work, I don't know any of them well enough to put Padmé's life in their hands. And Eirtaé's not an option, either, 'cause she's off rescuing Kenobi and none of us have been able to get in contact with her and—"
"Sabé. That's all right. Eirtaé's not a medic, anyway. She might have a solid handle on molecular biology, but she doesn't know the first thing about…stitches…"
Their eyes locked, and twin flickers of understanding passed between them. "Oh…my gods," Sabé hiccupped, and then a giggle breached her lips, her shoulders trembling under the weight of it all. "Oh, my gods, of course!" Relief gushed out of her on the backs of those words, flooding the grey of the med bay with warmth, and she threw back her head and gasped and laughed through her tears. "Of course, of course, of course. She's going to be okay…"
Overcome by a sudden head rush, she wilted against the side of the bunk, her forehead dropping close to Padmé's ear. "You're going to be okay, see?" Sabé slurred, gratitude and exhaustion thawing the words until something like a lullaby was dribbling from her lips, a runny mess of syllables that even she struggled to make sense of. "All we have to do is make a call to Yané…all you have to do is hang in there, Padmé…just a little longer, because…"
Sabé's eyelids fluttered once, twice, and her cheek hit the cold metal of the bunk. A lock of Padmé's hair tickled the skin above her ear. "…Because I have something to tell you," Sabé murmured, almost like she was a little girl at a sleepover, trading secrets with her best friend under the intimate cloak of nightfall. But she and Padmé weren't little girls anymore. They could hardly even be called mere "friends"; they had transcended that label long ago.
"I forgive you," Sabé whispered, "for the way things ended between us. I forgive you in spite of, or perhaps because of the fact that…I still love you, Padmé Amidala Naberrie. And I have kept loving you, every second of every day that you were gone, and now that you're back I will save you because…" Her voice caught in the depths of her throat. She lifted her head to get a proper look at the woman she loved, whose features remained blank between milky pulses of light. "I have loved others," Sabé admitted, and the wet of a single tear wove down her cheek. "But, Padmé…I will never love anyone as deeply as I have always loved you."
It was a dangerous game to play, sitting perfectly still like a porcelain doll, her hands in her lap and her back to the assembled enemy forces. Still, before she risked engaging anyone in combat, she couldn't help but reach for her dagger. Her fingers grazed the hilt and she slumped in relief, tossing a glance over her shoulder—only for her newly-limp posture to pull ramrod straight. She'd expected a small skirmish, maybe, but a whole battalion of Imperials? Just for her? Under different circumstances, she might have even been flattered, but this was just getting ridiculous.
It didn't look like she had much of a choice, though. Ahsoka leapt to her feet and twirled her dagger, sliding with liquid elegance into her preferred reverse grip. Then she stared Sanandrassa straight in the eyes and said, "You betrayed me."
Sanandrassa pinched her temples as if to ward off a migraine. "Oh, don't be so dramatic, Highness. I did not betray you. To betray you, I would have had to have been on your side to begin with." Still grimacing from the pain of a phantom headache, she flicked her free hand to usher forward the guards. They veered into a rigid formation, blocking off the doors and even the windows. Of course. "Now, come quietly, please, and—"
"Can we just skip this part, milady? You already know my answer, and I'm so tired of having to disappoint." Tired. Yes, that was exactly what she was. Tired of having to jump through all of these hoops, just so her life could truly belong to her again.
But when Sanandrassa finally looked up, there was a heaviness to the gesture that made her seem just as, if not more tired than her opponent. "Don't pretend you didn't see this coming, Highness." Her expression softened, and she cast an almost pleading glance at Ahsoka. "You'll thank me later when you wake up a princess instead of a political prisoner."
And Ahsoka was stuck in a crystal of silence, of time stretched and frozen and hammered into place, as something dark bubbled up from deep inside her, fuelled by the flame of Sanandrassa and her wide-eyed plea. To have the nerve to suggest that by passing her off to an abuser, she was helping her. "No—" Ahsoka's voice pitched into mania, cut short by a stab of desperation. She wanted to be sick, or to scream—or to make them scream.
Make them pay.
Just the thought of it focused her, gave her purpose and strength. Her lip curled. Her fist clenched. Fire roared through the veins where her blood had once run. "No."
She charged the nearest guard and decked him with a roundhouse kick, prying his electrostaff from his fingers, thrusting it upward to parry the 'staff bearing down on her right. A burning sensation sharpened behind her eyes, pushing a yelp from her lips and feverish tears down her cheeks, but somehow rage guided her where her vision could not, a fierce punctuation to her every attack and parry. Ahsoka set her features in a sneer, kicked her newest opponent where it hurt, skidded past him while launching her dagger into the chest of another guard. A stun bolt whizzed just shy of her shoulder and her head snapped around to find the marksman in the corner of the room, the barrel of his gun trained on her.
With the hint of a smirk on her lips, she propelled her body into a series of one-armed handstands and cartwheels, her limbs soaring through the motions with fluid grace, whisking her out of the path of the stun bolts that stalked her. The thunderous voice from earlier barked commands—"Get the girl! His Majesty has ordered she be brought to him alive!"—but her small body melded easily with the crush of advancing guards. She slipped through their ranks on nimble feet, emerging behind the unsuspecting sniper. Before he even knew what was happening, Ahsoka had clamped her hands—both the good and the injured—over his, wrenching his blaster toward Sanandrassa instead.
"Wait—" the noblewoman gasped, but even the sniper couldn't stop his own stun bolt from webbing across Sanandrassa's prone form, knocking her to the ground in a motionless heap. He froze, only to wheel around a second later in a zealous rage, slamming Ahsoka up against the wall. She cried out and her eyes cleared, the flames within them dissipating, leaving nothing but dried tear tracks and crusty eyelashes in their wake. Pain had chewed through the veil of adrenaline to maul her injured wrist. The sniper was jeering at her, one hand propped on the spare blaster pistol at his hip. "Nice try, little girl, but the emperor's called for a family reunion. You of all people should know that an emperor always gets what he wants."
Ahsoka's breath caught as she realized she had no weapon. She had discarded the electrostaff somewhere in the fray and her dagger was imbedded in one of the fallen soldiers' chests. No time to seek it out and summon it with the Force. She extended her good hand along the wall, casting about for something she could use, and her fingertips skimmed the curve of a wide picture frame. Perfect. She wrenched it from the wall and startled to see her own face—albeit a much younger version—peering coyly up at her through long eyelashes. To her right was a teenage Prince Anakin, chin jutted with all the assuredness of a soon-to-be-powerful heir, and behind her, her supposed parents, Empress Shmi and the fictional Emperor Callius V. Vader's forged family portrait. She couldn't help but flash a dark grin at the irony, and the fire returned, flooding her eyes with heat. "How's this for a family reunion?"
She slammed the frame over the marksman's head, so hard that glass shattered and scattered into a storm of refracted light. Ahsoka hit the ground, one hand raised to maintain a protective Force shield, the other fumbling for a spare shard of glass. Her fingertips were quick to strike a sharp edge and she snatched it up, flinging the glass fragment like a throwing star. It lodged in the throat of an incoming guard. She thought she heard a woman's laugh and for some reason her heart twisted, but fear was soon lost amid amid the blood—and exhilaration—that beat through her head. These men wanted to rob her of herself. They deserved this. Once they were gone, there would be no more gilded cages.
By the time it was over, only she remained standing, fragments of glass at her feet and the pulse of the rain in her head. Ahsoka Tano swayed slightly before thudding to her knees. She found herself brushing aside a pile of glass to reach for the still-intact painting, for the familiar face given over to a stranger. Then she was trailing one hand over the image of Princess Ahsoka, staining her pristine white gown with the oils of her fingertips.
"I will never again be humiliated by you. Never again." Her voice as she spoke to the painting—to the image of Ahsoka Skywalker, to the lie that she represented—was low and raw and venomous, threaded with the solemnity of a sacred vow. Before she knew it, the dagger had hurled itself across the room and straight into her hand, its blade still oozing the crimson curd of a man's blood. Without hesitation, Ahsoka Tano raised the knife above her head and brought it down on the one person she hated more than Vader himself. "Never again," she hissed as lightning glanced off the side of the blade, scalding her eyes with razor-sharp coruscation. She was both sobbing and laughing at once, and her blade came down on the canvas, over and over, in a flurry of blind stabs. "Never again, you hear m—"
Dizziness cracked over her head and she lurched forward with the momentum of her dagger. She clenched her knuckles to catch herself against the hilt, breath rising heavily from her chest, and struggled to focus her gaze past the flickering of her eyelids. Her sight fell to the delicate blue lacework of veins on one hand. She blinked. Now those veins were shot through with black, or at least she thought so but she couldn't know for sure because her vision was blurring at the corners. She stretched one hand through the twilight haze, toward a column of light that breached the distance. She couldn't remember where it had come from, but suddenly all that mattered to her was reaching it. The rain thinned to a drip inside her head—power…unlimited…pow—and exploded in a thunderous outpour, a cacophony of senses, sight and sound fusing until all that she saw was what she heard, and all that she heard was laughter, dark and grating, dragging her under and into oblivion.
Author's Note #2
Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and May the 4th be with you. I realize that I've been gone for awhile, so we've got some debriefing to do. As always, feel free to just skim this author's note, but please be advised that it is a long one!
I think it goes without saying that I owe you all a massive apology. I know it's been months since I posted and I do have many reasons for this. The first, as I've mentioned before, is the pandemic. Moments of inspiration are few and far between right now, and this fic is an especially difficult one to write. It tackles a lot of heavy themes and I want to do it right, so I'm uncomfortable posting a chapter until I think it's up to par. The second reason is that I started university last fall and my workload has been immense. Even when I did have motivation to write, I hardly ever had the time and energy (or vice versa). As you can see, this created a cycle that kept me from being able to post the next chapter in a timely fashion.
The third reason is a little more complicated. Over the past months, I have come to the realization that I am pansexual, meaning that for me, gender is not really a factor in attraction. To be fair, I kind of already knew this deep down (or at least, I knew that I definitely wasn't straight and probably wasn't gay, either), but a lot of my confusion stemmed from the fact that I am very feminine-presenting and don't really fit the mold of what media tell us a queer woman "should" look like. Of course it is ridiculous to assume that there is only one "type" of queer person, but part of me felt like I automatically had less of a claim to the identity because whenever dating would come up in conversation, the other person/people always assumed that I was only into guys.
My biggest fear in coming out to people was not that they would be jerks about it (though there's always a bit of doubt there, too), but rather that they wouldn't believe me. I was always bracing myself for someone to tell me that I was "confused" or that I must be following a "trend" (ugh). However, for the most part, these fears were unfounded. So far I have encountered a bit of surprise, but no one has ever challenged my identity, and the vast majority of people have been unequivocally supportive, for which I am so very grateful. I also felt more like I had a legitimate place in the community when I learned of the term "femme", which refers to a feminine-presenting queer woman.
That's all I'm going to say about it for now, though I did want to share a bit of my story in case it gives anyone else in a similar situation some clarity. Plus, some of these details are actually relevant on the writing front. I am pleased to announce that I will be writing a prequel to Beyond the Glass from Padmé's perspective, which, among other things, will explore the romantic relationship between Padmé and Sabé that was mentioned in this chapter. The idea was inspired by the Queen's Shadow and Queen's Peril novels. In Queen's Peril, a young Padmé is jealous to see Sabé flirting with another girl; in Queen's Shadow, Sabé confesses to Tonra that though she loves Padmé, she knows Padmé will never be able to reciprocate in quite the same way because of her commitment to Naboo.
I thought this would make a really interesting dynamic for a romantic plot line, particularly when set against the tragedy of the Empire's rise and the betrayal of Padmé's last romantic partner. In this upcoming fic, I will likely explore some themes relevant to being a feminine-presenting LGBTQ+ woman, so if that is something that interests you, you might consider checking it out. Though romance will play a bigger role in this one than in most of my previous writing, my rule of thumb is still to weave romance through a larger, overarching plot line that structures the story. So if you aren't that into romance, the story may still be enjoyable to you. Like in Beyond the Glass, political intrigue will be front and centre as Padmé and her allies work to dismantle the Empire from within. Padmé's emotional arc and character development will also be a priority in this piece; to a certain extent, it will serve as a portrait for a character whose development was kind of thrown out the window in the canonical last act. I'm actually thinking of using a scrapped idea for Revenge of the Sith in which Padmé received Force visions during her pregnancy.
I finally got a Tumblr account, so I hope to be able to post more details on there soon. Speaking of which…as is my May the 4th tradition, I attempted another Padmé hairstyle this year! I chose the romantic half-updo that she wears in Attack of the Clones when she and Anakin first visit the Lars homestead. You can check it out on my new Tumblr page here: blog/isabelleashmore. (If the link doesn't work for some reason, my blog name is isabelleashmore. I know FFN in particular can be finicky about links, but you can find the full URL in this chapter's author's note on AO3.) I am also planning on posting chapter previews and updates on this page.
As for this chapter…I think it mostly speaks for itself, especially since I've already addressed the Sabé/Padmé pairing. I will say that Sanandrassa is indeed a canonical character, albeit a small one. She holds an important role in universe but as a character, she has a few lines in one of the books and then her role is pretty much done. As such, I could project whatever traits I wanted onto her! I literally made a list of everything we know about her in canon (there are, like, five things) and then spent way too long trying to figure out her motivations. Sanandrassa is canonically from Naboo and I head-canon her as hailing from the lake country, so I had her say "princess" in Italian as a reference to the fact that the lake country scenes in AOTC were filmed in Italy. The architecture on Naboo demonstrates what we would recognize as Italian influence (even if it would be called something else in universe), so why not language? It is an entire planet and it makes sense that many languages would be spoken.
I have not seen The Bad Batch yet. I'm waiting until tonight to watch it with my dad. I'll let you all know what I think the next time I post or maybe on my Tumblr.
Well, I've probably bored you all long enough at this point, so I'm going to answer some reviews and then sign off. Thank you, as always, for your patience and support. If you are still here, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! Please remember to review, favourite, and follow. I love to hear from you all and to know what you think of the chapter. Lastly, this probably goes without saying, but if anything I've said here resonates and you'd like to reach out, you can always feel free to PM me.
Love, Isabelle
Review Responses
Guest: I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter and the scene between Ahsoka and Rex. At the time I wrote it, the wound of the Clone Wars series finale was still very raw!
sarah star wars nerd: Thank you so much for your review! Yes, quarantine has proven very stressful on so many fronts. Right now I am taking my second semester of university classes from my kitchen table back home! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the scene with Rex, I think I needed to write that for my own sanity after the heartbreak that was the TCW finale.
Lux's Sister: Yes, Rex and Ahsoka will go on to accomplish great things. And I agree about Tarkin, let's hope that Ahsoka and Padmé can ensure that he gets his comeuppance. Thank you so much for reviewing, and May the 4th be with you! :)
Nameless: I'm so glad to hear that I convinced you to give Queen's Shadow a try! Yes, the handmaiden names can be confusing, but I'm flattered that my story could help in that department. I hear that there will be a final Padmé book coming out later this year (I think it's called Queen's Hope) and it will expand on the relationship between Padmé and Anakin during the Clone Wars, so I'm very excited for that. Speaking of Anakin/Vader, your interpretation of the last chapter was pretty much exactly what I was going for, and your Palpatine theory...well, if you've read the last chapter, you've probably figured out that you're definitely on the right track. As for Ahsoka, I can't give anything away yet, so we'll just have to wait and see. Thank you, as always, for reviewing, and May the 4th be with you!
The Devil 101: Yes, this story can get pretty dark. Still, I'm flattered to hear that you read it all so quickly and enjoyed it! (I'm also low-key impressed, you must be a fast reader.) Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!