Am I in the middle of my final exams right now? Yes. Would I prefer to write for you another chapter of our tale? Also yes.
Please enjoy xx
Almec's tour revealed that the palace in Sundari had been maintained exactly as Satine had so painstakingly insisted, which is to say that it had hardly been maintained at all in the traditional sense of the word. The bedrooms and living spaces were filled with the sick and homeless, sleeping in beds and on cushions scavenged from the upholstery. Young mothers shared blankets with their children and reprimanded them quietly for their fussing. Obi Wan noted a baby swaddled in fabric requisitioned perhaps from the palace curtains. Similar fabric was worn as tunics by the children and used as blankets.
The kitchen was perhaps the greatest spectacle. Sundari, sitting in its sea of desert, had always relied heavily on imports, and consequently had starved worst of all in the turbulent years gone past. Now, with the arrival of the food packages that Satine had secured in Coruscant so long ago, the palace kitchen churned out free meals at an industrial pace. They had made already a sizeable dent in the donated food. Yet another of Satine's pressing tasks was to take advantage of this reprieve and reignite Sundari's industrial power once more, so that trade with the farmers might recommence and the city find its footing more securely.
It hardly helped that Satine was as poor as the rest of them now. The Mandalorian Banking Centre, too, would have to be rebuilt after its seizure by the Old Guard. Obi Wan thought of the joke that Satine had made to him the night before they left Ord Mantell. She had, of course, been right all along. Their time on the run through the galaxy had been a holiday, compared to this.
"I hadn't anticipated, your Grace, the need to set aside rooms for your guests."
Almec's disapproval with their motley crew was thinly veiled.
"So you'll have to excuse a slight delay in-"
Looking up from his seat in the infernal, rickety wheelchair that he had insisted that he did not need, Obi Wan observed the to-and-fro between Almec and the Duchess with some amusement.
"I am assuming, Almec, that when I requested that you set aside one bedroom for me, you set aside the master bedroom?" Satine asked coolly.
"Of course, my Lady," Almec assured her. "It is fitting now that you would-"
"There is enough room in that bedroom, Almec, to shelter a small village. My companions and I will comfortably share the space," she told him sweepingly.
Almec was unable to entirely suppress the contortion of his face at such a proposition.
"It will not be difficult, my Lady, to find another space. For instance, the attached barracks are still empty."
"Empty for a reason, I imagine," Satine observed astutely. "Wasn't the southern wall damaged during the riots? It would be as cold as sleeping on the streets."
"I don't think he'll be thrilled when he hears about my private room," Raf murmured to Hushie.
Hushie grinned.
"I've got my eyes on the western wing, myself."
Ahead of them, Almec had not surrendered to Satine's flagrant disregard for his ideas.
"My Lady," he pressed, voice low, "it is not entirely insensible of me to suggest that it is improper for the Duchess of Mandalore to share her sleeping quarters with four unmarried men."
Obi Wan could not stifle a snicker. He looked up at Qui Gon, pushing his wheelchair, with a smirk.
"Did you hear that, Master? You're included in the tally of dangerous unmarried men."
Qui Gon was unimpressed by his teasing, and allowed him to bump and bounce down the next small flight of stairs. The Force sang with playful laughter. Obi Wan yelped with the unexpected flicker of pain and conceded the point.
It was ridiculous, that amongst all the pressing issues that her planetary system faced at this tenuous time, she would have to plan a coronation. To find a dress? Flowers? The beskar factory was not even yet fit for workers, and countless people were still without homes and food. But it had always been proper for the Mand'alor to be crowned as soon as possible, and it would be fitting to honour the memory of her family's leadership by officially reinstating it on the anniversary of their death.
Nonetheless, Satine had managed to busy herself thus far with other tasks. It was only after Almec forced it onto their morning's agenda that it was finally discussed.
"You'll need to visit the western tower, my Lady," he informed her. "When we reclaimed the palace we gathered all of your family's personal belongings that remained. There will be a great number of items that will be of use for the coronation. But we felt it was only proper for you to go through them yourself."
It was a directive Satine could not ignore. She had not dared to wonder what had become of the items that had made the palace their home. She had opened the palace doors to others so that she need not mourn the loss of her family. But it seemed that the time had come.
"I will go today," she acquiesced.
And so, equipped with a mug of tea and a heavy shawl to combat the inevitable cold, Satine ascended the stairs to the western tower. The tea lapped dangerously at the edges of the chipped mug. What if there was next to nothing left? And what if there was too much? Satine cast these thoughts from her mind and focused her energy into opening the stubborn door, which required, just as it always had, a kick with the heel of her boot in addition to a strong shoulder.
The door swung open and her breath caught as she beheld the scene before her.
Too much.
Crates of flimsi and chests of clothes. How could so much have survived? Satine dropped to her knees and ran her fingers over the spines of the books that they had studied, over the letters of correspondence that her mother and father had written, when they had lived and breathed and moved their hands. Transcripts of meetings, which her father had always recorded on flimsi, and for which she'd called him old-fashioned. Satine held in her trembling hands the record of the day they had abolished capital punishment, and between the lines of disciplined summary Satine saw her father with tears on his face; it was the only time that she had ever seen him cry. There were records of beskar sales and harvest statistics and a crisis meeting held in the South. A union of the two families would be sensible to foster a sense of inclusivity in the New Mandalorian regime. Satine put down the letters. She knew how that story ended.
There were many other items to which to turn her attention. Bo-Katan's wooden swords and training armour. Kaveh's model trains. The shatual doll that had belonged to her, and then to Odelle, and onwards to Pedram who had loved it the most dearly and who had resisted bitterly before finally passing it on to Ariarne. Her father's hunting cloak. A heavy chest full of linen. And a smaller chest that Satine approached with caution.
Her mother's wedding dress. The smell of dried haffa blossoms as she unfurled it, and upon that scent, her mother's voice so clear in her mind.
It would be my proudest day, Satine. To see you wear this dress. To see you bring unity to our people. Please, Satine. For me.
"I can't, Mama," Satine whispered, for the second time.
She sat back on her heels and let the dress fall across her lap, and she tried not to cry. She had loved them and had hated them and wished that they could have lived to see her grow and forgive them.
"Satine?"
Obi Wan stood in the doorway, a stranger in a dark woollen jumper – they had never recovered his tunic and cloak from the train depot. He had shirked the dreaded wheelchair, and the bruising on his face had faded to a soft shadow.
"I sensed you," he told her.
His kindness was overwhelming. Satine rubbed at her eyes.
"I'm alright."
She would have liked to have been able to raise her voice above a whisper. He sat down next to her, moving gingerly still. He respected her silence and waited.
"Almec sent me up to find some appropriately royal items for the coronation," she told him eventually. "I need a dress, you see."
She held it up before her once more.
"I know it fits me," she supplied, valiantly. "My mother had me try it on. When she was trying to convince me to marry."
Obi Wan nodded but did not speak. There was some pain in his dark blue eyes. He did not seem to be seeing her anymore.
How absurd it was, to sit on the floor like a child beside the man she loved, a wedding dress in her hands. To sit beside him and to want him, desperately, every part of her, and be silent. She was the Duchess of Mandalore and she could have what she wanted. But she could not have him. And she saw from that strange pain upon his face that he could not have her, either.
"I don't suppose that I will ever marry," she murmured.
It was as close as she could get to asking him. Because she could not ask him to stay. The happiness that could have lived on between them was enormous, and Satine was starving for it but never could have said it. It wasn't about pride anymore. She had her own future to pursue, and he his. It would be such a waste, to keep him here. To bring happiness into her little life. They had travelled the galaxy together. They had seen misery and injustice on Ord Mantell, on Datar, on Abednedo. She could not keep him on Mandalore. She could not ask that of him.
Obi Wan shook his head, suddenly returned to awareness, and swiped at his own eyes.
"Listen, Satine, I-"
"I think I'll dye it blue," she resolved firmly. "For victory."
Obi Wan looked at her and after a moment's stillness he nodded and took her hand in his. His hand was warm and callused and painfully familiar, now. She wondered if she would forget the pattern of his hands in the years to come.
"I wanted to say, Obi Wan…"
She fixed her gaze on their intertwined hands as she struggled for words.
"I wish I'd not wasted such time being dishonest with you. I loved you from the start, Obi Wan. But my pride…"
He squeezed her hand and gave her a gentle smile.
"Your pride and mine both."
She returned the smile with watery gaze.
"I wasted so much time," she repeated, her voice barely a whisper.
Obi Wan shook his head.
"The Jedi would say otherwise."
Satine snorted and laughed despite her tearfulness.
"What would the Jedi say, wise Padawan?"
The look that he gave her then was precious beyond words.
"That I was happy with you, Satine," he told her, voice slow and measured. "That nothing that happened before or after will ever change the fact that I was happy with you. And that what time we had together was good, and right. And I am very grateful for it."
And Satine could have said a thousand things to refute him – except that she could not. She was the ever-argumentative Mandalorian without a word to say to her Jedi.
The time that they had together was good, and right. And she could not ask anything more.
Satine did not speak, and they sat together and were truly still with each other, for the first time. It was an unremarkable and precious moment. So earnest and quiet. Just two people, sitting, doing nothing. The whole galaxy might have stopped for them. The snow seemed to pause in its whirling descent from the sky. They spoke again long after Satine's tea had gone cold.
Qui Gon Jinn sensed that evening that something had changed. The Force was still around his Padawan where it had been so turbulent in the days before. Qui Gon watched him, meditating on the balcony, and felt a forbidden fear deep in his gut. To lose him. A world of pain. But it was not, Qui Gon told himself, so unthinkable. If he had to lose his Padawan, it would be kindest that he should lose him to love.
Big feels in that one. Apologies if I've not given you enough warning for that. Florence + the Machine's 'No Choir' is a beautiful song that you can listen to and appreciate Satine and Obi Wan's quiet moment together in this chapter.
Next chapter, we will have Obi Wan's perspective and a talk with Qui Gon. Our time on Mandalore draws nearly to a close ;(
Please drop me a review if you're reading and enjoying. I'd love to hear from you :)
- S.