Disclaimer: I still don't speak Scots Gaelic nor Irish Gaeilge aside from a few words ( I do know slightly more Gaeilge though), so if my translations are wrong then blame Google Translate, not me. I also don't own any character that is not my own creation, obviously. Wish I did though. Could use the kind of money Star Wars rakes in. At this point I'm just too lazy to get rid of this disclaimer so it's staying despite getting my point across by now.

A/N: sorry for the delay, between Shabbat and Tisha B'Av I was spending the weekend in religious observance, or at least trying to. I pray all of my Jewish readers had an easy fast! Also, not related at all, but I noticed that in the story stats I got a reader from the DPRK. So, hello North Korean dude!

Caibideil 14

Gràinne kicked madly at the confines of her fabric prison, until she heard a velvety voice, not unlike that of the slender old man who once called Palpatine "Master," said to her, "I have no intention to hurt you my dear."

"Like ye murdered me betrothed?!" she yelled from inside the bag, on the verge of finally breaking down into tears.

Dooku cocked an eyebrow, then silently smiled. He knew exactly how to charm this little one to the Dark Side, "I'm terribly sorry. We tried to save him too. It was all just a horrible accident."

"What 'ya mean 'save him too?'" Gràinne demanded, "Ye trew me in a bag and dragged me halfway to G-d knows where?"

"It was for your own protection; the Jedi were going to hurt you."

"What 'ya mean?"

"My poor child, those Jedi would have enslaved you."

"What?"

"Of course they didn't tell you, why would they?" Dooku sighed, hopefully convincingly, "My dear, you have no idea how evil the Jedi really are."

"I can wager a guess," Gràinne quipped inside the bag.

Dooku had to smile, this was even easier than he thought it would be, "The Jedi are a monstrous cult, they have enslaved and murdered countless billions throughout the galaxy for thousands of years." Technically he wasn't lying so much as stretching the truth. "They normally target little children for their nefarious plots, but a pretty girl like yourself? Well you would fetch a good price to keep the warmongers happy."

Gràinne was confused, "But, t'ey said I could be Jedi if I wanted? Or they'd take me home?"

"A common tactic for the older victims," Dooku replied, looking dejected and defeated, excellently hiding his almost giddy feelings. If there was one thing which he could truly thank his time as a youngling in the Temple for, it was the endless theatre classes he took. "They routinely promise everything and give nothing but suffering. If you are willing to hear me out, calmly and without any further punching me in the face, I would like to talk to you. Treat you as the adult, the equal, as the Jedi never would have done."

Gràinne pondered for a moment, at the very least if he did try something then she could escape more easily if she wasn't in a turnip sack. "Aye."

After Dooku untied the knots holding the bag closed, the young Togruta was at last revealed, squinting in the sunlight as her eyes adjusted. She was in a garden, or what looked like had once been one before it got burned to the ground along with the massive house.

Dooku couldn't exactly say that this was the palace of the popular monarch he currently had tied up in the basement so he thought for a moment of a way to lie, "The Jedi bombed this orphanage when the headmistress wouldn't turn over their children." May as well keep with the whole enslaving babies theme. "Their cruelty knows no bounds. My former master and I were leading a successful revolt to destroy them once and for all."

At the mention of his "former master," Gràinne realized what she had done. She looked around, tears starting to well in her eyes, no longer for her lover but now filled with regret, "I did this? I caused this?" she tried to shout, but what came was barely a choking whisper.

Dooku placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, "You didn't know any better; you bought into the sweet lies of the Jedi. You were just another one of their countless innocent victims."

Gràinne started to shake, sobbing, "I want to go home," she whimpered.

"I understand completely," Dooku told her. He might have to arrange a little accident for her family when he figured out where she was from, so as to completely bring her into the fold. She was buying his lies and half-truths hook, line, and sinker! This seemed so easy that Dooku was almost starting to get suspicious. "If you want, when I take you home, I can take you under my tutelage, to properly defend yourself and your loved ones against those Jedi scoundrels."

"I've had my fill of wizardry, tank ye," Gràinne replied, teary-eyed but indignant. He might have to electrocute that out of her later. "Please, I just want to go home."

Dooku nodded, feigning sympathy, "Of course child, I will be happy to take you back to your family personally," he told her, mentally adding, so I can make sure they die. Taking her by the hand and helping her up, he led her to his solar skimmer. Taking her up and out of the atmosphere of Alderaan to return her to this Talamh as she called it, he saw her curled up in the corner trying to keep calm. She had not developed a love for flying by any stretch of the imagination. Putting in the coordinates for the recently discovered world, Dooku's ship entered hyperspace.

Within an hour of their departure, the massive Republic fleet fell out of hyperspace and began to bombard the defending CIS fleet blockading the planet. The plan was one of the most complex ones Republic strategists had ever had to come up with save for the Second Battle of Geonosis and would require the largest clone army ever assembled in one battle. Seven legions, over 70,000 clone soldiers were needed to take the world back from the Separatists. Anakin started to wonder about the words of Master Mundi, former Master Mundi as he prepped his starfighter to get into a dogfight with vulture droids. If he was being honest with himself, he had never even thought about the clones as being slaves. No, he couldn't allow himself to get distracted now: distraction meant death. He and his squadron took formation outside the ship, with his padawan and Fisto at his wings. He focused solely on the fighting, shooting down more vultures than he bothered to count, despite his usual bragging wager with Ahsoka. Somewhere around thirty so far? It was hopeless at this point, in all this chaos he assumed that Ahsoka had lost count too and would probably just throw some random big number which he'd counter with one or two extras. When I grow up, I'll free all the slaves. Anakin's focus was so shattered at that memory that he almost rammed into a clone pilot.

Ahsoka commed him, "Master?" she asked with concern, "Are you alright? You almost killed Jax!"

"Yeah Snips," Anakin lied, "Thought I saw another tri-fighter that way. I was wrong."

Seventeen hours of intermittent dogfights, bombing runs, and broadsides. That was how long it took to finally get the Separatist fleet to turn tail and run. Half the Coruscanti Defense Fleet was forming a ring of trash and scrap metal around the planet. Smaller Republic fleets jumped in to reinforce but most were utterly demolished. One star-destroyer, the Hopebringer, was so totally damaged that the crew had to evacuate and the ship sent to ram the Separatist flagship. Three thousand clones, dead. Four hundred non-clone officers, dead. Hundreds more wounded, some mortally. They hadn't even landed on the planet yet. Anakin sat on the floor in the hallway, leaning against a wall and running his fingers anxiously through his hair. He had seen the horrors of war before, he had seen men eviscerated, he had seen men die. Never thousands at a time. Some of those men he knew by name, had developed close friendships with, they joked that they would name their kids after him when the war ended. Had those been jokes? He would never know.

Kit Fisto sat down beside him, offering a part of his ration bar. Anakin shook his head; he was so sick that if he ate anything it would come right back up before it even entered his stomach. The Nautolan Jedi Master placed a hand on his shoulder, "I know what it's like. We all do," he told him, "the important thing is to make sure our boys didn't die in vain."

Anakin took a deep, shaky breath, "How old were they?"

"What?"

"The clones. How old are they?"

Fisto looked down, trying to calculate. "Well," he thought aloud, "the clones age at twice the normal rate for humans, I think. They're biologically… twenty, twenty-two when they finish training which would make them… ten…" Fisto's voice fell with the realization. "Ten or eleven years old."

"I've known some of them since day one of the war Master," Anakin muttered, barely audible, "The oldest of them had to be fourteen."

"I've never even thought of that," Kit answered honestly and with a growing sense of horror and nausea. Mundi was more accurate than he realized when he decried their use of child soldiers.

"Master, do you think that maybe, Master Mundi was right?"

"I don't know, Anakin," Kit answered, dropping all formalities, "I don't know."

Back on Coruscant; what was available of the Jedi Council, mostly via holocall, was arguing over moving the Temple after the rediscovery of the ancient Sith Shrine.

"We can't just move the Temple!" explained Mace Windu, "It's been here for five thousand years, standing guard over Coruscant and the Republic we serve. How would it look to suddenly abandon it right when it appears Coruscant is under threat?"

"Our Temple," argued Shaak Ti, "is built on the ruins of a Sith Shrine and has a Darkside Nexus at its very core. You want to know why the Force has seemed clouded lately? There's the obvious reason."

"According to the legends," Gallia pointed out, "the Temple was built atop the Sith Shrine to purify the Nexus, to bring it to the light."

"Obviously it didn't work," Koth interjected, "Considering we were led along by a Sith Lord like we were little dolls and couldn't even tell he was a Sith when he was two meters in front of us in this very room!"

Kenobi rubbed his temples, trying to stave off a migraine, "We let a Sith Lord walk freely through our Temple for years… invited him in so many times. Who even knows if he was the first? They could have been hiding in our basement for the entire thousand years we thought they were dead!" He paused, then lifted his face with realization at the implications of his own words, "I'm going to have to look for Maul down there when I get back, aren't I?"

"Find a new location suitable for us, years it may take," Yoda stated to anybody who was still listening.

"Well we can't stay here," Stass Allie interjected.

"We have for millennia; at the very least, what difference will five years make?" Agen Kolar asked.

"When you discover your house is filled with toxic chemicals," Plo Koon answered, "Do you stay there because you have lived in it all your life, or do you leave, at least temporarily, to keep yourself safe?"

Oppo Rancisis scratched at his fur, "We should at least look into possible locations for a new Temple before any final decisions are made."

Coleman Kcaj remarked, "it's bee a minute since I last brushed up my ancient history, but wasn't the first Jedi Temple on a planet called, erm, Tython? I was reading about that this morning while trying to figure out what was going on with the Darkside Nexus. How about there?"

"Tython was destroyed," Ti pointed out, "in a supernova… about twenty thousand years ago."

"Well that certainly explains why I had never heard of it before."

Yoda buried his face in his little clawed hands. This was becoming a bigger and bigger nightmare by the day.

Padmé couldn't believe she was here, but Anakin had talked her into it. Well, threatened her with divorce if she didn't do it. An empty threat most likely but the prospect was terrifying in its own right. When it was her turn to talk, she cleared her throat. This was more difficult than even her most heavily opposed speeches in the Senate. Taking a deep breath, could she really do it? Even if she couldn't there was no way to back out now. She was here. She had to go through with it, for her own safety, for her marriage, for her rapidly deteriorating life. Nothing would get better if she didn't do this, she had to, she had to, she had to. Even she had noticed there was a problem that needed fixing, even if she wasn't ready to admit it just yet. "My name is Padmé Amidala…" she steeled herself, taking a gulp of air, "and I am an alcoholic."

"Hi Padmé," everyone else circle answered in near unison. The Alcoholics Anonymous banner fastened to the wall over a table with small, healthy snacks and water bottles.

"Now Padmé" said the Ithorian group leader with a strangely southern accent. She couldn't tell southern where, but it was distinctly southern. "You know what you just did?"

"What?"

"You've just passed the First Step: admitting that alcohol has taken control over your life. It's the first step, and the first step is always the biggest leap of faith a recovering addict can take."

Padmé smiled and nodded, trying to hold back tears. "I came here because my husband, well, we've argued about it in the past but now, it's gotten so out of hand that," she was failing at holding back, getting audibly choked up, "our relationship is being torn apart. He told me that if I didn't try to take control of it that he would divorce me. I want to beat this, I do." She leaned on the Ithorian's shoulder, beginning to sob uncontrollably, "I can't even get out of bed anymore without a glass of whiskey or wine for breakfast. I tried replacing it with food, but I can't even be in the same room as alcohol without drinking."

He patted her back reassuringly, as his AA shirt was being soaked with tears, "It's ok, let it out. We've all been there. You're among friends."

Luminara was trying to meditate in her chamber, "trying" being the keyword. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't stay focused for more than a few minutes: everything ran through her brain at a parsec a minute, Barriss was still in the hospital, nobody wants the Chancellorship and those who do take it get arrested the day of ascending or the day after thus leaving the Republic leaderless for the past two months, in addition to nearly half of the Senate being purged with the massive corruption investigations. At least Barriss's girlfriend seemed to be innocent, although she highly doubted that was her only ticket with the way she drove. Senator Chuchi nearly gave her a heart attack every time she went to make a turn. That was the last time that Luminara Unduli was agreeing to rideshare with her, that much was certain.

Sighing in annoyance, Luminara gave up on meditation and stood, stretching and popping a few joints. She looked at her chrono, "Only twenty minutes?!" It had felt like it was at least an hour or two! Granted, it would have been more productive as a nap but still. She shook her head in self-disappointment. She grabbed a glass of water before she checked her commlink, surely nothing too important had happened in the past twenty minutes but it never hurt to look.

7 Missed Calls: Barriss Offee

1 New Message: Barriss Offee

Luminara smiled, it was good to see that she was reaching out, especially after hearing the news about her cancer. Granted it was probably gone but that sort of information could take a massive toll on anybody. She took a sip of her water and opened the message to see what Barriss had clearly wanted to tell her.

OMFOMFOMFOMF! MASTER! I'M GETTING MARRIED! SHE SAID YES!

Luminara spent the next twenty minutes coughing after nearly drowning on her drink. Still not certain that she managed to get all of the liquid out of her trachea, she tested her voice, it sounded strained but she could be heard. Still, she hacked for a few minutes longer trying to finally avoid the threat of drowning herself on dry land.

How long had they even been dating?! Was same-sex marriage even legal on Pantora? She knew it wasn't on Mirial, not that that was a Republic world anyway, but just, what?! Why? How? When? Where? What time did she even plan on using to get married or go on a honeymoon?