Thank you so much for your thoughtful reviews! You made me feel much better about what I feared was an 'off' chapter. I'm really glad you liked seeing Shmi. I wrote in this second scene with one of Satine and Shmi's comm calls as a thank you :)

Now, onto our chapter!

Life in the Jedi Temple fell into a more comfortable routine after Obi Wan and Anakin's return from Tatooine; Anakin slept better of a nighttime and was involved in decidedly fewer fistfights. Sprinkled throughout the regularity of sparring and meditating and teaching Anakin to swim came Satine's increasingly chaotic comm calls. Obi Wan and his Padawan were midway through an evening meditation when interrupted by the latest chirp of the commlink.

"It's Satine!" Anakin announced, throwing up his hands in celebration.

"You are simply pleased to pause the meditation," Obi Wan quipped, although his heart too had lightened at the sound of it.

"Hello!"

The Jedi were greeted by a holo of Satine, her arms full of their squirming and rapidly growing infant. Toddler now, perhaps. Korkie's hair had lengthened into golden waves.

"Hello Obi Wan, hello Anakin," Satine managed, slightly breathless with the effort of wrangling her child. "Korkie, say hello."

"Buir Dada!" he announced, with an exuberant wave, not pausing in his attempts to climb over his mother's shoulder.

The name still brought an involuntary smile to Obi Wan's face.

"Has our bright star learned a new trick?"

Satine sighed, wrestling Korkie down into her lap so that her face was unobstructed.

"Depends," she announced, face grim. "Does blowing lightbulbs with the Force count as a new trick?"

"Oh dear," Obi Wan murmured. "During tantrums?"

Satine nodded, wrestling Korkie's reaching fingers from her mouth.

"He didn't want to hear his snowsuit, but he'd have frozen to death in the snow so I wrangled him into it. It would have been a very cute tantrum, wearing his little snowsuit, if not for the shattered glass raining on our hears," Satine explained grimly. "The terrible twos are upon us. Except that he's only one."

Korkie clapped his hands as he sing-songed happily.

"Buir Dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-"

Obi Wan sighed heavily.

"To blow a lightbulb already… He's progressing faster than I expected."

"He does everything faster than we expect," Satine pointed out.

Obi Wan nodded with the heavy knowledge that this, too, he should have anticipated. He watched Korkie, fascinated by Anakin's waving and face-pulling antics beside him. He expressed his joy in a rapid babble of Mando'a.

"He needs training."

"I know," Satine agreed grudgingly. "That's why I'm calling. How much leave could you take?"

"He needs real training, Satine," Obi Wan countered, with another sigh. "More than I can give him when I visit. More than the advice Shmi can give from Tatooine. He needs-"

"We're not arguing about this over comms," Satine announced flatly, grimacing as Korkie tugged at a curling strand of her hair. "I'm travelling to Coruscant next week for the debate on a proposed amendment to the Republic's definition of planetary sovereignty. Foreboding, no? But anyhow, we'll find a time to talk then."

"You'll bring Korkie with you to Coruscant?" Anakin asked brightly.

"Of course," Satine answered, managing to find a smile for Anakin before her face slipped into anxiety once more. "Imagine what he'd do in a week supervised only by his nannies. There'd be no glass left in the windows."

"He's blown windows?" Obi Wan asked, stricken.

"Not yet," Satine conceded. "But I'd hardly be surprised."

"Vod Ani-Ani-Ani-Ani-Ani-Ani-"

"Vod Korkie-Korkie-Korkie-Korkie-"

Satine and Obi Wan managed to hold brief eye contact over their dancing, waving, chanting children. They caught each other's gazes half in fear and half in delight.

"We'd best talk later, no?"

"Good idea. Contact me once you make it to Coruscant. We'll find a time-"

Anakin pulled some particularly grotesque face, and Korkie gave a shriek of laughter that left Satine massaging her left ear.

"We'll find a time. Bye now."

The Duchess Kryze was the steel-hearted leader of arguably the galaxy's most ferocious planetary system, but sitting as she was on the lawn of the palace gardens, her sundress haphazardly splashed with water and squinting in the sun, a twenty-three-standard-old and effectively single mother, she sparked some surge of maternal tenderness in Shmi. She sat with one hand resting protectively on her son's ankle as he lay on his stomach in the grass and splashed in the pond, appearing before Shmi courtesy of her new comms.

"He really is a beautiful little boy. I'm sure I have no grounds to complain. But we have been having a few behavioural challenges here and there."

"I'd be shocked if you weren't," Shmi reassured her.

Korkie submerged his face in the water and blew a flurry of bubbles; the Duchess's grip on his ankle tightened and then loosened again as he came up for air.

"He tells me he is being a fish," she explained, with gentle laughter. "His favourite new game."

"Anakin jumped off the roof of our hut once, pretending to be a fighter ship," Shmi offered, with a chuckle of her own. "The Force broke his fall beautifully."

The Duchess nodded pensively, biting her lip.

"I can only hope it keeps him out of trouble as much as it gets him into it."

"What sort of troubles have you had?"

"Child-proofing is rather more difficult when they can still grab things they can't reach with their hands," the Duchess explained, giving her child's calf an affectionate rub. "He's not done anything witnessed yet but I'm sure it's only a matter of time."

She sighed and leaned back on her hands.

"I technically have quite a formidable squadron of nannies at my disposal but I'm scared to leave him with them in case he does something magical. And when I do have the guts – or the desperation – to ask them to take him for a few hours, he refuses to go with them and has a big cry. When he was a baby he liked them perfectly well, but now that he's cognisant enough to realise that his mother is doing things without him, he's developing some separation anxiety…"

The young monarch gave a wry smile and laughed at herself.

"What I should say is that we're developing some separation anxiety. I cannot claim to be guiltless. If I could I'd keep him with me always."

Shmi nodded with a warm smile.

"I understand."

The Duchess was hesitant in returning the smile, chewing again at her lip.

"I worry that Obi Wan wants him to be trained at the Jedi Temple," she confessed. "But I could never let that happen. I don't know if that's wrong of me…"

Shmi waited patiently. She knew the question upon the monarch's lips.

"How did you… I don't mean to be at all judgemental, or intrusive, but how…"

"How did I let Anakin go?"

"Yes."

"Our lives are different, Duchess Kryze," Shmi explained simply. "A Prince of Mandalore has the galaxy at his fingertips; the son of a slave on Tatooine does not. I am sure that you would endure pain too, if it meant a better life for your son."

It was clear even as she nodded that Duchess was not entirely consoled.

"Obi Wan and I have never agreed on what a good life looks like, exactly."

Shmi conceded the point with a shrug.

"The benefits of immaculate conception, I suppose."

The joke startled the young autocrat from her sombre contemplation. She laughed loudly enough to reclaim the attention of her child, who lifted his gaze from the water of the pond and chirped something in Mando'a.

"He tells me I'm scaring the fishlets away."

The women fell into silence as they watched the child return his attentive gaze to the water in his search for fishlets.

"He is beautiful child, Duchess."

"Thank you."

The Duchess tucked her damp hair behind her ears and sat forward, leaning closer into Shmi despite the enormous distance between them.

"I know we can't solve all these problems by talking. I'm going to Coruscant tomorrow and I'll soon see Obi Wan and I know that we'll disagree and I still don't know the way around it. But Shmi, talking to you…"

She gave an earnest smile, so bright and radiant that Shmi could understand why Obi Wan Kenobi, who could be a perfect Jedi Knight, would risk it all for her.

"It makes me feel so much better," she professed. "Thank you."

"It's a pleasure, Duchess."

"Satine," the Duchess protested. "Please. You've taught me more than my own mother ever did about parenting. I would be honoured if you would call me by my first name."

Shmi's chest flushed with warmth. She had always wanted a daughter.

"It's a pleasure, Satine."

It had been foolish, in hindsight, to attempt sightseeing on an urban planet with her precocious baby-almost-toddler. Korkie, who had today declared himself te jatne sha kemir – the best at walking – had refused the pram and stomped his way vigorously through the first half of their planned excursion, and then promptly run out of energy and insisted on being carried. He was, at the least, still small for his age. Satine did not begrudge holding the child in her arms, even as Coruscant's artificial sunlight beamed down and drew sweat from her brow. It was a relief, after a morning of observation and unavoidable networking in the Senate, to put on her overalls and go for a decidedly uncivilised stroll. Satine had nothing to do with the Republic; the media would presumably not even recognise her out of her traditional dress.

She rounded the corner towards the Museum of Multispecies Sciences only to run directly into a figure walking in the opposite direction.

"Haar'ch-"

The profanity died in her mouth.

"Obi Wan?"

Satine saw her surprise mirrored in the face before her, and they laughed with the coincidence. They had planned to see each other for dinner tomorrow evening but had not expected to meet today.

"Buir Dada!" Korkie trilled, wriggling to turn in his mother's arms.

"Hush, Korkaran," Satine murmured.

She laid a hand on her son's head and hurried down a quieter street before anyone could look their way, Obi Wan following suit.

"Buir Dada! Buir Dada!"

"Just take him, Obi Wan, then he'll stop yelling," Satine mumbled apologetically, thrusting the child into his arms.

They increased the pace of their strides through the alleyway, hoping to avoid eyes.

"Hello there," Obi Wan greeted his son, who clapped with triumphant pleasure and thankfully stopped hollering. "Are you causing trouble, young one?"

"Ceaselessly," Satine agreed.

Korkie announced once more that he was te jatne sha kemir and laid his head wearily on his father's shoulder.

"The best at walking," Satine translated. "Although as you can see, he has rather overexerted himself today."

"I'll carry him back to your accommodation, shall I?" Obi Wan offered. "I've promised Anakin I'll get him something from Dex's for lunch, but I still have plenty of time."

He looked at her with a faint smirk.

"If you'll consent to being seen with me?"

Satine gave an easy shrug.

"If you're brave enough to be seen with me."

Obi Wan smiled at her and slowed his walk to a more leisurely pace.

"I can't get in too much trouble. Everyone knows he's not yours, so they know he's not mine either. I suppose it's plausible that you might seek out a lunchtime stroll with the Jedi friend who saved your regime."

Satine raised a brow, her lips quirking into a faint smile.

"Saved my regime, did you?"

"With Master Qui Gon's help."

"Mm. But no help from myself, of course."

"None at all, my Lady."

The light-hearted sarcasm was comfortable in a way they had not been in some time.

"What will you get Anakin for lunch?"

"In an ideal galaxy, a bowlful of anti-hyperactivity meds. But I don't think he'd take them. So perhaps we'll revert to Dex's classic nerfburger."

"Korkie could use a little anti-hyperactivity too."

Obi Wan pointed to the child's head on his shoulder. Korkie was dozing into sleep.

"He's an angel!"

"Very funny. You only caught him after he was exhausted."

"Parenting really isn't that hard, Satine."

"Hilarious, Jetii."

They arrived then at the entrance to Satine's accommodation in the Senate-Side Grand Hotel, bustling with sleek concierge droids and bejewelled patrons.

Obi Wan smirked.

"Are you sure you're staying here?"

Satine pushed some sweaty strands of hair from her face.

"It's a little extravagant," she agreed. "I've been thinking of buying my own apartment, so I don't have to stay here anymore."

Obi Wan's face brightened.

"You should. It's nice having you in the neighbourhood, you know."

Their smiles faltered then; they had fallen into forbidden territory.

"There are no neighbourhoods in this monstrosity of a city," Satine countered, ignoring the more challenging sentiment. "I don't plan to spend any more time here than necessary."

And all the joy between them was snuffed out. By the stars, Satine. You are too cold, too stoic, too-

"I suppose I'd best give the little one back," Obi Wan sighed, lifting a hand to Korkie's golden-bronze hair.

"Thank you."

Satine leaned in to extricate the child from where he slept with his arms around Obi Wan's neck.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Yes. Until tomorrow."

She carried her child to the fifty-first floor and placed him in his travel cot, and only then did she turn to her enormous floor-to-ceiling window and watch the tiny pedestrians in the streets below, eyes traitorously searching for auburn hair and a brown cloak.

"How's the Duchess?" Siri asked innocently as they sat down to dinner.

Anakin looked at Obi Wan with alarm. Garen, who had started eating without waiting for Siri to sit down, cackled laughter through a mouthful of food.

"How do you know I ran into the Duchess today?" Obi Wan asked, brow furrowed with confusion, before it dawned on him. "Oh stars, do they really think that's newsworthy?"

"Not only newsworthy, but the fifth-highest trending story of the afternoon," grinned Siri, sliding her data-pad across the table to him.

Obi Wan was greeted by a brief looping video of himself and Satine walking through the streets of Coruscant together. He was holding Korkie in his arms and Satine was fixing the strands of hair that Korkie was so fond of pulling at this age. They were laughing with each other. Saved my regime, did you?

"You look like a very happy family," Garen teased.

Obi Wan made a non-committal noise of agreement as he scanned the accompanying text.

The Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore and foundling Korkaran Kryze were spotted today in the sunny streets of Coruscant, where the Duchess is attending the Republic's Sovereignty Summit as a neutral observer. Footage shows the reunion of the Duchess Satine with newly-knighted Jedi Obi Wan Kenobi, who played a pivotal role in the successful New Mandalorian Revolution two years ago.

"Pivotal role," Obi Wan mused. "She won't like that."

For spectators-

"Who are these spectators, for stars' sakes?"

-this was a heart-warming opportunity to see the infamously reserved Duchess enjoying the company of an old friend. But the angel-haired Korkaran Kryze, as always, steals the show, today with his adorable display of affection towards his new acquaintance. And Master Kenobi himself, the author must note, looks rather dashing with a baby in his arms.

"Rather dashing with a baby in his arms," Siri repeated, snorting with mirth. "That's my favourite line."

"I like 'infamously reserved Duchess'," Garen contributed. "Because you could tell they wanted to write ice-cold bitch."

"Garen!" Obi Wan chided. "Young ears."

"The Duchess is not an ice-cold bitch," Anakin retorted through a mouthful of mashed potato, without concern for the profanity. "She's very nice."

Garen's eyes lit up.

"And how do you know that, Padawan?"

Anakin shrugged.

"I've seen her on the HoloNet a few times. She seems nice. Plus, Master Obi Wan used to like her, so she must be nice."

Obi Wan rolled his eyes but was quietly pleased with his Padawan's vastly improved shielding.

"Thank you, Padawan."

"You're too loyal to your Master, Anakin," Siri informed him with a smirk. "He was never this kind to Qui Gon."

"You're allowed to be rude to him, you know," Garen added.

Anakin shrugged and took another bite of dinner.

"Come on, Anakin," Garen encouraged, sliding the data-pad across the table from Obi Wan to his apprentice. "It's pretty funny, right?"

The child pulled a thoughtful face.

"Well… Uh... I guess that little baby looks a lot like you, Master."

Anakin was rewarded for his effort with a chorus of laughter and Garen's congratulatory hand patting his back.

"Very good, Padawan," Obi Wan conceded, with gentle laughter. "Only next time you'll have to come up with a more original taunt. Garen's done that one to death."

I hope you enjoyed a light-hearted chapter! Cheeky Korkie in abundance.

Sadly, our next chapter will have a little (a lot) less levity: Obi Wan and Satine can't procrastinate a discussion about Korkie's training forever.

Keep your fabulous ideas flowing - I love to hear what you're enjoying and hoping to hear more of as I plug away at the later phases of this story.

xx - S.