Disclaimer: George Lucas owns the characters (well, except for Jasiya and
Resiy) and I don't. It's that simple.
Author's Note: I'm sorry I took a while to get this chapter out, but I completely forgot I had even posted the story until I was going through an old e-mail account. Thanks for the reviews.
This covers the same time period as chapter 1, except it's from Tahiri's point of view instead of Anakin's.
"I'm meeting Anakin today!" With an undoubtedly wild-eyed look, I stared at my best friend in horror. "Jasiya, why am I doing this? Why are they making me do this? I'm sixteen, I don't want to get married, especially to some stupid guy I haven't even met!"
Do I sound like I'm panicking? Hopefully not, because the last thing I want are tabloid writers trailing after me, asking hundreds of questions, but with the way Jasiya is staring at me.
"You pretend to be me," I suddenly blurt out, my voice sounding, well, panicked. "You can pretend to me, and you can fall in love, and then you two can get married and I can. I can do something that doesn't involve looking at dresses for months!"
Looking at dresses that I'll only wear once, I amend silently. Dresses I don't want- because they're dresses, and they get in the way- and shoes. Oh, Force, I'll have to wear shoes.
Well, that's it. The wedding has to be called off.
"Stop scaring yourself," Jasiya murmurs, trying to contain her grin. But it isn't working, because I can tell she's smirking inside- mainly because the smile on her face looks maniacally evil. Then again, that's how she always looks.
"I'm not scaring myself!" I practically scream the words, and I sink onto my bed. "I'm past being scared, I'm absolutely terrified! You try doing this, Jasi. You can be the princess who's stuck in an arranged marriage, and I'll be you!"
I wait a moment, then look up at her hopefully. Funny, she doesn't seem too pleased with that idea.traitor. She's my best friend, can't she just do me one small favour and help me out of this thing?
"You, Tahiri, have an endless capacity for drama, don't you?" With another smile, she sits down next to me and looks me in the eyes. "Tee, it'll be fine. I'm sure you'll get along, and on the off chance you don't, maybe you two could stage a rebellion against your parents or something. Refuse to get married."
My green eyes light up at this prospect, but they quickly fall. "It won't work. Face it, the rest of my life is going to be completely miserable, all because of some stupid pact my parents made." In a mimicking tone, I start, "Oh, Tahiri, guess what! Well, your father and I were in the talks to join the New Republic, and because the Chief of State is such a good friend of ours, we made a deal. You're going to marry her youngest son when you're older!"
At Jasiya's giggling, I make a face. "I swear, that's how they told me. There I was a sweet nine-year-old innocently playing with my friends, and in walks Mom, casually mentioning this!"
And what's worse, I was so startled I lost the game of D'Jerik to some annoying kid who was a year younger.
A sigh escaped Jasiya's lips. "Oh, I'm sure it wasn't exactly like that, Tahiri. Cassa wouldn't tell it to you like that, she'd wait until you were alone." She absentmindedly pushed a blue braid off her shoulder, her eyes looking everywhere but me.
I snorted, fingering the blankets of my bed as I did so. "You weren't there, or else you would remember. If I recall correctly, we hadn't even met yet. How do you know what Mom was like then?"
"I'm brilliant." Jasiya grinned at me; but her smile quickly fell as she noticed I wasn't nearly as amused as she was. But here's my question: if she's so brilliant, how come she can't tell what a huge catastrophe this is?
"Are you two ready yet?" Walking- practically skipping- into my room without knocking, my mother grinned across the room at us. "And aren't you excited, Tahiri? This is a big day for you!"
My mouth opened to say something- most likely about how excited I really was- but Jasiya quickly clamped a hand over my mouth. "She's thrilled, your Highness," Jasiya enthused, while I experimentally bit her at her hand.
A shriek answered me, along with a hand very rapidly being pulled away from my mouth; and I grinned. It worked; I'll have to remember that if she tries it again in the future.
"You bit me!" Gingerly shaking her hand, her blue eyes skimmed it for any cuts. But from the way she's acting, I won't have to do it again- she's smart enough to lose that little trick.
"You stopped me from talking." I pouted for a moment, grinning sheepishly as my mother glared at me. Evidently I'm not supposed to bite my best friend. who knew? That wasn't covered in that stupid book of conduct- not that I follow it anyway. What fun is a life in which you can't even go outside without a posse of guards?
"Tahiri." Mom offered me a warning look, so I smiled sweetly at her. When in doubt- or trouble- go for the innocent look. It fools pretty much everyone, thankfully.
"Sorry, Jasi, sorry, Mum!" I beam, my eyes widening in an attempt to look as angelic as possible. It works on Mom, her face melts and she grins back. But Jasiya just snorted; her eyes doubtful and- scarily- amused.
"It's okay, Tahiri." Jasiya smiled back at me, as sickly sweet as I was. What kind of revenge is she intending? "I just didn't want you to say anything you might regret."
I nodded at her, and she gave me an evil look. Jasiya is like me; she adores payback. Probably the reason we're still friends- we both have attitudes that can switch from cheerful to horrified at the slightest thing, so we need each other. Besides, she's wonderful at helping me terrorize the castle.
Not that it was us who turned the delegates from the New Republic's hair pink, of course.
"Well, you two are ready, then?" Mom smiles at us again, and I'm reminded of the damn subject that I really want to avoid.
The unfortunate fact that we have to go down to one of the docking bays to meet him. Him as in Anakin Solo, my future husband and the man who will undoubtedly cast a reign of terror over my entire life.
And okay- now I'm exaggerating.
"Can you give us a couple minutes longer, Mom? I want to go over my outfit one more time. Tell you what, we'll meet you down in the docking bay in about ten minutes. It's number 263, right?" With a smile, I effectively push her out of my room, ignoring her objections. Basically, my logic is she doesn't have time to scold me- she wants to get there a standard half- hour early, just in case they make better time than they expected.
Once she should have been a safe distance away, I turned to Jasiya. "Don't you dare try to get revenge now. I need your help!"
She smiled demurely at me, flipping her long braid over her shoulder in a gesture that seemed mildly scary. "Seeing you with this guy while your parents make wedding plans will be enough revenge for me, Tahiri. And why do you need my help?"
"I want you to help me startle him," I sang out, and grinned. This would be brilliant. If I could act like he offended me so much, say about. the way I looked, I might be able to convince my parents- well, I'd convince them of something.
An eyebrow raised. Which is unfair, because she's the only one I know that can raise one eyebrow. whenever I try it, I look like a surprised idiot. "Tahiri, how will startling him do anything?"
I smiled brightly. "It'll cheer me up, at least. And I'll hopefully get an interesting reaction out of him, which could be fun. Please?" I adopted my best 'pitiful' face, the one that should have gotten me out of this situation in the first place.
Jasiya sighed heavily, and stared at me. "On two conditions: one, it won't get me in trouble, and 2, it doesn't involve going over to the Dark Side in order to pull it off." She looked at me again, and let out a slight whimper as I nodded in agreement. "Why do I have the feeling this is gonna get us in trouble?"
Even though the question wasn't directed toward me, I felt compelled to answer. After all, my ceiling wasn't going to say anything, no matter how long she stared at it. "It won't. All I want you to do is kinda- Ooh, Sith, we've gotta go!"
With an almost restrained shriek, I grabbed her arm and pulled her across my room, kicking everything on the floor out of our way. "Let's go, let's go, let's-"
"Go?" Jasiya put in, looking harried. "We are. Now what do you want me to do for you?" She grimaced, and looked at the ceiling again. "Why the Sith did I say that?"
I laughed; more at her face than anything else, "Just act. Princess-y. Don't pretend you're me, but Resiy and I will stand next to you, and you can do your regal thing you're so good at."
"Hmm. Flattery will get you everything, Tahiri. But I see you've learned that." She paused in the middle of the long hallway we were in, and wondered out loud, "Why do you want me to act regally?"
I tugged at her again, and she started walking again. Oh Force, we're almost there. Oh Force. "I want to see his reaction when he sees the princess he's engaged to looks like a little girl." Which is true, sadly. I do look much younger than I am. "If he's like most guys, he'll freak," I ended.
"Ah." Jasiya nodded in understanding. "And then you can blame him, and act horrible, and it'll be perfectly justified."
I grinned again, trying to mask my nervousness so everyone littering by the entrance to the docking bays can't see it. "Yep."
"Okay, then-" she pulled open the doors to docking bay 263 open, and this time she's pulling me. "-But are you sure this isn't of the Dark Side, Tahiri? Because it sounds like it is, almost."
Who cares? If I can get out of this, I'll happily emulate Darth Vader. But I still have to reassure her, because when she gets like this. "Sith." I haven't even realized I spoke out loud until Jasiya snickered, her gaze going to where my eyes were locked. The ship that he was supposed to be on.
Damn. Is it too late to run away?
"That's him, isn't it?" Walking over to our standpoint, my younger cousin grinned at Jasiya. "She's terrified, isn't she?"
"Yeah." Jasiya nodded, then grabbed me by the back of my dress as I attempted to make a run for it. "No, you don't. You will stay here, you will greet him nicely, and you will do nothing like run away. Got it?"
I just nodded, and, snapping out of it, sighed. "Resiy, I want you to stay next to me at all times. we're doing something." Before she could ask what, I added, "We're going to let him assume Jasiya is me, so I can go off on him if he says something I don't like to me, after he learns I'm me and not someone else."
Resiy looked at me, her green eyes confused. Then she abruptly turned to Jasiya. "Has she gone crazy?"
"Resiy, she's been crazy for years." At my glare, she reiterated, "I mean, um. Oh, he is cute! Is he Anakin?" She stared at one of the men that had just left the ship, the one with pale blonde hair that shined in the firelight.
I shook my head, staring at the newcomers as well. "No, I don't think so. I haven't seen pictures of him, but I think he's supposed to have dark hair." I then turned to look at the other man, and I once again shook my head. "And he isn't either."
"Maybe he didn't come," Resiy suggested. "Maybe he got sick or something, and."
"No," I interrupted. "Mom talked to him earlier today, when Jasi and I were out swimming. he's coming."
Then, a man and a woman descended from the ship, and I smiled. That had to be him... he looked as ready to bolt as I am. Good, maybe I will be able to convince him we don't really need to get married.
"That's him," I proclaim, exchanging looks with Resiy as his eyes fix on us. "And look. we've already been delegated to the princess's little friends, while Jasiya is, well."
Resiy laughed. "But he doesn't look attracted to her." She suddenly turned to poke me. "In fact, he looks as terrified as you do."
He talks to Mom and Dad for a moment, and then Mom gestures to us. "Guess that's our cue," I murmur softly. "All together now. I want a good reaction." And if possible, I also want to pretend I can't feel him through the Force so much.
"Go," Jasiya whispers to me, as I struggle to keep an innocent look on my face. "Your parents will start to get suspicious if you don't. go meet your future husband."
I glared at her, before sniffing. "I'll get you for that," I whisper back, and then turn to face Anakin Solo.
"I'm pleased to meet you, Anakin," I told him, then giggled to myself as he did a double take. Then my face changes into a playful grin as he stares at me in shock. I was right, he does look very amusing, with his eyes almost bugging out. Could it be he wasn't expecting me to look so young?
"I look young for my age," I offered, taking him in. My eyes go over his body- more for affect than for anything else- and I smile at him. And ooh, is he blushing? Please tell me he isn't that easily embarrassed. "But that's okay, you look different than I expected, too."
I snicker as I can practically hear him thinking to himself. He's thinking this is just- sarcasm, enters here- very, very.
"Nice," I supply for him, my green eyes sparkling and a smirk coming to my face as he stares at me in slight amazement. "How very, very nice."
Well, isn't that what he was thinking?
Author's Note: I'm sorry I took a while to get this chapter out, but I completely forgot I had even posted the story until I was going through an old e-mail account. Thanks for the reviews.
This covers the same time period as chapter 1, except it's from Tahiri's point of view instead of Anakin's.
"I'm meeting Anakin today!" With an undoubtedly wild-eyed look, I stared at my best friend in horror. "Jasiya, why am I doing this? Why are they making me do this? I'm sixteen, I don't want to get married, especially to some stupid guy I haven't even met!"
Do I sound like I'm panicking? Hopefully not, because the last thing I want are tabloid writers trailing after me, asking hundreds of questions, but with the way Jasiya is staring at me.
"You pretend to be me," I suddenly blurt out, my voice sounding, well, panicked. "You can pretend to me, and you can fall in love, and then you two can get married and I can. I can do something that doesn't involve looking at dresses for months!"
Looking at dresses that I'll only wear once, I amend silently. Dresses I don't want- because they're dresses, and they get in the way- and shoes. Oh, Force, I'll have to wear shoes.
Well, that's it. The wedding has to be called off.
"Stop scaring yourself," Jasiya murmurs, trying to contain her grin. But it isn't working, because I can tell she's smirking inside- mainly because the smile on her face looks maniacally evil. Then again, that's how she always looks.
"I'm not scaring myself!" I practically scream the words, and I sink onto my bed. "I'm past being scared, I'm absolutely terrified! You try doing this, Jasi. You can be the princess who's stuck in an arranged marriage, and I'll be you!"
I wait a moment, then look up at her hopefully. Funny, she doesn't seem too pleased with that idea.traitor. She's my best friend, can't she just do me one small favour and help me out of this thing?
"You, Tahiri, have an endless capacity for drama, don't you?" With another smile, she sits down next to me and looks me in the eyes. "Tee, it'll be fine. I'm sure you'll get along, and on the off chance you don't, maybe you two could stage a rebellion against your parents or something. Refuse to get married."
My green eyes light up at this prospect, but they quickly fall. "It won't work. Face it, the rest of my life is going to be completely miserable, all because of some stupid pact my parents made." In a mimicking tone, I start, "Oh, Tahiri, guess what! Well, your father and I were in the talks to join the New Republic, and because the Chief of State is such a good friend of ours, we made a deal. You're going to marry her youngest son when you're older!"
At Jasiya's giggling, I make a face. "I swear, that's how they told me. There I was a sweet nine-year-old innocently playing with my friends, and in walks Mom, casually mentioning this!"
And what's worse, I was so startled I lost the game of D'Jerik to some annoying kid who was a year younger.
A sigh escaped Jasiya's lips. "Oh, I'm sure it wasn't exactly like that, Tahiri. Cassa wouldn't tell it to you like that, she'd wait until you were alone." She absentmindedly pushed a blue braid off her shoulder, her eyes looking everywhere but me.
I snorted, fingering the blankets of my bed as I did so. "You weren't there, or else you would remember. If I recall correctly, we hadn't even met yet. How do you know what Mom was like then?"
"I'm brilliant." Jasiya grinned at me; but her smile quickly fell as she noticed I wasn't nearly as amused as she was. But here's my question: if she's so brilliant, how come she can't tell what a huge catastrophe this is?
"Are you two ready yet?" Walking- practically skipping- into my room without knocking, my mother grinned across the room at us. "And aren't you excited, Tahiri? This is a big day for you!"
My mouth opened to say something- most likely about how excited I really was- but Jasiya quickly clamped a hand over my mouth. "She's thrilled, your Highness," Jasiya enthused, while I experimentally bit her at her hand.
A shriek answered me, along with a hand very rapidly being pulled away from my mouth; and I grinned. It worked; I'll have to remember that if she tries it again in the future.
"You bit me!" Gingerly shaking her hand, her blue eyes skimmed it for any cuts. But from the way she's acting, I won't have to do it again- she's smart enough to lose that little trick.
"You stopped me from talking." I pouted for a moment, grinning sheepishly as my mother glared at me. Evidently I'm not supposed to bite my best friend. who knew? That wasn't covered in that stupid book of conduct- not that I follow it anyway. What fun is a life in which you can't even go outside without a posse of guards?
"Tahiri." Mom offered me a warning look, so I smiled sweetly at her. When in doubt- or trouble- go for the innocent look. It fools pretty much everyone, thankfully.
"Sorry, Jasi, sorry, Mum!" I beam, my eyes widening in an attempt to look as angelic as possible. It works on Mom, her face melts and she grins back. But Jasiya just snorted; her eyes doubtful and- scarily- amused.
"It's okay, Tahiri." Jasiya smiled back at me, as sickly sweet as I was. What kind of revenge is she intending? "I just didn't want you to say anything you might regret."
I nodded at her, and she gave me an evil look. Jasiya is like me; she adores payback. Probably the reason we're still friends- we both have attitudes that can switch from cheerful to horrified at the slightest thing, so we need each other. Besides, she's wonderful at helping me terrorize the castle.
Not that it was us who turned the delegates from the New Republic's hair pink, of course.
"Well, you two are ready, then?" Mom smiles at us again, and I'm reminded of the damn subject that I really want to avoid.
The unfortunate fact that we have to go down to one of the docking bays to meet him. Him as in Anakin Solo, my future husband and the man who will undoubtedly cast a reign of terror over my entire life.
And okay- now I'm exaggerating.
"Can you give us a couple minutes longer, Mom? I want to go over my outfit one more time. Tell you what, we'll meet you down in the docking bay in about ten minutes. It's number 263, right?" With a smile, I effectively push her out of my room, ignoring her objections. Basically, my logic is she doesn't have time to scold me- she wants to get there a standard half- hour early, just in case they make better time than they expected.
Once she should have been a safe distance away, I turned to Jasiya. "Don't you dare try to get revenge now. I need your help!"
She smiled demurely at me, flipping her long braid over her shoulder in a gesture that seemed mildly scary. "Seeing you with this guy while your parents make wedding plans will be enough revenge for me, Tahiri. And why do you need my help?"
"I want you to help me startle him," I sang out, and grinned. This would be brilliant. If I could act like he offended me so much, say about. the way I looked, I might be able to convince my parents- well, I'd convince them of something.
An eyebrow raised. Which is unfair, because she's the only one I know that can raise one eyebrow. whenever I try it, I look like a surprised idiot. "Tahiri, how will startling him do anything?"
I smiled brightly. "It'll cheer me up, at least. And I'll hopefully get an interesting reaction out of him, which could be fun. Please?" I adopted my best 'pitiful' face, the one that should have gotten me out of this situation in the first place.
Jasiya sighed heavily, and stared at me. "On two conditions: one, it won't get me in trouble, and 2, it doesn't involve going over to the Dark Side in order to pull it off." She looked at me again, and let out a slight whimper as I nodded in agreement. "Why do I have the feeling this is gonna get us in trouble?"
Even though the question wasn't directed toward me, I felt compelled to answer. After all, my ceiling wasn't going to say anything, no matter how long she stared at it. "It won't. All I want you to do is kinda- Ooh, Sith, we've gotta go!"
With an almost restrained shriek, I grabbed her arm and pulled her across my room, kicking everything on the floor out of our way. "Let's go, let's go, let's-"
"Go?" Jasiya put in, looking harried. "We are. Now what do you want me to do for you?" She grimaced, and looked at the ceiling again. "Why the Sith did I say that?"
I laughed; more at her face than anything else, "Just act. Princess-y. Don't pretend you're me, but Resiy and I will stand next to you, and you can do your regal thing you're so good at."
"Hmm. Flattery will get you everything, Tahiri. But I see you've learned that." She paused in the middle of the long hallway we were in, and wondered out loud, "Why do you want me to act regally?"
I tugged at her again, and she started walking again. Oh Force, we're almost there. Oh Force. "I want to see his reaction when he sees the princess he's engaged to looks like a little girl." Which is true, sadly. I do look much younger than I am. "If he's like most guys, he'll freak," I ended.
"Ah." Jasiya nodded in understanding. "And then you can blame him, and act horrible, and it'll be perfectly justified."
I grinned again, trying to mask my nervousness so everyone littering by the entrance to the docking bays can't see it. "Yep."
"Okay, then-" she pulled open the doors to docking bay 263 open, and this time she's pulling me. "-But are you sure this isn't of the Dark Side, Tahiri? Because it sounds like it is, almost."
Who cares? If I can get out of this, I'll happily emulate Darth Vader. But I still have to reassure her, because when she gets like this. "Sith." I haven't even realized I spoke out loud until Jasiya snickered, her gaze going to where my eyes were locked. The ship that he was supposed to be on.
Damn. Is it too late to run away?
"That's him, isn't it?" Walking over to our standpoint, my younger cousin grinned at Jasiya. "She's terrified, isn't she?"
"Yeah." Jasiya nodded, then grabbed me by the back of my dress as I attempted to make a run for it. "No, you don't. You will stay here, you will greet him nicely, and you will do nothing like run away. Got it?"
I just nodded, and, snapping out of it, sighed. "Resiy, I want you to stay next to me at all times. we're doing something." Before she could ask what, I added, "We're going to let him assume Jasiya is me, so I can go off on him if he says something I don't like to me, after he learns I'm me and not someone else."
Resiy looked at me, her green eyes confused. Then she abruptly turned to Jasiya. "Has she gone crazy?"
"Resiy, she's been crazy for years." At my glare, she reiterated, "I mean, um. Oh, he is cute! Is he Anakin?" She stared at one of the men that had just left the ship, the one with pale blonde hair that shined in the firelight.
I shook my head, staring at the newcomers as well. "No, I don't think so. I haven't seen pictures of him, but I think he's supposed to have dark hair." I then turned to look at the other man, and I once again shook my head. "And he isn't either."
"Maybe he didn't come," Resiy suggested. "Maybe he got sick or something, and."
"No," I interrupted. "Mom talked to him earlier today, when Jasi and I were out swimming. he's coming."
Then, a man and a woman descended from the ship, and I smiled. That had to be him... he looked as ready to bolt as I am. Good, maybe I will be able to convince him we don't really need to get married.
"That's him," I proclaim, exchanging looks with Resiy as his eyes fix on us. "And look. we've already been delegated to the princess's little friends, while Jasiya is, well."
Resiy laughed. "But he doesn't look attracted to her." She suddenly turned to poke me. "In fact, he looks as terrified as you do."
He talks to Mom and Dad for a moment, and then Mom gestures to us. "Guess that's our cue," I murmur softly. "All together now. I want a good reaction." And if possible, I also want to pretend I can't feel him through the Force so much.
"Go," Jasiya whispers to me, as I struggle to keep an innocent look on my face. "Your parents will start to get suspicious if you don't. go meet your future husband."
I glared at her, before sniffing. "I'll get you for that," I whisper back, and then turn to face Anakin Solo.
"I'm pleased to meet you, Anakin," I told him, then giggled to myself as he did a double take. Then my face changes into a playful grin as he stares at me in shock. I was right, he does look very amusing, with his eyes almost bugging out. Could it be he wasn't expecting me to look so young?
"I look young for my age," I offered, taking him in. My eyes go over his body- more for affect than for anything else- and I smile at him. And ooh, is he blushing? Please tell me he isn't that easily embarrassed. "But that's okay, you look different than I expected, too."
I snicker as I can practically hear him thinking to himself. He's thinking this is just- sarcasm, enters here- very, very.
"Nice," I supply for him, my green eyes sparkling and a smirk coming to my face as he stares at me in slight amazement. "How very, very nice."
Well, isn't that what he was thinking?