At that moment Prawni entered the kitchen from the other entryway. She slowly padded to the opposite end of the table and sat down carefully, almost regally. Binny had to settle for giving her daughter-in-law a verbal good morning only, as her hands and arms were covered in dough at the moment and some kind of sticky, spicy filling.
The morning light caught Prawni's deep golden hair and sparkled in it as she sat there, all pink and pretty and sleepy. She was in the late stages of pregnancy with her and Velk's fifth child. She smiled shyly at Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and their good mornings, and nodded a hello to Valia. Then she proceeded to fussily select and pick at her breakfast.
Valia had resolved to herself during the trip here that she was going to make every attempt to get along with Prawni this visit. She held the belief that if she had remained on Nyme', her feelings toward her might well have bloomed into an active and venomous dislike. She observed her sister-in-law sighing, picking at her food, obviously shifting to get comfortable and rubbing her belly. One might have thought she had never experienced a pregnancy before. Nor anyone else in the room.
At least now she wasn't shifting suspicious glances at the Jedi like she had been all through last night's evening meal. Maybe Velk had talked to her later to reassure her they were not the sorcerers or warlocks she might possibly have thought Jedi were, as so many did. Or maybe it had only been the pregnancy sickness she seemed to be constantly plagued with.
Now Binny was fussing over her, fetching a cushion for her back and pouring her tea for her. Prawni was refusing none of this treatment. She was being gloriously and obnoxiously hormonal. Honestly, Valia thought, finishing her own breakfast. Nimble as her mother was in the kitchen, having to watch everything in the cooking alcove, direct the kitchen helper and wait on Prawni might prove too much even for her.
"Mama, can I help you with anything?"
"Oh, don't bother yourself with any of this here. I'm just fine. You're all dressed up so pretty anyway."
Valia sifted her mother's words and decided to pretend she had not heard any martyr's sigh or the comment on her clothing. "Just find me an old apron or whatever, and let me do something."
Binny relented. Valia rose from the table and fell into place at a prep station where a large mound of teo fruits needed to be washed and sliced for tarts. So much for not having to worry about getting fruit juice on her pale green dress. She folded up the wide sleeves as high as she could, and tied on a well-worn apron. Teos made such a pretty tart, but their violet-red juice made a particularly stubborn stain. Valia rinsed the fruit and went to it. There was plenty of work to be done here, and if she knew anything about the way these neighborhood feasts went, there would be a lot more before tomorrow. She had nothing else to do anyway, and she didn't know what Qui-Gon's plans for the day involved, other than schmoozing with her mother in the kitchen. Perhaps he was confident Jax was lounging around the Dekkar kitchen as well.
Valia frowned over the poor performance of the knife she was using. It wasn't slicing through the fruit's skin the way she would have liked.
"This blade is as dull as a rock. Have you got a sharpener around?"
Binny pointed to a multi-function kitchen appliance built into the wall. Valia recognized it as the product of an inferior manufacturer at once.
"Do you use that thing to sharpen all the knives?" she asked, eyeing it.
"Well yes, what's wrong with it?"
"It's doing one poor job of it, that's what's wrong," said Valia, inspecting the blade edge. "When was the last time you had it adjusted or calibrated?"
"Oh, last month sometime, I think," Binny said, putting down what she was doing and coming over to it. "I can look it up in the maintenance records for you--"
"No, no, mama, that's all right," Valia held up a hand. "The point is, it's beating up your knives, not sharpening them properly."
"Well I never noticed anything wrong."
"That's probably because you've gotten so used to using a dull blade for so long."
"Oh Lia, dear, we don't do things all fancy here." Valia heard the unspoken 'like you do'.
"A dull knife is a dangerous knife," Valia warned, continuing. "You should really think about replacing this unit."
"That's a matter we'll have to take up with your father."
"Speak for yourself," Valia muttered under her breath.
"I don't know what kind of credit you're used to throwing around in the Big City now, but around here we make do. Like always."
Valia leaned her arms on the prep station counter and wearily hung her head. She drummed an agitated finger. She slid her eyes over to Qui-Gon and found him already looking at her out of the corners of his eyes without having turned his head toward her. That very thoughtful and observant look of his. Doubtless he was observing an abysmal lack of diplomatic skill on her part. Well, let the Galactic Senate-appointed diplomat try his hand at being the prodigal daughter in her mother's kitchen for just five minutes!
She forced her voice to be neutral and relaxed. "If you know where I can find a hand sharpener, I'll sharpen all your knives for you today, mama."
"Oh for goodness' sakes, Valia, you really don't have to go to all that trouble."
"Hey, are you causing trouble here already? I can hear all the caterwauling from clear outside," Velk exaggerated, referring to Valia as he breezed into the kitchen through the back door. He gave Prawni an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder and kissed the top of her head. He glanced at Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan with a look that was a mixture of admiration for their bravado in hanging about a kitchen full of women, and pity for them apparently not finding anywhere else to go. He sauntered over to the stove and lifted the lid off a pot and took an appreciative sniff before Binny shooed him away.
"Well, well, look who finally fell out of bed." Velk directed his comment at Valia's hunched over back as she searched through a bank of kitchen drawers for a knife sharpener, and continued to ignore him. "How's the soft city girl this morning?"
Valia barely stopped herself from giving her dear brother an elaborate obscene gesture, one that required both hands to execute. Not something to do in front of Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan, or her mother.
"What in blazes are you looking for? Forget where everything is after all these years?" he teased.
"For your information, I happen to be looking for the hand-sharpener for the knives. You wouldn't happen to know where it is, would you?"
"Me? No, this isn't my area of expertise."
"Then my advice to you is to get out of here and go back to whatever area that is."
"Same goes, sweetheart."
"My trip will be a lot longer than yours. You can take yours right here and now on the spot."
"Yeah, how's that?"
"All you have to do is stick your head up your hind end."
"Stop it over there, you two," Binny scolded mildly as if she had listened to years of this, and worse. "Valia, I believe the knife sharpener is in the tool caddy on the high shelf over there," she pointed. "And Velk, what brings you back to the house already?"
"I need to take a hop over to Jenzan's place to borrow some tools. Wanted to ask if Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan wanted to come along."
The Jedi agreed and rose from the table, stretching. Velk had come into the house with the idea already in his mind, but now he had adopted an attitude of rescue toward them, as if to take them out of the female domain of the kitchen was the kindest thing he could do.
Qui-Gon walked over to Valia and directed his eyes up to the tool caddy she could not possibly reach without getting something to stand on. Valia smiled up at him. "Thank you," she said softly as he plucked it down off the shelf for her. They took the opportunity to brush one another's fingers when he handed it to her.
Tak Traxis strode up the path through the kitchen garden. His long legs propelled him rapidly through the door and into the kitchen. In height he nearly matched Qui-Gon, but was wiry and whipcord thin. His dark hair was liberally dashed with gray, and had the odd trait some Traxis men had of frizzily standing out from the head if allowed to grow too long. His eyes were gray, as were many of those on this world, but a far paler shade than Binny's or Valia's. Set in a lean, lantern-jawed face, they could give him a cold appearance. He started to say something to Velk and stopped short at the sight of Valia. Everyone went still and imagined the air temperature dropped several degrees suddenly. In the quiet, the only sound was the hiss of steam from a pot on the stove.
Valia's spine stiffened straight with an almost military snap. Her shoulders squared and her chin went up. But standing next to her, Qui-Gon clearly sensed her spirit droop, despite the jaunty lifting of her head.
Finally, because everyone seemed to long for an end to the uncomfortable silence, and expected father and daughter to say something, Tak broke the quiet tableau.
"Valia."
"Tak."
Valia returned the terse greeting with a like response. Tak's eyes slid away in quick dismissal. Valia returned quickly to the prep station where she had been slicing, and went about vigorously sharpening her knife. She did not listen to what Binny said as she fluttered over to her husband, immediately going into an all too familiar, distracting make-everything-nice-again tactic.
Their last evening aboard the 'Diadem', Qui-Gon and Valia had briefly discussed the subject of her father. "So what you are telling me," Qui-Gon had said slowly, "is that you are going to stay beneath your father's roof, yet not speak a word to him unless you happen to run into him, if at all."
"That's the plan," Valia said defensively. Qui-Gon had looked like he was about to say something else, thought the better of it, and said nothing. The matter had not been brought up again. This was the first encounter between Tak and Valia since she had arrived. He had been absent from dinner the evening before, and had been away from the house for several hours afterward. Shortly before dark, he had gone to the guesthouse to greet Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. But both he and Valia had managed to put off this moment until now.
Now that it had passed, everyone seemed to be talking at once except for Valia. The chill in the air disappeared. Tak barked out some further instructions for Velk on his errand to the neighbors, and clapped him on the back. Binny asked Tak something about having someone string up some lights in the trees for the following evening, and had questions about the liantium trees elsewhere on the farm. Velk and Prawni were talking to each other, something about the kids and their tutor. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were talking in low voices to each other, and then to Velk and Tak. Valia felt like an outsider with an acute pang. Finally, all four men swept out of the kitchen. Qui-Gon was last out the door, and he turned to give Valia an encouraging look before he went through it. Valia smiled wanly at him and made a wish that he'd somehow find Jax at the Jenzan farm and apprehend him so that they could be on their way back to Coruscant this very afternoon.
The kitchen was now shockingly quiet, except for the sound of steaming pots and the metallic swish of steel against blade. "Well!" Binny sighed and went back to whatever she had been doing. Prawni sat silently at the table looking, in Valia's opinion, just a bit too smug. She gazed out the window after the departing men. "Last night they seemed so...mystic, unreachable. And the older one scared me just a little. This morning, in the light of day, they seemed like very ordinary men," Prawni said.
"The Jedi? Well, for the most part they are. Aren't they? Valia, you've gotten to know them quite well, haven't you? And you know others from their Temple besides?" Binny asked.
"Yes," said Valia answering all three questions without any more than necessary.
"I never thought to actually see Jedi. Out here. I thought they just hid themselves away and mostly prayed and studied," said Prawni.
"That may have been true, more or less, a few thousand years ago," said Valia, slicing teos almost joyously with her newly sharpened blade. "But in this day and age they are much more...socially conscious. They go anywhere in the galaxy where there is a need for peacekeeping or diplomatic skill. They mediate disputes and do all sorts of different field work."
"You seem to know so much about them," said Prawni. "How did you meet them? Where did you find them?"
"It wasn't so much a matter of me finding them as it was them finding me," Valia said, smiling. She passed the bowl of sliced teos to Gerrul and turned her attention next to a large pile of grayish brown knilk roots.
"Oh." Prawni adjusted the cushion behind her back. "Then were they doing...field work at the time?"
Valia warily decided how to answer the question. She had long suspected that behind Prawni's vapid sweetness lay hidden barbs.
"I mean, they don't look at all the type to visit...dance clubs or ahhh, entertainment houses."
Valia forced her hands to keep moving, keep calmly peeling the wrinkly skin off the knilks. Ahh, she thought. Just come right out and say it. You mean: what den of iniquity was I hanging around in when our paths crossed? What corrupt urban pleasure was I rolling in at the time? Prawni had hinted repeatedly that she thought Valia lived a lifestyle that perfectly suited someone who would eagerly run off to the Big Bad Corrupt City as if it were a lodestone. Valia had never bothered to disabuse her of the notion that she was fast, amoral and wicked. What ground had she to stand on to deny it a decade ago? And she had found the bad reputation rather appealing then. But now it rankled.
Valia gave her sister-in-law a frosty smile. Prawni's snobbery apparently had not diminished over the last few years. What remained to be seen was if she was going to be badly bothered by it now. She reminded herself to not be too sensitive, and that she was only going to be here a few days. She then sketched a brief and very edited account of how she had met and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, and gotten to know them.
Prawni listened politely. She gave a small gasp and spread her hands over her rounded belly. She laughed. "My goodness, that was a big kick. Did you enjoy Auntie Lia's story?" She spoke in a singsong voice down to her stomach and rubbed her hands up and down the sides of it. "I had been wondering something. Do you think the Jedi could tell if the baby is a boy or a girl? Would they be able to see that?" Prawni asked hopefully.
Valia arched an eyebrow. She wondered how either Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan would handle such a question. "I don't know. I don't think they can see things like that, but you could certainly ask them."
"Oh, I don't know, I don't think I could."
"Haven't you had any scans to see what the child is?"
"No." She said it almost poutily. "Velk wants it to be a surprise." She was rubbing her stomach again, round and round. "I so want another boy," she said softly. She yawned and ponderously rose to her feet. "I feel better now, but I think I'm going to take a short nap." She moved toward the corridor entryway. "Maybe we could go into town later, Valia?" she offered.
"Sure," said Valia, wondering why the idea, friendly though it was, didn't really cheer her. She continued to peel roots. Her mood sank.