Counselling

Chapter 2, The Baba of the Island Temple

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There was a well-worn concrete path that ran along the side of the Temple to its back, cutting a road through the carefully swept floor to the small wooden building that stood a few yards away from the Temple at the very edge of the meadow. It was a humble building, made entirely of wood, with a sparsely furnished interior that was basically one large room with three windows that faced North, East and West - the direction that the Naboo deities chose to send the winds. It was a proud building, with riches in history, peace and good memories that more than made up for its humble insufficiency of material possessions. It was the home of the Holy Man, or priest, or simply the Baba of the Island Temple and its doors were open at all times to everyone. That day they opened to the Senator of Naboo, Padmé Naberrie.

Like every man of the cloak, the Baba was a steeped traditionalist and he practised the most traditional laws of hospitality in the land. After ensuring that his guest was seated comfortably on the wooden floor, he brought out the drinking set and the special brew of Iojie, the most traditional of Naboo wines. The seed from which the drink was brewed was native to the Lake Island.

The Senator was as much a traditionalist in her own right. Right sleeve held back with the index and thumb of her left hand, left knee pressed against right ankle and jug handle daintily balanced between right thumb and middle finger in the customary way, Padmé carefully poured out the precious golden liquid into the ancient goblets. She caught the lingering drops at the sprout of the jug against the white handkerchief and with one hand, folded the cloth into a perfect triangle. She then set the jug carefully on the triangle and bent her right knee to touch with the left one. Only then did she let go of her sleeve, sit back on her haunches and place both hands on her knees.

"Bravo!" The old Baba clapped and wheezed delightedly. "That is something that no Etiquette Professor at Theed can ever teach you, I promise you."

Padmé laughed. "Winama would have been an Etiquette Professor herself if she didn't make so much money out of her sewing."

They fell silent when the Baba raised his hands to bless the Iojie and then settled into cross-legged positions at the wooden table, sipping the honey-liquid in mutually companionable silence.

The present reality blurred sleepily with his memories and he allowed himself to imagine he had somehow stepped into the past. There had been many evenings spent like this: long after the last Halo Thee, seated cross-legged on his bare floor across a tray of wooden crockery as he sipped the honey liquid in companionable silence with a petite, dark-haired, black-eyed young woman, a child really, but with wisdom beyond her years on her face. Of course, the girl from the past answered to Winama not Padmé; and while her brow was high and intelligent and her eyes grave and inquisitive, they had not been weighted and dulled with the heavy responsibilities that came with the dubious privilege of being a three-time public servant of Naboo.

Those were very old memories, indeed. Evenings with Winama and Iojie had become fewer and fewer in between after her marriage and the Naberries' exodus from their family home. The dark-eyed, dark-haired girl of the past became a white-haired tiny old widow. Many more evenings had come and gone and finally there came the evenings when Iojie could not be taken in quiet companionship between the Baba and his old child, but had to be shared with the increasingly restless presence of a small, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl child who had adopted the Baba's cloister as the childhood playground she had never had.

Those were good memories, he decided as he refocused on the present reality and the child in front of him. The past had been kind to him.

"We missed you at the Festival of Lights," Winama's granddaughter was saying. "The new Baba said you went to Theed for the Solemn Lights at the Temple."

Yes. How he had missed the Island. Canonical debates were all very well and good but academic life had long since lost its appeal for the old Baba. Now, he existed only for the pleasure of life itself: the simple Island people and their humble piety, and the animals he made-believe that he had domesticated who were both companions and sustenance. During his absence from the Island, the carpenter's son had finally wed the smith's widow (an event the Baba had been subtly orchestrating since the smith's demise last two seasons), and Nuka had delivered twin foals. His replacement, an ambitious young Baba from the Order in the North, had sent the old priest regular correspondence, and kept him up-to-date on records of the Temple accounts and local attendance at the solemnities. Births, weddings and deaths had been recorded dutifully in the appropriate ledgers and kept in waiting for the old Baba to read at his leisure. So the results of his match-making and Nuka's twins were just two more events that he had been completely unaware of until his return to the Island he called his home. And the old Baba was filled with irrational despondency when he realized how much had changed in his short absence.

Happily, the welcome of the Islanders more than made up for that. On the night of his return, the sky was shot through with fire sparklers and he officially gave the First Blessing to the stone-cutter's first-born girl-child.

The Baba pulled himself out of his reverie. "I was told you were here. Indeed, I had been surprised at not seeing you in Theed. You have never missed the Festival there before."

Padmé looked down at her goblet. "I was engaged elsewhere," she said quietly.

His brows furrowed. He had heard things in Theed, of course. The Order of Holy Men was an ascetic one, not an ignorant one. No matter how much they would want to, the Babas were not ignorant of the goings-on of their world and the galaxy at large and this particular going-on had struck very close to home.

"The point of the arrow is no longer facing you." He intoned gravely. "The danger has now spread like a cloud over our whole world."

Padmé shuddered slightly. After a moment, so did the Baba at his own words. They bent back over their drinks and sipped in a now uncomfortable silence. It was heavy, anticipatory.

"The first battle was on Geonosis, a planet in the Outer Rim. Did you know this?"

Her voice was low, soft, and filled with rhetoric nuances that the Baba immediately recognised from his long experience. She was not starting a conversation; she was beginning a confession. He sensed that this unburdening of her spirit was the true purpose of her visit.

"I was involved in that battle, you know. You could almost say that I was at the centre of it all." She raised her head and alarmed him with her humourless smile. "We had our victory, but it was an empty one. So many were lost. Almost two hundred Jedi Knights died in the battle and even now, so many of the wounded are yet to be completely healed." She added softly, "And there are some wounds that will never heal."

The Baba was not privy to all the exact particulars of the battle, but, of the casualties, he was fully aware. The hollowing in the Force that day as hundreds of Force-sensitives died violently had screamed out to him in the middle of a Halo Thee. He had been physically paralyzed for a week after that.

Padmé was still speaking. "But it might have been worth it if we had captured that … criminal. The murderer of my friends; the terrorist whose conniving kept me a prisoner and powerless when I was needed most in the capital; the instigator of that horrible battle, this war. And even now…" Padmé faltered.

The Baba sent her a Force-whisper of fortitude.

She swallowed hard and started again. "Dooku was trying to escape and we were chasing him, gaining on him and then, I - I fell." Her mirthless, self-disgusted little laugh was frightening. "I don't know what happened after that. They left me behind and I followed them after this criminal. By the time I caught up, it was too late. Dooku had already overpowered the Jedi who had been with me. I shot at him but he was too far away. I went looking for the Jedi. Both were injured. It was only later that I was told what happened, and even then, I know there are things that were kept from me."

The hands that Padmé had wrapped around the goblet of Iojie were shaking violently.

"I should have gone after Dooku."

The self-loathing in her voice was so tangible that the old Baba flinched.

"My child -"

"No, Baba." She slammed the goblet onto the floor. The action was as violent as her voice was calm but it was the former that echoed in harmony with her spirit. "There was no excuse. I had the means to chase him as far as the stratosphere if I had needed to. Shooting a blaster after a flying vehicle was pointless. I should have taken off after him. But it never occurred to me at all. It was hours later, when I was being treated in the infirmary, that the most obvious of options" - the bitterness in her voice was poisonous - "presented itself to me."

Abruptly, she swung herself from the floor and strode to the other end of the room. The Baba placed his own goblet on the floor and forced himself to remain silent. There was something she was not telling him. Even as a small child, Padmé had always been her own worst taskmaster, forever a perfectionist whose self-expectations were higher than natural. But there was more to this than Padmé's idiosyncrasies. There was something else, hidden, secret, shamed - and that something desperately needed to be purged from her or it would harm her badly. And he knew, not just from the sense he was gleaning from her aura, but from his own personal knowledge of this strong, wilful child that it was no light matter that she wanted to divulge to him. It was going to take time. And there was nothing he could do to hasten it.

So the Baba did the only thing that he could do: He called on the Force for guidance.

tbc